D&D Arena Signups and Discussion
 

Welcome to GFF D&D Arena, where two gladiators team up and duke it out with all sorts of creatures for gold, glory, and girls! The Arena is a dangerous place. And this is made even more so by the two-character limit (which may change as I get more comfortable with managing greater numbers).

Gladiators, Past, Present and Future

1. Shin - "Ivory", Longtooth Shifter Cleric retired
2. a lurker - "Ebony", Kobold Ranger retired
3. Rychord - "Smothas Bigraks", Dragonborn Paladin
4. Pangalin - "Cyrus Von Brandt", Half-Elf Storm Sorceror
5. Randi
6. Helloween
7. CetteHamsterLa

2 Player Arena - PvP

1. NinjaGuyDan

5 Player Dungeon Delve

1. Rychord

Well, your intentions were noble. :(

I guess they prefer your experience, superior maps, complete campaigns, and better wit to my brand of tyranny :(

For me the excitement was new and creative tactics brought about by changing circumstances. That all goes away if you're battling on the same map over and over. Also two players, it really just limits your tactical options.

How bout if we make it PvP? :33:

I'd be up for it

Yeah you might want to do more than a 2 man party. But you can balance it by not only doing one fight but maybe like a series of five fights or something, or a little mini-dungeon, or something like that. Obviously there will be kinks that need to be ironed out.

Gee. I can't think of why people would be hesitant to play in a game run by zerg.

O yeah.

He's a fun rapist.

Seriously Zerg. Loosen the tie a bit. It's D&D.

Well I reckon it'd be fun, although I'd do it more in terms of exponentially harder fights until everyone's actually dead. It was me who suggested parties of two, the reasoning being the game would have quite a high turnover and people might want to buddy up to challenge the current best streak, plus contrary to what Radez said, it opens up millions of tactical options. Each game is a quick sprint, you're not developing characters here so much. I thought it might be fun to try out a load of different combinations of characters, see whether a balance of magic and swords would work, or take a tank and a healer and try to tough it out, or two barbarians and blitz through.

You people are all so negative sometimes. :(

Put me on the list Zerg, anyone want to team up with me?

Alas, Shin. I guess nobody wants to play an arena game.

All right, suppose we change this into a dungeon delve? Basically, a team of five players traipse through a mini-dungeon, going through three battles. Once you beat it, that's it.

So... just to twink out a bit, Level 2 characters? And 752 gp to buy anything you wish.

Takers? :)

I would be willing to play, but I'm not so sure I have the D&D rules down pat much, especially not 4th edition. I'll try and brush up on them in the next little while and report back when I'm comfortable enough with the rules.

If anyone happens to have a good starting place for such an education, I would be grateful, but it's no biggie otherwise as I'll surely find enough info on my own eventually.

I have links to all the D&D handbooks in the OP of the D&D Discussion thread if it helps, Rychord. I'd suggest just winging it usually, but I suppose with Zerg at the helm it probably is necessary to get a grip on things first.

I'll play with Shin's idea of the two-man challenge against crazy hard enemies.

I'll go and check it out, it should probably be enough since I don't think I'm going to be producing any completed hybrids for the time being anyway. Thanks!

I guess I'll take the next rotation with whoever is brave enough to try and break through Zerg's Matrix of Doom.

So what awesome team of awesome should we go for?

I would say a couple of priests, but you did that last time. We certainly don't want to go with anything too sensible though. I quite fancy being one of those frog things, Bullywugs is it?

Edit: Whatever we pick, can we be one black dude and one white dude called Ebony and Ivory?

This is acceptable provided only that one of you is a hotshot young rookie who doesn't play by the rules, and the other is a grizzled veteran who's only three days from retirement and is too old for this shit.

I think it would be in keeping with the intended high-lethality (and low-practicality) of the format just to generate your PCs completely at random, though.

Chocodecide says a Kobold Ranger and a Longtooth Shifter Cleric. I'd suggest the shifter be the old, black guy, who is of course called Ivory, making the Kobold a young, brash white dude called Ebony.

Let's do this shit.

You played an old cleric last time lurker so if you're happy with the team choices, I'll take Ivory.

Fuck yes. Shin I am so down. I'll be K-dawg, wiggering this the fuck out, ya feel me?

PEACE

Do either of you two actually have any idea how to generate a character though?

Anyways by the time you kill off these two SAUS should be winding down so I'll have to time to play Round 2 with Rychord I guess.

COUNT ME IN!

Not that I know what I'm really doing, but this can't be too terribly complicated, right?

Not really! Master Pang will surely yell at me if I do something unfair!

Basically this is the battle portion of Dungeons & Dragons. Think World of Warcraft and you'll probably be fine. (If you want the full monty, Pang's own campaign has it all.)

Bare minimum is for you to choose a race and a class. Then during Battle, you just say "I attack Enemy X with Attack Y while moving to square Z." I can roll for you.

But of course I'll prefer it if you go to the trouble of optimizing characters. That way I can throw in more interesting enemies with a clear conscience!

Of course not.

Okay then. You chose a ranger, currently my specialty. There are four types: guy who's purely bow and arrows, a guy who dual-wields swords, a cross between the first two, and a guy who uses an animal companion in battle. Which one would you rather be? (Or do you want to be surprised? Your choice of kobold with its dexterity bonus is better suited for long-range attacks)

Or, you could always let Pang outfit you. That's cool too.

Ebony (Kobold Ranger), played by a lurker

I'm probably going to be heading down the Dragonborn Paladin path since it seems to be a simple enough class choice with a good amount of physical abilities, yet it has a bit more complexity than a fighter so it will still allow me to learn more aspects of the game more quickly. I'll try to figure out the intricacies of rolling a character before my rotation starts. Hope this choice works with you, Pang.

Quick question: The player's handbook doesn't list Lawful Evil or Chaotic Good as alignment choices. Is this because they've been taken out of the game or simply because they are listed in a more advanced part of the guide? The evil divinities are not elaborated on as much (readers are referred to the dungeon master's guide for longer descriptions), so maybe these alignments are also covered in that book?

I think they've been removed from 4e. You could always play an evil paladin if you wish. Just hope that Pang doesn't play a good-aligned character in that case...

Well, an evil paladin probably wouldn't be the best choice for an actual adventure, but for the purpose of the arena (unless you've got some surprise moral dilemnas for the players :p) it shouldn't be too much of a problem. After all, an evil character won't have any second thoughts about charging head first into a bloodfest!

Ebony K-dawg gon' be thug. Gimme dual-wield.

Likewise, I have no clue whatsoever about character generation. Given the hard bitten, nearly retired, grouchy old black dude nature of the character, I think a banishing evil type priest rather than a kindly healing type priest would be the best bet. As he's a werewolf, I see him as a guy who's spent his life trying to banish other evil monster types to atone for his own sins by slaying the fuck out of them. Should probably have a hand crossbow for neck-cracking bad-guy sniping, needs to be rubbish at hand to hand combat but make him wise as fuck. Also has several unfeasibly young children who get kidnapped a lot and definitely aren't allowed to sleep with the Kobold.

Now seems the ideal time to repost this:

http://www.gamingforce.org/staff/Shi...ehahweapon.JPG

These seem to be pretty much in line, I'll do up proper wiki sheets later.

The basic idea here is that if Ebony manages to miss then one of you fucked up somewhere.

Oh wait shit Zerg already put a sheet up well I'll just leave these here if anybody wants them.

Alignment has been consolidated pretty heavily. Both Lawful and Neutral Evil are now under the heading of regular ol' Evil, and Chaotic and Neutral Good are both simply Good.

The only direct mechanical impact of alignment in 4E is which gods you can worship, so don't stress it much. :shrug:

Looks pretty spot on to me, Pang, although I of course haven't read any of the detail on the powers yet but the names certainly look cool! Do shifters change into furries whenever they want or just on full moons? If it's the latter, can we make the campaign start at dusk on the full moon so it's a desperate battle against time before Ivory goes wolf AND FOR NO REASONABLE REASON STAYS THAT WAY FOREVVVVAAAAAAAARRRRRR?

They only get all Teen Wolf when they get bloodied. Which, as a non-melee guy, shouldn't usually happen to you. INTERNAL CONFLICT.

Oh ok, lends itself to a suitably dramatic getting hit then going postal moment though.

I can't wait to cradle your broken body in my arms, promising that I'll tell your wife that you love her, and finally peeling back the childish fronts that I've put up in order to protect my heart from breaking.

ONLY THREE DAYS AWAY FROM RETIREMENT

Okay, I guess Pang's ranger build is closer to what lurker wants to do. I guess since he's left them blank, I'll just do the Level 4 skill increase choices on the primary and secondary attributes...

Oh my lord, look at the bonuses to hit on that ranger build.

I'm down with that. I'm stronger in that one anyway.

Certainly more flexible, yes, since you can easily abuse your two at-wills in a combo that give you insane to-hit bonuses. Never mind Shin's bonus-granting at-wills.

I bow to Pang's optimization-fu and look forward to seeing him create an endless attack spam chain for his own character!

Character Sheets:
Shin - Ivory, Longtooth Shifter Cleric
a lurker - Ebony, Kobold Ranger

Well, I guess gimme a few hours to finalize stuff and start the thread!

Fuck yes we are going to be the best team ever.

Unless of course Zerg is a git and just throws things at us that can only be hurt by necrotic attacks or something.

Alas, while that indeed sounds rather inviting, I cannot find any monsters at an appropriate level which is vulnerable to only one element :mad:

Additional Spam:
You're leaving a threatened square. That would normally trigger an OA (say, if Ivory attempts it), but happily your "Flank on the Run" feat lets you move around (though not away from) an enemy without fear.

Quick question about my Astral Seal power. Where it says regain an additional five hitpoints, how exactly? I mean, from the description it looks like the attack lowers the defences of whatever it hits, then if lurker hits the same dude she gets back 9hp (2 +2 for charisma +2 for symbol of shared healing). Am I reading that right?

Also how are you working out the damage those longswords did to me? It looks like I got hit by all three but you didn't roll for damage implying a standard damage amount but 16 doesn't divide by 3 last time I checked.

Edit: Oh wait, one missed. So do they do a standard 8 damage per hit?

Clerics have a class feature called Healer's Lore, which adds their Wisdom bonus to Healing powers. So if Lurker hits whatever you mark with your Astral Seal, she gains 2 + your CHA mod (2) + your WIS mod (5).

Ah, I see, cheers.

Zerg, you never rolled for my first gaze of defiance damage either. It says it does 1D8+7 on the card and +9 vs will means I easily hit it with an 8. I'll do my own rolls normally if I remember, I was just in a bit of a rush this morning.

Edit: With the +2 for running it was actually 2+ to hit on that last attack, way to roll a 1, Shin.

Wait I'm confused. Is Shin just being old and cranky or is he really dying already?

Nawww. Shin's at 24HP (60%). Still good to go!

________


Sorry Shin, I thought Gaze of Defiance had no damage roll. I shall rectify accordingly. The reason I didn't roll for damage on the enemy attack was, they're minions as implied. It'd be unsporting to hit you guys with four full-fledged monsters at a fight I'm terming as "training", wouldn't it? (I mean, this is budgeted as an 'easy' fight with 307 XP) :3:

Anyway, Soldier 2 is dead. Would you like to edit your post, Shin? Since this fact would change your strategy. Go ahead and reroll that 1, I owe you that much.

By the way, you're marked by Soldier 1. What that means is, you take a -2 penalty to any attack roll that doesn't include it as a target. Furthermore if you shift or attack anything other than it, it makes a melee basic attack as an immediate interrupt.

Nah, fair's fair, I'll keep the 1. Only a minor edit, turned the second shift into a move for a bit more distance, I'll take the AoO for being marked, there's no way he can kill me after all. You said we get one action point per fight essentially so there's no real need to not use it here.

Posting to signify my interest in also participating in a five player dungeon delve. If I'm gonna put the time in to learn the new rules I might as well go for the full monty.

I have no idea if I did any of that right. Can you please tell me if I did? The big thing I was confused on was that I have a +11 attack on my short sword, AND I have 19 strength, does this mean I'm always going to be able to hit the captain? Because his AC is only 20.

Ah, mechanics. The 19 strength on your abilities list translates to a strength modifier of +4. Add half your level rounded down (5/2 = 2), and you get a strength check of 6.

Your +11 to hit with short sword already takes this into account. To be more precise, it is composed of +4 strength mod, +3 proficiency bonus, +2 item enchantment, and half your level rounded down +2.

You don't add strength to attack rolls though. So your dice roll of 4 is added to your to-hit of 11, for a total of 15. This is against the appropriate defense (in our case AC 20, so you missed.)

You have very specific bonuses to your attack rolls1. If you move 2 or more squares as part of any attack, there's a +1 bonus. If the attack is a charge, another +1. There's a +1 bonus for at-wills against bloodied enemies. Shin, of course, can give you extra bonuses with a few of his powers. Which is why Pang said if Ebony misses, one of you are doing something wrong :3:

You did the damage rolls correctly. 1d6 for damage, then 1d6 for the quarry (your sword's extra 1d6 damage only applies when you hit an enemy who's at full HP). You just add the dice rolls to your +8 damage to calculate the total. (The +8 already takes into account the +4 strength mod, +2 wisdom mod, and +2 item enhancement.) You also have a bunch of very situational damage bonuses: +2 if you alternate range and melee on the same enemy, +1d6 against undamaged enemies if you hit them with your sword, and of course your 1d6 quarry damage applicable once per round.

So if you had hit with the attack roll (a roll of 9+), you'd be dishing out 6+8+2=16 damage.

Recap!

To determine whether you hit, add the appropriate attack bonus to your dice roll, and apply any additional bonuses or penalties.2
To determine damage, add the damage bonus to your dice roll, and apply any additional bonuses or penalties3.

1 - It is so specific that I might, with great probability, forget it entirely. So do yell in this thread if this happens.
2 - In addition to what I listed, bonuses might include combat advantage (+2), while penalties might include running before attacking (-5), and enemy having cover (-2) or superior cover (-5) which are mostly applicable to ranged attacks only. PHB pg 279 has a list.
3 - The only penalty I can think of here is if you're weakened, which divides your total damage by 2 and rounds down.

can you just do my rolls, then?

Sure. Just remind me if I forget about stuff k? There's a lot of complexity in how Ebony hits :)

In retrospect, I should have just piled Ebony up with straight weapon training bonuses instead of all that situational stuff. Not as flexible maybe but certainly easier to understand. Oh well :(

Man, I wonder how Ebony plays in a real live tabletop game.

