Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Catch All

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Got together and played this some today. Two encounters with 15th level characters. The session was initially built for 6 characters and we had five, so the DM was making some off-the-cuff adjustments as we played. 15th level characters (of any class) have quite a few powers accumulated, so there was always the time spent searching for the most applicable (less time as the encounter progresses, as the per daily and per encounter ones are used up). A very strong WoW vibe from the experience.

Man our DM will skip you if you take to long on your turn trying to decide what to do. He calls it combat paralysis. You end up going last.

If you're able printing up cards for the different powers would probably speed up the combat.

Brizahd wrote:

Man our DM will skip you if you take to long on your turn trying to decide what to do. He calls it combat paralysis. You end up going last.

If you're able printing up cards for the different powers would probably speed up the combat.

We had printed up cards. Since it was the first time with 4e for everyone playing, not to mention playing 15th level characters, it would have been pretty dickish to skip people.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Brizahd wrote:

Man our DM will skip you if you take to long on your turn trying to decide what to do. He calls it combat paralysis. You end up going last.

If you're able printing up cards for the different powers would probably speed up the combat.

We had printed up cards. Since it was the first time with 4e for everyone playing, not to mention playing 15th level characters, it would have been pretty dickish to skip people. :)

Yeah for people just learning a new system that is true.

I'm looking to pull together the second batch of Fantasy Grounds purchases right now. I'll keep the information I have current on the wiki, but you can use this thread or PMs to let me know where you stand. I really want to jump into one of the games that is currently rolling, but after I get a feel for how to run these on-line, I may very well be up to hosting a game of my own. Fast feedback is appreciated, I want to pull the trigger on this before the end of the week, like Thursday if possible.

I'm a D&D noob total, never played, and all this talk about 4th edition makes me want to take the jump. Unfortunately my other geek friends want to play something called Palladium? How does it compare? Would it be a good primer so to speak before jumping into D&D?

The easier to understand the better..

No connection whatsoever... your friends probably want to play Rifts, a popular Palladium game...

That said, if you have friends to play with and a tabletop to play on, do what they want to do.
Roleplaying games are really about the people you're playing with, not the ruleset.

ps. If you want more info about Rifts, I'm sure there's somebody in the greater Goodger community who can point you to some resources... why don't you start a thread about it?

KingMob wrote:

No connection whatsoever... your friends probably want to play Rifts, a popular Palladium game...

That said, if you have friends to play with and a tabletop to play on, do what they want to do.
Roleplaying games are really about the people you're playing with, not the ruleset.

ps. If you want more info about Rifts, I'm sure there's somebody in the greater Goodger community who can point you to some resources... why don't you start a thread about it?

Yeah it makes sense to stick with what everyone wants to play. We'll be doing it over vent though as we're not local to each other. My brain thought "Well, D&D is a household name, and there's a shiny new edition, so therefore that would be the best starting point!"

It's got magic and mages and what not, guess I should find the full name..

Palladium does publish a Fantasy Setting, but I am not sure how well it is supported (I haven't even cracked a Rifts book since 2001 or so).

Gameraotaku wrote:

Palladium does publish a Fantasy Setting, but I am not sure how well it is supported (I haven't even cracked a Rifts book since 2001 or so).

One of the characters is a "Mind Mage" apparently?

Don't want to totally derail the thread, but I'd like to know how it compares.. mostly fun wise and learning curve..

I'll try not to derail, but from what I remember the Palladium settings were a lot of fun (Rifts is still a favorite) but the system always struck me as very complicated and sometimes a little counter-intuitive. I can't vouch for learning curve vs. 4th Edition, but I certainly found 3.5 D&D easier to pick up than the Palladium system. If somebody could make a game set in the Rifts universe but with a more intuitive system I would snatch it up in a heartbeat.

Karla did a kick ass job running our first session and her first "real" crack at DMing. Trachalio (Xenthir the Wizard), Rob/Gaald (Fighter) and I ran two characters. One is Mok Hannan, a brutish Rogue. The other is Silent, a Dragon Born Paladin who doesn't speak. Here is Karla's recap:

Monday July 14

Our intrepid gang encountered a box with a hand in it - a twitching, mummified hand. A note from "A Friend" drew them to the Inn of the Silver Hand where they met with a man in a mirror who introduced himself as Fjarnin, a mage in the southern disputed territory who wanted their help to reassemble an undead warlock so they could get him to tell them where Xenthir's long lost sister and some rare books of magic lay hidden. The hand helpfully pointed out their first stop on the road - an abandoned mine shaft in the mountains to the west. After some haggling and suspiciously pointed questions, they took the job.

