Pulling out bows, the goblins take aim at Ragna. A hail of arrows rains down, a couple hitting, but the goblins don’t linger. Instead, they all make a mad scramble for the bookshelves, to dark corners, to places to hide. Fortunately for the moldering building, they opt not to drop their torches as they flee. MechanicsShow
Been too long, Glik and Amarill are delaying. They can enter in at any point.
Snipers attack 1 and 2 get a 26 and a 24 vs AC, Ragna is dealt 8 damage. Snipers 3 and 4 miss. Ragna is bloodied.
All the snipers except for 4 get to hiding places, too, so they may be hidden. You can see them by either beating their stealth with your Perception (either passive or you can make an active check as a minor action) or by seeing them straight-on.
-->Map: Library Entrance<-- Visibility: No Light. Each goblin sniper has a torch out, and Challis has a sunrod. Visibility is determined by your proximity to one of these sources. Walls: Black squares. They cannot be moved through, etc Floor: Brown squares. There are books here and there, but not enough to slow movement. Bookshelves: Dark brown squares. They are about ten feet tall, which reaches the ceiling. They are blocking terrain. The probably aren’t anchored too securely to the ground, but they are heavy, made of some solid wood and filled with books. Books: There are some squares that are overflowing with fallen books (marked with # marks), mostly in-between the bookshelves. The books are a nuisance here, acting as difficult terrain. Door: Red Line. It is closed Looks to be pretty solid.
Current Turn: Olidee, Ragna, Challis. Glik and Amarill are delaying, they can act during this time as well.
Olidee moves forward until she has a good view of the room. The big goblin in the middle of the room is nearly blocked by the two guards though. Her spirit takes position besides Ragna., waiting to be able to move outwards. She takes aim at the first guard, he ducks, but the arrow strikes his partner, dispersing into a cloud of fairly distracting flies.
Theres not enough room for the party, so she makes herself a little smaller, taking the form of a sparrow.
move: move to E4, move spirit (that is somewhere..) to G5 standard: Biting swarm (1d20+7=8, 1d10+5=13) misses free: using inevitable shot to redirect to G2: Biting Swarm (1d20+7=23, 1d10+5=6) should hit for minimal damage.. G2 and G1 have -2 on their attacks minor: Nature's mask -> animal form
Is it possible to fly through the shelves or do they have solid backs? Is it possible to fly over a goblin without getting OAs?
Ragna seems out of sorts for a moment, Olidee as well. Something seems amiss. There were voices in the other room, one gruff and complaining about something, Rort from the sounds of it. That seems familiar. Ragna loudly announcing his presence to the room. That's familiar, unfortunately.
Things seem amiss though. There's the pixie. Well, no, that seems right, there was always a pixie. Two mysterious types, both with some skill with magic. Or did only one have that talent? Both have skills though. Things seem wrong, but correct. Nagging feelings are probably best set aside as Ragna rounds the corner and sees the goblins.
A priestly sort in the center of the room brings him back to reality, simply intoning "Kill him," while pointing in Ragna's direction. However, initiative is his.
Welcome to the new players. Any questions, just ask.
For this game, I just roll initiative for the party to save time. New players, new initiatives. Combat is restarting. Everything up until now happened.
Rather than deal with introductions now, we can just gloss over some details and have it so that everyone in the party now has been there since the start, if that is fine with everyone. Only a few minor things have happened so far anyway.
-->Map: Library Entrance<-- Visibility: No Light. Each goblin sniper has a torch out. Visibility is determined by your proximity to one of these sources. Walls: Black squares. They cannot be moved through, etc Floor: Brown squares. There are books here and there, but not enough to slow movement. Bookshelves: Dark brown squares. They are about ten feet tall, which reaches the ceiling. They are blocking terrain. The probably aren’t anchored too securely to the ground, but they are heavy, made of some solid wood and filled with books. Books: There are some squares that are overflowing with fallen books (marked with # marks), mostly in-between the bookshelves. The books are a nuisance here, acting as difficult terrain. Door: Red Line. It is closed Looks to be pretty solid.
Current Turn: Ragna, Poppy, Koyuki. For new players, I don't care about the exact order you post in these groups.
Ragna has a sense of deja vu as he charges to the nearest hobgoblin and smashes downwards his hammer glowing, however he strike the ground as the creature dodges.
Poppy races into the room behind Ragnar, dodging bits of moldy books and other debris. When she's in range, she pulls one of her daggers and lets it fly at the closest goblin.
