From left to right: Dewidah the deva Shaman/Warlord(hybrid), Strype the gnoll Warlock/Executioner(hybrid), Dr. Hargreave the human Fighter/Wizard(multiclass, and Margot the elf Wizard who is the newest member and played by me!

Currently we are at level 9 and finally on the return trip for the current quest, after a few setbacks including at least one shipwreck and getting caught in the middle of a massive invasion at least twice.

i’ve been making a campaign with 25 floors in a dungeon. The players have to go from 0 to 25 to win and I’ve gotten to 13 but I’ve completely run out of ideas. I know the last one is be the boss I’ve designed for this campaign, but I don’t know what to do for the rest of them.

so any floor ideas?

Are there descriptions of the various classes which would help me figure out what I want to play? Someone provided a link to a guide years ago (http://community.wizards.com/forum/4e-character-optimization/threads/1478896j) but it doesn’t work anymore. I’m new to fourth edition, but not to D and D overall.

All over the Internet everyone talks how bad 4th edition was. Why? It seems like only my friend likes 4th edition. Mainly the lore and artwork.

Is it all that bad?

I’ll go first: It freed Paladins from the alignment-locked hell they were in before, and it made tieflings a core race.

4e was the first edition that I stuck around with. I think there are a few reasons for this specifically:

• I grew a distain for Forgotten Realms, Lord of the Rings, and other fantasy media/franchises in general. Typically because fans would say "Um, actually a <Insert Fantasy Race> would never do that because XYZ."
  • Example: In Neverwinter Nights 2, I played a Chaotic Neutral Wood Elf Druid and let a guy use an Enlargement Potion on a pig to win the biggest pig contest. A classmate heard me tell the story and said "Wood Elf Druids would never let that happen, even if they were chaotic neutral".
  • Example: Characters with alignments not in keeping with their Race. Usually getting called a Drizzt wannabe or something.
• I fell in love with Dark Sun 4e when I heard Penny Arcade's podcast on it. Especially because the fantasy races bucked the trends in regards to what was considered standard. (i.e. Halfling cannibals, Nefarious Elves, Hairless Dwarves, etc...)
• The system was very modular with components that could easily be swapped out for each other. I really enjoyed being a DM for that system.
  • I'll get into this more later.

That's a broad overview of why I fell in love with 4e.

Here is the list of stuff I miss from 4e:

