Author Topic: Wolves of Maldeen  (Read 3279 times)

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Bozwevial

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Wolves of Maldeen
« on: June 18, 2008, 08:43:36 PM »
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080618

New magic items and a new paragon path for warlords.

EntropicShadow

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2008, 08:54:56 PM »
I liked the paragon path a lot.  Spending an action point to allow one of your team to take an extra action sounds like it has a lot of tactical potential.

The Wolfen Weapon seems like something most groups should have. 

I really like this format for Dragon Magazine, as I get a little bit of rules and fluff a few times a week instead of waiting a month for a magazine or book.
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AlienFromBeyond

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #2 on: June 18, 2008, 08:58:26 PM »
The new feat is pretty nice for anyone who gets mobbed. +1 to attack rolls woo!

tsuyoshikentsu

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #3 on: June 18, 2008, 09:49:44 PM »
Dear WotC:

I thought you FUCKTARDS were getting RID of alignment prereqs!

Everytihng else is "meh" at best.  Though there is a +Intimidate item, I'm AFB and have no idea if we already have a better one or not.
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Squirrelloid

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #4 on: June 18, 2008, 10:20:34 PM »
Dear WotC:

I thought you FUCKTARDS were getting RID of alignment prereqs!

Everytihng else is "meh" at best.  Though there is a +Intimidate item, I'm AFB and have no idea if we already have a better one or not.

And worse, there's really no reason for the PP to have an alignment pre-req.  Wolves of Maldeen may be good, but a Pack Leader could hypothetically belong to other groups with different alignments. 

Alignment prereqs are stupid.  Someone at WotC should write this down.
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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #5 on: June 18, 2008, 10:20:51 PM »
I thought you FUCKTARDS were getting RID of alignment prereqs!

Wow, I had completely missed the alignment prereq. That does suck (and of course it makes little sense).

edit: ninja'ed by Squirreloid. 17s !
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PhoenixInferno

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #6 on: June 18, 2008, 10:27:20 PM »
Whatever.  On a scale of 1-10 of things that are bad about PrCs/PPs, the alignment requirement ranks like...a 3.

jameswilliamogle

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #7 on: June 18, 2008, 11:01:22 PM »
Trying to think of great ways to use the action point usage...

*   Divine Oracle has an encounter power to make a single character score a crit.
*   Arcane Mastery lets a Wizard recover a Daily by blowing an action point (not limited to 1/day from the feat text, though it doesn't matter much).
*   Wolf can give his action point to someone else.
*   Demigod gets unlimited encounter powers once they run out.  not necessary
*   Symbol of Victory gives an action point when someone crits.
*   Quickdraw can allow the Divine Oracle to pull multiples of this symbol (which, admittedly, isn't that cheap). not necessary
[spoiler]
1.  Oracle uses the critting encounter ability on the Warlord/Wolf
2.  Wolf uses whatever power to crit someone, activating the Symbol of Victory, gaining a free action point.  He gives it to the Wizard.
3.  Wizard blows the most powerful daily he has, uses Epic Resurgence to regain it.

So, the Wolf just crits all the time with whatever power he uses, and passes the action point to the Wizard to continuously reuse whatever mega powerful Daily he's got. 

The Divine Oracle is stuck having to blow all his powers to use the unlimited Demigod version, though, and the combo is limited by the number of Symbols they can afford, but it seems pretty viable even as low as 21st level for 1/encounter usage: a free crit from a Warlord and a free daily from the Wizard is pretty nice. this portion doesn't work

edit: since the Warlord can only spend one AP per encounter, he's the limiting factor.  Still, 1/encounter crit and daily!

Make the Warlord a Rogue / Warlord multiclass w/ the Wolves, and use Assasin's Point along w/ a Vorpal Rapier!  Lets see...
d8 x 7 + 6d6 x 2 + 6d12 x 2 + Dex (I'm assuming combat advantage somehow) (I thought I read somewhere that on a crit that all variables were maximized, though, except for weapons w/ enhancement: so is that 128 + 6d12 x 2 + dex???) .  Yeah, yeah, I can get behind that...  allows for plenty of other optimization and just a little synergistic teamwork.  The Wizard could use Necrotic Web to immobilize the enemy, and the Rogue could use some of those "shift the enemy" powers to keep the creature in the web.  Yep, should work quite well!

