D&D 4E General /4eg/

Honestly I'm pretty happy with regular 4e, but I'd redo the feat system. There's too many of them with too small effect, apart from a few character-defining ones. Ideally I would have feats with bigger impact (kinda like the 5e ones) and give out only, like, 3 of them per tier.
Also, themes are in from day 1.

Isn’t PF magus just a copy/paste of 3.5’s dusk blade?

Yeah, fuck that noise; Swordmage has everything I need and then some. Can your Magus split into multiple copies who function as a one-man army, WITHOUT breaking the game in half or needing uber-complex rules? The Swordmage can.

Guys, please. We went through a general in a couple hours because of a single shitposter. This time don't engage, hide and report.

Similar, but I'd say that, now, the magus is better at it than the duskblade.

Hey, new guy again, I downloaded the CBLoader btw and so far it's working good.

Anywho, how do feats work in 4e? Is it like PF where you get them every odd level or so or are they given out in a different way?

I honestly think it's a sign of one of the advantages of the 4e powers system. Most of the Magus spell list is shared with other classes, they just get less magic, a bit more melee and some unique class features for mixing the two.

Swordmage, meanwhile, gets powers that are a mix of magic and melee from the bottom up, rather than just taking two disparate halves and trying to smoosh them together.

When you make a new character, do you see an option to pick a Dark Sun theme? A common error is some of the extra content not showing, so checking if you can see Themes or not is a good way of telling. You'll find them on the same tab you use to select backgrounds.

Is it still possible to run an OSR style "you're in a hole full of scary monsters, and you'd better not get into fair fights often" game where you get XP for stealing treasure using 4e?

If you did, how would it feel?

You get a feat at first and second level, then every even level forward.
Most numerical bonus feats offer +1 that scales between arcs, and those +1s generally matter because of the math. Do not ignore them, as I've seen some do, because they do not offer massive bonuses that are geometric for what they bring to the table.

You get a feat every even level, and every level ending in 1.

>There's too many of them with too small effect, apart from a few character-defining ones.

I like the character defining ones that aren't just "damage feats that we didn't forget to make scale by tier."

Hey man some of the Essentials classes are alright.

Exactly! That's the beauty of 4e, and my it really made me fall in love: having Martials who could do awesome stuff was great, don't get me wrong, but the fact that every single Arcanist now had a unique, distinctive array of spells that solidly enforced its theme? That was just golden.

You can tell a sorcerer from a wizard more readily in 4e than in either 3e or 5e, because it relies so much on multiple damage types, blasts, and close bursts.

Warlocks are distinctive, Artificers and Bards feel nothing alike, and Swordmages... well, as you said; every power they has oozes "magical swordmaster" flavor.

Hells, you could rebrand the Swordmage as a Ki Defender and present it as a Shonen Anime style sword-master, and it'd work just fine.

You get a feat at every even level, plus every tier start level (1, 11, 21).
There's nothing inherently wrong with them, but there's a cubic fuckton of them, and barring a couple that are almost mandatory, and a few that are essential for certain character builds, the rest are just very situational bonuses to specific things, or mostly fluff. It's the most painful part of chargen for me, to the point where with new players I just make a shortlist of passable options.
Note that the two essentials PHBs did a nice thing and grouped the most generally useful ones by theme, but that's only a small part of the feats that got published overall.

The Seeker always stood out to me. I know it's pretty underwhelming in-game, but arcane archers are still pretty cool and they're even cooler when they're throwing magic spears instead of shooting magic arrows. The image of a savage warrior chucking boomerang handaxes is fun if for nothing other than the novelty.

Possible, probably - after all we got a tomb of Horrors conversion.
Desirable? Eh, not really, it's thematically at odds with the assumptions of the game.

Seeker is one of the sad cases of 4e, of a good concept and a subpar execution.

