*D&D 4ed*

[SphereOfFeetMan]

It seems that 4e builds (Character Optimization) are basically reducible to two things: Cherry-picking bonuses to push you off the RNG/collecting re-roll chances. And then hopefully combining this with the few SoD's in the game.

Here are some examples (click on the links for entire builds):

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1042161

So Intimidate is quite possibly one of the most powerful skills in 4ed: with a single standard action, a successful Intimidate vs Will check (against all bloodied enemies that can see and hear you) causes them to surrender.

Given that 4ed has very few save or dies, this is crazy powerful, as combined with a few AOE spells, this can end an encounter in one round. There are two main modifiers which make this tough: -5 if you don't speak the language, and -10 if they're hostile.

Race: Dragonborn. +2 to Charisma and +2 to Intimidate make this race the winner.

I ran through the PHB and compiled a list of all the abilities which can affect Intimidate.
...
The DC we're going to be looking for will be around DC21 to 24, meaning you have about a 5% to 20% chance of failing per target. Otherwise, all bloodied enemies that can see you surrender.
...
To get a bloodied Orcus to surrender is DC59. With a Ranger helping you out (adding +Wisdom and a reroll from Crucial Advice) you can essentially automatically make the check. Otherwise, you just make use of your five rerolls to keep rolling till you hit the target DC.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1041782

Since hit points scale linearly in 4ed, this means that any save-or-die is even more powerful in 4ed than it was in 3ed, with the only caveat being that they wised up and removed most of them from the game.
...
(While you can do this trick starting at 1st level and running with it all the way through 30th, let's look at it halfway, at 16th level.)
Standard action: Cast sleep against the boss and let's say 3 minions. Roll the 2 attack rolls against the boss first -- since we get two attacks vs Will, and we've been buying we're very likely to hit.
Free action: The lockdown. Use your 20 Wisdom Orb of Imposition (w/Spell Focus) to give him a -7 penalty to his saving throw. He now has one round of actions (while slowed) and then falls unconscious. Unconscious creatures can be auto-critted, and do not wake up (as people did while affected by Sleep in previous editions). So the whole party congo lines the boss, and it's game over. He only has a 15% chance of not falling asleep, and a 15% chance each round to wake up. As Wisdom increases further, this will fall to a 5% chance.

It's basically an I-Win button. No action point required.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.ph ... 126&page=6

Hey, I found a nifty high level combo that I thought I'd share.

Staff of Power: Power (Daily): Free Action. Use this power when you score a critical hit using an encounter power or a daily power. That power is not expended.

Divine Oracle Encounter Power, Prophecy of Doom: You or an ally who hits the target with an attack can choose to make the attack a critical hit. This power lasts until the end of your next turn or until you or an ally uses it to make an attack a critical hit.

Put these two together and the somewhat unreliable Staff of Power suddenly becomes 1/day, recover a daily power that uses an attack roll. If you add in Epic Resurgance, you can regain an encounter attack power at the same time.

This isn't really game breaking, but very very nice. Since you can use lower level staves of power, you can accumulate 3 Staff of Power +4 simply for using their effect.

Using this, you could theoretically cast Sleep once per encounter for 4 encounters, and that is besides any Archmage abilities!

__________________

In 4e, you don't build characters which do varied and interesting things. In 4e, you build characters who do the same things, but go off the RNG in different ways.

[virgil]

Keep in mind this has alot of the CharOp people from the old boards, so their results are going to follow the same formula as before, which involved only caring about combining things for one number anyway.

[Voss]

Which... with most characters in 4e, you only need to care about one number.


@Random- characters with critters are going to be a serious problem in 4e. Because of the way damage and hit points work, they're going to be a significant boost in power. Having another guy, who has another attack (regardless of whether its a skeleton or a bear or a faceless mercenary from the higher planes, ie a 4e angel) is really, really strong and an actual force multiplier, something way beyond the current crop of powers.

Alternately, they're going to compensate for that, and require that you spend your standard action to control it, which will mean that the whole thing will be an exercise in suck.

