D&D 4E messy's 4e newbie questions thread

[messy]

42. can paladins be of any alignment?

43. assuming the answer to #42 is "yes," if a paladin isn't of good alignment, does his/her divine challenge still do radiant damage?

danke.

 

[Balesir]

42. can paladins be of any alignment?

Yes, but paladins must pick a deity and have the same alignment as the deity. See below for more on this.

43. assuming the answer to #43 is "yes," if a paladin isn't of good alignment, does his/her divine challenge still do radiant damage?

Yes - ish. There is a Blackguard ("anti-paladin") class as well as the straight paladin, but there's also a more fundamental conflict in 4E's cosmology that explains why "bad" paladins might have radiant powers whatever their alignment. The key is that they serve gods, and there is a big opposition between the gods and the demons. Demons tend to be vulnerable to radiant damage, but divine servitors often aren't, even if they are "evil".

There is a sort of vibe where evil gods are still part of the "divine order", but demons definitely aren't.

The original books discouraged PCs following evil deities, but the mechanics should work fine even if they do. I tend to find that evil characters make poor dramatic roles, personally (though Unaligned is fine - possibly the best), but that's more of an aesthetic thing.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Yes, but paladins must pick a deity and have the same alignment as the deity. See below for more on this.

Note that like the cleric, the paladin doesn't actually lose anything rules-wise for violating his or her alignment restriction. (Though the paladin's superiors might do something to punish the heretic, like putting a price on his or her head.) So effectively, there is no restriction.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

42. can paladins be of any alignment?

43. assuming the answer to #43 is "yes," if a paladin isn't of good alignment, does his/her divine challenge still do radiant damage?

danke.

Yes, and your Divine Challenge still does radiant. There should be another option, though. I think the blackguard class (kind of a striker) does lots of necrotic damage.

There are domains that will change a few of your powers to necrotic damage (the Death domain), but only at-will attacks, not Divine Challenge.

I read somewhere that a paladin of sacrifice (Essentials) must be good-aligned, but as I can't find rules text backing it up, it might have been a house rule.

 

[RangerWickett]

I don't know if anyone has said this yet, but Wizards of the Coast has a subscription service where you can get access to the Compendium (which has all the rules printed, and it's reasonably easy to search through if you know what you're looking for) as well as the Character Builder (a decent browser-based program that queues up the various choices and options you get, then does the math of character stats for you, and even generates a character sheet; two drawbacks are that you need to use Silverlight, so it won't work on some devices, and that the 5 year life of the ruleset has produced a lot of . . . let's say 'chaff,' so sometimes you end up scrolling through tons of sh***y options to find something good).

I think they're stopping updates to the Character Builder in April, to pave the way for NEXT, but I suspect they'll keep it active for a while. I don't recall how much it costs to subscribe: 3 or 7 bucks a month?

 

[sabrinathecat]

Paladin is a Defender
Blackguard is a Striker.
Because Blackguard is a "subclass" of Paladin, in theory, I do not know why a Paladin couldn't take a Blackguard power, or vice versa. That mechanic is a little messy.

All gods have angels as servants, so all gods have paladins in their service. Paladin = "Defender of the Faithful". Orcus has Paladins. Corellon has Paladins. Moradin has Paladins. A blackguard of Corellon might be a little strange, but not necessarily wrong.

 

[captpike]

Paladin is a Defender
Blackguard is a Striker.
Because Blackguard is a "subclass" of Paladin, in theory, I do not know why a Paladin couldn't take a Blackguard power, or vice versa. That mechanic is a little messy.

it is a little odd but by RAW there are no such things as "blackguard powers" there are just paladin powers, its the main reason why a hybrid blackguard is better then a normal blackguard, rather then told you get power X, you can choice any paladin power you want, even one that marks.

 

[Balesir]

All gods have angels as servants, so all gods have paladins in their service. Paladin = "Defender of the Faithful". Orcus has Paladins. Corellon has Paladins. Moradin has Paladins. A blackguard of Corellon might be a little strange, but not necessarily wrong.

Actually, I'd dispute Orcus. All the other (plus Vecna and beyond) have paladins, for sure - but Orcus is a Demon Lord, not a God. His origin is Elemental/Primal (and then twisted), not Divine, so I don't think he gets paladins. He gets lots of demon servitors, though. And undead. Lots of undead.

Edit: this is by RAW, of course. If you want Orcus paladins in your house game, crack on!

 

[Neonchameleon]

33. what would be the effect of houseruling non-at-will powers to all be encounter powers (such that you get them all back at the end of an encounter; i ask because it seems like this would make things simpler)?

Messy. Things like Moment of Glory (Resist 5 all for all PCs) will be thrown every fight - and there will be a lot less tension in the game.

34. have the books been reprinted with errata?

No - and yes. Monster Vault, the Rules Companion, and the HoF* books all coem with errata.

36. what does errata mean when it mentions "rare" magic items (as i've seen no mention of this in the player's handbook)?

Added later - some magic items can't be bought from magic item shops or readily made and should only be given out as obscure treasure.

37. are sneak attack and hunter's quarry damage maximized on a critical hit?

Yes,

38. does push/pull/slide have to move its target in a straight line?

Pull - you have to move the target nearer the origin with each square moved.
Push - you have to move the target further from the origin with each square moved (normally three options)
Slide - whatever.

But no they don't.

39. following up #33, can someone give an example of how daily powers are significantly more powerful than encounter powers?

Villain's Menace - a level 1 fighter daily does [2W] damage - and gives you +2 to hit and +4 to damage on all subsequent attacks against that target if you hit.

Almost all summon spells are dailies.

40. is it true that the higher of dexterity or intelligence is not added to armor class when wearing heavy armor?

Correct.

41. does (creature) size matter (for anything mechanically)?

Not that often directly. (You can't Tide of Iron creatures larger than large). Although larger creatures normally have higher fortitude and lower reflex defences - the mechanics reflect rather than dictate the game's fiction.

42. can paladins be of any alignment?

Yes. As long as they are idealists likely to get themselves killed in defence of their allies... (If they don't want to do this or use divine challenges they don't become paladins, so Chaotic Evil ones are rare).

43. assuming the answer to #43 is "yes," if a paladin isn't of good alignment, does his/her divine challenge still do radiant damage?

Yes.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually, I'd dispute Orcus. All the other (plus Vecna and beyond) have paladins, for sure - but Orcus is a Demon Lord, not a God. His origin is Elemental/Primal (and then twisted), not Divine, so I don't think he gets paladins. He gets lots of demon servitors, though. And undead. Lots of undead.

Edit: this is by RAW, of course. If you want Orcus paladins in your house game, crack on!

Right, technically Primordials are not Gods, and Demon Lords are considered to be Primordials, and are definitely not divine. Thus their followers don't get access to the Divine power source, and aren't clerics or other Divine classes. There IS however an Elemental power source, and some classes which use it (introduced in the Heroes of the Elemental Chaos supplement, one of the very last 4e supplements to be released). There are some cool things in there. Some Demon Lords like Orcus might also be tied to Shadow, another power source that some classes can tap into. Interestingly though Lolth IS technically a God, can she have clerics? We don't really know, though I haven't read the primary 4e sources on Drow, so perhaps there are answers there. Anyway, 4e makes demons and such things more distinct from divine creatures than previous editions did. You can of course fairly trivially hack that.