6 players, 5 hours, 4th edition

[LostSoul]

There was a little write-up of the trap somewhere. I think it immobilized you if it hit.

 

[helium3]

Is there any mention of how per-encounter abilities might be usable outside of combat? Many of the powers are combat-only, however Fey Step seems very useful in other situations. Does this mean Eladrin can teleport around at-will in non-combat scenarios?

It's probably teleport anywhere that's line of sight within a certain range. But yeah, it sounds like you could do that once every five minutes or so outside combat. Isn't five minutes the "standard" length of an encounter, even if it doesn't actually last that long?

 

[fnwc]

It's probably teleport anywhere that's line of sight within a certain range. But yeah, it sounds like you could do that once every five minutes or so outside combat. Isn't five minutes the "standard" length of an encounter, even if it doesn't actually last that long?

If that's the case... wow. Seems like a *very* powerful ability. The closest I've seen to this in 3E is the teleport reserve feat, but that requires a level 4+ teleport spell held in memory (if I remember correctly).

 

[Henry]

Isn't five minutes the "standard" length of an encounter, even if it doesn't actually last that long?

I think they said such in the release info; there are several things so far that remind me of older editions, and this was one thing. Even MerricB said one time a while back he missed in 3e the old 1e convention of a combat taking one turn (ten minutes) of time even if it didn't take that long, because it was assumed the time was taken looting bodies, cleaning wounds, picking up gear, etc.

 

[helium3]

If that's the case... wow. Seems like a *very* powerful ability. The closest I've seen to this in 3E is the teleport reserve feat, but that requires a level 4+ teleport spell held in memory (if I remember correctly).

It's only VERY powerful if you start considering the ramifications of unlimited use of it outside of combat in a world that attempts to maintain some semblance of coherence in the face of reality altering magic.

<sarcasm>In other words, only if you're a clomping virgin nerd living in a basement.</sarcasm>

It's certainly powerful with respect to 3E and the price the rules currently assign to the ability to teleport short distances. I probably wouldn't consider giving that ability to a 3.X player as it functions in 4E as all that broken either. All it does is let you move around the battlefield, and that's certainly a good thing, as I can increasingly see how overly penalized tactical movement is in 3E.

Any other reason you think it's over-powered beyond comparison with the current cost in 3E?

 

[HeinorNY]

As opposed to a 3e warlock at level 1? Eldritch blast, eldritch blast, move back 30 feet, eldritch blast, then... eldritch blast? Or if you're smart, you pick the summon swarm invocation. Then your round-by-round tactics are summon swarm, summon swarm, five foot step back, summon swarm, etc.

Yes sure, you can do that in 3.5, but I hope it won't be like that in 4E.
IMO thats a bug, not a feature.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Rodrigo,
They had mentioned that you could bypass/disable traps w/o a rogue in your group. Was that explained to you in regards to the pressure plate trap or could have it been overlooked (by either the players or possibly the dm forgetting something)? Or was it an instance one PC went in too quickly?
Thanks

No. The first person that acted saw the kobolds and, being a melee person, moved in to attack and tripped the trap. The second person moved, and tripped a second plate following a different path. The rest of us were smarter and stayed where we were until we could unstick the first two, and took the kobolds out with missile fire and magic. Some of them charged into melee range, and after the fight we just said 'ok, we'll walk where they walked.'

I don't know if the DM rolled Passive Perception and we missed, or not.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Is there any mention of how per-encounter abilities might be usable outside of combat? Many of the powers are combat-only, however Fey Step seems very useful in other situations. Does this mean Eladrin can teleport around at-will in non-combat scenarios?

No, it didn't come up since we basically went from encounter to encounter with no events in between. But, it's an excellent question, and one I'd be curious to know the answer to as well.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Maybe I missed something, but why didn't you pull the paladin back off the trap? Why did you have to teleport in front and push?

(a) It was cooler

(b) I couldn't pull them into my square, so I'd have had to pull her to the square adjacent, and we didn't know if that was trapped or not. So, figuring it was a low chance they'd have two plates in a row moving forward, but kinda likely to have two side-by-side so you couldn't get past, it seemed more prudent to teleport in front and push her back to the square she'd already walked through safely.

 

[HeinorNY]

I also saw the kind of combat metagaming that drives me nuts, where the power-gamers basically plot everyones actions for the whole round before anyone does anything. Eg, Ok, the ranger goes before the paladin and the cleric, so he'll do X so that the paladin can do Y, setting up the cleric to do Z. I rather despise that when it becomes a matter of course, and the combination of at-will and per-encounter abilities, coupled with the synergy between them amongst different classes, and I think its going to get much, much worse.

I know what you mean and by your preview we have similar taste.
What I like to do regarding that is to believe that the characters are "real" adventurers, they "really know" about the stuff they do, different from us players who are normal people and we only pretend to be adventurers.
The characters in the gameworld also know each other better than we players know other player's characters, so it makes sense that the characters in the gameworld naturally know how to work together and use their powers the most optimized way they could.
So this "metagame" combat is, IMO, a valid way to represent the way "real" adventurers work together in a fight.