I have re-made Tread on Character Builder, but haven't updated her character sheet. I remembered to take the Survival Day into account and all. A basic overview of what has changed:

At-Will:
Crushing Surge
Resolute Shield

Encounter:
Hack and Hew

Daily:
Comeback Strike

Meanwhile, my question to Seth: Is it OK for Tread to just be able to transform for pure flavor? Or is the ability to turn into a tank or whatever too much of a possible advantage if being chased through a city and I want to be in disguise? (Even though being an obvious alien machine of destruction would draw more attention than not)

The difference? I would take Toughness instead of the Druid MC if I'm allowed to Transform for pure flavor. (Heck, considering it anyway, but still...)

Understandable, although why did you keep Resolute Shield but not Weaponmaster's strike (other than Weapon master's strike having a scaling issue RAW at epic levels? If you want a shield based skill due to using a shield then Tide of iron is better as Resolute Shield is pretty pathetic since the DR only applies to the attack of the single creature you hit with the attack. Since your a fighter using a shield using either footwork Lure or Tide of Iron might be a better second At-Will with Crushing Surge.



As a 'pure flavor' ability I could see a transformation based 'variant wild talent' as long as it wasn't any more powerful than existing wild talents.

However turning into a literal tank or 'alien machine of destruction' would draw a hell of a lot of attention. Heck transforming into anything will draw some attention although seeing the transformed state only may or may not depending what it is. A 'beast wars' style transformation wouldn't draw as much attention as a 'I just turned into a tank' although in D&D 4th edition there is no power that can even replicate the okay in this form I gain a type of heavy artillery or heavy weapon ranged attack. Not to mention if your wanting a character that can transform like that and have the transformations actually change you, then you might be better off as a Warden instead of a fighter since the daily 'form' powers ARE polymorph abilities. Even MC Druid's wild shape is pretty pathetic since without an at will beast power all it does is prevent you from doing pretty much anything other than moving around and it doesn't even give a bonus to moving around or a bonus for anything else. Plus the only feats that give bonuses in a wild form typically require a specific type of druid, which isn't granted by the MC druid feat (like predator druid, or guardian druid).

So the real question is do you want to be able to do anything while transformed. If the answer is yes you actually might be better off as a Warden using the 'form of' dailies several of which are rather nice, like Winter's Herald. These style of transformations would be you taking an alternative form that still allows you to use all your normal abilities plus you gain something new. An alternative method would be to be a druid, hybrid druid, or a hybrid warden.

On the other hand if your just wanting a fluff but no effect other than a cool party trick, then a variation of a wild talent would be suitable (which would replace body equilibrium. Heck I could even think of a refluffed variation of Body Equilibrium that would be the transformation if it is only used for brief periods of time as you could 'free action' transform into a form that has the benefits of Body Equilibrium, move as per the power, and then 'free action' transform back into normal form.)

So how integral are you wanting your transformations to be as part of the character's abilities? Right now your effectively a non-transforming/fluff transforming heavy amor.

- As I see it a non-transforming (or fluff only transforming) Tread would be a Pure Fighter with Heavy Armor. (This is what you effectively are as Tread right now as a Battle Rager Fighter.)
- A combat transforming Tread as a Heavy Armor Defender could work as a Hybrid Fighter/Warden (using Hybrid Talent to pick up Fighter armor specialization) This would allow you access to the Polymorphing Warden Dailies while still being able to focus on using Fighter Stats either as Str/Con or Str/Wis as they work for Wardens as well.
- A Combat transforming Tread that uses Light armor (Hide Armor) could work as either a hybrid Fighter/Warden using the Hybrid Talent to get Guardian's Might and using either option that lets you use Con for AC and then with Hide Armor if your con starts at 18 after racial bonus your AC would match that of Plate AC even at level 30. You'd still get heavy shields. Also with this option you could also go Pure Warden. As far as health goes Warden's get more health than even Fighters but are hide+heavy shield instead of Scale and heavy shield.

You could also do something involving druids but the wild shape would disable at least half your stuff if your a hybrid and druids don't make good defenders like fighters and wardens due to no marking, best you could do is single target lockdowns.

So basically there are 3 to 4 options and none would make my head explode. (Actually there is an alternative heavy armor transformation combo that I could see, paladin/Warden for a Str/Wis build that would use Hybrid Talent to get the paladin armor and then start with Plate+Heavy Shield. But that brings in some divine power, but not much, and with Surya being an invoker/wizard I don't see it as being a real issue, so technically there are 5 options.)
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:16, Sat 17 Sept 2011.

