/4eg/ - D&D 4e and 4e-like General: Hot-Blooded Wuxia Action

>>54446354

Some clarity from the person who suggested it-

We're working on our own attempt at a rewrite, and toying with the idea of every class having at least two power sources, one defined by the class and one defined by the specific archetype/features chosen, with things like themes offering you a chance to swap one out. Sources would provide your out of combat utility powers, and maybe some options for in combat utility (Support) powers, although Classes would still have their own defined options on that front.

Minor sources wouldn't have classes to their name (at least initially), but would instead provide a specialised, smaller selection of interesting and fluffy powers that I think would be a cool thing to design, it's just a question of how to make them a valid choice, since the major sources will almost always have more breadth of options available.

One thing I really like about 4e's fluff was the handling of the Barbarian. He went from "dumber fighter who gets really mad" to this sort of tribal champion who communes with the spirits of the primal world to kick ass really hard. That was really nice, honestly.

So, this occured to me when I tried to explain why, but why is rolling for stats bad?

Is it just because of the possibility of rolling a bad or unplayable character, or that on average you'll come out with a character just below the standard array?

>>54446478
I still think giving minor sources additional benefits would go a long way to improving their viability without taking away the breadth of the larger sources.

The biggest drawback would be trying to not make them too powerful a choice for any one particular build.

>>54446984
For 4e in particular it's that the math is so very tight that point buy is really the only viable option since not having a high enough number in a particular stat or stats for your class can easily make your character quite subpar depending on how low the number ends up being rolled.

Couple this with the possibility that someone else might roll to be the perfect person and youve got quite a bit of disparity rendering one character useless and the other the center of all attention.

It can be quite frustrating for the players involved and point buy or array alleviates this by putting optimization in the players hands rather than leaving it up to the RNGods.

>>54446984
4e really expects you to have 2 stats at 18-16 before racials. Anything else is going to be awkward.

And yes, the chance for being OP is higher, especially because you can "dump" multiple stats anyway.

>>54446984
4e's math is so tight that unless you're going for really specific builds and you absolutely must, getting below +4 on your main attack stat (after mods, of course) is just gonna make you lag behind.

The general base is 16, 14, 14, 13, 10, 8, or 16, 16, 13/12, 11/12, 10, 8; depending on what you need. Supposing the typical 4d6, discard lowest, you end up with most people averaging below any of those. It's pretty rubbish.

>>54446984

4e has very tight combat math. Rolling for stats adds basically nothing to the experience of the game, and risks severely imbalancing the party if someone rolls low, making their character terminally incompetent and no fun to play.

>>54447067
>>54447072
>>54447076
>>54447077
This is all good to know. I'll try and explain this when we get together, but who knows if it'll stick or anything.

I'll confess though; I've played a 4e game where I rolled stats for a monk and it was one of the worst tabletop experiences I ever had. I merely wanted some fa/tg/uy back-up from people who played the game more than I to at least try and persuade my DM to at least let us use the standard array set-up.

>>54446900
The primal power source in general really got me. I love wardens as elemental champions, Barbs as spiritually fueled warriors etc. Really added a major mystical element that other editions only toyed with.

So if Shugenjanon is around. I'll post my take on the Class write up for the shugenja so far.

been working on the class features to really iron them out in my head before even attempting to write powers for the thing.

>>54448936
SHUGENJA

Role: Leader. You lean toward controller or defender as a secondary role.

Power Source: Ki

Key Abilities: Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution

Armor Proficiencies: Cloth

Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, simple ranged

Implement Proficiency: Ki Focus

Bonus to Defense: +1 Fortitude, +1 Will

Hit Points at 1st Level: 12 + Constitution score

Hit Points per Level Gained: 6

Healing Surges per Day: 7 + Constitution modifier

Class Skills:

Shugenja gain training in four skills from the shugenja class skill list: Arcana (Int), Diplomacy (Cha). Heal (Wis), History (Int), Insight (Wis), Nature (Wis)


Class Features:

Unarmored Defense: A shugenja gains a +2 bonus to AC while not using a shield and wearing cloth armor or no armor.

Flow of Yin: Using the Flow of Yin power, Shugenja can grant their comrades additional resilience by altering the positive flow of the universe.

Surge of Yang: Using the Surge of Yang power, Shugenja can bring their foes to ruin by altering the negative flow of the universe.

Harmony: When your Yin points and Yang points are equal, you may add both Yin power effect and Yang power effect of one power you possess. Once you use this feature both pools are emptied and begin again at 0.

Nature of the Universe: Choose one, Yin is based on Dex and gives you a controller flavor, while Yang is based on Con and gives you a defender feel.

Powers: The powers for the class would also manipulate your Yin and Yang levels. Riders would be a >major part of most powers and depend on your Nature, while their strength might be determined based on >your Yin or Yang point level.

>>54448960
I'd give the Shugenja Endurance, Perception, Dungeoneering, and give the Dexterity version of it the ability to use Dexterity for Intelligence-based skills. I feel that might fit. The Constitution-based one ought to be able to use Constitution for its AC, too.

What effects are there in 4e for a character to change sizes? I have a pixie character who is annoyed about how much larger everyone is than her, as they treat her like a kid.

>>54450662
Purely fluffy I would allow her to increase size as part of Barbarian Rage

>>54451056

She's a monk in this case. Her Epic Destiny she's going for (Emergent Primordial) will, entertainingly jump her a staggering number of size categories (But won't let her do normal sizes. Tiny OR Huge are the options)

Star Wars Saga Edition is 4elike, right? Is it any good? I don't want to deal with those fucking FFG dice.

>>54451226

It's pretty good, though they made the very bad decision of making 'Use the Force' a single skill AND it's got a lot of stuff for 'Use Use the Force instead of X' so Jedi are crazy skill monkeys.

>>54451253
Just like Arcana in 4e...

>>54451266

Honestly, worse than 4e's arcana issue. Yes, that bad. At least Arcana was one of several 'Use magic' skills for rituals.

>>54451253

RPGs have always been iffy on how to balance jedi against non-jedi.

>>54453344

Personally I always think it's just something you have to play into. The non-jedi who stick around Jedi are going to be the goddamn best at what they do. The Jedi might just be an apprentice or an inexperienced knight, but his companions will be prodigies or veterans or just damn talented at what they do, meaning they're on the same level of capability and can keep up despite whatever force bullshit they can do. When you get to experienced Jedi, you're palling around with some of the most competent people in the damn galaxy.

>>54453441
See: Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, the archetypal duo.

>>54448960
You mixed up Yin and Yang.
Yin is negative/passive/feminine/cold
Yang is positive/active/masculine/hot

Got working on that Bard|Rogue build I talked about in the last thread, would anyone want to have a more indepth look into it?

>>54456145
I'm keen to give it a gander

>>54456534
Right, I'll do a cohesive write-up later, but the idea generally relies on two things: the Bard and the Rogue generally only kind of hit when it comes to both being very Controller-like, but the Rogue has a very above average Leader-like Paragon Path (Guildmaster Thief), and the Bard doesn't need much to work as a Leader, given most of his work will either come off-turn or through the use of utilities.

On top of that, I'm looking into a Halfling to add in even more off-turn options (Deft Hurler Style is pretty much one of the best feats in the game for Halfling Rogues), and I definitely will dip into Warlord to give my allies damage bonuses when they AP (at the very least a +5, at the very best a +13).

It pretty much seems like it will run like an almost straight Rogue who can not only maximize his own potential but also that of his allies because he has the powers and features to do so; it's honestly a quite interesting idea.

>>54446354
>This thread is for discussing D&D 4e and the games it inspired, such as 13th Age, Strike!, Valor, and so forth.

I want to expand this list.

There's SW SAGA and Gamma WOrld 7th ed, what else?

>>54458321
Unity, but it's not out yet

>>54446478
Why do this instead of make more (and free) rituals?

Utilities are going to be measured against the combat useful ones; if they're pure fluff, they aren't getting taken without adding extra U slots. Subdividing the power sources adds either erroneous tags, extra work to make things function with those tags, or reshuffling things to fit the new tags. Also, how will you split Psychic into three distinct groups? Or Divine, for that matter?

Still interested in making another Defender, even if not a Ki one specifically. What sort of gaps are there in the defender lineup?

Fighters have amazing marking and punishment but no range

Paladins can mark large numbers at range but their punishment is weak and they're not sticky

Wardens are sticky as fuck but low range and punishment

Swordmages can mark at range and that's about it, the shielding SM is generally regarded as the best and he can reduce damage but not really kill enemies or stop them from getting to allies in the first place

Battlemind chases enemy around and does good damage but isn't sticky

>>54458468
Man I can't wait for Unity to be released. I saw it back when it was KS'd and I really want to get my hands on it.

>>54454316
Actually. I didn't mix up anything. We really haven't decided exactly how both are going to interact with one another, only that the Shugenja uses both.

They actually are supposed to have two pools one for Yin and one for Yang which starts at zero and builds by using powers. Yin activated powers build Yang and visa versa. At least that's what we were discussing the last time Shugenjanon posted in here. He's busy working on a defender (Sohei) and a controller role atm I believe.

But as far as the class features are concerned their not even in alpha and we're still trying to decide how the two builds work and influence the class as a whole.

Though I do think it would be interesting to see the whole Yin/Yang thing as two seperate builds. One for buffing and healing and possibly working with cold and lightning damage (Air+Water element) and a Yang build for working with Debuffing and Control dealing fire and acid (Fire+Earth elements)

I am running my first 4E game, but I've been told that all the monsters outside of the 3rd Monster Manual have way too much HP. Is this true? Are the rest of the stats okay if I just halve the HP?

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>>54459245
The HP isn't the problem, too high defenses are.

MM3 and the monster vaults are too good, only MM1-2 had the bad math.

Also, there's MM3 on a businesscard you can recalculate stats with if you really want to use MM1-2 stuff.

