Pyramid #3/70: Fourth Edition Festival

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

[*]Ten for Ten

Since I own all the listed books and use many of the rules there presented that are applicable to my games, this is not so useful for me.

[*]Elemental Xia Champions vs. the Shenguai

Nice to have. I still feel that Chinese Elemental Powers are a bit underpowered for Monster Hunters, but it's easily solved, simply allow Godlike Extra-Effort. The monsters are awesome though, very nasty and appropriate!

[*]Horde Ninja

Sorry Peter, but I'm not that into ninja. I find that the way you handled the law of conservation of ninjitsu was ok, but I expected more. I would have given them increasing ninja abilities as their numbers dwindled, instead of a simple bonus.

[*]Revisiting High-Tech
[/LIST]

I expected to feel the same way about Ten for ten but it was nice knowing some items he thought were so useful they should have been Core.

The Xia article I already went that way, suggested the AA thing in my feedback on the original in fact. The templates were ok, but the Monsters will see some use. The golden bit for me however was it correcting a misread on my part. I always treated regular Extra Effort like Godlike Extra Effort so FP cost increased the same as the Will penalty. Extra Effort is now a LOT more attractive in my games.

The Ninja thing I expected to be cool but useless to me as I hardly ever use them. I would have built the idea the same way you did too.
But this method is so easy and simple it does not even require a write up to the sheet and can apply to may mobs. Hive minds, creatures that use tactics and watch what happens to thier fellows, those with cinematic or supernatural loyalty to thier companions, etc.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

[*]Horde Ninja

Sorry Peter, but I'm not that into ninja. I find that the way you handled the law of conservation of ninjitsu was ok, but I expected more. I would have given them increasing ninja abilities as their numbers dwindled, instead of a simple bonus.

No problem. I considered doing it that way, but if I did:

- it would be much less generic - the idea would be portable, but the rules would not be.

- it would make the ninja much harder to do in play, because a shift from, say, 8 ninja to 7 might mean suddenly the 7 do different damage, have access to new powers the GM needs to incorporate or account for, and so on.

- it would basically mean assigning a point point to increases, and then apportioning that out, which is hard to do as a box. It would need to be lenses or full monster stats for each "level" of ninja. They wouldn't so much "get tougher" and "become a new monster."

On the other hand, a flat bonus across the board is easy to implement, easy to scale, and easy to add to other monsters. Plus the idea and rule is generic instead of the idea just being generic.

So that's why the latter won out. It's easier to give a +1 to all ninja rolls than to bust out new powers on all of the remaining ninja.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Into the Wilderness

If only this had been part of the adventure when we playtested it ;).

That's pretty much the point of the exercise, so mission accomplished!

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

No problem. I considered doing it that way, but if I did:

- it would be much less generic - the idea would be portable, but the rules would not be.

- it would make the ninja much harder to do in play, because a shift from, say, 8 ninja to 7 might mean suddenly the 7 do different damage, have access to new powers the GM needs to incorporate or account for, and so on.

- it would basically mean assigning a point point to increases, and then apportioning that out, which is hard to do as a box. It would need to be lenses or full monster stats for each "level" of ninja. They wouldn't so much "get tougher" and "become a new monster."

On the other hand, a flat bonus across the board is easy to implement, easy to scale, and easy to add to other monsters. Plus the idea and rule is generic instead of the idea just being generic.

So that's why the latter won out. It's easier to give a +1 to all ninja rolls than to bust out new powers on all of the remaining ninja.

Oh, I agree that it is much simpler this way, and I understand that I'm basically asking for different stat blocks depending on how many ninja remain, but it would have been much more flavorful, and IMHO, appropriate to the source material, if the final ninja had special techniques that the horde didn't. Again, I don't mind if it's not available to PC ninja, so point costs would not matter to me.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Oh, I agree that it is much simpler this way, and I understand that I'm basically asking for different stat blocks depending on how many ninja remain, but it would have been much more flavorful, and IMHO, appropriate to the source material, if the final ninja had special techniques that the horde didn't. Again, I don't mind if it's not available to PC ninja, so point costs would not matter to me.

All you need to do that is stat up 4-5 increasingly powerful versions of whatever foe you want, and promote them up as they get knocked off.

The version in the article is a different animal - that it's codified and written as an add-on is what makes it more generically useful, and applicable to PCs and NPCs alike. Besides, that's what I had on my hard drive in a less generic version.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

All you need to do that is stat up 4-5 increasingly powerful versions of whatever foe you want, and promote them up as they get knocked off.

The version in the article is a different animal - that it's codified and written as an add-on is what makes it more generically useful, and applicable to PCs and NPCs alike. Besides, that's what I had on my hard drive in a less generic version.

Oh, I know, it just makes it less directly applicable to my table ;) Then again at the level we play, anything would require modification anyway.

I would have preferred this as a monster prefix, though (I know, the difference is semantic), with added effects such as increased damage, increased defenses, increased skill, etc, instead of riding on top of Higher Purpose. Of course, it would make it unavailable to PCs, but I personally don't feel that it's that useful to PCs anyway, unless they have loads of allies/henchmen in order the meet the 10 members of the party prerequisite.

[Dexion]

It's perhaps a dumb question but it's would be possible to make a new version of the basic set including the Ten for Ten article or rules missing like the underwater combat?
I find that will be very uefull !

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Dexion

It's perhaps a dumb question but it's would be possible to make a new version of the basic set including the Ten for Ten article or rules missing like the underwater combat?

Doing that would unfortunately invalidate many of the page number references to the Basic Set in the huge number of supplements that have been published for 4e. Making that worthwhile would require revising much more of the Basic Set.

[scc]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Doing that would unfortunately invalidate many of the page number references to the Basic Set in the huge number of supplements that have been published for 4e. Making that worthwhile would require revising much more of the Basic Set.

Beyond adding something to the end of the book, there are a few places where sections can be removed without causing any trouble.

The first and most obvious is the Combat Lite section in Characters, it's only in there in case you don't have Campaigns for some reason. The Psionics chapter can like wise be ditched without any problems. The chapter on Magic is also a good candidate as the only book that references that is Banestorm, but pulling it causes problem with the Technology and Artifacts chapter, as that has a section on enchanting that depends upon it.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by scc

Beyond adding something to the end of the book, there are a few places where sections can be removed without causing any trouble.

The first and most obvious is the Combat Lite section in Characters, it's only in there in case you don't have Campaigns for some reason. The Psionics chapter can like wise be ditched without any problems. The chapter on Magic is also a good candidate as the only book that references that is Banestorm, but pulling it causes problem with the Technology and Artifacts chapter, as that has a section on enchanting that depends upon it.

That would not address the problem of the page references being put out of whack.