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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Porphyrogenitus" data-source="post: 4301232" data-attributes="member: 69738">Despite my "Great Wall of Text" I prolly failed to accurately describe - possibly because of the "Great Wall of Text" was more confusing than descriptive. Not that you're off-base, but prolly inverted. That would be good if the sole purpose was combat/melee. But in the larger sense she's not someone who dabbles in magic, but someone who has a mastery of a wide array of spells.I'm not trying to nitpick 4E but I will admit my initial impression of the system wasn't positive; but then I didn't have an initially positive impression of 3E...or 3.5E. But ended up liking them. So I might like 4E, I'm not just here to be one of the nitpickers.One of my impressions is that they "solved" the problem of "some spells aren't as useful as others" (the "Fireball vs. Phanton Steed" contrast) mainly by radically narrowing the options. Also everything in design is a tradeoff, I understand that: THe "Vancian" (AKA "D&D") spellcating system was much derided, which is prolly why they tossed it, but one thing it did well was allow (even encourage) variety & versatility: If you didn't know a spell that did what you wanted, you could research it. While every spellcaster had their "go-to spells", puissant spellcasters with a depth of knowledge and extensive spellbook library could have a very different spell selection this week than they had last week.That probably more accurately conveys what I'm trying to describe: She doesn't dabble in a bit of magic on the side, she has access to a wide range of spells and if she doesn't know one that does what she wants, will research it.Bwahahahaha! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> That's a good summary.That's pretty good. One of the things another poster was getting at, I think, was that in 3E you really couldn't have a "skilled fighter" - or even a "skilled mage" (yes, because skill points were INT based, a wizad had more than the typical fighter...but also "had" to spend many of them on three "must-know" skills: Concentration, Arcana, and Spellcraft) - the only way to model an "Expert Fighter" was multiclassing with a bit of Rogue...which doesn't suck, but also isn't what everyone wanted. (that said, AD&D & 2E, no one had "skills" anyhow and it didn't bother us - but when there is a skill now that is used to do thus-and-such, it's harder to handwave it and say one's fighter is as good at x as the rogue who has maxed out their skillpoints in x, while under the old system everyone just handwaved). Anyhow I'm babbling again but I hope that 4E permits more classes to have, if not as many skills as a rogue, at least more than they did.Yeah, her skill-set is more urban than wilderness; not that she doesn't go out there, but you're very right about the skill-focus.Ok, kewl - I admit not knowing much about 4E Rituals, but that's sounding good.No class being proficient in the rapier by default sounds like a step back. But not a crippling one. I'd probably plead with the DM to allow a bit of PHII-type "retraining", swap out some weapon profs she's not likely to have for that. Otherwise yea, go that route.Slow is right-out. "Reflavoring" the off-hand is ok; other than computer games, dual-wielding is right-out for this charactcer ever since it became a "Drizzit-Clone" thing (which is also why I never bonded to 3E Rangers - just because of Drizzit, now Rangers are all suposededly dual-wieldiers? Don't Think So...but I digress).Slow really goes against the character's flavour, though.Only problem with that is her spellcasting has never been based on an external source - not even FRish "Arcane Spellcasters are Priests with a different spell-set, who get their Spells from Mystra, who can withdraw their ability to cast at any time, even though she - like other dieties with their Priests - rarely does so." I suppose that could be reconned as "inner faith" (the character has a saying: I'm not a pillar of the church, I'm a buttress supporting it from the outside" - she's not faithless, but for personal reasons doesn't rely on outside sources of power; thus pacts would also be out, from a flavour standpoint.*IF* she were 4E spellcaster, then she'd be primarily a Wizard, then: dabbling in a handful of spells isn't "what this character does". WOuld the concept work as "primary Wizard, multi-Rogue" or "primary Wizard, multi-Warlord"?In 2E and 3/3.5E one could start a character as (for example) a Rogue and then cross over to Wizard and ultimately outstrip the Rogue base to be primarily a Wizard (2E Dual-Classing was really all about eventually becoming better at the 2nd class than the original class); my understanding is 4E isn't like that - your initial choice is always predominant, and whatever you multi to is secondary, a bit of dabbling. (I say that not to nitpick the design, but to be corrected if I'm wrong).*If* that's right, then in 4E a conversion of the character that included the spellcasting aspects would have to start in the spellcasting class and make it the primary one if she was to achieve excellence in it, and then multi in another. Unless characters of any class can master a wide variety of Rituals.Yeah. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> Those sound like pretty much direct conversions.So no more Fire Shield or Acid Sheath and the like.Not bad. Mobility-limiting for this character, which cuts against the grain, but not a bad idea. However at least in past editions such effects usually left a lot to be desired.</blockquote>

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