>>54447521
As long as you get a 16+ in one stat you can make it work, clerics wizards and rogues get by with no riders, essentials classes usually only use one stat, there's even hybrid routes you can go. Under 16 though gets pretty dire, lazy warlord can do it, possibly fighter with their free +1, at that point though I'd make a charge optimised pixie just to spite the GM.

>>54459163
I'm not talking about builds

>Flow of Yin: Using the Flow of Yin power, Shugenja can grant their comrades additional resilience by altering the positive flow of the universe.
>Flow of Yin ... altering the positive flow

>Surge of Yang: Using the Surge of Yang power, Shugenja can bring their foes to ruin by altering the negative flow of the universe.
>Surge of Yang ... altering the negative flow

See? They're backwards

>>54459245
>>54459271
If memory serves, it wasn't high health or defences per say, it was level appropriate monsters not challenging players once they'd learned the game and started using their powers well, doing combos, etc, so DM's would just use higher level monsters, which could challenge the players in terms of damage but had inflated health and defences due to being a few levels higher than the game was built for. There's a blog post floating around from one of the MM3 writers who explains the whole thing, and how their change was actually to increase monster damage, by about 30% on average if memory serves me correctly.

For the most part, there are no issues for the first 10 levels or so, so it's no big problem to use monsters from any of the books, but the business card of math that the other guy posted is perfect for checking things or tweaking things on the fly.

>>54459508
Defenses was definitely part of it for elites and solos.

But yes, monster damage is the other thing.

>>54459118
I checked the trailer but it said just about nothing about mechanics. What's it like?

>>54459096
The Swordmage has about the best punishment.

>>54459508
I've found that a large chunk of it was that the old 3.5 method of just sending a block of numbers at groups doesn't work well in 4e.
As a GM, you NEED to send encounters with varies enemies that play off each other.

For example, when I had an encounter that could have just been "three undead things and a bunch of little bugs" I found it dull, so replaced the huge bug swarms with things that would spawn minion bugs and tell them to explode if left alone.
My players seemed to appreciate how it took them by surprise and forced them to adapt to it.

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>>54461043
The core game mechanic is 2d10+MODs versus DC.
Your stats are likely to be +0 to +3. There are 4 stats: Might, Agility, Mind, Presence. You then have a 3 "Core Paths" rated 1-3 that are basically 13th age Backgrounds for your skills. You have 5 points to spread here.

Vaguely like 4e combat but most every power draws from a resource pool (its name and a few pieces of it, like the recharge rate, depend on the class) that recharges a bit when you rest and when you roll doubles. Resting can be dangerous because it generates Ruin which the GM uses to do bad stuff like fuel monster abilities, open up portals/tears-in-reality ("Breaches"), bump up the TN by a bit, whatever.

You have Race and Class, with levels and feats ("Perks").

Biggest change to combat might be the game doesn't use a grid but instead range bands of Adjacent (2.5m), Nearby (2.5m-8m) Far, (8m-16m), Very Far (16-24m). It has rules for converting, but I haven't tried them. They're just "Nearby is 2-5 squares away".


http://userscloud.com/877jx2qjmt80
If you wanna DL the v1 early access. They've had 2 updates since then, I think? I personally gave them a bunch of feedback but I dunno if they used any of it because I'm not actually part of the kickstarter and can't see the updated versions, heh.

Attached is the Fell Hunter class as provided in the early access (the classes are not complete - there is at least a Tier 2, but they all only go through Tier 1)

It looks like it can be pretty cool, really.

>>54461291
I think that the math in the 4e back-end is much neater and easier to work with than other editions, and whilst that speeds up encounter and adventure design amazingly if you stop there you'll end up with boring encounters. I feel that good 4e encounter design requires you to know what your party can and can't do, and how each monster you throw at the group will interact with that.

The day I started tailoring encounters for the party composition, was the day everyone seemed to start enjoying combat a lot more.

>>54461316
Thanks!

I'm sorta turned off by the lack of the tactical map, I expect it'll make positioning and movement way less tactical, which was important in 4e.

That said, there are workarounds so I'll check it out.

I also think curves are a meme,
so 2d10 is kinda meh, but w/e, I'll check it before I judge

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>>54461379
You can still use a map, in fact all of the actual battle reports (they're somewhere, at least one is) are using little pictures on a map, moving them around.
Its ranges are just a bit "looser" but...not really when you look into it too much.

The Grid Conversion rules have:

GRID DISTANCE CONVERSION
ADJACENT 1 SQUARE AWAY
NEARBY BETWEEN 2-5 SQUARES AWAY
FAR BETWEEN 6-10 SQUARES AWAY
VERY FAR BETWEEN 11-15 SQUARES AWAY
A Movement action will carry you up to 5 squares from where you are.

This just means a "Nearby" power is Range 5, a Far one is Range 10, and a Very Far one is Range 15.
Other stuff is similarly simple to convert, if it exists.

you're a meme

>>54461466
Right, but I expect if they really want to to go with making the ToM approach viable, they'll have to adapt the system to not having a map, by not having precise movement and positioning. See: 5e.

No, you are! Teehee

>>54461144
well it's not really a punishment, per se

>>54461551
The Swordmage is considerably sticky and its punishment is either a boatload of damage (Assault) or negation of damage (Shielding) at a range. The Swordmage's thing is being sticky and being able to punish enemies from afar.

>>54458533

We're also reworking the Rituals subsystem, and we're explicitly splitting Utilities into Support (combat) and Utility (out of combat) powers.

The idea of minor sources is less subdivisions of existing sources and more focused and specialised descriptors that could be shared by multiple sources. An Int based warlord and a Wizard might both end up with a 'Scholar' tag, for example, representing their depth of learning, even if their classes work with it in very different ways.

Guy whose group rolled for stats here. While the rest of the players disregarded my warnings, the DM was at least aware of the problem, and consequently forced us to reroll if we got two stats at 15 or lower.

Amusingly, we rolled for stats before anything else, and I'm one of the two in the group were got solid rolls, the other is sort-of a twit and ended up getting the best stats out of us all at the cost of having no con basically.

Five people in all, the only one who got 'screwed' was the guy who ended up being our leader. And going off that, I managed to get a functioning conlock. Con/Dex/Int are such odd stats to work with for a non-defender class.

>>54462345
Were you allowed to place rolls where you wanted, or was it down-the-line?

>>54462499
Down the line. For the most part, only one of us got somewhat screwed by the dice rolls, but not so that they're non-functional. One is somewhat screwing themselves, but they might survive or get by until later when they can bring themselves up to par.

>>54448231
Wardens definitely managed to fit this idea that had never quite existed in previous editions really, really well. The Shaman was a nice touch, one of my favorite things to do with it was to have the Spirit actually talk often and being somewhat grumpy, that was quite fun.

Right, so I've been toying around with a few ideas for the Shugenja - given we've pretty much decided he's works by fucking with the action economy, how do we make sure that people remember that they've got an extra move action, or that they can trade their minor action for a move action this turn? It's kind of integral to his style.

>>54464954
If you use power cards, it could be set up so that the extra move/minor/etc action is a specific action, and you can just hand the card over.

>>54467050
That's a pretty good idea, actually. Bit complex, but certainly doable.

>>54469030
Could use the Monk setup, with double cards to save space maybe? It wouldn't be more different than the monk imo.

>>54469159
That could work, that could definitely work; the issue is just really reminding the other players and the DM of what you just did. If the BBEG loses a Standard action, that's a big deal, and since it's not an usual effect like "dazed" or something, it's easy to miss.

>>54470367
Tokens? A striked out S for Standard, M for Move, A for Attack...

>>54471727
Yeah, that does make a lot of sense, now that I think of it.

Why not grant an action out of turn? So you give your ally a move, he moves, you continue your turn

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i'm super autistic so i just drew a to scale of my dnd room im redoing complete, tearing subflooring out, new flooring, new drywall, paint, new table, felt, padding, new chairs, the works...

this will work, right? i've actually never played before but will be hosting for the first time and playing for the first time coming up next month...

>>54474855
I'm assuming those protrusions from the table are going to be cupholders, and your gonna have another table to put food n shit, because most game nights involve food and drink and dice and other materials which takes up a good portion of a table.

>>54475137
food will be eaten in my kitchen and family room. as far as room for stuff on table the 4x4" dice trays can be moved leaving 2x 10"x12" areas

and theres 2x 8"x15" areas inbetween players in the middle as well

do i really need more room? i was under the impression my table would be a bit larger than most that people use. most tables i've seen are 30" wide and 5 feet long, this ones 6'x36"

>>54475137
>>54475137
oh also the cupholders will be mounted under the table so they wont be taking up any actual real estate on the table

So as I tinker away in what free time I have, I've been trying to figure out what to do about the Shugenja (and Sohei et al) where, if we go with the two sides trying to achieve Harmony, how can we make it so that reaching harmony is doable but not too easy, while at the same time not having all fights be over before you can manage it? Cause right now the few mock-ups I've made have either resulted in you always having Harmony, making it pointless, or never getting it, same.

>>54476398
Make it based on events you can mostly control but the gm can also fuck with, adjacent enemies, getting hit, disobeying monster marks, spending surges etc.

>>54476398
>>54476497
Harmony is based on the number of adjacent creatures, odd or even?

>>54476764
haha fuck no

>>54476836
You gotta balance that shit out, my man. Yin and Yang. Ally and Enemy. Give and Receive. Harmony.

Folks, I was wondering: if we had never received the scourge of Essentials, what do you think that the Heroes of the Shadowfell, Feywild and Elemental Chaos splatbooks might have contained?

>>54477015
Eseentials wasn't that bad bruh

>>54477015
Feywild and Elemental was pretty much fine as I recall. HoS was pretty terrible but it probably would have still come out, just less terrible.

>>54477015
The problem wasn't Essentials as a line. The problem was Mike Mearls as the producer. The guy never had any idea how the game was supposed to work, as Keep on the Shadowfell readily demonstrates

>>54476398
Maybe have it be easily achievable but also influenced by external events.

