Recent content by rabindranath72

I think the distinction many people make is between surprise tout court, and complete surprise, which is mentioned more than once by Gygax. So I guess this could explain how to use the information of surprise for monsters which rely on a percentage chance; that would simply be the probability of...

Kris those minis are wonderful! Herewith another potential convert from ToTM :D Cheers, Antonio

Small dragons (e.g. 9HD for red dragons) have a lower "to hit" chance than huge dragons. In general, given the typical dragon hit dice ranges (blocks of three), since the "to hit" table increases by blocks of two hit dice, there's always a difference between the different dragon sizes. So...

Hi all, I'd like to get some feedback and suggestions about keeping damage and defenses of PCs viable in the following scenario: - I am going to use Companion Characters as full PCs, at least in terms of how many powers they get. But I do want to keep the half-level progression for attacks...

* double post * :erm:

Indeed, up to BECMI, roughly 80% of XP came from treasure, and only 20% from defeating (which doesn't mean necessarily killing) monsters. In 2e the XP guidelines were rather fluid, and the DM could decide for what to award XP besides defeating monsters. The source of XPs, if stated upfront by...

Thanks for the comment; this is very interesting. The 13A disengage rules work as a saving throw (as a Move action), with a penalty of +1 for each enemy beyond the first with which a character is engaged. They allow more than a simple shift (as in principle you could move anywhere Nearby) so I...

Ah yes, now that I looked at it, I recall we tried to use it back in the day. We found out it was somewhat too fiddly; we much prefer the more abstract nature of 13th Age.

Thanks for the comment! I don't know about Wrecan's system; any pointers? I know the WotC boards don't exist anymore. The conversion is indeed somewhat "mathy" but the rules are simple, and I designed them so I can do the conversions on the fly (I DON'T rewrite stat blocks.) I considered flat...

Similar to the above. 13th Age worked very well for us (including forced movement and teleportation, which DO exist in 13th Age). You should address the fool's errand comment to Heinsoo and Tweet; I simply ported their system to 4e.

I had asked explicitly for constructive comments. Anyway, just to better explain my choice: - I like 4e monster and NPC mechanics more than in 13th Age and 5e. - I like the wider selection of monsters - I like the wider selection of powers - I like skills - I like the wider level range - I...

Hi all, so I recently acquired a full set of 4e books, and I wanted to give it a(nother) try. I had already bought and DMed it back in 2008, and although I loved many aspects of it, I never warmed to the idea of minis and maps (both for the time it takes to play out encounters, and as a...

I bought the 4e books when they came out, played some, but the strong ties to the grid made me drop the game and sell it. I don't like grid combat, I don't own and don't particularly like minis, and I have limited space to play. I saw 4e as a big improvement over 3e, w.r.t. simpler rules and...

There are reaction checks, which are a quite important part of the game, too. Charisma is definitely not a dump stat when you see the importance of reaction checks to interaction with NPCs, morale of hirelings/followers etc.

This is a very important point which must be stressed. The "feel" of the game as intended by Gygax was strongly humanocentric. And the multiclass combinations allowed to the demihumans are powerful indeed; just have a look at half-elves and half-orcs, which are the only nonhuman PC races who can...