Chrono Trigger 4e

[arcane_asp]

Good afternoon Playground :smallsmile:

A few friends and I are working on an RPG project set in the Chrono Trigger Universe, and have a good party of six characters enthused and ready to play. They are new to 4e though, and I'm the only one with any experience with it at present. (a couple of us have just finished dabbling with Chrono Trigger:Crimson Echoes which has revived that nostalgia impulse)

Just wondered how you would approach making the Chrono Trigger crew as PC's? Since its CT universe, things can be refluffed and elemental damages

I am thinking along the lines of -

Chrono - Fighter/Sorcerer Hybrid
Marle - Rogue/sorcerer Hybrid
Lucca - Artificer

Some cases are clear cut (Magus = Sorcerer for example) but some guys are going to have to be hybrids which I normally like to avoid. What do you think? Anyone got any ideas or even attempted this before (either as an exercise or for a real CT rpg?)

[NecroRebel]

Let's see...

Crono: A relatively hard one to make mechanically viable. Nonmagical swordsmanship skills combined with the later powerful lightning magic is a hard combination to fit in. I'm actually thinking Avenger, since one of his best stats is his speed. Take mostly weapon attacks early on and later pick up more implement attacks and you match both his abilities and his development.

Marle: She's got to be a leader I think. Bard, perhaps? She's got all that healing magic, and even her non-magic techs are healing or apparently mystical, so Arcane Leader is the obvious choice, and Artificer doesn't fit. That there's a bow-using Bard type is just icing on the cake.

Lucca: Wizard. Lots of fire magic, high Int, is there any question? She's got no healing abilities, so Artificer doesn't really fit, and her ability with machines would probably be justified with rituals in either case, so Wizard it is.

Frog: I'd go with Warlord for him. Skilled swordsman, some healing abilities, knightly. His magic has always seemed weak to me - I hardly ever used his water spells, so I'm fine with just dropping them.

Robo: Another tough one. Maybe Warden, but I'm not really sure.

Ayla: Gotta be a Barbarian. Her upbringing and personality don't fit Monk. I don't recall if there's a way to pick up the Monk's unarmed strike with multiclassing, but if not, just use a weapon and refluff it as her bare hands. Otherwise, fast and somewhat tanky.

Magus: Sorcerer or Wizard seems the best fit. Not much to say here.



So, if Robo's a Warden, you'd have 1 defender, 2-3 strikers, 2 leaders, and 1-2 controllers. A pretty good 7-man-party mix.

[Zaydos]

Marle needs to be primarily or entirely a Leader (she's the games primary healer, has the worst attack abilities in the game, but Haste gives her the best buff). I'd actually put her as a Cleric.

Robo would be a defender of some sort, but my familiarity with 4e is limited.

Ayla would probably be a Fighter as purely martial.

Glenn: Would need at least a bit of leader in him, to get his in combat heals as he tends to be the game's second best healer in my experience (Marle > Glenn > Robo > Ayla although each has their advantages over the others). Thematically I'd say Paladin fits, though could also see some sort of Warlor with something refluffed as Water attacks/damage.

[VeliciaL]

Ayla: Gotta be a Barbarian. Her upbringing and personality don't fit Monk. I don't recall if there's a way to pick up the Monk's unarmed strike with multiclassing, but if not, just use a weapon and refluff it as her bare hands. Otherwise, fast and somewhat tanky.

I don't recall the name off the top of my head, but in one of the Dragon mags there's a monk multiclass feat that gives you their unarmed weapon class feature. Just refluffing a weapon might be the stronger option mechanically though, since it doesn't waste a feat slot.

EDIT: I'd be inclined to make Robo a straight Warforged Fighter, with the integrated components rules used to make stuff like fist throwing - his fists are integrated throwing hammers.

[vasharanpaladin]

Chrono: Swordmage. Uses swords (duh), comes with magic attacks (that you don't have to maintain a second item for!), and initiative's a non-issue, what with the existence of Improved Initiative, or you could hike Wis and take Battlewise/Wandering Swordmage.

Marle: Bard or cleric, possibly both. The former has the Prescient build in Arcane Power, the latter can filch Warpriest powers from the Corellon domain presented in Neverwinter Campaign Guide to attack with the crossbow.

Luca: Wizard (mage), pyromancer. Light 'em up, watch 'em burn.

Frog: Gonna take the odd one out and suggest Warlord|Paladin here. Frog and Chrono both like to protect their friends, and Frog has healing magic available; so do both of the suggested classes. If you want his attack magic, note that water and air are considered to be heavenly elements; you can just refluff any radiant attacks to have water involvement. Unfortunately, a froglike race will require homebrew and/or significant refluffing.

