See part 1 and part 2 if you missed them.
Look at them go!
The battle raged on for a few rounds. Damage piled up, and tension rose. Yet, like all great 4e games, PCs were able to showcase the awesomeness of their builds. Yan’s Warforged Fighter-Cleric Hybrid shone with his Stream of Life Daily power combo (trade a few temporary HP gained by a fighter power and heal a nearby friend by 18 HP… Each round) and his pennant’s Helm (spend a surge, gain no HP, all allies that see you can spend a Healing surge).
Franky’s Swordmage was all over the frakking place. While it does awesome things, I can see it as being pegged “DM’s most annoying class to deal with”. The Swordmage redefines the “Oh Wait” philosophy of D&D4e with its teleporting marking mechanic. Yet, you should have seen how Franky was happy playing that PC… so it’s worth it. I’m just going to keep an eye on it over several sessions.
Steph’s druid, being the only one with ranged powers , spent most of the fight shooting down the flying minions, as a controller was designed to do. Math’s Warden, with it’s very striker build, did what he did best: deal tons of damage and reminded me time and time again that terrible things would happen to my monsters if I didn’t include his PC in my attacks, which I hastily made sure I did.
Before I get to Eric’s Avenger’s Moment of Awesome, I’ll spend a few lines on Mike’s monk. While Mike achieved his own ‘Best supporting Actor’ moment that I’ll describe later, his PC has been under performing pretty much each session we’ve played. As Mike put it before the game, he wished that he could pull a fight-defining moment in a combat and that has yet to occur.
I suspect that there’s not enough Monk-supporting feats and magic items out yet, possible slight build errors with the PC and/or forgotten core abilities like Flurry of Blows. Regardless, that coupled with a streak of bad dice rolls and the way my encounters are designed (lots of PCs, about as many monsters, lots of non-monster elements) makes me feel an early PC change will occur. Anyway, I’m sure we’ll work this out soon.
So while everyone was in trouble (mostly), things progressed, monsters were hit and PCs healed.
Me Wrath! You Scrapmetal!
Eric: So with everyone inside the compound before the lighting towers recharged, I didn’t need to climb here right?
Chatty: No but you do see the chain beside you being rapidly winched up…
Eric: So I could climb way up there?
Yan: Don’t do that man!
Eric (thinking for a few minutes): Then can I grab the chain, give myself a swing over there (30′ or so away) and kick that Huge Clank so it falls over and I land this heap debris you drew on the map here, looking all cool and shit?
Chatty (Ruled of Cool and delighted): Sure, just roll your choice of Dex or Str attack vs its Fortitude. Either way it’s too cool to see you miss the swing, but you might not manage to knock the thing down.
He missed the roll, but he landed right beside the thing.
But he was only half done. In the next turn:
Eric: Can I detect what kind of Undead energies are animating that thing?
Chatty: Sure, make a Religion check (he made it). You sense 2 entities, one in the Clank’s chest and one in its Head, both corporeal and undead.
Eric: Can I use my abjure undead on the one in the head?
Chatty: Sure! Roll your attack. (Eric makes it and deals enough damage to kill one of the ‘things’ inside the clank). You see necrotic energies and pieces of rotting guts and flesh explode from the top of the Titan! The Clank lost its extra Minor attack.
You should have seen Eric’s stupid-happy grin. So worth the effort it took me to prep this setup.
Up next: The Crane goes to 11 and Yan’s Warforged goes to the Clank-Wash.
Hmmm, the interesting thing to take from this post are compound monsters, with two sets of hitpoints and two locations to hit… gotta try that next 🙂
I tried it with a green dragon and it was soooo fun. Not the usual dragged solo fight, but a solo fight which felt real dangerous and cinematic. I think that’s the way most staple fights should be played. I decided not to do it in my last BBEG fight and how I regret it now. Fight WAS cool, but not nearly as cool as it should be.
Rule of Cool should be the first they teach in DMs school. 🙂
.-= Snarls-at-Fleas´s last blog ..GAMING WITH 3D TILES =-.
@Claus: I found it to be an interesting alternative to using Elites and Solos as is. But what Eric did was unexpected (but not really unplanned) and allowed him to ‘exploit’ a design decision that became evident later in the fight..
@Snarls: Totally, the recognizing/using and reacting to the Rule of Cool would be among the courses taught in any DM training program I’d create.
As I see it the Monk is at its best with a lot of target. Making him a good choice in small group not so much in big group with a lot defender or with DM that like to stack the board with a target rich environment.
Add to that low feat choice that can increase is damage output and you have a striker that deals less damage then the defender. Obviously this will change when it’s actually release with the PHB3 somewhere in march IIRC. Will Mike endure up to then or will he change we’ll see.
A target-rich environment with a party made of 6 PCs is another type of challenge I’m working on without resolving to long, boring fights.
Two-Hit minions may be the way to go… seeing how none of them felt like they were as such in the last game.
