4e Forever Issue #1 Wrap-Up: Submissions, Q&A, and a THANK YOU!!!

Well, issue one of my fanzine 4e Forever has come and gone, and all I can say is that the response blew my expectations out of the water. This is obviously a niche product: a zine focused on a recently "cancelled" edition, and one that centers on high-level play, traditionally the least played "tier" of all editions. It also incorporates a lot of old-school elements, which, if you believe everything you read, is diametrically opposed to 4th edition. Well, the response proves that was a lot of bunk. I have had die-hard OSR guys congratulate me, and people that have only played 4e tell me I peaked their curiosity for classic editions. It seems a lot of the loud voices on the internet do not represent gamers as a whole.

I want to give a special thanks to those that shared this with others. Several people blogged about it, shared it on websites that I had never heard of, and some generous soul even took the time to index the issue on RPG Geek. Thank you. If anyone liked it or knows others that might, please continue to share it.

I thought I would give a short Q&A regarding some questions that arose from readers.

How often will 4e Forever be published?

There is no set schedule. A lot of it depends on real life and how many submissions I get (see below). It will be irregular, that's for sure.

Can classes other than Arcanists use spell research?

Yes. I left it as Arcane classes only in the mag for old-school flavor, but in retrospect, I should have clarified that.

You mentioned the rate of pay for hirelings based on level, but there was no list of hirelings.

A list of hirelings will appear with the stronghold rules, whenever I get them completed. In the meantime, a DM can just improvise based on common sense. For example, a blacksmith is a very common occupation, and even small villages like Hommlet will have one, so assign them a low level. In contrast, a sage that specializes in ancient astrology might be incredibly rare and command a higher wage. The less common the occupation, the higher the level. This also applies to supervisory roles, like in the mag example.

Does a Savage's extra attack on its initiative +10 work like some of the more recent 4e dragon designs? Do they get one action or a full set?

Yes, it is basically the same thing. How many actions is up to the DM. Note that a Savage is not required to use all of the features listed, but it will typically have many of them.

Who controls henchmen? Hirelings?

A DM should control hirelings, while the players control their henchmen.

What happens if the PCs level up and they are in an area with no henchmen to be attracted?

If the PCs are unable to be approached, then no henchmen are attracted, but if the PCs are in any location where populations of Humans or Demi-Humans are nearby, henchmen should find them.



I am THRILLED that I have already received a few submissions. I want to talk a little bit more about them. I am COMMITTED to making it smooth and easy as possible for you to submit material. Therefore, if you need help converting monsters to the new stat block, I will do it for you. I you have questions about the world or need guidance on any of the rules, I have an open line of communication. If you have "system neutral" material, such as random tables, by all means, send them in; not everything has to scream 4e. You might have something you submitted to Dragon or Dungeon that didn't get printed. Consider reflavoring it and sending it in! If you want to contribute to the zine, I promise I will do everything in my power to make it happen. So please, consider sending something in, or tell a friend that you think might be interested about it. Again, you can email submissions to frothsof@gmail.com .

Well, I just want to once again thank everyone for checking out the zine, even if it wasn't your thing. It is now my most popular blog post by a million miles. If anyone runs any of the adventures, let me know how it goes! I know that at 150+ pages, many of those who downloaded it may not have had a chance to finish reading it, so please keep sending me feedback. Thanks again!

Happy Birthday to Me: Celebrating One Year of Frothsof 4E

This month marks the one year anniversary of this blog. I just want to drop a quick post and say thank you to all of the readers that have stopped by. When I started this blog, I just wanted to add my voice to thousands of other gamers who shared their ideas and thoughts about this wonderful hobby. The funny thing about a blog is, it forces you to write. So I am personally glad I started it, otherwise I do not think I would have ever shared my ideas, and I certainly wouldn't have started work on a fanzine.

