Pantagruelian Pigeon (A to Z Challenge)
2 hours ago
Friday, November 19, 2010
Public Service Announcement.
So, the oft-mentioned B-- also known as Shieldhaven-- has begun his own gaming blog. So I invite you to persuse Harbinger of Doom, a repository for the depth and breadth of his remarkable and boundless wisdom in the realm of all things games and gaming. His insights and observations-- not to mention rapier wit-- will delight and amuse you. Allons-y!
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Semi-weekly maunderings.
So today is (likely) B's Game, meaning that there's been one episode of the same, a Chessenta game, and an Eberron Game since the last time I posted on tabletop. Also a session of mine. And yet, my thoughts on such are all that is scattered and lame. But.
A thing to which I wish to give more thought-- probably aided by intense scrutiny of the monster manuals-- is keeping controllers alive. In my last game, I wound up doubling an encounter because (though they had very good plot reasons to do so), the players pretty much alpha struck the Controller before she could do any of the cool things she could have done to wreck them. On the one hand, this is good-- do the players really need to know how awful the controller's stuff is? This being something that my players ran into in their very first encounter, when they let the Goblin Hexer hang out and do horrible things to them through its allies. Alpha striking necromancers = absolutely the right thing to do.
On the other hand, there's something... I dunno, weak? About the alpha strike being too easy to pull off. There's a balance there, or a right set of additional baddies that are just nasty enough to protect the Controller by drawing off aggro, without just rolling the party hard. As last weekend's LARP reminded me-- if the GM wants dead players, they can always have them. It's not that hard. What's hard is live PCs who feel like they were actually at risk of dying horribly.
Anyway, it's a lowby something to think about, but something I am thinking about RightNowThisMinute.
A thing to which I wish to give more thought-- probably aided by intense scrutiny of the monster manuals-- is keeping controllers alive. In my last game, I wound up doubling an encounter because (though they had very good plot reasons to do so), the players pretty much alpha struck the Controller before she could do any of the cool things she could have done to wreck them. On the one hand, this is good-- do the players really need to know how awful the controller's stuff is? This being something that my players ran into in their very first encounter, when they let the Goblin Hexer hang out and do horrible things to them through its allies. Alpha striking necromancers = absolutely the right thing to do.
On the other hand, there's something... I dunno, weak? About the alpha strike being too easy to pull off. There's a balance there, or a right set of additional baddies that are just nasty enough to protect the Controller by drawing off aggro, without just rolling the party hard. As last weekend's LARP reminded me-- if the GM wants dead players, they can always have them. It's not that hard. What's hard is live PCs who feel like they were actually at risk of dying horribly.
Anyway, it's a lowby something to think about, but something I am thinking about RightNowThisMinute.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Running around in the woods beating up your friends with foam weaponry.
So, I've some maunderings about wandering monsters and 4e that I haven't yet put into coherent form, but nu, the main thing that has been occupying my time of late has been boffer LARPing, which, as you may recall, is a Thing That I Do. It is perhaps the very breath of the obvious to say that woah, this kind of game is Completely Different from tabletop-- frequently, the things that you can get away with plotwise and characterwise in one would simply not work in the other. Now, admittedly, I am very spoiled when it comes to LARPing-- I never played Old School NERO, and the joys of counting down, as a monster, from 250 by seventees are largely unknown to me. But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. Lemme 'splain.
The two games in which I play (King's Gate and Eclipse) and the game that I shall be helping to run (Dust to Dust) are what are known as a) Hit Location Systems and b) SI/Chimera style.
Hit Location means that there is no concept of 'body', or ever upward spiralling hit points, that eventually reach 0, killing you. Through magic, a pc may have 'skins', usually not more than 5, that work about the same way, exceptional cases in really high build games may have 8. You can also have protectives like 'wards', 'resists', and 'shields' that block single attacks. NPCs have 'toughness', which /is/ like Hit Points in that it can be healed, though once again, this is usually a fairly low number-- 10 is a really beefy monster, even several years into a campaign. Compare with Nero/Solar style, Hit Point games, where one may have as many as 100 HP as they advance in level. I'll get to level in a minute.
Also, all one-handed weapons swing a base of 1, 2-handed weapons swing a base of 2, if you are trying to use a 3-handed weapon get the fuck off my site. This can be increased temporarily (usually 3 swings a combat) through wounding blows (a plus to damage, implying martial skilll) or strength effects. Base damage does not increase, and you never have to call damage for a base swing with a one-handed weapon. You should call '2' for a base swing with a 2-hander.
The other difference is that in Hit Location, well... where you hit the person matters. After you've blown through all the protectives you might have, you start taking wounds. A wound renders a location useless. You can take a wound to each leg and each arm, and also the torso. A torso wound renders you unconcious, at which point you have 5 minutes to be stabilized or healed, or you bleed out.
Now, the SI/Chimera difference. In NERO, you have levels and classes. In SI/Chimera, you have neither, exactly. You have build, which you get as a blanket after an event, which you may spend on various skills. Some skills lock out others, but this means that you can be a fighter and caster, and indeed, most people one would think of as primarily brute fighters have some kind of magic/psionics. You may advance in level in specific skills, but your character doesn't have 'level', like in D&D. What you have is a build total, which gives a rough idea of how many skills you may have purchased.
Further, you do not have 'mans', or lives, or souls, or whatever. When a character dies, the death is logged with plot, and the other characters attempt to ressurect them by whatever means makes sense in world. This may or may not succeed-- a fate is drawn from a specially made-up deck of cards, and bad cards = a permenant death. NPC the rest of the event, and roll up a new character. Yes, this means that you can perm on your second death or so-- usually you cannot perm on your first draw. However, you /can/ perm your first death-- if you were to remain dead, say, past sunrise or sunset, which are the in-game markers for when dead spirits leave the world.
NPCs, of course, do not work this way-- generally if you are killing blowed, you are ded. Fortunately, you can ressurect at a spawn point and get your crunchy killing on as much as you like.
Everything beyond that is pretty much flavour of the individual game, though there's some standards for magic that are /usually/ true, like having a single mana pool, and damage causing spells being called darts (1pt), arrows (2pts), lances (1 wound), blasts (1 wound to every location), and infernos (you are ash, everything you are carrying takes a destroy effect). LARP magic is handled typically by throwing packets-- cloth bundles full of birdseed-- or through voice and point effects. Most spells have multi-syllable verbals, where the length of the verbal indicates the strength of the spell.
Which is my basic-- very basic, leaving out a ton of stuff-- run down of Boffer LARP combat. I shall actually venture opinions of various topics LARP related anon, but felt that a basic overview of what I mean when I am talking about LARP things may yet prove useful. To someone. At some point.
The two games in which I play (King's Gate and Eclipse) and the game that I shall be helping to run (Dust to Dust) are what are known as a) Hit Location Systems and b) SI/Chimera style.
