4e - Stuff I've Learned So Far (For DMs)

[Saph]

So, I started my new 4e campaign yesterday, with me as the DM. It went very well, and everyone had a lot of fun. It probably helped that there were only 3 players, as that meant everyone got a lot more screen time and there was more time to look up rules.

Stuff I've learned so far, for those planning to DM 4e games:

• Fights seem to be less dangerous to the players the longer they go on for. In general, if the players can survive the first 2-3 rounds, they're probably going to win. (Players have lots more ways to gain back HP than monsters, and a downed PC generally gets up, while a downed monster generally doesn't.)

• The best way to run Skill Challenges is not to. Just call for a skill roll whenever the PCs are in the right situation, and improvise. I had two major 'skill encounters' in the session, one involving chasing down a pickpocket, and one involving negotiating with kobolds, and both would have dragged horribly if I'd tried to turn them into a 4e skill challenge, complete with initiative and everyone being forced to roll in order. Just roll with it and work out consequences for reward/failure and XP awards later.

• Assuming there's a leader in the party (and the PCs are in big trouble if there isn't), the PCs WILL stop for 5/10/15 minutes after each encounter and queue up to be healing worded by the cleric. In fact, my players figured out pretty quickly that you never want to use second wind or spend healing surges normally unless you're in serious trouble - getting heals from the cleric gives you about twice as much HP per surge.

• I used a houserule saying that every player got 1 free skill not covered by the 4e skill system - ie, make up any skill you like, count it as trained, and write it on your character sheet. It worked pretty well and I recommend it for DMs who'd like 4e characters to be fleshed out a bit, since as soon as the skill was written down the PCs immediately started finding ways to use it. :)

Probably the most amusing bit was the final encounter. I was using a modified version of the 'Kobold Hall' adventure in the back of the DMG. The PCs managed to turn the first encounter (which is supposed to be a kick-in-the-door-kill-the-kobolds fight) into a conversation that went on for more than an hour. The 8-Int dragonborn cleric convinced the kobolds to bring out their boss, who had the sword they'd been sent to retrieve, and the cleric and the kobold then had a discussion about giving the sword back, which progressed into a discussion about ethics and what 'bad behaviour' meant. The cleric rolled so well on his Diplomacy checks that he ended up making friends with the kobold, but the kobold convinced him that the kobold should have the sword after all, at which point the cleric agreed, said goodbye, and walked out. Much entertainment followed as the other two PCs tried to talk the cleric into fighting his new 'friends'.

Reactions to the new edition were mixed. The players liked the extra toughness and options that 1st-level 4e PCs have, but weren't keen on the 'everything is HP damage' combat mechanic. Oh, and one player was upset mostly because he couldn't play a druid. I'm a bit hesitant about recommending the upcoming 4e druid to him, though, because I'm not sure if he'll like what they'll have done with it . . .

Overall, though, good session.

- Saph

[nagora]

Are/were you playing with the errata'd skill challenge rules?

[Saph]

Are/were you playing with the errata'd skill challenge rules?

After previous experience with skill challenges (which bored me to death), I didn't use the skill challenge rules at all. Link to the errata? I can't remember if I've read it or not.

- Saph

[nagora]

After previous experience with skill challenges (which bored me to death), I didn't use the skill challenge rules at all. Link to the errata? I can't remember if I've read it or not.

- Saph

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/UpdateDMG.pdf

[Covered In Bees]

Nagora's on point here. The errata improved skill challenges a lot.

For my group, they run smoothly. The couple of players that would normally wonder what they should roll have gotten into the "narrate-and-roll" swing of things and are getting creative.

[Saph]

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/UpdateDMG.pdf

Ugh, that was a pain to read. Delete this paragraph, alter this number . . .

Well, as far as I can tell, they're saying that the basic format's the same, except with alterations to the complexity/failure rules and they've got rid of initiative.

That's an improvement, but I've been bored too many times by skill challenges as a player to be very keen on giving them a fourth chance, especially given how much better ignoring the rules altogether proved to be.

- Saph

[Totally Guy]

Skill challenges are good for giving out XP too. They count as level appropriate encounter but only take commentary and 12 dice rolls. The problem I had was getting them to make checks without it becoming some other kind of encounter.