Say, you have a power or a class feature that increases your AC but while it's active, attacks on your change your balance, raising Yin if you're hit or Yang when missed. Or something of the sort

>>54477438
KotC and an original campaign around MP1's release pretty much killed my interest in 4E until there was incontrovertible proof that everything that ruined the game got fixed and by that point it was too late.

>>54477504
*KotS

>>54477015
Essentials on its own wasn't truly horrible, it experimented with a lot of the classes, gave us an amazing monster manual and tried to take baby steps in the direction of 5e. The problem for me is that it wasn't on its own, it was effectively a new edition, inside another edition and claiming to be part of that one. Standing the essentials and core 4e content side by side, one of those would consistently fall apart and to this day we don't use essentials stuff outside of a few specific builds.

I think a big problem has been, and continues to be, Mike Mearls. Mike is a DM, he's apparently great at it, I dunno because I've never been at his table and find him to be too preachy and political. He builds worlds and campaigns, he did adventures through most of 4e for a reason.

His personal views on rules, are that they don't matter because he will make them up on the spot during his games, and so he likes the absolute minimum of them. This is an amazing attitude for a DM, but for the guy in charge of writing all the rules? That is the furthest from the right mindset you could possibly be. For him to be handed control over the most rules-heavy and math-neat edition of the game was Wizards throwing in the towel.

It also didn't help that every single Essentials release resulted in a core 4e book not going in that release slot, or being pushed back, and it split the player base significantly.

>>54477015
>>54477593
I loved the previous Players Options books, Heroes of Elemental Chaos, Feywild and Into the Unknown. Heroes of Shadow, to this day, I still don't know if it was meant to be an Essentials book or a 'core' 4e book. When it was announced, they slated it as a 320 page digest sized book akin to Heroes of Fallen Lands and Forgotten Kingdoms, but the next step. Then they said in interviews that it was intended for 'core' players and not Essentials fans. Whilst we were waiting for it, we had Gazetteer: The Nentir Vale and Players Handbook: Champions of the Heroic Tier disappear from release schedules with no announcement. Then they cut Class Compendium: Heroes of Sword and Spell, Mordenkainens Magnificent Emporium and Hero Builders Handbook, whilst changing Heroes of Shadow from digest to hardcover. Then we just got cards and a DM screen and it was the longest period without a book, during an edition, since the late 90's. Until they released 5e of course, where their business plan seems to be 'don't give people too many books in case they need 6 months to save for each one'

>>54477593
Most of what was introduced in Essentials was actually good stuff

The monster design, the magic items, the feats, it even had some pretty cool PPs and EDs, even if it did bring in Destined Scion, the most boringly designed character option in 4e

The only shitshow from Essentials was the class design, and even then, Mage and Hexblade were actually pretty darn cool

>>54477926
In general, I'd say it was nice to experiment with mechanics, even though some of the experiments fell through and Slayer and Thief interacted poorly with Warlord

>>54477941
>and Slayer and Thief interacted poorly with Warlord

You mean way too well, right?

>>54477926

Essentials classes would have likely built much better on the back of the Psionics system (If Martial and Arcane can use the same basic system, why not psionics and others?).

>>54477986
I was going to write "failed to interact properly with Warlord" at first. But yes, that's what I meant.

I'm looking at migrating my current campaign from Dnd5E to strike! Or 4E. I am leaning towards Strike! But I am not sure if they have any options for a character with an animal companion that is any good (one of my players loves her pet). Can some kind anon let me know the options before I splash out on the rule book?

>>54478494
4e has the shaman class, which doesn't technically have an animal companion, but refluffing the spirit companion as an animal companion is easy

There's also beast master rangers, but they are a bit shit, especially when compared to other rangers

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>>54478494
It has a class called "buddies" that is entirely about having an animal companion.

>>54478514
Thanks Anon. I'd heard Beastmasters were basically the worst ranger, and right now she's using the revised ranger in 5E which is very strong. I'll definitely have a look at Shaman should I go the 4E route.

I'm not sure if Strike has any animal companion options at all.

>>54478514
>>54478494
For 4e your best option would be the feytamer theme (just gives you an animal companion) or hybriding the Sentinel Druid.

>>54478532
>>54478517
I spoke way too soon. Thanks a lot! I will have a look at both systems :).

There's also Arcane Familiar if you want a pet that isn't meant to directly participate in combat, but probably not a great fit for a converted Ranger.

>>54478543
Feel free to ask any questions you have in this thread. The Strike! rulebook can be a bit offputting, and 4e has a LOT of material to comb through when compared to 5e.

>>54478517
I read through the Strike PDF - just a quick question. Does the variant of two distinct characters mean they get a round each in combat ? (It says they act as a "unit" whatever that means) Or do you have to choose who acts?

>>54478611
It means they act as one (one initiative, one action), that's what it means by "unit". It's just a variant for outside of combat character building, it does not affect the combat mechanics (aside from having a larger pool of skills).

>>54478645
Gotcha. So the buddy class Powers are the way they work together. Thanks.

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>>54478658
Yup. Just like the illustration implies, that variant is for when your player wants to play two characters as a team in combat, but have their own separate skills instead of a ranger with a dog where the ranger is the "main" character and the dog is a supporter.

There's a different class for two full characters with separate players wanting to work together in a more unified manner called The Ogre in the playtest doc.

>>54478494
On this note actually, is anyone familiar with how animal companions work in 13th Age. I admit I haven't given it the best look.

I can't wait til Mearls has a stroke. He ruins everything he touches.

>>54479124
A bit harsh, innit?

>>54479124
Yeah, I wish he was demoted to the mail room at most, I reckon a stroke is a bit harsh.

>>54477648
>Players Handbook: Champions of the Heroic Tier

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Heroic tier best tier, thinking about all the sweet stuff we missed out on makes me sad.

>>54477648
>Class Compendium: Heroes of Sword and Spell
>Hero Builders Handbook

Any idea what was supposed to be in these?

>>54479258
All of the cancelled books sounded sweet as fuck to me, and 5 years later I still can't fucking tell if Heroes of Shadow is Essentials or 'core' 4e. Fucking Mearls!

>>54479153
>>54479173
I regret nothing

>>54479274
Critical Hits, reporting on the announcement from Gen Con

"Hero Builder's Handbook. Aimed at players who want to tinker and build something detailed with your character.

Player's Handbook: Champions of the Heroic Tier. Introduces themes for core D&D. New options, feats. Non-combat options like Blacksmith."

Hero Builders Handbook I believe was going to detail a lot of the behind-the-scenes math to allow for custom classes, powers, paragon paths, etc.

Champions of the Heroic Tier was, I believe, going to be like a PHB4 but less focused on new classes and races and more focus on lower level stuff like backgrounds and themes. I've read conflicting reports though that it was going to be an Essentials book for Rogue, Fighter, Wizard and Cleric and they rehashed that content for Dragon magazine after the book was canned.

>>54479360
>Hero Builders Handbook I believe was going to detail a lot of the behind-the-scenes math to allow for custom classes, powers, paragon paths, etc.
MEEEEARLS!

>>54479394
Don't forget he also got the GazetteerL The Nentir Vale canned and moved all of D&D for the last half decade into the Forgotten Realms and never mentioned Points of Light again > : (

>>54479411
I will never understand the appeal of Forgotten Realms

It is easily the worst D&D official setting

>>54479411
It's just that HBHB (hubba-hubba?) bothers me the most, as it would help creating custom stuff immensely

>>54479411
>Don't forget he also got the GazetteerL The Nentir Vale canned

God fucking dammit. That would have been invaluable.

>>54479447
Oh I understand completely, I'm just fanning the flames of feeling bitter at Mearls for running one game into the ground so he could convince the studio to let him start from scratch. It's just fun knowing I'm not the only guy wringing my fist in the air crying his name.

>>54479446
Same here. Points of Light has been my favourite of all official settings, I like a few individual pieces from other ones, but it felt like the first to be made for gaming and not for novels and side products. I can't run around in Forgotten Realms without feeling like there are 3 novels and a comic series set everywhere we go, we're just following in the footsteps of named NPC's and you can't throw a rock without hitting a level 20 something or other. I look at it and feel like I've gotta study for a test just to walk around.

>>54479483
PoL best setting and never got fluff compiled in a single book :(

>>54479491
personally my favourite setting is Eberron

The fluff is perfectly built to end right when the campaigns start, but still with the flexibility to set campaigns earlier, the setting's tone just works marvelously with 4e's playstyle, and... well, it came out when I was 13, so I instantly loved it

>>54479491
One thing with Mearls: despite being on Orcus team and according to "WotC presents" books being instrumental in shaping 4e, he also admitted in one of 5e podcasts to never running a game of 4e. How can a man not running a game for this edition be in charge of developing new mechanics?

>>54479360
MEARLS YOU CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

>>54479563
>How can a man not running a game for this edition be in charge of developing new mechanics?

He sucks a mean dick

Does a Shaman really need to build up their STR or DEX?

and now Heinsoo is making 13th age

and honestly, each new bit of stuff seems better than the last, the original book had fantastic fluff, but it's mechanics were a bit... torn, you had garbage like rangers alongside monsters like wizards, but since then, the monster and class design has improved immensely... even if monks do need a bit higher tuning

>>54479647
Is 13th age decent?

>>54477458
See. This sort of makes me think that it would be easier to have Harmony just be another build all together, and have Yin and Yang be seperate ones as well. Though one way it could work is the higher the pool count the better the return effects.

So say you have Tiers of return effects for harmony

If Yin/Yang are at 1 point each the target gets a Minor action
3 Points a move action
5 points a standard.

Or other sort of effects. That way your encouraged to use other powers. and once use trigger harmony the pool empties.

>>54479541
I can understand that, it steps a little away from my personal take on fantasy for a D&D game and I like the Iron Kingdoms to scratch that same itch of robots and trains. I've heard rumours that Keith Baker continues to run his home games in 4e though and hasn't said much at all about 5e except he's not in the loop regarding a 5e Eberron book anytime soon.