Hit Location means that there is no concept of 'body', or ever upward spiralling hit points, that eventually reach 0, killing you. Through magic, a pc may have 'skins', usually not more than 5, that work about the same way, exceptional cases in really high build games may have 8. You can also have protectives like 'wards', 'resists', and 'shields' that block single attacks. NPCs have 'toughness', which /is/ like Hit Points in that it can be healed, though once again, this is usually a fairly low number-- 10 is a really beefy monster, even several years into a campaign. Compare with Nero/Solar style, Hit Point games, where one may have as many as 100 HP as they advance in level. I'll get to level in a minute.
Also, all one-handed weapons swing a base of 1, 2-handed weapons swing a base of 2, if you are trying to use a 3-handed weapon get the fuck off my site. This can be increased temporarily (usually 3 swings a combat) through wounding blows (a plus to damage, implying martial skilll) or strength effects. Base damage does not increase, and you never have to call damage for a base swing with a one-handed weapon. You should call '2' for a base swing with a 2-hander.
The other difference is that in Hit Location, well... where you hit the person matters. After you've blown through all the protectives you might have, you start taking wounds. A wound renders a location useless. You can take a wound to each leg and each arm, and also the torso. A torso wound renders you unconcious, at which point you have 5 minutes to be stabilized or healed, or you bleed out.
Now, the SI/Chimera difference. In NERO, you have levels and classes. In SI/Chimera, you have neither, exactly. You have build, which you get as a blanket after an event, which you may spend on various skills. Some skills lock out others, but this means that you can be a fighter and caster, and indeed, most people one would think of as primarily brute fighters have some kind of magic/psionics. You may advance in level in specific skills, but your character doesn't have 'level', like in D&D. What you have is a build total, which gives a rough idea of how many skills you may have purchased.
Further, you do not have 'mans', or lives, or souls, or whatever. When a character dies, the death is logged with plot, and the other characters attempt to ressurect them by whatever means makes sense in world. This may or may not succeed-- a fate is drawn from a specially made-up deck of cards, and bad cards = a permenant death. NPC the rest of the event, and roll up a new character. Yes, this means that you can perm on your second death or so-- usually you cannot perm on your first draw. However, you /can/ perm your first death-- if you were to remain dead, say, past sunrise or sunset, which are the in-game markers for when dead spirits leave the world.
NPCs, of course, do not work this way-- generally if you are killing blowed, you are ded. Fortunately, you can ressurect at a spawn point and get your crunchy killing on as much as you like.
Everything beyond that is pretty much flavour of the individual game, though there's some standards for magic that are /usually/ true, like having a single mana pool, and damage causing spells being called darts (1pt), arrows (2pts), lances (1 wound), blasts (1 wound to every location), and infernos (you are ash, everything you are carrying takes a destroy effect). LARP magic is handled typically by throwing packets-- cloth bundles full of birdseed-- or through voice and point effects. Most spells have multi-syllable verbals, where the length of the verbal indicates the strength of the spell.
Which is my basic-- very basic, leaving out a ton of stuff-- run down of Boffer LARP combat. I shall actually venture opinions of various topics LARP related anon, but felt that a basic overview of what I mean when I am talking about LARP things may yet prove useful. To someone. At some point.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Are We Having Fun Yet?: The Mirror of Life Trapping.
After the last session of my game, it occurred to me that there were a few things that had happened that I don't think I could have pulled off in my other gaming groups. I am going to see if I can phrase this without giving away any of the things my party did not figure out, as they could still do some stuff in this room. But nu.
Lemme 'splain.
Basically, in one of the rooms there is a mirror of life trapping which, in order for there to be any real intrest or immediacy to the adventure, requires that one of the PCs fall into it, whereupon they are stuck in a small black room with no doors, and only one window-- to the room where they just were, where they can see and hear their party members, but cannot interact with them. Generally, they can't do anything now but wait until the party rescues them. This could potentially go very badly as more members of the party get trapped, which, after the first one, releases one random creature that had been previously trapped in the mirror.
If you are a gamer like my usual team, you are probably thinking, "Oh man, if that happened to my pc, I'd be so pissed off! I might walk out of the session. Sitting there trapped with nothing to do is not my idea of a good time. That would hugely suck. I feel so lame."
And you'd have a valid point. I have gotten hugely upset myself in the AE game upon falling unconcious, when, since I was all but out of spells, waking me up while the combat was going on would have been a serious waste of party time. That's right, I'm sitting there with nothing to do because, the way combat is structured, to do so would be sapping valuable rounds in which damage could be done, because there's no way to heal and do damage on a single turn, and AE doesn't really (as far as I know) have dedicated healers, unless, say, you went hardcore mage on nothing but the Positive Energy Template. But I digress. Being locked out of the action is no fun, and I can't deny that.
Nonethless, the players I have run through this have all really liked it (in the interest of full disclosure, the second time, I trapped a player who was going to be missing the session), and I am going through this here in part to try to suss out why, and also to justify why I thought this was a good idea in the first place. Anyway, here's the skinny on what justifications I can think of for why this might not just innately suck:
1) the puzzle /is/ avoidable.
The first two times, run in 2e and in 3.5e, you had a dex check to avoid looking in the mirror, and a will save if you did look. When I ran it just now in 4e, I had skill checks to avoid looking (with a bonus after the first party member got trapped, since they knew what it did), and the mirror made a +10 vs. Will attack (yes, against 1st level characters-- not looking is supposed to be the best way to avoid this) if you did look into it. After the first person got trapped, most of the party had no trouble keeping their eyes averted-- the Rogue kept covering it and uncovering it as they tried to get the Avenger out, flubbed one roll, and wound up getting caught also. Fortunately, by that time, they had figured out the keywords, and had no trouble getting the Avenger out. The Rogue... well, that's another story.
That said, if the whole party manages to avoid looking, you're fine. Also, when the party enters the room, I made a random roll to determine which of the 3 mirrors in the room (a heavily modified Mirror of Mental Prowess and a non-4e style Mirror of Opposition) is uncovered; the other two have cloths covering them. Which is a mixed blessing, as poking at the covered mirror may well get you trapped, when you don't know what's under there. But there are ways, such as utilizing the mirror of Mental Prowess, to figure out what is going on with the mirror and even solve the puzzle of it without a party member getting trapped-- if say, the party decides they want to free the other things that are trapped in the mirror.
Which brings us to...
2) There are multiple ways to solve the puzzle.
The first two times I ran this, the players solved it pretty much the same way, which was not even close to the way the 4e party solved it. Using the mirror of Mental Prowess (which worked kind of like an Infocom game in that you had to phrase things in very specific ways to get the results you wanted, but asking enough questions or even regular conversation where the mirror could 'hear' would eventually get you clues to help you out), the party figured out the passcodes to the Lifetrapping Mirror, and only wound up acidentally freeing one thing that was trapped beforehand-- and that one was friendly. There was another way they could have done it-- finding some other living thing (or the creature they'd released, an Orium Dragon Wyrmling) and forcing it to look in the mirror in hopes of releasing the party members randomly, and that option got discussed. Also, if they'd come up with something really neat, I'd probably have let that work. Actually-- well, here.
