Page 42 Stunting and Examples From Our Home Games

[Manbearcat]

Breakdown

As it has been a hot subject as of late, and has considerable lack of understanding out there, I was considering writing a lengthy treatise on stunting in 4e (infamous p42). I won't have the time for that this weekend and I may yet work on it in the coming week. However, I figured I'd do a quick and dirty abridged version and create a thread that can serve as a repository for examples of stunting in folks' home games.

At its most basic fundamentals, 4e stunting includes 4 steps.

1) Of-level Skill Checks at typically the moderate DC. The primary skills involved in stunting are:

a) Athletics - Feats of power and physical imposition
b) Acrobatics - Feats of swashbuckling
c) Arcana - Feats of arcane (and psionic) spellcasting
d) Nature - Feats of primal spellcasting
e) Religion - Feats of divine spellcasting

There will be some other more niche cases (such as Bluff, Endurance, Thievery), but those are the ones you're going to use most of the time.

2) A level + 5 vs AC or level + 3 vs NAD attack. This can be subbed for the PC's own attack modifier if it exceeds that base number (due to purchased PC build resources).

3) Adjudication if the interaction with the environment or stunt warrants the limited-use damage expression or the at-will damage expression.

4) Adjudication of the value of the control effect applied or the advantage earned as a proportion of the damage expression. Whether it affects single or multiple targets is another consideration. As the PCs progress through the tiers, more powerful control effects should be made available to their stunting (as is the progression of their powers). Push 2, Slide 1, Slow, Prone are typically going to be your bread and butter for stunting.

Married to all of this is the consideration of genre logic. Rogues, Monks and the like are going to be doing swashbuckling stuff, so expect them to be deploying Acrobatics. Druids are going to be calling upon the primal spirits to invoke nature's wrath or aid, so expect them to be deploying Nature. If players try something along their shtick, there should really never be cause for saying no. Adjudicate/negotiate a fair, potential mechanical result, and proceed through the resolution outlined above. Pretty straight forward.

Terrain Powers are good guidance for understanding the formula. The Lightning Pillar Strike from Dark Sun Creature Catalog allows a PC within 5 squares to make an Arcana (arcane), Nature (primal), or Religion (divine) to invoke the magic of the pillar for a single target within CB5, medium damage expression, L + 3 vs Ref, lightning damage attack. The DMG2 Rope Bridge attack lets you recapture an Indiana Jones scene with a moderate Athletics check and L + 3 vs Ref attack versus anyone on the bridge (you must be on it or adjacent to it). Success knocks them prone with no damage. If they're already prone then they fall from the bridge. So multi-target + prone = entirety of damage expression.


Examples

Alright, here are some examples from my home games over the years. Hopefully others will post their own examples and this can be a bit of a repository for 4e GMs hoping to improve their improv!

1) My players were fighting in a burning inn. The whole place was covered in smoke and the fire was quickly out of hand. A family was huddled in the corner and the spreading fire was soon to overtake them. The Druid in my group wanted to use her at-will attack Grasping Tide (summons a vortex of water, CB1 w/i 10) to douse the spreading flames and protect the family. The flames were a hazard. There was a countermeasure to douse squares of the fire with easy DCs but the Druid wanted to go big. Works for me! Nature medium DC is passed by everything but a 1 for the Druid so this was easily defeated. Wis vs Fort attack versus low NAD (normal NAD - 2) for a standard creature. The Druid succeeded, 9 squares of flames were doused and the fire hazard couldn't spread to those squares for the rest of the encounter. Family saved!

2) The Legendary Sovereign Epic Paladin (later to become an NPC antagonist) wanted to call upon his god to momentarily sanctify a place as holy so he could restrain a mental patient that he knew to be possessed by a demon. He did this on multiple rounds to parlay (a Skill Challenge concurrent to the combat) with the demon to convince it to willingly leave the host and return to the Abyss. Awesome! Religion medium DC. Level + 3 vs Will. Target is restrained (save ends).

