4e magic items!

[SphereOfFeetMan]

Sphere- 2 rounds, with the poison.

The Spined Devil is immune to Fire and Poison.

[Zherog]

Could somebody throw me a link to where the pit fiend's stats are posted originally?

edit: nevermind - i found the link

[Voss]

1201348923[/unixtime]]

Sphere- 2 rounds, with the poison.

The Spined Devil is immune to Fire and Poison.

Thats from the lower, 3rd edition card. All the 4e info is in the top card. It only has fire resist 20, and nothing against poison.

[RandomCasualty]

The save to negate idea may be a new development to try to prevent people from having to count durations in rounds. I'm guessing a big playtester complaint was having to track all this bullshit, which becomes even harder if it's in round.

I mean imagine if burning was "light him on fire for 5 rounds" and poison was "deals poison damage over 3 rounds" or whatever.

That gets impossible to manage pretty soon.

So they just made durations effectively random with the new save mechanic.

[Voss]

50/50 to end each round feels fairly useless though.

It certainly isn't reliable damage.
"Soon, worm, the poison in your veins will slowly kill you"
"13! No, I'm fine."
"Dammit!"

[CatharzGodfoot]

1201371691[/unixtime]]
I mean imagine if burning was "light him on fire for 5 rounds" and poison was "deals poison damage over 3 rounds" or whatever.

That gets impossible to manage pretty soon.

"Give the player three poison tokens. Each round he removes one and his character takes 1 point of damage until no tokens remain."

That's a really simplistic way of doing it, and has a number of flaws, but in general using tokens in various fashions is a pretty good solution to the ongoing effect problem. Poker chips work fine.

[the_taken]

And there's those little glass beady things that you put in the bottom of plasta-plant jars that are something like a dollar for fifty.

[Koumei]

It's easy to get a variety of tokens and things. Heck, the Pokemon card game even comes with a bunch of coloured plastic beads for health tokens.

Not that I play the Pokemon card game. I hate card games.

It isn't too hard, but it could be a bit annoying.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

I'm guessing that the pit fiend is designed more as a general commanding summoned minions than as an individual combatant. If action points allow you to move up the initiative order or automatically go first, that may be the reason it has one. I mean, if it doesn't get to summon its minions before the PCs close, it's chopped liver. OTOH, if the PCs have action points to spare....

And its teleport power is specifically labeled a "tactical teleport," presumably to differentiate it from regular teleport. Furthermore, it's given a specific range at the top of the fiend's stat block. That means it might be possible for other monsters to have different tactical teleport ranges.

[Username17]

Back to magic items. Why does Mearls think that being required to play pretty princess dressup between battles to get the best bonuses means that we won't bother trying to get the best bonuses?

I personally feel insulted by the idea of having D&D being reduced to Barbie Horse Adventures of Warcraft. Where we all run around in weird outfits and then change our belts, bracelets, and shoes after every major encounter to get a different set of static bonuses next encounter (because our prettiest clothes only function for one battle per day). But just because it's stupid and insulting doesn't mean I won't do it.

I think most of us found the idea of wearing girdles and ear rings kind of out genre in 3rd edition. But we still did it.

Most people are going to be the prettiest princess they can be if it means getting the biggest bonuses. Is this WotC's big push to grab the covetted 8 year old girl market?

-Username17

[Crissa]

I'm wondering if the uses will follow the items or the user. The latter is far easier to balance.

"I'm sorry, you've used a belt today. You can't use one twice until level 12."

-Crissa

[Yahzi]

From that link:

Who gives a flying frak if the orc chieftain's stat block doesn't directly state that his axe attack is explicitly using the +2 axe you can loot from him, if the end result is exactly the same? Only someone who cares so much about semantics and nitpicking.

So... if I want my NPCs to have any other stats than "DM SAYS SO!," I'm a nit-picky semantics whore?

WTF? Why even have a MM?

