Which noncore D&D 4e books are must-haves, which ones are

>>49866609
All the books with classes up to essentials. Dont bother going past essentials. If you can still find the character builder somewhere, go for it.

>>49866609
The equipment book was a must-have for my group, though that may be mostly due to my stiffy for alchemy.

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>>49866609
You know, it bugs me that there are certain class features/powers/selections that are exclusive to the character builder: literally no printed source whatsoever. The builder lists the source for all of these as "Player's Handbook Heroes," but they aren't, they're character-generator-exclusive. That just reeks of.... GameStop to me.

Heck, I recognize that most of them are perfectly fine (though Eldritch Strike fully invalidates the hexblade,) but part of me just feels dirty allowing character-builder-exclusive content in my games.

>>49868828
This is not True. Those powers are included in the players handbook heroes line: The miniatures.

Of have everything except psionic power pre essentials. Found them secondhand for about 5/piece.

I have the character builder offline, of the thread lives in 12h, i can link it.

>>49866609
>Which noncore D&D 4e books are must-haves
There is no such thing as noncore in 4e. All books, save setting books, are designed to be used in the base game.
>trash
That said, most modules are shit, only good for maps and inspiration for your own games.

>>49866654
I don't agree with this. Heroes of the fallen lands is pretty trash, but already with forgotten kingdoms there are some classes that are fun to play, and heroes of the feywild is decent. There's something interesting in there, especially the fact that they started testing the limits of the power structure. Of course if all you care is optimization then they can be skipped, but I don't see that as a particularly interesting standpoint.

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>>49869022
>This is not True. Those powers are included in the players handbook heroes line: The miniatures.
No, there is no printed book with those powers in them. The power-cards for the miniatures game that was PHH may have had some of those powers on them, but at no point did any word of text, in any book, on any character-power-card, or on any miniature, give regular PC's who weren't the exact characters from PHH-line access to those powers.

Given that the PHH characters were structured much more closely to monsters than PC's, it's basically the equivalent of the character-builder giving a certain arbitrary class access to a certain arbitrary monster-power from a certain arbitrary monster in the Monster's Vault. If the character builder did that, and you tried to claim it wasn't a character-builder exclusive because the powers exist on the Monster's Vault, it would rightly be called out as absurd. This is no different.

>>49869196
>if all you care is optimization then they can be skipped
Anon, the power creep of the game started with the Essentials series, and the power structure was changed up with PHB3.
The reason the Essentials line is bad is because the classes were barebones past level 10 and there was clearly no overarching design paradigm or ideal being work under beyond "mimic 3e".
It's the same broken design that game classes like the Assassin and Vampire, which while hopeful, entirely failed to deliver mechanically, or even thematically. I would have loved to see classes based on iconic creatures work out.

>>49869263
Ok, first of all: power creep I can give you in the feat section, but all post-essential classes are considered weaker than the average ones.
Second, what you say is painfully true for HotFL, but things like the berserker, the skald, or even nu-druids are interesting in terms of what could be done with the AEDU structure. Even the vampire, which is bad because it has very little content, is a pretty smart solution to the issue of monstrous characters. Then again, it's a matter of personal tastes; it's just that I'm tired of 4e memes and "essentials is bad" is a meme.

>>49869407
>all post-essential classes are considered weaker than the average ones.
They were weaker because of poor design, on top of the power creep of feats. That is where the "essentials is bad" meme comes from, because honestly, it's mostly true.
It's like saying PF's Occult Adventures is bad. There are a few very nice things in it, but it's mostly shit.

>>49869206
>No, there is no printed book with those powers in them. The power-cards for the miniatures game that was PHH may have had some of those powers on them, but at no point did any word of text, in any book, on any character-power-card, or on any miniature, give regular PC's who weren't the exact characters from PHH-line access to those powers.
>Given that the PHH characters were structured much more closely to monsters than PC's, it's basically the equivalent of the character-builder giving a certain arbitrary class access to a certain arbitrary monster-power from a certain arbitrary monster in the Monster's Vault. If the character builder did that, and you tried to claim it wasn't a character-builder exclusive because the powers exist on the Monster's Vault, it would rightly be called out as absurd. This is no different.

AFAIK the Player's Handbook Heroes miniatures didn't have any stats: each box had 3 miniatures with 3 standard 4th edition power cards for the new powers. I think you're confusing them with the D&D Miniatures Game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_Miniatures_Game. The PHH boxes weren't part of that: they were a separate line for 4th edition D&D.

>>49869206
You don't know what you are talking about. PHH were just minis for regular use in the game, with additional powers as an incentive (and because Wizards was trying out card-based models). The powers are perfectly legal to use and have a printed source, the cards themselves. You might be against the notion of collectible cards, but you're putting in a lot of effort to justify your dislikes.

>>49869434
So as I said, no power creep in classes, but they are bad for optimization purposes. Which is a stance one could take; personally, in my games (even 4e) I put fun before the need of perfect efficiency, and since we're talking about 4e here, it works.

>>49869445
The rules for actually including these powers in an actual character do not exist in any printed form, anywhere. Those exist solely on the character-builder, and even there they aren't stated, they're just implied from what the builder lets you do.

>>49869471
>they are bad for optimization purposes
I'm not even talking about optimizing, anon.
I'm talking about the length and breadth of what they were capable of doing as a class at it's base.
For most, after level 10, and even level 5, there was nothing more that they offered to keep them fresh and engaging, or add another fold to how they influenced the world.
This would have been ok in 3e, as there were feats that could drastically offer a bevy of choices or options to expand on a concept, but 4e feats were mostly understated.
It meant they turned into one trick ponies, good at what they were built to do (half the time), but inept outside of it. It was the worst design flaw of 3e brought into 4e.

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>>49869497

Wrong, the powers were printed out as standard power cards in each set. Here's the link to the Wizard's archive for the first arcane heroes box: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mi/20090408a and you can see the attached image of Eldritch Strike card from that page.

>>49866662
adventurer's vault is great. AV2 is less great, but neat. mordenkainen's emporium is a mixed bag, and has the unnecessarily revised magic item rarities.

while essentials and post essentials material had issues, heroes of the elemental chaos was pretty good on the whole, given the utter shit of heroes of shadow and occasional wtf OP of heroes of the feywild.

>>49866609
Nothing.

You are much better off with the Character builder / compendium than any of the books.

Except I guess MM3 / MV for monsters. I don't think I have a monster builder anywhere.

>>49869497
>>49869539
>CLASS: Warlock (All)
Well that checks out.

>>49869601
There's the official monster builder but, unlike the Character Builder, it stopped getting updates after it was discontinued. It wirks well enough though.

Also, friendly reminder that the only thing that was changed post MM3 are damage calculations, that can be easily updated by hand in older books.

>>49869693
several older books have errata to at least dial back HP on solos. there was also a slight design philosophy shift to make solo monsters more engaging. the MM chromatic dragons, for example have a much less dynamic fight than the MV dragons. regular monsters and even elites are a lot easier to just fudge their numbers and roll with it.

>>49869729
True, solo HP have been reduced to x4 at all tiers (formerly, Paragon and Epic solos had HP x5).
Agreed on the increased interactivity, newer monsters are generally better designed, but that's not to say that older ones are unusable.

>>49869693
>>49869729
Solo defenses were also like 2-4 higher before the math fix.

But yeah, the adjustments are highly overstated, especially with the "half HP, double damage" meme.

>>49868828
This was a problem when you needed to pay for the compendium

but funin.space has made it free for everyone, so it isn't really an issue anymore

>>49869782
And before that, there was the updated offline builder.

>>49866609
>Must have:
Rules Compendium, Monster Vault, MM3, Character builder (seriously, this)
>Fluff bonuses:
PHB Races: Dragonborn/Tiefling, Primal Power, Heroes of the Feywild, Underdark, Various Dragon Magazines
>Avoid:
MM1/2, Heroes of the Fallen Lands/Forgotten Kingdoms/Shadow (classes mostly, feat lists are alright to excellent)

>>49868828
It wasn't character builder exclusive, it was from the dragon magazines, like how 3.5 had shit published only from dragon/dungeon magazine. There is nothing from the CB that isn't found elsewhere

>>49869782
funin.space has some incorrect content, CBLoader is still the best choice

>>49869926
There were a lot of Dragon magazine-exclusive powers and feats

Eldritch strike is not amongst them. Eldritch strike was solely found as a power card that came with the player's handbook heroes miniatures packs

>>49869939
what incorrect content?

>>49870004
hybrid paladin for one

>>49870020
Oh right

My group ignores that errata anyway, so I forgot about it

>>49866609
>Which noncore D&D 4e books are must-haves, which ones are trash, and why?

>>THE GOOD

AS A PLAYER:
Assuming you're playing a Fighter in 2E, 3.X and 4E, your class support books are:

Complete Fighter's Handbook (2E)
Sword and Fist (3E)
Complete Warrior (3.5E)
Martial Power (4E)

Of the four, I would support Martial Power each and every time. The same goes for the Cleric/Wizard/Rogue versions of the same books.

The Player's Option books (Shadow, Feywild, Chaos) are also good.

AS A DM:
The "Monster Vault" box is just inestimably good. Easily the single best RPG purchase I have made over my last 21 years of playing D&D. It is *so* good, I would recommend it to DMs of other editions of D&D - both for the tokens that come with the box and for the book, which has good inspiration for how to write interesting monsters to fight.

>>NOT MUST-HAVE BUT BREDDY GOOD NONETHELESS
The "Rules Compendium" is a handy reference work for both DMs and players. I wouldn't put it as a "must-have" though.

For a DM, the two "Wizards Presents:" books ("Races and Classes" + "Worlds and Monsters") are kind of incredible. They're definitely not must-have for running a 4E game, but they give an interesting bit of insight into the design process.
>>THE BAD

I hit the character limit so this goes in the next post.

>>49870610

>>THE BAD

AS A PLAYER
Most of the player-facing material is good rather than bad. However, skip the following:
Into the Unknown
Player's Strategy Guide
A lot of the DM-facing setting material is completely 100% missable if you have any DMing experience at all. It's not actually bad, it's just not good. This is frankly unacceptable when you're paying money, seeing as you can get actually good material on the internet for free.

