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A half-way house might be to give an increasing bonus to the save, of (say) +1 each turn after the first. A string of bad luck could still keep you under, but at least the chance of throwing the condition off would be increasing each round.
I've tried to work out something like that before, but I'm afraid that there would be a bookkeeping nightmare if someone had multiple effects active. (Although I'm not sure if I've seen a suggestion yet that doesn't add a lot of bookkeeping).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane Sailing
Of course, then you have the difficulty of keeping enemy creatures under a condition for any length of time...
Is this really practical? (I ask from ignorance, not disbelief.) At our current levels, certainly not - I'd be very worried if we had to count on an effect (that couldn't be refreshed) staying active. Heck, I'd be worried if we had to count on it being active *for one round*. (But, I digress.) Or, are we just missing the right classes/powers to make this more workable?
__________________ "I suddenly find myself... needing to know the plural of 'apocalypse'" - Riley, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Is this really practical? (I ask from ignorance, not disbelief.) At our current levels, certainly not - I'd be very worried if we had to count on an effect (that couldn't be refreshed) staying active. Heck, I'd be worried if we had to count on it being active *for one round*. (But, I digress.) Or, are we just missing the right classes/powers to make this more workable?
Not really a practical issue IMX to date (running and playing in heroic level campaign).
There haven't been many 'save ends' effects thrown by the PCs other than ongoing damage, and that tends to be thrown off after 1-2 rounds tops anyway.
At paragon and epic tier there are probably a lot more 'save ends' stuff being thrown around, I don't know.
I was curious about ongoing damage, and a couple of minutes with excel demonstrated that ongoing damage 5 is likely to end up doing 10 damage on average. ongoing 10 is likely to end up doing 20 and so forth.
Thus a very simplistic but statistically sound approach for things with no save bonus is to say they all last exactly 2 rounds... Too deterministic though?
__________________ Plane Sailing
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
I am really struggling with one area, though - saving throws.
I think it is somewhat incumbent on the players to ensure they have enough ways to grant additional saves that when a PC is hit with a 'save ends' effect, it doesn't (usually) become crippling.
(Of course, no matter how many saves you roll, you can fail them all. That's just bad luck.)
The cleric is the king of handing out saves with an at-will that does so -- and if your group lacks a cleric, you won't have this, obviously. The paladin has an encounter power that grants a save (+Cha mod bonus). The warlord can also grant saves (Utility 2 power).
At higher levels paladins, and I think also clerics and warlords, can grant the entire group a save: check out Turn the Tide for example.
I think if the group lacks a PC who can give other PCs additional saves, then it becomes part of the DM's responsibility not to hit the party with too many "save ends" effects.
__________________ Still excited about 4th edition!
'If there steady paycheck in it, Krusk rage against anything you say.' - this post
Is this really practical? (I ask from ignorance, not disbelief.)
It is possible to lock someone down completely with a 'save ends' effect -- meaning the target cannot possibly succeed on the save -- if you are an orb wizard and you stack enough abilities / powers / feats / items that grant penalties. Details are on the wizards.com CharOpt board in any of several threads relating to this phenomenon.
From a normal perspective, I would agree with your assessment that you can't reliably depend on 'save ends' effects being, well, effective. Thus you look for powers that:
* are so good when the 'save ends' kicks in that the 45% chance of the target failing the save is worth taking
* have some kind of effect even when the save is made (e.g. the initial slow effect of the wizard's Sleep power)
* you would've been willing to use even without the 'save ends' aspect
__________________ Still excited about 4th edition!
'If there steady paycheck in it, Krusk rage against anything you say.' - this post
I was curious about ongoing damage, and a couple of minutes with excel demonstrated that ongoing damage 5 is likely to end up doing 10 damage on average. ongoing 10 is likely to end up doing 20 and so forth.
Thus a very simplistic but statistically sound approach for things with no save bonus is to say they all last exactly 2 rounds... Too deterministic though?
That makes sense, as working it out statistically shows that an effect with no bonuses will be applied 20/11=1.818 times on average.
Interestingly, if we add a cumulative +1 mod to saving throws after the first attempt, that only drops to 1.718 - only a tenth of a round difference. I wonder how much the variance drops... Also, the Human Perseverance feat drops it from 20/11 to 20/12 (=1.667).