4e Forever, the fanzine I have been working on, is a labor of love. At first, I wanted to do pretty much the whole first issue myself, in order to set the tone. I have been lucky to have some contributors helping make it better, with cartography, images, and even a guest article being added to the mix. The first issue features a lot of optional rules, fluff, and two full length high-level 4e adventures, both in sandbox style. I am very proud of how it is shaping up, but there is still work left to be done. I refuse to pressure any of my contributors, because they are providing stuff for free. I also expanded one of the adventures; it added a ton of work, but it will be worth it. So, I will just have it done when it is done. In the meantime, I have tried to give a lot of previews on the blog and will continue to do so.

I have slowly but steadily built some decent traffic. For this I want to thank Sersa V at 4thcore for letting me be a part of the 4thcore hub for a while. I am also thankful to 4eblogs.com for including me in their excellent list. I also am a member of the RPG Blog Alliance. I recommend checking all of them out.

I thought I would share what were my most popular posts this year. #1 without question was the 4e Forever playtest. This was really just an opportunity for me to offer some simple rules modifications and monsters. The idea was to test my Henchman and Hireling system, as well as the new monster stat block I worked on. I also wanted to get a feel for the difficulty level. I would say it was a success; I was able to make some tweaks based on feedback, and I feel good about where things are at now. I look forward to you seeing the finished product soon.

#2 was my Henchman and Hireling article. This made me very happy, because I love my rules for this. I hope you have given them a try, if only for a one-shot. In my current 4e campaign, the players have gotten really creative with using them not only in combat, but also outside combat. It has been a ton of fun.

#3 was one of my design articles on the "Hybrid Stat Block", my concept of making the 4e monster stats more reflective of classic editions. Interestingly, it was the No. Appearing article. This dealt with my ideas on using variable totals of monsters encountered, much like the old days. You end up generating a possible range of difficulty levels, and it makes for more unpredictability in combat encounters. This crosses over with a lot of other concepts, such as eliminating specialized monster roles, standardizing hit points, and so forth.

Finally, coming in at #4 was one of my first articles, a very short little piece about a new monster type, the Savage. The basic idea is that these are Elites that are powerful enough to be run as Solos; the lower hit points balances out their increased offensive capabilities. This makes for quicker, swingier combat, something a lot of readers responded positively to.

I want to say again how thankful I am for every reader that has ever popped by, even if you hated my ideas. I love being able to have an avenue to share my thoughts on D&D. So thanks again, and I look forward to another fun year!

Tips for Simplified 4e Monster Creation

Hello all. This post compiles several ideas that I have shared over the last year regarding monster creation for 4e. Using these methods has made designing monsters a far more pleasurable experience for me, so I thought I would combine the basic ideas into a single post in the hope that it helps others.

You only need a few pieces of paper to make monsters for all levels of 4e play. You need the updated DMG monster errata (page 7 of this document).  You need a copy of the updated DCs; you can get this in the Rules Compendium, DM Kit, or free here. You need a list of experience point values broken down for monster type and level, which you can find in the DMG, DM Kit, RC, etc. Finally, you will want to use a few tables and formulas from this blog that are easy to memorize, or can be jotted down on a sheet of paper.

Start with a monster level in mind. Lets just make it simple and say we are making a Level 3 monster. Most 4e DMs can probably put together a monsters defenses and attack bonuses without looking, but if you need to, use the DMG errata. Ignore specialized roles, and go with the basics. AC is level+14 (17); NADs are 12+level (15). Attack bonus vs AC is level+5 (+8), vs NADs is level+3 (+6). Damage expressions are right there on the sheet, but hold off for a second.

Next, we completely ignore characteristic scores and derive the skill and initiative bonuses from the DC list. We look at the moderate and hard DCs of a monster's level; the level 3 moderate and hard DCs are 13 and 21. Subtract 10 from these to get 3 and 11. The monster's trained skill modifier is +11, untrained modifier is +3. Do not add half their level to these. Adjudicate skill use on the fly; for example, if it is a sneaky monster that lives in dark caves, perhaps it is "trained" in Stealth. If the monster is a dexterous, quick type, its initiative mod is +11. If typical, its mod is +3.