Not three blocks from the inn they were jumped by a group of humans - three fairly typical melee types and a mage who bore a strange slightly magical badge - a warding hand, white on green. What does the badge signify? Why were they attacked? Is Fjarnin telling them all he knows? Are fifty feet of silver chain going to be enough? When is Xenthir going to get around to casting light?

Tune in next time to find out!

We had an excellent time.

Sounds like a lot of fun! Already pasting humans, eh? What's the flavor of the campaign? Some standard fantasy? a setting in particular? Sorry, I'm a big super geek so I'm eager to compare notes with gwj'ers that are getting into 4th edition... I'll put on my taped-glasses again.

Finally got a chance to flip through the PHB, thanks to aetius.

I'll post some thoughts tomorrow.

Sweet. So, Karla's running us at Gencon. Awesome. Tell her I want to play a FMUT.

Tell her I want to play a FMUT.

Ok, I failed my RPG Knowledge check roll... What's a FMUT?

EDIT: Fantastic Miniature Ultimate Tasselhoff? Forgotten Mummified Undead Tiefling?

docbadwrench wrote:

Sounds like a lot of fun! Already pasting humans, eh? What's the flavor of the campaign? Some standard fantasy? a setting in particular? Sorry, I'm a big super geek so I'm eager to compare notes with gwj'ers that are getting into 4th edition... I'll put on my taped-glasses again.

We started at level 3, Karla didn't want to have us wading through small stuff from the get-go. It's a fairly standard RPG fantasy setting, she's loosely basing it on this barbarian women novel she read when she was a kid.

Neat story idea. Go Karla!

Anyone else notice that the Penny Arcade D&D podcasts seem to have ground to a halt?

TheWanderer wrote:

Neat story idea. Go Karla!

Anyone else notice that the Penny Arcade D&D podcasts seem to have ground to a halt?

Have they? I noticed episodes 6 through 8 showed up in the RSS feed at the same time, but only 6 was actually available. Now 7 is as well.

Standard fantasy setting, yeah. As for fighting humans right off the bat, well. I really really didn't want it to be gnolls, goblins, or orcs first time round. Somehow that feels like setting out from Freeport to slaughter rats.

On the technical side, running the combat is dead easy, especially if you use those combat cards. I dislike the non combat encounter rules though. Telling the players what skill checks they'll need? Letting them know what info they need to get out of someone? I think not. I'm doing a sort-of 3.5 approach, where we just talk and as it goes I decide based on the situation what sort of check is needed - DC 10 for easy stuff, DC15 for medium, DC20 for experienced wheedling and intimidation. I can sort of see why they'd want to nail down the conversational stuff like that - giving newbie DMs have concrete building blocks they way they do for combat - but it just seems so limiting to me.

It was a helluva good time. Karla tells a great story AND bakes a mean banana bread too!

Brennil wrote:

On the technical side, running the combat is dead easy, especially if you use those combat cards. I dislike the non combat encounter rules though. Telling the players what skill checks they'll need? Letting them know what info they need to get out of someone? I think not. I'm doing a sort-of 3.5 approach, where we just talk and as it goes I decide based on the situation what sort of check is needed - DC 10 for easy stuff, DC15 for medium, DC20 for experienced wheedling and intimidation. I can sort of see why they'd want to nail down the conversational stuff like that - giving newbie DMs have concrete building blocks they way they do for combat - but it just seems so limiting to me.

I agree wholeheartedly. Usually the non-combat rpg should only require rolls when a character is doing something that is a blatant skill check. And even then, I usually let em get some bonus for clever ideas relating to it (Like questioning the fat guard who hasnt gone on lunch while slowly munching on a steaming hot leg of lamb would definately get you a bonus to your diplomacy roles if you were trying to convince him to look the other way when your "friends" came over the wall)

I think the DMG is really a primer for new GM's in general. I havent seen to much that an experience game runner would really need or want to do as of yet.

How do you all feel about the static defenses for Reflex, Fortitude, and Will, considering theres no real way to pad them as a character goes up in level?

Benticore
Out

My read on the whole non combat encounter stuff is as a crutch for the actual role-playing part. It's a bit hard for me to imagine using in principle, although, there's a somewhat similar system in Dogs in the Vineyard I'm intrigued by, so who knows.

