Teiran's page

Ooooh, this is a very nice idea Arcesilaus. The concept of using vulnerablities as a system to reflect things that would only damage creatures weak to that kind of damage is quite cool. You might even suggest it to Wizards, it seems like a great way to actually do Holy Water.

Consider this idea stolen once again!

I definitely like the idea. I've seen similar used to represent 'holy places' - say, a church is filled with an aura that deals 0 radiant damage to any creatures within. Harmless to normal folks, but damaging - or worse - to undead.

Now there's another neat way to us this.

Shuriken and the hand crossbow do not have the off-hand property so you can't really have a longsword at the ready while using either of those weapons.

Well, I do not have my books at work. If they lack the property, then my bad.

I'm not sure where to find the blocking dagger or spiked shield.

They are both from the Adventurer's Vault, and I am sure they both off hand weapons, even though i don't have my book on me.

I believe most of those combos would result in the longsword being used maybe once or twice during a battle with almost all the actual attacks being done with the second weapon. Having something doesn't been that you are using it. If there was a rogue running around just one of his exploits every battle and then every other round used basic longsword attacks, I would similarly say that he wasn't really using his rogue powers.

The Longsword would indeed be for basic attacks, charge attacks, oppertunity attacks, and attacks granted by powers which require a basic attack. (There are considerable warlod powers which grant this sort of thing.)

And yes, that would mean unless you do alot of charging that you'd likely use the longsword less often then the dagger or other light blade.

You are defining the archetype very rigidly and seemingly not even letting the idea that another person can have a different viewpoint on what an archetype should be able to do.

Well, my idea of the rogue archtype might well be different then yours. But for your view of the archtype to be valid, there needs to be some good examples of one that used only a longsword or maul. Can you name a few rogues which used such weapons?

Not a rapier, or a longsword comboed with a smaller blade they used for their sneaky attacks, but just a longsword.

As for the ninja comment, no I had not intended to lump the archtype of the ninja and rogue together. That was a lighter aside, sorry for the confusion. The ninja and rogue are two related, but very different concepts and I would much rather see a Ninja class be designed to more accuratly represent that archtype then see folks try and shoehorn it into the rogue class. I'm fairly certain you can build a ninja like character using the rogue class, but that's not the archtype the class was really designed around, and thus there will always be issues doing it that way.

As Larry points out, this is a matter of how closely the concept you are going for fits the mechanical basis of the class.

The rogue class is built around the concept of the lightly armored, finess based fighter. Clubs, axes, and big swords don't fit that concept, and thus the class does not work well with those weapons.

The rogue class, as well as every core class should be designed to portray an archetype, but should be broad enough for a reasonable amount of customization. 4E makes characters conform to a tightly defined, constraining class. Want to use a longsword or your fists to hit things in the vitals? Sorry you can't. Want to be good with a bow? You have to be a ranger. Want to fight with two weapons and have it mean something...

Then you have a radically different idea of what reasonable customization amounts to then I, and evidently the designers, do. I can think of six weapon combos of the top of my head that allow someone to use a long sword and still use their rogue abilities.

Long sword / Dagger
Long sword / Short sword
Long sword / Shruikens (for the ninja out there)
Long sword / Hand Crossbow
Long sword / Blocking dagger
Long sword / Spiked shield

And there are other's I'm sure, and that's assuming you don't just take the Rapier and use that.

We both agree that a class should be defined by an archetype, and that's what 4th edition has done. I think the rogue class does a good job of displaying the archtype of the trickster or thug-like theif.

And using a longsword is simply not part of those themes. Nor is using your fists to hit vital points. they go directly against that archtype of the Rogue. That's much more like a fighter or a monk, not the rogue. Are you seriously claiming that unarmed combat is in any way themeatic with the rogue?

They don't have all the archtypes covered yet, and that's quite annoying. There is no monk yet for the unarmed combatant, or a second class which is good with the bow. But saying that the rogue class is badly designed because it does not allow you to build an adventurer which go directly against the archtype of the rogue is stretching things.

Yeah, a rogue could use weapons besides light blades, slings, etc. if he wants to do nothing but use basic attacks with no extra sneak attack damage, thereby gimping himself into utter uselessness. There are practically no rogue powers (maybe completely none) that let you use "non-rogue" weapons. This is far from a viable concept. It is pigeonholeing in the extreme, and should be done away with. You'd think that the least they could do is put a feat in the PHB to let a rogue use his powers with any one-handed weapon or possibly have some rogue powers that state that brawny rogues can use a non-rogue weapon with the power.

So, what you're saying is that unless a class is designed to allow things that are totally outside the concept of the class, then they are badly designed? I'll get right on my lance weilding Wizard then.

Your claim of pigeonholeing is frankly just wrong. Light Blades is not just the Dagger. Rogues have an array of thematic weapons which work with their powers, and they even made the most classicly underpowered weapon of the dagger viable for the rogue. Even some of the double weapons can be used with rogue powers, since their off hand side is a light blade.

If you want to weild a long sword, weild a dagger in the other hand. That's a very classic rogue combo, and you'll get the best of both worlds, using the longsword for basic attacks and the dagger for your
rogue powers.

If you want to be a single sword weilding rogue? Then the rapier is for you, just like it always has been.

Or a character that wields a bastard sword in the main hand and a dagger in the offhand - when they have combat advantage, they stab the enemy using rogue powers and getting Sneak Attack. When they don't have combat damage, they use some multiclassed fighter powers and the bastard sword for the bigger damage die. Not the most optimized builds, sure, but certainly viable ones.

Actually... I think that combo could work really well. In the Adventurer's Vault there's a new kind of Dagger called a Blocking dagger. It's one of the new defender items that gives you a bonus to AC like it was a shield when using it in your off hand, and it counts as a dagger for the rogue to hit bonus.

