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

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[MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION] Always glad to hear when someone gets good mileage out of that cheat sheet

As far as not wanting to house rule 4e and considering appropriately challenging combats, I think the innovation of 4e is how easy it can be for DMs. Most changes in play style, lethality, feel, and so on can come at the monster/encounter design level. Sounds like you figured that out early on - so KUDOS to you!!

As the PCs level you will find them get more and more resilient (and yes, ritual usage becomes *awesome*), so don't be surprised if around 5th/6th level L+1 fights don't seem as hard as they did before. One thing I strive for in my games is a diversity in combat difficulties & types:

• Pitched battles where one side is weaker but has substantial terrain/tactical advantage
• Hordes of minions, usually with some trick to stopping/evading them (such as a skill challenge, or target area to reach)
• Evil parties of similar number/level of monsters to PCs, usually led by an elite; these have often been the deadliest but also most complex encounters
• Boss monsters, which are well designed solos that can actually take on an entire party, divided into 3 stages, the second of which the solo might retreat summoning minions or a terrain hazard takes place
• Combats where the goal is specific, rather than "kill all monsters", such as rescuing someone, preventing a ritual, holding a gate open for X rounds, etc.

Love the dwarves name Varult Hammerheart btw

 

[JamesonCourage]

Always glad to hear when someone gets good mileage out of that cheat sheet

I bet it's a nice thing to hear, but I really am using it a lot (even to reference conditions, etc.). So, thanks again

As far as not wanting to house rule 4e and considering appropriately challenging combats, I think the innovation of 4e is how easy it can be for DMs. Most changes in play style, lethality, feel, and so on can come at the monster/encounter design level. Sounds like you figured that out early on - so KUDOS to you!!

Thanks! I have a pretty good eye for mechanics, but it's still a learning process.

As the PCs level you will find them get more and more resilient (and yes, ritual usage becomes *awesome*), so don't be surprised if around 5th/6th level L+1 fights don't seem as hard as they did before. One thing I strive for in my games is a diversity in combat difficulties & types:

• Pitched battles where one side is weaker but has substantial terrain/tactical advantage
• Hordes of minions, usually with some trick to stopping/evading them (such as a skill challenge, or target area to reach)
• Evil parties of similar number/level of monsters to PCs, usually led by an elite; these have often been the deadliest but also most complex encounters
• Boss monsters, which are well designed solos that can actually take on an entire party, divided into 3 stages, the second of which the solo might retreat summoning minions or a terrain hazard takes place
• Combats where the goal is specific, rather than "kill all monsters", such as rescuing someone, preventing a ritual, holding a gate open for X rounds, etc.

Some of these are good ideas to work into wherever I (well, the Monks of Kord) send them next. I really like trying to build off the last bullet point, and go from there. Maybe achieve some sort of other goal, which incorporates the waves of minions until it's shut off? Like, portals that need to be closed, or something... I dunno. Something to think about other than "beat these guys to death" sounds good. Thanks for the good tips.

Love the dwarves name Varult Hammerheart btw

Thanks, ha. It was a spur of the moment naming choice. No complaints so far on the NPC names from these players, but I have one player (the Monk) who I think has a tendency to nickname NPCs, so I am trying to curb that (I don't like it when players learn the nickname and not the real name). I wasn't expecting a compliment on his name, but I'll take it

 

[Manbearcat]

Alright, so another session tonight. All four players made it (plus me, of course), and we played for about 8 hours! Play report:

8 hours?! Wow. You guys are enjoying yourselves indeed.

By the by, I forgot to mention how awesome your Blessing of the Raven Queen "Marked for Death/Life" Alternate Advancement reward idea was. Alternate Advancements are one of my favorite parts of 4e and my players, like yours, prefer them to magical items. Your idea, and the execution of it, is particularly awesome. Those sorts of coherently thematic rewards really endear players to the game they are playing. Well done.

I read your sblocked session and it looks great. I won't comment on anything on that end as you are creatively locked into where you're going and haven't solicited any questions there. Most have answered your questions already so I'll be brief and just answer about the Wizard At-Will for single target burst damage. Here are a few, non-Magic-Missile, alternate options to complement your AoE (Beguiling Strands or Winged Horde or however she ends up):

Phantom Cage: Attacks Will and punishes Brutes/Skirmishers/Lurkers for strategic movement or engagement in melee (and thus dictates target acquisition). It functionally works like Fighters' Mark violation; bad guys violating it (and dictating their own targets) turn the Fighter (Wizard in this case) into a Striker rather than a Controller.

Arc Lightning hits one or two enemies so coupled with the Destructive Wizardry Feat (an untyped bonus which stacks with feat bonuses and which also buffs her AoEs) and another damage feat, you have an amplified, striker-level at-will.

