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Really Pants posted:Essentials-only means no Warlords though Honestly, the one in my game is even doing fine at Epic. (We don't have a particularly high optimization ceiling, though. Plenty of top ranked powers and feats, but no crazy combos or handpicked magic items.)
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Dec 8, 2016 01:31
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Can you get mark of the storm and Lyradar wind rider? That seems to be an obviously great combo for an elementalist and gives you some fun control bits to go with the huge damage.
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Dec 8, 2016 02:06
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Really Pants posted:Essentials-only means no Warlords though Eh, this is pretty much the Essentials Warlord: http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/files/CC_Warlord.pdf It's just the normal warlord formatted in the essentials style
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Dec 8, 2016 02:38
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Why would you even do Essentials only, in the current campaign I'm running with basically all new players I said anyone can be anything they wanted but I suggested that no one should play Essentials classes because they just in general aren't that fun to play or as well designed as the ones previous to them(with some exceptions as noted in previous posts).
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Dec 8, 2016 05:16
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goldjas posted:Why would you even do Essentials only, in the current campaign I'm running with basically all new players I said anyone can be anything they wanted but I suggested that no one should play Essentials classes because they just in general aren't that fun to play or as well designed as the ones previous to them(with some exceptions as noted in previous posts). Some people bought the hype that they are simpler. This is generally not true. Also they don't scale into mid-Paragon and above very well. Some are bad entirely!
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Dec 8, 2016 06:28
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goldjas posted:Why would you even do Essentials only, in the current campaign I'm running with basically all new players I said anyone can be anything they wanted but I suggested that no one should play Essentials classes because they just in general aren't that fun to play or as well designed as the ones previous to them(with some exceptions as noted in previous posts). Someone wants to hate DM it to prove to everyone else how poo poo it is
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Dec 8, 2016 06:49
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Someone bought the sales pitch.
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Dec 8, 2016 06:53
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LucyWanabe posted:So, once we hit the new year one of my gaming buddies is planning on running an Essentials-only game. Now, while I'm not completely new to 4E what I played of it wasn't much and my knowledge is extremely limited and out of date (and I know zero about the essentials books). What pitfalls of the Essentials should I be aware of before I start considering character concepts? I want to play a warlock, for instance, but how good is the Essentials warlock? Seconding the suggestion to play an Elementalist, they are the best Essentials striker at hitting lots of things really hard, most of the others can only mostly blow up one monster at a time. They're glass cannons though.
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Dec 8, 2016 07:49
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What should the primary stat be by level 11? Im using inherant bonuses but my players are putting 12-14s there, and I want to quest reward them to par.
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Dec 8, 2016 16:35
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21-23. 18-20 start, 2 from leveling and 1 from paragon
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Dec 8, 2016 16:42
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Loel posted:What should the primary stat be by level 11? Im using inherant bonuses but my players are putting 12-14s there, and I want to quest reward them to par. The math expects you to have at least a 16 to start with or you fall behind, although the most common setup is an 18 in primary and secondary (there's also 20/14 but that's only for builds that don't really have secondaries). Factoring that in, you should have a +4 or (more preferably) +5 ability score modifier by the time you hit Paragon. I don't understand why your characters think a 12 or 14 in their most important ability scores is a good idea, especially when defenses are based around the highest of two scores, making investment only worthwhile in, at most, three stats (and/or CON). Having people specialize also means people get to specialize in skill sets and shine more when something comes up that their stat/skill setup excels in.
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Dec 8, 2016 16:44
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Unknown Quantity posted:The math expects you to have at least a 16 to start with or you fall behind, although the most common setup is an 18 in primary and secondary (there's also 20/14 but that's only for builds that don't really have secondaries). Factoring that in, you should have a +4 or (more preferably) +5 ability score modifier by the time you hit Paragon. New players
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Dec 8, 2016 17:23
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Thanks for the advice, guys! I don't know why the GM wants to do essentials-only, but I haven't played enough of 4e that I feel like I haven't given it a fair enough shake yet, so I'll be in the game anyway despite the criticisms of essentials. Elementalist or Thief sounds like my bag, so I'll be checking them both out. I'd say I'd report back later, but this game doesn't start until January so I've got some time to come up with a character. Also re: Vampire. I, uh, actually played one once. I didn't play it for long (it was a one-off game) but it seemed kind of lackluster to me, even with my inexperience with 4e.