Since rogue's can't use shields, a longsword/blocking dagger might make a really great combo. Use the dagger for your rogue powers, and the longsword whenever you have to make a basic attack like when you charge or make an oppertunity attack. Add in the bonus AC from the dagger and you'd be looking at a pretty good combo there.

Personally, I can't wait until they come up with a 4E version of the sap (I hope they will.) I enjoyed playing a rogue who didn't want to kill his foes, just thump them unconscious.

Well then your wait is already over. The basic combat rules have changed with regards to knocking folks unconscious in battle. When a PC strikes the blow that drops a monster, you always have the option of making it a non-lethal blow. No more penatlies to hit when pulling your punches like in 3rd edition.

It was a pretty small rule change, designed to remove the nessesity for things like subdual damage, and a lot of folks have missed it.

CourtFool wrote:

Thanks for the explanation. Fighter/Rogue seems much more viable now.

Except, you still can't sneak attack with the longsword or use any rogue powers with the longsword, which is very annoying and unsatisfying. I understand the need for balance, but I think the limitation on what weapons can be used with sneak attack and rogue powers goes too far into the pigeonholeing all rogues into dagger-wielding sneaks. Untyped bonuses to hit are too hard to come by in 4E to give up because you would like a rogue that uses a sword instead of a dagger. Why should I be punished if I want to play a rogue that doesn't want to use daggers all of the time?

Well, there is some pigeon holing going on, but Light Blades is not just daggers. Rogues have a half dozen swords and dagger types they can use with their attacks, and i think they can also use things like the sickle. (Don't have my books, so can't be sure right now.)

The bonus to daggers is just designed to make them a viable option for the rogue.

A great axe is a little extreme, but why shouldn't a Rogue be able to sneak attack with a long sword or a maul? They're one handed weapons that aren't that difficult to wield.

Well, as crosswiredmind says, it's about the speed and agility of the weapon involved in using the weapon. While a long sword and maul may be one handed weapons that aren't difficult to wield, they are used in a very different style then something like a rapier. A dagger or rapier does it's damage by striking in vital locations and bypassing armor. The longsword and maul rely upon impact to do damage more then they do about hitting a specific spot. You can see that difference reflected in the fact that a person using short sword has the option of using Dex to attack, not Str.

Do I think that using a Longsword or Maul for sneak attack would in any way break the game? Nope. And I wouldn't be surprised to see a feat called something like "Brutal Sneak" that allowing a rogue to to use all one handed weapons to make a sneak attack.

This is just a case of theme, and to some degree balancing, dictating what weapons a rogue can use.

I'm not a 4e player, but it seems odd to remove the Rapier from the Rogue's weapon list - especially since it is a light weapon that could be used with the Rogue's powers.

As a DM, I would probably house rule the inclusion of the Rapier on the Rogue's weapon list to allow Court Fool to play his character as he envisioned.

The reason is that the Rapier is now a Superior weapon, (what replaced the exotic weapon category) meaning nobody has the proficency with it from the start.

And to be fair, it is a clearly superior sword when compaired to other Light blades. It does 1d8 and has a +3 proficency bonus. That makes it stronger then any other light blade, and more versitale then the longsword would be since you could swap which stat you used for the attack.

They've made a big push to prevent that kind of "one sword is always better then the rest" syndrome that occurs in 3rd edition.

Teiran wrote:

Perhaps I have missed it, I admit I have not read the rogue very closely, but where does it say you cannot use a longsword with your various powers?

A lot, if not most, of the rogue powers require the use of a "light blade".

It is specified in the powers.

A longsword is not a light blade.

Yah, I checked my book when I got home last night and was a bit surprised by just how many of the powers had that restriction. Since I had only read the basics and not the powers, I totally missed this part of the rogue. It's a bit annoying story wise, since you are limited in the kind of weapons they can weild, but then again all the weapons you get are rogue themed weapons.

Course, then I went and looked at what Light Blades actually exist, and I'm less annoyed. There are several light blades, the Dagger, Short sword, and Rapier being the most prominant.

The Short sword has a +3 to hit and does 1d6 damage.
While the Dagger has a +4 to hit and does 1d4 damage in the hands of a rogue. That's extreamly baanced, since you either get a +1 to hit or a +1 to average damage. And it makes the dagger a viable choice for a rogue, where without that bonus there would be absolutly NO reason to play the classic dagger weilding rogue. If you took a dagger over the short sword and didn't have the hit bonus, you'd be crazy. For the rogue, they're a balanced choice.

Is that a bit annoying for CourtFool, who wants to be weilding a nice big sword? Yah, I can see his point. But the rapier can fill that need, while still be thematic for the rogue, and frankly there's a whole lot of people who find the idea of doing a sneak attack with a halberd as crazy talk.

In the end I think it washes out as far as annoyance goes, as it prevents you from being a Longsword weilding rogue, but it also prevents backstabbing with huge axes.

I have two things, both mentioned already.

Rituals. I like them. I like the idea of them. I'm debating hiving off a certain chunk of spells in 3.5 and handling them like 4e rituals.

This is the thing that sold me on the editon. I read about Rituals and jumped for joy. I love this concept.

combat actions outlined:

1 standard, 1 move, 1 minor. (and variations of course)

Players always get confused with full vs not full attacks in 3.5, and iritatives. This simplifies things so much.

I gotta say, after reading the rules this is what made me happest about the new edition. Simple, easy to understand, and very flexible. A very good way to improve the action system over the old irritating way. (And yes, i left it mispelled onpurpose. ;) )

Thanks for the explanation. Fighter/Rogue seems much more viable now.

Glad I could help. I quite like the way they've handled multiclassing, but if you miss the part about the power swap feats it looks like a really cruddy deal.

I found it very frustrating to be married to the dagger. Sure, I could throw away a feat and gain proficiency with the longsword, but I would loose a feat plus a +1. In addition, I would not be able to use any of my powers with it.

Has anyone else been frustrated by this? How did you work around it?

Perhaps I have missed it, I admit I have not read the rogue very closely, but where does it say you cannot use a longsword with your various powers?

