4th Edition and the Immortals Handbook

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

Well, one thing I noticed, is that, for weapon powers, if you take the pure-damage daily power of a given rank, then it, by virtue of average damage (assuming D8s here, but the math doesn't change much), a Daily power should deal 1/8th of a regular monster's (of equal level) life. However, the progression gets a bit off ~ 31, and monster HP usually will pull ahead. If you want to keep the ratio about the same, adding 1[W] per 15 levels (or 2[W] every 30) as some sort of tier bonus keeps the math exactly the same. Note that it probably isn't necessary: damage adds from strength, and a magic weapon, etc, will likely make up the difference. Plus higher level characters have more resources than a lower level character, so the difference between taking away 1/8th of the monster's life and taking away 1/9th of it's life can be handwaved.

As for point-buying powers: I am hesitent on this, simply because almost all point buy systems are unbalanced. There usually is one set of choices that are superior to all others. Example: If I were using the Hypothetical 4E Immortal's power builder, and wanted to make an ultra-you-wish-you-were-dead-ray, I'd forgo as much damage as possible for as many conditions as possible. Starting with: Prone-Blind-Weakened-Daze-Marked - Try attacking after taking a -6 vs me, -8 vs anyone but me, and you only get one action, and it does half damage. Plus, you grant combat advantage to pretty much everyone. (You may be immune to some of those conditions, but there could always be more) I'd gladly take a power that did that + puny damage and three other competative damage dealing powers. (Now, obviously whatever fluff reason for this power better be good)

If your plan is to have a point-buy power builder, then be careful. As for conditions, my personal order of evilness: (excluding instant-wins like unconcious or petrified)
1. Weakened - Makes any character useless.
2. Immobilize - Ruins pure melee threats. (Happened to my Dwarven Ranger last Wednesday!)
3. Blind - Hit rate goes from good to terrible in an instant; plus defeats rogues.
4. Stunned - Obvious cheese here. Nobody likes being stunned.
The rest of the conditions: Deafened, Dazed, Marked, Prone, and Slowed, seem to be weaker, but they are not always. (Daze plus prone means choosing between attacking and having less terrible penalties next turn)

 

[Frobojoe]

If your plan is to have a point-buy power builder, then be careful. As for conditions, my personal order of evilness: (excluding instant-wins like unconcious or petrified)
1. Weakened - Makes any character useless.
2. Immobilize - Ruins pure melee threats. (Happened to my Dwarven Ranger last Wednesday!)
3. Blind - Hit rate goes from good to terrible in an instant; plus defeats rogues.
4. Stunned - Obvious cheese here. Nobody likes being stunned.
The rest of the conditions: Deafened, Dazed, Marked, Prone, and Slowed, seem to be weaker, but they are not always. (Daze plus prone means choosing between attacking and having less terrible penalties next turn)

Weakened, Immobilized, and Blinded are all worse then Stunned? Are you high? Stunned means you can't act. Like, at all. It's the worst hands down.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Ltheb dude!

Well, one thing I noticed, is that, for weapon powers, if you take the pure-damage daily power of a given rank, then it, by virtue of average damage (assuming D8s here, but the math doesn't change much), a Daily power should deal 1/8th of a regular monster's (of equal level) life. However, the progression gets a bit off ~ 31, and monster HP usually will pull ahead. If you want to keep the ratio about the same, adding 1[W] per 15 levels (or 2[W] every 30) as some sort of tier bonus keeps the math exactly the same. Note that it probably isn't necessary: damage adds from strength, and a magic weapon, etc, will likely make up the difference. Plus higher level characters have more resources than a lower level character, so the difference between taking away 1/8th of the monster's life and taking away 1/9th of it's life can be handwaved.

Yes its a very minor difference.

