D&D 4E General /4eg/

If you are DMing, remember...
1. To strongly consider giving out at least one free "tax feat," like Expertise and pre-errata Melee Training.
2. To use Monster Manual 3/Monster Vault/Monster Vault: Nentir Vale/Dark Sun Creature Catalog math. Avoid or manually update anything with Monster Manual 1 or 2 math.
3. That skill challenges have always been scene-framing devices for the GM, that players should never be overtly told that they are in a skill challenge, and that the Rules Compendium has the most up-to-date skill DCs and skill challenge rules.

If you would like assistance with character optimization, remember to tell us what the what the rest of the players are playing, what books are allowed, your starting level, the highest level you expect to reach, what free feats you receive, if anything is banned, whether or not themes are allowed, your starting equipment, and how much you dislike item-dependent builds.
If you wish to talk about settings, 4e's settings are Points of Light (the planes and the natural world's past empires are heavily detailed in various sourcebooks and magazines), 4e Forgotten Realms, 4e Eberron, 4e Dark Sun, and whatever setting you would like to bring into 4e.

Pastebin: pastebin.com/asUdfELd

What are your favorite house rules and homebrews? Along with that, what was your favorite role to play as?

Other urls found in this thread:

docs.google.com/document/d/1Umx7F1UGrDqatNSi6WjKAWVKtDqGO9ftX_NOGRtuw_A/edit
twitter.com/AnonBabble

OP here. Can't really post about what role I prefer because I've never played 4e, only GMed it. That said, I've always loved how Leaders were kind of the backbone of a team.

As for house rules -- I've implemented a stunting system reminiscent to Exalted. Three levels of stunts. A Level 1 Stunt grants a +2, a Level 2 Stunt grants a +2 and an Action Point. A Level 3 Stunt grants a +5 and two Action Points. This quickens games too! For fights with more tension in them, I apply the Doom Dice (which is basically escalation dice) that depends on how many rounds they have before something bad happens. Whatever number is on the dice, however, they have a bonus to attack. (Usually this is 1d6 or 1d8. If it's especially tense or if the monster isn't a Brute or Soldier, it becomes 1d4.)

Now for homebrew -- I've rolled up a Theme that fits with the campaign setting we're in. Unfortunately, none of my players will be able to test it for now. Can someone give it a look over and see if it's any good? I'm no expert in homebrewing.

>players should never be overtly told that they are in a skill challenge
Christ, THIS! My first (and only) 4e game was defined by the existential pain that was "It's time for a skillllll challennnnnnnnnnge!~"

If you are running a game where you are using the inherent bonus rules and making magic items rare, how much loot/stuff do you give your PCs given the default treasure packages assume that they are going to be lit up like a Christmas Tree?

Your changes sound huge. I wonder how it works out.

Doing skill challenges well basically requires that the DM (and possibly at least some of the players) be familiar with e.g. Mouse Guard. Though Mouse Guard doesn't explain their shit well either so you get into a recursive cycle of "do you see what we're getting at yet?"

The key insight for SCs is that they're intended to be a time limit, not a stone wall you don't get anything from until the end. They exist to solve a specific problem, which is when you pure freeform a conversation/puzzle/etc. and the players stretch it out to eternity because they're either not understanding what to do ("well great job guys you just spent 90 minutes building a chain hoist but the chest wasn't even supposed to be booby-trapped") or want to keep retrying beyond the point of futility. Slapping a win/lose metric on means there's an agreed on point for "enough" and the DM can just go to narration instead of acting out 2 weeks of being lost in the woods.

4e is a shit narrative system good to know WotC dropped it like the hot turd it is. How do you fuckcocks feel knowing that 4e is the only edition to actually die? OSR, pathfinder, and 5e are all still going strong. 4e on the other hand...most people don't even know it exists. Lol have fun with your dead game, faggots. Maybe in a few years you'll still have more players than FATAL and VTNL. Probably not, though.

Skill challenges are something people have used since always (for the group to succeed, they need X amount of good rolls), but were never (in D&D) made into a framework until 4E.

Speaking of which, is there a better framework for SC instead that of the Rules Compendium?

So far I've only used the "Doom Dice" once for a boss battle. It quickened the fight, and a companion NPC dropped dead.

As for the Stunting, stunts are relative to tier. By Heroic Tier they usually pull off level one stunts reliably, but level 2 has been rare. None of my players have achieved a Level 3 Stunt yet. It helps with fights though, and they have managed to characterize their characters through combat - a life-risking warlock, a fierce and silent gladiator not afraid to Wade into the fray, and an erudite Psion who manipulates time and space museum I make sure none of their enemies take advantage of them.