When I read it, I saw the class bonus to hit and damage for daggers as simply a way to level the playing field between the dagger and the long sword, so that people playing a rogue would not feel forced into take a proficency feat to have a accurate weapon, but could instead stick with the more traditional rogue weapon of dagger.

After all, longswords have that very nice +3 proficency bonus to hit, where as daggers are +2, and the bonus point of damage balances out the larger damage die the longsword gets. (Mostly anyways.)

I did not understand the multi-classing. It seemed you just got one of the other class’s feats.

All of the Fighter’s powers were very ‘front line’ and I liked the Rogue’s powers that allowed CHA to add to damage for obvious reasons. I considered the Warlord, I do not remember why I did not try that.

For the initial Multi-class feat, yes. You gain a trained skill and class power. (It also opens up the other classes paragon paths).

Then, you can spend additional feats to swap out your normal class's powers with powers from your new class.

So if you were a fighter multiclassing into rogue, and wanted that nifty 3rd level encounter power from the rogue, then you spend a feat and would have the rogue encounter power instead of a fighter power. (You are alos not stuck with that power from then on, but can change which power you swap at every time you level up so it will stay current as you level up.)

In total, you can spend up to four feats on multiclassing. The initial feat, and a power swap feat for encounter, daily, and utility powers.

Thanks for the comments, everyone!

George's criticicm surfaced after I (privately) commented on the fact that he was only using his Basic Attack during combat, instead of taking advatage of his various exploits.

Well, I'd like to give George props for keeping his problem with the system from ruining the game for everyone else. That's quite good of him.

If his problem is that he wants a single page for his character sheet, then I think it's just a matter of getting him the right sheet. There's no reason his various exploits cant be written out in an easy fashion on the front page of his sheet. As others have said, precalculating his attacks would make that sort of thing easy to manage, and if he basicly had a list of choices to choose from he'd probably be pretty well off.

Stuff that jumped out at me:

Bloodiron/fey/hellrod: get the pact-specific benefits of a warlock power, even if you dont have that pact.

Now there's a cool idea! Let's you have a bit of both if you like two different warlock paths.

You'd be able to extend that concept to other classes as well. A Tactical warlord with the right banner could get acces to the Inspirering warlord beneifits, and vise versa. The right staff or wand woudl grant the wizard the relative impliment bonus. A very neat idea.

Teiran wrote:

Any new magic weapons or items that really leap out at you?

Neverending Chalk - a stick of chalk that never gets used up and the stuff you write cannot be erased for a week unless you do it yourself.

My next LFR character is going to be a rogue/graf writer. My tag will be all over the Realms.

Now that? Is a damn cool magic item. I always carry colored chalk around with me, and the few times I've used it to mark my way thru a dungeon the DM always rubs them out, washes them away, or changes them on me.

I can see a million uses for this kind of thing, especially using it as a roleplay tool.

"Of course My Lord, I can removed the graffiti insulting the king befor ehis guards get here, but only if you pay us the money you prmosied for the job we did."

So, since my copy of the book is on order but the dear sweet post office will not be getting it to me before Monday, I'd love to hear some more about the Alchemy, rituals, and individual magic items that appear in the book.

Any new magic weapons or items that really leap out at you?

New rituals being introduced? (Besides the very cool enchantment transfer ritual mentiuoned earlier?)

Just looking for some content spoilers really, as waiting sucks.

Then why even have an Alignment? If you are not going to use it a all it is defiantly not needed for roleplaying..

If this is true Most likely if I ever run a 4e game I will take out alignments since they are not needed.

They wanted to remove the game mechanics of alignment, while leaving the roleplaying tool it provides in the game. And yes, Alignment is a roleplaying tool, even if your group does not use it as such.

It's not the greatest tool, and it can be misused, (or lampooned as the Order of the Stick does quite well), but it is a good tool for a begining player.

We're playing our first 4e game in a few weeks and I just rolled my stats in front of the gm.

16, 16, 15, 11, 10, 5

He's going to be fun!

My first choice is a paladin, and second a star pact warlock. Is either a decent, viable possibility with these stats? Do you have any tips on assigning them?

If you can assign those stats to any ability score, you can basicly play any class you like. Each class has two primary and one secondary stat associated with them in 4th edition. Use the 16's as you primaries, the 15 for the seconddary, and drop the 5 into whatever score you feel like roleplaying as low.

A fighter would be Str, Dex, and then Con
a Warlock Cha, Con, and Int,
a Paladins Str, Wis, and Cha, and so on.

Just read the first couple paragraphs of the class and it'll tell you which stats are the most important.

I think it is time for a smaller company, maybe something the size of.. oh I don't know, maybe like Paizo, to buy the D&D label to put some real life back into the game.

As much as I love Paizo? They cannot handle the sheer size of the D&D brand.

No, seriously. This isn't about quality of books, it's about the quantity of books. As in, sheer sales and distrubution numbers. The print run of a Paizo book is signiifcantly smaller then the print run of a WotC book. Orders of magnitude smaller.

While I think Paizo could create the content for the books, they could not provide the sheer logistical backing needed to produce and sell a massive brand like D&D. If they were magically given the D&D brand, they would not be able to support it properly, and it would be very bad for the game.

Out of curiosity, what kinds of magic items did they use? There are some pretty powerful items that a 30th level character could have, and they would probably have significant numbers of the higher end healing potions to get better usage out of their healing surges to make the party's HP last a bit longer.

Just my two cents there.

If you have the DMG for 4th edition, I would recommend reading the inital chapters which deal primarily with how to run a game.

They put a lot of information into the book about how people play roleplaying games and how to be a DM. they give a run down on what the general different styles of play are, the different kinds of players you'll run into, and how to make a game so that everybody is happy.

If you can recognize which kind of player you are, and what your fellow players are, then you can help the DM to craft the kind of game which will make you adn everyone else happy while playing.

Is my idea of roleplaying a response intended to prevent another character death utterly pointless in 4e?

