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So nobody has thought to try and take this bleeding-edge tech away from them yet? I mean, there's all kinds of ways that someone could try and take it - they could try to steal it out from under the PCs' noses, or blackmail them, or send a cool assassin after them, or just throw lots and lots of mooks at them. Maybe they don't want to keep the tech at all - maybe they want it destroyed because mankind was not meant to have such power and/or its theft threatens their share of the market. And if the PCs are just killing people willy-nilly, well, that's bound to attract someone's attention. I think Jeff's Gameblog has the right idea here: Jeff Rients posted:Give the players the sun and make them fight for the moon - What I mean is that you give the players almost everything they want and them put them through a thousand chinese hells to get everything else. Put the PCs on the throne of Aquilonia, if that's what they want, then have ten-thousand angry Cimmerians invade, intent on burning their capital to the ground. Not because you're a sadistic rear end in a top hat, but because fighting off an army of Conans is one of the cool things kings get to do. e. You should read Jeff Rients anyway because he has some pretty neat ideas, especially in the post I linked.
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Jan 31, 2010 21:28
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Don't do Option 2 that is worse than Hitler. My suggestion: Take option 1, where they can use it after repairing it. While it's being repaired, hit them with a normal adventure. After that, have an adventure where they use the super mech to amazing effect and really blow away the enemies (including beefing up the enemies SLIGHTLY to make them glad they had a mech along - one or two enemy tanks, helicopters, etc. for it to blow up that would normally be big trouble without a mech). Then the adventure after that, have the enemy decide that they need to increase their efforts to gently caress over the party since they stole this big mech, and have the mech be developing more and more problems as per solution 3. Ideally, you want a big climactic battle in which the enemy unveils some incredible weapon meant to overwhelm the mech, like a battleship or giant tank or whatever. Then in this battle, seed the situation with many many opportunities for the mech to go out in a blaze of glory to accomplish some huge goal - give chances for a Kamikaze run into the enemy's base/battleship/megatank/supermech or whatever, so that the players will hopefully decide to destroy it of their own will in exchange for a huge victory. Otherwise, the battle should be full of countermeasures deployed by the enemy so that after the mech is initially successful in fighting them, it starts running into traps like Anti-mech cannons and mines, etc. - 'cowardly' weapons that slowly wear down its mobility etc. and encourage the players to use it to make a 'last stand' where it will probably be destroyed but will gain them a big edge. Even if they decide not to expend the mech in a suicide attack in this giant battle, ideally it will be so battered from the combat that now it needs major repairs again and you have another regular mission ahead and you can try again later - or have it be beyond repair, or require them to find extraordinary faclites/experts to repair it. Essentially the point is this: They captured this great toy, now you need to give them one full adventure to bask in its power as a reward. After that, scale up the threats to match its power so that it can have a meaningful and epic 'destiny' as it dies, or, if not, it is out of comission for a time (and so are the enemies after spending so much on anti-mech operations). Do not snatch away their success; let them enjoy it for a while, and then scale up the threats. Them capturing this powerful mech is a big deal, and so the story needs to accommodate that fact, not vice-versa.
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Jan 31, 2010 21:32
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Option two wouldn't be bad if it were just a threat. Megacorp A built the mech, lost the mech, wants the mech back. Lay down threats of force, blackmail, everything they could possibly have to use against the party. If the party ignores it, that's their choice. Corp starts initiating their threats, sending special teams to deal with them, leaking information of their shadier activities to governments, telling their associated companies to stop selling to them. They still get the mech, but now you have a new antagonist, with virtually unlimited funds. Other ideas is have a government approach them ((I'm sure someone heard about this mech changing hands.)) and look to buy it. The cash would still monty haul the thing, but the power would spread out among each member of the party instead of a single massive mech.
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Jan 31, 2010 21:46
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Thanks for the advice - I guess I should add that they already are quite deeply in favour with an empire who are prepared to let them get away with almost anything in exchange for the PCs assisting them in their invasion of the planet the campaign is taking place on. They were initially part of the private army of an immensely powerful local warlord (which was what got them the attention of the invading empire who were looking for allies planetside) and so have a substantial army of ordinary tech level units. Last session, they stormed a mountaintop fortress to depose a dictator and rescue hostages, and the session before they used overwhelming force to smash a naval base in a Pearl Harbor style ambush, if that gives an idea of the sort of adventures they're having. The idea was that this unit would be the absolute proof that a rival interplanetary empire to the one the PCs are supporting (who technically control the planet behind the scenes but aren't supposed to intervene in local politics) was supplying experimental and borderline illegal arms to local dictators to use the inevitable brushfire wars as arms testing grounds. I should also add the reason "no-one's thought to take it away" was this literally happened last session as part of the battle for the fortress, and the session ended on a cliffhanger so there hasn't been extended downtime. Currently no-one except those present at the incident know it's been stolen - the unit is on a cargo helicopter en route to the PCs home base while they press on with their offensive.