I believe the section on inherent bonuses actually has a bit on that... though personally the fact that you still need to give just as much magic armor and magic neck item money to make the math work out bothered me.

I made my own inherent chart, that let me completely ignore magic items except when they are FUN (which also let me make up BS magic items that do fun things, instead of doing... more math.) The chart also includes a number of tax feats folded in, including improved defenses, expertise, and focus (meaning if you're using the chart, you shouldn't use those as well.)

A/D stands for bonus to attack and defense
NAD stands for bonus to non-AC-defenses
LAC stands for bonus to light-armor-AC
HAD stands for bonus to Heavy-armor-AC
OTH is for anything else that patterns off of "1 per plus on your weapon," which is mostly used for critical hits.

...

Literally every edition of D&D is a shit narrative system. They're all combat focused.
Don't pretend like 3.5 was fucking FATE or something

Why did you go hard in? Why didn't you go for Bloody Path or asking them how peoples wounds stay closed after a warlord shouts a bloodied persons injuries shut.

You're a disgrace, you didn't even make the truth sound cutting.

>It was the worst
>Oh yeah, well the others were bad too just not as bad
Can you not control yourself and hide posts you small-brained vagina?

...

This thread is so fucking dead I refuse the believe anyone actually plays this game.

Wanna prove me wrong? Tell me about your ONGOING or JUST RECENTLY FINISHED games

Lol, I literally wasn't posting in this thread because I was running my sunday game that's been going for 4 years (second campaign, same setting.) Actually found the group on a gamefinder thread... surprisingly cohesive group.

I'm working on the engine for a 4e simulator. The goal is to procedurally generate an entire campaign that goes for about 5 levels or so. I'm trying to make this thing work for solo runs, so you could write up a character sheet, hire 3 NPCs, and go nuts. Making everything in 4e work is unique design challenge, but I have some good ideas on how to do it.

procedural only for the enemies/terrain I assume, not the traditional "find all your spells and shit in the dungeon" approach?

I don't understand the question.

The game currently works by generating an overworld, 4-5 towns, and 9 or so dungeons. The dungeons are populated with monsters and quest items. I'm pretty much going entirely by the book when it comes to loot and implementing the parcel system in the DMG.

Personally my FAVORITE role to play is the defender, BUT I ALSO think that in 4e, they went out of their way to make playing the healer fun by making the leader role.

>305880▶
>This thread is so fucking dead I refuse t
I'll storytime my ongoing session.

To understand everything tho, gotta lay down some terminologies and some setting info. Lakungdula is an archipelago inspired by Filipino (and some other Southeast Asian countries, but focused on Filipino) Myth, Culture, and History. They even have a colonial stand in -- the powerful, psionic, Al-Kaigian Empire, that is inspired by Moorish Spain with some Byzantine aesthetics.

Anyway:
Two unlikely, yet fateful characters appear. One such character, a rian artificer named Zhu-Qan, desired to become a merchant and sell his technologically advanced wares off to the people of Selorong, and hopefully, beyond. He had escaped the xenophobic, imperialist rian Kingdom of Qirong, travelled to Phaedrus, and decided to ride aboard the Undaunted to get to Selorong. Another such character, the Al-Kaigian Esper (Psion) named Lucio Valeno, had deserted his squad, legion, army, and empire. As thus, he escaped aboard the Undaunted to try and live a more peaceful life, after witnessing something that changed his mind about fighting what felt like a fruitless war against the Qirong rian. He deserted -- a crime punishable by death -- and escaped over to Selorong. As all would know, a person born with psychokinetic abilities -- tainted by the Far Realm -- are either killed or (if found by an early age) forced into Military Services, serving as "Squad Espers". He served as one, forced into Military training until he deserted when he was 18.

