Armalia drags herself to her feet, pulling upon all of her strength and reserves to continue the fight. With a howl of rage and pain, she hurls the axe at the sorcerer, but he is able to dodge as it boomerangs back to her hand.
Encounter Powers [X] Action Point [X] Action Point [X] Second Wind [X] Dwarven Resilience [_] Minor Resurgence [X] Power Strike
[_] Power Strike
HP: HS: AC: Fort: Ref: Will:
Base 50 13 21 18 13 12
Current 17 11
Temp: 0 hp Surge:12 hp Init: +2 Speed: 5
Resist: none Saves: +5 against poison MBA: +10 vs. AC, 1d12+9 Stances: * Berserker's Charge: +2 Power bonus to both speed & attack when charging * Poised Assault: +1 Power bonus to attack
Kalarel keeps laughing off each attack, though to tell the truth it looks like he ought not be in such high spirits. Wound after wound appears as he's hit repeatedly, each wound immediately rotting with shadowy corruption from within. As Flint and Wil each strike, their swords glow with a silvery shadow, the winds of winter whipping through them; the places where they'd stuck their silver ravens, the ones given them by Sir Keegan, up in his crypt, they suddenly get so cold as to feel like they're burning. And then they're gone.
Suddenly, Kalarel's still-beating heart bursts out from within his chest, impaled on the spearhead of Splug, who'd charged up from behind. Kalarel looks down at it, his face contorting with anger, surprise, and fear.
Then every level of Hell broke loose. The portal, for lack of a better term, imploded and exploded at the same time, the tentacles stretching outward, grasping, reaching, eldritch winds sucking everything not tied down into it. The wraith, poised to strike Nefertiti, suddenly melts into a puddle of goo. The walls shake, the ground trembles, and the sound of a million thunders rumbles overhead. The fact that this cathedral is deep within a mountain, one which seems poised to come down about everyone's ears, is probably not putting too fine a point on it.
Kalarel screams. The tentacles grab him up and start pulling him toward the portal; he grabs at Antsy, and refuses to let go, dragging the warlord closer and closer to the doom beyond.
"NOOOOO!!!!!"
Splug screams, and knocks Antsy free of the priest. In an instant, the cult leader is gone, into the portal, his scream silenced as soon as he went through, whether from his being dead or elsewhere or simply the deafening noise of everything else going on.
The little goblin wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, and smiles at Antsy. "Splug did good, right? Splug save day?"
And just as suddenly, another tentacle whips across, grabs the spear-fighter, and he vanishes through the portal as the wall falls down atop it.
At that instant, the moment the wall collapses, time seems to stop within the collapsing crypt. Rocks from the breaking walls and ceiling are hanging mid-air — one is mere feet directly above Nefertiti, threatening to crush her. A silver sheen seems to cover everything, a cold wind, colder than the deepest of winters, swirls, replacing the sucking winds from before.
The Voice isn't heard. The Voice is felt.
You haven't time. Go now, or seal your fate.
The rest of the room still frozen, two ropes drop down from above, knotted at regular intervals. A man's voice — Lord Padraig's, one might think, though it feels like a month since the heroes have heard it — calls down, "Hello? Anyone still down there?" MechanicsShow
Note regarding Silver Ravens: For the record, since I feel the need to explain, what they essentially did was allow each of you to (for one time only) ignore the bonus to defenses that Kalarel et al got from standing in the magic circle. His AC was still off the charts (24, for the record). But the CA that Wil didn't count with his roll was enough to get him there, and Flint had enough from his roll to do the same. Fortunately, the two times was all that you needed.
Antsy: Healed Wil. Missed the first time with Leader's Instinct, but not the 2nd; Kalarel's Prone.
Wil: Up. Marked. Teleported — no limitation other than "adjacent" is given, so, though you get CA from 3 different things, so. Hit with the first attack, not the 2nd.
Flint: Healed. Charged in such a way that you didn't have to use Acrobatics. Hit with the 1st attack, not the second.
Riardon: Hit twice.
Armalia: Missed.
Splug: Move: Walk to (O,19) Minor: Wield Spear Standard: Charge @ Kalarel — 27 vs AC hits for 12 hp damage. Kalarel is Dead.
Everything else is just fluff. Encounter is Ended.
