Tomb of Horrors (4e) - Group 2, Part 2

Game Master Rev Rosey

Welcome Heavenly Bandaid!

Looking forward to meeting your character in the tomb somewhere...if my character makes it through this encounter. He is currently laying on the floor after a single glance from a bad guy, but I hope that he is able to get back up and kick some bad guy butt!

"Excuse me, Barel, but I haven't given you permission to die on the job. Get back on your feet and start hitting!"

Sometimes deadly killers come in small packages.

Almost done...

Should I be at a certain XP level, DM?

You have 40,767XP. I'm not going to inflict the horrors of tracking different XP totals for different pcs :)

Lanthair is looking good. Let me know when you're sorted out and I'll arrange for your arrival.

Background is now updated, and he had a few useless feats I had to replace. Should be all set now.

Lanthair, time to make your entrance, I believe.

Thread.

Lanthair, time to make your entrance, I believe.

** spoiler omitted **

Thread.

Hello all! I am going out of town for two weeks, but will have internet access. While I am with the in-laws and family, I may be a bit slower posting, but am going to try to check at least daily like normal.

Have a wonderful holiday :)

Paging Group 1. Your paladin seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. If he doesn't show by the end of the weekend, I'd ideally like to recruit if possible. I really hate DMPCing characters for any length of time and a Paragon pc is not something I'd undertake lightly. Particularly in a class I don't play myself. Thoughts?

I think we'll have to look for someone. Its a pity, but has been some time. And you DMPCing is not good for continued fun for everyone. I don't know anyone in particular though.

I suspect most of the available pool of 4e players are already in one version or another of this, but I'll put the word out on my other games and see what happens.

Darion - if you catch this, my apologies and I'll add you back in somehow.

I could run him until he returns or until you find a replacement.

I just have to recreate him in the old CB and upload the .dnd4e file to iPlay4E.

I've asked Fabes (Dorvin in Halls) and he's going to build someone, but if you could run Darion until that's sorted, I'd be very grateful.

Given that you're messing about with portals right now, it's not a bad place to slot in a replacement (and ironically, the exact same thing happened with Group 2 at almost the exact same spot).

Oh, you're at "The room where the defenders go missing", are you? It's very jolly.

When both parties are through, I really want to go through Group 1's thread and see how they did things differently to us. I'd find it fascinating.

It's been fascinated to me to see how it plays out with very different groups. You are both taking rather different routes and your approach to the problems has been very varied.

Hi gang, I'm going to be creating a melee striker, either a Human Rogue or Avenger.

Hiya Fabes! I'm your freindly local bard! Welcome to the party and the PAHTAY!

Fabes, in case you find the prospect of reading the 20 pages of adventure a bit daunting, I'll rustle you a story so far whenever you're ready. Let me know when you're good to go so I can organise an entrance.

Here's Akemi, who is going to be remade into an Avenger.

Now in iplay4e, and needs to be input into the profile.

I did say level 13 didn't I? Please tell me I did.

I was told Level 12, and that there would be punch and pie.

How misinformed I was.

:D

I shall level her up, it's not a hassle.

I don't believe pie was mentioned at all :)

Hi gang, I'm away until Sunday night GMT.

Hey Rev!

I'm wondering if you'd considering letting me change my character. I'm enjoying the game! But I'm not really having a huge amount of fun with the bard. I'd rather play something a little more straight-forward, but I still need to be the ritual caster.

Any suggestions/ideas?

Keep the name and go for it. You can have a revelation to Darwyn's true path while you level up.

What did you have in mind?

This would leave you with:

Avenger
Battlemind
Warlord
Ranger
Seeker.

My only concern is that you would be rather light on healing, but I can find ways to compensate for that and I'd much, much rather you played a character you enjoyed.

So Striker, Tank, Leader, Striker, Controller?

I was considering wizard, but healing might be an idea.

What non-striker classes with ritual casting are there? MAybe asterisk those who can also heal and I'll see what catches my interest? I'm still not nearly as confident with 4e! I wouldn't mind build help and tactical advice when I remake Darwyn, I feel I made poor choices in his original composition.