Use the 4e Forever unified hit point formula. (Level x 8) +20 is the formula for a Standard monster's hit points. Multiply the total times 2 for Elites and Savages, or times 4 for Solos. Minions of course have one HP. It is super easy to memorize this, and you do not have to fiddle with multiple formulas.

Add the XP total to the monster statistics if you award XP, or if you calculate your encounter difficulty levels from it.

Add Morale and use the Reaction Tables. Trust me, this is going to help a lot of your encounters go from slogs to skirmishes.

The only thing left is the actual power design. We get the updated damage expressions from the same DMG errata page mentioned above. Resist the urge to over-complicate your monsters. Most of the time they will be dead before they can get through some long list of powers. Focus on a single go-to power, possibly one that has multiple-attacks as a single Standard action. If needed, add another ability or two that back up the flavor of the monster, but don't overthink it or overdo it. It is kind of the same thing as designing an entire world before the campaign has even started: unnecessary.

You can likely just make a mental note of any other bits such as Alignment, Languages, Keywords, etc.

And there you have it. Nice and easy 4e monster creation! I will never go back! Once you are comfortable with this, you can make a monster in a matter of seconds. If you liked this post and want to see some ideas on resurrecting your old pre-errata monsters from the MM1, MM2, and other old 4e books, check this out!

Dragon 416 is Compiled! Plus Froth Does Strahd!

Quick post to say that Dragon 416 is out, and they have gone back to compiling the issues. All I can say is thanks for that! It is good to see Strahd get some 4e love, although the poor guy didn't get a stat block. I guess I will have to make him one in honor! I decided to use the 4e Forever stat block if you are wondering what the heck you are looking at.

STRAHD VON ZAROVICH

LEVEL 19 SAVAGE   XP: 4,800

MEDIUM NATURAL HUMANOID

HP: 344 (172)   MOVE: 8”, Fly: 8" in Bat and Gaseous form   INIT: +23   AP: 2

NO. APPEARING: Unique   ENC RNGE: Special   MORALE: 12

AC: 33   FORT: 31   REF: 32   WILL: 32

SENSES: Darkvision; Blindsight 10 in Bat form; Truesight 10 in Gaseous form

TRAITS:

-Aura 2: Any enemy that enters the aura takes 10 psychic and necrotic damage. A creature can take this damage more than once per round.

-Immunities: Stun, Dominate, Fear, Polymorph, Charm, Unconscious, Out of Play
-Strahd can take a complete turn both on his Initiative and his Initiative -10.
ATTACK:

-Manipulation: (Standard Action; At-Will; Close Burst 1; Each creature in burst); +22 vs WILL; 3d12+10 damage, and Strahd slides the target up to 5 squares to a space adjacent to an ally of the target. The target then must make an At-Will or unused Encounter power of Strahd's choice against the ally as a Free Action. Treat a Manipulation attack as Strahd's MBA.

SPECIAL ATTACKS:

-Fangs: (Minor Action; At-Will; Once per turn; Melee 1; One attack; One creature); +22 vs FORT; Ongoing 20 necrotic damage (save ends)

-Minor Manipulation: (Free Action; At-Will; Once per turn; Ranged 10; One attack; One creature); +22 vs WILL; 10 psychic damage, and the target is slid up to 5 squares

-Triggered Action: Strahd makes his Manipulation attack as a Free Action when first bloodied.

SPECIAL MOVEMENT:

Once per turn as a Free Action, Strahd can shift into one of three forms: a Swarm of Bats, a Wolf, or a purplish Gas. Strahd automatically reverts to his original form after he makes an attack. In each form, Strahd gains enhanced movement abilities, listed below.

-Swarm of Bats: Strahd does not provoke Opportunity Attacks when moving away from creatures.

-Wolf: Strahd's base movement increases to 14”

-Gaseous: Strahd can teleport 4” as a Move Action.