I suggest you spend the next little bit escaping. Or else you won't get to level up to 4 like everyone else.
Other Stuff: • Skill Challenge: Successes 8, Failures 1. Skill Challenge Succeeds! • Bravura Presence – When you spend an AP for an attack, declare before the attack roll if you're using this feature (Antsy, LOS). If you hit, you get a free Basic Attack or Move. If you miss, you grant CA until eont. • Shield the Fallen - Bloodied and/or Helpless allies adjacent to Armalia get +2 to saves and to all defenses. • Rune of Protection (when active) - Adjacent to Flint, get Resist 2 All. • Rune of Destruction (when active) - Get +1 to attack when attacking enemy adjacent to Flint. • Rune of Undeniable Dawn (green area on map) — Flint & Allies get +2 to All Defenses while in zone. (Minor to Sustain.) Despair DeckShow
• Antsy: Haunted — Ignore charm & fear effects until end of next extended rest. • Armalia: Phobic — +1 to All Defenses until end of next extended rest. • Flint: Covetous — Any enemy grants CA to you while adjacent to you and an ally until end of next extended rest. • Nefertiti: Drowsy — Cannot make Opportunity Attacks; this effect does not get discarded at an extended rest. (Training in Perception gives a bonus to the save against this effect.) • Riardon: Delusional — +2 bonus to AC until end of next extended rest. • Wil: Indomitable Spirit — You do not have any despair effects until the next extended rest. • Splug: Insomnia — Healing Surge Value is halved; this effect does not get discarded at an extended rest. (Training in Nature gives a bonus to the save against this effect.)
• Ad Hominem— Attacking the person's circumstances, not addressing the argument. • Ad Hominem Abusive (Personal Attack)— Insulting the person, not addressing the argument. • Ad Hominem Tu Quoque— Saying the person's inconsistent, not addressing the argument. • Appeal to Authority/Belief/Common Practice/Consequence of a Belief/Emotion/Fear/Flattery/Novelty/Pity/Popularity/Ridicule/Spite/Tradition— Using emotion instead of Fact. • Bandwagon— Use of peer pressure. • Begging the Question— Assuming premises which haven't necessarily been agreed to. • Biased Sample— Using a sampling which may not properly represent the whole. • Burden of Proof— Shifting it to the wrong side. • Circumstantial Ad Hominem— Attacking the person's interests in supporting their argument. • Composition— Assuming that the whole has the same qualities as individual parts. • Confusing Cause & Effect— Assuming that one thing causes another because they appear in conjunction. • Division— Assuming that the individual parts have the same qualities as the whole. • False Dilemma— Assuming that only two options exist. • Gambler's Fallacy— Assuming the odds have changed because of past occurances • Genetic— Assuming a perceived defect in the origin of a claim is proof of a defect in the claim. • Guilt by Association— Attacking others who agree with the claim. • Hasty Generalization— Assuming a quality based on too small a sample size. • Ignoring the Common Cause— Assuming there is no outside cause of two connected things. • Middle Ground— Assuming the midpoint of two extremes must be correct. • Misleading Vividness— Assuming a colorful anecdote outweighs statistical evidence. • Poisoning the Well— Using unprovable claims about the person instead of addressing the argument. • Post Hoc— Assuming that something caused something else simply because it happened first. • Questionable Cause— Assuming that one thing causes another. • Red Herring— Using irrelevant evidence to divert a discussion. • Relativist Fallacy— Asserting that a claim may be true for some but not for the speaker. • Slippery Slope— Assuming the inevitability of one event based on another. • Special Pleading— Claiming exemption without justification. • Spotlight— Assuming individuals that get the most attention to be indicative of the whole. • Straw Man— Misrepresenting the opposing argument. • Two Wrongs Make a Right— Justifying something unethical/immoral as response or pre-emption to something else unethical/immoral.
Response to those who like to compare 4e to a Video GameShow
Also, I find that the "D&D 4e is like an MMO" argument is often a sign of someone who is deliberately being obtuse and/or is potentially ignorant of actual MMO play. As someone who only ended a 6-year World of Warcraft addiction a year ago, I can say that most of your bullet points actually don't match up to the truth of it.