As for point-buying powers: I am hesitent on this, simply because almost all point buy systems are unbalanced. There usually is one set of choices that are superior to all others. Example: If I were using the Hypothetical 4E Immortal's power builder, and wanted to make an ultra-you-wish-you-were-dead-ray, I'd forgo as much damage as possible for as many conditions as possible. Starting with: Prone-Blind-Weakened-Daze-Marked - Try attacking after taking a -6 vs me, -8 vs anyone but me, and you only get one action, and it does half damage. Plus, you grant combat advantage to pretty much everyone. (You may be immune to some of those conditions, but there could always be more) I'd gladly take a power that did that + puny damage and three other competative damage dealing powers. (Now, obviously whatever fluff reason for this power better be good)

Indeed. But I think those problems could be overcome with enough forethought...assuming of course that the conditions were not 'broken' in the first place.

I also think there should be a limit on conditions with perhaps 1 on At-Wills, 2 on Encounters and 3 on Dailies at the very most.

If your plan is to have a point-buy power builder, then be careful. As for conditions, my personal order of evilness: (excluding instant-wins like unconcious or petrified)
1. Weakened - Makes any character useless.
2. Immobilize - Ruins pure melee threats. (Happened to my Dwarven Ranger last Wednesday!)
3. Blind - Hit rate goes from good to terrible in an instant; plus defeats rogues.
4. Stunned - Obvious cheese here. Nobody likes being stunned.
The rest of the conditions: Deafened, Dazed, Marked, Prone, and Slowed, seem to be weaker, but they are not always. (Daze plus prone means choosing between attacking and having less terrible penalties next turn)

Well I think, on the flipside, the fact that conditions only last a round or two (usually) offsets the nastiness to a degree. The difference being when fighting elites and especially solo monsters, when a party can dogpile on a stunned solo monster.

Still not sure of the best way to tackle Stunning.

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

Weakened, Immobilized, and Blinded are all worse then Stunned? Are you high? Stunned means you can't act. Like, at all. It's the worst hands down.

Well, I put it on my list because it is so powerful, it deserves mention. (There was a discussion in either this thread or another about stunning at immortal levels and solo opponents) No one likes to be stunned. Anything that stuns for more than 1 turn and isn't a daily is probably broken. (Are there any such powers?) (Probably is at least one) And it would earn #1 position unless something is done about stunning at higher levels, where it will no doubt become common if unchecked.

But yea, it should be at the top of the list, but, as DM, using stunning foes seems like a cheat. I ran a session a few weeks ago where the party fought a monster that Stunned (Save ends), the Fighter. He never got a turn. He was so bored. It just doesn't seem fair to have easy-access 'save-or-wish-you-were-dead-so-you-could-roll-up-a-stun-resistant-character'. There definitely needs to be some sort of resistance/immunity/mitigation against stunning. Especially because there are so few conditions, so Stunning is almost needed to round out the list.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey guys!

I wonder if Stun should only last a maximum of one round.

If the the description of the power is Stun (save ends) then even if you fail the first save the stun is downgraded to Dazed (save ends) on the second round.

 

[S'mon]

Hey guys!

Okay this is Krusty on Tour in London.

Had a great day yesterday playing 4th Edition, the group was playing the climax of Keep on the Shadowfell. Special thanks to Zander (of ENWorld) who was DMing. Due to players being in and out over the past few weeks (of the adventure), none of the PCs were 3rd-level and the new players were only 1st. So with five players (including me) there were 7 characters (Two Level 2 and five Level 1).

However I got to see enough of the rules and how the game operates in play. Some thoughts on 4th Edition:

After the initial encounter (3 PCs in this one, we only had 7 for the climax) where I was just getting my feet wet as it were (I forgot loads of stuff - like Action Points and we almost had a TPK, although we were playing an encounter designed to be tough for five 2nd-level PCs and we were but two 1st-level PCs: my Dwarf Fighter and a Human Warlord and one Level 2 Warlock), we started to gel as a group.

