Returning to 4e

[S'mon]

After my 2011-2016 29-level Loudwater campaign wrapped up in August I took a break from running 4e, but now it's calling me back, and I decided to go with the classic Nentir Vale setting, which I'd never actually run during 4e's heyday!
I've started work on a blog, which should hold session accounts etc - http://nentirvalecampaign.blogspot.co.uk/
My old 4e Loudwater blog was quite popular, it's at http://frloudwater.blogspot.co.uk/

I want this new campaign to have a bit of a Moldvay-Cook Basic/Expert feel, so I'll be keeping in the 1-12 or 1-14 level range, with Paragon characters as 'Name Level' movers and shakers. Some things I'm doing to help with this:

Lots of minions, but I'm giving them 1/4 the hp of a standard monster. The idea is that most 'normal' people can be represented as minions, with Standard for more heroic types and Elite/Solo extremely rare.
Keeping NPC levels low; as PCs rise in power most will be lower level than them - and mostly
minions. I'd prefer to see lots of quick, brutal fights rather than the 3-hour epics I'm used to from Loudwater.
Toning down that advantage, magic items relatively rare, and not much buying & selling in a cash poor economy, so high level PCs won't have optimised gear and might be a point or two below standard numbers - since they will be mostly fighting lower level enemies that should work out.
Attrition - PCs will only recover 1/4 of their surges for a wilderness rest, 1/3 at a comfy hall or inn, so can be worn down by multiple minor encounters over several days. Conversely PCs will have an Action Point in every battle and can always hit hard.
With most fights being with lower level monsters & minions, XP awards will be smaller, for relatively
sedate advancement. I'm thinking that 12 levels over 50 or so 3-hour sessions would be about right.

Any thoughts/critiques of the approach? I'm hoping the game will be quite sandboxy and player driven. Depending on the PCs they will either start off in Lord Markelhay's hall or possibly drinking in a seedy
Fallcrest dive.
I'm starting them off with rumours to 3 possible adventures so they get used to making choices:

1. Kobolds have been raiding the King's Road north of the Cloak Wood. They seem unusually tough and well organised.
2. They say the ancient Dwarf Forge of Tannheim has been discovered in the Dawnforge Mountains, on the slopes of Misty Mountain. What mighty dwarf-forged weapons might still lie within?
3. A dark cult has arisen within the swamps of the Witchlight Fens, kidnapping travellers from boats plying the Nentir River. Some say their leader is a Prophet called Malikai the Mad.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'll be keeping in the 1-12 or 1-14 level range, with Paragon characters as 'Name Level' movers and shakers.

Sounds fairly simple, just top out things at those levels. No epic monsters, items, etc; PCs 'retire' in their teens instead of theoretically achieving immortality at 30.

Lots of minions, but I'm giving them 1/4 the hp of a standard monster. The idea is that most 'normal' people can be represented as minions, with Standard for more heroic types and Elite/Solo extremely rare.

S'Okay, I guess. Maybe /add/ a secondary role ('Goon?' 'sub-Standard?') with 1/4 or 1/2 Standard hps, and keep minions in your back pocket for when the PCs are paragon and fighting goblins or the like just wouldn't cut it anymore?

(BTW, you are in the know as far as adapting monsters to much higher or lower level by changing their secondary role and adjusting their level to keep exp the same, yes?)

I'd prefer to see lots of quick, brutal fights

Give your Minions/sub-Standards full Standard damage potential to go with their 1/4 hps (& I assume minion exp), that should brutalize the PCs a bit on a regular encounter budget.

magic items relatively rare, and not much buying & selling in a cash poor economy, so high level PCs won't have optimised gear and might be a point or two below standard numbers

OK. You could flip on Inherent Bonuses if you didn't want to mess with encounter balance (though, I guess, you /do/), but, yes, if they start to routinely face underleveled threats, shouldn't be an issue. If they have too much trouble hitting in a 'short brutal' encounter it could very well become a 'short brutal' TPK.

PCs will only recover 1/4 of their surges for a wilderness rest, 1/3 at a comfy hall or inn, so can be worn down by multiple minor encounters over several days.

I've never been too enthused about those kinds of tweaks. Do you also recover only some dailies? What I like to do is just be more flexible (less acomodating) about when a rest (short or long) is even possible. That way attrition can happen over days or weeks in keeping with the campaign pacing, rather than the arbitrary calendar of 'days.'

Conversely PCs will have an Action Point in every battle and can always hit hard.