The First Session began with the Zhu-Qan, the rian Artificer, checking his bags right as they were a day away from Selorong Harbor. Lucio was busy reading a tourist's book about Selorong and the lands around it. A heavyset and strong woman who obviously served in the Al-Kaigian military, with sharp blue eyes and platinum blonde hair, talked with the rian about why he was on his way to Selorong. Zhu-Qan responded with "Oh, It's because I want to set up a shop in Selorong and live a relatively quiet life."
Still looking at the rian with a semblance of suspicion, she headed off and was greeted by the Captain of Undaunted -- a kindly old galadarian. As she walks, her Squad Leader Emblem necklace (shaped like a diamond that is intercrossed), tinkles and shakes, which only happens at the sight of unknown Sorcery or Psionic Energy. Lucio stands and turns around, away from the tinkling, signifying necklace. The woman turns and stares at him, and goes "You!". When Lucio turns, she is looking at him, and she approaches him. When asked what a Psionic was doing here, and much more he was a Squad Psion, he said that he was out on some secret spy mission, and she decided to believe them, for a lowly Squad Leader wasn't privy to such imperial secrets.
They both go to sleep. Lucio sees the rian, and something bothers his mind, although he remembers nothing. This is because to suppress horrible memories, he uses a portion of his Psionic Power to keep such horrific war memories in check.

Soon they awake to a balangay boat ramming the trading vessel and climbing up the walls. They go up and they fight, dismembering and slashing, using crystal vials and healing infusions, pushing and pulling and creating electricity with their minds. Soon enough, right as they killed a Maharlika, the boat almost capsizes as a large, one-eyed ogre creature pops up and attacks them. This was a Bungisngis (pic related). During the fight, Zhu-Qan helps Lucio by healing him with his healing infusion, which pops open a part of his Psionically blocked off memory -- that the reason he deserted was because he was healed and helped by the rian, showcasing to him that they weren't just draconic warforged beasts as he (and many others still do) originally thought.


With the defeat of the Bungisngis, a woman clad in okir-patterned robes, with a staff in one hand and a civet cat in another, appears out of a lightning strike. With her staff she touched the Bungisngis, unravelling the maligno into gossamer ephemera, before turning around and then vanishing into mist herself.
Just as they arrive at the harbor. The Squad Leader woman, clearly impressed, asks if they would want to work for money back in Selorong, and told them to go to her in the Wandering Leaf Inn.

Zhu-Qan decided not to go to the Wandering Leaf Inn, while Lucio decides money is more important for now, but he will definitely go ahead and find the rian that once again has saved his life. The Squad Leader woman introduces herself as Cavila Sayyida. She leads him to a kalesa and drives to the Defense Building, where the Bureau of Defense lies, led by a Vizier of War. They go up to the Commander (a commander commands 10 Legions), named Isidorum. Cavila tries to urge Isidorum to allow her to reform her squad, while Isidorum replies that: "Your Squad was legendary. Was. It's not going to happen again. Stop looking for ways to reclaim it with more war.

"Just then a messenger comes along to inform Isidorum that there's been sights of a large boar, and people have been saying that it's the end of the Empire's hold in Selorong, because the earth itself is rising up to cleave the empire in twain. Cavila volunteers herself and Lucio, as well as the one warrior boy from a barangay who was looking for his sister. This was Bran, one of the player characters. He looked very much like a feminine girl, because he has an identical twin sister. His movements were very masculine though. From a successful Insight roll, Lucio was able to discern that he wasn't a girl at all.

Isidorum allows them, although not entirely optimistic about the result, anything to be able to get Cavila off of him. They go down to the intelligence officer who jokes about some sort of prophecy.

They arrive outside the Defense Building and see three other curious characters. Vitra, the soft-spoken Ranger. Polix, the loud and bolsterous Sorcerer. And Floria, the soft and deadly spymaster rogue, with a cloak of shadow. These crazy lot were the people left of Cavila's Squad.

They make their way past the Eastern Gates of Selorong and into the Borderhedges of the Kalilim Forest. (Kalilim Forest is divided into Borderhedge, Deepthickets, and the Core (some say the City of Viringan is here, but nobody can be too sure).

As they go along the Borderhedges, they do some small talk. Bran goes up and asks Polix what he does, and Polix thinks Bran is a girl (and keeps headpatting him) and tells him that he's a sorcerer, and he escaped from a death by blasphemous hanging and managed to find a place amongst the Military, but was shipped off to the 21st Legion stationed in the colonies. He seems to have some sort of relationship with Vitra, who sidles up to him and shit. Lucio tries some small talk with Vitra, and eventually with Polix as well. Lucio is surprised when he hears that Polix escaped, similar to himself. He still harbors some sort of tension because of Vitra, apparently.

Anyway soon they make camp. Vitra hunts bunnies for dinner, Floria gathers firewood, and Polix manages to control his fire magic for the first time, and his entire Legion is proud of him. Cavila and Floria are the watchers, but Bran volunteers to watch as well. During his watch, the darkness is thick -- too thick to fight within, really, with the only source of light coming from the bonfire they've made. As Bran watches, he sees Starflies (the favorite animals of Kapalaran, now symbols of fate) and he spots a woman clad in robes, with a staff and a civet, watching him from beyond the trees. She steps back and disappears and Bran shouts, "Who goes there?"