I did a "chase the thief" one but it started to become all about movement per round, and grapples. And of course I don't want to say, "no you can't do that" it's a skill challenge and I don't want to say "it's not over yet, you still need 3 more arbitrary success in something..." I only allowed the grapple attempt as I thoght it was fair for a natural 20 in the previous check.

[Saph]

Skill challenges are good for giving out XP too. They count as level appropriate encounter but only take commentary and 12 dice rolls. The problem I had was getting them to make checks without it becoming some other kind of encounter.

You can give out XP whenever you like, though.

Seriously, as an experiment, try just cutting out skill challenges and replacing them with skill checks whenever they're appropriate or when players choose to make them. Then at the end of the session, work out a roughly appropriate amount of XP for the skill-challengeness. I've found it works SO much better, and the game flows much more quickly.

- Saph

[Emperor Tippy]

Yeah, I agree with Saph on the skill challenges. I mean 3.5 didn't exactly have the best skill system of all time (massive understatement here) but skill challenges (as presented) are not an improvement.

[Totally Guy]

You can give out XP whenever you like, though.

Neato, I have a feeling the party is going to level up if they roleplay putting up their tent. And bonus points if they recall they bought a red one.

Don't tempt me or they'll all be on paragon tier before they find the second dungeon.

[Saph]

Neato, I have a feeling the party is going to level up if they roleplay putting up their tent. And bonus points if they recall they bought a red one.

Don't tempt me or they'll all be on paragon tier before they find the second dungeon.

Don't forget to give them treasure for the tent encounter. Maybe there's spare change of evil in one of the sleeping bags.

- Saph

[The New Bruceski]

My main issue with skill challenges is how my DMs have handled them:

"She seems willing to give you guys the map, but says you need to prove you're capable of retrieving the artifact. Skill challenge!" *stares at players*

What am I supposed to do for non-social skills? Flex at her? Hold my breath for a surprising amount of time? There is nothing there that can't be handled with a single roll. Meanwhile, right afterward I heard a guy sneaking around outside and a chase ensued through a hedge maze, with the party splitting up and trying different ways of getting after him (track, find a way through the maze faster, climb on top of the hedges, figure out the exit the sneak's going to...) THAT'S a skill challenge, but he just played it straight, with the guy getting away partially because though I could use Perception just fine to follow his footprints at first, once inside the maze I *had* to do int checks instead.

I don't have the DMG, so I don't know if this is as written or not, but while I approve of an initiative set for skill challenges and negotiations, so if someone wants to act they can, forcing someone to act seems silly. What's the point of having a party Face if every time a situation happens where he'd be useful the Big Dumb Fighter needs to figure out how to apply doing push-ups to the situation? My character is definitely the type to stand back and let someone else do the talking (ex-enforcer for a syndicate, he would no sooner try to do the social-work than step on the safe-cracker's toes).

[ghost_warlock]

Don't forget to give them treasure for the tent encounter. Maybe there's spare change of evil in one of the sleeping bags.

- Saph

This happened to me the last time I went camping. I've still got the slow-healing spider bites as proof.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I'll agree with Saph on Skill Challenges to a point: the best way to use 'em is to not tell the PCs you're using them. The Errata basically encourages you to do this by scrubbing all references to initiative and telling the PCs what skills to use. That said, do plan some of these in advance - at least to make sure you've thought about the Complexity. I'm not sure about the new failure rules, but the revamped DCs seem more on the money to me.

As for the rest, it seems to be like how 4e should be played. PCs don't worry about healing themselves unless it's an emergency, and they progress carefully through the dungeon. The fact that healing is simpler, and also more limited, means you need to plan your adventures with that in mind.

If you want a classic dungeon crawl, expect your players to be up to full HP before each conflict, and for them to camp in the dungeon if they run low on Surges, just like their 2e forefathers did (though there, it was magic, often healing magic).

If you want to pressure the PCs, you'll have to make time an issue. Maybe the PCs have to get the artifact back to town before the Eclipse, or maybe they need to rescue the Princess before the full moon sacrifice, or maybe they need to get into the Castle before the Dread Lord finishes changing the guard and pulls up the drawbridge. Use weaker encounters than normal (so at-level, or maybe -1 or -2) so that the PCs don't have to turn back, but so that they'll still be strong enough for the PCs to have to make sure every-hit-counts.