"I used Throw and Stab, with Marauder's Rush attached to the charge. Let's see, I rolled a 7. +1 charge bonus with +1 from Running Attack..."

"Wait, is enemy bloodied? That's another +1 to the rush..."

Wait, are you telling me I can use two attacks in a round? Why in the fuck didn't you TELL ME THIS YESTERDAY

Why sure!

1. Throw and Stab gives you a free charge.

2.Charge gives you a free basic attack.

3. Marauder's Rush lets you substitute that basic attack for itself.

4: Profit!

5: That's terror.

Hehehehehe!

Why yes, you can do that. Throw and Stab lets you attack with your ax at a range of 5 squares (10 with a -2 hit penalty). Hit or miss, it lets you charge an enemy. Marauder's Rush can be used in place of melee basic attack at the end of a charge. (That's why it's called Throw and Stab).

Very powerful combination. Even better than Twin Strike given your situational bonuses. I am most impressed at Pang's optimization-fu.

Why am I not doing that EVERY SINGLE ROUND THEN. :mad:

what other tricks does Ebony have? It looks like Hurling Charge does the same thing w/r/t giving me a free charge, but the rest of it is greek to me.

You may not be able to do that every single round because in order to charge, you must move by at least 2 squares. Plus the initial throw is a ranged attack, so you eat up an opportunity attack if you try it with an enemy right next to you (which is rather likely if you charged the previous round).

If you want to maximize damage per round, you'd do quarry, then Throw and Stab, then Marauder's Rush. And you still have a move action left. Could have suggested that, but I thought, lurker might not like it if I tell her how she should play her character!

Avenging Charge is rather potent in this particular encounter. You can use it out of turn - if an enemy attacks Ivory, you interrupt the attack and attack it. Against minions, why, you might spare Ivory from some injury.

Hurling Charge is basically the same as Throw and Stab except:
1. +4 damage
2. You must charge the same target you threw the ax at (no such limitation for Throw and Stab)
3. free use of hunter's quarry, letting you use a move and your minor to shift 2 squares and abuse it!

Holy shit that's a lot to keep track of, I didn't realise nerd-optimisation was quite that complicated.

Anyhow, I think I rolled my turn through ok. Is there a technical difference between the -2 penalty to defences that Astral Seal gives bad guys and a +2 power bonus that Destined duel gives? They both make the bad guy 2 easier to hit, right?

And for the record we're just rolling out the low numbers in preparation for the real fighting to come...

When I was studying Pang's sheet for Ebony, I was thinking, "Holy shit, what have I gotten myself into."

Yeah, you're right. They make the bad guys easier to hit. One's a plus, one's a minus.

The only difference, as far as I can tell, is Astral Seal gives an untyped penalty, while Destined Duel gives a power bonus. If I am reading the rules correctly, the power bonuses will not stack. That means if you do a Gaze of Defiance, and then immediately spend an action point for Destined Duel, lurker only gets the bigger of the two bonuses.

wait I was supposed to be attacking the dudes that he was glarin' at?

He's making it easier for you to hit them. But you don't have to do it, if you don't want to :)

Dangit, I forgot to mark Ebony. Next time, Zerg, next time!

That's why I switched to shooting at the Captain, lurker. As the others are minions, had I hit them they'd have died so the bonus wouldn't have mattered anyway. I think one of my powers gives a damage bonus rather than a hit bonus and some heal you so when we're fighting proper monsters, it makes sense for us to both attack the same person (Makes sense anyway as anyone who's played an srpg will tell you, concentrate on one bad guy at a time rather than spreading your attacks). I'll make sure to mention whatever bonuses my powers give when I use them in the posts for reference and hope Zerg gives us enough cover for me to keep out of arms reach, since all my powers are ranged pretty much. Our battle plan is mainly you charging in and wrecking shit while I hang back making it easier for you to hit things and topping up your hitpoints as needed.

Wrecking shit? Ebony can wreck the fuck out of shit. F'real.

Additional Spam:
So again I'm confused, cause I want to do this. So what I'm hearing from this is that I need to chuck an axe at somebody, and then charge somebody that is at least 2 squares away from me (but this doesn't count as a move), and then I can move?

What is the range for axe-chuckin' and what is the range for chargin'?

Normally, charge is a standard action, and right after a charge, you can either (a) make a melee basic attack or (b) do a bull rush to push the guy by 1 square.

As Pang said, throw and Stab gives you a free charge. Charges give you a free melee basic attack, and Marauder's Rush can be used as a melee basic attack.

This means you still have a move and a minor action after doing the Throw & Stab / Marauder's Rush combo.

The normal range for axe-chucking is 5 squares, up to a maximum of 10 with a -2 to-hit penalty. Your axe is a magic axe, so it automatically returns to your hand after you throw it, so no need to worry about picking it up or anything.

The range for charging is 1 square per unit of speed. So for Ebony, your charge must be a minimum of 2 squares and a maximum of 7 squares.

She can move round people without provoking opportunity attacks can't she? That gives all sorts of opportunities to shift away from someone, then charge past them and attack someone behind. Either that or use her move to back away, taking the AoO, then charge back in, right?

Well, Ebony's race of kobold has an at-will that lets him shift as a minor. So by combining the move and minor into two shifts, well... you can throw and stab just about anyone!

Difficult terrain excepted!

Fucking hell, so lurks can shift away as a minor, move back a bit as a move then charge in and attack twice for her attack every turn?

Sorry Zerg but your optimisation has nothing on Pang's, that's just ridiculous. :)

It's your go by the way, lurker.

A puddle is considered difficult terrain? That ain't shit, that's just old man Ivory's diaper leaking again.

Additional Spam:
Also, if I'm currently on difficult terrain, can I shift onto another difficult square?

Nope. Entering difficult terrain takes an extra square of movement. So to shift 1 square you'd actually have to shift 2.

But you can shift away from it, onto normal ground, just fine.

Additional Spam:
Also, normally the definition of charging is you run in a straight line.

But a strict reading of charging rules say that you don't have do this!

So, from the R9 position, you can actually choose P8, P9, or P10 as "nearest squares where you can attack the enemy from." Might want to keep it in mind whenever position after a charge is important to you :)

=====

A fact I conceded twice in this thread! :)

Also, the shift as minor is all lurker. I'm sure Pang wouldn't have chosen a small creature for an optimal Marauder ranger. He'd probably use something like a longtooth shifter, half orc, bugbear, or a minotaur.

Also may I add that Cal is nowhere near 'optimized', since he was created before I tried out the Character Creator (or discovered the optimization boards). Not that it would change the truth of what you're saying, of course.

Quick question: Which method do you want us to use when rolling character ability scores? (standard array, rolled scores, etc.)

No rolls please. Anything accepted by the Character Builder as "legal" will do. So you can use the standard array or the point buy system.

Actually, we have chocodecide to thank for our character races and classes.

God damn I'm looking forward to when I hit my run of 20's. :(

I refuse to be held down by the establishment of normal characters.

BRING ON THE WARFORGED BARDS

OH WAIT. :(

Are you sure of that?

Because it's easily arranged once you reach level 6 :D

No, we've already had one of those.

Oh, sorry. A second reading tells me you were talking about character generation.

I thought you wanted to fight warforged bards instead of normal warforged soldiers.

Lurker, since you need a spot of healing now, you might want to delay until after my turn so I can use a power that gives you hp when you attack the same target I just did.

Edit: Although actually I don't think Zerg's going to let me shift anywhere because apparently a puddle is difficult terrain so I can't use any ranged attacks without getting stabbed. I'll use Healing Word to top up your hp but that doesn't matter when you move, unless you trigger an AoO and get killed during your turn. It might make sense for you to kill off one of the minions on your turn since they're steadily chipping off hp.

Edit: Holy shit these dice hate me. :(

Oh man, is this your third 1 in this fight... :O

Psst, don't forget your special power that activates when bloodied. Admittedly +2 regen won't kick in after second wind, and +2 to damage doesn't seem like a whole lot. But eh... Character development!

Didn't forget it, I figured a second wind with it's added defences was more useful than the tiny bit of regen and added offense, especially given that the regen only applies whilst bloodied. I suppose as I didn't move I could have done both but I thought I'd save the werewolfing for a more dramatic moment.

thanks for the heal Shin, been busy the last few days so I couldn't post anyway.

Lurks, you can't charge the captain from O11, though you can certainly charge Soldier 1 if you wish.

If you want to marauder rush the captain, you'll have to move to column 12 (and eat up an OA from him - note that you'll be eating one from Soldier 1 regardless because of the mark).

By the way, you might want to use that action point. It ain't gonna be carried over to the next fight.

Noted. I'll readdress my move tonight.

I've been fiddling around with the character builder and I've gotten as far as the shop. We've got 5,540 GP, but I seem to recall you saying that everything would be more costly, (six times iirc) but I can't find the place that was mentioned.

Has this rule been rescinded?

I initially said all consumables will be 6x the price. This has been rescinded. Tweak away to your heart's delight :)

(BTW 5,540 GP isn't a random number - it's based on character wealth assuming a normal treasure parcel, plus beginning cash of 100 GP, with a further assumption that all magic items can be sold at 100 instead of 20%. I wish to avoid a situation where newly-created characters are far more potent than characters who leveled up from much lower levels. We shall see if this avoids it, once I manage to kill off Ebony and Ivory :D)

Yes, please tweak. Zerg hasn't said nothin yet but I get the feeling that he wishes Shin and I weren't utter dunces about dice.

Eh, where are you getting that vibe from. Even if you do make the rolls and calculations, I still have to check them... :)

Still, I hold a vain hope that by the end of Ebony's journey, lurks will be able to make rolls and calculate damage like the best of them!

NO I DON'T CARE

JUST DO IT FOR ME

Might be sooner rather than later if I don't start rolling double figures soon. :(

I don't understand. These are level four enemies with an experience level that is 1 level below yours (thus ranked as "easy" in the DMG). I'm not actively out to kill you. Why do I have you on the ropes (i.e. drained your surges to probably half after the fight?)

I must clearly be doing something wrong :(

You put us in difficult ground without telling us it was difficult first...

Then I missed with all but one of my attacks so far, it's the dice that have done the damage, not the bad guys.

i think it would help if you pointed out what everything on the map was at the start of the fight in future though, so people know what they're backing into.

But I did say so. First post, right below the zoomed out map. :(

Alright, next time around I'll make terrain considerations more obvious.

I also declare the waters to have evaporated, and thus the only difficult ground remaining are the warforged corpses and the firewood!

are corpses always difficult?

what if I corral a guy onto a corpse of another guy, then kill him there; is that square now double difficult?

That would set off a chain reaction making every adjacent square difficult; the process would proceed geometrically until the entire world was difficult.

Don't cross the streams. :mad:

Does this imply that the captain converted a major action into a move action? or does this imply that the captain burned an action point for his second move action?

Yep. Instead of attacking, he moved. So instead of 5, he was able to go by 10 squares (aka double-move).

As a rule most monsters don't have action points. Usually the exception is if they're explicitly named officially.

Additional Spam:
Corpses are not difficult. I just house-ruled them in this instance cuz I'm reusing the "arena" after your first fight :)

No such thing as doubly-difficult, so don't worry. Have a large enough pile of corpses, and your square becomes unpassable :)

I want to get all up on the captain's ass, but I can't see where he went nor will I be able to determine where he's gone after the extent of my first move (7 squares). Can I just say that I want to get as close to his faggot-ass as I can, since I"ll be able to see where he is midway my second move action?

If you move forward by seven squares, you'll be able to see him (he's at L23).

You can try Throw and Stab if you wish from O20, though note it comes with a -5 attack penalty for superior cover .

Err, lurker. Column 7 is where the soldier is. Did you intend to go to column 20 to pursue the captain?

yes, I want to be in column 20. I don't know why I typed 7.

Woohoo! Finally, after the fight is all but finished I roll a double figures hit roll!

Fucking dice. :(

Lurker, Shin, Pang, peanut gallery. That was supposed to be an easy encounter which I basically messed up by giving double-damage to minions and not indicating terrain considerations in a visible manner. Any other things I should take into consideration, before I take off the gloves? :)

Apart from that, it went fine and even with that, it wouldn't have looked nearly so nasty if our rolls hadn't been so shitty.

I'm assuming that since Ivory is such a sensible old man, his hut is well built and as such, the roof is a perfectly safe fighting platform...

Lurker, there is a very real chance that if Ivory hide on the roof, Ebony will get swarmed by whatever is coming next and murdered. Then again, if he's on the ground then he'll get attacked and won't be able to use any of his abilities as they're all ranged so he gets attacked if he's standing next to anyone. I think with Ebony being able to shift as a minor you should be able to keep from getting surrounded and Ivory can always jump down and wade in if needs be.

I can almost see Zerg adding triple repeater crossbows to the gear of whatever is coming to get us now.

I was hoping one of you would climb the roof. Why else would I put one up there :tpg:

Same with the well. The hot coals. That cutting knife. The shed.

So yes, the roof is well-constructed, and the shed well-kept. Although, be prepared to take 1d10 damage when you inevitably jump down the roof during the next fight :)

Shin, since I can basically attack twice in every single round, I'm okay with being on the ground and mopping up enemies. Just keep me covered boyo.

Additional Spam:
Does it cost anything to actively check nature? Like, is that a minor skill or something?

I HAET GIANT MONSTERS :(

Didn't see this auto-merged post. Sorry :(

Anyway you can make all the knowledge checks you want. Free actions and all. Roll a D20 and I'll add the appropriate skill to it (in this case checking natural beasts would be a Nature check).

Do close burst attacks expand in a 2d circle, a column or a sphere?

In other words, if I use one on the edge of the roof, what area will it hit on the ground?

Lurks, are we going to pick off the minions one by one then go for the boss or lay straight into him? Since you're moving first, I'll follow your lead, giving you the best hit bonuses possible against whatever you're currently laying into.

I reckon picking off the minions first is probably better. I tried going for the boss last time, and we both got bloodied didn't we?

No hard rules here.

So I'm trying to visualize it. In 2D, it extends around you in the shape of a square. There's no reason why it shouldn't apply to 3D, so I'm ruling that it expands in the shape of a cube, with you at the center.

The roof is 15 feet above the ground at the edge, so a 3x3 burst should be able to catch creatures on the ground, like so :

Same thing with a blast :

However, large creatures occupy a 2x2 cube, so you could conceivably use that to your advantage.

_______

Lurker, there has been a rule change to "Throw and Stab". Previously, you are able to throw and stab the same enemy. Now, both targets must be different. Apparently "The power yielded too much damage against a single target."

