AlexBlake's page

I rather prefer your simple 25% off system.

It seemed to work pretty well Saturday. Didn't get as early a start as I would have liked (~noon) since people didn't show up. Went just over 4 hours. Much better module, much better storyline ("Hey, we're not rescuing kids this time!"), they seemed to enjoy the whitewater rafting skill challenge and watching everyone in the party flee in mortal terror from the rust monsters was a hoot. Until the Barbarian realized that the dynamic weapon could make something out of wood and he didn't have much to fear.

The other table did take 6 hours, but that's because of 1) lack of experience and 2) timid players.

I tried getting another group together, but the couple of people that wandered by wandered off.

So in my journey of making my first ever 4e character was race = Human (just because ok), power source = Arcane (Raistlin imprinted on my brain since 1984), and class = Urrgggghh, Grrrrr... and I have yet to do the type of class (I hate the term build, reeks of MMORPGs).

[Note not trying to make a Raistlin clone other than needing to grow in power so much that I can challenge the Gods and get free coffee at Starbucks]

But I think that I haven't thought so much about my "character" in terms of background and fluff this much since 2e! What I thought was too little fluff text turns out to be a great primer without imposing "this is what the class is". Darn had to start thinking for myself!

From a player point of view 4e certainly is a great version of D&D. Sometime I'll give DMing...

I've got a Taldoran Nobleman Human Shielding Swordmage foppish scholar type that I'd like to play. I've bought a lot of things to enhance his skills so I can make comments like, "of course I know that, we Taldorans learn that by 8th grade. How do you Chelaxians do it?"

And the good thing is that by buying Jack-o-a-trades, and perception and linguist and ritual caster and alchemy I'm still a good enough swordmage to do my job and still fit my character concept.

If I was going for more raw blasty goodness, I'd probably do a Storm Sorcerer. But that's because I like storms.

A couple of weeks ago, we were picking on the group's barbarian (who played a barbarian/bear warrior in Age of Worms) by saying "we should all play barbarians, gnome barbarians. We could all be Bear Warriors and use Ewok minis when we're raging."

So, this was hilarious. "I'm a barbarian. Rawr!"

As a 4E specific note, you could take the 13 Wisdom and Shaman Multiclass feat and summon a "spirit badger" for your spirit companion. You could also multiclass arcane (I'd suggest one of the Sorcerer ones, since they're charisma based, and hence, easier to get), and take the familiar feat and pick a badger that way. As a side effect of the former, you could describe summoning your badger as throwing him at where he needs to go. In both cases, if he gets punted across the universe, you can just wait and resummon him. So, it seems to work pretty well.

I am. I ran a round zero for the other people who are DMing it with me and I will warn you, the first battle and the last battle took about 2 hours each. The rest went rather smoothly.

Any obvious reasons why? What slowed those battles down? We'd like to squeeze in more sessions Saturday and knowing what might need to be cut back to fit everything in, so any insights you might have would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

And actually, the Eladrin armor distance scales at higher levels.

In fact, at level 23, with it, Eladrin Boots, a Mithrendain Steel Weapon, an Eladrin Ring of Passage and a Ring of Dimensional Escape, you are looking at Teleport 9 at-will, or 10 if you are an Eladrin.

Though a DM could probably rule that these are untyped bonuses that wouldn't stack - but still, Teleport 3 at-will in early Paragon is certainly doable, and extremely strong.

I had thought they were all Item bonuses, but the compendium doesn't list them that way.

Heh. Seems like an oversight on their part. Probably should all be item bonuses and therefore not stackable. Maybe make the rings untyped and the others item bonuses if you want some stacking but not others.

FWIW: the Arcane Wayfarer Paragon path's Level 16 feature is "gain teleport 2 as an additional movement mode", so you can get the same stacking problem with that.

Good catch guys. Something to be aware of for me when suggesting this to our Warlock.

Hunter's Teamwork is Bow only. Seems tailor made for a group with either a lot of melee power, or an archer ranger with a pet (send your bear in to flank with the fighter, you get CA for your shots.

Walk Among the Wounded, boring as beige. If you gave some temp HP, or even some healing too, it could be fun. as it stands now, it'd be a flavor thing to take.

Eldritch Strike, seems great until you realize there's almost no way to get it. As a warlock you get Eldritch Blast and the one from your pact. Only a Human Warlock (or a non warlock Half-elf taking it with Dilettant) can pick this up as a third at will. If you paragon multiclassed into Warlock you could take it as well. Hopefully, TPTB will give us some sort of "you can take Eldritch Blast or Eldritch Strike and the one from your pact."

Foe to Foe, seems a less useful choice than any at will the Barb already has. It's too situational. I need a foe that's not a minion, that I can drop quickly so I can make this better than Devastating Strike.

Hidden Blade, dagger has the Off-hand property, and that's pretty much what I've got to say about that. More rogue awesomeness.

My current favorite is Warlock 10, Etheral Sidestep. it's an At Will, Move Action, Personal, 1 square teleport. No need to shift, can't be blocked by difficult terrain or immobilization. Great for escaping grabs. Makes me want to play a warlock just so I can Nightcrawler around.

Our Cleric player likes Gaze of Defiance. Level 1 at will, range 5, wis vs will, 1d8 + wiz and allies get +1 power to hit target. If target attacks you, the bonus increases to +3. Since he likes to cast spells from melee, provoking opportunity attacks is actually advantageous for him.