Declaring a 2-round duration does sound too deterministic; I'm not sure how bonuses would get factored in, and it's fun to have a *little* variability.
On another note - all my griping about saving throws aside, I *am* having a blast with 4e. Just wanted to make sure that was clear...
__________________ "I suddenly find myself... needing to know the plural of 'apocalypse'" - Riley, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Last edited by Alomir; 5th March 2009 at 10:11 PM..
Reason: Clarity (I hope)
On another note - all my griping about saving throws aside, I *am* having a blast with 4e. Just wanted to make sure that was clear...
What? I had your character marked for sudden and hideous death tonight. Now I have to go change my plans. Hmmph.
Oh well. There's still the paladin.
__________________ - Piratecat, EN World Admin
Currently editing the 4e War of the Burning Sky adventure path. Support EN Publishing, get excellent modules!
I think he should focus his wrath on the cleric... or the warlord... heck, even the warlock would be fine.
I heard that the party was originally slated to have both a cleric and a paladin, but they were taken out by a pre-emptive strike, followed by a ritual to cloud everyones minds.
(has he told you about that yet? Oops!)
__________________ Plane Sailing
(Enworld Admin)
If you need to email me click here
"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
Perhaps earlier would have been better Of course, there were several rolls where +4 would not have been enough...
However, I'd happily dump the whole mechanic for something more deterministic. Not *completely* deterministic, mind you - but some help here would smooth things out in play, and make many powers more attractive (ones that *should* be more attractive, IMO). Interesting point (from Plane Sailing), though, about using something like a 1d4 for number of rounds - completely removing the saving throw mechanic wouldn't work, as too much of the game interacts with it. Maybe a hard cap at, say, three rounds? Eh, that's not ideal, certainly.
Here is an idea that scales and should be simple.
Make a hard cap at "Number of rounds = power level + 1"
Fun game! It was mostly roleplaying (three hour game with one 40 minute combat), but Cobalt got to punch Runcible Parsons in the face, so everyone was happy. And I almsot got to sweep the paladin over a 70' tall waterfall, so I was happy as well.
Sagiro will likely have details.
Interestingly (and this is partially because the PCs lost 800 gp of loot last game), the party feels poor. I've been following the wealth parcel guidelines pretty closely, though. Wealth has tended to be grouped, with several parcels appearing at once. They've just acquired alchemy ingredients and formulas for "free," which is obviously treasure as well. I'm looking forward to seeing what the two PCs with alchemy skills create.
__________________ - Piratecat, EN World Admin
Currently editing the 4e War of the Burning Sky adventure path. Support EN Publishing, get excellent modules!
Fortunately, I had recanted on having Logan drop Alchemy for Human Perseverance before the session last night (thanks to advice from PC, Blackjack and Aravis); I'm glad I did, now that we have a spiffy new lab to play with!
Having two alchemists will (hopefully) be interesting; between Doc's nature skill and Logan's thievery skill, we actually have every recipe covered between us (that is, we *could* make all of them - not that we *have* all of them).
The combat was a lot of fun; some teaser highlights:
* watching a scalemail-wearing paladin and a warforged get dumped into a fast-moving river, about 30' from the top of a waterfall was... exciting! Sure, we'll go with that.
* Logan bringing the bad guy who knocked those two in from full health to dead in one round - critical-hit daze attack followed by an action-point-enabled sneak-attack-fortified hit combined for 37 points of damage
* realizing how hampered two rogues get when we can't close to our enemy (I was happy when the baddie mentioned above showed up; Toiva and Stron might not have been, but I was)
* seeing Doc, who's normally in a real aiding-and-abetting role, put out some good damage to pick up the slack
* Paladin challenges. That *never* gets old.
__________________ "I suddenly find myself... needing to know the plural of 'apocalypse'" - Riley, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Last edited by Alomir; 6th March 2009 at 08:39 PM..
Reason: Argh, typos
* seeing Doc, who's normally in a real aiding-and-abetting role, put out some good damage to pick up the slack
I actually managed to roll above a 10 this session. Several times.
