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LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

homullus posted:

I think this overstates the case. Many of them are fine right out of the box (solos and soldiers being the main problem children).

I once played a session where we fought a level 7 solo soldier MM1 Red Dragon... at level 3. After a many rounds of whiffing and plinking away at the target, the DM just cut straight to the end and that was that.

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LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Fun fact: That is pretty much an official 4e paladin cause.

Divine Power posted:

Corellon

To serve Corellon is to serve enchantment- both the magic of beauty and the beauty of magic. You feel Corellon's favor when you find and foster magic and when you protect or create beauty. You take inspiration from exquisite things and seek ways to bring magic to others' lives.

As a worshiper of Corellon, you favor powers that emphasize the power of magic. Select showy powers, particularly those that deal radiant damage or force damage. Choose training in Arcana, Diplomacy, and Insight.

Avenger: In an enchanted refuge you received your training and the investiture of your divine power. You didn't need the advice of others to tell you how to use Corellon's gifts. You heard your calling in songs and saw your path written across a starlit sky: Strike down those who destroy, and tear through the web of Lolth's followers to stab at the heart of her plans. Death, too, can be a work of art.

Cleric: The splendor of the world and its peoples' creations inspires you, and you hope your deeds will inspire others to feel what you know in your soul. Corellon is a god of renewal, so you seek to restore and rebuild wherever destruction has wrought sorrow.

Invoker: You were granted a gift you're not sure you can ever repay. Thanks to Corellon, you can speak words of such grace that you command the attention of even the most hideous souls. With his magic behind your will, you feel compelled to share the joy your spirit feels. A magic so great should never be kept secret.

Paladin: Too often, ugly brutality ruins the gentle or glorious things in life. You chose the path of the paladin not for the song of the sword's arc, but for the sound of the next next breath of a would-be victim bought by your weapon's strike against an attacker. Whether beauty takes the form of the most enchanting place in the world or the face of a kind soul, how could you not stand between it and destruction?

Sehanine's paladins are equally interesting.

Divine Power posted:

Sehanine
The moon's glow, the crisp leaves of autumn, the magician's trick, the kiss between lovers- all are signs of Sehanine's favor. You know this because you can feel her smile in your soul when you see them. You roam the world seeking your destiny, taking such omens as signals to guide your shadowy way.

As a worshiper of Sehanine, pick powers that allow you to avoid notice or escape trouble. Choose training in Bluff, Perception, and Stealth.

Avenger: Your soul has always lurked in the shadows. Even in the center of a crowded room, you felt as though you watched from hiding. Only the moon saw you for who you are. Only Sehanine answered the call you could not utter. Now beneath her bright smile you serve as her hidden blade, and when she clasps your soul in her hand, you strike.

Cleric: Life is a prank the gods play upon souls, but at least you're in on the joke. Fate, life, death- those ideas mean little when it comes down to it. The truth is that each moment is what you make it, and for there's nothing better than spending those moments with friends. They don't always see what you find so funny, but with a little help from you, they can laugh at death too.

Invoker: Some would call you a trickster, others would call you a thief or a cheat, but they'd have to catch you first, and even then you'd figure out how to slip free. You know that the secret to life is living it well, and you use others as unwitting pawns in ways that amuse you. Sehanine approves, of course. If she didn't, you know she'd steal back the gifts she has given- because you'd do the same in her place.

Paladin: You can't say for certain where the boundary between right and wrong lies, but as you travel the road of life, you make sure to keep between those ditches. Yet there's one thing you and Sehanine can't leave behind, one thing that's worth going off your course for: love. Whether it's for the passion between two or the camaraderie of many, you'll stand your ground. Right and wrong don't mean a thing when you raise your shield- or draw your sword- for love.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
The Samurai theme isn't quite as good, but it is also fun on a rogue since the encounter power gives you an 18-20 threat range if you beat everyone else in terms of initiative. Rogues have the Unerring Ambush feat in Paragon, which lets you roll twice on all your attacks in the first round of combat if you're attacking someone who hasn't acted yet. Fire up all your minor action attacks and alpha away. Similar results can be had with an Avenger if you can get a good initiative build.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

P.d0t posted:

Are there particular damage types or conditions that are better "supported" than others?
I've heard about degenerate bullshit like Radiant Dragonbreath spamming, but I don't know much about any Radiant Mafia builds.