• Monster Classes - Artillery, Brute, Controller, Lurker, Skirmisher, Soldier. It gave me the sense of what every monster was expected to do.
  • Artillery - Fragile ranged attackers.
  • Brute - Large amount of hitpoints, but easy to hit.
  • Controller - Support that can do area denial such as pushing characters away from each other or attacking multiple characters at once.
  • Lurker - Stealth ambushers meant to surprise characters.
  • Skirmisher - Highly mobile attackers with movement tricks to harass the characters.
  • Soldier - High defense, but low save/non-AC defenses.
• Monster Modifiers - Like Monster classes, but focused on increasing monster utility in combat, or in the case on Minions adding smaller enemies for players to get the feeling of mowing down loads of enemies.
  • Minion - Enemies that go down in 1 hit and do static damage. Typically, sprinkle a few in to act as cannon fodder. DM's at the time also homebrewed 2-Hit minions which would take 2 hits to kill with At-Will powers, but 1 hit to kill with Encounter and Daily Powers.
  • Elite - Upgraded normal enemies. Typically they'd have more hit points, do more damage, and have more abilities than standard enemies.
  • Leader - Enemy that has access to buffs and healing for other enemies.
  • Solo - An enemy meant to be taken on by itself or with a few minions. Typically reservered for big monsters like Dragons, Liches, Archmages, etc...
• Monster Themes - Additional themeing to add to Monsters that was introduced in Dark Sun 4e. Essentially an extra passive ability or action that a monster got to feel like they were different than standard enemies.
  • Example: I made "Sand Drakes", by giving the normal Drake monster the Elemental Aura ability. So when the Sand Drake got bloodied it would create a Blood Red sandstorm around itself that'd do 5 damage to characters who were inside melee range with it.
  • Before Monster Themes we'd do stuff like take racial abilities from creatures and swap them to make different monsters. Such as taking Orc's Warrior Surge ability which was present on every Orc and replacing a Tiefling Darkblade's Infernal Wrath to make an Orc Darkblade which acted as an Orc Assassin.
  • 5e Conspiracy Theory - Monster Templates/Themes exist in 5e but they were under utilized. My personal theory is that the presentation wasn't well received/understood by many people, and the idea of giving GMs easy to use tools to create their own Monsters was dropped in favor of making unique statblocks without modularity in mind.
• Unique Traps/Hazards - Unlike other editions traps and hazards were more defined than in other editions as far as I could tell. You didn't just have "Fail a Saving Throw, take XdY damage. Traps and hazards had attacks, and there were recommended ways to deactivate or use a countermeasure against a trap creatively. Such as obstructing a trap's means to release or using a mirror to deflect a sensor.
  • I really loved that they'd also have Triggers which you could use to your advantage as a player, usually by using force movement abilities to push enemies into the traps.
• Skill Challenges - By the time I played 4e, Skill Challenges weren't seen as strict means to run non-combat encounters. Typically DMs would track Successful and Failed skill checks and if the use wasn't listed in the examples in the Skill Challenge they'd let it count for purposes of the Skill Challenge. It made non-combat encounters seem a bit more consequential from my perspective. Additionally being successful or failing the Skill Challenge would modify future encounters such as by giving the players a boon or penalty.
  • Example: We need to gain access to an enemy stronghold, we could storm the gate and fight the enemies there, bypassing the encounter; or do a Skill Challenge. We decide without knowing about the Skill Challenge to dress up like guards and convince the other guards to let us back in. The Skill Challenge says to use Bluff to get in, but instead we use History to mention to the guards how in past situations in history there are examples of guards refusing allies in only for the stronghold to be undermanned when resisting a future seige. Additionally we might make Dungeoneering or Bluff checks in order to further convince them to let us in.
  • If we failed the Skill challenge, the guards would open the gate, but have additional back up such as archers or rogues hiding nearby the entrance to ambush us.
  • If we pass the Skill challenge we would get a Surprise round against the enemies, or if we wanted we could continue the ruse to try and get deeper into the stronghold.
• Interacting With the Environment - The game heavily relied on maps and positioning which I know isn't everyone's thing, but it really made me feel tied to the environment of a battlemap. If I pushed a character off a cliff, the GM would roll an Athletics check to see if they grabbed hold of the edge in time. Additionally the amount of hazards and traps meant that as a GM I felt like if I didn't have a unique Statblock for that thing on the spot I had the tools and understanding of the system to improvise something.
  • Concussive Spike (Battlemind, Wilder, Dark Sun) - Playing as a Battlemind there were a lot of force movement shenanigans that made me love the system. I was able to push enemies up to my Charisma modifer +1 away from the target of my attack, and the Weapon's attack bonus and damage was based on Constitution so Charisma was usually my secondary attribute for this reason. I mainly could push enemies like 3-4 squares away into hazards or off tall structures.
  • My main complaint with some systems is that they don't have examples of doing this type of encounter design and instead you end up in these "white room" scenarios where the environment doesn't matter. For instance in D&D 5e if I were to have a Barbarian and Fighter attacked by goblins in the woods with trees for cover and thorny bushes the players will typically charge the goblins and proceed to spend 1-3 turns killing the enemy in melee. The trees for cover and the bushes to do extra damage unused as the fighter has superiority dice which could be used to push but do 1d8 more damage which might be better than the damage the bush does, and barbarian doesn't have the ability to push targets away. As a DM in this scenario there is a lot more mental load when trying to incentivize players to interact with the environment.
  • This might be a me and my players' issue. But I do feel like there are modules that might help with this, but the 5e Red Box didn't help me much, most of the rooms were empty cave rooms where the enemies were easily stuck into close combat. A few Adventure's League modules did better such as one of the early ones had a creative use of Ghouls dragging paralyzed enemies into flooded pools of water to drown them.
• Spells were attack rolls not Saves - Minor issue, I really enjoy everyone rolling 1d20 to attack. That's a me preference 100%, but it let me do somethings I can't do in other editions of D&D.
  • 1. New Players see rolling a d20 as iconic D&D so having a spell like fireball having the DM rolling the saving throws for each enemy feels a bit weird to me.
  • 2. Because I played Dark Sun I used "Advantage" to simulate Defiling Magic where you can get a stronger effect from a Spell, but the spell will defile the area and sap all the magic (which in my mind created an anti-magic zone equal to 5ft x the level of the spell used).
  • To simulate this I had the player roll 2d20s on each spell roll and one of the dice was a black die that represented defiling. He could always choose the black die result if he wanted as opposed to his normal die, and this led to fun scenarios where he rolled a 1 on the normal die and a 20 on the defiling die. In character he morally struggled with the possibility of destroying enemies more easily, but didn't because he knew he'd essentially fall to the Dark side.