Because of a number of factors, one of which was that the Rogue was the one who had solved the puzzle of getting the passcodes in the first place, and had tricked the mirror of Mental Prowess into believing she was its master, I allowed the Rogue to make a skill check from inside the mirror to free herself. Doing so was narratively the right choice-- it served the drama of the scene, as for reasons of her own, the rogue bluffed the party into believing that they had actually freed her. One person made their insight roll and is now suspicious, which adds interest to the role play. On the other hand, I can't really claim that this choice was anything but DM Fiat, which topic ought to be another post entirely. But my thought, basically, is that in this case the players trust me enough to realise that if I see them not having fun with this, I am going to do my damdest to make sure they start having fun again as soon as possible. Also--(very tiny invocation of) rule of cool, which in this case is more, Rule-Of-Your-DM-Is-a-Narrativist. Which is yet another future post topic.
That said, I am curious about opinions as to whether this kind of thing is really too risky to run much-- I mean, overdoing the, "oh no, now you're trapped in something and have to be rescued" is no good, but on the other hand, dangers that aren't death seem like a kind of neat thing. Does it fall into the realm of, "This is Not Okay, and you should only do this if you want at least one PC to have a miserable session," "Naw, this puzzle is cool! Do it moar!" or "Well... run right, I guess this might be okay sometimes in moderation," as far as things that might actually ruin a game.
I suppose that part of the reason that I am wondering is because this is not a question I'd even ask myself in 3.x or earlier. I'd say, to any player that whined about it, "don't lawyer me, suck it up and deal. "Having played more 4e-- and just more, with more power-type gamers-- I worry about mechanics screwing things up a lot more, as I like the players knowing how the world works and how to use the tools they have to fix problems-- hence, my love of skill challenges. I've been very fortunate in having players that enjoyed 'stuck in a box' rp-- and man, the poor Avenger has been running foul of every trap in the dungeon, coz she doesn't like to check things out before she messes with them. Whoops. Anyway, I can't help worrying if this sort of puzzle is actually a Douchebag DM Trick(tm) that's squeaked by because I have players who have the patience for it and don't know better, or if it's really all right, and I've provided enough outs.
Anyway, tis something I am thinking about right now.
Also, I will add that this is something you should NEVER do in say, a LARP. Taking agency away from characters when they do not have the option to, you know, go get a snack or go to the bathroom or make snarky commentary around the table, and they have to be in character is a recipe for lameness all around. Also, your resources are very limited, so back up plans to salvage the situation are probably going to look even dumber. But LARP mechanics and Tabletop mechanics are two very, very different things. Well, obviously.
Yes, this is a reference to something that happened at Eclipse this weekend, though not to me. Still, it was a thing which reminded me that I wanted to make this post in the first place.
B's Game tomorrow, gaming schedule-wise. Delicious 12th level assassin antics.
Fun for all.
Lemme 'splain.
Basically, in one of the rooms there is a mirror of life trapping which, in order for there to be any real intrest or immediacy to the adventure, requires that one of the PCs fall into it, whereupon they are stuck in a small black room with no doors, and only one window-- to the room where they just were, where they can see and hear their party members, but cannot interact with them. Generally, they can't do anything now but wait until the party rescues them. This could potentially go very badly as more members of the party get trapped, which, after the first one, releases one random creature that had been previously trapped in the mirror.
If you are a gamer like my usual team, you are probably thinking, "Oh man, if that happened to my pc, I'd be so pissed off! I might walk out of the session. Sitting there trapped with nothing to do is not my idea of a good time. That would hugely suck. I feel so lame."
And you'd have a valid point. I have gotten hugely upset myself in the AE game upon falling unconcious, when, since I was all but out of spells, waking me up while the combat was going on would have been a serious waste of party time. That's right, I'm sitting there with nothing to do because, the way combat is structured, to do so would be sapping valuable rounds in which damage could be done, because there's no way to heal and do damage on a single turn, and AE doesn't really (as far as I know) have dedicated healers, unless, say, you went hardcore mage on nothing but the Positive Energy Template. But I digress. Being locked out of the action is no fun, and I can't deny that.
Nonethless, the players I have run through this have all really liked it (in the interest of full disclosure, the second time, I trapped a player who was going to be missing the session), and I am going through this here in part to try to suss out why, and also to justify why I thought this was a good idea in the first place. Anyway, here's the skinny on what justifications I can think of for why this might not just innately suck:
1) the puzzle /is/ avoidable.
The first two times, run in 2e and in 3.5e, you had a dex check to avoid looking in the mirror, and a will save if you did look. When I ran it just now in 4e, I had skill checks to avoid looking (with a bonus after the first party member got trapped, since they knew what it did), and the mirror made a +10 vs. Will attack (yes, against 1st level characters-- not looking is supposed to be the best way to avoid this) if you did look into it. After the first person got trapped, most of the party had no trouble keeping their eyes averted-- the Rogue kept covering it and uncovering it as they tried to get the Avenger out, flubbed one roll, and wound up getting caught also. Fortunately, by that time, they had figured out the keywords, and had no trouble getting the Avenger out. The Rogue... well, that's another story.
That said, if the whole party manages to avoid looking, you're fine. Also, when the party enters the room, I made a random roll to determine which of the 3 mirrors in the room (a heavily modified Mirror of Mental Prowess and a non-4e style Mirror of Opposition) is uncovered; the other two have cloths covering them. Which is a mixed blessing, as poking at the covered mirror may well get you trapped, when you don't know what's under there. But there are ways, such as utilizing the mirror of Mental Prowess, to figure out what is going on with the mirror and even solve the puzzle of it without a party member getting trapped-- if say, the party decides they want to free the other things that are trapped in the mirror.
Which brings us to...
2) There are multiple ways to solve the puzzle.
The first two times I ran this, the players solved it pretty much the same way, which was not even close to the way the 4e party solved it. Using the mirror of Mental Prowess (which worked kind of like an Infocom game in that you had to phrase things in very specific ways to get the results you wanted, but asking enough questions or even regular conversation where the mirror could 'hear' would eventually get you clues to help you out), the party figured out the passcodes to the Lifetrapping Mirror, and only wound up acidentally freeing one thing that was trapped beforehand-- and that one was friendly. There was another way they could have done it-- finding some other living thing (or the creature they'd released, an Orium Dragon Wyrmling) and forcing it to look in the mirror in hopes of releasing the party members randomly, and that option got discussed. Also, if they'd come up with something really neat, I'd probably have let that work. Actually-- well, here.
