I'm starting this thread a place for 4E dms to post tips for other 4E dms based on their experience running 4E.
Monster Stat Blocks Monster stat blocks should be considered as being relative to the party. In 3E a monster's stat block was essentially a static thing that reflected the entirety of a monster's capabilities. In 4E this has changed, and is important for 4E dms to get their heads around it. A 4E stat block is intended to show a monster's abilities relative to a party of comparable level, and it doesn't show the entirety of the monster, only what is necessary to run monster in combat and rp the monster in a typical social encounter. Because the default assumption is that most monsters will be used in an encounter group with other monsters their abilities have been simplified.
Example 1: In heroic tier gaming you might have the stat the local militia of a town as level 3 skirmishers or soldiers. This is a good reflection of their capabilities relative to a heroic tier party. However, as the heroes advance this stat block becomes obsolete, so when they are at paragon tier if you had need of the town militia again, you might consider restating them as higher level minions.
Example 2: If you look at the stat block of powerful fiendish foe- let's say a balor demon, you will note that it's abilities have been simplified compared to the 3E balor. If you intend to use a balor as part of an encounter group this might work well. However, if you intend to use a balor as a major solo type villain, you may want to alter the stat block to suite the needs of your story.
The bottom line is that you shouldn't look at a stat block and think that's the be all and end all of that type of creature. A published stat block is merely one incarnation of that creature that the designers feel capture's the essence of the monster but at the same time will provide the most utility to the most dms. This was somewhat true in other incarnations of the game as well, but it is particularly true in 4E.
Ruling Powers
There has been much debate about how powers should be justified in terms of how they fit into the world of the game. The phb explains the mechanics of powers with clarity, but is very sparse in describing how might be interpreted in context of the story (beyond a line of flavor text above each power). I feel that this is one of the flaws of 4E, and something that has turned many people off of the game.
First of all Martial powers can be hard for some people to justify. The first question that always comes up is, "Why can I only use this power once a day or once an encounter?"
Well clearly the answer is for game balance, but in terms of the story it can be justified by saying that the opportunity to take advantage of that particular power or "exploit" only comes up only every so often, and when a character uses that power he is seeing that opportunity and capitalizing on it. In this respect the player has been given some of the narrative power that was once mainly the privy of the dm, and he can now say when in the story of the fight he sees the chance to pull off that cool "exploit". It's called an "exploit" because you are exploiting an opportunity in the fight.
I think as a dm you need to consider each power in play, and sometimes use your own judgment to decide how well a power might work despite what its stat block might say. You should make it clear to players that you reserve the right to do this before play begins or else they might feel bitter if you suddenly do it in the middle of the game.
For example, I have a fighter in my game who has the "Come and get it power". The mechanics of it allow him to pull enemies closer to him. It doesn't give a lot of detail about how he is doing this, but presumably he is trash talking them and calling them out, so that they are enraged enough that they swarm him. In most cases this is reasonable enough, especially when facing other melee type opponents. However what if the fighter happens to be near an intelligent, cautious, villainous wizard. Realistically, the last thing a wizard would want to do is close into melee with a fighter. Here's a time where as a dm, I might take some step and say "sorry the wizard does not respond to your heckling and stays right where he is." This makes sense from a story point of view, but it nerfs the PCs power, which is going to make the player unhappy. As a result, I think you owe it to your player to appease him in some way. I use something I call "action chips" in my game, and I would give him 2 of these if I ever nerfed a power. There is some good info on this sort of thing in the mutants and masterminds core book. It basically says that sometimes a dm needs to cheat a little on behalf of the villain, but when you do so you should compensate the heroes. They suggest doing that with hero points, which are what they use in that game (similar to an action point)
Action Chips: This is a house rule I have in my game. I give out poker chips to players when they do something cool, rp well, make me laugh etc... You can only ever have up to 10, so they are encouraged to spend them, not horde them. The rule is that each action chip can add 1 to a die roll, and you can only spend up to 5 chips to enhance a single roll. After a roll is made and if it is determined it has failed a player can add action chips, but he has to declare many chips he puts in right away and if adding the chips still results in failure the chips are considered spent and he's out of luck. I have certain instances where I always give a chip- rolling a natural 20 on a check earns a chip. Rolling a 1 might also earn a check, but his is more of a pity chip. Slaying an important monster will earn 1 or more chips depending on how powerful the monster was. If I nerf a PC power I will give at least 2 chips to the player. Of course good rping, clever ideas, making me laugh, bringing me snacks and beer, these sorts of things also earn action chips.