Am I expecting too much from 4e?

Actually, you're making a classic mistake when it comes to roleplaying: You are saying that the group of people you are playing with are playing the only way it is possible to play the game.

4th edition is no different then any other edition of D&D when it comes to role playing. You can have as much or as little of it as you want.

If the people you are playing with tell you "Hey, don't roleplay" then that is their problem, not 4th edition's. That is how this group plays, and if you want more roleplaying then join a group which prefers roleplaying to roll-playing.

Different groups will run the gambit between combat free roleplay where a three page background is required, and the kind of hack and slash dungeon dive where you don't even bother to write a name down on their character sheet.

All of that spectrum is a valid way to play D&D. Not everyone will enjoy playing the game it a certain way, and that's normal.

But you should not assume that because this group thinks talking in character is dumb that this is how you play 4th edition.

A point that goes along with the latter issue is that I feel some facts have been skewed and/or omitted from Realms history to more easily make way for the new. That is why I said 'rewritten'. I could be wrong; I am by no means an expert on FR.

Nor am I really, so I'm not likely to spot direct retcons. I do know that certian things have not been talked about when they discuss the history of certian places, since the book is after all much smaller then the dozens of those that existed in previous editions and there is so many new things to talk about.

I'm not sure if that means those things could say to be rewritten, unless they get specifically mentioned as having not happened, just that those events simply aren't affecting the current setting much because they take place so far back in the past.

It's from a preview. It may have changed but there was much talk that the various Elven and Dwarven pantheons were actually human gods, or the human gods were elven gods but as they're using the human names, I figure it's the other way round. If that hasn't happened and the various members of the Seladrine, etc are all still independent, then that's one of my many complaints gone by the wayside.

Yah, I think they dropped the idea. I haven't seen anything like that, but I'll be looking over the gods section closely tonight to make sure nothing like that has crept in.

And I knew I shouldn't have said anything, or I'd be proved an idiot. *returns to lurking*

No, you should speak up. It's how these preview rumors get dispelled. I mean, if this is what was stopping you from being intrested, it's a good thing you said something. Asking is cheaper then buying a book after all. My responce was snarky because you put it out as fact, instead of what you had heard in a preview, but it was not intended to stop you from posting.

Teiran,
Unless you count the revelation/retcon that all the gods of the elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc. were just masks the human gods wore. Ignoring for a second that this directly contradicts several parts of established FR lore, including several of their latest novels, that could also count as the death of those deities as independent entities.

Ummm... what the devil are you talking about? Can you give me a reference on this in the book so I can read it? Because i have no seen anything about this at all. Or is this something you read in a preview?

The various demihuman gods are not dead, nor did they get merged into the human gods. Grumash, Corelon, Lloth, Mordain, etc are still there in the gods chapter. In fact, I specifically remember the book talking about where the gnomish gods live in the cosmology section.

I might be wrong, since I haven't read the entire book, but I have not seen even a hint of this.

I thought they killed off most of the gods of FR. Have I heard wrong? I'm interested in seeing if more history that I like has been preserved vs. rewritten.

No, they did not kill most of the gods. A dozen or so did die, or dissapear, much like what happened in the Time of Troubles. Many got moved up or down the power ladder, some being demoted all the way to demigods in services of other gods, but for the most part the number of gods is about the same.

And, remember, there were so many gods in the FR pantheons that they were simply overwhelming in number.

As for the history...

None of the history of the realms has changed. The starting year has just been moved forward 100 years, which has been added a considerable amount to what is considered history. The previous history has not been rewritten, everything that happened has still happened. It's just now even farther back in history then it used to be.

With all due respect: Chess is unbalanced? I really don't have an response to that which improves on dumbfounded silence.

I believe that Polaris is trying to make an important point here, because of how system mastery effects D&D, but he hasn’t adequately explained by what he means by ‘unbalanced’ in this context.

Chess, from the stand point of the board alone and within the context of a single game, is perfectly balanced. Both sides are exactly equal.

Step back however, and observe games in the real world, and that appearance of balance disappears. It is an illusion created by the fact that you are looking only at the board and a single game, and not the players as well.

A person who has played hundreds of games, mastered all the intricate strategies, and can think dozens of moves ahead, is going to posses an incredible advantage over a person who has just had the game explained to them. Their mastery of the system upsets the game's balance, and they are heavily favored becuase they can see and choose the most advantages move at all times.

Polaris’s point is that two people playing chess are never on an equal footing unless they possess the same degree of experience with the game. While the rules of the game may be perfectly balanced, the actual way the game plays out can be horribly unbalanced. This is always true in the case in games of skill, and often true in games of chance, such as blackjack, where people can work out the probabilties of the system to improve their odds.

This becomes important to D&D in situations where a choice made at character creation can massively effect the power of the character being created, especially if that leads to imbalnces in party compisition.

If a feat is so much more powerful then the other feats around it, such as power attack is in third edtion, then if one player does not take it but the rest do, then the power of that character is reduced compaired to the rest of the party, and this can lead to significant problems during roleplaying.

Sometimes it is fun to roleplay the weak character, the weak wizard or the foppish bard, who is totally useless and never really assists the party. But that should be a concious choice of a player, agreed upon by the whole group, not the inadvertant effect of how the class and feat systems work in play.

crosswiredmind wrote:

My experience is that combat move swiftly after the first few games. The rounds are much shorter and as the players learn the game, their characters, and the capabilities of the party it really smoothes out.

While I haven't read much of the 4e forums in a long time, this doesn't seem to be the prevailing experience.

Well, then let me give you the expirences of the three groups I know, because we have seen combat smooth out significantly after a few games.

The first game is rough. The first combat takes quite a while, as folks figure out what their options are.

New players have little trouble if they write down each power before hand, including things like charge, grab, etc, giving them a list of actions they can take.