The Forgotten Realms campaign setting was something of a punch in the nose for fans of the setting. If you've never played FR before, or if you aren't a fan, it's better (epic monsters, also the spell plague is interesting) but I still wouldn't recommend it unless you're a completionist.

Things to completely skip:
Both of the Draconomicons
Dungeon Delve
Menzoberranzan
Every single adventure can take a flying leap
The Neverwinter campaign book
Open Grave

>>49869782
>funin.space

What sorcery is this?

>>49870637
>http://funin.space/compendium/
The best kind.

>>49870620
>Tfw you only got the Neverwinter Campaign Setting book so you could use a theme to be able to play a werewolf or wererat.

>>49870671
Is it bad that I want to play a dwarf druid with the werebear theme named Bjorn?

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>>49870681
Nope.

>>49870653

How has this survived in the face of WotC lawyers?

>>49870681
>Is it bad that I want to play a dwarf druid with the werebear theme named Bjorn?

No that's breddy good. Also Dwarf Druid OP to begin with. I ran a campaign from level 1-18 and the Dwarf Druid was definitely MVP from when he joined at level 3 until the game ended.

Well MVP together with the Warlord

And the Swordmage.

OK listen the entire team was Based but I still remember some of the bullshit the Druid could pull.

>>49870637
>>49870653
Is there a way to search magic items by level on the site?

>>49870731
It's recent. I'm hoping they just stopped caring about 4e entirely.

Are 4e Dark Sun or 4e Eberron worth a damn?

>>49871059
They are arguably the best versions. Not saying they fit perfectly (some of the 3rd-isms feel out of place in 4e Eberron, and despoiling is thematically a bit off in DS), but they manage to do really well.

>>49871059
Dark Sun works great with 4e, really great, I'm not sure how much of it was the effort put in by those writing for it, or if it's just because 4e mechanics work really well with dark sun

The only problem is that arcane defiling costs more than it's worth, and the defiler paragon paths and epic destiny are much worse than the preserver paragon paths and epic destiny. So the temptation towards defiling is pretty thin

>>49871059
Dark Sun is at least great. The power source divide lends well to dark sun's specific flavor of fuck magic, and having actual primal powers/shamans allows you to abandon clerics as stand ins completely

>>49871183
>The only problem is that arcane defiling costs more than it's worth, and the defiler paragon paths and epic destiny are much worse than the preserver paragon paths and epic destiny. So the temptation towards defiling is pretty thin

TL;DR: Defiling creates enemies and you don't get any advantage from it so never do it.

Long version:

"Game Balance" is all well and good, but traditionally, people aren't evil just for the fun of it.

You fuck people over and make enemies because it gains you some advantage you think is worth the bad PR.

In 2E, defiling was proper nasty, which meant people didn't do it unless they had to OR if they were so powerful they didn't have to give a fuck about other peoples opinions. In 4E, defiling is ridiculous so people don't do it unless they want to look like a wanker.

>>49871908
Wasn't 2E defiling harmless compared to 4e defiling though? It had an RP drawback but no actual mechanics associated with it, right? I mean, the 4e version costs too much for what it does, but at least it does _something_.

>>49866654
So those would be all PHBs and all the Powers books?

>>49872386
>Wasn't 2E defiling harmless compared to 4e defiling though? It had an RP drawback but no actual mechanics associated with it, right? I mean, the 4e version costs too much for what it does, but at least it does _something_.

2E defiling killed all plant and small creature life within X radius (yards per spell level?) and caused a pain in larger creatures that reduced initiative. I don't even care about the initiative, I want it to kill land. IIRC, it doesn't in 4E, but instead takes healing surges. That's ridic, that makes it balanced with preserving when it's supposed to be clearly better.

>>49872775
Was there any mechanical benefit for it though? What made you want to be a defiler over a preserver, aside from being a dick? Cause as is, you could just run a defiler without using the ally-defiling ability and fluff it as being an old-school defiler.

>>49870681
I think that, by now, everyone knows that Bjorn in the Scandinavian languages means "bear", so characters with this name have become a little tiresome.

Better name for a character that's part-dwarf, part-bear: Dmitry Medvedev!

>>49872929
>>49872775
>>49872386
>>49871908
Are there any good homebrews for a defiling mechanic that offers a more interesting set of incentives?

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>>49872775
4e defiling didn't take surges, it dealt unresistable necrotic damage equal to half the creature's surge to all allies in a 20 square/100 foot radius. It would not at all be hard to fluff it as killing all plant/small animal life too; the flavor text implies as much. It's the payoff that's absolute shit. A reroll on a daily power? Fuckin' elves can do that every encounter. I say it should've counted as an auto hit, maybe even a crit. Free crits would be a damn good incentive to sap your allies a few times a day.

>>49873130
Rerolls of any sort can be hard to get in 4e, unless you are one of the handful of classes and, what, one or two races, that can do it at times?

>>49873062
In 4e, it gives you a reroll, just one, it can be any attack or damage roll made as part of a daily arcane attack power and costs the rest of your party a quarter of their health

There are a couple of ways of redoing this to make it less terrible

If it costs allies healing surges instead of hit points, that would make it better. Or if using it once allowed you to reroll all attack rolls made as part of a single attack.

>>49873192
Still a lot of risk for a fickle payoff. Seems like you should get something more certain if you're going to rot the world to get it

>>49873192
It's one reroll, just one, and can only be used once per power (per day)

A lot of the powerful arcane daily powers are big burst attacks, things like sleep or adamantine echo, one attack reroll on a big burst kind of sucks

>>49873282
It's a damage reroll as well, so you could get something from defiling burst attacks. I think they just wrote it expecting defilers to just be sorcerer-king pact warlocks, and they mostly have single target stuff

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>>49873037
I know the name is played out, but it's just so hard to resist.

WoW thread proved no help, so here's my question: never played 4e before, but I heard it's "like WoW." I've been looking to play a WoW tabletop game and, well, the official stuff sucks (because it's 3.x).

So is there a good WoW conversion for 4e? Been looking online and haven't seen anything that looks all that impressive.

>>49873507
You could always try it in other languages, like Bernard or Arktos

>>49873528
Never seen one. Also, "4e is like WoW" is a stupid meme haters use to keep edition warring.

>>49873130
Getting to reroll your big ass daily boss fight ender can be a big fucking deal.

Defiling is rarely worth it, but when it is, it's super goddamn good.

(Also elven accuracy is probably tied with heroic effort for the best racial power in the game so getting it on all your dailies is solid)

>>49873528
You could probably just reskin a lot of existing material. The classes are more or less generic dnd stuff so they'd need minimal translation. It's really just the races you may need to homebrew for

>>49873568
That's disappointing. Suppose I'll look for something else. Thanks for the reply and have fun with your game.

>>49873528
I tried making one, but eventually realized I didn't have time to create entire 4e classes from scratch just to fit with WoW

I still have the races I made sitting around my computer somewhere, if I could find them, I remade all of the races. So WoW humans were different to DnD 4e humans, WoW orcs were different from 4e half-orcs, WoW Tauren were different from 4e minotaur, and so on. Mostly this was just to make sure every race had their WoW racial power as their racial encounter power.

>>49873130
>>49873233
>>49873339
Yeah, this ability definitely needs a rewrite...

In one sense, using it regularly means being too much of a dick to your allies. In another sense, there are far, far more interesting ways to put your players in a screwy situation as the consequence for over-using a dangerous power.

It has to be commended that they've tried to fit it to 4e's boardgamey mechanic, and come up with something vaguely serviceable in doing so, but I would go about it a completely different way - it would be an ability that "breaks out" from the usual constraints of the minutely balanced 4e rules, or more plainly just breaks them.

But how exactly to implement this? Time to hit the drawing boards!

>>49873959
>Boardgamey mechanics

Just stop please.

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Is this the Monster Vault you're recommending?

>>49874124
>says monster vault on the cover
No.

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>>49874637
I know but it also says "Essentials" and there are other Monster Vaults like pic related which do not.

Making absolutely sure is all.

>>49874877
First pic is more or less an update of MM1.
Second pic is more of the same but with an inkling of setting info (actually the closest we got to a Nentir Vale setting book).
Both are good.

>>49874877
Nentir Vale is not the same as regular MV.
Get both.

Question: what class would you say has the most (or best) poison or acid-based powers?
(Viability of said damage types nonwithstanding, its just for thematic reasons )

>>49875146
Probably wizard, he's got so many choices you're bound to find a poison power each level. Warlock would be my second guess.

>>49875146
>Viability of said damage types nonwithstanding
This raised a thought for me: a lot is made of how difficult it is to fuck up character building in 4e (especially in comparison to 3/.5/pf) - how effective is a non-optimised (say +4 or +3 in the primary stat rather than +5, less viable damage types for powers). I am going to be playing in my first 4e game quite soon and I would like to know if it is a case of "as long as you think about it [and are not a retard] you will be fine" or "just go hog wild and pick whatever looks cool to you."

>>49875683
I've DMed half a dozen campaigns in 4e with different groups, and the basic advice is that as long as you don't pick powers that use different stats from your main two you can go with whatever. This assumes that nobody is using weird infinite combos or something like that. 4e is a lot more forgiving than 3.5 with newcomers.
Of course you can still find charop guides that rate powers on the web, the old forums have been migrated to other sites.

>>49875683
A bit of both.
As long as you're maxing your attack stat, your AC, not wasting points on 2 stats linked to the same defense, and taking a few 'math fix' feats (at least Expertise by paragon and a Defense feat by Epic) you'll be fine.

With most classes, all that comes natural, but there are a few traps, like the Dwarf Fighter with an Hammer, with a -2 to hit compared to somebody with a Str bonus and a +3 weapon.
-2 doesn't sound like much, but check out how big a deal the game makes out of attacks with a +2 to hit, it IS a big deal.

>>49875146
Sorcerers tend to gravitate towards elemental shenanigans, and they can get Acid Orb as a basic attack. Dragon sorcerers especially can get some options with feats/pps that allow spells to use their dragon soul element.

If you can get to paragon, arcane admixture will make your favorite spell whatever element.