[RandomCasualty2]

@Random- characters with critters are going to be a serious problem in 4e. Because of the way damage and hit points work, they're going to be a significant boost in power. Having another guy, who has another attack (regardless of whether its a skeleton or a bear or a faceless mercenary from the higher planes, ie a 4e angel) is really, really strong and an actual force multiplier, something way beyond the current crop of powers.

Alternately, they're going to compensate for that, and require that you spend your standard action to control it, which will mean that the whole thing will be an exercise in suck.

Yeah, the way the system is set up, having summons is going to be problematic. I don't think it would exactly be impossible to do, it'd just require some (but not all of the following fixes).

-Your summons aren't anywhere close to your level. You could probably summon something 5 levels lower than you and it wouldn't unbalance combats much, because it really couldn't hit very well.
-If you have multiple summons, they should probably be minions.
-Summons are close to your level, but while you've got a summon active, you can only make basic attacks, or have to use a sustain standard to keep the summon in existence.
-There is a separate summoner class who can use his powers, but just has shitty summons.

Summoning didn't particularly work well in 3.5 either though, so I don't really blame 4E in removing it from the game. Summoning, cohorts and any other time you put another creature on the battlefield is a pretty tricky gimmick to get to work right. Even back in the day of Frank's old SAME system I dont' think he definitively came up with a great solution for handling summons or cohorts.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

They've posted the first 4e errata (link courtesy of Z on Nifty).

The biggest thing I noticed on casual examination is that Frank was right about Hurl Through Hell; it gets a save now.

[JonSetanta]

They've posted the first 4e errata (link courtesy of Z on Nifty).

Saw that on /tg/ last night. I'm still debating whether or not I want to waste the half hour to read that.

[Username17]

Interesting note: they didn't errata skill challenges. They still don't work at all.

-Username17

[Orion]

Some skill DCs gt changed ot scale properly (by half level)

The ranger feat multiclass now sucks, as you only get to quarry one target for one round

Dilettante clarified to only effect the selectable 1st level attack powers

[Bigode]

No, no, no, Voss...they can be dangerous in large numbers! And they're to make the players feel awesome because they can take out lots of them! (What's the term around here? "Playing Magical Tea Party"?)

MTP's the term for handwaving rules away, not anything else.

(...) no way to fly more than a few minutes, (...)

That does exist: cloud chariot. Doesn't challenge your real point, of course.

Although I still disagree with you on 4E being better for telling a consistent story than 3E. The whole gating thing seems to be held in check the same way nuclear warheads are held in check: if I Gate Balthazar in at an opportune moment and kill him, Bigby will do the same to me, and I don't want to be at the mercy of a guy with an enormous hand fetish.

Wait - aren't you, as a BDSM-practicing lesbian, supposed to love enormous hand fetishes?

Second I'm not sure if I consider the lack of rules a bad thing for noncombat stuff. Most of the shit, like forging mundane weapons and all that just isn't important enough to really warrant wasting the space for rules. You really can and should hand wave it. The rest is about what abilities you think you find balanced. The crafting rules sucked in 3.5 and they didn't add anything to the game at all, except wasting space.

Hell no. Not in D&D 4E, because it went the route of trying to rigidly control what magic items PCs have at each level and working it in "balance assumptions". So, either crafting doesn't exist, or it's a really important piece of the rules. At the point, one's forced to assume it doesn't exist, but I'm sure it'll exist at some point, and not work properly.

[Bigode]

Fvck. I now got a "couldn't get mail response codes" for posting in a thread ...

[Shatner]

They've posted the first 4e errata (link courtesy of Z on Nifty).

The biggest thing I noticed on casual examination is that Frank was right about Hurl Through Hell; it gets a save now.

The save is only to end the stunned condition the target suffers after returning from hell. A warlock can still remove a target from combat for up to 4 rounds without allowing the target a save.

Also, they changed cloudkill to require an attack roll each round.

[Harlune]

Also, they changed cloudkill to require an attack roll each round.

how... does that work exactly?

That makes about as much sense as having someone roll reflex saves while they're swimming across a lake to see if they get wet.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Also, they changed cloudkill to require an attack roll each round.

how... does that work exactly?

That makes about as much sense as having someone roll reflex saves while they're swimming across a lake to see if they get wet.

