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Jun 30, 2011 -- 8:59AM, Flintlocke wrote:

Question about the Alien's Alien Engineering:

I just stepped out from having DM'd the party through their first 5 levels and now I am playing a character that has Alien as one of it's origins.

In trying to understand the best way to use it's powers, I figured the following:

1. Alien Engineering is cumulative; I can spend a number of turns accumulating charges on a weapon to later release them all with the weapon's normal damage. (ex. each charge adds 14 radiation damage to a succesfull hit; I hit for 22 physical with a 2h heavy gun with 4 charges; total damage was 70; the normal attack bonus was +12, but +2x4 added on top of to make a final +20).

2. I used a few accumulated charges of Alien Engineering with a weapon attack made from some omega tech (Grav Mortar). The omega tech is an 'area x within y' type attack(s), so in order to not make the DM despair that I had broken the encounter, I assigned all the bonus damage and bonus attack to only the target at the center of the burst; the other two targets took no alien engineering damage.

Am I doing this right? How are others using Alien Engineering?

In the 'roleplayed' sense, it totally works for me that the Alien origin can enhance weapons, especially omegas (assuming they are weapons).

Building up charges might not even be the most effective form of DPS for my character but it's just so much fun to fire smalller amounts of shots that hit for big numbers (essentially a 95% chance to hit when charged a few times) Thoughts?

Nope, you're not doing this correctly.

You expend your standard action for your turn (you receive 1 standard, 1 move, and 1 minor action each turn unless you have mutations or origins that grant you more) when you use Alien Engineering. You then choose yourself or an ally as the target of the power. The target must be within 1 square of you (melee 1) to be a target of the power.

The next weapon attack made by the target before the end of the encounter (NEXT attack) gets +2 to the attack roll. It also deals bonus damage to the tune of 5 + Intelligence mod + your level Radioactive damage.

Since it is an At-Will power it can be used a number of times equal to the number of Standard Actions you have for your turn. This is normally 1. The weapon that is used will hit for its normal damage (roll the die, etc.) and gain an additional bonus equal to the power's bonus damage.

It looks like the power is cumulative since it seems you can combine a minor and a standard action (if you happen to do a critical hit to apply AE as a minor action). But the problem is this: The recipient of the power will be delaying their turn for as many times as you wish to apply Alien Engineering. If the DM decides that the party's enemies will let you do this, then it is the DMs fault for not keeping this in check.

Personally, I would probably play the monsters so that they'd need perception checks to figure out what's going on. If the monsters are familiar with Alien Engineering's keywords or have the Alien origin, then I'd give them bonuses to notice what's going on and have them start attacking the "buffer".

Other than making this extremely broken, I would have to correct what I said above and say that what you did everything fine. I might hazard a guess that if WotC ever did real errata for Gamma World, that "until the end of the encounter" would change to "until the beginning of your next turn". The critical hit would override that and allow the second, additional use of the power as a minor until the end of your next turn for a grand total of 2x cumulation of the effects. Otherwise, the power is crazy overpowered.

Hello, I have a couple of rules questions.

1) Shieldbots (GW Core p. 127) are Level 1 Minion Brutes. Their at-will attacks do 9 electricity damage, that seems a bit high to me. I'm wondering if this was a typo and should have read as 4? I compared other Level 1 Minions' damage from other sources, and most seem to do 3-5 damage, or higher under certain circumstances. Then again shieldbots are classified as brutes and their attacks are only +4 vs. Ref (compared to +6-8 of most other Level 1 Minions), so I guess they might not hit as much. Still, 9 damage seems a bit high for level 1.

2) Something I've always wondered (GW/4th ed. in general): when you use a move action to stand up from prone, but you are adjacent/in threat range to an opponent(s), would the opponent(s) get an opportunity attack(s) against you? I'm guessing the answer is No since this situation is not addressed.

That's all for now, I'm pretty sure I came across something in Legion of Gold, but I'll post if/when I remember what it was.

Hi All,

Is Gamma World 100% compatible with D&D 4e? I'm thinking about buying the Gamma World box set. I would like to have my players be sucked into a portal and end up in Gamma World for a while.

Thanks  

Ok cool. What I was thinking was to have a Wizard experimenting with nuclear materials and magic at the same time. Perhaps having the nuclear waste poison the water supply and have the player investigate. When they show up and fight the wizard the arcane barriers begin to collasp and cause a nuclear explosion. Instead of killing everyone it will react with the ambient magic items, wands, scroll etc... and transport them to Gamma World. I think it will be kinda cool, that way they can get mutations, guns and stuff. I'm more concerned with them having fun than balance, I can always change monsters and up there defences if needed.

Since it is compatible I won't have to worry to much.  

Aug 12, 2011 -- 6:41PM, jesch13 wrote:

I'm just starting to read over the rules so I might have a few questions as I go through them.

The Parn has two at-will melee attacks but one is a double attack. Can someone explain that? Why wouldnt the Parn just use the double attack all the time?

If you read on page 105 the attack type is indicated by the icon next to the name. You'll see that the Sword Antenna standard action has a sword (melee attack) with a circle (basic). So the Sword Antenna action is a Basic Melee attack. The Double Attack only has a sword which means it cannot be used as a Basic Melee attack. Incidentally, if you see a Bow with a circle, that means it's a Basic Ranged attack (see Horl Choo Stinger).

This is important when you consider that Opportunity Attacks (page 20) use the Basic Melee attack power (page 75). (Charging also uses a Basic Melee attack but it is not in the Gamma World rules, see the D&D Rules Compendium or the D&D 4e Player's Handbook for charging rules).

So, to answer your question: the Parn would use it's Double Attack during it's turn but during everyone else's turns, it would use the Sword Antenna attack if and only if it is granted an Opportunity Attack (such as when a player moves by the Parn in an adjacent square).