That post essentials version of sorcerer, the elementalist gets the best RBA in the game and can make it acid if they go with the (strangely enough) earth specialization.

Dragonborn I believe also get some shenanigans for specializing in one (or more) elements matching their breath weapon.

>>49875683
Always think about it. Statwise you want at least 18/+4 post racials in your attack stat and to bump it every stat boost. For defenses, as long as you aren't bumping two stats in the same defense (STR & CON both only boost fort for example) you're probably fine.

Less viable damage types are entirely dependent on the DM/campaign, though there's usually several ways to circumvent resistances. One way is to remember powers with multiple damage types deal full damage unless the target resists all of the elements. But you generally won't be terribly fucked unless you walk into hell with only fire powers or something.

You'll want weapon/implement expertise and improved defenses by early paragon at the latest, and really you should try to convince your DM to give them for free; many do because they're necessary feat taxes made to fix wonky scaling.

Everything else though is pretty malleable. Suboptimal powers and feats won't set you back significantly; few choices are really THAT bad.

>>49875683
Thinking about it, the things that really upset game balance in 4e work at a party level, not at character level.
As others said, you can't really fuck up, a character might be a bit less effective, both in combat and out, but unless you're going out of your way to fight the game's expectations, it won't change too much.
But if a party decides to go all out, the extra synergies are crazy. A sneaky party gets the equivalent of extra action points, a radiant party just makes things go boom with righteousness (but all elements have some synergy, cold in particular), a party can specialize in tactical positioning, and deal fuckloads of extra damage with knock downs, zone powers, and pushes/slides. Knock down synergizes with dazing and slowing too, and slides get a second mention if they're sliding each other too, proccing Agile Opportunist.

It's crazy what a party can do. OTOH, it's sort of fun, if the DM can plan for it.

>>49875683
A basic rule of thumb is that as long as you have a 16 in your primary, and a 14 in another stat not connected to the 16 in defense, you are good to go.
For the people that have experience, I'm struggling to figure out how to describe the PoL setting in terms of what it looks like in different places. I have used the Fell's Five comic as a base for some races, but it doesn't show anything for elves, orcs, dragonborn, the design of their communities and norms. Is that expanded on in which books?

>>49869497
There were several just printed on those cards that came with a certain mini's set.

They were not printed in any "book" but they definitely were "printed".

Also all the Dragon stuff appeared only in the online Dragons.

>>49870610
>For a DM, the two "Wizards Presents:" books ("Races and Classes" + "Worlds and Monsters") are kind of incredible. They're definitely not must-have for running a 4E game, but they give an interesting bit of insight into the design process

They were neat, sadly though a lot was redesigned or tossed aside.

They really seemed like "Power Sources" were going to be a serious thing but in the end they really weren't.

>>49872929
Defilers as a class in 2e advanced significantly quicker than Preservers and most demihumans had a higher level cap in Defiling than in Preserving.

Without beeing rude but the best thing I can recommand is edition 3.5, 5 or Pathfinder.

In my eyes 4th edition is bullshit..

>>49877596
Thanks for the free bump.

>>49877596
Such a deep and intelligent comment. You truly have changed people's minds with your elegant prose, good grammar, proper spelling.

>>49876851
Dragonborn and tieflings have specific handbooks dedicated to them and their (mostly fallen) cultures. The Wizards' Presents stuff give general information about each PHB1 race and the design ideas behind them. The power source books, primal power particularly, indulges in general traditions and beliefs of any culture that reveres primal spirit. And then there's a million subcultures detailed in scattered dragon magazine articles, like wolfstone, sunspray, bogtangle, etc

>>49877394
>They really seemed like "Power Sources" were going to be a serious thing but in the end they really weren't.
They seemed like a pretty big deal to me. Not only fluffwise but a bunch of character options were generalized towards specific power sources. The vast majority of epic destinies don't care about your class but instead use your power source as a qualifier. A lot of feats and paragon path features also only function for power with specific power sources. There's CharOP builds that rely on ways to make x power arcane/divine/martial etc to allow synergies with a bunch of stuff. Just off the top of my head, the Power of Arcana and Ancient Soul feats got plenty of use cause they made non-arcane powers arcane. Power sources were huge in 4e, at least moreso than 3.5 & 5e

>>49877596
5th I can understand, but 3.5 and PF are rules clusterfucks. Have you ever tried DMing instead of playing? The system is fucking RAW!
For all its misgivings, 4e works with a couple math fixes, in 3.5 getting some balanced combat encounter takes a lot more effort.
Same effort, different edition? In 4e you can make a dynamic encounter with environment interactions, that btw are a lot more complex in 3.5.

>>49877650
I think they could have gone further with it, like lots of feats based off of the Power Sources, I don't know. Maybe make certain things more or less exclusive to each, like only Psionics do Psychic damage, only Divine Radiant damage and so on.

I have a mad dream of a 4.5e that "class" is replaced with picking a power source, a role and a background and those set your skills/feat/power options.

>>49876851
Elves are pretty much FR wood elves. Eladrin are sort of like high/moon elves, but more...whimsical I guess? Heroes of the Feywild is probably the best for getting a grasp on them. Orcs I don't think get much beyond monster manual entries. Weird thinking about it; even gnolls have more detail, getting a dragon article dedicated to making them PCs. Dwarves I can't think of anything in particular that helps characterize them. I guess they just assume you want to play the same dwarf that's existed in every game ever.

>>49877841
Like I said, I am using the comic as the basis, wherein they showed both dwarven and eladrin societies and homes to great detail and amusement.
>Eladrin serve scorn the way dwarves serve beer: relentlessly, and always assuming you enjoy the taste as much as you do
>said the party's elf

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>>49877820
I agree they could've gone farther, but I never felt like what we did get was insubstantial. They did indeed have feats specific to power sources, though mostly clustered closer to epic. I guess the vibe they were going for was you start of as just a wizard/fighter etc in heroic tier and thus focus mostly on class, then later on grow beyond those bounds to become an embodiment of whatever cosmic power source you represent in epic tier.

I also think a problem they had with later power sources was that they just didn't get a lot of support. Psionics was the most divergent and unique of the power sources but it got the least material, showing up pretty late in the cycle. Primal suffered this to to a lesser extent. Really they just fixated on the traditional D&D sources: arcane, divine and martial.

>>49877924
Varis was best elf, Khal was best dwarf. I miss them both so much ;__;

>>49878031
>Varis was best elf, Khal was best dwarf
>Varis, sing me a happy elf song
>They are all about killing invading humans
>Khal?
>Also about killing invading humans
The best.

>>49878031
>Varis was best elf, Khal was best dwarf
But what about the halfling?
>I can vouch she's indeed an halfling

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>>49878082
Here's an image to go with your quote good sir

>>49878107
The only good dickass rogue I've ever seen. Paizo wishes they could make their CN characters so well.
>>49878149
I needed that laugh. I wish my games had a fraction of the banter between players.

Would 4e be good to run a rather gritty, very low magic and fantasy setting? I know that the powers look like magicks, but they can be easily fluffed as special tricks/maneuvers in battle. I am thinking about something akin to.. Volkodav/Ironclad, low budget medieval movies n shit.

>>49878246
>I know that the powers look like magicks
The only powers that are magic are the ones that say they ARE magic.
As for gritty low magic, you could simply say "Only Martial classes", but the tone of the game still lends itself to heroics at best, Howard Conan at it's grittiest.
That said, the most fun game I was ever in had a group comprised entirely of fighters and a single warlord.

>>49878246
It's one of the best editions to do it.
Just limit your players to Martials only, maybe with options to multiclass/hybridize outside of the power source, and/or play one of those few classes with 2 power sources, like the Executioner or the Essential Barbarian.

Even with Martials only, the main roles are covered, they'll be missing out on controllers.

>>49878246
As long as you're interested in the PC's being heroic and not "Fuck, a rat bit me twice, I have to reroll!" type stuff.

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>>49878107
If I didn't have to go to bed I'd be tempted to make this a Fell's Five dump

>>49878246
It'd be hard. Even martials are inherently fancy and showboaty. Fluffing the powers as low magic isn't so much the issue as making everything gritty. The game slides pretty strongly towards the big goddamn heroes side of fantasy, with second winds, healing in battle, a bunch of "turn a bad situation into a really good one" powers and sometimes obscene degrees of PC competence, especially if your players know how to coordinate their party's skills worth a damn.

So TL;DR: low magic is no problem, but grit? Eh...

>>49878282
>>49878325
>>49878349
>>49878375

By gritty I meant gloomy days and odds usually stacked against players, not literally "You step out of a tavern, an orphan dies in front of you, crying as its heart stops beating. No one gives a fuck and often walk over the child" grit.

I want heroic sacrifices at cliffs/important castles, damn it.

>>49878391
For THAT, you limit their rests.
Camp at night? Counts as a short rest.
Days of downtime, sleeping in a real bed? That's a long rest.

It means less combat encounters, but more deadly (can't properly heal between encounters) but also more at-will based, (encounters and dailies will be precious resources)

>>49878325
You know I think a properly built ranger can sub as a low tier controller. They have all those feats that let them sub hunter's quarry dice for soft control effects, and some powers spit out hard control by default along with their tons of damage. there was the essentials hunter to which was alright enough to do the job, even if they snuck in some primal stuff. Rogue is also the closest thing the game gets to a melee controller with it's plethora of disabling abilities.

>>49878391
Well in that case 4e's made specifically for heroic awesomeness. Go crazy.

>>49878391
Oh, that's easy.
>I want heroic sacrifices at cliffs/important castles
I once saw a rogue sacrifice themselves delivering a fatal backstab to the orc boss on 3 hp, knowing the retort blow would kill them.
Out of a party of 6, a single survivor.

>>49878456
>heroic awesomeness

This is true about 4e but seems the opposite of what they want.

>>49878463
In one of my games there was an avenger that used a power to teleport to his oath target while carrying a box of alchemical explosives, blowing them both sky high

None of us made it out of that one but fuck it at least the BBEG went down

>>49878471
Eh, I think it mostly comes down to the interpretation of HPs and surges. We are too used to HPs as meat points, so 4e seems a poor fit for gritty. But action movie heroes, who get to the last fight in a bloody mess but still have the will to fight, actually can work with the healing surge paradigm.

