[DnD] D&D Arena Signups and Discussion

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

I was speaking idiomatically.

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.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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.



FELIPE NO

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.

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?

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.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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.

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

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

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

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.

How ya doing, buddy?

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

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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

FELIPE NO

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).

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

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?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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

How ya doing, buddy?

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.

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

My iplay4e handle is, quite surprisingly, Rychord.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Zergrinch

Can I get both your iPlay4e handles?

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.

Most amazing jew boots

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*

FELIPE NO

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.

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

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

Jam it back in, in the dark.