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Dungeons & Dragons

Skler

Smash Master
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Yes, drow rogues for everyone.

Though I think it would be neat to do a game based on the smash bros universe.

Link the Bard, Marth the fighter, M2/Ness the Psion, Roy the fire based swordmage, Ganon the Warlock, Falcon the...I guess monk, any character can be justified!
 

Mic_128

Wake up...
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Our GM's finally back from Hong Kong so we're finally starting up again, which is good as when we finished off we were coming back to town with the body of the apprentice we were sent to find in two pieces (A demon did it) and the town guard's all come out, surrounded us and demanded that our Warlord surrender, as he was a captain that went AWOL ages back.

No idea how we're getting out of this, but I think it's good that charisma wasn't my dump stat.
 

Skler

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My group finally got to meeting again and I got to within 6 hp of death. At fourth level.

I don't mean 6 hp from becoming unconscious, I was almost at negative bloodied. My wizard (who is defense/control based) managed to get flanked by two shadowhunter bats while on a ladder when he was just above bloodied. He had been tanking well this encounter and had just avoided a fire bat, though he had soaked a nasty hit from a spider earlier that left him at 1 hp above bloodied. Since he wasn't bloodied none of my awesome last ditch defensive stuff came into play when the first bat hit (which I would have been able to Shield against had I been bloodied). The last bat rolled well enough that I couldn't stop it anyways and put me to 1 hp but still conscious. I then rolled an incredible 3 for my athletics check to not fall off the ladder (after bonuses) and got slightly above average falling damage.

I was then saved by the fighter and the bats were all dead within 2 rounds.

That's the closest anybody in my group has been to death! Max falling damage would have killed me (oh so barely), but fortunately I avoided faceplanting from 20 feet.

Next time I'm not going to climb a ladder unless I can reach the top in one round.
 

Mic_128

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Funny you should mention fall damage Skler, our Shaman used that greatly last wekend. Went into a room with all this rope netting around that went high up to the ceiling, so he summoned his animal companion into the netting where we found 3 pirates. He used one of his daily abilitities that was an aoe between him and the pet and got all 3 of them. He then glanced over the spell again and noticed it knocks them prone, so they all fell about 20 feet, one falling onto his face.

EDIT: 4th Ed here.
 

Skler

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I use 4e, and my group has some people who used to do 3.5 in it. I understand the rules for 3/3.5 reasonably well though.

The major differences are probably...

1. Wizards/casters in general have had their power toned down a lot (save or dies are pretty much gone, some monsters have attacks that can kill you if you get hit and fail 2 or more saves though).

2. Instead of having the enemy make a saving throw you attack vs their defense (you have a reflex, will and fort defense).

3. Skills were simplified, things like Hide and Move Silently are now Stealth. Climb and Swim are part of athletics.

4. No more CR, now monsters have levels.

5. NPCs use different rules than PCs, though you can still stat out an NPC using PC rules it isn't a good idea as PCs generally do more damage but have less max HP.

6. Each class now has at will powers (things they can do all day), encounter powers (once per short (5 minute) rest) and daily powers (once per extended (8 hour) rest). This means the fighter isn't going full attack each round and the wizard never runs out of spells.

7. There's some new mechanics like marking to make fighters and other beat sticks stickier. Monsters that try and escape the fighter can get whacked pretty hard, and he can still knock you over and all that other good stuff.

8. Races no longer have penalties to stats, only bonuses (all races have 2 bonuses except human, who get to pick one stat to have a +2 in).

That's all I can think of that seems really different. I'd join a 3.5 game if somebody near me was holding one.

I also seriously want to hold a smashboards play by post game. It's so easy to do!

Edit: falling damage makes my wizard happy. Thunderwave (aoe push 2 right now) and phantom bolt (ranged slide 1) means that he has no trouble sending monsters off of walls, into pits or through any other hazardous terrain in the area. Everything else he's got is just action denial and combat advantage granting goodness. Too bad his strongest attack only deals 2d6 + int.
 

finalark

SNORLAX
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What is 4E like compared to 3/3.5?