Additionally, they have removed "charge" from the effect. Instead, you're supposed to move at your speed. There are three implications - you don't get the +1 benefit from charging, but you don't also need to take the direct route to the enemy, or move a minimum of 2 squares anymore. BUT since you no longer charge - and Marauder's Rush only substitutes as a melee basic attack when charging - the combination of Throw and Stab / Marauder's Rush no longer works if rules as written are followed.

I am unsure about one thing - what happens if your throw killed the last enemy in your vicinity, and you want to move towards the others. This was expressly prohibited under charging rules, but no such limitation exists now.

I'm ruling that the pre-errata Throw and Stab remains until you reach level 6. If you'd like to immediately apply the new rules as they are currently written, I'll let you change Marauder's Rush to another ranger level 1 at-will of your choice.

_______

Shin, you have been affected by the nerf bat as well - thanks to Healer's lore bonus applying only to healing that use surges. Thus, effective immediately, Astral Seal gives 4 HP instead of 9 HP.

Fuckin' rule changes.

I'll keep with what I've got for now. To be quite honest I don't think I"ll live to see level 6.

But thou must! I already have a nasty map planned for level 6 :(

Anyhow, under the old rules in which Throw and Stab gives a free charge, you are not able to take any action after charging. The only exception is if you spend an action point. So, I'll assume you want to do that (the wolf you charged is dead) and hold off on taking my turn until after you reply.

Don't listen to this man, he deserves to have his hard work on a map squandered by the incompetence of his players

You sound bitter. As if recounting an unpleasant personal experience!

If you have any unused maps lying around, I'd be happy to take them! :)

Wait, so even though I have an extra move (and minor) that I haven't yet used, I can't use them under the rules we're playing?

That's right. Every round, charges culminating in a bull rush or a melee basic attack are the last thing you're allowed to do, as per regular rules :)

Now, under the errata-ed Throw and stab, it's a different story. What happens after you throw is no longer a charge, but a move. So, you don't get the benefits, nor suffer the restrictions, that charging entails.

Forget it then. I'll stand my ground for now; moving away is a waste of an action point at this point.

I dropped the second wolf, right?

Lurker, I've assumed you're going to take at least one hit before your next go so I used my heal you a bit power rather than a kill things power. Make sure you attack wolf A next turn though as you get +2 to hit it and regain a few hp in the process. I figured it's better to keep your hp topped up from the start, rather than trying to drag you back to life if things go wrong later.

Also I've still not rolled double figures on a D20 yet this whole bloody adventure I think.

Thanks for the heads up Shin. I'm still kind of dumb on what all of our skills do. :(

Additional Spam:
Zerg: I want to use dailies, but I have no concept on when our days will start and end. I know that D&D runs very slowly; probably only like half an hour passed since we started fighting. That's cool with me and all, I don't think a fight should last half a day or nothin'. But what are you reckoning regarding days?

After four fights, you gain an extended rest, as well as an extra level. Encounters are tailored towards your level. Encounter #1 is your level minus 1. Encounter #2 is your level. Encounter #3 is your level +1, and Encounter #4 is your level +3.

So ration accordingly :)

Encounters may or may not be actual battles. For example, I was tailoring your current encounter as a skill challenge, in which success means you gain wolf mounts and failure means you lose 2 healing surges. But that's all moot now :(

You might have mentioned that not every fight was going to be a fight. Like lurker, I assumed we were wading straight in every time without any noncing about in between.

And once again the dice roller fucks me over, I swear CHz has rigged it against me. :(

Lurks, the power I just used gives an additional hit bonus to you if I heal you in the same turn, which was why I targetted the big wolf rather than finishing off the last little one. As I missed again though it's a moot point. If you can kill the last little one on your turn we can focus on fucking up the big one properly, hopefully with you on your feet more and me being able to actually hit something.

Last little one? I thought that there were two left?

yeah once this big wolf is by himself he's gonna get MURDERIZED.

Additional Spam:
t Zerg: You gotta understand that me and Shin are Horde. Killing things that pose no danger to us is our forte, as is nearly dying every single round apparently. :(

True that, shoot first, ask questions never.

Quick question about my gear, does the daily power of the swiftshot crossbow mean that I can, as a minor action make a basic range attack, in addition to already attacking with it or using a different attack in the same round, assuming I have a free minor, right?

Also, Shield of the Gods, I can swap the protection it gives between me and lurker as many times I want in a fight, for the cost of a minor action each time?

Oh yeah, I'm away in Birmingham until Tuesday night so might not be able to post till then as from last time I was there, the hotel has crappy phone signal.

Yes to both counts.

Hey Zerg, help me out: is Second Wind a minor or a free move?

I got more stuff I want to do I just want to know what that action is before I finish.

It's a Standard action, actually, less'n you're a dwarf.

that's lame. I'm glad I asked though.

Additional Spam:
I'm starting to regret attacking these guys. :(

Fuck it, let's try to tame the wolf. An extra meat shield in a fight is never a bad thing. I'm hoping we can trade up to griffons or wyverns soon though, flying mounts is where it's at.

Ah, but in order to access the full capabilities of your mount, you gotta burn up a feat slot and take "Mounted Combat". Can you afford the feat tax? :tpg:

I'm okay with training it, but don't expect Ebony to be happy around a wolf that tried to bite his head off.

The wolf probably won't be happy to hang around with a Kobold who threw an axe at it and stabbed it in the face either, I'm sure we can work round it.

He fuckin' deserved it. I was bleeding out.

Diplomacy is clearly the answer to all of life's problems!

Wait, these two are still alive? Get a move on, I've got a sorcerer in platemail in the wings here.

Don't worry, the giant wolf sees us as a main course. :(

Surely you don't get enough feats by level 5 for that to be a viable option. I'm sure when I worked it out for Bob he needed to be level 10 or so before platemail became a sensible choice.

No doubt we'll die soon though. We almost got killed by the warm up group so once we're fighting monsters a higher level than us it's not going to take long to kill us off, especially since our dailies will inevitably miss because the dice hate me.

Also, I wish I'd started posting in first person in this adventure, I'm running out of descriptions for "The old cleric" and "Elderly lycanthrope" whereas I could be rolling on with I and my. :(

Additional Spam:
Also, if I use Healing Word and burn the Wolf's surge, does that count as one of our required skill passes?

Additional Spam:
Also also, surely as we're no longer strictly in a combat situation Ivory can just lower himself off the roof by his arms rather than jumping? I know I can scale my way down a 12 foot drop without serious injury and I'm not a trained warrior so surely if the wolf holds off on biting him Ivoery can get himself to the floor injury free?

If you really want to burn its only surge for the day, it's fair enough to consider it an automatic success. Otherwise it's a DC17 Heal check that can only be used for 1 success.

Arguably you aren't weighing yourself down with bulky armor and assorted adventurer's tools and provisions weighing dozens of pounds either :tpg:

But all right. I'll let you scale your way down, DC15 Athletics. If you fail, you take the damage :)

Additional Spam:
Sorceror? Really? Isn't he like the worst striker ever? You're supposed to show me a super-optimized character amirite :D

FUCKING BASTARD CUNTING DICE FUCKERS.

Seriously, my luck is just non-existant in this adventure.

Ahahaha, dice are loaded against you, mate.

Care to try your luck before I update, lurker?

Additional Spam:
Do remember that you can use "Aid Another" for all rolls. Just roll a 1d20 check of the same skill. If you hit DC10+half your level (12) then the aided roll gains a +2 bonus. Otherwise there is a -1 penalty.

Does that also carry a -5 penalty?

Yep. Until you try to make nice with a DC20 diplomacy check (Ebony's diplomacy is 1 so, uh... you need to roll 19+ to succeed unaided and without props!)

Are all of Shin's rolls thus far failures?

Nope.

I'll let you know which checks succeed or fail once the challenge ends. :)

Shin help :(

Additional Spam:
Also: Zerg you said that I have to beat 12 in order to aid someone. Does that include my score for that skill? So like, if I have a 12 in Athletics and I roll a 6, but I also have that -5 debuff, does this mean I still help Shin's roll?

Yes to both questions.

But Shin's athletics roll was to let him avoid falling damage. He didn't actually roll Athletics as part of the skill challenge, I don't think. So there's no -5 debuff in this case.

Additional Spam:
Psst psst psst. Remember when I gave Shin a +5 for offering food during diplomacy? No reason for me to deny it to you :)

My second athletics roll was for the skill challenge though!

Yeah, but lurks specifically mentioned aiding your attempt to climb down. Your athletics check to tame the wolf doesn't need any aiding. ;)

So thus far, here are the rolls:

Ebony's roll to aid Ivory in climbing down: 18 PASS
Ivory's roll to climb down: Athletics 9 FAIL (take 9 falling damage)
Ebony attempts to bond with the wolf: Diplomacy 19 FAIL (DC20)
Ivory patches up the wolf without using healing word: Heal 18 (counts as one-time success/failure)
Ivory uses his nature knowledge to recall prior knowledge about the wolf: Nature 15 (primary skill)
Ivory uses his athletics ability to restrain the wolf: Athletics 20 (primary skill)
Ivory tries to calm the wolf by saying a prayer for its soul: Religion 23 (success will make all future rolls easier by +2)

I'll be officially updating in maybe 10 hours' time. Let's give lurker enough time to digest! Since it's a crying shame to miss a very difficult diplomacy check by just 1...

that was flavor text, as Shin didn't specify what Ivory was doing with regards to his athletic roll.

Additional Spam:
also can't Shin just Aid Another?

Sure he can. But he has to say so explicitly. And it has to be the same skill (diplomacy).

Though! The offer to give power bonus if food is a component of your diplomacy check, still stands.

Is that what you were trying to tell me?

Yes. Being subtle is not my strong suit :(

Just say it out straight next time! I was wondering all this time why Shin didn't Aid Another (me).

I don't really get these skill test thingies. I reckon I just scored a couple of over-20's after modifiers though so the wolf's probably going to come with us, right?

I'm totally trading in a feat if it means I can ride it.

Ooh, can we hitch it to a chariot and both ride that? That'd be fucking awesome, Ben Hur-ing it about the joint with a massive bastard wolf instead of some pussy horses.

Re: Skill Challenges

You and Ebony can make any number of primary skill checks. Non-primary checks might count depending on plausibiity. So I'm afraid I'm not convinced by the use of Arcana and Diplomacy :)

Re: Feat

You can always ride mounts, no problem. What the Mounted Combat feat does is to let you to access the special abilities of your mount, and use your Athletics, Acrobatics, Endurance, and Stealth scores instead of its own if yours are higher.

In your case, the mechanical benefits of taking the feat are:
1. No need to take -2 penalty if it makes an attack roll
2. Ivory can take advantage of the dire wolf's "Pack Hunter" ability

As for the chariot, sure, why not. It's just a repurposed wagon, so cost of 20 GP and carrying capacity of 1 short ton.

Well I don't have any skill points worth shit in any other skills so I'll leave it to Lurks to make the last roll or two.

Dire wolves aren't stupid though, hell, my cat would understand an ultimatum like that and she's borderline retarded.

Okay, I want to see how the rolls have done before I try the more estoric ones.

Gee I hope Zerg meant that we get one action each, not one cumulatively. I caught Shin's dice disease! :(

Yeah, it's one action each for Ebony and Ivory/RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWGGHH. Perception is a free action though, so any particular place on the map you want to explore?

I guess I don't understand it; I thought if I rolled a decent number then I"ll get a certain amount of information. At least, that was my understanding with playing Pang's game; you have to (for example) actively check for traps and hidden doors but you don't have to specify which squares you were checking. Does it not work that way?

Additional Spam:
By the way i love the wolf's name. gj shin

Can I redact to the downtime and surge up to full health please? I didn't realise I'd taken that much of a kicking.

When the fight starts, do Ivory and the wolf get seperate turns or move at the same time?

Well lurks, all the stealth in the world will not help you when you can be seen in plain sight. I'm implementing fog of war here because the enemy's just sneaking around the corner :tpg:

Note to self, next time use enemies that can go invisible!

No problem with redacting it, Shin. I didn't exactly specify it outright that I'm keeping count on the first post before. To answer your question, you and your wolf get a full set of actions (standard, move, minor) in one round. if you dismount it (a standard action), you get your own actions, and I assume control of the wolf :D

The only way for you to get separate actions is if you were a beast ranger and RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWGGHH were your beast companion (and even then it'd take you a minor to command it).

I think it's pretty clear by now that I don't know what I'm doing. :(

Ivory is still immobilized by the garrote, and if RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWGGHH shifts west, he becomes immobilized and prone.

Consider this a one-time courtesy reminder :)

Also, regarding wolf's combat actions, here's its stat card:

http://upload.jetsam.org/images//New%20Picture.png

It has only one attack, Bite. Until you get the "Mounted Combat" feat, all attacks made by the wolf are made with a -2 penalty. Its Pack Hunter specal ability is also not accessible until then.

So how big is this Bugbear then that it can restrain someone who's mounted on a wolf? And can I use the wolf's strength to break the hold rather than mine?

Good question!

Um... It's a really long rope? :tpg:

Okay, I'll allow Rrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwgghh to break the grip, but he also takes the same -4 penalty to the attempt. Escaping is a move action, a skill check that pits Athletics vs. the Strangler's Fortitude, or Acrobatics vs. Reflex. Choice is yours.

I see the dice still hate me :(

Sorry guys, I was too busy memorializing the animals that were sacrificed to make my barbeque possible.

So Zerg help me out here. Avenging Charge, can I use that as soon as Shin is attacked? If so, does it only apply to dudes in a straight line from me and far enough away that I can charge them?

Busy this week, see you next week!

Sorry, traveling again.

When Ivory gets attacked and you activate your Avenging Charge, you attack the triggering enemy before his own attack finishes.

The answer is "Yes" to the first and last question. You don't need to do a straight line charge. Anything within 2 to 7 squares is legal, crooked or what have you.

Er, 2+4+1+2+1+8+4=22 doesn't it?

Yes, right you are. Forgot to add up the wolf damage :(

(Also, action points are for escaping, aren't they :3:)

Shin will not be tolerant of your mistakes.

Aah, sorry guys. It's been difficult to get back in the swing of things. :(

Free action to recipient (only Second Wind is a standard). You don't need to specify that you're burning surges when Shin heals you - I'll consider it done automatically.

I'm kinda curious why Shin waited so long to heal Ebony. And also kinda sad I didn't get a K.O. this time around. Dang nabbit :(

I'd just like to mention to my fellow DM that monsters in the Manual 3 put out 40-60% more damage than comparable monsters in the first 2 manuals.

