4th Age

[J1M]

Here's a visualization of partial cover. The other corners of the origin square were tested and discarded because they gave the target superior cover. In the best case for the attacker, 2 of the 4 trace lines were blocked so the target has partial cover. (In the future when combat has the concept of allies, the skeletons will not block each other's shots.)

[J1M]

Thoughts on which rule or system would be interesting to see next? Open to suggestions so I can continue procrastinating the combat encounter refactoring and effect stack work.

[Acrux]

How are you handling skill checks and will you be including skill challenges?

https://www.roll4.net/2021/05/21/4es-be ... challenges

[J1M]

How are you handling skill checks and will you be including skill challenges?

https://www.roll4.net/2021/05/21/4es-be ... challenges

I think skill challenges are a great concept. For the purposes of the combat demo I'm trying to make right now, skills are out of scope. I have a function that can do the math, but I'm not planning to implement any content that uses it (can't use Bluff to gain combat advantage, for example).

Here's an overview of the rules and my current thoughts. Generating content (levels, monsters, adventurer powers, etc) is in addition to implementing the code for these things.

[rusty_shackleford]

"Interacting with the environment" is tabletop-specific?

[J1M]

"Interacting with the environment" is tabletop-specific?

From what I remember, that section involves things like climbing or swimming between encounters and DCs for breaking objects. A level of detail not often represented in CRPGs.

The types of interactions that are more common (lava, cover, obscured vision, opening a normal door, etc) are covered by rules in other sections.

[J1M]

Looking for a recommendation for a piece of capture/recording software so I can share short videos of progress. I only want to record one window (1922x1112) to avoid creating editing work. Also curious what the best video format would be for hosting in HQ Vault and embedding to the forum.

Bonus points if it has an easy way to draw an overlay on the video so I can draw attention to something with an arrow/circle/text.

[J1M]

Related to the cover discussion above, I hit an edge case caused by the "trace edges" rule that is allowing shots through solid cover. For the sake of discussion assume that these are brick walls instead of round pillars. The first screenshot is clearly not intended, so I'll have to deal with that case. The second one is debatable though. Based on the movement rules that don't allow cutting corners in that way, it seems like that second example should be fully protected from ranged attacks.

[rusty_shackleford]

Those will still be allowed if it's round pillars, right? Because otherwise I'd overrule the rules and say yes at a table, as you could definitely have line of sight between such objects.

[J1M]

Those will still be allowed if it's round pillars, right? Because otherwise I'd overrule the rules and say yes at a table, as you could definitely have line of sight between such objects.

For the sake of the discussion assume it is a brick wall the fills the square. It's just an unfortunate placeholder image for this purpose.

[J1M]

I've been implementing a resolution stack for combat. It's similar to the metaphor used for resolving complex interactions in Magic: The Gathering. I used this approach for the Marvel Snap clone I made, and here it's useful to handle complex interactions. For example, an opportunity attack triggered by a move that shoves a creature into hindering terrain that deals damage and ends the creature's move early.

I'm pretty happy with how the implementation of hindering terrain (lava in the screenshot) turned out. It fit into the existing code as planned.

As per the combat log, the poor minion spawned in lava, so it died at the start of its turn, and the more robust skeleton took damage for each tile it moved into. And since the calculations for damage are centralized, it didn't take any extra work for the Blazing Skeleton to properly resist the fire damage (not shown).

[J1M]

Next step towards the goal mentioned in the previous post: hindering terrain that stops your movement. Also used for the first time: the saving throw function I wrote near the start of the project.

Combat log in the screenshot shows the skeleton walked across the hindering terrain, passed a saving throw and finished his movement. The skeleton then converted his standard action into a move action and walked back across the hindering terrain only to fail a save the second time and have the rest of its steps in the movement action interrupted.

If anyone's wondering about the letters in the top left of the grid squares, that's debug info about special terrain. "pB" indicates "pathing blocked", "wE" indicates the square counts for "Earthwalk", "T-" indicates the negative trigger of hindering terrain for entering and/or starting a turn in that square.

Screenshot zoomed in for no reason.

[WhiteShark]

it seems like that second example should be fully protected from ranged attacks.

Agreed. It looks like you'll have to have it check whether the line is passing through a vertex with blocking terrain on both sides.

[WhiteShark]

Here's an overview of the rules and my current thoughts.

Coup de grace definitely needs to be implemented. There are various powers that can put enemies into a coup de grace-able state, and not being able to follow up would severely weaken them.

EDIT: Action Points are also pretty critical to 4e combat.

[J1M]

it seems like that second example should be fully protected from ranged attacks.

Agreed. It looks like you'll have to have it check whether the line is passing through a vertex with blocking terrain on both sides.

I did some work on this. It is unfortunately not that simple. There are other cases to consider, such as when the line of effect passes through the vertex at a different slope. And most troubling, the case of a line going through the vertex along an edge. RAW says the shot isn't blocked along an edge. A weird scenario where the only shot allowed would be the hardest to pull off.

