D&D 4E D&D 4E Tips/Tricks/Advice

[Magus Coeruleus]

Things I do:

Provide each player with a MS Word Character Sheet tailored to fast use with minimal book lookup, rather than character creation; it's easier to modify each time there is a change than to make the sheet generic.

Create MS Word Statblocks for monsters and arrange them in a table, one sheet per encounter.

Use my MS Excel Initiative Tracker to calculate initiative and sort accordingly with the click of a button, instead of lots of rolling and writing down numbers. I also use this to keep track of PC defenses and skill mods so I don't have to constantly ask.

I use Grandpa's card set not for powers, as I prefer the character sheet and statblock approaches, but for magic items and a few other things like conditions (I've made a version of some but not all of the condition cards that has large icons, linked to G's post).

We use white poker chips for second wind and blue chips for action points. My players are fine with marking off surges from their sheet, which gives a convenient place to do so.

I have these funny little colored rhinestone things and we drop them by minis to represent marking and ongoing effects when feel it is worthwhile.

I try to speed up preparing the grid depending on the situation. Sometimes I don't use one if it seems unnecessary (rare in 4e). For something like a wooded clearing I'll just drop some coins on the battlemat and shift them where I want to represent trees for cover/obstacles. For some areas I draw with pencil on some engineering graph paper I have, if my fiance is up to it she will help me with special locales by drawing and coloring for a nice personal touch; e.g. a boat deck, a camp site.

For skill challenges I use Stalker0's Obsidian System which is quite streamlined and fast to run, not that the default system is necessarily any slower; just plugging his system.

House rule: when out of an encounter, out of danger, comfortable, etc., I let Inspiring/Healing Word work as if max had been rolled. Gives the party a little edge but the main reason is so that they can quickly determine how many 5s of minutes and surges they want to spend to heal up before moving on. With a fixed value, there's no time spent rolling dice or strategizing about this. During combat, they roll for these as normal.

This will not work for most people's campaigns but we do not track money, period. The party are members of a homesteading family with significant assets but lots of recent damage after a goblin attack, so they just roleplay it and they get whatever gear is reasonably available and not unbalancing metagame-wise or inappropriate in-game. The wizard knows to use Rituals only when roleplaywise it seems reasonable to expend the resources for it. No buying or selling of magic items. All as loot or gifts or trade. They are motivated to collect treasure but the assumption is it all goes back to the homestead, etc. This saves a lot of bookeeping trouble.

That's all I can think of for now.

 

[corwyn77]

We actually use chips for everything, a holdover from out savage worlds games.

Bloodied, for monsters as well as PCs, APs, lasting 'save ends' effects, surges.

That way everyone can tell at a glance if 'bloodied' abilities come into play, if someone is in need of a rest or a save, etc.

I'm working on power cards for everyone right now.

Oh, and THC1967, consider solo/elites modification yanked. Though I think 3/4 hit points for elites would work better since at 1/2 they would be at normal hp and rather fragile for the attention they garner.

 

[MrBeens]

Random thoughts:

• A readied action is now a "reaction" and thus takes place after the trigger, unlike 3.5. To interrupt, you must ready on a trigger that occurs before the action that you're trying to stop, but of course that's not always possible.
• A heroic tier character can use only one magic item daily power per day, regardless of the number of items he has. A paragon character can use two, and an epic PC three.
• You have one action point after an extended rest (which also regains all hitpoints and all surges)
• You can take both a minor and an immediate action in 1 round (unlike 3.5 swift and immediate actions).
• You cannot take opportunity attacks or immediate actions (previously AoO's) during your own turn. You can take one OA on EACH combatants turn, but only one immediate action in the entire round.
• Ranged weaponry now add's Dex to damage, and most ranged powers do too. When instead you make a basic attack with a heavy thrown weapon, you use strength for attack and damage bonuses - but most ranged powers still use dex.
• All magical thrown weapons return to their wielders hand after the attack is resolved. You need several thrown weapons to hit several targets should a power allow you to hit several targets.
• If you wield two weapons, you can attack with either but not both without penalty.
• Most feat bonuses are typed, check before you let em stack.
• when a power says something like 3[W] that means the sum of three weapon dice. Enh. or feat bonuses and so on are only added once, and an ability score is only added if explicitly mentioned.
• Unlike 3.5 you're not "flat-footed" until you act. If you were surprised, as soon as the surprise round ends, you're no longer surprised. Surprise (like flanking and other things) grants combat advantage.
• An immobilized creature can be pushed, pulled and teleported.
• Modifiers for being prone and the like have changed.
• Stealth and related topics have been erratad heavily, check the updates before using those rules.
• You can move through the space of creatures two size categories larger than you, and tiny creatures can move and even end their movement in enemy occupied squares (but still take OA's as appropriate).
• Pulling, pushing & sliding ignore difficult terrain.
• Moving diagonally counts 1 square.
• You don't need to charge in a "straight" line, but you must take the shortest path (there may be many possibilities since diagonal moves count only 1), and cannot charge if all shortest paths are blocked. You can charge through difficult terrain. After you've charged, your turn ends.
• Drawing/sheathing a weapon is just a minor action, as is drinking a potion.
• Grappling (now Grab) and Bullrush don't have size modifiers. Grab simply immobilizes, so both you and your target can still take actions as normally, though you do need one hand to grab.
• Total defense grants +2 to all defenses, so you might as well second wind (1/encounter) which also allows the use of a healing surge.
• When dying, you may only fail 3 saves PER ENCOUNTER - so getting healed in between drops isn't enough to reset the clock, you really need to take a short rest.
• If you want to, you can knock creatures unconscious instead of killing them.
• If you want to create PC's at higher level, check out DMG 143 (which includes equipment guidelines.
• Raising a character from the dead is much cheaper now if the character is low level, and the revived PC doesn't lose a level (he's just temporarily weaker).