This wakes almost everyone up. Floria is unnerved that she didn't see anything. Vitra readies her bow from the trees. And six duwende itim jump out from the darkness. Polix creates a light source to expand everyone's radius of light. They fight off the duwende itim quick enough, but as they fight lightning bolts erupt out of the darkness, and long arrows burst from the gloom, slashing and piercing. Soon the arrows pierce and pincushion Polix, and the light grows smaller, the only source of light now only being the flickering flame of the bonfire.

Four seven foot tall creatures with pointed ears and one of them having short antlers appear out of the gloom, and they suffer heavy injuries before being able to put them down. They fail to save Polix. Vitra weeps horribly. Cavila looks away, and Bran walks up to her to ask if she's okay and she says, "We must hurry. This IS a war. Our superiors can't see something when it's right in front of them. This is the beginning of the war." And she urges everyone to rest up and head out, to kill that monstrous boar. They decide that Polix deserves a proper burial, as they bundle him up into a bed roll and drag him with the party.

They soon find the Boar and it is a gruesome scene, with the boar exhibiting some sort of power over earth, and every step they take on the terrain leaving behind glowing blue footfalls, as if it's some sort of glamour. The Boar uses it's mastery over Earth and almost kills many of them, and in fact puts Cavila unconscious, rips Vitra apart, and impales Floria.

Soon they kill the Boar, with one tamawo warrior left, who flees into the density of the forest. When the Boar dies, it unravels into gossamer silk, and leaves behind a single tusk the size of a greatsword. The glamour disappears and they find they are standing in front of some sort of rushing stream, on the other side of which was the woman with the staff and civet cat.

She speaks to them about how they are destroying their land, and how the Empire is destined to fall while the Land remains. She transports them out of the Deepthickets and out into the entrance of the Borderhedges. There they reclaim weapons (in Lucio' Squad, they honored their members by keeping their weapons). As wellas bury them, They find a journal within Polix's bag that is mostly from him with crude hand writing, and some pages were written by Vitra, and were mostly about Vitra was happy that Polix had been there when she needed someone like him.

They gave them proper burials, and carried Cavila (who had been stabilized by Bran) back home.

And that was the end of the first session. Will keep going. So far we're up to sixth.

That was the continuation of this
Also I'll only keep going if anyone else wants to read even more. Have to edit and retype my notes for that.

I've got some homebrew I've done. Some to fill some holes in support (Like a Paragon Path for Desert Wind monks, since one doesn't exist right now). Others because 'sure, why not'.

This is much more the latter, when someone was discussing Kender and how they never got 4e stats. I tried to make them less 'I am a dick to my team mates' than how some players treat them, more focused on the fact they are very loyal to thier friends and collect random junk rather than being 'Dick Ass Thief: the race'.

>4e Kender (Halfling Subrace)
>+2 Diplomacy, +2 Thievery (Replaces existing skill bonus)
>Endlessly Loyal: Kender take a -5 penalty on attack rolls against allies and provide a +3 bonus when making Aid Another actions rather than +2. (Replaces Nimble Reaction)

>Collectors: You may use the 'What do I have here?' power as an encounter power (Replaces Second Chance racial power)

>What do I have here? Kender Racial
>Encounter
>Minor Action Personal
>Effect: You produce a mundane item or a consumable item of your level or lower. If this is not used before the end of the encounter, it is misplaced and considered lost even if it has been given to another character.

I'm reading, feel free to keep going.

Good paragon paths that aren't just damage adds are a headache. What did you do for Firewind?

Played up the fact that it's a charisma-based subtype of the monk as well as it's high defences as a striker. It doesn't directly add damage but it will help overall damage (By allowing you to bypass fire resistance easily and allowing you to change your targeted NAD to Will against people being an accuracy boost against 2/3 of people.)

The level 20 is a triple tap, though with the monk's secondary controller edge (It's miss clause keeps the secondary effects at their lowest level rather than the damage) and the Desert Wind's enjoyment of single target beatdowns.

Heh, the D20 has the slight problem that your target will be stunned and dominated if you do hit them 3x, which I believe prevents them from actually acting on your orders unless they save out from the stun but not the domination on a later turn.