Presumably it's the same logic that led to it allowing a fortitude save each round in 3e.

[RandomCasualty2]

Hell no. Not in D&D 4E, because it went the route of trying to rigidly control what magic items PCs have at each level and working it in "balance assumptions". So, either crafting doesn't exist, or it's a really important piece of the rules. At the point, one's forced to assume it doesn't exist, but I'm sure it'll exist at some point, and not work properly.

Well, 4E has crafting for magic items. The enchatn an item ritual.

What it doesn't have is crafting for mundane items. So you seriously don't have rules to create a sword through weaponsmithing. But then, do you really care?

[Psychic Robot]

But then, do you really care?

I do.

Also, am I the only one who thinks that enemies who actually get sent to hell should come back completely insane after clawing their eyes out of their head (a lá Event Horizon)?

[K]

If D&D is supposed to be a game where you have fun, then they should have actually done so. It's a set of three 200+ page books that only give combat, and expect you to play magical teaparty if you do anything that isn't explicitly on the grid.

Why not just buy Mage Knight? The money I save on not buying cumbersome books with a time-consuming learning curve is better spent on a plethora of different miniatures.

I was thinking the same thing, but with 40K.

I mean, Warhammer 40K is balanced, has fewer rules, and for the same amount of money I get a pile of minis; I could just play 40K as an RPG since I'd be handwaving everything outside of combat anyway, and at least with 40K there is a lot less math, its easier to learn, and there are a lot less things to write down on a character sheet. Heck, 40K is even better at simulating unit cost if a player wanted to play a character with minions.

Here's all the work I'd need to do:
1. character = points, and you get more points as you adventure for uber equipment or changes to a better unit.
2. scratch off a few names and replace them (for example, take Eldar and replace it with "Elf").
3. Handwave the tea party.

[Psychic Robot]

To be fair, there are some things without combat applications...like the skills...right?

[RandomCasualty2]

I do.

Why? I mean seriously. WHy do we even bother making a roll for a hero that wants to craft a sword? If he says he wants to be a blacksmith and he's got a forge and everything, then just let him make the damn sword and get on wtih the story. When you get into caring about how many days it takes him to make it and how much he spent on materials, honestly I think you're just getting too anal. That shit doesn't make for a better game, it just wastes everyone's time.

Because honestly, the majority of your group won't care how long it takes to make a mundane sword that they can buy at 1st level. It's an element of someone's backstory or shit they do during downtime.

The only possible use for crafting as a skill is to play "break the gold piece economy by opening a weapon's shop." And really, I don't give a fuck about that either. This is Dungeons and Dragons, not SimBusiness.

You can open a shop and all that cool shit, but that's part of your backstory, you don't get any extra money from it or anything. It's just part of the shit of what your character does.

And that stuff really doesn't need rules. I dont' want to charge anybody skill points for being able to play the guitar or some other trivial skill that has no bearing on the rest of the game.

Also, am I the only one who thinks that enemies who actually get sent to hell should come back completely insane after clawing their eyes out of their head (a lá Event Horizon)?

You're thinking of the Far Realms, not Hell. Being in hell for a few seconds just isnt' that bad... Sure it's kind of hot, and maybe you meet an interesting bone devil named Fred, but there's really nothing there that's going to drive you insane.

Now, the Far Realms on the other hand just might. But as far as insanity goes, it should depend on the level of the guy you're throwing it at. Sometimes you're just hardcore enough to take that stuff without flipping out.

[K]

To be fair, there are some things without combat applications...like the skills...right?

You call that a system?

Here's 4e skill system added to my 40K example:

1. People get a set number of skills and points in those skills based on how experienced the character is. I like one skill point per 5 creation points, with maxes of your skill level divided by 10.

2. Add your skill to your roll. DM decides what a skill can do by handwaving it.

3. Skills DCs set by the DM, or they are opposed if the DM decides.

4. Done.

I actually think 40K is better as an RPG now. The art is even better.

[RandomCasualty2]

I don't know why you guys hate the skill system, at first glance it seemed to have the stuff you'd want to know to run an adventure.