My group and I have the same problem and I decided to simply reduce the hit point of monster by one level (depending of the role). Anyway the hp calculation for monster add one lever over the PC and I'm not sure I understand the reason behind this increase (a goblin Brute 1 have more hit points than a level 1 human fighter)...

The combat end a little bit quicker and this is more significative with Elite and Solo (monsters lose 2x level or 5x level in hit points)... At lower level, this help a lot to make the combat quicker without really changing anything to the challenge or the danger the character could face... On average, we can complete one more encounter every game session... wich is a good thing... and the HP of monster are now more equivalent to those of the character of equivalent level...

Seems like a good idea on the face of it.

Have you thought about keeping the level the same and increasing the attack and damage rolls at the same time as you increase hp? I would think that would be a good way to preserve the effectiveness of the badguy while speeding up combat.

Last year at GenCon, Rich Baker mentioned that in one of the playtests, the monsters all had 1/2 the HP, and did one die larger damage. (this to some degree is represented in the early DDM 4E stat cards). Seems feasible to put this back into play if you're having issues.

One other note - it seems like reducing hp would also reduce the effectiveness of the secondary effects. It's like in the old Final Fantasy games - it's generally the better strategy to do as much hp damage as you can rather than put in status effects if you can kill a foe in a round or two. I think that might be a large reason for the larger hp pools in 4e - to make such status effects more useful/powerful.

That's my impression too.

... or is it just me.

Not just you.

Eventually my DM and I talked and he let me exchange a bunch of feats to take Scale Armor proficiency, Heavy Shield proficiency and Durable. I just could not spare the AC and hit points. I also have a Walking Dead Cloak (2 surges when I take 2nd Wind) and Dwarven Armor (daily free surge) so I do not suck up too much healing resources. The Reckless property is now on a Craghammer and I use the Reckless property sparingly. I also wait for the fighter to get engaged and then I move into a tactical spot in the second line. I also cannot safely engage brutes since they 'always' hit. Finally, the group never seems to line up right for me to use my 'all allies in X radius heal' powers.

So now that I am cowardly wimp, I still I feel like a liability. I still suck up the Healing Surges that I should be using to help the party. I always run out of healing surges first and the group takes an extended rest. Is the Bravura Warlord pretty on paper but works out poorly since 'hit-me, hit-you' does not play well? Am I missing another major weakness besides the need to maximize hp and AC? The only thing keeping me alive is that I threaten to come back as a female gnome bard if the DM kills me.

Hey, Gnome Bards rock.

That being said, I think that Warlords are best suited to go with the +3 proficiency weapons or something with reach, or perhaps both (*my Inspiring Warlord uses the Greatspear for just this reason*) So, for a Dwarf that's probably a Halberd (it's an axe on a stick, what's not to love). Charge in to the closest space using your reach, then hit from a distance, preferably from directly behind the fighter. You don't need the shield, because you're using the fighter as one.

Toughness as well as Durable is good advice(it'd replace the Heavy Shield feat since you're using your fighter for that), that gives you more HP, which also makes your Healing Surges higher.

Also, the feat to bump up the amount healed by your Inspiring Word might be nice (so you use your Inspiring word on yourself. You're the one in combat, you're the one sucking up the punishment so that nobody else gets it.) Remember at 6th level, it goes to +2d6 (we missed that until 9th level)

Make sure that you're using the PHB2/Adventurer's vault chart to get the "masterwork" armors for the free AC upgrade. I think they start at +2.

And honestly, it sounds like you're playing "Plan A: Get Them." in a group that's either more cautious (nobody wants to move in) or less cooperative (nobody wants to get the bennies provided by the warlord if it means taking damage.) So, while you'd probably have fun with this character in our Saturday group (rage barbarian, twf ranger, star warlock, dragon (fire) sorcerer, orb wizard, and melee cleric) where three people are running fast as they can to get in the middle of the scrum, it may be a really bad fit for the group you're with (if your fighter doesn't like to get hit, and everyone else is ranged, Bravura warlord not so good), so something else might be better.

Although you might get some of the benefit switching from Bravura to Inspiring. You still charge in, you're just not using the Bravura powers to get the extra smash.

Your character sounds really cool though. So switching seems like a disappointment to be avoided to me.

Wait a minute... I'm in the???

Well, would you look at that. When you follow an (unlabeled) link from the Recent Messages box from the main page, you can end up in a forum you don't intend to enter.

Now if only this forum had kind guides to point out when we fell into it, rather than posters who expect people to pay attention to what forum they are in.

Go to the main forums page. Go to the little down arrow next to the 4E threads. If you mouse over it it'll say Hide. Click on that. Voila, you'll not ever see anything in the 4E threads show up in Recent Messages again.

Knowledge (local) says there's no way those two are maidens, dude.

When I first read this, I read it as "Crying Game Ending" rather than "the Unicorn exploded when it came near!"

My bad.

Keep on. This is great.

Brian Cortijo wrote:

houstonderek wrote:

WotC hasn't even bothered to post a tribute or anything on their main page as of five minutes ago. Considering they're profiting off of the sandbox he created, it kind of pisses me off...

WotC posted something a little less than an hour ago. Keep in mind that they're on the West coast, and only opened up for business around that time.

