My first 4E game...

[Treebore]

In honor of Treebore trying 4E, I've decided to buy the C&C book to see what all the hubub is about.

Thats cool. Just realize I don't like C&C enough to use "as is". My 7+ pages of house rules is what makes C&C my favorite. Combined with the fact that C&C is made to be so easy to "house rule". The only thing I can really say I love is the SIEGE mechanic itself. Its what allows anything to be possible. From any RPG I like to take rules and ideas from. Easily. That is what my real love for C&C revolves around. That is what makes me like it better then any other edition of D&D. Frankly, how can it be beat when it so easily allows me to take what I like from any other RPG and put it all together under one roof?

So when you read the PH remember that I didn't fall in love because of how the book is written, I fell in love because I saw what the SIEGE would allow me to do.

 

[MerricB]

Thats cool. Just realize I don't like C&C enough to use "as is". My 7+ pages of house rules is what makes C&C my favorite. Combined with the fact that C&C is made to be so easy to "house rule". The only thing I can really say I love is the SIEGE mechanic itself. Its what allows anything to be possible.

I'm curious - do you house rule SIEGE at all? I think the underlying mechanics are great, but I find that the target number depending on the player is clunky. If I ever run C&C, I'd just make all target numbers 18+CL and give the players a +6 on their prime checks.

So when you read the PH remember that I didn't fall in love because of how the book is written, I fell in love because I saw what the SIEGE would allow me to do.

I'm very glad to hear that. I'll get around to reviewing some of my C&C stuff one of these days. I love the ideas, but the quality of writing in the core books and the A series of adventures is horrible.

Cheers!

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

So yeah I think its ok to have a PC group with varying degrees of combat effectiveness. Just be sure that the campaign activities are as varied as the characters.

This doesn't always work. I ran a Rifts game a number of years ago where I told the players they could be whatever they wanted in all the books, but they should understand that it was a high powered, cosmic campaign that would involve them dealing with some of the most powerful beings in the multiverse. That's why I was allowing anything.

One of the players showed up with a martial artist. Another showed up as a cosmoknight. Yet another as a super hero with invulnerability. The martial artist died in the second round of combat...ever in the game. There was just no way for him to survive an encounter with anything that had the remote chance of challenging anyone else in the party. With him in the party, combat was simply not an option.

The same thing works in reverse. Say you have one character who has no skills worth mentioning. He's decided to role play a barbarian who barely understands common. Now, as long as the game involves skills at ALL, during those times, he is not involved in the game. Meanwhile, his combat power is so far above everyone else that all of them are not involved during the combats. This causes hours of real life time where one player or another is sitting there, not doing anything and rather bored.

4e enforces that no matter how dumb your character is, he still gets skills. No matter what skills you pick, you will still be able to use them. No matter what class you pick, you will still be useful in combat. No matter what powers you choose within your class, you'll still be useful in combat.

That's really the point. Keep ALL players involved in ALL parts of the game instead of saying "You are the combat character, you can sit there and read a book for the next 2 hours as the adventure is about discovering who the murderer is and your character has no useful skills. Don't worry, you'll be able to kill monsters in a couple of hours when I'll tell the skill characters to read books during combat."

 

[scruffygrognard]

I'm curious - do you house rule SIEGE at all? I think the underlying mechanics are great, but I find that the target number depending on the player is clunky. If I ever run C&C, I'd just make all target numbers 18+CL and give the players a +6 on their prime checks.

Cheers!

I find that a Challenge Base of 15+CL works wonderfully. Primes add 5 to the check.

Like Treebore, I use modified C&C rules because I find some of the core rules to be needlessly limiting or poorly written/balanced. Still, I love C&C because I think it's a VERY flexible system that allows me to pull in material from AD&D and 3rd Edition D&D with little effort.

 

[Treebore]

I'm curious - do you house rule SIEGE at all? If I ever run C&C, I'd just make all target numbers 18+CL and give the players a +6 on their prime checks.

Cheers!

The SIEGE engine itself? No, I use it as is.


"I'd just make all target numbers 18+CL and give the players a +6 on their prime checks. "

That will work.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Look at RIFTS. The GM could say he's going to be running a Chi Town Burbs campaign and one guy wants to be a City Rat. He envisions getting to mix it up w/the CS a bit, while being sneaky and escaping to live to fight another day. The other 3 players roll a Glitter Boy, a Temporal Wizard and an Atlantean Tattoed Man. The one w/the City Rat may as well not even show up, his contributions wouldn't be noticed.

Actually, the lack of balance in RIFTS never bothered me, nor the players with whom I played it.

And as it turns out, we didn't have the issue with less powerful PCs being overshadowed. Even the less combat-worthy PCs made important contributions, even if it was only in gathering the info that kept the party from getting their heads handed to them in an ambush.

That could be the result of good GMing or insightful play, or just dumb luck. Or even a combo of all 3 and other factors as well.

(PS: You didn't even have to get as exotic as you did- the basic book has both the Glitterboy and the Vagabond. Quite the gap!)