Part of it, though, is that the rogues didn't have much of a chance in this fight to deal out sneak attacks. Ordinarily, Logan and Cobalt have a good routine going, flanking a foe and then both opening the kegs of whoop-ass. Without that kind of opportunity, Doc Caldwell's damage capacity no longer pales compared to the rogues.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alomir
* Paladin challenges. That *never* gets old.
Yeah. Boy, is the party loving that ability. Toiva's player has been really clever at marking foes who have other good tactical targets -- and then moving away from her mark.
Last night was Run #10 of Piratecat’s Grey Guard campaign. It was another role-playing-heavy and combat-light game; this entry will be briefer than most.
After an afternoon and evening of R&R, we were given the assignment of interrogating Scrit (the Governor’s treasonous secretary). They had him dangling in a cage, suspended out over a waterfall. (The cage was at the end of a swiveling arm, operated by winch, typically used by local teamsters to hoist stuff up the falls.)
Knowing that Scrit had attack powers that manifested by shouting, the Grey Guard provided us with an alchemically-treated rope that would constrict in the presence of a sudden loud noise. After we had winched the cage to the shore’s edge, we put that rope around his neck and explained its function before taking off his gag.
We didn’t get very far into the interrogation, though, before a squad of lizardmen showed up to stop us – apparently by trying to kill Scrit, rather than bother rescuing him. The lizards had a strange ability to remain perfectly still while in contact with water, which allowed them to launch an opening salvo of darts from inside the crest of the 70’ waterfall. We returned fire from the shore, Logan and Cobalt flinging magic daggers, Caldwell shooting his bow, and Strontium casting from range. Toiva used her Lay on Hands ability on the prisoner to save him from the ongoing damage of the poisoned darts.
Alas, in the initial rush of combat, we failed to the notice the fourth lizard-man, who had sneaked up to the winching mechanism and then swung the cage back out over the water, knocking Toiva and Strontium into the river! Keep in mind that we were only 40’ or so from the crest of the falls, and the river was extremely rapid. Strontium managed to grab the slope of the shore and pull herself up, but Toiva was swept swiftly toward a likely plummet and death. Still, she was kind enough to cast Radiant Delirium on her way down the river, dazing one of the lizards (who had moved upriver a bit to engage us).
Logan rushed to the winch and dispatched the lizardman there in a single round. Cobalt tried to fish Toiva out of the river with his trusty 10’ pole, but she couldn’t grab on in the fast-moving current. (She also failed to grab onto one of the lizards, and instead cast her new Righteous Smite to give temporary hit points to the rest of the party). Strontium did some serious damage with Fire Shroud.
Cobalt and Logan did manage to save Toiva from likely death by catching her with roped grappling hooks, just as she was swept over the falls. Whew! And despite the lack of flanking opportunities, we mopped up the lizardmen in short order after that.
Perhaps realizing that his would-be rescuers were actually murderers, Scrit was remarkably cooperative after that. We’re not certain that he was being truthful, but he seemed to be. He offered the opinion that the lizard army was being spurred on by the exiled Dragonborn adventurer Xiras, and his elven consort Aline. (Xiras was exiled because he was the only survivor of several adventuring groups. Hmmmm.) Scrit further opined that Aline is the brains of the operation, and that there’s something in Floodford that she wants. Her plan in the event the invasion failed was to come into the city under a banner of truce, and have more lizard soldiers sneak in during the parlay.
What’s more, he told us that the stolen weapons had probably been teleported directly to Xiras’s camp in a place called the “Bubbling Fens” out in the swamp.
After some more interrogation we brought Scrit back to the Grey Guard tower, where Pikeline had him locked up in a cell. Then she gave us our next assignment: scout the swamp, find the Bubbling Fens, and harry the rear of the next lizardman invasion force to approach Floodford.
As a personal postscript for Cobalt, he (or, rather, his mother) was once again insulted in the hallway by the obnoxious Runcible Parsons. Cobalt, particularly frustrated that he’d gotten the worst of every previous encounter with the man, took a swing. He missed. But – a first! – Parsons missed with the counter attack. They traded another round of misses before Cobalt finally – FINALLY – connected with the twerp’s face. And, having landed a blow at long last, he thanked Parsons for the exchange and left him there holding his bloody nose.
