D&D 4E JamesonCourage's First 4e Session

Manbearcat said:

I would stress this to the player. Given your description of the player's point-buy allocation, they obviously considerably optimized for primary ability score to the extreme determent of the rest of their build and therefore sacrificing breadth/depth for focus. If they bump their primary ability score by 2, all of a sudden they could have a bunch of 13s, qualifying for feats and giving them a + 1 to + 2 (for the ability with an 8) in skills and more than likely bumping up their Reflex and Fort.

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Fort would stay the same (16 Con already), but Reflex would bump 1 up, at the cost of Will falling 1 point (Wis 18 instead of 20). But yes, a few of skills would be 1 point higher, after they grabbed a couple of 13s, which does open up feats, if nothing else.

Manbearcat said:

They appear too combat focused for your sort of game. Adjusting ability scores and taking Jack of All Trades or a multiclass feat will have a small downward effect on their offensive effectiveness in combat while having a healthy broadening effect for overall defenses and their effectiveness in non-combat conflict resolution.

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Yep. I'm trying to see if he wants to trade out his level 4 feat (since he had to pick it in a hurry last session) for something like multi-classing (right now it helps him heal with his Warpriest power, I think). He's a little hesitant, but he is looking stuff over. He would have more options if he changed his stats around, but I somehow doubt he'll do that, though I will bring it up.

But hey, if you specialize too much, you can't complain too much about not being versatile, can you? I agree with Pseudopsyche that Clerics / Warpriests do have it a little tough, from my perspective, but if you're not working to overcome it, I guess you can't really expect to, either.

You might want to allow full character rebuilds now that the players are more familiar with your game, and everyone is more familiar with the rules. In our first 4e game we did that at 3rd level. No one fundamentally changed their characters, but everyone shifted something a little bit.

PS

We did the same, [MENTION=305]Storminator[/MENTION].

I also use a higher point buy and that tends to bolster skills across the board.

Storminator said:

You might want to allow full character rebuilds now that the players are more familiar with your game, and everyone is more familiar with the rules. In our first 4e game we did that at 3rd level. No one fundamentally changed their characters, but everyone shifted something a little bit.

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Scrivener of Doom said:

We did the same, @Storminator .

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I'm letting the Warpriest rebuild a little bit if he wants to, and he's looking into it, so I'll probably extend the same offer to the other players, too. Good suggestion.

Scrivener of Doom said:

I also use a higher point buy and that tends to bolster skills across the board.

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I can see why you do this. I'm trying to stick close to RAW, so I probably won't. If I run another 4e game at any point, I might start it a few points higher, but I'm not sure it's necessary. Some classes are just better at skills than others, just like in previous editions of the game, it seems.

@JamesonCourage Last suggestion. I'll leave it be after this one and let him figure it out. If he can scrounge 3 points for Charisma in his point buy, he can go multi-class Bard and with the investment of 2 feats he can have:

1 - Master of Stories equals another trained Skill

and

2 - A daily use of Skald's Aura (Essentials Bard Healing Word analogue) to buff his healing capabilities.
3 - Bard of All Trades Feat; + 3 feat bonus to all untrained Skill checks (not too terribly far from being trained in just about everything).

Manbearcat said:

@JamesonCourage Last suggestion. I'll leave it be after this one and let him figure it out. If he can scrounge 3 points for Charisma in his point buy, he can go multi-class Bard and with the investment of 2 feats he can have:

1 - Master of Stories equals another trained Skill

and

2 - A daily use of Skald's Aura (Essentials Bard Healing Word analogue) to buff his healing capabilities.
3 - Bard of All Trades Feat; + 3 feat bonus to all untrained Skill checks (not too terribly far from being trained in just about everything).

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He does want that Bard feat (he already knows about it, and has it on his backup character - a Skald). Though, he'd need to buff his Charisma by 5, I think -it's an 8, as it stands. I've mentioned him multi-classing into Bard, and while he liked the mechanics, he didn't like how it fit with this particular Warpriest of The Raven Queen. He is looking at other options, and might take Jack of all Trades, though, to get a similar bonus.

Thanks for the suggestion, though. It hit a lot of the mechanical notes, but when I suggested it earlier, he seemed to reject it based on flavor reasons. He also seems like the player least into re-fluffing things, so I didn't push hard on that front. Whatever he decides to do, I think he'll end up okay, though. I'm pretty sure he'll drop his Wisdom by at least 1 point, and if he doesn't, he'll probably come to grips with the fact that he's specializing over having more skills.

JamesonCourage said:

(snip) I can see why you do this. I'm trying to stick close to RAW, so I probably won't. If I run another 4e game at any point, I might start it a few points higher, but I'm not sure it's necessary. Some classes are just better at skills than others, just like in previous editions of the game, it seems.

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Our first campaign was RAW but that just wasn't satisfying more for me as the DM than for the players.

Ever since I have bumped up the point buy by 10 points (on the character builder this means they end up with -10 points) which is the same as having 14s for all six ability scores (this is the equivalent of 42 points in 3.5E which is what we used to use).

Scrivener of Doom said:

Our first campaign was RAW but that just wasn't satisfying more for me as the DM than for the players.

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I can see that. I tweak stuff all the time, even in my own RPG! (Technically I'm following RAW, but I do stuff like add new materials, give blanket flaws to entire races, etc. that definitely shape things differently.)

But, in the past, I've said a lot of stuff that I didn't like about 4e handles things. So, since I'm trying to be fair, I'm trying to run it pretty close to RAW, so I can get a good, fair experience of it. If I did end up completing this campaign and then moving on to another campaign, I might make a few more house rules (Skill Training / skill power feats? Extended rests being harder to use? More point buy with characters? I'm not sure; I'll have to play 4e RAW before I know what stuff I think becomes necessary).

