D&D 4E messy's 4e newbie questions thread

[AbdulAlhazred]

52. can intimidate be used to demoralize an opponent (like in 3e)?

53. with armor class and reflex defense being so similar, do we really need both?

54. can a two-weapon ranger use two-weapon fighting while wielding a two-handed weapon (by say, kicking for the secondary attack)?

55. what notable sacred cows from 3e were slain (i realize this could be a rather long list)?

shukran.

52. Yes - the enemy needs to be bloodied first, then they are probably hostile, but it IS possible to jack your Intimidate skill bonus up very high and pretty reliably 'take out' one opponent at a time (its more ambiguous if you can force more than one target to surrender with a single action). There are some magic items that bypass the bloodied requirement as well. Of course this sort of optimization generally has some poor favor with DMs... Remember, the DM has ultimate say in what skill is effective in what situation, so you will probably run into situations where the DM will make this harder or even impossible (for example against mindless undead or very motivated/desperate opponents).

53. So far I haven't really seen a convincing writeup of doing without AC. Would armor ADD to your Reflex? That seems odd... I could imagine a game that was less gear-centered and more focused on character ability where armor didn't really do much and was for show, or had other non-defense benefits, but as 4e stands it seems like Ref and AC are both useful concepts. Think of Ref as 3e's 'touch AC'.

54. This is ambiguous. You cannot use a 2-handed weapon with Twin Strike, but EVERY power has its own limits, so there is no definitive blanket rule, all attacks utilize some power and the power always says what weapons etc can be used. Twin Strike specifically requires '2 weapons' and refers to a main and a secondary weapon. You can ALWAYS use Unarmed as a 'weapon', but it is not an off-hand weapon and with a 2-hander you basically have to wield the weapon in both 'hands'. This would generally forbid using a 2-hander and a foot as your two weapons with TS. I think you will find this is the generally understood rule. You COULD use a ONE HANDED weapon and your fist/boot/whatever as the 2nd attack, but the weapon probably should be 'off-hand' since Unarmed is NOT. Some DMs however may let you get away with it (and since Rangers can wield a Bastard Sword in one hand there's not a HUGE amount to be gained with this kind of trick anyway).

 

[MarkB]

53. with armor class and reflex defense being so similar, do we really need both?

Star Wars Saga Edition went that route, but also used a somewhat genre-specific system for defenses, whereby characters with PC classes gained a level-dependent bonus to Reflex Defense which didn't stack with bonuses from armour - so armour was useful at low levels or for NPC mooks, but all but useless at higher levels, unless you invested in certain Soldier-class talents.

It was a neat system for a space-opera setting in which the heroes tend to run around in shirts and trousers, but not quite so appropriate in a quasi-medieval setting where fighting-oriented characters prefer a more metallic theme in their outerwear.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Armor Class reflects attacks that are stopped by the fact that you are wearing protective clothing.
Reflex reflects the fact that you duck, dodge, or dive for cover.

Two Weapon Fighting... is TWO weapon fighting. So unless you can somehow convince your DM that your character can effectively wield two two-handed swords, or two halberds, no.

Sacred Cows from previous editions... Really, the mechanics were totally different from what came before, or nearly so, to the point where I really don't think it was a good idea to compare games. Sadly, everyone bitching that they couldn't exactly rebuild some combination that was in a previous version of the game distracted them, and WotC, from the fact that 4e was a really good, well designed, and well balanced game. Thus more rules were added to expand in new directions, rather than finishing to flesh out what was already there. So instead of a good, even, well thought and balanced, consistent, and logical set of multi-classing rules, we got hybrids)

 

[messy]

56. what would be the effect of making npcs by the same method as pcs (other than increasing prep time)?

57. can a character gain the benefits of a magical shield and magical bracers at the same time (since they're grouped together)?

58. other than the occasional power that negates a critical hit, is there any way to gain immunity to critical hits, sneak attacks, etc.?


tusind tak

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

56. what would be the effect of making npcs by the same method as pcs (other than increasing prep time)?

57. can a character gain the benefits of a magical shield and magical bracers at the same time (since they're grouped together)?