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>>49877820
>I have a mad dream of a 4.5e that "class" is replaced with picking a power source, a role and a background and those set your skills/feat/power options.

That sounds familiar...

>>49878565
I was in a game when 4e first came out where we rushed a castle that an orc horde had taken.
We fought to the throne room, kicked the orc chieftain from it, killed him, all his lieutenants and advisors, but were trapped in the throne room when every other orc rushed us, all of us dying on top of a mountain of orc dead.
Was fucking glorious.

>>49879303
Stop shilling that autistic garbage.

>>49874124
>Is this the Monster Vault you're recommending?

If you mean me, then yes.

I'm >>49870610

>>49879303
No idea what that is.

>>49879720
>>49879303

I'm reading the preview. How is this anything like 4e?

>>49879720
It's a 4e inspired game that splits your character's class/role/fluff up to be mixed as you please. You could be a Leader Buddies (the pet class) with the theme of a Druid with healing spells and his bear to be buffed, or a Defender Buddies with the theme of a pair of luchadors who body-block enemy attacks with their pecs and do wrestling combos.

>>49879863
The combat.

For some reason it's hidden in the middle of the book instead of being touted as the main selling point. It is essentially an extremely streamlined (for better or worse) 4e.

>>49879876
>>49879898
Ah, this preview has no character creation so it looks like you just kind of make up attacks and stuff.

>>49870020
funin.space guy here, what's wrong with it? Everything on the site is a straight up copy of the official wotc compendium

if it's wrong on the site, it's wrong in the compendium (based on backup date)

>>49880058
Where did you find that preview, if you don't mind me asking? It'd be a serious misstep on the creator's part to not show off the combat system at all.

>>49879863
Strike is like someone who threw away all the fluff and rebuilt 4e going only by what people on charop boards told him. It's terrible, unless the only thing you liked about 4e are hyperefficient builds. Unfortunately, it comes up in every 4e thread.

>>49880336
>Strike is like someone who threw away all the fluff
Since it's a generic system, it'd be weird if it kept the (trademarked) fluff.
>going only by what people on charop boards told him. It's terrible, unless the only thing you liked about 4e are hyperefficient builds.

You are mixing it up with that game the Fury Forest guy (his name is some japanese symbol I can't remember) is doing. If you are around Fury Forest guy, I eagerly await more of your game.

>Unfortunately, it comes up in every 4e thread.

Well, considering it's one of the closest successors 4e has, I think it's bound to turn up often.

>>49880164
It's the preview from their site. It talks about combat but doesn't seem to discuss powers to the extent that is obvious.

I admit I'm skimming, but still.

>>49875186
>>49876057
Alright! Thanks guys. Sorcerer may be the way to go then

>>49880707
>Want to start playing Strike! today? Look no further. You can buy the game at the links below. If you'd like to try before you buy, there is a preview here. In this preview you do not get any of the character creation rules.

Why... why wouldn't you show off the best part of your game? The one you actually need to preview it? There's only like 5 pages on combat. The preview works better as a quick, short rules reference without any content, than as an actual preview.

>>49880828
Dragonborn sorcerers can do some freaky shit. I heartily recommend them, especially if you take a look at Ancient Soul and Nusemnee's atonement feats.

>>49880889
It shows the rules and how to play, it just makes it seem very free form, kinda Dungeon World-like, where you just make shit up then roll.

>>49880949
Yeah, that's the not-so-good part of the game. To play you actually need character creation; you can't exactly "try before you buy" if you can't even make a character.

>>49880132
do you have it tgz-ed up so I don't have to be a dick and crawl your webserver?

>>49881000
of course, the more people have a backup, the better.
funin.space/dl/compendium.tar.gz

One thing I liked best in 4E was the idea of the 'power sources' though I always wished it was pushed a little harder, like how all the Divine classes had 'Channel Divinity' in some form. If I ever get off my rear and try to make a 4E inspired system that is definitely one thing I would keep, but I'm never sure what 'Arcane' was supposed to be. 'Primal', 'Divine', 'Psionic' all felt like they CAME from somewhere, but where did 'Arcane' come from?

>>49881770

Arcane is the conduit. Arcane is the power that flows through the conduit.
Divine magic is channeled from the gods, Primal magic is channeled from nature, and Psionics is channeled from within, but Arcane magic emerges from the channels themselves.

>>49870653
>http://funin.space/compendium/


Is there a way to download the website?

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How compatible is 13th Age with either 3.5e or 4e? I understand that it's something of a hybrid if not exactly.

>>49882378
check funin.space/dl

compendium is just the files, fullsite is the entire website as it is

>>49873528
4e is "like WoW" in that the designers cared about balance and classes are labeled DPS/tank/etc. Unless I'm forgetting something minor, that's it.

>>49882554
Not at all. Its closer to 5e than anything.

>>49882807

* Everyone uses the same basic mechanical structure
* Magic items break down into magic dust you can use to enchant with
* It was designed to draw the youth away from WOW
* Big fonts, low reading level, silly races, accessible and cartoony

>>49883237
I personally quite liked the way residuum worked in 4e

Primarily because 1 piece of residuum is worth exactly 1 gp, so I could just fluff residuum and gold as being one in the same, which makes the concept of gold pieces interesting, instead of boring

>>49882554
Not at all, it's a hybrid of both, but incompatible with either

Still a fun game though, if you use the death to ability scores homebrew

>>49881770
I always liked the idea of arcane being the odd one out. Everyone else has definite sources but arcane just comes from nowhere. Arcanists simply toy with forces no one understands.

That said, dnd arcane comes from the weave, which was made by a god, so I guess it's indirectly divine

>>49884610
Arcane is also the power source from devils and demons and the elemental chaos, if warlock/sorcerer fluff is to believe.

>>49883237
Kek. You're ridiculous.

>>49868828
I was the opposite when I 4e'd. If the character builder said it was legal, it was legal. No books for players.

I still miss the simplicity of the builder. I've never seen a better character builder for any pnp system since.

>>49873528
No need to convert really. Just use the applicable races and classes and base it in azeroth

>>49883237
>everyone uses the same basic mechanical structure

That has nothing to do with WoW and everything to do with just being different from earlier versions of dnd.

>>49885311
>>49885053
You are getting replying a post that's either false-flagging, or merely demonstrating how the average shitposter actually thinks. There's really no point in engaging.

>>49881226

Doing God's work anon.

Are you on a privacy-dedicated web service that'll have some backbone in the face of a C&D so you have time to re-establish and/or contest, or will they fold like a wet napkin at the first sight of an attaché case?

>>49879351
What makes it autistic? Honest question.

>>49885942
There is nothing to the game but charOP. Literally fluff doesn't matter.

Also, fuck Strike for derailing every single 4e thread. Spiritual successor my ass.

>>49885982
Aren't the first 100 pages about making your fluff tho?

Have you modded settings to make some magics rarer?
I currently have a game planned where it is just after the empire of Nerath fell, and much knowledge lost is being rediscovered. Magic item markets simply do not exist, and to gain them, you must plunder forbidding holds of the old empire, or take them from the hands of those who still keep them.
Rituals are rarer still, and ones of greater power/influence are the holy grail of many mages. For my players, this effectively means that certain charop builds are shunted (although I have no problems allowing them to find certain desired items) and Raise Dead doesn't even exist.
I have replaced it with a background system of reliquaries: certain items of great power and importance that, in the event of the pc dying, will shatter and resurrect them.
For one, it is a dragon's egg they have found and kept, intent on purifying it. For another, it is his dog, a foundling mutt that has been touched by the divine in an act of mercy. I feel it is a way to reward players for strong roleplay and keeping up with in character goals; if they pursue their goals and forge links with the world around them, they effectively have a "1-up" in their pocket. It also allows pcs that have maintained longevity to continue.
Your opinion?

>>49886249
Could work out pretty well. Are you going to use inherent bonuses? Then again, that may remove the drive behind having to track down relics.

>>49886280
I wasn't before (I had each player write out a list of a magic item they desired, per level, and would increase the bonuses of such items with insetting means, such as the bear hide armor wearing barbarian being blessed by a bear spirit, increasing it from +1 to +2), biut I have decided to recently.

>>49886305
Why did you decide to go with that? Just to remove the treadmill of having to upp your items, or something else?

>>49886314
>Just to remove the treadmill of having to upp your items
This, and to allow more leeway in granting the players items that are not simply stat bonuses.
I am a big fan of the smaller doohickies that can be very useful when used androitly, and feel my players are clever enough to do so. I want to challenge them to surprise me with their ingenuity.

>>49886342
Sounds like you gave this a some thought and I hope it works out well. Kinda envy your group now, I never get to play in games like that, always just DM...

>>49881770
Ok, here we go with where powers come from:
Martial - Comes from body and will, the practice of drawing the power to do what you need from the practice you have
Psionic - The more esoteric sister to Martial, Psionic power focuses more on the mind and soul than the body, but many understand that you get great results in tandem
Primal - Power from the world itself and the primal spirits that dwell within it. The rain and wind are you allies as they carry the voice of the world to your side
Divine - Drawing inspiration from the gods, you draw the essence of existence from the boundless reaches of the Astral Sea
Arcane - Seeing the fabric of creation, you take from the home of the Primordials; the Elemental Chaos. Given that Arcane power made the world, it seems to act well as a conduit for proxy sources, such as being from the Far side of the Astral Sea, beyond the Topaz Gates.
Shadow - Just as the Primal arts draw on the aspects of life, often embodied in the Feywild, those who use the powers of Shadow draw from the necrotic and still powers from it's dark sister, the Shadowfell.

>>49886359
Anon, I WISH I could play 4e, but I always DM it.
Sucks, but at least the rest of my group can enjoy one of my favorite games.
Has anyone used Skill Challenges with some success? I am planning on using a few in my initial dungeoncrawl to simulate shit happening, but people shit on them relentlessly.

>>49886508
There's actually an Elemental power source, you know. Though it didn't see extensive use.