Agree with their business decisions or not, the people that work at WotC are good people, and let us (please, I beg) not turn Dave's passing into an excuse for sniping at anyone.

I would rather remember the man and his work than form opinions of any kind on those that won't bother to.

He died two days ago, and created the reason they get paid. Eh, whatever.

Just as a note, if the family requested that a big deal about it not be made, then I fail to see how WotC splashing it across their front page would not be making a big deal out of it and hence against the family's expressed wishes.

Edit: Bye Mr Arneson. Thanks for everything you've done for me.

Isn't scale armor considered heavy? If so you lose out on Barbarian Agility.

Agreed, you miss out on that class feature. Does it scale up per tier like the Avenger one does? I honestly don't remember, and I don't have the book here to check.

Let's assume it does.

At L1, Hide is +3 AC, with BarbAgil +2, that's a +5. Scale has +7 AC, but requires two feats at this point. With a 14 DEX/INT you get the same AC, which is pretty well doable.

at L30, the best Hide + Enchantment is +11, if BarbAgil +4, then you get +15. But best Scale + Enchantment is +19. So, you have to get to a 18 DEX/INT to hit the same AC. If you start at a 14, you'll get a 16 from 11 and 21 boots. But you have to put in 2 more +1s somewhere. Which lowers your secondary attribute (CON/CHA) which lowers your class powers and other stuff (and Will Def if you're a Thane).

If BarbAgil doesn't scale, then it's +13 vs +19, and you've got to get a 22 in DEX/INT, which might be possible for a multiclassed half-orc build shafting the secondary stuff for more DEX, but isn't really likely. (of course, now I have the idea for a 1/2 orc Barbarian/Warden multiclass...). You might be able to do your Gnome/Halfling Barbarian this way too. You get a bonus to CHA which'll help the Thane stuff, and the Bonus to INT or DEX respectively to keep your AC higher. Hmmm...

So, For the cost of a couple of feats (chain, scale) you can raise your AC, and say "screw it" to raising your DEX/INT combo. Your REF will suck more, but that's what "Epic Reflexes" is for. And, this is a personal opinion, I think the armor properties for Scale armors are much cooler than that for Hide, although that'll hopefully change with AV2.

I think that's part of what the problem with Barbarians at high level is. We've only had the Rage build, which is CON based, which means that we've got low overall Defenses, and since the Barbarian does a ton of damage, he's priority target one for the bad guys. Low Defenses + Priority Target == Buttload of damage taken; which can make the barbarian look bad (since he's having to call for help for healing, or spending actions to Second Wind, or picking himself up off the ground after getting knocked to 0)

Has anyone had much experience playing a barbarian? They seem to do a ruck of damage but I'm wondering what the balancing factors are.

Our Dragonborn Rage Barbarian gets beat on like he were the Detroit Lions. (OK, not that bad...)

Using the "charops" standard of 16, 16, 12, 12, 10, 8 as a starting point...

If you're a Rage barbarian, you need STR and CON. You probably want to drop the 12s on DEX and CHA, so your AC, REF and WILL defenses blow chunks.

If you're a Thane barbarian, you need STR and CHA, so the 12s go on CON and DEX. Again, your AC sucks, as does your REF. Will's pretty good, but your HPs and surges are lower.

You can get the AC up by spending the feats to get to Scale to help the AC, but that's a trade off too. (3 feats to get Scale Specialization and until you get there, you're -1 move, which sucks for a class that's supposed to get into the thick of things as fast as possible to bust out the Daily Rage as soon as you possibly can. Plus you can't spend those feats on other things.)

For a Gnome Barbarian, you'd obviously go Thane to take advantage of the CHA boost, and use INT instead of DEX for the AC. I'd probably take 16, 14, 14, 13, 10, 8 array, and go for more flexability/versatility instead of pure optimization.

It seems like a character that could lead to great fun in game, I wish I had thought of it.

No idea as far as what the plot entails, but I have to imagine we're looking at mostly subterranian stuff, maybe icy stuff, probably a new dragon as the big centerpiece fight (which will be interesting since we're looking at a silver most likely).

In the May Minis set, the dragon is a "young gold", FWIW.

There is the "bonechill chimera" with a white dragon head, so if there's a cold theme, that could be a good mini. Also a "frost giant" and a "ghaele of winter" there.

Provided of course, that they're going to feature the new minis set with the new book and the game day adventure. I'd hope that's where they'd go...

Let me get this right.... wotc has shut down a Web site that was dedicated to a former product that they no longer support, but only after wotc abandoned it?

Please help me understand. I am not beyond listening, I seek to understand before I reach any conclusions.

BTW - for really good character sheets, in loo of this EMA, you might try Mad Irishman Productions, or the classic retro-v.3.5 character sheet that I personally favor.

So .... really?!? A third edition site has been shut down, only now?

Scuttlebutt on the WotC website said that he had 4e character sheets that provided the entire text of the powers, and/or some sort of power cards doing the same thing, and that he had a pay part of his site, and that was what WotC went after.

Probably had jack all to do with 3E; that just got killed in the radiation fallout from the nuke.

Edit: And if every pack of the Dangerous Delves comes with 1 uncommon and 1 rare, how rare can they actually be?

