D&D 4e: This edition sucks edition - Games

[QUOTE=cyclocius;48494365]You'd do well to ignore this kind of crap though. Some people will never change their minds. nWoD is largely a complete mechanical upgrade of cWoD, even the most die-hard of cWoD players would generally (in my experience at least with four different groups) play 20th anniversary editions of a game, than straight up play cWoD. The Big dumb bad ass apocalypse was practically the driving force of cWoD, that the clock was at 11 minutes to midnight and only the people who knew what was happening were actually shitting their pants. nWoD has a tonne of stuff in it, and the best part is that you don't even need to use all of it. You can have a World of Darkness that only has Gheists in it, aspects of Death itself that have bought people back to life and piggyback around on their little puppets. Or you can only have Vampires, or Changelings or whatever. The closest thing to a mandatory inclusion is the God Machine if you want to run Demon the Descent. But every other aspect of the game is divorcable from this concept and you can just use the rules if you want. I personally am a fan of the God Machine but I can see why some people aren't and that's all fine and dandy.[/QUOTE] "you can ignore parts of a setting if you dont like it" yeah no shit that's not unique to nWoD lol, that's one of the dumbest statements I've ever read. It's by no means a "complete mechanical upgrade", not even by a long shot. It improved some things in some ways, I'll give you that, but it broke other things, and made a whole ton of things way less interesting. And the setting is mostly just crap.

[QUOTE=cyclocius;48494365]The closest thing to a mandatory inclusion is the God Machine if you want to run Demon the Descent.[/QUOTE] Oh right, Demon. [quote]The God-Machine is a slightly-omniscient thing. Nobody knows [I]for sure[/I] what it is, but it keeps doing weird shit to reality. Angels are, sort of, programs set up by the God-Machine, to go into the world and accomplish a specific task, usually as part of a piece of Infrastructure in order to cause something to happen. 99% of the time, Angels are entirely mindless, doing what they're told to the letter; sometimes, though, an Angel thinks for itself. [I]Why[/I] does the God-Machine want me to kill this person? [I]Why[/I] should I jump off the Space Needle to my death? At this point, a Demon is born, the Angel's tie to the God-Machine cut off, and the infrastructure making them appear human transforming with them into an actual human identity, known as a Cover. Most Demons, at this point, decide 'fuck the God-Machine, I'm on my own now', and start working on finding their own version of Hell; Hell isn't necessarily a place in DtD, but it can be anything. For many, it's a state of mind. There are four(five) Incarnations of Demons; all this really determines is what kind of Embeds you start with. Destroyers were Angels with a mission to destroy or erase something(this can include killing people or themselves), they start with at least 1 Cacophony embed, which cause chaos/violence. Guardians were Angels tasked with defending something, and start with an Instrumental embed, which deal with timing/precision in various ways. Messengers were Angels tasked to deliver or retrieve information in any form, and start with a Vocal embed, which influence the actions and thoughts of other people. Psychopomps were Angels tasked with setting up Infrastructure or observing something, and they start with Mundane embeds, which keep things hidden/unnoticed. The final Incarnation of Demons, which is the rarest because most of them assume themselves to be another kind(Often Psychopomps), are Analysts, which were Angels specifically tasked with observing something, and start with an Exploit without needing prerequisites. Embeds are subtle manipulations of the world, while Exploits are gained by combining Embeds and upping the power to affect the world in a much more obvious way. There's also four Agendas, which are how any Demon chooses to undergo their Descent. Inquisitors keep an eye on the God-Machine's workings, often becoming information brokers in some form or another. Saboteurs attempt to destroy or suborn the God-Machine's infrastructure. Tempters try to distance themselves from the God-Machine and enjoy their newfound freedom. Integrators are Demons who, after their Fall, regretted whatever lead them their, and often get themselves killed by Angels in order to return to the God-Machine; those who don't usually think the God-Machine has become flawed, and spend their Descent trying to fix it. Integrators are treated with suspicion by the other Agendas, but kept around because they tend to still think along the same lines as the God-Machine.[/quote]

How do I generally balance enemies / enemy challenge level with progression and player level? Like if I have 4 players @ level two, how do I quickly calculate how many monsters and encounters of what challenge level I can throw at them before they've leveled up? What's the general difficulty of one level 9 player fighting a CR 9 monster? What is the difficulty of 4 level 9 players fighting a level 9 monster? Any other tips for trying to keep a campaign region to something like 1-10?