In D&D 4e, you can choose a hybrid, you can choose to play one class as though it were another (people played Warlords as Bards frequently, when the edition first came out, and Rangers were refluffed to Monks), you can focus your class on its secondary role (a Warlock who is more controller than striker, for instance), you can multiclass, and you can create a particular concept (a mounted lancer, a charger, etc.) within the mechanics via feats, choice of powers, and choice of skills. You decide which set of stats you use--are you a Chaladin, Straladin, or Baladin?--and you have ultimate influence on how your character turns out in the end. Yes, powers require you to be using a particular weapon within your class's available selection, but the powers are not themselves tied to the gear. Powers tied to weapons or armor are typically powers that belong to the item, not to the character class that's most likely to use it.
Yes, there are only so many powers available, and these will be what you do in battle; this is all that the designers created. Yes, there is a time-frame in which they can be used; this has always been the case, even in the days of Vancian casting. Yes, there are suggested builds, but you can routinely ignore those if it pleases you; the only parts of a class you have to take are the class features, and even those have options at this point. But the only way that this can be considered at all conflatable with MMO character building/playing is if you are deliberately ignoring all of that.
In WoW, you choose a class and you're done. No multiclassing or hybridization, no way to mimic one class with careful building of a different one. There is a firm dividing line on what is a WoW class. No secondary roles or creative concepts, either; you're going to be what the class sets out to be, and that's it. You'll always have the same stat allocation as another of your class, because you get set numbers as you level up, and you've got at best four options--and that's only the Druid class--to build, and if you plan on running dungeons, particularly heroic level ones, or raiding, you'd better not even think of deviating from the single defined best build on the talent tree for what you want to do. It was only recently, with the complete tear-down and recreation of talent trees for Mists of Pandaria, that there was a concept of there being anything but the one best build that people who calculated such mechanical advantages (the folks on Elitist Jerks, for example), and the people who did things like achieve "World First" at various top-tier raids set precedent for.
Also, no class will ever not have a specific set of powers; all Priests in WoW have the same baseline, with deviation only based upon their talent tree specialization, where a D&D4e player could take whatever power in their class pleases them. Any Retribution Paladin will be the same as any other in terms of powers, because that is what a RetPally is. Any Assassination Rogue will always have the same powers as another, etc. All powers are always on specific cool-downs, but will always be there when they start a battle, where a 4e PC might enter an encounter with only At-Wills, or without their Daily powers due to what plot has done up until that point. Furthermore, no power that is not already specifically tied to an item will ever "require" you have that item, to my recollection. Classes get all their powers based on class; gear only gives bonuses to stats, possibly cuts down cast times for abilities or cooldowns, grants temporary extra bonuses to stats (the latter two most often on the raid tier equipment), and on rare occassions an extra power that may or may not be valuable, as some are only special effects instead of valuable abilities.
Most honest/open response on why DDN needs to be InclusiveShow
I've always felt it is in the best interests of D&D to be as inclusive across the playerbase as they can be and still have a game. I've never felt though that making a game that was inclusive within a group was very useful or even desirable. DM's and players can decide amongst themselves what options or restrictions they want for their games. I tend to lean to the DM to make most of those decisions but again that is a group specific thing.
Having said that. I get the distinct impression that there are a lot of players on these boards who come from groups that generally ruled against their own desires. It's almost like they are an oppressed minority from a gaming perspective. I also get the impression that they tend to advocate against things that if available their fellow group members might like and vote them down on.
Do a lot of you feel this way?
Just for clarification...here are some examples... 1. Alignment restrictions as an option. 2. Alignment Mechanics 3. Martial healing 4. Races being included or not.
I know my perspective is not that I often play at tables where my likes are not represented. Instead, my perspective comes from the many years I spent being a bad DM. I was a bad DM because my guidance came from the books, and the books gave bad advice. The books told me that alignment was a useful approach to roleplaying, so I went with it even though it felt kind of weird to me. Now I know that, at least in my style of running games, alignment destroys rp. I trusted the books to give good advice, and it messed up my game. Now I'm much more mature as a DM, so I know how to take advice with a grain of salt. And I still learn new stuff every session I run.
I don't want future DMs to go through my problems again. There's a big enough DM shortage as it is. DMing well is hard.
