|
In 4E I found it relatively hard to feel like I was ever doing anything creative in combat because so many powers are just some variant of "does damage." It never felt like it had enough focus on moving enemies around or positioning to ever really scratch that "I am doing a clever tactical play"-feel for me.
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 00:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 12:37 |
|
|
hyphz posted:Yea, that's what I mean. I don't know chess well enough to know what is considered a "creative move" in chess, but what's the equivalent in D&D 4e/PF2e/Strike/Fragged etc. tactical combat, and how often does it happen? I think Lancer is a good example here. In Lancer your action economy is reasonably straightforward. You have 'protocols' which are free actions you can only do at the start of your turn. Usually this is granted by a particular talent or system. e.g. pilots with Crack Shot can immobilise themselves as a protocol to gain accuracy. If you've spun up a Leviathan Cannon, you can spin it down as a protocol to stop slowing yourself. You can move, breaking up your movement around your actions. And you can choose to either take two quick actions, or one full action. You're not allowed to have those standard QAs be identical, though a full action can substitute for it - e.g. you can't QA to Skirmish twice, but you can 'Barrage' as a full action to fire two different weaponmounts. So, that's it, usually your optimal things to do on a turn will be reasonably straightforward unless you've got a wacky complex build. But there's one wrinkle: you're allowed to overcharge. Overcharging grants you an additional quick action, and it doesn't count agains the 'no repeat actions' rule (so you can Skirmish, then overcharge to Skirmish again with your heaviest weapon). The downside is that overcharge costs heat, and it's an increasing amount of heat every time you do it - 1, 1d3, 1d6, maxing at 1d6+4. The most common result of exceeding your heatcap is that your mech gets the Exposed condition - taking double damage until you spend a full action to Stabilise. (There's also funny builds based around overcharging, taking the overcharge QA, and then stabilising every turn to cool down, known as OClooping) This cost persists between battles until you get a full rest and repair. The creativity comes from this uncertainty. Is it worth overcharging here? If you did, what's the best use of it? Is it still worth it for the additional risk later, where you might need it more? Is overcharging still worth it if you'd almost certainly exceed your heatcap? The battlefield gets less deterministic when you can decide "no, this enemy absolutely has to go down in this turn" and pump every resource into it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 01:01
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:In 4E I found it relatively hard to feel like I was ever doing anything creative in combat because so many powers are just some variant of "does damage." It never felt like it had enough focus on moving enemies around or positioning to ever really scratch that "I am doing a clever tactical play"-feel for me.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 02:26
|
|
|
Splicer posted:What class(es) did you play? Ranger? A ranger(of some kind? I think it was some weird subvariant?) and some variant of wizard, I think just a straight up mage, because it was described as a "Controller"(I think? Most of the mechanics just bounced off my head, completely refused to lodge in my long term memory, as it all felt completely uninspired and uninspiring), but it felt like 90% of what I could do was just "damage a guy" or "damage a circle of guys."