Finally: don't count out the Bloodied Powers of many monsters to swing the battle back around after those first few rounds. The Berserker Strike that drops the Rogue to 0 might force the party to adapt quickly!

[Saph]

If you want to pressure the PCs, you'll have to make time an issue. Maybe the PCs have to get the artifact back to town before the Eclipse, or maybe they need to rescue the Princess before the full moon sacrifice, or maybe they need to get into the Castle before the Dread Lord finishes changing the guard and pulls up the drawbridge. Use weaker encounters than normal (so at-level, or maybe -1 or -2) so that the PCs don't have to turn back, but so that they'll still be strong enough for the PCs to have to make sure every-hit-counts.

I'm not sure there's much point, honestly. The 4e encounters all assume that the PCs are on full HP at the start of each fight anyway. Forcing them not to use their resources effectively (ie, queue up in front of the cleric/warlord) doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Finally: don't count out the Bloodied Powers of many monsters to swing the battle back around after those first few rounds. The Berserker Strike that drops the Rogue to 0 might force the party to adapt quickly!

Nah. Once a few of the monsters are down, then unless the PCs are crippled the battle's basically over. I noticed this right from when I started playing 4e. One or two bloodied powers doesn't come anywhere close to matching what the party can inflict over a long fight.

- Saph

[Corrin]

Fights seem to be less dangerous to the players the longer they go on for. In general, if the players can survive the first 2-3 rounds, they're probably going to win. (Players have lots more ways to gain back HP than monsters, and a downed PC generally gets up, while a downed monster generally doesn't.)

Usually true, but not always. I ran a meat-grinder of an encounter this weekend where a group of hobgoblins were hammering the PCs - a couple timely crits in rounds 4-6 knocked out the hobbo leader and things were looking up, but the footsoldiers kept on fighting and managed to kill the ranger out-right and knock two other pcs unconscious before the heroes finally won.

[Hzurr]

I agree that the first few rounds don't really decide the outcome of the fight. I DMed my first few game early this week, shere what should have been a moderately encounter (ECL+1) almost got a few of the party members killed, and severely drained the party resources (They were at full when they went in, first encounter of the day, and by the 7th or 8th round, they were having to spend dailies on some run-of-the-mill kobalds). Most of it can be blamed on poor party tactics and those stupid dragonsheild kobald's shift-as-a-reaction ability.

We didn't get to a skill encounter yet (next session, I hope), so I can't really comment on how they work, but I'll keep y'all's comments in mind.

[stainboy]

Skill challenges strike me as a hamfisted way of getting DMs used to the idea that situations involving a lot of skill checks are "encounters," and thus a meaningful part of the game and worth XP. I've never used them, or even bothered to look at the rules twice. Rolling initiative for skill checks seems awkward, since usually the action is going to go in order of who has the relevant skill anyway.

I'd disagree that short fights are the most dangerous though. My players are pretty good at picking out the biggest threat and focus-firing it into oblivion with daily powers. Fights get dangerous when party can't decisively end the battle and the monsters have time to crowd-control healers or maneuver focus-fire targets into bad positions. That may just be about how I run encounters though.

Stuff I've Learned So Far

Monster defenses are too high.
The guideline in the DMG is 12+monster level for defenses, which pretty quickly outscales the party's ability to reliably hit targets. The result is frustrating fights that are decided more by the dice than good tactics - nobody likes having their daily powers miss 2/3 of the time. I've been mostly using homebrew monsters with lower defenses and more HP and ways to break crowd control, and I think it's working better.

Defenders are awesome, but only in long fights.
For a defender to make a meaningful contribution, enemies have to (1) not have so many mobility and crowd control abilities that they're untankable, and (2) live long enough for tanking them to matter. Years of 3.x have taught me that the only way to threaten the party is by blitzkrieg: if a monster hasn't dropped the wizard to negative hitpoints by Round 3, the monster might as well not be there. I'm having to unlearn that, and try to figure out how to make keeping enemies under control a challenge for a fighter without making it impossible.

