Despite easily besting their encounters, the game was fun, and I'm sure the DM has a few dirty tricks up his sleeve for next time. Still, as they were trouncing their foes, I turned to Tim and said “this is time for a World of Cardboard speech.”
If you don't know that this, you don't know Trope. : )
So, what would I do differently to fit in with this group? Hard to say; to my mind, they're missing a good old-fashioned controller. Wizard is still best, since if built right, they can still bring the pain. I could do a Genasi Stormsoul Thunder Wizard and call it a day, but nobody likes a showoff. There's this Sorcerer build I've been working on that I call “Mr. Catch-22″ who would also do quite well at Paragon, but I'm saving that for a rainy day; it's not polite to make a DM's head explode on the first date!
Despite horrible support, a Deva Force Wizard would be my best bet. The +15 damage is kind of lackluster for this group, even with Destructive Wizardry- Force has terrible support. But solid control and wacky tricks let you be helpful and FUN at the same time. I love the Wizard Utilities, they call to me in my dreams…
Now I'm known as a Mechanics guy. What makes a game tick has always fascinated me; I've studied game design and philosophy for some time now. In the beginning, I was a role play over rules guy; my first few games were more 'rule of cool' than anything else. And they quickly spiralled out of control.
I usually give R.J. credit for making me into the gamer I am today; like me, he loves insane, off-the-wall builds. Unlike me, he seems to really enjoy making a DM's head explode (ok, I do too, but I try to harness my darker nature for good!). This usually involves some crazy half-baked plan that has as much to do with rolling a 20 on your 'Fast Talk DM' check as anything else.
Don't get me wrong though, this is your go-to guy if you ever want to kill your party off; he makes the guys at Flying Buffalo (of Grimtooth's Traps infamy) look like choirboys! In his opinion, S1 and S2 are “tame”, and he could dream up better death traps in his sleep. I believe it!
Anyways, I'd try to tell my story, and he'd try to catch me up with the rules. This got on my nerves, so I decided to put my primary skill set into play; I cracked open the book and read it. Everywhere. At home. At school. On the bus. In class (yeah, I got wretched grades in school), at the library.
Not to brag, but my reading retention is something like 99%, I was at a college level of reading in freaking Elementary school, so when I set down to read something, I do it right. And suddenly, everything changed. No longer was I spouting off weird house rules every session. No longer did obscure sections of the rules bother me. Heck, even my MATH improved, something years of standardized schooling couldn't do. Gygax = 1, Public Schools = 0!
Anyways, it should come as no surprise that I'm quickly attaining the system mastery I lacked coming into this new game. Part and parcel of my training involved going to the lowest levels of The Abyss..the Official Forums.
I used to post heavily there, until I got tired of being belittled by people who couldn't be bothered to actually READ a book. I mean, I quickly discovered a Psionics + Tome of Battle loophole for nearly limitless actions, only to have none other than Tempest Stormwind (of Stormwind Fallacy 'fame') tell me I was out of my mind!
Two weeks later, the build was posted on the CharOp forums to much amazement. Bah.
I should have known better. In DnD-speak, “Psionics” = fight waiting to happen. And “Tome of Battle” (well, actually, Tome of Anything) was a pretty sharp divide as well, since it directly lead to the game we have now.
Now, the funny part about the things you find on forums, especially Optimization forums, are people who staunchly defend the 'core rules' and come up with crazy thought exercises that prove the game is fundamentally “broken”. I have NEVER seen any of this in a live game!
If I sat down at a table and single-handedly took out a solo of my level without even touching my dailies, I'd be thrown out of the house! And rightly so; the game is 1) about having fun. And 2) it's about having fun with FRIENDS. DnD is a team game, and always has been. Ok, granted, sometimes you have to beat players over the head to get them to acknowlege that fact, but there it is.
If you're going to make a cool, flavorful, and powerful build, that's fine. Just remember, if you break the game, you quickly won't have a game to play in! And making your fellow gamers feel impotent is not a good way to keep your gaming circle healthy!