Because of a number of factors, one of which was that the Rogue was the one who had solved the puzzle of getting the passcodes in the first place, and had tricked the mirror of Mental Prowess into believing she was its master, I allowed the Rogue to make a skill check from inside the mirror to free herself. Doing so was narratively the right choice-- it served the drama of the scene, as for reasons of her own, the rogue bluffed the party into believing that they had actually freed her. One person made their insight roll and is now suspicious, which adds interest to the role play. On the other hand, I can't really claim that this choice was anything but DM Fiat, which topic ought to be another post entirely. But my thought, basically, is that in this case the players trust me enough to realise that if I see them not having fun with this, I am going to do my damdest to make sure they start having fun again as soon as possible. Also--(very tiny invocation of) rule of cool, which in this case is more, Rule-Of-Your-DM-Is-a-Narrativist. Which is yet another future post topic.
That said, I am curious about opinions as to whether this kind of thing is really too risky to run much-- I mean, overdoing the, "oh no, now you're trapped in something and have to be rescued" is no good, but on the other hand, dangers that aren't death seem like a kind of neat thing. Does it fall into the realm of, "This is Not Okay, and you should only do this if you want at least one PC to have a miserable session," "Naw, this puzzle is cool! Do it moar!" or "Well... run right, I guess this might be okay sometimes in moderation," as far as things that might actually ruin a game.
I suppose that part of the reason that I am wondering is because this is not a question I'd even ask myself in 3.x or earlier. I'd say, to any player that whined about it, "don't lawyer me, suck it up and deal. "Having played more 4e-- and just more, with more power-type gamers-- I worry about mechanics screwing things up a lot more, as I like the players knowing how the world works and how to use the tools they have to fix problems-- hence, my love of skill challenges. I've been very fortunate in having players that enjoyed 'stuck in a box' rp-- and man, the poor Avenger has been running foul of every trap in the dungeon, coz she doesn't like to check things out before she messes with them. Whoops. Anyway, I can't help worrying if this sort of puzzle is actually a Douchebag DM Trick(tm) that's squeaked by because I have players who have the patience for it and don't know better, or if it's really all right, and I've provided enough outs.
Anyway, tis something I am thinking about right now.
Also, I will add that this is something you should NEVER do in say, a LARP. Taking agency away from characters when they do not have the option to, you know, go get a snack or go to the bathroom or make snarky commentary around the table, and they have to be in character is a recipe for lameness all around. Also, your resources are very limited, so back up plans to salvage the situation are probably going to look even dumber. But LARP mechanics and Tabletop mechanics are two very, very different things. Well, obviously.
Yes, this is a reference to something that happened at Eclipse this weekend, though not to me. Still, it was a thing which reminded me that I wanted to make this post in the first place.
B's Game tomorrow, gaming schedule-wise. Delicious 12th level assassin antics.
Fun for all.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Indecent Indexes.
For ease of reference, I shall list the recurring games in which I am participating, of all genres. Coz otherwise... ja, confusing.
4e
LARPs
Also, I play a level 57 (mostly) Holy Paladin on Whisperwind in WoW. I'm not actively playing any other MMOs at the moment due to crappy computer-having, but I actually liked Age of Conan-- probably the result of playing mostly the Destiny Stuff in Tortage.
Right now, perhaps my greatest personal tragedy is that I have neither time nor money to play much Magic the Gathering, as my old Magic group was a) through my old work and b) pretty much over it when Zendikar came out. I dunno about you, but after being used to the Alara Block and the ones before it, the name of which I forget and am too lazy to look up right now, Zendikar was way too slow and (in terms of mana cost for cards) expensive. I'm curious about the Scars of Mirrodin set, but-- once again, time and funds for Drafting. Meh.
Speaking of time, there are a few other things that I'd like to either run or play, and the first of these is a Psychic/Horror Game based on the Dawning Star setting, where I am still waffling on the actual ruleset I want to use. Dawning Star was written to be a setting for D20 Modern/Future, but I am not sure that I will be able to get the right horror feel for it. Call of Cthulu has some good things about it, but the sanity/mythos mechanic isn't really appropriate here. 4e has some interesting possibilities as far as cool terrain stuff and having combat that I adore, though psionics in 4e don't fit-- look for a post about how awesome is the setting psionic mechanism, Red Truth, coming soon. Some of the White Wolf stuff (as in the Second Sight splatbook) may be good, but not sure yet. Anyway, the plan is for this to be a 3 session (or so) short-run game with pre-gen characters. We'll see how that goes.
And that's the break down, as much for my own benefit as anyone else's.
4e
- B's Game (Formerly Road to Bael Turath; original world based on Dust to Dust)-- Revenant Assassin, Hane Al'Druth.
- Eberron (Armistice, run by G., who also plays in Planescape and Chessenta)-- Tiefling Artificer, Ballast.
- Planescape (The Custodians, run by Standing In Fire, who plays in B's Game and Eberron also.)-- Aasimar Psion, Sa'réja.
- Chessenta (Book of Serpents, run by Standing In Fire) -- Wilden Shaman, Kinnav Vinnet.
- My Game (Keep waffling on a name, Original World + Old Skool Dungeon Crawl).
- Arcana Evolved (Cloud and Shade, run by Nemo.)-- Human Magister, Basel Atullican.
LARPs
- King's Gate-- Full time NPC.
- Eclipse-- Harper Kell, Imperial Swordswoman.
- Dust to Dust (Website in Progress)-- Campaign Committee.
Also, I play a level 57 (mostly) Holy Paladin on Whisperwind in WoW. I'm not actively playing any other MMOs at the moment due to crappy computer-having, but I actually liked Age of Conan-- probably the result of playing mostly the Destiny Stuff in Tortage.
Right now, perhaps my greatest personal tragedy is that I have neither time nor money to play much Magic the Gathering, as my old Magic group was a) through my old work and b) pretty much over it when Zendikar came out. I dunno about you, but after being used to the Alara Block and the ones before it, the name of which I forget and am too lazy to look up right now, Zendikar was way too slow and (in terms of mana cost for cards) expensive. I'm curious about the Scars of Mirrodin set, but-- once again, time and funds for Drafting. Meh.
Speaking of time, there are a few other things that I'd like to either run or play, and the first of these is a Psychic/Horror Game based on the Dawning Star setting, where I am still waffling on the actual ruleset I want to use. Dawning Star was written to be a setting for D20 Modern/Future, but I am not sure that I will be able to get the right horror feel for it. Call of Cthulu has some good things about it, but the sanity/mythos mechanic isn't really appropriate here. 4e has some interesting possibilities as far as cool terrain stuff and having combat that I adore, though psionics in 4e don't fit-- look for a post about how awesome is the setting psionic mechanism, Red Truth, coming soon. Some of the White Wolf stuff (as in the Second Sight splatbook) may be good, but not sure yet. Anyway, the plan is for this to be a 3 session (or so) short-run game with pre-gen characters. We'll see how that goes.
And that's the break down, as much for my own benefit as anyone else's.
...So, About My Game...
(Last Direct LJ Re-Post for a while, I swear. This one is, surprise surprise, after the first session of my current game. Context is so awesome.)