Although a friend of mine mentioned something about a simple bit of homebrew that allowed a Seeker to actually be a decent Striker, rather than a Controller. I'll see if I can find what they did to fix it.

Stop starting these threads with shitty anime pedobait. This isn't /pfg/

>I like the character defining ones that aren't just "damage feats that we didn't forget to make scale by tier."

There's some good shit here and there, but for every Wrath of the Crimson Legion there's like ten "if you use elven accuracy on your Hunter's mark you get to reroll the 1s of damage".

The real problem with "fixes" for 4e is that everyone wants to do some clever shit with the class features that'll magically make them good, but nobody wants to sit down and rewrite 150 feats+powers to not suck.

>>Corrects all the monster math to MM3/MV standards.
You could plug most shit into an excel formula and call it even. That's what I do. It's handy because it lets me call in level 1-whatever versions of all monsters.

True, but I've also never seen an hotfix for 4e like e6. Then again I'm still running the game as is with minimal houseruling for matters of personal taste, and it holds up a lot better than the math memes would imply.

Any chance you could share that excel sheet?

Gimme a bit to put it on Google Docs. Essentially, it's just using the generic stats for monster roles and marrying that to the damage values in the book and the exp chart.

DMG default or MM3 update?

It's been a while since I made it but I think HP and such values from Business Card and damage values from DMG since it had the break down for Low, Medium, and High damage mobs and I wanted that granularity.

Eh, there's no real "hotfix" because almost all the problems aren't unitary in nature. The closest I've got is this, and the core of it is a mega-finicky laying out of exactly which bonus attack sources can be stacked with each other.

Attached: System-Wide Rule Changes.pdf (PDF, 45K)

Okay, let me know if you can see the formulas in this: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RRHlseULNSJuSVnYYeWXT80MoB45ga7q0jyJIEtLbSE/edit?usp=sharing

Yeah, I can see that and it looks fantastic, thank you!

Just update the monster level in the upper right to mass update stat blocks.

To calculate damage, use the normlow, normmed, or normhigh variables depending on how hitty you want your monster.

But this is MM1 damage.

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I can't even imagine.a game where you skipped a fight. We already have to fight 9 times to even feel pressure in a combat.

Get what you pay for.

That just sounds like shitty GMing and encounter design

I am pretty sure it's standard, I always see other user say 8-9, and I saw someone ridiculing over-dangerous encounters in 4e just today.

By contrast, my attempt to fix Sorcerers so that the class doesn't center on Flame Spiral turned out to be 40 pages of tediously nudging powers into shape so that other builds were viable. The paragon path redesigns were fun though.

Attached: Sorcerer upgrade.pdf (PDF, 243K)

That's news to me. I tend to see 3-4 encounters being the norm, with usually at least one big boss encounter, and that being more than enough to put pressure on an ordinary party of PC's.

You realise the game is designed so you can push encounter levels up to four levels higher than the party, right? And that's before you get into optimized groups.

Added some more example monsters.

I suspect the number of monsters being faced by the 8-encounter day people and the 4-encounter day people is secretly the same.

Hard to ignore shitposters when the OP is an anime shitpost.

be the change bitch

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What's missing from Fire Emblem anyway? The weapon triangle and a more seamless version of mounted combat I guess.

I think part of it is that the Swordmage blends the spellcasting and the swordplay into a combination, rather than it being 'I can cast spells AND I can fight'. An alloy, rather than two distinct flavors.

I generally throw in an elite monster nearly every encounter to make up for the fact that there's 6 PCs, every encounter is generally 2 levels ahead of the party in terms of monsters.

I bump up encounter levels as a general rule, but my group is fairly large at 6 players.
I also tend to synergize battles or combine roles, like using wolves as skirmishes with defender potential, minions that grant CA or deal debuffs rather than damage, and the like.

