D&D 4E Nearly 1 Hour to play 1 Turn of 4e

[Goonalan]

I wasn't telling you off, nor was I judging you. I was just picturing your player realizing that he could have done something all along and that you withheld the information deliberately. Some people would be miffed by that.
I was curious if a) you had not considered that possibility, and if so b) why you did not just go ahead and tell him. That's why I phrased it as a question.
Now you have answered, and now I know. Cookies for everyone!

Cool, sorry- possibly still seeking approval, ENWorld is my D&D big brother.

 

[surfarcher]

Yeah that's kind of what I figured.

I have two suggestions you might want to try.

1. Redesign encounters to remove Needlefang Drake Swarm and Boneshards. There's a few others too, but they slip my mind at the moment (search these forums).

2. Get the Monster Builder and reset the monsters for your encounters. It'll have most, if not all, of your encounter critters in it. Dupe the creature for the upcoming encounter and reset their stats using the green circles. Then export and print. I think you'll be surprised at the increased challenge this presents your players even with level+0 encounters.

Of course YMMV but it's what I've found useful.

 

[Goonalan]

Yeah that's kind of what I figured.

I have two suggestions you might want to try.

1. Redesign encounters to remove Needlefang Drake Swarm and Boneshards. There's a few others too, but they slip my mind at the moment (search these forums).

2. Get the Monster Builder and reset the monsters for your encounters. It'll have most, if not all, of your encounter critters in it. Dupe the creature for the upcoming encounter and reset their stats using the green circles. Then export and print. I think you'll be surprised at the increased challenge this presents your players even with level+0 encounters.

Of course YMMV but it's what I've found useful.

That's diamondique, I'm on it like a car bonnet.

Goonalan

 

[Pickles JG]

Has the Monster builder been updated to MM3 - I thought it was still old DMG1. This is still more damage than MM1 was on the whole.

Damage & attack bonus is now very formulaic - damage is average level +8. I have been going through P1 & P2 updating things & decontrollering it a bit & mostly I add a die of damage & often reduce, or rebalance, defences especially of elites & solos.

 

[Goonalan]

Has the Monster builder been updated to MM3 - I thought it was still old DMG1. This is still more damage than MM1 was on the whole.

Damage & attack bonus is now very formulaic - damage is average level +8. I have been going through P1 & P2 updating things & decontrollering it a bit & mostly I add a die of damage & often reduce, or rebalance, defences especially of elites & solos.

Any notes that you have would be lush, to be honest I am at present attempting to fold space and time, we play again on Wednesday but we're only finishing off the Briar Hags encounter and doing the Throne Room and Skalmad.

That way I can have a look at the Feywild encounters and do some fixing, I also want to see how the PCs fare with the above two encounters- I'm going to add the Roper to the Throne Room- it's going to port in when Skalmad gets to his throne and ports out.

I've had a little feedback from the start of the Briar Hag encounter and the consensus is it was great, I'll be honest with the attacks on Moonstair section the PCs walked it, although I seem to remember I added the Anchor Troll from the WOTC extra encounters- they loved him.

We may play a short Delve or something while I reconfigure, as I say any notes you have.

Cheers Goonalan

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Cool, sorry- possibly still seeking approval, ENWorld is my D&D big brother.

Sure, no problem. But don't forget, you have big sisters here too.

 

[jbear]

I ran through the first couple of encounters of P1 TrollHaunt Warrens as well, by myself actually, just to see how play differed at paragon level. I was extremely disappointed to see how easy it was. Talk about too easy. So I can fully understand that you'd want to 'rev up' the difficulty.

My players love to be really challenged as well. They really hassle me if they breeze through one of my encounters. Actually they like to hassle me even when they've been beyond the brink of death, now that I think about it, but that's just to relieve tension methinks. Actually from the description of your group it sounds quite alot like mine. I'm the driving force behind all that is rules and books. My players like to show up and just have a damn good time. No obsessing. Mums, Dads with lives that up until I introduced them to D&D had never had any RPG experience whatsoever. Which makes for a pretty great enviroment at the table. They see everything with fresh eyes. It's like doing your old magic trick on someone you've never ever met before.

So, I guess I'm going to have to maybe do what you have been doing and what the others have suggested in so far as updating the monster stats. If only I had the time...

 

[surfarcher]

Has the Monster builder been updated to MM3 - I thought it was still old DMG1. This is still more damage than MM1 was on the whole.

Damage & attack bonus is now very formulaic - damage is average level +8. I have been going through P1 & P2 updating things & decontrollering it a bit & mostly I add a die of damage & often reduce, or rebalance, defences especially of elites & solos.

Well now that's a great question and one I can't answer, off the top of my head.

I'm going more on personal experiences than on maths and analysis. What I find is that upgrading the damage sections in the MB increases the challenge for my players and, for me at least, that's what it's all about.

Oh I just rememberred saying "hit the green circles" isn't accurate.

So here's a blow-by-blow account of how I do it...

1. Select your creature.
2. Click "Edit a copy"
3. Click the first action and, if it has a damage expression, do the following...

• Add a new attack.
• In the new attacks' damage settings select the same Type, Dice Sides and Modifier values as the original.
• Highlight the "Damage" in the new attack and copy it (CTRL+C)
• Highlight the "Damage" in the original attack and paste over it (CTRL+V).
• Delete the newly added attack.
• Repeat for each action.

4. Repeat step 3 above for every action.
5. Click "Save and Exit".
6. Right-click your updated monster.
7. Select "Copy as..."->"Copy as Image" from the pop-up menu.
8. Paste into word-processor of your choosing.
9. Print and use as you see fit.
​

I've attached a before and after of our friend the Grell to show what it gives me.

PS. Happy to work through this with/for you on this thread or via email.
PPS. Just noticed the MB still has a bug where bits of triggered/free actions vanish in copies. Double check those to avoid surprises.
Cheers,

 

[Dragongrief]

Nope one damage roll for each Burst, it took a while because we kinda got lost in it on more than one occasion- not complaining, just never seen so many Immediate Reactions before.

Are monsters limited to the "One Immediate Action per turn" rule like PCs are?

If so, that could have avoided some of the extra explosions - they'd get the initial Bloodied burst, but not the Death recharge-burst.

 

[Goonalan]

Are monsters limited to the "One Immediate Action per turn" rule like PCs are?

If so, that could have avoided some of the extra explosions - they'd get the initial Bloodied burst, but not the Death recharge-burst.

You may just be right... damn, I think in the moment- what with all the giggling and the like that rule just passed us by...

Duly noted for next time however.