Dark Sun returns

[Lago PARANOIA]

Ugh, I'm not even sure if this encounter is supposed to be easy or hard.

If you're level 28-30 characters, it's not all that hard. You only hit 50% of the time with 'basic' min-maxxing and no pinch-hitter abilities, but if you have five or so 'immobilizing' options between the party and/or if you have two properly rangers that can reach it, you can pretty much ice it before it's a problem even with the Lashing Tail At-Will.

If you have some way to provide mass resistance (such as you have a swordmage or a wizard on your team) then you should also be gold. Necrotic damage is really common already so if you don't have some way of resisting it by level 30 you should be shot. The psychic damage might be a pisser, though, since it's much more rare than necrotic damage. Then again, it's Dark Sun so you might be expected to snag it anyway. And if your party has something dumb like Demigod Epic Destiny then they can just pop their Divine Regeneration and slug their way through.

If you're built like I think that 4E wants you to build characters (you don't abuse stuff like Divine Regeneration or check the damage resistance charts), then it dances around the field while draining the hit points of the party really quickly. I mean, if it takes to the air before you can get the melee characters on it then they're fucked. Hell, if you have a mostly-melee party then you're double fucked. If you don't have two top-tier strikers or two top-tier controllers, you're pretty much fucked. It's a slow fucking-over but it's a fucking over.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Ugh, high-level party configurations in 4E are so unbalanced it's crazy. Having a team of controllers is you telling the DM that you win the game forever.

[Psychic Robot]

Reading more about 4e Dark Sun. There are quite a few poison powers. In the case of the Athasian Minstrel, you don't actually need to possess poison; you automatically generate it magically. At least from what I can tell. So rather than creating poisons that anyone can use, you need special powers to use poisons.

Characters can automatically choose wild talents at character creation if the DM allows it. These are kind of cool at-will abilities ranging from the ability to light unattended objects on fire to sending short telekinetic messages to your allies. There are only ten of them, though.

There are new battlemind powers and a few new builds for fighters, shamans, and sorcerers. The sorcerer-king pact is a new build for warlocks who have been imbued with magical powers by the eponymous sorcerer-kings. You get this ability called fell might, and you can spend it on your powers to make them better. Whenever you drop an enemy you have cursed with your warlock's curse, your fell might recharges.

The at-will for the sorcerer-king pact is hand of blight. Melee touch/ranged 10, Con or Cha vs. Fort, 1d8 + Cha or Con necrotic and psychic damage. Using your fell might lets it do an additional 1d8 damage. One wonders why this bonus damage didn't increase with level, but who knows. The big power for this class is Dregoth's Ashen Curse, a melee touch/ranged 10 Cha or Con vs. Reflex attack. 3d8 + Cha or Con fire damage, target is slowed, target takes an ongoing 15 damage. It has an aftereffect where the target is slowed, weakened, and takes an ongoing 10 damage. (I'm not particularly impressed, but I've never had the opportunity to play 4e, so I can't really comment on it.)

Now, what I've really been waiting for is to get to the dragon king epic destiny. This shit should rock the house, right? I mean, you're a fucking dragon king, the big bad in the Dark Sun setting, so you should kick ass, right? Even the fluff agrees:

Draconic Ascension: As your destiny approaches, you gain the final cold-blooded insight you need to complete your transformation. As a dragon, you might create a domain worthy of your ambition. You could topple the petty sorcerer-kings or fashion yourself as a god of those who don’t know better.

Sweet. So let's check out those class features.

Skin of the Dragon (21st level): You gain lowlight vision and a +2 bonus to Intimidate checks. In addition, you gain 5 hit points and add your Constitution modifier to your healing surge value.

Draconian Defilement (21st level): When you use arcane defiling, your reroll gains a +2 power bonus to the attack roll or a +6 power bonus to the damage roll.

Draconic Transformation (24th level): You gain a fly speed of 8 and can speak Draconic. Also, choose two ability scores from among Intelligence,
Strength, and Constitution. Each of those ability scores increases by 2.

Draconic Terror (30th level): You gain the scathing breath power. In addition, you can use draconic rampage once per encounter without expending its daily use. When you do so, the power’s effect lasts until the end of your next turn instead of until the end of the encounter.

+5 HP? Fly speed 8? +2 to one ability score? This is what being a bigger badass than the sorcerer-kings is all about? Well, maybe those powers are fuckyear awesome, right? Right?

Scathing Breath: Close blast 5, primary ability score vs. Reflex. 4d8 + primary ability modifier damage, and the targets are blinded until the end of their next (respective) turns.

Draconic Rampage: Minor action. You turn into a dragon. Your size becomes Large. Whenever a non-minion within 10 squares of you drops, you gain 10 temporary HP. Also, you get an opportunity action that lets you knock an enemy prone and do 2d8 + primary ability modifier damage.