58. other than the occasional power that negates a critical hit, is there any way to gain immunity to critical hits, sneak attacks, etc.?


tusind tak

56 - PCs are 'glass cannons' compared with monsters. It doesn't work well at all. First of all the PCs are COMPLEX and this just burdens the DM with a lot of nonsense that they'll never gain anything from. Secondly PCs are front-loaded with damage dealing and back-loaded with hit points. The balance is designed so that monsters come out blasting with their encounter powers, knock the PCs on their low hitpoint butts, the PCs rally, kick in their resources and gain the upper hand, then finish off the monsters. If you face PCs against PCs basically the guy who gets the initiative wins. PC-type NPCs have no reason to hold back, if they go first there will be a blaze of Daily fire and the party will be TPK, if it goes the other way the PCs will be forced to do likewise and the balance of daily resource use is broken. You will find that monsters are FAR better adapted to be opponents than PCs are. PC rules are designed to produce good PCs with reasonable power levels, but the 4e NPC rules are really just "here are the guidelines for what an Nth level combat opponent can do, roughly". You're very free with 4e monsters to create whatever you like really, and not bound by the narrow strictures of class etc. Its a much more open system IMHO. You can of course still build a monster that is an "Elf Paladin" if you wish, but you're free to build it in a way that makes it a worthy opponent and an interesting challenge in the specific context vs trying to force the PC governing rules that have a different agenda into the round hole of an NPC challenge.

57 - They are both arm slot items, so the answer is generally no. I'd note that this means in practice that shields are pretty useless. This is not due to any inherent need for shields to be so, but in practice the enchantments on things like bracers are just much better. You can of course always create better shields if you want... The Spiked Shield is a bit of an exception since you can gain the benefits of weapon enchantments, plus a shield benefit, which makes it an attractive option for some builds.

58 - Well, there are various builds that at Epic are pretty unconcerned with being damaged AT ALL, but in general no. "Sneak Attack" isn't really a specific rules category in 4e anyway. Rogues for instance can get bonus damage if they attack with combat advantage, there's no specific 'sneaking' involved, though attacking from a hidden position is a common way to get CA that most rogues are well-equipped to undertake. I don't know how you would even write an "immune to sneak attack" power, 4e simply lacks the language to express this concept in rules terms. Critical Hit negation is of course theoretically possible, but the honest truth is it is of marginal utility, especially at higher levels. Most higher level monsters have modest raw damage output and their damage expressions are written such that a crit doesn't make a huge difference. For example a standard Fire Giant is level 18 and does 2d12+13 damage. The average is going to be 25, the max 37, and the min 15. The difference between 25 and 37, 12 damage, at level 18 is trivial. A level 18 fighter has almost 200 hit points. He'd be wasting his time with an 'anti-CR' power or item. There are of course a very few monsters with nasty crits, but they tend to be in the context of low-level play where you are unlikely to see an anti-CR power/item.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

56. what would be the effect of making npcs by the same method as pcs (other than increasing prep time)?

Don't do it! The DMG1 has stats for making NPCs using similar rules for PCs, but not only is it a bit more work, it doesn't balance the math. Note that even there the NPCs have fewer powers than PCs (one encounter, one daily and one utility per tier.) I used to encourage using the DMG1 rules, but found that at about level 7 the math fell apart and NPCs became too wimpy to challenge the PCs.

Also these NPCs can have daily abilities, which causes problems (in 3rd Edition, an NPC wizard was more powerful than a PC wizard because they could unload all their top spells in the one encounter for the day) plus daily abilities are usually more complicated. Usually, but not always. For some reason WotC thinks ongoing damage is only acceptable with daily powers, and these could make good encounter or even recharge powers for NPCs. A daily power that gives a benefit that lasts for the entire encounter could be "nerfed" to only last until the end of the NPC's next turn. There's no hard and fast rule for this, but the DMG1 would have you plop down daily abilities "as is".

If you need an NPC you should build a monster using PC-flavored abilities. I'm including an attachment to show you what I mean. Making a monster takes very little time once you understand the monster math.

Note that you can easily make such an NPC into an elite, if they're a conspicuous target. (For instance, my players will go out of their way to kill any NPC who is a caster or warlord. The warlord I've attached would need to be made into an elite to not get focus-fired to death on round one in my campaign.)

57. can a character gain the benefits of a magical shield and magical bracers at the same time (since they're grouped together)?

