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@we-are-a-dragon
When is the TTC coming back??? What happens with Count Baron Sir Knight(lol, great name, btw)?
I'm so sorry we haven't been posting! We've been playing still but our main note-taker (me) has been really struggling to keep notes due to brain fog. Would it be good to have a summary of what has happened since then?
Okay specific things I like about D&D 4e:
Healing surges are just a really good pacing mechanic and makes resource management important. They also scale better than 5e's hit dice, since a single healing surge always heals a proportion of the character's maximum hit points and the number of healing surges a character has stays mostly the same.
Despite the claim that the game is more combat-focused than other editions, it actually has a lot of objective rules-mediated support for non-combat scenes. I'm not even talking about skill challenges, skill challenges kinda sucked until they overhauled them and even then were kind of half-baked, but even without resorting to them the actual mechanics for the skills have plenty of predetermined, objective rules-mediated uses beyond "the DM determines a difficulty and then you try to roll high."
The Fighter is really fun to play.
I absolutely adore the worldbuilding of 4e. The cosmology actually feels mythological and like it has a mythic history. All the different inhabitants of the universe all fit into the cosmic tapestry instead of being a patchwork of unrelated ideas. Also, it introduced the Feywild, the Shadowfell, and the Astral Sea, so hell yeah.
Related to the cosmology, I love how it actually sneakily brought back the old Law vs Chaos conflict, albeit with the extremes being Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil and with Good and Evil as middle steps. It's actually really BECMI in many ways.
Also BECMI, the fact that ascension and immortality are written as the explicit end goals for characters. Hell yeag
if you read the actual DMG talking about noncombat challenges, it's literally fiction-first, fail-forward writing. It specifically describes the idea that you shouldn't make players roll to overcome things unless both outcomes are interesting and instead you should be working to make things interesting along the way. Failures shouldn't close doors, it should change routes.
4e's DMG is one of the best written in the business, since it didn't assume you'd learn how to DM from watching your friend Gerry do it and being mad at how bad a job he did.
Oh absolutely, and I feel the DMG2 takes it over the top! DMG2 has a whole section on allowing failed encounters create story branches! It's unsurprising since it was written by Robin D. Laws who designed HeroQuest (not the memetic boardgame but the RPG) because some of the advice and diagrams feels like it was taken straight out of HeroQuest. Like look at this:
And there's sections on collaborative worldbuilding, vignettes, all sorts of shit. The 4e DMG2 is by far one of the best DMGs I've ever read and a lot of it is universally applicable to almost any RPG!
While I'm on my 4e hype train, let me just point out that 4e also took 3e's use of keywording and took it into some unexpected directions, to the point where as a DM it was easy to see synergies between different types of creatures and even creatures and hazards! As a DM you got to express system mastery in a way most games don't allow for, and it was very similar to how players would do it (i.e. picking options with synergies built in) but the math was more or less balanced to still slightly skew towards the players' side.
Like, when I realized that the Aquatic tag many creatures had actually gave a bonus to attacks while in water instead of just giving them freedom of movement in water suddenly made the gears spin in my head as I imagined a combat utilizing the traditional room filling with water hazard (presented in DMG2) to add a ticking clock where the combat would become more difficult as it progressed. Shit was insane
4e is what actually got us into DnD initially, and part of why we've always been so disappointed with 5e. The way it actually kept the martial classes cool and fun to play at a table of wizards and spellcasters made you feel like could actually choose them for reasons beyond RP/team balance.
The 4e fandom is dying, reblog if you're a 4rry!
Okay, more 4e hype: in the context of WotC D&Ds, the action economy of Standard, Move, Minor is really simple and intuitive. It's literally effortless to teach someone.
4e formalized Defender as a role and went on to shower it with love, seriously, marking is so much fun, and I just love what each of the Defenders bring to the table (I want to play a Warforged Warden some day).
Vicious mockery was introduced in 4e and in addition to that Bards in 4e kicked a lot of ass. They were also a Defender's best friend with misdirected mark.
The minion role for enemies is great, enemies with 1hp even at high levels. It helps give unique roles to the Controller and Striker archetypes (aoe vs single target, often), helps create horde encounters with enemies that could be threatening but didn't make the game into a slog, and also helps even out the action economy a bit. I'd recommend if you GM 5e to play around with the idea a bit yourself.
It sort of makes sense really given the wargaming roots of D&D, in many wargame rules 1 damage = 1 model removed from play. It's not so common these days, but it's neat that some of the heritage made it through to 4e.