>>49886249
>I have replaced it with a background system of reliquaries: certain items of great power and importance that, in the event of the pc dying, will shatter and resurrect them.
You simply shouldn't resurrect pcs. There is no need to have a resurrection mechanic; the game isn't so hazardous that death will happen frivolously.

>>49886843
Elemental had a lot of ovelap with arcane, personally I never saw the need for it

>>49886900
>There is no need to have a resurrection mechanic
Raise Dead is entirely excised from my game, that is it's only replacement. It means if the player wants to continue with that PC, they have a second chance. The item is destroyed afterwards, it's not a revolving door, anon, or do you not understand what "1-Up" implies?
> the game isn't so hazardous that death will happen frivolously
It will not be frivolous, but that story above about the rogue sacrificing himself and a near tpk?
That was my game, the party's first adventure.

>>49886939
>It will not be frivolous, but that story above about the rogue sacrificing himself and a near tpk?
>That was my game, the party's first adventure.
And that was a good way to end it, no? It doesn't need a second chapter of "and then the rogue got back up with the ultra rare artifact he had in his back pocket, trivializing his decision to die like a hero instead of running for his life like any sane person would've"

Resurrection should be reserved for only the highest tier of magic, and if your pcs actually do acheive longevity half the EDs have built in ways to say fuck you to death anyway.

I just don't see the point in trying to make magic ultra rare, banning raise dead, yet giving players a free revive they can carry around just in case. What was even the point of banning raise dead then? Might as well just have made it stupid expensive or add a rule of "souls can only come back once" or something

>>49887120
>And that was a good way to end it, no? It doesn't need a second chapter of "and then the rogue got back up with the ultra rare artifact he had in his back pocket, trivializing his decision to die like a hero instead of running for his life like any sane person would've"
-The point-
Your head.
>Resurrection should be reserved for only the highest tier of magic
In 4e, it's not by any stretch of the rules.
>yet giving players a free revive they can carry around just in case
Because it's not free.
I'm sorta convinced you only read half the post.
The dwarf with the dragon egg has made it his life's purpose to cleanse it.
The one with the divine dog has risked his life for the dog no less than 3 times.
The revive is not "free" or "guaranteed", it is something that is earned via progressing upon goals and immersing themselves in the world. Players that do not will not be getting anything, and it must be a willing choice, not "You die and automatically come back".
I would expect this kind of senseless vitriol from the PF thread.

>>49886843
Technically, Elemental was to cover stuff directly linked with the Primordials themselves, but it was a bit superfluous.

>>49887344
Actually, come to think of it, I reckon part of that was for the purposes of allowing the elemental non-spells to fit nicely into Dark Sun, given how the Primordials are a big thing there, considering how they won the Dawn War.

>>49887170
Look, I apologize if I'm coming off angrier than I actually am, I just don't agree with the basic concepts of what you're trying to do

I don't think good roleplay should be rewarded with special in game perks. Good roleplay is it's own reward, the point is to weave a compelling story; that alone is the only incentive needed

I don't think players should be given second chances if the narrative turns sour for their pc. It is unfortunate if your whole character's narrative ends on a dud, but that's just what happens in a game played using random chance.

I understand 4e is a high magic land of crazy death-defying things; as I said the EDs have built in ways to screw death. But what I thought you were trying to accomplish by curtailing the rarity of magic and specifically banning resurrection rituals was to reign that in. To my perspective being able to trump death, the most intrinsic and absolute rule of life, is the biggest display of unreality in fantasy. If that can be done it changes the basic assumptions of the setting. I personally would reserve such things for high levels of play if including them at all, and I suspect that's why such abilities are built into epic level features yet mostly absent (save in rituals) elsewhere in the game.

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So, knowledgeable 4e friends. I play 5e because even though I like 4 a lot my friends are newbies and awful with rules and positioning, they can't get near tactical advantage in 5 ffs and I was looking at writing up a pixie/sprite race for 5e. I know of the writeup in Heroes of the Feywild, and it's pretty good. I'm definitely drawing on that.
But I've heard some off the cuff remarks that pixies can be abused to be very, very powerful due to the weird positioning they can achieve. How is that? Was it due to how they wrote up their size rules, or could you only take advantage of it due to the very granular and tactical powers of 4? I'd like to avoid making mistakes in my attempt.

Where's Touhou? He hasn't been in these threads a while

>>49886792
Here, take this: http://www.runagame.net/2013/08/4e-skill-challenge-example.html

>>49887546
Got banned for avatarfagging.

>>49887554
But...he's Touhou. He only sort of avatarfags. Besides, he's a gud boy who dindu nuffin

>>49887572
Yeah, I'm not sure what the fuck the mod was thinking, but there was one anon who got absolutely buttblasted by him, so my headcanon is that bitchanon he traded a bj or something for a ban.

>>49887546
>>49887554
>>49887572
Whether you want it or not, avatarfagging is bannable, it's in the rules. I personally was annoyed by the not exactly related pictures as well.

Though, he gave a lot of advice.

>>49887779
They technically were, every time. He'd post a wizard when talking about wizards, a knight when talking about a knight, even got specific with the kind of caster when talking about specific damage types or some shit. That's some high grade autism he had there

>>49885463
probably not, im hoping that nobody goes around spreading it to reddit and other high traffic sites and that wotc just forgot about 4e

>>49887998
>and that wotc just forgot about 4e
Seems probable. They forgot they were working 4e halfway through and started working on 3e again.

>>49888061
ya, afaik it isnt even possible to subscribe to get access to it anymore, i just checked my account and renewing subscription gives a 404

>>49888168
Wow they really have abandoned it

because its not documented anywhere, funin.space pro-tip: use + to narrow down your search.

example: "ranger+attack Minor+Action"

How easy is it to homebrew 4e? Would like to get into this system over 5e due to the combat being more interesting here.

>>49888391
Quite easy, as long as you pay attention to what you're doing.

>>49888391
Depends on what you want to brew. )0% of the time it's better to refluff/modify things that exist.

>>49882807
>classes are labeled DPS/tank/etc.

I should note that WoW cribbed this from D&D in the first place, so really the complaint taken to it's logical conclusion is just "D&D4e is like D&D!"

I rather liked the two 4e race books.

>>49888514
Just a few spells here and there if I don't find anything I like in the books.

>>49887506
Basically their tiny size let them stand in the same space as other creatures.

Normally this doesn't mean all that much, but pair that with a Fighter that can stop people from running and it was kind of annoying, since they had shift multiple times to get away without an AoO, and the first shift triggers one anyways thanks to the Fighter marks, and if that AoO hit, it stops the shift, forcing them to either burn a second move action(giving up their Standard), or stay and beat on the Fighter, which is exactly what the Fighter wants.

Mind you this isn't game breaking or anything, since all it does is let a Pixie tie up a single enemy's action economy, which is something the Fighter class already excels at.

>>49887506
Pixies have permanent flight and are small enough to occupy the same space as their allies.

If a pixie defender sits inside the space of an enemy, the enemy can not run away without taking an opportunity attack, the pixie is also immune to any blast attacks said enemy may have, because blast attacks can not target your own space.

On top of that, flight means they are totally immune not only to any ground-based difficult terrain, but are also immune to tremorsense, which makes pixies pretty much the best race for stealth builds,

>>49888498
Any tips? I'm new to 4e and from skimming over things it looks like it's not too tough to reskin/refluff things or to move a power here, a power there, and so on.

>>49888898
Yeah, basically that's what you are supposed to do. Changing some keywords (like, changing a power from fire to ice) can have some implications that are hard to see at first (in this instance, you change from the most resisted damage type to one that has very solid feat support; not a big balance issue, but you get what I mean).

>>49888898
If you're new, just stick to refluffing to begin with, 4e is pretty sturdy balance-wise, but if you give a multi-attack to avenger or sorcerer it's going to be a tad OP

>>49886911
>>49887344
See, I saw it a bit of the other way around, looking at it this way:

Divine is power of the Astral Sea
Psionic is power of the Outer Realms (? I forgot what they were called)
Shadow is power of the Shadowfell
Primal is the power of the Material

This progression leaves me to think Elemental should be the power of the Elemental Chaos, and then Arcane?

I don't know, change Arcane to be from the Feywild? No idea how that wouldn't overlap with Psionics and Primal. Maybe it is based on Illusion, Enchantment and some teleporting?

Maybe I just want to see a logical progression. I guess Arcane could be "a little of everything" but that seems kinda lazy and OP I guess.

I'm also racist against Holy Cows and fine with killing off the "generalist" Wizard as a concept.

Just got the offline character builder. Where can I get the offline Compendium?
also what other offline tools is there? This is amazing to not have to rely on books.

>>49870620
I don't like the look of the special snowflakes in the Draconomicons, but is there anything wrong with the standard dragons? I.e. having Chromatic dragons for each level is pretty useful

>>49889094
Just the character builder, I'm afraid. The compendium is online at funin.space. You can download it here:>>49882712

You'll need to run it on your own server I think (setting up a xampp is quite easy tho, and it should work).

Also, >>49888261
hey, funin.space anon! put this on there somewhere!

>>49889160
Thank you. Looking into this now

>>49888898
Things to note.

1. Out of all power sources, arcane has the highest support for just being arcane, there are feats and class features that explicitly only work for arcane powers. So giving or taking the arcane keyword away is a hefty change compared to, say, giving or taking away the primal or martial keywords.

2. The power level of damage types (and how they relate to power keywords) is roughly as follows: cold > radiant > thunder > psychic = lightning > fire > force = acid > untyped > necrotic > poison

3. power swap feats and arcane admixture exist and are taken frequently, be wary of moving or changing powers in such a way that result in effectively giving these feats out for free. (ie. don't give snap shot to rangers or give radiant starfall thunder damage)

4. Different damage types have different means of abusing them with greatly different results. Point 2 illustrates basic power levels, but there's variation based on what role is using the powers (psychic is the best damage type for control-heavy characters because psychic lock, while multi-targeters love thunder for resounding thunder)

>>49873959
Give you the option to reroll twice and take the best of your three rolls? Or add the reroll to original roll. Either of those would make it appropriately tempting. You can't just make it a strait+5, since you might want to apply it to damage or to-hit.


