[DnD] Let's Cast Magic Missile!

You caught me.

I just want him to die naoooo~~~~

(I wish I didn't roll the second d20. I forgot I had Prime Shot).

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

JUSTICE IS SERVED

With any luck Garr will see what he needs to do here for the checkmate

Jam it back in, in the dark.

By the way wvlfpvp, here's the build of Swordmage which I said beats the pants off Garrmondo. Granted I went anal on the accuracy bit because all his melee attacks are +13 to hit. Whattap, AC 25?

Pretty sure you can optimize even further by choosing a complementary race.

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Arannis, level 6
Duergar, Swordmage
Build: Assault Swordmage
Swordmage Aegis: Aegis of Ensnarement

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 12, Con 14, Dex 13, Int 19, Wis 12, Cha 8.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 12, Con 12, Dex 12, Int 18, Wis 10, Cha 8.


AC: 25 Fort: 16 Reflex: 18 Will: 17
HP: 59 Surges: 10 Surge Value: 14

TRAINED SKILLS
Arcana +12, Intimidate +7, History +12, Endurance +10

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +4, Bluff +2, Diplomacy +2, Dungeoneering +6, Heal +4, Insight +4, Nature +4, Perception +4, Religion +7, Stealth +4, Streetwise +2, Thievery +4, Athletics +4

FEATS
Level 1: Intelligent Blademaster
Level 2: Weapon Proficiency (Bastard sword)
Level 4: Focused Expertise (Bastard sword)
Level 6: Improved Swordmage Warding

POWERS
Swordmage at-will 1: Booming Blade
Swordmage at-will 1: Frigid Blade
Swordmage encounter 1: Falcon's Mark
Swordmage daily 1: Whirling Blade
Swordmage utility 2: Dimensional Warp
Swordmage encounter 3: Shadow Snake Lunge
Swordmage daily 5: Enervating Slash
Swordmage utility 6: Armathor's Step

ITEMS
Magic Leather Armor +2, Cape of the Mountebank +1, Adventurer's Kit, Pinning Bastard sword +2
====== Copy to Clipboard and Press the Import Button on the Summary Tab ======

Originally Posted by Skexis

Man, when I signed up for this thing I was thinking +7 to hit sounded pretty damn good.

Let me try my munchkining on ol' McGarnigal. Be back with the results in a few (gotta reconstruct him)...

How ya doing, buddy?

You know Zerg, some people like to play this for the roleplaying and characterisation. It's not like people are in need of optimal builds for some sort of PvP championship or anything.

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

Sure, and I respect that. But I know it can get really frustrating if you can't seem to hit anything. I'm not trying to make Gheth a super-accurate guy, just trying to achieve +10 to hit if I can. I mean, in order to do roleplay, you have to survive battles first

There is one thing that reconstructing Gheth has shown me. It seems to me that his "Healer's Lore" wisdom bonus (+4 to all powers that have the Healing keyword) has never been used in battle...

Here's my half-assed attempt to boost Gheth's accuracy a bit, with +11 to non-implement spear attacks. Changed weapons to greatspear (reach 2) - though it's gonna cost him 175GP to transfer enchantment if he wishes to do it.

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Gheth McGarnigal, level 6
Dragonborn, Cleric
Build: Battle Cleric
Dragon Breath Key Ability: Dragon Breath Constitution
Dragon Breath Damage Type: Dragon Breath Cold
Background: Geography - Forest, Scholarship Student, Dragonborn - Brush with the Past (+2 to Insight)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 17, Con 14, Dex 10, Int 10, Wis 18, Cha 10.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 15, Con 13, Dex 10, Int 10, Wis 17, Cha 8.