Probably the top of the list (in no particular order save alphabetical) would be cold, fire, psychic and radiant since they have a poo poo-ton of support. Lightning and thunder don't have quite as many options as the previous four but they're still well-supported and have several good gimmicks. Force doesn't have as strong of support, but it is one of the major ways to bypass insubstantial monsters who'd otherwise take half damage from your attacks and drag out the fight (though many of them can also be shut down by radiant damage). Acid doesn't really have all that much in terms of feat or gear support, so it's kind of neutral. Necrotic and poison are extremely difficult to work with because there aren't many boosts and such a large chunk of enemies resist them or are outright immune to them in the case of poison vs. undead (an extremely common enemy type).

Radiant is probably the easiest to work with because it's one that few enemies resist and many enemies are vulnerable to (undead in particular), plus divine characters can poo poo out radiant damage like there's no tomorrow. The radiant mafia comes from the fact that it's fairly easy to get abilities that create radiant vulnerability, such as the Power of the Sun feat which grants vulnerability 3/6/9 by tier when you hit with the at-will associated with the feat (which includes some very nice at-wills such as lance of faith and virtuous strike) and the Solar Enemy feat which is a channel divinity minor action power that increases radiant vulnerability by 5 for every enemy in the burst. The big ticket comes from the level 16 feature of the Morninglord PP, which grants radiant vulnerability 10 to every enemy you hit with a radiant power, and there are a fair number of AoE radiant abilities you could use. Praise the sun!

Once vulnerability is set up, then it becomes simply a matter of getting everyone to use radiant attacks. Even weapon users have a fairly easy time of it because of the existence of a fair number of weapons that convert your damage into radiant damage such as the sunblade (lvl 4+ heavy blade) and radiant weapons (lvl 15+ any, also adds an item bonus to radiant damage). The more people who deal radiant damage to exploit vulnerabilities, the faster you slice through your enemies.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Problem is that if you don't meet the prereq to begin with the PP won't show up on the list of available options. So if you're worshipping Pelor instead of Amaunator, Morninglord won't show up even though you're conceptually identical. While Morninglord and Heartwarder aren't exactly hidden, there are other more esoteric PPs that might fit your character that you might not notice just because you don't have the right fiddly stuff available.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Easiest is just to use crossbows. If you want old-fashion slow reloads, there's not really all that much you can give the muskets to make it worth spending your turn reloading them, unless you want to make it a theme/magic item with an encounter power attack and price accordingly.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Paladins do defending/off-leading fairly well, and bards can do leading/off-controller well, or even almost full-time controller if you MC wizard and then go into Resourceful Magician so you can poach wizard powers. Then roll a tiefling, pick up Royal Command of Asmodeus in epic level and spend most of the encounter laughing maniacally as you literally dominate every monster on the board.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
There was a tiny amount on organizations in the DMG2, but nothing really like what you were looking for. Mordenkainen's Magical Emporium has some stuff on hirelings, trade goods and miscellaneous things characters might buy, but nothing involving businesses themselves. The 3.5e DMG 2 has rules for running businesses starting on page 180. Similarly, Pathfinder uses a downtime system where player characters can run their own business and the like. Dragon Magazine had various feature articles on things like ships and the like, but I don't think that businesses were among them.

Basic problem with these systems is that the rate of return is hilariously low after level 5 or so since your income scales linearly with your check result but your wealth by level goes up much faster, so you're sitting around for months before you see anything you can even start to care about at high levels. Pathfinder's investments are a bit better since it's a percentage return, but it still involves letting your money sit around for a year and it's still only a few percent barring a really low-odds chance of a great return.

d20 isn't exactly the greatest place to start, but what are you looking for in a business system?

