Irongate

What ho,

I thought I'd start a discussion of what we all were thinking about how the 4e system is working so far, since we've reached 10 sessions (+1) of our campaign.

Some Thoughts:

• Classes: I like the Warlord, it's just what I want to play. Most of the other classes look neat to me too. I'm a bit put-off by the rogue. It just seems weird that the old school thief is now the “dish it out, but can't take it monkey.” I also think the wizard class is pretty lame. There's no pizzazz, no flare.
• Powers: I like the at-will, encounter and daily set of powers (especially the encounter and dailies). It takes the old spell memorization mechanic, which made for some exciting and tense moments in choosing your next move for old school wizards and gives it to everyone.
• Healing Surges: I'm still undecided about them. Since our huge party makes the number of encounters per game session so few, we never really tap out our supply (except when we were boned by the slavers). I just don't know at this point.
• Monsters: as a DM, statting out monsters for a game session is a butt-load easier than 3e, but that's like saying hitting yourself with a small hammer is less painful than hitting yourself with a very big hammer. Old school D&D and C&C and even Savage Worlds have it beat by a long mile.
• Minions: I hate minions. Philosophically, they ruin any chance for any sort of game world consistency and all sorts of simulationist funk that I enjoy. As a player, I find no reward in mowing over these chumps and would rather be fighting a enemy that might be dangerous. I always hated the feebleness of level 0-1 enemies in mid-level D&D, but minions take the concept and turn it up to 11.
• Hit Point levels: I feel the monsters hit points are a bit too high. I guess when I get a critical hit with my daily power and do 36 points of damage, I'd like for something to die, or at least be sure that it would get bloodied. I mean, when the best hit I can ever do, won't kill a bandit, it just feels a bit wrong. Maybe if 2{w} and 3{w} hits also doubled or tripled the bonus damage, it might be more awesome, I don't know.

Well, there are my first thoughts. 11/17/08 Dave Nelson

• Well I'm pretty happy with the game system itself. I can't say it is my favorite of all time, but I am much more narrativist than simulationist like Dave is. (see http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffgforums/posts/list/5476.page) Honestly, as soon as I stop and think about ANY version of DND from a simulationist viewpoint my head spins.

• Dave, as for making monsters I've found it can be super easy. Check this handy tool out. It generates all stats, you just bolt any special powers to it. (http://www.asmor.com/scripts/4eMonsterMathCruncher/

• I'll do my best to get away from minions if you aren't happy with em. There is no reason why we couldn't just go back to low-hitpoint mooks instead. The minions were just super easy from a GM-control standpoint. No HP to keep track of, no damage to roll. I've been experimenting with elite-first level dudes and high-level minions as well. It sure made for an interesting moment when you guys met those vampire minions were there in the Mask of 99's lair!

• I would like to know folks' feeling on the handouts. In such a big group as ours, the roleplaying bogs down easily. If one or two players are roleplaying with the GM, that means that the bulk of the other players are just sitting around. The more I can get everyone involved the better. The handouts are designed to try to spur roleplaying *between players*. Is that working out? Or does it all just annoy you guys?

• Further, I'm trying to build these handouts based on some sort of lead in your character or previous roleplaying that I've seen that interests you. Would you guys prefer to tell *me* what your character wants to pursue, and then I'll wrap that up into the handouts? I'll tell you, that would sure make my job a whole lot easier! Write me with an idea or a plot summary. We'll put it into the pot!

• One last thing, I worry that our combat rounds move too slowly. I do my best to keep the action upbeat and rolling without sacrificing rules consistency. Are we getting through rounds quickly enough? Do you feel like you have to wait too long for the action to get to you?

11/18/08 Andrew

*I very much enjoy being able to do something every round other than just 'I swing my sword <roll to hit> for x damage'.

*I generally like the system and the games we've had with it. Since basically my only exposure to something other than 2nd edition was through the Neverwinter Nights games, it has been pretty fast. It seems, though, that it's very narrow in it's definitions of character classes, as tanks, buffers, or damagers. In fact it seems very similar to World of Warcraft where they define groups under class rols of tanking, DPS (damage per second, basically people that do damage), and healers (except now there's practically no need for healers at all with the variety of abilities). Seems like before (with what I knew of 3e) you could take a variety of feats to mold your character into whatever sort of type of fighter, thief, etc, you really wanted it to be like. In 4e the abilities are very specific to what character can do what, with what. I really liked the idea of specialty priests that 2nd edition forgotten realms had. Each deity had it's own priest, which had it's own abilities, selection of spells (including spells specific to that particular deity), and selections of arms/armor that they could use.