There is a lot of 4e DMing advice that is lost because the WotC forums were shutdown. There were even blogs that would go into detail about how other DMs were making homebrew fixes such as with Skill Challenges and Encounter design. It was a golden age that I don't think 5e has hit in the same way when it comes to DMing, but there are other things 5e does that 4e didn't do as well with.

Anyway these are the things I liked in D&D 4e. Hope it was informative for you all. And maybe you see something you like that you might steal for your own home game.

So in the DnD campaign that I play we needed to go kill the queen of a kingdom because of our quest. We annoyed the guards at the gate for 30 minutes and then we got captured and sent to prison “we are level 3”.

My friend that I was in the sell with was able to bend the bars a lot. He squeezed through but I couldn’t because my character was 6 foot 8. He strangled the guard coming in the room and then started to fight the other guard who was asleep.

My turn in combat, I try to bend the bars more but then I realize that my friend broke the lock by bending the bars so I join him to fight the guard. The guard goes unconscious, and then go to unlock one of our travel buddies.

Our travel buddy had a hand chained up to the brick wall and he was gagged with som cloth. In his sell there was a creepy guy in the corner. My friend goes to unlock him from the wall.

The creepy guy pulls out a knife and stabs him in the back. Our travel buddy is able to pull so hard that the brick gets torn off the wall. Then he uses the brick that is chained to his arm and swings at the man.

NATURAL 20
The guy’s head explodes into a red mist.

THE end

.

Hey! I'm currently in a 4E campaign, and would love to print out some of my powers to have them on hand.

Previously I've been able to manage my powers via Roll20/the character editor tool our DM gave us, but now we're level 9 we have a bunch of powers earned from levelling up, powers from items, and some unique things we've found, and I think that having hard copies of things would be really helpful!

Anybody got any good templates I can use? I did some digging but it seems like every 4E resource dried up years ago!

Thanks in advance from me and my little murder gnome!

I wanna try a 4e campaign, but I have a friend who wants to play a Necromancer and I can't seem to find any official Necromancer class or such. Any help would be appreciated, thank you so much.

So one of my players, a githzerai monk, has decided to have a baby, and they intend to A. Continue adventuring and B. Take the baby on their adventures. They've visited a blacksmith and commissioned a type of armored baby carrier

My question is this: uhhhhhhhh wtf do I do? To be clear I'm not gonna shoot this idea down. The player is excited about it and the whole table is into the idea. The problem is, I am going to need a stat block for this baby, and ideas for roleplaying/presenting scenarios caused by the kid. Also some sort of mechanic wherein the baby will be at risk when inside the baby carrier during combat.

Does anyone have any experience with something like this, or know of a resource I can use to for help? Thanks!

1982 The Sword and the Sorcerer! The only thing missing child is a dragon! Outstanding fun movie.

There has been a great debate between me and my friends on what would happen if you place a bag of holding inside a bag of holding. Some say nothing will happen, others say it will create a Black hole and suck the whole realm into it. What is your take on it?

Quick info, we have a homebrew pantheon.

