Hating 4E? Give it one more crack...

I'm not here to convince you that 4E should be your favourite system, but I can say that I've gone from disgust to dislike to having an appreciation of 4E. It isn't my favourite system (I am, in fact, starting a new campaign with three players who are brand new to D&D, and it will likely be 3.5 and then PF), but I'm happy to report that the tweaks/changes I spoke of previously addressed many of my problems with the system and greatly enhanced the last session I ran. The bottom line? We had a great time.

Allow me to describe the session and my strategies.

Dice 'n moss 'n lichen.

And... Scene!

The session was a 22nd-level dungeon 1000 feet underwater—the Temple of Raven Rock was sunk into the ocean by kuo-toa followers of the Tentacled Master 300 years ago. Thanks to the impressive resources of the Company, the established mercenary group the PCs now helm, Raven Rock's location has been discovered, and the age-old fortress to the Raven Queen appears to have been magically sealed against centuries of pressure and the original descent.

The session opened with the PCs entering their oversized apparatus of kwalish and submerging...

Encounter Design and Combat

I made a few drastic changes to all of my critters for this session.

1. I halved all monster hit points
2. I added 1/2 the monster's level to the damage it dealt (or +1 per adventuring tier for minions)
3. I added a +2 bonus to all critter attack rolls (+3 for elites)
4. I used more minions, or critters that were several levels below the average party level

The Results

Combat was faster, more exciting, and generally more enjoyable for all involved. There was lots of success on both sides of the screen, and the grind I've experienced in every previous 4E session was kept to an absolute minimum. I cringed occasionally (like when my Chuul Juggernaut would crit, for example) but the lessened hit points kept everything nicely balanced.

Let's get kraken.

The Skill Challenge

I described a disastrously awkward skill challenge a session past and was more than a little worried about how this one was going to go. The challenge was for the party to reach their sub (apparatus of kwalish), just 100 feet down an uneven corridor as Raven Rock shook and cracked around them. The occasional high-pressure blast of water or deadly magical forcefield would spring into their path.

I made a few conscious choices about this challenge.

1. I didn't announce it as a challenge, nor did I announce the number of successes required to reach the goal
2. I set it up with a very clear goal and made no assumptions about how the PCs would attain it
3. I rewarded intelligent power/ability use with automatic successes
4. I asked each player how his character was going to proceed, one at a time.

The Results

The skill challenge went extremely well. There was no second-guessing or awkward explanations. It was all over and done with within 10 minutes, and the same player who had a particularly strong problem with the previous challenge went out of his way to mention how much he enjoyed this one.

Critter Design

I've theorized that 4E is great for "reskinning" monsters seamlessly thanks to the homogenized ability scores and powers system. Love it or hate it, the system makes it incredibly easy to point at just about given monster and tell your players that it's something entirely different. Here are a couple examples of what I mean.

• I borrowed the statistics from the Yuan-Ti Abomination, described it as having a long beard of tentacles to account for the grasping coils ability, and I had a decent soldier (practically a minion at that low of a level) that worked thematically.
• I borrowed the Yuan-Ti Anathema, described it as being a squirming mass of suckered tentacles, snapping, dripping beaks, and the occasional round white eye, and I had an excellent elite skirmisher that also worked thematically.
• I used Gibbering Mouthers and once again described them as being masses of tentacles, beaks, and eyes. At 10th level these guys were almost exactly like minions, but the +2 to hit and their aura made it possible for them to maintain a presence (if minor) in the battle.

Lastly, I was able to playtest not only my Giant Squid, but also my Kraken, and they are both pretty awesome and a ton of fun to run. For the kraken I separated each tentacle around the PCs' ship and treated it like a separate creature (counting the hit points towards a single total, of course).

We're gonna need a bigger boat.

A Note about U20

Several of you have noticed that the blog here is languishing a bit, and you're right—we're busy working on D&D 3.5/PF and 4E projects right now (plus vacations, of course, and our day jobs). I've decided that I'll post something when I really have something valuable to say, rather than forcing a post that you won't read. As a blogging community, we seem especially susceptible to becoming an echo chamber, and I'd much rather post less with quality, rather than more, without.

Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to get your game on sometime soon.

4E Bringing You Down? Try This!

A few weeks ago I posted my problems with 4E, and many readers educated me on how to deal with my flagging interest in the system. I've compiled their wisdom here.

Extra special thanks to Kimble, Anarchangel, Swordgleam, Scott, Jonathan, Phil, Anarkeith, PrecociousApprentice, Greywulf, Wyatt, Dawn_Raven, WickedMurph, Thasmodious, Donny_the_DM, Daniel Anand, John F, Joshua, DeadGod, Dead Orcs, and Scott. With the following tips and strategies I expect my 4E experiences to be much richer with better, smoother skill challenges, breezy, exciting combat, and cooler magic items.

Skill challenges got you down? Try this!

1. Don’t announce a skill challenge until after the players announce their intentions
2. Don’t announce the number of successes required
3. If the goals are clear, don’t announce the skill challenge at all
4. Avoid making assumptions about your players’ actions
5. Keep skill challenges simple (even if succeeding is not), but think ahead. If the players succeed/fail, know what happens, and how the skill challenge is affected.
6. Call for checks when you feel they’re appropriate and hand out bonuses for good roleplaying, heroic/intelligent actions, or whatever else you feel is worthy
7. Have the DCs in mind, but be willing to modify them depending on player actions

Combat got you down? Try this!

1. Use lots of minions!
2. Cut monster HP in half and add to their damage (good options could be +5 per adventure tier, or + ½ the monster’s level).
3. Lower Monster defenses by one or two.
4. Be the monster, not the guy running the monster (roll with the punches). Just because you're aware you're marked doesn't mean you won't be willing to attack someone other than the marker.
5. Add an in-game time limit to the combat. For example, this level of the dungeon is flooding, and you hand a stopwatch to the players and tell each that they have 30 seconds to choose their actions.
6. Encourage your players to press on, even if they're hurt. Players react very differently when their characters are on death's door, changing the encounter in drastic ways, and perhaps encouraging them to look at fighting smarter, or not at all.
7. Watch encounter group makeup with a militant eye—creature synergies are a big deal. Lots of brutes makes a combat drag. An encounter group made entirely of skirmishers makes a combat drag. Minions and mixed encounter groups do not.
8. Bring the combat setting alive! Add hazards, terrain types, destructible objects, and different altitudes. Encourage the use of stunts (from page 42 of the 4E DMG) instead of the same powers round after round.

Magic Items got you down? Try this!

1. Use magic items form prior editions, or elsewhere, and translate the durations.
2. Modify your outlook—many 4E magic items are now supplements and enhancements to the power system where they’ve been much more dramatic in previous editions.
3. Focus on wondrous items, rings, and artifacts (the coolest stuff) rather than weapons and armor.
4. Mix and match 4E magic item abilities with different types of items—rods to blades to staves to armour to rings and back.
5. Allow healing surges to be spent to reactivate an item’s daily or encounter power.
6. Do away with the limits on the number of daily item powers that can be activated.
7. Bring items to life on your own—history, description, and personality go a long way