Stuff like:

-how far (and high) can I jump?
-what's the DC to climb a rope?
-How do I stealth past someone or detect a hidden character?
-What's the DC to swim in stagnant water?

That's pretty much the majority of shit you've got to know and I could find that in the 4E skill section.

I really don't see how the 3.5 system is better. It has a bunch of extra background skills that nobody gives a fuck about, like profession, crafting and perform and wastes a bunch of space.

4E doesn't waste much space wtih skills that are just excuses to light your points on fire. And I'm fine with that.

[Voss]

My biggest problem with the skill system is that if you have a rope to climb, whenever you come back to that rope after having gained levels, its inexplicably a harder rope to climb. You are legitimately better at climbing at this point, but the rope has... I dunno. Magically gained some resistance to you, or something.


On item creation, since Bigode raised it. It exists. You convert gold -> components -> magic items. And as written (I haven't checked the errata) you can turn sticks or piles of shit into +6 holy avengers if you want to. Which pretty much sums up the whole system. The ritual literally handwaves gold into magic items, with nothing more than an hour of chanting involved. No flavor, no skill, no requirements. Its fvcked.

While its interesting that a dwarven fighter can go up on the mountain and come back down with a Magic Warhammer of Asskicking, he could also come back down with an Elven Cloak of Selfpleasuring. There isn't any distinguishing between them.


@Random- on this point

Summoning didn't particularly work well in 3.5 either though, so I don't really blame 4E in removing it from the game. Summoning, cohorts and any other time you put another creature on the battlefield is a pretty tricky gimmick to get to work right. Even back in the day of Frank's old SAME system I dont' think he definitively came up with a great solution for handling summons or cohorts.

This is pretty much my objection to 4e as a whole. Anything interesting or marginally complex got ejected from the system summarily, or beaten with a nerfbat until it was dead and unrecognizable. In about two cases that was a good decision. Unfortunately, that happened to literally everything.

[K]

I don't know why you guys hate the skill system, at first glance it seemed to have the stuff you'd want to know to run an adventure.

Stuff like:

-how far (and high) can I jump?
-what's the DC to climb a rope?
-How do I stealth past someone or detect a hidden character?
-What's the DC to swim in stagnant water?

That's pretty much the majority of shit you've got to know and I could find that in the 4E skill section.

I really don't see how the 3.5 system is better. It has a bunch of extra background skills that nobody gives a fuck about, like profession, crafting and perform and wastes a bunch of space.

4E doesn't waste much space wtih skills that are just excuses to light your points on fire. And I'm fine with that.

The problem is that now you blow skill points on Diplomacy because no matter how high your points, the DM sets the DC to have the chance of success he likes.

The problem is that for a whole new edition, there should be some improvement.

The problem is that whole system could be replaced by a single page chart that that told you the DC for an action and what ability to add.

The problem is I seriously don't want to make skill checks to climb a rope. Ever. This skill system seriously is "let's take the things other skill systems assume you can do and lets add in a chance of failure."

3e is not much better mechanically, but at least it's both less complicated and more fun.

[Talisman]

The problem is that now you blow skill points on Diplomacy because no matter how high your points, the DM sets the DC to have the chance of success he likes.

This is as it should be, IMO. The Diplomacy DCs in 3.x were quite breakable - okay for a general guideline, but not as a hard-and-fast rule.

Some people, quite simply, aren't going to be your friends no matter how good a diplomat you are. Winston Churchill was a hell of an orator, but he was never going to convince Hitler to play nice, because Hitler flat-out wasn't going to do it (and the reverse is true as well).

More than that, I despise a chart that allows ruthless players to take something as mercurial as peoples' dispositions and say to the GM "I got a 57. That means he has to be helpful now."

Aside from that, though, I agree with most of what you said.

[Judging__Eagle]

....


I think I know what I want to do now.

I want to run a Warhammer campaign.

Wouldn't be too hard I think.

I've got the core rule book, the one before the current Vampire Counts army book; I could easily do it.

Maybe let people play some 40k stuff (demons, not guns).

I wouldn't have to haul around a pile of books either; each army book that lets you pick your heroes from is also a monster manual!

[Cielingcat]

You could also play Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.