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 03:07
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:In 4E I found it relatively hard to feel like I was ever doing anything creative in combat because so many powers are just some variant of "does damage." It never felt like it had enough focus on moving enemies around or positioning to ever really scratch that "I am doing a clever tactical play"-feel for me. I played a fighter in 4e and I had the exact opposite experience as you. Plus we took full advantage of designing fights around the environments that they were in so there was a lot of non-enemy stuff to create interactions with. PurpleXVI posted:A ranger(of some kind? I think it was some weird subvariant?) and some variant of wizard, I think just a straight up mage, because it was described as a "Controller"(I think? Most of the mechanics just bounced off my head, completely refused to lodge in my long term memory, as it all felt completely uninspired and uninspiring), but it felt like 90% of what I could do was just "damage a guy" or "damage a circle of guys." If you didn't build a character around doing anything but damage, that makes sense. Rangers are pure damage and a number of wizard builds just focus on AoE damage rather than movement/disabling effects.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 03:29
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:A ranger(of some kind? I think it was some weird subvariant?) and some variant of wizard, I think just a straight up mage, because it was described as a "Controller"(I think? Most of the mechanics just bounced off my head, completely refused to lodge in my long term memory, as it all felt completely uninspired and uninspiring), but it felt like 90% of what I could do was just "damage a guy" or "damage a circle of guys." It sounds like you mean a ranger and the Essentials mage, which were respectively 1) the broken class of the classes that just did All Damage, All the Time and 2) a class specifically designed for people who technically wanted to be controllers but actively wanted to avoid any decisions besides Who To Damage This Round. You basically picked one of the few original classes that didn't have a lot of tactical room and one of the classes from a later stage where they were (mistakenly) playing with the idea of reducing tactical options to make lovely little brother classes because Mike Mearls is a hack. It's been a bit and your mind's probably made up, but if you ever get the urge to try 4E you should grab a fighter. You'll have a wildly different experience.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 03:35
|
|
|
Hell Ranger also had a lot of tactical options if you wanted, the problem with them was just an embarrassment of riches, Twin Strike was too good of an at-will. I loved playing Beastmaster Ranger back then, having threat control from two squares was fantastic. But yeah, those Esentials books are poison pills. If you see them by the side of the road, kill them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 04:07
|
|
|
theironjef posted:Hell Ranger also had a lot of tactical options if you wanted, the problem with them was just an embarrassment of riches, Twin Strike was too good of an at-will. I loved playing Beastmaster Ranger back then, having threat control from two squares was fantastic. Yeah it's not that ranger was bad in the sense of unplayable, it just had a very high chance of turning into nothing but Twin Strike all the time, which was really boring but very effective in sheer number-slam with minimal effort. Or you could actually have fun like playing a brawler fighter.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 04:16
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:Yeah it's not that ranger was bad in the sense of unplayable, it just had a very high chance of turning into nothing but Twin Strike all the time, which was really boring but very effective in sheer number-slam with minimal effort. Brawler Fighter dual classed with monk is basically Zangief and it's a loving blast
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 04:25
|
|
|
S.J. posted:Brawler Fighter dual classed with monk is basically Zangief and it's a loving blast Can confirm.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 04:26
|
|
|
S.J. posted:Brawler Fighter dual classed with monk is basically Zangief and it's a loving blast One of my finest gaming memories is choke slamming a hydra while doing a Randy Savage impression. More necks just means more poo poo to grab.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 04:36
|
|
|
I played a Minotaur Gladiator fighter from level 1 to 21 and it was amazing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 04:56
|
|
|
What I'm getting out of this is that even the Good D&D couldn’t make dealing damage interesting. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 06:04
|
|
|
Siivola posted:What I'm getting out of this is that even the Good D&D couldn’t make dealing damage interesting. I think they at least had a good start once they got going with the idea of the DPS classes' having differentiation by secondary role-characteristics and a (n often trivial) mini-game with your DPS targeting (quarry, curse target, etc.). Although I'm not actually disagreeing with your point because 1) fundamentally "just damage" is definitionally uninteresting and 2) 4E itself admitted it by giving the DPS classes another game to play.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 06:13