One of my players came with the idea of two-hit minions, but was afaraid to use them thinking they add bookkeeping where there shouldn’t be any. How do you do them technically?
.-= Snarls-at-Fleas´s last blog ..Why I use Masterplan =-.
I was worried about the tracking implications of hardier minions too (not just Chatty’s idea, but others I’ve seen floated about), but it occurred to me in my game they’re easy since we used bloodied markers for everything. One hit = bloodied, if already bloodied= dead, crit kills automatically. It even means being able to remove the fiddly bit about “not damaged on a miss.”
I see. Thanks for the idea,
.-= Snarls-at-Fleas´s last blog ..Why I use Masterplan =-.
Cool to see that your clanks are presenting a challenge to your PC’s. My clockwork tanks turned into a complete and utter cakewalk for my PC’s. Two never even got to attack. I’ll give my PC credit though. they used the city they were fighting in to their advantage and managed to get the drop on them, literally. The Dragonborn Rogue managed to open a tank and and kill the pilot. Either way, I think it’s gunna be awhile before I attempt my own monsters again.
Hey! I didn’t missed the roll. I did an awsome roll (like DC 34 or so) and landed right were I wanted to with the damn dwarflike metal monster on all four on the ground.
And it was not a stupid-happy grin…wait…maybe, but I blame the beer for that ;o)
Loved the narrative for these adventures, and the behind-the-scenes looks too. Thanks, Chatty!
Having recently spent the large part of a full-session combat either dazed or dominated, I’m lobbying all the DMs I play with to adopt your encounter models (max damage, no daze/stun). I’m intrigued by the two-hit minions as well.
.-= anarkeith´s last blog ..Campaign Notes: Talking to your DM =-.
@Anarkeith: The Two-hit minions is something I invented for one of my game that Chatty came to…
The reason behind this was to be able to put a truck load of threat on the board without being overwhelm by the book keeping. Minion just do not pose a significant threat.
The concept his this you take any standard monster and remove his hit points. First time he’s hit he becomes bloodied and second time he’s dead. For extra fun he’s instantly kill on a crit. or if a threshold damage is attain in one strike (to showcase the Striker’s strength). You should probably halve the XP value for the monster but I don’t play with XP so did not bother with it.. 😉
And for how many those two-hit minions you usually trade 1 normal monster? (Like 4 minions for 1 normal in official rules)
.-= Snarls-at-Fleas´s last blog ..Building your own world,part 1 =-.
@Snarls: Good question… I personally do not go with a really clean cut approach on this.
But if I wanted to be to exact on my XP budget like I said to Anarkeith, I would probably halves the XP of the monster I took for each resulting two-hit minions. Meaning that I would replace a normal monster by two of its equivalent two-hit minions.
Bare in mind that no actual play balancing was done for what they should be worth in XP. I tend to hack rule as I see fit in my games and I’ve shoved XP out of my game from day one…
Reason being that I wanted a certain level of progression in my game. If I was to follow the proposed progression path by Wotc. I would need to increase XP, hack the game in some other way or invented a time creating machine to have the progression I wanted… So being a big follower of the KISS premises I opted to saying we level up every other session unless state otherwise by myself. Simple, I get what I want and no bookkeeping win/win/win in my book. Sorry for the sidetrack hopes it answer your question. 😉
Rule of Cool. Nice. I really like the creative thinking on the second undead presence in the clank, and using Abjure Undead.
.-= Andy´s last blog ..Apologies on the Lateness… =-.
@Marc: Sorry it didn’t work out… but maybe having a thief able to open the Steampunk equivalent of a Sheman Tank with a Thievery check was where it went wrong. I’d allow Thievery to apply status effects like Immobilize and such on the tank (save ends) but not open it up to the (possibly) much weaker crew inside.
@Cruguer: You might have knocked down a dwarven minion clank… but I thought you were going for the Titan and I don’t recall knocking that one prone. And yeah, you had quite the grin!
@Anarkeith & Snarls: Two-hit minions are a concept that opens up so many interesting options for DMs willing to kick the game’s engine a bit to make things a bit simpler. I’d say that 1/2 XP sounds right. I too got rid of XPs last year but the concept seems solid to stay within the standard leveling up process.
@Andy: The undead in the mecha was to be a surprise for when the Mecha got bloodied… but I’m so happy they were revealed like that! I was even thinking how Abjure’s mechanic would pull the Undead out of the suit 🙂
My experience with monks tell me that they always roll bad and always get beaten to bloody pulps.
The math is sound… but the dice just won’t roll for them.
.-= Eric Maziade´s last blog ..Good bye ChattyDM.net – hello Critical-Hits.com =-.
Heh, when I remembered that Abjure had a pull effect on it too I got the image of the poor undead pilot getting sucked through the machine’s gears and pulleys, and then the Deva getting a Sam Raimi worthy shower of gore out of the clanks exhaust port.
That’s exactly how I described it! 🙂