That having been said, there's nothing wrong with using a few dirty tricks here and there. The DM always has more monsters, after all! : )
The things people argue about and discuss on forums still makes me shake my head. Here's some high points:
-In the PHB 3, it was stated that adding damage of a particular type adds the appropriate keyword to an attack. This isn't rocket science, and, it appears this was always the intent, but WotC took their time spelling it out to people. No shock there.
So ok, if I want to turn all my spells into Cold (for, say, Lasting Frost+Wintertouched), instead of trying to Arcane Admixture everything, or relying on a list of so-so powers, you can just wield an enchanted Weapon/Implement; in this case, a Frost Weapon! It's got it's upsides, but there's downsides too. Like, having to have a Weapon/Implement (no Orb for you!), and passing on some of the cooler caster enchants (goodbye, Staff of Ruin!). And of course, all your spells may be Frost, but they're still whatever they normally are as well. The Red Dragon is not amused by your Cold-infused Fireball, believe me!
Alright, so there's not much argument about this. Or is there? The Rules Compendium goes on to state that if a power has a Keyword, all of the damage it does matches that keyword. I know what you're saying “wait a minute, what about Prismatic…?”. Go load your character builder. What's this? The keyword is now Variable where once it would say Fire/Lightning/Acid/whatever!
So what does this mean? Well, the debate goes thusly. One camp says this is a simplification for the game, in line with their new Essentials philosophy. If you add 2 cold damage to your Fireball with a Whetstone, it's now a Cold/Fire Fireball and ALL of it's damage is Cold and Fire. QED.
The other school of thought says that's rubbish, anyone with a brain knows that 18 fire +2 cold isn't 20 fire/cold!
WotC, typically, refuses to comment….
*Or here's another one for you. Melee Training is a feat that lets you base your Melee Base Attack off of some stat besides Strength. For most classes, this isn't a big deal; if you're going to be in close combat, you're either already Strength based, or have some power that says “this counts as a melee base attack”. Now granted, giving your 10 Strength Wizard the ability to make MBA's with his 24 Int seems a bit uber for a Feat. “Dude, he just got +7 to hit and damage!”. But remember, this is an MBA. Only a crackpot like, say, myself, would load up his Storm Sorcerer with Melee Training on the off-chance he needs to make an AoO or is granted a free attack.
However, some classes which are NOT Strength-based do need a way to charge or deliver AoO's effectively. One of the big poster children here is The Avenger. Now he does get a few powers that can be used to charge, but without a very specialized Feat, he has to rely on his Strength alone for his opportunity and Leader-granted attacks.
That's a real problem for the Pursuit Avenger, who's all about trying to con enemies into walking way from them! And it should be noted that Avengers are WISDOM-based, and out of three builds, only one even uses a physical stat at all, and that's Dex!
Now you may recall Tony Jaa, my 20 Dex Avenger. Thanks to Melee Training, his Melee Basic is better than his At-Wills! Which is just fine, if a little strange.
So what's the problem? Well, The Essentials Design team has apparently decided that, while Encounter and Daily Powers work well for casters, they don't make a lot of sense for Martial characters. Uh, welcome to two years ago, guys.
So, they decided that the new Thief-Rogue and Slayer-Fighter should use melee basic attacks, and simply add cool bonuses to them. You know, so that every turn, they make the same action. Again. And again. And again…
I know, weird, but hey, some people will like it. And that's fine. The problem is, this opens up a strange possibility. One could actually make an Essentials Fighter WITHOUT Strength, simply by giving them Melee Training! So when Essentials hits the character generator, poor Tony will lose some damage, as now Melee Training only gives you HALF your modifier in damage. I guess it's fair, the Feat still does a lot, but it does weaken some pre-Essentials Striker builds. And the reason is “well, we can't have our new Essentials classes become too strong with old Feats!”.
Thanks Wizards! Love you too!
(To be Continued)
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