D&D 4E 4E campaign help

[flamingbunnys]

I am pretty much a supper Noob when it comes to Dungeons and dragons . I never had anyone to get me into dnd when i was a child, and i have been reading many fantasy novels since i was a kid. so i thought dnd might be the game for me. i went out and bought DMG 1, MM 1 and 2, phb 1-3, AV 1, DP, and forgotten realms player and DM guide. But ive read through the FG books and i found it... kinda hard to understand. im realy new to dungeons and dragons and have only sat-in on one game. i realy need some help. should i build a campaign from scratch and if so...how do you do that? or should i stick with FG. i like the old magic feel of it but im not so crazy about the spellplague aspect.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Welcome to D&D and EN World!

If you are just getting started don't worry about preparing a large scale campaign. Start with a small area such as the Nentir Vale in the back of the DMG, prepare an adventure site then either run a module or design your own starter adventure and begin playing.

Read through the rules and become familiar with where to look things up but don't worry about memorizing all that information. For the time being just read up to level 10 in the character class sections, no sense in plowing through pages of powers that you might not get to use for a while.

Don't sweat getting things wrong. Keep the game moving and keep having fun. After the game you can review what happened and see if there are any rules you need to read up on more.

Discovering things for yourself in play is one of the most fun aspects of learning the game. You can have more fun "doing it wrong" during the discovery process than you may realize.

Start on a small scale, and expand outwards as you need to to keep things fresh and exciting.

 

[hopeless]

Hi!

I am pretty much a supper Noob when it comes to Dungeons and dragons . I never had anyone to get me into dnd when i was a child, and i have been reading many fantasy novels since i was a kid. so i thought dnd might be the game for me. i went out and bought DMG 1, MM 1 and 2, phb 1-3, AV 1, DP, and forgotten realms player and DM guide. But ive read through the FG books and i found it... kinda hard to understand. im realy new to dungeons and dragons and have only sat-in on one game. i realy need some help. should i build a campaign from scratch and if so...how do you do that? or should i stick with FG. i like the old magic feel of it but im not so crazy about the spellplague aspect.

Then don't worry about that part, there's nothing that says your campaign has to include the spell plague just as noted on the other reply go with what you feel best and more importantly have fun!

 

[Camelot]

First read through the Player's Handbook 1, especially chapters 1, 2, 5, 8, and 9. This will help you understand the rules and themes of the game.

Second, read through the Dungeon Master's Guide. All of it. There's great tips there, as well as guides for creating your own campaign.

Now, one thing you should understand is that all those rulebooks don't actually contain rules. Rather, they are full of guidelines and ideas to help you have fun. This is especially true for the story aspects of the books. If you don't like the Spellplague, you can simply get rid of it. It doesn't have to exist in your world, even if everything else is exactly the same as Forgotten Realms. Don't think you have to use something in your campaign.

A good place to start would be the mini adventure in the back of the DMG. However, this was written in the early days of 4th edition, and might be a little bumpy. If you want to create your own adventure, the guides to do so are in the DMG. When you play, try to get someone who already plays D&D in your game, to help you along. That will be really helpful. If you can't, then try not to worry too much and just have fun. If you notice something isn't fun, change it, even if it's a "rule" in one of the books.

Hope this helps. Remember that the most important thing is having fun!

 

[flamingbunnys]

you guys realy do make me feel welcome. like 15 mins and i have 3 posts! i get realy glassy eyed reading about oppertunity attacks and such can someone summerize it for me?

 

[Camelot]

When an enemy moves past you without shifting, you can make a basic melee attack against them. You can do this once per turn.

"Shifting" means moving only one square, but very cautiously, so as not to let your guard down. If you simply "move" more than 1 square, you are letting your guard down, and enemies around you can sneak in an attack.

PS: There are other opportunity actions, and you can only take one opportunity action per turn (every combatant's turn, not the same as once per round). The most common opportunity action is the aforementioned opportunity attack.

Hope that helps.

 

[renau1g]

Do you have a local RPG or hobby store that sells D&D books? IF so, you should see if they're running anything from the Living Forgotten Realms or the Wednesday Night Encounters games. They might be great if you're looking to try out a character, most DM's are pretty good at explaining things to a new player. The PHB isn't a great read unfortunately, it's a bit more textbook than I'd like, but it is decent at what it is, a rules reference guide.