Will do once I get back home in a bit.

Good point. I should have 'instead' there to prevent that.

can we upload text files or do I have to make a ghetto PDF of mine too? I've got an old Shaman++ paragon path to share.

you could put it on pastebin

Apparently the latter. Also I forgot how many non-keyworded mechanics I put into this thing. It isn't complicated in practice, but christ those are walls of text.

Homebrew content target: dark-to-light blue power level, gold flavor.

My DM has propositioned a campaign set in a fantasy empire based off of tsarist Russia

How would you recommend building a communist revolutionary? I'm tossing up between Unity Avenger or Malediction Invoker

Bravura warlords are the best fit for a revolutionary.

Alternatively, Ardents.

1. Starve all the peasants you claim to have been fighting for
2. Get poisoned by your underlings who hate you
3. ???
4. Lose

I really like both of these

docs.google.com/document/d/1Umx7F1UGrDqatNSi6WjKAWVKtDqGO9ftX_NOGRtuw_A/edit

These are the house rules in play for a currently ongoing Zeitgeist campaign.

How would /4eg/ rate them?

What's Zeitgeist? I don't recall it from my time playing 4e.

I have an ongoing game, and it's going pretty well, but we just had to switch to a less frequent schedule for work reasons.
We're all adults with jobs so I'm going to run something simple, my plan is twisting halls > reavers > thunderspire > gardmore. However as I usually do I'm heavily editing the modules, currently we played halfway through reavers but I redid the whole part with the elves amd I'm going to add a few side treks before storming the castle, AND I'm reworking from the ground up the mess that is thunderspire.
The party is great and we're having a lot of fun and I managed to win over two former 3e players. I'm still convinced that what killed 4e are just memes.

On an unrelated note, I hate the opening pasta and I think it's harmful for the discussion of 4e as it keeps spreading memes.

>What are your favorite house rules and homebrews?

I know a guy who reworks the encounter/daily stuff so that you can 'slots' for them rather than set powers, so for example if you have two encounter attack powers, you can use one of them twice or both of them once. It makes the system feel more natural.

He also reworked a bunch of ranger stuff so the class had more variety.

>Along with that, what was your favorite role to play as?

By RAW, paladins and fighters are a fucking joy to play, as are battle clerics. I also really enjoy the sorcerer, and the aforementioned guy's slightly reworked ranger was huge fun.

Think I'll try a monk in our upcoming game.

>What are your favorite house rules and homebrews?
The only one I regularly use is 1AP per encounter, fuck milestones. I have issues with feats too, but I haven't yet found a way to consolidate them without rewriting too much stuff.

>Along with that, what was your favorite role to play as?
I didn't get to play a lot, but I love leaders. As a foreverGM I know I tend to be a bit overbearing as a player, even if I try not to, but playing leaders in 4e allowed me to direct my teammates AND make them feel good because hitting things is always fun.

My favourite houserules are mostly just undoing bad errata. Like the melee training nerf, although for convenience's sake giving everyone expertise and improved defenses by default is really nice

My favourite role is striker, I am not a complicated man, I love big numbers and strikers are the best at getting big numbers. Even when I'm not playing striker I still go for giant numbers, like brawler fighter for that ludicrous fortitude, or enchantment wizard for really big save penalties

I'm a bit wary of that encounter power. Maybe a size limit would be in order?
Also it's going to get crazy with Immurements in Epic, but mileage may vary on whether it's a bug or a feature.

Point taken. Maybe limiting it to 'Common and Uncommon'? So you lock out some of the weirder/more crazy consumables like Immerments?

That was the thought I had, too. It's mostly a straight up stronger version of the Alchemist theme level 1 benefit, but that seems fine to me.

Here comes the second session:

At this point, one new player jumped in -- Galura, a potent barangan (Warlock) who summoned a mysterious, dark figure (Infernal Pact).

Also, rian are basically the dragonborn of the setting, save they have four arms and no breath.

The session began with a flashback sequence in the perspective of Galura (a new player) as he escapes the shores of T'Kapi, being prevented by a sorcerer and a bunch of Maligno.

Isidorum tasks those who went "fearlessly" into the Forest to travel South to the land of Ufrayd. He promises prestige, wealth, and hospitality once they relay the message from Isidorum that they will begin mobilizing to attack the Forest of Kalilim. Ufrayd is at least two months travel away.

Lucio agrees in part that he desires to get wealth and prestige so that his family would accept him despite his "Esper" condition.

