Community

Let me open up by saying I know this won't be everyone's cup of tea, but 4E does a great job of making itself extremely flexible and we put it to the test this afternoon with another installment of FTDM originally run at Gen Con by C. Steven Ross.

Run down from the Gen Con event: Spoiler: Show

We had smaller numbers than hoped for, but let's be honest, how many times have we all hosted games to have people drop out at the last minute? We played 3v3 on all 3 maps and went absolutely nuts.

Basic set up - Lvl 1 char, no race/class restrictions, basic creation rules apply. Maps are extremely well constructed and very original. Roll initiative, roll a 1d4 to see where your character spawns, move in and kill/don't die.

I think we had 3 barbarians (including my own Genasi Void Soul), an Avenger, a Hexblade and a Hunter (who was the most obnoxious to deal with). Things were fast-paced and frantic as we traded blows, used terrain feautres and tele-fragged one another - rolling a 1d4 and popping up in a teleport square already occupied results in instadeath for whomever was there.

Imagine the most tactical DnD you could play, where a shift could spell life or death, forgetting to roll your saving through could leave you defeated and your team demoralized, and being unable to cooperate with your companions lead to certain doom. I've never left a table so sweaty in my life.

In the end my team took it in sudden death (next kill wins). While my pc looked on, prone and immobilized, refusing to stand up so the Hunter would take the penalty to hit me, our Hexblade ran for the teleporter hoping to frag someone. A 1, just roll an effin 1... and suddenly on the die there it was, a 1. Telefrag for the win!

I know these events aren't for everyone, but if you're at all interested, they will be run again. Most often locally in the Baltimore area, but I know C. Steven Ross isn't opposed to traveling to a convention to lay the smack down!

May the dice be with you.

So we play with infinite respawns. At the end of your turn if you are dead or dying, you can use a free action to die and respawn.

Higher than lvl 1 is certainly possible, but I think I would remove healing if you got too high, or really scale up map specific damage either with terrain or items. Personally I think I would like to play lvl 2, it gives everyone a utility and maybe a lvl 1 magic item. You could create much more unique characters that way.

As for the free-for-all, I'm really not sure. I could see some ways for it to get very lopsided, but it could still be pretty fun. I do like the idea of small teams though, would be pretty fast paced and character interaction would be crucial.

Glad to see the idea connects with someone!

Thanks, Bohrdumb, for the glowing review! Always glad to hear that the dungeoneers had a great time!

And as said, I am indeed looking for conventions and D&D meetups where I can bring the excitement and passion of Fourthcore Team Deathmatch to those who are craving it. If you liked Lair Assault, this is going to blow your mind!

@Nelphine:

+ Level 1 characters are imperative to the breakneck speed pace of this style of gaming. A general design philosophy with all aspects of the Fourthcore Team Deathmatch has been "more death = more fun". With the 4E ruleset, dungeoneers become more and more resilient as they Level. Hit Points begin to outstrip average damage dealt per round (DPR), Utilities crop up that give saving throws and healing, etc. For deathmatch, I am looking for the kind of utter brutality that only the fragility of a starting level character can deliver.

+ A lot of people ask about free-for-all matches, or assume (incorrcetly) that FTDM is all about it. I have shied away from free-for-all's for three reasons. 1). Free-for-all style diminishes the interaction and teamwork mechanics that 4E handles so well. Almost every class would end up as Striker, as you have no one to lean on. 2). Keeping track of scoring becomes exponentially more difficult. 3). It encourages defensive play. Since the only feasible way to handle scoring is by deaths (and not kills), a free-for-all environment would encourage dungeoneers to act defensively and simply avoid confrontation, rather than the much more fun alternative of seeking bloodshed and glory at every opportunity. 

+ At-Will damage output ranges from about 5 - 15 DPR, unaided. That's actually not a very good measurement of how deadly a character is, however, as the terrain and magic items of each map offer significant ways to rack up kills for the low damage character builds. For example, during this past Saturday's tournament, there was a Hexblade character wielding a Vorpal Quad Damage Souleater Blade of Annihilation for 4d10+2d12+7 damage (rolling an additional die for dice showing the highest value) as an At-Will. To say that it was anything but spectacular would be an understatement. Most maps also have ways of insta-killing, besides just telefrags; so that brings the body count up another notch. Unaided At-Will's are also not a very good measure of the system because of the respawn mechanics. Respawning regenerates all encounter powers, meaning that most times a character has their encounter attack power available. With all that said, in play experience from the ..five?... times I've run this sort of event, I've found that dungeoneers will consistantly live about 2 rounds each before being killed off. With the low low hit points of 1st Level, combined with the inherent low non-AC defenses of 4E characters (almost every build has a soft spot), it is rare for a dungeoneer to miss on an attack.

First attack tends to bloody a dungeoneer. Second attack, dropped. Third attack, coupe de grace.

dmg42.blogspot.com/p/fourthcore-team-dea...

 

Most characters that get brought to these events have a typically optimized build, Elven Rangers and the like, although it stands to be said that the winning team at GenCon had an all-Dwarf party with a Wizard, amongst pther classes. With the kind of varied terrain and out or the ordinary situations, it's sometimes hard to tell what exactly is an optimal build in a Fourthcore Deathmatch. Something that Bohrdumb touched on already, in FTDM you see a lot of corner case D&D rules, total defense for example, being utilized quite often and taking a place in the forefront of tactics.

 Strikers are definitely the most represented role, although all roles have shown up at Deathmatches and have been used well. There are so many neat tricks that one can pull off with a variety of classes, a lot of unique combinations that you see even at the simplicity of 1st Level, that almost any class can be devastating. There have definitely been a few classes that I've seen that have been a little better-suited to the Deathmatch format than others. Listen in on the Deathmatch articles (see below) from my blog and it'll go over a lot of the dominant strategies that have emerged in the last few months. Race and feat selection have also made a huge difference in the matches.

dmg42.blogspot.com/search/label/deathmat... 

Wow, the respawn idea really does take it to the next level.  I mean, yeah, in the traditional "once you're dead, you're dead" D&D, PvP really isn't balanced properly at all.

But this sounds like D&D Unreal Tournament.  Awesome.  Awesome.  Hell, you could even steal FPS gametypes and general rules:  first to 15 kills wins, CTF with infinite respawns (multi-flag and single-flag assaults...oh my, you could even have more than two teams!), hell you might even be able to get some more specific objective-type stuff involving skill checks as well.

Oh, man does this sound like it could be fun...