Robo: Warforged... fighter. Yes, he's got some magic, but it's all pretty pointless compared to the others. I suggest going brawler unless whoever's running the game is willing to let him have a battlefist (Self-Forged PP, normally locked out of warforged), and if that's the case he can be whatever you want (still recommend fighter, tho). Elemental attacks are best represented by weapon enchantments, or McWarlock for Avernian Knight.

Ayla: Whirling Barbarian or Two-Blade Ranger, McMonk via Master of the Fist to get MUS and a ki focus to maintain it with. Done.

Magus: Warlock. Not sorcerer. You want to damage/cripple enemies with Arcane magic, you go to warlock. Grab eldritch strike for a melee attack and pick up a scythe (or pick up a staff and refluff appropriately if you go the hexblade route). If you have Warlock's Curse, Sorcerer-King Pact brings the extra damage via Mindbite Scorn, and the Infernal Pact holds most of your raw power spells. If you go hexblade, try the Elemental Pact if you want to hotswap damage types, or Star Pact for crowd control, but you're going to MC into Assassin (executioner) for your power hitting instead.

[arcane_asp]

Good responses, thanks to all.

It may be a bit of challenge, but I would love to give the players power cards with the names of the actual attacks from the game (Cyclone, Spincut, Lightning 1/2 etc). I will use the custom power card template and copy over the crunch text from the rulebooks. Here's what I'm thinking now after reading all the replies:

Crono - I initially thought Swordmage, but he is lacking some ranged electric attacks. Something can be refluffed to cover this I think, as suggested above. No entirely sure how to the 'Life' power for him though :smallfrown:

Marle - I hadn't even thought of Bard, but it fits her perfectly. Not sure if its worth spending a feat to get her a crossbow or not, but the healing & elemental magics are there for her already

Lucca - Elemental wizard, nice and straightforward. Will refluff a repeater crossbow into some kind of gun type thing for her

Frog - Pally all the way, don't know why I didn't think of it first. Totally fits the theme, and divine/radiant attacks can just become water magics

Ayla - This one has been difficult, a real brawler type, cloth/no armour. Fighter with a good dex based defence seems to fit, as already suggested

Robo - Im thinking this may end up similar to Ayla in a way, fighter brawler but this time with armour. (of course he's a warforged, my brain must have been powered down to miss that!) Would be good if there's a way to simulate some of the attacks from the game like laser spin or electro-volt (I think that's what its called)

Magus - A sorcerer seems the obvious one, but he is fair-to-good melee guy too, so assassin would give him the melee edge as well as a shadow power source. MC assassin/sorcerer possibly?

[GPuzzle]

>swordmage
>lacking ranged eletric attacks

Isn't that like an At-Will in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide?

Lightning Lure.

[vasharanpaladin]

Crono - I initially thought Swordmage, but he is lacking some ranged electric attacks. Something can be refluffed to cover this I think, as suggested above. No entirely sure how to the 'Life' power for him though :smallfrown:

The word you're looking for is "retexture." To "refluff" is to change the appearance of something without changing anything mechanical about it. Changing keywords changes mechanics. Also, a lightning weapon will change any attack used through it to lightning damage, with the appropriate keyword.



Ayla - This one has been difficult, a real brawler type, cloth/no armour. Fighter with a good dex based defence seems to fit, as already suggested

Ayla is about Massive Damage delivered straight to enemy faces. You want Ranger, not fighter, and take Master of the Fist (MC Monk) to get the monk's unarmed strike. Logic-based houseruling leads to "yes, you can MUS with each hand." :smallamused:

[/QUOTE]
Magus - A sorcerer seems the obvious one, but he is fair-to-good melee guy too, so assassin would give him the melee edge as well as a shadow power source. MC assassin/sorcerer possibly?[/QUOTE]

Wrong! Magus is another Massive Damage type, which sorcerer won't help you with, full stop. You want Massive Damage from an Arcane character, you go to Warlock or Wizard. For your purposes, Warlock would be best; take Sorcerer-King Pact at some point to get access to Mindbite Scorn, pick up your scythe and eldritch strike away. Infernal Pact offers the most raw damage directly from powers, Elemental Pact gives the widest variety of damage types, Star Pact has more area bursts. Twofold Pact into Dark Pact to take Dark Reckoner for yet more Curse damage. Don't MC assassin unless you take the Hexblade route though, and then you go through Executioner to make up for the lack of Curse damage (you'll also take a staff implement and channel your Pact Weapon through it to form your scythe in this event). :smallbiggrin:

[VeliciaL]

Wrong! Magus is another Massive Damage type, which sorcerer won't help you with, full stop. You want Massive Damage from an Arcane character, you go to Warlock or Wizard. For your purposes, Warlock would be best; take Sorcerer-King Pact at some point to get access to Mindbite Scorn, pick up your scythe and eldritch strike away. Infernal Pact offers the most raw damage directly from powers, Elemental Pact gives the widest variety of damage types, Star Pact has more area bursts. Twofold Pact into Dark Pact to take Dark Reckoner for yet more Curse damage. Don't MC assassin unless you take the Hexblade route though, and then you go through Executioner to make up for the lack of Curse damage (you'll also take a staff implement and channel your Pact Weapon through it to form your scythe in this event). :smallbiggrin:

I like Warlock for Magus; it's a ranged class that fares well in melee. Damage with a side of control really fits too I think.


