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Post by venger on Jul 7, 2008 10:17:31 GMT -5
We had a fairly balanced party last time. Light on spell-casters maybe.
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Post by Ginger on Jul 7, 2008 13:45:34 GMT -5
Lee is going with another fighter/thief/bard. I think I'll be a cleric of Jascar.
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Post by Dell on Jul 7, 2008 15:21:25 GMT -5
I think I'm going with Cleric/MU. Although I'm tempted to make a bow specialist:
Going before initiative is more powerful now, which means that bow specialists are more powerful now... which means that we need a bow specialist.
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Post by Ginger on Jul 7, 2008 15:59:52 GMT -5
I don't think that going before initiative is more powerful now, since it was arguably more powerful back when it was an all or none affair. It is slightly more fun, maybe, since when all the other suckers are declaring their actions you get to say: "I shoot that guy and roll an 18!"
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Post by Dell on Jul 7, 2008 22:45:49 GMT -5
I disagree. With the way that spell casting circumvents the initiative cycle, being able to arrow a guy before he can cast anything is a big advantage.
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Post by Wolfgar on Jul 8, 2008 8:08:44 GMT -5
The bow specialist could only get this advantage once at the start of a fight. In subsequent rounds his shots would happen as we have been playing them. There is still a chance that a dexterous archer can get off his first shot before a magic user can complete his spell.
So far we have only been dealing with 1st level spells but once we start dealing with higher level spells I bet we will need to change tactics. I am sure Dana has already thought about this. Recall how the shaman stood behind a pair of bruisers for most of the battle. They acted as shields to prevent any missile acts disrupting his spells.
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Post by Ginger on Jul 8, 2008 9:33:43 GMT -5
The bow specialist could only get this advantage once at the start of a fight. In subsequent rounds his shots would happen as we have been playing them. There is still a chance that a dexterous archer can get off his first shot before a magic user can complete his spell. So far we have only been dealing with 1st level spells but once we start dealing with higher level spells I bet we will need to change tactics. I am sure Dana has already thought about this. Recall how the shaman stood behind a pair of bruisers for most of the battle. They acted as shields to prevent any missile acts disrupting his spells. Indeed. I think that a sound strategy for a bow specialist in certain situations might be for him to fire a pre-initiative shot and then spend the rest of the round keeping an arrow nocked, so he can fire a pre-initiative shot each round. Thinking about that made me wonder about whether a hit that cannot damage a caster would cause a disruption. For example, if a mage has Protection from Normal Missiles up, would he still have to channel if arrows are fired at him? I would think so, since it would still take a lot of disciplined concentration to avoid panicking when an arrow is speeding towards your face.
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Post by Dell on Jul 8, 2008 9:36:49 GMT -5
The bow specialist could only get this advantage once at the start of a fight. If you forgo your second shot, you would be able to do it every round. If there's a MU around, that seems like an acceptable trade-off.
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Post by Wolfgar on Jul 8, 2008 10:52:35 GMT -5
It should work both ways then. If a bow specialist has an arrow notched but is attacked then that arrow is lost if he is hit or he fails to channel (STR+CON?) if missed.
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Post by Ginger on Jul 8, 2008 13:07:12 GMT -5
I think that when you go down that road a lot of stuff would require channeling checks. I mean, what if you're shot with an arrow while setting for charge, or charging, or defending, or opening a door?
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Post by Dead Greyhawk on Jul 8, 2008 17:58:06 GMT -5
The bow specialist could only get this advantage once at the start of a fight. In subsequent rounds his shots would happen as we have been playing them. There is still a chance that a dexterous archer can get off his first shot before a magic user can complete his spell. So far we have only been dealing with 1st level spells but once we start dealing with higher level spells I bet we will need to change tactics. I am sure Dana has already thought about this. Recall how the shaman stood behind a pair of bruisers for most of the battle. They acted as shields to prevent any missile acts disrupting his spells. Indeed. I think that a sound strategy for a bow specialist in certain situations might be for him to fire a pre-initiative shot and then spend the rest of the round keeping an arrow nocked, so he can fire a pre-initiative shot each round. Thinking about that made me wonder about whether a hit that cannot damage a caster would cause a disruption. For example, if a mage has Protection from Normal Missiles up, would he still have to channel if arrows are fired at him? I would think so, since it would still take a lot of disciplined concentration to avoid panicking when an arrow is speeding towards your face. I think we have already determined that if you have Protection from Normal Missiles up, you don't have to make a channeling check, even if hit by said normal missile. Cuts both ways. I do think that if you are hit while trying to keep an arrow nocked, your pre-initiative shot capability would be spoiled. I think you would just get your normal rate of fire the next round.
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Post by venger on Jul 9, 2008 14:41:10 GMT -5
Party so far:
cleric cleric/magic-user fighter (bard)
I can be a fighter or a thief or a fighter/thief depending on what Josh picks. We need more fighters and thieves in this mix.
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Post by Wolfgar on Jul 9, 2008 15:17:55 GMT -5
Sorry, I am having a hard time choosing. I am still thinking about dual classing as either fighter/assassin (LN), fighter/magic user, monk/fighter, or monk/magic user. I need to see what stats I get.