So, for plot reasons, our Paladin has had their soul pulled out and was basically used as collateral by one god (Zeus+Ra - Lawful Good) to another god (Q from Star Trek: TNG - Chaotic Neutral) so that we will be sure to honor our promise to overthrow a nation over which neither of these Gods hold sway.

By the luck of the dice, we ran in to the BBEG much earlier than planned, and our Paladin is refusing to back down from the fight due to their vow to "Uproot, burn, and scatter to the wind, the ashes of all evil and corruption, wherever it may be found".

We had to call the session because none of us know what might happen if a "Sentient Being Currently Not in Posession of their soul" were to hit the proper amount of negative hitpoints, LET ALONE what is supposed to happen if a Soul Drinking Sword were to kill a Being with no Soul.

Anyone have any experience with this? Is there any information in the Sacred Texts? (Compendiums, Manuals, ect...)

Hey; I do a podcast called the Dastardly Decimal System. It's a lore podcast in which we look at the official villains of D&D (among other systems as well like PF, WoD or any system in between). Each episode we look at one of these epic BBEG and examine their history, abilities and lore.

In episode 58 we look at the Dun Traders of Dark Sun. Especially the most dangerous one of them all, the trader who will get an item at ANY COST - Mar Juk-Adan

LISTEN ON
Apple Podcasts · Spotify · Amazon Music

I have never played 4e and don't know much about the game mechanic differences, coming from playing 5e and 5.5e exclusively the last 7 years and only just barely looking into 3.5e recently because 3/4 of us in my new group DM and one DM prefers 3.5e builds.

Back to the 4e question:

In a campaign I was DMing and took a break from, a player asked if a friend could join, he had experience playing 4e. I said as long as he was fine creating a build in 5e he could play his existing build at the level we're at (taking him from level 20 down to level 3).

The invited player asked to roll 4d8 instead of 4d6 for ability scores because of something from his 4e class or race. I originally said yes but then his ability scores ranged from 17-24. In 5e you tap out at 20 usually and at lower levels, while it's not unheard of, it's not common to have more than a couple between 17-20 even after class/race/background/origin feet ability increases.

I messaged him privately that we'd need him to reroll with 4d6 to make him balanced for 5e and the party at their level. He went off on me for trying to make his build weak... at level 3...

So my question is: is it common for ability scores to be between 17-24 at lower levels in 4e?

Hey all,

I'm trying to get my girls into D&D and based on their personalities I think 4E is the best way to do it. I've been searching for some 4E character builders the past few days and I have not been able to find anything. I'm hoping I'm looking in the wrong places.

Do any of you know of anything still available?

Hey everyone! I'm launching a new channel focused on fantasy tavern music and RPG ambient. Just posted my track: "Call of the Northern Wind".

* Genre / Sound: Medieval Folk, Bard Song, Acoustic Lute & Tavern Vibes.

It’s a short ~3-minute track meant to bring that cozy hearth feeling to your D&D sessions, reading, or relaxing with a drink.

Even a quick 30-second listen means the world to me and helps out a ton! If you enjoy the vibe, feel free to share it with your gaming group.

🔗 YouTube:

I'm playing a 3.5e campaign. I've played a few 5e 2014 oneshot. But now i'm curious about the edition that's in the middle of those: 4e. How was it likes? One of the player at my table describe it as a more "roleplay-y" edition. Yet i've seen some youtube reels saying that it worked more like an mmorpg, more combat oriented. I've also read that the developer of DnD created 3.5e's Tome of Battle as an experiment for 4e, so does it have some kind of combat feature like 3.5e's maneuvers?

Maybe i’m just antisocial but man i haven’t been able to find a solid dnd group since i was in high school idk where y’all be finding people

It's a Warlock.

Sure they have been done to death but this guy isn't vieing for power or trying to uncover arcane secrets or embolden his pact for the sake of some bitter rivalry with some wizard college....

His name is Clem. Clem Donnahew. And he terribly misses his sister and is trying to make amends.

