Rogue/ranger or rogue/warlock

[mkill]

I'm really leaning towards rogue, I just don't want to choose the wrong beginning path and regret it until my character dies.

As I said above, there is no need to worry about that. Of the choices you make at level 1, only your race, class, and ability scores are fixed (unless you ask the DM very nicely).
Your powers and feats can be swapped out every time you gain a level, and your encounter and daily power are even scheduled to be switched at Paragon levels.

So really, unless you suddenly get tired of playing a Human Rogue, none of your first-level choices will screw you up in the long run.

And in case I didn't stress this enough, in 4th edition, combat tactics are more important than character builds. To be effective, you need to understand what your role on the battlefield is, and how to interact with the other characters. To learn this, you need to play.

Choosing the exactly right powers and feats, is only secondary. There are only very few choices that absolutely suck and should be avoided.
You could leave the choice of powers to a monkey throwing darts and would probably end up with something that's at least 80% as effective as the currently popular charop build.

 

[mkill]

4e is very, very specific with its combat rules. You cannot do anything your powers do not specifically state you can, unless your DM bends rules in your favor. Which, in general, he shouldn't, because letting you just up and slow people with your arrows nullifies the entire point of the hunter class and the hobbling strike feat.

Whoa, hold it. This assumes a certain 4th edition DMing style. You can play 4E that way, but that doesn't mean [MENTION=6692129]Rannan[/MENTION]'s DM does play that way.

He might just as well have a DM who is happy to wing it, and who can come up with something on the fly. This type of DM won't have any problem with him shooting the orc in the knee to slow him down even if he doesn't have the correct power.

Now, the only way to find out is to ask the DM how he would handle this.

 

[Breaks]

Whoa, hold it. This assumes a certain 4th edition DMing style. You can play 4E that way, but that doesn't mean [MENTION=6692129]Rannan[/MENTION]'s DM does play that way.

He might just as well have a DM who is happy to wing it, and who can come up with something on the fly. This type of DM won't have any problem with him shooting the orc in the knee to slow him down even if he doesn't have the correct power.

Now, the only way to find out is to ask the DM how he would handle this.

*shrug* with the hundreds of 4e powers that slow, there is no reason to wing it. I know exactly zero DMs that let people add additional, varying effects to their abilities. I know a few that would have no problem with you trading your damage roll for a slow, but even then only if it's a rare occurance.

If you want nifty tricks on arrows beyond damage, there are half a dozen feats that add slow, slides, prone, and attack penalties onto twin strike, or you can just take clever shot.

I am sure there are far more flexible DMs than the dozen I play with semi-regularly, but when there are powers that already do what you want, it's far more polite to just take those than to ask for free bonus power.

 

[mkill]

[MENTION=6678259]Breaks[/MENTION]: Playing 4E "by the powers" is a valid way to play it, and if the DM and all players are fine with it, no problem.

But not everyone likes it that way, and if you have a player at the table who wants to play in a more flexible way, the DM should support it. That's what the often cited "say Yes" and "page 42" is about.

If you just take the core combat rules, 4E is a flexible, rules-light system, and you can also play it in the "Mr. Finch Old School Primer" way. This is the exact opposite of what you are advocating. If you get "this feels like a board game" comments from your players, I suggest trying it.

Now, I wish 4E had "variant melee basic attacks" in the core rules that allow anyone to push, pull, disarm, slow, trip, throw, distract, threaten etc., but RAW it doesn't.

 

[Breaks]

This thread is about a player entirely new to the system. It is a hugely more likely scenario that his DM would largely prefer that he follow the rules most of the time, rather than endlessly request DM fiat, though yes, every DM has a different preference for such things.

It seems ludicrous to me to suggest to a new player that he depend on his DM rather than his character sheet, without ever hearing any indication that that's how his DM plays. Most DMs play, largely, by the rules. The rules offer a lot of flexibility in a lot of places, and good DMs place interactive terrain on encounters for creative players to utilize. But most DM's don't let you say, "I impale the kobold with my spear, immobilizing him," unless you are using a pinning or hungry spear.

I am not telling him to not be creative, creativity is awesome.

It's entirely possible I've just had strangely canonical experiences with DMs, and many of them are more flexible. But I play in seven ongoing campaigns with five different DMs, play LFR modules at least once a week with different DMs, and play in many one-shots on the virtual table. And far, far more DMs would be annoyed or suspect someone trying to cheat or min/max if they tried to add additional mechanics to an attack than would be thrilled someone was being creative. So, OP, have a conversation with the DM about this sort of ad-libing before jumping into it. He knows you're new, so it's not likely to offend him, but you shouldn't expect him to say yes.

I am very happy to agree to disagree with you, but one of the best things about 4e is how specific and clear the combat rules are, as opposed to previous editions where almost everything was left up to, "DM may I?," to some degree or another. If you prefer that system, I have no idea why you are playing 4e.

