[DnD] D&D Arena Signups and Discussion

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Pangalin

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 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!

Originally Posted by a_lurker

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

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

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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?

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

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 ) 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!

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

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 was speaking idiomatically.

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

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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?

How ya doing, buddy?

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.

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

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Pangalin

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.

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:


How ya doing, buddy?

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.

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

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 .

smothas beegraks.dnd4e

I was speaking idiomatically.

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?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

My iplay4e handle is, quite surprisingly, Rychord.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Pangalin

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*

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

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Zergrinch

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

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.

Originally Posted by Zergrinch

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? ()

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'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.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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!

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

Originally Posted by Zergrinch

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

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 !

Most amazing jew boots

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.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Zergrinch

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.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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?

FELIPE NO

Ok, thanks. I thought that maybe special effects like this didn't benefit, but now I know.

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

Originally Posted by Zergrinch

So yeah, +8 as I've said before.

Quick question: Do I have to actively try and get rid of my blindness even during a short rest, or does it wear off by itself in such cases? I couldn't find the information specified anywhere.

Jam it back in, in the dark.