D&D 4E General /4eg/

>someone explain please

Eh, it's not _really_ necessary to give free expertise, but it originally became common practice to give out versatile expertise as a free feat because it was both usually the best feat to take at level 1 or 2 (the "level 2" cases are when a particular character has a racial weapon training feat usually), but incredibly boring because it was just +1 attack when you took it. They then printed better, slightly less boring, not-versatile versions of versatile expertise but the practice of one of them staying a free bonus stayed intact due to a combination of inertia and because the secondary impact of the better expertises was usually only worth about half a feat.

Free Melee Training for melee classes without STR or MBA at-wills is mostly to encourage players to play straight-classed characters rather than be half-elves or half-warlocks so that they have a better opportunity attack.

To explain slightly further: 4e assumes attack bonuses rise by 1/level on average. Originally however, there was a gap at levels ending in 5 such that you fell behind by a point in the upper half of each tier. To solve this they printed "+1/2/3 feat bonus to attack with _____" feats and just assumed everyone would take one, but that solution equates to draining one feat slot from every character.

>half-warlocks
I dont allow multiclassing

Sounds like something wizards would do.

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dmg42.blogspot.ca/2012/03/damage-adjustment-follow-up-nightmare.html

>I dont allow multiclassing

wut

>wut
Allows to much niggery diggery in 4e especially I've found. But it's been fucking years so maybe i'll allow it once i reread the rules.

Yeah, your attack bonus needs to go up by 29 points by level 30 just to keep pace.
+15 from the 1/2 lvl bonus
+6 from enhancement bonus on your weapon/implement
+5 from from your ability score boosts (8 points from level, 2 more from epic destiny)
=+26, so you're 3 points short, making expertise the natural fit.

Of course there's still the other number gap problem when you have three defenses (Fort/Ref/Will) and only boost 2 ability scores so your third falls behind (unless you're the poor sod with Str/Con, Dex/Int or Wis/Cha as your primary/secondary pairs, in which case you only have one not-shit defense by epic).

Personally, I'm fond of letting people get three stat-ups wherever they'd get two (lvls 4/8/14/18/24/28, plus epic destinies and racial bonuses) and letting people take whatever bonuses they want for their racials. Also let the redundant classes (Str/Con, Dex/Int, Wis/Cha) use their secondary for a different defense, though that's harder to put in the builder.

Plus make sure everyone gets at least 4 trained skills and can swap the stats on two of them so they can actually do something other than "welp, I'm Str/Con so I can lift things or run marathons and that's it".

I suspect the design intent was that players would split their secondary stats up more and have one good defense + improved defenses, rather than two good defenses and a gaping hole.

again, wut. The hybrid system is extremely well-balanced as long as the player makes their stats match up (I once saw a newbie bring a Fighter|Wizard with no stat higher than 15, so maybe keep hybrids away from that guy) and multiclassing in general is just feats with minor benefits.

Banning multiclassing is going to make a lot of classes have 0-1 good paragon path options while preventing like... 2 corner-cases that you can just prohibit directly.

How do I make the most weeb character? Preferably, having access to weeb shit from the get-go or at least in early heroic. I'm thinking Avenger/Swordmage for literal *teleports behind you* and big weapons.

You'll have to refluff a Githzerai as some sort of anime chick to make it work. iirc they share having no noses, at least.

>Feats
Other anons have explained it well but basically Expertises are there to fill the gap in the linear progression. IMHO the last batch of them, the ones with additional effects on top of the attack bonus, are so good that people would take them anyway, and there isn't a ton of interesting options for most characters, so it's not necessary to hand them out for free. But that depends on how generous a DM you are. Giving out melee training for free is overkill though.

>Monster Math
This is a bit of a meme, in the sense that if you check the books the difference is a lot smaller than most people think. The things to keep in mind are
- increase damage, a quick fix is +monster level to damage rolls
- reduce solo HPs by 1/5 (or more, to taste)
That's all for the math, but keep in mind that some older monsters are just boring. Avoid monsters whose statblock is made of just basic attacks with no effect or with repeatable stuns (dracolich I'm looking at you).