 

[Imaro]

Look at RIFTS. The GM could say he's going to be running a Chi Town Burbs campaign and one guy wants to be a City Rat. He envisions getting to mix it up w/the CS a bit, while being sneaky and escaping to live to fight another day. The other 3 players roll a Glitter Boy, a Temporal Wizard and an Atlantean Tattoed Man. The one w/the City Rat may as well not even show up, his contributions wouldn't be noticed.

I'm just fine w/a bit more balance built into the system. Oh and yes, I realize it's important for a RIFTS GM to do things like restrict access to certain books to try and keep the characters more even, but the core book has power levels ranging from Rogue Scientist to Techno-Wizard to Mind Melter and Dragon Hatchling.

I just wanted to point out that you're examples are based specifically on combat "role".

I think it's very probable that different players want to explore different archetypes in an rpg, and not all of these are based on combat effectiveness. Was Jason or Odysseus as capable in combat as Hercules or Achilles? Nope, yet as a child I found reading their adventures more entertaining. If I want to play a trickster who out thinks rather than browbeats his way through problems, then I'm not going to care if my characters combat effectiveness isn't on par with Krog the berserker, I am perfectly willing to sacrifice that in order to have a wider selection or better bonuses in skills and feats that cater to the archetype I've selected.

In the previous edition "role" was much more widely defined than "striker", "leader", "defender", and "controller"...there were actually roles that had nothing to do with combat, and more to do with the part of the game the player enjoyed. I had no issues as far as "spotlight" since the role my players chose gave me all the information I needed to cater my adventures to what they would enjoy with an equal spread for all. Problem solving for my spellcasters, combat for my fighters/barbarians, skill use for my rogues and a mix for classes like Rangers or multi-classers.

 

[Mort]

Actually, the lack of balance in RIFTS never bothered me, nor the players with whom I played it.

And as it turns out, we didn't have the issue with less powerful PCs being overshadowed. Even the less combat-worthy PCs made important contributions, even if it was only in gathering the info that kept the party from getting their heads handed to them in an ambush.

That could be the result of good GMing or insightful play, or just dumb luck. Or even a combo of all 3 and other factors as well.

(PS: You didn't even have to get as exotic as you did- the basic book has both the Glitterboy and the Vagabond. Quite the gap!)

A good DM can get around just about any problem - doesn't mean the system helps him.

Sticking with RIFTS:

player 1 makes a rogue scholar - he likely stinks in combat but has some good skills outside of combat so may be able to contribute well there.

player 2 makes a cyberknight - he's much better in combat than the rogue scholar but still not really a heavy hitter. outside of combat he can keep up with the rogue scholar in some areas.

player 3 makes a robot - he can outfight either of the above (and probably both at the same time if he's not unlucky) and his skills put the rogue scholar to shame outside of combat as well.

So the problem becomes unless the DM actively hamstrings the robot - it's just not close to an even playing field.

 

[Mort]

I just wanted to point out that you're examples are based specifically on combat "role".

I think it's very probable that different players want to explore different archetypes in an rpg, and not all of these are based on combat effectiveness. Was Jason or Odysseus as capable in combat as Hercules or Achilles? Nope, yet as a child I found reading their adventures more entertaining. If I want to play a trickster who out thinks rather than browbeats his way through problems, then I'm not going to care if my characters combat effectiveness isn't on par with Krog the berserker, I am perfectly willing to sacrifice that in order to have a wider selection or better bonuses in skills and feats that cater to the archetype I've selected.

In the previous edition "role" was much more widely defined than "striker", "leader", "defender", and "controller"...there were actually roles that had nothing to do with combat, and more to do with the part of the game the player enjoyed. I had no issues as far as "spotlight" since the role my players chose gave me all the information I needed to cater my adventures to what they would enjoy with an equal spread for all. Problem solving for my spellcasters, combat for my fighters/barbarians, skill use for my rogues and a mix for classes like Rangers or multi-classers.

The problem was that some classes, wizards are the easy example, could dominate both arenas: in and out of combat.

A well built fighter may (stress on may) be able to keep up with a wizard for effectiveness in combat but cannot possibly keep up in effectiveness out of combat (without heavy DM tinkering). A well built rogue may (again stress on may) be able to keep up with a wizard's effectiveness outside of combat but will not hold a candle to a wizard's effectiveness in combat.

4e at least recognizes the problem and tries to make sure each class has a niche in and out of combat.

 

[Terwox]

Treebore: My current experience has been that DM'ing 4E is remarkably easier than 3E. I haven't played C&C, but I've played quite a bit of True20. I find creating and balancing encounters, and creating new monsters, easier to do than in 3E for sure, and somewhat comparable to True20.

You may want to give the game a shot on the DM side before shutting the door. Also sounds like you might want to try it at level 11 or 16... I haven't played past 2nd myself, but it seems like the disparity between classes and roles will be a lot more apparent once paragon paths and more encounter/daily powers are taken.

But yeah -- if you're totally happy w/ C&C, and it sounds like your family prefers it too, you might not even want to bother. So far I'm enjoying 4E more than True20, though... but I think that may be primarily because I'm DM'ing. I haven't played it yet.