>>54479563
Bloody hell the more I hear about Mearls the more I think he's a fucking cunt. What I've been told by people though is that Mearls is incredibly good at playing the long game and at internal office politics. What strikes me as odd is that he took the 4e powers playtest stuff and rehashed it for the Book of Nine Swords and is reputed as an advocate for the martial classes. Then when putting together Essentials he starts stripping that back and pushing out martials as basic attack machines again, then in 5e seems to revert casters and martials to pre-powers entirely. From what he's said on his twitter, he wants to take 5e into a vastly dumbed down direction where each class had a different attack dice, and now he's becoming famous we're getting shit like his initiative system

>>54479672
It's pretty good

The real strength of it is the fluffier bits, the class design is a little out of whack, they have an intentional divide between simple and complex, but unfortunately the divide matches nearly perfectly with "shit" and "good"

Also, compared to 4e, it's a lot less interesting in regards to combat tactics, it uses theatre of the mind, and is a lot simpler in regards to positioning.

That said, the way it's mechanics and fluff interact is really nice, especially the way some monsters influence the escalation die and how end boss monsters can be made easier to fight by achieving campaign victories against them

>>54479718
Yeah it sucks playing a martial, it's just I ATTACK. The play-test stuff was way more interesting but I'm not sure if it was Mearls or 3.PF Autists who made it go back to being shit. Manouvers should have been baseline on every martial.

>>54479733
Hmm. It doesn't sound exactly like my cup of tea, but I'll see if I can have a look at the rule book.

>>54479758
One of the things I found missing in both the playtest and final product is the lack of desperation options amongst martial characters

If things start going tits up for martial characters, the best they can do is continue doing what they did before, but spellcasters are overloaded with things they can pull out of their butts, from sudden burst damage to escape spells

>>54479778
>>54479758
I think that's just the design flaw of giving casters a whole 'nother system to work with with spellcasting being its own thing. You could double or even triple the class abilities of martials, and in the end they'd still have only a fraction of what casters have with spells.

I remember the earlier playtest stuff having some cool looking fighter things, I remember Mearls at some point saying openly 'fighters should be the best at fighting'. I also know Monte Cook was on the 5e design team until he ragequit again, and he's renowned for his casters > martials balance boner.

Does anyone remember Mearls sitting down with the Penny Arcade boys to pitch them on the 5e playtest to keep milking them for D&D publicity, and being unable to answer the question "Why would I switch from 4e?" like he'd never even considered the question before, let alone had to think of an answer to pitch the new edition to someone

>>54479771
If you go in to 13th age expecting 4e you'll be disappointed. It's probably closer to 5th edition than 4th. It can be fun, but don't expect to play as a decent martial.

>>54479771
It's definitely worth a look, but it is extremely divided between utter brilliance and utter shit

Also, this is probably only because I've been spoiled by 4e, but the amount of options within each class feels extremely limited to me, but all 4e knockoffs have this problem

>>54479854
Fighters, Commanders and Rogues are pretty good

Monks are amazing in terms of design, but undertuned in terms of relative power

But yeah, Paladins, barbarians and rangers are garbage

>>54479839
>I remember the earlier playtest stuff having some cool looking fighter things
They were pretty insane. Mages would fucking explode in fighter's vicinity
I keep wanting to go through playtests and assemble an experimental ruleset of my own with like 3 levels, just to see what works and what doesn't.

>unable to answer the question "Why would I switch from 4e?" like he'd never even considered the question before
He likely didn't. He had no real first hand experience with the system and 6 years ago internet was quite an echo chamber about how much 4e sucks balls and is literally Hitler. So he had a fairly skewed picture in his mind

ITT: People curse the man who poisoned their water supply, burmed their crops and delivered a plague unto their houses down to his tenth generation.

Mearls, the greatest bellend to ever live. That said, Keith Baker running home games in 4e seems like very sweet news. If he was good at mechanics and interested in reviving 4e, we could have him lead a really really pulpy 4e Heartbreaker. And that'd be wonderful.

I've recently noticed something interesting about 4e

If you work with the assumption that melee weapons are a strong and viable combat option, 4e is the most flexible of all D&D editions in regards to refluffing for other genres beyond high fantasy

>>54479958
It'd be sweet to see that done with the playtest stuff, just bring together your favourites of the different revisions and see if it works. I can understand how he ended up in a position of never once considering that some people might have liked 4e. I think it was less echo chambers and more that he didn't like it because it's not the game of his youth, so how could anyone else like it? It just boggles my mind that a designer could go out to be a face for the company and not be prepared for basic shit like that.

>>54479985
Our shared foe brings us closer together as a community <3

I'd love to see 4e revival, with the way Wizards have been pushing out support for old editions in their 'classic' marketing, how hard would it be for some swish fan products to result in them tweaking their dmsguild shit to allow 4e fan shit? It feels like they're dipping a toe in the water, but assuming people only want 2e and 3e stuff but put 4e up anyway since they had the PDF's sitting around and could make some dosh.

>>54479839
>Does anyone remember Mearls sitting down with the Penny Arcade boys to pitch them on the 5e playtest to keep milking them for D&D publicity, and being unable to answer the question "Why would I switch from 4e?" like he'd never even considered the question before, let alone had to think of an answer to pitch the new edition to someone

Source on this, it sounds hilarious.

>>54480085
D&D Acquisitions Incorporated podcasts in the Wizards site, the playtest episode is where Mearls sits them down to talk about changes and remake their characters. I believe it was in the first part, where he's meant to be giving them the pitch, as the later parts were the mechanics. The writer had been through a few editions, so was all on board with you getting a new ruleset every few years and changing over, but the artist had only started with 4e after making fun of the game in previous editions, and was openly asking to be sold on the new game, why should he change, what makes it better than 4th. Mearls actually argues that balance in 4e was a bad thing at one point, and then tries to sell the new edition by saying you don't have to get it. All my years in retail work make me cringe listening to him

>>54480072
>I'd love to see 4e revival
We still might, it's just that everyone realizes that the edition is far from perfect and anyone who tries to make a retroclone ends up neck-deep in changes to mechanics.

Speaking of retroclones. Here's a link I meant to post for a while now:
>https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?807149-4E-Actual-Faithful-Retro-Clone-Project
Yeah, I know, RPG.net is a SJW nest but this looks fairly promising for future publishing

>>54480137

IIRC some of the shit he tried to sell it on were also removed from the final game, like the playtest fighters constantly refreshing pool of expertise dice.

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>>54479360
This is what we lost to essentials?

Jesus christ...

>>54480137
That sounds like cringe-based comedy bordering on the level of Watamote.

>>54480148
Yeah, that's 4e's issue. You need an entire design team for it. The system was built on so much crunch that even going with Strike!'s approach it's possible to require someone else. Meanwhile, other edition's heartbreakers can be built in an hour.

>>54480210

As someone trying their own hand at it, I've got a group of six I'm currently working with. A small team to lay the foundation and get the basics sorted, then possibly expanding beyond that once we have a core design document we can point people at to say 'This is how the system works, design to these parameters and shit will work okay'.

>>54480148
I know I'm not in the majority camp when it comes to retroclones and stuff. I enjoy 4e for what it is, and would love to add more content and fan made books to the lineup, because when I look at things like 13th age, strike, etc I just feel like we're trying to remake what we already like when that energy could go to building on what we've already got.

>>54480163
You are completely right, and he builds a background for the fighter then and there which is never again mentioned and certainly doesn't make it into the PHB in any way, shape or form.

>>54480210
>>54480256
I can't imagine the disadvantage we're at with creating content when the actual developers got paid to go into the office for 8 hours a day and just do the design work, when we're doing it solo or in small groups and juggling our own jobs and hobby time and trying to do stuff like this on the side. I'm hopeful though, and whilst I'm not too big on the Ki stuff, I'm enjoying seeing all the homebrew getting talked about in these threads. I'd wanna work on remaking Shadow classes if I had a little more time and motivation and kickstart my homebrew by 'fixing' what Mearls fucked up

>>54480514
>I know I'm not in the majority camp when it comes to retroclones and stuff. I enjoy 4e for what it is, and would love to add more content and fan made books to the lineup, because when I look at things like 13th age, strike, etc I just feel like we're trying to remake what we already like when that energy could go to building on what we've already got.

Remakes are easier to deal with because you can build from the ground up. You got to admit, for all our love of 4e, it did get a bit bloated, and there are quite a few D&D-isms that it could easily do without. Any homebrew for it will have to deal with that, going forward, while making a clone you start with a clean slate.

Both approaches have their merit, but cloning is just simpler, and hence more appealing.

>>54479483
I prefer this way. We have something great, unexplored, full of potential. The last thing I wanted was NV become FR 2.0
Still miss Mystara
Although Mystara is more suited for 5e, low power feel.

>>54447067
Not the only viable option. You can go the Gamma World route, auto stats to the two primaries and whatever for the rest.

>>54480137
I can't find the episode

>>54480634
>Still miss Mystara
>Although Mystara is more suited for 5e, low power feel.
I miss Mystara as well, but... low power feel? You're kidding, right?

Mystara *introduced* the concept of ascending to godhood as a fully supported and plausible PC goal, and even had a whole boxed set for playing a game *as* a god, instead of just ending the campaign once you hit that point.

Add in the gonzo variety of races, and Mystara would have gone together with 4e like peanut butter with chocolate.

>>54480623
The big thing you should drop from a retroclone of 4e is the six stats

You could use 3d6 for most rolls, or fix how skills work, but the 6 stats sort of work against 4e, making a character who's strong and tough, or quick of both mind and body, is distinctly suboptimal, and that's sort of stupid

>>54479912
The 13a monk is ripped straight from Final Fantasy 14.

>>54481316
Yeah, the 6 stats just doesn't feel good. I'd probably streamline the weapons too (gamma world did this and it works pretty well).

I'd not use 3d6 and see nothing really wrong with skills (aside from the list probably needing a bit of tinkering), however... but thats getting into specifics

>>54481483
I actually quite like the 4e weapon keyword system

I don'tthink it's handled well, but i think at it's heart it's a good system for weapons

>>54481314
>mixing condiments
You people disgust me

>>54481524
The keywords are cool, the weapon list is meh. Also, the damage dice <<< prof bonus is kinda annoying.