I had a prototype hack set up, but basically decided it wasn't really needed.
Disgaea you basically can run out of the box as-is with liberal re-fluffing of race/class combos as various demons. With the less weird races being the humanoid type demons and the more weird races being the monsters

The big sticking points were:
Geo Panels: I had a mostly functional hack for these, but honestly it ended up being too much work without a computer to track it for me
Lifting and throwing: Give everyone a standard action attack to lift and toss 4 squares plus their strength mod.
Prinnies: For some reason I couldn't find a playable 4e race that exploded. I hacked one up based on Kenku, I have a .bin file for it somewhere too.
Magichange/Fusion: I honestly didn't have a good solution for this, at least for PCs. For Enemies you can use Magichanged characters as Elites or maybe even Solos without much issue, but fusing PCs is always a tricky bit.

Attached: Prinny D00d.pdf (PDF, 83K)

"Exploding" Minions (sometimes literally exploding) are a super-common effect in later 4e, fittingly enough.

My players hate exploding creatures after the skeleTON crawl.

I love how assblasted 4th edition gets people to this day.
>mention it in passing when talking about old D&D games
>bloated neckbeard rages about how it was "just like World of Warcraft"
>tells me 5e is much better
I didn't know these people existed outside the internet

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It's extra funny given that the Warcraft thread on Veeky Forums only talks about 3.PF and 5e.

The best part is that, while it was little to nothing like World of Warcraft, it prefigured Overwatch by 8 years.

>I mention 4e, then pretend to be someone mad about this
>This proves me my point
>I'm not just assmad my shitty game is dead

>For some reason I couldn't find a playable 4e race that exploded

There actually is one. The shitty version of the Draconian iirc

The devs really do think of everything

Honestly my search only consisted of looking through all the races in the Character builder, I must not have looked at the variant powers.

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/4eg/ has always had animu OPs thanks to 2hufag. I don't care for them but it's traditional.

It's happened a few times, yes. I usually respond by offering to run a game for them, not that anybody ever picks up the opportunity. but so far, the only people who I played with and didn't like 4e are those who have trouble with crunchy systems in general.

I'm currently running 4 players through a bunch of modules with no adjustment, so they're facing level-appropriate encounters for 5 players. They manage 3-4 a day reasonably, could probably push for something more but not that much. 8-9 a day does seem a tad too much, even for an optimized party.

My party is a little over optimized, so it's a bit of an arms race when I make elites and add more mobs but I have fun making the encounters and they have fun as well. They also have like 2 people with a boatload of surges and 2 others that aren't really getting hit, so Comrade's Succor is amazing.

What's the monster damage function of level used in the MM1 again? I need it for an app.

I am not a fan of the way the resistance change suddenly makes multi-damage-type powers *worse* compared to single-damage-type powers, and I think that the ability modifier house rule unwittingly catches some innocent powers, like a bard's Blunder or a warden's Mountain Hammer.

Aside from these points though, I am a fan of these general house rules.

I also greatly appreciate the sorcerer rewrite and would wholeheartedly use it.

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This is a controversial opinion: does anyone think that 3.X/Pathfinder is more consistent and rational when it comes to assigning attacks vs. non-AC defenses?

In 3.X/Pathfinder, if a monster wants to give you the bad touch, that is a touch attack. If it lays down an AoE on you, it is probably Reflex half, or Fortitude half. If it is trying to dominate you, that is most likely defended by Will. In Pathfinder, if it is trying to shove you around, it has a good chance of being CMB vs. CMD. The math may be mangled, but at least there is a certain consistency to it.

In 4e, if a succubus gives you the bad touch, that goes against AC.
funin.space/compendium/monster/Succubus.html
Okay, maybe its "corrupting touch" still has to contend with armor.

If a lesser fire demon gives you the bad touch, that goes against Reflex.
funin.space/compendium/monster/Lesser-Fire-Demon.html
Okay, I can see this. It does not care for armor, yet it can be dodged.