I'm assuming you've played those editions.
It's really, really different. In addition to the stuff that was already said, now there's only five alignments, some new classes, they imported the action points from 3rd Ed. Eberron, and I'm pretty sure that the dragonborn are new... that's all off to the top of my head. When fourth edition first came out my instant reaction was pretty much "they changed it, now it sucks." I got over it, seeing how I haven't played with the 4ed rules yet. My group refuses to let me run a game based off of them.
 

Vyse

Faith, Hope, Love, Luck
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Hey, I've been playing some DnD lately with a few smashers, lol.

Lvl 1 Gnome Bard reporting in.

What's that? +14 on Diplomacy and Bluff Checks?

Awright.
 

finalark

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You assume wrong. 4th ed is my first. :)
lol n00b

I'm joking

I started with third edition, which took be a bit but I eventually got it down. I hear that fouth edition is pretty newb friendly and was made to draw in new players. Which might be why I felt like I was reading an MMORPG manual when I was reading the new rule books....
 

D20

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I DM several 3.5 games. My group plays some pretty hardcore D&D... no house rules and no mercy. I absolutely refuse to fudge rolls. I just can't bring myself to do it. If the players can critically hit the goblins... the goblins can critically hit them. I recently had four PCs die over the course of three sessions.

This seems brutal? Not really. My players like the challenge and cope relatively well with PC death. I try my best to balance encounters, and, if the PCs play smart, only a slew of terribly unlucky rolls will kill them. I have to trust in the dice though. My username is D20 after all. Many other DMs disagree with my logic, but that is the real beauty of D&D - As long as everyone is having fun, everyone is a winner. Play however you would like.

As for the style of games I try to run? Story and role playing are always key. My primary focus is on atmosphere and on making it as easy as possible for the players to imagine their characters living in the world I have created. I probably go overboard on details sometimes, but I always make sure my campaign feels alive.

If anyone has any questions about DMing, feel free to ask. It has been my job for the last 10 years.
 

Brightside6382

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Apr 27, 2006
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lol n00b

I'm joking

I started with third edition, which took be a bit but I eventually got it down. I hear that fouth edition is pretty newb friendly and was made to draw in new players. Which might be why I felt like I was reading an MMORPG manual when I was reading the new rule books....
lol It's like playing WoW with dice!
 

Tom

Bulletproof Doublevoter
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I DM several 3.5 games. My group plays some pretty hardcore D&D... no house rules and no mercy. I absolutely refuse to fudge rolls. I just can't bring myself to do it. If the players can critically hit the goblins... the goblins can critically hit them. I recently had four PCs die over the course of three sessions.

This seems brutal? Not really. My players like the challenge and cope relatively well with PC death. I try my best to balance encounters, and, if the PCs play smart, only a slew of terribly unlucky rolls will kill them. I have to trust in the dice though. My username is D20 after all. Many other DMs disagree with my logic, but that is the real beauty of D&D - As long as everyone is having fun, everyone is a winner. Play however you would like.

As for the style of games I try to run? Story and role playing are always key. My primary focus is on atmosphere and on making it as easy as possible for the players to imagine their characters living in the world I have created. I probably go overboard on details sometimes, but I always make sure my campaign feels alive.

If anyone has any questions about DMing, feel free to ask. It has been my job for the last 10 years.
omg you are my dream DM

my group is playing 3.5e right now and we were allowed to roll monster races if they were within like +2 difficulty modifier or whatever... so we have a half orc and a half dragon and **** :x

im a Lumi :3
 

Skler

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Four PCs in three sessions! Are you running the tomb of horrors? My last two sessions have seen PCs on the ground, but we've always managed to pick them up before the monsters could take their next turn. It's reallllly hard time die before getting knocked unconscious in 4e since you have to hit negative bloodied. If it was -10 me and the cleric would both have been dead before we hit the floor (and the poor cleric had it all happen in a surprise round with the help of a crit).

D20, run a game at a smash tournament some time. Do it.
 