Gimme weapon building rules instead.

>>54480072
>4e revival
If nothing else, they could refocus some of the best stuff and just rerelease it as "D&D Tactics".

>>54481925
You think they will? They don't care about 4e anymore, how the fuck do you think funin.space, with PDFs of all books and magazines and even its own compendium, is still up? They have all but dishonored it.

>>54482025

To be fair, it doesn't seem like 5e has much of a release schedule these days.

>>54482334
Ok, fair point.

One thing that does piss me off about 4e is the people that spout the whole "if it had been released under another name/by someone else it'd been big!" - yeah, not really? 4e was such a big thing on the innards that it could only have been feasibly done by a big company. Besides, it only really got a load of initial attention because it's D&D.

The effects that it had on the community were pretty much as a reaction to it, but I feel now we might be seeing some work that looks at 4e and takes the good things from it rather than butcher it completely.

>>54483309
>butcher
Sorry, but I think some sacred cows should be butchered six stats and 3-18 range and only weren't because MUH DND.

>>54485249
Yeah, those are some things worth butchering, I feel that some basic stuff of 4e (like its focus on position and the idea that people should have their own role within combat to make it interesting) got butchered.

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Serious question: what setting(s) do you wish 4e had managed to cover/convert/update/etc?
- Aside from my burning fury at the death of the Nentir Vale Gazetteer, I kind of wish we'd gotten a 4e Planescape/Sigil guidebook - because the World Axis is so much more accessible than the Great Wheel, it would have been so easy to run epic, plane-hopping campaigns - but, failing that, a 4e Mystara could have had some groovy new races and epic level content too.

Less Serious Question: What's your favorite piece of 4e artwork?

Silly Question: What do you think was/were the hottest female artworks to come out of 4e?

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>>54487104
>Favorite piece of 4e artwork:
Man, that's a really hard question. I honestly really like the Swordmage's official art, but if there's one art that I feel encompasses a character perfectly it's the Barbarian's official art. Flame of Hope's art is also really, really cool.

>Hottest female artwork:
Zephyr Blade's Battlemind a cute. I know it's a really odd pick, but she's really, really attractive to me. Talaric Strategist's Ardent is also quite cute.

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>>54487296
4e had some really great artwork of its own, for all that the fandumb harped on about the recycled 3e artwork.

In terms of hot art, I find it amazing that 4e managed to take a lot of the "strong" or "brutish" races, like dwarves and goliaths, and make their female art attractive. The Rampaging Brute PP from Martial Power 2 had a pretty hot she-dwarf.

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>>54487500
>I find it amazing that 4e managed to take a lot of the "strong" or "brutish" races, like dwarves and goliaths, and make their female art attractive.

>>54487647
To be fair, the male versions of those guys definitely were attractive as well. Most of 4e's made of either good looking people, or people doing really realy cool shit (or good looking people doing really cool shit, that also works).

>>54481524
>>54481483
Pretty sure you can generalize die sizes and still have keywords. If I remember 4e weapon tables correctly, most keywords cost 1 die step

>>54487104
Birthright might've been dope

>>54487104
Wow that piece was really ruined in the colouring. Still hate 4e's approach to costume design, but that's been a problem in the line for a long time.

As to your question, I would have like to see a 4e version of Birthright. It never got enough love in the AD&D era, and the kingdom building element was kind of constrained its arbitrary limitations in character building - fighters have fiefs and thieves have guilds, thus has it ever been and you can't do it differently even if the guilds are actually legitimate mercantile companies. In a 4e version by contrast there's all sorts of room for the unique aspects of the setting to flesh out parts of the system that are kind of blah - Regency is practically begging to empower a new set of paragon paths.

It would be an opportunity to show what a more grounded kind of epic game would like as well. I've never liked the assumption in core D&D that as you level past a certain point you start hopping planes and fighting hordes of devils. Birthright does epic fantasy, but it keeps it in one reality. The epic monsters are unique characters, and often they're the rulers of nations you need to meet on friendly terms.

I always heard that the playtest version of 5E was amazing and then Mearls and other shitlords got their hands on it and we have what's out now. What was so good in the first versions?

>>54480514
>I can't imagine the disadvantage we're at with creating content when the actual developers got paid to go into the office for 8 hours a day and just do the design work, when we're doing it solo or in small groups and juggling our own jobs and hobby time and trying to do stuff like this on the side.

This is a big thing, I've probably seen 100 people talk up their work on a 4e descendant but none of them get critical mass and make it out the door, or if they do they go all weird with it.

>>54487104
Spelljammer, easy.

Planescape a shit

>>54489183

The two big things people miss are the Expertise Dice fighter and the Dragon Sorceror.

The Expertise Dice fighter got a refreshing pool of extra dice, every round, that they could assign to extra damage or various maneuvers on the fly, giving them a huge amount of options and in combat utility. The playtest version wasn't perfect, but it was a shit load better than the awful, watered down crap we got with the Battlemaster.

The Dragon Sorcerer was the real loss, though. They gave the class actual identity, casting spells with a spell point system, and unlocking passive manifestations based on your bloodline the more spells you cast.

The Dragon Sorceror developed scales, a breath weapon and other such things as they depleted their magic, ending the day as a decent second line fighter, so they still had something to contribute to a fight even after they'd burned all their resources. It was a really cool idea they completely abandoned.

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>>54480779
Their site is horrid for filtering and shit, so I don't blame you. Here's an image of the one, I couldn't filter by AcqInc and had to just filter to old first and scroll down a few pages. They don't work if you hit play, I had to click the image for it to work for some reason.

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>>54487104
I wish they'd gotten around to a full Spelljammer conversion. God DAMN I would have loved some 4e space planar swashbuckler action. It would have built on the DMG2 Sigil and Paragon tier stuff super easily, and been a great opening up to Epic Tier stuff with demigods and gods.

I loved the Wayne Reynolds cover art, but this image is easily my favourite.

As for hottest female artworks, I'm not sure if it counts because it was the post 4e transition period but I assume it was made for 4e and Menzoboranzan book before Mearls cut the rules to make it all fluff heavy and edition neutral, but it was one of the covers for the encounters Web of the Spider Queen with the three drow chicks draped over each other

>>54489371
God damn. I really don't know which one I was more angry at losing. The fighter or the sorcerer anon.

I really really wish they had stuck with the sorcerer idea.

>>54489371
Got PDFs with either of those? They sound neat as hell.

>>54489317
It's kinda there already. Sure, no scro or british hippos, but they're not hard to add

>>54492624
stash in 5e general has all playtests packs

>>54493017
OK but which one should I be looking for

>>54493101
I just clicked randomly and 081712 has Sorcerer in it. Can't remember if there were improvements to it later but you can start with that one

>>54489612
Thanks, I'll check it out.

>>54480022
Mecha being objectively the best refluff.

>>54493267
Would love this shifting style of sorcerer by morning, dragon by night. Hard to fluff out, looks like a hulk-hyde idea of spending the magic that chains your true self out of sight.

>>54496638

I've been pondering how you would do this in 4e. You could either have a set of features based on expended encounters and dailies, but I also think it would be pretty cool to fold it into powers itself, so they had passive encounter or day long effects after being used.

>>54497944
I feel like that could be a good take on an essentials style class. Use an encounter->get an at-will boost.

>>54497944
Berserker already has a role switch from Defender into Striker, so maybe look into that for inspiration.

>>54497944
You could have a more permanent version of Warden dailies, where he gets an immediate effect and gets a boost in something until the end of the day

>>54495796
Ardents are basically Kamina.

How would you feel about the concept of a high risk, high reward Leader variant? Things like a very large heal that afflicts an ally with a small amount of Vulnerability, 2 or something. Playing around with design ideas on that theme.

>>54500727
Sorta like a bravura warlord but even more EXTREME?

>>54500983

Less more extreme and more of a general thing. Bravura powers tend to primarily endanger the Warlord in order to give his allies a bigger boost. This would be big boosts that had inherent risks to them, requiring clever play to support them and get the best use out of them. A heal which gives vulnerability means trying to ensure they aren't attacked much this turn, to get the best use out of it and minimise the downside.

>>54501086
Bravura's aura was sorta all or nothing, but yeah, I get what you mean. I had been thinking of a "vicious" leader myself.

How about something like giving an attack with some huge bonuses to an ally, but making him susceptible to a counter from that creature?

Could go really crazy with it, like "target can make a free attack, if it hits it's a crit, but all attack by that enemy against the target also crit", the idea being that you should destroy that enemy so it doesn't have time hitting back.

>>54502681
That sounds OP and slightly dangerous, I love it.

Any advice for handling a 1 DM and 1 PC game, anons?
I started DMing such a thing recently and I'm having trouble thinking of ways to escalate combat without ultramurdering the solo PC.

>>54507187
Go full tactics or PC Baldurs Gate and let him control a full party. But start with one PC, then 2... so to not overwhelm him.

>>54446354
hey anyone got the 4e foot race pdf? Can't find it anywhere. Its got some nice examples of alt encounters other than combat.

I have a DM trying to wrap her head around alternatives for combat in kingmaker.

>>54507837
That's a pretty smart idea, anon.

What do you hate about Strike!

I'm brewing shit and think I may as well go ahead and try to fix some of it.

>>54513305
The "everything is a d6" is stupid

The separation between class and role severely limits class design

Also, the out of combat rules are so shit they might as well not exist

>>54515502
>The "everything is a d6" is stupid

Does the 2d6 alternate rule fix this?

Would a Savage Worlds like "stats as dice" alternate rule fix this?

Would you be interested in a more traditional "d20+bonuses" style?

>The separation between class and role severely limits class design

Could you elaborate on this?

Would a more Gamma World-like setup with more mini-classes fix this?
Would putting roles/classes as equal (you can pick any 2 instead of picking 1-1) fix this?

>>54515641

I don't think the class design thing is something that can really be fixed without making a whole new game.

