Character Development - Redux

[BowenSilverclaw]

I'll take a look at Seeker, but aside from a possible change by going Hybrid (I doubt it though), I'm done

EDIT: Yeah, I'm good to go

[Agita]

There's a pretty neat Seeker 2 Utility for ranged Rangers, but other than that I see little benefit in MCing or Hybriding Seeker as a Ranger. Rangers are single-target killing machines whereas Seekers are controllers and thus inherently AoE-focused. Doesn't mesh as well as it sounds at first.

One funny thought I had with PHB 3, though: Shardminds are, well, shards of a gate that once held the Far Realm at bay. What would it mean to have a Shardmind Starlock?

[VennDygrem]

I'm writing up the first post now, but unfortunately I'm getting sidetracked by dinner and family stuff. It'll be up later on.

[Nanshork]

I'm back, wee!

[VennDygrem]

Bowen, I'm going to need a name for your character at least, soon. You can fill in the background over time, a bit, but I'd like to have an idea of why you're adventuring, or why you would have agreed to accept Bordrek's job.

And don't forget that you get to choose a background trait, as well.

[BowenSilverclaw]

Ah, right, completely forgot about that

Sigh, and I'm oh so great with names...


I'll have something up later today

[BowenSilverclaw]

Ready to roll

[BowenSilverclaw]

Oh man, I've got bad memories about kobolds in 4E...

BTW, will you be setting up a new OOC thread, Venn, or do we use one of the existing ones or this thread?

[Agita]

Kobolds in 4e only remind me of one awesome moment I had with a Goliath Paladin.
We were fighting in a mine and I used Divine Pursuit on a kobold to push it into a pit in the ground. So there were three possible outcomes:
a) It dies from the damage. Win.
b) It doesn't die, but falls down the hole. Win.
c) It doesn't die and makes the save to avoid falling. It is now prone with its back to the pit and my Paladin adjacent to it. Poor bastard.

In the end, it was a.

[BowenSilverclaw]

Kobolds in 4e only remind me of one awesome moment I had with a Goliath Paladin.
We were fighting in a mine and I used Divine Pursuit on a kobold to push it into a pit in the ground. So there were three possible outcomes:
a) It dies from the damage. Win.
b) It doesn't die, but falls down the hole. Win.
c) It doesn't die and makes the save to avoid falling. It is now prone with its back to the pit and my Paladin adjacent to it. Poor bastard.

In the end, it was a.

I played through part of one of the first adventure paths (don't remember the name) when I was still a 4E noob (as were my friends), don't remember the name...
Anywho, it had Kobolds, and man, those guys were nasty little buggers...

[Agita]

So I just read through the Dragon article on Spellscars. One feat that drew my attention may interest Nanshork:

Plaguing Bloodhunt
    Prerequisite: Tiefling, Bloodhunt racial trait, you
    have a spellscar
    Benefit: When you hit a bloodied enemy, it takes
    3 extra necrotic damage. Increase this damage to 6 at
    11th level, and 9 at 21st level. If you have the Student
    of the Plague feat, the extra damage becomes fire and
    necrotic damage.

This is a huge damage boost - even if you halve it because it will statistically apply only half of the time, it still comes out to +1.5/+3/+4.5, aka more than Weapon Focus. It doesn't even need the multiclass feat, you just have to be spellscarred (see FRPG). Refluffed for Eberron, this might mean having been exposed to the Mournland, and can also be done after character creation if you're interested. With another feat, the extra damage becomes Necrotic and Fire, which, depending on interpretation, may add the Fire keyword to your attacks against bloodied creatures, triggering Hellfire Blood. Neat stuff.

[BowenSilverclaw]

Sweet

[VennDygrem]

He'll need to work something out with me in order to take that feat. It'll take some configuring in the plot and such, and I need to take another look at all that stuff.

[archangel.arcanis]

Rather than clutter up the sheets thread I'll move the conversation here:

Let me know if I really messed anything up. I've only played 1 4e character and that was pre-generated at a con. event.
Here is Zap (not zapp brannigan!)

Looks good enough for starters, though I haven't played around with 4e in a while. I personally tend to err on the side of 18/18 rather than 20/15, as Sorcerers do get a lot of mileage out of their secondary stat, but it'S not a big issue. You might want to look at picking up a Will-targeting attack in the future, as you'll notice you have two at-wills and a daily targeting Reflex and an Encounter power targeting Fort.

I could change acid orb out for Chaos Bolt. I mainly went with Acid orb for the range and ability to use it as a RBA since we had 2 leaders in the group.

[VennDygrem]

There's that, or Burning Spray in order to have something for clearing out minions, or even Ensorcelled Blade which could be useful if you find yourself surrounded or backed into a wall. You could always retrain it once you have some method of making your ranged attacks without provoking an opportunity attack (several feats and items give this ability, but usually not until later on).

Burning spray is good for the same reason, but keep in mind it allows for friendly-fire.

[Agita]

Right now we don't have many things that affect RBAs specifically, but we will get them eventually, and then that trait of Acid Orb will indeed be useful. I'd personally just swap out Lightning Strike, but I can see why you'd want to keep it on a storm-themed character. Don't mind my thematics-ignorant min/maxing. You can always retrain later, mind - say, use Chaos Bolt until you get a will-targeting Encounter power or something.

[VennDygrem]

You could also just reflavor Acid Orb to be a Lightning Orb, or a Thunder Orb, and just swap the power type; Or change burning spray to 'lightning discharge' or something like that. If the concern is maintaining the flavor of the class.

I'd say it's not too important to worry about being able to hit will right now. You'll have plenty of chances to take those sorts of powers, but the fact of the matter is that Chaos sorcerers get a lot more will-targeting spells while storm sorcerers get more reflex-targeting ones. It sort of makes sense that way, not that I'm trying to introduce logic into the game.

[archangel.arcanis]

The main reason for considering a change from acid orb was to get something targeting each defense. I had been planning on using Lightning strike as my primary attack and either popping a the main enemy and auto damaging the minions or if the main's Ref is too high doing it the other way around. I suppose since we don't really have a controller I should get some sort of AoE for crowd clearing and retrain it later.

edit: How about a re-flavor of burning spray to thunder wave or Blazing Starfall to thunder clap (that way I have a lit & a tdr attack). I think the main reason I had put so much emphasis on cha in my original build plan was due to accuracy concerns and targeting ref. almost exclusively. But as was said at this level it shouldn't be a big deal.

[VennDygrem]

Yeah, usually it works out pretty well this way. Lightning strike is a good solid power, too.

If you want to flavor burning spray to thunder blast or something, that works (Wizards have a power called Thunder Wave if if recall correctly, though I don't think we're in danger of getting confused). Blazing starfall I'd say might be worth it as a second at-will if you had strength as your secondary, but again if you want to take it, I'll allow the re-flavor.

I wouldn't really go for the reflavor on, say, chaos bolt since as I said, lightning is really more of a reflex attack. Technically thunder is more fortitude, but I'll allow reflex too since this is somewhat different.

[VennDygrem]

By the way archangel,  your character has 25 hitpoints, not 13.