  At least, not without Rituals like 'Gentle Repose' (only lv 1, only 10 GP component, around since PH1, no rolls.... But Hour of ritual per body and lasts only 150 days) that prevent Undead raising, but not 'Raise Dead' alongside x4 time Raise dead will work on the body.

  Though, revising the statement to 'Nothing practical that will prevent the dead from rising as undead' honestly may as well be the same thing.  I guess Team Shadowfell shouldn't have bothered then.


  EDIT: Unrelated.  There are only two City Of Heroes patch notes today that matter to you two.

  A) Today was the day they shut down the ability to make new leveling pacts 'until we can revisit the system'.  Existing ones stay.
  B)  AE Custome enemies with self Rez only give rewards the first time they are beaten now.  I find myself wondering if this will glitch out the freakshow.

 Oh, right.  Account wide Volcano Lava style aura out now in Store (80 points. real money value, one dollar).
This message was last edited by the player at 23:01, Tue 20 Sept 2011.

Was more referring to "Prevent dead from EVER becoming undead." Gentle is a limited time only. It's basically the medieval version of an EMT rushing someone to the hospital who should be dead, prolonging their life just enough so the hospital can do the "keep them from dying permanently" work.



LAVA AURA!!! *glomp* Me want!

A fun article on Magic Missile: http://greywulf.net/2010/07/is...le-a-change-too-far/

Meanwhile, Eli made it to level 6 in a friend's campaign, has 23 AC, and has been doing 11 dmg with his auto-hit magic missile so far (took Wizard's Fury obviously, so that's 22 dmg per round without a chance to fail attack roll). Fun times.

....R2D2, eh? :)

Heh, amusing but no astromech droids (or whatever R2D2 is) in Dark Sun.
It is Curse is placed on Rager 2, and Darter 2 is down to 1 HP.

  R2 and 3PO's escape pod landed on the opposite side of the desert planet anyway.

Funny you should mention, I've been brainstorming some ideas for a Star Wars meets D&D game I plan to run for AUSA.  Basically 4e classes reflavored as Jedi who wind up fighting dragons and saving a damsel in distress.  I'm thinking of making it happen thousands of years before the events of the movies, when the lightsaber wasn't even invented.  If you were playing such a game, what sorts of flavor/story elements would you really want to see included?  An example: One of the prison guards is a Gungan.  Because everyone hates Gungans and would love to kill one.

Look up the spelljammer rules and setting from 3.5 and some of the stuff from manual of the planes for 4th edition...all sorts of silliness with flying airships and astral ships, etc...airships are found in the Adv. Vault though.

Just little things you can throw in for setting flavor and such. Might even be useful plot points.

  Tim several times: I only read the PDF to know where and what the parcels are.

  Me yesterday (almost 10 days after the encounter had ended on Thurs 15th): So, what happened to the parcels?

  Tim: Oh, weekends are busy.  There, Chris edited them in.

  Me Today: So, I've read the edit... Uh... I only see one parcel's worth (the #9, 260 GP) mentioned .There were two parcels.  What happened to the second?

  I'm still not offering to take up parcel duty.  And I'm still not reminding anyone until it's clearly well after the fact they should have been dealt with.  Because I still feel Tim is able to handle it.

  As for DnD=Star Wars=Spell Jammer.  It took two failed threads and the start of another for me to realize 'Hoal+Swordmage= Zen Jedi not held back by stupid light/dark side aspects'.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:41, Sun 25 Sept 2011.

Part of the beauty of running a SW game without using SW rules is just that.  No stupid light/dark side aspects.  And 4e has built in the option to not kill your opponent, so it makes it easy for purists to stick to their concept of how a Jedi would handle combat.

As for treasure, hopefully some time this century RL will allow Tim and I to return to game land.

  Take your time with it.  I'll put up posts for Scales later tonight, and I've edited Matt's initiative (16) into Ascension.

Is this what you meant?  Because I can't find anywhere in the module where it says there's 2 treasure parcels in Room 17, the room with the kid in it.



I can't find any goof on Tim's part.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:55, Mon 26 Sept 2011.

