D&D Gold/XP Equivalency (is now general D&D playstyles thread)

[Eltargrim]

See, the blessing of PbP is that there is no real schedule to keep, which is a plus for me because I have very specific times I can get on the internet. I would love to play a PbP, preferably as a player, but I'd be willing to DM if necessary (I'm not very good, mind).

[tacticslion]

I would love to play... and be the worst player ever. Not only would I powergame the heck out of anything we did, I'd always be late, proceed to never really follow along when I did show up because I'd be busy, and always have other commitments. I'm bad online like that. Also, I'm DMing elsewhere. Sorry.

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

Also what happened to Green Dragons in 4th ed? I haven't hit all the monsters in 4th ed because don't really play it.

Meh, it's just a shift in focus, which I think is for the worse. In 22 dollar "buy our advertisement for our new system which hasn't debuted yet" books, WotC explained that the old Green Dragon had no distinguishing features and that they hated it because it looked so generic - like every other fantasy dragon out there (a false claim, I don't see many fantasy dragons with fins or a neck that long, personally). So their response? Make a poor-man's blue dragon look only with more dull "spikes". Seriously, in their black-and-white picture in the book "proving" the Green dragon now looked unique, I really thought they'd misprinted a young blue's picture. The horn that the blue dragon has is now pointed out from the end of the nose on the green - kind of like those unpleasant pimples you get sometimes? - and a small fan-shape of dull "spikes" are arrayed around the head in order to make it look "poisonous" like needles or something, according to them. It also supposedly has snake-like fangs - a silly claim, if ever I heard one. Technically the fangs are elongated in the art, but... not enough to make the image they wanted. Over al it looks more stupid than unique. They changed the damage type from acid in 3.X to poison - nothing wrong there, although the Black would have fit better since they ALREADY have a theme of corruption going on. Instead of anything with plants (although they are mentioned) Greens now have a whole mind-domination-poison-thing they do. Nothing wrong there, it's just that the shift is totally arbitrary - WotC claimed that something was seriously broken when it wasn't. A black-and-white Green just looks like a spikey-haired blue gone wrong instead of a unique and fearful creature. Again, this purely my conception, and I really don't expect much agreement here. The new green dragon itself is an interesting thing, but they made SUCH a big deal out of changing it to be more unique, and failed so spectacularly that it kind of turns me off. If they'd made a new creature, I could get. If they switched the acid-poison element with creatures that make sense thematically, I could get. But they just did something arbitrary and claimed to make everything better... and that frustrates me. Anyhoo, good luck with the group!

Edit: I don't actually hate the new Green Dragon. I do think it's an interesting creature, in both mechanics and story. Further, it works in a 4E setting. My problem is that WotC really, really tried to change some things just for the heck of it, claimed completely unquantifiable "success" in doing so, and made a really ugly and stupid-looking thing out of what could have been a fascinating-looking creature. They claimed a "unique" visual design, and failed to deliver. I'd rather they just owned up and said "Whoops! Our bad!" than insisting on pushing something that looks stupid and claiming "success" just because they changed how it looked from before. It's worth noting that previously it was the long-necked dragon. Now? It has no such distinguishing feature. Previously, it was the dragon with a solid, unbroken fin and no horns. Now? Again, utterly failing to be unique in that regard. It's a visual thing, combined with baseless claims, really. The non-visual aspects are ok, and if they'd not made such a big deal out of how they're "fixing" something, I probably wouldn't care. ... As much.

[krogothwolf]

I'm good for it. I've never done it online before. I didn't notice Ape Boys before and dunno if its to late to join now

[Eltargrim]

Tactics, you and I would share the powergaming aspect, and don't worry about scheduling; that's the beauty of PbP, it's just like writing a post. I'm really quite excited about this.

[krogothwolf]

I'm not very good as a DM. It's the one thing I could never do, to many rules and info you have to keep track of it drives me crazy. And I am not good when weilding the power of a god in my finger tips, I tend to get evil, very very evil.

I have a question, is a cleric extremely different in 4ed then 3.xed?

[Rejected Again]

Im in Apesy's group we start sunday at 6 pm its not too late to join, send Ape a PM and stuff I'm sure he will tell you how to get a hold of the DM.