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Dec 8, 2016 17:35
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The legitimate reason to want to use Essentials classes is so that your power progression is "locked in" to an order that makes thematic sense and lets you accomplish your stated class/role goal. But there's no reason you couldn't already do that with a normal class if the DM is willing to do some tailoring, such as "you want to be a Defender? then take this, that, and those powers"
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Dec 8, 2016 17:46
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So I have a character concept but Im unsure where to go with it. In 3e I was a battlefield control wizard moving everyone like chess, whats similar? I was looking at tiefling bard mc warlord, maybe with mc paladin for the Wrath of the Crimson Legion. Basically, I want to be the devil with an electric guitar, creating mosh pits all day e'er day.
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Dec 8, 2016 19:49
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Well, enchanter mage is all about repositioning enemies, warlord and bard are all about repositioning allies. Could be a tiefling cunning bard, start with 18s in Charisma and Intelligence, then MC your way into wizard and pick up the Resourceful Magician paragon path so you can pick up wizard abilities whenever you want. If you also MC into Warlord you could spend a feat to get Reorient the Axis as a utility power. Alternatively you could be a cunning bard, MC warlock and take the Evermeet Warlock paragon path along with the Bardic Wayfarer and Walk Among the Fey feats to teleport everyone everywhere. Bards are fantastic.
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Dec 8, 2016 20:10
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Loel posted:What should the primary stat be by level 11? Im using inherant bonuses but my players are putting 12-14s there, and I want to quest reward them to par. Everyone should have 18/16 or 16/16 in their two important stats (before modifiers) at level 1, and if you run 16/16, at least one of those should be a +2.
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Dec 8, 2016 20:47
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LightWarden posted:Well, enchanter mage is all about repositioning enemies, warlord and bard are all about repositioning allies. Could be a tiefling cunning bard, start with 18s in Charisma and Intelligence, then MC your way into wizard and pick up the Resourceful Magician paragon path so you can pick up wizard abilities whenever you want. If you also MC into Warlord you could spend a feat to get Reorient the Axis as a utility power. Alternatively you could be a cunning bard, MC warlock and take the Evermeet Warlock paragon path along with the Bardic Wayfarer and Walk Among the Fey feats to teleport everyone everywhere. Enchanter mage if you want to be a total dick though. There's nothing more mosh pit than dropping a Visions of Avarice -> AP -> Phantom Chasm. And sure, you just blew two dailies, but you probably also just dunked an entire encounter.
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Dec 8, 2016 21:33
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Death To Ability Scores
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Dec 8, 2016 22:20
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I'm not sure if I'd get probated for talking up Strike! again or not.
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Dec 9, 2016 10:33
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I played a game of Strike! with my folks and while the straight d6 roll system is a work of art, the actual tactical combat was not entirely, but closer to rocket tag than comfortable. Fights were over in 1-2 rounds and I feel like you don't need a choice between three at-wills and several encounter powers for that. I'm sure it gets better on higher levels when enemies have more staying power but what we played was kinda messy.
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Dec 9, 2016 10:39
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Poison Mushroom posted:I'm not sure if I'd get probated for talking up Strike! again or not. I mean, it's a boring, bad game and it has no relevance to the current topic so don't?
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Dec 9, 2016 10:39
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Has anyone every considered making equivalents for the two frost feats in the PHB for other, lesser-used, elements? For example, an equivalent for necrotic where you swap the vuln for ongoing (5), save ends with the otherwise same behavior (no stacking the ongoing on the same target though) seems like it'd do a lot for necrotic as a damage type while being roughly no worse than frostcheese. It loses the synergy with multi-hit attacks or potential benefit to other party members, but can also potentially do more than 5 damage if you only hit the target once in a given round. Seems like a fair tradeoff.
