D&D 4E General /4eg/

Didn't get it. The replication by the Cavalier of the stuff that the PHB1 Paladin had needed to fix pretty clearly indicates that they didn't pay any attention to what the development had been beyond that point.

That said, Cavalier is an excellent multiclass for Fighters: the aura's punishment marks, at which point they can slaughter the offender with their II as well.

Did anyone finish the cycle of Sigil faction themes? Dragon officially statted my two least favorite factions --The Hedonismbots and the LOLSORANDUMBS-- then stopped.

You mean Hybrid? I'm not finding anything about the aura punishment marking.

When it's internal logic is applied it actually does high fantasy style games that dnd advertises, instead of the quirky DnDism shit built from design mistakes.

Interestingly enough it also does Eberron, the setting built from quirky dndisms, really well.

They are all epic level items and cost a goddamn fortune, I'd be reluctant to use them too.

Hey guys i wanna trying running a 4e game agian and i was wondering what your recommendations are for tweaking monsters/ damgae numbers for make combat faster or more deadly.

Also i know Veeky Forums shits on people who collect physical books but why the fuck are the 4e books so expensive now?

They're not being reprinted. So they're literally collectors items.

I did, it was fun but my players didn't care much for it so we left it after a couple sessions. I have occasionally used bits in my 4e games though, the mutation cards were nice for a brief stint in chaos magic.

Righteous Radiance doesn't hit or miss, so Combat Challenge won't mark them.

Are we talking about 5E now?I

Whoops, accidentally linked in my previous post. Immurements?

As long as you're using the numbers from pic related you should be fine.

As you learn your group you'll get a better idea of their damage output and be able to tune them specifically, but overall the MM3 math works.

Even if it WAS an attack, it's sure as hell not a Fighter attack, which you'd need it to be for it to mark.

MM3 and Monster Vault monsters tend to quick and brutal fights already.

Only if you're a hybrid. He said multiclass.

Fair enough, didn't know the MC feat just gave you a defender's aura, admittedly, without the punish.

That seems like a really damn nice thing to just hand out for a feat (then again, the other paladin MC feat gives you a mark that doesn't expire so what do I know?).

So I'm trying to get into 4e and I don't know the full terminology yet (plz no bully).

What's the difference between a Hybrid and a Multiclass?

Multiclass is done in 4e by picking up multiclass feats. First feat gives you a lesser version of a class ability, then you can pick up feats to switch out powers.

Hybrid is made from gluing two "hybrid" versions of the classes together. Like, you could make a half rogue/half fighter character by making it a Rogue | Fighter hybrid. You get a more or less even split of abilities and powers without spending feats or anything.

So a multiclass would be the equivalent of taking a feat to learn how to cast a few cantrips from a Wizard class while a hybrid is like multi-classing in older editions of D&D to become a fighter/thief or a MU/cleric?

How does EXP work for hybrids? Do you have to level up each individual class separately or do you just count as being level X, though with both classes having their full power cut in half to compensate?

A hybrid character advances just like a regular one, you could view it as just a special class that's composed of two hybrid halves. They get restrictions on power choices so you can't entirely ignore one of your classes, and they usually don't get all of the class features from both classes. Furthermore, many class features will be limited in scope to only apply to the powers from that class.
e.g. Fighters can mark with all attacks. Hybrid Fighters get to mark only with Fighter attacks.
Rogues can sneak attack with any attack (that fulfills the criteria). Hybrid Rogues can only sneak attack with Rogue attacks.

You actually get the punish 1/encounter, a further little nice thing.

I'd more consider it on a Sorcerer or maybe Warlock and enjoy my White Lotus Riposte, rather than on a normal defender. Although, Swordmage could be fun... Aegis on faraway enemies, aura+riposte+swordburst close up.

I've introduced the Escalation die from 13th age as an houserule.
PCs hit more often so combats take less time. Also I tied the recharge mechanics to the die and a couple more house rules. So far it's been working great.

I've mused on using the escalation die and removing Expertise, to make things go from mediocre accuracy to high accuracy instead of starting out highly accurate and getting super accurate.
Obviously this would be slower than having both, but it would slightly incentivize not going as nova as possible in the first round, which is one of my main gripes with the system.

I keep hearing this term but I've never actually played 13th age or read the rulebook.

I'm guessing it's a mechanic where one side keeps gaining more dice to roll for their attack/damage so that they become more and more likely to land a vicious blow as the battle goes on?