3) The group was fighting on a ship. The Rogue was Mariner themed and the captain of the ship. Lots of high-seas Pirates of the Caribbean stuff going on with lots and lots of bad guys. The PCs were all within about 5 squares of each other. The round before, the Rogue secured a lasso from his pack after putting down a bad guy in a swashbuckling duel. The Rogue then deployed his level 10 mariner utility Avast(!) which is minor action, allies in CB5, allies can choose to become slowed to reduce any forced movement by 2. After he does that, Standard Action Thievery (medium DC) to lasso the ship's wheel and YANK. Ship yaws severely. Level + 3 attack versus Fortitude versus everyone on the ship (including PCs) to Push 3 in the direction of the ship's yaw. Lots and lots of bad guys prone (passed saving throw versus challenging terrain as they were over the rails) or overboard or one down in the hold (failed save). Awesome stuff.


There have been tons and tons more, but those are 3 off the top of my head that were pretty spiffy and extremely genre/archetype-relevant.

 

[bert1000]

Great topic!

I am starting a 4e game soon and want to encourage this sort of stunting. I know one player had a 4e experience of 'people staring at their power lists' too much instead of thinking out side the box, so I have decided to give everyone an extra encounter and daily power as follows:

1) an encounter power called 'do something cool'.

"You do something cool! Shoot the chain to send the chandelier flying down, entangle the villain in his huge cloak, use your arcane power to make the magic pool burn like acid. Have fun with it!"

Normally, the power requires playing off something specific to the environment, enemy, or situation.

Skill check for non attacks at medium DC. Level + 5 vs. AC, Level +3 vs. NADs for direct attacks. Can use attack bonus for powers if higher and relevant to the improvised attack (e.g., sliding down a staircase = DEX).

Normally does:
* Medium Damage = X.
* Or lesser dmg with effect or area attack

2) create a daily power called 'do something awesome'.

Same as #1 except for things that are really awesome, not just kinda cool.

Normally does:
* High Damage = X.
* Or lesser dmg with effect or area attack


_________________________________

Couple questions:

a) Have you figured out a rough "weight" for effects? E.g., 1d8 less damage for prone, etc.

b)What are the cut offs you use for different effects if any? E.g., can't stun until paragon tier, etc.
I guess if you know that Stun = say 5d8 of damage then that would give you the cut off too.

c) I don't want Arcane/Religion/Nature spell casters to be able to just add another encounter and daily power to the list that allows them to do any kind of flexible magic effect. This would seem to give them a big advantage over the athletics /acrobatic stunter which needs to use the specific circumstances more. How do you handle this? I think I will require some kind of magical source to be present already for this to work? E.g., you can manipulate a magic pool or gate with arcane, feed off the energy of a supernatural grave yard with religion, talk to the old, old trees with nature, etc.

d) When it's an attack, do you require both a skill check and an attack roll? This would seem to add more difficulty to the action than I want. Unless the skill check is trivially easy (but then why have it?)?


I want to make "do something cool" equal or slightly better than normal encounter powers and "do something awesome" equal or slightly better than normal dailies.

I figure the encounter and daily distinction is fairly artificial and meta but I don't really care. If people are stunting all the time, then why bother using 4e and the powers system at all? This method at least puts the improv element front and center next to the other powers AND makes the option as good if not better than regular powers. You just can't do it constantly.

It would be great to get your experience on the value of "effects"/area attack vs. damage. That seems like the trickiest part and I don't have the time to go and audit existing powers for this kind of info.

 

[Manbearcat]

Hey [MENTION=29013]bert1000[/MENTION] . I don't have my spreadsheet with me, but from memory, this is pretty much the budget and frequency that is used for p42 control/rider effects in my home game. Round up.

Common

Combat Advantage - 12.5 %
Marked - 12.5 %

Forced Movement 2 - 25 %
Save Ends - 25 %
Slowed - 25 %

Prone - 37.5 %


Rare

Dazed - 50 %
Immobilized - 50 %
Multiple Targets - 50 %
Ongoing (5/Tier) - 50 %


Extremely Rare (typically for Paragon - Epic)

Restrained - 100 %
Blinded - 100 %


That looks right for what we use. Medium A-W Damage Expression is ~ L + 8.5. High is ~ L + 10.5. Big effects that should be more swingy are larger, singular dice + damage. Small effects that should be more consistent are smaller, multiple dice. Then we just do some quick and dirty math and resolve. There will be some situations that require going outside of the box for the effect (such as momentarily welding a door shut with a fire effect). There you will just have to use your experience, compare the overall impact and negotiate.