Old hat players have trouble figuring out the changes in the flow of play, as 4th edition has a lot of tactical options that are very different from 3rd edition. (Charging can get you a great distance across the board, shifting greatly changes the way tactical movement works, and the minion/wizard dynamics are very intresting.)

The second game goes much smoother, and faster, as folks get their own powers under control.

By about game four, the players are moving quite quickly thru their turns, as everyone has figured out what their characters can do, and are forming tactical strategies and combinding their powers in rather complex fashions.

Once folks start looking at their powers, and combining them with the powers of people around them, the game becomes very complex and yet extreamly fast since everyone know what they are doing by now, they are just using the tools they know in new ways. (The warlord class has been a huge part of this kind of tactical flow.)

This has been the expirence of the group I am DMing (four players), the group one of my player's is running (six players), and the group running parrallel to ours my circle of friends (five players).

We are all running Keep on the Shadowfell, and advancing through the module at roughly the same speed. In fact, all three groups nearly had a TPK at Irontooth at the kobald caves. In all three cases, the enrage ability the goblin has proved very, very powerful and two of the groups failed to take a short rest between the inside and outside of the caverns, and nearly died because of that alone.

If your players have skipped any encounters going into this fight and are not yet 2nd level, I would suggest removing the enrage power from Irontooth to compensate for the reduced hit points of the group.

David Marks wrote:

Rockheimr wrote:

Heh, I thought those t-shirts sounded hilarious, and in no sense disrespectful to Gary, and I've got one of my friends looking out for one for me as he's a volunteer at GenCon UK from today/tomorrow.

He's a 4e GM btw (presently struggling to find players), so ... see some of my best friends play 4e. :-)

Dude ... I get you really don't like 4E and like to bash on it. Whatever. But people who actually knew Gary were at Gencon, including some of his family.

I don't think its very cool to use someone's death to bash a game system you don't like. Seriously man.

Not cheery. :(

It's an ironic gag, meant in jest, ... though I personally wouldn't wear it outside of my home in case it was taken the wrong way.

Rockheimr, if you wouldn't wear the shirt outside in public, why are you defending it here?

Perhaps the shirt was meant as a joke. That does not change the fact that it is in horrible taste and is seriously disrespectful to Gary so soon after his death.

Just because it's a joke does not mean everyone will find it to be funny. Humor is not always nice or respectful, it is in fact often rude and crude.

And if you would not feel comfortable wearing the shirt in public, then the joke is indeed crude and disrespectful, even if you consider it to be a funny joke. Jokes can be like that, both funny and disrespectful.

(For the record, I was not amused. Nor was the Queen.)

I wonder if there any "permanent" reagents. Something that has the same effect as a black pearl, maybe daily or an encounter use, but isn't consumed. It would have to fill a slot for balance I would imagine.

This is, I think, a very good niche item idea. A more expensive item, and maical focus perhaps, costing perhaps ten or twenty times the normal price, but that can be used once per day like normal magic items.

I've also considered doing something similair for rituals and components. An increased up front cost, but with repeatable beneifits. It would put it outside the cost range of the level for the ritual or reagant being made repeatable, but if a party were to pool their resources they could get a reuseable resource appropriate to their level, or a high level character could get a repeatable low level effect.

I agree. Despite what the nay-sayers may think, 4e strikes me as designed for maximum playability, by players for players. I think the problem arises in that the mechanics seem almost out in the open, intruding into the game world, rather than lying in the background with some in-game justifications and camouflage. (I hope that makes sense.) Either way, I don't think that there is much that can be done about it - it is the nature of the game. Some people can't stomach it, but I probably can (and will have to anyway - my players want to play it).

I think you are right here. Many of the nay-sayers complain about how 'Gamist' the new edition is, as opposed to 'Simulationist'.

I feel this is a pointless arguement, since D&D has never been a good Simulationist system. D&D has never been a acurate simulation of a medieval fantasy world. Perhaps that was what it was intended to be, back in the very begining, but it never acheived that goal. It has always been a Gamist system with a serious Narrativist bent.

In 4th edition, the designers have simply recognized that fact and worked toward that goal. The rules of the game which have always been a part of what D&D is are simply out in the open and talked about more then they used to be.

Breaking the classes into the four roles caused a huge amount of anger, but those roles were always there. As you put it, they were simply lurking in the background. They were camouflaged by the idea of what the classical fantasy adventuring party was. The fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric have always been the archtype of what a party was. Now they are simply described by their roles of defender, striker, controller, and leader.

And they put a serious amount of work into the Narritive style of gaming in the DMG. Things like xp for quests and xp for skill based challenges reduce the combat only portion of the game. Then, they spent pages and pages talking about how you run a roleplaying game. They talked about the different kinds of play styles, and the different types of player. That is a huge improvement in the narritive aspects of the game.

I'm not really sure what your point here is.

His point is simple. Lazaro is kindly reposting the links to the new Dragon and Dungeon articals for those of us who can't check the WotC boards at work, and giving us a topic to dicuss.

Not a big fan of the fluff you've posted here.

Well to each their own, but please don't make it sound like Lazaro should stop posting. He's been preforming a great service to those of us intrested in the material coming out in the DDI.

Of course a Warlock is different from a fighter, but how many different kinds of fighters can you make?

I'm running a 4e game as well and I just don't think the first Player's Handbook comes with enough character options to create more than two different types of each class. This will undoubtedly be solved as more books are published, but right now all you're looking at is "do I want my ranger to cut or shoot?"

This is a fair critism of all new games I'm afraid. It's the sad truth of edition changes and new games, the first few books never have enough options because of space.

I think that this will be more quickly solved in 4th edition then in previous editions because of how much flexibility exists in the new powers system.

If you want to make a new style of ranger, all you have to do is introduce a new At-Will power to form the base of the style, and a new encounter or daily power for each level that builds upon that theme to support that type of ranger through out the levels.

They're already doing so with the Warlock and the new Dark Pact. Each new style won't take up much space, a few pages at most, and would give a enterily new style of Ranger, Warlock, or Fighter.