Currently, with a 60 mini set, you have 12 Commons, 24 Uncommons, and 24 Rares, with the 4,3,1 per box. Rares are rare because you get less of them per case of minis; in 2 perfect cases you get 3 of each Uncommon and 1 of each Rare.

With this distribution method, I'd imagine that in order to make rares rare, you'd have to shift the number of uncommons at the start, say 8 Commons, 8 Uncommons and 24 Rares. That'd approximate the same level of rarity that's currently in play.

We did the Keep on the Shadowfell, with the pregens, so 3rd.

We played a 5th level game day adventure.

Our Rise of the Runelords Characters just hit Level 2. {happy dance}
Dragonborn Paladin of Iomadae.
Human (chelaxian) Priest of Asmodeus.
Human (varisian) Ranger (me).
Eladrin Wizard.
Eladrin Starpact Warlock.
Tiefling Wizard.

The two Eladrin are twin females, played by guys. The Tiefling is female as well, played by a female. I was expecting more weirdness from the group (this is the first time anyone's played females, and well, we've got some *cough*socially challenged*cough* players), but we've all done a good job with the roleplay; last session had the first fight in two weeks.

And since I've bored everyone with "let me tell you about my character", I'll be off.

AlexBlake wrote:

2) Hear the oncoming Hobgoblin reinforcements as you're going down the corridor, so the PCs can set up an ambush in a room, turning the tables on the Reinforcements (1 Dire Wolf, 1 leader type Hobgobo, 3 bugbears). Fight went fast, ~30 minutes. I was surprised about how fast it went, honestly.

Interesting set-up. Were there specific actions the PCs could take to set up the ambush, or was it more just giving them sufficient time to hide?

Both. We put a wide portion of a corridor, with some ledges and stuff a bit before the actual encounter. Drawing it on the map triggered a "Oh crap, it's an ambush," reaction. When there was no ambush, they relaxed and headed on, then found out about the oncoming forces.

They took the hint (good players), fell back to the prepared terrain and then set up an ambush. Had them make some stealth rolls, the people who could roll helped the people that couldn't, waited till they got ready (they remembered at the last minute to douse the lights) and toddled the bad guys into the middle of the trap.

The PCs got a big charge out of being the proactive ones for a change, they were excited and that made things go fast. I think it really made the session.

I thought the bridge was going to be the encounter they were talking about afterwards, but nope, it was the ambush.

Excellent suggestions! I think I'll jot down a few thematic notes for each of his Rogue exploits and try them out when we play this Sunday.

Let's see....he has Deft Strike, Riposte Strike, Sly Flourish, Positioning Strike, Trick Strike, and Fleeting Ghost.

Anyone want to offer some descriptions?

Sorry I didn't get to this sooner, had no internet at home, so I've got to steal time from work (lunch and approved breaks only).

Use ProSteve's ideas, they seem pretty good as a starting point.

I'd try to get Player to do it, at least partially, anyways. Let him read the power description, and let him try to visualize what his character is doing. That'll get him more familiar with the way the powers work and what he can do.

AlexBlake wrote:

That last sentance makes me think that power cards may not the the most appropriate thing, if it might remind him even more of MtG.

If he actually plays magic I figure that problem won't last long. If he has nothing but a sort of bad stereotype of it, well yeah then this might not work although one might want to point out that having a bad impression of a game one knows nothing about does not really qualify one to form a judgement on other games with similar pieces. Its perfectly conceivable to hate MTG and think No Limit Texas Hold 'Em is a great game - even though they both use cards.

Heh, I stopped paying attention to MTG around Ice Age.

And, yeah, it's probably more a stereotypical reaction, using the most common thing of the type as the example.

But, we're trying to convince the player, and so, his perceptions on the situation matter. Shift his mindset away from the "powers are munchkin" and then let him see the utility of the cards (I personally prefer a page with the powers on them, rather than cards, but that's cause I lose cards and fishing on the floor for my Daily Power kinda sucks.) and have that work.

Little Steps. Or, Let's pick the battle we can win, and then work up from there.

We've had good luck with Pipe Cleaners. Cut one in thirds, make a loop, and drape it over the mini to show conditions.

Bloodied is Red.
Dying is Black.
The Paladin's Marking is Yellow.
The Cleric/Fighter's Marking is Brown.
My Ranger's Hunter's Quarry is Green.
The Warlock's Curse is Purple.

Sure, if the Paladin's marked one of my quarries, who's been cursed by the Warlock and is now bloodied, the mini looks like it's just stepped off the plane in Hawai'i.

Let'see, last "game day" adventure we created was for 5th level characters.
1) Cross the rope bridge, with 2 Chokers, 3 Hobgoblin Archers and 1 Hobgoblin Warcaster. Took a little while (~1hr), the Chokers pull the bridge down, dropping some PCs into the bottom of the cavern, while others tried to jump across (or Feystep), separating the party into 3 groups, which didn't allow concentration of firepower.

2) Hear the oncoming Hobgoblin reinforcements as you're going down the corridor, so the PCs can set up an ambush in a room, turning the tables on the Reinforcements (1 Dire Wolf, 1 leader type Hobgobo, 3 bugbears). Fight went fast, ~30 minutes. I was surprised about how fast it went, honestly.

