L4W Discussion Thread V

Someone · Oct 3, 2010

evilbob said:
Someone: Yeah, the cool thing about teleporting is the idea of teleporting someone upward and having them fall and be prone - it's a bonus damage and effect. However, to balance this out they made it so that any time you are about to teleport someone to a place where they would fall or take damage somehow, they get a saving throw to negate the teleport. It's kind of a huge nerf, but it was also a pretty awesome tactic that they didn't seem to think of when writing teleport abilities.

I was talking about a Psionic Power at will called Dimensional Scramble. It's very good; has a nice area of effect, you teleport people ouside the burst and you can cheaply augment it so it only afects foes, so you can blast the melee and help rearrange the battle line easily. It's a great control power. The only "problem" is that unlike forced movement, teleport doesn't have the option to not move the full extent, or in this case move the hit creature out of the blast. This could be a problem in case it's already in a good position beause is flanked, etc. In this case, teleporting up presents the option to essentially negate this disadvantage, and if you are lucky and the enemy doesn't save, deal even more damage (1d6+1d10+int is quite good for a Controller's At will) and drop him prone.

H.M.Gimlord · Oct 3, 2010

evilbob said:
The main difference between a PC and an NPC is that an at-level group of PCs will likely have more defenses against falling (if nothing else, just HP) when fighting a dragon who can do all of that in one round easily.

I assume that by, "at-level" you're supposing something above 3rd - 5th level against a dragon of say... 12th level or higher B-)

?

Otakkun · Oct 4, 2010

Is Auspicious Birth among the accepted backgrounds? I was just browsing the wikia and found a character with it.

Why am I asking? Mostly because Shrakk could really use STR 15 instead of CON 15, but as those who have adventured with him can testify, every single point of HP matters.

If it's available, would the judges be ok with a little tweaking of him? Say dumping CON instead of STR? And obviously changing my background to AB.

Iron Sky · Oct 4, 2010

Otakkun said:
Is Auspicious Birth among the accepted backgrounds? I was just browsing the wikia and found a character with it.

Why am I asking? Mostly because Shrakk could really use STR 15 instead of CON 15, but as those who have adventured with him can testify, every single point of HP matters.

If it's available, would the judges be ok with a little tweaking of him? Say dumping CON instead of STR? And obviously changing my background to AB.

It's not written anywhere that I can find, but setting-specific backgrounds (Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Scales of War, etc) are not allowed. My roommate Sanzuo tried to get that background for RAM TIGER and the judges said no.

Walking Dad · Oct 4, 2010

Looks like my ardent gets killed in his current fight (only leader, no SW left, -4 HP & the enemy has a damaging aura and 2 failed death saves).

If he would get enough XP to level up after getting raised, could I leave him stay dead and make another character of his new level.

One could do this by raising him and then retire, but that sounds not right...

stonegod · Oct 4, 2010

You can retire dead characters.

Charter said:
A permanently dead character obviously does not count against the number of PCs a player can have. If a character of 2nd level or higher has been killed, the player can mark him as permanently dead, and replace him with a character of a level higher than 1st. This works the same way as retiring such a character. (See below.)

stonegod · Oct 4, 2010

Otakkun said:
Is Auspicious Birth among the accepted backgrounds? I was just browsing the wikia and found a character with it.

As far as I can tell, Dante is not an approved or played character. Iron Sky is right, that BG os not allowed.

Walking Dad · Oct 4, 2010

stonegod said:
You can retire dead characters.

But would he gain XP for the encounter he died in? (He actively fought, used all his healing and was revived once.)

Otakkun · Oct 4, 2010

stonegod said:
As far as I can tell, Dante is not an approved or played character. Iron Sky is right, that BG os not allowed.

What a shame, and yes, I saw the background on Dungeon Master's Guide

. How did you know?

renau1g · Oct 4, 2010

Iron Sky said:
It's not written anywhere that I can find, but setting-specific backgrounds (Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Scales of War, etc) are not allowed. My roommate Sanzuo tried to get that background for RAM TIGER and the judges said no.

Correct, all backgrounds must follow the PHB2 example of either +2 to a skill, add a non-class skill to your class skill list, or learn a new language (non-supernal/the other one), or be one of the L4W regional ones.

Walking Dad said:
Looks like my ardent gets killed in his current fight (only leader, no SW left, -4 HP & the enemy has a damaging aura and 2 failed death saves).

To clarify, the aura itself is not damaging, but rather it's more like a timebomb, once every 4 rounds it goes off. The catastrophic dragons from MM3 are my favourite creatures in the game. It's gone off twice now... third time will likely be the end of Team Psion.