Help! I need the wisdom of those who went to D&D XP

[Benimoto]

Okay, I lied.

I could actually use a little bit of clarification on burst.

The Wizard spell Scorching Burst is "burst 1 within ten squares", so does that mean the Wizard can target any square to be the center of the effect area up to ten squares away? And that the area of the burst is 9 total squares.

So the spell Sleep has a "burst 2 within 20 squares" area. Does that mean the Wizard can target any square to be the center of the effect area up to 20 squares away? And that the area of the burst in this case is 12 total squares?

Your first description is correct, but a burst 2 actually affects 25 total squares. It affects the target square, plus any other square that is within 2 of the target, so it works out that it covers a a 5x5 area.

 

[breschau]

Your first description is correct, but a burst 2 actually affects 25 total squares. It affects the target square, plus any other square that is within 2 of the target, so it works out that it covers a a 5x5 area.

That's gotta be wrong. I know it's a daily spell, that in this edition 1st-level characters are more powerful, but I don't see slowing or sleeping up to 25 enemies with a single spell as being on par with the other daily spells (yes, I know the paladin's is nerfed, so let's agree to ignore it).

Split the Tree, 2[w] damage to two targets simply does not compare.

Brute Strike, 3[w] damage, closer, but not quite.

Cascade of Light, a bunch of damage but to one target plus vulnerable, that's better, but no.

Curse of the Dark Dream, a bunch of damage (on a hit), plus sliding (even on miss) until a save (55%) ends. Nope.

Acid Arrow, main target and secondary target take some damage plus 5 ongoing until save (55%) ends. Nope.

Sleep is the bomb by comparison.

As it's an area attack, maybe it's burst 2 meaning 2 squares across, for a total of 4 square, your target is essentially where the corners meet. That would cut it down enough to be on par with the other dailies.

Damn, but that doesn't jive (not jibe because jibe is an insulting or mocking remark) with Scorching Burst. Hell. Sleep is the best.

"Bring on that mob of kobold minions, I have Sleep."

Make mine Wizards.

 

[keterys]

Sleep covers a 5x5 square. Note that if you hit them, they get an action while slowed then at the end of their turn make a save. If they fail the save (45% chance) then they fall asleep, and continue to make saves each round. If you attack a slept opponent, you automatically critically hit and they wake up on their next action (but each person in the group has a chance to get over and whack them, they don't immediately wake up)

It's actually not very powerful unless you're trying to ensure a group is slowed, since it autoslows (reduces speed to 2)

 

[Cadfan]

In the first preview adventure, there was a "skill challenge" where we had to escape from the guards. The players could choose to use any skill they thought was applicable, describe their action and then roll against 10 (easy), 15 (medium), or (20) hard. If you failed an easy check, it would give you a -2 to future checks, and if you succeeded on a hard check, it gave you a +2. Everyone in the party got two checks, and I guess if we got a certain number of successes total, we succeeded in the encounter. There might have been some other mechanics at work that the DM was checking, but we didn't know about. I suspect that although we could pick any skill to use, only successes on certain skills actually helped us escape.

Can anyone elaborate on this? This is an aspect of 4e that we know almost nothing about.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

"Bring on that mob of kobold minions, I have Sleep."

Make mine Wizards.

It's not all that powerful, really. When I played the preview mod, I used it against a group of thugs. I managed to get a few of them to fall asleep, but the others were able to use minor actions to wake their buddies on their turns. So at most, it meant they missed a round's worth of actions, except for the one guy who we managed to take out before he woke up.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

Can anyone elaborate on this? This is an aspect of 4e that we know almost nothing about.

The skill challenge was used in an encounter where the players had to run away from the guards. The party as a whole needed to accumulate a certain number of successes before accumlating a certain number of failures. I'm not sure what the number was but I'm guessing it was around 5. We went around the table and came up with ideas, the DM gave us a choice of easy, average, or hard DCs. We weren't told what the DCs were, but I found out later that they were around 11, 15, and 19.

You could pretty much come up with whatever seemed plausible in order to escape. The ranger used his athletics to scamper up onto a rooftop. The fighter made the high DC strength check (or maybe it was athletics, I don't remember) to tip over a fruit cart, and the DM said he got a bonus on his next check because the fruit falling in the streets caused a stampede of people trying to grab free fruit. The paladin tried to use an average diplomacy DC to persuade the crowd to mislead the guards. The poor cleric, struggling for a good use of his skills, tried a low DC Knowledge(History) check to try to remember if there was an abandoned sewer entrance nearby. He failed his check, and the DM ruled that he found the sewer entrance exactly where it should have been, but the books never mentioned anything about a grate...

We managed to eventually succeed, but with a few failures, it meant that the guards had a good description of us, which came back to haunt us later...