As for penalty, I'm less sure. You probably don't want to directly damage enemies, since that would throw balance off. Maybe reduce the damage to your allies? The plants-dying is flavor text, and wouldn't normally be included in the power, just assumed in the world-building.

>>49889517
How about roll with 2d20, if either hits, you hit, if both hit, auto crit.

>>49889197
Wasn't acid actually the least resisted damage type?

>>49889772
His list is based of feat support not resist/vulnerabilities.

>>49871059

The two core 4e Eberron books are fantastic and combined with the best 3.5e splatbooks (Dragons, Xend'rik, Five Nations, Sharn) work really well for running full, multiple campaigns.

>>49889772
>>49889804
It's based on a combination of both. Hence why fire is below lightning and psychic is below thunder

Do separate attacks that you make as part of a power count as that power?

For example, would http://funin.space/compendium/power/Throw-and-Stab.html

Work with http://funin.space/compendium/feat/Fearsome-Assault.html

Or would http://funin.space/compendium/feat/Elsir-Hammer-Student.html grant dex targeting to the second attack?

>>49889160
done

i should've done that when i implemented it, but im a lazy piece of shit

>>49890680
No, the melee basic attack is not technically made as part of the attack power

Hell, even for something like tempest dance http://funin.space/compendium/power/Tempest-Dance.html or dual strike http://funin.space/compendium/power/Dual-Strike.html fearsome assault doesn't actually apply, because it's one power, but multiple attacks, so you aren't technically ever hitting two targets with the same attack, but rather two targets with different attacks

>>49890870
Would the second part even count as a ranger attack?

I'm trying to figure out if I could base an executioner hybrid around powers like that.

>>49890937
No, it is a melee basic attack, not a ranger attack

If you can find some way of using a ranger attack in place of a melee basic attack, that is the only way such a thing would work. But I think the only way you can do that is get to level 25 and take the fighter daily stance http://funin.space/compendium/power/Goad-of-Blood.html

>>49888670
Correction: Combat Challenge gives an immediate MBA, not an OA. It doesn't trigger Combat Superiority and can only happen once a round.

>>49891014
You could combine it with the weapon master's strike spear option though, if you want to be super sticky (and double punish).

>>49890986
Heh, that could lead to shenanigans with throw and stab.

>fighter | ranger hybrid
>Goad of blood
>Throw and Stab
>replace the MBA with deft hurler'd Cleave, get a free ranged basic attack

Now if only I could loop it back into itself somehow...

>>49891153
Or just throw and stab into twin strike, effectively giving you a free move action per turn while still using your ranger striker feature

>>49891196
Move and an attack with your throwing weapon, but you'd need to be human to have both twin strike and throw and stab as a hybrid (not that that's bad), or just multiclass for Goad of Blood I guess.

The silly builds would be Fighter | Executioner (you'd get all that sweet exec damage boost on your punishes, plus you could both mark and strike with deft hurler), or Ranger | Executioner to get two damage boost features in one turn, albeit, at the price of having to target different enemies. But hey, you get some nice stuff like manticore style.

>>49891050
That's not an MBA either.

>>49891390
>>49891050
Ah, sorry, you meant for the setup on your own turn. Yeah, that works.

>>49887572
>>49887554
>>49887546

Does anybody know Touhou guy on other forums? I understand he contributed to Strike! I wanted to compare notes with him.

>>49888670
>>49888874
So the main problem comes from occupying the same space as another creature?
Funny enough, that's not a thing that can be done in 5e with any sized creatures. You can pass through the space of something more than 2 sizes above/below, but not stop there.
Combined with the fact that opportunity attacks in 5e are only when a creature leaves your reach and not moves within it (with the exception of one feat and one playtest fighting style) I don't think that'll be an issue after all.

>>49891659
I sent him a skype message. I'll get back to you with his answer when he turns up.

As someone who only played in Forgotten Realms in 2e and 3.5 (two different DMs, both only wanted to play in FR). So I liked that 4e came out with PoL as the default and they changed up Forgotten Realms.

What I don't like is all the people (not sure if there were any here or not) that assumed that PoL meant Nynter Vale and wanted it all mapped out.

When can encounter powers be used?
Every encounter or every other encounter?

>>49894690
They return after a short rest

>>49894745
Damn, think my friend was getting me to abuse that mechanic by using it every encounter.

Although we could've taken short rests in between. How short is a short rest btw?

>>49894926
Five minutes. Give or take, depending on the DM. I'll sometimes throw a wall of mooks at the party followed immediately by a major villain, but I'll give them a short rest between even though it was only half a minute.

>>49894959
So it's all good then. Thanks for all that, brah, it's much appreciated.

Good encounter building technique.

Essentials classes are great. Prove me wrong.

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>>49866609
get the Dark Sun materials if your group is likely to be into it.

Athas is a HELL of a place.

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>>49894986
With my group, the main reason for having more than one encounter is to put an edge on the last encounter of the day by having them be low on dailies and magic item powers.

They're very bursty, but get nervous the second they're out of dailies. Which makes it a lot more fun, since they actually get worried.

That and using bursty enemies that sheer 1/3 of the health off three party members on the first turn. They'll immediately go into a "KILL IT NOW! KILL IT NOW!" panic.

Personally, I don't build encounters to KILL PCs. I just build them to keep death a possibility if they do something stupid. It's been fun seeing the group get better at positioning and aiming their spells.

Barring the occasionally fuck-up brought on by overzealous combat hype, where their PC winds up twisted into a pretzel because they ran across the battlefield to fight a group of enemies alone.

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>>49895043
Athas has the best race.

>>49895092
One of my recent encounters had the party fighting on a conveyor belt, which would slide anyone on it at the end of every round. I made sure to position everything so they could see it in action (as well as mentioning the moving floor, of course) once without it being dangerous.

They very quickly noted how far it moved every round and were very careful not to stand too close to the edge. They even tricked some of the dumb mooks they were fighting into falling off, to a grisly end.

Until the wizard forgot one round and got his leg dipped into molten metal. Hurt like a bitch, but he was able to teleport out before it did too much damage.

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>>49895105
>not putting thri-kreen in non dark sun campaigns anyways

>>49895211
I kind of did. One of my players wanted to play a spider-like race, but wasn't sure how to go about it. I suggested a reflavored thri-kreen, since they overlapped in a lot of mechanical areas. Extra arms, so the racial worked, for example.

They got to play a primitive spider person that was used to surviving despite being in the middle of the food chain.

I got an easy way to spice up the setting with something a bit exotic.

My group has great inner-party dialog. They've embraced the fact that the party consists of a walking spider everyone assumes is their pet, a half-dragon blacksmith that hates / is jealous of dwarves, a warforged who has no idea what's going on, and an elf and eladrin who keep wondering why the half-dragon hates dwarves so much.

There's some time travel shenanigans in play. The party recently found a village of the spider's people that were even more primitive, but oddly familiar. The village is actually the same one she's from, just earlier in time. Thankfully, no risk of a paradox because of how I set up the setting's mechanics.

>>49894995
You know what, I'm a total 4rry or whatever but I liked Essentials just fine as an option.

Yes, it was a death knell of the series and really a turn in the wrong direction in many ways, that said, people like simple classes.

Also, due to the design and focus on Basic attacks, they tended to Hybridize better too.

Of course, they were also narrower with less options compared to the normal classes. There was a few gems in there I really liked.

>>49894349
I get what you mean, but over the course of 4e there were a lot of tidbits of info on places and events scattered through the books, and it would have been nice to have all of them consolidated in a single book, especially because Wizards blasted away the wiki.
Nentir Vale didn't need a full setting book, but an expanded atlas would have been nice.

>>49896094
I said the same thing in another thread. Some essential classes were pretty bad, but in general the option of having simpler yet effective builds is a boon for some players, and the later designs were promising.
Another year of new content and no Mearls would have been perfect to close 4e in positive.

Why is combat in this system so glorious? We've been enjoying it immensely.

>>49896228
Only the worst built characters have no options in a fight. You almost always have a few different things you can do and most are worth using and some can be really awesome. Add in combos with other players and good stuff can happen.

>>49896198
I would have like to have seen the release delayed.

Later classes had the solid design of "Primary Stat + a secondary stat based on your "specialization" in that class" this is great. Original PHB classes lacked this simplicity and functionality of design, so you have Paladins, Rangers and Clerics who have bowers based off different stats and it becomes kind of a mess.

Plus maybe they'd smooth out the maths earlier.

>>49896228
It's fun, the math is laid out pretty plainly so it's pretty quick to do, and there's a lot of interactive abilities you can use to control the battle, regardless of your class.

Plus there's a very low chance a character is flat-out unplayable, which is something you ahve to outright go out of your way to do, unlike some other editions where simply picking the wrong class makes you worthless.

>>49896360
Personally, I was a fan of the Blackguard. Yeah it just a shitty Paladin with a Striker mechanic attached to it instead of Divine Smite, but it was functional and a few of the Paladin powers meshed well with it.

Plus it was great for Frostcheese since the Striker mechanic did Cold and Necrotic damage(Necrotic is resisted by a LOT of enemies, but Cold isn't so much and has lots of great optimization tricks).

>>49891277
Goad of blood is an epic level power, you could just take the Eternal Seeker ED

>>49896360
I don't see anything inherently wrong with V-split or N-split classes inherently. They're only problematic if there isn't enough powers available for you to choose one primary stat and run with it, like poor core Paladins

>>49896094
They don't hybridize better because of focus on basic attacks, they hybridize better because they forgot how hybrids are supposed to work and basically just gave essentials hybrids all of the base classes desired class features

>>49866654
Monster Vault is fantastic even though it's technically essentials.

Any suggestions for how to level up a druid of spring?

>>49899037
Step 1. Make a cleric of the nature domain

Kidding

Actual step 1: multiclass into an arcane class, preferrably swordmage. You want to be able to use daggers as implements, and this is the easiest way
Step 2. Take superior implement training: accurate dagger. You now will not miss with implement attacks from a dagger ever
Step 3. Take a very close look at what everyone else in your party is doing. Sentinel druids, like all leaders, are good or bad based on how their abilities relate to the rest of the party

>>49899247
Lol, actually is a cleric a better healer than a druid?
Thanks brah.
I've found my niche as the party medic but could branch out a bit with more attack variety.
Someone else is a dedicated swordmage; I have jolt of lightning and can grant temp hp to my party members.