Line-of-Sighting healers is freaking brutal.
The most dangerous encounter I've run so far was a 5-person party vs 3 ghosts. One was a poltergeist who could pick party members up and throw them (damage + slide 3 squares), the second had sneak attack, and the third had a burst fear attack that prevented its targets from moving toward it. The party's ranger runs through a doorway to unload into the poltergeist, the poltergeist picks up the ranger and throws him around the corner, the sneak-attacker follows up with a fistful of d6's, and the ranger is bloodied and out of line-of-effect for healing. On the next round the ranger is all by himself being attacked by two enemies, and the third enemy (with the fear attack) is in position to keep the cleric from running in to save him. The situation happened more or less by accident, but it's a brutally effective tactic. None of the ghosts did particularly high damage but isolating a party member with shifts and crowd control made him incredibly vulnerable. Not something to use in every fight, but a good way to challenge the players.


Anyone else had similar experiences?

[Tormsskull]

and managed to kill the ranger out-right

Could you provide more details for this death? So far, in my experience and from other DMs who I have talked to that have run 4e, character deaths are virtually nonexistant. In the rare occasion it has happened, it was a result of poor player tactics (charging the enemy when very low in health, ignoring warning signs, attacking creatures obviously too powerful for the party to defeat in combat, etc.), and I am curious to see if that is the same for this situation.

[Starbuck_II]

Stuff I've Learned So Far

Monster defenses are too high.
The guideline in the DMG is 12+monster level for defenses, which pretty quickly outscales the party's ability to reliably hit targets. The result is frustrating fights that are decided more by the dice than good tactics - nobody likes having their daily powers miss 2/3 of the time. I've been mostly using homebrew monsters with lower defenses and more HP and ways to break crowd control, and I think it's working better.

Level 1: Aiming for 13 AC/Reflex, etc.
Level 4: Aiming for 16 AC/Reflex, etc.

Level 1 (assuming 18 in attack stat):+4 or +7 (if weapon) possible
Level 4 (assuming 18 in attack stat): +7 (+1 implement) or +10 (+1 weapon)

Now, Guideline follows the to hit line very well. You have at least a 50% chance to hit (usually higher).

[ColdSepp]

Line-of-Sighting healers is freaking brutal.
The most dangerous encounter I've run so far was a 5-person party vs 3 ghosts. One was a poltergeist who could pick party members up and throw them (damage + slide 3 squares), the second had sneak attack, and the third had a burst fear attack that prevented its targets from moving toward it. The party's ranger runs through a doorway to unload into the poltergeist, the poltergeist picks up the ranger and throws him around the corner, the sneak-attacker follows up with a fistful of d6's, and the ranger is bloodied and out of line-of-effect for healing. On the next round the ranger is all by himself being attacked by two enemies, and the third enemy (with the fear attack) is in position to keep the cleric from running in to save him. The situation happened more or less by accident, but it's a brutally effective tactic. None of the ghosts did particularly high damage but isolating a party member with shifts and crowd control made him incredibly vulnerable. Not something to use in every fight, but a good way to challenge the players.


Anyone else had similar experiences?

That sounds like very poor player tactics to me...

[Dausuul]

Could you provide more details for this death? So far, in my experience and from other DMs who I have talked to that have run 4e, character deaths are virtually nonexistant. In the rare occasion it has happened, it was a result of poor player tactics (charging the enemy when very low in health, ignoring warning signs, attacking creatures obviously too powerful for the party to defeat in combat, etc.), and I am curious to see if that is the same for this situation.

As the party face, I botched a couple of Bluff checks rather badly; our choice to talk first rather than fight ended up just giving the hobgoblins time to gather their forces. In addition, when combat broke out, the party fighter was next to a well, the hobgoblins beat him on initiative, and one of them bull rushed him into it. (Fortunately, he was able to return the favor later.) Finally, while I don't know the exact stats, I'm pretty sure the encounter was at least two levels above us.

My experience has been that character death is rare but not nonexistent, and usually happens when a party is fighting above its level. If you only ever fight encounters at your own level, and never push the limit in terms of daily resources (healing surges and so on), you're pretty safe unless the dice go freakishly against you. Which does happen sometimes. But if you're fighting above your level, or you're low on resources, the odds of dying go up significantly.