Hope that helps to serve as a baseline (I'm sure you'll need to adjust depending on your table's exact playstyle/take). Happy gaming!

 

[TwoSix]

Hey @Morrus;

 

[Manbearcat]

I have to admit I'm a little confused by your chart, MBC. What exactly do the percentages represent?

Sorry about that. Not very clear obviously.

The percentage is that portion of the damage expression (typically medium, at-will) you're allocating toward the effect it corresponds with.

Quick example. You're a level 2 Barbarian wantting to SMASH a creature into some kind of terrain element (challenging/difficult) or hazard. Typically, this would be resolved as:

1) Athletics vs Medium DC
2) L + 3 vs Fort probably (so + 5)
3) Medium damage expression for level 2 is 1d8 + 5 or 11.5. 25 % of 11.5 is 3 damage (rounded up). So, lets go with 1d8 + 2 damage. Effect: 2 squares of Forced Movement.

After that, you're looking at a saving throw if its challenging terrain (and the resolution of that) or an Att vs whatever for the hazard (and the resolution of that).

 

[D'karr]

Sorry about that. Not very clear obviously.

The percentage is that portion of the damage expression (typically medium, at-will) you're allocating toward the effect it corresponds with.

Quick example. You're a level 2 Barbarian wantting to SMASH a creature into some kind of terrain element (challenging/difficult) or hazard. Typically, this would be resolved as:

1) Athletics vs Medium DC
2) L + 3 vs Fort probably (so + 5)
3) Medium damage expression for level 2 is 1d8 + 5 or 11.5. 25 % of 11.5 is 3 damage (rounded up). So, lets go with 1d8 + 2 damage. Effect: 2 squares of Forced Movement.

After that, you're looking at a saving throw if its challenging terrain (and the resolution of that) or an Att vs whatever for the hazard (and the resolution of that).

I think these kind of calculations get into the "too much" detail kind of nit-noid crunch that is what the p42 table helps the DM completely avoid. I would simply make it something as simple as assigning a level modifier to the stunts and reduce the damage based on that new level on the chart.

For example let's say that STUN has a Level 6 modifier. That means that you can only perform that stunt starting at level 7 and the damage expression would be the damage for level 1 on the table (7-6=1). If we say that prone is a level 2 stunt you can start attempting it at Level 3 and damage is level 1 (3-2=1). If I want to combine a prone and a stun (6+2), then I can start doing that at level 9 with a level 1 damage expression (9-(6+2)=1).

With this the DM doesn't have to lose a lot of time recalculating percentages, etc. He just uses the P42 chart and the cost of the stunt as a modifier to the level of damage. What then becomes a pre-calculation is assigning appropriate level modifiers to each stunt category or the stunts themselves. In this way the damage expression also increases as the character becomes "better" (higher level)

If we go with the Common, Rare, Extremely Rare categories you could assign it in this manner:

Common +1 to +3 level modifier

Combat Advantage - 12.5 %
Marked - 12.5 %

Forced Movement 2 - 25 %
Save Ends - 25 %
Slowed - 25 %

Prone - 37.5 %


Rare +4 to +6

Dazed - 50 %
Immobilized - 50 %
Multiple Targets - 50 %
Ongoing (5/Tier) - 50 %


Extremely Rare (typically for Paragon - Epic) +7 to +10

Restrained - 100 %
Blinded - 100 %
​

Of those stunts the only one that seems sort of out of place to me is Multiple Targets. The p42 chart already has breakdowns designated for that as Limited and Single Target, if I recall correctly the terminology.

 

[Hedonismbot]

Great thread, thanks for posting all of this! I'm hoping to encourage my players to stunt more, I'll point them here for inspiration.

 

[Manbearcat]

I think these kind of calculations get into the "too much" detail kind of nit-noid crunch that is what the p42 table helps the DM completely avoid.