Clem was originally just a basic hunter. He knew how to use a bow and had a boar named Gurglerot because the thing constantly was hungry and stank like a trolls arse but he was loyal. One day a clown came to town and offered to paint some of the childrens faces for a festival that had arrived. Sadly the paint was mixed with improper herbs for its coloration and slowly over the course of the warm summers evening seeped into the skin causing the wee children to fall asleep. Now mind you it wasn't poison and in fact some parents were grateful to the clown for helping put their more rambunctious children to bed....But Clem had a sister. A young girl named Sue. She had herself dolled up to like Hag and laughed when her brother almost recoiled seeing her wrinkled face.

But night had come and Sue had to ensure the animals were put to their pens.....Yes.....All of the animals. Including the VERY hungry Gurglerot....The poor girl let the boar in and sat against the edge of the pen thinking she may rest a moment but the poor girl fell backward...

My friends the paint to make a pretty young girl look like a hideous Hag is not light....Before she could awaken the beast had already sank into her and stolen the light from such a once beautiful pair of eyes....

Clem now with dusk approaching into dark rushed out wondering where his sister was since she was out much later than usual only to find a very full boar and what was left of his poor dear sister....

He fell to his knees and vomited. Through the sick and choking came a wail of such pain and agony it awoke curiosity from a Cambion who felt that it could enjoy the suffering of a mortal so sickly sweet that it even reached her in the hells as sweet Clem begged existence itself to undo what it had done...Like the fires of the hells itself she appeared before him dressed as an angel making sure to hide her sulferous entrance.

She quickly wrapped her arms around him and held him as he wept making sure to hide the smile creeping across her face like parched soil fracturing under a blistering summer...

"Child...I can see clearly the horrors you have witnessed and I have been sent down to offer you a chance at hope." she cooed in his ear. Pulling back she swirled the air before him and cast an illusion of his sister standing before him like a figure made of fog. "I can bring her back. But you have tasks you must accomplish. I seek items boy. Artifacts of power. My power can bind her soul to you. Prevent its ascension. But to bring her back you must first gather what I have sought for you. I will give you these four gifts. But in return...I must take as well."

Releasing him slowly she hands him a small blade. "The first. Sacrifice." she points the handle of the blade to the boy and the tip towards the fat slumbering pig still slick with viscera with green marks smeared on the sides of its jowls. The boy leapt. He did not rise but every sinew in his body snapped as if to break him and he flung himself at the boar and screamed as he drove the blade into its belly and heart until his robes ran crimson screaming like a wounded animal desperate for survival. She could feel his emotions sink into her like she was plunging into a bath. Exquisite...Rage, sorrow, regret, hope. The emotions twisting his insides like a knot struck her so wildly she even considered taking that itself as payment...But no such a sweet treat was not going to satisfy her. Not yet. He could grow so much more...Flavorful.

She puts on a smile. Warm and tender. Enough to make her retch. Then like a serpent coiling around its prey... "Now...My first gift..." as a small white translucent hand appears before him and gently wipes a tear from his face. He grabs it swiftly recognizing the small crescent shaped scar where the neighbor dog had bitten and pulls it to his face caressing it as it held his finding no strength in his aching chest to cry or laugh. He had to struggle to breathe. Too many things swirling in his heart.

"She is bound to you now. Our pact. Our promise. You bring me what I desire. I return you what you desire. Simple. Transactional. For no gift comes without price or effort of another. The next I shall grant you strength. For you need to be able to be strong enough to accomplish these tasks. Now. Reach out your hand and imagine firing your pain from your palm towards that tree over there."

Placing a hand upon his knee he caresses the hand once more before gently holding it with his free hand and aims his palm at the tree thinking of the moments before a void. A pitch black ray of malice shoots forth piercing the tree before him like a needle through cloth. Nodding the Cambion acknowledges his ability to follow orders. "You are now a Warlock. Servant yet more. You are a finder. A seeker. And if it comes to it, my blade of vengeance. Now. I must take from you." He feels his muscular body wither. Not to a husk but become frail. Weakened. Where once he could nearly wrestle the neighbors bull to the ground he now could struggle to carry the pails of water he used to with one in each hand. Sighing she says plainly. "There is more I must take but these gifts come with them it is a blessing...And yet a curse so they shall suffice."