Unraveling Dart: Attacks Fort (great against non-Brutes) and can generate a ton of damage to enemies with vulnerabilities (of which there are many) and if no Vulns, gain Wis to damage (Striker buff). Like Arc Lightning it hits one or two enemies so Destructive Wizardry applies here as well.

Rotting Doom is a devastating force-multiplier attack versus undead (Vuln 5 all damage) but as @DEFCON 1 reasons out above, its niche...so good for a Human with a 3rd at-will but a less than optimal choice for non-humans in a game that doesn't feature undead.

I would probably introduce her to Unraveling Dart (and Destructive Wizardry) and Phantom Cage. But the other two are good options as well. That said, Arc Lightning (given her elemental background) may be the most thematically coherent option.

 

[JamesonCourage]

8 hours?! Wow. You guys are enjoying yourselves indeed.

Yep

By the by, I forgot to mention how awesome your Blessing of the Raven Queen "Marked for Death/Life" Alternate Advancement reward idea was. Alternate Advancements are one of my favorite parts of 4e and my players, like yours, prefer them to magical items. Your idea, and the execution of it, is particularly awesome. Those sorts of coherently thematic rewards really endear players to the game they are playing. Well done.

Thanks! I was going over the Alternate Rewards, and I thought "this was made for his character concept," and threw it in. I'm glad that it played well (his retrieving the mark), and he certainly likes it.

I read your sblocked session and it looks great. I won't comment on anything on that end as you are creatively locked into where you're going and haven't solicited any questions there.

Just for the record, I'm always open for feedback on this stuff, too, or I probably wouldn't take the time to write it up. Feel free to not give feedback, of course, but any tips on how best to leverage 4e narratively are appreciated, as it is a different beast from my own RPG.

Most have answered your questions already so I'll be brief and just answer about the Wizard At-Will for single target burst damage. Here are a few, non-Magic-Missile, alternate options to complement your AoE (Beguiling Strands or Winged Horde or however she ends up):

Phantom Cage: Attacks Will and punishes Brutes/Skirmishers/Lurkers for strategic movement or engagement in melee (and thus dictates target acquisition). It functionally works like Fighters' Mark violation; bad guys violating it (and dictating their own targets) turn the Fighter (Wizard in this case) into a Striker rather than a Controller.

Not a bad one. I'll bring it up with her, but if she does drop Storm Pillar to go for it, then it'll mean she has two attacks that target Will (Phantom Cage and Hypnotism).

Arc Lightning hits one or two enemies so coupled with the Destructive Wizardry Feat (an untyped bonus which stacks with feat bonuses and which also buffs her AoEs) and another damage feat, you have an amplified, striker-level at-will.

She did like Arc Lightning for the range (20), damage, and control (it hits 2 targets with no risk to allies). She only has a 12 Dexterity, but a stat hop could go into it at level 4 (next level), letting her get the feet (as 13 Dex is a prereq). I'll bring it up as an option again, if she's unsatisfied with her at-will powers, as I suspect she might be.

Unraveling Dart: Attacks Fort (great against non-Brutes) and can generate a ton of damage to enemies with vulnerabilities (of which there are many) and if no Vulns, gain Wis to damage (Striker buff). Like Arc Lightning it hits one or two enemies so Destructive Wizardry applies here as well.

Attacking Fort would be nice, and paired with Hypnotism, that's pretty good for attacking Brutes one way or another. She's only got a Wisdom mod of +1, but that basically bumps the damage up to the same average as 1d6, which is what Arc Lightning gives. Another good option that I'll bring up with her, since the Vulnerability catch could definitely spike the damage.

Rotting Doom is a devastating force-multiplier attack versus undead (Vuln 5 all damage) but as @DEFCON 1 reasons out above, its niche...so good for a Human with a 3rd at-will but a less than optimal choice for non-humans in a game that doesn't feature undead.

I am planning on using undead fairly frequently, but that also means a certain amount of creatures will have necrotic resistance, too, which is what this attack deals, and the party doesn't have much radiant damage on-hand. I'll probably stick to suggesting the other powers.

I would probably introduce her to Unraveling Dart (and Destructive Wizardry) and Phantom Cage. But the other two are good options as well. That said, Arc Lightning (given her elemental background) may be the most thematically coherent option.

Yep, I think I'll point her to the three above. She likes the idea of more control, so I can see her going for Phantom Cag, but if she wants a blast-y power, the other two are good (Unraveling Dart / Arc Lightning), as well. Thanks for the suggestions.

Side note: I used a couple different "gives vulnerability" effects from various monsters (like the summoned elementals outside of the monastery of Kord), and it does act as an effective force multiplier. I could see the player of the Warpriest start to stress a little bit when those starting getting placed on various PCs. I think it was you who suggested that in my first thread, and if so, thanks for the suggestion. I'll probably use it again soon.