LANGUAGES: All known   INTELLIGENCE: Very

TRAINED SKILL BONUS: +23

UNTRAINED SKILL BONUS: +14

SAVING THROW BONUS: +2   ALIGNMENT: Chaotic

4e Forever Playtest!!! Check it out!

***NOTE: THE FIRST ISSUE OF 4E FOREVER IS NOW UP FOR FREE DOWNLOAD**

I am very happy to be able to share with you a short playtest of some material from my upcoming FREE zine, 4e Forever. It includes the new stat block! Please check it out and follow the instructions if you can! You should be able to finish it in one session. Even if you cannot playtest the material, I would still like to hear your thoughts. Oh, and there's a new Savage in there too!

4e Forever Playtest 1





*EDIT 8/9- I made some small edits and have re-upped it. I clarified some rules questions I had received regarding henchman initiative, savages, skills, etc, as well as made a few edits to the stat block to help its readability, something else I had some comments on. Please keep the comments coming! Thanks! 

The Hybrid Stat Block: Hit Points

We continue our look at the 4e Forever monster stat block today with some changes I am making to hit points. We are not going back to hit dice, so don't panic. The basic concept of hit points isn't changing, and they are still listed just like they are on the 4e stat block. However, the formula for calculating monster hit points has changed.

Recently, I posted about how I am experimenting with different ways to derive certain statistics. It is a push towards simplicity. I have also mentioned a few times that many of the encounters in my upcoming project are with variable numbers of the same monster, much like the wandering monster tables of yesteryear. Partly because of this, I have dropped some of the roles from monsters. I retain Minion, Solo, Standard, Elite, and Savage, but drop the rest. It isn't that roles are bad, they just really didn't fit my project mechanically or aesthetically. In the process, I had finally realized the obvious: the way 4e does hit points is really annoying.

4e has different formulas for different types of monsters. This makes perfect sense for Solos, Minions, Standards, and Elites, because these categories are based on the overall ratios of hit points. However, Brutes, Skirmishers, and the rest have hit points based more on flavor. Weak little Artillery guy in the periphery of the fight? Fewer hit points. Big tough Soldier? More hit points. Makes sense. It also makes it a nightmare to calculate hit points. Heck, I'm not even giving Constitution scores to monsters in the first place!

It was with all of these things in mind that I came up with the formula for hit points. Overall, it gives monsters a tad fewer hit points. Of the 4e monster roles, only Lurkers and Artillery would average fewer. Everything ends up about "Controller" level. It isn't a huge difference, but I do think that this will still help a titch with combat speed at high levels (something I have gone to great lengths in this project to address). The early playtesting has shown that the monster difficulty will not suffer as a result. But the most important thing is that it's easy. That's the real point of it. With this formula, you do not even need to look in the DMG (or whatever source you use).

The 4e Forever formula for a Standard monster's hit points is (Level x 8) + 20. Elites and Savages have twice that. Solos vary and can have 4 to 5 times the hit points of a Standard. Minions of course have 1 hit point.

Check it out the next time you are making monsters. The slightly lower hit points should help a touch with slow combat, and they are a lot easier to calculate. Leave a post and let me know what you think!

The Hybrid Stat Block: No. Appearing

As I continue experimenting with ideas for a 0e/1e/4e "hybrid" stat block for my upcoming zine, 4e Forever, I thought I would share some of my thought process on its design in a series of blog posts. Today I want to give you a look at how I am bringing the classic statistic "No. Appearing" to 4e.

Before I get too in-depth, I will just say I have no real qualms with the post-MM3 stat block. It works great. It is brilliant design. This isn't a condemnation of it by any stretch, I'm just trying to provide an alternate version that is more in line with the early editions. The overall goals of the new stat block are to inject old-school feel into the presentation, streamline the information for DMs, and to help reinforce "fixes" to some 4e issues, such as encounter speed, level of difficulty, creature action recovery, etc.