[QUOTE=General J;48496543]How do I generally balance enemies / enemy challenge level with progression and player level? Like if I have 4 players @ level two, how do I quickly calculate how many monsters and encounters of what challenge level I can throw at them before they've leveled up? What's the general difficulty of one level 9 player fighting a CR 9 monster? What is the difficulty of 4 level 9 players fighting a level 9 monster? Any other tips for trying to keep a campaign region to something like 1-10?[/QUOTE] Depends on the system, really. Personally, while you CAN balance everything to the party it's more fun to establish regions as having shit there already, so if the level 1 party goes inside of a KNOWN fire giant stronghold they get what's coming to them. There's CR calculators everywhere for most rules, so you could look it up by edition.

I usually just eyeball it and then tweak things to be easier/harder on the fly. If players are doing better than expected let the enemy buff themselves, give them a bit more HP/defences, have reinforcements show up, etc. if they're getting trashed give them a chance to disengage, make the enemies try to scare then off, adjust HP/defences down, etc

[QUOTE=General J;48496543]How do I generally balance enemies / enemy challenge level with progression and player level? Like if I have 4 players @ level two, how do I quickly calculate how many monsters and encounters of what challenge level I can throw at them before they've leveled up? What's the general difficulty of one level 9 player fighting a CR 9 monster? What is the difficulty of 4 level 9 players fighting a level 9 monster? Any other tips for trying to keep a campaign region to something like 1-10?[/QUOTE] CR in 5e is roughly balanced so a party of 4 characters can fight a single enemy with CR equal to their level, so 4 level 9 characters should be able to fight one CR 9 monster. It's not exact, but that's the base assumption. It also won't be a really hard fight or anything, just a standard fight.

Thanks Also I notice in the monster manual there is a lot of cases where there's a number with parenthesis for a diceroll value right after. Ex: "HP: 67 (9d10 + 18) or Takes an extra 9 (2d8) piercing damage. Are these static numbers average values to the diceroll? So is it like, if I wanted to make this npc/monster I could either say "Yeah 67, that's fair." Or roll the dice for a more randomized yet still in the area of balanced monster? Same with attacking, I can say "Yeah 9 damage for that ability feels about right." Or if I'm feeling that it should be a little more chancy I can roll 2d8 instead?

[QUOTE=General J;48496816]Thanks Also I notice in the monster manual there is a lot of cases where there's a number with parenthesis for a diceroll value right after. Ex: "HP: 67 (9d10 + 18) or Takes an extra 9 (2d8) piercing damage. Are these static numbers average values to the diceroll? So is it like, if I wanted to make this npc/monster I could either say "Yeah 67, that's fair." Or roll the dice for a more randomized yet still in the area of balanced monster? Same with attacking, I can say "Yeah 9 damage for that ability feels about right." Or if I'm feeling that it should be a little more chancy I can roll 2d8 instead?[/QUOTE] They are, yeah. That's exactly the point, it's also used if you just want accelerated combat and monster creation.

Anyone got some Deadlands PDFs? I'm trying to organize a game with friends but remembered I don't have a book.

This site accurate? [url]http://dhmstark.co.uk/encounter-calculator-5th/[/url] So in 5e, it'd be extremely difficult for 4 level 1 PC's to fight 4 CR 1 Monsters?

[QUOTE=General J;48499672]This site accurate? [url]http://dhmstark.co.uk/encounter-calculator-5th/[/url] So in 5e, it'd be extremely difficult for 4 level 1 PC's to fight 4 CR 1 Monsters?[/QUOTE] CR1 is roughly as tough as a level 1 character if I remember right, so that fight would mostly come down to tactics and luck, in a straight fight you could expect both sides to have a lot of losses.

[QUOTE=General J;48499672]This site accurate? [URL]http://dhmstark.co.uk/encounter-calculator-5th/[/URL] So in 5e, it'd be extremely difficult for 4 level 1 PC's to fight 4 CR 1 Monsters?[/QUOTE] It would be virtually impossible to fight 4 CR 1 monsters for 4 level 1 PCs, they almost certainly would not survive. Four CR 1/4 creatures would be a fair (but tough, depending on luck and initiative) fight, one CR 1 creature would be a hard fight (if you had four level 1 PCs against one CR 1 monster, you would expect the monster to incapacitate one or two of the PCs, maybe even all of them, depending on how well they play and how their luck is.). That site is accurate.

DnD[sp]eez nuts[/sp]

[QUOTE=Rents;48499739]CR1 is roughly as tough as a level 1 character if I remember right, so that fight would mostly come down to tactics and luck, in a straight fight you could expect both sides to have a lot of losses.[/QUOTE] CR1 is roughly as tough as a level 1 PARTY.