Cavila is brought into the Bureau of Defense and put into their medica. While doing this, Lucio sees Zhu-Qan entering into the Bureau of Defense. He decides to follow after him and finds out that the money that Isidorum is rewarding to relay the message to Ufrayd is something the rian wants. Lucio and he team up once again. (At this point, Zhu-Qan's character has left so he has been demoted to Companion NPC).

Galura on the other hand has joined the small group of messenger-adventurers, seeking to go to Ufrayd because his Patron, an Infernal Lord (Infernal Pact), has told him to seek out Maykaptan and kill him. He actually misinterprets the person to be Sui-dapa, God of Death, and thinks he found the God of Death instead of an Infernal Lord.

Bran, who speaks with Cavila, reveals that it was Cavila that bought him from his life as a gladiator slave and brought him to his fatherland, Lakungdula. Cavila is very heavily wounded, and Bran decides to bring back medicine from Ufrayd to her. He also desires enough wealth just so he can buy more weapons.

Travelling out to the Southern Gate, they arrive quickly enough at the provisioner whom they will provide stables to. At this point, they realize that something is wrong, as the provisioners are gone. They move and follow the trail of blood and are attacked by a horde of kapre and duwende, all hostile and having black skin. When they have dispatched all of them, they walked on in and realized that they were the provisioners, and they get the satchels full of gold. Around the necklace of the small girl beside the provisioner's body -- presumably his daughter -- a golden agimat hung around her neck. Galura takes this from the corpse.

Eventually they take their rests. Galura was visited by Mallari, the Goddess of the Third Moon -- Waxing Quarter, who promises him power in exchange of giving her Sui-dapa's secrets. Galura has another week to think about it.

Lucio and Zhu Qan got kinda knocked up in the small bar they'd gone into, lambanog being an especially potent drink.

Bran scouts out and sees the walk of a Gawigawen, potentially hinting at another mass exodus, or maybe it was a Gawigawen performing an island wide pilgrimage.

Soon they leave, and manage to push aside a small troop of bandits asking for a toll fee. This small brand of bandits are actually a small part of the Pirate Lakandom of Lakan (think a King) Gaputan, whose abode they might traverse through. The land-troops of Lakan Gaputan will chase after them after this slight, which had wounded their pride. This particular band calls themselves the Fierce Hands.

On one hand: Outdoing default stuff isn't always good.
On the other: it's the fucking alchemist. That theme is generally seen as pretty shit.

If I wanted to do more work with them I'd likely toss them a racial feat option to let them use an actual accuracy calculation rather than the default of the item they are using if they use attack items. Or an epic feat to 1/day grab a rare item.

They arrive at the small town far past the river of Bokosan, at the small town with rice paddies to the left and the shore far far to the right. They see a mysterious maiden there, named Viray, who offers Galura knowledge in the arts of the kulam, but Galura refuses, for he only wanted scrolls that offered rituals that he hadn't known yet. After this, they decide to go into a tavern (an Al-Kaigian invention.)

And that was the end of the second session. Probably the least exciting of sessions since everyone was getting established motivation-wise, although the kapre/duwende fight did send some of them into unconsciousness.

Sounds awesome user, I'm jealous. How's the psionic empire work?

>Alternatively, Ardents.

Legit forgot those existed.

Minor quibbles with this:

First, the F11 does solve the problem of things having fire resist, but the "ah but do you resist GLOWING acids?" approach to obviating resistances is really dumb and we'd be better off fixing it.

Second, things resisting fire is not why fire is a second-tier choice of elemental theme. If you're really having the "our Pyromancer is useless ever since we invaded the Mercury Tower of Kelvin the Intemperate" problem, finding some color-shifted Gloves of Ice is the simpler answer anyway. The reason fire is second-tier is simply that there's no party synergy for it like there is for Cold and Radiant.

Yeah, ardents always felt like something of a forced class to me.

I mean, they're fine. There's just no demand for "Cleric, But Psychic" as a character concept.

I'll always been glad that this edition offered me so many ways to play a Jedi in D&D.

They should've saved them for the Athas book and played up the Maud'Dib angle

>in a 4e game
>player tells a lie to another player
>GM: roll bluff
>fails
>player lies again
>GM: roll bluff
>fails
>player lies a third time
>GM: roll bluff
>fails
>all of this happens in the same scene
Jesus Christ I know D&D is about rolling dice, but doesn't that seem excessive to any of you?

Sounds like he's doing it because it's funny. If he's not doing it because it's funny, then you might have an issue but it's not that he's making too many checks it's that the DM thinks PVP skill checks should be a regular occurrence.