Many aspects of 4e design are things of beauty. I love the logic of encounter balance and difficulty. 5 Standard monsters of the same level as a 5 PC party is an encounter of the PCs level. You can, to a closer degree than any other edition I have played, judge encounter difficulty in 4e. Even in the Epic Tier, with all its imbalances, the 4e method is still "closer" than using Hit Dice or Monstermarks (from old White Dwarf mags) ever were. But what if you crave greater randomness in the number of creatures encountered? You can always use Minions for very large monster groups, but Minions are not always the best solution. The problem is compounded by other factors. Many 4e PCs are not "trained" to flee; it just isn't in their vocabulary. Fights turn into slogs. Who even wants to use a random encounter when it is going to take up most of the session? And how can you use a variable amount of monsters and maintain a semblance of balance in the first place?

Well, the most important thing to do is to use Morale. I will not go back over the details here, but I will note that it is a crucial and effective tool to use to control encounter length. By having this variable built in to the game, you can afford to be looser with the number of creatures encountered, as encounters are typically shorter.

The second thing to do is determine monster levels and "No. Appearing". This sort of ties into another point about the monster design in 4e Forever: I am not using roles. Well, I am using Minions, Standards, Elites, Savages, and Solos, but not "Skirmishers", etc. I am trying to simplify encounter groups. Most encounters will be with creatures of the same exact type, i.e. 1d6+1 Giant Vultures. Though there will be some occasional variations, such as more than one type of Giant Ant, by and large you will be looking at the same creature. I hope you give it a chance when you see it. It allows you to really emphasize the flavor of monsters, and it is a lot easier for DMs to run; there aren't a lot of minor, irritating-to-track differences between say, a bunch of Orcs. Since the magazine deals with high Paragon and Epic, which is already taxing due to so many player options, it is a practical fix with old-school flavor, which is exactly what I am going for.

So that is enough philosophy, let's look at some examples of how to integrate variable encounter groups into your 4e game. Start by determining what you would like the average difficulty level of the possible encounters to be. For these examples, I am aiming for an average encounter level of the party's level +1. That is, if I roll and get the average number of possible creatures, it will result in an encounter of the party's level +1. You can easily adjust up or down to different encounter levels. Anyways, in these examples, I will assume a party of level 20 PCs, and I will be looking for an average encounter level of 21. There are two angles I can take to get there. I can start with a possible numerical range of creatures encountered, i.e. "No. Appearing", or I can start with creature level and go from there. Let's look at both ways.

For the first example, we will start from a numerical range of creatures, i.e. "No. Appearing". I decide I want a fairly large number of Standard creatures, 7-12 (1d6+6). The average there is 9.5 creatures, but always round the fractions of the "No. Appearing" average down; so, in this case I round down to 9. Assuming 5 PCs, I am looking at an XP target of 16,000 for a Level 21 encounter. So, I divide the XP amount by the average number of possible creatures (9). I get 1777 XP per monster, or Level 17 monsters. So the average encounter is about "9.5" Level 17 monsters. The potential encounter levels vary from Level 18 (with 7 Level 17 creatures) to close to Level 22 (with 12 Level 17 creatures). It should be clear by looking at this that the larger the static modifier in the "No. Appearing" roll, the more "stable" the range of possible encounter levels. If we instead take 2d8 creatures (9 creatures average), we still end up working with the same level of creature (17), but the encounter level range is from 11 (if they encounter only 2 Level 17 creatures) to 23 (if they encounter all 16 creatures).

Now let's look at starting with the monster level as opposed to "No. Appearing". I still want to hit my Level 21 target, but this time I decide on using Level 20 monsters. I take 16,000 (XP budget for a level 21) and divide it by the XP for a single Standard of 20th Level (2800). I get something like 5.7 creatures as our target number for the average number of creatures encountered. Unlike above, where we used the average of the possible "No. Appearing", the number of creatures here is rounded up to the nearest whole number, i.e. 6. So now, knowing what we want the average number of creatures encountered to be (6), we can decide on a "No. Appearing" expression. Let's try a "No. Appearing" of 1d10+1. Yes, this is actually a 6.5 creature average, but just as we did in the first example, we again round fractions of the "No. Appearing" average down; so, this expression gives us our target of 6 creatures. So, putting it all together, the mean (average) encounter is around Level 21 (6 Level 20 creatures, times 2800 XP apiece, divided by 5 PCs=3360, or a Level 21 encounter), while the low end (2 Level 20 creatures) is a Level 14 encounter, and the high end (11 Level 20 creatures) is a tough Level 24 encounter. That is a pretty big swing. I like it!