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Jan 31, 2010 22:20
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If you don't want them using the mech say that the helicopter pilot had been selling information to the other side, or an intel broker or whatever. When they return to base they find it overrun with commandos or whoever trying to get the mech back. Once the PCs arrive however it turns into a "hostage" situation where the leader of the assult team threatens to sabotage the unit beyond repair unless they just let them go, or something. I think so long as you do it in a way that is adventurous and remotely believable taking away something they weren't supposed to have isn't horrible. This sort of thing could happen every other session until they realise that this technology is more trouble than it's worth. After all if they're so cool and powerful, and they could be bothered trying to get their hands on it then other people of an equal level of power should also be interested.
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Jan 31, 2010 23:07
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Epicurus posted:Essentially the point is this: They captured this great toy, now you need to give them one full adventure to bask in its power as a reward. This, and pretty much everything else he said. DM fiating away something the players are going to be excited about is not cool. And we all know the rule.
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Feb 10, 2010 01:33
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I'm running a Dark Heresy campaign right now, and it's my first time GMing, and only my second experience roleplaying. There's six players: a Scum, two Psykers, a Tech-Priest who's set to die shortly and be replaced, an Assassin, and a Guardsman, all rank five and outfitted in full carapace armor (my own fault for not changing the given Arbitrator template). So far, the campaign's going well, but I'm starting to have problems balancing the opposition. I often feel as though they steamroll over whatever I throw at them; I tried giving the opposition better gear to make it more difficult, but then the problem of the party gaining overpowered gear arises. Also, the psykers are constantly spasming and fearing whatever enemies I put them up against, making things far too easy. All advice is appreciated.
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Feb 10, 2010 01:59
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rock rock posted:This, and pretty much everything else he said. DM fiating away something the players are going to be excited about is not cool. And we all know the rule. Well, it turns out the events played out very differently. The players decided to strip down the hull and turn the unit from a hyper-advanced jump-capable close assault unit into a "scoot and shoot" artillery platform which can lay down barrages then escape. This is totally awesome and I'm fully encouraging it because the idea of a quadruped artillery platform loaded down with battleship guns and cruise missiles is hardcore as gently caress.
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Feb 10, 2010 02:04
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Pinball posted:I'm running a Dark Heresy campaign right now does not compute. Seriously, where are they going to get the training to use Xeno tech? Throw some Dark Eldar with their "hideous bio-goo gun that makes you ugly as sin if it doesn't outright kill you" at them.
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Feb 10, 2010 04:52
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Pinball posted:I'm running a Dark Heresy campaign right now, and it's my first time GMing, and only my second experience roleplaying. There's six players: a Scum, two Psykers, a Tech-Priest who's set to die shortly and be replaced, an Assassin, and a Guardsman, all rank five and outfitted in full carapace armor (my own fault for not changing the given Arbitrator template). So far, the campaign's going well, but I'm starting to have problems balancing the opposition. I often feel as though they steamroll over whatever I throw at them; I tried giving the opposition better gear to make it more difficult, but then the problem of the party gaining overpowered gear arises. Also, the psykers are constantly spasming and fearing whatever enemies I put them up against, making things far too easy. All advice is appreciated. Toss a 'blank' or two into there. If you don't know what a blank is, they're folks that are non-psykers. Not anti-psykers (those have another name and are scooped up by one of the Assassin schools at birth), but walking, talking chunks of un-psykable space. They touch some one? That person can't be subjected to psyker powers. Normal people have issues just being around them since they dampen the regular low-level activity that all humans emit. You can imagine what a psyker thinks about even being within a hundred feet of them. Check the Eisenhorn series for more info, Abnett goes pretty deep into all this stuff. Mainly because the main character's a psyker and one of his primary sidekicks is a blank. As for the gear, stuff gets broken during a fight. Armor especially. Honestly, who wants to use a carapace helmet that's not only coated in semi-dried blood but has a giant gaping hole in the top? Start making damage rolls (at least for the enemies' gear). That and you could throw tons of low-tech enemies at them. Or aliens like TheAnomoly suggested. Have you ever considered a Genestealer infestation?