If a gray ooze gives you the bad touch, that goes against Fortitude.
funin.space/compendium/monster/Gray-Ooze.html
A little strange; why is this ooze completely undodgeable?

If a spring nymph gives you the bad touch, that tests your Will.
funin.space/compendium/monster/Spring-Nymph.html
Now we are getting a little strange. This kiss is completely unavoidable, physically?

This does not just apply to monster powers, of course. It also applies to PC powers.

If a wizard blasts someone away with a wave of thunder, that goes against Fortitude.
funin.space/compendium/power/Thunderwave.html
Sensible enough; such a sonic boom cannot be dodged, and only withstood.

However, if a wizard uses a more powerful version of Thunderwave, Thunderlance, then it suddenly attacks Reflex instead.
funin.space/compendium/power/Thunderlance.html
Because, apparently, it becomes irresistible, but it also slows down enough to be dodgeable?

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This would not be so bad if 4e was not set up in such a way that characters have such massive rifts between their strong non-AC defenses and their weak non-AC defenses, especially in the case of those whose class bonuses simply fortify a high defense, like a cleric's +2 Will, a fighter's +2 Fortitude, or a rogue's +2 Reflex.

These characters' life or death can, at times, be completely in the hands of whatever harebrained fluff the writer had in mind at the time, and that is not very comfortable to know. This is an area where 3.X/Pathfinder beats out 4e. For that matter, Strike! does this better than 4e as well, by removing the idea of separate defenses.

Since it is impossible to reassign the non-AC defense targeting of so many monsters and PC powers, is there a way to fix this other than reassigning all classes' class defense bonuses to shore up their weakest defense in the name of closing the gap?

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As further examples, here, we have a phantom warrior whose weapon attacks still target AC... except when they make a sweep with their bardiche, in which case, it targets Reflex.
funin.space/compendium/monster/Phantom-Brigade-Armiger.html
Okay, sensible enough. Maybe this phantom's weapons are still partly tangible.

Then we have a different phantom warrior, whose blade swipes at Reflex instead.
funin.space/compendium/monster/Phantom-Warrior.html
Maybe... this one's weapon is less tangible than the other phantom's?

And of course, we have a different spooky whose phantasmal weapon targets... Fortitude.
funin.space/compendium/monster/Sovereign-Wraith.html
Really? It is impossible to dodge this wraith's weapons; one can only physically resist it?

At least in 3.X/Pathfinder, if your character has a high AC and either Ghost Touch armor or Mage Armor/Inertial Armor, you can be secure in the knowledge that you should be well-protected against intangible undead attempting to caress you. In 4e? No, you can expect nothing consistent for what defenses what monsters target.

Never mind that this completely and irreparably screws over defender classes, who were built to have only above-average AC and ever so slightly-higher non-AC defenses. Defenders are all good and competent when the enemies mindlessly hack away at AC, but when the writers suddenly decide to target Fortitude, Reflex, or Will, the party's defender may as well go home.

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I think you are being too literal and not imaginative enough. But in general it boils down to having to select 1 defense instead of 2 or more like in 3.x spells.

>A little strange; why is this ooze completely undodgeable?

The idea is that there's nothing to dodge really, it enters your space and sticks to you.

>Now we are getting a little strange. This kiss is completely unavoidable, physically?

The kiss is unavoidable once your Will is hit. It's part of the attack, not the entirety of the attack. In fact, there may not even be a physical element at all; it's called "Passion's Kiss" and passion isn't a physical thing, so it is at least a bit metaphorical.

>Because, apparently, it becomes irresistible, but it also slows down enough to be dodgeable?

Thunderwave is instant, Thunderlance has travel time.

What is the definition of "psychic damage"? According to page 114 of the Rules Compendium:
>Psychic: Effects that target the mind.

A su alpha's howl is a psychic scream that tests the Will and deals psychic damage.
funin.space/compendium/monster/Su-Alpha.html
Perfectly easy to conceptualize.