It's very simple. Each round of combat, starting at 0 on the first round, PCs get a cumulative +1 to all attack rolls, up to +6. You use the biggest d6 you an find to keep track of the bonus, hence the name.
It favors the PC's side, but there are a few tricks that can work also for the DM, including:
>a few monsters (e.g. dragons) use the same bonus
>recharge powers trigger of the die instead of being rolled
>some effects can only work before or ater a certain number on the die.

13th age, where the die comes from, has a ton of monster special traits that trigger off the die. I'm trying to keep it as simple as I can, being an houserule, but it seems to be working well.

>it would slightly incentivize not going as nova as possible in the first round, which is one of my main gripes with the system.

That's less a problem with the system than the linear nature of time. But that aside, the way to discourage it is to teach your players to not expect all the monsters to be obviously visible/targetable on initiative, give solos and elites active defense abilities, etc.

The classic instructive mistake here is when everyone runs up into the face of the dragon at once and set off Bloodied Breath at the top of round 2.

The Fighter's mark condition is
>Every time you attack an enemy, whether the attack hits or misses, you can choose to mark that target.

Where "attacking an enemy" is defined in the RC as using an attack power that has an enemy as a target. Fighters can, e.g., mark with Magic Missile if they pick it up via multiclass. "Whether the attack hits or misses" is a clarification, it does not add an additional hidden requirement that the attack you made needs to have an attack roll.

>That seems like a really damn nice thing to just hand out for a feat

In practice it's less useful than the Holy Symbol Proficiency multiclassing also gets you.

Does finally solve the problem where Fighters all wish they could dip Fighter though.

Wait, when and where did any of the Planescape factions get revived in 4e? All I remember are the Speakers of Xaos, a Xaositect sect, from Heroes of the Elemental Chaos.

Dragon 414 had Sensate and Xaositect as character themes.

Huh, thanks. Come to think of it, wasn't there also theme or PP for the Sons of Mercy and Sodkillers (the origins of the Mercykillers, which they split back into after Faction War)? And I know there was a Doomguard PP in Manual of the Planes... And a Doomlord tie-in PP in Heroes of the Elemental Chaos...

Is there any point in going with the magic item treadmill instead of inherent bonuses? My group was on the treadmill and it seemed like we never had money for rituals and such.

The only advantage of the "treadmill" is that you can get some +X items a bit earlier. But inherent bonuses are so inherently better that's not even funny.

I've never played 4e, and I'm curious about it. What makes it better than 5e or 3.5?

Some of the things that appeal to me:
>Races have a clear-cut style of design which makes all races "strong".
>Role system means that no class is blatantly bad at what it does.
>Powers system means every class plays and feels distinctive from others in the same role and the same power source.
>Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies really let you shape your character in unique ways as you climb for the highest levels.
>Themes and racial powers add a lot of ways to distinctly shape and customize your PC.

There's also the fluff, but I figure that's not relevant to you.

From what I understand (and someone ITT please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just getting into this stuff myself), 4e is built around being simple to run a game around without sacrificing any of the complexity that allows for meaningful options to take place during play.

That and classes were balanced around a unified mechanic that allowed classes to generally perform at a relatively even pace without one being more effective than the other since every class is built around having at-wills (which can be used all the time and no cost), encounters (which can be used as long as you spend 5 minutes resting to recharge), and dailies (which can only be used once between long rests).

Granted, I'm just getting into this crap myself so people will probably know more about this than I do, but here's a cheat sheet that I found floating around Veeky Forums, which actually does help a lot if you have to come up with shit on the fly.

>So a multiclass would be the equivalent of taking a feat to learn how to cast a few cantrips from a Wizard class
Yeah, more or less, although after picking up the wizard cantrips, you could spend more feats to pick up higher level spells.

>while a hybrid is like multi-classing in older editions of D&D to become a fighter/thief or a MU/cleric?

Basically yes, but instead of being behind a few levels behind, you are always level appropriate, but forced to be split evenly between your two half.

Son of Mercy is a Defender Paragon Path. Also, I'm sure the latter of those happened as well.

And it's so, so good.

As a long-time DM, I'll say this: it's a game I can trust. It's still D&D, so you have to prep a few things beforehand, but once you're at the table, you know that A. almost any combination of characters is going to work reasonably well, and B. on my side of the screen I have very strong guidelines about what to expect.
Now, you hear often that the math is broken, you need fixes and so on. That's only true if you push optimization and number-crunching. The players can throw together a character, I can throw together an encounter, and we're good to go.There are other games that give me the same feel, but usually they're the kind of games that put stor first and have very little mechanics. 4e is still crunchy.
Over that, there's a lot of fun and interesting stuff in the lore and in the minor mechanics. Stuff like rituals, the world history, the campaign arcs in the books, are all very useful ideas, more interested in giving me stuff to use than in flourishes.

