From: Accel ACE | #426 And this goes back to the edit I made (a bit late of course), is that we've failed to really even mention half the retraining we've done in roleplay. Just, "oh I could always do this", really. I guess I'm at fault here for being an avid roleplayer over the past nearly two decades.
"IT'S STILL REAL TO ME DAMMIT!"
Hey! I did that when I swapped like half my character around! |:<
(Mostly, I think feats are a small thing - retraining them isn't too important. Themes are bigger, but if they fit the concept still, you can just say the truth, that that's the essence of your character being preserved. If the theme is noticeably different in what it accomplishes, roleplaying it is totally kosher of course.)
PS: Also, the issue with roleplaying the retrains is...well, this is a fast moving game. If something doesn't work, why should we be stuck with it because we didn't know better? Like Euri not having an expertise feat because CPU didn't know they were mandatory, for instance. In-game like a week has passed, tops. There isn't much room for fluffing things up. :-/
Well, I'm not swapping out, but I think it's logical to mention the options. If it helps you realize a concept, I say go for it - why put points into WIS to be effective if a theme swap lets you go full CHA, and so on.
From: Some_Character | #144 They kind of are actually. The only known ones are Thief and Rogue, and those two match the description of our Twostuck dictionary.
Sorta, yeah. The movie hero shenanigans of the Rogue fit if you squint a bit!
(And I nailed Void hard totes)
PS: (Sorry for not showing up yesterday, internet died except for a brief stint outside the house. I'll see if I can get summat goin' today)
And this time, I seriously think it's worth considering a swap, Accel, if that Elemental Initiate thing is true. I know you feel like your theme has to be core to the character, but imagine not having to burn an MC and a ton of feats on that monk strike, plus getting ANOTHER damage boost vs. bloodied with that ki focus expertise.
EDIT: And Scep: Seriously consider the Hyper Focus for Lightning down the line. I'll try to pass the detailed info out ASAP, but +2 damage a shot is 'gatlike'.
From: Accel ACE | #412 Pretty sure you can't retrain the theme of your life's upbringing. I'll stick with Mercenary.
Scep kinda beat me to it (screw losing internet for a day), but I wouldn't say the theme is your life's upbringing in this case, since we've reskinned heavily and had to employ homebrews for characters whom normal themes simply did not fit. I understand it perfectly if you don't feel like swapping the theme, since Mercenary is a pretty great one, but since you mentioned that you wanted to do a crazy CHA fighter, I realized Yakuza functions as a boss enabler to the concept, so I figured I might as well suggest it. :)
So, Omega was having trouble picking a theme, since none of the available ones fit him. He was thinking about his character's style, one thing led to another, and inspiration struck...so he wants to know if this theme is kosher. Behold, the...
Secret Spellspy
Level 1: You gain access to the One-Liner feature power.
One Liner Encounter + Martial Minor Action + Personal Effect: If you hit the target with a Will attack, it takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls until you are hit by an attack or until the end of the encounter. If the target is bloodied, you may also immediately make an Intimidate check to force it to surrender.
Level 5: Chose one power you currently know. All saves made against that power suffer a -2 penalty. Each level, you may repick your signature power as you see fit.
Level 10: You may use your Arcana skill in place of your Stealth skill, as you weave wards and spells of invisibility around you like a subtle web of nondetection.
Basically, this theme is a tweaked Yakuza (Dragon 404) power plus a castery bent for features, based on the secret services of the Magitek land Omega's character hails from. It's less powerful than Yakuza, being single-target and chomping up an action, but easier to trigger. And the features are about even - they do different things, but do them well. Does it seem OK?