3) Boss fight, Deathlock Wight with 2 shadowhunter bats and 3 dark creepers. Fight was unimpressive on both sides, no undead meant the Deathlock couldn't use all his powers, and the dark creepers work best with combat advantage. Fight took ~1hour, due to hit and run tactics of all parties.

I would have been happy with the rapier skinned as a longsword approach.

It's a good choice. A Rapier that looks like a Longsword (same stats, just a Rapier is a light blade). You're giving the +1 to hit with daggers back, but you're getting the +2 average damage.

FWIW, the Bastard Sword and the Greatsword have the same basic stats, so our Dragonborn Paladin visualizes wielding a Greatsword in one hand rather than just using the Bastard Sword.

My Ranger on the other hand, definately wants the visual of two one handed swords.

mevers wrote:

Are you saying that your choice to focus your character on out of combat abilities limited your in combat abilities?

No. I am saying that since I did not focus on Thievery (yes, I still got it Trained for free but I did not bump the base stat and add Skill Focus) and the adventure was yet another dungeon crawl, I was useless.

[skritches head] Hmm. must have been in the early days, before the tables were changed to lower the DC's by about 5 each. They were too high before. Our "shadowfell" group couldn't do crap till the errata came out. DC 20 to Balance on a wooden plank my ass.

DC 20 becomes DC 15, and the Dex 16 rogue with the net +8 needs a 7. Tough stuff that's a 20 DC would be a 12 or better, which isn't great, but doesn't suck either.

Definately, you need to point the GM toward the errata.

As a gm, it's easy to create encounters and run the game, making more time available for adventure design elements; I'm not getting bogged down in the math.

As a player, combats are about tactics, and not so much about what character building tricks you've figured out; the player that never picks up the book except at the game table can create just as useful character as the person who twinks his character till it screams.

The "No Vancian Magic" and "Combat is simplified" help make those two things come true.

To be perfectly candid, keeping track of all those munchkin powers and exploits have all but ruined the game for me. I miss the days when I could roll a twenty-sider and actually just play the game....Oh, how I miss battles that only take an hour! Oh, how I miss not having to collect my powers like cards from Magic: the Gathering!

That last sentance makes me think that power cards may not the the most appropriate thing, if it might remind him even more of MtG.

If you've got a cut and paste version of the ruleset, or your power cards are editable, try to put all the information on one sheet, with all the calculations already done, so it looks more like a spell list.

But, I don't think the math is the real issue, I think the problem is mindset based; he admits that he sees the powers and exploits as munchkin.

So, you need to shift the way you describe them. I agree with above commentary, make the use of the exploits story/role-playing based. Try to show him that his Powers and Exploits are how a story based character manipulates the world around him to his advantage, not so much about feats of nearly super heroic derring do.

He uses "King's Castle" describe how at the perfect moment the monster moves, the Rogue stabs him distracting him so that his buddy can drop back while the Rogue's shoulder roll takes him into his buddy's square.

If he has "Positioning Strike" when he hits the bad guy just as he's getting ready to move, momentarily putting him off balance so his move takes him where the rogue wanted him to go.

Don't make it, "You hit the bad guy, he flies three squares in the direction you want" like the Rogue is some sort of Wuxia/Wire Fu character.

Although if that works for you/him, run with it. Whatever works.

Eladrin Soldier is what I used for a hide-wearing spear user. The AC is on-par to better than a "normal" fighter's AC. I primarily went with eladrin because the feat gives you an edge early on, but I guess elf is better in the long run because the +2 to Wisdom is better for your opportunity attacks. To me, eladrin just makes more sense!

Actually, I got it for my Hide Wearing Tactical Warlord, either I can attack with my Fighter, or use my Longspear over his back.

...eladrin love spears...

[THREADJACK]What a cool name for a Band.[/THREADJACK]

As a note, I can't wait to get this book. Hopefully the FLGS will have it in today, so I can pick it up after work.

Callous Jack wrote:

Don't forget to list all the reasons that made you leave.

You mean a parting shot at everyone that ever disagreed with me? Right. Got it.

Plus a lot of tears and melodrama about leaving all your valued friend, i.e. all the people that agreed with you, so those people will beg you to reconsider and stay anyways, thereby propping up your fragile ego with, "someone does care about me" causing you to recind your leaving decision after two days.

Sigh.

At least when I bailed from there, I just took off.

That holds also true for 4th edition. Try to play a Dagger wielding light armored fighter in the company of a heavy armored shield and sword wielding fighter. Or better even, try to build a fighter using a ranged weapon as primary weapon. Of course you can use a rogue or ranger instead of a fighter, but so you could in 3rd. There are a lot of possible builds but only some that a good and a lot of sub-optimal ones.

Ah, but you're not fitting into the role that the class is defined for, none of the fighter powers work at range. so, yeah, I'll concede that there are some suboptimal choices in 4E. Usually, they're easy to spot. And yeah, there are some optimal builds, but usually they're pretty easy to find.

And they're even easier to find if you've played a point based system with "reasoning from effect", where you look at what you want to build, and then break it down to it's most simple form, and build from there.

I want to play a lightly armored Fighter who uses daggers. replace the word Fighter with "guy with gets into melee combat" and you're perfectly described a Rogue. And the powers even work. Ditch the idea of Class as the limiter and go from there.

