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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    RedSorcererGirl

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    Apr 2019

    Default Pre-gen characters missing daily powers?

    Hey there. I'm planning on running a one-shot for some friends, and to ease the process up I'm looking for some pre-gen characters. Haven't had much luck with it (seems official Wizards page is not longer up?), but I found this page that offer some that look officially-ish (seem to be characters done for the DnD Encounter season adventures?).

    Anyways, I noticed most of the martial characters (i.e. thematically non-casters) do not have daily powers in their sheets. What's up with this?

    I guess it's kind of hard to know what I'm talking about without looking at the actual source, but I'm not sure if it's ok to link to 3rd party sites, so better not. It's a long shot, but maybe someone here knows whatI'm talking about?

    Alternatively, if someone knows where I can get full pregen characters, that'd be also appreciated. I just want my players to get a experience of how 4e used to be.
    Last edited by Yukito01; 2022-06-06 at 07:07 AM. Reason: correction

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    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Pre-gen characters missing daily powers?

    Would the martial classes happen to be Essentials classes that don't have any daily powers by design? Alternatively, if you shared the sheets here it would be easier to troubleshoot them. Building them yourself is also fun and not too time consuming, especially if you know your players' existing preferences.
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  3. - Top - End - #3
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    RedSorcererGirl

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    Default Re: Pre-gen characters missing daily powers?

    Thank you for replying! With how dead this board is, I thought no one would.

    So, martial classes were originally designed to be without dailies? How were they balanced then?

    So, I'm not sure if it's ok to link, but if it isn't I'm sorry mods! Please just edit this and I'll find another way.

    Anyways, here are the pregens (and virtually the only ones left on the web!) I found:

    http://dungeonsmaster.com/pre-genera...acter-library/

    I guess I could build them... it's been a while; may be fun!

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Troll in the Playground
     
    OracleofWuffing's Avatar

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    Default Re: Pre-gen characters missing daily powers?

    Quote Originally Posted by Yukito01 View Post
    So, martial classes were originally designed to be without dailies? How were they balanced then?
    At the start of 4E, all classes had dailies. When Wizards introduced the "Heroes of The Forgotten Kingdoms," "Heroes of the Fallen Lands," and "Heroes of Shadow" books, they created the 4E Essentials line, which introduced subclasses with different power progressions. Broadly and conceptually speaking, the intent is that the Essentials classes have more reliable damage/effect mechanics, but have fewer options so it is a "higher floor, lower ceiling" situation. In execution... Thaaat's a can of worms.

    Looks like Season 3 was where they started using Essentials-line subclasses. The "D&D Encounters" program was intended to get people buying books (or paying subscriptions, details), so they encouraged people to get the newest books as they came out if they wanted to keep playing other games with their characters. There wasn't really to strong of an authority to enforce that idea, but that's why you see only Essentials classes after that point, and why some of them don't have dailies starting then. I can confirm that this is what the official pre-generated character sheets looked like.

    At the time, Wizards kind of wanted to have their caek whilst also having eaten it, so they insisted that Essentials classes (and, well, the entirety of Essentials) should merge well into existing design and would not replace the original classes, they all should play fine together. It's a matter of taste and what individual peoples preferences are if that insistence turns out true, but at level 1? You're probably safe if you want to mix old and new classes.
    "Okay, so I'm going to quick draw and dual wield these one-pound caltrops as improvised weapons..."
    ---
    "Oh, hey, look! Blue Eyes Black Lotus!" "Wait what, do you sacrifice a mana to the... Does it like, summon a... What would that card even do!?" "Oh, it's got a four-energy attack. Completely unviable in actual play, so don't worry about it."

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    RedSorcererGirl

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    Default Re: Pre-gen characters missing daily powers?

    I see... So that's what 4e Essentials means. I thought it was some sort of starter set or something. Why would they change it so much? Was the game that unbalanced? I remember enjoying playing it, though I never made it to past level 10.

    I've always thought that for all the focus they gave it, power source (arcane, divine, primal, martial, etc) had no impact whatsoever. I always wanted for some official support or homebrew that gave each power source their own traits; guess it turned out into a monkey paw situation.

    Anyways, that sucks for what I want! Guess I'll have to make the pregens on my own then.