-Spoke with Vea. Received much loot, plus a map leading to the stolen ship's landing point. -Advanced, finding a dead dragon, likely killed by Queen. Attacked by Fury soldiers, who were soundly trashed, only to be harassed by gnoll warriors...who were trashed even more soundly. -Most of the dragon's teeth were missing. Possibly to be used in some ritual? -Found ship, guarded by Shursh and a large contigent of Furies. -Winter diverted most of the Furies away while the group snuck in. -Fought and defeated Shursh, denying her from hitting spectacularly (Cash moment: her missing Valerian on an 18). The haze of madness and pain lifting from her eyes, she asked to die. Grudgingly, Valerian complied. A bit of her soul was feed to Luni in exchange for assisting the group by briefly summoning an army of Deadlights. -Buried Shursh, using her blade as a headstone. Climbed onto the ship to find a way to seize it or disable it. -Decided to disable it, in the end. Unable to manipulate it properly, Brona sent it forward, towards the edge. -Tried to leave, only to find the door closed and Sonya waiting for us. End of session.
PS: Extra bulletpoint: -Dealt more than 100 damage in one round ). The race between Brona and Val for strikeriest guy is on now!
It isn't that infeasible, guys. Making stuff takes a long time and the release process is even longer. Something like three months IIRC? So we're talking about DLC six months down the line, minimum. At that point less people will be playing the game, so sales will be low. I mean, there's tons of stuff to laugh at Capcom about, but I've seen how design works on the inside. It isn't as easy as it looks.
Megaman's franchises are currently dead. They have been for years, too. Gotta go for a little more consistency. Hm...I wonder who else could it be...was tempted to say Solid Snake as a Playstation face but he's not gonna get more games.
If you are doing characters, it is Mario, Link, Pacman, and I don't even know. DK, Megaman, Bowser, Pong Paddle.....John Madden.
Mario, Link, Sonic, and MC are good choices. Pacman is a hasbeen, MC is a very strong and current presence. You have to think of major faces of gaming here. Constant ones. Another possible choice would be Ryu from SF.
I was all ready to vote for TMNT before I realized it was the intro I disliked. The TMNT intro I do like more than Pokémon Theme 1 is the one that goes "Mutant chain reaction. Living underground. NINJITSU ACTION! It's a shell of a town!". Yeah, that was not this one. >_>
From: Iamdead7 | #020 I was gonna run this in real life. I'd love to do this with board 8, but being in college I really have no time do this unfortunately here.
Wouldn't running the campaign over AIM be much easier? There's much less prep involved, after all.
From: shadosneko | #152 I guess Owlbears that have an Int of 2 would totally be able to discern a group of adventurers with advanced training in tactics.
From: NeoElfboy | #148 It's pretty reasonable that your enemies would learn about you, though, or recognise your fighting style. I've always viewed that whenever you get a shiny new power, you can expect it to catch enemies off guard for a few battles, but rarely again after that. This helps prevent any such tactics from being abusive, and rewards new strategies. "Tricking" enemies with the same trick for dozens of battles is kinda lame if you ask me, but to each their own.
I assume that you at least play with enemies who know about mark violation penalties? If not, wow, defenders must be pretty amazing for you.
Monsters don't know about mark violations. Just by pure RAW, they know that they're marked, but nothing else. And no, enemies do NOT catch on to the schticks of my players unless they're fighting an organized group that is much smarter than most. Which isn't often, because I save those kinds of enemies for big arcs. The idea is to make monsters fight as smartly as they can, not as smartly as I can fight. Because if I make my PCs face monsters playing as cleverly as me, they lose. I have unlimited power at my disposal as a DM, but I don't need to use that unlimited power against the PCs.
From: NeoElfboy | #146 As for provoking OAs, the answer is simple: to give your Defender free swings. You're not going to get hit, so if the enemy takes the attack (and he likely will),
Why would an enemy take an OA if it's disadvantageous for him to do so? At least with the DMing I've always experienced, such things would only happen if the enemy were particularly stupid.
Because unless your DM is a hardcore metagamer, an enemy you have never faced before has no way of knowing you aren't, in fact, exposing yourself because of that +8 bonus to OA defenses. So you get sweet swings out of it. Maybe if the enemy is some sort of battlemaster it's feasible for him to see that coming in-character, but most mobs, including dragons and other classics, don't quite anticipate things like that.