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
When in doubt, check the errata. In this case, it's the one and only rules change for Heroes of the Feywild, published at the end of February 2012.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

Chaltab posted:

So does anyone know of an Owlbear race for 4E, 3PP or homebrew?

No, but 4e races aren't particularly hard to homebrew. Just pick three ability scores, some skill bonuses, a racial power and a miscellaneous feature or two. For an owlbear, I'd suggest modeling it off the dwarf or minotaur to emphasize toughness and the like (probably the former, since minotaur feat support and their racial power isn't the greatest).

I'd go something like...

+2 Str, +2 Con or Wis
Size: Medium (I know they're normally large, but that's a no-no for player races)
Speed: 7 squares
Vision: Darkvision
Languages: Common, elven (normally they're of animal intelligence and probably don't speak languages, but if this is for a player then whatever)
Skill bonuses: +2 Athletics, +2 Perception

Fey origin

For the rest of the racial features, it depends on what the player wants out of it, but it could be some sort of natural weapon or hunting bonus against enemies under certain conditions. For the encounter power, I'd probably go with some sort of ability that activates on a hit against an adjacent opponent, with some sort of EoNT grab/immobilize/daze, with something like extra damage on your next hit against the grabbed target or granting CA if it's immobilized. Either that or some sort of persistence thing where you make an extra attack when dropped below 0 or something or something where you can feed on an adjacent dropped opponent to second wind/spend a healing surge.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
In most cases you just stick "archive." in front of the "wizards" part.

For example, the old address for the the 3e art gallery was

http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/ag

It's now http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/ag

Similarly, the toolset is http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/tools.aspx

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
I love Bardic Ritualist, since it not only gives the ability to use rituals, but it lets you use bardic rituals and also gives the bard's 1/tier free ritual per day, which has fun options. I only wish it gave out a choice between Arcana and another ritual skill if you already had Arcana.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

Jack the Lad posted:

Unfortunately you can't teleport people up:

Forced movement may not normally allow you to move people into the air, but I'd handwave it in cases where you've got the target grabbed and are capable of lifting the target (using your strength stat for normal, or substituting your attack stat if you're using some sort of ability). That way you can use abilities that let you move and drag the target around (such as the fighter's Slamming Rush) to jump into the air and then Final Atomic Buster a dude into the ground for some extra damage.

I'd also make Fastball Special a warlord at-will.

I'm also partial to the idea of letting you use forced movement to slam your foes into or even through obstacles for extra effects, though you'd have to limit the damage to 1/turn to stop it from turning into the next version of the now-patched zone abuse.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

OzCavalier posted:

Last time I played DnD was back in the old 2e days (prior to 2.5e even), so looks like I need to do a little bit of reading of this thread to get some idea of what the hell I'm doing in Doomykins' 4e thread.


Also, any help/advice/etc (either via PMs or in the Recruit/OOC thread for Doomy's game) would be appreciated since I know I'm going to gently caress things up in the first few combat posts at the very least... :ohdear:

Honestly, I'd recommend you pick a role and then use multiclasses instead of hybrid. Possible combinations.

Leader:
Since there's only one other leader in the seven-person party then it's not a bad idea to be one. A Skald is a bard build that's perfectly functional if you go 18 Dex/18 Cha, and you can then multiclass as a rogue, assassin, or executioner. Skald aura also means that other party members can heal themselves instead of relying on your actions. Since there are a healthy amount of powers that are triggered on basic attacks to cater to the fact that you don't seem to like your at-wills very much. This would be my personal recommendation.

Striker:
The converse to this is to be a rogue or executioner (don't be an assassin, they're tough to get working correctly even if you're familiar with the game) and then multiclass into bard, then shank people from melee or range. You already have two other strikers in the party though.