AC: 22 Fort: 16 Reflex: 13 Will: 19
HP: 56 Surges: 9 Surge Value: 16

TRAINED SKILLS
Religion +8, Insight +14, Heal +12, Diplomacy +8

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +2, Arcana +3, Bluff +3, Dungeoneering +7, Endurance +4, History +5, Intimidate +5, Nature +7, Perception +7, Stealth +2, Streetwise +3, Thievery +2, Athletics +5

FEATS
Cleric: Alchemist
Level 1: Shield Proficiency (Light) (retrained to Focused Expertise (Greatspear) at Level 6)
Level 2: Toughness
Level 4: Weapon Focus (Spear)
Level 6: Weapon Proficiency (Greatspear)

POWERS
Channel Divinity: Turn Undead
Cleric at-will 1: Righteous Brand
Cleric at-will 1: Lance of Faith
Cleric encounter 1: Healing Strike
Cleric daily 1: Cascade of Light
Cleric utility 2: Shield of Faith
Cleric encounter 3: Daunting Light
Cleric daily 5: Spiritual Weapon

ITEMS
Ritual Book, Magic Finemail +2, Symbol of Mortality +1, Dwarven Greaves (heroic tier), Morningstar, Flensing Greatspear +1
RITUALS
Gentle Repose
====== Copy to Clipboard and Press the Import Button on the Summary Tab ======

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

Have you not interacted with Pang ever? The more you try to optimise certain aspects of a character, the more he'll throw bad guys at you that circumvent that. If someone joins who can hit an ogre in magic plate with his eyes shut, Pang'll start introducing invisible ogres with magic plate meaning the rest of the party are fucked. Either that or base an entire adventure around enemies immune to physical damage or something.

Sure it's nice to play what-if with the character builder but over-specialisation is a bad idea in a group that isn't perfectly complimentary of each other's skills and when faced with a GM wize to your antics. Pang's main aim as far as I can see it is to provide an interesting and entertaining narrative, not somehow "Beat" the players because as DM he can kill you all any time he wants. By over obsessing about the dice rolls and numbers, you're in danger of dragging him down to your level.

I mean, what's to say that the last guy you're about to kill hasn't got some charm of automatically-summon-a-fuck-off-scary-demon-should-I-get-killed? Obviously there's no right or wrong way to play the game but from the point of view of a spectator, it's the content of you guys' posts that's entertaining, not the dice rolls at the end of them (It goes without saying that you're all entertaining mind you, just don't turn the whole thing into one giant spreadsheet and probability table).

I was speaking idiomatically.

That being said, Zerg's fascination with the game's underlying numbers is probably a net benefit to the party specifically because he actually pays attention to things. I don't think anyone was actually tracking enemy HP to any degree before, and now there's a lot less "I attack that guy, unless he's dead from the previous attack, in which case I—"

It's not as if I'm actually going to let him optimize anyone else's PCs anyway, so he can create all the experimental alternate-universe Gheths he wants.


Healer's Lore has been used actually, Skex just doesn't go all ALERT! I AM USING HEALER'S LORE about it; he just mentions the bonus he's applying. You can see it in action in post #441 for example. Admittedly I'm sure it's slipped my mind a couple times, but.






What the fuck, you weirdos. Just register already if we're so interesting.

How ya doing, buddy?

Guess I didn't pay any attention to it...

How silly of me.

Any character optimization I might have planned pales in comparison to the damage G-Unit has done with pushing enemies off cliffs and performing attacks that do terrible, terrible damage. I do not believe there has been any round ever where the total damage output is close to what Acerbandit inflicted on the bridge (how many insta-kills was that) and by farting down the stairs

___


By the way, I just found out I can equip a 1d6 claw fighter claw in Character Builder. It apparently has no weight and belongs to the light blade group, with +3 proficiency.

Can I has harvest? And if so, can I enchant them?

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Pangalin

That being said, Zerg's fascination with the game's underlying numbers is probably a net benefit to the party specifically because he actually pays attention to things. I don't think anyone was actually tracking enemy HP to any degree before, and now there's a lot less "I attack that guy, unless he's dead from the previous attack, in which case I—"

Oh, the extra cohesion and focus is undeniable. Now the party can do funny things in battle whereas before teh party was largely restricted to random swirling melees in between extended bouts of gay jokes.

How many of those guests are downloading all the PHB stuff from the first page of this thread, Pang? It might be worth putting "Hide" tags round the links with a postcount minimum to access. It might even get us some new members.