So, if you were for example trying to kill people —

(hopefully they retroactively apply the new monster math to older books in the Compendium, but I'm not holding my breath)

Monster Manual 3 is out? Sweet :tpg:

I'm not trying to kill them yet. Just make 'em swoon.

Monster Manual 3 is interesting, but I still haven't had time to go through the whole thing.

Didn't see any playable monster races, in my first read.

Good deal. I've finished my turn btw.

Also you're not trying to kill us? Maybe I just suck then :(

Yeah, none of the monsters are made available as PC races, but there's nothing you'd really want to play anyway. The vast majority of the new humanoids are all "weird variety of goblin" or "weird variety of gnome" — except for the handful of Incomprehensible Races From Beyond Known Space, which don't really handle well in player hands anyway. Playable thri-kreen would be nice but we'll get those next month so I can't bitch too much.

Maybe I want to play a race of sentient black jell-o from beyond the reaches of the mind, Pang.

Maybe I want that.

A bullrush is just a basic attack tagged on the end of a charge (In terms of rolling dice), right?

I've never played a character that was built for that kind of attack before...

You can either bull rush an adjacent foe, or tack it on at the end of a charge. But yeah, you did it correctly.

Dammit, an attack against Fortitude. Now I'll never get to use the strangler's encounter power :(

Yes. You're free~~~~

Strangler's now at L11, by the way. Shin's wolf is at J10:K11.

Awesome! I finished my move.

Additional Spam:
I don't get it. If B took a few rounds to fall, why did A crumble so quickly?

Cuz A is a minion with 1 HP. Almost messed up the deception by rolling initiative separately :D

Basically I just about used up the experience quota for a "moderately difficult fight" with those two bugbears, but needed an extra body so I can choke you guys[ longer.

Zerg, I understand why you want me to post questions in the discussion thread (esp since I've been doing it in the rp thread a lot lately), but last night I posted that thing w/r/t B and A and it got merged, so I figured you wouldn't have seen it. Sorry!

No worries.

I have been missing some replies lately. Normally, I have VBulletin immediately e-mail me any replies to the threads I subscribe to. But this notification has been flaky as of late.

I've heard the same. I"ll keep my questions to the question thread though.

I couldn't remember if I can attack and heal in the same turn so if not, cancel the healing.

You can if you use an action point.

BTW, Gaze of Defiance has a range of 5. Gotta move closer :)

With one healing surge left, Ebony can't surge to full. You can either choose to reserve this during the next encounter, or have Ivory expend a Healing Word (which carries extra 1d6+5 healing) - which means he'll only have 1 Healing Word in the next encounter.

Personally I'd wait until he's in negative digits, since surging from there resets HP to zero, and then applies the healing.

But that's just me, of course.

There's a pretty good chance Ebony's going to croak, isn't there?

Don't either of us have a healing potion or do you need surges for that?

You need a surge for healing potions too (and they only heal 10 HP). Surgeless healing is rather rare, and are usually cleric powers (like healing strike, astral seal, and consecrated ground).

I can't argue with your logic w/r/t waiting until I'm dying before healing. I guess I'll wait then. :-/

I've got Astral Seal! If I use that every turn on whatever is blocked in the doorway and Lurks attacks it that might help a bit. I'll hit the first thing we see with my daily shieldy power which'll keep you safer too.

Additional Spam:
If I set the wolf loose outside, will it fight on it's own accord or just sit there?

The wolf can fight of its own accord, drawing from the same pool of standard, minor, and move actions, as if you two are a single creature.

Yeah, totally contradicting myself, but I guess I was wrong before :(

Sup Zerg, two questions.

#1, the spear looks pretty rad but I'm stupid when it comes to D&D equipment. Do I have to use it with both hands or can I drop one weapon for this other one? Do I need spear training in order to use it as effectively as I'm using my current weapons, or do I not/I already have that training already? What other considerations should I take into account? Remember, I pretty much died before I got better weapons in my first go at Pang's game, and my only other RPG experience included the words 'Final' and 'Fantasy' in the title.

My other question is how strictly are you interpreting the graphics on the map. The door is one square wide (it seems), split between two squares. Will I have any problems charging out of it?

Unfortunately, Ebony is a "small" sized character, and must use the spear one-handed. Because you are deadliest with a weapon on each hand, I'd advise against picking it up. Pang pretty much optimized your weapon types, so the only thing you want to upgrade is the type of enchantment. It'd be different if Ebony weren't small though - you could have upgraded the shortsword to a longsword (1d8 damage instead of 1d6) for instance.

Just between the two of us, it's actually for Ivory.

No one (aside from the wolf) will have any problem charging out the door. It can still do so, but will be squeezing (and will take the usual penalties so long as it stands there).

Ideas, Shin? I've misjudged all of Zerg's hints so far, so it's your call.

I still reckon sitting back and letting them come to us is the best bet. We should get a free round through surprise if they open the door, my daily gives you a shield for the whole encounter and I can dribble back your hp using Astral Seal so we can just sit there killing them one at a time all day if need be. I don't have any big, flashy spells for wiping out whole troupes of bad guys so limiting the damage they can inflict in one round seems the order of the day.

Sounds good to me.

In which case, Zerg can you assume we're staying hidden (Insofar as a man sat on a massive fucking wolf in a small hut can hide) until they think to open the door please? Surely there are curtains we can close or something?

Zerg, can we use all our daily powers once per day or just one of them? Like for example if I wanted to use Iron to Glass through the window at the commander, could I then use Shield of the Gods later in the fight?

You can use each daily you have once per day.

Deni is right. And you should basically use up every single daily on this battle, otherwise it's a crying shame.

By the way, do you wish to start the next battle with the spear, or with your crossbow?

Crossbow, spear is sheathed in the very expensive sheath it came in.

I don't know how readying an attack works. If my readied attack triggers, do I get a full combat round (major, minor, move)? Or do I only get the major action?

Readying an attack is a form of "turn delay", allowing you to get a full round in.

But since you're aiming for a surprise attack (one action only), that's what you'll get before we roll initiative.

Readying an attack is a Standard Action. If triggered, it is an immediate interrupt, so you only get one of these per round. If the readied attack isn't triggered, nothing happens and you wasted your standard. If it is triggered, your turn is moved to right before it is triggered, and the round continues as normal.

Okay, what if I use Hunter's Quarry before my surprise attack?

Oh also I am presuming that Shin's action and mine will be at the same time. Is that reasonable to assume?

Additional Spam:
Oh it looks like you already rolled for us... I was worried about doing throwan' and stabban' and then rushan' cause I wanted to retreat back into the house after doing so, cause I can't deal with too many injuries.

Shin, your daily is a close blast 3, so basically a 3x3 area of effect that starts next to you like so:

-------- -------- --------
XXX----- --XXX--- ----XXX-
XXX----- --XXX--- ----XXX-
XXX----- --XXX--- ----XXX-
---O---- ---O---- ---O----

_ = terrain | O = You | X = area of effect

Having it be a close burst would've been something, huh? Whew.

-----------
--XXXXXXX--
--XXXXXXX--
--XXXXXXX--
--XXXOXXX--
--XXXXXXX--
--XXXXXXX--
--XXXXXXX--
-----------

So, you'll have to decide the exact placement of the area.

Shall I assume Ebony's delaying?

I have decided to delay, yeah.

Shit, I thought it was close burst. :(

Ah well, drop it on the two blocking our route to the door so we can at least escape the hut. I take it my awesome hit and damage rolls still stand, no?

I'll add a run out the door move action to my turn please. What's my move rate on the wolf?

Yeah, you slaughtered the A & C minions. Your hit/damage rolls stand, but against minions, damage is irrelevant :tpg:

Wolf can move 8 squares. 10 if running.

Or you could be nice and let it be a close burst attack just this once...

Additional Spam:
Move me out the door and north as far as I can then please. Lurk's, I'd suggest redacting your move and following me out the door, unless you want to butcher the minions inside before we move on the commander.

Not a problem, Shin. I've changed it.

Additional Spam:
Zerg: If I center Alchemist's Fire on me, am I going to take damage?

Yes, afraid so.

Offhand I'd say your best bet is Scything Blow, which allows you to shift 2 squares before an attack. Then shifty away from Opportunity Attacks, trade move for minor to take out your Alchemist's Fire, and action point to throw it where you were at.

"If I throw a grenade at myself, will it hurt?"

There are area burst attacks that are centered on you that don't hurt you. It's a reasonable question to ask, especially since Zerg would not deign to presume that I was not trying to kill my dangerously wounded character.

No no. You got us mixed up. I'd post here asking you if you're sure you'd want to drop a grenade on yourself. Pang would cackle and update it with a post that gets dozens of props.

While I'm giving no quarter for this "Boss Fight", I don't really want you to die yet. There's a map I want to use on you first.

I'm pretty sure this is what rape-by-internet-posting feels like :(

:o

Oh, Ranged and Area attacks (such as, say, smashing a Flask of Alchemist's Fire) invite opportunity attacks from every adjacent enemy. Sure you want to go by that order of events? :)

What the fuck is an opportunity attack. Is that when somebody has an immediate interrupt based on my attacking them or something?

An Opportunity Attack is a basic melee attack. It works both ways for you and your enemies, and I've been rolling for those all along. :( You trigger an OA if you do certain things while next to an enemy (who isn't stunned or prone) who's wielding a melee weapon:

1. Make a ranged attack (e.g. Throw and Stab) against anything
2. Make an area attack (e.g. Alchemist's Fire) against anything
3. Move away from a square within his reach (usually 1 but can be more for other creatures). Ebony has a feat that lets him move around (but not away from) enemies without inviting OAs.

Close attacks are always exempted. This is why Shin's Healing Word is a close burst 5 - to avoid opportunity attacks. This is also what makes ranged strikers like archer rangers and wizards so squishy when they're surrounded.

OAs are immediate interrupts: they happen before the action which triggered it. You can only make one opportunity attack per triggering enemy. So let's say all of those hobgoblins decided throw something and then move away? You get to attack each hobgoblin only once, for a total of four attacks against all. If you manage to kill them, they don't actually get to throw/move away.

so I'm pretty much dead? fuck yeah.

Nope. There's a way to extricate yourself from present difficulties. It involves blowing through a whole stack of resources.

How am I supposed to shift through a wall? Or through enemies that aren't yet dead before my attack?

I keep forgetting there's a difference between moving through enemies and through friends. :(

So, erm...

Yeah, you're screwed :tpg:

P.S. if you want to drop that grenade, I'm totally going to let you do it without the OAs.

Reverted.

Not that I've been following it, but it's been three months and nobody has died. I thought the idea of this was to kill people really fast.

To be fair, that's mainly because me and lurker are slow at posting. I can't see us lasting much longer the way things are going but credit to Zerg, we've been fucked by poor playing choices and bad rolling rather than overly unfair encounters. I've certainyl enjoyed playing so far. If we survive long enough to get a chariot for our wolf it'll be the best adventure ever.

I'm just frustrated because I don't really know what I'm doing, tbqh. If Pang were playing my character he'd have made these four fights his bitch. :(

Eh, you're supposed to be killing monsters while not getting killed yourself. Best way to do that is to carefully ration your resources. Because this is a party of two with a fixed four fights per day, healing surges are your most precious resource, as you know by now.

Your dailies are always stronger than your encounters, which are in turn stronger than your at-wills. If throwing a daily at Fight #2 will save me a healing surge or two, I'd do it. I'd also do my darnednest best to use up encounters, before falling back to at-wills.

I'd also spend the Action Point early in the fight. It's kind of like an Encounter power for all intents and purposes.

Also, don't forget your item powers. For example, Ivory has a magic crossbow that attacks as a minor once per day. His spear also has an interesting trigger that gives a free attack.

As the brawn of the group, it is Ebony's job to single out a particular enemy, and deal horrendous amounts of damage to it with his quarry ability. All his powers are geared towards this end - he's not built to deal light damage to multiple enemies. Why do you think I use minions so much? Pang has also tricked him out with extra mobility - so he can run circles around his enemies.

I've been trying to do that! But some of my encounters seem perfectly worthless, and I have one encounter power (that triggers when Ivory is attacked) that I thought only works if I'm near the guy who's attacking him. But Hurling Charge, honestly, I don't get it. Why is it so much better than Throw and Stab? I can still convert my charge with that one!

After the errata, the difference will be clearer. Currently, hurling charge has two advantages over throw and stab:

1. More damage: 1d6+6 instead of 1d6+2
2. Auto-quarry if you hit. Which means you theoretically save a minor

After this fight, we change throw and stab to its current official form, so you cannot substitute Marauder's Rush for the melee basic attack. Mechanically the stab part becomes a little weaker - 1d6+6 instead of 1d6+8.

You DO need to be within 7 squares of Ivory's attacker to use Avenging Charge. (But Ivory should be staying within Healing Word range from you anyway).

But hey, it's an immediate interrupt, so you get to attack out of turn. Rangers are good with squeezing out attacks when it ain't their turn (Avenging Charge, Disruptive Strike, Snarling Wolf Stance...), as well as attacks that hit multiple times (Throw and Stab, Twin Strike...).

See, I interpreted it as basically requiring that I quarry the opponent before using that attack on him.

There are powers that do need you to quarry before you can use them (i.e. Shadow Wasp Strike) but fortunately this one gives you a free quarry.

I can never remember if you have to beat a target's defence score or equal it. With modifiers my Astral Seal roll was 15, equalling the archer's reflex.

Either way, lurks you need to get up and attack Archer A to get some hp back. You don't even need to hit it, just attack it.

Equalling it is a hit.

So yeah. Ebony is now awake and it is his turn to go. He's prone and bloodied (HP recovery amounts to 11+5+5 = 21, 2 HP shy of being un-bloodied).

Lurker, I hope you don't mind I changed your post to attack Archer A, since that gets you some hp back.

Oh shit I forgot about that. Yes!

When you attack again, try to come at him from the opposite side to me for the flanking bonus. I'm standing directly to the west of him now.

