D&D 4E Who's still playing 4E

[pemerton]

I just finished a 1-10 viking-themed game

Can you elaborate on how you made it viking?

 

[fjw70]

It's not a bad move, especially if you want to keep things relatively "light." Though, if one of your sons wishes to play a Paladin, you might want to consider giving him Divine Power to work with. Paladins had some poor design elements that weren't really corrected until Divine Power came along. It's not enough to ruin the game or anything, but it does mean a Paladin can feel like an ineffective Defender early on.

I will consider that.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Can you elaborate on how you made it viking?

They performed a reverse Spanish "b/v assimilation" on a game about biking.

 

[The Fighter-Cricket]

That was a rather silly linguistics joke. But I chuckled nonetheless.

 

[Myrhdraak]

I'd never used combat maps/grids until I started GMing 4e. My approach is to draw things up in advance if I know what I want to use (medium: pen and pencil on paper), or to draw it up on the spot if its spontaneous. The latter tend to be a bit more simple, but even a little bit of terrain (or something tricky like a flying solo with ranged 20 attacks) can go a long way.

As far as "minis" are concerned, we use coloured board game tokens. The attached picture gives some idea of the aesthetics of it.

Well, thats how we used to do it at my table as well. These days, with kids and people having moved to different cities we are just meeting at the table twice a year and run the other sessions maybe once a month using MapTools. It requires some more DM prep time but the result is really good, especially with individual views and shadows being handled by the SW. The map below I did in photoshop for the Reign of Winter (Pathfinder) adventure path (using 4.5 Edition rules to it).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, thats how we used to do it at my table as well. These days, with kids and people having moved to different cities we are just meeting at the table twice a year and run the other sessions maybe once a month using MapTools. It requires some more DM prep time but the result is really good, especially with individual views and shadows being handled by the SW. The map below I did in photoshop for the Reign of Winter (Pathfinder) adventure path (using 4.5 Edition rules to it).

View attachment 76017

Yeah, we used MapTool for our first campaign, way back starting in 2008. That one went on for a LONG time. Pretty much what I found out was that MapTool makes things slow (that is playing online is slow in general). My face-to-face games took probably 1/3 the prep time and moved at easily twice the pace. It was nice in a way though, very leisurely play experience, and you can do some quite nice graphics. The lighting and FoW system in MapTool are pretty amazing. I hear the new MapTool fork has some pretty nice features too, though I've only just D/Led a copy one time and loaded up one of my old campaign files. It seemed to WORK at least. I understand macros are pretty much revamped though, thank the heavens.

 

[D'karr]

The map below I did in photoshop for the Reign of Winter (Pathfinder) adventure path (using 4.5 Edition rules to it).

That is a beautiful map did you do that entirely or take an existing map and modified it. Because if you made the map, kudos!

 

[Myrhdraak]

What did you do to import the flatter math? I've already ditched the item treadmill via the Inherent Bonus system adapted from Darksun, but I'm curious about broadening the range of creatures available and making the math simpler. I've often tinkered with the idea of making damage be the main scaling factor instead of accuracy. I'd be willing to give it a go, assuming little work is required.

As for the flaws and bonds, etc, that's quite simple. Or, Icons from 13A.

The bounded accuracy changes I made was the following:
1. Bonuses for PCs goes up +1/4 levels, rather than +1/2 levels, this applies to attack, defenses and skills
2. Magic item bonuses are converted from +1 to +6, into +1 to +3 (i might still give out higher bonuses like +4 or +5, but then it will actually be a bonus to your average hit chance)
3. No attack feat bonuses
4. With these changes the system actually gets well banlanced with a monster progression of +1/2 levels, rather than +1/1 level.
5. PCs and Monsters get the same HP at 1st level in 4th Edition but progression is only 75% of 4th Edition HP per level after first. Brutes get +8 HP/level rather than +10 HP/level as an example.

Observation from play is that you can bring in monster of much wider range of level than before, so far I have used Party Level +6 or -6 and it works fine. Another intresting aspect is that you can get quite powerful results from rituals even at lower levels, if you roll really good on the die. I was first concerned with it, but the players loved it and added "magic" back in the die rolling.

/Myrhdraak

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Can you elaborate on how you made it viking?

I can try, but I'll stick it in a spoiler tag to keep it from cluttering up the thread.

[sblock]In the game world that I co-DM with my wife, there is a human culture that draws cues from vikings; they live predominantly in cold, northern climes, build fast, agile and fairly seaworthy ships, and have a warrior culture. It's basically completely ripped off from real world Scandinavian vikings, though the geography doesn't work the same, so their history is a bit different.