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

Yeah, I keep a close eye on my site traffic and I still get more requests for long-gone mp3s from SAUS 2007 than I do for the PDFs. Still in principle if it encourages that 1.4 percent of my traffic to actually register then it's worth doing.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

If only I knew how the hide tags work.

Also, this page from DM of the Rings seems pertinent to our earlier discussion.

Heh, I just checked the link-backs for this thread and we're in the top 150 referring links for Darths and Droids. Their server stats page is the only non-GFF link to this thread so we're not getting someone else's leeches at least.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Alas Skills is almost certain to kill all of the current crop of peasants anyway, for reasons ranging from "looked at me funny" to "refused to polish my boots".


^ahahaha, what the fuck then? 90 people show up, poke around the Basement for 10 minutes, and then vanish completely

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

I can only imagine it might have been some sort of new Google super-spider or something. If you're not getting people downloading the files and we're not being linked to anywhere, I can't really explain that one.

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

Zerg: I'm not going to twink out when I'm making the character. I mean, yes, I've already chosen a complimentary race, but I'm also holding out on learning a specific feat rather than having it learned when I roll the character up (as I'll be coming in at level>1) for characterization reasons.

I mean, yeah. Rock Paper Scissors Natural 20.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Zergrinch

Spoiler:

Sure, and I respect that. But I know it can get really frustrating if you can't seem to hit anything. I'm not trying to make Gheth a super-accurate guy, just trying to achieve +10 to hit if I can. I mean, in order to do roleplay, you have to survive battles first

There is one thing that reconstructing Gheth has shown me. It seems to me that his "Healer's Lore" wisdom bonus (+4 to all powers that have the Healing keyword) has never been used in battle...

Here's my half-assed attempt to boost Gheth's accuracy a bit, with +11 to non-implement spear attacks. Changed weapons to greatspear (reach 2) - though it's gonna cost him 175GP to transfer enchantment if he wishes to do it.

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Gheth McGarnigal, level 6
Dragonborn, Cleric
Build: Battle Cleric
Dragon Breath Key Ability: Dragon Breath Constitution
Dragon Breath Damage Type: Dragon Breath Cold
Background: Geography - Forest, Scholarship Student, Dragonborn - Brush with the Past (+2 to Insight)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 17, Con 14, Dex 10, Int 10, Wis 18, Cha 10.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 15, Con 13, Dex 10, Int 10, Wis 17, Cha 8.


AC: 22 Fort: 16 Reflex: 13 Will: 19
HP: 56 Surges: 9 Surge Value: 16

TRAINED SKILLS
Religion +8, Insight +14, Heal +12, Diplomacy +8

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +2, Arcana +3, Bluff +3, Dungeoneering +7, Endurance +4, History +5, Intimidate +5, Nature +7, Perception +7, Stealth +2, Streetwise +3, Thievery +2, Athletics +5

FEATS
Cleric: Alchemist
Level 1: Shield Proficiency (Light) (retrained to Focused Expertise (Greatspear) at Level 6)
Level 2: Toughness
Level 4: Weapon Focus (Spear)
Level 6: Weapon Proficiency (Greatspear)

POWERS
Channel Divinity: Turn Undead
Cleric at-will 1: Righteous Brand
Cleric at-will 1: Lance of Faith
Cleric encounter 1: Healing Strike
Cleric daily 1: Cascade of Light
Cleric utility 2: Shield of Faith
Cleric encounter 3: Daunting Light
Cleric daily 5: Spiritual Weapon

ITEMS
Ritual Book, Magic Finemail +2, Symbol of Mortality +1, Dwarven Greaves (heroic tier), Morningstar, Flensing Greatspear +1
RITUALS
Gentle Repose
====== Copy to Clipboard and Press the Import Button on the Summary Tab ======

That's not a bad suggestion(s).
I am a bit worried about what will happen if I go for attack power over great shield or AC focus, though, as the damage rolls for enemies remain pretty high.

I'm thinking that the multiclass avenger feat (Disciple of Divine Wrath) is almost indispensible for me at this point, too. Even if it's only once per encounter, that's up to 4 attack rolls with spiritual weapon out. 6 if I use action point.