 

[Balesir]

Anyone have any ideas on how to deal with 3D terrain and the battle map (question in a little more detail in my last recap)? And, does anyone have ideas for a cool use of it for my next session? My players are basically signed up for whatever these Monks what them to do, so I have a lot of options on how I can work in 3D terrain.

3D action is quite tricky, but I do find it is essential for a really good "cinematic" fantasy feel. The tools I have tried (and some I still use) are:

- Dungeon tiles and wooden blocks. Handicraft stores are a real godsend, here; I picked up a load of one inch square wooden blocks really cheap, and these combine with Jenga blocks (which are exactly 3 inches long and 1 inch wide by about 2/3 of an inch deep) to give me elevations to balconies, escarpments, elevated "stages" and so on. I even elevated the entire floorplan of one encounter except for a huge pit in the middle that was filled with zombies ("bag o'zombies" from the Zombies boardgame for the win!).

- Glass cubes, again from a handicraft store, work well for flying/climbing creatures. Stacking them doesn't work so well, but one cube to show they are "airborne" plus a small die adjacent with the upper face showing altitude works OK.

- We have made various attempts at making "flying sticks" out of a dowel or metal rod stuck to a square base with a platform on a movable peg or grip sliding up and down the rod. These could potentially be great, but we haven't found or been able to make one that's really robust enough. If you have a really skilled metalworker and woodworker you might be able to make this work, but it's not a straightforward undertaking.

- For smaller pits I generally just use dungeon tiles. There are several good 'pit' types in my collection. If you are drawing on a battlemat, a sort-of 3D perspective effect of concentric squares and some shading works fine.

- In general, I keep my eyes open for anything that "could be useful". We has some little marker stakes for the garden with gargoyles on the top end; one of them broke and the "head" was a gargoyle about 3" high - it made for a fantastic "statue"! Candle holders (with lit candles) for ceremonial braziers and ornaments for religious or arcane ritual foci have also come in useful.

In essence, I recommend a trip to the local handicraft store (for anything that looks useful and cheap) and maybe buying a single dungeon tile set (the recent WotC ones are particularly stiff card and double-sided, I really rate them) for raised areas.

 

[JamesonCourage]

- Dungeon tiles and wooden blocks. Handicraft stores are a real godsend, here; I picked up a load of one inch square wooden blocks really cheap, and these combine with Jenga blocks (which are exactly 3 inches long and 1 inch wide by about 2/3 of an inch deep) to give me elevations to balconies, escarpments, elevated "stages" and so on. I even elevated the entire floorplan of one encounter except for a huge pit in the middle that was filled with zombies ("bag o'zombies" from the Zombies boardgame for the win!).

Hmm, I do have Jenga blocks, so I might utilize this somehow. I'm not planning on purchasing any minis, wooden blocks, dungeon tiles, etc. But, I might be able to rig something some of the time with Jenga blocks, so thanks for the useful suggestion there, at least.

- Glass cubes, again from a handicraft store, work well for flying/climbing creatures. Stacking them doesn't work so well, but one cube to show they are "airborne" plus a small die adjacent with the upper face showing altitude works OK.

I was using clear dice, but I still had a problem. What if creatures need to share the same square (one creature is flying over another, or under another by swimming under a dock, etc?)? Do I need to draw an identical section on the battle map, and just show them where they're at?

- We have made various attempts at making "flying sticks" out of a dowel or metal rod stuck to a square base with a platform on a movable peg or grip sliding up and down the rod. These could potentially be great, but we haven't found or been able to make one that's really robust enough. If you have a really skilled metalworker and woodworker you might be able to make this work, but it's not a straightforward undertaking.

I have only basic knowledge of woodworking (wood shop class in school), but yeah, none of us are going to be able to pull this kind of thing off. Best of luck to your group on it, though. It sounds like it could be really useful.

- For smaller pits I generally just use dungeon tiles. There are several good 'pit' types in my collection. If you are drawing on a battlemat, a sort-of 3D perspective effect of concentric squares and some shading works fine.

This might be my best bet. I just did a "slope" with multiple 10 foot drop-offs on either side, and my players seemed to understand it well enough. I still have the overlapping squares issue (with both terrain and creatures occupying spaces), though.

- In general, I keep my eyes open for anything that "could be useful". We has some little marker stakes for the garden with gargoyles on the top end; one of them broke and the "head" was a gargoyle about 3" high - it made for a fantastic "statue"! Candle holders (with lit candles) for ceremonial braziers and ornaments for religious or arcane ritual foci have also come in useful.

