the Jester
Legend
I couldn't help but notice this. Did you give the pcs a save at the moment of the explosion for half damage, or did you mean half damage on a miss?
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D&D 4E Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
I couldn't help but notice this. Did you give the pcs a save at the moment of the explosion for half damage, or did you mean half damage on a miss?
the Jester
Legend
Just checkin'... after all, the save mechanism does come up once in a while other than the typical end of turn (precipices, I'm looking at you!).
Dragonblade
Adventurer
I love reading about your campaign Piratecat!
For condition tracking, I keep a piece of notebook paper behind the DM screen that I use for tracking monster HPs and conditions. I devote two lines to each monster, the first line I use for monster conditions that might get inflicted upon it. I just make little notations that the monster is dazed or stunned and for how long. The lines below that I use to track monster HPs.
For the PCs, I make them track their own conditions either on their own sheets or on a piece of scratch paper. I remind each PC at the beginning of every round to double check whether they have ongoing damage or any conditions. This system works well for us.
For initiative, I use the Paizo magnetic initiative tracker. I use wet erase for the PC's name, and dry erase for the monsters and for all initiative numbers. That makes it easier for me to wipe off the monsters and initiatives at the end of each combat, but I don't have to keep writing the names of the PCs over and over again.
As far as Wizards go, the wizard is actually one of my favorite 4e classes. I have found, that the wizard really needs to have an Intelligence of 20 at level 1 and always boost INT no matter what. I usually play human wizards with the Staff of Defense class feature, and I always make sure I eventually get my hands on a Staff of Ruin or a Defensive Staff. I also take any feats that boost my damage such as Weapon Focus (Staff) which WotC ruled does boost damage for staves used as implements (and works in the Character Builder as well). I also like to take Destructive Wizardry, and Enlarge Spell. Those feats have some nice synergy to them. And eventually War Wizardry so I can drop big spells in the middle of my allies and not worry about hitting them as much.
I find that my wizards can do near striker damage, and/or have awesome defenses, and have a lot of versatility with teleports and flight that other classes don't have, not to mention rituals. Wizards also have some of the best Dailies in the game. Can't hit an enemy? No problem, just park Flaming Sphere next to them and they take auto damage every round. Wizard's Fury is nice as well and those are both merely Level 1 Dailies!
For condition tracking, I keep a piece of notebook paper behind the DM screen that I use for tracking monster HPs and conditions. I devote two lines to each monster, the first line I use for monster conditions that might get inflicted upon it. I just make little notations that the monster is dazed or stunned and for how long. The lines below that I use to track monster HPs.
For the PCs, I make them track their own conditions either on their own sheets or on a piece of scratch paper. I remind each PC at the beginning of every round to double check whether they have ongoing damage or any conditions. This system works well for us.
For initiative, I use the Paizo magnetic initiative tracker. I use wet erase for the PC's name, and dry erase for the monsters and for all initiative numbers. That makes it easier for me to wipe off the monsters and initiatives at the end of each combat, but I don't have to keep writing the names of the PCs over and over again.
As far as Wizards go, the wizard is actually one of my favorite 4e classes. I have found, that the wizard really needs to have an Intelligence of 20 at level 1 and always boost INT no matter what. I usually play human wizards with the Staff of Defense class feature, and I always make sure I eventually get my hands on a Staff of Ruin or a Defensive Staff. I also take any feats that boost my damage such as Weapon Focus (Staff) which WotC ruled does boost damage for staves used as implements (and works in the Character Builder as well). I also like to take Destructive Wizardry, and Enlarge Spell. Those feats have some nice synergy to them. And eventually War Wizardry so I can drop big spells in the middle of my allies and not worry about hitting them as much.
I find that my wizards can do near striker damage, and/or have awesome defenses, and have a lot of versatility with teleports and flight that other classes don't have, not to mention rituals. Wizards also have some of the best Dailies in the game. Can't hit an enemy? No problem, just park Flaming Sphere next to them and they take auto damage every round. Wizard's Fury is nice as well and those are both merely Level 1 Dailies!
Mathew_Freeman
Adventurer
That's a very interesting idea and worth repeating, I think. It's easy to ask people what they like and often harder to ask people about what the don't, but it sounds like you got some great feedback.