Heck, this could be just two characters: the Rogue/Wolf and a Wizard/Divine Oracle.  Pretty efficient: it sets the paragon paths for both, but only requires 1 feat from one character.[/spoiler]

edit edit: nm.  I thought the wolf transferred the AP, not just the action.  Oh well...
« Last Edit: June 18, 2008, 11:33:44 PM by jameswilliamogle »

heffroncm

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #8 on: June 19, 2008, 01:18:36 PM »
Dear WotC:

I thought you FUCKTARDS were getting RID of alignment prereqs!

You know, they can't win.  They get rid of the mechanical effects of alignment, and people throw a shitstorm.  They introduce a single paragon path with an easily ignored mechanical effect of alignment, and again they are railed against.

The paragon path is presented as an option for this one organization, the Gray Wolves.  They are a Good organization.  The Pack Masters are "renowned for their daring exploits against the vile monsters and corrupt powers of the world."  "The Pack Masters of Maldeen are shining beacons of virtue," "Bane to corruption, evil, and temptation," and actually reading the full article instead of just looking at the mechanics out of context pretty well solidifies that this paragon path, IF used with the fluff provided, is NOT meant for Unaligned or Evil characters.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2008, 01:21:19 PM by heffroncm »

lotofsnow

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #9 on: June 19, 2008, 02:16:28 PM »
heffroncm has hit the nail on the ahead.

Also, I like the feat as written.

Then again, I was against reevaluation of the mechanical effects of alignment anyway, so I'm a bit biased.

Squirrelloid

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #10 on: June 19, 2008, 05:47:42 PM »
Dear WotC:

I thought you FUCKTARDS were getting RID of alignment prereqs!

You know, they can't win.  They get rid of the mechanical effects of alignment, and people throw a shitstorm.  They introduce a single paragon path with an easily ignored mechanical effect of alignment, and again they are railed against.

The paragon path is presented as an option for this one organization, the Gray Wolves.  They are a Good organization.  The Pack Masters are "renowned for their daring exploits against the vile monsters and corrupt powers of the world."  "The Pack Masters of Maldeen are shining beacons of virtue," "Bane to corruption, evil, and temptation," and actually reading the full article instead of just looking at the mechanics out of context pretty well solidifies that this paragon path, IF used with the fluff provided, is NOT meant for Unaligned or Evil characters.

Except its already obvious that, if you are a Wolf of Maldeen, you're good.  So if you're a Pack Leader in the Wolves of Maldeen, you're good by definition, the PP doesn't need to require it. 

However, nothing suggests that Pack Leader can only ever be part of the Wolves of Maldeen.  And nothing about the PP requires you to be good.  Which makes the alignment prereq both inane and moronic.  Why bother to include it at all?

Who's complaining about the removal of alignment prereqs anyway?  Maybe I've just been avoiding that whining because ultimately its stupid - alignment should not have mechanical effects because that makes it a choice for free power (or shackles).  If anything, the simplification of alignment might be complaint worthy, except they never did define the law-chaos axis in a way that was intelligible, and barring a willingness to do so the simplification at least made all the alignments meaningfully different.
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heffroncm

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #11 on: June 19, 2008, 07:30:31 PM »
You do not have to be Good to be a Gray Wolf.  You have to be Good to EXCEL there.  Being an unaligned orphan who pays lip service to their tenents for the benefits of having a family is a perfectly fine character concept.  So is being an Evil spy from a rival organization or government.  Not every Wolf is Good.

**EDIT**
Actually, this gives me an idea for what could be a really entertaining campaign based on the organization.  Players make a party, which is set up by the organization.  Have at least one Unaligned and one Evil member, have them come up with their own individual reasons to be in the organization, and throw them together having just met.  Their first time setting eyes on each other would be as they are formed into a group by Pack Master Jandor Smoketooth, and be forced to deal with each other and the character conflict that is certain to develop as they investigate strange happenings in his former kingdom.
**EDIT**

The article clearly shows that the Paragon Path is meant to be available only to those who are part of the organization.  I don't know how they can make it any MORE clear.  They don't have it set as a Special Prerequisite or anything, but the entire fluff attached to the Paragon Path is about the organization.

And, there have been a number of complaints about the lack of mechanical alignment effects on the Gleemax forums.  People bemoan the lack of Detect (Alignment), Smite (Alignement), (Alignment) Prestige Classes, the whole lot.  Some folks profess to have entire campaigns built around these mechanical alignement effects, and are really upset that they are gone.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2008, 07:34:59 PM by heffroncm »

Squirrelloid

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #12 on: June 19, 2008, 11:28:59 PM »
The article clearly shows that the Paragon Path is meant to be available only to those who are part of the organization.  I don't know how they can make it any MORE clear.  They don't have it set as a Special Prerequisite or anything, but the entire fluff attached to the Paragon Path is about the organization.