That is not true, you still have to plan your build carefully. If you play above Dagger Fighter the rogue out-damages you and the other fighter lasts longer than you as he has a better AC.
If you pick sub-optimal powers and/or feats for your fighters weapon you have a sub-otimal build and other classes out-damage you or do much cooler things than you in combat.

BUT as 4th has less valid choices for a good build, you do not have to plan so far ahead as you had in 3rd (even without the splat books).
AND the powers and power synergies of different Races/Classes in 4th favor a much more tactical combat.
Therefore you are correct that 4th is more about how good you are using tactics in game while 3rd is more about how good you are at planning a build.

Yeah, true, I was oversimplifying for illustration sake.

I can't see how you define 3rd edition characters by the character build, You can make up 3 bard, or 3 fighters or 3 rogues and generally unless you kicked the character class abilities around they were clones of each other. The fighter may slightly vary in his feat choices but very few would, the rogues would all be sneak attacking damage monsters, the bards would be EXACTLY THE SAME AS EACH OTHER. The...

Splatbooks: Spells, feats, prestige classes, alternate class features all chock full of crunchy mathematical min maxing. Have you checked out the WotC Character optimization board?

AlexBlake wrote:

So, yeah, if you're into the character building, 4E won't be your cup o joe.

Well, a certain kind of character building...I think 4e provides the same amount of room to build what a consider a character--that is motivation, background, mannerisms, appearence, and other such aspects of role-playing. There is a little going to be a little loss of mechanical options because that's the nature of a new edition. I dearly love David Chart's brilliant 5th edition of Ars Magica, but it is sorrly lacking in clear guidelines to create new monsters, as well as lacking a good range of beasties. Similarily, 3rd ed. Legend of the Five Rings suffered a lack of information about the culture of the setting and role-playing advice, something that the 1st edition game had in spades (I paraphrase John Wick: L5R shouldn't be about playing in a different history, but a different culture). I haven't read the new ed of Shadowrun, but that game always lacked for monsters in the corebook.

The point being any game limited to its core book(s) is limiting. Or on the other hand, freeing in the sense that your imagination does the work...that's in part why I stopped using a lot of supplements in 3e and part of why I'm enjoying 4e. I'm looking forward to Adventurer's Vault though, as there's far too many arms and armors in the PH and too few potions and wondrous items.

Actually, I agree with this 100%. If anything 4E has fostered better role playing and more intricate character backgrounds for us, because we're not spending so much time in the numbers.

For Shadowfell, we played the pregens. At each level, we swapped characters around the table, and at each level, everyone had the same character have a totally different personality from the person who played it before, and do different things at different times.

From a role playing standpoint, both games are what you make them into.

Polaris, however, is talking about the underlying mathematics of the system; as choice and possiblities from a character building as deck building POV, where there are defined and hidden optimalities and synergies to find.

In this regard, he is correct in limitations of the smaller simpler ruleset; character creation isn't as mathematically intricate, there's not as much room for min-maxing, there's not as much cool synergy to find. (Thundering Dire Pick + Haste + Dolorous Blow + Weapon of Fire + Bull's Strength + Bardsong)

This is what he, and others, refer to as system mastery.

The way I see it, system mastery in 4E comes in on the small unit tactics level; how do we as a team come up with a solution to the problem at hand, how do we martial our resources and what do we expend now vs. save for a later encounter. There is no optimal choice for every situation.

And everything we accomplish depends on what everyone in the group can do, and how well we work together. Teamwork isn't "what buffing spells are we casting on the Bear Warrior?"

This is, of course, why they deride 4e as a board game or a war game.

That doesn't mean it's less of a Role Playing Game. Or even that it's less fun to Play. Or Run.

It just means the system has a different focus. And I can see that some people won't like the focus.

I happen to love the focus of 4E.

Disagree all you like, but that's not going to change fundamental principles of system design, and one of these is that you can not have both meaningful choice and perfect balance in the same system. A system with meaningful choice is by definition unbalanced, and moreoever the more choice there is in a system, the larger the utility delta there will be between optimal and sub-optimal choices.

4E made it a point to try to solve what the devs perceived to be the utility delta issue....but did so at the price of reducing and elminating meaningful choice....although in many cases they disguised this wonderfully. In his latest interview Mike Mearls admits they did this and is proud of reducing choice in the game.

IMHO that's everything you need to know about 4E.

Yep. In 3rd edition everything was about the character build. The person with the best build did the most stuff during the session, usually over and over again, because he was optimized to the point of stupidity (my 10th level Gnome Bard did 92 points of damage in 1 round, and I'm quite proud of that.) The person with a bad build, or with even a not fully optimized build would sit around doing jack.

Now, with 4th edition, everything is about the play in game; Tactics, Strategy, and things that happen at the game table. Your ability to contribute is based on how well you play at that session, not how many splatbooks you bought and how many spells and feats and class features you managed to twink out.

So, yeah, if you're into the character building, 4E won't be your cup o joe.

I'll paraphrase what James Wyatt said in the Saturday D&D Q&A.

They're not advancing the timeline of Eberron at all.
They're not making any wholescale changes to the setting.
They're not planning on restarting the Last War, although it sounded like they'd like to increase the emphasis of the aftereffects of the Last War, both on the setting, and more importantly on the PCs. From what Keith Baker said in one of his seminars, it sounded like a slight shift more toward Noir and slight shift away from Pulp.