Robo - Im thinking this may end up similar to Ayla in a way, fighter brawler but this time with armour. (of course he's a warforged, my brain must have been powered down to miss that!) Would be good if there's a way to simulate some of the attacks from the game like laser spin or electro-volt (I think that's what its called)

Yeah I'm drawing a blank here, I'd quite forgotten he got those attacks. It's been way too long since I played. :smallredface:


Ayla is about Massive Damage delivered straight to enemy faces. You want Ranger, not fighter, and take Master of the Fist (MC Monk) to get the monk's unarmed strike. Logic-based houseruling leads to "yes, you can MUS with each hand." :smallamused:

I was about to suggest Barbarian for Ayla - they get a flat boost to AC in light/no armor - but I think this fits quite well as well. She fights with her fists, of course she's dual wielding. :smallbiggrin:

I do think she needs to be a striker though, and not a defender. She's more about the big damage than defense, and you're already kinda defender heavy in this group.

[GPuzzle]

Sorcerer is better for Magus.

They're known for massive damage too, for example the triple tap in Demonsoul Bolts, the infamous Flame Spiral, the minor-action Lightning Cuts and others. They actually are extremely good in that regard due to their native ability to have modifiers ready. They can use ranged attacks in melee. Personally, Sorcerer is better as long as you apply 4e's thought of train - which is attack more.

The exception is Warlock which can stack multiple bonuses to get a massive attack: Firewind Blade+Radiant Vulnerability+Radiant One+Mindbite Scorn+Psychic Vulnerability+Frostcheese+Cursed Spells can net you a melee attack that deals 2d12+4d6+Int+Con+Int+10+10+6+1+6+6+5+4+4+5+6 damage using a Fullblade.

It's just massive. If you end with 26 Con and 26 Int, it's 13+14+8+8+8+10+10+6+1+6+6+5+4+4+5+6 or 27+24+20+24+19 or 66+48 or 114 average damage on a single attack.

[Coidzor]

What I want to know is, how are you going to handle dual and triple techs and if you're going to try to include anything more complicated than those with a potential party size of 6?

[arcane_asp]

Hmmm, this is all getting more complex by the second. I'm wondering if it might be better to homebrew the characters into the 4e system, rather than try and use the existing character creation method. Some characters fit, some kind-of-fit, and some just don't fall under any existing class.


What I want to know is, how are you going to handle dual and triple techs and if you're going to try to include anything more complicated than those with a potential party size of 6?

My original plans for double/triple techs

All participants in the double/triple tech need to delay their turn until it is the turn of the participant lowest in the initiative order. They can then use the tech - these were going to be hybrids of any two/three at-will or encounter powers. The powers would combine attributes, ie a ranged elemental attack will add its element to a melee strike, and a melee strike's physical damage & conditions (such as pull/push/slide, knock prone, daze etc.) can be added to a ranged physical/arcane attack. There is still some refining required with this, I was going to use the combinations available in CT to illustrate the possibilities. Might allows the players to custom create their own though, but that will be vulnerable to some system abuse by the more cunning players :smallwink:

Party size over 3

Should really change too much, I suppose that it opens up the possibility for quadruple techs (or even more?!) which would use the same system as above. There are story constraints against parties of over 3 people travelling through temporal gates, but nothing I can't rectify (Travel through gates in groups of 3 then regroup once everyone's arrived. I don't get why they didn't do that in the original game!)

[VeliciaL]

Hmmm, this is all getting more complex by the second. I'm wondering if it might be better to homebrew the characters into the 4e system, rather than try and use the existing character creation method. Some characters fit, some kind-of-fit, and some just don't fall under any existing class.

That's always going to be the "best" option in terms of exact fit, at the expense of needing the most work. :smalltongue:

This is why this sort of thing is generally best kept as a fun thought excersize. For actual play, I'd honestly recommend a more flexible system (Mutants and Masterminds sounds ideal for this).

Not saying you can't or shouldn't do this with 4E, but other systems do this sort of thing better.


(Travel through gates in groups of 3 then regroup once everyone's arrived. I don't get why they didn't do that in the original game!)

I suspect it was an engine concern more than anything else. :smallwink: