New PC Brainstorming

After fiddling with the point-buy system, I've got 3 options:

Str 14 13 13
Dex 8 10 13
Con 16 16 16
Int 14 14 13
Wis 14 14 13
Cha 14 14 13

1) A 14 Cha won't hurt much. My projected power selection almost eliminates Cha-based powers.

2) Low Dex won't hurt at all. As a Dwarf, I'm not that concerned about encumberance, and unless I choose the 3rd option, I won't have any Dex-based skills, and Astral Fire will be off the table. My high Int will give me decent bonuses to my powers' riders and Reflex saves...and AC (until I don heavier armor).
 

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Went with

Str 14
Dex 8
Con 16
Int 14
Wis 14
Cha 14

and we played a shakedown run Tuesday night. The initial party was Magnus Skyhammer, Frosty the Wizard (human), an Elven Ranger, a Half-Elf Rogue, and a Dwarven Paladin. (After a bit of play, the Paladin was swapped out for his cosmic twin, a Dwarf Fighter.)

We also had a few no-shows.

Lots of fun...mostly at our expense, early on. The DM was rolling high; we had trouble rolling 5s or better. This made the Kobolds seem inordinately tough.

However, eventually, we started rolling numbers in the double digits and things started to normalize a bit. The Ranger was a consistent damage dealer. The guy playing the rogue eventually started getting the hang of positioning to get combat advantage. The mage's target got a little unlucky with critters making saves, but his Ray of Frost was usually quite effective.

The Paladin who became a Fighter had terrible luck: immobilized in the 2nd encounter, and immobilized TWICE in the third one. Still, he did plug the pathways quite well.

And Magnus?

Well, true to my predictions, he DID wind up in melee a couple of times. He never got hit...but didn't land a blow himself, either.

His powers were generally effective once I started rolling well enough to hit, but I'm pretty sure I would have done better had I actually kept track of when critters I Cursed actually fell in combat- more than once, I missed by the slimmest of margins. Anyone have a hint on how to track that?
 

I have a *huge* stack of coloured glass beads from my *very* early MTG days, which I use as counters for curses and the like.

As DM, I also white-wash the base of my minies, and use a graphite pencil to mark target numbers, and then track on my pad what has what.
There are better methods, but I've not yet incorporated those.
 

His powers were generally effective once I started rolling well enough to hit, but I'm pretty sure I would have done better had I actually kept track of when critters I Cursed actually fell in combat- more than once, I missed by the slimmest of margins. Anyone have a hint on how to track that?
It all depends on what kind of setup you have.

Do you use minis? If so, snag yourself a six- or eight-pack of soda bottles with appropriately-colored caps. Pull the rings off the top of the bottles once they're opened, and just hang them on whichever enemy you're cursing. (It works for counters, too; just throw them on top.) IIRC, Mountain Dew is good for this because they have some truly bizarre colors like neon green and silver. I use red ones for Bloodied states in my own game.

If you don't, I'd maybe keep some scratch paper handy and just write down which enemies you have cursed - like "k shield 1,2,4" for kobold dragonshields 1, 2, and 4.

-O
 

His powers were generally effective once I started rolling well enough to hit, but I'm pretty sure I would have done better had I actually kept track of when critters I Cursed actually fell in combat- more than once, I missed by the slimmest of margins. Anyone have a hint on how to track that?


This is why I would have gone with a 16 pre-racial (18 post-racial) in Con. To-hit bonuses are golden and a +1 can make quite a difference, especially when added with curse bonuses, etc. As it stands, you'll probably want the impl. expertise feat pretty soon, which wouldn't be out-of-flavor, IMO.
 

Yeah, we use minis. But it wasn't that I forgot who got marked- EVERYBODY got marked at some point- I just kept forgetting my bonus from when they got chopped down! Then 2 rounds later I'd realize I'd forgotten my +1 to a D20 roll...
 

When I played a Starlock, I put coins (quarters work, but I prefer dollar coins as they are bigger and harder to miss) under the minis I had cursed, and then when it died I put the coin ontop of my character sheet. Then, when I used them, I took them off the character sheet and put them in my pile of coins for further cursing.

You could also do the same with bottle top rings, though coins are nice in that its really clear when a cursed target dies, as there is this coin left on the playing mat - that way, if you use rings for other effects (such as marks, ongoing damage, etc.), you don't confuse them. Can make moving the cursed mini more of a pain (as the coin doesn't move with the mini as easily as a ring does), though...

Anyway, didn't miss too many of my curse to hit bonuses doing it that way.

That said, I wish you luck with your starlock - myself, while I liked the background behind it, mechanically I found it extremely frustrating to play.
 

Frustrating early, late, or over the entire course of playing it? That is to say, what was the source of your frustration?
 

Well, I only played her from levels 1-5, after which my DM allowed me to swap over to Sorceror when PH2 came out (she was a 3.5 sorceror converted into a 4e warlock, as that was the closest option at the time).

My biggest frustration was the MAD - it made it so I basically only had 1 at will, because it felt like I never hit with my con based one (my con was 4 points lower than my cha).

That, and my curse bonus never seemed useful - generally, I never got it until the end of an encounter (we had a serious lack of AOE in that group, so if I wanted the bonus for a cursed minion, I had to waste the actions cursing then killing the minion myself), and when I did, it didn't seem to make any difference (even with the feet that made it a +2 bonus).

Finally, I found the powers rather lack luster - they didn't really do very much that I felt was fun - no pushing, or interesting mechanics. Part of it was a problem with party synergy (my starlock, a str cleric, a sword/board fighter & dex/str rogue) - I had a great encounter power than gave a penalty to the target's will defence - problem was, the party had a grand total of 1 attack versus will, which was my own at-will power eldritch blast.

Now, part of the problem is that I'm not the right person to play a striker (I'm the kind of guy the warlord is written for) - and especially not the striker who realy doesn't seem to do much damage and does little else beside. And part of it was that I played through the levels with the fewest options, back when the only options were from the PH.

That said, now that I've played sorceror, I would never go back - while still a stiker, it is much more fun, with powers that push/slide, and other interesting mechanics like explode/jump/explode and run-through-enemies-to-damage-them. Now, I admit, that part of the fun is that I finally give the party some AOE, but a large part of it is me looking forward to using a particular power rather than, for yet another round, finding that there is NO power that I want to use and just eldritch blasting... again.

YMMV, and indeed I hope it does... I would LOVE to hear about how to play a starlock right and how you've fallen in love with the class. Already, you've dealt with one of my major iritations by having a con and cha that are much closer, though I'm worried about your ability to hit generally (my con was the same as yours, my cha was simply much higher). That said, I'm still of the opinion that the starlock is the worst build in the game.
 
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So far, I haven't even used the EB. Since we were facing small, dexterous foes, I targeted their Fort with Dire Radiance, or their Will with whatever the Starlock Encounter & Daily powers are.

Results on the E and D powers: one clean miss- I rolled a 2- and one complete obliteration.
 

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