I think we should throw a NPC or two into the mix to fill in the spots we are missing.
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Post by Ginger on Jul 9, 2008 15:42:27 GMT -5
Well, the original company had a monk as our only thief for a while. He was evil, though, and highly unlikely to risk ever checking for traps.
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Post by venger on Jul 9, 2008 16:11:22 GMT -5
Sorry, I am having a hard time choosing. I am still thinking about dual classing as either fighter/assassin (LN), fighter/magic user, monk/fighter, or monk/magic user. I need to see what stats I get. I think we should throw a NPC or two into the mix to fill in the spots we are missing. Monk/magic-user sounds vicious. Definitely go for ranged weapons. Can you be a non-evil assassin?? If so color my fighter/thief a fighter/assassin.
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Post by Wolfgar on Jul 9, 2008 16:31:13 GMT -5
Can you be a non-evil assassin?? If so color my fighter/thief a fighter/assassin. I guess not in D&D. There are certainly examples of assassins in fantasy literature that are not evil (Robin Hobb's Fitz, Steven Erikson's Kalam) that are trained to use disguises and kill when necessary. DM - Any leeway here?
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Post by venger on Jul 9, 2008 16:42:22 GMT -5
I guess not in D&D. There are certainly examples of assassins in fantasy literature that are not evil (Robin Hobb's Fitz, Steven Erikson's Kalam) that are trained to use disguises and kill when necessary. DM - Any leeway here? I looked up an old thread on Dragonsfoot and was directed to the UA errata:
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Post by Dead Greyhawk on Jul 9, 2008 18:48:55 GMT -5
Note that I believe there is no penalty to changing alignment at 1st or 2nd level. It is in the DMG somewhere.
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Post by Dell on Jul 10, 2008 9:29:51 GMT -5
Can someone send me the list of special priests, so I can figure out what kind of cleric I'm going to be? Kord is a definite no.
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Post by Wolfgar on Jul 10, 2008 9:41:23 GMT -5
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Post by Wolfgar on Jul 10, 2008 11:44:40 GMT -5
Is there any benefit from having multiple clerics to the same deity? What are the rules for bless, chant, and prayer? What about PfE? Combine?
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Post by Ginger on Jul 10, 2008 12:01:40 GMT -5
No, I think the opposite, actually. I believe you can have certain spells stack if they are cast by different gods. So you can be Blessed by Jascar and Kord, but not twice by Kord.
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Post by Dell on Jul 10, 2008 14:46:38 GMT -5
So the current party makeup, from what I see, looks like this:
Cleric of Jascar Cleric of Bralm/MU Fighter Fighter/(Thief or Assassin) Fighter or Monk
I think that's a good mix. Thief skills suffer if we have an F/A as our thief, but that seems to be the only weak point.
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Post by Wolfgar on Jul 10, 2008 15:44:22 GMT -5
Given that we have two fighter I will probably choose monk to start. However if both of the fighters switch to thief then we will be lacking in that category and then have too much thief. We will definitely want to stagger class changes.
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Post by Dell on Jul 10, 2008 16:00:23 GMT -5
If you select monk, we won't need a F/T or F/A, and can have two straight Fighters to start with - one sword and one bow specialist. The monk can pick up the thief role until the switch.
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Post by venger on Jul 10, 2008 19:13:50 GMT -5
Bards have restricted weapon lists with very limited missile weapons so Lee probably won't want to specialize in a bow that he won't be able to use after becoming a bard...
Do we think a bow specialist would be more valuable than another melee specialist? Or an unspecialized multi-class fighter/(magic-user, thief or cleric)?
Dual-class ranger/thief? I'd have to work on my neutral good.
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Post by Mr. Trommer on Jul 10, 2008 20:09:57 GMT -5
We might also want to define the area of specialization within the thief calss. I plan on putting a lot of my thief points into read languages for my thief levels (if I make that far). I haven't decided if it is better to generalize the percentages in the the other skills or go for high percentages in a couple of them. The max I could go as a thief is 9th. So I don't know if it makes sense for one person to specialize in find traps or open locks, etc. So does it really matter? If Eddie has his second class as thief that won't really matter since he would end up as an expert in all the skills eventually.
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Post by venger on Jul 10, 2008 20:52:11 GMT -5
We might also want to define the area of specialization within the thief calss. I plan on putting a lot of my thief points into read languages for my thief levels (if I make that far). I haven't decided if it is better to generalize the percentages in the the other skills or go for high percentages in a couple of them. The max I could go as a thief is 9th. So I don't know if it makes sense for one person to specialize in find traps or open locks, etc. So does it really matter? If Eddie has his second class as thief that won't really matter since he would end up as an expert in all the skills eventually. Not sure you can focus on read languages. Might be generic to all thieves: I'm definitely a hide-in-shadows/move-silently kind of thief.
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Post by Dell on Jul 10, 2008 22:02:06 GMT -5
Someone needs to focus on finding and removing traps. Because the party will be making the thief find and remove traps, and if you're not good at it you might lose a limb.
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Post by Wolfgar on Jul 11, 2008 7:55:27 GMT -5
Is there somewhere on the board where the rules for determining thief skills are described? I couldn't find anything in the House Rules.
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