I am guessing you (but not Lurker) have Character Builder, so here's a list of stuff Lurker might like to get:

Recommended Feats (choose 1):

1. Defensive Mobility: +2 to AC against opportunity attacks
2. Durable: increases number of healing surges by 2
3. Elsir Hammer Student [Lesser Style]: +2 perception; Throw and Stab targets Reflex instead of AC (usually lower by 2)
4. Escape Artist: Escape a grab as a minor action; +2 Acrobatics
5. Lethal Hunter: Quarry damage increases to 1d8
6. Prime Shot: +1 attack rolls if you are the closer than allies to the enemy
7. Toughness: Gain 5 additional HP
8. Weapon Expertise [Axe / Light blade]: +1 attack rolls for attacks made with [Handaxe / Short Sword]
9. Weapon Focus: Axe: +1 damage rolls for attacks made with your Handaxe

Recommended Level 6 Utility powers (choose 1):

1. Battle Runner (daily, minor, stance): Until stance ends, run speed increases by 2 (to 11) and you don't grant combat advantage from running.
2. Death Threat (encounter, free action): You bring down your quarry, and fix your hunter eyes on another foe
3. Serpentine Dodge (encounter, move action): When adjacent to at least 2 enemies, shift 3 squares and gain power bonus to all defenses equal to number of adjacent enemies before the shift
4. Tumbling Dodge (encounter, immediate interrupt): You deftly tumble away from a strike

Recommended Items (as much as your budget allows - you can own as many items as you wish, but only one item can be equipped per slot at a time):

1. Iron Armbands of Power (1,800 GP, arm slot): +2 item bonus to melee damage rolls
2. Gloves of Piercing (680 GP, hand slot): daily minor; until end of encounter, your attacks ignore resistance of 10 or lower
3. Flaying Gloves (840 GP, hand slot): daily free; if you hit with a short sword attack while having combat advantage, attack deals 5 ongoing damage.
4. Gauntlets of Blood (840 GP, hand slot): +2 damage rolls against bloodied targets (more situational damage, please don't choose this :3:)
5. Gloves of Recovery (1,000 GP, hand slot): daily free; when you miss any melee attack, make a basic melee attack against the same enemy
6. Goggles of Aura Sight (1,000 GP, head slot): encounter minor; scan target within 10 squares for current and total HP, any disease of poison conditions on the target, and disease and poison conditions it can inflict
7. Horned Helm (1,800 GP, head slot): charge attacks deal +1d6 damage
8. Badge of the Berserker (2,600 GP, neck slot): +2 Fort Ref Will; charging does not provoke OA
9. Cloak of Distortion (4,200 GP, neck slot): +2 Fort Ref Will; +2 defense against ranged attacks from over 5 squares away
10. Amulet of Vigor (4,200 GP, neck slot): +2 Fort Ref Will and healing surge value increases by 1; daily free: when you spend a healing surge, you receive healing as if you spent another.
11. Belt of Lucky Strike (3,400 GP, waist slot): daily free; when you miss any melee attack, make a basic melee attack against the same enemy

P.S. Shin: You can buy also equipment for the wolf. A "chariot" is basically a wagon and will cost you 20 GP, though I doubt you'd want to buy one while on the lam since it's too easily destroyed :D.

Get the armbands, lurks, it's like pressing a bright red "I win" button

And when you press the button a little robot arm comes out of the machine and gives you a thumbs up

SHIN GIMME SOME MONEY SO I CAN BUY THE ARMBANDS :(

Armbands of Power is perhaps the best accessory Ebony can buy at this stage. Why else would I list it first, Pang? :)

Subtle hint for Lurker to check enemies for lewt next time

Take all the cash you want mate. All I want is a chariot with spikey wheels.

I don't actually have the character builder yet but I'm happy to get it if you point me in the right direction.

I sincerely hope the rules for chariot mounted combat are hilariously complicated.

Additional Spam:
I'm guessing it's in Pang's thread, don't be so lazy, Shin.

There are no rules whatsoever for chariot mounted combat.* There are complicated rules for flying mounts but why needlessly complicate things by adding an extra dimension to combat? :tpg:

If you're short on cash but really want to buy stuffs, do note that we have 100% resale value in effect here (so if you don't like the spear, that's 2,600 GP right there). Gotta have you both tricked out and optimized at all levels so there's no excuse for failure! Buying and using consumables will result in permanent wealth loss.

* Taking the Mounted combat however, will result in you having a nasty bite attack and an easy way to maintain combat advantage, as long as you keep the wolf alive.

Recommended Powers: Spirit of Healing (daily), Stream of Life (daily), Cure Serious wounds (daily) - all give you surge-free healing
Recommended Feats: Battle Healer, Pacifist Healer, Durable, Toughness, Versatile Expertise
Recommended Items: You can save cash by getting a weapon that doubles as an implement and then selling the symbol (e.g. disrupting weapon, crusader's weapon); you can upgrade your magic finemail armor into something more useful; Healer's Brooch, Iron Armbands of Power.

So there's no actual link to the full version of the character builder, could you PM me the details?

You have to install the demo first, and then apply the July patch to that.

Ah, I see. I'll get on that tomorrow then. And yeah, sell that spear thing, I don't see myself using it ever.

In that case, 2,600 GP has been added to your funds. In aggregate, both of you can spend 8,345 GP on anything you want.

But it boosts your melee basic attack from to +8, 1d8+4 damage. It hits rather nastily on a crit, and has a daily power which gives Ebony a free attack that will surely be triggered!

Right, I'm taking Shielding Word and Cure Serious Wounds.

Additional Spam:
Oh and I'll buy some dwarven finemail too cheers.

Additional Spam:
I'm tempted to get a learning crossbow too but do I need to reload my crossbow if I use a ranged power?

Additional Spam:
I might get a belt of vigour too if our money stretches that far.

I'm gonna take Tumbling Dodge as my utility power, but I'm not yet decided on feats. Do I get any hp bonus for this level up outright?

So how much cash do we have left? I'd like to walk away with more than one item, and I'm worried that Zerg is gonna throw monsters at us that are only weak to fire or acid like he said he would.

I forgot about that. I'll take the armour definitely but the rest I'm not so bothered about if you want to grab something flamey or acidy.

Cost of Purchases:

+2,600 GP Resale of Spear of Shared Wrath + 2
-2,600 GP Purchase of Dwarven Finemail + 2
+1,800 GP Resale of Magic Finemail + 2
-1,800 GP Purchase of Iron Armbands of Power + 2
-520 GP Purchase of Belt of Vigor (Heroic Tier)

You have spent 520 GP so far and have 7,825 GP left for other stuff.

I can't seem to find Learning Crossbow in the Builder, Shin. Is it in the codex I never read? :) In any case, most crossbows need a minor to reload. You're using a crossbow that reloads as a free action. Most of your ranged attacks use your Symbol and not your crossbow.

Lurker, Ebony's HP at Level 6 is 49.

It's right there in the builder for me mate. Still, I'll hang on to what I've got for now. I will take the belt of vigour though as we're so rich at the moment and lurks can spend the rest of the dough flaming up her attacks.

And your chariot? :p

Also, I want to trade in my symbol of shared healing for a hearth of Boldrei (Who Ivory worships btw). And definitely buying a chariot.

I've attached my character builder file, cunningly disguised as an excel file so I can attach it. Couldn't work out how to export to pdf.

Oh we're flush with cash? Fuck yeah. I'll check out the list of items and get some beefier armor or shit, and we can load up on grenades and whatnot and rock this party

Shin, as a cleric, you are entitled to 2 rituals, Gentle Repose plus another first-level ritual. Rituals require the expenditure of ritual components (and sometimes a magic focus). For simplification, I will allow the use of gold pieces as ritual components - don't wish to track inventory for alchemical reagents.

So, pick another level 1 ritual. You can also buy rituals of your level or lower if you wish. The cost of buying a ritual is the "Market Price" and the cost of using it is the "Component Cost".

Do post your final purchase decisions in the game thread.

Ah, cool, I'll take Comrades' Succour as my ritual please mate.

Lurks, I've bought two dragonfire tars which are single target, ongoing fire damage deals and a clockwork bomb which is a burst effect fire attack with a timer. The Dragonfire stuff is 125gp each for lvl 8 and the bomb 160gp for lvl 9. Another useful option would be Fire Blastpatch which is essentially a mine that triggers when something steps on it. 160gp for each of those at lvl 9. Buy what equipment you want and we'll blow the rest on explosives. Acidic fire might help too, a burst fire attack with ongoing acid damage for 200gp each at lvl 10.

Lurks, you have 8,395 GP to buy things with after all of Shin's profligate purchases.

I did say stock a few fire/acid stuff, but I'm not going to have all four encounters in this level be trolls. That'd be boring :3:

Maybe three.

By the way, any plans to level up the wolf?

I think we should buy a diverse range of elemental explosives just in case to be honest. If I'd have known you could get landmines in DnD I'd have played a sapper.

Okay so part of the reason why I was taking so long was because I didn't want to download that gigantic pdf but I did anyway. So I wanted to know, like, is there any downside to buying a bunch of Elixirs of Dragon's Breath and using those instead of grenades? Aside from the fact that we can't chuck 'em I mean.

Oh also Zerg! I decided that I want Durable as my feat. I know that I should be focusing on putting the hurt on (like Weapon Expertise..... sigh....) but I don't want to die! :(

Well, going grenades takes a minor to take 'em out of your pack, then a standard to use it as a ranged attack. You can use it once.

Going elixirs takes a minor to take 'em out of your pack, a minor to drink it, and a standard to use it as a close blast (so no OA). Plus, it lasts for the whole encounter, though doesn't damage on a miss like the alchemist's fire.

Word of warning. It's technically using up an item daily power slot, but I house-ruled that away. At present I have no intention to limit the use of item dailies. But depending on how the next few encounters pan out (would it unbalance things too much?), that might change in the future. I will implement house rule changes after every level, so you're good for the next four encounters.

So... your choice (and please specify the quantity of consumables you wanna buy). Currently you have 3,955 GP left.

Another thing. If I have to use a minor to remove the elixir out of my pack, is there like a way I can keep it in my hand or in like my pocket or something? Keep things at the ready, is what I mean?

Sure, you can continue to hold it in your hand. But any power that requires you to have two weapons at hand (Throw and Stab, and Hurling Charge) will be unusable till you have the axe in one hand and the sword in another.

If you wish to conserve minors, you can get the Quick Draw feat (which lets you draw an item in the same action it takes to use it). You can purchase the 3,400 GP Potion Bandolier (a belt holding 6 potions which can be drawn with a free action). It goes on your waist and is the closest thing to pockets as you can get.

A third option needing two feats (Arcane multiclass and Arcane familiar) not available to Ebony or Ivory at the moment, is to get the Disembodied Hand familiar. Lets you retrieve and stow items as a free action.

Now what about converting actions? Can I convert a move to a minor? I'm sure I asked you this before, sorry!

Standard actions can be converted into moves or minors. Move actions can be converted into minors.

Stowing/taking something out your pack is a minor. Ditto for picking up anything you drop.

Additional Spam:
Oh, and here's Ebony's "wiki" sheet. (I like Excel and I'm too lazy to set up a real wiki and update it like Pang)

http://gffdnd.jetsam.org/Ebony.htm

Oh, and for good measure, Ivory's sheet.

GFF D&D :: Ivory

The pages test out fine on the latest Firefox and Internet Explorer. Anybody (esp. Lurker and Shin) using browsers other than the big two? Do they look ok?

Shin: I think that, although it might be a pain in the ass, we should probably get a small handful of elixirs so that we can get out of a jam without provoking OTs. But we should definitely bulk up on grenades. What were those mines you were tlaking about? I think those would probably be most effective only if we had like a maze or some sort of strategy where we could lead monsters through a choke point. Zerg will never provide that for us. :(

Level 7 Elixir's of Dragonbreath are 100gp each, I reckon 4 of those would be enough for our immediate needs, 2 fire, 2 acid. I think we want four level 10 Acidic Fires for 200gp each, four level 9 fire blastpatches for 160gp each, four level nine clockwork bombs at 160gp each and two level 8 dragonfire tars at 125gp each, a total of (400+800+640+640+250) 2,730gp. That leaves us 1,228gp which we could spend on getting a couple of caustic whetstones (200gp each) so our weapons can do acid damage then either save the change or if you're allowed to buy boons, get you Kord's Mighty Strength.

Why don't you two pick out a nice +2 neck slot item which will immediately boost your non-AC defenses (and boost defenses/immunities in other ways)?

I have been scrupulously using natural creatures against you, which usually target AC defense. That won't last forever, I'm especially itching to use mind flayers :D

You are the weirdest fucking DM, Zerg. "Here's how I plan to defeat you. Here's a pile of gold and a shopping list that will stop me."

When I finally manage to murder them, they'll have no other excuses. Makes it sweeter that way.

'Sides, they're not getting an arbitrary amount of gold. Just enough to keep up with "expected wealth" based on treasure parcel guidelines. So that they'll always be at par with any newly-generated character of their level :tpg:

Honestly though, I only planned to include a single troll encounter, and thought it'd be rather unfair that neither of them have any way to retard its regeneration. Didn't expect them to be this paranoid and start bringing an entire arsenal of grenades. Rather fun to watch though, since this is the same paranoia I'm feeling in your current game.

I figured lobbing grenades from a movin chariot would be hilarious no matter what we came up against to be honest. In Pang's game we never had any money for buying bombs and shit so I'm making up for it now.

Fuck defence, blowing shit up is the way forward and so many items in DnD seem basically gay and pointless. A tiny bonus to some defences compared with a bunch of landmines? No contest really.

Alright then!

Make your final choices in the game thread, and we'll start Arena level 6.

So is a boon something you can buy then?

It's got a price tag on it man, don't ask for permission

I would like to add that boons, artifacts, and intelligent items cannot be purchased (they're basically there for campaigns with very few buyable magic items - something obviously not applicable here :p).

To burn off excess cash, you can go for a tattoo if you wish though, or maybe some mount slot items or barding for the wolf...

Aww, I figured buying a boon could be rationalized as just bribing some priest to bless you. Ah well :(

Nope sorry. Not for sale, and Ebony and Ivory are just too low-leveled to warrant a god's attention or favor :(

Maybe by the time they get to Paragon level, if they survive that long anyway (hopefully their little shopping excursions get shorter the more familiar Shin gets with browsing character builder for good stuffs.)

Tattoos are hugely under-powered for the price they cost. You need to shell out hundreds of thousands for even a hint of a useful benefit.

Fuck it, we'll have horseshoes of speed, for our wolf.

<_<

>_>

I'll update the main thread and we can crack on.

Additional Spam:
I'm getting quite good at it now I think. The statistician in me has drawn me to create, rather than the silly minotaur I was going to go with, a hilariously optimised one. I'm sure Pang could do a better job but by the time it's my go in Pang's game again (In 2020) I should have nailed the optimum build.

Being on our chariot counts as squeezing? That's a bit tight, you're taking the fun out of mounted chariot combat. :(

You're going to need a big map by the way, I plan on Ben-Huring the shit out of this fight you know.