Strike achieves greater flexibility by letting every class perform every role, but that implicitly means that the class design can't be as mechanically complex or deep, as every class needs to be able to function as anything, while 4e was able to dedicate its class design and create very specific mechanical systems to support a classes intended role.

It's why the character building element of Strike has always felt quite shallow and unsatisfying to me. I don't think it's bad, it just doesn't really contain what I'd want from a 4e successor.

>>54515667
>Strike achieves greater flexibility by letting every class perform every role, but that implicitly means that the class design can't be as mechanically complex or deep, as every class needs to be able to function as anything,

I'm not sure that A correlates with B. Lots of classes have an implied role (Warlord is Leader: the class, for example), and some have roles that often conflict with the goal of the class (Duelist-blaster).

> while 4e was able to dedicate its class design and create very specific mechanical systems to support a classes intended role.

Can you give an example maybe? I think the role/class separation is great exactly because the class doesn't need a mechanic that lets it fill a specific role. It still _can_ though (see Assassin Rogues, for example).

>>54515754
Not him, but I think roles ARE classes. Martial defender = fighter, divine leader = cleric. I didn't read Strike! but I would prefer premade classes like a Guardian (melee martial defender) and Slayer (melee martial striker) and then applying a """"theme"""" in it. So my Slayer + Street Urchin (gives flavor, skills, almost or no powers) is a Rogue, but + Hunter is a Ranger. But I could make my Ranger with Hunter + Sniper (ranged martial striker) or + Artillery (ranged martial controller, think traps and nets).

I think Strike! is quite close to this, actually. But it looks like lasagna + chocolate instead of different flavours of lasagna.

>>54516453
The origin of the roles comes from the stereotypical D&D Party - Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard (Defender, Striker, Leader, Controller), really. It's kinda interesting how Strike! is sort of retroactively applying that.

>>54478494
Sentinel Druid can be good, Shaman as well, Beastmaster Ranger isn't too hot but some later feats and stuff help.

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>>54516453
>>54518180

Strike! doesn't really _do_ power sources. You know how 4e is easy to refluff? Well, Strike! isn't just easy to refluff, but the baseline expectation is that you fluff/refluff everything yourself.

That said, the classes have some fluff themselves, and if you want to play it like that, you can attach a power source to the roles, something like...
Martial->Striker
Primal->Defender
Arcane (Psionic?)->Controller
Divine->Leader
Elemental (Arcane?)->Blaster

Classes (pic related) give you the method, the tools, Roles (also pic related) improve them in a certain direction.

If you have a character concept, I'd be glad to demonstrate how it works.... or you could roll me a d6 and a d20 and let the dice decide.

>>54513305
I'm reading through this for the first time now and can't say I like the base d6 + chart roll for stuff.

I like the stuff on the chart, success + complications and stuff is cool, but straight d6 is kinda rough.

>>54518587
2d6 is an optional rule and if you do that, you can easily replace skills with PbtA style stats (ranging from 1-3)... basically you can just use it to play a "generic" PbtA system.

>>54518574
Dangit, I forgot the rogue! If you get Freelancer, let's do Rogue instead cause Freelancer is boring.

Or roll d21 or whatever.

>>54518574
>elemental power source

>>54518587
The skill table being rough is a really common complaint, and completely understandable.
It actually becomes almost exactly DnD's assumptions on skills (look at the maths on the updated level/skill-DC chart) if you just change it to, for results of 6->1

1) Unskilled: Success, Success, Success, Fail, Fail, Fail.
2) Skilled: Success, Success, Success, Success, Fail, Fail.

They then represent untrained and trained, more or less.
It leaves out all the mods you can get in 4e, but those mods mostly break the skill system in 4e anyways. Also, a lot of the system disappears (costs, bonuses, twists, kits fall even more apart, etc) if you do this but it doesn't get any plainer than 4e does, so it's probably fine.

And if you wanted to, you can easily make it so you *can* get mods, or more advanced training in a skill (somehow)

Like, very quickly, as increased skill levels past "Skilled":
Expert: Treat Rolls of 2s as 3s
Master: When you roll a 6, you get a free Bonus.
Supreme: Roll with Advantage

I have some very rough notes here about all this at https://pastebin.com/kZm5GGj0 that I never finished, and most definitely did not clean up.

>>54518801
Honestly, it's more personally being racist against needing to look at a chart, though honestly, it's a small chart and probably easy to memorize if you use it enough, and being racist against single-die rolls, I just like me some bell curves to keep it interesting.

>>54518801
>elemental power source

Yeah, yeah, kick poor elementalist some more. It's not like he already has it hard enough.

>>54518870
It's funny, because in two the pre-release books of 4e I recall Elemental coming up several times and mentioned more than some others, yet when the game was released it was ignored for years then mediocre when released.

Though I did kind of like some of the later ones.

Back to Strike! though:

Why do some races and origins have different numbers of Complications? Is there a reason I'm missing?

>>54518942
>Why do some races and origins have different numbers of Complications? Is there a reason I'm missing?

I'm pretty sure you are just supposed to pick one (or both, if you want to use your "free" complication for that) .

>>54518862
I'm a fan of bell curves, but a bell curve does dick simply in itself.
If your system has binary (pass/fail) resolution, all you've got is success/fail odds. For these cases, it doesn't really matter except the odds of that success/fail (and the effects of modifiers) is harder to guess at on a multi-die/bell-curved system (2d6, 2d10, 3d8, whatever) rather than a single-die (like a d20 or d100).

What happens with a bell curve, if it's +MOD vs DC, is that modifiers become more and more powerful, because they're ignoring the curve more and more.

If it's "roll under a stat, mods change that stat", then you get diminishing returns which is where the interesting thing happens - further +s to your stat add less and less, because going "roll under 11" to "roll under 12" on a 2d10 is much bigger increase than going from "roll under 19" to "roll under 20."

They can let you do something like what Unity is doing with 2d10 (roll a matching pair for a crit), but in the end that just results in a 1/10*1/10 -> 10% Crit Rate, which you can do on a d20 or d10 or whatever completely fine.

I mean multi-die systems can do cool stuff a single d20 can't, but a d20 in itself can do a decent amount.
Furthermore, a curved system isn't even necessarily "less random" than a single-die system if you don't do anything with that. d20>=10 is is 55%. 2d10>=11 is 55%. If that's all you look at, what's it matter if the curve system has a smaller standard deviation? The answer is "it doesn't"

Is there a big book of races and classes and stuff?

>>54518973
For some of these it makes sense, others look like they should have both. I dunno.

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>>54519326
>Is there a big book of races and classes and stuff?

Strike! only has the origins/backgrounds in the core book, but that's okay because they are very easy to do.

>For some of these it makes sense, others look like they should have both. I dunno.

Yeah, I'm not sure myself. This is what the book has to say about it.

>>54519388
>Strike! only has the origins/backgrounds in the core book, but that's okay because they are very easy to do.

Some are really exciting and scream "I want to play this!" others not so much. I guess I like pre-made classes due to feeling like I'm cheating making my own for some reason.

That said, minor things aside I am really liking what I see, looks like good potential for fun.

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>>54519451
Just to clarify, we talking about classes or origins/background now?

For classes there's also a playtest doc.>>54478720, the rogue (pdf related), and the psion (3rd party, it's weird).

For backgrounds/origins, you basically always want to have them fit for the campaign, and also have them more or less balanced between the party members, which they almost never survive as written. The only part that's kinda hard to get is how wide your skills/tricks are allowed to go, otherwise it's pretty easy to make up new shit. I made Star Trek races as Origins for example, and I think it worked out okay.

>>54519388
>>54519326
There's also that playtest doc with all those extra classes and the lurker role, as hinted in the image above.

>>54519535
>Just to clarify, we talking about classes or origins/background now?
I have no idea anymore.

I think I'm confusing kits for classes, but classes are different.

I'm totally lost now, it's like there are 2 different games in here, the first half is very fluffy then I hit this complicated second half.

>>54519630
Yeah, okay, the book is a bit confusing, it goes like this:

You got the very simple first half which is skills, tricks and complications (which you get from origins and backgrounds). Roll d6, stuff happens. Simple, yeah?

Building on this framework you got Kits, which give you all sorts of special abilities to be used with your skills/tricks/complications, to mechanically flesh out a character a bit more.

The other half, which is what is usually discussed, is the Tactical Combat module, which has a few hooks that lead back to the above stuff (for example, you can use skills in combat, and damage you take in combat can carry over), but is basically a standalone thing, with 4e-like Classes and Roles.

>>54519535
Stop shilling Strike!

Why does /tg/ keep shilling Strike!?

>>54519736
There is no real shilling. I'm here from >>54497584 and looking at it for the first time and it looks interesting, so I'm asking questions.

Why should Strike! not be discussed?

>>54519772
It's a meme, don't worry about it

>>54519726
This is all a bit confusing but seems rather brilliant as well.

Separating, Background, Origin, Role and Class entirely really opens a lot of freedom for PC's.

Kits seem a bit overkill but maybe after some more reading I'll get it better, may need to see it all in play. Maybe will have to look for YouTubes of people playing later tonight.

>>54518574
>cites TF2, Skullgirls, Street Fighter III and Guilty Gear Xrd as inspirations

Holy shit I really need to get into Strike!.

>>54520243
>Separating, Background, Origin, Role and Class entirely really opens a lot of freedom for PC's.

Yep, that's the idea. The drawback, of course, is that you need to work a bit harder to make your shit make sense, which is a huge drawback for the less creative types.

I also found Kits overkill; I think tricks cover basically everything you could want and kits just complicate things (and unless you roll a lot, often trivialize things too).

I haven't watched any of the plays on youtube, but I know there's a long running Eberron series. It can't be all bad if it has like 20 episodes, right?

>>54520243
Honestly even the SomethingAwful people don't use the kits that much, saying they could use more work and they seem like a bit too much to worry about...which I mostly agree with.
You wouldn't be alone in ignoring kits.

