So I decided to buy and read the 4th edition rules while recovering from my surgery – try to take my mind off of it for a bit. Narcotics and the 4e rule set may not be a good mix, but I thought it was working up until I started looking at the rules for making NPCs on page 187 of the DMG, then looking at the NPCs shown in Chap 11 for Fallcrest – Armos on page 204 and Kelson on page 205 in particular. What happened to their daily and utility powers? I’m just certain that page 187 is saying that they should have one of each, but their stat block doesn’t have one. Is there another key rule concerning stating out NPCs that I’m missing? That and I don’t see how a human is getting the halfling Second Chance ability . . .
Any help would be appreciated. I’m probably just missing something simple (like the ability of several soldier monsters to Mark someone – I kept wondering what that meant as I read the Monster Manual and finally realized it was a condition explained in the Player’s Handbook).
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Any help would be appreciated.
NPC's are only as detailed as they "need" to be. Take a friendly barkeep...you don't need stats if the party isn't meant fight them, and if they do, it's simple enough to treat them like a minion: one hit kill. Likely, the NPCs of Fallcrest fall into this category. Otherwise, chalk it up to editing to keep the page count low.
So I decided to buy and read the 4th edition rules while recovering from my surgery – try to take my mind off of it for a bit. Narcotics and the 4e rule set may not be a good mix, but I thought it was working up until I started looking at the rules for making NPCs on page 187 of the DMG, then looking at the NPCs shown in Chap 11 for Fallcrest – Armos on page 204 and Kelson on page 205 in particular. What happened to their daily and utility powers? I’m just certain that page 187 is saying that they should have one of each, but their stat block doesn’t have one. Is there another key rule concerning stating out NPCs that I’m missing? That and I don’t see how a human is getting the halfling Second Chance ability . . .
Any help would be appreciated. I’m probably just missing something simple (like the ability of several soldier monsters to Mark someone – I kept wondering what that meant as I read the Monster Manual and finally realized it was a condition explained in the Player’s Handbook).
You can build NPCs in one of two ways. You can either build the NPCs with the class guidelines utilizing powers from the PHB (and other sourcebooks), or you can create them like monsters, which is more freeform (and still allows you to use powers from the sourcebooks). I'm pretty sure those examples were built using the second methodology.
Thanks Shroomy and Stedd. I think that explains it. Essentially, NPCs and class leveled combatants are far more of an art than in 3.5, so I need to drop my 3.5 formula driven mindset. I like that 4e gives you a lot more guidance on what something of any given level should be able to do, so the end result should be better. It will just take some time to get used to.
Are there any good / published examples of modifying monsters up or down in level out there? I’d really like to have a lot more examples of this to help get a good feel for messing with the powers.
Thanks Shroomy and Stedd. I think that explains it. Essentially, NPCs and class leveled combatants are far more of an art than in 3.5, so I need to drop my 3.5 formula driven mindset. I like that 4e gives you a lot more guidance on what something of any given level should be able to do, so the end result should be better. It will just take some time to get used to.
Are there any good / published examples of modifying monsters up or down in level out there? I’d really like to have a lot more examples of this to help get a good feel for messing with the powers.
If you have access to the D&D Compendium through an Insider subscription, you will be able to find tons of up-leveled or down-leveled monsters (most created for RPGA adventures). Just search for the base monster and compare it to the altered versions to see how leveling changes things.
Thanks Scott! I’d been wondering if the insider was worth it – I just started reading through the free issues of Dungeon and Dragon and hadn’t formed an opinion yet. Knowing that is available helps me a lot.
One thing I’m trying to determine is if I can take the 4e classes and monsters, file off their names, and create a present day, Denver based Mew mew game for my kids (my wife and 3 daughters all love that show, and our son enjoys it quite a bit too). I’d been kicking around ideas for doing that in 3.5, but it wasn’t going to be easy. 4e looks like it would just work better for that, so long as I can reshape some of the monsters and powers to match up with the feel of the animation. I also love the terrain and traps in 4e – I can almost see playing out epic battles set at Elitch Gardens, Casa Bonita, the Children’s Museum, the Denver Zoo, the Museum of Natural History, or the U.S. Mint. We live close to Denver, could you guess?
Thanks Scott! I’d been wondering if the insider was worth it – I just started reading through the free issues of Dungeon and Dragon and hadn’t formed an opinion yet. Knowing that is available helps me a lot.
One thing I’m trying to determine is if I can take the 4e classes and monsters, file off their names, and create a present day, Denver based Mew mew game for my kids (my wife and 3 daughters all love that show, and our son enjoys it quite a bit too). I’d been kicking around ideas for doing that in 3.5, but it wasn’t going to be easy. 4e looks like it would just work better for that, so long as I can reshape some of the monsters and powers to match up with the feel of the animation. I also love the terrain and traps in 4e – I can almost see playing out epic battles set at Elitch Gardens, Casa Bonita, the Children’s Museum, the Denver Zoo, the Museum of Natural History, or the U.S. Mint. We live close to Denver, could you guess?
4e its probably the easiest t
o do this with. Just change the descriptions of the powers. Im running a one day game in a few weeks when the DM is out, and im basically doing 4e space hulk with a death watch kill team. Ive made a basic PC in plate mail, and stuck in different powers and stuff in to represent different weapons etc. the Flamer dude has a lot of wizard powers, The standard bearer is basically a warlord, the librarian is basically an infernal warlock, and the assualt marine is a Barbarian with huge chain glaive. :D
looking forward to running it :D
Thanks Scott! I’d been wondering if the insider was worth it – I just started reading through the free issues of Dungeon and Dragon and hadn’t formed an opinion yet. Knowing that is available helps me a lot.
One thing I’m trying to determine is if I can take the 4e classes and monsters, file off their names, and create a present day, Denver based Mew mew game for my kids (my wife and 3 daughters all love that show, and our son enjoys it quite a bit too). I’d been kicking around ideas for doing that in 3.5, but it wasn’t going to be easy. 4e looks like it would just work better for that, so long as I can reshape some of the monsters and powers to match up with the feel of the animation. I also love the terrain and traps in 4e – I can almost see playing out epic battles set at Elitch Gardens, Casa Bonita, the Children’s Museum, the Denver Zoo, the Museum of Natural History, or the U.S. Mint. We live close to Denver, could you guess?
Hmmm...3.5 is a very robust system and Modern already exists for it so it has that in its favour. That said 4E is a very easy system to get into and works quite well from the get go - far less of a learning curve then 3.5 so it might well be worth the extra effort on your part at converting on your end in order to have a simple game thats easy for the wife and kids to get into and start playing without having to understand to much about what is going on or how to play.
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EDIT:
Well I just checked out Ratchet's thread on 4E in Warhammer 40K and I have to say that converting modern to a 'high cinematic' version of modern might not be as hard as I had initially assumed.