1. A good mix of roles is very important. I know everyone says that, and they are totally correct. In the last battle the cleric and warlord were a necessity - we simply wouldn't have survived without them. They say that because of healing surges you probably don't need a cleric in the party, but many of the fights seemed like a war of attrition, and this is where the cleric really helps.
2. Min/maxing is virtually a necessity. You really want a 16 or higher in your primary stat(s), preferably an 18. A 20 would be ideal.
3. The d20 roll is everything. By that I mean you will live or die by it. So you basically want to squeeze every single possible bonus out of your group tactics. With PCs generally only getting one attack, you could easily miss three or four rounds in a row with some bad roles or against higher AC opponents. Fortunately, although combat tends to last lots of rounds (more than 3E) each individual round is a generally quicker.
4. Dying is more difficult, but being dropped to 0 hp is going to be a regular occurance.
5. I'd say if you only have 2-3 players, let them each play 2 PCs.
6. 'Bosses' can take a long time to drop. I only encountered Elite opponents (no Solo's yet) but they are noticeably tougher. For instance the last boss of the Keep must have taken us at least a dozen rounds from the point where he was alone and surrounded...and it took about twenty rounds to get to that juncture.

Things I have learnt as regards 4E Immortals Handbook.

A) Missing isn't much fun, especially when you miss with Encounter or Daily powers. Powers which are Reliable or at least have some sort of lessened effect when you Miss are a lot more interesting.

I'll post more later - need to go out.

 

[Fieari]

Krusty,

I've been DMing an epic level game PbP here: ( http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2901601 ) and have a few more comments to add.

1) Solo and elites have a LOT of hp. (I used stats for Astral Stalker, Elder Blue, made stuff up for the nymph, and changed the fluff a fair bit. I also tweaked the Astra Stalker to make it able to go invisible as a minor action) I mean, too much. I finally cut the first combat short because of it. At the current rate of HP attrition, it would have gone on 4 times as long at least, and the players were running out of their powers.

2) Missing is VERY common, as you said. That said, however, the abilities that were the most fun were the abilities that increased chances of success later. Check out "Ernesto" getting +7 to his attacks for most of the encounter, and henceforth never missing again.

Other things that were fun: Rerolls, and multiple attacks with a single action. I realize that the 3e attack progression was incredibly boring due to all the rolls, most of which didn't actually matter-- but when making two attacks at your highest rating, that's fun. Add in action points for additional actions, and you get really good stuff.

A suggestion for Immortal levels? Allow an action point every encounter, not every other encounter. Also consider allowing two action points per encounter at higher tiers. Suggestion:

Exalted: 1 action point per encounter
Immortal: Can SPEND two action points per encounter, still gain at a rate of 1 per.
Supernal: Gain 2 per.

And so forth.

Basically, the game is based around the economy of actions. I think you can expand that economy at higher levels, especially if everyone can do it.

3) Situations where only one player knows something about the enemy is fun. Obviously, this is group dependent, but when I privately told one player where the invisible guy was, but not anyone else, it created some fantastic teamwork... particularly with one player blindly setting off an area effect where he GUESSED that the invisible guy was, and the guy with knowledge using a push effect to move the invisible guy into that area. That's fun. That's teamwork.

Tactical options NEED to be considered, at EVERY tier. In fact, as tiers go up, more tactical options should be ADDED, and none should be removed.

4) Area effects are also fun. There NEED to be more Controller classes. This will be rectified at the Heroic tier as well, of course, but since you're making whole new "classes" at 30+ levels, this needs to be taken into consideration.

 

[Center-of-All]

1. A good mix of roles is very important. I know everyone says that, and they are totally correct. In the last battle the cleric and warlord were a necessity - we simply wouldn't have survived without them. They say that because of healing surges you probably don't need a cleric in the party, but many of the fights seemed like a war of attrition, and this is where the cleric really helps.

2. Min/maxing is virtually a necessity. You really want a 16 or higher in your primary stat(s), preferably an 18. A 20 would be ideal.

3. The d20 roll is everything. By that I mean you will live or die by it. So you basically want to squeeze every single possible bonus out of your group tactics. With PCs generally only getting one attack, you could easily miss three or four rounds in a row with some bad roles or against higher AC opponents. Fortunately, although combat tends to last lots of rounds (more than 3E) each individual round is a generally quicker.