Did the 3.5 books skyrocket like 4e did?
Or is it because no one really bought 4e so the print runs are low?

Im a fucking retard can so me give me a run down on what this pic means?

>/4eg/
>Anime image

Holy shit, was the reaction to PF2E so bad that the /pfg/ crowd is making 4E threads now?

Are the Pathfinder guys really taking the news of a new edition poorly? Honest question, im not a Pathfinder player.

>Are the Pathfinder guys really taking the news of a new edition poorly?
Yes, ever since PF2 was announced, the 3aboos have been especially booty blasted.
It really speaks to the maturity level of the people ITT that they've managed to stay on topic in spite of all attempts by the 3rd edition crowd to kick up shit.

Comparing the two generals is like night and day.

/4eg/'s always had a bit of a weeb side. 2HF used to be a regular here, y'know.
It's a guide for creating monsters on the fly. If you're ambushed by wolves at level 1, and they're level 3, the wolves might be described as Skirmishers, with 48 HP (24+8*3 HP), 17 AC, 15 Fortitude, 15 Reflex, 15 Will (you can change that around to get a better feel - perhaps lower will, but higher Fortitude and Reflex), rolling 1d20+8 vs AC, dealing 11 average damage (say, 2d6+4). You can then add modifiers to it based on the monster types. Since they're skirmishers, they may be able to shift 1 after hitting with an attack. It's really just a quick way to come up with monsters on the fly.

The third Monster Manual for 4e changed the monster scaling, such that creatures had less total health, did more damage, and were generally more dynamic. This addressed complaints that early 4e monsters took too long to kill if your players didn't optimize, but were too easy to stun forever if they did.

The image describes the new formula for generating attack/HP/defense/damage, which is very useful if you want to adapt monsters from an early monster manual or adventure module for a previous edition.

If you're doing module conversions though, note that 4e doesn't favor "you meet a single mountain lion in the pass"-type encounters because the existence of encounter-based magic means they don't sap spell slots from the party (though if someone gets mauled, it will deplete their surges, which limit total possible healing).

Group-on-group combats are the norm. For creatures where that doesn't make sense (e.g. mountain lions being solitary predators), you'd want the lion attack to either appear alongside environmental hazards, or as part of a sequence of survival challenges that don't allow rest between them.

Is this cheatsheat fully updated to the new math? Some of the numbers line up, others seem not to.

You can make effective single boss fights in 4e, but they need to have things to close the action economy gap, like extra actions, lots of area attacks, reactive defences and resistance to crowd control, etc etc.

I'm specifically not referring to boss fights here though, but rather to single monster lairs from older dungeon crawls.

Around here a 3.5 PHB in good shape, or some of the later sourcebooks, can get you 100€. 4e stuff is still cheaper, and there was a time when it was lower than retail price, but it's been picking up in the last year. The longer it goes, the more a collector's item it becomes.

I don't know off the top of my hide, I swiped it when another user posted it and I myself am a newbie who basically just started liking into 4e yesterday.

I honestly just thought it looked neat since it actually included a table for narrative things, like plot twists and the like, in addition to mechanical details.

A mountain lion statted as a solo would need controller-skirmisher powers like you see on Monks and Druids. It would actually be pretty legit for the first half of heroic, above that players will probably start wondering why mountain lions exist that can hunt teenage dragons.

>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

Who keeps reposting this cancerous advice?

Just make the lions pretty fucking sooky.

I'd use sabertooth tiger for high Heroic, then start adding magical/planar fuckery in Paragon.

Actually that raises a question: are there any normal animals above level 10? Should there be?

Giant squid I guess?

Not OP, but I fail to see the problem with it. If you tell the players they are in a skill challenge it breaks immersion and feels artificial. If you just set up a situation (short or long term) where they must organically make a series of skill checks to solve a problem, then you can use the skill challenge rules without going "hey you're a skill challenge now lol."

It obviously depends on the group, but I've found that when it comes to players that are more on the roll play side of things it works better to inform them they're in a skill challenge. Once they find out it is something that can be won/lost they generally become much more interested.

Announcing that you are in a skill challenge signals to the players that they should all be active for the next scene, that they can use limited resources if they want to, and that there's a definite objective to their actions. Immersion is not an issue if you are used to games where narrative input is shared. The "secret skill challenge" meme can work for a certain kind of player (after all, the opening pasta was put together by a guy who has to ban things in order to not optimize too much) but it's far from the best way to approach them.