All right, finally, I'm gonna talk about the game I am running in specific. I have five players, all girls, only two of which (not counting myself) are currently playing another tabletop game. Two others have played before, but not for years and not 4e, and one has never played a tabletop game ever. The party makeup is as follows:
Juuntzi -- Shadar-Kai Avenger (Never played 4e)
Rory -- Halfling Trickster Rogue (Never played 4e)
Dhalia -- Deva Invoker (Also plays in Chessenta)
Aretha-- Deva Artificer (Never played tabletop before)
Dian-- Human Cleric (Strength) (Also plays in Planescape)
So, if you know anything about 4e roles, the first thing you'll notice about this party is that there is no defender. the Avenger has also spiked Dex, which was an interesting choice, but I believe she's gone with the Pursuing Avenger build, which is all right for that. The only one with a Strength score at all is the Cleric, which is all right since there is a second Leader in the party to heal her. The most interesting thing about that is how much of the party decided to go for daggers (the Rogue, the Artificer, and I think the Avenger are all using daggers)-- we'll see how that goes in the long run.
I suppose that the adjective which applies here is 'naturally'-- naturally, this is a fairly roleplay focused group, but the interesting thing that I've noticed is that there isn't really more rp than the other games I'm in. This may have to do with how, since everyone is pretty new, the level of tutorial and rules/strategy table talk is pretty high, and this group may want to cut it out later, but I'm unsure on that. There's a lot of table talk in my other games, and, at least in those, since pretty much everyone is involved in it and setting up what they're going to do, it doesn't slow things down too much. There are certainly games where it could, and I've been in games (though I've been playing 4e with pretty much the same bunch, so those not so much) where the chatter just got obnoxious. We'll see how it goes. Either way, the introductory bit, where the party got their instructions from the half-elf components merchant who has hired them, went pretty okay, and the party used it to help them get into their characters by and large. The Rogue and the Avenger, as it was pointed out-- probably by Dian or Aretha, I don't remember which-- are set up to be quite the pair of Trouble Twins, both being thieves by profession. The Invoker, Dhalia, and the Artificer, Aretha are fairly quiet by comparison, and Dian the Cleric is the grounded, Rational One.
A moment about Clerics in this campaign. All PCs have the option of worshipping a pantheon of 6 gods called a Giedame; they can choose from any deity in the game, or the ones I've created. They can only purchase god-related feats (or Channel Divinity powers) that are for a god in their pantheon, and, though it's a bit rules-breaky, I am allowing Clerics to use an extra Channel Divinity power that is specific to one of their 6 gods once per day, which does not count towards the 1 Channel DIvinity power per combat. I may also make that for divine classes in general, though I'm still mulling it over. I'm not really worried about the power level in this game just yet, though that may well change.
As they left the tavern and approached the curio shop which is the entrance to the Dungeon, I threw them directly into combat with a bunch of goblins that had come out of there-- the party is not sure why, natch. Being that this was my first time running a 4e combat, I went with a fairly basic spread-- 1 3rd level Goblin Hexer (controller/leader), two Goblin Warriors (1st level skirmishers) and 7 ist level minions.
The important thing to keep in mind about goblins, who are sneaky little bastards, is this right here:
Goblin Tactics (At-Will)
Trigger: The goblin is missed by an attack.
Effect (Immediate Reaction): The goblin shifts 1 square.
All of the goblins have this. This is compounded by the following power of the Goblin Hexer:
Incite Bravery (immediate reaction, when an ally uses goblin tactics, at-will)
Ranged 10; the targeted ally can shift 2 squares and make an attack.
But initially, they had just seen the two warriors, who were behind the rogue and the Avenger in the initiative order. So Rory and Juuntzi decided to try their hand at tanking, ran as close as they could, and started throwing daggers and oaths around, to some effect. The Warriors, being skirmishers, skirted the group and threw javalins, getting +1d6 to their damage if they moved at least 4 squares. Then came the minions-- all seven of 'em, dogpiling on the closest good guy-- in this case, the poor halfling.
Which is why controllers are awesome. When it came Dhalia's turn, her Area Burst 1 attack took out all but two of the minions, bam!
Then came the Hexer, who has a lockdown ability that resets, a blinding ability, and this awfulness:
Vexing Cloud (standard; sustain minor, encounter) Zone
Area burst 3 within 10; automatic hit; all enemies within the zone take a -2 penalty to attack rolls. The zone grants concealment to the goblin hexer and its allies. The goblin hexer can sustain the zone as a minor action, moving it up to 5 squares
After a couple of turns, the Warriors were finally locked down into melee with the Avenger, and the Rogue was locked down by the the Hexer's Stinging Gaze, which does 3d6+1 if you move on your turn once it's hit you (save ends). Un-fun. This is also the part where Goblin Tactics and Inspire Bravery started to really suck, as the goblin warriors kept getting an extra attack on Juuntzi, while trying to be sure that they were both adjacent to her at the same time. She did a pretty good job of this when it came time for her to use her Oath of Emnity, and poor Rory did the best she could with ranged attacks. So the Hexer decided to help out his buddies by dropping the Vexing Cloud on Rory, Juuntzi, and the Warriors, and then high-tailing it out of there.
At this point, the Cleric decides to charge the Hexer. And we start to get into that whole Economy of Action thing that I love so much. All class healing, and quite a lot of general healing is done as a minor action, which means that Dian can heal Rory after her pummeling, then charge down and try to smack that Hexer. Which she does successfully, because her melee basic attack is pretty darn decent.
But yes, you heard right, those of you who don't play 4e and don't know why anyone would. This is why. Because the party healer can heal you in combat, and also hit things ever. Also, most Leader powers, in addition to doing damage, hand out smexxy buffs to the party. This does not mean the other classes are short-shrifted, oh no, they can grant movement, combat advantage, knock things prone, and do all kinds of other stuff to help everyone out. So yeah, you're a team, in mechanic as well as attitude. And no one is useless. Really, you want everyone to be as effective as possible, because if you all as a party are running at max efficency, you are bloody unstoppable. It takes time to get there, of course, but yeah. It's a really cool feeling to me-- that no really, you'll pass up something that might upgrade you, if it means making up an item deficit for another party member. Also, resource management matters to everyone. No one is standing there looking and feeling useless because they're out of stuff-- only if they've gotten stunned or something. But I digress. If there had been no other changes but this, I would swear by this edition for it. But moving on.
Unfortunately, the Hexer's rolls were all really gross, and he wound up blinding poor Dian (save ends) and locking her down with a reset Stinging Gaze. Doubleplus not-awesome. She wound up going down shortly, as one of the warriors and the last were dispatched and the Hexer and the other Warrior tried to take off. Which is why having a second Leader in a Two Striker Party is so very good an idea. The Artificer, having not spent any of her heals yet, was able to get in close burst 5 and get Dian up within the round, and the party chased the Hexer down-- while being careful to stay on the outside of the gawd-awful zone that the Hexer was hiding in. The Avenger pulled him to the edge of it, and-- I forget who killed the last warrior-- but Aretha nailed the Hexer finally for Exactly Enough damage. It was at that point that I realised that the only one who did not have a magic weapon/impliment was the Invoker, who had had some issues with the fight-- fortunately, the Hexer had a +1 Hexer Rod on him, and she-- well well!-- uses a rod impliment. So that worked out well for everyone.