I say "even the", because as far as I know, the author frequents the SA forum the most as he has no forums on his own website.

>>54520332
>I also found Kits overkill;
Yeah, that's what is seems like to me as well.

>I haven't watched any of the plays on youtube, but I know there's a long running Eberron series. It can't be all bad if it has like 20 episodes, right?
Well, number of episodes doesn't really indicate quality in YouTube, but I'll take a look for it. I don't see a lot of Strike! advertised on here or Roll20 gamefinders, so my expectation to jump in a game is low.

>>54520436
Strike! does seem like a decent game to play a three-shot in, honestly. It's quick, definitely has some interesting stuff... I quite like it.

>>54520998
Yeah, Strikefag has actually sold me, I would definitely like to play this.

>>54520998
>>54521034
My existence is now vindicated.

Anyone have any good oneshots for low levels?

I have ran Khyber's harvest once, and it was fun, but really linear so I would not run it for more experienced players.

>>54521190
Is there a secret place where there is a Strike! gamefinder of somekind?

>>54522777
I used the gamefinder on /tg/ last time I tried, then played over roll20... that was kind of a disaster.

Could try the SA forums.

>>54521190
Shill of the year.

>>54522852
>paying for forum access

I've seen enough shitposts on there to know the paywall does fuckall for post quality.

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>yfw 4rries still making threads even though 5e is out

The bastard of 4e and Pathfinder is better than you.

What books do I need to know in order to competently run 4e?

It's in times like these I'd like to remind everyone of the thread's official motto: Do not feed the trolls.

>>54527299
MM3 on a Business Card (technically not a book); the Essentials version of the DMG (I forgot the name but it's honestly really useful); Rules Compendium. Technically you're ready to run 4e.

It gets a bit more modular than that. Items are scattered throughout the books. Themes are very useful but not mandatory. Backgrounds are also not mandatory but ever present in 4e, starting with Player's Handbook 2 and pretty much appearing everywhere you can think of next. Dragon Magazines carry plenty of useful stuff, from Themes (D399 being the main one here) to very useful Paragon Paths (the strongest ones are still Handbook ones, mostly). And so it goes and goes and goes.

Thankfully we have funin.space where you can search for nearly anything that's "crunchy">

>>54527463
>MM3 on a Business Card (technically not a book); the Essentials version of the DMG (I forgot the name but it's honestly really useful); Rules Compendium. Technically you're ready to run 4e.

Probably need some races and classes from something.

Would be nice if there was a compendium of that later on. Oh well, thanks Hasbro.

>>54527761
Oh, right, right. If you wanna play 4e, you're gonna need at least one of the Player's Handbooks/"Heroes of" books. You're not gonna find them compiled anywhere, but funin.space exist and you can see all races. For classes it's pretty much the same.

>>54528670
>>54527761
I prefer the CBLoader for the characters, though funin.space is great when you want to quickly find if something exists.

>>54527761
CBLoader fulfills 90% of your needs as a player, the other 10% doesn't come up unless you are doing some very specialized optimization or it's something you should be asking your DM about.

So, random question that I'm actually kind of interested in if taken seriously: say you take a spelljammer/planejammer with a band of 5 mid-epic tier (like, level 25) adventurers on it and crash it onto Westeros - say, the HBO version at the start of season 2. Presuming the band is unanimously Good in alignment, what happens to Westeros?

For sake of specifics, presume the band contains the following members:

* Human Wizard (Tome of Readiness) - War Wizard (of Cormyr, but setting neutral) - Archmage

* Dwarf Warden (Stormheart) - Storm Sentinel - Storm Sovereign

* Tiefling (Bloodcrowned Courtier) Swordmage (Aegis of Assault) - Turathi Highborn - Prince of Hell

* Dragonborn (Acid Breath) Sorcerer (Draconic) - Scion of Arkhosia - Draconic Incarnation

* Wilden Shaman (World Speaker) - Great Elder - World Tree Guardian

>>54532183

Completely reshapes the setting. You are so much more powerful than literally anything in that entire world you are basically unstoppable gods who can assert your will over anyone almost effortlessly.

I'd like to get into 4e, but nobody nearby (not even my few friends who like /tg/ stuff) wants to try it. They all buy into the "4e is WoW", "4e killed D&D" memes. Is there a way I could play it online, with a forgiving group for someone who hasn't done much D&D or tabletop RPGs at all?

>>54532240
Rool20 has good support for it.

>>54532250
I haven't used Roll20 before, and I'm worried that I won't be able to find a group that's willing to help. Most people I've seen play D&D, at least locally, are very exclusive and look down upon people without experience in RPGs, saying that people who weren't around for AD&D shouldn't be allowed to play at all.

>>54532273
Wow, my condolences, that's terrible. People here are pretty open. Maybe find some non-D&D/generic RPG communities and ask around if they play D&D on the side?

>>54532286
The LGSes all only have D&D groups for RPGs; anything I've heard about people playing other games has been private groups of friends in cliques at peoples' houses/apartments/etc. And the D&D community here isn't as bad as the Magic community - I stopped playing Magic entirely because of them.

>>54532183
The party eventually hear rumors of the Night King and embark on a short campaign beyond the wall to destroy him. No one is capable of getting in their way. They then retire to a castle on a floating island to live out the rest of their days in relative luxury. Any good adventurer knows not to get too involved with politics, and no one in Westeros has the resources to reward or employ them.

>>54532310
>anything I've heard about people playing other games has been private groups of friends in cliques at peoples' houses/apartments/etc

That's exactly what you are looking for. Ask around if anyone have any openings or if they would mind a newbie joining in.

>>54532329
The problem is, those people don't go to LGSes. It's more a "I overhear a conversation of people in public" or "A friend mentions a non-mutual friend mentioning a thing". And I used the word 'cliques' for a reason. Whether LGS groups or not, the people nearby tend to not like outsiders/newbies being near them, with only two /tg/ communities here being accepting - Yugioh and 40K.

>>54532348
Look around facebook groups maybe? I know I found some people there.

>>54532213
>>54532312
Given Westeros' leadership, how long would it take the great and small Houses to learn the lesson "Don't fuck with the strangers"?

Would they need to throw their weight around before anyone gets the message?

Who's likely to need to get their heads kicked in before they back off?

Given the party's alignment is Good, and that means charity work isn't a dirty word to them, would they consider assisting the Starks in their fight against the Lannisters, presuming that they first land (crash) near Winterfell?

>>54532361
That might be a good idea. Thanks, anon. Plus, I'm likely moving somewhere in year or two, so I might have better luck there.

>>54532364

I honestly doubt they'd help any particular side. They'd likely crush the Lannisters for being straight up evil, organise a peace treaty and then use rituals to help ensure the common people actually survive the winter instead of starving to death.

>>54532273
Why worry about online groups? At worst you learn that it's a shitty group that you wouldn't want to play with even if you knew the system anyways, and you'll still pick up a bit to prepare you for the next group you find.

>>54532381
>>54532273

It's possible to find a good group on Roll20, but it's a matter of persistence.

The problem with public pick up games is that 90% of the people who run or play in them are the people too shitty to have their own consistent group, whether it's GMs who drive players away or shitty players who inevitably get kicked.

So why join public roll20 games at all? Well, there's always a very slight chance that the game and group will actually be good, but more generally you're doing it to network- Keep in contact with the decent people you meet, become friends with them, become friends with their friends, build up a web of contacts that lets you find good GMs and players of your preferred style in your preferred system.

It can be a total ballache, but in my experience it's very worth it.

>>54532273
4e works well on roll20, it's easier than pen and paper in a lot of ways.

The player base is pretty eager for new blood so I wouldn't worry about getting excluded just for being new. If you have the confidence to run a game you'll probably get a good response on the /tg/ game finder, if not, your best bet is to lurk that same game finder or the roll20 LFG.

>>54532407
>>54532415
I guess that's probably the best choice. Should I torrent the full 4e rules first and give them a few readthroughs beforehand?

>>54532364
The only way I see the great houses getting involved with the adventurers, or even noticing them (they're not nobles after all) is if a religion starts being formed around them, which is very possible considering Westeros is full of desperate peasant folk and the party does charity work. If that is the case, the church of the seven's militia would turn up and start roughing up some preachers. If the party decides to get involved to defend their worshipers, the escalation would result in the complete dissolution of the great houses and a completely new ruling body based on the reverence of the five adventurers. Daenerys and her three young dragons would pose absolutely no threat to this regime. It'd probably be for the better.

>>54532551
The whole "they fell from the sky in a burning ship unlike anything ever seen in Westeros or Essos" thing wouldn't get them attention in the first place?

Or the stories of them performing miracles, like the dwarf calling thunderstorms out of nowhere?

>>54532496
Yes, whilst you can learn as you play, knowing the rules before hand makes everything easier. The rules compendium has all the errata'd rules and is a good starting point. I'd hold off on serious character creation until you've found a game and talked with the gm.

>>54532661
The offline compendium linked in the OP?

>>54532621
Given how talented the lords of westeros have been at sticking their heads in the sand, mostly ignoring the threat of dragons to their east and liches to their north until they are literally right upon them, I'd say they'd just pass it off as wild peasant stories and baseless rumors

>>54527299
>>54527463
I'd suggest the MM3 on business card for the math, but all monsters are good for the first 10 levels so don't stress over it. The Essentials MM is easily the best for starting off, that's Threats of the Nentir Vale Monster Vault. I think both DMG1 and DMG2 are excellent, I haven't read the essentials one but I'm skeptical of it due to the essentials classes.

Honestly, the core 3 are the core books for a reason. Nothing else is mandatory, but they add a LOT more options, and even whole systems like Backgrounds and Themes.

>>54532183
These are some specific characters for a random question

Did this actually just happen to you, or are you considering it? What's up?

>>54532696
Don't use the offline compendium, it's a bunch of work to set up.
The funin space compendium in the OP is the same thing, but actually usable
"Rules Compendium" is a book released around the Essentials time, so has all the updated core rules.

I don't have a link to share it, though.

>>54533950
How do I operate funin space?