DM: You are attacked by 8 goblins!
Player: I swing my sword.
DM: At this point in the adventure it is necessary for you to have killed 3 goblins. 3 goblins fall over and die.
Player: I swing my sword.
DM: The rest of the goblins duck.
Player: I swing my sword... lower?
DM: The goblins turn insubstantial. And invisible.
Player: I...
DM: The module says you should be at 1/2 hit points now. You take 17 damage.
Player:!
DM: Another goblin appears in front of you. It dies instantly.
Player: (sound of snoring)

[Koumei]

1201459761[/unixtime]]Back to magic items. Why does Mearls think that being required to play pretty princess dressup between battles to get the best bonuses means that we won't bother trying to get the best bonuses?

I'm pretty sure you covered the answer to this before. Something on the lines of "Mike Mearls is a douchebag."

You may have used a different term. You also may have sworn. Regardless, you spoke the truth.

So let's look at the wonderful team members D&D has recently had:
Andy "I smoke crack!" Collins
Skip "I hate sorcerers!" Williams
Mike "I'm a fucking moron who doesn't understand the simplest games mechanics" Mearls?

Seriously, what next? Kevin Siembieda and his coke-addicted python for an editor? CS "Multilasers!" Goto doing the setting information?

And yet I still meet people who are optimistic about it, and who liked Saga and Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic, and who are sure that any problems are just because we haven't seen the full, completed rules. They also think the gnome in the video was hilarious, but admitted that it was intended to be that annoying to reflect most people's opinions of them.

I only saw it yesterday. I don't like the Tiefling's accent. Why didn't they get an actual Eastern European girl to do the voice? Also, she has ugly teeth.

I have to say, it'll be funny to have a character with about thirty pairs of shoes in her bag of holding, spending half an hour trying to decide which ones to wear before each encounter.

[RandomCasualty]

1201490066[/unixtime]]
So... if I want my NPCs to have any other stats than "DM SAYS SO!," I'm a nit-picky semantics whore?

WTF? Why even have a MM?

Well there's a difference between arbitrary stats and playing DM says so. Arbitrary stats is simply less simulationist. The monster is a level 6 difficulty and it plays out like a level 6 difficulty. Basically the rules don't treat it to the granularity of the fact that we care what axe it's using and what special effect it has. The monster is simply a speedbump along the way. But regardless the monster still has a fixed set of bonuses and abilities. It's just that the abilities and bonuses are arbitrarily designed.

Playing DM says so means that the monsters tend to pick up or lose abilities whenever they want, and also probably means the DM fudges rolls. That's quite a bit different than just having an arbitrary monster creation system.

And really I guess I do believe that it is nitpicking to ask that all the monsters bonuses adhere to some weird set of rules that doesn't even matter. That monster is an obstacle, and I care how much of a speedbump it is, and I care what treasure the PCs get from killing it, and I care about world consistency, but I really don't' care about minor bonuses. As a DM I dont' want to bother tracking them. Just give me stats for the speedbump and lets go.

If that +2 axe bonus isn't in the actual stat block, nobody is going to really know or even care.

It's just like the fact that you don't particularly care what feats the monsters have taken. Maybe it took weapon focus and dodge, or maybe it's got power attack, but whatever. You only actually know about the stuff that you actually see. Everything else is just behind the scenes and you have no clue one way or the other.

Back to magic items. Why does Mearls think that being required to play pretty princess dressup between battles to get the best bonuses means that we won't bother trying to get the best bonuses?

I personally feel insulted by the idea of having D&D being reduced to Barbie Horse Adventures of Warcraft. Where we all run around in weird outfits and then change our belts, bracelets, and shoes after every major encounter to get a different set of static bonuses next encounter (because our prettiest clothes only function for one battle per day). But just because it's stupid and insulting doesn't mean I won't do it.