The party now being free to explore the curio shop and the dungeon entrance, they did so, and this is where I'll stop, though they did some more exploring-- one because this is getting very long, and two, because that encounter is not entirely over. I did it as sort of an informal skill challenge, which I think I would have preferred to have more... tight? Alors.
Anyway, I want to maunder on the topic of skill challenges some other time, but for now, sine.
All right, finally, I'm gonna talk about the game I am running in specific. I have five players, all girls, only two of which (not counting myself) are currently playing another tabletop game. Two others have played before, but not for years and not 4e, and one has never played a tabletop game ever. The party makeup is as follows:
Juuntzi -- Shadar-Kai Avenger (Never played 4e)
Rory -- Halfling Trickster Rogue (Never played 4e)
Dhalia -- Deva Invoker (Also plays in Chessenta)
Aretha-- Deva Artificer (Never played tabletop before)
Dian-- Human Cleric (Strength) (Also plays in Planescape)
So, if you know anything about 4e roles, the first thing you'll notice about this party is that there is no defender. the Avenger has also spiked Dex, which was an interesting choice, but I believe she's gone with the Pursuing Avenger build, which is all right for that. The only one with a Strength score at all is the Cleric, which is all right since there is a second Leader in the party to heal her. The most interesting thing about that is how much of the party decided to go for daggers (the Rogue, the Artificer, and I think the Avenger are all using daggers)-- we'll see how that goes in the long run.
I suppose that the adjective which applies here is 'naturally'-- naturally, this is a fairly roleplay focused group, but the interesting thing that I've noticed is that there isn't really more rp than the other games I'm in. This may have to do with how, since everyone is pretty new, the level of tutorial and rules/strategy table talk is pretty high, and this group may want to cut it out later, but I'm unsure on that. There's a lot of table talk in my other games, and, at least in those, since pretty much everyone is involved in it and setting up what they're going to do, it doesn't slow things down too much. There are certainly games where it could, and I've been in games (though I've been playing 4e with pretty much the same bunch, so those not so much) where the chatter just got obnoxious. We'll see how it goes. Either way, the introductory bit, where the party got their instructions from the half-elf components merchant who has hired them, went pretty okay, and the party used it to help them get into their characters by and large. The Rogue and the Avenger, as it was pointed out-- probably by Dian or Aretha, I don't remember which-- are set up to be quite the pair of Trouble Twins, both being thieves by profession. The Invoker, Dhalia, and the Artificer, Aretha are fairly quiet by comparison, and Dian the Cleric is the grounded, Rational One.
A moment about Clerics in this campaign. All PCs have the option of worshipping a pantheon of 6 gods called a Giedame; they can choose from any deity in the game, or the ones I've created. They can only purchase god-related feats (or Channel Divinity powers) that are for a god in their pantheon, and, though it's a bit rules-breaky, I am allowing Clerics to use an extra Channel Divinity power that is specific to one of their 6 gods once per day, which does not count towards the 1 Channel DIvinity power per combat. I may also make that for divine classes in general, though I'm still mulling it over. I'm not really worried about the power level in this game just yet, though that may well change.
As they left the tavern and approached the curio shop which is the entrance to the Dungeon, I threw them directly into combat with a bunch of goblins that had come out of there-- the party is not sure why, natch. Being that this was my first time running a 4e combat, I went with a fairly basic spread-- 1 3rd level Goblin Hexer (controller/leader), two Goblin Warriors (1st level skirmishers) and 7 ist level minions.
The important thing to keep in mind about goblins, who are sneaky little bastards, is this right here:
Goblin Tactics (At-Will)
Trigger: The goblin is missed by an attack.
Effect (Immediate Reaction): The goblin shifts 1 square.
All of the goblins have this. This is compounded by the following power of the Goblin Hexer:
Incite Bravery (immediate reaction, when an ally uses goblin tactics, at-will)
Ranged 10; the targeted ally can shift 2 squares and make an attack.
But initially, they had just seen the two warriors, who were behind the rogue and the Avenger in the initiative order. So Rory and Juuntzi decided to try their hand at tanking, ran as close as they could, and started throwing daggers and oaths around, to some effect. The Warriors, being skirmishers, skirted the group and threw javalins, getting +1d6 to their damage if they moved at least 4 squares. Then came the minions-- all seven of 'em, dogpiling on the closest good guy-- in this case, the poor halfling.
Which is why controllers are awesome. When it came Dhalia's turn, her Area Burst 1 attack took out all but two of the minions, bam!
Then came the Hexer, who has a lockdown ability that resets, a blinding ability, and this awfulness:
Vexing Cloud (standard; sustain minor, encounter) Zone
Area burst 3 within 10; automatic hit; all enemies within the zone take a -2 penalty to attack rolls. The zone grants concealment to the goblin hexer and its allies. The goblin hexer can sustain the zone as a minor action, moving it up to 5 squares
After a couple of turns, the Warriors were finally locked down into melee with the Avenger, and the Rogue was locked down by the the Hexer's Stinging Gaze, which does 3d6+1 if you move on your turn once it's hit you (save ends). Un-fun. This is also the part where Goblin Tactics and Inspire Bravery started to really suck, as the goblin warriors kept getting an extra attack on Juuntzi, while trying to be sure that they were both adjacent to her at the same time. She did a pretty good job of this when it came time for her to use her Oath of Emnity, and poor Rory did the best she could with ranged attacks. So the Hexer decided to help out his buddies by dropping the Vexing Cloud on Rory, Juuntzi, and the Warriors, and then high-tailing it out of there.
At this point, the Cleric decides to charge the Hexer. And we start to get into that whole Economy of Action thing that I love so much. All class healing, and quite a lot of general healing is done as a minor action, which means that Dian can heal Rory after her pummeling, then charge down and try to smack that Hexer. Which she does successfully, because her melee basic attack is pretty darn decent.
But yes, you heard right, those of you who don't play 4e and don't know why anyone would. This is why. Because the party healer can heal you in combat, and also hit things ever. Also, most Leader powers, in addition to doing damage, hand out smexxy buffs to the party. This does not mean the other classes are short-shrifted, oh no, they can grant movement, combat advantage, knock things prone, and do all kinds of other stuff to help everyone out. So yeah, you're a team, in mechanic as well as attitude. And no one is useless. Really, you want everyone to be as effective as possible, because if you all as a party are running at max efficency, you are bloody unstoppable. It takes time to get there, of course, but yeah. It's a really cool feeling to me-- that no really, you'll pass up something that might upgrade you, if it means making up an item deficit for another party member. Also, resource management matters to everyone. No one is standing there looking and feeling useless because they're out of stuff-- only if they've gotten stunned or something. But I digress. If there had been no other changes but this, I would swear by this edition for it. But moving on.