    Thanks for the help!

  6. - Top - End - #6
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    Kurald Galain's Avatar

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    Default Re: Pre-gen characters missing daily powers?

    Quote Originally Posted by Yukito01 View Post
    Why would they change it so much?
    Because most of the design team got fired by Hasbro (likely because sales were insufficient by Hasbro's standards) and replaced. Twice. Of course the new new team wanted to change the course.

    And I'm pretty sure that pregens exist that predate the whole Heroes Of line, and those pregens would have a full set of daily powers. But I'm not sure where to find them.
    Guide to the Magus, the Pathfinder Gish class.

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    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Pre-gen characters missing daily powers?

    The Keep on the Shadowfell quickstart had pregens. I think you can still get it free on dmsguild.
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    OracleofWuffing's Avatar

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    Default Re: Pre-gen characters missing daily powers?

    Quote Originally Posted by Yukito01 View Post
    Why would they change it so much? Was the game that unbalanced?
    As Kurald Galain explained, it wasn't a change made because of balance concerns. The Wizards PR explanation is that their data indicated simpler (if there's a better word I could use here, I'm open to suggestions) character classes, so they cut down on level-by-level choices and tried to focus on reliable and safe decisions. The optimist says it was to make the game more accessible to people unfamiliar with the mechanics, the pessimist says it was to reduce the amount of pages it takes to make a new class to sell more books with less work.

    In regards to balance, it's kind of fair to compare Season 1's Alvenor to Season 4's Brandis: Cavalier was an essentials paladin that remained a defender (some subclasses switched their original class roles, so you can't always compare apples to apples as easily as this). Alvenor has to actively call out a single target to mark and stick to that target to get his 4 HP punishment to go off, but Brandis can activate an aura that could stay up an entire battle to treat any enemy that's adjacent to him as effectively marked (doing more damage on a violation, to boot). Season 1 Barcan to Season 8 Anja are also in a similar situation... Kinda weird that the classes got duplicated in Encounters Pregens were the classes that had a rough start getting established, now that I think about it.

    There was a balance concern that Essentials addressed, but it wasn't to do with classes. The weapon Expertise Feats (and Implement Expertise) grant a +1 to hit per tier of play with a side effect depending on the weapon. Enemy defenses increase slightly faster than player accuracy, so these feats "fix the math" of enemies becoming harder to hit as you get stronger. A popular alternative was to give PCs a +1 to hit on levels 5, 15, and 25 if you don't like the taste of those feats being that important.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yukito01 View Post
    Anyways, that sucks for what I want! Guess I'll have to make the pregens on my own then.Thanks for the help!
    Any specific rules or ballpark you want the pregens to target? Someone that has access to the old offline Character Builder might be able to make something up quickly.
    "Okay, so I'm going to quick draw and dual wield these one-pound caltrops as improvised weapons..."
    ---
    "Oh, hey, look! Blue Eyes Black Lotus!" "Wait what, do you sacrifice a mana to the... Does it like, summon a... What would that card even do!?" "Oh, it's got a four-energy attack. Completely unviable in actual play, so don't worry about it."

  9. - Top - End - #9
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Pre-gen characters missing daily powers?

    Quote Originally Posted by Yukito01 View Post
    I see... So that's what 4e Essentials means. I thought it was some sort of starter set or something. Why would they change it so much? Was the game that unbalanced? I remember enjoying playing it, though I never made it to past level 10.

    I've always thought that for all the focus they gave it, power source (arcane, divine, primal, martial, etc) had no impact whatsoever. I always wanted for some official support or homebrew that gave each power source their own traits; guess it turned out into a monkey paw situation.

    Anyways, that sucks for what I want! Guess I'll have to make the pregens on my own then.

    Thanks for the help!
    Well, in a way, it was a starter set for what was effectively 4.5E, since Essentials had a lot of changes from the basic formula, although not necessarily for the better. I personally don't have a lot of confidence in any vaguely-official pregens, so you're probably better up cooking them up yourself. Incidentally, do you have the Character Builder set up? Although, I think the files from this page are more up-to-date. This 4e discord server, I've found, has been immensely helpful in answering any questions about anything at all 4e-related.
    Quote Originally Posted by JeminiZero View Post
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