>Skill challenges
We've been over this a couple threads ago but not everyone agrees on the fact that you should keep them hidden. The best thing is to try out things with your group and see what works best.

Well, the first session of my 4e campaign was a complete trainwreck.

As it turns out, designing a balanced combat encounter in 4e is really quite difficult.

funin.space/compendium/monster/Evisalyth.html

I thought that this monster was very strong for its level and role, but it was much stronger than expected, especially when backed up by...

funin.space/compendium/monster/Eladrin-Mirage-Adept.html
funin.space/compendium/monster/Tridrone-Watcher.html

The party's ranger "died" (a house rule to take PCs out of battle rather than kill them) before they could act due to a very unfortunate series of rolls, including some monster critical hits, and everything went downhill for the level 10 party from there.

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>As it turns out, designing a balanced combat encounter in 4e is really quite difficult.

It's almost as if number crunching alone won't get you anywhere

Eladrin Warlock|Ardent MC Swordmage. Pick up Sorcerer King as your pact. Mindbite Scorn, Eldritch Strike+Ire Strike, Eladrin Swordmage Advance, those two feats which recharge Fey Step, Ilyabruen Guardian.
>curse target
>use the power of friendship
>*teleports behind you*
>interdimensional slash
>repeat for another two turns

But numbers are the problem.

>level 10

I was expecting this to be the problem, since a "level+2" monster at 9 or 10 tends to be the hardest corner case in the game due to the large upgrade in available effects entering paragon, but it looks like it's just that you're exploiting perfect DM knowledge against players who have only mediocre teamwork. again. as always.

I made it a policy to hand out full monster statistics in this campaign, and make Arcana, Dungeoneering, Nature, and Religion in different ways. The players did, in fact, receive the full encounter sheet including a comprehensive guide to all terrain and monster statistics.

>since a "level+2" monster at 9 or 10
What are you referring to? Evisalyth is a level 10 elite lurker. The eladrin mirage adept is a level 7 standard controller, and the tridrone watcher is a level 8 standard artillery.

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Yeah that doesn't solve the asymmetry for reasons that should be perfectly obvious.

The equivalent effect wouldn't be "the players know the enemies combine immobilization, blinding, and anti-ranged+melee effects", it would be "the players know the enemies combine immobilization, blinding, and anti-ranged+melee effects and therefore rebuild their entire party as AoE-based characters to mitigate."

I showed this encounter to three other people beforehand, all of which were fairly experienced with 4e and knew the party to be five level 10 characters.

They all agreed that the synergy was reasonable and not overwhelming.

Apparently, we were all wrong, and it did not help that the dice were on metaphorical fire for the enemies during the first round.

How much synergy is too synergy? I already make it a point to ignore monster themes and to ignore enemies that inflict stunned, dominated, petrified, unconscious, or removed from play.

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I have no idea, you're the only one who consistently has this problem.

THIS IS WHY WHITE ROOM THEORYCRAFT FUCKING DOES NOT WORK. rEAL PLAY =/= THEORYCRAFT OR MATHHAMMERING.

If I cannot rely on experienced 4e players and GMs to advise me, then that means that the only way to test out encounter balance is to play it out myself, which, of course, will produce skewed results.

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>has the same failure mode every campaign for 8 years
>"there's clearly no way to avoid this"

I mean, yes and no: It's not hard to theorycraft characters that work even better in practice than on paper, but it relies on having internalized enough actual play that your theory-room is no longer a grid over a white void.

>"there's clearly no way to avoid this"

Clearly, there is, yet I have been unable to uncover it.

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Are you running the simulation three times, once with maximum damage, once with average damage, and once with minimum damage the monsters do? I assume you are running the monsters as you usually do.
Also, sometimes the dice just go against you.

The issue with such a simulation would be that I cannot predict my players' tactics.

Ironically, I had been having far more success GMing about ~16 Pathfinder combats in a different campaign. Each of those battles was very close, yet the PCs still won. Only one of those battles failed to go according to plan. I did not even have to consult anyone for advice, or run any simulations. Perhaps it is because Pathfinder PCs and monsters are more predictable?

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On my end (one of the guys he consulted), one thing that's interesting is that there is no mention of terrain - I assumed that when doing so, there would be terrain placed strategically to help avoid it, as most of the time that's where it'd balance.

You were fucking retarded to think those monsters were balanced.

It's like you've got the GMing skills of a 6 year old.

>How weeaboo is your group?
Wonderfully western.

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What even is full weeb these days?

Tell us more about your group, user.

Do any of you guys use wishlists? Like have your players pick out a few items they want, then look at those when you're giving out rewards?

Absolutely. It makes my job as a GM so much easier.

What do you do when your players don't fill it out? Like I have one player who hasn't put down anything? Should I just decide, or should I penalize him and not give him anything so he has to buy his stuff?

Poke them to fill it out, just give them stuff that vaguely seems to fit until then. You don't need to go out of your way to punish them, they're already going to be receiving gear that's less directly suited to their preferences as a result.

>What do you do when your players don't fill it out?

nobody has ever complained about Iron Armbands of Power.

I mean, except a wizard maybe. but it's not hard to give them generically good shit either.

ask them what cool things they want.
tell them that if they don't at least give you that, then they are getting generic stuff they might not like.

Hey, I'm interested in collecting 4e's artwork, but I didn't want to clutter this thread, so I made my own:

Any anons feel like helping?

So, what was your favorite aspect of the 4e fluff, and why?

I have... whoa, way too many fluff bits to choose from.

Personally, I just like that it's not a ridiculous cluttered mess.

But there are individual things I like. I like the divide between eladrin as high elves and, well, elves as wood elves. I like the concept of the Primordials as the original creators of reality, fulfilling a role some equatable to Ymir or the Titans.

Alright.

Torog, both an awesome horror-show and a very interesting exploration of what divinity means and how the dynamics of the Everyone Else vs. Chaotic Evil cosmology work.

If I use the escalation die, should I still give out/allow the expertise feats, or does the bonus from the die fill that role?

wut. The escalation die is filling a role more like Combat Advantage if anything.

I use inherent bonuses, so that cuts half of the items, and the rest I pick for them, but I would have no problem in actually fulfilling a wish.

I love the eladrin cities that exist halfway on two worlds, each at a different condition. Opens up a lot of narrative space.

I use the escalation die and allow expertise but don't give it out for free. It's mostly a trick to speed up combat in rounds 4+.

>rounds 4+

OK, there are two questions here and I'm pretty sure they answer each other:
1. why is there even one round 4+ let alone "rounds" meeting that description
2. how does combat still need sped up after 4 rounds when everyone should be down to at-wills + dailies

You guys think that the several ways of stacking modifiers "is part" of 4e or it hinders play?

I'm working on a retroclone and trying to keep the tactical feel without the number crunching.

Thinking of an orc adjacent to a Fighter, on a rough terrain, inside an aura being hit by an AoE makes me feel the game shouldn't have that much book-keeping without losing the focus on positioning.

I've usually found that extreeeeme examples of modifier stacking like that are pretty rare. In general, it's solved by delegating the bookkeeping. If players want their auras or passive abilities counted, they should keep them in mind and be prepared to mention them.

Yeah, Monopoly rule basically: if you can't remember your ability exists it doesn't fucking count.

Give me a quick rundown on 4e
t. 3.pf peasant

Uses standardised formatting and a universal power structure to give every class a unique in combat playstyle with the distinct interactions between their features and choices of powers letting every character feel very different and bring different capabilities to play. Very much built around the idea of a team, it's almost impossible to build a self-sufficient character and kind of pointless to, relying on your allies is the name of the game.

A unique selling point for PC's is also Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies. They're sorta like prestige classes but you get them alongside your class progression rather than instead of it, giving you opportunities to further specialize your character or develop them in interesting flavourful ways, and a great many of them are seriously fucking awesome.

Condensed skill lists, out of combat spells mostly moved into Rituals to provide a more consistent toolset that a GM can control access to. Rituals RAW are kinda overcosted but handing out GP values of ritual components, rather than having them eat into permanent progression, makes them very fun. Every party should have at least one ritual caster, and having more isn't a bad thing.

On the GM side, pure bliss. Easy to use rules for both combat and non-combat encounters, well put together guidelines to help you and no wonky systems like CR to figure your way around. All you need is to hand out a free Expertise feat (+1 to attack per tier) and Improved Defences (+1 to defence per tier) to each PC to fix the slightly wonky system math and use the MM3 monster math (pic related) and you're golden.

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It's D&D, except the martials have more stuff they can do while the casters have less stuff they can do. And classes have more focused roles that distinguish them from one another.

What makes 4e better than 5e? 1e?

None of these games are objectively better than the others.

I prefer 4e over the others simply because it manages to make nearly every class feel as viable and heroic as any other, and has a ton of great options both in regards to play and character customization.

'Better' is very much arguable, but it's a very different game and I can tell you why I prefer it, despite respecting what WotC achieved with the design of 5e.

4e is not a great beginners game for most people. For people coming from a background in wargames, board games or RPG/strategy video games, it's amazing, because the robust mechanical elements will give them something familiar to engage with as they get used to the idea of roleplaying.

People without that background, however, might well find the more complex and involved mechanics associated with combat and some non-combat aspects too much to take while they're still getting used to the basic ideas of an RPG, and some people might just not enjoy those elements, which is also fine.

Personally, 4e is what I always wanted D&D to be. A high power level, engaging tactical combat that gives everyone interesting options and very few granular finnicky rules to get in the way of playing badass fantasy heroes having awesome adventures, simply providing structures to support the GM.

In contrast, 5e is a very grounded game with simplified combat, some characters having almost no real choices to make, while its approach to mechanics is very vague and abstract relying on the GM to rule how it should work for his group, effectively creating the system as you play it in the way that works best for you.

Having learned and run so many games by this point, as a GM I prefer a system that supports me out of the box to run the kind of game it's suitable for. 4e is a much narrower game than 5e, it tells one kind of fantasy story and does it well, and that is exactly what I want from RPG's these days. Specialisation and focus that enables me as a GM to just focus on making a fun experience for my players rather than bodging the system into the right shape.

As a player, meanwhile, I like that I can choose any character concept and make it work without the system punishing me for it. There are so many options for characters that you can represent almost any character appropriate to the style of game it's going for, that is- Competent heroic adventurers who are capable in a fight.

There are a few dud classes and some missteps like Essentials, but the options that exist are good, and the mechanical clarity of the system is something that makes it really, really easy to reflavour and adapt things, keeping the mechanical structure intact but changing up the fluff to suit the character you want to play, and the system can handle this without difficulty.

The mechanical clarity really is worth mentioning. It's another opinion thing, but I'm so damn tired of 'natural language' rulebooks that embed rules in between chunks of fluff and fail to clearly delineate or properly define anything. I get that some people like RPG books to be all flavourful and fuzzy but I've read so many RPG books, and that feeling doesn't last. The first time I read a book, I'll enjoy being immersed in its flavour. The next hundred times, I'll be wanting to reference a rule or figure out how something works, and given how much I get out of both sides, I'll take a cold, clinical, technical reference manual any day.

Not that I think 4e was that, even if it's how people portray it. There's still plenty of flavour in the book, plenty of interesting fluff tidbits and things to inspire you, but first and foremost it's designed to be played.

>These 4e generally we've been getting lately are great! And they've been consistently up.
>Actually better than the ones we had when 4e was up and running.

Glad it took the death of this system to finally get some decent discussions going on. Holy fuck...