Yup. Every section when through the Mike Filter, and most of them went through the Erik Filter and the Jacobs Filter as well. Even though the book was written by a couple dozen talented and EXCELLENT writers, it doesn't feel that way when you read it from cover to cover. :)

I think he means "it doesn't feel like it was written by a bunch of different authors, it's one cohesive whole."

and not, "there's no way you'd think this book was written by Talented and Excellent writers after I got through with it."

So I think that's why we're arguing :/

I thought it was because we like arguing?

My bad.

For example, it's been suggested several times in this thread that the price change in plate armor is a (necessary) result of re-aligning in-play value of the armor in 4th Edition.

My instinct suggests otherwise:

In 4th Edition, there's very little reason not to take a suit of full plate. That's probably the best choice, and it's economical.

But that's just instinct. A discussion about armor prices can generate insights into 4th Edition's principles regarding loot.

I'll bite...

1st consideration, only Paladins start with proficiency with Plate. Everyone else has to spend feats to get it. So it's not only the money cost, it's also the Feat cost. (Since you get more feats, both costs are relatively negligible, I admit.)

2nd consideration, Plate has 1 more point of AC, the same -1 speed penalty, and -2 Armor check penalty over the Scale the Fighter can wear for free. It's 2 points of AC, same -1 speed penalty, and -1 Armor Check Penalty over Chain. But, it's also 2 Feats if you're a Cleric or Warlord.

FWIW, the Heavy Shield with it's +1 AC and Ref over a Light Shield also has a -2 Armor Check penalty. So, if you're a 1 hander and shield guy, taking the Scale and Heavy Shield gives the same AC (19) as the Plate and Light Shield, has the same Armor Check Penalty (-2), and gives you a +1 on your Reflex Defense.

Sure, the Pally (or Fighter if he spends a feat) can load up with the Plate and Hvy Shield for a 20 AC, but good luck climbing out of the pit trap or sneaking up on anything with the -4 Armor Check Penalty.

Plate is an incremental cost increase, because as I hope I've shown, it's only incrementally better.

So, in that regard, it seems to be priced well.

But, yeah, upon first reading, it was definately a thing to make you go WTF.

noted that, too. also noticed that a lot of 4E supporters were long-time 3.x players who eventually grew to hate the system's idiosyncrasies.

Ooh, pick me pick me.

I loved playing 3.x. I still don't mind it. But I hated running 3.x with a passion. If I'm going to do that much work to create what I need, I'll just dig out the Hero stuff and run that.

I think it's the shift in knowledge that's bothering people.

In 3.x system mastery come in during character design (class race feat prestige class skills), including design during play (spell selection vs monster). But, once you've created your design, that's how you handle the situations. The spiked chain trip monkey is, well, going to try to trip the monster. The spell caster is going to look over his list and see what he can do, hopefully he's made some intelligent guesses with his selection, or he can back out and rememorize spells that are more suited.

During Age of Worms, I played a Shifter druid/moonspeaker. I was going to buff the crap out of myself, turn into a dire tiger and rip things to little bitty pieces. I got a Ring of Counterspelling to block Greater Dispels. Occasionally I'd switch some of the extra spells around to have some flexibility to get to the point where I could rip things into little bitty pieces, or to help out my ability to rip things into little bitty pieces.

In 4e, system mastery comes in the tactics of the encounter. Character creation is simple (at first level). Anyone can do it. Pick a few things and you're done. There are no hidden traps, no "Friends don't let Friends pick Toughness", no suboptimal choices. What you then do with your powers in combat depends on what's going on in the combat. It depends on what your companions do. It depends on what the monsters do. Success depends on the tactics you use in each and every encounter, not how efficient your character build is.

That's a big shift since D&D has been about the character build for a long time. Which is why it doesn't feel like D&D to a lot of people, I suppose. But, to me, it brings me back to the old AD&D days, pre Unearthed Arcana, where you pulled out some dice, threw down a sheet of graph paper and said, "where do you want to go now". It doesn't matter so much what you can do as how you use what you've got.

I think he's referring to the Irontooth encounter, not to spoil too much.

I dunno if the point of that encounter was to teach the new party, "Run Away is a valid tactic", or "Bossfights are nasty," or it's just "the writer f-d up."

And yes, I have noticed that WotC and Paizo products have higher potency encounters than "recommended".

In 3.x it seemed that the tendancy for players was to hit one room hard, dump all your resources in it, then pull back and rest for the night. So from the GM's standpoint, each of them has to be tougher so the party uses the appropriate resources and you get the "commando raid" feel.

Rather than 4 equal level encounters using 25% of your resources, you get 1 much higher level encounter you barely survive, using 100% of your resources.

The Irontooth fight was like that, for us. Unfortunately, I, player of the rogue, wandered in to see what was inside, provoking the ire of the inhabitants while the previous fight was still going on.

We pulled it out, mainly due to some luck and bloody minded determination.

And there are 6 of us.

It still bothers me that every time they add a new article, they log me off, so I have to re-log in. Doesn't help that the server that processes the request seems to have a clock speed set in geological time...

That being said, sweet article. lots of useful things, over all levels.

Looking at this from a storytelling standpoint might help.

You, as a character, have action points, per encounter powers, and daily powers because that's how often you, you as a player, have the possibility to adjust the story the DM's creating to be more to your liking.