Tbh these sound like issues with a certain type of player. Ideally my players are generally interested in what's going on whether or not they're told "it's skill challenge time". The situation should generally imply that something is at stake, which can be done through GM description. Even the pressure of failure can be related through description rather than a blunt tally of how many more times they can botch a skill check before failing the challenge.

I try to set up situations where stakes are clearly present (even if the stakes themselves are only implied) and clearly affect the whole party. Most recent case, my party was on a boat sailing toward an infamously accursed isle. On the way they got caught in a storm. In order to make it through safely they had to perform a number of tasks: adjusting the rigging, patching holes, looking out for rocks, etc. Mechanically the whole thing was a skill challenge, and yet they got through the whole scene rolling all sorts of skill checks without me ever directly saying "this is a skill challenge". This was because there were obvious narrative stakes and because I could relate new hazards as they arose, prompting them to action. I imagine that had I simply described the whole thing in mechanical terms it would have robbed the scene of most of its drama.

God, I miss 4e. It was the best.

>I imagine that had I simply described the whole thing in mechanical terms it would have robbed the scene of most of its drama.

But see, saying "ok guys, the next scene is a skill challenge" does not necessarily mean that what follows kills the narrative, even though it's certainly possible to run them as a bunch of skill rolls (which is, I think, why a lot of people don't get/like them).
I found that being clear about challenges helps me avoid the issue of players going just "I do nothing" or "I follow him", and asks them to be proactive, especially in social scenes. I can ask them leading questions, and I do, but that to me feels more forced than asking them to figure out how to contribute.

Well, I'll give it a shot your way sometime. I generally dislike the idea of openly displaying the mechanical side of things to players except when absolutely necessary (combat being an obvious case), but that may simply be an issue of GM style and preference. How do you usually frame the scenario? Do you describe what's going on first and then clue the players in that it's a skill challenge?

More or less, yes. The last one I ran successfully was "prepare the townsfolk for the attack" from Reavers of Harkenwold. We played through the war council and so on, then I made clear that they had a few hours to make preparations, and that it was a skill challenge. I asked each of them in turn how they would spend the next hour, made them roll, and we narrated the outcome. So the most important thing, to me, is that before AND after each roll the scene has to progress in some way.
Yesterday night they were in a similar situation (find support among the people of another village), I tried to make it into a secret challenge, and the two characters with no social skills basically called themselves out of the scene.

Anyone want to run a game on Roll20? I've been getting itchy to play again. Since having access to certain sites with all of the information as well as an offline character builder is really easy nowadays, it should be pretty easy, right?

It's really hard to make a character who has no skills but damn people try.

The real problem is that after the DEX/CHA character, the DEX/WIS character, and the CHA/INT character take their turns I'm out of ideas.

Well the thing is, a GM should break his players out of the idea that if you have no talky skill you can't do anything. There's always a way to approach a social situation from the sidelines (perception, knowledge skills and so on) and even then, the average DCs are not impossible to pass.

Eh, it's not a lack of talky, it's a couple pretty specific things.

First, Fighters: by making Fighters Wisdom-based they for the first time ever made the class not inherently ass at skills, but... there is no "Soldiery" skill. Tactical Warlords crimp History into this, and you'd occasionally see people roll Dungeoneering for it too, but for the basic Fighter? They have skill access on paper, but there is no knowledge skill that is thematic for a classic Fighter background that they would possibly have the stats for. Oh, and for some reason Insight isn't on their class list either, despite mechanically being masters at reading people.

Hilariously, you CAN fix this: by giving your Fighter the Yakuza theme, they effectively become CHA-based, not WIS-based! Now their skill in Intimidation and Streetwise actually fucking works!

Second: Religion keying off a stat no Divine character has.

Third: Runepriests have Thievery as a class skill. This is clearly a typo.

Both Invokers and Avengers can be Int, but yeah, it's not a given for any class.

Runepriests getting Thievery isn't that strange. It makes them better at handling magic traps, for one thing, several of which involve runes and even with the ones that aren't they're still supposed to be the studious ones who understand the mechanics (of magic).

The INT Avenger is the one that doesn't actually work, so yes, there are 0.6 Divine classes that know Religion as well as the average Wizard. At least it's thematic that it's the one that can maybe-actually-talk-to-god.