[EVILNess]

I just got back from my weekly game.

My party and I just spent the session destabilizing a neighboring country, it was a spectacular Xanatos Gambit that I will not post here for fear it will be used against me one day. Let's just say we had a nice traipse through the city catacombs and there were elephants involved.

I put a party member in charge of the country as Viceroy and we immediately began the construction of hospitals, schools, and we had the previously employed king hanged in front of his people (We even provided fruit, which they promptly threw. He was a douche-king.), the noose cut off his head cause he was so fat.

After the whole thing the cleric in our party looked at me and she said, "You are a truly magnificent bastard. Glad we don't let you DM anymore."

I don't know if I should feel complimented or insulted.

[tacticslion]

Originally Posted by Eltargrim

Tactics, you and I would share the powergaming aspect, and don't worry about scheduling; that's the beauty of PbP, it's just like writing a post. I'm really quite excited about this.

I'm glad to know I'm not alone. I'm also not a perfect stat-master. I know how to trick a wig or three, but I know guys (one all the way out in Cali) that turned several of my supposed "masterpieces" into shishkabob via nit-picking. Still, it's LOTS of fun to min/max within character. As far a scheduling, and rejected's post, I'm surprised and find myself excited by the prospect. I'm not promising anything (as I said, I've other commitments and am currently DMing a heavy mystery campaign (with psionics and racial tensions and elves, oh my!) but I find myself fascinated and quite interested.

Originally Posted by krogothwolf

I'm not very good as a DM. It's the one thing I could never do, to many rules and info you have to keep track of it drives me crazy. And I am not good when weilding the power of a god in my finger tips, I tend to get evil, very very evil.

I have a question, is a cleric extremely different in 4ed then 3.xed?

For the first, that's every DM, and that's kind of the point of being DM - you play all the bad guys for the good guys to beat (unless you're running an evil campaign, which I don't think I could do as divine retribution would smite the vile creatures I was DMing for... why, yes, I'm biased, thanks).

For the second, you haven't been paying attention, have you? :p

Yes, clerics are very, very different. Nothing is the same, and the second largest change in 3.X and 4E is the magic system (magic becoming just like anything else). With the alteration of the importance of alignments, a cleric of, say, Corellon (now an unaligned deity of eladrin and art) could easily switch to worship Bahamut (a lawful good deity of justice and honor) and have no mechanical penalty (possibly a forced change in a feat selection or two, but really it's purely up to the DM's call, as the rules are silent) or no deity at all, and it's all good. In fact, the cleric doesn't even need faith anymore, much less alignement. They've been imbued with divine power, and screw the people who gave it to 'em (pardon my non-French). The role-playing incentives are supposedly the non-descript "wrath" of the church they left, but... how much does that really affect an adventuring cleric in 4E's base world (a very, very generic place, as described, despite it's magical mysteries), anyway? Any joe schmuck (or jane schmuck) with the Ritual Caster feat can raise from the dead with the appropriate money-stuffs just as well as a cleric or paladin (or wizard, for that matter), the only difference is that clerics and wizards get the feat for free. Seriously, you can solo 4E in general. It's designed to take the four (newly redefined) roles through dungeon combat, but really any class can do it with the appropriate feat selection. Again, this has both good and bad sides to it... it's just a completely different game-system. Clerics get minor healing-buffs, but really the only thing they can do is make a person heal a little better or more rapidly than that person can already heal themselves, so... it's a question of tactics in battle rather than over-all power or healing capability. Compare, of course, to 3.X where Clerics were where it's at in terms of healing stuffs (followed by druids, then by bards, then distantly Paladins and Rangers), and divine magic was virtually required to heal very quickly. In 4E, everyone has a healing factor that can be used once per battle and more often outside of battle. Clerics just grant you a few more hp and more than once in battle (in exchange for their precious, precious ability to act).

[krogothwolf]

I have been paying attention, probably didn't word the question the best but I wanted an explanation on the differences of a Cleric..now that I think of it just asking that would have worked better then the question I actually asked...

[tacticslion]

Originally Posted by krogothwolf

I have been paying attention, probably didn't word the question the best but I wanted an explanation on the differences of a Cleric..now that I think of it just asking that would have worked better then the question I actually asked...