So that is my system, at least up to this point. I can anticipate providing another statistic that notes the possible encounter level range of a "No. Appearing" roll for monsters for a group of 5 PCs. Something like "Enc Lvl: 9-12; 11 avg". We'll see; I am open to ideas!

If you end up rolling a low number of creatures, hey it was a quick combat. If you roll up a lot, there is still a good chance the encounter will end quickly thanks to Morale (although the PCs may get severely roughed up). Now, if you are wanting to deal with a huge amount of monsters, say 20+, you will likely want to look at using Minions, or combinations of Minions and other monsters. There is a level-imposed limit to the accuracy of PCs and monsters, and if you go too far in either direction then it will become too easy or too hard to hit each other. Anyway, if it all works as planned (and playtesting has been positive), encounter length won't be a waking nightmare anymore. You can also help PCs mitigate some of the swingier difficulty with henchmen, which the magazine assumes are being used.

And that's how I am using "No. Appearing" on the stat block. This is made possible by Morale, adjusting monster levels, and using henchmen. When you put it all together, it is an attempt to use "No. Appearing" to bring old-school flavor to 4e stat block, loosen the balance a bit, and shorten encounter time. I hope I did a good job explaining it! I have tried to rephrase it several times for clarity.

I am interested in thoughts and opinions so please leave a post! I will be back soon with Part 2. I also want to say thanks to Dndblogs for including my site! It is a very cool group of 4e blogs to follow. I check it out daily, so take a look if you have never seen it before.

Claw/Claw/Bite!

Today we look at adding one of my favorite old-school mechanics, the Claw/Claw/Bite, into 4e. In 4e, monsters flat out need multi-attacks to be able to threaten PCs, especially at high levels. Using a Claw/Claw/Bite attack is a perfect way to inject old-school flavor into your game while simultaneously helping to fix 4e game balance.

I am working with the Claw/Claw/Bite 'attack routine' in my fanzine and 4e campaigns. I thought I would share some ideas on how I have been using it. As mentioned above, the Claw/Claw/Bite helps solve some 4e issues. If a monster is dazed, using Claw/Claw/Bite as a single standard action helps a monster with action recovery. It also helps monsters do more damage since they end up with a better chance to hit. Both good things.

Claw/Claw/Bite attacks allow lots of room for DM creativity. I have used multiple variations. For example, the bite could be contingent on at least one claw having hit. So if you don't hit with a claw, there is no bite. OR if you hit with at least one claw, the bite always hits and does automatic damage. Maybe if you hit with a claw, the bite does extra damage if it hits. Or if all three attacks hit, the target is stunned. You can have both claws target one defense, with the bite attack targeting another for flavor. Maybe it isn't even Claw/Claw/Bite...maybe it is Punch/Punch/Headbutt! There is a lot of variety within the 'simple' Claw/Claw/Bite sequence that might not be immediately apparent, but if you work with it for a bit, you find that it opens up a lot of room for flavorful design.




A Claw/Claw/Bite goes GREAT with "Savage" monsters. Like butter. It is very easy to DM a monster that uses a Claw/Claw/Bite as its primary attack; this in turn helps the game play faster, helping address another 4e issue, namely combat speed.

Anybody else utilizing the Claw/Claw/Bite attack routine in 4e? Leave a post!

A Megadungeon? For 4e?!!