Non-striker, ritual caster, Leader (healer) =

Bard
Cleric

Leader, but doesn't get Ritual Caster as a bonus feat
Runepriest
Shaman

Ritual Caster but not healer (but could multiclass)

Psion
Wizard
Invoker
Druid

I'd be willing to offer advice on remaking Darwyn. What are you looking for him to be good at?

Non-striker, ritual caster, Leader (healer) =

Bard
Cleric

Leader, but doesn't get Ritual Caster as a bonus feat
Runepriest
Shaman

Ritual Caster but not healer (but could multiclass)

Psion
Wizard
Invoker
Druid

Of these, you're already playing a bard and speaking as someone who runs a paragon level bard in our home game, I do agree it's not the easiest class to build or play effectively (Karolina has been through several iterations).

Runepriest and Shaman are both quite complex. Runepriests work up close and choose between rune states which give different benefits to their allies. Shamans work from range, but channel their attacks and buffs through a spirit companion. Both need high Wis and both are decent healers as their default position.

Psion has improved greatly since it first came out (only my opinion - the original builds lacked spark for me). Like all the psionic classes, they use at-wills which they can augment with power points, or daily powers, so mechanically they are a little different to other classes.

Druids can be fun, but also a tad tricky to build, depending on whether you want them up close and personal or working at a distance. They mostly stat off Dex and Wis and if you pick a Wis based build, can easily pick up a multiclass healing power or two.

Invokers are pretty much exclusively ranged, but their main stat is Wisdom which makes them natural healers.

Wizards tend to have a reasonable wisdom score as well, but are slightly faffy to run due to having extra stuff in their spellbooks that they need to choose at the end of each extended rest.

I realise none of this is necessarily helpful.

What kind of character would you feel most comfortable playing? We can go from there.

One thought that came to mind was perhaps swordmage with multiclass feats from a Leader class.

I also forgot Artificer - Leader with Ritual Caster as a bonus feat.

How do invokers and wizards run in combat?

I played a lvl one wizard in a fun playtest and really enjoyed the class.
So I'd probably go with either of them!

Both are controllers and thus affect the battlefield and several opponents, or one opponent with status effects. Pat has played an Invoker to devastating effect. The invoker would make you a divine character so might add an element of religiosity that may be at odds with your concept. The wizard is still arcane (like the bard) and thus may be more in keeping with what you had before. Wizards get a great deal of flexibility thanks to their spellbook mechanic. Some of the area effects can be tremendously effective.

Are you looking to be more ranged or melee?

I did also think you could try a Prescient Bard, but maybe you don't want to keep playing the Leader role. In which case, I can rejig Akemi a bit to have some healing capability.

I'm liking the idea of a wizard. And its in the first PHB, thats a pro.

I'd like do just do some damage from range, or fairly straightforward special effects.

OK- one thing to bear in mind is that the new version of Magic Missile is a no-brainer to take as it is auto-hit.

In terms of continuity, you'd have to have completely new equipment as none of your current gear will work with wizard powers.

Do you have access to the Character Builder?

Here's what I'm thinking:

Human Wizard

Feats - grab Longsword rather than Rapier (and perhaps Rev will allow your rapier to have ahem always been a longsword really).

Wizard of the Spiral Tower - This way your weapon acts as an arcane implement for your wizard powers.

"They said it was a rapier in the shop, but I'm pretty sure this is a longsword."?

Here's a summary of what I have after a quick play (this is fun!):

Darwyn the Blade Wizard

Wizard 13/Wizard of the Spiral Tower

Str 12
Con 17
Dex 14
Int 18
Wis 10
Cha 17

AC:25
Fort:25
Ref:26
Will:27

Corellon’s Implement (11th level): Choose an arcane implement that you specialize in, whether the wand, staff, or orb. You can use a longsword as if it were that type of arcane implement when casting your spells.

Spiral Tower Action (11th level): You can spend an action point to regain one wizard encounter power you have already used, instead of taking an extra action.