  Hmm...  Going back, searching for the Boy's name as a means of 'where in module we are' was a HGE FAILURE on my part -.-;

  I was indeed looking at LAST encounter's details in the Module.  Because it still mentions the kid, because it mentions Jallisa mentioning the kid.  And so much time has passed between two whole encounters that I've made a dumbass of myself.

  So yes, Tim did forget any parcels at all... But In turn, I was double checking the wrong entry for why I thought there were two instead of one <.<
This message was last edited by the player at 05:02, Mon 26 Sept 2011.

Funny thing I've found some interesting 'loopholes' with hybrid classes.

Shale can be pulled off even better as a Gnome Hybrid Wizard/Warlock (fey Pact) that gets both Hypnotism and Eyebite as at will powers, plus can pretty much go hog wild with 'make enemies do what you want them to' powers.

Gilant can be even more badass as a Githyanki Hybrid Swordmage (Shielding)/(Sorc-King) Warlock to have Eldritch Strike and Swordburst as at-wills, and once he gets Sigil Carver Paragon Path his opportunity attacks will be devastating (in that he can negate attacks using Eldritch Strike to push enemy out of range)

Michael can have even MORE durable with higher defenses by being made into a Warlord/Wizard allowing him to poach Lazy Warlord stuff and combine it with summoning and wizard control powers At wills become Commander's Strike (which becomes Melee 2 range with Staff Expertise which is sweet), Hypnotism, and Winged Horde. Compared to the old pure wizard version this one has +1hp (not counting toughness feat which hybrid michael can still take, just trying to figure out which would be lvl 4 feat improved defenses or toughness, would have both by lvl 6, level 8 is still up in the air, while level 10 would be a feat to improve my summons as I'd have 3 daily summons including the demon, plus 1 warlord daily), +2 AC, +1 Fort, and +2 Reflex...And with staff expertise can use a cheaper armor which means he'd already HAVE the Demonbound 'lvl 3 boon' compared to old pure wizard, with 100gp left over as he can also trade in the blessed book the pure wizard has (as hybrid wizard doesn't use a spellbook at all). Plus hilarity can occur if Michael MCs into cleric and then can use a Sun Disk of pelor holy symbol for his arcane powers... succubi dealing radiant damage?... Is it just me or is that silly beyond belief.

And if I bring Freedom back, I think I'll make him into a Cavalier shooting for Warforged Juggernaut and making him a mounted charger that will first ride a celestial battle tiger, then a celestial pegasus (paragon tier), and then a freaking celestial dragon (epic tier).
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:23, Mon 26 Sept 2011.

Hypnotism is a "wtf" power that makes me wonder what WotC was thinking. With that power alone, I made my friend David vow he would never again make a map with bridges on it.



Sadly, my familiarity with swordmage is next to nill. I keep meaning to play one, but always wind up not. Maybe I'll use the Sandbox to try it.



Hmm... I remember looking into Warlord/AnythingNotStr hybrid and finding a downside. Like maybe I was eventually forced to pick a STR power. I'll have to look into that again.



Well technically, a succubus is a devil which means they speak the language of the heavenly angels and gods; Supernal (Which I thought silly to begin with, BUT it makes sense too O.o). And since tieflings are part-devil people, they too have been kind of like devils who potentially do radiant damage. Still, I feel your amusement. I made a demon character looking for redemption. Although knowing Michael, it would be more like he forces a summoned devil to do radiant damage, which would likely annoy the hell out of them. Pun not originally intended.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:36, Mon 26 Sept 2011.

  Yes, I suppose I'm in the same boat.  Three threads I've written Hoal sheets for, three threads the sheets don't mean much.  I suppose with only once by comparison, you could have easily forgotten Mara-Kai is a Swordmage at all.

  Now off to RL I go.

Ya Hypnotism around traps, zones, hazardous terrain (including cliffs) can become a save or be out of the fight at-will but it is still fun to use against monsters.



Swordmages play uniquely in that they can enforce mark punishment at a range. Swordmage hybrids don't really loose much, and when paired up with another class that shares the same primary/secondary stats they can really become scary (Wizard/Swordmage is far superior to Bladesinger for example, and Swordmage/Warlock is also very nice, Swordmage/Artificer can also work well too.)