When someone mentions a megadungeon and 4e in the same sentence, I think that the first things to come to mind are oil and water. After all, a megadungeon is a massive structure, and in 4e to get through one room sometimes takes an entire session. 4e published 'delves' are usually three rooms, three fights, ta-da magic item bc that is about all you can get to in a sitting. 4e published adventures, especially the early ones, add a thick coating of terrible railroady melodrama to the mix, and you suddenly find yourself far, faaaar away from the way D&D adventures used to feel.

Paradoxically, one of the best things about 4e is how fun combat is as a player. All of the myriad tricks and toys to torment and flat out embarrass a monster. That great feeling when the board lines up to your will and you roll dice for like 20 minutes. Although some schools of thought suggest taking away player options in order to increase game speed, I would argue that those are things to make sure to leave in. I prefer to look at fixes from the DMs side, to see what I can do to increase encounter speed while still keeping it threatening.

My 4e Forever project involves a megadungeon. In preparation for writing it, I have gone back to the classics, near constantly reading some old adventure or another. In the case of my Saturday Gloomwraught campaign, I am running an old classic adventure, Judges Guild's Tegel Manor. This puppy PREDATES AD&D. Not precisely a megadungeon, but 240 rooms strong in the main level nonetheless.

So far, running it has been a tremendous pleasure, and the pace and varying threat level of the encounters is allowing the exploration to flow more naturally from room to room. At 12th level with optimized PCs, we got three combats in, plus at least a solid hour of exploration, in 3 hours. That to me is about perfect pace, and while I can't promise you that a combat will take such and such long, I can give you tips on how to get close to it. I think tinkering with this stuff might help give yourself more versatility in encounter/adventure design. So if you ever want to create a 4e megadungeon or update an old classic, try these tips:

Use Savages
I again want to encourage DMs to try using variations of these in your games. I used two of these in the session. The old adventure has a lot of rooms that are just like 'This room has an old broken sword in it. There is a Black Mold on the bed'. You could spend the rest of your playing days trying to run 4e Solos for all of the random monsters in this thing. Savages allow for the PCs to be threatened without taking all night. By giving the monsters a combination of multi-attacks (including action points), action recovery, automatic damage (auras and otherwise), and other tweaks, they run very clean, and pack a wallop. I thought it was awesome to see that the Middle-Aged DM posted a killer Savage. thats a bad boy; very cool. If you want another example and you never checked out Sorin 'Stinky' Yeate, check it out. You've got to try these, they are like 4e DM crack.

Use Morale
It is hard to fully embrace random wandering monsters in 4e if each encounter is going to take forever. The story has to go somewhere, and one slog after another is not really a great story. But yet, I want to use random tables. I love random tables. I think they add tons of flavor to an area and you are going to see a slew of them in 4e Forever. But I am not just talking about random encounters. I'm talking about rolling random numbers of creatures as well.

How can you get away with this in 4e where everything is balanced to a specific threat level? You can't use monsters to high or too low or nobody will be able to hit, and if you did use a lot of monsters, it would just be hit point city and take all year. That's where Morale comes in. Morale gives the DM a flavorful way to control combat length and difficulty. And since a low Morale monster will likely flee after just one of their allies is killed, this allows you to use way more of the monsters to begin with, so you can be more 'swingy' with the number of creatures. And if it does get out of hand, the PCs might...and you might have to brace yourself for this...they might actually have to run, for once in their careers. This also really encourages the DM to use many of the same creatures for random encounters, both for ease of running them, but also bc the fact that they may flee so early, discourages you from spending a lot of time on stuff you might not use.

So, in 4e Forever, you will see things like '3d4 Giant Wasps". A wasp gets really pissed and stings like hell, but ultimately it only wants to protect its area. It does not reason or try to follow a party or hold grudges. If seriously injured, it will likely stop fighting. A wasp's morale score might vary between 5-3, so even though 12 seems like a ton of Standard creatures to possibly throw at a party, the odds are really good that the fight will be over quickly. Personally, I love the flexibility it gives me in encounter design. I can have set-piece encounters that are really planned, or I can run more random old-school encounters with large numbers of monsters.