Iron Sky
Procedurally Generated
Interestingly, I created an organization called the Grey Wardens for my short-lived Ghelspad campaign back in 3.0. They were also politically neutral, though mostly like Old-West Marshals (bringing law to lawless areas) rather than monster hunters. Of course, it being DnD, some of the lawbreakers will inevitably be horrible monsters...
I run all my combats in a OpenOffice document. Just type in all the character and monster names on separate lines, have them roll init, then arrange them accordingly. Next to the monsters, I put the same labels as the individual monsters magnets on our white board (Y = big yellow, y = little yellow, B = big blue, etc), so an encounter in-progress might look like this:
Enselmo: 23, 5(s), slow(15)
Skeleton Archer: 20, y35/10, dz(23), Bone Shot() b35/30, +2 hit v Enselmo, Bone Shot() g35/0, Bone Shot(X)
Skeleton Clubber: 15 R50/20, Smash(X) B50/0, Smash(), pr
Vincent: 10
Descriptively, the above is a fight: two PCs, Enselmo and Vincent vs. 3 skeleton archers and two skeleton clubbers.
Enselmo has 5 ongoing damage (save ends), and is slowed until the end of the Clubber's turn.
ellow skeleton archer has taken 10 damage, is dazed until the end of Enselmo's next turn, and has his Bone Shot power available, (b)lue skeleton archer has taken 30 damage, has +2 to hit vs Enselmo, and has is Bone Shot power, (g)reen skeleton archer has used Bone Shot.
(R)ed skeleton clubber has 20 damage and has used his Smash power while (B)lue skeleton clubber has is Smash Power but is prone.
Vincent has no status effects.
This way I can quickly keep track of status effects, monster hp, effects on players, etc. If people/monsters change initiative, I just cut/paste their line to its new place.
DDI also saves a ton of time for me too. I had similar time reductions 2-3hr prep time to 1/2 hour or less. Since I've gotten Adventure Tools, I've had several sessions with 0 prep time since it's so easy to throw things together on the fly!
Oh, and I'm also really enjoying reading this, lots of great ideas and an entertaining read as well.
I run all my combats in a OpenOffice document. Just type in all the character and monster names on separate lines, have them roll init, then arrange them accordingly. Next to the monsters, I put the same labels as the individual monsters magnets on our white board (Y = big yellow, y = little yellow, B = big blue, etc), so an encounter in-progress might look like this:
Enselmo: 23, 5(s), slow(15)
Skeleton Archer: 20, y35/10, dz(23), Bone Shot() b35/30, +2 hit v Enselmo, Bone Shot() g35/0, Bone Shot(X)
Skeleton Clubber: 15 R50/20, Smash(X) B50/0, Smash(), pr
Vincent: 10
Descriptively, the above is a fight: two PCs, Enselmo and Vincent vs. 3 skeleton archers and two skeleton clubbers.
Enselmo has 5 ongoing damage (save ends), and is slowed until the end of the Clubber's turn.
ellow skeleton archer has taken 10 damage, is dazed until the end of Enselmo's next turn, and has his Bone Shot power available, (b)lue skeleton archer has taken 30 damage, has +2 to hit vs Enselmo, and has is Bone Shot power, (g)reen skeleton archer has used Bone Shot.(R)ed skeleton clubber has 20 damage and has used his Smash power while (B)lue skeleton clubber has is Smash Power but is prone.
Vincent has no status effects.
This way I can quickly keep track of status effects, monster hp, effects on players, etc. If people/monsters change initiative, I just cut/paste their line to its new place.
DDI also saves a ton of time for me too. I had similar time reductions 2-3hr prep time to 1/2 hour or less. Since I've gotten Adventure Tools, I've had several sessions with 0 prep time since it's so easy to throw things together on the fly!
Oh, and I'm also really enjoying reading this, lots of great ideas and an entertaining read as well.
He wrote an adventure for War of the Burning Sky, if I recall.
Do you have a link to that thread?
RangerWickett
Legend
He's editing the 4e conversion, though sadly I never managed to get him to write one of the adventures himself.
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