blargney the second
blargney the minute's son
Yes, you can action point while dazed. It's explicit on p277.
-blarg
-blarg
D&D 4E Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)
- Thread starter Sagiro
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the Jester
Legend
I see nothing related to action points there, and have always been under the impression you couldn't spend them while dazed. Can you clarify please?
blargney the second
blargney the minute's son
Dazed p277: "(you can also take free actions)"
Action points p286: "Spend an action point: free action"
(edit - so perhaps not explicit, but certainly true.
)
Action points p286: "Spend an action point: free action"
(edit - so perhaps not explicit, but certainly true.
)
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
A fine game last night, most of which was taken up by a great big battle, the heroes against 27 myconids: one myconid sovereign, three myconid guards, three myconid rot-priests, and twenty myconid minions (effectively a 3rd lvl twig-blight with a slower movement and the roots of the colony power.) What I learned was that giving minions access to roots of the colony is potentially a bad design choice because it creates weirdness that screws the PCs. For reference, copied from the rotpriest stat block:
Roots of the Colony (free, when the myconid rotpriest is hit by an attack while a myconid ally is within 5 squares of it, at-will)
The rotpriest takes half damage from the attack, and the myconid ally takes the same amount of damage.
Include myconid minions, and what do you get? A PC smites the rotpriest for 20 points of damage... and the rotpriest takes 10, while a nearby myconid minion also takes 10 and dies. 9 points of damage is effectively wasted. It's as if all the myconids are incorporeal (taking half damage) as long as there's a minion within 5 spaces. That made for a challenging fight, which is what I wanted, but I became concerned about grind for the first time since starting the campaign.
To be fair, I had the minions using the power as well - they aren't very smart - usually popping two minions instead of one.
The fight (with six PCs and 27 foes) took 2 hours (7:30 - 9:30), with lots of PCs bloodied but no one dropping. I need to try harder. The minions barely hit except for one really successful round; the guards and (particularly) the rotpriests were highly effective. Three clustered rotpriests, all using decomposing spray all at once, is a thing of beauty. I liked that I got to target Fortitude for a change.
For the battlefield I assembled a large cavern out of foam-backed dungeon tiles that Wulf Ratbane has given me. They worked really well in my opinion; I liked the feel and the look of the battleground. Note that I specifically didn't make the cave floor difficult terrain in order to give the players a change of pace from fighting in swamps, and I stressed damaging attacks over disabling attacks on the part of the monsters.
One of the things I like about 4e is that I can have a battle that's 6 vs 27. I think I have an illicit love affair with minions.
Interesting note about the treasure: because this is/was the secret refuge of some sort of angel made flesh, the PCs were very reluctant to claim any treasure. I hadn't quite anticipated that.
Roots of the Colony (free, when the myconid rotpriest is hit by an attack while a myconid ally is within 5 squares of it, at-will)
The rotpriest takes half damage from the attack, and the myconid ally takes the same amount of damage.
Include myconid minions, and what do you get? A PC smites the rotpriest for 20 points of damage... and the rotpriest takes 10, while a nearby myconid minion also takes 10 and dies. 9 points of damage is effectively wasted. It's as if all the myconids are incorporeal (taking half damage) as long as there's a minion within 5 spaces. That made for a challenging fight, which is what I wanted, but I became concerned about grind for the first time since starting the campaign.
To be fair, I had the minions using the power as well - they aren't very smart - usually popping two minions instead of one.
The fight (with six PCs and 27 foes) took 2 hours (7:30 - 9:30), with lots of PCs bloodied but no one dropping. I need to try harder. The minions barely hit except for one really successful round; the guards and (particularly) the rotpriests were highly effective. Three clustered rotpriests, all using decomposing spray all at once, is a thing of beauty. I liked that I got to target Fortitude for a change.
For the battlefield I assembled a large cavern out of foam-backed dungeon tiles that Wulf Ratbane has given me. They worked really well in my opinion; I liked the feel and the look of the battleground. Note that I specifically didn't make the cave floor difficult terrain in order to give the players a change of pace from fighting in swamps, and I stressed damaging attacks over disabling attacks on the part of the monsters.
One of the things I like about 4e is that I can have a battle that's 6 vs 27. I think I have an illicit love affair with minions.
Interesting note about the treasure: because this is/was the secret refuge of some sort of angel made flesh, the PCs were very reluctant to claim any treasure. I hadn't quite anticipated that.
Last edited:
Blackjack
First Post
Oh. Really? I thought the dilemma was deliberate!
Yeah, I think we're all perfectly fine taking l00tz0r from the bad guys, but stealing from the heavenly protector who's on your side seemed unwise...
Pseudopsyche
First Post
Did the PCs adjust and focus on eradicating the minions first? Or did all the strikers power through the rotpriests' pseudo-insubstantial protection?
I don't think the insubstantial trait is intrinsically bad, but I think it's much more fun when there's a way to disable it (as there was in this case)!
Blackjack
First Post
Some of both, depending on what foes were near-enough targets. Burst effects, for instance, were usually placed to hit both the big guys and a bunch of minions at the same time. Individual strikes were typically aimed at the big guys.
Joshua Randall
Legend
Two words: Aid Another.
Someone recommended this to me, and it's been doing wonders for putting The Fear (tm) back into players when minions hit the board.
Note that the attack they are Aiding doesn't have to be a minion's attack....
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
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