FMUT = Fighter Magic-User Thief. AD&D Munchkinland.

I second the idea of people letting us know how their campaigns are going. Fantasy voyeurs want to know!

Certis wrote:

It's a fairly standard RPG fantasy setting, she's loosely basing it on this barbarian women novel she read when she was a kid.

Will there be snoo snoo?

Is anyone running a game in a Euro-friendly timezone? I'm a keen player already (running in one IRL game and DM'ing another!) but I'm very keen to mess around with this fantasy grounds stuff and see what it can do!

stupidhaiku wrote:

I second the idea of people letting us know how their campaigns are going. Fantasy voyeurs want to know!

Certis wrote:

It's a fairly standard RPG fantasy setting, she's loosely basing it on this barbarian women novel she read when she was a kid.

Will there be snoo snoo?

It was actually a pirate woman, singular.

No snoo snoo, unless I'm feeling particularly mean. "The goblin queen eyes you appraisingly, heat sparking in her eyes..."

I was sort of thinking about blogging the campaign, if there's interest in it. More details write ups, how the rules are working out, etc.

Brennil wrote:

I was sort of thinking about blogging the campaign, if there's interest in it. More details write ups, how the rules are working out, etc.

I give this idea a hearty heck yeah but only if you have the time and energy.

Brennil wrote:

I was sort of thinking about blogging the campaign, if there's interest in it. More details write ups, how the rules are working out, etc.

Please do!

Benticore wrote:
Brennil wrote:

On the technical side, running the combat is dead easy, especially if you use those combat cards. I dislike the non combat encounter rules though. Telling the players what skill checks they'll need? Letting them know what info they need to get out of someone? I think not. I'm doing a sort-of 3.5 approach, where we just talk and as it goes I decide based on the situation what sort of check is needed - DC 10 for easy stuff, DC15 for medium, DC20 for experienced wheedling and intimidation. I can sort of see why they'd want to nail down the conversational stuff like that - giving newbie DMs have concrete building blocks they way they do for combat - but it just seems so limiting to me.

I agree wholeheartedly. Usually the non-combat rpg should only require rolls when a character is doing something that is a blatant skill check. And even then, I usually let em get some bonus for clever ideas relating to it (Like questioning the fat guard who hasnt gone on lunch while slowly munching on a steaming hot leg of lamb would definately get you a bonus to your diplomacy roles if you were trying to convince him to look the other way when your "friends" came over the wall)

Benticore, were you there for Witchlight Game I's conversation with the ghost - I ran that like a skill challenge but didn't expressly tell the players they were in a skill challenge, just kept track of what they did well at and what they did poorly at...

For example, they needed to figure out a number of things about the ghost before they could decide what to tell him in order to get him to let them past - at first they were doing Insight and History checks, later on Diplomacy was more important - but I kept track of the number of successes behind the scenes as I ran the conversation.
If you were there, what could have gone better or worse in your opinion?

Also, I know you were there last night for the puzzle / trap combination - by combining a puzzle skill challenge with a nasty trap, I was able to make the 600xp I wanted for the challenge without drawing it out too long. But again, I didn't officially announce it was a skill challenge, just asked players what they wanted to do and suggested they tell me what skill they were using as they went along...
Feel free to tell me what worked or didn't work about these examples, we're all learning here.

Benticore wrote:

How do you all feel about the static defenses for Reflex, Fortitude, and Will, considering theres no real way to pad them as a character goes up in level?

They automatically go up - you add 1/2 character level to your defenses. Also of course there are cloaks and amulets to add to your ref, fort, and will defenses.... and your stats go up faster than in the old game... I would say overall your defenses go up much faster than saving throws used to.

Ok, I'll be blogging our progress here: http://brennildandd.livejournal.com/ We're playing Monday nights, so look for each new post on Wednesday. Next week there won't be one, since I'll be away on Monday, but it should be weekly after that, barring complications.

Woah, people still use Livejournal?! Amazing. I look forward to reading about my exploits as I fail diplomacy checks in my continued efforts to be our "spokesman" in tricky situations.

"I want to do a diplomacy check, see if I can get this guy to like me enough to spill the beans"

*rolls dice*

... 7

RESULT: "Hey jerk, I slept with your mom last night and she said I was better than you ever were. So where are the diamonds?"