From: IhatethisCPU | #393 An owlbear's fine. Just have a hard time picturing one with a saddle, let alone letting anyone ride it, along with how one'd work in combat. Just need to be sure of how Broder'll work in combat.
If you've ever seen Emperor's New Groove, picture the way Kronk carried Izma. That's how it'd work I figure.
From: Seisen_Kitsune | #016 Already planning on buying it! Just don't like the MvC 3 simultaneous characters thing. Too much focus on team dynamics, "if you put that character on point you're doing it wrong" arguments, and 100% damage combos. Worried that the benefits of synergy are going to outweigh the other choices, but I want to support the idea whatever happens.
If the way Mike Z styled on a three-man team with Peacock is any indication, this won't be an issue. Obviously assists are good, but that damage boost is bonkers.
From: Seisen_Kitsune | #007 It had a horoscope? Never knew that! Got one on release, played it a lot, but never heard of such a thing. Too bad I lost mine in a move.
Still mad that console fighting games still haven't caught up to the features from its SNK vs Capcom. Play 1-on-1, with the VS style tag system, or KoF style teams. Choice between Street Fighter or KoF super gauges. Large, varied cast of characters (Random B.B. Hood appearance). Mini-games. Think it even had character specific ending s. You just don't see that much stuff being done on any system.
...Granted that's because games cost so much more money to make and adding all that to a fighting game is a pointless, but I loved that stuff.
From: Gwindor | #033 To directly answer your question, it may have been the case the known world oil supplies would have been depleted if the global per capita oil use matched the US. However, global oil supply far outstrips what are called proven reserves. For instance, 1970 estimates did not include oil shale, of which there is enough to match Saudi resources.
Fundamentally, yes, providing enough energy so that everyone could enjoy our standard of living is the largest engineering problem in the world today. Ultimately, the energy will have to be solar. geothermal is the only energy source we use that did not originate from the sun. To have a sustained energy supply, we cannot use more per year than what comes from the sun.
This is great news. Earth receives more energy from the sun in an hour than humanity currently uses in a year. The problem is to develop a capture method for this energy.
Remember also that every living creature relies on the sun's energy, and we can't monopolize it without mass extinctions. Ideally, we would have solar energy collection systems on all of our buildings and roads, and not ever on some kind of solar farm.
And that's the biggest problem facing the world today: overpopulation, leading to reduced habitat for other life forms. Energy is a comparably easy problem to solve.
Anyway, that's my opinion.
Pretty sure you can't harvest that much energy without a sort of reverse Dyson Sphere. And pretty sure that you can't even harvest a percent of it efficiently without blotting out the skies with transports or machines. Solar energy isn't as cool as it sounds until you're on a different tech level than ours. We're gonna need fusion to get there.
From: Sceptilesolarbeam | #383 Don't forget you have to feed them like anybody else in the group and they're large or bigger creatures which require more food than medium creatures (not that we've seemed to worry about food yet)
No, don't you see, we just acquire all our sustenance via osmosis.
It's a -2 to attack rolls, Scep. It's gross overkill, not awesome. You have to remember the party.
... And a +5 to damage isn't overkill? I'm pretty sure we have a sizeable number of damage boosting powers in the party too, certainly more than attack debuffs.
Again, I'm not saying Dragonfear is bad by any means. I just don't see a reason to kneejerk about giving it appropriate math instead of 'miss forever' math.
EDIT: Warlord's totally do Accel. I just think that that's one of the cases where buying a power feat is justified. After all, that's something like +35 to damage if we all use our powers that round. That's quite a bit. I'll concede that Dragonfear is better out of the box though. It's a tradeoff: do you want a good effect right now that you can't improve, or a weaker one that can become insane?