Probably just a mileage may vary thing here. Its a pretty trivial calc to do. Formal training and being a baseball player has conditioned my brain to do trivial permutations basically instantly I don't even spend a second of mental overhead on it. My guess is that stunts at my table are resolved, from proposal to negotiation to resolution, in less than 1 minute. I suspect most GMs (yourself included I'm sure, given you've run multiple Encounters tables simultaneously) are pretty similar in that they can do such calcs without a second thought.

He just asked for my informed opinion on the values of control effects, etc. I've done a fair bit of research on it and I feel pretty comfortable with those numbers as proportions of the damage expressions by level.

I would simply make it something as simple as assigning a level modifier to the stunts and reduce the damage based on that new level on the chart.

More than one way to skin the proverbial p42 cat! This way would do the trick as well. So long as the mental overhead and table handling time is contracted into least time required to resolve, then folks should be good to go!

Of those stunts the only one that seems sort of out of place to me is Multiple Targets. The p42 chart already has breakdowns designated for that as Limited and Single Target, if I recall correctly the terminology.

On this, you're thinking of Limited-Use; eg Encounter Power or one time effect. There is no multi-target. Brutes do about 25 % more damage than other Monster Roles. Close Blast 3 and Burst 1 seems to me to eat up anywhere between 25 % to 50 % of the budget of a damage expression. I like 50 %. Some may like 37.5 %.

Folks need to post more stunts from their home games! Here is another one from my own:

This was a double stunt in pretty difficult aerial combat. Epic Paladin and his flying Silver Dragon Steed (companion character) were chasing down a group of 3 flying demon Minions who were carrying away an important NPC (Minion so care had to be taken). They had several other demons on their tail that they would have to dispatch as well. His Dragon flew up next to them to wing buffet the demons as the Paladin creates a makeshift harness for himself and ties it to the saddle.

Dragon: (Standard Action) Improvised Wing Buffet

- Athletics vs moderate DC
- L + 3 vs Fort

Forced Movement on enemies in CB3. Knocks the flying demons away from the NPC so he is out of their grasp but plummeting.

Paladin: (Standard Action) Improvised Geronimo!

- Athletics vs easy DC
- L + 3 vs Reflex

Grabs the NPC in midair.

- Athletics vs DC 21 (10 for rope + 5 for NPC on his back + 5 for the midair conditions), which was still just less than the Easy DC so no problem, to begin climbing back up into the saddle (move action next turn would complete the effort).

Dragon: (Action Point) Breath weapon to 3 demon mooks' faces. Bad day for them. Rest of the fight was pretty awesome too. They dispatched the demonic horde and got the NPC to safety.

 

[bert1000]

I think these kind of calculations get into the "too much" detail kind of nit-noid crunch that is what the p42 table helps the DM completely avoid. I would simply make it something as simple as assigning a level modifier to the stunts and reduce the damage based on that new level on the chart.

For example let's say that STUN has a Level 6 modifier. That means that you can only perform that stunt starting at level 7 and the damage expression would be the damage for level 1 on the table (7-6=1). .

Great idea for making things easier on the fly. The problem I see is that the p.42 table doesn't have differentiated damage every level but rather in buckets of three levels. Level 1-3 = X damage, Levels 4-6= Y, etc.

You can still do what you are proposing but need to "weight" the effects in multiples of 3 levels to guarantee a reduction.

Alternatively you could also say that some effects scale back damage from High to Medium, Medium to Low, etc.

This might give us more granularity and still be pretty simple.

 

[bert1000]

Hey @bert1000 . I don't have my spreadsheet with me, but from memory, this is pretty much the budget and frequency that is used for p42 control/rider effects in my home game. Round up.

Common

Combat Advantage - 12.5 %
Marked - 12.5 %

Forced Movement 2 - 25 %
Save Ends - 25 %
Slowed - 25 %

Prone - 37.5 %


Rare

Dazed - 50 %
Immobilized - 50 %
Multiple Targets - 50 %
Ongoing (5/Tier) - 50 %


Extremely Rare (typically for Paragon - Epic)

Restrained - 100 %
Blinded - 100 %

Super helpful!! Exactly what I was looking for.

I looked at a few random Bard encounter powers from the PH2 today and was surprised to see that they actually looked like they did damage closer to the High normal damage values rather than Medium.