Also, if we're mounted on a chariot, why the fuck would we escape into a forest? Big, wide open spaces would make more sense, no? :)

Did we rule on whether burst attacks are cubes or spheres in terms of hitting stuff in the air or not? Given the blast is a square, using cubes would make working things out a fuck load easier if nothing else.

Ooh, and can we run people over? And does it hurt jumping off a moving wagon?

Being on your 'chariot' is fine. Being next to it is squeezing. Though not if the square has no piece of chariot on it.

Not on that blind wolf you're not. :tpg:

Honestly though, I can't stop you. I'm not going to beautify a huge map, so you're just going to have to deal with an ugly map :)

Oh wait, I can. Rubs hands in diabolic glee. Why not give it a shot?

Logically, yes. It's just that I'm railroading you to the first encounter. What you do after that is entirely your decision! :)

Blasts and bursts are cubes, as ruled earlier when you were hiding on your roof.

There are special abilities that do let you trample people. Wolfie doesn't have them. Mechanically, we can cast this as a Bull Rush -a charge that has the effect of pushing the enemy 1 square and taking its spot.

Depending on how you present it, I may allow extra damage. For example, trying to charge down a flock of birds will probably result in pain for everybody.

DC15 Acrobatics check to avoid 1d6 falling damage. No damage for a stationary wagon. While hitched to a wagon, the wolf moves at half speed (5).

Cool.

Lurks, Ivory fights better on foot so if you want to jump off and kill the halfling hiding in the bush, I can circle around behind and we can pincer attack him then move on to the birds afterwards. I suspect the halfling will be the more annoying of the options.

Okay, but I don't want to get too separated from the chariot.

I don't believe Pang's hit either of you with a swarm, so here's some special considerations regarding them:

1. They are harder to hit - half damage from melee and ranged attacks
2. They are immune to forced movement not part of close or area attacks (you can't push, pull, or slide them)
3. They can enter your space, and do not provoke opportunity attacks at all.
4. You can enter a space occupied by a swarm (difficult terrain), but that will attract opportunity attacks.

:wrong:

http://www.saxypunch.com/missile/aswarm.png

And a swarm of rats in the first room of DoD.

Additional Spam:
Zerg, can you pdf us up fresh character sheets please? I've not got the character builder installed on this computer. Also, have we got any Action Points? If so, I want to attack the birds before my turn ends.

Something went awry with my Acrobat 'registration'. Will the HTML files serve your purpose, Shin?

GFF D&D :: Ivory
GFF D&D Arena :: Ebony

You get 1 non-stackable action point per Encounter.

@Pang

O. How could I have forgotten that :tpg: Lurker probably won't ever.

Lurker, I'm delaying the ravens until after Ebony moves. Go ahead and take your turn.

HEY LURKER, IT'S YOUR TURN SUGARTITS.

They have aura?

FFFFFFFFFFFFF

whoever is next on the list, might as well polish up your character...

I think all swarms have aura.

But it's okay. Level 6 birds fighting against level 6 heroes with tons of money are not quite as damaging as Level 7 Bloodweb Spiders against Level 4 heroes starved of gold! You'll see!

Not ALL. The level 6 Kobold Horde doesn't, for example. But I can see why that would be weird for Ebony.

Huh. That was supposed to be the next encounter. Now I gotta change it since the surprise is ruined :(

LOL @ self for not studying monsters ahead of time - especially ones I've already picked as adversaries.

WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THAT.

THOSE MY HOMIES

The same reason I was gonna pit some werewolves against you two down the line!

It's fun to see how you react!

You're horrible.

I am up front about wanting to kill you (not immediately, but at some point). No reason why "killing" should only apply to your characters' bodies, right? :)

Wait, so I can do a basic charge, then a marauder's rush at the end of it? That's pretty cool. But I'mc onfused. For an attack that includes a charge (Hurling charge), I use the extra charge to convert into Marauder's Rush, not tack on at the end. So instead of Hurling Charge -> Charge -> Marauder's Rush, it's just Hurling Charge -> Marauder's Rush. So what's the difference here?

It IS tacked on, and not a "conversion".

"Charge" is an allowed combat move. You're familiar with the mechanics - it's a Standard Action where you move your speed towards your opponent, and attack it with a melee basic attack. Charging gives +1 bonus to attack rolls, but come with a provision that you should (a) be at least 2 squares away; and (b) move directly towards your opponent - i.e. the number of squares should decrease every step you take.

What Marauder's Rush does is, whenever you do a Charge, you can use it instead of the melee basic attack.

So, you could always Charge as a standard, and then use a Melee Basic Attack OR Marauder's Rush at your own discretion. It inflicts way more damage - so of course Marauder's Rush is preferable.

Hurling Charge operates the same way as the old Throw and Stab. You attack with a ranged throw, and then you get a free charge. Charges come with a free attack. And Marauder's rush can be substituted for a free attack that's due to a charge.

The game designers nerfed Throw and Stab by simply changing the free charge to a free move. Now, you can't use Marauder's Rush because the melee basic attack doesn't come at the end of a charge (see the Special line on your Marauder's Rush attack card at the wiki).

So, the sequence for Hurling Charge is basically:
Throw >> Charge >> Melee Basic Attack / Marauder's Rush

(Next up, teaching lurker to take advantage of flanking positions. But that's something for another time, kekeke)

No, next up is how damage works!

I'm looking at your math and I'm looking at my math and numbers aren't adding up. Are you applying my armbands of +2 brutality to each melee attack? As I understand it both from the character sheet and from your explanation, Marauder's Rush is a melee, but I don't see it added there. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing though?

Also I love how my rolls were universally shit but since I had so MANY of them I still wound up doing hella damage.

Your armbands have been applied already. Here's an example dissection of Marauder's Rush damage.

The power specifies that on a hit, damage equals 1W + Strength modifier + Wisdom modifier.

1. Your Weapon, a short sword, inflicts 1d6 damage. Different weapons inflict different damage (the heaviest you can wield with both hands doubles it to 1d12)
2. Your strength modifier is 4
3. Your wisdom modifier is 2

So base damage is 1d6+6

To that we add:

1. Damage Seeking Short Sword enchantment bonus (+2)
2. Iron Armbands of Power item bonus (+2)

Ending up with 1d6+10.

To that, we add in a couple of your situational modifiers which applied to the previous attack:

• Your Manticore's Fury feat gives +2 when you hit an enemy with alternating melee and ranged attacks within 2 consecutive turns.
• Your Horned Helm gives you +1d6 when you hit with a charge attack.
• Hunter's Quarry dishes out +1d6 damage to any attack of your choice. I included this with your first attack (Hurling Stab), though you're free to specify which attack you want this added to if necessary. (Let's say, suppose you think Throw and Stab will kill an enemy without the bonus, so you apply the quarry damage to the basic attack on another enemy.)

There are a couple of situational modifiers which did not apply previously, but might come into play later on:

• If your enemy is undamaged, hitting it with melee first gives +1d6 damage (I rolled 2d6 for raven damage on your first Throw and Stab, instead of 1d6)
• Thanks to your Gauntlets of Blood item, if your enemy is bloodied, you deal +2 damage.

It is entirely possible that due to the amount of situational modifiers you have, Ebony's 'miss' turns out to be a hit (you have quite a bit of conditional attack roll bonuses too), or maybe I neglect to add +2 or 1d6 damage. If this happens, just holler.

Additional Spam:
Gives wolfie +2 to attack rolls against it.

But it's a tame wolf. The traits that allow it to get combat advantage from Ebony's presence won't function until you have the Mounted Combat feat :)

NOW... if Ebony were flanking the halfling at W10, it would be a different story. But he isn't, so...

I'm scratching my head, wondering why Ivory doesn't unleash fiery hell on ravens, especially when the blinded condition does not affect area or burst attacks.

Because concentrating on one enemy at a time is the best way to win any fight. Have you never played an SRPG? The key to victory is reducing the damage received each turn, trying to kill eeverything at once gets you boned, ganging up on one at a time wins the fight and the halfling's about to die and the ravens have been drawn in so Ebony can flank them in a single turn.

It doesn't mention that the Combat Advantage trait needs a rider at all you know, only the trait that gives it's rider combat advantage or something needs a trained rider, the Dire Wolf just gains CA against any enemy with an ally next to it is how I'm reading the card.

Ah, focus fire. Fair enough!

The card you have is basically what I use to hit you with. I'm willing to let you do that to me, but you have to pay for it with a feat.

Ehhhh you know what? You're absolutely right. Combat Advantage is in effect; Pack rider is not.

Lurks, Hurling Charge is an encounter power. Once per encounter only. :(

FUCK. I r dumb. Sorry, will fix.

Zerg, can the ravens keep scattered indefinitely? Combine that with an aura and you can basically automatically kill anyone you want (Slowly). Also, can they not be attacked or just not targetted?

It's not indefinite. In fact, there's a strict stipulation on when they reform, and where.

Besides, it's like the huge swarm's not there. No opportunity attacks or aura while they're scattered like this.

They cannot be attacked while scattered. Neither can they attack.

Unlike Pang's game, which has a rather large reserve list, this iteration doesn't have a lot of people waiting in the wings. So, I am introducing a way to expedite things that will hopefully speed things up (but won't be fatal).

:savepoint: NEW HOUSE RULE :savepoint:

This takes effect after the raven/prowler battle.

In combat, if you resolve your action within 24 hours after my turn ends, you gain a free +1 token! I will be checking this with post timestamps. Note that the *completed* post (standard/move/minor - posts that delay your turn are not counted) must be in place already - not just a placeholder post. Depending on balance issues, I reserve the right to shorten or lengthen the 24-hour period as I see fit. Any such rule change will not take effect until a new battle starts.

If your turn occurs after your fellow player, and he/she will probably not make the deadline, you may go ahead and post. There's only two player characters - it won't confuse me at all.

The +1 token can be redeemed during your turn to give you a +1 token bonus to any of your dice rolls. You can trade in three +1 tokens to gain a +2 token, which does the same thing, except that it gives a +2 bonus.

One dice roll can only be augmented by one token. Token bonuses do not stack, and if you use a +1/+1 and +2/+2 token on the same dice roll, only the higher bonus will apply.

You can trade three +2 tokens to gain a free roll (roll a 1d100) on the divine wheel of fun blessings. Fun blessings are all guaranteed to have positive effects, always. Once you use up a blessing, it returns to the wheel. To keep the wheel fun, its contents shall be a mystery!

Using +1/+2 tokens in battle is a minor action. Using blessings are normally free; however, some blessings may specify the type of action required to gain their benefits when using them.

Examples!

Deep Reserves
I Can Do That, Too!

Unless explicitly stated in the text I provide you, tokens and blessings are not transferable. Only the one who earns it gets to use it.

You may only have up to ten of each token at any one time. No hoarding!

Finally, please post the use of tokens and blessings in the game thread. To redeem the blessing, make a 1d100 roll in this discussion thread.

Not only have you made the PC's lives easier, you have given lurker more rules to remember. :mad:

Also I have a plan to ease some of the excessively long wait times in my backup queue, but I can't put it into practice until the current adventure finishes.

Are you saying she can't handle it? :3:

Besides, if posting trends remain as they are, Ebony probably won't even get to see a token.

You baby these two. The other day Shin had the temerity to ask what combat advantage did and you didn't even backhand him.

THEY'RE NOT GONNA BE READY. THEY'RE NOT GONNA BE READY WHEN LIFE ATTACKS

I ARE NICE MONTY HAUL DM!

Would it not be fun to give them a dose of Pang-reality once they rotate back into your universe?

In my defence, Bob was never ever ever in a position to either grant or benefit from combat advantage save for when people were prone and back in them days we didn't roll any dice and need to know any rules.

Tokens sounds cool. It's really hard to kill things in DnD and it's pretty hard to get killed yourself. The vast majority of my paper rpg experience was with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Rifts, both of which let you cut down swathes of bad guys with ease but leave you hilariously vulnerable to getting murdered yourself. A critical hit table that can leave you with an arm missing is proper hardcore.

Yoo hoo. Lurrrrrrrrkerrrrrrrrrrrrrr

CHRIST I CAN BARELY REMEMBER WHO ANY OF YOU ARE, IS THAT MY FAULT

I POSIT: NO

In hindsight I should probably never play actual D&D with you, unless I'm allowed to make rules up as i go along. However, since I am no longer 6 years old, that probably won't hold my attention for very long, so there's that. :(

Ha, if I can manage to keep both Thud and Infernal focused on orc dorks for two hours I don't see you being any trouble.

ROLL A D20 FOR GETTING UP TO GET A BEER

This does not even excite me. We need GFF LARP.

I'll be any character that gets to crash through doors.

Fuck it. Shin, Zerg obviously wants us to be as destructive as he is; let's just burn the lot down.

Additional Spam:
oh also zerg, two things:

1) Do I get a +1 token?
2) I am presuming that, if I were to move from being adjacent to the flock to moving away, I would provoke an opportunity attack. Is this a safe assumption, or are the rules for these kinds of enemies different?

Token system starts after the battle.

And yeah, I do believe you treat a swarm as you would a large-sized monster with extra attributes. So, you would provoke an opportunity attack if you move away from a square, including adjacent ones, that are threatened by the ravens.

I can see now that swarms, even the ones before MM3, and even those at the party's level, are lethal. Wow.

... you apparently don't remember what happened to lurker BEFORE, do you?

Shhhhh. She's still very sensitive about it.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_j1WCY4T_2y...yesterday..jpg

http://media.nj.com/hudsoncountynow_...e115_large.jpg

http://blogs.unity3d.com/wp-content/...ard_scrn01.jpg

http://www.shisso.org/archives/funeral.jpg





:mad:

Get out of here, YOU'RE DEAD

Yeah well. I thought a level 7 swarm fighting against level 4 characters would be far more lethal than a same level swarm fighting against level 5 characters.

Shows how much I know :(

Zerg, looking at the character sheets you posted a couple of pages back, you seem to have an extra effect for the Hearth of Boldrei that's not on the item card, something about a power bonus if you hit the same enemy again. What's that all about?

This is what I got for the item you chose (presumably for its controller-ish daily):

Hearth of Boldrei +2 | Level 8
Brandishing this orange and gray octogram, you shelter your ally from harm by scattering his enemies.

Lvl 8 | 3,400 gp
Item Slot: Off-hand
Critical: +2d6 damage
Enhancement: +2 attack/damage rolls
Power (Daily ● Implement)
Immediate Reaction.
Trigger: An ally within 10 squares of you that you can see is hit by an attack.
Effect: Make an attack, area burst 1 centered on the ally hit by the attack; targets enemies; Wisdom vs. Fortitude; the target is pushed 2 squares away from
the ally.

