D&D 4E Wandering Star: Jonathon Tweet's 4E Campaing (He Wants Your Help)

[GoodKingJayIII]

Rolling damage is a sacred cow I'm not quite ready to sacrifice.

However, were I given the opportunity, it would not stop me from playing in Mr. Tweet's freaking awesome game.

 

[OgreBane99]

+2 frost acidic burst shortsword. And I skirmished. And bard song.

learntoadd


Seriously though, I have a player in my group that can add dice, and we're talking multitudes of dice, in mere seconds. No joke. And he's always right. I guess I'm just spoiled. I roll the dice, and look at him.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

I don't DM often, but I've always used the Kill Shot just to try to prevent ages-long combats from devolving into half-grumpy "I attack. 8 damage." I enjoy it, but I think it's convinced my group that I just want to hear the goriest possible way for a scenario to play out.

 

[Wormwood]

Monsters deal average damage (no dice rolls).

Been doing that ever since my first game of Buffy.

As a DM, I *hate* rolling dice. I hope 4e makes it easier to eliminate as many rolls as possible.

 

[OgreBane99]

As a DM, I *hate* rolling dice. I hope 4e makes it easier to eliminate as many rolls as possible.

You don't think it will make 4e seem too much like DDM?

 

[BluSponge]

Not really sure why anyone is batting an eye at the average damage house rule. It's pretty clear it is exactly that: a house rule. No danger of it showing up in the books as anything but a red-headed stepchild of a sidebar in the DMG if that. Personally, I kinda dig the idea, but I doubt it would speed up the tedious exercise known as 3.5 combat enough to be worthwhile.

I am far more interested in the concept behind Tweet's campaign, so I sought out some details on Nine Worlds:

The Chimera Creative website

The Chimera message boards on the Forge

I'm going to have to pick this up in the near future. I'm actually disappointed that I didn't discover it earlier before I started working on my Roman fantasy SW setting for my library game. At this point, I'm kinda curious as to how Tweet's campaign diverges from the presentation in the main book, aside from using 4e as the rules base. Regardless, it sounds like a fantastic concept -- one I'm eager to get a better look at.

Tom

 

[RigaMortus2]

Seconded.

And the Kill Shot? I actually use that in other games I run, yet it never occured to me to import it into D&D.

I had to take a look and read what was meant by Kill Shot, and I have to say... I don't get it. Is there any mechanical benefit for this? The reason I ask, and the reason I "don't get it" is because, I thought everyone played this way?

I've always played where, when the PC kills something, we give them the option of narrating what happens or how it looks. So this being something "new" seems strange to me. But it doesn't necessarily stop at killing blows. When the PC Wizard casts their first magic missile, the DM often asks what it might look like (just balls of light? flaming skulls? glowing blue arrows? mystical runes?).

 

[Wormwood]

You don't think it will make 4e seem too much like DDM?

I don't roll damage when I run D&D, Unisystem or Call of Cthulhu---so I'm not too worried.

 

[brislove]

I don't roll damage for minion type monsters in 3e (as a DM). I offered the option of taking average to my players in my high level campaign as well, for speed of play.

I found that when they were in the big fights they liked to roll there damage because it felt more cinematic, but when they were killing random ice devils they just took average because there were a bunch of them and it went faster.

Both my players and I liked to roll all the dice on important fights. I roll for damage when I have boss types.

The other thing to note is that there is a big difference between taking average on a d4 and average on a d12. on a d4 you lose a potential 1.5 damage. on a d12 you lose a potential 5.5 damage. I don't like averaging damage until the bonus damage you are doing on the attack significantly outweighs the dice rolled.

at the higher levels in 3e you should be able to get at least +8 str mod, and a +5 sword. You should also be using it 2-handed. So thats +17 damage on a 2d6 weapon before any power attack is added in, if we just count the +5 sword as leverage its +27 damage, what major difference do the die rolls make?

I agree that taking averages all the time makes it feel "less" like D&D, but I also don't feel like the higher levels of play in 3e feel like D&D they feel like a math problem that results in one or many models falling over. Any "fun" gained by rolling dice is completely snuffed out by counting them, when you are adding up 15-20 dice.

 

[TerraDave]

I had to take a look and read what was meant by Kill Shot, and I have to say... I don't get it. Is there any mechanical benefit for this? The reason I ask, and the reason I "don't get it" is because, I thought everyone played this way?

I've always played where, when the PC kills something, we give them the option of narrating what happens or how it looks. So this being something "new" seems strange to me. But it doesn't necessarily stop at killing blows. When the PC Wizard casts their first magic missile, the DM often asks what it might look like (just balls of light? flaming skulls? glowing blue arrows? mystical runes?).

It may seem strange, but there is a tradition where the DM narrates everything that is narrated. Which may not be much. And I am not saying that is a good thing.