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Dec 9, 2016 14:54
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My Lovely Horse posted:I played a game of Strike! with my folks and while the straight d6 roll system is a work of art, the actual tactical combat was not entirely, but closer to rocket tag than comfortable. Fights were over in 1-2 rounds and I feel like you don't need a choice between three at-wills and several encounter powers for that. I'm sure it gets better on higher levels when enemies have more staying power but what we played was kinda messy. I played a 1-10 campaign of Strike and loved the skill system and found the fast combat a breath of fresh air after 4e. I don't think I ever saw a one-round combat though, that sounds anomalously short, like "Got a rule wrong" short. You could maybe do it if you really tried to set it up and had monsters trigger opportunity attacks from a ton of people, or used nothing but minions? I did miss 4e's plethora of monsters and treasure though, Strike only has about thirty monster templates (though there are rules for making your own monsters, I'm very lazy and just reskinned the template monsters a lot) and treasure basically doesn't exist, it's all baked into your character. Just rolling one D6 for attack and damage was beautiful after 4e's D20+23 to hit then 4D10+15 damage rolls. And getting rid of ability scores and just assuming everyone has the right stats to be effective in their role should just be basic knowledge they dole out at Modern Game Design School.
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Dec 9, 2016 14:56
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Arivia posted:I mean, it's a boring, bad game and it has no relevance to the current topic so don't? Actually it is a good game with many similarities to the only good edition of dungeons and dragons.
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Dec 9, 2016 22:18
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Ferrinus posted:Actually it is a good game with many similarities to the only good edition of dungeons and dragons. You're the cover artist. You're not exactly unbiased.
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Dec 9, 2016 22:19
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Arivia posted:You're the cover artist. You're not exactly unbiased.
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Dec 9, 2016 22:22
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Arivia posted:You're the cover artist. You're not exactly unbiased. I volunteered to be the cover artist after reading and playing the game, which is good. Meanwhile, whatever games you like are, I can only assume, trash and dogshit. Roasted.
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Dec 9, 2016 22:23
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:You're also Arivia so you're not exactly a source of sound opinions. 
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Dec 9, 2016 22:51
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:You're also Arivia so you're not exactly a source of sound opinions. Nah I have fine opinions. They might not be popular ones, but my opinions are fine.
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Dec 9, 2016 23:56
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Arivia posted:Nah I have fine opinions. They might not be popular ones, but my opinions are fine. "fine" 
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Dec 10, 2016 00:45
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Autism Sneaks posted:"fine" Running games, my players are having fun. Yep, everything's fine.
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Dec 10, 2016 00:50
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Strike seems like fun, but it also seems like something I'd need to do in order to learn it. The book isn't that clear, a lot of the time. It's on my to-do list tho. For right now, Epic 4e (level 25) is as manageable as high Paragon 4e.
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Dec 10, 2016 00:57
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When I looked through Strike, ages ago (it has probably changed a bit since I looked), while I do think it drew on a lot of good ideas from other systems and made some good choices in terms of design, and many more correct choices than bad ones, it felt like it sacrificed a non-negligible amount of tactical depth in favor of speed when it came to combat. And while I can respect that not everyone wants a big tactics puzzle in their P&P, it just didn't quite sit right with me personally. Not that I'm saying that it had no tactical depth, just shallower than, say, D&D 4E. Of course, as I mentioned, that may have changed since I last looked.
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Dec 10, 2016 01:36
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Obligatum VII posted:When I looked through Strike, ages ago (it has probably changed a bit since I looked), while I do think it drew on a lot of good ideas from other systems and made some good choices in terms of design, and many more correct choices than bad ones, it felt like it sacrificed a non-negligible amount of tactical depth in favor of speed when it came to combat. And while I can respect that not everyone wants a big tactics puzzle in their P&P, it just didn't quite sit right with me personally. Nah, you're pretty much right. Also the writing is just trash. It needed an editor and someone else with some actual creativity. 4e had some issues, but at least it had decades of accrued narrative to fall back on instead of tired Futurama references. Strike is just another heartbreaker, really - it's only notable for being made by a goon and because there's not many 4e heartbreakers.