4. Dying is more difficult, but being dropped to 0 hp is going to be a regular occurance.

5. I'd say if you only have 2-3 players, let them each play 2 PCs.

6. 'Bosses' can take a long time to drop. I only encountered Elite opponents (no Solo's yet) but they are noticeably tougher. For instance the last boss of the Keep must have taken us at least a dozen rounds from the point where he was alone and surrounded...and it took about twenty rounds to get to that juncture.

Hmmm, let's see here.

1) About right. Certain roles are more important than others (though this can vary greatly by campaign), and it takes a very capable and experienced group to be able to make up for the loss of something you need.

2) Yes and no. One thing I very much like about the system is that this is all you really need to do. Attack stat at 16, always bump it. Beyond that, (and a bit of common sense, ie. don't take weapon focus if you don't use a weapon), you can take almost any choice and be at least decent. Compare to something like Exalted (because 3e comparisons are overdone ), where the omniimportance of perfects and deadliness of Essence ping at even mid "levels" (Exalted doesn't have a level system, but it works for illustrative purposes) are very much present, but also very much buried in the system for someone just reading the book to figure out.

3) Yup, completely correct.

4) Hmm, haven't experienced this myself. We very rarely go down below 0. We're 5th now, and have only had 2 fights in which this has happened. One was the Irontooth fight in H1, and one was a recent fight against Gnolls in a cramped environment. Your group's level likely had a major negative effect on your performance.

5) I don't really think this is necessary. Some classes do 'solo' better than others (defenders seem to fare best), but the adjustable encounter XP budget seems to allow for easy adjustment for small groups.

6) We've only faced three elites thus far, but only Kalarel took anywhere near as long to bring down as you posit, and that was more of a function of his circle then anything else. Plus we forgot our Rogue's daily had an effect on a miss. Fortunately I was able to grapple the bugger and pull him out. Even then, we still didn't take 20 rounds to do it. I honestly suspect the very low level of your group has colored your view on this as more difficult than it should be.

 

[S'mon]

Krusty,

This is Krusty - hiya mate!

I've been DMing an epic level game PbP here: ( http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2901601 ) and have a few more comments to add.

Thanks for the link - I have had a chance to read some of it, hopefully I'll get to finish it later.

1) Solo and elites have a LOT of hp. (I used stats for Astral Stalker, Elder Blue, made stuff up for the nymph, and changed the fluff a fair bit. I also tweaked the Astra Stalker to make it able to go invisible as a minor action) I mean, too much. I finally cut the first combat short because of it. At the current rate of HP attrition, it would have gone on 4 times as long at least, and the players were running out of their powers.

I think I am agreeing with you, even though my experience is somewhat limited in such matters. I sort of saw the way combat was going with a 'mere' Elite opponent. I dread to think what would have happened with a solo opponent.

Talking to the other players, they commented that the Ooze you battle in KotS, which is a solo monster, just took far too long and was simply too tough. I mean, mathematically, not only are its hit points five times greater, but also its defenses are notably higher. Which possibly makes the battles last longer than with five standard opponents (of the same level).

A solo monster with Resist All, Regeneration, Insubstantial and goodness knows what else would take almost forever.

2) Missing is VERY common, as you said. That said, however, the abilities that were the most fun were the abilities that increased chances of success later. Check out "Ernesto" getting +7 to his attacks for most of the encounter, and henceforth never missing again.

Agreed, it makes you think tactically, because every +1 is so valuable. In a way I see these bonuses as replacing 'buffing'.

Other things that were fun: Rerolls, and multiple attacks with a single action. I realize that the 3e attack progression was incredibly boring due to all the rolls, most of which didn't actually matter-- but when making two attacks at your highest rating, that's fun. Add in action points for additional actions, and you get really good stuff.

Yes, those rerolls saved us more than once.