Rogues and (ninja) assassins are proficient with shuriken, though I wouldn't recommend you spend a feat on garrotes, since that involves grabbing people and that requires a build with good Strength as well (either Strength only for a Brawler fighter, or Str/Dex for everyone else). Garrotes are otherwise just crappier daggers if you don't have abilities that revolve around grabbing and holding people (shurikens are also crappier daggers because you're trading melee power for one square of range, wooo).

You're also missing a theme. Themes provide additional powers and options, which are great.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

Allstone posted:

I was of the impression that you literally couldn't use a garrote unless the power stated you could.

Double-checking, that's correct, though the Garrote MC feat lets you use it with any rogue melee power that requires a light blade. Very much a gimmick weapon.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
A skald can have Charisma and Dexterity as dual-primaries and make a bunch of ranged attacks. Not as stealthy as those with dedicated class features though, since you don't have things like Cunning Sneak or the ability to generate concealment or the bevy of powers that the rogue and assassin have for staying in stealth. Cavaliers have the only decent scaling mount, but since they removed the paladin level from the power it's no longer poachable by anyone else, so if you want to be mounted you have to stick with beastmaster ranger or fey beast tamer and then be small or smaller.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Primal's gimmick was being tougher- just about all of them have HP/surge counts that are one grade above normal for their role- druids have striker HP, barbarians have defender HP, wardens have more HP than any other class in the game. There may also have been a mild defender leaning towards the powers, though that's hard to determine.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

Maxwell Lord posted:

The words "fastball special" come to mind.

It would function just fine as a Warlord at-will: Standard Action, make an athletics check to jump, but an ally within reach jumps that distance instead of you and makes a basic attack. If the ally weighs less than your ability to lift, the jump counts as having a running start.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Yeah, usually you're better off MCing into vampire from a Charisma-heavy class because then you have actual functioning class abilities. If you're taking something like Martial Vampire, the Blood Drinker feat and maybe even the Vampire Noble Paragon Path you can generate something like three or four surges per encounter, but that won't really help your party unless you have an artificer, the Comrade's Succor ritual or an epic level cleric with Shared Healing. If you slap it on a class without dailies like a thief, elementalist or an atypical half-elf knight you can get the Eager Hero's Tattoo and then never take an extended rest again to roll around with a quite frankly ludicrous amount of THP until your DM hits you with a book. Slap it on a paladin (or bard who also MCs into paladin), then take the Vampire Noble Paragon Path for the level 16 feature, then run around in the sunlight to weaken yourself and immediately save against it so you can keep Hero's Poise rolling forever.

I need to do a Murphy's Rules write-up for this class.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Debatable. The exact text of the ability says "if you end your turn in direct sunlight... you take 5 radiant damage (plus additional damage from your radiant vulnerability) from the sunlight, and you are weakened (save ends)..." while the Noble Vampire paragon path abilities say "In addition, sunlight no longer deals damage to you, and when it weakens you, you gain a bonus to saving throws to end that effect. The bonus equals your Charisma modifier." This implies that the damage and weakening are two different effects applied under the same condition. Divine Vampire says "...and you do not take damage from direct sunlight." but doesn't say anything about the weakening, so it's quite possible that it's the same "no damage, but still weakened" effect that Noble Vampire has. If it is, Rules Compendium says you can take end of turn effects in any order, so it's totally legal to do something like...

End of Turn.
(End of Turn in Sunlight)- Now Weakened (save ends)
Save vs. Weakened (save ends) with +Charisma to saves- succeed. No longer weakened
Succeeded at a save: Activate Hero's Poise.

And thus you're only weakened by sunlight for half a second.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Could be worse- you could be a Resourceful Magician who's automagically trained in Arcana four times.