The biggest thing I had to unlearn in my process of becoming a good DM was the idea that the game is a simulation of a world. I understand many DMs prefer a more simulationist approach, although I am always skeptical simply because I would have said the same thing until I learned and grew as a DM. This doesn't mean their approach is completely invalid, but it still gives me a personal twinge when I see a regression back to 3e era sim style gaming.
I also have noticed many groups where one or two old-school players run a whole group's playstyle because the newer players aren't even aware there are other ways of doing things. The newer players tell me stories of things they hated in the session, and I end up explaining to them how those things they hate are very fixable, and in fact are fixed in the newer edition of the game their older players have told them is terrible.
In regard to things like martial healing, I don't think it's necessary for it to be in the game for the game to be fun. However, the attitude that says martial healing is terrible and shouldn't exist is an attitude that, to me, reveals a wrongheaded approach to the game. Therefore, my fight for it to be an option is to help legitimize the more narrative approach that I think is what most players want, but many don't know is possible, because they've never been exposed to it.
Armalia's lips set into a hard line. She feels the tears begin to push at the backs of her eyes, but knows she doesn't have time for it right now. She moves to pull Nef out from under the rock and herds her towards the ropes. Moving swiftly, or rather, as swiftly as her injuries will let her, she goes to each of her companions, gently nudging them or helping them move to the ropes and up to safety.
She moves over to Antsy last. Taking his hand in both of hers, she quietly says, "Time to go, boyo. He'd not want ye to stay here and die."
When the Raven Queen's strength leaves him, Wil is ready to collapse in a heap. He sees Splug dragged through the portal and falls into quiet despair. But seeing the entire place starting to come down and hearing a booming voice tell them to flee, Wil looks at his companions. For his own sake and for theirs he musters up the will to go on.
When Armalia comes to him, Wil looks at her and manages a smile through his bloodied face. "Looking forward to interrupting more evil rituals."
Flint howls with feral glee as Splug's spear-thrust showers him with heart-blood as he cleaves his own sword into the necromancer's side. His gutteral laughter is cut off as the mountian shakes and he tries to retain his footing.
As the tentacle wraps itself around Splug, Flint makes a desperate grab for the goblin. He manages to grab his spear, and there is but a moment when the two lock eyes before the shaft slips, the spearhead rips free through the flesh of his palms, and Splug is gone.
Dropping to his knees, the rage and battlelust leave the shifter so suddenly there is an audible pop when he returns to his more humanoid form. He leans heavily on his bastard sword, a look of weariness crosses his face as he stares at the space where the portal used to be.
Then the Voice speaks, and he is on his feet again. Moving and jostling with the others, helping them climb the ropes, escaping. He feels like he is on autopilot, in a dream, and a slow ember of anger worms his way through his mind again.
If she had stopped everything a moment sooner, the bloke would still be here. Was he nothing to Her?
He looked over and saw Antsy struggling with his old demons, and wondered if he'd ever again see the Arthur Nitsby he had seen down in the blood pit.
She LET him be taken, and with him, part of Ansty's soul.
He could taste the bitterness, metal on his tongue. Maybe it was just his own blood. It seemed fitting.
Arthur Nitsby beams at the goblin as he takes out the necromancer. "Yes, Splug, you did gr--" The look of surprise on Splug's face would have been comical if it weren't so tragic. "SPLUG!" Arthur yells as his friend is ripped away. The goblin was gone so suddenly that he didn't have time to react. Except that wasn't quite true. The warlord watched as the tentacles wrapped around the goblin and he had stood frozen. Arthur looked over at a flurry of activity as Flint leaped to save Splug. Arthur watched in disbelief as the shifter grabbed the head of the spear. He stared as the tentacles tightened and hauled on the goblin, the spearhead tearing through the shifter's hand.
It all happened so fast. Or so it looked to the one who stood still as a post and just watched it all happen, never doing a thing to stop it. And then it all comes crashing back on Arthur. Petir, Robere, Erik, Jakob, and now Splug. The whispers started once more, the accusations, the condemnations, the guilt.
Antsy swallows deep and blinks quickly as he looks around at the party. The Voice urges them to go, and Antsy is ready to comply. He takes a step, stopping at the squishing feeling in his boot. He looks down at himself, covered in blood. Only some of it is his own. The rest...there had to be hundreds of sacrifices to build up such a supply. Who knows what diseases they carried, all of it now mingling and filtering into his clothes. He could feel it in his hair, and in his nose, and the corners of his eyes. It was in his ears and in his mouth.
Antsy stops and heaves, whatever was in his stomach coming up tainted red - which only makes him heave some more. He stops after his stomach is empty, and finds himself staring stupidly toward the portal Splug was pulled through. He hears the others moving around behind him. Finally, the dwarf comes over and leads Antsy away from the scene. He follows numbly. For a short time he was once again the confident leader. And it ended the same as before. Very, very badly for one that followed him while he just walks away, nothing broken but his psyche.
When splug downs Kalarel Riardon smiles. His joy quickly fades though as the tentacle pulls the goblin into the portal and oblivion. He stares in stunned silence for a few seconds until the voice reverberates through his body.
He takes a quick moment to check on his comrades. Noting that Flint, Wil, and Nef were already headed to the rope and that Armalia was getting Antsy, Riarodon heads to the rope.
"Hello? Anyone still down there?"
"Lord Padraig, the cultists and their ritual have been stopped, but we need to quickly get out of here! We're on our way up." Riardon climbs up the rope, but after a little bit he disappears from the rope and reappears at the top. "Is MsMoongem up and about?" he asks once he re-appears.
At the top of the ropes, in the unholy cathedral, Lord Padraig and Delphina Moongem were both on their feet and aiding in the end of the climb. He smiled grimly, shaking his head. "Miss Moongem and myself are well enough, lad, thanks to you lot."
As the last one reached the top, leaving the room below empty, the rumbling and trembling from before resumed; whatever had frozen things, if only for a a few moments, must have come to an end. Delphina laid a gentle hand upon the liege-lord's arm, "We must away, m'lord." He nodded, and looked at the rest of the group. "My apologies, but we aren't certain of the way out from here...?" The group ended up moving in a vague sort of line, the two former prisoners in the middle, limping their way quickly along the route back to the surface world. Wil & Flint:InsightShow
Not that you really have time for such things, but you notice that there are some subtle physical interactions between the two of them. The way she touches his arm, the way he escorts her through the maze of hallways.... Just one of those things, you suppose.
As the top of the flight of stairs were reached, the one leading through the secret door to where the gelatinous cube was, a massive crash of stone against stone echoed from behind, a cloud of dust blowing past and through the group. The cathedral ceiling must have collapsed. The nearer rumblings increased, the floor began shaking even more than before. The pace of the group picked up, not so subtly, increasing to push the boundaries of mortal limits.
Past the corpses of the hobgoblin hordes, and up more stairs. Through the maze of wards, where the undead remains of the previous defenders of the Keep once stood. As the next set of stairs was approached, the junction where the shrine once stood was but a mess of rubble and dust. Where the doorway once stood was now solid rock; the shrine must have collapsed as well.
And it was not the only place to do so. No sooner does the last person get into the stairs, the ones leading back to where the goblins once were, there was another collapse immediately behind, as the floor vanished downward into darkness, dust and cacophony of noise rising up in its place. The ceiling and pillars remained, trembling mightily under the weight, ready to go at any moment. A moment that didn't last very long; as the next level was achieved, in fact, another loud and thundrous rumble could be heard from nearby, more dust clouds billowed up.
From here, the stairs up were not far away. Through the barracks, past the rat-pit, up the stairs. The sky was still gray and overcast, the clouds still blocking the sun. Around the ruins of the keep, huge pits and gullies have formed, the ground sinking where the rooms below have been filled. A winding path still stood at ground level, snaking through and away from the ruins, leading back toward the road. The ground still trembled and shook ominously.
Once through the final gate, and completely out of the keep's grounds, there was one last massive spasm. And then everything vanished in a billowing cloud of fine stone particles, which rose up into the sky, toward the sun, like a cloud of holy incense, sacrificed to the gods.
As the dust hit the cloud cover, the clouds dissipated — they don't move, don't break, just completely disappear. From behind the hole in the cover, the sun shone down bright and holy upon the massive rock pit that once was the Keep on the Shadowfell. The winds blew, as if toward every direction, and suddenly, finally, there was stillness and silence. The only indication that anything was actually there was the massive pit, and that could have been an abandoned quarry at a glance. A scar upon the mountainside was all that was left behind, to prove that there once had been someplace with so much heartache and loss. DM NoteShow
Apologies to Rgs, if I overdid the paranoia bit.
That morning, the rider left Fallcrest by the bridge, heading west along the King's Road toward Winterhaven. The horse was a good one, admittedly; two days of travel pushed to its limits thus far, and it didn't seem to be too much worse for wear, at least not yet. But there was a third day before it, and it was once more being pressed to its limits.
The night in the "city" hadn't been bad; better than the town the first night, Harken, at any rate. That place had been a danger; it didn't do good to stand out, not good at all. Everyone was watching, everyone a potential spy. It was bad, bad indeed, in Harken. Leaving there before dawn was a necessity.
Fallcrest, though, was not the city it claimed to be. Not after Sarthel; hells, the Tiefling District alone matched it man for man, so to speak. Certainly, it had the makings of a city; the underbelly down below the cliffs, the high-borns up above them. But, in terms of population, it was nothing. However, the people didn't seem to know it; too many years, obviously, of being left alone to fend for themselves. That was good, in that the factions present in Sarthel would not have nearly the numbers or the corruption in Fallcrest. But that didn't mean that there wasn't any corruption, that there weren't any spies.
There had been two other tieflings sitting at a table in the tavern for the evening meal, the previous night. They whispered, and probably stared. Were they residents of this gods-forsaken valley? Were they innocent travelers? Were they spies, keeping an eye out for escapees from Tyranny? Wherever civilization lay, He might be found....
There was no use taking any chances. But the horse had to get enough rest, so the start wasn't as early as it could have been.
The western sky was gray. Not just covered-in-clouds gray, but completely-drained-of-any-sign-of-life gray. They had leaked out across the rest of the sky; directly overhead they weren't quite so dismal, but they still were heavy, black, and pendulous. It was not a good harbinger; but neither was the duty laid at his feet. Deliver the message, they told him. Find Valthrun. He will tell you where you are needed. The men of the so-called Bleak Academy, were they to be trusted? Well, they hadn't killed him yet, or sent him back. So they must have some other scheme up their sleeve. Just as well that they'd been left behind. They couldn't keep spying on him, then.
A few hours into the ride, the sky changed. A huge column rose from the mountains lining the horizon ahead, a column reaching up into the heavens. As it breached the clouds, the skies opened up in the most brilliant shades of blue. The sun shown down, from that point on, as it coursed across the sky the rest of the day, and the feeling of life had definitely returned.
Maybe it wasn't such a bad day, after all.... In a swamp, the sky couldn't be seen, not directly. The cover of trees easily hid the cover of cloud. But the life in the swamp had changed. It had been quiet all morning; it switched on as midday approached, as if it had suddenly remembered what it was. The bog had gone from silence to a background of bestial conversations in mere seconds.
At the top of the crumbling tower, she looked down at the image before her. The stooped figure nodded. "It is done," it whispered, on the verge of cackling.
The woman smiled. "They've stymied the self-proclaimed Prince of Demons, then? Did any of them make it out?"
The image flickered briefly, then nodded. "All but the goblin. He's... been misplaced, it would appear." She seemed incredulous. "Misplaced? Or Taken?" She paused, then arched an eyebrow, the one over her good eye. "Or are you keeping more secrets from me, Old Man?"
He sounded annoyed. "I'll tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it, Treacherous One. You might try giving them away again." He leered at her, somehow.
A shaking of her head. "Would you rather I give them the information you were wanting them to have anyway? Or would you rather be dealing with the consequences if I hadn't walked away? I saved you trouble, and you know it."
A snort. "Very well. You've made sure to send the invitation, yes?"
"Yes. The caravan will get to Winterhaven in two days' time. Unless they're immortals, it'll get to them before they leave, I'd wager."
Another vague smile from the image. "Very well. Are the pieces in place?"
"As best they can be. Lareth's no Kalarel, that's for certain. Kalarel was a bull; you only had to wave a flag to get him where he needed to be. For Lareth, you need a mirror. But he's got a tighter leash on his underlings; they aren't swayed, so I have to go through him. They'll stay close, so there won't be all the connecting of the dots, like in Winterhaven." She paused, then pursed her lips. "Is there any particular reason why...?"
