Defense was never really a consideration for the Horde. Sure Gabe could soak up a lot of damage but given our primary tactic of run straight in and start hitting things, any consideration of playing to traditional roles of striker, tank, leader or what have you went pretty much out the window in favour of trying to hit the enemies with as many bits of the scenery as possible. I think once your party consists of a triple-class halfling and a warforged bard, you're best off just watching your own back and hoping you're entertaining enough not to get killed for a laugh by one of the others.

Looking at the various character classes available, apart from Paladins and Fighters, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of defensive classes anyway. Most of the things on there seem essentially either wizardy or attacky and fragile, although I admit I have no idea what an Artificer does and we've had loads of fighters and paladins so far (Proportionately of course). I guess a Bullywug Assasin would be like that toad dude from X-Men, that'd be pretty funny and there's not nearly enough using of the rules for swinging on chandeliers and shit going on at present. I had high hopes for LeHah pulling off some Errol Flynn-esque swashbuckling but we all saw how that panned out.

Heh, after you got all pally with the orcs in the stronghold, maybe he should go with an Orc Watchman?

From a story point of view, no sane orc would join up with us after what happened to Voshnak and his compatriots :)

A Minotaur would be rather funny, given the name of the current adventure (and unless the minotaur's undead, Pang will have a difficult time explaining the creature's entrance.). Choosing a Gnoll would likely push discomfort levels of remaining party members to the stratosphere, from a role-playing point of view.

Cal would probably be extremely uncomfortable partnering with bugbears, bullywugs, gnolls, kenkus, kobolds, and wildens, given his predilection with harvesting internal organs of animals (and duergars).

I'll be most upset if someone else plays a minotaur before I get back in (Sometime in 2015). Actually, I'll get over it and just pick something else stupid instead (A fat, goblin bererker for example).

I know we're a little late in the game to be asking this, but why didn't you guys rest after the last ridic fight?

Can't. You can only take one extended rest every 12 hours :(

Besides we entered this battle with almost full resources (Garr used an item power and forgot to heal all damage). It's a combination of Pang's double-damage and hot dice rolls that's killing us...

Oh now I've never actually even TRIED to enforce the 12-hour rule and you know it.

It wouldn't have changed a thing, regardless.

Yeah, too bad I'm either doing Aegis of Ensnarement or Assault, and I'm leaning more towards Assault for fun character reasons.

While on the topic: if we happen to stay around until level 11, we only get one paragon path, right?

Oh, you weren't the one who was enforcing it, Pang :)

I wish to ask about those obstructions in the chapel. Are those (quite thin) walls? Is it possible to hide in H14, for example?

Secondly, I understand the chapel has no source of illumination. Is there a way for Cal to capitalize on that (say, attack from a position of stealth, or from a position where he can't be seen, which would presumably grant combat advantage?)

Yeah, those are thin masonry walls in the chapel area, you could definitely take cover there but I wouldn't expect it to take much abuse.

The combat stealth rules are a bit too complex for me to summarize here, but the short answer is, "yes, with quite a few caveats".

Yup.

Okay, so I guess I'll ask a specific stealth question then.

In real life, it is preposterous, but rules as written, apparently I can attack a creature at B15 from H15, though it has cover. Since we won't be able to see each other (blocked by huge ass wall if you draw a line from the center of my square to the enemy square - so for all intents and purposes we are "stealthed" from each other), does such an attack gain combat advantage, and cancel out the -2 penalty from cover?

Okay, um.

A: You can't attack something you can't see. Period. (In the case of, say, invisible creatures, you would attack the space that you think it's in.)

B: Even if you could see B15 from H15 (if the wall were transparent, say), there's no line of effect from point to point. Cal has no way to get an arrow from one place to the other.

C: Even if he COULD (let's assume he's Oliver fucking Queen and has a rubber arrow that will bounce off walls), Gnasc would get a +5 superior cover bonus from the huge-ass wall.

D: But yes, if you did have a crystal ball to tell you where Gnasc is, and you did have a rubber arrow, Cal would indeed benefit from stealth on that attack, reducing Gnasc's benefit from this convoluted position to a mere +3.

Okay. I thought that if you can do the draw lines from corner to corner thing (lines parallel to walls not being obstructed), then you can attack :tpg:

Alrighty, for something less preposterous. According to the PHB, if I want to hide from Framarth, I make stealth checks, opposed by Framarth's passive perception, at the end of every move action, correct?