Or a fighter with three skills total.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Actually, if you really whacked at the vampire it could become a solid enough controller, striker or defender (or maybe even leader, but I don't have that much of a concept for it). Give them the ability to select actual powers, make Blood Drinker deal your surge value in damage instead of d10s and have riders based on role and make Hidden Might better and something you can replace with other role functions. It would be increasing levels of complex.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
The free Zeitgeist Player's Guide has some 3rd party ship-to-ship rules in the back for more complicated stuff like chases and shooting cannons at each other.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Other House Rules:
-Eberron races (changeling, khalashtar, warforged) actually get languages other than common- they're the only ones without any extras for some weird reason (which is especially obvious if you're a changeling).
-All races get +2 to two stats of your choosing. Draconians and revenants already allow for more flexibility, so it's time to get with the times.
-I may bump that +2 to two stats to +2 to 3 stats, and at levels 4, 8, etc give +1 to three stats instead of +1 to two. You're still going to have gaps in your ability scores due to point buy, but at least the gap in your defenses shouldn't grow as much as you level.
-Again, no such thing as class skills, and all classes can choose 4 skills to train in. If a feat would train you in a skill you already have, choose a different skill.
-You can pick two skills to assign to different ability scores. Some vague explanation is preferred, but sometimes you're Str/Con and you've got nothing else to say because it's much easier to bullshit an excuse for mental ability scores.
-Characters whose primary and secondary ability scores overlap (Str/Con, Dex/Int, Wis/Cha) can add one of those ability scores to a different defense. Maybe your Con goes into Reflex to represent having a tough hide, or Will to represent being stubborn as a mule, maybe Dex goes into Fort for physical health or Int goes into Will for a mind of steel, maybe Wis goes into Ref for your ability to anticipate attacks, or maybe it goes into Fort to represent mind over matter. No boosting two defenses with one stat though.
-Similarly, classes with light armor and no ability scores that add to AC (Str/Wis Rangers, all barbarians except Str/Dex ones, swarm druids, Wis/Con shamans) can add their secondary to AC or get heavy armor as appropriate, maybe both. May require tinkering for hybrids.
-Make Basic Attacks easier to acquire. A decent starter is if you've got a weapon at-will you can make basic attacks with your weapon using the same ability score.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

dwarf74 posted:

(2) Encourage - strongly - that the players pick a Zeitgeist theme and work up characters that fit the setting and campaign (that is, "you're basically fantasy secret agents somewhere between CIA and FBI, and are generally loyal to Risur"). You don't need to have an iron hand about this; I offered a "1 more stat point to build with" carrot, and it was enough; it helps that the themes are both powerful and awesome, and it really makes a difference. Also, if they can glance through the basics about the world (like 3 pages or whatever) it's good. If they read the Player's Guide section on Flint before Adventure 2, it makes a big difference.

Docker is a solid enough theme, but Escatologist's power is actively bad and its features aren't much better unless you're doing a serious gimmick build, Gunsmith's power is a bit on the novelty side but its features are very nice, Martial Scientist could be interesting but it really depends on how well they've designed the techniques (and the level 10 ranges from kind of a novelty on some characters to like four free feats on others), Skyseer is okayish but would be better if it functioned more like all the other "alter fate" powers where you can choose to use the banked roll instead of being locked into it for better or for worse, Spirit Medium is solid, Technologist has a high potential for shenanigans, Vekeshi Mystic's extra uses of its power drop off a fair amount since you can only use them once per round and its features are rather story-dependent (but this is a campaign theme, so that's not really a problem), and Yerasol Veteran's features are nice but I think its encounter power needs to do a bit more or be pared down to fit in a move action.

Most of them aren't bad (with the exception of Eschatologist, which is garbage aside from your ability to fiat away character death) and are pretty workable to good, but I'm not sure how powerful I'd rate them compared to the existing all-stars. Though if you're in the mood for comedic horror, check out the Pathfinder version of the player's guide. Spoiler Alert: only the Gunsmith comes out of this one looking good. Those poor deva :ohdear:.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

dwarf74 posted:

Yeah, sorry, I was including the extensions into paragon paths, where Logos is arguably pretty busted and more than makes up for the weak Encounter power. :blush: The Level 5 change to the power is nice, but the "must be bloodied" and "standard action" bits in the power really need to go. (And I've done so in my own game, fwiw, which has likewise made a difference. It's a minor action for us.)

e: I checked the link; holy poo poo I am so glad I am not playing Pathfinder. That's another nice thing about this adventure path - it was clearly written with 4e in mind.

