I agree with that. Quite the opposite of 3e, 4e responds extremely well to tinkering. It needs to be released from the strictures that were needlessly imposed on it by (eg) consistently poor published adventure design.
D&D 4E 4E DM's - what have you learned?
- Thread starter wedgeski
- Start date
I agree with that. Quite the opposite of 3e, 4e responds extremely well to tinkering. It needs to be released from the strictures that were needlessly imposed on it by (eg) consistently poor published adventure design.
Quickleaf
Legend
Man I couldn't agree more with you. It's not just the adventures either, but the whole approach. It's almost like they designed this gem and then put their 3e game designer hats back on and treated 4e like it was the same sort of precise yet delicate thing. Which it isn't. It's a flexible rugged all-terrain vehicle.
I first noticed the ruggedness back in 2009 in regards wealth-by-level & magic items. The 4e DMG is highly prescriptive with the treasure packets you are supposed to 'award' the PCs. There is repeated advice in the DMG and adventures warning the DM: if the PCs miss treasure, you better stick it in later! You would think that any significant deviation from standard wealth-per-level would be as deleterious as in 3e, where too little wealth & magic items left Fighters helpless, too much easily broke the CR system.
But... the actual PHB magic/wealth system is such that a x5 increase in wealth equates to just +1 on attacks & defenses. +1 is not a big deal in 4e. This gives a huge playground within which to work: you can have huge piles of gold and gems, or long lean periods, that have very little effect on game play. To have a significant effect on party capability they need to be +2 ahead or -2 behind the curve, ie 25 times as much or 1/25 as much wealth as the system expects. And that's without considering the DMG2 Inherent Bonuses system - which I always use, mostly to ensure that PCs stripped of gear are still effective.
4e has a lot of redundancies/back-ups like that which ensure great robustness in play. Another is the way healing resources are widely distributed - having a Cleric is no longer vital, indeed at a pinch you can do without any Leader class! But this is never called out in the DMing advice, which is written as if the system were still like 3e.
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Pour
First Post
Would you all say it's fair that there is a LARGE portion of the RPG designer community that hasn't played with the 4e system long enough to reach the candy center? I just get this sense that there is a lot of cordial respect for 4e from most serious, non-WotC designers (and now, actually, some WotC), largely because they accept its a version of D&D that 'just isn't for them' and recognize there is a community that likes it. I don't think very many professionals spent enough time with the system to really see its value, or pushed or played enough, where as the blogging community really dove head first and gave me most of the tools, tips, charts, and tricks I utilize in my game.
Honestly, the quality of much of the 4e official support (setting aside the brilliant Compendium and Character Builder tools) somewhat necessitated home-brew, improvisation, and community. 4e bred independence in some ways, and community collaboration, which I imagine only hurt official product sales all the more. It also bred many considerably successful DMs and grassroots designers.
Honestly, the quality of much of the 4e official support (setting aside the brilliant Compendium and Character Builder tools) somewhat necessitated home-brew, improvisation, and community. 4e bred independence in some ways, and community collaboration, which I imagine only hurt official product sales all the more. It also bred many considerably successful DMs and grassroots designers.
D'karr
Adventurer
I think this also depends a lot on party composition and player experience.
I've TPK'd more parties with 4e than with any D&D edition before. It's usually a factor of inexperience and a poorly integrated party. Also its because a 4e combat can turn to crap in a hurry when the players underestimate the opposition or overestimate their capabilities.
At Paragon this usually goes away because the characters are very resilient and powerful. If they've been working/playing together since heroic they have tactics that work and know of each others capabilities.
Paragon and Epic for one-shots have proven disastrous IME. Mostly because of lack of familiarity with the capabilities of high-level characters.
D'karr
Adventurer
One of the things I noticed when 4e came out was that it "played" in any way I wanted to mold it to. If I was in the mood for Gonzo High Fantasy I could easily do it. If I was in the mood for gritty low fantasy I could take it there. It very plainly showed its design assumptions and with that in mind I could tweak to taste. But every WotC adventure I saw for it seemed to be designed with the late 3e paradigm in mind. Every adventure "felt" stagnant in its design. I think it also had to do with the delve format for encounters. It gave the impression that everything was a series of combat encounters.
I remember mentioning to one of my groups that the DMG and DMG 2 were fantastic books for DMs because they really gave a lot of insight about how things within the system would work. The presentation on many things sucked and was confusing (skill challenges) but the information was there. They were also the books that seemed like nobody read because they already "knew" how to DM. This seemed obvious in the WotC adventures which seemed to completely miss the point and not use the advice given in either book.
One of my friends came up with a dungeon crawl format which we've used to great effect to convert old adventures for use with 4e and preserve the "feel" of a dungeon crawl. He's done conversion of Tamoachan, Ghost Tower, The Giants Series, which we are playing right now, and others. I remember him saying that when he was working on the system he redesigned the way traps worked because the ones in the published adventures just "felt" wrong. Then he compared his system to what was on the DMG and found out that his system was very similar to what the traps in the book were. The book had the "right" system. It was never well implemented in the published adventures.