>>49899617
Sentinel druids have some nice utility powers, most notably serpent's cunning and eagle's splendor. But for the most part they're pretty much the worst leaders.

Clerics are the most "healer" of the leader classes, which is both a strength and a weakness. They're also weirdly built in terms of stat requirements, they either want strength primary/wisdom secondary, wisdom primary/constitution secondary or wisdom primary/charisma secondary and have a stupid huge pool of power choices. So they can be a bit tricky to build

>>49887779
>>49887572
>>49887554
>Avatarfagging

I don't even... It's an image board. He posted images. They were always different images, related to the subject at hand. How in the fucking world is that avatarfagging?

If all my pictures were western fantasy art, nobody would call that avatarfagging.

"i don't like anime art" is not the same as him actually breaking a rule. I don't think I saw him ever use the same picture twice in close enough succession that I noticed, and I hang out in pfg and the occasional 4eg that pops up.

>>49873528
4e is only like wow in that there's a class that encourages the gm to treat your tank as though he aggro'd monsters, because otherwise they take a bunch of extra damage or what have you.

4e is really more like a tabletop disgaea where you can't use the same attack twice in a fight and there's no mp.

>>49884610
Weave is Faerun specific, also got destroyed before 4e with the death of the good of magic, as the explanation for why 4e magic is so different.

In 4e they are casting workout the weave.

>>49899659
Thanks man, I'll go have a look at more of the utility powers, but dunno if I'll be allowed to rebuild or multiclass unfortunately, especially since they require weird stat requirements and are tricky builds as you say.
Someone way when mentioned taking a cleric feat? So that could work out to more helping for the party?

>>49885982
the game doesn't include fluff cause it's meant to be genre agnostic, honestly the only issue I have with it is that the print version is only obtainable through DriveThruRPG, and I hate getting stuff printed through them, as it's both way more expensive than it should be, and they have the worst shipping service in the universe

>>49899963
2hu is also fucking annoying and it's like talking to a robot when taking to him.

>>49866654

The hardcover Essentials books (Other than Heroes of Shadow) are actually really good.

>>49900077
With a swordmage in your party, you should take a good look at serpent's cunning

You effectively give up your level 6 utility slot to permanently buff your swordmage. Which most of the time, is worth it

>>49900087
That would be the literal autism.

There's quite a bit of that on this board. Seems a stupid reason to ban him, unless you're instituting an actual anti-autism policy, which I don't think is a good idea.

He was annoying sometimes , but he actually contributed to discussions rather than being a waste of posts, which is more than I can say for lots of other people on this board.

>>49900086
No. The game wants to be setting agnostic, but there is implied fluff in the classes. It's just that it's meaningless because the point of the game is to pander to the build aspect of 4e.
No matter how hard you shill, Strike is not a good game.

>>49900086
The problem is that it isn't setting agnostic, the massive divide between combat and non-combat suggests that somehow, characters have to enter some sort of "battle mode" before a fight. It doesn't matter how much you try to make it generic when such fluff-influencing aspect is baked directly into the mechanics.

Don't get me wrong, such a mechanic isn't a weakness. it works great for a lot of different weaboo-style games, namely tokusatsu and giant mecha games (in-combat is in kamen rider/super sentai suit or in the giant mecha, out of combat is plainclothes), but it does harshly limit what sort of setting you can use.

>>49900077
Also to note, if you are looking for a primal leader with a caster-druidic flavour, then the Shaman might just be your guy.

Each of the different spirit types move you slightly towards a different role, but I've always been fond of the Animist path, because Spirit Infusion is a fantastic attack granter and the spirit itself can play havoc with enemy positioning.

>>49900159
You know you can ignore fluff, right?

>>49900390
If the game was good enough, I might. As it stands, my 4e books didn't spontaneously combust when 5e came out, and Strike is not worth of my time. But, unfortunately, you fuckers have to shill it in every 4e thread.

>>49900159
I am not shilling, honestly that word has lost all meaning these days(and the tiny amount of fluff included is meant to give an idea of what stuff does), and this is the first 4e thread I've seen, let alone posted in at least 2-3 months

>>49900348
honestly I don't mind the segregation between in and out of combat rules, makes things less murky in many respects(outside of one or two minor edge cases)

>>49900419
for me at least, the main reason I'd use Strike over 4e is that 4e is kinda a slog to run, I love it from a design standpoint, but it's just really slow in actual play(like the average combat encounter in the 4e games I played took on average 1-2 hours each), while Strike is more streamlined, also cause I'd probably be using it for usage in settings outside the D&D norm

also it is derived from 4e, so it makes sense people would bring it up

>>49900529
Our group manages 4 combats in 4-5 hours with roleplaying and banter throughout.
Git fucking gud.

>>49900356
Shaman is probably the second-best leader class behind warlord

Having an attack-granting at-will and a save-granting at-will is a hell of a combo

>>49900159
>No. The game wants to be setting agnostic, but there is implied fluff in the classes.

So, how do you make a game without implied fluff? Name everything like "class with stance mechanic", "At-will 1", "Encounter 2"? Wait, no, 'stance' is implied fluff, gotta get rid of that! "Class with mechanic where you gain a passive bonus and a bonus effect to your melee attacks". There! That's much better than "Martial artist"

...

Sorry for the vitriol but the very miniscule fluff that remains serves an important purpose; it makes the powers and classes identifiable as a shorthand, with an evocative name. Removing it would be both messy and make the game less readable and harder to discuss.

Bitching about it just makes you look like a fucking idiot.

>It's just that it's meaningless because the point of the game is to pander to the build aspect of 4e.

It does not, though. It panders to the tactical play aspect. To pander to the build aspect as much as 4e, you'd need, at the very least, multiclasing / hybrid rules + maybe race selection, and magic items and... Building Strike! characters is not a challenge, although it is kinda fun discovering synergies. You don't, and can't spend hours going through feats, races and class powers in Strike! to build an executioner | fighter hybrid. There's very little to optimize.

>>49900348
>The problem is that it isn't setting agnostic, the massive divide between combat and non-combat suggests that somehow, characters have to enter some sort of "battle mode" before a fight.

In actual play, it is very easy to sidestep, simply by requiring to justify your powers in some way. Sure, you _could_ build a character whose combat abilities do not fit with your fluff (literally no game with any amount of refluff is immune to this), but why would you do that, when you can instead build a character that makes sense?

>>49900734
The thing is, in a good RPG, building a character for whom you can not come up with an acceptable reason as to why they can or can't do what they can or can't do is impossible

Its the first thing I do in any RPG, make the thing that seems the least possible or reasonable, then justify fluff-wise why such a thing would exist

>>49900777
Well, what is giving you a problem in Strike!? If you are good enough to justify everything 4e does, I just can't see how you'd get hung up on this one.

>>49900734

>Sorry for the vitriol but the very miniscule fluff that remains serves an important purpose; it makes the powers and classes identifiable as a shorthand, with an evocative name. Removing it would be both messy and make the game less readable and harder to discuss.

Strike is already unreadable as is, so don't worry about that.

>>49900807
The divide between combat and non-combat

In Strike it's possible to give your character combat abilities that have clear out-of-combat applications that you can never use out of combat... just because you can't, no adequate reason outside of very specific settings, and vice-versa for out-of-combat abilities that have clear combat use that you can never actually use in-combat

It's very frustrating, it's two completely unrelated systems sewn together into a mess that the creators insist is a single system. If it was just one of the two it would be so much better, but the entire thing loses value by trying to be able to do too many things at once

>>49899963
It isn't about related/not-related images.

It's the fact that every single fucking post he made had some sort of weeaboo in it. You can cry all you want, but he did avatarfag. Ban was justified, even if he was doing a good job otherwise.

>>49900854
>In Strike it's possible to give your character combat abilities that have clear out-of-combat applications that you can never use out of combat... just because you can't, no adequate reason outside of very specific settings, and vice-versa for out-of-combat abilities that have clear combat use that you can never actually use in-combat

But to give those combat abilities in the first place, you got to justify them somehow. They don't exist in a vacuum. You could then use the same justification out of combat to use it.

>>49900919
...I'm not sure I understand you

I don't have to justify them, they're there, in the book. They're a part of the rules as written

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>>49900992
Having to justify them is also RAW.

Let's say you want to take a feat that lets your ninja fly.

The GM is supposed to ask (either when you take it, or when you use it) how your character actually manages to fly up into air.

If you then want to fly out of combat, you can use the same justification to do it.

>>49901130
Except you can't, because it takes a feature to be able to fly out of combat

>>49901210
It doesn't though? At worst, you have the "fly" or flight related skills restricted for this campaign, but that means you'd also have a hard time justifying it in combat.

Using the ninja example, above, if you answer "he flies with Ki magic!", you could use it to fly out of combat as well by using the same justification. If you couldn't find a justification, you'd have to talk it out with the GM, either pick another feat or tweak it in a way that you acn justify.

>>49900356
>>49900610
Oh snap, very nice indeed. Will definitely have to check the shaman out and see I can't rebuild out at least consider it. Thanks gents.

>>49901264
>My game is well made guys!
>You just have to make your shit up cause I only care about numbers

Y'know, the fact a lot of chucklefucks talked shit about 4e and panned it because they didn't like change pisses me off. Wizards made a genuinely and they were going for something different.
Fuck those pieces of shit.

>>49900087
He is an actual autist anon. The guy does the best he can. At the very least he is easily the most knowledgeable person on this board about 4e, and that is a valuable resource

>>49900144
>>49902397
He should learn to "talk" like an actual human and actually admit fault when he's wrong.

>>49902445
He does, he's just rarely wrong

>>49902445
Welcome to severe autism.

>>49902465
This is a bald-faced lie.

>>49902515
I hang around /tg/ 4e threads a lot, and I don't think I've ever seen him be wrong on a mechanical issue.

