Zerg's been roleplaying harder than anybody

The role he's playing is basically Ed Gein

But it's a role he is very dedicated to :(

Additional Spam:
4E IS RIDICULOUS UPDATE:

YOU MAY NOW SUMMON A GELATINOUS CUBE AS A FAMILIAR

GROW HIM TO GIANT SIZE

AND RIDE HIM

Can we buy it as a mount? :)

Not normally.

But, since a non-domesticated gelatinous cube will promptly engulf you and melt the flesh from your bones —

I am making an exception for you.

What self-respecting merchant will sell things that will kill his lucrative customers? :tpg:

But eh, what do we have to do (or be) to summon domesticated familiars? Is it a new class, or is it a feat that is available to martial Rangers?

It's an arcane thing, actually.

A duergar merchant, such as the one running the trading post in the Seven-Pillared Hall.

Wheels within wheels, my friend. Wheels within wheels.

I see. I look forward to meeting him after smashing up his Horned Hold home then!

Also, perchance where is this summoning a familiar thing documented? Is it in PHB3?

Just a fair heads up — in the interest of speeding up combat in the future, all enemies will be modified from their stock versions as follows:

Monster HP reduced by 1/3
Monster damage increased by 1 die

For example, the Duergar Scout normally has 48 HP, and does 1d8+4 damage with his crossbow. Under this new houserule, a Duergar Scout will have 32 HP and deal 2d8+4 damage with his crossbow.

This should help to make fights go significantly faster, while preserving (or potentially increasing) the relative lethality of individual combats.

Sorry to change such a major dynamic at this late date but the sheer duration of that last fight was a pretty big indicator that something had to give.

I guess the game is just on hiatus until January, or...

Additional Spam:
I believe familiars were initially documented in Arcane Power.

Don't keep me in suspense till January.

Let me open that blasted box already .__.

BTW can't say I'm a fan about increased monster damage with the prospect of decreased monster HP. It's certain to make battles against hordes (like the Hargast one) fairly lethal to the PCs. And of course if you use minions, then we don't even get the HP trade-off.

I don't have any clue of how D&D battles pan out in the Paragon and Epic tiers, but it seems to me that this sort of adjustment is a double-edge sword. At the higher levels, it will really speed up battles to have hundreds of HP lopped off your enemies, while the addition of a damage die will not boost damage that much. The opposite is true at the lower levels.

However, I'm fairly sure this will be a popular choice to the bystanders here - I certainly would be gloating if I were one :3:

Eh, minions almost always do a flat amount of damage anyway: there's no dice there to double. A level 1 goblin does 1d6+2; a level 1 goblin minion just does 4.

Can you make it three dice just for the SHEER AWESOME INTENSE SWEETNESS

Because I'm all for it.

Hilarious as it might be, I'm not sure it would be good for the long-term viability of the game to induce an instant TPK whenever an enemy with an area attack rolled a crit.

In all honesty, in the interests of balance but at the same time being speedier.

If HP is down by 1/3rd, perhaps a better counter instead of a static die increase is increase the damage die by one class? 1d8 because 1d12, oh god a 1d12 becomes a 1d20?

2d8 has better average damage than 1d12, though (let alone 1d10 which would actually be the next class up), and 2d12 has better averages than 1d20.

Your idea is the opposite of speedier.

Why not just increase the enemy damage by 33%?

Seriously. Cut their health by 33%, increase their damage (after dice roll and bonuses) by 33%. Fair is fair (since your duergar scout example increases his damage by 53%, from an average 8.5 to 13).

Zerg why do you keep arguing fairness with someone who openly wants to kill you :(

Additional Spam:
Also adding 33% to every single damage roll on the fly is a pain in the ass

But... But you said you're harsh but fair. :(

Yeah, which is why I was nice enough to alert you guys about my new plan to kill you faster.

Fair!

http://www.hisbranch.com/images/speechless.gif

**Hidden Content**

Don't open that door Skex. It's a TRAP :(

If it's a trap then you should let Gordok open it. He loves setting those off. :)

On the topic of retraining: are we going to be doing the 1 skill per level thing, or is it basically an excuse to respec all feats/skills?

1 substitution per level, except as:

You have some useless power/feat that you've never used, never intend to, and didn't ask for (ergo, I put it on your sheet and then you ignored it).

Then you can also swap that shit out in addition to your once-a-level retraining since I don't want people to be saddled with useless crap they had absolutely no say in (which is why you have Spiritual Weapon instead of whatever it was).

Okay, that's cool.

By the way, thank you to Skills for putting up the character builder. I would have just followed the PHB otherwise and wouldn't have even known about some of these abilities.

On another note, Avenger looks like sweet nectar to me. I haven't even finished a campaign yet and I'm already thinking about my next char.

You guys should totally just set the elemental free, what's the worst that could happen?

Shame you never really got into a proper conversation with the mysterious wizard-esque chap you met looooooong ago near the start of the adventure, it's probably his elemental.