D20

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D20, run a game at a smash tournament some time. Do it.
I would be so game for this. It just so happens that I am currently writing a campaign that is meant to play out, in its entirety, over the course of just one or two sessions.

Essentially, my plan is to drop the PCs in the world where the adventure is completely non-linear. They could chose a number of various ways to proceed... they could explore all of the content that I will have prepared or just a small portion of it. Their goal is simply to solve the mystery and escape with their lives before it is too late.

If we could find two or three other people interested in playing for 3-5 hours some night, it could work. Pound 5?
 

D20

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I will certainly be at one or two of them. I haven't made any plans yet, but you can expect me at any 200+ person event in the North East or Midwest.
 

Skler

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My intrepid group of adventurers almost died to some pre-errata snake swarms, 2 pseudo dragons and an evil wizard BBEG last friday. Those snakes are broken! They trip as a minor (vs fort, so the squishy people who need to run can't avoid it) and get a free attack if you start next to them. It really didn't help that there were 3 of them. Two of them reached me and the Cleric, poor cleric went down before she could act (2 attacks + 2 free attacks on her turn, all of them with combat advantage).

We just got lucky that the wizard didn't save against Sleep and he got eaten by the fighter before we could get crushed by the snakes. I also knocked out the party warlock with that sleep, good times.

D&D is fun!
 

Zook

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I'm trying to get my current adventuring buddies to switch over to 4th edition, but I'm meeting some resistance from our main DM, a 3.5 junkie. He thinks that 4th edition is too dumbed down (the skill system, attack system, etc.), the books are blah, etc. etc. My arguement to that is that the number 1 reason we don't play DnD is because it takes waaaay too long to set up in 3.5, and after we finish making characters and setting up the game, no one wants to play.

I wanna be a Dragonborn Shaman godammit :mad:
 

Spire

III
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I'm trying to get my current adventuring buddies to switch over to 4th edition, but I'm meeting some resistance from our main DM, a 3.5 junkie. He thinks that 4th edition is too dumbed down (the skill system, attack system, etc.), the books are blah, etc. etc. My arguement to that is that the number 1 reason we don't play DnD is because it takes waaaay too long to set up in 3.5, and after we finish making characters and setting up the game, no one wants to play.

I wanna be a Dragonborn Shaman godammit :mad:
This is why back in the 3.0/3.5 days, I literally never played a real game. I set up tons of campaigns, created countless creatures, equipment, characters, etc., but never once got to play a real game. Though without denial, it was loads of fun learning the game's mechanics and such.
 

Skler

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4e has the glorious character builder and a free adventure + rules on WotC's site. There's really no reason for people not to give it a try assuming you have dice, some paper and a printer.

It takes maybe 10 minutes for a completely new player to make a character with the builder.

I also love making characters. It's addicting.
 

JOE!

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so i have a question to you guys regarding something odd that happened in a campaign last night with my friends:

I made a spartan-esque type of character, and as such, had their massive shield.

now, all this did was increase my AC, and when i said "i hunker down behind it to avoid an arrow" the arrow hit me in the leg ( we have a target die for area hit :p )

I asked how this could have possibly worked as my entire body was behind a shield, the answer was that he hit above my AC.

my question to you is, why are shields simply counted as an increase to AC, and not an entirely different roll altogether? Shouldnt one have to roll to see if they get by the shield, and then for their armor if they have any?
 

D20

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The less you roll, the less time you waste. Since shield bonuses stack with armor bonuses, only one roll is necessary. I am not sure what version of D&D you are playing, but, in 3.0/3.5, when your character attempts to fully protect himself (as yours did), you gain a bonus to your AC (although you give up the ability to attack or move effectively). I do not know the particulars off the top of my head, but your character would probably have a very high AC based on the description you gave. For example...

Base 10 + 4 Armor + 2 Shield + 1 Dex + 4 Dodge (for total defense) = 21 AC

However, to answer your question... it is done to save time (and make the DM/PCs lives easier).
 

JOE!

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wouldnt the majority of the time be the same, however?