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Dec 10, 2016 01:39
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Obligatum VII posted:When I looked through Strike, ages ago (it has probably changed a bit since I looked), while I do think it drew on a lot of good ideas from other systems and made some good choices in terms of design, and many more correct choices than bad ones, it felt like it sacrificed a non-negligible amount of tactical depth in favor of speed when it came to combat. And while I can respect that not everyone wants a big tactics puzzle in their P&P, it just didn't quite sit right with me personally. So owing to its complexity and sheer breadth of options, 4E gives you a lot of stuff that Strike simply can't and never will. Like, it's a lot easier to play minigames with healing surges than it is with the "Winded" condition, you have twenty feats instead of six, there's way more room for gradation in terms of damage and accuracy and defenses and so on. There's no paragon paths or epic destinies to speak of. If you play Strike you're definitely giving up depth and content. However, a lot of what 4E boasts and Strike lacks is either incredibly marginal or outright bad. For example, Strike has no static bonuses to rolled damage applicable to all-in-one-action multiattacks, which means that it has no Ranger class or waving an enemy back and forth through Wall of Fire or any of the other stupid charop tricks that let you deal 1d6+50 five times per turn. It doesn't have scaling modifiers to accuracy or defenses that can be used to deny one or more enemies the chance to ever land attacks. It doesn't have piles of feats whose only purpose is to make sure your numbers work as well at level 15 as they did at level 1. And so on. And, despite this, it actually does give you big tactics puzzles in P&P - they're just tactics puzzles that lack marginalia about acrobatics checks to land on your feet or squeezing out an extra 2 hp of damage per turn on an enemy with 300 total health, or whatever. So like, although I really like 4E, it would be way, way easier to get me to run or play in a new Strike game than in a new 4E game in this day and age. I figure it'd be easier to add in any specific thing I want back in than it would be to take out (waving arms at above paragraph) allll that. Arivia posted:Nah, you're pretty much right. Also the writing is just trash. It needed an editor and someone else with some actual creativity. 4e had some issues, but at least it had decades of accrued narrative to fall back on instead of tired Futurama references. Strike is just another heartbreaker, really - it's only notable for being made by a goon and because there's not many 4e heartbreakers. There aren't Futurama references in Strike.
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Dec 10, 2016 08:05
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There's like one, but it's not really a reference in that it's an injoke that only Futurama fans would get, Arivia's just mad that the race descriptions aren't super-serious and the warforged equivalent mentions Bender by name.
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Dec 10, 2016 08:10
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It's a Futurama referencer reference.
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Dec 10, 2016 08:17
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unseenlibrarian posted:There's like one, but it's not really a reference in that it's an injoke that only Futurama fans would get, Arivia's just mad that the race descriptions aren't super-serious and the warforged equivalent mentions Bender by name. Yeah, it shows off how creatively bankrupt the whole thing is. There's no actual content to it, nothing to grab onto. The sample campaigns are even just Star Wars and Avatar the Last Airbender with the names filed off. It's just terribly written. And if it's terribly written, the rules are just another heartbreaker, and there's no actual creativity in it, then it's not worth playing. Strike is the kind of game people would laugh at for fun in Fatal & Friends, except it's not even interesting enough to be covered there.
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Dec 10, 2016 10:53
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Arivia posted:Yeah, it shows off how creatively bankrupt the whole thing is. There's no actual content to it, nothing to grab onto. The sample campaigns are even just Star Wars and Avatar the Last Airbender with the names filed off. It's just terribly written. And if it's terribly written, the rules are just another heartbreaker, and there's no actual creativity in it, then it's not worth playing. Strike is the kind of game people would laugh at for fun in Fatal & Friends, except it's not even interesting enough to be covered there.
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Dec 10, 2016 11:03
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