Iron Sky
Procedurally Generated
Our group just hit Paragon at the end of last session, so we got our first taste of paragon-level play last night.
First Impressions:
The fights were far more interesting. It might just be all the new stuff we can do, but I had alot more fun than I was in the last few levels of heroic. Most of our tricks were pretty old hat by that point and it was nice to have a bunch of cool paragon path things to really spice things up.
Specific Impressions:
Scimitar Stormwarden's auto damage is neat. With twin-strike and max dex, it meant I did a minimum of 18 damage a round. I was rolling so low when I did hit that a couple of rounds I would have done as much or more damage for the round if I had missed(rolled mostly 1s and 2s for damage). Add my multi-class fighter for Rain of Steel, and the auto-damage was pumping out.
Level 11 encounter is nothing to write home about, especially since I have 2 other burst 1s, one with no rider, one with a slightly better rider. The teleport-on-ap came in useful once, since we were locked in melee in difficult terrain and there were 2 basilisks between me and where I wanted to be.
The Fey Warlock Paragon damage-on-teleport is neat, especially when it set of chain reactions. Our lock kept right in the front lines, so if anything died anywhere on the battle (rod of corruption = everything is cursed) a teleport would trigger along with some damage. In one case, a creature died, the lock teleported, did damage to the creatures next to her, killed one of them with that damage, teleported again, and killed another. Her level 11 encounter (teleport enemy 5 then they attack ally) isn't a win-button, but it sure is cool, especially when combined with our Palladin...
Our Champion of Order Palladin's level 11 encounter OWNS solos. We fought a hydra and he had it dazed and weakened the entire fight. Add to the fact that he go not only 11 radiant damage if it attacked anyone else, but also an OA... needless to say, it was only attacking him. The creature he had hit with it in a later fight died utterly when the Warlock used her encounter on him.
The Radiant Servant Cleric's burst 8, hit everything power is awesome, especially with that 19-20 crit range. Every time the player used it, he rolled at least 1 crit, doing about 40-45 damage. Not bad for a leader.
Our Pit-Fighter Fighter was new to the group, just starting playing as we hit Paragon. His highlight was the round he activated Rain of Steel, used his AP for +5 damage, then used Come And Get it to pull 6 enemies next to him, hit 4 of them and used Sweeping Steel to hit 4. On the start of their turn, Rain of Steel kicked in. He did 232 points of damage in 1 round(split among 6 creatures, 2 of which died, triggering a Fey-lock teleport zanyness that killed 2 more).
Our Daggermaster rogue wasn't there last night, so no idea yet on how that'll be. Seeing our cleric get 1-3 crits per battle with just a 19-20 gives me an idea though.
Monster Impressions:
Hydra - The hydra wasn't too bad since our Paladin had him locked down for the whole fight. He was in his element: toe to toe with a big solo. Combined with the status effects that were piled on it (it had -5 to -7 to hit for 3/4 of the rounds it was alive) and the Paladin's persistant Daze+Weaken, it only did damage to 2 players besides the paladin and that was soaked by temp hp granted by the Pally's Righteous Smite. The paladin took so little damage that he only had to use his Second Wind to heal to full (dwarf, so minor action). The thing had a
ton of HP though. Took 5 of us wailing on it for 7-8 rounds to drop it. Our group does slightly better against groups of enemies than solos now though with Stormwarden, Fey-Lock, and the addition of a Fighter. Edit: Which isn't to say we're bad against solos, we had that one locked down. Our rogue is our primary single-target damage dealer; if he had been there, he probably would have knocked 1-3 rounds off that fight.
Basilisks - Nasty. We fought 5 at once in a desert that was entirely difficult terrain. Both defenders were petrified and we had to pile them on a Tensers Floating Disc and haul them for 4 days to the nearest town to get the ritual cast and restore them. I had a vague idea of how Basilisk's powers worked from the previews before 4e was released, but mostly held my tongue - aside from some minor prompting to the Pally during one of his turns:
Me: "Don't you have some powers that grant people saves?"(while we have 3 immobilized and 1 slow character)
Him: "Yeah, I'll use them next turn."
End of his turn, he failed his 3rd save and turned to stone.
Yuan-ti cultists? - I'm not sure exactly what these were. They started off as assassins, but turned into snakes when they were bloodied. We fought about 10 of them at once. Their main attack was a tiny bit of damage (3-7 or so) with a big bunch of poison ongoing damage(10). Thanks to our new-found crowd-combat-enhanced capabilities, they weren't too much of a threat.
Final general Impressions:
Having 2 defenders is awesome. Aside from the fight where they were both turned to stone, my ranger took no damage (and that's with a stormwarden, trying to position myself right in the middle of things). No one but the tanks went bloodied in any of the 3 fights.
It was also fun to describe our characters slightly differently that when we were heroic: The Fey-Warlock seemed to fade in-and-out of reality a little bit when you weren't looking right at her, my stormwarden had sparks of lightning in his eyes and lancing through his swords, the Radiant cleric seemed to glow faintly at all times.
All in all, I think hitting Paragon has sparked new life into our game. The DM (Sanzuo on these boards) has new inspiration and all the players have neat new tricks and tactics to learn and master.
Anyone else reach Paragon and have some impressions to share?
First Impressions:
The fights were far more interesting. It might just be all the new stuff we can do, but I had alot more fun than I was in the last few levels of heroic. Most of our tricks were pretty old hat by that point and it was nice to have a bunch of cool paragon path things to really spice things up.
Specific Impressions:
Scimitar Stormwarden's auto damage is neat. With twin-strike and max dex, it meant I did a minimum of 18 damage a round. I was rolling so low when I did hit that a couple of rounds I would have done as much or more damage for the round if I had missed(rolled mostly 1s and 2s for damage). Add my multi-class fighter for Rain of Steel, and the auto-damage was pumping out.
Level 11 encounter is nothing to write home about, especially since I have 2 other burst 1s, one with no rider, one with a slightly better rider. The teleport-on-ap came in useful once, since we were locked in melee in difficult terrain and there were 2 basilisks between me and where I wanted to be.
The Fey Warlock Paragon damage-on-teleport is neat, especially when it set of chain reactions. Our lock kept right in the front lines, so if anything died anywhere on the battle (rod of corruption = everything is cursed) a teleport would trigger along with some damage. In one case, a creature died, the lock teleported, did damage to the creatures next to her, killed one of them with that damage, teleported again, and killed another. Her level 11 encounter (teleport enemy 5 then they attack ally) isn't a win-button, but it sure is cool, especially when combined with our Palladin...
Our Champion of Order Palladin's level 11 encounter OWNS solos. We fought a hydra and he had it dazed and weakened the entire fight. Add to the fact that he go not only 11 radiant damage if it attacked anyone else, but also an OA... needless to say, it was only attacking him. The creature he had hit with it in a later fight died utterly when the Warlock used her encounter on him.
The Radiant Servant Cleric's burst 8, hit everything power is awesome, especially with that 19-20 crit range. Every time the player used it, he rolled at least 1 crit, doing about 40-45 damage. Not bad for a leader.
Our Pit-Fighter Fighter was new to the group, just starting playing as we hit Paragon. His highlight was the round he activated Rain of Steel, used his AP for +5 damage, then used Come And Get it to pull 6 enemies next to him, hit 4 of them and used Sweeping Steel to hit 4. On the start of their turn, Rain of Steel kicked in. He did 232 points of damage in 1 round(split among 6 creatures, 2 of which died, triggering a Fey-lock teleport zanyness that killed 2 more).
Our Daggermaster rogue wasn't there last night, so no idea yet on how that'll be. Seeing our cleric get 1-3 crits per battle with just a 19-20 gives me an idea though.
Monster Impressions:
Hydra - The hydra wasn't too bad since our Paladin had him locked down for the whole fight. He was in his element: toe to toe with a big solo. Combined with the status effects that were piled on it (it had -5 to -7 to hit for 3/4 of the rounds it was alive) and the Paladin's persistant Daze+Weaken, it only did damage to 2 players besides the paladin and that was soaked by temp hp granted by the Pally's Righteous Smite. The paladin took so little damage that he only had to use his Second Wind to heal to full (dwarf, so minor action). The thing had a
ton of HP though. Took 5 of us wailing on it for 7-8 rounds to drop it. Our group does slightly better against groups of enemies than solos now though with Stormwarden, Fey-Lock, and the addition of a Fighter. Edit: Which isn't to say we're bad against solos, we had that one locked down. Our rogue is our primary single-target damage dealer; if he had been there, he probably would have knocked 1-3 rounds off that fight.Basilisks - Nasty. We fought 5 at once in a desert that was entirely difficult terrain. Both defenders were petrified and we had to pile them on a Tensers Floating Disc and haul them for 4 days to the nearest town to get the ritual cast and restore them. I had a vague idea of how Basilisk's powers worked from the previews before 4e was released, but mostly held my tongue - aside from some minor prompting to the Pally during one of his turns:
Me: "Don't you have some powers that grant people saves?"(while we have 3 immobilized and 1 slow character)
Him: "Yeah, I'll use them next turn."
End of his turn, he failed his 3rd save and turned to stone.
Yuan-ti cultists? - I'm not sure exactly what these were. They started off as assassins, but turned into snakes when they were bloodied. We fought about 10 of them at once. Their main attack was a tiny bit of damage (3-7 or so) with a big bunch of poison ongoing damage(10). Thanks to our new-found crowd-combat-enhanced capabilities, they weren't too much of a threat.
Final general Impressions:
Having 2 defenders is awesome. Aside from the fight where they were both turned to stone, my ranger took no damage (and that's with a stormwarden, trying to position myself right in the middle of things). No one but the tanks went bloodied in any of the 3 fights.
It was also fun to describe our characters slightly differently that when we were heroic: The Fey-Warlock seemed to fade in-and-out of reality a little bit when you weren't looking right at her, my stormwarden had sparks of lightning in his eyes and lancing through his swords, the Radiant cleric seemed to glow faintly at all times.
All in all, I think hitting Paragon has sparked new life into our game. The DM (Sanzuo on these boards) has new inspiration and all the players have neat new tricks and tactics to learn and master.
Anyone else reach Paragon and have some impressions to share?
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