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The hate bandwagon has finally lost enough steam to let people actually talk about it, which is nice. They still crop up from time to time, but it's not a sure thing anymore.

-Great tactical, grid-based combat
-AEDU power system means every character is doing something cool/meaningful on every turn
-Rules are presented in a straightforward, uniform way. Good if you just want to know the rules or want to add in the fluff yourself (which the system very much encourages). Not so great if you prefer more flavorful rulebooks.
-Good balancing between classes and lack of trap options means that pretty much any character that you make will be at least serviceable.
-Large amount of content can be daunting to sift through, but the large amount of customization options and emphasis on refuffing make it possible to realize a large variety of characters.
-Good DM tools and the system overall is very DM-friendly.
-Combat tends towards the slow side. Not a great system if you're looking for quick fights or a large amount of small fights in a day.
-Minimal emphasis on simulationism. Probably best to avoid 4e if you value that.

Overall, I think 4e is a good, focused system. By design, it provides a very specific experience that being grid-based tactical heroic fantasy with a gamist/narrativist slant. I think it delivers on this premise better than any other system out there. If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, give it a try. If not, pass.

If the system is DM friendly then why is there one DM in this thread having trouble it in for 8 years?

I think it has more to do with more immediately available digital tools making it a lot more pleasant to deal with.

Man, 4e would've been so different if they managed to get the virtual tabletop elements of Insider of the ground.

Very much speaking of which, is anyone ___Else__ running a game that wants new people?
Asked last thread and got so far as finding a group and making a character, but at an impossible timezone for me.

Mildly related:
Was there ever any polls or anything on whats the most popular roles?
Like, or questions of like what makes you pick a class, the abilities or the role it's classified as.
I really like Defenders myself, but I'm curious on how much striker's popularity in particular exceeds the other 3.

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Probably more to do with the GM than the system, or possibly what they're trying to do with it.

Because he's a massive autist who can't into human interaction.

autism

What's he doing wrong?

If it's THF, likely it's that he's playing the monsters 100% optimally after building already difficult encounters for players not as skilled in such things as he is.

That's more of a general GMing thing than a 4e specific thing, though. Some groups want a super difficult mechanical challenge, others want a more casual experience where they can take actions that look awesome or feel favourful rather than always doing the 100% most effective thing, and 4e works just as well as a system for creating fun, cinematic fight scenes as it does for super challenging tactical combat. The trouble is when the GM wants one and the group wants the other, it doesn't mesh.

Expecting mathematical balance from rpgs. The designers design from excel worksheets and formula at best, they don’t test all interactions or accurately judge the effects of terrain or initial relative positions.

But 4e is pretty well mathematically balanced. The GM still needs to put some work into encounter building, but what the system tells you and the guidelines it gives are generally accurate.

What they can't control, however, is player and GM expectations, whether the GM plays the monsters perfectly or not and whether the players are skilled enough, or simply interested enough in that kind of gameplay, to keep it together.

>How weeaboo is your group?

none? no animu portraits allowed

Touhoufag basically claims to lack free will, and then that he doesn't understand why people are mad at him for his actions.

As a result he does asinine shit like choose to have monsters stand around the unconscious ranger waiting to kill him again when he gets healed, then not understand why the players are pissed since he thinks he "solved" the lethality problem by creating some condescending bullshit mechanic where your character won't actually die permanently when he murders them.

This is basically the disconnect in action, exacerbated by a lack of self awareness.

It's not that there are any innately wrong approaches, but there are approaches that are wrong for a specific context. Having enemies act like perfectly efficient, super coordinated gamepieces is great for some groups, but others would prefer their actions to be more rooted in in universe logic, while others want them to just be fun enemies to fight, with actions more like the enemies in a movie fight scene.

perhaps, how do you feel about games being around 10 PM to midnight mountain standard time? thinking Dark Sun

1. Occasionally combat goes that long because not everyone is 2hu
2. You answered your own question

Works great when fighting warforged or Inevitables

He explains that the natives are raiding them because of some artifact that the natives claim they stole, called the “Dirk of Death”. The four heroes, being the good guys that they are, offer to search for the Dirk of Death and give them to the natives so that they would stop the raids. Muharib thanks them, but tells them that they’re already packing up to go north to Selorong because their resources have been depleted.

