[DnD] Let's Cast Magic Missile!

NOOOOOOOOOOOO DON'T EDIT IT

IT'S TOO LATE

TIME PARADOX

FELIPE NO

oh hell, lurker already violated that little clause so go ahead and roll with whatever you wanted to do

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Well, the Religion skill would allow you, plausibly, to determine whether or not the "Paladin" is in fact a holy man.

Arcana, Dungeoneering, History, Nature and Religion skill knowledge can all be used like this, just indicate what you're trying to determine and call for a check.

Originally Posted by Elfstar

Does Bob actually have any kind of sense for when magic is being performed and if so, is it just in the form of a passive perception check or do I have to specify he's looking out for these things?

Yeah, you can always Detect Magic since you've got Arcana Training but it does call for a specific check.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Elfstar

Cool. Is that a pass or fail thing or does it work in degrees? I mean, would it be like Bob either knows there's magic afoot or he doesn't realise it or is it more that he either misses it completely, realises that something is going on or knows what spell is in effect, depending on the roll?

Yeah, it's more of an incremental thing. There's no guarantee that you'll find anything, but you'll discover more the higher you roll.

Originally Posted by Elfstar

Oh, and do you get an accuracy bonus shooting from prone like in all the best fps games?

To the contrary, in fact.

You are harder to hit with ranged attacks, if it's any consolation.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Coup de grace only applies to helpless enemies, not those who are merely prone.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by a lurker

does Melora's Tide cost a healing surge?

Nope.

Quote:

What happens if I use Healing Touch or some other surge-spendy skill on someone who has no more surges?

Healing Word, you mean? Normally, this will do nothing (and waste the power). If you use it on somebody who's dying, though, it will restore them to exactly 1 HP.

EDIT: Brady, Arg does make a successful save against slow and acid thanks to Soggy in the unlikely event you want to move around a lot on your turn.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Denicalis

Divine mettle on Dopple.

That don't make no sense none at all

knk, did you ever actually select a power to store in your Chainmail of Exploits?

Additional Spam:
FFFF it's the Orc Incident all over again

I was speaking idiomatically.

Okay knk but if you live through this fight please remember to pick one then okay

Originally Posted by Denicalis

Hey Shin. Might want to use Sleep

He already blew his Daily spell use on Acid Arrow against the elves, though.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

Hey Pang what gameworld setting has this campaign been in anyways?

In terms of the extremely-scanty "storyline" it's in the systemless Freeport setting. As far as setting-specific races/feats/pantheons/monsters go it's entirely a grab bag, although I have made specific reference to a couple of Forgotten-Realms-specific locations here and there. So I guess it's FR but on some distant island which doesn't have to deal with FR's shitty backstory and drama. If Bob ends up becoming a War Wizard of Cormyr without ever having actually been to Cormyr that's just fine with me.

How ya doing, buddy?

In the sense that level four is one level closer to 11 than level 3 is, it's 13% more likely!

FELIPE NO

So long as they're both within 10 squares of you it doesn't matter how close they are to each other.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Okay, well. It's a bit convoluted.

The idea of spell preparation isn't that you "cast them into the book" but rather that all your spells are already in the book. However, obviously, it's not practical to read directly out of the spellbook during a fight, nor is it plausible to simultaneously memorize every spell in the book. So how it works (on a fluff level) is that on the beginning of each day you go through your book and memorize particular spells (according to your level, etc).

That's why the Wizard gets two Utility or Daily powers whenever the other classes get one. Ostensibly you pick one each at the beginning of every day, and this gives you a certain degree of flexibility; you don't bother memorizing Sleep if you expect to be fighting golems, or whatever.

For the most part I've just sidestepped this for the sake of maintaining pace and just declared ex post facto that whatever one you cast first is what you "chose" that day, but we can do it as by the book if you prefer. Maybe it would be easier to keep track of that way.

So after each extended rest, you'd select one of the Level 1 Daily Spells, and one of the Level 2 Utility Spells out of the two each that are in your book. Today (again, ex post facto), you selected Acid Arrow and Shield respectively.




Since Expeditious Retreat is a Utility spell you can use it even when you've already used a Daily spell (even though it's "daily", it's not a "Daily Power"). You are right in that Shield is an encounter spell so I had checked that off in error.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

's just flavor

* Brimstone Hail (standard; recharge 5 or 6⚄) • Fire
Area burst 2 within 15; +9 vs. Reflex; 1d8 + 4 fire damage, and
the target is knocked prone.

So, you know, didn't feel like putting forward this elaborate explanation about infernal weather patterns during an indoor fight.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

BUT

MY IMMERSION

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

I'm gonna wait and see if that bugbear gets pushed back. (it's actually relevant this time I swear)

He did, go nuts

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

In the event anyone ever does pull off a successful grab, all it does is immobilize so it has no effect on attacks at all. Certain enemies can use grabbed characters as human shields but if that comes up I'll point it out.

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by Bradylama

Are immobilized enemies helpless?

No.

Quote:

What does make something helpless aside from sleep which is obvious?