From: Sceptilesolarbeam | #379 Also, dragonfear opens up a fear-based prestige class that strikes me as quite scary, considering how debilitating status effects tend to be.
Except Fear is vastly resisted. No seriously, something like 30% of the monsters either have boosts to Fear or simply laugh at it.
From: Sceptilesolarbeam | #377 So you can either have an awesome, vastly more party friendly debuff, or you can put a massive feat investment to get mileage out of your racial. Not seeing the upside here.
It's a -2 to attack rolls, Scep. It's gross overkill, not awesome. You have to remember the party.
From: Accel ACE | #376 Your argument involves burning feats to make the ability better, that's silly. Powers don't need to be goldtext optimized good to be great powers, y'know.
Not saying they have to be, but I think arguing Dragonfear is better when a single feat gives Dragonbreath a massive partywide buff to damage that stacks with all other buffs (on a party with people who attack repeatedly), vis granting an attack penalty when we have someone who slaps down a -5 penalty on a whim is kinda odd. Dragonfear also doesn't get better - what you see is what you get. Dragonbreath has a toolbox of strong feats at its disposal. A single one makes it insane. The others turn it into something broken.
EDIT: I'd say that using the fey beast rules would be a better idea, actually. The fey beast scales, unlike a mount. That is, incidentally, the big issue of mounts, so fixing it is a good idea.
From: Accel ACE | #372 Isn't dragonfear a minor action and besides that, free abilities don't need to be on the same scale as "paid for" abilities, there's no need to houserule a scaling up.
Edit: Yeah, wow. Looking dragonfear over again, there's absolutely no reason to give it a buff. An ally friendly burst 5 that hits every enemy in the burst, as a minor action... to apply -2 to their attack rolls and force them to grant combat advantage? That's as good an effect as some encounter powers that use a standard action!
Dragonbreath has an infinitely better effect. You can hurl it turn after turn with the appropriate feat, and you can't tell me this...
INSPIRING BREATH Prerequisite: Dragonborn, warlord Benefit: When you hit an enemy using your dragon breath racial power, your allies gain a +5 bonus to damage rolls against that enemy until the end of your next turn.
...Isn't better than a debuff to attack rolls that is never, ever hitting. Remember, we're facing enemies with higher levels than us AND heightened defenses on top because they're solos.
EDIT: Furthermore, Dragonbreath got updated to be +3/+6/+9 itself. I don't think I need to say more really.
From: Anagram | #366 KanzarisKelshen posted... The warhammer's accuracy should be +10, which is probably why it felt so low. But yeah, things look good.
PS: Dragonfear should be + 3/+6+/+9 though, if Anagram is amenable to it. +2/+4/+6 doesn't scale up properly against current monsters.
What's the reason it should be higher instead of lower?
Expertise. Racial powers don't benefit from it, so it's very necessary to make them scale 3/6/9.
Thinking about I, there's definitely good reasons to go witht he double-offense plus Nature's Abundance option. Val moves way too much for him to be able to make good use of Boiling Cloud's hijinks to protect the team, and he needs what bonuses he can get to keep up. Things will work better that way I think. Time to make some changes!
I used Riposte Strike pretty much every time I got to make maybe one or two counterattacks in five or six combat encounters. So uh
[quoted text]
...And why am I provoking OAs to begin with?
Use Vigilante Justice Style and stick close to your defender. Trust me Reg, Riposte Strike is ridiculous if properly boosted by feats, and the Brutal Scoundrel's ace in the hole. It more than doubles your damage. I'm not trying to BS you here, I've played Rogues before and used this stuff.
As for provoking OAs, the answer is simple: to give your Defender free swings. You're not going to get hit, so if the enemy takes the attack (and he likely will), you get to shorten the encounter with the damage dealt. If you're really clever, you can even squeeze out a counterstrike shot to boot, so you get a hit, your buddy gets a hit, and then you hit again.