*rolls* does it beat the shield? No -> move on

Yes-> does it then beat the AC of the armor? -> no, move on

Yes-> i get hit

if anything it should just require 2 checks IMO, not two rolls
 

Zook

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wouldnt the majority of the time be the same, however?

*rolls* does it beat the shield? No -> move on

Yes-> does it then beat the AC of the armor? -> no, move on

Yes-> i get hit

if anything it should just require 2 checks IMO, not two rolls
Just make your own house rules. The beauty of DnD is that nothing is set in stone.
 

Skler

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Yeah, house ruling can fix anything that doesn't make sense.

Another thing is that HP is really abstract. That arrow could have just hit your shield really hard and hurt your arm or something.



Also an update on my group.

We're going to Castle Ravenloft, the DM said he converted the module to 4e. We just engaged a group of zombies that were trying to kill some paladin of Pelor in what may be the town square as far as I can tell. My wizard is exceptionally tanky right now, a 24 AC when not using Shield and he has other nasty tricksies to escape enemies that can hit him (and his lowest Non-Armor Defense is 18, he's got huge NADs). He was kind of surrounded when we had to stop last session, but at least he got the paladin safe.
 

Mic_128

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Mega bumpage! Where are allyou die rollers?

Our GM's finally back from Hong Kong so we're finally starting up again, which is good as when we finished off we were coming back to town with the body of the apprentice we were sent to find in two pieces (A demon did it) and the town guard's all come out, surrounded us and demanded that our Warlord surrender, as he was a captain that went AWOL ages back.

No idea how we're getting out of this, but I think it's good that charisma wasn't my dump stat.
Man, a fair bit's changed since this. I tried to lure away the army's sorcerer and went for a feint, pretending to trip over and knock myself out so I could ambush them from behind. Didn't expect the sorcerer to cast sleep on me and walk off. Our changling rogue changed into our Warlord and surrendered, whom we later broke out. Can't remember all of it but it among other events that occurred, we quelled a riot, put out some burning buildings (or at least tried to, turns out ice spells did more damage punching holes in the buildings than the fire, and stopping a bunch of villagers sacrificing themselves (knocked them out which backfired when my character went for help, told the other PC's what had happened and where, heard of the party started to quell the riots, failed a roll and went to the party, leaving one to regain conciousness and kill most and herself)

Since then we defeated the usurper Ryther and began to help set up a stable and non-corrupt government.

We were also sent to track down and kill this succubus who had popped up a few times after she had kidnapped a number of children. We ended up reaching her lair, fought her and some blood mages that were summoning a devil. The kids had already be The kids had been long killed and the portal was nearing completion. We had some fun with the fight as the bloodmages were greatly weakened to summon the portal (I pulled one into the half-completed portal and the energies tore him apart :D) and we managed to take them all out but one of the bloodmages who were fighting us, just in time as the portal was one turn's worth of channelling away from being completed.

Amazingly the last bloodmage ran for the portal and gave the entire team an opportunity attack against him. The slightest hit would have killed him but the ******* made it and summoned this devil. I amazingly managed to crit and knock him back a few squares before he came in, but he mind controlled the shaman into the portal who he strangled and brought the corpse with him when he walked back to our plane. He then killed the succubus, laid waste to the team, leaving me and the warlord left on barely any health before laughing at us and walking off. We called it there as the GM hadn't expected us to fail at stopping the summoning.

So current toll is Demons who enjoy popping up and cursing/siccing imps on us: 1
Devils released into the plane: 1
Not great statistics.

On the plus side, my Dragonborn Paladin had a dream where his wings were able to carry him and fly around and woke up flying above the town. Flew back to the inn to find a Raven's feather on his pillow. <3 Raven Queen. :D
 

Zook

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Bump! I don't feel like making a new DnD thread. lol

I've been running my own campaign now, and I gotta say, its really fun to DM. We had an encounter last session where the PCs fought an aberrant inspired by a Las Plagas from RE4, and it was a blast.

Anyone else here a dice roller?
 
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