So, suppose I move to H17, and beat his check. Would such a situation grant a stealth bonus to attack rolls for this turn? (I understand that once you attack, you lose your stealth status.)

Yes.

Guys you can edit your posts all you want up until the point that I post in there on my turns. If you fuck up you can fix it, 's cool.


So Acer are you delaying, or...

I'm working on something. Also we've been discussing a whole hell of a lot what we're doing this round so lots of deliberation and yeah.

Jesus. 109 HP. Devil dead, and Gnasc likely close to dying as well.

Cal hereby bestows his nice shiny achievement to the small bear:

http://www.ddwiki.saxypunch.com/imag...fivemortal.png

_________

Just for kicks, I decided to try out D&D Insider for a month. I understand that there has been no available Character Builder patch for December 2009. If you would like to help leak it, please unhide the section below.

**Hidden Content**

ACER BANDIT YOURE MY HERO

I've not really been around much lately, so i'm a little late to this conversation, but i can change my character to be a tank or something if Garr goes down and Zeph chooses something else. It's not like my decision from over a year ago is set in stone.

That's still fine. Assault Swordmagi get to occupy enemies, and punish them for not attacking the swordmagi via their Aegis of Ensnarement. Sounds like a sticky defender to me :)

Totally playing around with options. Wintertouched seems abusable, especially with the Frigid Blade at-will. Also, Character Builder's AUTO options need better AI. For example, it chose stupid feats like crossbow proficiency and far shot on an assault swordmage. Plus it somehow allocated 14 skill points to charisma :/ I didn't define a race, so it auto-selected a duergar, which may not be stupid but is really ironic given the current storyline :)

I have not even looked at Paragon tier options. I seriously doubt Cal will survive to see level 11, notwithstanding that as a ranged coward, he has the highest chance among current party members to remain alive. But I guess you can only get one - might be overpowering to get more right, especially if you start multiclassing?

God bless you, little bear.

If anyone can give me a confirm/deny on whether Zerg's December patch works, I'll be very grateful; we need a solution to this problem ASAP. The January patch is out Tuesday and judging from the reaction to Acer's post the battle (and the transition to level 6) won't be long after. If we can't get an illicit patch working I'll just share my account with the remaining four of you this month.

I can't thank Zerg enough for actually caring enough about the game to lay down cash to help make things work.

Oh yeah, sure. The Future Character Predictor is just there as a reminder. Don't feel like you're locked into anything, folks.

Additional Spam:
holy crap you guys shouldn't just assume Gnasc is an elite just because Zerg says he is, there is so much wasted damage here I can't even

But Pang, you told me Garr bloodied him.

This happened when he had [12 + 4 + 13 + 29 =] 58 damage in total. After Gheth's attack, he had 29 damage and was unbloodied, so he has more than 58 HP. I guess the range goes from 60 to 116, substantially more than the typical gnoll claw fighter of 46. That's why I assumed he's an elite :(

Otherwise Tyranny of Fire would have gone towards Framarth's throat. I guess in retrospect I shouldn't have requested Garr to change his attack, huh? Killing the Claw Fighter would have given him 5 temp HP.

Okay how's about you retroactively make Framarth not an elite (if he was one) and Gnasc the elite instead :3:

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and just apply the Villain's Menace to Claw Fighter B, which is still massive overkill but makes more sense than having Garrmondo whack a bunch of mangled corpses. Everything works now and the time-space continuum is preserved. Whew.

Presumably things would have made more sense if Gordok had delayed, which I specifically asked if he was doing. Answers to questions about whether Garr did so-and-so cease to be accurate when new things intercede before Garr's turn actually occurs.

When I say an attack bloodied somebody I don't clarify how much of the damage was needed to bloody it. If something has a total of 40 HP and somebody does 35 damage to it, I'll say it was bloodied. This should not be considered an invitation to assume the enemy has 70 HP.

In that case, Pang, Cal has nothing to shoot at. Unless the minion or the remaining Devil decides to waltz in the room, I would like to delay my turn until after the Gnoll Claw Fighter moves.

And actually, I think Gordok has delayed until after Garrmondo moved. The only way he could stand up and shift as a single move action is when someone's standing on his square.

Well uh I guess he will have to deal with just getting the shift from his Change Shape because as much as I do try to streamline things for you guys I'm not about to interpret delays into everyone's turn explicitly to make each of you as efficient as possible. :psyduck:

ok that came off a little pissier than intended