And since each new style can be mixed with the existing styles, the options for characters within a single class will grow very quickly.

I think trying to suggest that a world with mass transit systems is isolated and fits with points of light is trying too hard to make Eberron and PoL stick together.

Your comments have gotten me thinking a bit about mass transit and points of light, and I wanted to know what you thoughts on this are.

I think that how well the points of light concept fits with a world that includes mass transit and long distance communitcation depends on one factor: How advanced those lines of travel or communication are.

Take the real world example of the American railroad.

In the begining, this was a very limited forms of mass transit. The expense of riding the rails prevented most people from ever getting on them. While it was possible to could cross the country in a train quite quickly, the expense prevented it from becoming a truely mass form of transit.

People who traveled West to seek their fortune were often unable to return home if that fortune did not manifest itself. Even mail took quite a while to get anywhere. It was worth the expense to ship cargo, but it did not really make the world more civilizes, and thus less dark, by doing so.

That kind of situation does create a points of light setting, since while there are communication lines and few safe ways to travel, ribbons of light between points if you will, there are significant uncharted sections of the world that are dark and dangerous.

Now, as the technology advances, the points of light in the frontier will grow brighter, to extend the metaphor, and the lines connecting them grow stronger too. Eventually, there's too much light in the setting, and you no longer have any dark places.

That's when a setting ceases to be points of light because of mass transit and communications, but their very existance does not invalidate the PoL concept. It heralds the death of them in a setting certainly, but you can have both for a while.

ENworld has a list here

Would you be so kind as to repost that list here? Can't get to ENworld while posting on the sly from work...

The "radiant" damage is the real sticking point. If it was weapon damage, it would be a lot more acceptable. Anyway, let's just agree to disagree on this. I think that paladins should be more physical, and their divine abilities should be more subtle. Leave the holy bolts from the sky to clerics, the masters of divine magic.

Well, at least we've gotten at what your real complaint is.

The mechanics and description of the power don't matter, because your problem is that the paladin is using divine magic at all.

Can't really argue with that. That's a purely stylistic judgment about what you think the Paladin class should be. I obviously disagree, but at least now I understand why you're against it.

To avoid this kind of confusion, you might not want to complain about laser beam effects, when what really bothers you is that the paladin is using this kind of magic at all, not how the magic is described or how the power works. You'd do better by saying:

"I dislike that the new paladin's defender power is based upon magic, instead upon martial prowess. The paladin should be more martial then divine, especially since classically they used very little magic, and certainly not offensive magic until high levels."

You get your point across in a clear way that can't really be argued with, and avoid stirring up anger over the way disparaging you describe the power as shooting laser beams. That kind of thing does nothing but tweek those of us who like the new version of the game. Phrasing your arguement in the way I have does not.

I see where you are going with this, and if the description wasn't dealing your charisma as radiant damage, I could see those descriptions working.

Wait, so because it uses Charisma as damage bonus, my descriptions don't work? Are you kidding me?

"Charisma (Cha) measure's your force of personality."

That's a direct quote from the player's handbook. You're telling me that basing the damage bonus off the paladin's conviction invalidates my descriptions of holy fire?

Are you honestly telling me that you can't you imagine any of the description I gave, which are based soley on the faith of the Paladin calling forth the power of his god, as being based upon the Charisma of the Paladin?

Divine challenge can be summed up in one sentence:
"Face me heathen, or suffer the wrath of my god!"

Why do you insist on imaging the wrath of god as voltron style laser beams instead of holy fire or vengeful lightning bolts from heaven?

It still doesn't make sense. If the deity wants to help the paladin protect people, why not just blast all the aggressors instead of that one guy who's not attacking the paladin? It makes no sense. There seem to be a lot of better ways to do this.

Your missing my point. I'm not saying the paladin should be a controller. I'm saying it would make more sense in the context of the game world for the deity to blast the paladin's enemies than to blast one guy because he's attacking the wizard instead of the paladin. This is typical 4E philosphy. A rule doesn't have to make sense. It just has to let the PC fulfill his combat role.

If the marked enemy was weakened or took a penalty to damage, or maybe if the paladin got some kind of a super smite opportunity attack when he attacked someone else, that would make more sense thematically, and he would still be doing his job as a defender.

The point I'm trying to make is that 4E would be a lot more desirable as a role-playing game if they decided to have class abilities and powers that made sense in the context of the game world, fit thematically, and were somewhat grounded in reality.

Nightmare, I think I'm finally understanding why you object so strongly to this power, and I'd like you to try and see my way of thinking on this subject, and indeed the thematics of many of 4th edition's powers.

The paladin’s divine challenge ability is about the paladin confronting a single foe, using his faith as shield for those around him as he confronts an enemy of his god in single combat. That is the theme of this specific power.

It is not about defending a group of people or smiting all the paladin’s foes, such as you describe in the first quote. Those woudl both make excellent paladin powers. That kind of power would be very thematic for a paladin, but that is not what Divine Challenge is about.

Divine Challenge is about the kind of self sacrificing, single combat that a holy knight might engage in to defend others.

Can we agree upon that?

Now, if we agree on that, lets talk about the in-game effects of the power.

Why is having the paladin’s faith harm his foe directly a problem with that theme? If the foe turns his back or attempts to attack the paladin’s comrades, the paladin smites him for his cowardly actions, doing damage to his foe.

That seems very thematic for a divine knight to me. How the paladin does that smiting is left vague, and that is intentional design choice which has been built into the edition as a whole.

I think this may be the problem you have with many of 4th editions powers. The exact visual effects and in game rational of most powers in fourth edition have been left intentionally vague.

The game mechanics have been detailed out, but who a character performs the power in game has been left vague to give the DM and players leeway in what the in-game world effects of a power are.

The DM can describe a particular power in whatever way best fits the setting. A general version is given in the power description, but the little fluff pieces are not the set in stone example of how the power must work in your particular game world, or even to your particular character. Fourth edition intentionally does not pin these things down because they want you, the DM, to be able to create the world you desire.