I don't really blame Mearls for that one. I blame Andy Collins. His name is on the magic item compendium, and Mearls is the one behind Iron Heroes, the game with no magic items at all. Yeah, this new crazy paradigm started in the magic item compendium where they thought a bunch of limited use items X/day items would be awesome. Then they went right ahead and made them slotted items, like that somehow prevents people from just swapping them in the middle of battle. From the weapon/shield augment crystals to those magic items that had limited uses, the whole point seemed to be to carry a bucket of cheaper items and hotswap them depending on the situation.

This is Andy's pet idea, and for whatever reason. it's been decided that the whole design team has to get behind it.

As sad as it is to say I actually feel like Mearls is probably the most knowledgeable person on the design team. Now that's not saying much, given that he's competing with Ed "Druids are underpowered" Stark and Andy "How far can my head go up my ass" Collins.. but still.

Basically the evolution of the game is that they come up with decent concepts, like removing divergency by going to entirely X+1/2 level or X+level for BaB and saves, similar to saga, or Iron Heroes. Then some fucktard like Andy Collins decides to bring back +4 swords and fuck it up again.

[CatharzGodfoot]

1201498963[/unixtime]]

If that +2 axe bonus isn't in the actual stat block, nobody is going to really know or even care.

So what happens when you disarm the guy?

[RandomCasualty]

1201500052[/unixtime]]

1201498963[/unixtime]]

If that +2 axe bonus isn't in the actual stat block, nobody is going to really know or even care.

So what happens when you disarm the guy?

Well he can either pick up his axe again, fight unarmed or draw another weapon.

The only real problematic one of those is drawing another weapon. And offhand I'd say you just implement some kind of generic penalty for him using his backup weapon (assuming he has one).

See the advantage of arbitrary bonuses is you don't know where that shit comes from. So some of it might come from weapon specialization or what not. So when he trades his axe for a longsword, you just assign some arbitrary penalty like -2 or -4 or whatever for using a secondary weapon. Then you move on with your life. Disarm is just a debuff and the PC's action made a difference. Whether the penalty exists because the axe was magic or because it was a specialized weapon is largely irrelevant.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

If you disarm him, his CR goes down. But that's okay, because if you blinded, slowed or nauseated him he would he also been less of a threat.

But seriously, who cares what the CR is with something as minor as a +2 axe. You know that DMs are going to do what they've always done: look at the CR, give it something cool/original, and add a d2. We don't even play with experience, because it's stupid to have, stupid to spent time calculating, and hard to calculate on top of it all.

[JonSetanta]

I tried to address the issue of underequipped warrior PCs with the Weaponsoul class, elsewhere in this board.
It's more powerful than traditional Fighter because, well, that's obvious.
But I'm not sure of the whole experiment in giving an invisible magic item or unlimited buff as a swappable (takes 1 hour to change) class ability.
The goal was to essentially guarantee the Weaponsoul decent SLAs (granted by spell effect items and weapons) and bonuses straight off the progression rather than as handouts, and the player can change them each day out of a limited list as situations and roles become obsolete.

[Bigode]

Weaponsoul: why not play a cleric? Or whatever, give it full BAB in exchange for some minor thing, or give full BAB to the Trollman-Suilin sorcerer?

[Username17]

Related Question: They keep ranting about how Save or Dies are gone. Indeed, people don't get saves anymore so that's kind of true.

But for goodness sake sleep is still on the menu. The 1st level preview ability for the Paladin (a "defender") dishes out - conservatively 34 average damage when swung by a 6th level character. A 6th level skirmisher has 47 hit points.

So it seems to me that what we're looking at is that the Save or Die paradigm is gone only because the attacker is now rolling the die to determine if you go down in one hit.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

I don't think Sleep and "You are now unconscious and helpless for the rest of the encounter" effects will be the same in 4e as before.
Or at least I hope not.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Either that or we have to make up a new acronym. How about SaK (Succeed and Kill)?

[Talisman]

Use the Schwartzenegger accent for extra fun.
"Succeed undt Keel" = SuK.