[its_all_ogre]

i found the bloodied power of the goblin level 3 brutes pretty harsh: d10+5 damage normally becomes 2d10+5 once bloodied...
the combats i have seen have generally been close run things, in terms of most pcs end up using a second wind and the cleric/paladin/warlord using their stuff too.
charging in on your own if you roll high on initiative is not a good thing either; dwarf ended up entirely encircled by goblins minions...not a good thing!
(dwarf fighter won initiative but minions went second)

[Oracle_Hunter]

I'm not sure there's much point, honestly. The 4e encounters all assume that the PCs are on full HP at the start of each fight anyway. Forcing them not to use their resources effectively (ie, queue up in front of the cleric/warlord) doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Actually, it's a tactic listed in the DMG. Plus, it helps provide a little extra sense of urgency, if your players get bored because they start every battle out at full.

It's a gimmick to shake up the pace, to be sure, but that's half of DMing, no?

[Saph]

4e - Stuff I've Learned So Far (Session 2)


Session 2 was yesterday. I think I'll keep posting these till I run out of new stuff to write.

• The only essential role in a PC group is Leader. Anything else you can get by without, but if the PCs don't have a healer, they're in big trouble. Yesterday's party was 2 fighters, a ranger, a warlock, and a wizard, and the only way they survived was by going through healing potions like cans of soda. :)

• Fire beetles are far and away the nastiest level 1 monsters. Their fire spray power hits most level 1 PCs about 60% of the time, does 3d6 damage, and burns a 3x3 area. A pack of fire beetles, 1 per PC, actually has a decent chance of causing a TPK.

• You really have to work hard to justify the "600 XP per encounter" model. It's easy to divide the goblins or kobolds into packets of 600 XP (or whatever your budget is) but once the fighting starts you have to put a lot of effort in to explain why the monsters don't just run, sound the alarm, and team up, instead of coming in easily defeatable groups. Goblins have an 8 Intelligence, but that's smart enough to know to gang up on enemies. Unfortunately, having 2 encounters at once coming at the PCs is almost guaranteed to TPK them, so . . . you just have to live with it, I guess.

• Players have the weirdest habit of saving their dailies. Even when party members are down and they're obviously in danger of losing, they still keep using at-wills. Does anyone else find this, or are my players just strange?

- Saph

[Edea]

[B]
Players have the weirdest habit of saving their dailies. Even when party members are down and they're obviously in danger of losing, they still keep using at-wills. Does anyone else find this, or are my players just strange?

- Saph

No, this is -exactly- what happens, and it's one of the many reasons I hate, HATE 4e's power system. I see it constantly in -most- of the 4e games I play; that and AP. (One of the ones I'm in right now we're not so shy about it, but the DM's much more lenient on letting the chars take a break. Any DM that anally adheres to 'at least 4 enc/extended rest' is going to encounter this phenomenon).

[Knaight]

I never see people saving their dailies, once things get bad they start dropping.

[Yakk]

4e - Stuff I've Learned So Far (Session 2)


Session 2 was yesterday. I think I'll keep posting these till I run out of new stuff to write.

• The only essential role in a PC group is Leader. Anything else you can get by without, but if the PCs don't have a healer, they're in big trouble. Yesterday's party was 2 fighters, a ranger, a warlock, and a wizard, and the only way they survived was by going through healing potions like cans of soda. :)

A leader generates about 4 healing surges worth of damage per fight, plus contributing a decent share of offense from attacks and "buffing other folks attacks".

• Fire beetles are far and away the nastiest level 1 monsters. Their fire spray power hits most level 1 PCs about 60% of the time, does 3d6 damage, and burns a 3x3 area. A pack of fire beetles, 1 per PC, actually has a decent chance of causing a TPK.

Ya -- much of the MM isn't build following their own rules in the DMG.

The baseline level 1 to-hit is supposed to be Level+3, or +4.

+2 if vs-AC, +2 if a soldier or artillery, +1 if a controller vs non-AC, -2 if the attack is from a Brute, -2 if the attack is an AOE attack.

So the _base_ Brute AOE attack for a level 1 Brute against non-AC should be about +0 against Reflex. Not +4.

The Bite is low damage for a Brute, so it having as good of a to-hit is a good idea.