Thanks for all of this. I have a question regarding the suggestion to occasionally nerf a power based on story/situation:
For example, I have a fighter in my game who has the "Come and get it power". The mechanics of it allow him to pull enemies closer to him. It doesn't give a lot of detail about how he is doing this, but presumably he is trash talking them and calling them out, so that they are enraged enough that they swarm him. In most cases this is reasonable enough, especially when facing other melee type opponents. However what if the fighter happens to be near an intelligent, cautious, villainous wizard. Realistically, the last thing a wizard would want to do is close into melee with a fighter. Here's a time where as a dm, I might take some step and say "sorry the wizard does not respond to your heckling and stays right where he is." This makes sense from a story point of view, but it nerfs the PCs power, which is going to make the player unhappy. As a result, I think you owe it to your player to appease him in some way. I use something I call "action chips" in my game, and I would give him 2 of these if I ever nerfed a power. There is some good info on this sort of thing in the mutants and masterminds core book. It basically says that sometimes a dm needs to cheat a little on behalf of the villain, but when you do so you should compensate the heroes. They suggest doing that with hero points, which are what they use in that game (similar to an action point)
Would you rule that the power has been used up (ie that was the once-a-day opportunity and it didnt work?) Or would it merely be a case of "sorry it's not going to work here, you'll have to do something else"?
It would depend. For example, if the fighter used "come and get", and was able to draw in the wizard's bodyguards but I nerfed pulling the wizard in, I'd rule that the power was used, but I'd give him the action chips to compensate for the wizard being excluded from the effect. However, if the situation nerfed the power entirely, I'd probably tell him ahead of time that it wouldn't work in the situation and give him a chance to do something else.
I've very rarely had to do this sort of thing, and I try to avoid it unless absolutely necessary.
Another example might be a druid power like entangle where plants are supposed to grow out of the ground. Say the heroes were fighting on small floating islands in a pool of lava. Does it really make sense that plants would start bursting out of the ground- probably not. Should you nerf the power because of that? I'm not sure, that would depend a bit on the kind of game you and your players want to run. If you want things to feel like they make sense then maybe you should say that it wouldn't work. If you don't care about that sort of thing as much then you probably wouldn't want to nerf the power.
Regardless, this sort of discussion is something I recommend you have with our players before you start playing so that you're all on the same page when such situations arise.
The Auto Fail - Action Point idea is very good and might make many DM's games better. If its actual AP you hand out, you need to lift the once per encounter limit, however.
I don't hand out action points because those have a totally different mechanic. The action chips only add 1 to a die a roll per chip, so though they are still useful, they aren't as useful as an actual 4E action point.
I try to heavily encourage use of the improvised attack rules in the DMG. If a person wants to trip a monster but doesn't have a power that does it then off to the improvised attacks they go. I do this for any attack that makes sense but a player doesn't have a power for.
I also try to make combat areas have many ways that they can be utilized to help in the fight. Loose debris for improvised ranged attacks, small pits, things that can be knocked over onto enemies, fire pits, and other objects are often in my descriptions of the area. I don't like plain battle areas because they tend to make the players less involved in the game. The more the players are describing their actions in detail the better the game is.
I also don't declare when a person is involved in a skill challenge. I simply treat it like any other roleplay event and ask what actions their characters are taking. I will even adjust the skill list for a challenge on the fly if the player gives a good roleplay reason for using unusual skills. I basically believe characters should never be told they are in a skill challenge because it breaks the believability of the event.
Later,
Rzach
An excellent OP. I really agree with the concept of stats being relative to the story. The idea that the town guards might be 3rd level fighters in one instance and higher level minions in another is an absolutley excellent point.
As to using powers - I'd generally modify the description of what a power is doing depending on circumstances. Hence I'd allow the power to hook in the wizard by presuming that, in this case the fighter is not taunting the wizard but tricking him. Maybe he's made a very skilled feint and the wizard stepped forward thinking he was actually dodging out of the way of a charge or some such. On the other hand I'd outright disallow the use of the power under more extreme circumstances. For example if one is dealing with a plant that has roots and therefore was simply incapable of moving I'd simply tell the player that this use of the power won't work and ask them to choose another power. In some cases the player might still use the power (maybe it draws in other combatants but not the plant - or maybe the player wants some modifier thats also associated with the power) hence the player can use the power and just get part of the abilities or they can choose something else and save the power for use later.
Note that I'd be up front with the player here - he can change teh action or continue knowing that it will only partially work. This is one of the main differences I've noticed with 4E power usage. If your power lets you roll again for a saving throw you usually know whether or not the first roll worked or not before you choose to roll again. This is a good thing IMO and I keep with this theme if I choose to deny the player the use of a power as opposed to tricking them into wasting their powers - which generally just frustrates players and does not add to the 'fun'.
Here's a good tip as well. Be very cautious of "hard" encounters as they are setup in the DMG.
I just had a TPK last night while running my 4E adaptation of the Whispering Cairn (from Age of Worms).
The party consisted of 6 2nd level PC's. A dwarven shaman, dwarven druid, human barbarian, human wizard, human cleric, and a genasi swordmage.
Their opposition was Filge, a 6th level elite human necromancer, 3 level 4 zombies, and a level 4 zombie hulk. This may seem like much, but according to the DMG this is well within the limits of a "hard" encounter.
Here's a good tip as well. Be very cautious of "hard" encounters as they are setup in the DMG.
I just had a TPK last night while running my 4E adaptation of the Whispering Cairn (from Age of Worms).
The party consisted of 6 2nd level PC's. A dwarven shaman, dwarven druid, human barbarian, human wizard, human cleric, and a genasi swordmage.
Their opposition was Filge, a 6th level elite human necromancer, 3 level 4 zombies, and a level 4 zombie hulk. This may seem like much, but according to the DMG this is well within the limits of a "hard" encounter.
Geeze Louise...
Thats the second time you've TPKed your players in this adventure. You mentioned that your players were veterans and could handle themselves in a tough adventure but I'm thinking maybe you want to tone back on the difficulty setting of your conversion just a smidgen. That'd have the happy coincidence of making my use of your conversion notes easier as I'd have to spend less time toning down the encounters for my group of newbs as they are not nearly as hard core as your vets.
More on topic I think those notes on difficulty level simply fail to deal with the different character levels - in theory there has been a smoothing out of character power level so a table like this should work at every level but in practice that won't be true. 4E reminds me, in some ways of 1st and 2nd in terms of player character power. Especially...for lack of a better phrase...'stored power'. The DM is handing out all the treasure and there is no real reason to sell anything with value. You get such a bad rate of return that its simply not worth it. This never happened in 3.5 but in 1st and 2nd we had much the same situation.
The result is that the players hoard magic. They're like squirrels with nuts and they'll just keep packing things away. Given time this results in a deep reservoir of power. My 3rd level cleric has 3 potions of healing and I'd really like him to have six or seven - given time and resources I will have that eventually. A level or two seems probable. As my cleric stockpiles magic potions what it takes to kill my character becomes much more significant especially in a single encounter near the start of the day. With 7 potions and my normal powers I have access to virtually all my healing surges. It'd take a heck of a lot to take me down. The critical concept here is that, by the time my character gets to about 4th or 5th level I'll have stashed away enough power that I could - if I had to use every healing surge I had and I'll likely have ticked away a few one use bombs as well. At that point I'm actually phenomenally more powerful, then I was at 1st when I had access to no magic and had no way to use more then my 2nd wind and whatever healing my powers gave me access to.
The point of this is that 'Hard' is probably reasonably difficult for my character at 4th level when myself and my fellow players will have created deep reserves of power. Its likely true for almost all the characters career except for the initial levels when the characters simply had no magic to stash and therefor had no reservoir or power to draw on when the going got tough. I pretty much guarantee that if you look at a character sheet of a character that has been worked up to 10th level from scratch your going to find that there is enough magic on that sheet to start a friggen magic shop. It'll almost all be one use stuff like bombs and healing potions but the players will stash the stuff against need and crack it open only when they seriously think the alternative is death.
Anyway my tip for figuring out the power level that works for your group is kind of obvious - start easy and increase the difficulty until you find the sweet spot. Just realize that after a few levels your players will likely be harder to kill then you realize because they'll have finally managed to stash a significant reservoir or power.
Thats how it played out in 1st and 2nd and the elements are in place to do the same in 4E. The main element being inability to sell magic at a reasonable rate of return.
Part of the idea of 4E is the gms try to give magic items out that players will want to keep and use as opposed to squirrel away. I can understand having a stash of healing potions, but most other items will probably get use if the dms done a good job of picking items for the party. I personally don't give out that many healing potions and the party members don't usually go out trying to buy them. However, I would point out that a regular healing potion isn't all that great of bang for buck in terms of healing, so they don't make sense to use in any situation other than an emergency.
The dmg does suggest that a foe of up to 4 levels higher than the party is an appropriate foe. However, 4 levels difference is a much bigger gap at 2nd level than it is at say 12th, so the dm should keep this in mind. In epic levels you can probably run a foe higher than 4 levels different without it being too overwhelming, but at low levels you wouldn't go more than 2-3 levels above the party. The numbers thrown out for the Whispering Cairn encounter do sound very high, and I'm not surprised it was a TPK at all. I recently came close to a TPK running a level 18 encounter against my 14th level party. We had 2 casualties and close to 3 more.
The TPK wasn't my fault actually. I wanted this to be a hard encounter as Filge is one of the boss encounters in this adventure. Plus, a couple PC's did this adventure before in 3.5 and it was a cakewalk for them back then.
There were 3 things that contributed to the TPK.
1. The group rolled like crap for the entire encounter. Attack and damage rolls were absolutely garbage. I saw an unusual number of rolls between 2 and 5 amongst the entire group. This could not be helped.
2. I rolled awesome. The monsters barely missed the PC's at all. I rolled about 5 critical hits with various monsters, and the rest of my rolls averaged around 15. My damage rolls were equally impressive. Again, I don't fudge rolls so this couldn't be helped either.
3. The PC's lacked a plan, they scrambled around the observatory like chickens with their heads cut off. They split their attacks amonst all the monsters, didn't focus on one at a time, and did not take Filge seriously. So he made them pay with their lives. The group saw this and has agreed to work on it with their new characters that they are rolling up.
I ran all the monsters and Filge through the monster builder and they came out almost exactly as I had them converted by hand.
We are continuing with the campaign but the group will make a new party and start off just after the Filge encounter. They will start at 3rd level, and return to the cairn to deal with the wind warriors and claim their treasure.
At this point I'm not going to bother posting any more conversions until I finish an adventure, as I have found that my documents are changing each week as I get new ideas.
Part of the idea of 4E is the gms try to give magic items out that players will want to keep and use as opposed to squirrel away. I can understand having a stash of healing potions, but most other items will probably get use if the dms done a good job of picking items for the party. I personally don't give out that many healing potions and the party members don't usually go out trying to buy them. However, I would point out that a regular healing potion isn't all that great of bang for buck in terms of healing, so they don't make sense to use in any situation other than an emergency.
The dmg does suggest that a foe of up to 4 levels higher than the party is an appropriate foe. However, 4 levels difference is a much bigger gap at 2nd level than it is at say 12th, so the dm should keep this in mind. In epic levels you can probably run a foe higher than 4 levels different without it being too overwhelming, but at low levels you wouldn't go more than 2-3 levels above the party. The numbers thrown out for the Whispering Cairn encounter do sound very high, and I'm not surprised it was a TPK at all. I recently came close to a TPK running a level 18 encounter against my 14th level party. We had 2 casualties and close to 3 more.
I probably should have made a distinction between what kinds of items the players will hoard. Players hoard one use items generally - rituals and potions mainly but any one use item will do. Obviously magic swords and such are not usually hoarded. If you can't use them its better to sell them and convert them into potions or something.
Know its certainly possible for a DM to be on top of this - in theory you know how many potions and such you've actually handed out. Furthermore I have, very occasionally, encountered players that don't hoard this stuff. But, as a general rule, I suspect that even if your keeping a list of the one use magic you've handed out you'd find that your players stash this stuff against need - if your keeping an up to date list you just happen to be more aware of their squirrel like nature.
Obviously if you never hand out one use magic the players reserves of this stuff will be significantly less - still, my experience has been that over the long haul DMs usually underestimate just how much of this stuff their players have. I used to be shocked by this in 1st and 2nd edition and, as I mentioned above, the elements for this hoarding are in place in 4E just as they were in 2nd. Mainly the DM is usually just not as aware of how much of this kind of magic has actually been handed out and tends to lowball it. Hard for a DM to remember that potion of fire breath that the players found 5 months ago in real time but the players don't forget. I had 4 potions of healing on my cleric before the last session and had to use one - I'd bet money my DM did not realize I had squarrelled away that many potions.
If your campaign is new the DM will have a good grasp of this but as time goes on and real world months pass the DM tends to loose track of the low power stuff and the players hoard it making them much stronger then one would suspect by the time they get to mid heroic levels. Your right that these potions are not so great except in an emergency but that is really the kind of situation we are talking about. Players with emergency reserves of both healing and also stuff like fire breath which provide a nice one use bang of damage if you happen to have already used up all your encounter and daily powers. Its this sort of thing that will keep the players going in a really tough encounter and it'll allow them to fight on long after a party that had just been created (and therefore does not have this sort of thing) would have run out of juice.
The TPK wasn't my fault actually. I wanted this to be a hard encounter as Filge is one of the boss encounters in this adventure. Plus, a couple PC's did this adventure before in 3.5 and it was a cakewalk for them back then.
Sorry, I didn't really mean to get you back up.