Maybe what you saw was the power bonus thing in Ebony's Flesh Seeker weapon, an encounter power he's yet to use?

"Last seen in the company of a large apartment wolf."

Hush you. You're not supposed to be able to read Halflish Goblin! :mad:

Let them live inside the Apartment Wolf! Reveal that their given names are actually Oscar and Felix! Do it do it do it do it

Zerg, can we get a breakdown of current hp and number of remaining surges please?

It's on the first post of the game thread where I've always updated it all this time. Was that all for naught? :(

...
I'm sorry. :(

Ahahahahaha, I never noticed that before.

WHAT :mad:

Lurker, you get a post to react and do stuff before Encounter 6-2 comes up.

Stuff is did.

I'll look at it now though Zerg, promise!

Edit: What the fuck though? Can we seriously not be allowed to start a fight on our chariot capable of seeing or moving or drawing AoO by moving? :(

Edit 2: We could indeed just chuck a tethercord at the blob and stroll off but I'd rather fight one big blob than a load of little things.

Shin don't forget, Zerg promised us that there would be fights we didn't have to fight. So maybe we should just avoid this beast from Bill Cosby's nightmares.

When did I ever promise that :(

the wolf thing? You know, the fight that nearly killed me (along with the two other fights that nearly killed me)?

I indeed tailored the dire wolf encounter to be a skill challenge to give you free mounts, since I like to test out mounted combat.

But that's more the exception than the rule. This is, after all, an arena

That's right. You only have the illusion of free will.

game, which denotes forced battle in an enclosed area. So expect a whole lot more railroading than Pang's more free-form game :)

It is not a convincing illusion~

Christ, Zerg. The entire run-up to the game, you were talking about how it's an arena game, you gotta kill people and shit, and die; then you're all like 'olo why are you guys killing your mounts :3' and now it's all 'olo why are you not killing your enemies :3"

Christ Zerg

Sorry. I'll be more clear about expectations going forward.

So henceforth, you're supposed to kill people and stuffs from here on end! All enounters will be combat encounters, although there may be a skill challenge element inside (i.e. traps).

That mount thing was the exception. Perhaps that was too arbitrarily in that I expected you to be mind-readers. Won't happen again. .__.

___

That being said, would Ebony want a mount of his own?

So long as it's a griffon, I reckon he would.

Level 8. If you survive that long ;)

(Also, +1 token to Ivory)

Shin I know we bought our stuff in order to use them in this round of encounters, but I'm afraid of running out. If you think it's wise, though, I'll use a fire item or sommat.

We should've bought a fuckin' lighter.

I reckon use 'em while we've got 'em. We bought a shit load of stuff anyway, it should keep us going for a while.

How can a massive blob of jelly possibly have the relexes to doge shit to the tune of a reflex of 19.

That's fair. That thing you used last encounter to give you fire breath until the end of the fight, was that the fire dragon's breath? I don't want to use that unless the blob has loads of hp left. Seems like too useful an item to waste :-/ Any idea what his hp is like?

Of course he should have. There's no reason habibs couldn't own "ye olde smoke shoppe" back in the days.

212. :cool:

Pangalin Murphy! :cussing:

Go sit in the corner. :smack:

Yeah, it's the elixir of dragon breath. He's got a lot of hp but I've got plenty of ways to keep us topped up. Zerg will get bored of destrying the wagon and move on to the wolf next, either that or attack me so I stop healing you. It's worth keeping up the steady dripfeeding of your hp back to save your surges though.

Ok, i can't help but feel like i'm dropping in kinda suddenly, but this seemed like the best place to express interest in finally signing up for DnD. I've played a little in RL but i am intensely inexperienced. Is it possible for me to be primed to join in the future?

Sure thing! You may also want to sign up for Pang's game, for a more intense experience with a traditional 6-man party. :)

Ok, will do, but i'll need some seriously prep. LIke i said, only played very little, and that was with some very forgiving DMs who were willing to spoonfeed everything i would need to know.

Don't you even fucking start, or I'll have your head.

I thought Lurks took some damage last fight, hence the need for topping up now. Also, my character sheet says additional 5 healing for Astral Seal, i.e. a total of 7.

Lurker surged to full, so hence, no damage.

Here's the mechanics on Astral Seal:
Attack: Wisdom +2 vs. Reflex
Hit: Until the end of your next turn, the target takes a –2 penalty to all defenses. The next ally who hits it before the end of your next turn regains hit points equal to 2 + your Charisma modifier (+2).

The character sheet PDF is outdated, since you're no longer using the Symbol of Shared Healing. The additional 5 HP pertains to your cleric feature called Healer's Lore. This was errata-ed a while back to only benefit healing that spend surges.

Please refer to the web site instead. I spent quite a bit of time on that Excel spreadsheet. I mean, it's even got a dandy summary of what actions you can take, segregated in Monster Manual 3-esque fashion by Traits, Standard, Minor, and Immediate actions :(

Perhaps not to the same extent as Pang's wiki-editing heroics. I can see he's experimenting with Gra-fa-zut's sheet on a sandbox.

To-do: Fix Adobe Acrobat

I have been using the website as a rule, although there's a few mistakes on the summary sheet (The odd bonus to hit power you've attributed to the Hearth of Boldrei, Astral Seal gives healing to the next ally who attacks, not hits) and I personally find a list by at-will, encounter and daily more useful (Since pretty much everything is a standard action) but it's a very nice spreadsheet. :)

Gasp, mistakes in my spreadsheet!

* Fixed *

Since the the website is really for your benefit (and not mine), can you think of more ways for it to become more useful? I'll take your preference for sorting by at-will, encounter, and daily powers under advisement.

Also, what say you, lurker?

I'll check it out later and give you my thoughts. btw I earned 3 tokens, not 1.

A strict reading of the rules say you are absolutely right. So I'm changing the rules, to start after this fight. :3:

Now both of you have to post within a day of my post, if ever your turn comes one after another. You may "jump the gun" - there's only two of you, I won't get confused or anything.

It's your house rule and it's your generosity that's giving it to us, so I'm not going to complain. But, I find it difficult to visualize strategy without Shin moving before me (if his move is supposed to be before mine). I'll give it a shot but I don't know if I'll be able to keep up with Shin in tokens.

Also, for my edification: are all saves against immobilization, damage, etc done after all other actions have been taken? For example, if I were to save against my immobilization, could I immediately get the hell out of dodge?

Saving throws are always done at the end of your turn (PHB 269).

There are a few ways to get in a saving throw before your turn ends. I believe the only way open for you two (not sure about this, ask Pang to be sure) is for someone to make a DC15 Heal Check to administer First Aid to an adjacent ally as a Standard Action (PHB 185). Then the saving throw can be made immediately (1d20, succeeds on 10+).

Well, fire breathin' is a 3x3 square that starts right next to you, and thus doesn't burn you. Certainly you can specify a 3x3 grid that will result in not hitting Ivory. If you specify, of course.

Also, you're dazed. It's either attack or escape. Which takes priority? :p

escape.

C6 it is then :)

For future reference, focusing the close blast from E8:G10 is a feasible move that would hit the cube, and the cube alone.

well then DO THAT INSTEAD GOD ZERG

I can use an action point for a move, right?

And I have an action point, right?

Yes to both counts.

Hey Zerg, I have a question about surging to full health. I want to use as many healing surges that will get me close to my full hp, but I don't want to go over - I don't want to use a healing surge just to heal an additional (let's say) 3 hp, for example. How can I specify that?

You could say, "use x healing surges". Each surge will heal 1/4 of your max hp rounded down, though this value may increase sometimes (e.g. surge tapped via Ivory's Healing Word). Your surge value is 12, as indicated in the Second Wind entry.

I can always adjust surge usage so you don't waste them. What is the minimum amount of health would you accept as being "full", and thus no need to heal over that amount?

I never actually checked to find out, but my worry is that by surging to full I'm using up a healing surge to heal a small amount of hp. In this case it's no big deal; I'm currently on 14 hp so the third surge would only heal 11 hp to me, not 12, and that one lousy point doesn't seem like a big loss to me. I'd rather be surged to full.

I guess in general if I can be healed up until 5 hps from my max, I think that's reasonable. But I can do the math next time, since you're keeping my hp count up to date in the first post.

Zerg.

Zerg.

Zerg.

Why do you think "chuck everything in the chariot" doesn't include gold coins.

Zerg.

Why.

Why, it does appear you are correct!

Very well, you may have your 70 gold pieces :tpg:

I hope Shin doesn't mind if I speak for him, but I'd just like to blanketly state that any time any money comes across our attention, we'll pick it up and pocket it when it is safe to do so.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Additional Spam:
Apparently my crossbow only has a range of ten according to my wiki thingy. Is that right? I mean, Ivory can throw things that far, you'd have thought he could get better distance with a crossbow.

Your crossbow has a range of 15/30. You take a -2 penalty hitting beyond 15, and can't hit beyond 30. For reference, longbows are 20/40.

Practically all of your powers key on your implement, which has a max range of 5. The only power that lets you use your crossbow seems to be a ranged basic attack.

OIC. The ranged basic attack power on my character wiki thing says ranged 10 on it.

Additional Spam:
Lurks, we might want to slow down a bit to let them catch up within bomb range at least but I think if we keep moving they'll stay a bit more strung out so we might not be fighting them all at once, plus it gives us more chances for awesome, epic, jumping off the moving cart to horse-jack someone moments.

So it does. Damn, my bad.

I spent more attention on the Quick Sheet. ._.

Wheel of Fun and Joy #47

Harbinger of Death

No Action.
Trigger: You hit an enemy with an attack.
Effect: Until the end of the encounter, you can change the
damage type of the attack to Necrotic or Cold. In addition,
the target gains vulnerability 5 to that damage type until
the end of the encounter after the triggering attack resolves.

We meet again, Papyrus.

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Can't be that bad if an award-winning Canadian director uses it :3: :3: :3: :3: :3:

I'm confused.

I know that Ivory gave me the reins, but you said that the wolf can only move during Ivory's turn so I thought you were telling us we couldn't do the thing we (Shin) wanted to do.

Additional Spam:
I mean I know I'm not creative in combat or anything but I'm pretty sure I would've gotten us away if you didn't tell us that we couldn't get away

You couldn't move the wolf during Ebony's original turn, because the round hasn't ended yet and stuff. Wolfie can only move so far in six seconds :)

Now that you've delayed and has basically started a new round, go nuts.

Though, I never imposed any condition that you have to hold the reins to move the wolf. Shin can move him via remote if he wants :tpg:

Or maybe I'm dumb and you were referring to that bit about Ebony hesitating. Don't worry about it - just a bit of narrative license there - mechanically you delayed your turn.

Lurkeeeer. Still interested?

Do you want to delay again, or...?

Lurker has decided to retire Ebony. I'm still awaiting Shin's decision on whether he wishes to continue on with Rychord, or leave concurrently.

Rychord, you're up next. Do you have a character concept in mind?
Pang, you might be up soon.

I don't wanna go back to goblins or hobgoblins or what. So why don't you folks prepare Level 7 characters? You have an allotment of 12,100 GP to spend on gear. You can buy anything in Character builder that aren't boons, artifacts, and intelligent items.

I just sent you a PM with my level 5 build, but I'll gladly rework it to get up to level 7 and spend some moolah on goodies, though I wouldn't mind discussing my purchases with my eventual partner, so I might hold off on that front until I know who I'm playing with.

To whomever I will be joining up with, just know that my character is going to be a dragonborn paladin with poison breath, heavy on the healing surges and evil to the core.

Also: What's the most current version of the CB? I ask because I have to install it on my GF's comp since I'm on a mac, and consequently I haven't kept it up to date as I would have were it mac compatible.

The latest update to the Character Builder appears to be August 2010 though there could be a September revision I don't know about.

You're going to be playing with Pang. I believe he was intent on creating a Sorceror that wears scale mail. Why don't you two collaborate on creating a synergistic team, and jointly get your characters back while I try to finish off the Ivory/Ebony story arc? :)

Level 7. 12,100 GP to spend on things.

Nah, no September revision, Zerg.

They pushed it back until October (early) so that they could get the Dark Sun and Essentials stuff in there.

I ended up leaving the heavy armor thing by the wayside but here's Cyrus Von Brandt, L7 Storm Sorcerer. Might tweak him a little more once I've seen Rychord's guy but he's pretty adequate for most forms of face-wrecking.

Here's an IPlay4E link if somebody needs to view it on, say, a Mac.

Also Pang, if you could copy all your guy's stuff from the Compendium into, say, a Google document, it would be great. Saves me from doing some retyping to my Excel sheet. :)

Good game Zerg. I look forward to seeing the next group try their luck!

Aw shucks. The next encounter was seriously going to be with a very intelligent papa troll (Luc'ass) and a mentally-challenged mama troll (Yamana). Whose subsequent slaughter would so orphan and traumatize their poor little baby Gorg into captivity and stupidity.

Best laid plans. :(

I'm having a bit of a problem understanding all this holy symbol jazz. In the CB, I could clearly see it being equipped in the focus/ki slot, but in the item description it says that it goes in the off-hand. Sure enough when I upload the sheet to iplay4e (thanks Pang!) it shows as not equipped.

Does this mean that I actually have to sheath my weapon to equip it and benefit from the bonus, which would make it rather pointless when using my heavy flail?

Additional Spam:
Also, any tweaking suggestions are welcome at this point.

Zerg, do you have to work hard to be this not funny, or does it come naturally?

I know I'm not the only one who is curious.

I mean, Yama wasn't even a troll. He was just fucking stupid and pretentious.

Relax. All is well, for such an occurence has not come to pass because of extenuating circumstances.

As far as I'm concerned, we never interacted but he's trolled pretty hard on the (new) GF wiki. Though of late it's been overrun with spammers.

Rychord, looks like you'll have to go with a one-handed/versatile weapon, then. I'm not very good with divine types, though if there's one guy who can really ramp up your guy, it's Pang.

You know, Zerg, I'd forgotten about his defacing the wiki.

I stand corrected. He sucked at trolling as well as life.

Also, the trick with divine types is generally to take the feats that create radiant vulnerability, and then proceed to stack on damage. I'm playing a wizard|Invoker hybrid in my weekly game, and he's been ruining both undead and the living alike at level 6. Generally divine has a certain amount of control inherent to them, too. So a build that has controller at least as secondary works as well.

I happen to be playing with a dragonborn paladin, and as we've gone through combat, it's become apparent you want things that mark with your divine sanction and divine challenge as much as possible. Sanction especially. There is a daily in your level range, Rychord, that when it hits makes the opponent suffer from your DS damage until it dies. No save ends. Just eventually the thing dies.