Here, however, we have a cambion whose scream targets Fortitude, yet deals psychic damage.
funin.space/compendium/monster/Chained-Cambion.html
So now, a high-Strength character's muscles are protecting their mind from a psychic assault.

And, going in the opposite direction, here we have a wilden whose geokinetic assault contends with Will:
funin.space/compendium/monster/Wilden-Ancient.html
Because sometimes, when the earth is quaking all around you, all you really need to do is give it a stern glance with all your willpower?

These monsters are all from the same book!

This would not be so bad if it was just a matter of flavor. However, it is *not* a matter of flavor. There is no mechanical rhyme or reason to what kinds of attacks each character is good at defending against, and what kind of attacks each character is bad at defending against.

In one encounter, a Charisma/Wisdom paladin valiantly holds the line against a legion of insubstantial undead, because those incorporeal undead's weapons target AC.

In the very next room, the paladin is confronted with another group of insubstantial undead, and this time, the paladin completely crumples and dies. Why? Because, *purely for flavor reasons*, the writer of these specific insubstantial undead decided that their weapons should target Fortitude instead.

What kind of game balance is that?

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That Paladin obviously didn't pick up Pure Devotion

>What kind of game balance is that?

I agree with you, it is something I'm trying to fix in my homebrew.

Is there a 3.5 pastebin?

>level 5

Does anyone here have any idea how broken monster themes are? This is the territory of "every monster gains a free, powerful attack power and utility power," some of which are strong stuff. No effective level increase, no XP increase, nothing. They are free.

Some of the Living Forgotten Realms year 3+ adventures used them!

The Dungeon Master's Guide 2 prescribes giving minions an on-death, ranged dominate power! And they can have an action point on top of that! No, really!

Attached: Monster Themes.png (443x1061, 633K)

Since the Dungeon Master's Guide 2 specifically prescribes giving that on-death dominate power to minions, you could have a gang of level 1 dwarf warriors who spread out and hammer PCs with ranged 30 crossbow attacks that deal 4 damage each, or 6 damage if the PC lacks cover.

funin.space/compendium/monster/Dwarf-Warrior.html

On death, each minion sends forth a ranged 20 attack that dominates a PC.

They also each have an action point.

Monster themes are quite silly.

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As another example of 4e defense logic, silt runner darters normally target AC with their blowguns... unless they fire a poisoned dart, which goes against Fortitude instead, because their aim is 100% unerring.
funin.space/compendium/monster/Silt-Runner-Darter.html
I suppose they can muster up a perfect shot once per encounter?

The same logic applies to jungle chieftains.
funin.space/compendium/monster/Jungle-Chieftain.html
At least it is consistent in that sense.

Of course, Bogtangle Dart is also a poisoned dart, and yet it goes against regular AC anyway.
funin.space/compendium/power/Bogtangle-Dart.html
Perhaps the poison is irresistible, but the dart still has to go through armor?

And then we have Precision Dart, which flies with "unerring accuracy," except that it is not unerring, because it targets Reflex. If it was truly unerring, then it would target Fortitude instead.
funin.space/compendium/power/Precision-Dart.html
Okay; maybe the point is simply to ignore armor?

I suppose the same reasoning applies to Stinging Shot, which similarly targets Reflex...
funin.space/compendium/power/Stinging-Shot.html
Perhaps the "sensitive area" this power aims for is unprotected by armor.

Then, with Crippling Needle, we are back to targeting AC anyway.
funin.space/compendium/power/Crippling-Needle.html
Maybe the "pressure point" is, in fact, protected by armor?

Can there be no consistency in something as basic as flinging a needle at someone?

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ITT: 2hu doesn't understand abstractions.
I kinda miss the FOE GYG guy from the other thread.

2hu never understood abstractions. That's why we're glad he got the fuck out of PF finally.

2hu was with 4e since 2008.

>I suppose they can muster up a perfect shot once per encounter?