>>49902515
Touhoufag deals in raw mechanics. The few instances he outright misinterpreted or simply gave a wrong ruling on a mechanic he admitted it. You cannot however argue with him over why you think x is better than touhoufag thinks it is or something. That is opinion and you will never get Touhoufag to change his opinion, unless you somehow prove he based it on misinterpreted mechanics. Even then, he gives differing judgements on things were the rules interpretations are known to be iffy

>>49902532

The problem is that he's "right" but he tends to focus on certain issues so much he makes them out to be bigger deals than they actually are.

He'll go on for 3 page long rants about how one form of damage is objectively superior to any other just because it's a bit easier to combo into it against solo opponents. While he's technically accurate in that yes there's a way to abuse this one thing it's not like we're dealing with 3.5 level Class discrepencies.

>>49902558
It is OBJECTIVELY superior. That is all touhoufag cares about and that is what he's the best resource for. I don't think he over-exaggerates so much as overemphasizes. Personally I like the fact I can ask him what he thinks of a thing I want to use and he'll give me a 2 post long breakdown of why it's suboptimal. I can still do it anyways, but it lets me know just how far away from optimal I am. Guy's pretty much a CharOP encyclopedia and that's not a bad thing to have around

>>49902558
Yes, he's autistic as fuck. Don't ask for his help on anything fluff related, he can not help you. Also he takes RaW interpretations of several things that really shouldn't be taken as RaW, such as thundering howl giving your weapon enhancement damage bonus on the 1d6 thunder damage or dragonmarks being available outside of Eberron

>>49902532
The one time I got him to change his mind on something was about Executioner | Blackguard hybrids.

Honestly, it felt kinda good, like overcoming a difficult challenge in a game, plus I contributed to what is essentially the local encyclopedia fourriffica.

>>49902558
Well, if you ask for build advice don't be surprised when you get it. He may not give you the build advice you want, but he'll give you what he considers objectively the best non-cheese build.

>>49902615
He's actually pretty knowledgable in Planescape.

>>49902558
You're right, but he's one of the reasons why the math issues of 4e are constantly blown out of proportion. Going by these threads it seems that the first batch of books is literally unusable, when it's easy to reckon that we're dealing with one point per tier of deviation from the average (when dealing with PC stats) or a few points of average damage (for monsters).

>>49902394
The industry is dominated by grognards who want what they've always had and will crush change if it appears in their favorite thing. It's like comics and the Big Two

>>49902646
three points off by epic is a considerable handicap and monster damage is near half less than it needs to be. A lot of (the legitimate) complaints about 4e were that combat was a slog and these issues were directly responsible for that.

>>49902646
The problem with the first batch of books isn't that PCs are too weak, although they sort of are on average, it's that the power discrepancy was really big between the weaker and stronger classes

Nothing near 3.5 levels, of course. But still filled with issues. Kensei Paragon Path, Pit Fighter Paragon Path, Blade Cascade was near infinite damage at level 15 thanks to lacking an upper limit. Basically if you weren't a warlord, fighter or ranger, you were doing about 50% of what you could be doing

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>>49902629
>Executioner | Blackguard hybrid
Tell me more

>>49902615

Well, honestly dragonmarks outside ebberon isn't a terrible idea. They are some of the most interesting/best designed feats and very refluffable.

>>49902615
>such as thundering howl giving your weapon enhancement damage bonus on the 1d6 thunder damage
I'm not entirely sure that's wrong. It works that way with some warlock powers too I think
>or dragonmarks being available outside of Eberron
I've played with DMs who've allowed this. If it exists it'll be available in someone's game fluff be damned

>>49902666
The point is that it's not. It's consistently solvable with power effects, and to a lesser extent items. Of course the "math fix" feats offer a huge, always on numerical bonus that is better than the majority of conditional feats. But saying that 4e math is busted, or that a class is not performing its role, on such minor differences is idiotic, considering that the game came right after another one where a class tier system had to be put in place to make the game playable.

>>49902684
The problem with them is that the good ones are worth about 2.5 feats.

Take mark of warding for example. It contains, within one heroic-tier feat. A fighter-exclusive paragon-tier feat, an insanely powerful unique boon, and ritual capacity

That's all well and good when it comes with the restrictions of having a dragonmark. Either being a part of a dragonmarked house or being a social pariah. But outside of Eberron it is just an OP feat

>>49902684
The problem is that dragonmarks give a lot more than most feats. So using them outside of their intended setting is kind of cheesy.

>>49902678
Well, it just merely has the most nova damage ever. You trade off all your powers for poisons+dread smite+assassin's strike+your executioner's damage boost+blackguard's damage boost (the normal one + the one from your path), using the virtuous strike paladin power, since it counts as a MBA.

It's very plain, since it has basically no other powers otherwise.

>>49902719
They are the same as multiclass feats. They give you a lot, but you can only get one, so its okay.

>>49902736
Hah, no. mc feats are mostly crippled things that give very small static bonuses or 1/enc stuff that won't really shine unless you dump other feats/pps/etc into it. mc feats are setups for better things, but pretty bland on their own

I'm going to spec my build entirely for healing, is it a good idea? Y/N?

>>49902723
Ah, I remember that thread now
Been trying to think of something that makes the best use of the samurai theme and this could work

>>49902769
Sure? What class?

>>49902752
There are a couple of exceptions to that

Berserker's Fury, Disciple of Divine Wrath, Master of the Fist, etc.

>>49902769
Generally a bad idea, because healing is a limited resource.

But depending on what you have in mind, it could work.

>>49902769
Usually no, healing alone is kind of meh. But if you can attach extra saving throws or other such bonuses in, go for it

>>49902772
Well, most striker setups that like to get up close and personal can make use of it. Speaking of over-tuned hybrids, Executioner | Avenger with Power of Skill may make a bit better use of it, because it has a higher chance of triggering the crit chance boost you get.

>>49902772

Wood Elf Avenger is my usual goto for that.

Wood Elves get Perception as init (So they have init of +Huge), extra speed and double rolls to hit against the target for 2 shots at that 18-20 crit.

>>49902809
I was figuring the Executioner|Blackguard could just mc avenger and get a better payoff, since iajutsu only ever works for one turn an encounter

>>49902780
>>49902792
>>49902793
What would be good classes/builds to best optimize that resource?

>>49902883
clerics have good surgeless healing options, and I think shamans do as well. pacifist cleric gets even more, but forfeits being able to deal damage for like half the fight

NEW THREAD:
>>49902934
>>49902934
>>49902934

>>49902905
Sweet, thank you good sir.

>>49900885
>the problem is that he posted a different image with every post on an image board. So the ban is justified.

This still doesn't sound like avatarfagging to me. They weren't the same image.

>>49902394
Wizards made a series of business decisions that seemed specifically designed to piss off their existing customerbase, before you even consider the 4e mechanical changes.

It's not at all surprising that it worked.

>marketing that insults all their existing 3e fan base, while 3e is the current edition they're selling.
>destroy 95% of their most popular setting, sounding a death knell on new usable products for the people who bought d&d for that.
>take away access to all the various d&d pdfs customers bought because you decided you don't want to sell pdfs anymore, so if they lost their local copies (such as their laptop and hard drives being stolen) they also lose their d&d books.
>Lots of significant fluff changes done mechanically that you could view as killing me tires the game had with past editions, just to kill those ties.

WotC did nothing but insult and upset people leading up to and for about 6 months after the release of 4e. Made it hard to keep an open mind about the game mechanics.

Eventually I realized it's a serviceable game in its own right, even if it's generally useless for running a game in a classic d&d setting.

But I'm still a little salty about all the other shit wotc pulled around that time, 8 years later.

File: 2845.jpg (25KB, 400x388px) Image search: [Google]

25KB, 400x388px

>>49902394
I didn't play 4e enough to judge it fairly but I remember nearly everyone around me hated it or else would say, "It's a good game but it is not D&D 4e." My circle moved on to Pathfinder and that was that.

Now though after getting redpilled on 4e 4e feels like that kid who nearly everyone picked on and gave them shit. You stood by and let it happen but one day long after graduation you run into 4e again. They are doing all right you guess, not as well as that popular prick 3.5e but 4e is keeping on keeping on. You get to talking with 4e and you begin to realize that 4e is a good person that deserved and deserves so much better.

>>49903954
*killing more ties
Fucking phone

>>49903954
They seem to like making a habit out of saying fuck you to the last edition

>>49904008
The second time they did it they were trying to undo the giant marketing fuckup that was 4e's release, by publishing something that the pre-4e players might enjoy and rolling back a lot of the fluff changes.

Most of what made the mob of anti-4e rioters were either fluff changes (trashing Faerun and advancing the timeline 100 years) mechanics that necessitate fluff changes ("wizard" is now almost entirely rituals - you can't build wizards that play like wizards anymore; succubus is suddenly a type of demon, dragon born are redefined as something entirely different than they were, and replace all existing dragon people in your setting of choice, there are no more eladrin, regular Elves stole the name and can teleport now, many iconic spells didn't exist, etc), pr that insulted you for liking 3e, and (if you bought 2e and 3e d&d books on dtrpg like I did) outright mass-robbery.

That combination of things unsurprisingly created a mob of people who wish your company financial ruin, who are going to give you anti-advertisements about the product line that results in them being attacked, with little regard to the merits that product has when regarded entirely out of context.

Apologizing to the fanbase and rolling back many of those changes was more of less their only option, though I think they will have little understanding for where they fucked up, since they seem to over emphasize the mechanical changes in their roll backs.

>>49904177
Anti advertisements for the product line that caused the company to attack you.*

>>49904177
A game *very* similar to 4e could have come out with wide praise. But Mearls fucked it up.

>Default fluff that doesn't clash so strongly with older default fluff.
>Don't outright destroy your most popular setting.
>Don't insult your existing customers at every turn.
>Don't rob them of their access to their existing digital purchases.
>Port over most of the main existing 3e powers in a compatible form.

Had they done that, even the significant mechanical changes (magic) would have been palatable.

>>49904008
As for 5e, d&d barely exists anymore.

Their product support is a joke, and they don't have the robustness in their core books to make that viable, plus next to no current edition setting support.

Though their newer adventures are a big step forward

>>49886792
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvOeqDpkBm8