D&D 4E messy's 4e newbie questions thread

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I still remember an adventure my group did in 3.x, when we needed to climb a mountain filled with giants. After nearly losing one encounter, the wizard insisted on using phantasmal steeds to carry us. They had less than 10 hit points and I complained about that.

Naturally the flying route involved air elementals... and lots of falling damage.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My group is at a level (24th) where they have flying Phantom Steeds effectively at will - which means that many combats start with the PCs mounted, until those steeds take their 1 hp of damage . . .

Yeah, after a few falls from 500' into a bad situation the players learned the value of research and teleport...

 

[messy]

73. is there a word limit on magic mouth?

74. do certain class abilities (like the rogue's weapon talent giving a bonus with daggers and the ranger's combat styles and powers focused on two-weapon fighting and archery) discourage creativity or "force" a character into a particular role?

i'm indebted for all replies.

 

[The Human Target]

73. Nope. But it has to be a "message." So as a DM I'd limit it to 5 or 6 sentences max.

74. Yep. But D&D has always done that. Whether its good or bad I up to personal taste.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

73. is there a word limit on magic mouth?

Only what the DM decides. Most such abilities have a listed limit, and IIRC they're usually the same, so maybe steal one of those figures.

74. do certain class abilities (like the rogue's weapon talent giving a bonus with daggers and the ranger's combat styles and powers focused on two-weapon fighting and archery) discourage creativity or "force" a character into a particular role?

i'm indebted for all replies.

It depends.

The rogue's weapon talent doesn't. I have an eladrin rogue in my game who took a feat to use a longsword. He loses a die of sneak attack but can use the sword with two hands (+1 damage) and took the Eladrin Soldier feat (+2 damage to longswords and spears). His [W] and static boosts are higher but he gets fewer sneak attack dice and no dagger talent (I think he might have traded that out for crossbow benefits anyway). It's working out. A typical rogue would have had more accuracy, smaller [W], smaller static boosts and more sneak attack dice. Actually it's not very different in terms of what your PC can do.

Said rogue has a feat that lets him use Fey Step to do Thievery checks at range. It ... almost worked out. He rolled a natural 4, otherwise he could have stolen some keys and been far away before the theft was discovered, and he even arranged for a "cover story". None of this is based on his "build" anyway.

The ranger's combat style is pretty limiting. The specific modifiers are less important than the stats and powers selected. If you're an archer ranger, you pick Dex primary, which means Strength gets neglected and your melee attacks will be weak anyway. Dual-wielding rangers are quite weak (low AC, Wisdom is neglected so your skills are poor). Many ranger powers can be used with both ranged or melee attacks (these usually give you two shots; Twin Strike is the classic one there) so despite your build you can still "switch hit".

I wouldn't say it's much worse than in 3.x.

In any event, a ranger's role is "striker" and both ends match what you're supposed to do.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Only what the DM decides. Most such abilities have a listed limit, and IIRC they're usually the same, so maybe steal one of those figures.



It depends.

The rogue's weapon talent doesn't. I have an eladrin rogue in my game who took a feat to use a longsword. He loses a die of sneak attack but can use the sword with two hands (+1 damage) and took the Eladrin Soldier feat (+2 damage to longswords and spears). His [W] and static boosts are higher but he gets fewer sneak attack dice and no dagger talent (I think he might have traded that out for crossbow benefits anyway). It's working out. A typical rogue would have had more accuracy, smaller [W], smaller static boosts and more sneak attack dice. Actually it's not very different in terms of what your PC can do.

Said rogue has a feat that lets him use Fey Step to do Thievery checks at range. It ... almost worked out. He rolled a natural 4, otherwise he could have stolen some keys and been far away before the theft was discovered, and he even arranged for a "cover story". None of this is based on his "build" anyway.

The ranger's combat style is pretty limiting. The specific modifiers are less important than the stats and powers selected. If you're an archer ranger, you pick Dex primary, which means Strength gets neglected and your melee attacks will be weak anyway. Dual-wielding rangers are quite weak (low AC, Wisdom is neglected so your skills are poor). Many ranger powers can be used with both ranged or melee attacks (these usually give you two shots; Twin Strike is the classic one there) so despite your build you can still "switch hit".

I wouldn't say it's much worse than in 3.x.

In any event, a ranger's role is "striker" and both ends match what you're supposed to do.

Yeah, I am not at all sure what would be for instance more flexible about an AD&D 2e Ranger. They had very specific features which pretty much meant you were going to dual wield an axe and a sword, period. In theory there was a bit less pigeonholing by mechanics, except you had to have magic weapons, put extra points into more proficiency, etc to really keep up, so in fact a 2e character would use basically 1 or 2 fixed attack routines 100% of the time. Its not like an AD&D Thief EVER elected to fight toe-to-toe with a monster, unless he had a death wish. You did exactly what was on your character's 'tin', you hid somewhere and tried to get in a 2x or whatever damage backstab. There was no other viable option.

The real ultimate problem with the reasoning behind question 73 is that it leads to reductio ad absurdum. EVERY rule in any RPG is crimping someone's idea about something. If you argue that rules should be removed to make the game better, then why have rules at all? Isn't the best game just make-believe story telling? Clearly this is a ridiculous answer. The upshot is you can't ask "don't the rules get in the way?" instead you really need to ask "what does this specific rule do for my game, should we keep it or not?"

 

[sabrinathecat]

74. do certain class abilities (like the rogue's weapon talent giving a bonus with daggers and the ranger's combat styles and powers focused on two-weapon fighting and archery) discourage creativity or "force" a character into a particular role?

Absolutely not. The class sets a role all by itself, but new builds have been added since the classes first came out. "Warlock" is a ranged arcane striker, but with Eldrich Strike and the right feat builds, can be an impressive melee beast. I've seen three different builds of Ranger work extremely well. OK, the Dwarf Ranger with 2 craighammers was a bit strange, but still effective.

Paragon Paths, themes, and epic destinies work wonders for new and more interesting combinations.
And that's without getting into hybrids (yuck).

 

[messy]

75. are there rules for creating new rituals?

76. are there rules for converting powers to rituals?

77. have the minor creation and major creation spells been described anywhere?

78. can a creature benefit from multiple commander's strikes by multiple warlords in the same round?

i greatly appreciate all replies.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

75. are there rules for creating new rituals?

No, and if my experience with 3e is any judge, it's not possible to write good rules here.

76. are there rules for converting powers to rituals?

No, and there shouldn't be an overlap. If you want something to last a long time, it's a ritual. A power would last, at most, the duration of an encounter.

(5e does something like this, but 5e rituals aren't really rituals, just a way to save spell slots.)

There are some very fast rituals (eg Portal Jump, Hold Portal) that look very much like utility powers though. These are very few in number.

77. have the minor creation and major creation spells been described anywhere?

Certainly not under those names. I don't recall any Creation rituals that could do so. The Major/Minor Creation spells were too broad (much like polymorphing) to be balanced

78. can a creature benefit from multiple commander's strikes by multiple warlords in the same round?

There's a limit to free action attacks you can take. You can take one per turn. So you could only benefit from it once per turn.

 

[the Jester]

No, and there shouldn't be an overlap. If you want something to last a long time, it's a ritual. A power would last, at most, the duration of an encounter.

I cannot agree more. It's really important to keep in-encounter stuff pretty much out of rituals, IMHO.