That is the only cause of helplessness I can find =(

Quote:

ALSO, do AoOs only trigger when I leave an enemy's reach? As in can I pass through Mots's square and get behind the bugbear without triggering an AoO?

Yes, and yes

Quote:

And can Gabe prepare to attack the bugbear once I've flanked it?

And yes

Originally Posted by knkwzrd

Does my blindness affect Commander's Strike?

Apparently not!

How ya doing, buddy?

There's no rule for it per se. As long as whoever deals the finishing blow declares their intent to knock the enemy out rather than kill it, that's what happens.

(unless knocking the enemy out would make no sense, zombies ghosts golems etc)

FELIPE NO

PCs don't die immediately at 0 HP, but they do pass out and begin the dying process. Now, every time someone's been knocked out so far someone's come to their aid but if this doesn't happen the route from KO to RIP is a fairly brief one as you bleed out all over the floor. If I were to knock Gabriel out now that he has no healing surges, he could very easily die without having to take additional damage past the 0 HP threshold. For every turn you spend in the dying state, you have a roughly 45% chance of getting worse. If you get worse three times, you're kaput.

Monsters function similarly. Knocking a monster to 0 HP doesn't necessarily kill it, which is why you can just declare that you're knocking it out. Monsters are, by and large, a fairly selfish lot and are generally not inclined to heal each other or to save each other's lives. Monsters with 0 HP are assumed to die mostly because there is no compelling reason why they should not. Similarly, if Gabriel were knocked out and the rest of the party fled for their lives it would be assumed that Gabriel was killed, because there is no compelling reason why he would not be.

As for battle mechanics in general, well.

A 3rd-level human fighter player character requires this amount of information to do his job.

A 3rd-level enemy with roughly the same role:



What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by a lurker

Hey Pang, Avenging Flame isn't checked out on my wiki.

LIES

(yeah, oops)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

Does knocking something out give us XP or do we have to murder everything in sight to grow as people?

Kill, knock out, scare away, talk into surrendering, so long as they're "defeated" you earn the sweet sweet XPs.

Originally Posted by Shin

Roughly how much does it cost to hire henchmen? I definitely think we need some hired goons, if only to use as a human shield.

Well, the thing about this: the hirelings would have to answer to somebody, and then that somebody is essentially getting more actions per turn than everyone else is.

Besides, the only reasonable response as a DM is to add more enemies to compensate for your hired goonsquad, and then we get into an ever-escalating arms race until both of us are fielding 100-man battalions and nobody wants that. I'm not rolling dice for the entire siege of Helm's Deep over here, so I'm not.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Shin

I was thinking of retraining Bob's Gentle Repose ritual to something else

Couldn't have done this anyway; you can only retrain feats, powers and skills. Not rituals.

Quote:

(It is extra stat points at level 4 right?).

Yeah, +1 to each of two stats, plus a new feat.

Originally Posted by lurker

I've been wondering about how damage happens in this game for awhile, like how AC works and shit. For example, I hit Iggy for 4 damage. Does this mean I rolled a 1 and had +3 added to it? Or I rolled n and had +3 added, minus his AC, coming to 4 hp damage?

Hawkeye explained this pretty well, but I'll just go over the specific sequence of events as it happened. AC itself has no effect on damage, it just determines hit-or-miss.
___

So: you declare your intent to attack Iggy with Righteous Brand. You're wielding a mace, so you get +6 to hit, and Righteous Brand attacks against AC. Normally flanking with Motsognir would add +2 and bring it up to +8, but he was blind and therefore could not flank.

So I roll a d20 and add 6 to the result. The roll is 13. 13+6=19. I check the result of 19 against Iggy's AC (which is 18). Your attack is equal to or greater than his defense, so you hit.

Having determined that you hit, we move on to damage. The mace deals 1d8 damage. We add your 3-point Strength bonus to that, for 1d8+3. I roll 1d8, and the result is a 1. Adding 3 to that; 4. Then I tick 4 HP off of Iggy's stats box.

Had the roll been a 20 rather than a 13, it would have been a critical hit, which maximizes your damage roll; that is to say the d8 would automatically be considered to have rolled the full 8 and therefore dish out 11 damage.

Had the attack been against Fortitude, Reflex, or Will, the target numbers would have been different but the maths process would be largely the same.

DOES EVERYONE UNDERSTAND HOW ATTACKING WORKS NOW?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Very well. Shape up this semester or it's back to remedial classes, young lady.



I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

There is no crit-confirming in 4E. We left that shit behind with spell-like abilities and Profession checks. A 20 is always a crit unless it's a miss (if 20 + your attack bonus is still a miss, your DM is a bad person).

I was speaking idiomatically.

Theoretically, I suppose

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Well, weapon proficiency gives you a flat +2 (or for a few weapons, +3) bonus to hit. You can use a weapon without being proficient in it, you'll just be clumsier with it than someone who knows what they're doing. This problem doesn't come up often for fighters, of course.

Armor proficiency works similarly. You can wear armor you're nonproficient in, but you take -2 to your attack rolls and your Reflex defense.

So if you took Plate Armor Training, you could then wear Plate without being a clumsy motherfucker as a result.

FELIPE NO