|
|
|
Siivola posted:What I'm getting out of this is that even the Good D&D couldn’t make dealing damage interesting. It's a Mediocre RPG because of sacred cows and people who didn't get the memo/people who got mad at the memo, so e.g. not maxing out your primary stat is ~optional~ despite it also being a huge factor in your accuracy/damage, equipment enchants that are just +damage/+to-hit/+defence but you have to build for them, and feats feats feats. Splicer fucked around with this message at 10:40 on Jan 3, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 10:37
|
|
|
damage-dealing can be an interesting role if you can pump out so much damage that the team can reliably count on you to "Kill This Thing, Right Now" on demand it was hamstrung by on-release 4e monsters having far too much HP, such that that couldn't happen when I was running 4e a lifetime ago with monster HP cut clean in half, the Rogue was an absolute monster, able to drop a Skirmisher-type monster from full in a single turn if they blew their non-At-Wills
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 11:26
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:damage-dealing can be an interesting role if you can pump out so much damage that the team can reliably count on you to "Kill This Thing, Right Now" on demand Yeah, I think the GM was running things unmodified, because I remember mentally cashing out of most fights about ten minutes in when they turned to: "All my dailies and encounters have been fired off, half of them missed btw, now I just sit here and spam my single at-will until the battle ends." Xiahou Dun posted:It's been a bit and your mind's probably made up, but if you ever get the urge to try 4E you should grab a fighter. You'll have a wildly different experience. Nah, I have too many issues with 4e for that to fix things for me. I feel like I've elaborated on them enough that no one would be entertained by me re-listing my beefs, but in short it's just a clunky-rear end mess of inherited trash from 3e and splat bloat rather than an earnest attempt at a tactical RPG reboot of D&D.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 11:31
|
|
|
I don’t know if this is quite the right thread, but I’m looking into running a short Feng Shui 2e game. Not a one shot, maybe a couple sessions? I’ll be doing it over either PbP or Discord. I’m trying to do a modern day/Heroic Bloodshed story as suggested by the rules. Any threads discussing this system or people willing to talk in this thread about it with me? Would appreciate it a lot!
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 11:37
|
|
|
Cessna posted:I'm on vacation and don't have my stuff here to cite page counts, but no, the D&D books aren't 85% combat mechanics. lmao this mf trying to argue percentages in a joke
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 12:31
|
|
|
this is how you know we in the tradgames forum
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 12:33
|
|
|
Got a couple pre-order/Kickstarter preview PDF's today, the highlights being the ones for The Vast In The Dark Expanded and The Monster Overhaul, the former being an absolutely stunning(both in writing and art) Dark Fantasy/Horror setting and GM toolkit, while the latter is essentially an attempt to create a modern Monster Manual that is more useful at the table than the traditional style(have only gotten a few pages into it but have already run into a brilliant concept, replacing the classic but frustrating "Level Drain" concept with the much easier to work with concept of having monsters that traditionally inflict that effect instead inflict an XP Debt which increases how much XP the PC affected needs to next level up) Definitely recommend both once they get publicly released
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 12:41
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:damage-dealing can be an interesting role if you can pump out so much damage that the team can reliably count on you to "Kill This Thing, Right Now" on demand e: also spike damage is great even if it doesn't kill a thing. If you consistently do 25% more damage than everyone else, eh. If once or twice a combat you can choose to do three rounds of damage in one round that's much more satisfying and strategic even if it comes out at about the same average. Splicer fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Jan 3, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 14:04
|
|
|
Heliotrope posted:I don’t know if this is quite the right thread, but I’m looking into running a short Feng Shui 2e game. Not a one shot, maybe a couple sessions? I’ll be doing it over either PbP or Discord. I’m trying to do a modern day/Heroic Bloodshed story as suggested by the rules. Any threads discussing this system or people willing to talk in this thread about it with me? Would appreciate it a lot!  your questions in here.There used to be a FS2e thread but it's long since been vaulted for inactivity.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 14:06
|
|
|
I’ve been mulling over starting a group with friends to play through some old dnd modules, like a tour of cool old stuff and discuss what’s good/bad about it. The big roadbump is that there are so many and I don’t really have a good idea of the landscape, so I’m asking here for some help: what modules should I look into? Want to generally stick to dnd but I’m not afraid of doing some homework for another system if it has the endorsement from people here.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 15:27