• You really have to work hard to justify the "600 XP per encounter" model. It's easy to divide the goblins or kobolds into packets of 600 XP (or whatever your budget is) but once the fighting starts you have to put a lot of effort in to explain why the monsters don't just run, sound the alarm, and team up, instead of coming in easily defeatable groups. Goblins have an 8 Intelligence, but that's smart enough to know to gang up on enemies. Unfortunately, having 2 encounters at once coming at the PCs is almost guaranteed to TPK them, so . . . you just have to live with it, I guess.

Yes, if you have an enemy fortress, having the Goblins clumped into 500 XP per encounter per room, and then making it reasonable for them to combine, is probably a bad idea.

You could instead clump them into 300 per room, and have help come running reasonably often.

However, a single Goblin fortress that is alert and has a plan to respond to attacking humans, with a total of 2000 to 4000 XP in it, should slaughter the humans unless the humans pull back, or there is some situation that screws with the Goblins.

• Players have the weirdest habit of saving their dailies. Even when party members are down and they're obviously in danger of losing, they still keep using at-wills. Does anyone else find this, or are my players just strange?

When you are afraid that the next encounter will contain 5 over-con beetles, I could understand where they are coming from. It is an easy habit to get into to be afraid that the DM is going to screw you if you use up your resources.

An over-reluctance to use dailies does mean that if you throw a "too hard" fight against the party, the party dies.

If this turns out to be a serious problem, try out this:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87689
in which players get healing surges/"inspired" powers back by going on adventures instead of staying in bed and sleeping.

That encourages players to burn inspired (ie, daily powers), because if you don't use the power, you don't get a roll to get it back. . .

...

A decent way to deal with scaling difficulty (oops, this was too hard) is to play the monsters optimally or sub-optimally depending on the current level of danger the party is in. When the players are doing well, have the monsters work hard to take out the most open, weakest defense, highest offense player. When the players are doing poorly, have the monsters spread out and attack each player individually.

[The New Bruceski]

4e - Stuff I've Learned So Far (Session 2)


Session 2 was yesterday. I think I'll keep posting these till I run out of new stuff to write.

• The only essential role in a PC group is Leader. Anything else you can get by without, but if the PCs don't have a healer, they're in big trouble. Yesterday's party was 2 fighters, a ranger, a warlock, and a wizard, and the only way they survived was by going through healing potions like cans of soda. :)

• Fire beetles are far and away the nastiest level 1 monsters. Their fire spray power hits most level 1 PCs about 60% of the time, does 3d6 damage, and burns a 3x3 area. A pack of fire beetles, 1 per PC, actually has a decent chance of causing a TPK.

• You really have to work hard to justify the "600 XP per encounter" model. It's easy to divide the goblins or kobolds into packets of 600 XP (or whatever your budget is) but once the fighting starts you have to put a lot of effort in to explain why the monsters don't just run, sound the alarm, and team up, instead of coming in easily defeatable groups. Goblins have an 8 Intelligence, but that's smart enough to know to gang up on enemies. Unfortunately, having 2 encounters at once coming at the PCs is almost guaranteed to TPK them, so . . . you just have to live with it, I guess.

• Players have the weirdest habit of saving their dailies. Even when party members are down and they're obviously in danger of losing, they still keep using at-wills. Does anyone else find this, or are my players just strange?

- Saph

Re: your last 2 points.

--Isn't this the same in any edition? If you don't justify keeping a CR-appropriate encounter from getting help, the players tend to be in trouble.

--As a player I do this too. It's gotten me killed twice.

[Saph]

Re: your last 2 points.

--Isn't this the same in any edition? If you don't justify keeping a CR-appropriate encounter from getting help, the players tend to be in trouble.

I'm noticing it more in 4e because of the emphasis on encounters with lots of monsters instead of one big one.

If you look at the adventure in the back of the DMG, 'Kobold Hall', it's a really bad example of this. The 4e Monster Manual explicitly says "Kobolds are cowardly and usually flee once bloodied". Yet the 'Kobold Hall' adventure assumes that the PCs will fight each group of kobolds one at a time, and every group of kobolds will stand and fight to the death instead of running the 50-60 feet to where the next bunch of kobolds is waiting. Each encounter is 500-800 XP or so, so two encounters at once will certainly kill a level 1 party.

- Saph