D&D 4E Rambling thoughts about D&D 4th Edition

[Mannahnin]

I think it was “Knights of Last Call” that pointed out a half-elf fighter can use the dilettante feature to pick “scorching burst”, toss that out in a battle against some clumped enemies, and mark all of them.

Basically, giving allies a +2 bonus to all defenses against attacks from those enemies.

IIRC my first 4e character used that trick.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

My goal for a campaign is to create a world based off the old computer game Majesty, where the player takes the role of a fantasy king who hires adventurers to solve quests and bring in taxes, which can be used to improve the town (adding shops and guilds and defensive structures).

Interesting. Maybe you could throw in a little XCOM2-style pressure? The kingdom is preparing for an orc invasion and can only make so many improvements unless they can buy more time, find more resources or help, or upgrade their institutions to unlock better options and upgrades.

Glad to see I'm not the only one still keeping 4e campaigns around!

 

[cavalier973]

Interesting. Maybe you could throw in a little XCOM2-style pressure? The kingdom is preparing for an orc invasion and can only make so many improvements unless they can buy more time, find more resources or help, or upgrade their institutions to unlock better options and upgrades.

Glad to see I'm not the only one still keeping 4e campaigns around!

What an excellent idea!

I was noodling with having the capital and surrounding farms being protected by a magic spell, but failure to crown a legitimate heir to the throne by a certain date means the spell dissipates. Adding your idea, the spell being broken invites invaders to attack.

 

[Joshua Randall]

XCOM and XCOM2's tactical combat basically are 4e tactical combat. (With the nuance that most XCOM characters want to stay at range rather than magnetize base-to-base like most 4e characters.) So those games go together like chocolate and peanut butter!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think it was “Knights of Last Call” that pointed out a half-elf fighter can use the dilettante feature to pick “scorching burst”, toss that out in a battle against some clumped enemies, and mark all of them.

Basically, giving allies a +2 bonus to all defenses against attacks from those enemies.

I always kinda wanted to play a Fighter/Wizard for that, but the ability management makes it hard. But area (or close) bursts are really neat for fighters if they can get them. (Though one shouldn't overrate it - enemies will gravitate towards targeting you, so enemies don't really need to eat the +2 to defense. Of course, defenders like fighter are kinda designed to do that and handle that, but you also need to learn to spread the damage among the team a bit to manage your healing surges. Just make sure it's spread particularly ineffectively for the enemy, everyone takes a bit of damage, but no one ever goes down.)
I think it's also a neat example of how Controller and Defender share some aspects in how they try to manipulate the flow of combat to the party's benefit. The Defender is specific in it that he is there to attract attention and take it, while the Controller is more generally mucking up the enemy's game plan. .

 

[b_took]

It’s hard but not impossible to build an ineffective character in 4e. But basically any sensible ability score allocation will work:

16 +2 racial
18 raw
18 +2 racial if you want to tryhard
Even 14 +2 racial is do-able

If one is to assume that they intended the standard array (16,14,13,12,11,10) to be functional, and that they wanted any race to be able to be any class, then it's reasonable to assume the game's math works so long as there isn't anything lower than a final result of 16 in the primary attack stat(s) at 1st level. I was a little too obsessed with 18s when I first started playing 4e, I think.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Yup, it works. And another thing that makes 4e work even with lower ability scores is that it’s a team game. Someone will be there to flank with you, or debuff the target with a CA-granting condition, or give you a one-round bonus to attacks.

 

[cavalier973]

The un-nerfed core cleric with a 20 in STR could give a +5 attack bonus to an ally.

Nerfed clerics gave a flat +3 bonus, which is significant.

 

[Nightfly]

4e runs like a dream on Foundry. It's smooth as silk. Seeing it be so perfect on a modern VTT is a little bittersweet. 4e was meant to be run that way from the beginning, but by the time technology caught up to that vision, the edition was already kaput. What a shame.

 

[pemerton]

I think it's also a neat example of how Controller and Defender share some aspects in how they try to manipulate the flow of combat to the party's benefit. The Defender is specific in it that he is there to attract attention and take it, while the Controller is more generally mucking up the enemy's game plan. .

For this reason, I tend to think of the Defender as a special case of the Controller. When there used to be threads calling for martial controllers, my first though was always it's called the Fighter.