Yeah, but Logos is probably the easiest of the paragon paths to qualify for if you don't have the associated theme, since it's just "Diplomacy, History and you like to talk shop about philosophy" so it's easy enough to enter it as a Docker or something since that can also lead to sitting around in taverns talking about the role of man and government or whatever. And then you have actual theme powers and features. And even if it was somehow ridiculously difficult to get into without the theme (like Polyhistor), if you didn't take Logos then you'd just be stuck with a garbage theme unless there's some shockingly meaty story hooks buried in there aside from "you like to talk about endings, here are some guys that like talking about endings, here are some guys that like making them."

Changing the standard to minor and removing the "must be bloodied" option does improve it, though I'd probably make it bypass enemy resistance as well unless there's some plot reason for it. If the bloodied condition is part of the power it should be tied to a more interesting option such as sustaining it freely or bypassing resistance/immunities or something.

ProfessorCirno posted:

The other issue you might have is that not all characters fit the new themes.

This too.

LightWarden fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Jan 12, 2015

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

dwarf74 posted:


Also, Gunsmith was really really hard to figure out. There's no class in 4e which really calls for two pistols, and even for Rangers it's weak. Hence, the reskinned Musket in my own game.

Rogue has the Two-Fisted Shooter feat, though I've just as often see that one used with a hand crossbow and light blade rather than going John Woo on everything, and you need to get to level 5 before that's really feasible as a Gunsmith.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Similarly, "godhand" is literally a job you can hold in Crisillyir, but I have no idea what theme would fit a monk-paladin (well, Zeitgeist theme. Musical theme is a bit of a different story).

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Yeah, mage is pretty drat solid- enchanter/illusionist may be one of my favorite classes in the game since you're a master of manipulation and misdirection.

Knight can be pretty good as well once other books are added in, since Overwhelming Impact at epic means that all your MBAs now daze, which is pretty amazing, and since the knight is MBA focused your standard action isn't quite as important as your opportunity actions if you don't use Martial Cross-Training to pick up a fighter encounter power, so you really have no problem grabbing the Battle Standard of the Hungry Blade and just going to town in your black hole box of pain (especially if you're a half-elf with Eldritch Strike). Slayer can likewise take advantage of a ton of good fighter support and feats to lay down some hurt.

If you're rolling Warpriest it's usually because of the features (Oghma in particular has good powers and good to stellar features), otherwise you could just go Wis/Con normal cleric and pick up Battle Priest's Lore, then mix and match powers to your heart's content.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Air Elementalists can also do fine if you go into Lyrandar Wind Rider for even more damage, plus control thanks to Mark of Storm. Even Water Elementalists are solid because most of their damage comes in the form of cold, which is really well-supported. Earth is the weakest because there's not a whole lot of energy damage support for acid, though it's probably not vampire bad when it comes to being a striker because you can still poach from the sorcerer's own good array of feats and utility powers.

Slayers are great because they sit at the intersection of fighter powers, MBA boosters, charge boosters, and axe/spear support if you go gouge. Hexblades don't have the same level of access to sweet powers that a slayer does, but can be solid enough, especially if you go fey, shadow or star to take advantage of radiant, frost, arcane, light blade or heavy blade options.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
First one had a bunch of rooms with various smaller-than normal encounters in them plus the odd hazard. One of the best ways to handle it wound up being to load up on End of Encounter dailies and then just murderball your way through it, so every Lair Assault after that one instituted a break point somewhere where End of Encounter effects ended but you didn't get a short rest.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
You've got an artificer to boost attacks, a warlord to hand them out and two strikers to serve as the source. You're going to be fine.