Oh hey, a 4e thread. These are always good.

One of the poor fuckers working on a 4e rewrite, we were halfway through basic class design but we keep stumbling upon other things we have to finalise, currently focusing on out of combat stuff and I figure it might be worth asking here.

Do you think it's important for Themes to have combat powers? Level 1 is already pretty crowded and Heroic has its own stuff going on, so we're pondering making them a purely non-combat thing instead. My only worry is you lose some flavour that way, but there are compromises that could be achieved.

The other big thing we're playing with is Perception, since it kinda warps the skill system around itself it's used so damn much. We're pondering doing something different with it, and instead giving every class or race a couple of Perception Traits, things that give you a bonus to rolls when they're relevant. A Dwarf Ranger, for example, might have a racial perception trait that gives him bonuses for seeing things in stonework or in mountainous terrain, while ranger might give him a bonuses when tracking wildlife or looking for signs in the environment, so a dwarf ranger would end up super perceptive while tracking something in the mountains. We think it could be fun and flavourful, but we're trying to figure out if people would feel too pigeonholed, and trying to design the traits to be broad enough to be usable while narrow enough to be characterful.

The biggest problem I have with that kind of rule is that if I was playing a Rogue there'd be almost no reason not to spam the fuck out of Low Slash with my encounter powers every single encounter. There are a lot of powers kept in check solely because you can only use them once and power refreshes are not trivial to obtain.

I guess it's a question of priorities. I always see the problem in Psionics, that if you can repeat abilities then you just end up spamming them, as something that makes combat a lot less interesting and makes your choices less meaningful.

It's why I prefer 4e's discrete powers, because it gives each one a unique opportunity cost and makes actually using it a more meaningful choice. But, as I said, priorities. Interesting tactical combat is more important to me than some weird attempt to maintain verisimilitude within what is an entirely abstract and narrative powers structure.

The other problem for the encounter power classes is that their strongest attacks are often like level 3, because they never printed a more powerful version of the spell even at 23 because then people would take it twice.

>flame spiral

>Do you think it's important for Themes to have combat powers?

In theory, it depends on the theme. In practice, if any of them have good combat powers then they basically all have to because otherwise you're just crowding everyone onto the same couple themes.

My advice for avoiding the Level 1 class feature pileup has always been to split Heroic in half: explicitly make 1-5 the "gritty" levels, give everyone half surges, hold back a class feature or two, maybe only 1 Word per encounter but I'd need to playtest that. Then just have the Heroic tier (with theme choice, the rest of your surges, and the remaining class features) be from 6-10.

Well, if we're implementing zero combat power themes then we'll design them all around that idea.

And we're currently operating on a condensed levelling structure, 15 levels with 5 per tier, along with an optional 3-level tutorial mode for new players.

>Making social rolls between players

That's not really a fault of the game, is it?

I've toyed with that idea as well, but imo it's unnecessary after the early part: the type of campaign that reaches epic appreciates having 10 levels of epic and doesn't want to go home early, and paragon is already effectively bifurcated into two tiers by the game-changer that is F16 paragon path features. Not really comparable to the "Heroic Tier is the tutorial" / "no Heroic Tier is where everyone should die a bunch" / "no it says Heroic Tier we're supposed to be awesome" trilemma.

Well, less levels doesn't mean inherently less gameplay per tier. We're also going for more flexible guidelines on pacing the game so a GM can make people progress faster or slower depending on their preferences.

I personally like how the last batch of themes work in 4e - minor passives and flavorful utilities. Not all utilities need to be combat focused, but if they are, that's fine too.
I don't know what you did with your classes, but I'd love for themes to be more like Paragon paths for heroic. Kill the feats and use the dead levels left for more cool stuff from themes.

Well, really, if I want to play the Kwisatz Haderach, I primarily would want to do so for the hyperdimensional kung-fu.

That's something we're pondering. Paragon Paths for heroic was the original model, but that'd include more combat stuff and mechanics that might overly complicate heroic tier, while making them purely extra out of combat features has them fill out one of the general weaknesses of 4e- Although we're also giving every class their own set of dedicated out of combat features.

Classes are mostly recognizable, but we've changed a few things up. Utilities are split into Support (in combat) and Utility (out of combat) powers, and are drawn from your Source, not your Class.