The more you mark, the more off-turn damage you can do, the scarier you become.

And, as for your holy symbol, you don't need it in the off-hand. I don't know why it is doing that to you, as you can actually equip a holy symbol TO your weapon, thus why the CC lets you put it on like a ki-focus and the like. You absolutely do not require a free hand. You can rock a heavy shield and a holy symbol.

Thanks for the tips Deni, I'll have to go back to the CB and try and find that power you mentioned, it sounds quite useful. I'll admit that the mark mechanics are new to me and that I steered clear of most abilities that mentioned them simply to make it less confusing to figure out what the end result of my use of powers would be.

As for the logic behind my build, if one can call it that, I sort of went for the idea that I would sacrifice powerful attack powers for extra abilities that make use of healing surges, and chose the durable and toughness feats to complement that. In this way, I figured that if pang chose a high damage output low AC/HP build (which it appears he did, somewhat), I would focus on the keeping both of us alive. I chose a heavy flail to at least permit my regular attacks to have the most potential for damage. I did do the core of the build back when Zerg started the arena, so it wouldn't hurt me to take a good hard look at it and see what the weak points are.

Also, it is a very real possibility that I might have went a bit too heavy on the surge dependent abilities, so I'll go back and have a gander at the more aggressive possibilities I could substitute for some of them in my build, and while I'm at it I'll try and get the marking mechanics through my head.

And to Zerg, I had an idea back when I created the character, and I wanted to see what your take was on it. Since my character is an evil paladin, I was wondering if it would be too much of a stretch to make all my abilities that included the radiant keyword changed to necrotic. I don't know how big much of a balance shift that would create, and I'm really just curious to see what your take would be on this.

I have absolutely no objection with all your radiant powers reflavored towards necrotic. Especially since much, much more monsters are resistant to it vis-a-vis radiant. And the reverse is true when it comes to vulnerabilities :D

Let me know if this is what you want. It certainly makes thematic sense, and I promise I won't be so horrible as to send only undead at you.

Marking with Pallys is super easy.

You have two: Your divine sanction and your divine challenge.

Your challenge you use a minor action to lay, or can do it with certain powers, and it can be put on one enemy at a time. Basically what it does in a nutshell is make you "sticky." It makes it hard for enemies to ignore you. If they attack someone who isn't you on their turn, they take a -2 to attack and you deal 3 + your CHA mod damage to them. So they either have to face you and your huge manly AC, or take damage and a -2 to hit.

Your Divine Sanction is a newer addition, came up in the Divine Power expansion. It basically makes your marks useful. DS is only laid via powers, and lasts as long as the power description says it does. Same effect. -2 to hit not you and 3 + CHA modifier damage if they attack someone else.

Basically, you mark a single target every round with DC and then use DS to mark additional targets. The more people you mark, the more you force people to deal with you or get punished.

One tweak that I would suggest, looking at your sheet: if you're going to spend the money on getting a magic symbol, it might be worth having more than one power that actually uses it. Maybe swap Radiant Delirium for something weapon-based and just go with a mundane symbol instead, let me handle the ranged stuff? Maybe spend the resulting cash on a Belt of Vigor, crank Smothas' durability up another notch.

Just suggestions of course.

Zerg, don't worry about making an excel sheet for me. I've got DDI so I can just play from my iplay4E sheet. It has used/unused toggles for everything, so I'm all set unless you think I'll try to be dishonest.

Here's a portrait for Cyrus. Finding a dragonborn paladin should be fairly easy, WoTC's artists love that combo for whatever reason.

http://www.saxypunch.com/missile/ss83-hires.png

Nah, you'll probably be scrupulously honest, and might well be inclined to point out anything I missed. Even if it's disadvantageous to yourself, such as an enemy forgetting to do an OA.

Once you two are done tweaking, please post the dnd4e files here (need to check the value of gear - hope you understand). I'm thinking of dropping you both directly into an arena environment, and then you can take it from there. Subject to change depending on your backgrounds, of course.

Both of you will get a chance to post in the thread before the first encounter starts up, so feel free to develop any kind of backstory as desired.

I agree completely with the belt of vigor idea. Don't know how I missed that.

Now for the magic symbol part I am a bit confused, as I thought the bonus applied to all attacks? If not, I'll certainly jettison it for something else. If the bonus does apply to all attacks, Zerg, will I be able to add it to my weapon as Deni says, or will I really have to change my weapon? Again, if that is the case, it's gone.

Pang, if you want me to let you focus more on the ranged attacks, another thing I can do is get rid of the Gloves of Giantkind, as I really only bought those to have a backup option in case the enemies decide to be annoying and stay as far away from me as they can. This would permit me to buy the belt without having to sacrifice my symbol in the case that the bonuses do apply as I thought they did.

Zerg, I'll take the switch to Necrotic for my Paladin powers, in the interest of good RP and just for the hell of it.

I'll be looking at my powers later today to tweak them.

There's the guy officer:
http://i392.photobucket.com/albums/p...in/smothas.png

As far as I can tell, the implement's enchantment bonus applies only to powers that have the "Implement" keyword. The only one among your choices which does so is the aforementioned "Radiant Delirium".

Of course, correct me if I'm wrong, Deni, Pang.

Gloves of Giantkind seems to be a rather lousy way to give yourself a decent ranged attack. Consider a throwing hammer instead.

As for your implement dilemma, you can buy enchanted weapons that double as implements too (take a look at Vigilant Blade +2, Crusader's Weapon +2 and Holy Avenger can't afford). We can reflavor them to deal necrotic, as per your specifications.

smothas beegraks.dnd4e

This is my updated character sheet. I've tried to integrate most of the suggestions that were made, and I removed the Durable and Radiant Breath feats in favor of Draconic Challenge and Lend Health. I realized I had gone a bit too heavy on increasing my healing surges, as even in the worst of cases I don't think I would have been able to use up all 15, so that's why Durable went. The Radiant Breath I took out because I found Draconic Challenge, which sounds a hell of a lot better. Draconic challenge will help me use my divine sanction more often, and lend health will make my lay on hands much more effective in healing Cyrus.

I ditched the holy symbol for a mundane one, and I also sold the gloves in favor of a throwing hammer as Zerg suggested. About the gloves though, the way I read their use sounded pretty awesome to me, 2d6+str (against a hammer's 1d6) damage by throwing an object of less than 30lbs with a 6/12 range? Yes please? I imagined just picking random shit up and tearing the place up if I ever got immobilized, but maybe I just read the description wrong.

The powers page is where I spent most of my tweaking time, The big additions are Majestic Halo, Shield the Virtous, and Unyielding Faith (pretty sure this is what Deni mentioned), which will all help spread my Divine Sanction quite a bit.

Thanks guys for all your input, all that remains now is to see how well I'll be able to use all this newfound awesome.

Also, I conserved my Chainreach Heavy Flail+2, as I figure having a strong ranged attack once per encounter would come in handy in a pinch.

Ok, here's the finalized version of Cyrus, you can grab the dnd4e from the File popup if you need it.

I misread the glove's powers actually. I thought it's +2 vs. AC when it's strength + 2 vs AC (around +8). Use it, by all means. (You'll have to carry improvised thrown weapons around though, maybe like a sack of rocks?)

Anyhow, alright. Gimme a few days to bring things together. Then we can start the second Arena.

Ok, that's great! I actually had sold the gloves in the file I uploaded, so I went back and sold my magic hammer and my belt of vigor to buy them back, and I also bought ten regular, 5 sp adventuring gear hammers to chuck. I'll probably not use this too often, as having ranged options was a very secondary concern, but I like the general idea of having the option open and actually being able to cause good damage with it if need be. I figure ten chuckable objects should be enough for now, and I'm pretty sure there'll be enough objects that way less than 30 lbs. lying around to refill my stockpile if need be. I hope to have a chance to buy the belt of vigor back as soon as I get enough gold though.

Here is what I imagine will be the final build of my character. Sorry if you had already used the other file to prepare :eagletear:.

smothas beegraks.dnd4e

Pang, your inventory sans the free Adventurer's Kit tallies up to 12,205 GP. You're a bit over the 12,100 GP limit, sorry :(

Huh. Don't know how that happened, but selling everything off proves you're right.

Ditched the Circlet and Bracers, bought Gauntlets of Blood and 3 L6 Holy Waters, since I can practically hear you pouring undead into the arena now that Rychord's switched from Radiant damage. With free kit that should leave me with 30GP, check me if you want (same link).

I'd say that I'll bludgeon the hell out of those matherfackers with my heavy flail, but I can't seem to locate any info that specifies that undead are weak to this type of damage in 4e. Is that a change that was made specifically in 4e or did I just play too many console and PC Dungeons and dragons game that gave me this erroneous notion?

Bludgeoning/Slashing/Piercing damage is a thing of the past, yes. No longer must we carry around a big-ass hammer just in case we encounter an ooze.

Can I get both your iPlay4e handles? Wanna mess around with campaigning there :)

Cheers for running that game, Zerg, it was fun.

One thing I would suggest is that as well as varying the monster types from fight to fight is that you might want to think about including more varied interactive environments. For example, a fight on a thin ledge with bottomless gaps either side or in a mine field or on two opposing ledges with rope swings or something. Get more skill rolls going on but let the PCs take advantage as much as the bad guys (As in a fight on a thin ledge but don't make all the monsters flying ones). If nothing else, it'll allow for a bit more tactical thought to go into the fights rather than just knowing which powers to chain together.

My iplay4e handle is, quite surprisingly, Rychord.

Pangalin, as everywhere.

Additional Spam:
Agreeing with Shin's point about interesting terrain also, although in my experience some people will just stand still and mash the attack button even if there are levers marked "explosion" right next to them.

*Looks around furtively, raises hand slowly and hangs head in shame*

I was wondering how we're supposed to use immediate interrupts in this kind of context?

I ask because one of the options I considered when I saw that Cyrus was heavily damaged was to use my Martyr's Blessing, but I decided against it seeing that there were better options available. It seemed too late once you guys had both posted again to chime in and go "oh by the way, this whole series of posts is now useless because I'm interrupting the action that happened three posts ago". On the other hand, it would be kind of hard to call out my interrupt use the second the attack goes down, since, you know, I can't be at my comp 24/7. It would be great to know for future reference how these things are handled.

You can either put in a standing if-then statement (if Cyrus gets hit by any attack that deals more than x damage, I use y power). Alternatively if there aren't too many posts out, we can always rewrite the past. There's only two of you, it's not as confusing as processing edits for five :)

Though, do note that once you had decided to use Counterstrike guards, you're not able to use Martyr's Blessing until you take another turn. Only one immediate action between turns, not counting opportunity attacks.

Also, I probably goofed by allowing you to use the counterstrike guards on your own turn. You're not supposed to be able to take those on your turn. But, eh, it missed, so I guess that's something to note for next time :tpg:

This is basically how we've been doing things, yes. It's the DM's job to go back and fix whatever doesn't make sense in the new immediately-interrupted timeline.

You can always just give Zerg an "if, then" request well in advance but it's hard to be specific enough that it's not going to go off uselessly. :(

fuck, beaten

Also, I could have been unfairly jumping the gun by posting before you folks have completed editing your posts to your full satisfaction (I'm an inveterate editor myself). To prevent this, may I request that you mark a finalized post with an emoticon, say, like the savepoint one? (:savepoint:)

A question for Paladin Players. Martyr's Blessing says any melee/ranged attacks that hit your allies hits you instead. Does this necessitate another attack/damage roll, or is this taken literally (you get hit, and thus take the damage the ally would've taken - even if that attack roll would have missed you)?

I'll take note of the counterstrike guards thing, I just thought it was good for an melee attack that was targeted at me.

Also, I was semi-aware of the fact that I couldn't use both interrupts on my turn, and I probably would have chosen a different chain of events completely if I would have used the Martyr's Blessing. Thanks for reminding me though, I still have to get most of these specific rules down completely, and I honestly wasn't thinking about it when I was posting my turn.

I'm pretty sure the Martyr's Blessing switches the damage as it was rolled to the Paladin. Otherwise, they probably would have said "whenever an ally gets hit by an attack, you become the target of the attack instead", or some such thing that would imply a reroll. You guys can correct me if I'm wrong.

Um, Zerg, did I not get an OA against bugger A when he moved away from me? Or is there something that prevented it? I as because if I did it might influence what I'm going to do on my turn (which I have figured out, but am waiting on your reply to post).

Also: Why do I only have 1 +1 token? I want my fun time prizes!

Well, Horrifying Mockery allows the bugbear to shift 3 squares if successful. So nope. :)

Also: You actually have 2x +1 tokens. Just forgot to update the first post :3:

Ok, I didn't know that. Are all the monster abilities listed somewhere or are we not supposed to be able to know about their effects unless we use skill checks to figure them out, or some such thing?

Also: Yay! getting closer to fun time prizes ! :starry:

But I gave the effects on this post. :(

You can always make a knowledge check (free action - once per type of enemy) to this end. Depending on the monster origin, this can either be a nature, religion, or arcana check. You can get anything from background fluff to the full monster card. See previous example.

Note that the example covers lower-leveled characters. I reserve the right to modify the DCs as necessary :)

But ehh, you're playing with a DM. I think you're covered on monster knowledge ;-)

Crap I noticed that but completely missed the whole shift thing. Sorry about that. I need to learn to read everything more carefully. Thanks for pointing that out. :eagletear:

Zerg, I think you got it right with martyr's blessing.

Thanks.

I'm also assuming that opportunity attacks against targets other than the marker are subject to mark penalties, since they're "attacks that don't include the marker as a target". Which means that Divine Sanction, and not Whirlwind, killed the last minion. Is this corrent?

This mark thing is confusing :(

I've always DMed it as ANY attack against a target that isn't the one that marked you.

IIRC, though, minions have to be killed by direct damage, no? So no divine sanction can take them down.

If I'm remembering correctly (no DMG right now at hand), minions take no damage from a miss. I don't know about (automatic) damage that don't require attack rolls though. Or heck, even auto-hit attacks like Magic Missile.

Gonna check it later.

No need, I looked it up for you. The only kinds of attacks that don't kill a minion is when a miss still causes damage. In fact they take no damage from them at all, kill or no.

Ah. A DM of mine must have houseruled the indirect damage thing.

I have another question about my gloves. When I'm using their at-will power, I use strength+2 vs. AC to determine the hit. Does this give me a +5 bonus to hit, or do I also add the +3 half-level modifier and make it +8?

Yeah, always add your half-level bonus to attacks.