A snarl escaped his lips. "If I needed you to know, you'd know. Let's just say that I prefer that they be built through adversity. Either way, we win this one, though one win would be better than the other. And I'd rather there be a fighting chance; if we tested everyone on you, we wouldn't have anyoneleft." The woman smiled at the compliment, whether it was intended as such or not. "Very well. In the meantime, you should go check on the orcs sooner rather than later. If they figure out what they're doing too soon...."
The woman nodded, adjusting her eyepatch. "Yes, Master." There was a subtle shift, and then the orc bowed his head. "Your Tears are ready to wash away the sins of this world," he said, continuing where she'd left off. Thus ends this chapter of the tales of the Champions of the Nerath Vale.
• Ad Hominem— Attacking the person's circumstances, not addressing the argument. • Ad Hominem Abusive (Personal Attack)— Insulting the person, not addressing the argument. • Ad Hominem Tu Quoque— Saying the person's inconsistent, not addressing the argument. • Appeal to Authority/Belief/Common Practice/Consequence of a Belief/Emotion/Fear/Flattery/Novelty/Pity/Popularity/Ridicule/Spite/Tradition— Using emotion instead of Fact. • Bandwagon— Use of peer pressure. • Begging the Question— Assuming premises which haven't necessarily been agreed to. • Biased Sample— Using a sampling which may not properly represent the whole. • Burden of Proof— Shifting it to the wrong side. • Circumstantial Ad Hominem— Attacking the person's interests in supporting their argument. • Composition— Assuming that the whole has the same qualities as individual parts. • Confusing Cause & Effect— Assuming that one thing causes another because they appear in conjunction. • Division— Assuming that the individual parts have the same qualities as the whole. • False Dilemma— Assuming that only two options exist. • Gambler's Fallacy— Assuming the odds have changed because of past occurances • Genetic— Assuming a perceived defect in the origin of a claim is proof of a defect in the claim. • Guilt by Association— Attacking others who agree with the claim. • Hasty Generalization— Assuming a quality based on too small a sample size. • Ignoring the Common Cause— Assuming there is no outside cause of two connected things. • Middle Ground— Assuming the midpoint of two extremes must be correct. • Misleading Vividness— Assuming a colorful anecdote outweighs statistical evidence. • Poisoning the Well— Using unprovable claims about the person instead of addressing the argument. • Post Hoc— Assuming that something caused something else simply because it happened first. • Questionable Cause— Assuming that one thing causes another. • Red Herring— Using irrelevant evidence to divert a discussion. • Relativist Fallacy— Asserting that a claim may be true for some but not for the speaker. • Slippery Slope— Assuming the inevitability of one event based on another. • Special Pleading— Claiming exemption without justification. • Spotlight— Assuming individuals that get the most attention to be indicative of the whole. • Straw Man— Misrepresenting the opposing argument. • Two Wrongs Make a Right— Justifying something unethical/immoral as response or pre-emption to something else unethical/immoral.
Response to those who like to compare 4e to a Video GameShow
Also, I find that the "D&D 4e is like an MMO" argument is often a sign of someone who is deliberately being obtuse and/or is potentially ignorant of actual MMO play. As someone who only ended a 6-year World of Warcraft addiction a year ago, I can say that most of your bullet points actually don't match up to the truth of it.
In D&D 4e, you can choose a hybrid, you can choose to play one class as though it were another (people played Warlords as Bards frequently, when the edition first came out, and Rangers were refluffed to Monks), you can focus your class on its secondary role (a Warlock who is more controller than striker, for instance), you can multiclass, and you can create a particular concept (a mounted lancer, a charger, etc.) within the mechanics via feats, choice of powers, and choice of skills. You decide which set of stats you use--are you a Chaladin, Straladin, or Baladin?--and you have ultimate influence on how your character turns out in the end. Yes, powers require you to be using a particular weapon within your class's available selection, but the powers are not themselves tied to the gear. Powers tied to weapons or armor are typically powers that belong to the item, not to the character class that's most likely to use it.
Yes, there are only so many powers available, and these will be what you do in battle; this is all that the designers created. Yes, there is a time-frame in which they can be used; this has always been the case, even in the days of Vancian casting. Yes, there are suggested builds, but you can routinely ignore those if it pleases you; the only parts of a class you have to take are the class features, and even those have options at this point. But the only way that this can be considered at all conflatable with MMO character building/playing is if you are deliberately ignoring all of that.