In their history, a king had twin sons. One was promised rulership of the mainland, and the other, a volcanic island off the coast. They were blown off course, never arriving on the island. They were thought lost, but in fact formed a colony on distant shores of another continent, where life was hard. They are a hardy people though, and despite the fact that their boats were dashed on the shores, they persevered and the colony prospered, to a point.

Fast-forward a bunch, and a prophesy on the mainland (ironically brought from a seer from the second continent) foretold of the reuniting of the lost colony. A voyage was sent to find them. There was also something about bringing proof in the form of the Crown of the Lost King. A new campaign idea formed, so I launched a game set in the colony.

I was inspired in part by the green AD&D Vikings Campaign Sourcebook; I've always wanted to run a viking-like game. I also drew inspiration from Tolkien's Rohirrim (as envisaged in the recent movies), The 13th Warrior film, Tim Severin's Viking series of quasi-historical fiction, Poul Anderson's War of the Gods, and the viking folk-metal band Ensiferum.

I wanted low-magic, and a dash more grit, but still heroics. I asked the players for input and feedback, and asked that they stick with the theme when making characters. I should also point out that while no mechanical choices are banned, many are reskinned to suit the world's established themes, and anything is up for reflavouring as desired. Each PC had a simple rune reading prior to play, and the runes drawn would show them their Strength, their Skill, and their Wyrd. Strength granted a stat bonus, Skill granted additional skill training, and their Wyrd was deliberately nebulous, but a collaboration between me and the player. Characters would not have assumed literacy, but were free to buy it with a language choice. I used Inherent Bonuses, and Alternative Rewards based on the DarkSun content (with a few tweaks), though there were still some magic items.

I was not disappointed. I got an interesting bunch of characters with interesting hooks.
Hjotvar, a human male Sentinel Druid of Winter, who was an axe-wielding fellow with a raven companion (we had to make the seasonal benefits custom) who drew Reido for the Wyrd (granted Terrain Walk on ice and snow with Mark of Handling);

Kara, a human female Paladin of the Moon Goddess (kitted up like a Valkyrie) who drew Eiwhyr (profound change and death - interesting);

Heidarr,a human male Warden bearing an indestructible ancestral halberd dating back to the original crew that accompanied the Lost King, he drew Oetla for Birthright and Possessions;

Gretchen Thalmasdottir, a hunter ranger and 2nd cousin of the current king, who drew Nyd (constraint) and had a foul temper. She made a pact with the lesser of the world's two evil gods. Letha, goddess of Vengeance, granted her a boon, of sorts; any enemy striking her would mark her, but enemies marking her were considered her quarry, and as such she gained bonus damage as a normal ranger. Letha, I will point out, is one of two gods well-known for meddling in mortal affairs, the other being goddess of luck, who would also play a role. More on that later;

Herger, a male Firbolg (refluffed Dragonborn) storm sorcerer. He drew the Perth rune (initiation), and was trained in ritual magic, and could use Cantrips as a mage. He was not trusted by several PCs, notably the druid and warden, but proved a stalwart ally;

Arodis, a human male barbarian. He drew Ing (inner strength), and had a divine gift of luck, granting an ability much like Heroic Effort, but more broadly usable.

Kara was killed by bandits two sessions in (interesting that Death was her Wyrd), and was replaced a short time later by Kjar, a male human adolescent with a secret. He turned out to be a hamfarir, or shapechanger. He could assume the forms of creatures he killed and performed a ritual on afterward. He favoured the form of a white dragon wyrmling that the group slayed at the end of 1st level.

He eventually left the campaign to complete a pivotal goal while the rest of the party moved on toward their fate, at which point he brought back his old character as an actual Valkyrie. She was sent back by the gods to guide them to their fate as Einherjar. I don't normally railroad anything, but this was something I really wanted to explore with this group.

They were later joined by Draugorin, a grendel-like male Trollborn (refluffed half-orc) Fighter|Ranger hybrid, that fought with only his bare fists (Master of the Fist monk multiclass).

The campaign ran for over two years (though not constantly), and I can go into more detail if you like.[/sblock]

They performed a reverse Spanish "b/v assimilation" on a game about biking.

Amusingly, one of my players is a great big redhead with a beard. He'd spent some time in Costa Rica where they nicknamed him "el bikingo" haha.

 

[Myrhdraak]

That is a beautiful map did you do that entirely or take an existing map and modified it. Because if you made the map, kudos!

The snow is actually a mountain range in northern Sweden captures in Google Earth, then I photoshop the trees and stuff from MapTools image library.

/Myrhdraak