Combo player powers?

[Storminator]

My son and his friend are playing 4e now (they're both 10), and they have plans to use their powers together. In one game the fighter wanted to throw his shield and have the sorcerer hit it with Chaos Bolt and... I'm not really sure what their objective was, but they wanted something cool to happen.

I winged it the first time (which I could go on doing forever I suppose), but it's obviously going to come up again and I'd like it to be cool and fun for them. How should I go about designing paired powers? I don't want it to be too expensive in terms of character resources, nor too complicated for me or them to figure out.

Any ideas?

PS

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, in the specific case you mention I think its doable. The sorcerer readies an action and when the fighter throws his shield the sorcerer hits it with his power. Objects are legitimate targets for powers, though often it won't make a lot of sense. You could use page 42 in some cases and let them make Arcana checks or maybe other checks to see if they can get their powers to do something unusual.

I don't see anything at all wrong with brewing up some kind of cooperative power trick rule either. Maybe a feat could let them do a certain thing for example, like using the shield to deliver the sorcerer's attack or something.

In my game I've let people sometimes do oddball things if they could pass a check so they could make a power work a bit differently than normal in a specific situation. For example the wizard wanted to exterminate some creatures that were infesting a ventilation duct system. So the wizard used Arcana to make Stinking Cloud go down into the vent.

 

[Storminator]

Well, in the specific case you mention I think its doable. The sorcerer readies an action and when the fighter throws his shield the sorcerer hits it with his power. Objects are legitimate targets for powers, though often it won't make a lot of sense. You could use page 42 in some cases and let them make Arcana checks or maybe other checks to see if they can get their powers to do something unusual.

I don't see anything at all wrong with brewing up some kind of cooperative power trick rule either. Maybe a feat could let them do a certain thing for example, like using the shield to deliver the sorcerer's attack or something.

In my game I've let people sometimes do oddball things if they could pass a check so they could make a power work a bit differently than normal in a specific situation. For example the wizard wanted to exterminate some creatures that were infesting a ventilation duct system. So the wizard used Arcana to make Stinking Cloud go down into the vent.

In the spefic case I let the Sorcerer's Chaos bolt "deliver" the Fighter's Knockdown Assault at range, and continue to hit targets following the Chaos Bolt rules.

PS

 

[weem]

Nice! That sounds like a fun combination

In a campaign I play in those kinds of things can be put to the DM - he even suggested we think of some as we play.

One example he gave was when I (Warden) 'pull' a monster, another player could 'push' that monster at the same time and we could cause it to go prone and take more damage, etc.

We haven't made much use of these possibilities yet however.

 

[Garthanos]

Nice! That sounds like a fun combination

In a campaign I play in those kinds of things can be put to the DM - he even suggested we think of some as we play.

One example he gave was when I (Warden) 'pull' a monster, another player could 'push' that monster at the same time and we could cause it to go prone and take more damage, etc.

We haven't made much use of these possibilities yet however.

I kind of ike this stuff and kind of dont? I have situational results for when players combine with the environment or other elements (adversarial choices and details)... but havent been thinking in terms of powers operating in tandem... in part because I dont want these boosts to be too easily repeatable I want more imaginative things coming down the pipe. ;-) Perhaps a predictability penalty on a repeat in the same encounter.

 

[Storminator]

I kind of ike this stuff and kind of dont? I have situational results for when players combine with the environment or other elements (adversarial choices and details)... but havent been thinking in terms of powers operating in tandem... in part because I dont want these boosts to be too easily repeatable I want more imaginative things coming down the pipe. ;-) Perhaps a predictability penalty on a repeat in the same encounter.

I completely understand, and in my game I wouldn't try to push these. But honestly, what 10 yr old should be told "you can't do that" in an rpg? My answer is none!

PS

 

[weem]

I completely understand, and in my game I wouldn't try to push these. But honestly, what 10 yr old should be told "you can't do that" in an rpg? My answer is none!

PS

Yes, this, absolutely.

I ran a game for my little brother when he was 8 (his first). It was the most munchkin-ish campaign I had ever run, but you had never seen a kid have so much fun or be so excited about something. Not that you have to run a munchkin game for someone that age to have fun, but there was a lot he wanted to do and there was no reason for me to tell him no

He is 26 now and runs amazing campaigns of his own.

 

[Garthanos]

I completely understand, and in my game I wouldn't try to push these. But honestly, what 10 yr old should be told "you can't do that" in an rpg? My answer is none!

PS

Heh yeah, I have a son 11 who wouldnt mind hearing that's cool of course it only works real well the first time you surprise them with it. (This boy was literate at age 4), And is doing drama oriented after school projects.

 

[Turtlejay]

How cool is that! I have a 5 year old daughter who sat through and entire 6 hour session with me once, and played with my dice, watched the minis, etc. Aside from watching our language, I don't feel she negatively impacted it, but I sure hope she is as interested when she's old enough to try it herself.

For kids and RPG newbies I think this kind of thing is especially cool, as it really keeps "say yes" going. I'd stay away from codifying any specific power combinations or mandating feats, because you don't want to limit their creativity, right? If they take a feat that allows them to do this specific power combo over and over again, they have stopped thinking creatively and dropped into a rut.

I was thinking of plane jane combos when I saw the thread title, like Fey Switch and Otherwind Stride. I played with a Cleric who used Steel to Glass, and another Cleric power that gave us resist all x to both lower the attack and raise our resistance to the point where we could not be hurt by the solo we were fighting.

As far as group combos. . .can't really think of too many off of the top of my head.

Jay

 

[Storminator]

How cool is that! I have a 5 year old daughter who sat through and entire 6 hour session with me once, and played with my dice, watched the minis, etc. Aside from watching our language, I don't feel she negatively impacted it, but I sure hope she is as interested when she's old enough to try it herself.

Jay

I started Will when he was ~5. We just sat in the back yard and told stories. He got to be the hero of the story and I told all the other parts. So when we added rules later he just fell right into it.

PS