Love love love 4e. I started in 3 but 4 was where I got my stride as a DM. I've straight up stolen the concept of minions and added them to other systems, it's such a great mechanic.
AND THE FUCKING WARLORD. My favorite class in DnD history and I've never seen it come back. So fun to play! Just let me be a frontline support martial goddamnit!
I JUST REMEMBERED THE PATHFINDER VERSION OF THE WARLORD DROPS THIS YEAR
If you liked 4e I cannot recommend Pathfinder 2e enough. And there's a playset out right now for the Commander, a new class that's literally just an updated Warlord!
Oh worm? 👀
As an edition war veteran, every clear influence Pathfinder takes from 4e is the funniest thing to me.
It is really funny, yeah. Even in death, 4e stays winning.
If you enjoy 4e or thought any of these ideas sound neat, I also suggest checking out Draw Steel by MCDM! It isn't out yet, but I've been following the development and playtests and it seems really promising. It takes a lot of inspiration from 4e.
Building on the idea of healing surges, each character in DS has a set number of Recoveries that are spent when an effect would heal you and restore a third of your Stamina. But it also introduces Victories, a special resource gained by overcoming challenges that lets you use your best abilities easier. This means that at the end of an adventure when the players are approaching the boss, they're at their strongest (lots of Victories) AND at their weakest (low Recoveries, might die if they can no longer heal) at the same time, which makes for great dramatic pacing.
While it is explicitly a game about killing monsters, Draw Steel also has really fun rules for a wide variety of downtime activities, and an awesome Negotiation subsystem for important social interactions. The Negotiation rules literally require you to imagine the NPC as a complex, three dimensional person with their own perspectives, desires, and inner conflicts in order to succeed. I've seen it happen at the table, it brings NPCs to life in the minds of the players like nothing else.
The game has a big emphasis on making it fun for the Director to design and run combat encounters. You get a special resource, called Malice, that increases every round and can be spent to make monster abilities more powerful or to activate effects that change the whole battlefield. The guidelines for building encounters are robust and monsters have their own roles to help you create encounters that are more like actual puzzles to be solved with tactics than a slog of just rolling to hit the nearest enemy each turn.
It heavily features Minions as a monster type. Minions have a shared stamina pool, which means even a single-target effect can potentially knock out an entire squad. They also act in squads, so having literally dozens of monsters in play doesn't slow things down at all. I've run encounters with 19 enemies, no sweat.
Because it doesn't treat magic as an entire subsystem of the game that only some classes get access to, there's no martial/caster gap, and all the martial classes are just as capable as the ones that use magic or psionics.
If you liked the Warlord, check out the Tactician class in Draw Steel. It's all about giving your allies opportunities. Use your abilities to make them stronger, take extra actions, or reposition to adapt to the fight as it changes. It absolutely scratches the itch for a frontline support martial.
It also fixes one of the big design flaws in 4e, the way the game encouraged you to always use your powers in order of most to least powerful, with very little variation. First fight of the day? Daily power. After that you'd spend your Encounter powers and so on. Draw Steel instead gives you a variable amount of your Heroic Resource each round, which you then spend to use your Heroic Abilities. These are your biggest and strongest powers, but you can't use them right off the bat and they're all more situational, not always useful in every scenario so you have to decide what the best use of your HR is. Combined with the Malice and Villain Actions that the Director gets, this means that unlike 4e where fights were a nova in the first round followed by cleanup, Draw Steel fights get more exciting and dramatic as they progress.
@we-are-a-dragon 4e love! <3
Hell yeah! We love 4e! So much of what I like about it has already been mentioned but:
Epic. Destiny. "4e doesn't have the support for storytelling 5e does" girl 4e's entire third tier of play is built around your story continuing after the campaign ends and how your character develops narratively. It also offers routes to really diversify your character from a mechanical viewpoint as well.
Paragon Path. Can't mention epic destiny without also mentioning paragon path. It's less story-based than ED (though definitely still gives you built-in routes for character development) but it's a way to take your character in new and interesting directions not just predetermined by your base class. As well as there being a lot of fun options based on your power source or class, there are also a lot of Paragon Paths which are available to anyone regardless of what you've previously chosen. It helps a lot avoiding the same base archetypes feeling samey.
Roles and power sources. Having each class have a specific role (striker v defender v controller etc), and a specific power source (martial v arcane v divine etc) makes each of them unique. I was so disappointed with 5e where everything is just either martial or magical - so much nuance is lost. Also related to roles - it makes it so easy for a newer player especially to decide what they want to play. When I tried 5e I was like "I want to play a controller, what class should I pick?" and I was offered almost every available class depending on what subclass I went with, and I got really lost trying to read through everything and understand what I was working with.