|
|
|
Chakan posted:I’ve been mulling over starting a group with friends to play through some old dnd modules, like a tour of cool old stuff and discuss what’s good/bad about it. The big roadbump is that there are so many and I don’t really have a good idea of the landscape, so I’m asking here for some help: what modules should I look into? Want to generally stick to dnd but I’m not afraid of doing some homework for another system if it has the endorsement from people here.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 17:28
|
|
|
Chakan posted:I’ve been mulling over starting a group with friends to play through some old dnd modules, like a tour of cool old stuff and discuss what’s good/bad about it. The big roadbump is that there are so many and I don’t really have a good idea of the landscape, so I’m asking here for some help: what modules should I look into? Want to generally stick to dnd but I’m not afraid of doing some homework for another system if it has the endorsement from people here. Off the top of my head: B2 Keep on the Borderlands B4 The Lost City X1 Isle of Dread I6 Ravenloft S2 White Plume Mountain (or S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks) N5 Under Illefarn Two that are historically important but probably less fun to actually play are: S1 Tomb of Horrors DL1 Dragons of Despair Dungeon Magazine #116 has a run down of the top 30 adventures in the first 30 years of D&D that can help. e: if you’re gonna do PARANOIA, I’d recommend “Me and My Shadow, Mark IV”, particularly the version in PARANOIA Flashbacks. The corresponding core rulebook is PARANOIA Service Pack 1 (aka PARANOIA Xp). Arivia fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Jan 3, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 17:41
|
|
|
Heliotrope posted:I don’t know if this is quite the right thread, but I’m looking into running a short Feng Shui 2e game. Not a one shot, maybe a couple sessions? I’ll be doing it over either PbP or Discord. I’m trying to do a modern day/Heroic Bloodshed story as suggested by the rules. Any threads discussing this system or people willing to talk in this thread about it with me? Would appreciate it a lot! Just ban the Killer Archetype. It’s an exemplar of bad design.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 17:49
|
|
|
Splicer posted:Make HP go down is boring, apply status effect: Dead is fun. When you factor in minions then AoE/multitattack powers count as status applying effects. A wonderful problem I have is that the part of my brain that handles character building gets satisfaction from things like consistency and longevity. So it gets sucked in when killing one monster gains enough resources to kill another half monster (or, better, one or more entire additional monsters), meaning that my combat resources get depleted more slowly (or: snowball through a degenerate infinite murder loop). Meanwhile, the part of my brain that actually plays the game is much happier doing big, flashy plays. Leap over here, bowl that guy into his friends, knock the wall down on top of them—doesn't matter that that uses up a ton of resources, it's exciting. Inside me there are two wolves, one of whom is an actuary.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 19:16
|
|
|
Maybe a little late to 4E chat but I think perhaps a reason a lot of people, even those playing pure damage dealers, found it boring was because of DMs using static battlefields. Battlefields that change, that impose choices, that have hazardous zones, that have traps to navigate/disarm/use, etc., made 4E combat a lot more fun. People were bagging on Essentials classes, but the essentials ranger, with the forced movement & inflicted statuses, was more fun than the PHB "all DPS all the time" version.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 19:35
|
|
|
Admiralty Flag posted:Maybe a little late to 4E chat but I think perhaps a reason a lot of people, even those playing pure damage dealers, found it boring was because of DMs using static battlefields. Battlefields that change, that impose choices, that have hazardous zones, that have traps to navigate/disarm/use, etc., made 4E combat a lot more fun. One of my favorite fights we ever did involved repeatedly slamming a Titan into the pillars holding up his own ruined temple. The pillars would topple and then after so many of them did the entire roof and building collapsed on all of us. My fighter was the only one in the party that managed to claw his way out of the rubble and I was out of every power except some encounter ability that allowed me to move into an opponent and my heroic/epic choices gave me some extra damage for doing so. This was after everyone was spent and/or downed so my fighter ended up shoulder-charging this dude to death after we dropped tons of debris on top of his head. It was loving cool because we had to avoid damage from the pillars falling, potentially being thrown into the pillars which would bring the place down faster and kill us all, and then the terrain that appeared on the board whenever one of the pillars fell, plus the effects the actual enemy put on the field as well. 4e had great rules for interactive environments and they were easy to put into just about any fight imo