 

[Rannan]

I was thinking along the lines of asking if I didn't have a power for it, like at a low level if he would allow me to ask "if I get a critical on this roll, would you allow it to do regular damage but slow him?" type of question. At least that way it's a give and take kind of thing, but I don't know if the DM would allow it. I was curious if this type of thing was common but it doesn't appear to be and seems to be entirely reliant on the DMs style of play. The only thing I can do is ask and see I suppose. Thanks for all the responses though guys, you guys are very helpful and nice.

 

[Gorgoroth]

I agree

DM fiat is a terrible thing to rely upon when the rest of the rules are so clear. Limiting, sure, but definitely clear. You can ONLY do what's printed on your power. Imagine a DM telling the thief you could slow the enemy then run away after your sneak attack some how, trading some damage, ala Hobbling Strike.

Guess what, now the ranger wants to do it too! without the cost of a feat. That's what silly house rules do. They break fairness between players, leading into even more of an arms race between them. And always asking for this and that extra effect is a surefire way to slow down the game. If you want to do different types of stuff like slowing, or multi attacking, playing a human Hunter is a good way to do it. But keeping up your DPR while doing that is trickier. I doubt a n00b to 4e could pull it off. Most builds are usually suited to damage, control, or whatever...combining those in effective ways is definitely trickier and often requires very particular items and hybriding.

If I were to play 4e again for the first time, I would start with a hunter or a thief, then once I see the nova damage and what a good classic PHB1/2/3 class can do when built properly, pref by watching it in action, I'd move on from there. But yeah, that's the rub in 4e, either you get all these tricks and stuff in a self-contained class, or you build an insanely complex monstrosity that relies on very in-depth knowledge of the rules (that usually ends up doing one or two tricks, repeatedly).

Party synergy is one thing that can only be learned with experience and tons of time reading the builds on these forums. E.g. A 4e n00b rolled up a Scout to join us, and I was already a classic ranger. Was I feeling redundant? No, I suggested he take double axe, headsmans chop, and so on, while I focused more on control than damange, to up his DPR b/c I would be doing slowing + proning trick. I end up granting tons of damage, as a side effect. But when the big bad monster needs dying NOW, I am the one who can offload 6-7 attacks in a nova round. This is the difference. Getting that big threat off the board is way more important than finishing one or two off slightly faster. (well, okay, much faster, at low levels...our damage combo was pretty insane).

 

[Breaks]

I was thinking along the lines of asking if I didn't have a power for it, like at a low level if he would allow me to ask "if I get a critical on this roll, would you allow it to do regular damage but slow him?" type of question. At least that way it's a give and take kind of thing, but I don't know if the DM would allow it. I was curious if this type of thing was common but it doesn't appear to be and seems to be entirely reliant on the DMs style of play. The only thing I can do is ask and see I suppose. Thanks for all the responses though guys, you guys are very helpful and nice.

It's worth asking

If your DM has access to the DDI compendium, or even just AV,AV2, and MME, it's worth looking through them with him, because there's several weapons that have nifty crit effects other than damage.

I love control effects, and find control and action denial a lot more satisfying than dealing damage, so I understand where you're coming from for sure. Be a tad wary of slow, though - it's very easy to overestimate its value as a new player.

Many monsters have ranged attacks, so slowing them doesn't change much. Many maps are small enough that a slowed enemy can still move+charge 4 squares and attack someone. Many of your party members will run up to and engage controlled targets, even if there are other options and even if the target would have had no way to reach a party member to attack if he/she hadn't run up to it.

Situationally, it can be used to great effect, forcing melee creatures to waste a round or two moving towards your party before they can attack, or else to rely on their (generally) inferior ranged attacks. But somewhere around 80-90% of the time it does nothing tactically relevant, unless at least one other party member has World Serpent's Grasp, but even then, proning enemies hurts ranged allies unless they take a feat.

I will jump on the bandwagon of people who have suggested the thief, hunter, and slayer (and why not add the scout as well) as being really excellent introductory classes. They are fantastic classes without being hard to build or hard to play. Their downside is a lack of build flexibility (most of the powers are preselected), but that just makes them easy to use.

The hunter in particular has a large number of at-will options, all of which are situationally useful. Between immobilize, slow, and prone, a hunter can often keep a single melee brute out of the fight until everything else is dead (or until the hunter pings it to death), but once something has entered the fray, Hunter's can't really do that much to stop them.

 

[mkill]

You can ONLY do what's printed on your power.

You can play that way, but that's not 4E according to the Dungeon Master's Guide.

Actions the Rules Don't Cover
Your presence as the Dungeon Master is what makes D&D such a great game. You make it possible for the players to try anything they can imagine. That means it's your job to resolve unusual actions when the players try them.
...

The page goes on with an explanation on how the DM handles the situation of a halfling swinging across the room on a chandelier and kicking an ogre on the other side.

In other words, "you can only do what's written on your powers cards" is a house rule, it's not 4E as written in the books.