I get your point, but it's all a bit in a vacuum. At the table, the narrative should give context to the action, so that even the fighter has something to work on. If I told you "athletics to flex and show my prowess" or "endurance to boast my battle scars" it would sound silly without a context, but it's possible that in the flow of the scene those are appropriate. Also, not all skill rolls need to be success/fail, skill Challenges already include secondary skills.

BTW, this is not to say that the skill system is flawless, and skill distribution is a bit wonky in points. But considering backgrounds, themes, magic items and feats it's not too hard to round out a character so that he's got more than one useful skill, and the revised DCs are really not that hard to pass even for unoptimized characters.
In the townsfolk challenge I posted earlier, the ranger rolled Nature and Stealth to prepare an ambush spot, and the Bladesinger used athletics to help train the levies, while the bard and paladin were using their social skills.

Unity Avengers are fine. Martyrs are sketchy.

Unity Avengers aren't /INT. They're secondary-statless outside of a couple riders on powers they don't take, and greatly prefer DEX.

>The third Monster Manual for 4e changed the monster scaling, such that creatures had less total health
REEEEEEEEEEEE

When will this misinformation stop. Standard and elite monsters have the same hit point formula across all the Monster Manuals.

Are there any really cheesy unity builds? Like something where you pick up summons or companions, have a party with a shaman+familiar and everything.

Seeing as 4E places a great significance on the grid/battlemat, do you guys use tokens, minis, or others? And if you use miniatures, what are the cheapest ones?

I just bought the whole Reaper Bones set when they did their first Kickstarter, so I've got more fantasy minis than I know what to do with.

Bump for 4E

He's 100% right though. For many people it's completely immersion shattering because now you've turned a skill check into a minigame and it's patently obvious. It's not hard to inject a suggestion that everyone better participate or else risk failure for the group. Far more cancerous is the refusal to recognize this.

I still don't get it though. There's several other games that have mechanics like skill Challenges, and many of them are generally considered "narrative" games.
Why is it that big of a deal that when you do it in D&D it's a problem? Are D&D players really that limited that saying "this is a minigame" ruins the experience?

The iconic cheesy avenger build is to paragon multiclass ranger, then be a martial archetype and get unlimited recharges like the demigod capstone did but straight from level 21.

This is normally done by a unity avenger, but only because you don't expect anything to live long enough for pursuit or retribution to kick in. You will typically have higher strength and dexterity than intelligence.

You're missing the point. Yes they and 4e have skill challenges and that is not inherently wrong. Announcing that you are specifically going to have a skill challenge and that everyone needs to start ass pulling reasons why the fighter is using STR in a social encounter or else fail is just holding a gun to their head and telling them to roll dice for the sake of rolling dice. That is jarring as fuck for a lot of people. The key for every system that does this is burrying what's going on under a layer of narrative. The group bard has failed to convince the king with his honeyed words. Sir Francis the fighter can see the monarch's skepticism and knows he must intercede or the man is lost to them. What will Sir Francis do?

Those other games are often good sources of advice on how to skill challenge correctly. As far as the reputation for "breaking immersion" goes, I blame a combination of inexperienced DMs/writers making really clunky setups, it invoking ideas from narrative games that the average player hasn't gotten used to, and the name itself having the title of a mechanic on your sheet in it.

To me it seems that it's you who's missing the point. Yes, announcing the skill challenge means that everyone around the table has to start thinking how to contribute. But there is a narrative context going on. If the only suggestion from the fighter is "I flex to impress the king" that could be a problem, but it's a problem of the player, not of the game. Stating clearly that a skill challenge is on is a shorthand for "guys, the stakes are higher for this scene, and don't think about spacing out because we're doing the talky stuff".

So you just read my post and decided going "nuh uh!" was a sufficient response? In both scenarios the lazy flex fighter is a problem. In mine, at least we're not having the dice in his face and demanding he do something because a skill challenge is part of the system and he'd better like it. You seem to be of the opinion that presentation does not matter because of your personal predilections.

>You seem to be of the opinion that presentation does not matter because of your personal predilections.

You came here telling me that your way to present things is objectively better than my way to present things, because "many people" say so.
Do what works best for you, by all means, but please stop painting all GMs who don't do things as you do as retarded rollplayers. When I run Fate or CoD and a challenge comes up, it works as the game intends. I don't see why this wouldn't be the case for 4e because "muh immersion" or because I have to assume that D&D players won't get narrative mechanics.

By the way, you can say the exact same things about combat, run combat as a minigame with dice rolls and no narrative, forcing everyone to participate and so on. So why doesn't that ever come up as a problem? And yet if you do it with skills it's a problem.