Finally, Pikeline saw to it that the Governor paid us back for saving him, by loaning us a Big Book of Alchemical Recipes. Even better, she’s supplying us with space and materials for an alchemy lab in the Grey Guard tower. Logan and Caldwell are both amateur alchemists, eager to brew up some trouble.
Tactical Notes:
- This was our first game at 3rd level. For our 3rd-level Encounter Powers, we picked:
- The three lizards in the waterfall in the battle were Greenscale Darters (Level 5 Lurkers). The fourth lizard (who used the winch-and-cage against us) was also a Greenscale Darter, but reduced to Level 3. Their ability to “stick” in water was presumably from a ritual.
- The battle with the lizards – involving five 3rd-level PC’s and the four lizards referenced above – took 41 minutes and lasted (I think) four rounds. It would have been even faster, but we spent a couple of minutes figuring out the exact layout of the waterfall-and-river, since not everyone interpreted Piratecat’s beautiful drawing of the scenario the same way.
- Piratecat adjudicated Toiva in the river as follows: on her turn, she was first moved three squares downriver. Then she took her actions. Then she was moved another three squares. So, 6 squares of forced movement per round, with an action half way through. She could also make athletics checks to alter her trajectory by a square. Given where she was knocked in, she would have gone over the falls at the end of her second round in the water, had we not snagged her with grapples.
- The lizards’ ability to attack at range from the middle of a swift river made it impossible to flank them. I can see going forward that nested snipers are going to be one of the toughest kinds of fight for our 40%-rogue party.
- Skills used this game: Acrobatics, Athletics, Diplomacy, Heal, History, Insight, Intimidate, Perception, Stealth (by the enemy), Streetwise
- While our collective dice-rolling was not as execrable as in the past couple of sessions, it did take four awful rolls in a row for both Toiva and Strontium to be knocked into the river, and that’s sure what they rolled.
- I think Logan broke our record for most damage done in a single round: 37 points, from a critical hit + action point sneak attack.
- I’m really pleased with Toiva’s choice of Encounter 3 Power. That’s something like 35 total temporary hit points for the party (if everyone’s within the range, and the attack hits). Our Leader-free party can use all the pseudo-healing it can get!
Last edited by Sagiro; 21st March 2009 at 06:24 AM..
...Interestingly (and this is partially because the PCs lost 800 gp of loot last game), the party feels poor. ....
You misspelled "entirely."
According to the DMG, a party that has just hit 3rd level should have 1,760 GP worth of monetary treasure. And the lizardmen stole HALF OF IT. So, yeah, we feel a bit poor at the moment.
You do know she needs to either attack the Divine Challenged target or end her turn adjacent to it in order to sustain the Challenge, right?
Right! She's been scrupulous about attacking, even if she moves afterwards (or in this case, was moved by the river.) Many bad guys won't know how badly it'll hurt, they just know that she has some sort of divine hold on them. Not all are smart enough (or have the option) to attack her. In this game, it was far more important that the lizardmen kill Skrit, much to their ultimate dooom.
It was a fun game for me. It feels weird having the PCs already be 3rd level, especially because there's a ton of plotty goodness that hasn't even kicked in yet. I think we're hitting a decent balance of roleplaying and action, however, and I'm making sure to introduce adventure without railroading how they play out.
__________________ - Piratecat, EN World Admin
Currently editing the 4e War of the Burning Sky adventure path. Support EN Publishing, get excellent modules!
Oh, and here's a thought. My last campaign lasted 16 years. I let my players know not to expect that again, because otherwise I'd only be able to run about two more campaigns (including this one!) before I keeled over from old age.
__________________ - Piratecat, EN World Admin
Currently editing the 4e War of the Burning Sky adventure path. Support EN Publishing, get excellent modules!
Oh, and here's a thought. My last campaign lasted 16 years. I let my players know not to expect that again, because otherwise I'd only be able to run about two more campaigns (including this one!) before I keeled over from old age.
Get yourself preserved as a head in a jar and game on.
Of course, there were several rolls where +4 would not have been enough...
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