This is not out of the ordinary or contrary to 4e's logic. Having encounter powers at all means that you have some level of narrative control. Deciding when you "hit" with a power that can be otherwise resisted fits that.

Also, this goes back to the "we only roll against one defense, not two" thing 4e is doing.

He visited PF for a long time and ruined several playtests with his over-advising insanity. He also ran his own "playtests" and completely ignored the idea that 'average' characters should fight 'average' monsters to get an idea of how non-optimal play might happen for ordinary people.

He's an idiot savant, heavy on the idiot.

What defense any given monster power or PC power targets is purely up to whatever the writer thought was fluff-appropriate.

The issue is that this flavor decision bleeds into very serious mechanical consequences. 4e PCs tend to have enormous rifts between their strong non-AC defenses and their weak non-AC defenses, especially in the case of those whose class bonuses simply fortify a high defense, like a cleric's +2 Will, a fighter's +2 Fortitude, or a rogue's +2 Reflex.

Therefore, it is very possible to have a situation wherein in one encounter, a Charisma/Wisdom paladin valiantly holds the line against a legion of insubstantial undead, because those incorporeal undead's weapons target AC.

In the very next room, the paladin is confronted with another group of insubstantial undead, and this time, the paladin completely crumples and dies. Why? Because, *purely for flavor reasons*, the writer of these specific insubstantial undead decided that their weapons should target Fortitude instead.

3.X/Pathfinder was significantly more consistent about what sort of attacks targeted which non-AC defenses, and that is something I think 4e could have been more consistent on as well.

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>ghosts example

The writer for the Room 1 ghosts did a mistake. If they are incorporeal, so should be their weapons, unless this is some sort of "ghosts in animated armor" situation, in which case the difference of results with room 2 makes sense. Overall, a writer making a mistake shouldn't mean that the system is inherently inconsistent.

>3.X/Pathfinder was significantly more consistent about what sort of attacks targeted which non-AC defenses, and that is something I think 4e could have been more consistent on as well.

3.X has the luxury of having a slightly more complicated, often 2 step attack/save system, so you don't get the dart situation where you need to decide if a poison dart hits either AC or Fort, and can't hit both.

Also, don't conflate the issues with save disparity; yes, it's pretty bad how huge an effect it can have, but that's an entirely separate thing that doesn't really matter for the sake of your original argument (and 3.X/PF is also guilty of anyway, so it's not even really a point in favor for them even if it was).

What do you mean by "non-optimal"?

Because while I could understand it being a problem if it was all for tier 2 or higher classes. But Pathfinder is a game where the biggest attraction to the system is a giant pile of rules and character options for you to go nuts in, so assuming a game with no optimization at all is just silly

Rewriting the monsters to be optimized as well kind of defeats the purpose of playtesting. It skews the results.

Are we talking about playtesting modules or playtesting character options here?

The second one.

Playtesting character classes. So naturally he ignorted everything except the absolute most optimal build.

... so what, are you supposed to pick abilities at random? Stress testing is an entirely valid way to test things _especially_ if an option looks suspect.

2hu, who can speak for himself so don't take my word. Has read a lot of systems.

He's not very good at judging systems by what he reads, but he's still got a lot of the knowledge from reading them.

It's actually been really frustrating talking with him over the years, because he doesn't understand equal but different options and trade-offs well. a.k.a. one character good at X, bad at Y, while another is good at Y, bad at X.

That seems reasonable. Playtesting exists to see if something is broken, if the most optimal possible build for it is broken, then the entire thing is broken.

Then why does he spend so much time with 4e? One of 4e's main strengths is being so good at exactly that

I like 4e, so I am not going to say why he likes 4e because that would be rude to the thread. Which for some reason is still discussing pathfinder?

This quoted post is stupid. Don't give it further (You)s because it is hilariously dumb hyperbole when looking at the breadth of options in an RPG.