Monster level with scaling built in. I love having monsters with clearly defined levels because it makes it so simple to plan encounters, and the DMG has easy to follow templating on scaling them. And I love as a DM having XP already allotted.
Action economy. I know it's been mentioned but I love Standard/Move/Minor. It's so intuitive to me.
I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls I'm in your walls.
This is the kind of note we used to get from J when he was the secret bbeg
DM: Count Baron Sir Knight has made a run for it.
Tati (playing Seraph): *gasps* We know where the escape tunnel leads out!!
M (playing Kjell): Yes! I roar and go for the nearest window.
Adam (playing Billie): I want to sit in his chair and drop myself down the trapdoor after him.
Hamish (playing Thaddeus): Ooh, that's good.
DM: We're going to end the session there, and I'll note those actions for next week. You can all see now that Thaddeus has pointed it out that every goblet except the Count's is laced with that same white powder.
Adam: I've absolutely already drunk from mine.
DM: Oh!
Hamish: Really?? You said you were waiting for us to poison test!
Adam: Oops. It looked so tasty.
DM: Make an Endurance check.
Adam: Uh, 31?
DM: *makes note* And you'll find out the result of that next time too.
Adam: Ah...
Tati (playing Seraph): Before I eat I want to make an Arcana check on the food. I pick up a macaron and surreptitiously sniff it.
Rach (playing Ashiok): Arcana check here too.
Hamish (playing Thaddeus): I want a Nature check for poisons.
DM: I want you each to make Bluff checks to be sneaky about this.
Tati: 40.
DM: Nice.
Hamish: ...22.
Rach: *winces* 18.
DM: So you two are just very obviously inspecting everything with big frowns on your faces. The Count watches you with narrowed eyes.
M (playing Kjell): I'm not making any checks, I trust they'll figure out if anything's wrong.
Adam (playing Billie): Yeah, I'm the empress, my stooges can poison check for me.
DM: There's nothing magical about the food. However, Thaddeus, as you peer blatantly into your goblet, you can see a smear of half-dissolved white powder in the cordial.
Hamish: *eyes widen* Oho! I manifest my wings and halo, shove the goblet toward him and thunder "What's this white powder in my cup?"
Tati: I drop the macaron I was sniffing.
DM: He recoils very slightly and laughs awkwardly. "White powder in your drink?? Well, I never..." He pulls up the arm of his chair-
Tati: I reach for my staff.
DM: And the chair tips him into a trapdoor underneath and pops back up without him.
Party: *erupts*
DM: Your host finishes pouring your drinks and invites you to eat.
Adam (playing Billie): I ask, "Before we break bread with you, may we know your name?"
DM: He pauses. "Of course, that would only be polite as your host. My name is Count Baron S. Knight."
Party: ...
Tati (playing Seraph): No wonder the magistrate's wife was so confused!!
M (playing Kjell): Yeah, fully with her now!
Hamish (playing Thaddeus): "So... is that first name Baron-"
DM: "Last name Knight, yes."
Rach (playing Ashiok): "Well, your parents certainly had a sense of humour."
DM: He shrugs delicately. "Deva."
Tati: I ask, "What's the S stand for?"
DM: "Sir."
M: *howls* Count Baron Sir Knight! This is my favourite NPC ever!
Hamish: Yeah, I love him. I can't help it.
DM: There is a delicious selection of food laid out on the table - fruits, meats, fresh buns. He offers you cordial.
Rach (playing Ashiok): Ooh, cordial! Not just fruit juice, but cordial!
Adam (playing Billie): "Absolutely, I'll have some."
DM: He personally pours for each of you from the head of the table.
Tati (playing Seraph): I say, and I'm being genuine here, "This is very impressive. Do you have a magical way to prepare such a lot of food in a hurry, or did you prepare it with your own blue hands?"
M (playing Kjell): *chokes* Your own blue hands...
DM: He smiles indulgently. "With my own hands, of course. I love to have fresh bread at all times, but this is my speciality." He lifts a cloche to reveal a plate of multi-coloured macarons.
Rach: Insight, did he really cook it himself?
DM: Absolutely not.
Adam: I ask sweetly, "May I have your recipe? I've never made those little biscuits before."
DM: He smiles smoothly. "Of course. It's in the kitchen, so I'll fetch it after our meal."
Rach: Good save.
DM: The deva leads you through the manor.
Rach (playing Ashiok): Is there evidence of renovations?
DM: Absolutely. There are building materials lying around, and lots of recent repairs. None of it matches the original style, it seems he's going for function over form.
Rach: Tacky.
DM: He leads you to a dining room where the table is set for 8.
Rach: I say "Oh? Who else is joining us for lunch?"
DM: Rach... There are seven in your party.
Rach: ...Oh yeah.
DM: Speaking of which, actually, the table is set for seven. As soon as you reach the dining room he hastily puts out an extra setting for Godric, saying "I apologise. I did not spot you from afar, my little friend, being... diminutive as you are."
Tati (playing Seraph): Does he have a fairy high chair? Like one of those modern high chairs you strap to the edge of the table, but fairy sized?
Adam (playing Billie): *laughing* Oh god, please!
DM: NO.
Adam: That would be too good...
DM: The deva spreads his arms wide and says, "Welcome, guests. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Thaddeus (khajiit paladin): We're here to investigate the recent disappearances in the village.
Seraph (siren sorcerer): As the person of highest authority in these parts, we hoped you might be able to shed light on the situation.
DM: He swells at the recognition.
Seraph: *satisfied smile*
DM: He says, "Oh yes, good. What a terrible thing."
Thaddeus: *narrows eyes* Hmm. What do you know about the situation?
DM: "Why don't we discuss it over lunch? It's ready to serve."
Billie (gnome ardent): *raises eyebrow* Enough for all of us?
DM: "Your arrival in town did not go unnoticed. I anticipated such heavily decorated visitors would end up at my door before the day was out, so I prepared accordingly."
Thaddeus: Well, I wouldn't say no to some food.
DM: "Wonderful, wonderful. Come in. Tell me, who do I have the honour of entertaining?"
Billie: Travelling Trauma Centre.
DM: "I haven't heard of you, but I can see you are plenty powerful."
Seraph: I hand him our business card.
DM: He accepts it with a casual mage hand. "My, your own business card! Well, you must be important."
Hamish (playing Thaddeus): We go knock on the door of the manor.
Rach (playing Ashiok): I look around the garden for anything out of place.
DM: The garden looks like it was beautiful once and someone is working to make it beautiful again. It's been stripped back hard and resown, there are wheelbarrows around and evidence of landscaping. As you approach the house, there's a flash of movement in one of the windows.
Rach: I point. "Everyone see that?"
M (playing Kjell): "Yep."
DM: Just before you knock, the door opens. A blue deva in majestic red and black robes stands there. "Welcome, guests. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
M: Did we know he was a deva?
Adam (playing Billie): No, that's new.
Rach: You would have thought someone would have mentioned it while we were asking around town.
Tati (playing Seraph): To be fair, the villagers probably just thought he was an extra weird elf or something. They're real hicks here.
M (playing Kjell): Let's go knock on the door.
Tati (playing Seraph): Thaddeus, check for traps.
Hamish (playing Thaddeus): I check for traps.
DM: Huh. Really wasn't expecting that. Your sharp eyes spot an area of disturbed ground directly inside the gate. It kind of has the feeling of a pit trap covered in sticks and leaves, but with grass and earth instead.
Tati: Like someone's turfed for a fire pit and put the turf back?
DM: Yes, exactly like that. But very well hidden, the DC was in the 30s. Once Thaddeus points it out you can all just make out the edges.
Rach (playing Ashiok): Oh no, guess we know what happened to the missing villagers.
Hamish: I take my longsword and dig into the turf.
DM: There's a little resistance of the earth, and then your sword strikes metal.
Hamish: I put pressure on it.
DM: It doesn't give. Your sword scrapes along it.
Tati: Did the strike sound hollow, or like it's earth, metal, earth?
DM: It's definitely hollow under there.
M: It's not a pit trap. It's an escape tunnel.
Adam (playing Billie): Which could be completely innocent!
Hamish (playing Thaddeus): We head up the hill toward the manor.
Tati (playing Seraph): As we get close, I'd like to make an Arcana or Religion check to look for magic, curses, possession, undeath-
DM: Go ahead and make one of each.
Tati: Sweet.
Hamish: I'll do Religion too.
Rach (playing Ashiok): I'll make an Arcana check. 36.
Tati: 36 for my Arcana too, and 31 for Religion.
Hamish: 37 for Religion.
DM: Your Arcana checks don't turn anything up. However, Seraph and Thaddeus both immediately sense an aura around the manor - the entire area of grounds inside the wall and the manor itself are imbued with some very negative Religious energy.