His head wracked with agony and the pain behind his eyes roared like hellfire. He fell to the ground nearly releasing the small hand as he clutched his temple looking around now seeing the darkened night now nearly as bright as it was hours ago for quite a ways. Much moreso than he could before. But then came the dark and all the colors faded as he was left nothing more than red silhouettes, shapes, outlines of what things were, that was all that was there now except for the bright light he was clutching in his hand. That remained as bright and visible as it had before now almost denser he thought...But that could have been a trick of his mind.

"This sight will aid you in darkness as that will be all you can see...For now. But you can operate and function. You can eventually return your sight and even see falsities. Illusions. Even the dead if you so choose. The last is simple. It too, is a curse...But it is also a gift."

Upon the horizon he noticed a pale emerald glow. "Wha-What is that?" he stammered. "It is your beacon. The direction of where to find the first of my artifacts. Follow it and I shall guide you, empower you, and aid in the resurrection of your sister. You need not question what they are. Only follow their light and make your way soon. My spell did bind your sisters soul to you....But it is not permanent. In seven years if you fail to finish our pact the curse will take not only the color from your sight but all of your other senses leaving only pain. Empower it and it will extend. Finish it and my gifts remain yours so that with your newfound strength you need not return to farmwork. With that I must leave. My tethers to your realm are narrow and I can only remain so long. Finish the pact mortal. Honor our covenant."

And with that she vanished. Not truly of course...She watched him from below sipping wine and reclining in her chair. "Finally...Entertainment once more."

My idea was that "I HAVE DARKVISION" was taken to the extreme and Magehand wasn't just some shove/throw tool but something deeply wholesome yet tragic. I also had ideas of having the hand eventually be able to speak by mimicing talking like how one would when mocking someone with that simple hand gesture later on when he empowers the pact by finding the first of the artifacts....

Now onto THOSE....At first it will be something odd.

1. A mans tooth with an odd rune he must pluck from a town drunkard.
   
2. A soulcoin that can talk (It has NOTHING good to say).
   
3. A staff from a noble child's play-horse that had been secretly placing wards on the ground as it dragged that caused unprovoked anger in staff and family members at a chateau causing them to make his parents kill one another.
   
4. A small scale underneath a green dragons neck (It was a large serpent that had swallowed a lost cambion artifact to ascend to dragonhood through greater polymorph.)
   
5. A foreign queens underwear. (It has a VERY powerful yet well hidden charm skill and was used to charm her king into betrothing her and she does NOT want to lose it.)
   
6. Finally he has to take all of these artifacts and crush them before another Cambion....The main Antagonist AND the one who gave him his powers.....Her Ex. These are all HIS items and she just wants to break his sh*t.

At some point he will find a scroll of revivify and quickly learn it wont work as she has been dead too long and resurrection only to find out that with the bindings of her soul to him he cannot resurrect her and MUST complete the pact. Both of these bring the cambion what did all this to him great joy.

She may be in it for evil BUT she very much honors her bargain. A contract is a contract after all.

I've been won over; you guys've convinced me that I wrote off D&D 4e way too early and too easily. So I'm gonna try and give GMing 4e a try, because honestly I've had it with 5e. Can anyone give me some system advice about how to run or play D&D 4e for my friends?

Every time I see someone IRL or online discuss previous DnD editions, it's always something like this: "1st is ancient, second was decent, 3 and 3.5 were overcomplicated. PERIOD". Occasionally they'd maybe add Pathfinder to the mix. But it seems like everyone's in some sort of implied agreement to avoid even mentioning 4e.

I love 4th edition even despite all its poor gamedesign choices, and don't understand why it gets all the silent treatment. Apart from Matt Colville, I don't think I've ever heard anyone big discuss pros and cons of 4e (or even just discuss it at all, for that matter). How so?

edit: pros and cons

edit2: all right, thanks for your answers everyone, now I'm just sad...

edit3: oh ok, my first reddit gold for a post about 4e. Life is funny sometimes... But cool! Thanks kind stranger, am not sad anymore :-)