My group played for about 8 levels with no leader - just a paladin, a dwarf fighter, and a couple of cleric/warlord multi-class feats. When PHB3 came out the ranger PC was rebuilt as a hybrid ranger-cleric (dubbed "Operation Have-My-PC-Do-Something-Other-Than-Twin-Strike"), and since then the fighter has actually retrained away some of his self-healing abilities because he didn't need them anymore.
My players are tactically fairly capable, have been playing together for a long time, and have played their PCs up from low level. So the factors you mention all run their way.
And I'm probably a somewhat lenient GM, in the sense that I play my monsters and NPCs for drama and story effect as much as for sheer tactical brutality - so lots of waves, NPCs not necessarily focus-firing if their is a particular PC they want to pick on, etc.
1) 1/2 monster hp. Use more monsters rather than increase hp to add difficulty.
2) Use Elite monsters with standard monster difficulty and hit points. Elite monsters typically have fun abilities, they should be used frequently.
3) Solo's/Boss Battles are typically more fun when using two solo monsters at 1/2 hp rather than one. This helps keep combat engaging since PC's can often stun lock or gimp a single target for nearly the entire battle.
4) Solo's / Boss battles are more fun when they have 'sections' tied to them. The boss tactics and powers should evolve over the battle to keep it interesting.
5) Give extra powers to monsters (especially standard ones). There are a lot of bland monsters who tend to only have one main attack or only melee attacks. Where applicable give all creatures a weaker ranged option. Don't be afraid to give creatures staple D&D powers. I love casting Fireball with elite casters/dragons because that's what players grew up with.
6) Use Elite Minions. These minions are bloodied from 1 hit, killed on the next. They are killed immediately via critical hit. If a striker hits it with their extra damage, they die in one hit.
7) Stick to monsters of the PC's level or lower. Use minions of higher level than the PC's as their defenses are often a joke and eliminate any threat they provide. If and when you use monsters of higher level, treat their hp as same level as PC.
8) Give traps a disable hp that equates to their success requirements. Allow all players to disable them using this hp pool.
Example: A trap needs: 4 successes DC 25 Thievery. Give it 100 Thievery HP: All players can act to reduce the HP to zero. Crits double the outcome.
9) Give all minions the high crit feat adding 1d10 per tier on critical hits. Give all epic minions weapon mastery feats for <19-20> crit range. Minions that already have these traits will be further improved accordingly.
10) Break Up monster categories into Wounded (25% hp lost), Bloodied (50% hp lost) and Brinkish (75%hp lost) to better illustrate the impacts of damage.
11) Monster who stun are not fun. Dominate/daze/restrain instead.
2) Use Elite monsters with standard monster difficulty and hit points. Elite monsters typically have fun abilities, they should be used frequently.
3) Solo's/Boss Battles are typically more fun when using two solo monsters at 1/2 hp rather than one. This helps keep combat engaging since PC's can often stun lock or gimp a single target for nearly the entire battle.
4) Solo's / Boss battles are more fun when they have 'sections' tied to them. The boss tactics and powers should evolve over the battle to keep it interesting.
5) Give extra powers to monsters (especially standard ones). There are a lot of bland monsters who tend to only have one main attack or only melee attacks. Where applicable give all creatures a weaker ranged option. Don't be afraid to give creatures staple D&D powers. I love casting Fireball with elite casters/dragons because that's what players grew up with.
6) Use Elite Minions. These minions are bloodied from 1 hit, killed on the next. They are killed immediately via critical hit. If a striker hits it with their extra damage, they die in one hit.
7) Stick to monsters of the PC's level or lower. Use minions of higher level than the PC's as their defenses are often a joke and eliminate any threat they provide. If and when you use monsters of higher level, treat their hp as same level as PC.
8) Give traps a disable hp that equates to their success requirements. Allow all players to disable them using this hp pool.
Example: A trap needs: 4 successes DC 25 Thievery. Give it 100 Thievery HP: All players can act to reduce the HP to zero. Crits double the outcome.
9) Give all minions the high crit feat adding 1d10 per tier on critical hits. Give all epic minions weapon mastery feats for <19-20> crit range. Minions that already have these traits will be further improved accordingly.
10) Break Up monster categories into Wounded (25% hp lost), Bloodied (50% hp lost) and Brinkish (75%hp lost) to better illustrate the impacts of damage.
11) Monster who stun are not fun. Dominate/daze/restrain instead.
Yeah, I'm playing a Paragon game, I'm the Fighter. We started at 12th level, 2 sessions in now. Our Leader player (Warlord) is brand new to 4e, arrives 45 minutes late, and always uses Basic Attacks. Last time I was begging him to look past the first page of his character sheet.
He should really be playing a Slayer or something like that. The other newbie has an archer Ranger & does ok.