And, there have been a number of complaints about the lack of mechanical alignment effects on the Gleemax forums.  People bemoan the lack of Detect (Alignment), Smite (Alignement), (Alignment) Prestige Classes, the whole lot.  Some folks profess to have entire campaigns built around these mechanical alignement effects, and are really upset that they are gone.

That the paragon path is intended to belong to the organization is mere fluff, and should have no mechanical effects.  I could very well postulate in my campaign world that there also exists an organization called the Hounds of Tindalos which is evil in orientation and also has pack leaders.  The PP would even make sense for tribal leaders in fringe societies (say, the barbarians of Ice Wind Dale in the Realms), which would have no alignment assumptions whatsoever.  Alignment restrictions only serve to inhibit creativity, especially should a DM decide to enforce them, and the mechanics suggest no alignment constraint as being necessary or proper.  A PP is ultimately just a set of mechanics, and should be treated as such.

If a DM wishes to impart effect to alignment beyond behavior, they are free to do so, but mechanically it just ends up being free choice for power, and is a bad system for the game.  I am not sad to see it go, and only the most deontologically absolutist person could possibly be upset with mechanics which don't enforce mechanical benefits for choice of alignment.  Skill sets are ultimately taught by people, and people can be fooled or bribed even if they would normally be unwilling to train a particular person in the use of those skills based on their behavior.  The idea of an alignment specific PP is as laughable as the idea that the druid language managed to remain secret despite Comprehend Languages and Tongues being easily available.
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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #13 on: June 20, 2008, 05:58:03 AM »
- Has it never happened that an Unaligned person "infiltrated" (it's not like they would/could use Detect Good) the organization to learn its techniques ?

- We don't know how prereqs work in 4E, but this is the first prereq I see that can be lost : what if a former member turns Evil (after the massacre of his family by... <insert fluff>) ? Does he suddenly lose his powers ? If not, can't he create a rival organization ?

If the PP actually had powers that dealt extra damage to Evil creatures through the channeling of Good divine energy, I'd understand. But this ? ...
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Sunic_Flames

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #14 on: June 20, 2008, 11:08:07 AM »
I thought Comprehend Languages and Tounges were unable to work on Druidic for exactly that reason. Though upon checking I realized that was just my house rule to prevent that from being broken by any first level mage, or highborn person (nobles tend to wear that circlet of comprehend languages for obvious reasons).

So instead it's just another example of WotC being biased towards 'Good' which is just as sociopathic as evil, just less honest about it. :rolleyes
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Squash Monster

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #15 on: June 20, 2008, 02:41:04 PM »
So, ignoring the alignment prerequisite (which I agree is lame), does the rest of this class seem a bit off to anybody?

All of the abilities do way too much at once, and frankly the whole thing looks overpowered.  There's a few good ideas hidden in there, like being able to spend an action point to give an ally an action, but the good ideas seem like things an entire paragon path would be centered on.  Here, they're just tacked on.

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #16 on: June 24, 2008, 03:38:29 AM »
Ok, I'm going to put it this way... The 3e (and earlier) alignment system WAS NOT BAD.  While there was a plague of (L)awful Annoying and Chaotic Stupid in the ranks of newer players, I don't think that's really going to change with the 4e system.

The BAD thing is when WotC staples the balls of a class to an alignment requirement, or even worse a Deity requirement.  This is why WotC deserves the shitstorms because they can't let alignment play *lightly* into the published crunch of the game, like having a few spells like Detect Evil, Holy Smite, etc.  The idea, though, that Church Inquisitors can't be evil, that Ordained Champions can only be devoted to two crappy war gods, or that a Warrior devoted to a church has to be Lawful Good or a Cleric is stupid.

WotC just needs to publish material in a way that it applies to all alignments, not just the ones the fluff works with, because all too often WotC's fluff just plain sucks ass.

tsuyoshikentsu

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Re: Wolves of Maldeen
« Reply #17 on: June 26, 2008, 05:38:07 AM »
At this point I'm treating WotC like a small child.  I'll let them play with alignment when they can prove to me they'll play safe with it.

So far, they're not doing so well.
Anyway, this cake is great!  It's so delicious and moist.

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