We've had player turnover in the Zeitgeist PbP (I am one of them), but it seems to be going ok by just assuming the new guys are also RHC talent who were just working on other cases beforehand. Admittedly if you manage to replace every single starting character you might have recurring NPCs wondering "who the hell are you and when can we get back to the other guys" but otherwise there should at least be some points of familiarity.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

OneThousandMonkeys posted:

Building around Con is an enticing option for certain hybrids and other builds but you really feel it in skills unless your DM barrages your group with Endurance checks.

With either the Exploration Mastery or Autohypnosis feats you can roll Nature, Religion or Arcana instead of Endurance, and with the right background and the epic Ring of Tenacious Will you could dump Con altogether. Even if you don't, Exploration Mastery is still probably the best of the ritual mastery feats.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Great for Resourceful Magicians though.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

Really Pants posted:

Any sling-user with Sling Expertise, or a drow with Dexterity 15, a hand crossbow, and Drow Fighting Style.

Rangers with the Hunter Fighting Style also get +4 AC vs. OAs that their ranged attacks provoke, and can get a few close-combat powers that don't provoke at all. Seekers with heavy thrown weapons can use some of their powers in melee.

If you're going to boost defenses against OAs then Artful Dodger rogues can be hard to hit,and the Opportunity Knocks feat grants CA when they miss, though a natural 20 or attack against Fortitude will still hurt. It'll provoke defender punishment though, especially nice if the punishment is also an OA.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

dwarf74 posted:

Design stuff aside, my players have hit paragon tier in our 4e game. poo poo is about to get real.

Most are taking the Zeitgeist paragon paths, and I have to say, I'm thrilled one is taking Polyhistor. It's crazy and I'd love to play one.

It looks like it was inspired by the earlier drafts of the 5e Fighter, with martial dice useful for combat tricks. There is a lot of MBA love, but still... Interesting.

Polyhistor is pretty potent from stacking basic attack bonuses, making it really good for fighters and some essentials classes. Monument of War is probably the most "eh" of the Paragon Paths, and Urban Empaths lose a bunch if they're out of urban environments.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

Prison Warden posted:

I haven't read much of Zeitgeist, only the intro book, but since the Paragon Path was created for a specific published adventure path, I just assumed that the writers would have taken that into account and gave a good mix of urban/wilderness environments, so that the Urban Empath has time to shine. They certainly seem to have really built up the main city as an important place.

It's less about the time to shine and more about the idea that once you leave the city limits you lose almost all of your path features, your encounter power becomes worse than an at-will and your utility power becomes a party trick. Some neat options when you're in a city, but is it really worth basically not having a paragon path once you're out?

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

Kurieg posted:

The baseline hexblade pacts are pretty terrible. White well and star are better, and Elemental's good if you're in a weakness exploiting party.

They aren't the best striker though, sadly.

The Winter Fey pact is pretty good by hexblade standards, since it's at the intersection of light blade, dexterity, frost, arcane and teleport support, but you're pretty much looking at White Lotus Riposte and using teleportation to set up Surprising Charge, with good accuracy thanks to Deft Blade. The major problem with the hexblade is that they have no real damage spikes outside of APs and Quicken Spell at epic. Unlike vampires, hexblades can be built to reliably churn out an acceptable amount of damage but if you need something dead immediately you're going to want a second or different striker in your party.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
Divine Power had a pretty nice section with various codes and motivations for your divine characters based on deities. My two favorites were Corellon and Sehanine.

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LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

Kurieg posted:

Sehanine had some fun powers too, including one that lets you attack at range by hurling a moon shaped crescent of energy by slashing your sword.


Why'd it have to be Strength-based? :negative:

(The article also had a Charisma-based sanction attack that gave paladins an option at range- but it required a bow, which paladins aren't proficient with.)

For added fun, roll around in either Imposter's or Summoned armor and you can even transform as a minor action.

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