IG's "Those Left Behind" [OOC-2]

[Shayuri]

Leif, if you're so unhappy with Uulark that you feel like you want to change him fundamentally, would making a new character also solve the problem?

Or are you trying to preserve the RP aspect of him while changing his mechanics?

 

[industrygothica]

IG, I thought you knew this, but maybe I'd better spell it out for you -- I've never been just really crazy about Uulark in his present incarnation. I was trying to make him more palatable to me by changing his race, etc. But you've put the kaibosh on that idea. Are you going to allow me to adjust him at all to my preferences, or are you insistent that he stays the same, even though I'm quite unhappy with him? If your choice is the latter, then I'm afraid that I will have to give my continued participation in this game some serious thought.

When I was reading Uulark's background yesterday, his physical description reminded me of a shifter for some reason. Deva just seem so regal and clean to me, not what I have come to envision from Uulark.

That being said, if you are that unhappy with him, then by all means do what you need to do to get yourself happy with him. You're not allowed to bow out of this game (), and if that means making Uulark a deva, then go ahead.

 

[jkason]

You know, with talk of inspiration, it occurs to me that the conversion itself might be a jumping-off point for the story. We know that Talashia's alchemist contact was doing Horrible Experiments, the result of which was the current chaos beast problem, but which by no means needs to be limited to that. I seem to recall us walling off a large room that looked full of bodies, for example.

One wonders if the endgame of "Those Left Behind" might not involve the culmination of those experiments and / or some sort of chaos-y build up from having this many chaos beasts in one place. I don't think I'd like 'transported to another world', but what if the net effect of what's going on is that the world (or perhaps just we) change on a fundamental level? It covers some of the smaller mechanical inconsitencies (class shifts and slightly different magic items, etc), but also allows for things like Uulark changing bodily into something else without our having to pretend he's always been something other than human.

Just brainstorming.
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And back to my slow learning curve on 4e: how many healing surges are standard to have to use in the course of a day? Dyspeer has a lot more hit points and higher defenses than Shai, but only has 2 healing surges. I see that Rangers can Raise dead companions, so I assume the lower surges correlate to the lower Raise cost vs. humans, but from a character perspective, I can see Shai going more than a little nuts if he's constantly watching Dys die and having to raise him.

There's at least one power (Invigorate the beast) Shai can take that lets him heal Dys once a day 'as if he used a healing surge'. I assume that means he wouldn't actually need to use one. Shai had it earlier but I swapped it for the raven form. Are there other options like that? I'm thinking about switching Shai's paragon path to Sky Hunter to cover flying, and swapping back the Invigorate power, but I don't know if I'm being paranoid or not about Dyspeer's survival chances with only 2 surges?

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On the actual game we're wrapping up: IG, are we waiting on the beasties to attack, or are you waiting on actions from one or more of us?

jason

 

[Shayuri]

Meep, I think he's waiting on me...I'll try to get a post in soon.

As for healing surges...I seem to recall that a Beastmaster ranger can use his own surges to heal the beast too. I don't have the book in front of me though, so I may be wrong on that.

As for how many surges per day...there's no easy way to answer that. Some battles you'll fight and not spend any; only using a surge or two after the fight to heal up.

Other days, we'll have a tuff boss battle and you'll be wanting moar moar moar surges.

That said, Dyspeer has good HP and defenses. I think if you monitor his health, and don't necessarily frontline with him every single fight, you'll be fine just using his two surges most of the time. And if you can use your own surges on him, then that'll easily cover the times when his two aren't enough.

 

[jkason]

As for healing surges...I seem to recall that a Beastmaster ranger can use his own surges to heal the beast too. I don't have the book in front of me though, so I may be wrong on that.

That'd be ideal, especially since Shai already took the Durable feat, so he has 10 surges a day, which is certainly far in excess of Dyspeer's. I can't find anything in the Compendium (but I think I've already mentioned that some stuff just seems un-findable with that tool), and since one of the Feral Spirit Paragon Path features was the ability to spend a surge for your companion's Second Wind, I guess I just assumed that meant you couldn't do that previously. I did find this on a forum:

Under Beast Companions And Healing section, we have 'other healing' which says: when you are adjacent to your beast companion, you can spend a minor action and one of your healing surges to heal the beast companion as if it had spent a healing surge.

I'm going to be out and about tonight. Maybe I can scam a look at Martial Power in the bookstore and verify if that's in there. It'd go a long way to assuaging my fears ... though I may still swap Shai out for Sky Hunter even without that; extra flying is very hard to pass up.

 

[Shayuri]

Hehe

Flying is cool, yar.

Just be careful...it's a lot less useful for melee guys than it is for ranged guys. Melee guys have to land to get their attacks in eventually.

Though having a means to reach pesky flying enemies is ALWAYS nice.

 

[industrygothica]

Hehe

Flying is cool, yar.

Just be careful...it's a lot less useful for melee guys than it is for ranged guys. Melee guys have to land to get their attacks in eventually.

Though having a means to reach pesky flying enemies is ALWAYS nice.

And a reason to incorporate pesky flying enemies into a game is nicer.

 

[jkason]

And a reason to incorporate pesky flying enemies into a game is nicer.

I'd be worried about giving the DM ideas, but I seem to recall a decent number of flying opponents. There was a flying ant-dwarf in The Hive, that demon in the tunnels was a flyer, and that damnable pixie with the necromantic staff was both a flyer and invisible.

Of course, the more I start going over Shai's build, the more I'm wondering about the general utility of wild shape for him. If I understand it correctly, unless he uses a beast form power, he just gets his basic unarmed attack in beast form (10 to hit, 1d4+5 damage). His multiclassing gives him one at-will beast form power but makes it an encounter power, then two more feats give him the option of one more encounter attack and one daily attack power (currently I've got a summons and a wind attack in those slots). If he *does* go for Sky Hunter, he gets one more (flying) attack per encounter. the Sky Hunter action could conceivably make one of his others flying, as well, I suppose.

Four attacks, (possibly) two flying for one encounter each day, three for the rest, is seeming like not worth all the slots it takes up. Especially if it encourages IG to use more flying opponents. I'm not planning to give up the wildshaping as part of Shai's character no matter what; just wondering if there's anything I can do to make it more useful in combat than background flavor.

jason

 

[renau1g]

Unfortunately, Druids are one class I know little to nothing about (along with Beastmaster Rangers)

Shay might have more insight.

 

[industrygothica]

I'd be worried about giving the DM ideas, but I seem to recall a decent number of flying opponents. There was a flying ant-dwarf in The Hive, that demon in the tunnels was a flyer, and that damnable pixie with the necromantic staff was both a flyer and invisible.

Hey, I liked that pixie! Speaking of which, Talashia's still got that staff, doesn't she? I'm gonna have to get that statted up I suppose.


-IG