OOC: sorry for the delay folks! The Winter Fox moves quickly and with a shake of his bushy tail. Drawing his enchanted blade and with his iron pipe in his off hand, he bolts smoothly through the doorway to fully view the room. His keen eyes narrow and he moves to back his new comrade Ragna. With a flick of his wrist Koyuki hurls a frosty bolt of energy at the brawler that Ragna had just hit in an attempt to focus fire. :ActionsShow
Free: Iajutsu: EffectYou can draw a weapon and shift up to a number of squares equal to half your speed. If you end this move adjacent to an enemy, you gain a +2 power bonus to the next attack roll you make against that enemy before the end of your next turn. If your initiative is higher than every enemy's initiative, any melee weapon attack you make during your first turn of the encounter can score a critical hit on a roll of 18-20. Move: to G7 Standard: Eldritch Bolt vs. B2; +5 vs. Reflex; 1d10+8 Minor: none
Poppy’s dagger sticks from the nearest hobgoblin, which drops dead. Ragna tries to strike the other hobgoblin, but it warded off by its shield. The priestly one barks some orders and Ragna’s target reorients itself with some fancy footwork and delivers a quick shield bash, but Ragna is also able to ward off the blow.
The priest looks to be chanting something for a moment, when darkness flows from crevices and the ceiling to engulf the library. It seems to cling to everyone in it, but it appears to hinder the heroes rather than the goblins.
It is from this cloud of darkness that a hail of arrows flies from the goblins. The arrows may be small, but they hurt. MechanicsShow
Poppy kills Brawler 1.
When Ragna missed Brawler 2, the brawler was granted an attack. Only got a 14 vs AC, missed.
Warpriest goes, uses Vexing Cloud. Creates a zone where as long as you are in it, you take a -2 penalty to hit. Gurk’s allies also have concealment while in the cloud against attacks that originate from out of it.
Snipers attack. 2 attacks vs Koyuki: 24 and 19 vs AC hit, he is dealt 8 damage. 2 attacks vs Ragna: 12 misses, 28 hits. Ragna takes 4 damage.
-->Map: Library Entrance<-- Visibility: No Light. Each goblin sniper has a torch out, and Challis has a sunrod. Visibility is determined by your proximity to one of these sources. Walls: Black squares. They cannot be moved through, etc Floor: Brown squares. There are books here and there, but not enough to slow movement. Bookshelves: Dark brown squares. They are about ten feet tall, which reaches the ceiling. They are blocking terrain. The probably aren’t anchored too securely to the ground, but they are heavy, made of some solid wood and filled with books. Books: There are some squares that are overflowing with fallen books (marked with # marks), mostly in-between the bookshelves. The books are a nuisance here, acting as difficult terrain. Door: Red Line. It is closed Looks to be pretty solid. Vexing Cloud: Cloud of clinging darkness marked by the diagonal lines. Gurk’s enemies take a -2 penalty to attacks while in the zone. Gurk’s allies also have concealment against attacks that originate from outside of the cloud.
Olidee and her Spirit Companion rush forward, though Olidee stops in front of the cloud, not wishing to enter it. Her vision is quite impaired and she doesn't trust any arrows to reach her enemies.
As it is, she has another spirit to help her out in that situation. Myrs cloudy form comes into existance in front of the second Brawler and dives its hands into the creature before vanishing again.
So.. i'm outside of the zone for the attack so no penalty, and the attack originates from the spirit, so no concealment, yes? Still rather unlikely to hit.. Olidee is not rolling well^^
If it hits, B2 also has -2 to attack and defenses. This attack removes Myr from the Battlefield again (H8 is free)
Minor: Gaze of the Evil Eye @ Gurk — He takes 2 psychic damage if he attacks me (effect ends if he moves out of LOS).
Free: Telepathy @ Gurk (technically, I don't have a limit in the rules, but since most other telepathy powers have a 25 word limit, I'll self-impose that as a guideline).
The Vistani girl slips out from the hallway, brushing past the two fey creatures in a not-so-hurried sort of way, lurking by the corner of a bookshelf just behind the immediate fighting; she glances at the brawler, and assesses him, but is not impressed. She sees one of the snipers, but thinks nothing of it. Across the way, however, between two other shelves, she espies the hobgoblin priest, the one who brought forth this vexing cloud of shadows. She smiles in a vague sort of way, and stares him straight in the eye.
I see you, little man. I see who you are, I see what you are. You cannot hide from me. I see you, dead goblin.
As her unspoken thoughts are pressed into his mind, she flashes him some teeth, and licks her lips, hungry for the challenge.
Notes: • +5 to Surge Value for self & allies during short rest (Song of Rest). • Save vs Dazed or Dominated at start of turn instead of end (Dual Soul). • Telepathy (two-way) 5. • Obtain room & board for self & up to 7 allies at inns where bards are revered (Welcome Guest). • Receive audience (1/month) with ruling power of community that reveres bards (Demand Audience). • +2 to Diplomacy used on other Vistani (Vistani Heritage).
Actions: MBA: Scimitar, +1 vs AC, 1d8-1 RBA: Longbow, +2 vs AC, 1d10 Standard: [A]Cutting Words, [_]Malevolent Mischief, [_]Prophetic Action, [A]Vicious Mockery Minor: [_]Evil Eye of the Vistani, [A]Gaze of the Evil Eye, [_][_]Majestic Word, [_]Words of Friendship Immediate Interrupt: [_]Bastion of Mental Clarity, [_]Virtue of Prescience
• 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.