Feats
Weapon Prof: Longsword
Ritual Caster (Bonus)
Armour Prof: Leather
Linguist
Improved Init
Bardic Diletante
Bardic Knowledge
Human Perseverance
Improved Defenses
Point-Blank Shot

Powers
Magic Missile
Scorching Burst
Thunderwave
Acid Arrow
Sleep
Shield
Glib Tongue
Maze of Mirrors
Fireball
Stinking Cloud
Disguise self
Invisibility
Concussive Echo
Ice Storm
Lightning Serpent
Blur
Mirror Image
Prismatic Burst

Equipment

+3 Songblade
+3 Leather Armour
+3 Amulet of Prot
+1 Longbow
+3 Lyre/Lute (um... I forgot which one it was)

I went for a mix of classic damage dealing and defence powers as well as some sound-based ones.

Please tell me Will 17 is a typo :D

As lame and noobie tastic as it make me, thank you. That saves me a lot of bother! I'm just not a huge 4e buff, and the rules are just close enough to confuse me sometimes. And level 13 is fairly involved!

Character Builder is a blessing for this sort of thing. I can cut and past the info for you into a spoiler block at some point over the next few days (Weekends are slow on the boards anyway!) I enjoyed myself and glad you like him!

As lame and noobie tastic as it make me, thank you. That saves me a lot of bother! I'm just not a huge 4e buff, and the rules are just close enough to confuse me sometimes. And level 13 is fairly involved!

Don't be daft. Building a paragon level pc from scratch is no joke. I think the new Darwyn looks more effective for you but keeps his flavour and personality.

We're playing for fun. If you're not enjoying the character, you're probably not having fun. I don't think this will cause any game disbalance and may well up your group effectiveness.

Samson's healing powers are very good and Akemi is likely to multi-class to give you a bit more, along with Darwyn's. You should all be fine, particularly if I remember to re-jig the treasure parcels when they come along.

Speaking of which - they do exist. You just happen to have taken a treasure-lite route so far.

Its going to be a few days before I can update samson. I had to cancel my DDI subscription and I have no idea where my books have walked off to. I had let a friend borrow them and not sure if he ever returned them. He is an hour away now... I'm working on it. There are a few things I want to do to Samson, to make him "more pbp friendly." There are several powers that I haven't even used. They look cool on paper but they just don't work well in a pbp game. This is my first pbp game and I've learned a lot.

Enjoyably, I hope. Feel free to make any changes you need.

I'd suggest you all spend the weekend sorting out any tweaks you want to make for characters and finding out a bit more about Akemi and we'll move along on Monday if everyone is sorted by then.

I'm enjoying the game for sure! Thanks for being so understanding with up rev

Vagrant Poet - What I'm going to do with Darwyn is put him on my iplay4e profile, and put up a link to it. That way, you can cut and paste the info from there into his alias.

Darwyn the Blade Wizard

Wizard 13/Wizard of the Spiral Tower

Str 12
Con 17
Dex 14
Int 18
Wis 10
Cha 17

AC:25
Fort:25
Ref:26
Will:27

Feats
Weapon Prof: Longsword
Ritual Caster (Bonus)
Armour Prof: Leather
Linguist
Improved Init
Bardic Diletante
Bardic Knowledge
Human Perseverance
Improved Defenses
Point-Blank Shot

Powers
Magic Missile
Scorching Burst
Thunderwave
Acid Arrow
Sleep
Shield
Glib Tongue
Maze of Mirrors
Fireball
Stinking Cloud
Disguise self
Invisibility
Concussive Echo
Ice Storm
Lightning Serpent
Blur
Mirror Image
Prismatic Burst

Equipment

+3 Songblade
+3 Leather Armour
+3 Amulet of Prot
+1 Longbow
+3 Lyre/Lute (um... I forgot which one it was)

I went for a mix of classic damage dealing and defence powers as well as some sound-based ones.

Just a few comments here. +1 Longbow, that he's not proficient in? Dual Implement Spellcaster is probably a better feat than Point Blank Shot, in this instance. Thunderwave might not be the best at-will, without a Wisdom bonus. Illusory Ambush for something similar to a mark, or Storm Pillar/Cloud of Daggers, for a bit of area interdiction.