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Feb 10, 2010 05:30
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ItalicSquirrels posted:Toss a 'blank' or two into there. If you don't know what a blank is, they're folks that are non-psykers. Not anti-psykers (those have another name and are scooped up by one of the Assassin schools at birth), but walking, talking chunks of un-psykable space. They touch some one? That person can't be subjected to psyker powers. The Culexus temple recruits Untouchables (Those psychic 'blanks') and trains them to produce the Pariah effect 
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Feb 10, 2010 05:46
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I know poo poo all about Warhammer except the fluff but I say drown them in oceans of tyranids
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Feb 11, 2010 07:40
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Creatures Anathema has rules for Orkz and their more advanced equipment either doesn't work for humans or is just too drat massive for a human to wear. Speaking of which, i'm currently running a Rogue Trader campaign, it's my first time GMing and i'm wondering if anybody here was comfortable enough to help me design a boss fight. I've got a party of 4 or 5 players and i need to come up with a chaos sorcerer using the rules in the Dark Disciplines book to use as a final fight for their first adventure, they'll probably still be in the first rank or two, and i'd like something challenging that isn't going to absolutely slaughter them, because none of my players have really played much either.
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Feb 11, 2010 14:54
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I can help you out there, Crawl. Hit me up. 
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Feb 11, 2010 17:11
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Etherwind posted:I can help you out there, Crawl. Hit me up. Let's start slowly, with you actually posting in the drat game.
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Feb 11, 2010 23:25
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ItalicSquirrels posted:Toss a 'blank' or two into there. If you don't know what a blank is, they're folks that are non-psykers. Not anti-psykers (those have another name and are scooped up by one of the Assassin schools at birth), but walking, talking chunks of un-psykable space. They touch some one? That person can't be subjected to psyker powers. That's all really good advice, thank you! I'm going to try implementing the gear one in today's game, along with sending waves of Orks. I've tried Genestealers: I sent them up against two of the ones from Creatures Anathema, but I suppose they were underleveled, as one party member lost a leg in the first round, another lost his eyes, and someone else got the skin torn off their chest. If they hadn't called in orbital bombardment, it would've been a total party kill.
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Feb 13, 2010 16:27
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So, has anyone else run into some confusion running Inspectres over what exactly the rate of Stress events should be? I ran it once for some friends a couple of weeks ago (for the first time), and basically I had no idea how and when to work stress events in. Additionally, it seemed like there was no way that my players could succeed on these things. Pretty much everyone was down to 2/3 or 1/2 of their normal stats after a couple of these. Possible solutions to this would be to start every character with one or two points of Cool, or working in some method of stat restoration outside of Vacation time at the end of the mission. Another question we found ourselves asking was "what is the mechanical benefit of the Suit-Up phase?" It's descibed as being the part of the game where the players get to describe all of their neat gadgets and toys, but it doesn't really say what this does with die rolls. Is this supposed to be a way for them to "prepare" easier skill checks or what? Also, we realized that the GM needs to take more control over the plot, so the game can proceed at a decent pace, rather than everyone debating the nitty gritty details stemming from their successful skill check. People were getting waaaay too detailed. So yeah, advice or tips on these problems, or just about the game in general. We all had fun, but it bogged down towards the end. We want to play again in a more streamlined manner.
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Feb 13, 2010 17:35
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I'm DMing a 4e campaign and I've been asking my players what they want to see. So far the only request has been to get them the hell out of heroic as fast as possible. What would be a good way to implement that? After two sessions they're sitting at about 500 xp. Do I start handing out bonus xp for completing a plot point? Feed them waves and waves of minions during their fights? Arbitrarily tell them to go up a level after every session or so?
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Feb 15, 2010 18:10
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Why do they want to get out of heroic so fast? It's not completely terrible, and you can do some interesting things when they don't have so many options.
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Feb 15, 2010 18:47
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Gr3y posted:I'm DMing a 4e campaign and I've been asking my players what they want to see. So far the only request has been to get them the hell out of heroic as fast as possible. Do the third thing; just hand them a level every so often. You'll want to make sure they're still pulling in appropriate amounts of loot. But I have to say I agree with Souldark. Why the rush? Is it just the smaller amount of powers, or do they want their game to be grander in scope?