That'll shortly brutalize encounters for the monsters for sure. It does remove the milestone press-on-without-a-long-rest carrot, though.

With most fights being with lower level monsters & minions, XP awards will be smaller, for relatively sedate advancement.

Wouldn't hurt. Managing the availability of long rests can also help with pacing, if you want a 1-12 career to cover some real time.

 

[S'mon]

(BTW, you are in the know as far as adapting monsters to much higher or lower level by changing their secondary role and adjusting their level to keep exp the same, yes?)

Yeah, I ran Loudwater for over 100 sessions, levels 1-29, so I have a lot of 4e experience to apply to a new campaign. In Loudwater I'd routinely turn Zhentarim soldier-5 into minion-13s - I'd prefer to do that as little as possible this time around though. I'm looking at having most NPCs be minions ca level 1-4, so 1st level PCs are pretty badass.

Rests - PCs will recover all Dailies on an extended rest; I don't believe this is a big issue. My experience in Loudwater was the PCs tended to fight only 1 encounter a day, 2 max, and had plenty of Dailies anyway.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'd prefer to do that as little as possible this time around though.

Just thought I'd mention it as it's a convenient way of keeping a low-level world challenging/relevant to a high-level party.

 

[S'mon]

Just thought I'd mention it as it's a convenient way of keeping a low-level world challenging/relevant to a high-level party.

I agree, but I'm planning this very much as a Heroic Tier campaign, so if anything I want Paragon Tier PCs to feel like they've exceeded normal threats. I might do a capstone Paragon Tier adventure, I have King of the Trollhaunt Warrens that I've never run, but I'd be equally happy keeping it to politics & warfare. Anyway that's at least 2 years off, my main focus right now is seeding the local sandbox with 1st level type stuff.

 

[JeffB]

Overall, this sounds like a blast. I need to remember to check out your Blog.

To" solve" combat lengths when I ran 4E (my perspective- others like the length of typical 4E combat)

1) adopted 1/2 HP to most monsters, on the rare occasion 3/4 for a "epic" fight or main villain.
2) added many "two hit minions"
3) Exploding dice- roll a 10 on your D10 for damage, roll again and add it in. Etc. Makes for some brutal moments on both sides of the screen at times.

This worked well for us. Because I ran fewer fights (than typical of published 4E adventures) and instead ran important "scene based" fights, along with my tweaks, We simply could squeeze in alot more overall adventure in a session (which was the point, as sessions were not weekly)


Edit- should add, we only played up to similar levels..11-12 and used Essentials.

 

[S'mon]

OK. You could flip on Inherent Bonuses if you didn't want to mess with encounter balance (though, I guess, you /do/), but, yes, if they start to routinely face underleveled threats, shouldn't be an issue.

I want to have it that finding a '+' magic item is significant, that is very D&D to me, so no inherent bonuses this time. It also reduces book-keeping. I'd expect by 5th-6th level most or all the PCs will have +1 weapons, armour and resistance items, +2 by 10th-11th, with a few +3 items over the campaign. So not super rare. The 4e PHB has a combat example with an 8th level PC wielding a +1 weapon - I like that.

 

[thanson02]

Something that I ran into in my games was when my players ran into groups of monsters was that minions, it worked fine for lackeys at lower levels. However, as they got higher up through the ranks, minions didn't cause the Cinematic feel I was looking for in my games.

An alternative that I found work really well was instead of having a bunch of minions attack my players, I had a gargantuan size swarm creature that was basically the minion type I was looking for (goblins, kobolds, undead, etc). That way they got the feel that they were taking on a large horde and it made keeping track of everything a lot more simple on my end.

Since you asked for suggestions, that's just a thought.

Sent from my XT1096 using Tapatalk

 

[Garthanos]

An alternative that I found work really well was instead of having a bunch of minions attack my players, I had a gargantuan size swarm creature that was basically the minion type I was looking for (goblins, kobolds, undead, etc). That way they got the feel that they were taking on a large horde and it made keeping track of everything a lot more simple on my end. k

I agree I think minions are still perhaps too much mechanically for the DM ( and perhaps for the characters too in part because not everyone gets area effects which will mow them down like the wizard) and that fails to give the lawn mower legendary combatant effect for a character like Cu Culaine.

 

[cavalier973]

I had been playing recently with the idea of building new "race-classes": the elf (combo of slayer and mage), the dwarf (combo of knight and thief), and the handling (combo of slayer and thief).