Or hey, maybe only 4 max, because Spiritual Weapon isn't a melee skill despite being used in melee range. WHY DO YOU MOCK ME, WOTC

Additional Spam:
So I guess it's safe to assume the encounter's over?

Does that mean I still have to roll to save from poison/DC check to save Gordy from dying?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Pangalin

But yeah, I didn't really anticipate how brutal the damage increase would be in the event that I rolled hot, since that never really happens. Taking someone from 95% health to 3 HP in 2 hits wasn't really part of the plan. I figure we'll stick with the 2x die system for the rest of this battle for the sake of simplicity (I'll go ahead and award extra difficulty XP to the survivors I guess) and then there are some other less rapey balance ideas I could try.

Skex, I guess we'll be saying goodbye to the double-damage dice, but dunno what other "less rapey balance ideas" he has in the pipeline.

I figure you might want a greatspear since it has reach. Plus you'll want to take spear proficiency anyway, so why not take it on a superior weapon?

I initially tried to retrain Light Shield Proficiency to Battle Cleric Armaments (Gain proficiency with light shields and with one military weapon of your choice) and get Gheth a longspear (then take the Longspear Focused Expertise feat). But the Character Builder won't let me choose the military weapon without having to houserule the character, so... [Still works out though, greatspear has a better proficiency bonus]

_______

Pretty sure I remember Motsognir no longer had negative status effects at the end of the Hargast encounter. Not sure about dying people though.

_______

Does anyone have any paper, parchment, or writing materials of any kind?

Because I totally want to write this letter and leave it at the slave pit room:

Murkelmor:

You smell. I have enough of life under your heel. I'm taking the money the gnolls gave us for the slaves, and leaving ThunderSpire forever with my men

May we never meet again.

Truly Yours,
Framarth

FELIPE NO

Point taken on the damage die, I had forgotten that conversation took place. D:
The other thing I just realized is if I change my proficiency in the middle of a dungeon, I'd be crippling myself until we had a chance to go back to town.

Unless we're taking the opportunity to go back after this battle, that is. But since we're so close to the boss, I figured it wouldn't be likely.

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

Hm yes, that's a problem. Maybe we can delay certain aspects of leveling (retraining, feat selection) and whack Murkelmor good first, because I myself plan to change into a greatbow at my first chance.

Won't affect Gheth attack-wise that much though, because he doesn't have any spear proficiency to begin with. (Retraining the shield proficiency to make that possible would negatively impact AC though.)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'm gonna do another dream post Pang so I gots to do some cooking.

How ya doing, buddy?

So, since Zerg's attempt to crack the Builder evidently doesn't work (???), I'll just share my DDI account with the remaining four of you once the January patch is released later today. I'll PM you with the login/pass, please be kind enough not to do anything sinister with it.

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

Unless there is new robot or ROCK GOD stuff in that patch, then here we go.

Glock Level 6.

Take Feat: Improved Warforged Resolve
Take Power: Glimpse The Future
Retrain Feat: Durable --> Improved Majestic Word

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

Zerg, is there some sort of player-knowledge-esque reason why you're after those specific bits of your enemies or is Cal just a really sick fuck?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Why no, other than the claws, those bits of enemies are entirely useless. It just amuses me to see your (and Pangalin's, via NPCs) reactions

Well, okay, that's not entirely true. Cal always wanted to poke an arrow into a heart and shoot the whole thing at someone.


What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Shin

Zerg, is there some sort of player-knowledge-esque reason why you're after those specific bits of your enemies or is Cal just a really sick fuck?

I get the feeling Cal is the kind of adventurer that keeps fetuses in formaldehyde at home because of the way the green glass adds color to the room.


Pang, is it possible for me to hold off on leveling up until we hit town?

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Zergrinch

Why no, other than the claws, those bits of enemies are entirely useless. It just amuses me to see your reactions

Well, okay, that's not entirely true. Cal always wanted to poke an arrow into a heart and shoot the whole thing at someone.

Heh heh, sick fuck it is then.

How ya doing, buddy?