Scrivener of Doom said:

Ever since I have bumped up the point buy by 10 points (on the character builder this means they end up with -10 points) which is the same as having 14s for all six ability scores (this is the equivalent of 42 points in 3.5E which is what we used to use).

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That's a big boost! Not enough to break the game, I don't think, but enough to definitely have some nice stats. Good for strong heroic 4e characters, I think.

JamesonCourage said:

(snip) But, in the past, I've said a lot of stuff that I didn't like about 4e handles things. So, since I'm trying to be fair, I'm trying to run it pretty close to RAW, so I can get a good, fair experience of it. (snip)

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I was the same. I came to 4E late because I had 3.xE working just the way I wanted it to work... or so I thought.

I had to stat up a level 15 anti-paladin in 3.5E for the game I was running so I started work on it. Of course, there is no anti-paladin class in 3.5E (I mean, published by WotC) so I started with a paladin and then went blackguard. I realised that the silly prequisite for blackguard - ranks in Hide - made no sense for blackguards in general or for this character so I spent some time creating my own version of the blackguard PrC. Then some more tinkering to make sure it was close to CR 15. Ultimately, I spent a good 4-5 hours creating that NPC and to this day I don't know if it would have lasted more than 5 minutes of play time.

I decided to have a look at 4E and see what such a character might look like. Grabbing PDFs of the DMG and PHB within an hour I had a stat block for a level 20 anti-paladin which still doesn't look too bad even several years later.

So, I went from 4-5 hours in a game I had tonnes of experience with to just under an hour in a game where I had barely glanced at the PDFs. Yeah, I was hooked... but after all the things I had said or thought about it I decided to go RAW for a while.

That's a big boost! Not enough to break the game, I don't think, but enough to definitely have some nice stats. Good for strong heroic 4e characters, I think.

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Yeah, it doesn't break the game but it helps make up for the fact that there are four characters rather than five. Coupled with slightly better equipment and quite a few (slightly overpowered) alternative rewards, I can still create encounters for a five character party and know they can handle them. Also, I love how they have more than one character with decent skills (and their defences don't suck either).

Sorry I didn't reply sooner. Just started a new job yesterday, and I've been busy with other life things, too.

Scrivener of Doom said:

I was the same. I came to 4E late because I had 3.xE working just the way I wanted it to work... or so I thought.

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I kept house ruling and home brewing 3.5 more and more until I ended up with my RPG, so I know a similar feeling.

Scrivener of Doom said:

I had to stat up a level 15 anti-paladin in 3.5E for the game I was running so I started work on it. Of course, there is no anti-paladin class in 3.5E (I mean, published by WotC) so I started with a paladin and then went blackguard. I realised that the silly prequisite for blackguard - ranks in Hide - made no sense for blackguards in general or for this character so I spent some time creating my own version of the blackguard PrC. Then some more tinkering to make sure it was close to CR 15. Ultimately, I spent a good 4-5 hours creating that NPC and to this day I don't know if it would have lasted more than 5 minutes of play time.

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That's a common enough story that I believe it. Personally, I didn't prep my 3.5 games, I just winged everything (though I had a pretty good understanding and memory of the core books). So, my prep in 4e is drastically higher, comparatively.

Scrivener of Doom said:

I decided to have a look at 4E and see what such a character might look like. Grabbing PDFs of the DMG and PHB within an hour I had a stat block for a level 20 anti-paladin which still doesn't look too bad even several years later.

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It is very easy to understand and adapt to. I agree with [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] that 4e is very close to 3.X mechanically. The stuff you learn you may need to adapt to, but most of the basics you learned in 3.X are coming into play with 4e.

Scrivener of Doom said:

So, I went from 4-5 hours in a game I had tonnes of experience with to just under an hour in a game where I had barely glanced at the PDFs. Yeah, I was hooked... but after all the things I had said or thought about it I decided to go RAW for a while.

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Yep, I think it's the least I can do for it. My natural impulse is to wing everything, as I did with 3.5, eventually, but I don't know the 4e books well enough yet. I want to give 4e a fair shot, and try to play to its strengths, to see how it plays under those circumstances. That, coupled with my other gaming needs being met in my regular group, means I'm quite enjoying 4e so far.

Scrivener of Doom said:

Yeah, it doesn't break the game but it helps make up for the fact that there are four characters rather than five. Coupled with slightly better equipment and quite a few (slightly overpowered) alternative rewards, I can still create encounters for a five character party and know they can handle them. Also, I love how they have more than one character with decent skills (and their defences don't suck either).

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Yeah, maybe skill challenges also feel slightly harder because there are only four characters, but I don't think that's it (or, at least not most of it). Also, I've found prepping combat for four players seemingly easy in 4e thus far (if I follow the XP guidelines).

But, I can see how the skills / defense boosts might help, too, in certain ways; the dwarven Fighter (Knight) in my group had low Reflex and Will saves (even with a shield), and just took Improved Defenses at level 4. That, coupled with his fairly poor skill selection (there aren't many skills based on Strength / Constitution, just like in 3.5), means that he's a low skill / low defense character (though his AC is simply amazing).

Anyways, once I play through this campaign, I might try experimenting a bit more. I don't feel the urge to do so, yet, though. And, in the interest of giving 4e a fair shot, I think I'll hold off on changing too much of it for a while, still. Thanks again for the constructive feedback. I'm so impressed with this thread and my first thread. Good stuff