D&D 4E 4e Playtest Characters

[Sadrik]

How many trained skills are you giving each class. I see the rogue has the most.

Are you doing "class #" + INT bonus or something? I cant figure it out.

 

[theredrobedwizard]

Paladin: 2 skills
Rogue: 6 skills
Warlock: 2 skills
Cleric: 2 skills
Fighter: 2 skills

Bonus skills for Int and being Human.

The trained skill numbers are based on the old attribute bonuses, so I'll have to go through and correct those as well.

-TRRW

 

[Nikosandros]

Thanks. I don't have that book.
Did they also confirme the change on the ability scores modifiers?

No... which changes? I think that ability modifiers are staying the same.

 

[HeinorNY]

No... which changes? I think that ability modifiers are staying the same.

Dunno.
I just saw the ability scores at the Spined Devil card and they have different modifiers, or maybe half the level was added to the modifiers, though I can't see the use of that.

EDIT: ok, maybe it's useful, so you actually really don't need any table with progressions.

 

[Kirnon_Bhale]

One thing that I think you need to spell out (at least for me) is which ability you are using for the modifier on the Daily/Encounter/At will attack rolls. As has been indicated in the paladin writeup on smites. To hit and damage were modified by Charisma. I would like to see which abilities are modifying the rolls for the other classes.

Cheers.

 

[theredrobedwizard]

One thing that I think you need to spell out (at least for me) is which ability you are using for the modifier on the Daily/Encounter/At will attack rolls. As has been indicated in the paladin writeup on smites. To hit and damage were modified by Charisma. I would like to see which abilities are modifying the rolls for the other classes.

Cheers.

That'll come later, in the Extrapolated Classes write ups I'm hoping to have done by mid-January. Out of the above classes, only the Fighter and Paladin have +1 Attack Bonus from class, so it should be rather easy to figure out which stat is being used for which attack (For example, the rogue's ability Gouge is Dexterity based).

Thanks for the input.

-TRRW

 

[Sadrik]

That'll come later, in the Extrapolated Classes write ups I'm hoping to have done by mid-January. Out of the above classes, only the Fighter and Paladin have +1 Attack Bonus from class, so it should be rather easy to figure out which stat is being used for which attack (For example, the rogue's ability Gouge is Dexterity based).

The spine devil has a +2 melee and +4 ranged as a 6th level skirmisher.

Melee
fighter +4
paladin +4
ranger +2
rogue +2
cleric +2
warlock +0
warlord +2
wizard +0

Ranged
fighter +2
paladin +2
ranger +4
rogue +2
cleric +0
warlock +2
warlord +2
wizard +2

Anyway those are my best guess.

 

[Oldtimer]

I just saw the ability scores at the Spined Devil card and they have different modifiers, or maybe half the level was added to the modifiers, though I can't see the use of that.

EDIT: ok, maybe it's useful, so you actually really don't need any table with progressions.

Our collective guess has been that those modifiers represent the Spined Devil's base skill modifiers (for untrained skills), going by SWSE where it's ability modifier + 1/2 level.

So, no indication that ability modifiers will change.

 

[theredrobedwizard]

The spine devil has a +2 melee and +4 ranged as a 6th level skirmisher.

...

Anyway those are my best guess.

Are those supposed to be the numbers at 1st level or 6th level or somewhere in between?

-TRRW

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

The spine devil has a +2 melee and +4 ranged as a 6th level skirmisher.

Anyway those are my best guess.

Seems kind of confusing to have different bonuses for range and melee. Plus, the designers have said repeatedly that monsters are NOT designed like players that they follow completely different rules. So using that stat card to figure out player bonuses is kind of backwards.

Plus races and classes pretty much says that all classes get +1/2 of level as BAB, skills, and all defenses(fort, will, ref, ac). But that a couple of classes might get class bonuses to one of those.

I don't think the class bonuses will be that high or that often. If their goal is to flatten out the math and make it so that the divide between classes doesn't get that high even up to level 30, then essentially, if they spread out the class bonuses amongst the levels, I think it can't be more than +1 per 10 levels.

Using the example provided by the paladin smites, I believe what they are going for is that wizards will be bad at hitting things in melee not because they have nearly no BAB but that they are 3 or 4 behind due to their strength bonus. Meaning they miss 15-20% more often than fighters(and do less damage). Meanwhile, if they use one of their wizard powers, the attack rolls is based on intelligence so they have the same chance of hitting with a spell as the fighter does of hitting in melee. They both contribute but in a different way.

The idea is that at 20th level in 3.5 the fighter has 20 BAB, a +5 sword, and a strength of 26, plus weapon focus and greater weapon focus giving him +35 to hit. The wizard has a BAB of 10 and a strength of 10 and no magic weapons giving him +10 to hit. Creatures with an AC of 30 or higher the wizard needs natural 20s to hit. The fighter on the other hand hits them on a 2, even on his second attack.

At 20th level in 4th, they will have the same bab. The fighter might get +2 to hit by that time from his class and have a +3 sword, and a 23 strength. This gives the fighter +21 to hit. The wizard has a 10 strength and no magic weapon giving him +10. Enemies with 30 ac still require a natural 20 to be hit by the wizard but now the fighter still needs a 9 or higher to hit them. The difference might even be too big with those numbers. Since the goal would be that at nearly all levels a wizard could actually hit and do something in melee.

However, even in that same fight the wizard has a +3 wand, a 23 intelligence and +2 to hit from his class when using wizard powers. So when he attacks with a spell, he only needs 9 to hit the Fort Defense of 30.

Nearly everything I've read about 4th edition implies that this is the type of math that they are using.