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Feb 15, 2010 19:16
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I like the 'give them the sun and make them fight for the moon' quote at the top of the page. Use their lust for levels to drive the plot. The 'magical macguffin that the players take and awaken a BBEG' is a pretty well worn trope, but it works. You get free plot points to work with, and the players will get more of a sense of accomplishment vs. fiated levels, and more evil guys to beat on for experience and fabulous prizes. So for example, park a magic orb in a tomb somewhere with a 'Warning: do NOT touch the orb of incredible power. Bad things will happen.' sign next to it. If the party decide to take it, they can absorb it's power and shoot up a bunch of levels. Doing so also awakens a lich that the orb was keeping bound. So congratulations party, you're now paragon tier. Oh, by the way, taking the orb? Yeah, you accidentally awoke an insane millenia old lich who wants to eat your brains so he can absorb your power. (It WAS clearly labeled 'do not touch', after all.) He's going around slaughtering villages and raising a zombie army so he can track you down and kill you all. Might want to deal with that. This should get a nice mix of 'Levels!  ' and 'Brain eating!?!  ', plus set you up for some later 'Killed the bad guy, more levels! '.Edited to sort of make sense. I hope. Verloc fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Feb 15, 2010 |
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Feb 15, 2010 19:57
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Verloc posted:I like the 'give them the sun and make them fight for the moon' quote at the top of the page. Use their lust for levels to drive the plot. The 'magical macguffin that the players take and awaken a BBEG' is a pretty well worn trope, but it works. You get free plot points to work with, and the players will get more of a sense of accomplishment vs. fiated levels, and more evil guys to beat on for experience and fabulous prizes. So for example, park a magic orb in a tomb somewhere with a 'Warning: do NOT touch the orb of incredible power. Bad things will happen.' sign next to it. If the party decide to take it, they can absorb it's power and shoot up a bunch of levels. Doing so also awakens a lich that the orb was keeping bound. So congratulations party, you're now paragon tier. Oh, by the way, taking the orb? Yeah, you accidentally awoke an insane millenia old lich who wants to eat your brains so he can absorb your power. (It WAS clearly labeled 'do not touch', after all.) He's going around slaughtering villages and raising a zombie army so he can track you down and kill you all. Might want to deal with that. This should get a nice mix of 'Levels! That does sort of assume your party sees the WARNING: CURSED ITEM sign and goes "oh heck yes we love curses sign us up for some of that", tho
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Feb 15, 2010 20:25
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Gr3y posted:I'm DMing a 4e campaign and I've been asking my players what they want to see. So far the only request has been to get them the hell out of heroic as fast as possible. Protip: never keep track of XP. In fact, pretend it's only used for balancing encounters. Give players levels whenever it would be fun and rewarding (i.e. at the end of sessions, but not necessarily every session). Anything else is just clinging to the rules for the sake of rules. [insert rant about "legacy mechanics"]
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Feb 15, 2010 20:28
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Android Blues posted:That does sort of assume your party sees the WARNING: CURSED ITEM sign and goes "oh heck yes we love curses sign us up for some of that", tho  v. I threw the warning sign in there mostly because it strikes me as a dick move not to at least obliquely warn the party about the horrible consequences of their actions, even if 'horrible consequences' are just more mooks for your party of medieval swords-and-sorcery rockstars to clown all over. Your mileage may vary of course.
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Feb 15, 2010 20:39
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Male Man posted:Protip: never keep track of XP. In fact, pretend it's only used for balancing encounters. Give players levels whenever it would be fun and rewarding (i.e. at the end of sessions, but not necessarily every session). Anything else is just clinging to the rules for the sake of rules. [insert rant about "legacy mechanics"] I just keep track of "encounters" and have the party level every 8 or so. I love using XP to make encounters the right strength, but nobody likes tracking how far till they level.
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Feb 17, 2010 09:30
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Just remember to handle out the 10 parcels in that time and the balance will be ok.
