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Running Commentary on Rel's 4e Campaign (Complete 8/2/10)
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<blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 4662610" data-attributes="member: 99"><p>A discussion I was having at CM inspired me to talk for a minute about how I design stuff for 4e. Essentially it is much more loose and easy on monster selection than in a lot of other games I've run. I'm spending a very small portion of my prep time with mechanics and that usually the day we play. I can spend the balance of my time on story, scenario design and the little details that help bring it to life.</p><p></p><p>In this last session I'd established that there was a "ghost" in the temple. That was all that I'd committed myself to the previous session. So I went ahead and figured out the layout of the temple, what they would find in the different parts (the "Chamber of Judgement" with the book in it upstairs, the living apartments on the main floor and the catacombs beneath). Then I decided on the characteristics and details of each area. Finally, on Monday, I came back around to needing to nail down some specifics about the monsters.</p><p></p><p>For the "ghost" I knew I wanted some kind of insubstantial undead. I first looked at the Ghost. The whole "phantom warrior with a sword" wasn't the vibe I was after. Then I flipped to Specter. This was more along the lines of what I wanted but I'd want to ditch the Invisibility thing because I already knew I was going to use the Clay Scouts as guardians and I didn't want to overdo the Invis thing. </p><p></p><p>Then I took a look at the Wraith. He's got Regeneration, which, combined with being insubstantial, would make him tougher to kill. I needed that because this was the only monster in the room. I decided that I was going to get rid of the thing where he doesn't regenerate if he takes Radiant damage because it makes the fight tougher but also lets me add a milestone-worthy secondary goal of the encounter. So long as the sacrificial dagger remained in the corpse on the altar, the Wraith would continue to Regenerate. Also I realized that he'd never get to use his Combat Advantage thing so I replaced that with an Encounter Power that he could use to protect the corpse on the altar. I made it a Close Burst 3 that did 1d6 Necrotic Damage and pushed all targets two spaces. That way he could clear them off the altar if they tried to remove the dagger the first time.</p><p></p><p>In play this worked like a charm.</p><p></p><p>I did something similar with the "bug" part of the temple encounters. My story suggested that a long time ago somebody baracaded themselves inside the Prison Mines. But I still wanted the PC's to get inside somehow. So I wanted a nest of bugs that had dug their way into the old Mines. They had also broken into a few of the crypts and that let me put out the possibility that the PC's might try and help themselves to what was inside (thus causing the dead to rise and giving them some skeletons to fight). But they didn't do this so that encounter was never triggered.</p><p></p><p>Anyway I browsed through my bug options. My first instinct was the classic Fire Beetle. Not a bad way to go but I wanted to consider other options. Then I found the Kruthik. They were perfect. They already had the Burrowing ability, which was kind of the reason I included them. Plus they were also more "swarmy" with that whole Gnashing Horde ability. So I described them as a couple larger individuals with many smaller ones scurrying underneath. This let me also provide an explanation for how they were getting into the catacombs through a narrow crack in the ceiling above as well as have a swarm of them hiding inside one of the crypts.</p><p></p><p>My underlying point here is that my method of preparation is a bit different than in past editions (namely 3.x). The Monster Manual had much larger, better descriptions of the creatures in 3e. But that also meant that frequently important information about the mechanics of running that creature in combat was contained outside the stat-block. So I needed to transcribe that stat block and relevant abilities onto a note card before I ran the fight. I generally did that early on in my preparation process and this sort of mentally "locked me in" to that design decision.</p><p></p><p>With 4e, everything I need to know to run the monster is in the stat-block and the descriptions are fairly short and not very useful. But that's ok because I'm doing my inspiration beforehand so that the flavor is already decided and I'm just looking for mechanics that suit that decision. And once I find those mechanics then I simply cut and paste the stat-block from the compendium, make any changes I require and I'm ready to play.</p><p></p><p>So all the creativity is frontloaded in my design process and I can change those decisions right up until the day we play without having "wasted" any effort copying down mechanics I end up not using because of a last minute change.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Rel, post: 4662610, member: 99"] A discussion I was having at CM inspired me to talk for a minute about how I design stuff for 4e. Essentially it is much more loose and easy on monster selection than in a lot of other games I've run. I'm spending a very small portion of my prep time with mechanics and that usually the day we play. I can spend the balance of my time on story, scenario design and the little details that help bring it to life. In this last session I'd established that there was a "ghost" in the temple. That was all that I'd committed myself to the previous session. So I went ahead and figured out the layout of the temple, what they would find in the different parts (the "Chamber of Judgement" with the book in it upstairs, the living apartments on the main floor and the catacombs beneath). Then I decided on the characteristics and details of each area. Finally, on Monday, I came back around to needing to nail down some specifics about the monsters. For the "ghost" I knew I wanted some kind of insubstantial undead. I first looked at the Ghost. The whole "phantom warrior with a sword" wasn't the vibe I was after. Then I flipped to Specter. This was more along the lines of what I wanted but I'd want to ditch the Invisibility thing because I already knew I was going to use the Clay Scouts as guardians and I didn't want to overdo the Invis thing. Then I took a look at the Wraith. He's got Regeneration, which, combined with being insubstantial, would make him tougher to kill. I needed that because this was the only monster in the room. I decided that I was going to get rid of the thing where he doesn't regenerate if he takes Radiant damage because it makes the fight tougher but also lets me add a milestone-worthy secondary goal of the encounter. So long as the sacrificial dagger remained in the corpse on the altar, the Wraith would continue to Regenerate. Also I realized that he'd never get to use his Combat Advantage thing so I replaced that with an Encounter Power that he could use to protect the corpse on the altar. I made it a Close Burst 3 that did 1d6 Necrotic Damage and pushed all targets two spaces. That way he could clear them off the altar if they tried to remove the dagger the first time. In play this worked like a charm. I did something similar with the "bug" part of the temple encounters. My story suggested that a long time ago somebody baracaded themselves inside the Prison Mines. But I still wanted the PC's to get inside somehow. So I wanted a nest of bugs that had dug their way into the old Mines. They had also broken into a few of the crypts and that let me put out the possibility that the PC's might try and help themselves to what was inside (thus causing the dead to rise and giving them some skeletons to fight). But they didn't do this so that encounter was never triggered. Anyway I browsed through my bug options. My first instinct was the classic Fire Beetle. Not a bad way to go but I wanted to consider other options. Then I found the Kruthik. They were perfect. They already had the Burrowing ability, which was kind of the reason I included them. Plus they were also more "swarmy" with that whole Gnashing Horde ability. So I described them as a couple larger individuals with many smaller ones scurrying underneath. This let me also provide an explanation for how they were getting into the catacombs through a narrow crack in the ceiling above as well as have a swarm of them hiding inside one of the crypts. My underlying point here is that my method of preparation is a bit different than in past editions (namely 3.x). The Monster Manual had much larger, better descriptions of the creatures in 3e. But that also meant that frequently important information about the mechanics of running that creature in combat was contained outside the stat-block. So I needed to transcribe that stat block and relevant abilities onto a note card before I ran the fight. I generally did that early on in my preparation process and this sort of mentally "locked me in" to that design decision. With 4e, everything I need to know to run the monster is in the stat-block and the descriptions are fairly short and not very useful. But that's ok because I'm doing my inspiration beforehand so that the flavor is already decided and I'm just looking for mechanics that suit that decision. And once I find those mechanics then I simply cut and paste the stat-block from the compendium, make any changes I require and I'm ready to play. So all the creativity is frontloaded in my design process and I can change those decisions right up until the day we play without having "wasted" any effort copying down mechanics I end up not using because of a last minute change. [/QUOTE]
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