In WoW, you choose a class and you're done. No multiclassing or hybridization, no way to mimic one class with careful building of a different one. There is a firm dividing line on what is a WoW class. No secondary roles or creative concepts, either; you're going to be what the class sets out to be, and that's it. You'll always have the same stat allocation as another of your class, because you get set numbers as you level up, and you've got at best four options--and that's only the Druid class--to build, and if you plan on running dungeons, particularly heroic level ones, or raiding, you'd better not even think of deviating from the single defined best build on the talent tree for what you want to do. It was only recently, with the complete tear-down and recreation of talent trees for Mists of Pandaria, that there was a concept of there being anything but the one best build that people who calculated such mechanical advantages (the folks on Elitist Jerks, for example), and the people who did things like achieve "World First" at various top-tier raids set precedent for.
Also, no class will ever not have a specific set of powers; all Priests in WoW have the same baseline, with deviation only based upon their talent tree specialization, where a D&D4e player could take whatever power in their class pleases them. Any Retribution Paladin will be the same as any other in terms of powers, because that is what a RetPally is. Any Assassination Rogue will always have the same powers as another, etc. All powers are always on specific cool-downs, but will always be there when they start a battle, where a 4e PC might enter an encounter with only At-Wills, or without their Daily powers due to what plot has done up until that point. Furthermore, no power that is not already specifically tied to an item will ever "require" you have that item, to my recollection. Classes get all their powers based on class; gear only gives bonuses to stats, possibly cuts down cast times for abilities or cooldowns, grants temporary extra bonuses to stats (the latter two most often on the raid tier equipment), and on rare occassions an extra power that may or may not be valuable, as some are only special effects instead of valuable abilities.
Most honest/open response on why DDN needs to be InclusiveShow
I've always felt it is in the best interests of D&D to be as inclusive across the playerbase as they can be and still have a game. I've never felt though that making a game that was inclusive within a group was very useful or even desirable. DM's and players can decide amongst themselves what options or restrictions they want for their games. I tend to lean to the DM to make most of those decisions but again that is a group specific thing.
Having said that. I get the distinct impression that there are a lot of players on these boards who come from groups that generally ruled against their own desires. It's almost like they are an oppressed minority from a gaming perspective. I also get the impression that they tend to advocate against things that if available their fellow group members might like and vote them down on.
Do a lot of you feel this way?
Just for clarification...here are some examples... 1. Alignment restrictions as an option. 2. Alignment Mechanics 3. Martial healing 4. Races being included or not.
I know my perspective is not that I often play at tables where my likes are not represented. Instead, my perspective comes from the many years I spent being a bad DM. I was a bad DM because my guidance came from the books, and the books gave bad advice. The books told me that alignment was a useful approach to roleplaying, so I went with it even though it felt kind of weird to me. Now I know that, at least in my style of running games, alignment destroys rp. I trusted the books to give good advice, and it messed up my game. Now I'm much more mature as a DM, so I know how to take advice with a grain of salt. And I still learn new stuff every session I run.
I don't want future DMs to go through my problems again. There's a big enough DM shortage as it is. DMing well is hard.
The biggest thing I had to unlearn in my process of becoming a good DM was the idea that the game is a simulation of a world. I understand many DMs prefer a more simulationist approach, although I am always skeptical simply because I would have said the same thing until I learned and grew as a DM. This doesn't mean their approach is completely invalid, but it still gives me a personal twinge when I see a regression back to 3e era sim style gaming.
I also have noticed many groups where one or two old-school players run a whole group's playstyle because the newer players aren't even aware there are other ways of doing things. The newer players tell me stories of things they hated in the session, and I end up explaining to them how those things they hate are very fixable, and in fact are fixed in the newer edition of the game their older players have told them is terrible.
In regard to things like martial healing, I don't think it's necessary for it to be in the game for the game to be fun. However, the attitude that says martial healing is terrible and shouldn't exist is an attitude that, to me, reveals a wrongheaded approach to the game. Therefore, my fight for it to be an option is to help legitimize the more narrative approach that I think is what most players want, but many don't know is possible, because they've never been exposed to it.