Unfortunately, the Hexer's rolls were all really gross, and he wound up blinding poor Dian (save ends) and locking her down with a reset Stinging Gaze. Doubleplus not-awesome. She wound up going down shortly, as one of the warriors and the last were dispatched and the Hexer and the other Warrior tried to take off. Which is why having a second Leader in a Two Striker Party is so very good an idea. The Artificer, having not spent any of her heals yet, was able to get in close burst 5 and get Dian up within the round, and the party chased the Hexer down-- while being careful to stay on the outside of the gawd-awful zone that the Hexer was hiding in. The Avenger pulled him to the edge of it, and-- I forget who killed the last warrior-- but Aretha nailed the Hexer finally for Exactly Enough damage. It was at that point that I realised that the only one who did not have a magic weapon/impliment was the Invoker, who had had some issues with the fight-- fortunately, the Hexer had a +1 Hexer Rod on him, and she-- well well!-- uses a rod impliment. So that worked out well for everyone.
The party now being free to explore the curio shop and the dungeon entrance, they did so, and this is where I'll stop, though they did some more exploring-- one because this is getting very long, and two, because that encounter is not entirely over. I did it as sort of an informal skill challenge, which I think I would have preferred to have more... tight? Alors.
Anyway, I want to maunder on the topic of skill challenges some other time, but for now, sine.
Blinded.
(almost done with the direct reposts from LJ. This one is from July, and linky here.)
So, had our first introduction to Paragon tier 4e D&D last night. As I had hoped, Standing In Fire did an excellent write up of it here, and I've some reflections about this aussi, as well as D20 in general, just at the moment.
So, there's no question-- 4e does low level gameplay right. I'm probably going to start my D&D game (which I ought to be picking up next month as a 2Xmonth game) at 1st level, because I /can/ and the power level seems right. 1st level in a 4e game /feels/ roughly equivalent to 3rd level in a 2e/3.x game, largely due to the fact that in previous editions, that's when wizards start to feel useful at all.
As for high-level gameplay... well, we'll see. It's completely changed the game, that's for sure, for both GM and players. For starters, there was already a ridiculous amount of stuff resolving at any given time-- this is especially true for my Revenant Assassin, which I would possibly have a better handle on if I had not started her at 10. Lemme 'Splain.
I adore this character. I cannot stress this enough. She is an awesome undead-dwarf of the badass with the stealth score from the Grim Prison, and probably the first character that I just gave up and min-maxed to all hell, with no hedging. Fortunately, she also seems to work okay in the world, but I digress.
Assassins are these terribly gross, terribly brutal strikers who have a pretty neat not-exactly-marking mechanic-- that is to say unlike marks, it doesn't care whether or not the target makes an attack that includes you or not. It's pretty much a damage-widget that gets a kick at 11th level. Also, they have a built in at-will teleport (you have to begin it and end it next to a creature) that goes up a square at 11th. Also, especially if they are revenants, they can do a whole shit-ton of necrotic damage, because they are the only class at the moment to use the Shadow power source. Combine this with Revenant-- no really, you want to combine this with Revenant. For starters, revenants have the correct stat bonuses-- dex & con-- and there are a bunch of feats specifically for Revenant Assassins, most of which have to do with the Revenant racial power, Dark Reaping. I have a ton of things that resolve when I use Dark Reaping-- first off, I can drop an extra shroud (yon mark-not-mark damage kicker) on my shroud target when I invoke the power (someone within 5 of me drops to 0 hp). Then, when I actually invoke the power (next hit I make before the end of my next turn), then dark reaping does 1d8+5 necrotic damage, and my shroud target takes the full damage of the shrouds on them-- 1 d6+3 (since I am 11th level) per shroud, up to 4 shrouds max. Those shrouds do not disappear, as they normally do when I invoke them. Ja, awesome. I neglected to have anything else happen when I use dark reaping for my feat, but believe me, it was possible. Instead, there's a metric shitton of stuff that happens when I use an action point, including crap that lets me phase through walls and go insubstantial and yeah... it's a mess to keep track of. And worse for the GM, who is doing his best to keep up with all of the monsters that are hitting us at the same time, and well...
Nonetheless. We got to a point where the huge and nasty Minotaur was about to charge a red swath through the whole lot of us-- and lo, but it triggered every nasty thing under the sun-- the hybrid barbarian/runepriest used an immediate interrupt to do some radiant damage and blind it, putting it at -5 to hit everyone, in an already pretty high defense party. This was on top of the 10 ongoing untyped it had from my Shared Suffering Armor, and some fire damage (less, because it was resistant to fire) that it took from an ability of our Mageblade's, that did damage when it moved.
All of this resolved at about the same time. And I don't hardly blame B for throwing up his hands in frustration and amazement. We hadn't expected to be quite as awesome as we suddenly were either. 4e apparently tells you, as a GM, that yes-- at Paragon you've got to increase your game in some pretty specific ways-- but here you run into a serious problem that has scared a lot of people I know off of 4e-- information presentation. The main of the books you'll find are all character stats-- huge lists of powers and feats and racial stats and OH GOD, for crying out loud just download DDI Character Builder already and not have to deal with this madness. Because you're going to miss something. Without question. Or else you're me, and you're going to want to play a class that is only found in Dragon Magazine anyway. I'm starting to feel like releasing PC class books ought to be seriously de-emphasized-- or at least set up for what it is-- and the emphasis switched to getting folks hooked up with DDI, and making it more houserulable (it isn't. At all. Dear Lord.) But the PHBs are pretty much all stat blocks, and that's kind of eye-crossingly frustrating to look at.
the DMGs, the Planes books, and some of the Setting Guides are better, but not explicitly so. Clearly, there's a fall-through when it comes to explaining the balancing math from Heroic to Paragon tier, so it still feels as though you have to fudge things around a lot-- the biggest issue I've seen in 4e is that most DMs will under-stat their monsters in Heroic, thinking that they're throwing stuff that is /way/ too powerful at the PCs... only to have the whole encounter mopped up out of hand. And then there's the one or two who run encounters straight, and nearly wipe the party out of hand. Which leads into my first point of advice for folks who have never run 4e before-- START AT 1ST LEVEL. Getting a feel for how your party plays, and getting them used to using their powers at lower levels is vital, and not something you can do easily if you jump into high level encounters. Modding an existing game without resetting it is a bad idea as well, methinks.... this is not going to feel like the games you've played before. For me anyway, that was /awesome/. I have hated 2e/3.x combat for ages while sort-of enduring it, without being able to put my finger on why I hated it. The answer has to do with economy of action. In earlier editions, you don't have it. Everything is a standard action. Heaven forbid you heal anyone and hit anyone in the same turn! You've got to make a choice between working on killing a d00d, and maybe keeping your other middling damage dealing friend from getting killed-- depending on if you're a cleric, or a wizard with heals (like an Arcana Evolved Magister, which conceptually I do really like), or what. And this frustrates me hugely, even more than the whole running out of spells idea (and don't get me started on spell prep. I am one of those who never got used to trying to gauge how many of what spell I was going to use in a day. When they came out with Sorcerer, I never went back). So...