Unless you use retraining odds are you may eventually need to use a STR power, but they have enough Lazy Warlord powers that you can avoid it. Also nifty trick, Staff Expertise + Commander's Strike = Commander's Strike with a reach weapon. Also the only reason the trick works well now is that Battleleader gives heavy shield prof, and at paragon you can take shield mastery to get that +2AC/Reflex also to your Fort defense. Although if you want the ultimate Lazy Leader, Warlord/Shaman works very well.



With Michael it would be done solely to annoy the hell out of the demons/devils, too bad the demonbound isn't an implement power so he couldn't do it to that demon directly, but being able to turn all the other summons into radiant damage dealers would make him a radiant mafia compliant summoner, which is kind of scary if he goes Archmage to have summons each encounter, which would serve Michael better than Sage of Ages as the temporary buffs won't enhance summoned critters.

Still trying to decide if I should keep Elric as a Runepriest, or go back to Cleric with the Battle Lore, remake him into a Warlord, or could also try a Swordmage/Artificer combo or maybe a Runepriest/Cleric combo. Not really sure what to do with Elric.

And that's just traps/zones/etc. Against monsters who have cheater-like At-wills (Oh hi! My at-will makes you dazed, immobilized, and take ongoing 5 damage (save ends) and all too often, this is just the monster's basic melee), all the sudden their cheater powers belong to ME. >:D

Hypnotism is Bard's Level 5 daily as an at-will and then some (Seriously... choice of basically dominated or slide 3 squares compared to just dominated). Not that I'm complaining. Just saying it's broken and unbalanced, but amusingly gives the player who controls a wizard the ability to strike back at the more broken At-Wills of the monsters.

That it does, and for both Shale and Michael with there approaches to combat, it fits.

Still have no clue what I should do with Elric... have considered making him into a Shardmind Bard just to see how that plays out. I've been playing him as a leader, but honestly not sure if that is best for him as mostly he has been just smacking stuff with a big weapon for the fights he has been in.

But honestly I'm not sure Elric's personality is best for a leader when you get to the core 'prankster' aspect, not really sure what class would represent that other than the Wizard/warlock combo I'm using with Shale for getting enemies to do what you want them to do. Actually could make a Warforged into an interesting Mage if I really wanted. (Con + str OR Int opens up several interesting options.) Could merge the Gilant Warlock/Swordmage and Elric if I wanted as Warforged make excellent conlocks and shielding swordmages. Would get better feat support that way too. Hmm so many options. Would consider mage for Elric but Elric is too much of a frontline fighter, swordmage/wizard fighting with a staff might be amusing though Could also pull artificer/wizard hmm.

Any suggestions on what I should try to remake Elric into for the next game I try to get him into?

One thought would be to go either Battlemind(Con/Wis)/Runepriest(Str/Con/Wis) to make use of Str/Con while not completely losing leader abilities (Though having a half-psionic class I'm usually hesitant to try due to loss of power points). Or Cleric/Runepriest could be fun as those were his prior two classes and both are leaders, and you could take Rune Master since there are other ways to enhance your heal powers besides Healer's Lore.

But I never knew Elric was a prankster. Thought he was just a kind, heroic, soldier of light. Which I loved about him, by the way.

Elric Pre 4th edition in other rpol games he was in was a bit of a prankster...example, at one point in time he 'dressed' up a commanding officier's mech with a pink mesh skirt (mesh that was painted pink to look like a dress) and rigged the Operating system to sing 'I feel pretty, oh so pretty' while booting up.
The warrior of light was cause he always was lighthearted and good natured, but he liked a good laugh when he could get it.

Had also thought about a Cavalier as a means of being a warrier of light, hilariously if I went that route could get a Dragon mount at epic levels...very funny since Timothius was the Paladin of bahamut.

And ya a Runepriest/Cleric using Battle Lore would have scale armor+2 shield AC and could wield a greatspear while using hybrid talent for the rune states which is a tempting combo as I could turn the best cleric str at will into a basic melee attack. And still have 2 encounter heals. That is something I may have to consider.

So there isn't any confusion: Sandbox is for Tim only.

  So, I was attempting to examine the text of my character sheets through the GM shortcut of all Charcter Descriptions having the 'Edit Character' button on the bottom of a Cast listing...  The button wasn't there.

  So, I took a look at the Cast listing... Hmm, I no longer have GM status...

  I wonder, oh I wonder what happened to it in the past few hours.


This message was last edited by the player at 04:22, Tue 27 Sept 2011.