*I think clerics at the lower levels here feel really anemic. Actually it's much the same thing I see as a weakness for wizards. It's much nicer having a variety of things we can do, but when I ran a cleric or wizard before I could pick a pile of spells up for whatever I was expecting, or for a particular role I was expecting. It's nice at low levels, but at higher levels you have comparatively few spells to lob around (granted the ones you CAN lob are very nice, and there are bunches of encounter spells) but the thought of being a wizard and only being able to throw a single fireball a day (especially for what is very weak damage compared to what it was before) makes me cry a little bit. As it is right now, all my healing spells are gone in 3 rounds.

*Ritual spells are poo. The costs are high and they take a long time to cast. Granted they are frequently very powerful, but they really underwhelm so much at our levels that it actually took me twenty minutes to pick out one of the free ones I got for my character. Not that it was difficult to choose, it was more like which one sucked the least. The problem is that they so underwhelm at the low levels that we forget about them, and don't pursue the ones that don't stink so much at higher levels.

*I think a big group like we have is a blessing and a curse, really. It's nice that we can bounce things off of each other, especially while the DM is involved in a talk with one or two players. It gets kind of bogged down from time to time, but I usually have fun listening or chiming in as an NPC. We have enough of a mix of classes that all we have to do is get into a formation and roll through just about anything. Granted we'd be pretty screwed if they enacted some kind of rules about firing weapons or spells into melee.

*I will agree with the HP's on stuff being extremely high. Like Dave said, it's more than a little depressing when you get a critical hit with an encounter power and barely scratch what you're fighting.

*Minions are a nice idea if you're going to have like a huge fight or something. I know from my experience that it sucked trying to keep track of the squishy guys HP's and whatnot.

*I like the handouts. This is basically my first character who is actually good and not a psychotic paladin (and one of a handful of characters that's not based almost totally on a movie character..ask me about my pimp halfling in Warhammer). It's nice to have an extra little goal and reward.

*I also like the lowbie one-use semi-magic item cards we were doing a while back. I don't think any of them were terribly bad or overpowering.

*All in all I'm very satisfied with how the games running so far. As it stands now, however, I don't think I'd be so inclined to run another cleric.

Jason

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• I don't think that you really can monkey around with the minions in practice. The game is too numbers-dependent and if you don't use them then a lot of powers (most especially the poor wizard's) are seriously nerfed. I don't think there's anything to be done, but I still just don't like them.

• I have a spread sheet for soldiers and skirmishers, and sure you could use a computer tool. But still, that's never even close to as easy as “AC4, HD 4, Move 5, 1 attack 1d6 damage”, which takes 0 time (if you round down).

• We should also start to bring in the Alchemical items from Adventurer's Vault. They are sort of accessible 1-use items.

• I'm sort of rethinking my stance on the magic item economy. I suppose it wouldn't really kill things to allow magic item purchase.

• I agree with Jason that the powers for melee are super-cool.

• I guess I feel a huge dread at the thought of tinkering with the rules. One of the virtues of the system is how it all hangs together and the math is all thought out. It's also one of the vices, since it makes one feel trapped to doing only certain things in certain ways.
• Campaign-wise, I think we've done a good job getting some role-playing into the mix. The cards are a good idea. I try to make a weave that draws the PC's together through city events. However, the characters really don't have anything in common except that they're members of the Mighty Get 'Em Gang. Maybe we should go with that and at some point move us out of the city itself and set up a base or lair together. That way group has more of a reason to stick together.

Dave N 11/18

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• RE: Magic item economy: I'm still hesitant to let it run free. Maybe it is my own pet peeve, but I need some roleplaying questions answered. Who is doing the work to make the magic item? What level is that guy? Why isn't he still adventuring himself? I would almost rather have players come up with their own stories on how they get the weapons and spend the money. “I bought it at a yard sale”, “I won it in a bet”, and “I threw this huge party and someone left it behind” are all super-awesomely cool with me. I just don't want magic items to come from the vending machine.

• RE: Easy: A spreadsheet? Seriously? I don't even write stuff down. Click-copy-paste! That's like -1 time! I spend more time on crayon maps.

• Yeah, let's tinker with the rules next campaign. BTW, for those of you who are new to the Lords of Hack. Our big campaigns traditionally peter out at around the 30+ session level, and I would say the Irongate campaign is a big campaign, so I'm going on record as predicting that this campaign is about 1/3 of the way done. That means we will probably get into the late paragon levels, but on the 20+ section. After that, we may reboot with a new campaign depending on how we all feel.

• To summarize, we'll keep up with the one-shot items. If you want to buy a magic item, write me or Dave and tell us how you get it (or how you *want* to go about getting it).

Andrew 11/19/08

* Let me just start by saying that this is the best D&D group i have had, ever.

