What rules most need more official errata/clarification?

[Tonester]

Opinions

1) Skill Challenges: I think the Skill Challenges are fine. The issue is that DMs don't have a ton of experience running them, but more importantly, creating them. Designing Skill Challenges takes much more work, imo, than designing any other aspect of an adventure or campaign. The DM almost needs to think like a conditional software designer - looking at several branches of possibilities, finding ways to tie them all together somehow, and most importantly, finding a way to let people with very different skill sets participate. Often times, Skill Challenges break down into the Cha, Wis, and Int based skills (interaction with people) without allowing the more combat-oriented classes to participate. I'm in the process of writing a tutorial on designing skill challenges - I suggest using XML, Powerpoint, or some other Flowchart system for designing them. More on that later.

2) Keywords: I agree that the Keyword system is a bit confusing in the PHB. After reading it several times and after designing some back-end DB stuff for Character/Skill calculators, I feel I have a pretty good grasp on them. Again, I'm in the process of writing up some Power/Keyword stuff which includes examples, inheritence and more. For now, I'll say this:

Powers have tons of keywords. Usage Keyword, Source Keyword, Damage Keywords, Effect Keywords, and Accessory Keyword. The Usage Keyword tells us how often we can use a power. The Source Keyword has little value (imo). The Accessory Keyword merely specifies if a power requires a weapon or benefits from an implement. The important (and confusing apparently) keywords are the Damage and Effect keywords. These are also the ones which inherit from their Accessories (weapon or implement). The Damage/Effect keywords at the top of the power are kind of used as "tags" which quickly give someone an idea about the pool from which this power draws from (Poison, Fire, Teleport, Radiant, Reliable, etc). For Effect Keywords, these are used when interacting with other Powers or Effects (a power which blocks all Reliable powers for 1 turn would block the use of any power with the Reliable effect keyword for example). For Damage Keywords, this is where it gets a bit hairy. The fine print in the PHB basically states that the REAL keyword used for damage is always specified in the details of the power (below all the keyword stuff). I don't know why they did it this way, but they did. So, even though a power has the Fire keyword at the top, you need to actually read the hit/miss/effect section or whatever to determine if the power actually does Fire damage. This is getting into too much detail so I'll quit for now on the subject.

 

[Rerednaw]

1) Keyword inheritance with magic items.

Per custserv, the keyword on say a wand when used with a (personal) power that doesn't have it, then the (personal) power (any power not coming from the item) acquires the keyword. So your at-will Cloud of Daggers when are wielding a +1 Wand of Burning Hands gains the fire keyword. This appears to be the RAW on p226 of the PHB.

BUT, you DON'T get the +1 to hit and damage. (p.242 PHB) Which would seem to contraindicate custserv and p.226.

2) Perception. PHB states it is both a minor and a standard to use the skill. Which is it ?

 

[Dormain1]

Multiclassing

there is no need for the skill to be added, if someone wanted a skill they can take the feat skill training, it encourages people who do want to take skill training to take the multiclassing feat just for a free encounter power

give players an option, gain one class feature and either the encounter power or swap an @ will

the fact you can't get into the ranger paragon or use any of the warlock paragon paths sort of defeats the purpose of the feats

I like the power swap feats and believe them to be balance but the initiate feats really do suck....almost as if they were changed at the last minute because someone found a loophole in the set they had.

 

[Tonester]

1) Keyword inheritance with magic items.

Per custserv, the keyword on say a wand when used with a (personal) power that doesn't have it, then the (personal) power (any power not coming from the item) acquires the keyword. So your at-will Cloud of Daggers when are wielding a +1 Wand of Burning Hands gains the fire keyword. This appears to be the RAW on p226 of the PHB.

BUT, you DON'T get the +1 to hit and damage. (p.242 PHB) Which would seem to contraindicate custserv and p.226.

You are misinterpreting some stuff.

First off, items don't have keywords. Item Powers have keywords. And, most item powers don't really apply to whatever Race/Class power that uses it as an implement. In the example you gave (which is not the example used for the custserv if I remember correctly) the Fire keyword would NOT apply to the Cloud of Daggers spell but the +1 from the Wand does apply for Attack and Damage rolls. Why? Because the power from the Wand is NOT being used and the Power on the Wand is the only thing that has a keyword.

Now, as a standard action, if you decide to actually use the wand to cast Burning Hands, then no, you would not benefit from the +1 for Attack/Damage rolls. Why? Because you aren't using a power which has the implement keyword - you are using a power cast from a wand.

An example of something that does inherit the keyword are elemental weapons. If a Paladin uses a Radiant-based damage attack which has the Weapon Accessory keyword and uses a Flaming Sword to make that attack, the Paladin has a free-action choice to use the Flaming Sword as a normal sword or as a sword which does fire damage. In this instance, the power being used by the Paladin would do both Fire and Radiant damage and this damage would be split evenly. Why is this different? Because elemental weapons have free at-will power/effects which have keywords associated with them and that can be used/invoked/channeled at the same time as the Power which is using said item as an implement.

2) Perception. PHB states it is both a minor and a standard to use the skill. Which is it ?

Agree. It is worded both ways in the PHB. This needs to be clarified.

 

[Rith the Wanderer]

To the people debating item keywords: Customer service has agreed with both of you explicitly. It has also disagreed with both of you explicitly. In addition, there is a thread on keywords a couple threads down.

I think its fair to say that keywords needs an errataing, or at least a retraction of some cust serv answers.

 

[Thasmodious]

Yeah, clearing up the keyword thing would be a good one. As would some third dimension consideration, that one has already popped up a few times in my games.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

Tonester, I think that this

Powers have tons of keywords. Usage Keyword, Source Keyword, Damage Keywords, Effect Keywords, and Accessory Keyword. The Usage Keyword tells us how often we can use a power. The Source Keyword has little value (imo). The Accessory Keyword merely specifies if a power requires a weapon or benefits from an implement. The important (and confusing apparently) keywords are the Damage and Effect keywords. These are also the ones which inherit from their Accessories (weapon or implement). The Damage/Effect keywords at the top of the power are kind of used as "tags" which quickly give someone an idea about the pool from which this power draws from (Poison, Fire, Teleport, Radiant, Reliable, etc). For Effect Keywords, these are used when interacting with other Powers or Effects (a power which blocks all Reliable powers for 1 turn would block the use of any power with the Reliable effect keyword for example). For Damage Keywords, this is where it gets a bit hairy. The fine print in the PHB basically states that the REAL keyword used for damage is always specified in the details of the power (below all the keyword stuff). I don't know why they did it this way, but they did. So, even though a power has the Fire keyword at the top, you need to actually read the hit/miss/effect section or whatever to determine if the power actually does Fire damage. This is getting into too much detail so I'll quit for now on the subject.

is the best explanation of keywords that I have seen, and is basically exactly what I had come up with. I would like to know if the "fine print in the PHB" is metaphorical, or have you found some text that is enlightening in this regard?

As for this,

First off, items don't have keywords. Item Powers have keywords. And, most item powers don't really apply to whatever Race/Class power that uses it as an implement. In the example you gave (which is not the example used for the custserv if I remember correctly) the Fire keyword would NOT apply to the Cloud of Daggers spell but the +1 from the Wand does apply for Attack and Damage rolls. Why? Because the power from the Wand is NOT being used and the Power on the Wand is the only thing that has a keyword.

Now, as a standard action, if you decide to actually use the wand to cast Burning Hands, then no, you would not benefit from the +1 for Attack/Damage rolls. Why? Because you aren't using a power which has the implement keyword - you are using a power cast from a wand.

An example of something that does inherit the keyword are elemental weapons. If a Paladin uses a Radiant-based damage attack which has the Weapon Accessory keyword and uses a Flaming Sword to make that attack, the Paladin has a free-action choice to use the Flaming Sword as a normal sword or as a sword which does fire damage. In this instance, the power being used by the Paladin would do both Fire and Radiant damage and this damage would be split evenly. Why is this different? Because elemental weapons have free at-will power/effects which have keywords associated with them and that can be used/invoked/channeled at the same time as the Power which is using said item as an implement.

you are completely wrong. The funny thing is that I think that the text is totally clear on this. It seems that you do too. Somehow we are getting directly contradictory interpretations of the same text! That would be the perfect example of an area that needs a little work to avoid such situations. I will happily debate this subject in another, possibly even forked, thread if you would like. It seems that you understand the basics of the keyword stuff, and I am curious how you then come to the wrong conclusions about the whole situation.

 

[Tonester]

I've gone back and read the Item Power portions in the PHB again. This definitely needs to be clarified. At first, the paragraph talks only about the keywords associated with the item's power. A sentence or two after that, it spills the beans as such:

"When you use a magic item as part of a racial power or a class power, the keywords of the item's power and the other power all apply."

It then gives the example of a Paladin using a flaming longsword with a radiant attack which would then do fire and radiant damage on a hit.

Based on this text, if taken literally, it would mean that whenever a weapon or implement which has a power with keywords is used to activate/channel/cast/use/etc a class or race power, then yes, all of the keywords from the items power would be inherited by the race/class power.

I had originally understood it to be whenever the item's power was used in conjunction with some power (many items have "on hit" powers or "at will free action" powers) that THEN the item's power's keywords and the race/class power keywords would be combined.

As for the magical enhancement from the wand, it looks like this DOES count for spells cast from wands since all of the wands I looked at all have the Implement keyword in their power description.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

Now you got it. Would you like to further discuss this in another thread so as to not derail this one?

 

[SableWyvern]

I may have to get over my aversion and try just that. It might be I just have trouble finding places in an adventure to put skill checks, and in a new system where the philosophy seems to be "game flow is key" it seems hard to come up with reasons the party needs to do a skill challenge, especially on the fly.

It seems to me like a video game quick-time event out of nowhere in a perfectly good action game. I hate those things.

I really didn't "get" skill challenges for quite a while. My initial instinct was to ignore the skill challenge rules entirely, and I very nearly did. However, while doing prep for my first session, I came across a situation I thought might be suitable for a skill challenge, and decided to give it a go. I also started looking at a lot of third-party takes on skill challenges, and started to realise they could actually be used to do a number of interesting things.

When the skill challenge I'd prepped came up during the session, I was still very unsure whether it was going to work, or flop entirely. As it turned out, the players found it entertaining, and were quite impressed. So, while I still consider myself far from an expert on the challenge system, I'm continuing to look for examples of how other people are using the system, and stealing every interesting idea to apply in my own games.

At the same time, there are still plenty of traditional checks involved in my sessions. I also have plans to do a variety of things that use the basic framework of the skill challenge system, but in play would probably not come across as formalised skill challenges.

So, in summary, I'd say that given them a go is probably a good idea. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised, as I was.