Since 4e doesn't distinguish between "rounded" and "square" blocking terrain, at this point I'm obliged to go with an interpretation of the rules that aligns with Rusty's comment. Singular blocking squares are more likely to be pillars or statues than perfectly 5"x5" brick walls in the middle of a room. (Rusty mentioned a table, but that would be a combination of difficult terrain and partial cover.)

TLDR: You can shoot through diagonals, but the level design probably shouldn't create this scenario with sprites that fully block the square anyway.

[J1M]

Here's an overview of the rules and my current thoughts.

Coup de grace definitely needs to be implemented. There are various powers that can put enemies into a coup de grace-able state, and not being able to follow up would severely weaken them.

EDIT: Action Points are also pretty critical to 4e combat.

Thanks for pointing that out. I had assumed it was mostly related to surprise rounds. Can you provide two examples from the PHB?

[WhiteShark]

Can you provide two examples from the PHB?

Sleep
Knockout
Garrote Grip

The requirement for coup de grace is that the target be helpless, and helpless is included in unconscious, so any power that renders a target unconscious also makes him vulnerable to coup de grace. I saw only the above three in the PHB, but there were powers from other sources that also inflict unsconscious. Found by doing a full text search of powers for the keyword 'unconscious' and adding 'phb' to the source filter: http://iws.mx/dnd/?list.full.power=unconscious

[J1M]

Regarding action points, I can implement those without much trouble. I just need to add a stat for how many you can use in one turn. I already have action conversion in place for other types.

[J1M]

Action points are working now. Same mechanism that limits those to one per turn will be used to limit things like healing word to 2 per encounter.

[J1M]

Testing a video recording uploaded to the HQ Vault. Not sure how to embed it at a better size.

[media]https://f.rpghq.org/mWc2eHCOoqNw.mkv?n= ... g_test.mkv[/media]

[rusty_shackleford]

Not sure how to embed it at a better size.

Max size is fixed to avoid taking up too much space, people are expected to press the fullscreen button if they want to see it fullscreen.

[J1M]

Not sure how to embed it at a better size.

Max size is fixed to avoid taking up too much space, people are expected to press the fullscreen button if they want to see it fullscreen.

The bbcode examples page shows an example at double that width, which made me think there might be an attribute that was supported.

[WhiteShark]

This is looking really cool, @J1M. Looks like you figured it out already, but yeah, every sort of video file is embedded with webm tags.

[J1M]

Another 4e question for our resident experts: is there any sensible reason that you would choose to walk instead of shifting, assuming it gets you to the same square?

It seems like there's a potential UI improvement to be made by making the move action automatically perform a shift if it is the character's shift distance. (And to indicate that with a different highlight color on the square.)

[WhiteShark]

Hm... There are a number of immediate action powers that trigger on something hitting or attacking you, so I suppose there may be cases where one would want to walk instead of shift to deliberately provoke an attack of opportunity against himself.

[J1M]

Hm... There are a number of immediate action powers that trigger on something hitting or attacking you, so I suppose there may be cases where one would want to walk instead of shift to deliberately provoke an attack of opportunity against himself.

Ahh, but I don't think you can use those on your own turn.

Rules Compendium, page 195

Someone Else’s Turn: A creature cannot take an immediate action on its own turn. The action interrupts some event on another creature’s turn or responds to that event.

[rusty_shackleford]

maybe you should **** whiteshark and some other members into playing 4E to get a better grasp of it?

[WhiteShark]

Ahh, but I don't think you can use those on your own turn.

I suppose one might want to provoke an AoO against himself to trigger an ally's immediate action. I can't think of any other reason at the moment, but I made a /tg/ thread to see if anyone else has any thoughts. Hopefully 2hufag shows up and enlightens us.

[J1M]

Ahh, but I don't think you can use those on your own turn.

I suppose one might want to provoke an AoO against himself to trigger an ally's immediate action. I can't think of any other reason at the moment, but I made a /tg/ thread to see if anyone else has any thoughts. Hopefully 2hufag shows up and enlightens us.

Sounds like a valid use-case if certain Powers are included. Reminds me of pooling gold so the paladin could have fire-resistant armor only to proceed to drop fire spells on top of him the next encounter.

Here's a recording that accomplishes the goal I mentioned a while back. I added a pushback effect to the Skeleton's basic attack for testing. When the purple unit attempts to leave a square threatened by the skeleton, it triggers an opportunity attack. When that attack lands, it shoves back the other unit and halts the movement action.

Zoomed in a bit so it's more readable without the fullscreen video player. I probably need to spend some time on particle effects or something since showing progress via combat log is not very interesting to watch.

[J1M]

maybe you should **** whiteshark and some other members into playing 4E to get a better grasp of it?

Would be fun to participate in, but I don't have the urge to organize something like that.