You keep saying "blast" and "shooting laser beams" like the only way the paladin could be doing that damage is holding up his hand and shooting energy beams at the monster. But that is not the only way the power can be described. There are a dozen different ways you could describe how the damage is being dealt, and you as the DM can chose the one that fits your game world best.

One paladin might indeed shoot a beam a light at his foe.
Another could call down fire from the heavens.
A paladin third might do nothing visible; while their god's dark power destroys the creature from the inside.

You can describe the way the paladin deals damage as a quick sword stroke that can't be dodged, where the paladin’s sword glows with holy power. The description would be just like an attack of opportunity that never missed, which is one of your examples.

None of these descriptions change the mechanical effect of the power, but it allows you to build a theme for each paladin that is vastly different based upon whether the paladin serves a Sun, Fire, Shadow, or War god.

The damage type remains radiant damage, because it's a divine attack, but the color and form of that radiance, the effects that cause it, are all left up to the DM and the player to describe.

This allows you to form a distinct theme for each faith. Crackling black energy, glowing white light, fiery red vengeance, all of them could count as radiant damage without changing how that damage effects people mechanically.

While I hate to do it, I feel I should put up a cursory defense of the Points of Light for Eberron.

Look to Droaam, the Eldeen Reaches, the Demon Wastes, Xen'drik, all these places have some civilization in them, yet they are also home to untamed wilderness and dangers. In these cases I can see how an arguement could be made for Points of Light, but in the end I feel that it is overwhelmed by the inter-connectivity of the rest of the world, and is really more of a sidebar notation than a theme for the setting.

The Points of light work very well for Ebberon. Yes, there are some very big civilized areas that people have fully explored and settled, but there are significant fronteeir ranges between those sections and on edges of the world. And even though people know what's there, the threat of war looming and the remains of the previous war are everywhere. It's not safe to go into some places because of the worlds history.

Very well, how would you work points of light in sharn, arguably Eberron's flagship city. Home to a hundred and one film noir story lines and vicious gangsters?

Easy! Lord, Sharn conforms to the points of light concept more then most of the world of Ebberon does. You just have to think of it in the right scale.

Now, instead of using a wilderness frontier world map, you're using just a city map. The important places like cities on the frontier map become important buildings instead. In a fog filled, noir setting like Sharn every street lamp becomes a point of light. Every bar is a setting to explore, and every dark alley is a dangerous forest with monsters in it.

In a setting like Sharn or Waterdeep, you never know what's around the next corner. You have a map, sure, and you know the street names, much like you'd know the names of river on a wilderness map, but chances are you won't know what is actually in more then one or two buildings on each street.

That's how how a setting like Sharn becomes points of light, as your character explores more of the city and meets more people, they fill in the map just like you would in a frontier setting. The scale is just different.

That is a good answer. I just was wondering if this is the case since if I was to order 4E I would go with a company like Amazon or B&N to get the best price, and not with Paizo since I really wouldn't owe them any loyalty if I didn't like their products. I was more wondering how he found his way here is all.

Well, as someone who is for 4E all the way and not a fan of the Pathfinder setting, I can give you a reason why I'd buy from Paizo.

I like Paizo the company. I started buying because of the Age of Wyrms AP, which was some of the best adventure design I'd ever seen and one of the most fun campaigns I ever got to DM.

From there, I grew to like the way Paizo does business, and I really enjoy the feeling I get from buying from them. I nearly laughed myself sick the first time I had to call their customer support line and heard their recorded messages. (If you have not done so before, call them and listen to the customer service department's answering machine. It's well worth it.)

That kind of touch makes a customer loyal to a company, even if their in house products are no longer for me. I've always believed in putting my money where my mouth is, so I buy board games and such from Paizo instead of a local gaming store, as I have no 'freindly' local gaming store that is nearly as nice as Paizo has been in the past.

That feeling of community and loyalty has been... strained since the Pathfinder announcement, when the forums turned into a flaming pit of doom from which no information could escape. I know it's not fair to the folks at Paizo, but these boards have put a real strain on the feeling of community that makes me a Paizo customer.

The folks from Paizo themselves have been good about the edition change. It's not for them, and they can't do business under the current GSL, and I'm sorry that's the case. I understand their reasons, they are valid ones, even if I'd prefer they had chosen to convert. But they haven't been nasty about it in the same way some posters have been, and they've tried to keep this board welcoming. Their reactions have been why I've stayed, even when the anti-4E flame wars make it hard to feel welcome here.

Anyway, babbling now! That's my reason for buying from Paizo, and I'm sure others feel that way too.

If it is updated it could be useful.

I do hope they keep the database up to date with the new monsters and NPC's they print. It would make the tool much, much more useful.

I noticed Irontooth, the special goblin NPC, was in there, and that was pretty cool. I would be very impressed if they put all the named NPC's from their adventures into there, so that people can use themin home brew encounters.

Okay. I did a little more research. LoD provides that alliances are conceivable, at least for the Kivar, which is one caste of the Kir-Lanan:

[info from Lords of Darkness snipped for space]

Of course, this reinforces my concern that the Kir-Lanan might ally with Shar, but not serve her. WotC appears to shift the Kir-Lanan around to actually devote them to her, unless I'm missing something. If I'm right, then WotC has shifted the Kivar's principles to be that of all Kir-Lanan. 100 years. Okay. But to then have the Kivar shift their principles? Maybe they were too dim-witted and Shar smirks at how she's twisted them to her ends? Not too far-fetched, I suppose. They may have underestimated her power. And any opposing castes of Kir-Lanan may have been driven off or exterminated.

Also, you should consider that so much time has past that the generation shift of the Kir-Lanan followers woudl change their oputlook.

Because the Kir-Lanan were born out of a specific tragedy, the Time of Troubles, the beleifs and devotion of the people in their ranks is going to change over time as the Time of Troubles moves farther and farther into the past.