Uh.

Okay, then.

[Prak]

anyone know when the hell they're going to put out their Dark Sun minis? I need a thri kreen for my Runequest bugman...

[Blicero]

I think there was a Thr-Kreen in their first mini set (was that Harbinger?) You could probably find one of them...somewhere.

[Prak]

yeah, I've seen their old ones, for some reason I'm hoping they have better looking ones when they release Dark Sun minis.

[Psychic Robot]

The Legend Lives On (24th level): If you die and do not return to life within 12 hours, a devoted follower, such as a trusted lieutenant, takes your place, adopting your identity, your equipment, and your goals. This follower is identical to you, with the same level, race, class, paragon path, epic destiny, feats, and so forth. The two of you are essentially the same person and even have the same memories and experiences, if only because your follower listened so closely to your tales. If you are revived after being dead for more than 12 hours, your trusted follower returns to his or her former role.

[Maxus]

Yarrr, I be the Dread Pirate Roberts!

[Kaelik]

Assuming that's a real ability, it's probably the most interesting ability with the most positive contribution to good gameplay of 4e.

Which is why I assume it's the level 30 "game over" ability.

[ubernoob]

Assuming that's a real ability, it's probably the most interesting ability with the most positive contribution to good gameplay of 4e.

Which is why I assume it's the level 30 "game over" ability.

Level 24, actually.

[Wesley Street]

yeah, I've seen their old ones, for some reason I'm hoping they have better looking ones when they release Dark Sun minis.

Frustratingly, no thri-kreen have been yet announced for next month's Lords of Madness release.

Harbinger thri-kreen are going for approximately 20 bucks a mini on ebay. Prices on after market retail websites are comparable, so if you can find one, and good luck, you're paying through the nose.

I'm using ettercaps for the time being. Mezzodemons might work as well.

[Prak]

ick, thanks, but, neither of those are going to work for my character. Wotc's bug man minis are ugly as sin.

[sake]

Most of the sorcerer-king pact powers are underwelming aside from their melee or range/cha or con gimmick. Having them all have pact boon augments was a cool idea, but sadly, most of the augments aren't more powerful than the basic riders other pact based powers get for free.

The pact's saving grace seems to be a feat that adds an extra die to your curse damage and makes it do psychic damage. Expect it to be nerfed in the next errata.

There's a Battlemind feat that makes all forced based powers do thunder damage , so you can actually make Force a useful keyword now... by converting it into one of the good keywords. So expect lots of build to start MC'ing into Battlemind and using a force weapon so they can finally get on demand thunder damage. The class itself is still worthless chaff though.

The wild talents are pretty fun... they're about on the same level as a wizard's cantrips. The book suggests letting DS characters have one for free and you can get three of them for a single feat, which isn't too bad, even if they're all things that the psionic classes should have gotten for free in the first place, like at will Sending and Mage Hand.

The magic items are all pretty lousy... nothing that will really get added to anyone's 'The Good Magic Items' lists.

Some of the art's nice, they finally let that one Dragon/Dungeon artist I really like do stuff in a actual book for a change.

[Psychic Robot]

An interesting thing about the powers they've included. There a number of powers that scale far better than their PHB counterparts. In the original 4e PHB, you get your powers and then they never scale, save for the at-wills getting a boost from 1[W] to 2[W] at 21st level. A majority of the damage-dealing powers in Dark Sun automatically scale every ten levels.

For instance, the Bloodythirsty Elemental is a level three power conjures an elemental that you can dismiss to make an area attack 1 that does 1d10 + ability mod damage. At 13th level, it does 2d10 + mod damage, and at 23rd level, it does 3d10 + ability mod damage. Likewise, the level seven gladiator power Murderous Rampage does 2[W] + mod damage. At 17th level, it does 3[W] + mod damage, and at 27th level, it does 4[W] + mod damage.

Now, I would have thought this would have been obvious to include in the first place, but this is WotC.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Really? I view them doing that as not having learned a damned thing and the wheels coming off of cart of quality control.

The fact that rangers specifically refuse to pick up level 25 and 29 dailies is an embarrassment to both the people who write the powers and the system at large. The fact that the crowning 4E fighter power at level 29 is now weaker (thanks, errata) than its level 25 counterpart reveals just how shallow 4E really is. I mean, one of 4E's big advertising slogans is 'no empty levels! New stuff every level!'--but how can that be true when people specifically reject power upgrades that will make them weaker?

Making powers autoscale only increases the probability that people will not pick up new powers when it's time for them to do so, meaning that the veneer comes off and you reveal that the system has just as many empty levels as 3E did.

The real question is what dumbass who wrote the book thought that this was a good idea. Well, it is a good idea, but what would normally be a good idea is bad for this edition.