If I were running this game in 3.x again, I would probably houserule a lot of healing to be minor actions, as long as that is all that they do. I have a much more complicated short-run Dawning Star game (d20 modern) that I seriously need to work on, and the biggest obstacle I have run into is considering how I want to deal with combat, as I really suck at running it (thusfar), and I really hate most d20 combat mechanics. A lot will depend on the nature of the creatures that the players will be fighting, but... hrm. I know, this has gotten fairly far afield of high level 4e maundering, but meh.
So, had our first introduction to Paragon tier 4e D&D last night. As I had hoped, Standing In Fire did an excellent write up of it here, and I've some reflections about this aussi, as well as D20 in general, just at the moment.
So, there's no question-- 4e does low level gameplay right. I'm probably going to start my D&D game (which I ought to be picking up next month as a 2Xmonth game) at 1st level, because I /can/ and the power level seems right. 1st level in a 4e game /feels/ roughly equivalent to 3rd level in a 2e/3.x game, largely due to the fact that in previous editions, that's when wizards start to feel useful at all.
As for high-level gameplay... well, we'll see. It's completely changed the game, that's for sure, for both GM and players. For starters, there was already a ridiculous amount of stuff resolving at any given time-- this is especially true for my Revenant Assassin, which I would possibly have a better handle on if I had not started her at 10. Lemme 'Splain.
I adore this character. I cannot stress this enough. She is an awesome undead-dwarf of the badass with the stealth score from the Grim Prison, and probably the first character that I just gave up and min-maxed to all hell, with no hedging. Fortunately, she also seems to work okay in the world, but I digress.
Assassins are these terribly gross, terribly brutal strikers who have a pretty neat not-exactly-marking mechanic-- that is to say unlike marks, it doesn't care whether or not the target makes an attack that includes you or not. It's pretty much a damage-widget that gets a kick at 11th level. Also, they have a built in at-will teleport (you have to begin it and end it next to a creature) that goes up a square at 11th. Also, especially if they are revenants, they can do a whole shit-ton of necrotic damage, because they are the only class at the moment to use the Shadow power source. Combine this with Revenant-- no really, you want to combine this with Revenant. For starters, revenants have the correct stat bonuses-- dex & con-- and there are a bunch of feats specifically for Revenant Assassins, most of which have to do with the Revenant racial power, Dark Reaping. I have a ton of things that resolve when I use Dark Reaping-- first off, I can drop an extra shroud (yon mark-not-mark damage kicker) on my shroud target when I invoke the power (someone within 5 of me drops to 0 hp). Then, when I actually invoke the power (next hit I make before the end of my next turn), then dark reaping does 1d8+5 necrotic damage, and my shroud target takes the full damage of the shrouds on them-- 1 d6+3 (since I am 11th level) per shroud, up to 4 shrouds max. Those shrouds do not disappear, as they normally do when I invoke them. Ja, awesome. I neglected to have anything else happen when I use dark reaping for my feat, but believe me, it was possible. Instead, there's a metric shitton of stuff that happens when I use an action point, including crap that lets me phase through walls and go insubstantial and yeah... it's a mess to keep track of. And worse for the GM, who is doing his best to keep up with all of the monsters that are hitting us at the same time, and well...
Nonetheless. We got to a point where the huge and nasty Minotaur was about to charge a red swath through the whole lot of us-- and lo, but it triggered every nasty thing under the sun-- the hybrid barbarian/runepriest used an immediate interrupt to do some radiant damage and blind it, putting it at -5 to hit everyone, in an already pretty high defense party. This was on top of the 10 ongoing untyped it had from my Shared Suffering Armor, and some fire damage (less, because it was resistant to fire) that it took from an ability of our Mageblade's, that did damage when it moved.
All of this resolved at about the same time. And I don't hardly blame B for throwing up his hands in frustration and amazement. We hadn't expected to be quite as awesome as we suddenly were either. 4e apparently tells you, as a GM, that yes-- at Paragon you've got to increase your game in some pretty specific ways-- but here you run into a serious problem that has scared a lot of people I know off of 4e-- information presentation. The main of the books you'll find are all character stats-- huge lists of powers and feats and racial stats and OH GOD, for crying out loud just download DDI Character Builder already and not have to deal with this madness. Because you're going to miss something. Without question. Or else you're me, and you're going to want to play a class that is only found in Dragon Magazine anyway. I'm starting to feel like releasing PC class books ought to be seriously de-emphasized-- or at least set up for what it is-- and the emphasis switched to getting folks hooked up with DDI, and making it more houserulable (it isn't. At all. Dear Lord.) But the PHBs are pretty much all stat blocks, and that's kind of eye-crossingly frustrating to look at.
the DMGs, the Planes books, and some of the Setting Guides are better, but not explicitly so. Clearly, there's a fall-through when it comes to explaining the balancing math from Heroic to Paragon tier, so it still feels as though you have to fudge things around a lot-- the biggest issue I've seen in 4e is that most DMs will under-stat their monsters in Heroic, thinking that they're throwing stuff that is /way/ too powerful at the PCs... only to have the whole encounter mopped up out of hand. And then there's the one or two who run encounters straight, and nearly wipe the party out of hand. Which leads into my first point of advice for folks who have never run 4e before-- START AT 1ST LEVEL. Getting a feel for how your party plays, and getting them used to using their powers at lower levels is vital, and not something you can do easily if you jump into high level encounters. Modding an existing game without resetting it is a bad idea as well, methinks.... this is not going to feel like the games you've played before. For me anyway, that was /awesome/. I have hated 2e/3.x combat for ages while sort-of enduring it, without being able to put my finger on why I hated it. The answer has to do with economy of action. In earlier editions, you don't have it. Everything is a standard action. Heaven forbid you heal anyone and hit anyone in the same turn! You've got to make a choice between working on killing a d00d, and maybe keeping your other middling damage dealing friend from getting killed-- depending on if you're a cleric, or a wizard with heals (like an Arcana Evolved Magister, which conceptually I do really like), or what. And this frustrates me hugely, even more than the whole running out of spells idea (and don't get me started on spell prep. I am one of those who never got used to trying to gauge how many of what spell I was going to use in a day. When they came out with Sorcerer, I never went back). So...
If I were running this game in 3.x again, I would probably houserule a lot of healing to be minor actions, as long as that is all that they do. I have a much more complicated short-run Dawning Star game (d20 modern) that I seriously need to work on, and the biggest obstacle I have run into is considering how I want to deal with combat, as I really suck at running it (thusfar), and I really hate most d20 combat mechanics. A lot will depend on the nature of the creatures that the players will be fighting, but... hrm. I know, this has gotten fairly far afield of high level 4e maundering, but meh.
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