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 20:34
|
|
|
Arivia posted:Two that are historically important but probably less fun to actually play are: Do not ever play a Dragonlance module, I have never played, read or reviewed one that wasn't atrocious dogshit except possibly for the DLE modules and even they had some pretty dire parts.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 20:45
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:Do not ever play a Dragonlance module, I have never played, read or reviewed one that wasn't atrocious dogshit except possibly for the DLE modules and even they had some pretty dire parts. That’s why I made sure to list it separately. It’s historically important, a classic, and I have no doubt it sucks to play.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 20:47
|
|
|
Speaking of tactical RPGs, Grant Howitt and Chris a Taylor have a playtest out for Hollows, their tabletop Souls-like deconstructing toxic masculinity. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/123DDx8T2J5oYzoCWXl7dH5eQqPV988P9?usp=sharing&mc_cid=9fa278c82d&mc_eid=UNIQID
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 21:34
|
|
|
Chakan posted:I’ve been mulling over starting a group with friends to play through some old dnd modules, like a tour of cool old stuff and discuss what’s good/bad about it. The big roadbump is that there are so many and I don’t really have a good idea of the landscape, so I’m asking here for some help: what modules should I look into? Want to generally stick to dnd but I’m not afraid of doing some homework for another system if it has the endorsement from people here. I have done just this and it is an absolute blast! I strongly recommend hidden shrine of tamoachan. Just a stone classic. Also tomb of horrors is fine, people will die but that's the point. You're presumably handing out new characters for it, so who cares? Give people badges for funniest death, first to die, most treasure retrieved. White plume is also great. If you want to talk about works/doesn't work, the slavers series is a really good mixed bag, you have an excellent fort assault, a bunch of weird dungeon crawling and the extremely innovative final module. Finally, sinister secret of saltmarsh is brilliant. As a system, 1e is hilariously stripped down, and if you are like me you'll find yourself rolling your own task resolution system (roll under stat on a d20 is decent).
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 21:51
|
|
|
CitizenKeen posted:Speaking of tactical RPGs, Grant Howitt and Chris a Taylor have a playtest out for Hollows, their tabletop Souls-like deconstructing toxic masculinity. Great chest ahead
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 21:58
|
|
|
I stand by running Tomb of Horrors as a comedy game. Infinite regens, 4 drink minimum*, wacky brute-forcing encouraged. All mechanics replaced with hand-waving. *The When You Die, Take a Shot to Continue rule has been discontinued due to sanity.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 22:05
|
|
|
It's not actually that dangerous, if you're appropriately cautious. you have a swag of high level characters with loads of hp, spells and magic and explicitly no limits on pulling out to rest and recover. Definitely plenty of options to wipe if you're not dialed into the particular brand of fuckery, but play it like dark souls and you'll probably be ok. It's also got some very tight design and worth playing for that. One of the best things gygax did imo.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 22:12
|
|
|
Chakan posted:I’ve been mulling over starting a group with friends to play through some old dnd modules, like a tour of cool old stuff and discuss what’s good/bad about it. The big roadbump is that there are so many and I don’t really have a good idea of the landscape, so I’m asking here for some help: what modules should I look into? Want to generally stick to dnd but I’m not afraid of doing some homework for another system if it has the endorsement from people here.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 22:41
|
|
|
mellonbread posted:Against the Giants is the top rated module for AD&D, and one of the highest rated modules of any edition overall. it's also the most combat centric of all the modules, I think
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 22:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 12:37 |
|
|
sebmojo posted:It's not actually that dangerous, if you're appropriately cautious. you have a swag of high level characters with loads of hp, spells and magic and explicitly no limits on pulling out to rest and recover. Definitely plenty of options to wipe if you're not dialed into the particular brand of fuckery, but play it like dark souls and you'll probably be ok. The trick with Tomb of Horrors is that there's a bunch of versions of it and just to confuse everyone some of the later versions were printed in the style of the earlier ones. The later ones generally added saving throws to traps that originally didn't have them, or replaced instant death with damage. There's also at least one encounter that I'm pretty sure depended on the "harsh GM and theatre of the mind" OSR style to work and seems to fall a bit flat in more systemic games.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2023 22:45
|
|