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Feb 17, 2010 09:36
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I'm surfing a massive post-apocalyptic boner from watching The Road and playing Metro 2033 in the same week, which of course has me idly dreaming of running a nice subway-crawling, mutant-shooting, gritty and desperate campaign for my peeps. The things I really want to accomplish: -establish a real feeling of desperate scarcity (holy poo poo this guy had THREE 9mm bullets in his pocket, we're rich!) -a good amount of horror, as they're fighting horrible monsters in near total darkness, this shouldn't be hard. -a solid backing for survival situations -a fairly crunchy rules system. Can anyone suggest a good rules system for something like this? I'm not much concerned about the attached settings, but as a long term D20 player I don't think it would handle what I want to do very well without serious modding. (In particular, I remember the modern d20 rules for firefights being really basic and lovely)
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Mar 26, 2010 11:54
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Gr3y posted:I'm DMing a 4e campaign and I've been asking my players what they want to see. So far the only request has been to get them the hell out of heroic as fast as possible. Lots of folks gave you good ways to accelerate the pace of your game, but, have you considered simply playing a Paragon game? By which I mean, if the players want a Paragon-level game, have them make level 11 characters and start from there. It can be more challenging because of the higher number of interrupting abilities and interacting, layering stuff the PCs are capable of, so it'll definitely keep you on your toes... but if all the players agree that what they're interested in is Paragon-level play, I can't see any reason to force them to work through a Heroic-level campaign first. On the other hand, if you don't feel you're ready to run a Paragon-level game, maybe sit down with the players and explain this, clearly, and then ask them for advice. I've found that a lot of DMs take the "I'm in charge of the game" role too far; beyond the role of referee, and into the position of taking responsibility for everyone else's fun, plus planning gaming nights, plus keeping the players organized, and so on. You don't have to accept that - you can throw it back on the others to help. Knock over the DMs screen for a few minutes and lay it out to them; running a campaign means planning and you want it to be fun and so can they work with you to make a fun game you're ready and able to run? ...or do what the other folks said, if what's really going on is your players just love leveling up more than anything else in the world.
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Mar 26, 2010 20:24
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Sinatrapod posted:I'm surfing a massive post-apocalyptic boner from watching The Road and playing Metro 2033 in the same week, which of course has me idly dreaming of running a nice subway-crawling, mutant-shooting, gritty and desperate campaign for my peeps. The things I really want to accomplish: Deadlands, Hell on Earth is pretty good for that kind of stuff.
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Mar 26, 2010 21:05
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TheAnomaly posted:Deadlands, Hell on Earth is pretty good for that kind of stuff. I take every opportunity I can to pimp Savage Worlds and I am doing just that right here. It's basically the classic Deadlands ruleset stripped down into a universal system that's easy to run and play. Download their free Test Drive rule set here, and if you like what you see, consider dropping the  for the core rulebook.
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Mar 26, 2010 21:51
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I also want to chime in that savage worlds would work great for it, and you can use some of the grittier setting/rules offered by the main rules (incapacitation, etc) or through supplements like Realms of Cthulhu (where double 1's means really bad poo poo happens).
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Mar 26, 2010 21:57
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Yo, got me a DM 911 situation right now. Most of the party is no-showing, and since the game's been in limbo lately I still need to run a game. Characters ready to show up are Druid, Sorcerer and a Rogue a bit later, all level 2 using 3.5 rules (yes I know but I like it, I warned everyone not to play fighters and we have fun so shut up) Need a few quick ideas for a mini adventure for 2-3 weak characters, I had a full adventure written already but they'd be torn to shreds by it, and I wanted to save the good stuff for when there were more people here. Campaign is a silly, light hearted bunch of dungeon crawling and "heroes for hire" stuff, and the party's being stalked by a lich from the shadows.
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Mar 26, 2010 23:46
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Skip the lich for now. Larger plot doesn't mean much if you don't have most of the players for it. I'd throw something a little silly at them. Like, the local tavern has had its large wine cellar infested by mephits, so the party has to go in and kill 2 or 3 of them. Have the mephits all dislike each other and insist the party should go after the other(s), as they're far worse than this one. If you need a bit more cannon fodder than that, throw in some small elementals as mephit servants that mysteriously can be sneak attacked, or some dire rats or the like as just random monsters. If the party is willing to talk to a bunch of monsters, you can probably spin that into a full session. A bunch of squabbling but dim-witted outsiders trying to carve little fiefdoms out of a cellar should be amusing for a session, and if you pick the mephit types to suit the sorcerer's spell list, the party should be able to manage without being overwhelmed. Explanations for how this happened are left as an academic exercise.
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Mar 27, 2010 00:01
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ZeeToo posted:Skip the lich for now. Larger plot doesn't mean much if you don't have most of the players for it. Yeah, the lich is just an "in the shadows" long-term plot conveyance and a possible hook to get them into some sort of problem. They had accidentally stolen his phylactery shortly after his suicide to achieve lichdom and in the current timeline he hasn't woken up yet, but he's going to be plenty angry when he does. The sorcerer is pretty much all enchantment-based since sleep is the killer spell on the 1st level list. All players showing are really inexperienced, so I do coddle them a fair bit, and they seemed to really hate a lot of the skill-based puzzles I put in the last game and favor a hack n' slash gameplay style Frankly if I had a grid and more time to teach them rules I'd just set them up with a 4e game.