Purely mathwise, it is. At every level and basically every set of damage values, 'hit twice' beats 'hit once with a plus to damage'. If you're talking from a style point then yes, Sly Flourish is good, but for a Brutal Scoundrel maxing STR really is just better. Maybe you should do an Assassin instead? Executioners are really good at the DEX/CHA thing without being lulzy like Artful Dodgers.
From: Sceptilesolarbeam | #129 I mean, Kanz's character in Ana's game has been the biggest thing-doer thus far, and I don't mean in combat.
Thanks Scep. I owe you one. :)
(Sorry for going off-topic with it, honest. I get tired of the Stormwind stuff myself, but I feel like not offering to help would be a bad idea. I mean, I put in time to learn the ropes about stuff like this, why force other people to do the same instead of just helping? But yeah, let's drop this now.)
From: WarThaNemesis2 | #123 Simulated Spreadsheets, which is basically what a 'character' is when everything is sacrificed for perceived power.
Sacrifice what? Power and character are not part of a spectrum, except in extreme and utterly degenerate cases. You can have a character full off awesome flavor and kickass power at the same time. You're not making sense here, War.
From: tcaz2 | #119 But he set it up that way because he likes Sly Flourish.
So why not just let him use Sly Flourish?
Also,
[quoted text]
I disagree with this. Gimping yourself, whether by accident or design and having to play that way is something you should let somebody do just so they can learn themselves or have fun playing a gimped character and covering for their weakenesses.
I mean, if this was like, WoW or something where the DM couldn't subtly influence things so everybody can be useful no matter what, I could understand (because it ruins everybody elses enjoyment too), but otherwise it's just jerkish to try to tell someone what to use.
****. That.
I wouldn't make a child burn himself on a fire because 'hah, that'll teach the pipsqueak, NOW he'll now'. I wouldn't force a fellow RP bro to suffer through a weak character either. Power maximizes enjoyment, tcaz. Maybe this sounds unbelievable to you, but I have yet to meet one person who enjoys sucking. Further, I know, from Reg's own words, that his luck is basically rotten. Given that much, it is absolutely imperative to help him get a great character, so he won't have to suffer its effects. Few things are as annoying as trying to be a badass, but getting *****slapped back to earth by a vengeful set of dice. Further, I don't think it's Sly Flourish that Reg likes, but the power of Sly Flourish. If he wants to make a Sly-Flourish centric build, I can help him with that, but until I know what his character idea is, I'm assuming he prefers optimal performance when fluff wouldn't be compromised. Thus, suggesting that he stick with STR for a Brutal Scoundrel.
'Use the stat that lines up with your class feature' isn't powergaming, it's just not gimping yourself. I mean, do you think a paladin who spends his turns throwing daggers is the only thing that doesn't fall under powergaming?
Like, it's not like Reg *wants* to be weak. He said he remembered CHA being 'godly' because of Sly Flourish. I can help him become even more godly with something that makes Sly Flourish look smalltime. This, to me, is kind of sound, since it appears he craves a feeling of power and I know how to facilitate it. That is all.
EDIT: And just to clarify, I'm not opposed to unorthodox combinations. My current 4e character is a Barbarian|Warden with a WIS secondary who wears scalemail (which is to say, runs basically counter to damn near everything about those classes). I'm just opposed to unorthodox combinations that don't do much of anything. There's ways to make a CHA rogue be really scary, but taking Brutal Scoundrel ain't one of them.
From: _Regaro_ | #115 Because I remember being a Rogue twice in the past and CHA being godly because SLY FLOURISH
That and Artful Dodger is all sorts of lol
Sly Flourish is super crappy compared to Riposte Strike though. Put it this way: at this level, Sly Flourish deals +3 damage over a baseline MBA. Riposte Strike deals Twice MBA damage with no escape clause with the right feat. Additionally, by taking STR 16, not only do you qualify for more and better feats, but you get the same benefit as you would have from Sly Flourish via Sneak Attack. So really...there's honestly no reason to do that score assignment. It doesn't do anything.