Heh, I was just teasing before - no hard feelings!

Now, to answer your question:

ALL CLASSES HAVE THE SAME NUMBERS OF ABILITIES at a given level, except for minor racial abilities. To explain: every class looks like the chart below at the given level:

Lvl ... Ability Score ... Features ... ... Feats ... Powers*
1st ... see race ... ... class features ... 1 ... ... 2/1/1/0
2nd ... ------- ... ... 1 utility ------ ... 2 ... ... 2/1/1/1
3rd ... ------- ... ... 1 encounter -- ... 2 ... ... 2/2/1/1
4th ... +1 to two ... -------------- ... 3 ... ... 2/2/1/1
5th ... ------- ... ... 1 daily ------- ... 3 ... ... 2/2/2/1
6th ... ------- ... ... 1 utility ------ ... 4 ... ... 2/2/2/2
7th ... ------- ... ... 1 encounter -- ... 4 ... ... 2/3/2/2
8th ... +1 to two ... -------------- ... 5 ... ... 2/3/2/2
9th ... ------- ... ... 1 daily ------- ... 5 ... ... 2/3/3/2
10th ... ------- ... ... 1 utility ----- ... 6 ... ... 2/3/3/3
11th ... +1 to all ... paragon path - ... 7 ... ... 2/4/3/3
12th ... ------- ... ... paragon utility ... 8 ... ... 2/4/3/4
13th ... ------- ... replace 1 encounter ... 8 ... 2/4/3/4
14th ... +1 to two ... -------------- ... 9 ... ... 2/4/3/4
15th ... ------- ... replace 1 daily ... 9 ... ... 2/4/3/4
etc.
*This is in the form of: at whill/encounter/daily/utility

This chart, altered only for space, is pretty much ripped from the 4E book (it's really, really hard for me to get a chart to look right in BBCode). All characters go through this progression. The "powers" listed are whatever "power" kind your class grants: spells for wizards and warlocks, prayers for clerics and paladins, and martial attacks/techniques for rogues, fighters, and the rest. If you're wandering what kind of prayers a cleric gets here are three examples you could get at first level. Any more in-depth and you'd need the book itself to understand:

Example At Will:
Lance of Faith (Cleric Attack 1st Level)
"A brilliant ray of light sears you foe with golden radience. Sparkels of light linger around the target, guiding your ally's attack."
At Will * Divine, Implement, Radiant
Standard Action, Ranged 5
Target: One Creature
Attack: Wisdom v. Reflex
Hit: 1d8 + Wisdom modifier damage, and one ally you can see gains a +2 power bonus to his or her next attack roll against the target.
Note: Increase damage to 2d8 + Wisdom modifier at 21st level
__________________________________________________ _________
Example Encounter:
Cause Fear (Cleric Attack 1st Level)
"Your holy symbol ignites with the fury of your god. Uncontrollable terror grips your enemy, causing him to instantly recoil."
Encounter * Divine, Fear, Implement
Standard Action, Ranged 10
Target: One Creature
Attack: Wisdom v. Will
Hit: The target moves its speed + your charisma modifier away from you. The fleeing target avoids unsafe squares and difficult terrain, if it can. This movement provokes opportunity attacks.
__________________________________________________ _________
Example Daily:
Avenging Flame (Cleric Attack 1st Level)
"You slam your weapon into your foe, who bursts into flame. Divine fire avenges each attack your enemy dares to make."
Daily * Divine, Fire, Weapon
Standard Action, Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength v. AC
Hit: 2[W] + Strength modifier damage, and ongoing 5 fire damage (save ends).
Miss: Half damage, and no ongoing fire damage.
Special: If the target attacks on its turn, it can't attempt a saving throw against the ongoing damage.
__________________________________________________ _________

These are the three abilities at the top of each selectable list in the cleric class list abilities (organized according to level available). I chose them only because they were the first in each list of the 1st level available powers. I can't take the time to explain each thing now, however the gist: instead of fortitude, reflex, or will saves, now you have AC, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will defense. You make attacks with each of your "spells" or "prayers" or whatever, using the key modifier (as noted in each power). A save is a straight d20: higher than 10, you make it, less and you don't. A straigh 50/50 (actually more like 52.5/47.5) chance. Any more questions?