Some good points, but some are slightly wrong -

Magic items - you can use another magic item daily power each time you reach a milestone (2 encounters) but cannot use the same item more than once in a day.

Magic thrown weapons - it's worth clarifying that one magic thrown weapon is sufficient for all targets in a AoE thrown weapon attack. The one weapon attacks all targets.

Weilding 2 weapons - you cannot attack with 2 weapons in the same action unless you use a power that lets you. You cannot choose to attack twice with a penalty

 

[Rechan]

There's a thread over on the General forum for DMs using KotS. One suggestion I really like from it:

Have a patrol of Bloodreaver hobgoblins show up while the PCs are in the keep. Karalel has a deal with them, paying them for slaves in order to sacrifice for the ritual. Not sure when to splice that in.

One thing another DM is doing is taking out the kuthriks, and putting a cavern choker with some doomspores (fantastic terrain in the DMG).

A third is going to have Keegan's twin daughters haunting the place, ala The Shining.

 

[FireLance]

Leader. Out of combat, everyone can just spend healing surges. But combats get dangerous because PCs can only use one Second Wind. If no one has the Heal Skill, no one can help resuscitate a PC currently making death saves.

Yes and no. You don't need to be trained in Heal to stabilize a dying character, but stabilizing him won't get him back into the fight. Healing potions might work, though.

Some other rules that my group flubbed initially:

1. You need to be adjacent to flank. Even if you have a reach weapon, you don't flank unless you're next to the target.

2. Helpless characters are not automatically hit. They grant combat advantage AND get a -5 penalty to all defences, though.

3. You need to be adjacent to your target to perform a coup de grace.

 

[DanmarLOK]

Read the dragon's powers carefully prior to running it so there's no confusion there in the Hall.

KotS can be a real tough fight, especially the Irontooth fight. If your'e players aren't 'up to par' by the time you get to Irontooth scale back on the waves, have them show up slower or remove a standard here and there. That fight is well over the recommended xp budget and although its done as waves it can and has on many occasions decimated parties.

Feel free to fudge some rolls as needed as well.

There are a few threads to fix things in KOTS as some of it does come off as a bit... subpar.

Some excellent changes here:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1037342&page=2

General discusions
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1073178

A follow up adventure after KotS is defeated:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1065908

Excellent advice, everyone! I really appreciate it.

I have at hand two adventures to start with, Kobald Hall from the DMG and Keep on the Shadowfell; having only briefly skimmed each, I was thinking of starting the group with KH then moving onto KotS. Any trouble with doing this?

On a related note, are there any tips/tricks/advice for running either one of those adventures? The reviews I've read have prepared me for KotS not being a Shakespeare's masterpiece, but do either of the modules have any problem areas that might not be noticable at first glance?

 

[Godaikin Engineer]

KotS can be a real tough fight, especially the Irontooth fight. If your'e players aren't 'up to par' by the time you get to Irontooth scale back on the waves, have them show up slower or remove a standard here and there. That fight is well over the recommended xp budget and although its done as waves it can and has on many occasions decimated parties.http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1065908

Thanks for some good tips & links, one follow-up question to this: if I'm running Kobold Hall first, then perhaps an encounter or two on the road to Winterhaven for KotS, will the extra XP be enough to better balance the group vs. the Irontooth fight?

(NB: I haven't had time yet to try and crunch numbers yet, just wondering what the general impression was. Or is it simply that a group that isn't fully exploiting their capabilities, regardless of level, is likely to get crunched by the better-prepared monsters?)

 

[Rechan]

utc.edu

Read the dragon's powers carefully prior to running it so there's no confusion there in the Hall.

Speaking of the dragon fight.

Mike Mearls, who wrote Kobold Hall, looked back on the dragon fight, and mussed on how he could make it better. There's no rules changes, so much as features of the lair you could sprinkle in to offer more options to your players if they're clever.