* As far as classes go, I am getting sick of the Wizard. In 3e, the wizard was the party's bag of tricks, but now that every class has their own special powers, he just doesn't feel that great anymore. All i really do is stand in the back and take potshots, and it's getting annoying. As we're playing now, I just don't see any reason for a controler. To me, it seems that the striker is the way that most people want to go. It must have something to do with dealing crazy ammounts of damage. The defenders are cool as well, simply because they have lots of HP. Leaders are alright. Just look at the number of each. 3 strikers (soon 4); 2 defenders; 2 leaders; and 1 controler. Shows how much fun the makers of the game had with each one.

* The Monsters are all really neat, even if they have too many hit points. One of the cool things that exsisted in the other editions was the idea of a solo, where one PC held off a small group of monsters while the others did something else. Now that idea has been flipped, where a single PC will be murdered in a 2 rounds, but there are monsters that can take the party by itself. I like minions, but that may just be because they are the sole reason for my class' exsistance.

* The handouts at each session are great. They help build my character almost as much as my own imagination. Each one gives me goals for the session on top of just surviving.

*I'd love the idea of buying magic items. I agree that a magic item shop is a little weird rules wise, but there are other ways. What if you payed a good dragon for the magic sword in its horde? Just an idea. But the ways we've been getting our magic items are pretty cool as well.

*But overall, I do enjoy 4e. Chris C 11/21/08

• RE: »What if you payed a good dragon for the magic sword in its horde? Awesome! See, if you told me that the money was used to just “buy a gift so that the dragon would talk to you”, I would be more than happy to give you that magic item. I just want to hear some creativity about how you got the item outside of “I bought it at magic-mart”. Although even that could be funny if you told the story a certain way.

Andrew 11/21/08

* I have to say that after my admittedly brief exposure to 4E, I am not a fan.

* My biggest beef is with the classes. Each class feels smashed in to a narrow role that it is nearly incapable of getting out of. You want to be an effective two-weapon fighting fighter or rogue, good luck. That's not what their supposed to do so they stink at it. I can't even get into the former spellcasters, because I haven't played one yet, but I'm not impressed with what I hear.

* I also don't care for the “powers” system. I mostly end up using the same power over and over anyway, and the effects of “I swing my sword” is a lot easier to remember than “I use fangs of the wolf”. Hmmm, is “fangs of the wolf” 1W or 2W? Do I get my Str bonus? My Dex bonus? Is the guy dazed if I miss? If I wanted to remember crap, I'd play a mage.

* I also agree with all above that the monsters seem to have too many hp. A 2 or 3W crit against an equal level monster should at least bloody the thing every time, especially now that crits are harder to come by. THat being said, I do like the variety that seems to be available in their creation. Nothing is the same, and stupid sh*t like Improved Grab and its ilk seem to be gone.

* Now the minions concept is one thing I do like. Though the 0lvl guard concept was always kind of a joke, there are times when you just want to kill stuff with one hit. I never met a gaming group yet that didn't enjoy the occaisonal 0lvl one-attack-per-level turkey shoot.

* I like healing surges, but the concept behind them is unjustifiable. There is simply no non-magical way to explain the healing surge, but they come in handy, so I'm giving the designers a pass on this one.

* I liked D&D because it was different than the computer games, but now I can't tell them appart.

Just my thoughts,

Peter 11/24/08

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I tried an experiment last Sunday. I had the kobold priest's meat shields (The Stabbo-Maniacs) be not minions, not full monsters, but “Half-pointers” they had half the normal hit points are were worth half the experience points. I didn't use enough of them to prove anything, but they were easy to kill and yet had to be treated as real enemies. I may do some more experiments with them in the future. The other idea I've had is to give minions somewhere between 5 and 10 hit points, so a regular hit may or may not kill them, but a solid hit will definitely kill them. I'm just going to experiment here and there.

Dave N 11/27/08

First, as most things are, a link to a comic about 4e magical economy: http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/ffn/index.php?date=2008-11-19

Second, the discussion about buying magic items versus finding magic items reminded me of a few lines from a book I read (and strongly recommend) called 'Another Day, Another Dungeon' by Greg Costikyan. They were discussing hiring a cleric, and ending up with one who is falling down drunk for their adventuring party. The party leader expressed doubt in the cleric, and the party organizer said “Look, priests are people who sit safe, and comfortable, in cities and collect gold from rubes. We are heading into a dungeon full of monsters which is, by definitiion, neither safe nor comfortable. We are lucky to get any priest at all.” Basically, if magic users (cleric or wizard) can just sit in a city, make whatever people kind of magic item that customers want, why would they ever want to head into danger? I mean, other than rituals, the wizard doesn't even really learn spells when they advance levels.

I prefer that we only find magic items, but we can brew potions if we get the ritual (potions are one use, basically fairly brittle, and not really overpower). What I suggest is that the person who brews potions should be required to learn the recipes for the various potions from somewhere, whether it be a book, another brewer, rolled up in a pile of loot, etc. I would say if we do ever decide we can buy magic items, that people with 'enchant magic item' ritual should have to keep a recipe book.

Jason 11/29/08