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Event (Living Forgotten Realms) <- Living Forgotten Realms
Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Event (D&D Encounters) <- Wednesday Night Encounters

 

[flamingbunnys]

:'( sadly, no. I had to travel almost 50 miles just to find the books... they have local game atores there but they only exept new people when their current campaign ends... wich is like once to twice a year. but normaly they are looking for just one person with a predetermained class and race. if you dont want to play as what they want you to, then they wont let you join... its realy rediclous, and i dont think i want to game with people that up tight, so im trying to form my own group. the only good thing about this (and i guess bad thing) is that no one here has ever played so there isnt that whole "your not like my old DM" thing. but also no one to help me

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, the idea of Opportunity Attacks is basically if someone turns their back on you and runs away, you get to whack them. You make a "Melee Basic Attack" against them before they actually start to move. That's the basics of it. You can also make an OA if an enemy adjacent to you decides to shoot a bow or something similar (technically if they make a ranged or area attack, but not if its a close or melee attack). This is intended to make the rather unrealistic tactic of standing next to an enemy that is fighting with you and shooting arrows at some guy half the battle field away. It limits the power of ranged attacks and allows characters to shut down enemy artillery by moving up and engaging it. It also means that the party needs to keep the monsters away from their wizards and archers, so it adds a dimension of tactics to the game.

Immediate actions can get a bit complicated. They are generally things that a specific character can do out of turn to react to something as it happens. Any power that can be used this way has a 'triggering condition'. When that condition is met you can use the power.

If its an Immediate Interrupt then you get to use it before whatever triggered it actually happens. For instance the level 2 Wizard Utility spell Shield is an Immediate Interrupt that triggers when an enemy hits the wizard. It adds 4 to his AC and Reflex defenses, and because it's an interrupt the attacker now has to get past the improved defense of the wizard, which can turn the hit into a miss. Think of them as "Oh, S**t" powers.

If its an Immediate Reaction then it happens AFTER the thing that triggered it. So a power that is an Immediate Reaction and lets you shift 1 square if you were hit by an attack won't stop the attack from happening, it just gets you out of the attacker's face, which could save you needing to use your own actions later to do that. Immediate Reactions CAN sometimes come in the middle of things the enemy (or friends) are doing though at times. For instance if an enemy moves 5 squares, you can react to the first square of his movement before he moves the second square, or if he has an attack routine that includes several attacks (like if a Dragon can use both claws and then a bite as a single action) you can react to the first attack before the second and third ones go off.

Its a little complicated when you haven't actually played it out, and you WILL find a few odd cases where nobody is 100% sure how something is supposed to work, but you won't run into those all the time and you can just come up with the answer that works for that situation and go on. There are plenty of people that will answer those kinds of questions too, and WotC has a pretty decent FAQ that answers some of them.

Remember, the rules are really intended to work out in a fairly common-sensical way. Now and then they include some seemingly rather obscure wording. Generally its there because someone found a way to make some combination of things work in a bad way or to prevent some obscure problem. Other times a rule will just not seem to make sense until it comes up in play. The gist of it is that if there's a situation that a rule doesn't seem to fit very well the idea is to play it so that its cool and fun. There are players out there that are 'munchkins' and will try to bend things to their benefit all the time, so if you run into that feel free to just shut them down. Rule 0 of D&D is that the rules are what the DM decides they are. You don't have to use that much, but don't hesitate if need be.

 

[OnlineDM]

:'( sadly, no. I had to travel almost 50 miles just to find the books... they have local game atores there but they only exept new people when their current campaign ends... wich is like once to twice a year. but normaly they are looking for just one person with a predetermained class and race. if you dont want to play as what they want you to, then they wont let you join... its realy rediclous, and i dont think i want to game with people that up tight, so im trying to form my own group. the only good thing about this (and i guess bad thing) is that no one here has ever played so there isnt that whole "your not like my old DM" thing. but also no one to help me

I have a couple of suggestions. First, I used to live in Tallahassee, Florida, and Thomasville isn't that far from Tallahassee, is it (or was it Tallahassee that was 50 miles away)? I know that there were quite a few game shops in Tallahassee when I lived there (at least for trading card games, which is what I played at the time), so you might want to check those out if you're up for a commute. Also, you can buy books online if you need to (though I do try to support my local game store when possible).

Second, there's the possibility of playing a game online if you're not able to find people nearby to play with. This is kind of my specialty, so feel free to reach out to me directly or check out my blog if you want to know more. It's a pretty cool way to play D&D if there's no in-person option. And from my experience of getting a game going via meeting people on the EN World forums, there are folks out there who are hungry for this sort of thing.

Good luck, and have fun!