No.

58. other than the occasional power that negates a critical hit, is there any way to gain immunity to critical hits, sneak attacks, etc.?

No.

By the way, I wanted to post the .doc of the warlord instead (the text formatting is a bit better, especially when it comes to the aura) but even in advanced mode, I can only find a way of uploading an image.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's a pretty nice warlord example. I agree, the DMG1 NPC system wasn't that great. I think it was sort of a holdover from older edition thinking. Its interesting because even WotC never used it. There isn't even one NPC built with those rules in any module or publication. In fact I've never seen a statblock of an NPC made that way, period. Even in DMG1 they provided 'class templates' that allow you to just build a monster straight up as a 'classed NPC' in effect, and that tool was extended to support PHB2 classes in DMG2 (though it has never been subsequently extended to PHB3 or later classes the truth is most of those classes are pretty specialized and in any case its not exactly rocket-science to do it yourself, the templates are really not a huge help). Likewise DMG2 introduced 'Companion Characters' to provide an official implementation of friendly NPCs. My conclusion is that none of the developers at WotC ever really considered the classed NPC rules to be useful and they were included more as a nod to tradition than as a really useful tool. Maybe they didn't quite trust the whole "everything is a monster with a statblock" design of 4e entirely at that point. Obviously they learned quickly!

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I have seen a very few NPCs like that, actually, in the Compendium. They're often listed as having "no type" (eg not artillery, skirmisher, etc) but of course most such monsters are companions, familiars, etc.

Only the NPCs have "dailies" though, and none of those NPCs are new. There was also a (failure, IMO) creation of Valthrun the Prescient in an early Dungeon Magazine. It used the class template rather than the NPC rule, but ... it sucked. The class template (like most other early templates) makes a monster an elite but doesn't give any extra attacks, so Valthrun is just a bag of hit points

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I have seen a very few NPCs like that, actually, in the Compendium. They're often listed as having "no type" (eg not artillery, skirmisher, etc) but of course most such monsters are companions, familiars, etc.

Only the NPCs have "dailies" though, and none of those NPCs are new. There was also a (failure, IMO) creation of Valthrun the Prescient in an early Dungeon Magazine. It used the class template rather than the NPC rule, but ... it sucked. The class template (like most other early templates) makes a monster an elite but doesn't give any extra attacks, so Valthrun is just a bag of hit points

Well, the rules on what Elite and Solo monster's attacks should be like was quite vague. The only positive thing was that most MM1 monsters were well BELOW the standard damage expressions, which meant if you actually followed the guidelines exactly then you might actually get a bit more average monster damage. Given that they never really explained that an Elite should get the equivalent of TWO normal monsters attacks, and a Solo FIVE overall the guidelines were kinda poor at that stage. There were corrections later, but effectively as far as attacks go they pretty much said "use monsters as a guideline" but then spent another year before they brought out MM3 and really HAD good examples (there were a scattered few before that, and the Demonomicon has some pretty nice examples too). Ah well, IMHO WotC just never figured out what 4e was. They got it kinda by accident. After a while they learned to fix some things but the game seems to have been a bit different beast to WotC than to us...

 

[sabrinathecat]

56. what would be the effect of making npcs by the same method as pcs (other than increasing prep time)?

Why would you want to? Really? A lot of extra time, for characters who are mainly sideline types.

57. can a character gain the benefits of a magical shield and magical bracers at the same time (since they're grouped together)?

Yes, and no. I believe this has been answered before. You have to choose one or the other. In almost every case, the arm-slot bracers are a better return on investment than the magical shield. You can still use the magical shield as a shield, however. (I spent 18 levels with my fighter doing way less damage because he was getting the benefit of the shield--doing the math, the benefit was no where near as good).

58. other than the occasional power that negates a critical hit, is there any way to gain immunity to critical hits, sneak attacks, etc.?

No. Some creatures have traits like "Does not grant Combat Advantage from Flanking" or "--from Prone", but that is it. A crit is a crit is a crit. Sometimes you can make an enemy reroll (halfling luck!), but that's it.
Sneak Attack damage can be avoided by not granting combat advantage.
Now, if you are talking about ambushes, having a very high perception character is a good thing. For monsters, True Sight and Tremor Sense are very handy.