[QUOTE=NotAName;48501810]CR1 is roughly as tough as a level 1 PARTY.[/QUOTE] Oh, whoops.

Probably asked this before, but whats are some good ways to challenge sorcerers and wizards? Would stuff like fast creatures be good? Especially if I give them Step Up or something similar so they can't get out of range of them? Grappling too, maybe?

[QUOTE=NotAName;48501810]CR1 is roughly as tough as a level 1 PARTY.[/QUOTE] honestly kind of a dumb way to do it it just makes it needlessly complex if you're running a party that isn't 4 players Not that it matters much, no matter how well they do it eyeballing will always be superior. [QUOTE=Jrose14;48502544]Probably asked this before, but whats are some good ways to challenge sorcerers and wizards? Would stuff like fast creatures be good? Especially if I give them Step Up or something similar so they can't get out of range of them? Grappling too, maybe?[/QUOTE] What edition?

Welp, can't find any auto-filling 2nd AD&D sheets. I guess I'll just have to pull just some spreadsheet and painstakingly refer the rulebooks to fill numbers.

[QUOTE=Jrose14;48502544]Probably asked this before, but whats are some good ways to challenge sorcerers and wizards? Would stuff like fast creatures be good? Especially if I give them Step Up or something similar so they can't get out of range of them? Grappling too, maybe?[/QUOTE] Anything that forces concentration tests is good, yeah. Also it's hilarious to see a wizard get his ass kicked in a grapple.

[QUOTE=elowin;48502559]honestly kind of a dumb way to do it it just makes it needlessly complex if you're running a party that isn't 4 players Not that it matters much, no matter how well they do it eyeballing will always be superior. What edition?[/QUOTE] Pathfinder, sorry. Low levels I have ideas to pick on, but high level Arcane casters just seem invincible. Only ever got up to around level 14 or so in 3.5, but is Pathfinder same in the sense that late game arcane spells are just absolutely bullshit?

[QUOTE=Jrose14;48502661]Pathfinder, sorry. Low levels I have ideas to pick on, but high level Arcane casters just seem invincible.[/QUOTE] It largely depends on their specific spell loadouts, but there's a couple things that are pretty standard for kicking wizard butt. Spell resistance, of course. Ability damage or drain abilities targeted at either their casting attribute, constitution or strength is extremely useful. Grapplers, as you said, but especially also if the have the strangle ability. And for that matter, absolutely anything that silences them, like the spell silence, or drowning. Immunities to status effects are useful, especially immunity to mind-affecting effects. High saving throws are always good. Resistance or immunity to elemental damage types. [sp]Anti Magic, but that's really mean[/sp]

[QUOTE=elowin;48502711]It largely depends on their specific spell loadouts, but there's a couple things that are pretty standard for kicking wizard butt. Spell resistance, of course. Ability damage or drain abilities targeted at either their casting attribute, constitution or strength is extremely useful. Grapplers, as you said, but especially also if the have the strangle ability. And for that matter, absolutely anything that silences them, like the spell silence, or drowning. Immunities to status effects are useful, especially immunity to mental effects. High saving throws are always good. Resistance or immunity to elemental damage types. [sp]Anti Magic, but that's really mean[/sp][/QUOTE] Alright, thanks. I'm trying to make this a decent game, as opposed to last one where it was mostly me pulling shit out of my ass.

Just throw witch hunts at them. We peasants are tired of being caught in the crossfire, BURN THE SPELL CASTERS! Bonus points if you give the peasants spell resistance buffing trinkets like amulets or whatever because they're being sponsored by BBEG co. LLC.

There's a difference between challenging a character and punishing the player for picking something

[QUOTE=DarkMonkey;48503824]There's a difference between challenging a character and punishing the player for picking something[/QUOTE] The real trick of it is to always aim for a TPK but not seem like you're trying to.

[QUOTE=Aperture fan;48503973]The real trick of it is to always aim for a TPK but not seem like you're trying to.[/QUOTE] Another trick is to plan after the players lay out their plan. Otherwise they'll just dig a hole past the defenses.

[QUOTE=croguy;48504053]Another trick is to plan after the players lay out their plan. Otherwise they'll just dig a hole past the defenses.[/QUOTE] Sometimes a literal hole, with a spirit. And then some of the party will run at the actual defences for fun.

that's my biggest problem with dnd there are like 500 spells that are all dedicated to ruining the GMs plans

ruining the dms plans are the best part

[QUOTE=Kisame;48505281]ruining the dms plans are the best part[/QUOTE] Try saying that after being a dm who has put dozens of hours of work into a campaign.