Speaking of fighting large numbers of monsters, give your players some henchmen!
This is going great so far in my group. My henchmen rules are here. Basically, once you hit 8th level you start attracting your own henchmen each level; they are kind of like super-minions. They help allow for a little swinginess in encounter difficulty, add a ton of flavor, and are just fun basically. It was actually a little sad when the first one died-died. Megadungeons are somehow more fun with a huge party.

Use unusual encounter areas
You could talk about this all day, but using both large and small encounter areas can add a lot of old-school goodness to your megadungeon. A lot of the rooms in Tegel Manor are very, very small. The whole party and a monster can not all fit into some of them. While using small-sized rooms exclusively would be a bad thing, it sure is awesome to do from time to time. You can also use several connected rooms to be sort of a 'sector' of the megadungeon.The PCs can enter any of them and attract creatures from all of those rooms. This is a good way to combine monster types as well as stagger how you add monsters into the combat, which is something I love. That 'should've saved the Daily' look on a player's face when the zombies walk in at the end of the second round.



Anybody running any 4e megadungeons out there? Leave a post if so! 

Updates, updates, updates

sorry its been so long! if you check out the previous post, i have updated the pdf for sorin yeate AND i have given a link to the monster file, so you can easily try it in your games. run it against some level 8 pcs and let me know what you think!

the big update is that i have been working on something new- a free 4e mag in pdf format. it is called '4e forever' and i am very excited about it. i hope to have the first issue done within the next couple of months. i dont want to give too much away but each issue will have an adventure, and a lot of old school flavor mixed in with 4th. i feel 4e has a lot further to go so i was inspired to do it.

i will be posting the links here, so if you are interested, please follow this blog and you will be notified when they start coming out. there will also be opportunity for submissions once i get it going!

A Sample Savage

So, here is a sample of the new monster type I am working on. I mention it in an earlier post. Check out how it is all incorporated.

The creature I made is named Sorin Yeate. He is a half-orc with a major skin disease. As a result, he not only lives far from civilization, but he is also just dangerous to be near, as his condition gives off a poisonous and acidic mist of vapor. The properties of the mist can also be hallucinogenic. He uses this condition to protect himself. Unfortunately he is also deranged and will not listen to reason.

Sorin is a good creature to use if the PCs are in an isolated region. If they stumble on his lair, they will certainly smell an acrid stench if they get within 10 squares of him.

I would be interested if anyone has thoughts. I have attached a pdf of the creature. I have given him just the bare minimum to qualify as a Savage so that the features are clearly represented. This creature has a chance to hit the PCs fairly hard without taking all night.

Tactics are simple-spend your action points as quickly as possible and make as many attacks as possible in order to get the best use out of Savage. This should run really well against 5 Level 8 PCs; that would be the "sweet spot". Obviously, the higher the PC level, the easier it will become. This will be too easy for PCs over level 10.

Note-I have updated the pdf, and I also have a link to download the monster file, so you can easily put it in your games.

Sorin Yeate Monster file

Sorin Yeate PDF update

A New 4e Monster Type: The Savage

I have been playing around with a new monster type, the Savage. A Savage is an Elite monster that is buffed up enough to challenge a party as a Solo. They can hit hard without taking without taking all night to run. Since they die more quickly than a traditional Solo monster, you can afford to be a little swingy with their offensive power; their lower hit points are balanced by their "savagery".

 A Savage will typically have many, if not all, of these features:

-Immunity to status effects such as stun and dominate
-Saving throws at the beginning and end of turn
-Attacking at their Initiative and Initiative + 10
-Multiple attacks per turn as a single Standard Action and/or Minor and Free Action attacks
-Elusiveness
-Free Action attacks when bloodied and/or dying
-2 action points
-An auto-damaging Aura or the equivalent

I'm using them in Ravenloft currently and they can hit you hard without taking all day.

Look for some example Savages on my blog soon!