A suggestion for Immortal levels? Allow an action point every encounter, not every other encounter. Also consider allowing two action points per encounter at higher tiers. Suggestion:

Exalted: 1 action point per encounter
Immortal: Can SPEND two action points per encounter, still gain at a rate of 1 per.
Supernal: Gain 2 per.

And so forth.

Basically, the game is based around the economy of actions. I think you can expand that economy at higher levels, especially if everyone can do it.

I'll certainly be doing something with action points, though not sure what just yet, I have a few ideas.

3) Situations where only one player knows something about the enemy is fun. Obviously, this is group dependent, but when I privately told one player where the invisible guy was, but not anyone else, it created some fantastic teamwork... particularly with one player blindly setting off an area effect where he GUESSED that the invisible guy was, and the guy with knowledge using a push effect to move the invisible guy into that area. That's fun. That's teamwork.

Teamwork really pays off in 4E in a very visceral, mechanical way.

Tactical options NEED to be considered, at EVERY tier. In fact, as tiers go up, more tactical options should be ADDED, and none should be removed.

Yes I think playtesting is really going to help me in this regard. Its easy to assume certain things will work, but bettr to hear about it in practice. So I'll probably have some sort of beta 4E IH at some point with maybe a handful of the portfolios and feats.

4) Area effects are also fun. There NEED to be more Controller classes. This will be rectified at the Heroic tier as well, of course, but since you're making whole new "classes" at 30+ levels, this needs to be taken into consideration.

Every portfolio will have controller options (as well as covering all the other roles too).

Got to go out now, but I'll be back later to do more posting.

 

[S'mon]

Howdy amigo - Krusty here!

Hmmm, let's see here.

1) About right. Certain roles are more important than others (though this can vary greatly by campaign), and it takes a very capable and experienced group to be able to make up for the loss of something you need.

I sort of see this being less of a problem the higher in level you ascend, although I may be mistaken on that.

2) Yes and no. One thing I very much like about the system is that this is all you really need to do. Attack stat at 16, always bump it. Beyond that, (and a bit of common sense, ie. don't take weapon focus if you don't use a weapon), you can take almost any choice and be at least decent. Compare to something like Exalted (because 3e comparisons are overdone ), where the omniimportance of perfects and deadliness of Essence ping at even mid "levels" (Exalted doesn't have a level system, but it works for illustrative purposes) are very much present, but also very much buried in the system for someone just reading the book to figure out.

I see anything less than 16 as an opening stat as being bordering on a waste of time.

One thing I am worried about is the fact that PC ability scores affect the DCs of their own powers, whereas monster Ability Scores do not affect their saving throws.

Which means that a PC only needs a +14 bonus to require all monsters to roll a natural 20 to save. Combine that with a power that has auto stun (Save ends) and the monster is rendered obsolete.

4) Hmm, haven't experienced this myself. We very rarely go down below 0. We're 5th now, and have only had 2 fights in which this has happened. One was the Irontooth fight in H1, and one was a recent fight against Gnolls in a cramped environment. Your group's level likely had a major negative effect on your performance.

Possibly. We were also relatively inexperienced with the system.

5) I don't really think this is necessary. Some classes do 'solo' better than others (defenders seem to fare best), but the adjustable encounter XP budget seems to allow for easy adjustment for small groups.

Well I think even if you tailor the encounter XP to the number of PCs you would still face the same problems of requiring more/better healing and so forth. Though again, this may be a problem that will lessen the higher you ascend.

6) We've only faced three elites thus far, but only Kalarel took anywhere near as long to bring down as you posit, and that was more of a function of his circle then anything else. Plus we forgot our Rogue's daily had an effect on a miss. Fortunately I was able to grapple the bugger and pull him out. Even then, we still didn't take 20 rounds to do it. I honestly suspect the very low level of your group has colored your view on this as more difficult than it should be.

We actually had him pinned in the circle, so, and I'm only guessing, thats what was allowing him to regenerate...compounding our woes.

I really envision solo monsters as taking a l-o-n-g time to finish off.