2008/06/06

4ed0001-01 Alester Adams Cleric of Erathis

So here is my first 4th ed PC: A human battle cleric of Erathis.



Alester Adams
Level 1 Cleric of Erathis (Leader)


Medium Natural Humanoid (Human)
XP 100
Initiative +4Senses Perception +3
HP 13; Bloodied 6
AC 16; Fortitude 11, Reflex 11, Will 13
Speed 5
Healing Surges 8
Action Points 1
Attack Lance of Faith (Standard; At Will) * Divine, Implement, Radiant
Range 5, Single Creature, +3 vs Reflex, 1d8+3 Radiant damage and one ally you can see gains a +2 power bonus to their next attack roll against the target.
Melee Priest's Shield (Standard; At-Will) * Divine, Weapon
Single Target, +5 vs AC, 1d10+3(Morning Star) damage, and you and one adjacent ally gain a +1 power bonus to AC until the end of your next turn.
Melee Righteous Brand (Standard; At-Will) * Divine, Weapon
Single Target, +5 vs AC, 1d10+3 damage, and one ally within 5 squeares of you gains +3 power bonus to melee attacks against the target until the end of your next turn.
Melee Healing Strike (Standard, Encounter) * Divine, Healing, Radiant, Weapon
Single Creature, +5 vs AC, 2d10+3 radiant damage, and the target is marked until the end of your next turn. In addition, you or one ally witin 5 squares can spend a healing surge.
Feat Channel Divinity: Harmony of Erathis (Minor, Encounter) * Divine
Range 10, Single Ally, if you have at least three allies within range, grant one of those allies a +2 power bonus to their first attack roll before the start of your next turn.
Power Beacon of Hope (Standard, Daily) * Divine, Healing, Implement
Close Burst 3, +3 vs Will, Target is weakend until the end of its next turn, You and your allies in the burst regain 5 hp, and your healing powers restore +5 hp until the end of the encounter.
Lawful Good
Languages: Common, Draconic
Skills Arcana (int) + 5, Diplomacy(Cha) +5, Heal(Wis) +8, Insight(wis) +8, Religion(wis) +5
Feats Improved Initiative, Harmony of Erathis
Str 16(+3)Dex 10(+0)Wis 16 (+3)
Con 12(+1)Int 11 (+0)Cha 13 (+1)
Equipment Chainmail, Morning Star (+5 vs AC 1d10+3), CrossBow (+2 vs AC, 1d8, range 15/30, load minor), Adventures Kit, Holly Symbol, 5gp.

Motivation: True Faith, an restoring ancestral lands titles to his family.
History: Trained for battle in the Law offices of the Great City, Alester is out to recover the lost lands and bring the lawless to heal.

Notes: This took about 2 1/2 hours to create, mostly due to ignorance of the rules and a fair amount of page flipping. I modeled the layout on the Monster Manual. Editing done in Emacs.

2008/06/05

One Last day

Ahh, it is the last day prior to D&D 4th ed release.
Now to get it and get cooking...

Snork
--
Snorkey: apparently dosen't have all his burners working...

2008/06/04

Playing with Ideas Part 2

Less than 36 hours remain (no I am not excited, why do you ask) until I pick up my copies of 4th ed from my FLGS.

I would like to demonstrate and showcase the mechanics and rules of 4th edition: So a number of combat and skill challenges seem to be in order. Further more it would be nice see how it behaves at various levels and with various classes. It would be nice if I could place a socal encounter or two between so that the players wont feel that all 4th is fighting.

So one possibility that I currently favor is creating a series of PC type characters at various levels: 1, 8, 16, 24, and maybe 30. (This would also fuel this ever hungry blog with content). Normally I wouldn't go with pre-generated characters but I do think it would speed things up.

From a story line stand point the heroes are in their final test before ascending to divinity, but in order to do so they must overcome some of the challenges of their past. To slowly reveal this I would use the amnesia trope so that with each victory I would exchange character sheets to reveal details of their back story. I imagine a glowing symbol on each of their foreheads' that would alter as more of their past and powers were revealed.

My largest fear with this design is that it wouldn't give the players enough time to 'Jell' , to figure out how to best work together. I understand that teamwork is an important part of 4th ed: No one character will have a single trick or exploit that would make them a killing machine (or at least that is what I have been lead to believe).

I am also concerned that, given the time we have to play that the players would get bogged down with having to relearn their characters. Though, I don't think that this would be the problem that it would be under previous editions.

Something to ponder over.

Snork
--
Snorkey: is trying to feed the monster...

2008/06/03

Playing with Story/Campaign Ideas for D&D 4th ed

With the imminent arrival of D&D 4th Edition I though that I would play with some idea for campaigns.
  • A world where the past is coming into the present at an accelerating rate. Ruins appear over night, and grow with passing days. The Epic task is to fix time so that history goes back to where it belongs.
  • A holy war where a good goes on the offensive against evil, with an epic twist that the war becomes a war against all non-believers.
  • Start with gladiatorial combat with heroes know nothing of their past, as they succeed they regain what was lost.
  • A town build upon a million (or billion) years ruins.
  • City Gods, where incarnate deities rule a city.
  • My take on "The City Built Around a Tarrasque".
More to come latter...

2008/06/02

The Obligitory Excuse Post V00000000000002

Normally, when I start describing horrible trails of slime, I am working on a Call of Cthulthu adventure, not describing my state of health for the last three days. It wasn't all that bad, I just was in an OTC medicinal haze and delirium, so I don't really recall much of Saturday other than the wracking coughs and aches. Sunday was much better: I was awake for a whole 3 hours.
Today was spent taking my frustrations out on splicers

An with Five days and counting till D&D 4th Ed release I could have waited to get sick for a few more days.


Snork
--
Snorkey: is sounding too much like a fan boy.