As the generation of people who remember the ToT clearly dies, the new generations will base their devotion to the destruction of the gods on other reasons, most likely personal reasons that match up with the overall goal of the movement or a hereditary grudge handed down from their forebearers.

As you put it, the Kir-Lanan are blaming and despising the deities for their tortured existence. Over time, and with Shar's corrupting influence thru their alliance, that anger at the gods could be twisted into a begrudging belief or even full acceptance of Shar's tenets regarding loss and revenge after a few generations.

Shar is the most likely god to subvert a group like this, since her beleifs promise vengance for what happened, justification for the evil they do making because of the loss they have suffered, and she and her clergy is already seeking to destroy the other gods.

You are right, even allying with a Goddess such as Shar would go against the core of what makes the Kir-Lanan who they were 100 years ago. But over time the group would change, simply because the people in charge would die and new leaders woudl take their place over time, and Shar coudl easily become the one goddess they exempt from their destructive goals because of who she is as a goddess.

So what about rolling multiple dice as weapon damage? Is this not a viable tactic in 4th Edition? Does a weapon's damage die have to be ONE die?

3d4 for example has a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 12 - I think this replicates the brutal effect nicely.

While it's true that you're mimicing the range for the attack, you're in no way mimicing the spread of that damage. Rerolling gives you an equal change for 3 thru 12, while a 3d4 highly favors the center of the range, ensuring you'd see 7's and 8's much, much more often then a 3 or 12.

Now, my question is this. Why is this a problem? I mean, rerolling damage on a 1 and 2 isn't that big a time sink. You pick up the dice and you drop it again. 1 extra second, 2 tops.

Even if everybody at the table has one of these weapons, it's not like the reroll comes as a surprise. Everybody knows what happens when they roll a 1 or 2, and just do it. There's no thought involved, no complicated math.

Unless your player does a complicated interprative dance as part of rerolling, I don't see this adding much time to any fight.

Also the implementation of the Bag of Tricks was interesting. A Minor action to command your critter to do something (ie, take a Standard, Move, or Minor itself) or else it effectively does nothing. Intriguing.

Cheers! :)

I suspect this is going to be the standard way to control summoned creatures or animal companions. They've had several powers that summon pets which do things when you spend a minor action.

Since you're limited to no more then three minor actions per turn (or four if you use an action point), this provides a very nice limiting effect to how many summoned creatures a person can use at any one time.

David Marks wrote:

Do you think Undead should be immune to other mind-affecting attacks? What about attacks that deal Psychic damage exclusively?

Depends on the undead. If it's mindless, a psychic attack probably isn't going to find anything to 'damage.'

A Lich should definitely be affected by a psychic attack.

That's a arguement waiting to happen, basing this sort ofthing on the mental capacity of the undead involved. In a lot of settings, the mindless undead are supposed to be the corpse of a person reanimated by their spirit dragged back to the world of the living through terrible magic.

There's often a soul powering undead, even if the magic used is such that the undead are so stupid as to be effectively mindless. Sometimes it is the soul of the person who died, sometimes it is evil spirits from another world. If you make this house rule, you had better be prepaired for a rules lawyer to argue that Psychic damage is attacking that powering spirit.

In fact, if you're talking about intelligent undead like a vampire or lich, then you're losing ground on the Sleep issue too. These are undead which once did have a sleep cycles, and their mental make up still includes things like that. They might not be sleeping reguarly anymore because their a corpse, but it does make sense that magic could force them mentally back into that state. In the case of vampires, they often sleep during the day in their coffin depending upon the particular world we are talking about.

I think this is why Sleep affects everything, but things like poison don't. Every creature, be they a construct or undead, have a state which can be considered 'off' or asleep. constructs go dormant, undead just look like corpses on the floor, waiting until an adventurer comes along.

The magic used in a Sleep spell forces them into that state, but poison or suffication actually requires living processes and so undead are still granted immunity. The undead, constructs, and the various demons and devils in the game woudl not normally go thru a sleep cycle, but that doesn't mean it's unreasonable to think they could be forced into one by magic.

Something to note is you can still cure someone using Healing Word even if they are out of Healing Surges. Instead of their Surge value, they only heal 1 HP, however, so you heal a substantial bit less.

Cheers! :)

But, the power would still give the 1d6 + Cha bonus hit points, and that makes the healing word spell quite useful even once a party has run dry on the healing surges.

It would require a more significant rest then normal, but if the party can't rest a full eight hours but could perhaps wait one hour or even half and hour, you'd be able to get a lot of hit points back.

I'm sure there will be some crunch in the Campaign Setting and some fluff in the Player's Guide, but I believe the intention is to minimize the bleed over.

Good, I wasn't saying a bad job is done (as I haven't seen the books), just that the *possibility* of packing too much crunch in all books to make them attractive would be a bad idea. Especially given that the new format is more or less economic for dealing with monsters (in that, 4e is a pretty good improvement: stat blocks are quite small and most of the extended text is actually tactics for running the monsters and Knowledge elements).

Likely, the crunchy bits you will find in the campaign setting book will be the new monsters and other DM related material, while the Player's guide will have all the new powers, classes, feats, magic items, etc.

That seems to be the general trened of things for the new edition.
One type of book written for the players, to encourage all the players to buy a copy, and another type written for the DM.

The rules for using this, and all other encounter powers outside of a normal combat, are quite simple.

You can use any power at any time. Encounter powers recharge after a short rest. A short rest is any five minutes in which the player is not fighting, casting a ritual, or generally engaging in an encounter (Such as a skill challenge).

That means if you wanted to and had the time, the cleric can use healing word over and over again, taking a half hour break before moving on to the next room of a dungeon and boosting the healing potential of the entire party.

A paladain can like wise heal NPC's who have no more remaining healing surges through the lay on hands power, because that uses up the paladain's heaing surge not the person it's used on if I remember correctly.