D&D 4E New gamemaster to 4e

AbdulAlhazred · Jul 20, 2017

tuxedoraptor said:
We rarely use magic items, Right now we have a dwarf world speaker shaman, a goliath fighter and a human warlock. He wants to take the infernal pact but not pump constitution so hes thinking the sorcerer king pact. I told him fine but the pact will not have any dark sun related flavor. To be fair though, the pact itself seems pretty good for a generic warlock pact

Yeah, any of the pacts can be reflavored very easily. There's also a Dark Pact, not sure exactly where that comes from though...

tuxedoraptor · Jul 20, 2017

it comes from the forgotten realms players guide. Its quite unique, too! Though my player is sticking to the infernal pact as it simply is awesome and another reason to pump constitution is never a bad thing. I am not sure how the shaman will feel about someone who communes with unnatural forces that want to do horrible things to humanity.

cavalier973 · Jul 20, 2017

Although your players have already picked their characters' classes, I wanted to state that the Essentials Warpriest is quite fun to play. The character will be all over the battlefield (playing one reminded me of Gandalf), killing a monster over here, granting an ally a saving throw yonder...good for a player who likes playing a support role.

Tony Vargas · Jul 20, 2017

AbdulAlhazred said:
There's also a Dark Pact, not sure exactly where that comes from though...

It's like the Hollow Ones in M:tA, drawing power from angst.

tuxedoraptor · Jul 21, 2017

speaking of mage the awakening, how rules light are those games? I haven't found anything on them. Also, our warlock is now a hexblade with the star pact. We didn't get much done due to me not being able to run any sessions because of a very snuggly and very exicted pitbull/boxer/german sheperd puppy coming over to my house and demanding that I stop doing everything related to D&D and pet her. I am very unsure about the hexblade. It looks good but I don't know if it works. The goliath fighter wanted to take battlerager vigor but with the shaman that wouldn't be a smart move, according to the shaman player. This should be fun, I seriously doubt the spirits the shaman summons will be pleased with the hexblade. Spirits tend to dislike tentacled beings from beyond the stars, all that drooling and screaming and the slime tends to be......stubborn to get out of your carpet.

Tony Vargas · Jul 21, 2017

tuxedoraptor said:
speaking of mage the awakening, how rules light are those games?

I was speaking of Mage: the Ascension.

Storyteller games, in general, are not 'rules light,' rather, they're based on the maxim "Bad rules make Good game." So they're, well, /bad/.

M:tA(scension), while the 1st edition was a beautiful, surreal mess, and the later editions less inspired, had the makings of one of the less effed up mechanics in storyteller history, reminiscent of the magic in Ars Magicka.

Also, our warlock is now a hexblade with the star pact. We didn't get much done due to me not being able to run any sessions because of a very snuggly and very exicted pitbull/boxer/german sheperd puppy coming over to my house and demanding that I stop doing everything related to D&D and pet her. I am very unsure about the hexblade. It looks good but I don't know if it works.

Wow, ADD chargen.

Seriously, though, in answer to that question, I've had a hexblade in my campaign for years, at 23rd, the player noticed the level felt kinda dead. He'd had few complaints up to then - though the whole implement-to-make-your-weapon thing threw him at first.

The goliath fighter wanted to take battlerager vigor but with the shaman that wouldn't be a smart move, according to the shaman player. This should be fun, I seriously doubt the spirits the shaman summons will be pleased with the hexblade. Spirits tend to dislike tentacled beings from beyond the stars, all that drooling and screaming and the slime tends to be......stubborn to get out of your carpet.

According to Dawn War Lore, the primal spirits aren't too accepting of Gods or Elementals, either. They're kinda the 'go back where you came from' types of the Prime Material. In general, though, your Source doesn't dictate your allies or your behaviors.

tuxedoraptor · Jul 21, 2017

Well, tonight is the first session with these three and I am going to try to avoid having to watch the neighbors puppies, so we should have fun. I will just be keeping an eye on the hexblade for now.The worst that can happen is the player doesn't have fun and she managed to make a dwarf fighter interesting and unique so I have hope.

tuxedoraptor · Jul 22, 2017

Update: We couldn't run any sessions because I went to open the monster vault and found the files had been corrupted. I hadn't checked them before since there was a lot to dig through so I didn't catch it until now. My copy of the third monster manual is missing nearly all the content and I couldn't run the session since I had nothing to use. I asked the person who sent them to me, a long time friend and player of mine and found out what happened: He had been digging through an older computer of his that was constantly crashing/BSOD and was trying to see if there was anything worth salvaging on it. Something probably went awry with the files and now I am stuck with nothing unless I torrent them.

Herobizkit · Jul 22, 2017

Just throwing in two coppers:

Multi-classing solves a lot of class shortcomings.
Fighter/Monk with the right feats makes a better monk than Monk.
Cleric/Invoker using Warpriest feats makes for a sassy blaster that can also take and dish some hits.
Hexblade/Sorcerer is the Arcane version of above (but you gotta have the Essentials for that).

tuxedoraptor · Jul 22, 2017

after the fiasco with the pathfinder synthesist/paladin multiclass a few years back, multiclassing is banned. Forever. Anyone who brings it up at my table will be exiled and shamed and then mailed to australia. I managed to find a workaround for the missing pages/corrupted files that may not be against ENworlds rules so I won't share, but the final houserule is anything from the essentials line is banned unless I approve it. Simply because essentials is a goddamn trainwreck waiting to happen. Ranger/warden/artificer is the current party lineup.