I also have the books [merged] (info on upcomming Power sources and more)

[Rechan]

As an example, the Star Wars Acrobatics skill includes balancing, crossing difficult terrain, escaping from bonds, reducing falling damage, tumbling, and a few other things. Anyone can attempt to balance or escape their bonds with a successful Acrobatics check, but only characters who have Acrobatics as a known skill can attempt to Tumble or reduce falling damage.

Are the 4e skills like that at all?

Yes, that's how 4e skills work.

Also, Thievery = Trap defusement, no rogues need apply.

What I'm getting at is: what do the 4e skills allow you to do?[/QUOTE]

 

[baberg]

What I'm getting at is: what do the 4e skills allow you to do?

<font=4e_hype.ttf>ANYTHING YOU WANT!</font>

Yes, there are "Trained Only" skills. The only default "Trained Only" skills are Reduce Falling Damage (Acrobatics) and Detect Magic(Arcana). There are notes on most of the other skills that limit them to DM discretion - Thievery in particular says that DMs will probably make some of those skills trained-only.

 

[chaotix42]

1. I rather wanted to know if the resistances work like in 3E (subtract the number from every attack) or like thresholds (subtract it if the damage is lower than the resistance, otherwise its full damage) or like the Star Wars shield rules, etc.

Any time you take damage from an attack that you resist, reduce the damage by the amount of your resistance.

2. Is there any other ability to get elemental resistances, for example with magical items?

- Be a tiefling.

- Resistance is a Wizard Daily power that grants resist = level + Int mod to one creature for the encounter or for 5 minutes. You can choose to resist one damage type from pretty much every type there is.

- Cloak of Resistance (Daily): Minor action, +1/+2 cloak gives resist 5 to all damage till start of next turn. +3/+4 gives resist 10, +5/+6 gives resist 15.

- Cloak of Survival: has a Property (always active) that grants a bonus to Endurance and resist cold and fire 5. +4/+5 cloak grants resist 10, and +6 cloak grants resist 15. Much more expensive than the Cloak of Resistance.

- Dragonslayer Weapon: also has a Property that grants resistance to dragon's breath weapon attacks (any color). The +2 version grants resist 5, the +3/+4 grants resist 10, and the +5/+6 version grants resist 15. Same cost as the Cloak of Survival, actually.

- Guardian Shield (Daily): Immediate interrupt, when adjacent ally is hit by an attack you are hit by it instead and gain resistance to all damage = 1/2 the damage the attack dealt, till the start of your next turn. The lvl 20 version can protect anyone within 5 squares, and the lvl 30 version anyone within 10 squares.

That's every way to get resistance in the PHB.

There are a lot of other ways to gain resistance too.

- A Berserker weapon has a Daily minor action power that, among other bonuses, grants resist all (amount based on level, like pretty much every item) till end of encounter or until you get KOed.
- Tombforged armor is chain that has a property that resists necrotic damage.
- Sunleaf armor can be cloth, leather, or hide, and resists radiant damage.
- Ghostphase armor is cloth only and at +3 and beyond grants a resist necrotic property. Also lets you turn insubstantial as a Daily minor action!
- Flamedrinker armor is plate only and has resist fire property. Can also as a Daily interrupt grant massive fire resistance to you and all allies in 5 squares till SONT - very sweet.
- The Ironskin Belt has a Daily that resists weapon damage until EONT.
- The Stormwalker's Cloak has a property that resists up to 15 lightning and thunder.
- An Amulet of Health resists poison.
- Helm of Ghostly Defense has a property that resists necrotic damage.
- The Shield of Warding has a Daily immediate interrupt that grants an ally 15 or 20 resistance based on the item's level.
- The Shield of Protection grants you + adj. ally resist a lot vs. all till EONT!
- Shield of Deflection has a resist vs. ranged attack damage property.
- The Dragondaunt Shield has a property that grants resist all vs. any dragon's attacks!

There are more...

 

[pukunui]

<font=4e_hype.ttf>ANYTHING YOU WANT!</font>

Yes, there are "Trained Only" skills. The only default "Trained Only" skills are Reduce Falling Damage (Acrobatics) and Detect Magic(Arcana). There are notes on most of the other skills that limit them to DM discretion - Thievery in particular says that DMs will probably make some of those skills trained-only.

Interesting. Thanks. I think I'll probably borrow heavily from SWSE.

I know some people are quite disappointed with the "incomplete" feel of the first 4e books, and while I share in that disappointment to a limited extent (not having seen the books for myself yet), I am also actually pleased that they actually encourage DMs to work some things out for ourselves and also provide us with fairly easy-to-use tools in order to customize the game to our and our groups' tastes. I felt that 3.5 was too clumsy and awkward to customize easily. That was one of the main things that started to make me sick of it, even before 4e was announced.

 

[Baragos]

And is simply disrespectful towards the team of people that developed it with the intention of it releasing on a particular date in a particular format. But then again, I'm not surprised, as John Gabriel's Greater Internet F-ckwad Theory usually holds true.

I agree that downloading illegal copies of the books is disrespectful to the "artists".

But I also kinda think it is disrespectful to release D&D 4th edition on June 6...

 

[RigaMortus2]

Death Saving Throw: When you are dying, you need to make a saving throw at the end of your turn each round. The result of your saving throw determines how close you are to death.
Lower than 10: You slip one step closer to death. If you get this result three times before you take a rest, you die.
10–19: No change.
20 or higher: Spend a healing surge. When you do so, you are considered to have 0 hit points, and then your healing surge restores hit points as normal. You are no longer dying, and you are conscious but still prone. If you roll 20 or higher but have no healing surges left expressed as a negative number, your condition doesn’t change.

Maybe I am tired of reading, but can someone explain what they mean with the text I bolded?

 

[cdrcjsn]

Maybe I am tired of reading, but can someone explain what they mean with the text I bolded?

It means that you've found errata most likely, a mistake with copy + paste.

 

[Derren]

So it looks that single element enemies like Devils and Dragons are very gimped when fighting agains PCs with those cloaks.
There was already a calculation that a 15 fire resist cuts the damage potential of a Pit Fiend in half.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Regarding magic rings...

I know there was talk about characters below level 10 not getting any use out of magic rings (as in, they would not function if you were lower than level 10). However, I can't find anywhere (in the PHB anyway) that states this is the case. I can't seem to find any level requirement for magic rings.

The lowest level magic ring however is a lvl 14 item. So what I think they meant was, normally you are around level 10 before you would find such an item (since it states that you often get items whose levels are higher than your current level). I don't see anything stopping a DM from dropping a magic ring into a level 5 campaign for example, or anything preventing a player of level 9 or lower from utilizing it...

If anyone found anything to the contrary, please reply...

 

[RigaMortus2]

It means that you've found errata most likely, a mistake with copy + paste.

Yeah, appears that way. Later it states if you have no healing surges, you go to 1 hp of health and become concious. I wonder, if a Cleric heals you with their "add 1d6" to the amount you get healed (and you have no surges left), do get the 1hp plus the 1d6 or do you still just go to 1hp?