L4W Discussion Thread V

renau1g said:

hi all, as sg noted, I have returned. My apologies to everyone here, especially my players and DM's. Things are going well, thank you.

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Welcome back r1! Hope all is well.

renau1g said:

hi all, as sg noted, I have returned. My apologies to everyone here, especially my players and DM's. Things are going well, thank you.

Click to expand...

As I've said elsewhere, really great to see you well and back again, r1.

[MENTION=85539]Tenchuu[/MENTION] [MENTION=100292]Neil1889[/MENTION]

I've reviewed Spider and Lilli. Both have some minor issues, but have been fully approved.

renau1g said:

hi all, as sg noted, I have returned. My apologies to everyone here, especially my players and DM's. Things are going well, thank you.

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Man, it's good to have you back.

So, I've just stumbled upon something quite interesting while reading some DnD trivia and I thought it would make an excellent adventure. Then I realized I wouldn't be that good at DMing (yet).

For example, I don't have any DM tools like maps and grids and such (though I have photoshop) and I don't have a good grasp on what creatures to use in encounters. Oh, and adventure proposals...how to go about that.

Oh mighty DMs, show me the way.

Not too sure if this is the right place to ask this question - if not can you please point me in the right direction.

In terms of our characters do they have to look like the race you choose - for example, say I wanted to play a human but I really liked the dragonborn from a mechanics perspective - could my character be a human (and I roleplay the dragonbreath like a magic spell for example).

Sorry if this is a dumb question, this is how we play in my regular tabletop game but I did not know whether this sort of thing is allowed in a more "formal" gaming structure like a Living World.

Its just a bit frustrating when you have a good concept for a character but you then shortchange yourself by choosing a less optimal race (from a mechanics perspective).

I also apologise if this has been covered elsewhere, I looked through the Character Creation Guide and Wiki but could not find any reference.

treex said:

So, I've just stumbled upon something quite interesting while reading some DnD trivia and I thought it would make an excellent adventure. Then I realized I wouldn't be that good at DMing (yet).

For example, I don't have any DM tools like maps and grids and such (though I have photoshop) and I don't have a good grasp on what creatures to use in encounters. Oh, and adventure proposals...how to go about that.

Oh mighty DMs, show me the way.

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Hi Treex. glad to see you bitten by the DM'ing bug. Below is a link to Maptools, which is the program that I (and a lot of DM's here) use. I believe Iron Sky used Masterplan, although I wasn't a fan myself. You can import maps and then throw up a grid and insert tokens into the map.

RPTools - Home

I use maps culled from paizo adventures a lot of times personally, or from published 4e adventures.

re creatures. Typically I try to mix it up, like a couple brutes and some artillery, or an elite anything but soldier (they're a PITA) and then some skirmishers. Or a Controller and a soldier or two and an artillery. There's an encounter builder with the ddi tools that lets you calculate xp budgets for a party then it will show you the ranges for the encounter (n, n+1, n+2, etc). I would be careful with n+3 or n+4. I've killed a bunch of PC's here with an encounter that was a high n+3 (Chef's Request).

Adventure Proposal - We like to see as much detail as possible in case you need to step away and have someone pick it up. So we'd like to have a brief synopsis of the adventure, any important NPC's, encounters (if you don't have them spelled out specifically, I usually don't, then you can say an n+1 encounter with some wolves and a bear, or something like that), and potential rewards.

Here's a good thread from [MENTION=46559]covaithe[/MENTION] that has a ton of great info.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/living-4th-edition/250051-hoofchew-behind-scenes.html

LordGraz'zt said:

Not too sure if this is the right place to ask this question - if not can you please point me in the right direction.

In terms of our characters do they have to look like the race you choose - for example, say I wanted to play a human but I really liked the dragonborn from a mechanics perspective - could my character be a human (and I roleplay the dragonbreath like a magic spell for example).

Sorry if this is a dumb question, this is how we play in my regular tabletop game but I did not know whether this sort of thing is allowed in a more "formal" gaming structure like a Living World.

Its just a bit frustrating when you have a good concept for a character but you then shortchange yourself by choosing a less optimal race (from a mechanics perspective).

I also apologise if this has been covered elsewhere, I looked through the Character Creation Guide and Wiki but could not find any reference.

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Hi there. We are definitely ok with re-skinning as evidenced by my bugbear (a re-skinned half-orc), but typically if its an existing race we don't allow it. I believe someone wanted to be a human, but using the elf stats and we didn't allow it previously. The rationale was that race then becomes meaningless as you can just choose the most optimized stat combo and then play whatever you'd like.

The good thing is that humans are always a good choice

[MENTION=90924]LordGraz'zt[/MENTION]
There was a guy who wanted to play human child character by being a halfling...that was disallowed...on the other hand, there is a tree and stone elemental (both warforged) on LEB

[MENTION=84680]treex[/MENTION], for maps, newest fad (and my favorite) is to use google spreadsheet...which allows for such things as keeping temp effects in one place, allowing characters to move around monsters and everyone can be assured to see current situation and not follow myriad of effects others did (as long as everyone fills the map)

DM has of course to make backup save every round in case there is some invalid movement or hp or something...see here for simple example

My warforged is a robot...with gears and stuff, even though lore-wise they're supposed to have organic insides, but that's a really simple re-skin (I just wanted a robot that runs on blood MUAhAHAHA)

I had a PC idea of playing a crystal wardrobe that could summon things like fireballs from it's insides. I would have used the Shardmind race, which I'm quite sure wouldn't raise any heads.

I'll play around with tools, but I was hoping to get a private discussion with a veteran. Cause I don't wanna spoil any surprises ^^ Assuming I went ahead with it I mean...

Quick note, [MENTION=46559]covaithe[/MENTION], [MENTION=6682244]Medina[/MENTION], and [MENTION=91452]rb780nm[/MENTION] have some reviewer notes to clean up and then their PC's become approved.

That'll knock 4 off the list. Also, Phoenix, Eloan, & Beatrice are approved if someone can move them over to the approved characters page

http://l4w.wikia.com/wiki/Approval_Requests