I could see using props like this every so often, if I have some lying around in a box. Thanks for the suggestion

In essence, I recommend a trip to the local handicraft store (for anything that looks useful and cheap) and maybe buying a single dungeon tile set (the recent WotC ones are particularly stiff card and double-sided, I really rate them) for raised areas.

Even if I did this, does this handle the overlapping squares issue? This is my main concern right now. Thanks for the detailed feedback on this though; I haven't heard any solutions yet.

 

[Balesir]

I was using clear dice, but I still had a problem. What if creatures need to share the same square (one creature is flying over another, or under another by swimming under a dock, etc?)? Do I need to draw an identical section on the battle map, and just show them where they're at?

Duplicating a part of the map for the "lower storey" is a last resort, I would say, since it can be confusing trying to work out where a creature on one map is relative to one on the other map. Sometimes it's necessary, though - I had to do it with a set of stairs emerging onto an open parapet recently.

For small overhangs I use the aforementioned wooden blocks - use them to support just the four corners of a dungeon tile and you have an accessible area beneath; with two blocks (2") high it's not too bad getting figures under there and moving them around. You could do the same with Jenga blocks on end, but it would be a good deal less stable, I would guess.

For flying creatures in "layers": I have lots of monster tokens ("pogs") that came with the Monster Vault and we use them, stuck with blu-tack to the bases of figures, to indicate "bloodied" condition (they have a ring marked on the flip-side for the purpose). To get particularly crowded flying situations we have taken the actual figure off and just used the tokens, each on top of its own glass block if flying. With the tokens between them the blocks stack OK. I'm guessing you could do similar with dice - and maybe have the altitude indicated by the top face of the die. For "tokens" you could probably find some printable "pogs" out there somewhere - I'm sure I've seen them about on the 'net.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Duplicating a part of the map for the "lower storey" is a last resort, I would say, since it can be confusing trying to work out where a creature on one map is relative to one on the other map. Sometimes it's necessary, though - I had to do it with a set of stairs emerging onto an open parapet recently.

Good to know I might need to at some point, but I will try not to. Anything that makes it easier on me

For small overhangs I use the aforementioned wooden blocks - use them to support just the four corners of a dungeon tile and you have an accessible area beneath; with two blocks (2") high it's not too bad getting figures under there and moving them around. You could do the same with Jenga blocks on end, but it would be a good deal less stable, I would guess.

Yeah. Might be worth a shot in a pinch, but I bet it will be less stable. Better than dice propping stuff up, though.

For flying creatures in "layers": I have lots of monster tokens ("pogs") that came with the Monster Vault and we use them, stuck with blu-tack to the bases of figures, to indicate "bloodied" condition (they have a ring marked on the flip-side for the purpose). To get particularly crowded flying situations we have taken the actual figure off and just used the tokens, each on top of its own glass block if flying. With the tokens between them the blocks stack OK. I'm guessing you could do similar with dice - and maybe have the altitude indicated by the top face of the die. For "tokens" you could probably find some printable "pogs" out there somewhere - I'm sure I've seen them about on the 'net.

I'm already using improvised tokens. Print off some pictures that I like, and then use clear packing tape to stick it to a square bit of cardboard that I cut out myself. It's been working, and I can probably do the dice / altitude thing with them, and give the players some tokens if the minis of their PCs won't work.

It doesn't look like there's an elegant, easy solution that I can use for two stories being involved at the same time, which is too bad, but I guess that happens. If I come up with anything good, I'll let people here know. Thanks -once again- for the suggestions and the reply.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I was using clear dice, but I still had a problem. What if creatures need to share the same square (one creature is flying over another, or under another by swimming under a dock, etc?)? Do I need to draw an identical section on the battle map, and just show them where they're at?

If you happen to have/saved them... you can use upside-down Chessex dice boxes. You put the mini/token that is landbound on the battlemat, put the upside-down dice box directly over it, then put the elevated creature on top of that. Since the box is clear (and just slightly over an inch square) you can see both the person above and the person below (and as Balesir said, use a numeric die to show the current elevation in 'squares' of the flying individual.)

It is also a really easy way to symbolize the unfortunate soul that is currently engulfed inside a gelatinous cube.

 

[JamesonCourage]

If you happen to have/saved them... you can use upside-down Chessex dice boxes. You put the mini/token that is landbound on the battlemat, put the upside-down dice box directly over it, then put the elevated creature on top of that. Since the box is clear (and just slightly over an inch square) you can see both the person above and the person below (and as Balesir said, use a numeric die to show the current elevation in 'squares' of the flying individual.)

Unfortunately, no, I don't have anything like that. I might be able to pick something like that up relatively cheaply, though. I'll at least consider it. Thanks for the idea.

It is also a really easy way to symbolize the unfortunate soul that is currently engulfed inside a gelatinous cube.

Haha, nice