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Mar 27, 2010 00:07
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all right i've got a skeleton of an idea, they're hunting the druid's goblin beguiler arch-enemy, and they're going to be putting an assault on his tribe's village to get info on where he is now i need some interesting encounters at the encampment beyond "well here's all the CR you can handle in goblins and worgs", I already got an Ogre guard as their "protector" and a Blue as the chieftan
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Mar 27, 2010 00:24
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To-be first time DM checking on. Writing an adventure is haaaard  So there's this village, Clifftop, imaginatively named because it sits at the edge of an impossibly sheer, tall cliff. For one reason or another the PCs are in this town when it comes under attack by the hideous denizens of the deep. I'm trying to keep this adventure not "fate of the world" at this point, though I'm thinking that if the game progresses well it could turn into that. I'm interested in having the group of PCs defend the town, and then journey towards where the creatures came from into a dungeon set into the cliff face. The BBEG at the end of the dungeon will be some underboss of an Aboleth, who is sending his minions forth to conquer and cover the world in darkness, yadda yadda. I figure its one gaming session for the defense of the town and finding the dungeon entrance, one session or two for the dungeon crawl. My problem is, where do I go from there? Have the PCs work their way up the food chain? The fate-of-the-world factor (should I decide to use it) is that there's a concerted effort among the aboleth to conquer the world, and the PCs were just unlucky and happened to be picnicking in Belgium the day the Nazis rolled into town. Caught up in a huge conflict as the little guys is the feeling I'm going for. How do a transition from "you killed this underboss, he gave you a cryptic clue about some wacky poo poo" without being lame and leading them into "oh there's this other town over here, go save the town/warn the king/whatever". I'm thinking I might have them be the sole survivors of the town - but that cuts down a little on NPCs to guide my party along, and leaves few options as to how to continue once the dungeon is cleared out. Am I over-thinking this? Stuntman Mike fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Mar 29, 2010 |
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Mar 29, 2010 02:23
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Fenarisk posted:I also want to chime in that savage worlds would work great for it, and you can use some of the grittier setting/rules offered by the main rules (incapacitation, etc) or through supplements like Realms of Cthulhu (where double 1's means really bad poo poo happens). Just wanted to report back after having grabbed the main .PDF and a couple of settings for fun off their website, and god drat you're right. Savage Worlds seems like just the balance of quick + optional crunch I was looking for. WELL DONE, GOLD STAR!
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Mar 31, 2010 04:22
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So question. Is rigging a fight so the PCs lose always bad? I'd always been taught as a general rule you just don't do that but I have a long term villian I'd like to establish as a credible threat and in 4e you generally don't run into fights you can't overcome, given how powerful the PCs are. Is it wrong of me to have them fight the boss (or if they heed the warning and flee that's cool too I won't make them fight him) and after a few rounds and of demolishing them have it interrupted so they can confront him down the line? I feel somehow that embarrassing the PCs is a way to get them to hate the guy off the bat.
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Mar 31, 2010 06:34
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NightVis, I;d suggest throwing in something that's not just a brute type melee enemy. Something with some sort of special ability. Options include: Goblin adept (lvl 3-5) Krenshar Nixie Spider / Bat / Rat swarm (bat/rat swarm lead by Lich's familiar?) Imp / Quasit (pos. Lich's familiar) Allip Rust monster (usualy a dick move, but only the rogue should be affected, just make sure there's replacement weapons for him)
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Mar 31, 2010 06:47
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RagnarokAngel posted:So question. Is rigging a fight so the PCs lose always bad? I'd always been taught as a general rule you just don't do that but I have a long term villian I'd like to establish as a credible threat and in 4e you generally don't run into fights you can't overcome, given how powerful the PCs are. Try having the villain be encountered along with some of his minions (not the mechanical kind, just some underlings), maybe a "mini-boss" enemy like a lieutenant or big scary monster, and have the villain throw a few attacks at the PCs before running away. You get the classic "haha, I am too good for the likes of you!" retreat to establish him as an arrogant prick (if applicable), or maybe as someone who doesn't care about his servants and doesn't care either way who wins or loses the fight. It's also an opportunity to establish how powerful he is by having the few attacks he uses be high damage, or come with dazes or stuns or what have you. And if any of your players are heavy into combat, in my experience nothing pisses them off more than having something get away from them.
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Mar 31, 2010 06:47
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