And that was the end of the fourth session. So far we've had seven, so once I finish the rest of my campaign notes I can storytime them here.

Anyway time for some character sketches (as of Session 4):

Lucio, a Level 4 Al-Kaigian (Half-Elf) Shaper Psion Noble Adept, who uses his Will to project his reality upon reality. Mindless sigils appear when he manipulates reality. 18. Shaved head. Deserter from the Al-Kaigian Military. He and Zhu Qan (companion NPC) are going to Ufrayd mostly because Zhu Qan wants to expand his mercantile business.

Galura, a Level 4 Human Infernal Pact Warlock Seer, who uses the power he gained from bargaining with a some secret Chained God. He is big on flames and uses blood for a lot of of his rituals. Very smart and knowledge hungry. He is on the way to Ufrayd for more knowledge, usually, but also to chase after Sui-dapa, the God of Death, who is apparently there (he believes the God he made a deal with is Sui-dapa).

Bran, a Level 4 Human Fighter Gladiator, who was actually taken as a slave by one of the Al-Kaigian colonizers, and then turned into an arena fighter, and then bought back by Cavila (the woman from the first session). Bran, now thankful for a second chance and a way to return to his homeland of Lakungdula, now wants to go to Ufrayd to get the remedy there that will be able to heal Cavila completely.

Zhu Qan is a companion NPC, but he's a rian (four-armed Dragonborn) Artificer and Lucio's best friend (Lucio has built up an attachment to the rian you see.)

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In this game, I have a 1,040-word document detailing exactly what players should expect from combat in my games, although it is apparently insufficient to set expectations all the same.

>As a result he does asinine shit like choose to have monsters stand around the unconscious ranger waiting to kill him again when he gets healed

Oh, no, during the first round, Evisalyth spent an action point. Her first attack brought the already-damaged and blinded ranger to around 19 or 20 HP. Then her second attack landed a critical hit for 54 damage. This tipped the conscious ranger into negative bloodied value, -34 HP.

funin.space/compendium/monster/Evisalyth.html

Our new dicebot was very vindictive against the ranger, who was already suffering from poor luck against them.

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>In this game, I have a 1,040-word document detailing exactly what players should expect from combat in my games

Oh yeah? I'd love to read it.

>In this game, I have a 1,040-word document detailing exactly what players should expect from combat in my games, although it is apparently insufficient to set expectations all the same.
Holy shit TH. As a fellow Veeky Forums-based online-4e-DM, might I suggest simply talking to your players, and explaining it qualitatively and informally, rather than trying to codify it? That's worked out brilliantly so far for me, and other than one player who didn't mesh with the playstyle of the group to begin with, everyone's gone away fairly satisfied.

A good way to do it would be to group the bonuses up in some shape or form. CA was an attempt at this on the system level, it's just that after that they went ahead and made a zillion little things on the feat/power level.

Where can i get more info on Torog?

That sounds perfect, fellow AKfag.
I've also never played dark sun and really want to.

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The Underdark sourcebook for 4e (not to be confused with the 3e Realms sourcebook of the same name) is pretty much everything you need to know, but he had an expanded deity writeup in Dungeon Magazine #177. His divine tenets and basic info are in the 4e DMG 1.

Very cool.

discord.gg/waFBbv

It went on hiatus after a friend's scheduling troubles but I could also never find *anyone* up for playing 4e before me and my 3 4e friends.

Underdark for one.

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After a little editing for public viewing, here it is.

pastebin.com/r48wnrPc

I do talk to players, but I am apparently poor at talking to them if I cannot get a message across.

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Interesting at any rate.

>pastebin.com/r48wnrPc

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