>>54533969
you type "funin.space" into your browser's address bar

you type what you are looking for into the search bar

you click on one of the results

>>54533969
Uh, you click it in the op, and then type in the thing you want
It's not going to teach you the core rules. It's a reference for specific things. Creatures, powers, feats, classes, roles.

I was wrong about that offline compendium, by the way. The one in the OP is apparently good, now. The one I was thinking about isn't used anymore.

>>54533801
Basically, they're the result of an evolving chain of thought:

1: "What'd happen if you took a band of 4e adventurers at the near-peak of their power and turned them loose on the Game of Thrones world? How could they shake up the setting?"

2: "Speculation's dull when it's just you; let's ask /tg/"

3: "But, as /tg/ has pointed out in countless threads, it's often the specific details that affect how the answer plays out. It would probably be easier for /4eg/ if I gave them a hypothetical party to actually establish ground capabilities."

4: "In which case, if I were writing this story, what characters would I be most interested in writing about?"

And that's how that post was made.

>>54534303
They wait a day for the Wizard to do a few rituals and hen everyone's on the way back home.

Given the differences in power levels the only reason they would stick around is for comedy hijinks.

>>54480761
I would personally love a 4e heartbreaker using Gamma World's mechanics. One of the origins could be made up of racial abilities while the other origin could be a class of sorts so you could mix and match and even randomly roll up a team of adventurers who are still viable due to how character generation works. Alpha Mutations could be refluffed to surges of wild magic while Gamma Tech becomes straight-up magic items.

>>54533950
>Don't use the offline compendium, it's a bunch of work to set up.
>2012+5
>Not being able to set up a local website on wampserver, database included, before your coffee is ready
Do you even computer?

>>54534699
help computer

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>>54534660
Honestly, I think origins being neither classes, nor races is cooler.

I don't have anything beyond this list yet. Just started and tossing ideas into the pot

>>54534921
Speaking of this list:
I'm really not sure I have a clear enough picture to distinguish Fiend and Trickster well enough. Maybe I should Make Fiend STR based, but that will require changing Zealot and getting another DEX origin. Best variant I can think of is : change Zealot into Crusader (Divine CON) and Skinchanger into a DEX origin

Thoughts?
Mechanics will come (much) later, I'm mulling concepts now

>>54531658
What about fluff? You pretty much have to skim through the books to get that.

>>54535322
The class/monster descriptions have the fluff you want in both.

Unless you mean world fluff, in which case, yeah, I guess, but aside from the world specific books there aren't a lot of that around.

>>54534921
Origin can be classes and races, akin to race-as-class of 0D&D. A nice touch of nostalgia. And half-races are just people that took two races origins. A human is the paragon human. And multiclass is basically choosing two class-like origins.

Man, that could work pretty well. If you do't use it, I will

>>54535322
Fluff is setting specific, ask your DM what they're using. If they tell you to use XYZ supplement then sure, go find that.

>>54535377
This sounds almost like mixing tracks in Legend RPG which another anon talked about and was doing a bit, before. I dunno if he kept it up.

And mixing tracks is way cooler, IMO.

>>54533372
Essentials one is an errata'ed DMG, basically. Lacks a few things but is generally solid.

>>54535399
I've been trying to fuse Legends' Tracks and Strike!s' Background+Kit/Class/Role as a thing.

Background + Kit is utility (strategic advantages, out of combat stuff), Class/Roles are just the usual Strike! fare.

What is the best Paragon Path for a Shaman and why is it Flame of Hope?

Anyone see Shugenjanon recently. was hoping he was gonna post more info on the ki stuff he's been working on.

>>54537478
I dunno, it doesn't seem that good.

Why is it Flame of Hope? You sure you don't mean Everflame Guardian?

>>54537758
Flame of Hope gives your allies +Int to damage and to hit on the targets of the power you use your Action Point's extra Standard action. That's bordering on War Chanter levels of good. That seaid, even if it's not your thing, there's always Soul Igniter which grants out pretty big damage bonuses, and is maximized with a crit fisher in the party (or crit-inducing powers like those that grant rerolls or increase crit range).

>>54537847
no it doesn't

it's only a bonus to hit, not to damage

That's still good, but it's not as good for massive nova setup

>>54539489
Ok, fair enough, but the Shaman has more than enough powers which boost damage/vulnerability for this sort of stuff.

Is there more Strike! other than the main book and one or two small pdf posted here?

>>54543875
Strike's "released" books are as follows:
Core book
Psion (class) <- Third party, but worked with the author
Rogue (Class)
Vehicles expansion
Survival expansion
Playtest (Class and Roles)
Monster Playtest <- This one is particularly early-playtest. He's on a family-related break now so just released this cause maybe he'll get something before he goes back to writing


I think 2hf has linked this before to DL it all
dropbox.com
/s/
a1i5mhmasq77iqm
but I can't DL it to confirm its contents - size looks about right.

There's also some adventure but I've never seen it shared.

Pretty simple question - what's your favorite Healing Word-esque power?

Mine is the Bard's Majestic Word. Slide 1 on a heal has LOADS of potential.

>>54477926

I hated the magic item rarity thing, if only how it wouldn't fit back into the older loot system at all.

>>54546847
That was so bad they rolled it back, honestly.

>>54544210
I think one of the things I may like the most is a small sample campaign book, to see a good example of how to custom the classes and backgrounds and such.

Think it could also be handy for newer GMs/players so they have something to say "we're playing this setting, pick your stuff from the list here" for an easier first experience.

>>54549022
Yeah, that adventure I mentioned is "Trouble in Hogtown" and it has a few premade characters for an urban fantasy adventure.

Which means it has some quick suggestions on how to fluff the characters - I think the Blitzer Archer is a cop with a shotgun, or something. You can get the preview off drivethrurpg which does show the classes, but not much more.

The book tells you how to make your own backgrounds, though, on page 24.

>>54546847
Honestly, parcels drove me up the wall. I was so happy when Inherent Bonuses came out and I could get off the item bonus (and WBL) treadmill

>>54552238
Yeah, I don't ever play without inherent bonuses anymore.

>>54446354
Does Legend count?

>>54553879
It's a good game, but it's not really 4e-like imo.

Unless I'm mistaken, which you are welcome to prove.

>>54554127
It's not visually similar since it was built from 3E, but it sure as hell plays a lot like 4E. Lots of tracking of little bonuses, a smoother action economy than 3.5 that's very reminiscent of 4E, martials that don't shy away from ToBesque abilities, reasonable balance between classes, and a shitload of room to character build.

>>54554646
Emphasis on tactics? I feel that's one of the key things when considering something to have bases on 4e.

>>54551809
>The book tells you how to make your own backgrounds, though, on page 24.

I know I can make my own, hmmm, maybe I'm not being clear.

I'm a GURPS player, GURPS is an awesome toolbox of toys that lets you do so much stuff, it tends to overwhelm people. Giving folks a premade setting to play makes it easier for new players and GM's to get into the game without being overwhelmed by options.

In Strike! I know as a GM and PC I can customize stuff and make my own stuff, but it helps for new people to have a "here it is, done for you already" the can pick up and play.

Not everyone wants to build from the ground up. A strong setting book that consists of "Pick one of these 10 premade backgrounds" and such would help get people into playing, the get into the whole "make their own" stuff.

>>54558020
Ah, I got you.
In that sense, there's not been a book explicitly that's focused on building a setting and how to use all of it together. You've mostly just got the example listings in the core.
However, the back of the book does have a few scenarios ("Other Worlds") starting on page 172 which come close - they're quite specific setups, though, so I don't think they'll be what you're looking for here.

Does the official character builder not support Heroes of the Feywild characters?

Hello friendos.

I have built a party of level 1s for my friends to try the system.

They are a Shaman, a Seeker, a Fighter and a Barbarian, and I'm trying to figure what would be a good group of enemies to have them fight against as a "this is the system I want us to switch to" demonstration.

Any suggestions?

>>54559021
It definitely should, what are you trying to do with it?

>>54559661
Goblins. Have a Goblin Warlord, his two best soldiers and quite a few followers. Ambush in the forest. Describe the forest, fallen logs, all that sort of stuff. Have them apply tactics like knocking enemies prone and dealing more damage when enemies are prone, or give them bonuses for flanking. Play dirty, but give them a chance to win.

>>54559707
My friends want to try 4e, and one of them wants to play a pixie character. I can't find the option for it under "races", though

>>54559707
Also, when running the updates that came in the Mega, 01-09 work, but updates 10-15 just give error messages.

>>54559879
It's in Heroes of the Feywild if I recall.

>>54559661
Honestly, the 4e encounter design is one of the best in any RPG. Literally following the rules and recommendations they give works wonders.

That said, this suggestion is good >>54559842
Start off with a few normal and few minion goblins, next encounter add a similar mix but with a leader, next encounter with a caster and leader in there, then finally the third with a big elite boss gobbo.

4-6 encounters like this of increasing complexity will show them what possibilities there are and how well teamwork helps.

>>54560017
I already mentioned that. It's just that the updates for the character builder client aren't working. Where's a template for a physical character sheet?

When playing on roll20 with Dynamic Lighting, how far should a token's vision go? 6 squares?

>>54560935
Can you only see ahead of you as far as you can walk in 6 seconds?

>>54561083
I mean I'm legally blind, so... yes?

File: numbers.png (93KB, 251x208px) Image search: [Google]

93KB, 251x208px

>>54561110
fuck

>>54561110
Vision is basically only limited by light sources

>>54561167
Yeah, it sucks, but I'm curious. Because in PF / 5e games on roll20, in situations with dim light they'll go out to 30/60 feet (so 6/12 square) with each square being 5 feet, and I'm just learning 4e now so I wasn't sure how to set it up.

>>54561221
Okay so say the party's in a dark forest and I don't want them to see the goblins on the other side of the bridge, 10 squares away. Should I just put them on the GM layer?

>>54561237
Unless they have a 10 square light source.

1 square is still 5 feet in 4e, they just stick with "squares" over feet.