Adam (playing Billie): Bad juju.
DM: Yeah, the house has very bad juju.
Tati: I murmur, "Step carefully. Something is very wrong here."
Hamish: Can I tell how recent that energy is?
DM: The problem with Religion checks is you typically use them to search for really ancient stuff. So you can tell the energy here is not ancient, it's probably older than any of you but you can't get more of a read on it than that.
Hamish: Fair enough.
Kjell (half-elf barbarian): Sounds like our next step is to go up to the manor and ask this lord what's going on.
Ashiok (drow psion): Let's tell him the new empress is here and he's to host her! He's new in town, it's time for a royal visit!
Billie (gnome ardent): Maybe…
Seraph (siren sorcerer): If he's a disgraced noble, wouldn't that be unlikely?
Ashiok: It's a great honour! And it'll put him on the back foot.
Thaddeus (khajiit paladin): Let's just stick to the adventurer routine. It's what we're used to.
Billie: That's probably for the best.
Ashiok: Fineee...
Rach (playing Ashiok): I'd like to make a Streetwise check to track down rumours about the silhouettes in the manor windows.
DM: The tales grow wilder the more villagers you talk to - some say they saw only one or two shadows in the windows, but soon you're hearing of silhouettes with glowing eyes, silhouettes with horns and tails, someone even describes seeing a single silhouette in each window and when they blinked they were all gone.
Tati (playing Seraph): We want to try and find one of the earliest people to start spreading the rumour.
DM: Eventually you track down a halfling woodturner. He says, "I remember it well. I was off to see my beau, and on the way home I happened to glance up at the manor. I saw four silhouettes - a group of three who were huddled in front of a window, and one solitary figure in the next window along. Next thing I knew, the single figure had drawn the curtains, and then the group of three dispersed. I'm certain it was four figures."
Hamish (playing Thaddeus): I ask, "How many people had gone missing by that time?"
DM: "Er, I'm not certain. It could have been four. Yes, probably four."
Tati: Sounds like a really important detail to have made a note of…
DM: Eremyn tells you, "The first five went missing within a short time of each other. After that, a group of the braver village lads went up to the manor to demand answers. They say the Count let them in and invited them to search high and low, but they didn't find any evidence of the missing people."
Ashiok (drow psion): Did they find evidence of renovation?
DM: "Yes, there has been lots of work done."
Ashiok: Have you seen supplies going in? Labourers?
DM: "There have been caravans of lumber and other materials, as well as furniture and the like coming in. He says he's doing all the renovations himself."
Thaddeus (khajiit paladin): Did the search party make it back safe?
DM: "Yes. Since then two more have gone missing, including one of the boys from the search party."
Thaddeus: Interesting. Can we have a list of races and names?
DM: "I have that here. There's been a dwarf, two elves, an orc, a halfling, a minotaur and a goblin go missing."
Thaddeus: *aside* I'm sure there's a joke in there, but we might have to go down to the bar to get it.
Tati (playing Seraph): I ask Eremyn, "How many are missing now?"
DM: She says, "Seven. My husband Salin was first."
Hamish (playing Thaddeus): "Do you have a last name?"
DM: "Hand-and-a-Half."
Party: ...
Tati: So is that dick length?
Hamish: Beard length?
Adam (playing Billie): Horse size?
DM: Eremyn sits you down and offers you tea. There's one servant in the magistrate's residence who seems to act as guard, maid and general helper. Eremyn asks, "What do you know about the situation?"
Tati (playing Seraph): I recount, "Someone moved to town around the time of the first disappearances, which may or may not be related."
DM: She purses her lips. "Yes, some high and mighty noble."
Hamish (playing Thaddeus): "Tell us about him."
DM: She says, "He arrived and took over the empty manor house, and said he was our lord now so we'd have to pay him taxes and whatnot. We told him we've done fine without a lord in the manor for years."
Hamish: "Name?"
DM: "I'm not sure. Count something, maybe. Baron, maybe..."
Rach (playing Ashiok): "Well, which is it?"
DM: She shrugs. "I can't remember, sorry."
Hamish: Insight check. Is she magically confused, or just a peasant?
DM: She just doesn't know the difference. She goes on, "My husband went to introduce himself formally and ask this Count's intentions- and never came back."
Hamish: Huh. That seems like an important detail. "Is it possible he disappeared before he got there?"
DM: "I marched myself up to the manor the next day to ask. He said Salin had been to tea and left to return home. That's the last time he was seen."