When you whip out your Daily Power, in effect you're saying that in this dramatic moment, conditions and timing and mindset and rage and phase of the moon and whatever else, is allowing me to make this one very dramatic attack to change the story.

And you can't do it again this day because you've already taken dramatic control of the story once. Now it's someone else's turn. When you get higher levels, you have more control over the story.

Or, perhaps, even Chuck Norris in Walker Texas Ranger only uses his roundhouse kick once an episode (Daily Power).

Apparently you failed your save vs. sarcasm. BPorter was ridiculing CourtJesters reply to question 2 by the OP. Court Jester definitely came off as a Kool-aid drinking zombie in his reply. He added nothing to the discussion except to support the "One edition to rule them all" mantra repeated by some of the more zealous supporters of 4e.

Which is hilarious. Because AFAIK Courtfool doesn't like 4e much. His one system to rule them all is Hero. So, BPorter failed his save vs Relevance. Which kinda renders the whole thing moot.

Pretty cool. I'd have to see the rest of the powers, but on first glance, I'd play one.

Thanks for the preview/link/head's up.

hopefully go here.

If not, it's part of the Help/FAQ section of the website, you have to search it separately. Click on Help, then search the help section for Shadowfell and it should pop up near the top

I am not claiming to be superior in my opinions, just someone who is curious as to the motivation of 4e fans as to their choices in regards to abandoning 3.5e. If 3.5e was so bad, why didn't those who find 3.5e so broken check out True20, Runequest, Elric, Conan, etc. a year or two ago?

I tried running 3.x. I found it tedious at best, mind splittingly annoying at worst.

I like playing 3.x, because all the nifty, ever expanding character options made my evil little munchkin heart happy.

I tried the other d20 options, and while I thought Blue Rose was pretty shiny, I don't think it made things easier enough to learn a new system when it was turned into True20.

Since I already had the system, if I was going to run, and do all the work anyways, I'll pull out my Hero system and go with that. It's not any harder and I had more control over everything. So, in that regard, I'm not quite your target audience.

So, 4e's announced. And they say it's simpler to play and run. And turns out it is. I enjoy running 4e in a way I didn't enjoy running 3E or any of the other d20 variants. It's simple on the surface, but fights are tactically complex, with pushing and sliding, and resource management. Character creation's simple, yet somehow interesting, giving some options and flexibility while keeping things managable. But then again, we played for many years with AD&D, where the only difference between fighters was personality, and maybe a weapon, so not being able to differentiate down to the micropoint level seems ok to us.

In short, not only do I enjoy Playing 4E, I'm enjoying Running 4E, which is something I could never get behind with 3.x.

Personnel/company situations don't fit much into considerations. No matter how much DS pisses me off, I still buy Hero stuff, when they put out something I want.

That poodle is whack, kid.

Get someone to set up a llama avatar for him and we'll be all set.

When D&D 3.0 came out, I think what a lot of people didn't realize (and I have to say that I didn't, at the time) was that 3E isn't the third edition of AD&D. Its the third edition of OD&D, a different and separate line in the D&D family of games. The progression from OD&D through the Cyclopedia to 3E is clear, and involves only a few contributions and changes incorporating certain AD&D concepts.

I hadn't considered it that way. On the surface that makes some sense.

That said, to answer the same question about 4E...

Consider that 4e follows from 1E, in the same way that 3E follows from the OD&D through the Cyclopedia. It incorporates some MMO elements. But 3E incorporated some elements from other games as well, (cough*Hero*cough) it's a contaminated culture as well.

There's limited character creation options, the excitement comes from having tactical options in gameplay. There's limited skills, designed to foster adventuring. You're character background is what you make of it, rather than something you spend points on. There's limited universe background information, that's mostly revealed through the modules (so far) just like the old Greyhawk days. Heck, the monsters in the MM are set at the levels where approximately you'd run into them in the 1E days (Kuo-toa are 11ish level)

4E incorporates some of the 3E elements, but it's 1E's child in the same way that 3E is 0D&D's child.

I'm kinda just curious at this point to know what Mr. Reynolds has to say about 3.5 and 4e and which he would rather play now that he is no longer a cog in the massive corporate machine that is Hasbro.

Sean's Blog He talks about his feelings about GSL and a bit down about his 4e experience.

I've said before that I want the Paizo 4e forum to be the best place on the internet to discuss 4e.

I still really want that to happen.

Well, I'm a newbie posting here at the paizo boards because even with the threadcrapping and the trolling and the mob mentality and the passive aggressive bullcrap going on here, it does seem like the best place to discuss 4e and get some reasonable feedback.

Sure, I think Baiting needs to be added to the list of things you're not allowed to do on the 4e boards, and I'd like to see a little quicker throwing of the yellow flag, when it's still "unsportsman-like conduct 5 yard penalty" rather than "time for you to go to the locker room".

If you think that a separate "Opinion vs Mechanics" section would accomplish that, I'm on board.

CourtFool wrote:

Great! Who's up for a game of Champions?

ME! Oh! Oh! Pick me! I've even got a superhero campaign I've published in Digital Hero we can...

Oh, wait.

Um...

*fades into the shadows*

And it still pisses me off that that didn't actually make it into a ebook.

I understand economic realities. I'm just saying.