>the last batch of themes

Wasn't that the one with the insane Ghost reroll power

I think the biggest issue with 4e's take on out-of-combat is more that it focused almost exclusively on improving the combat system. A lot of the so-called roleplay options in 3.5 were fun but poorly balanced spells you could fire off for shits and giggles or get very creative with in ways that didn't fit within 4e's highly structured tactical battle paradigm. So the spells were cut out, cut down, or shunted into the ritual system, partly to keep things from going caster edition again. People didn't like the perceived lack of options, but perhaps the bigger issue is what wasn't done. Namely, 4e didn't really improve much on the non-combat bits that were already lacking in 3.5. So now the line between combat and non-combat was very apparent. Skill challenges were an attempt to add some structure to roleplay scenarios but have such a mixed legacy that they can't really be called a big success.

tl;dr 4e fixed one flawed half of DnD and neglected to fix the other, so that half stands out more

A better question is, why did you read that implication into it?

I don't recall hyperdimensional kung fu really being a thing. Sex-fighting yes, but not hyperdimensional kung fu. Is this from the movie?

Does Darkvision matter to you? Or similar traits? Does they come up a lot, do they have a meaningful impact on the game, or are they just a legacy holdover that's occasionally mildly useful but mostly ignored or forgotten?

Darkvision is useful for solo stealth against human(oid)s who lack darkvision. i.e. Drow Assassins who are in fact Assassinating. That's about it.

If you actually enforce vision and have dungeons of varying lighting, it could end up mattering for the purpose of lurking monsters. Vision can be a little tedious, but it gives some of the monsters an edge that can make combat more interesting.

One thing you can do is make most of your locations well-lit, but experiment with a room or two that's darkened. This adds to the flavor without making every encounter a lot of work.

He's probably talking about the Weirding Way. Which is something that was actually removed from the movie.

>tl;dr 4e fixed one flawed half of DnD and neglected to fix the other, so that half stands out more

The one major thing that prevents me from moving enjoying pf or 5e moving on from 4e is how garbage it is to do things out of combat in other editions.

In 4e, you get a decent selection of skills, and they are somewhat generalized to the point where you don't get screwed over for what skills you pick. The opportunity cost for taking out of combat options in 4e is so low because rituals just cost gold, utility powers are free, and skills are plentiful.

As a level 1-3 character in 3.x or 5e, the amount of focus you have to put into being useful for something non-combat related is huge, and that skill you invested so much into might not even come up in a single session until you have leveled to a point where it doesn't make sense to even use the skill.

The problem with skills like "use rope" is that if they don't come up, they are useless. If they do come up, then you punish players for not taking bad skills. In other words, an esoteric skill list warps the world around it.

>If you actually enforce vision and have dungeons of varying lighting, it could end up mattering for the purpose of lurking monsters.

In theory yeah, but in practice the solution is to just floodlamp everything using one of the numerous methods of floodlamping everything.

Arbitrary and bloated skill lists are hot garbage, yeah. A streamlined, focused one is always preferable.

The one thing that mildly annoyed me about 4e is there being some areas where there was no particularly appropriate skill to cover them, but in an attempt at a 4e retroclone we're trying to fix that by just having 'Profession' exist as a discrete 'fill in yourself' slot you can use for background and flavour skills. Everyone gets one, with guidelines on how broad and applicable they should be, but they basically just exist to add a bit of fun characterisation and give background flavour skills a home without detracting from your other capabilities.

Why not just put profession in the background slot of character creation? It makes no sense to have mostly flavor and lifestyle options compete with the same resources as perception and athletics.

>'Profession' exist as a discrete 'fill in yourself' slot

I look forward to every Fighter putting down Profession: AHOO

That's basically what we're doing. We're just treating it as a skill training you can define yourself rather than creating an extremely long list.

Because background is where you choose between +8 HP and Rapier Proficiency, silly user.

Every system has mistakes.

I don't know, 4e has a lot of fun non-combat shit hidden around - minor magic items, some rituals, half of Heroes of the Feywild. Didn't help that most of the stuff was in the Dragons and nobody read it.

I started paying more attention to lighting that I have one human in a party of elves, but I don't think that I'll keep it up for long.

HotFW was great on the advice front, bit less on the crunch front unfortunately.

>He doesn't only allow skill bonus backgrounds

You wrought this upon yourself

While I'm dusting off my homebrew archives: a slightly half-assed attempt at adding something for the party Artificer to do with their class features after everyone's already found their favorite weapon.

Skill Powers does a pretty good job of giving a character more options both in and out of combat. Too bad they didn't show up til PHB3.