Friday, July 24, 2009

D&D 4e Question?

Asked this question in Twitter and got mixed answers. A question mainly about bonuses to damage when using a power.

Here's the deal... Lets say I am playing a Fighter and I have a Power that says I roll 1[W] + STR for Damage. This Power uses a weapon and has the Weapon Keyword in it. I understand the [W] is the weapon dice... that's not the issue. The issue is the STR. Is the STR added twice to the Damage? Once because its a melee weapon (and melee weapons use STR for hit/dmg) and again because its say to add it in the Power? What other bonues are applied to the roll? Proficiency? Feat bonuses? Untyped? Enhancement Bonuses for the weapon being magical?

Thursday, July 23, 2009

HALO!

Really great vidoe.. hard to believe its been 10 years...

D&D Weekend

Had a splendid weekend this past weekend. Went to State College Friday night to stay with my good friends. Not everyone could make it this time... but we had some great Warmachine battles Friday night, and some awesome role-playing Saturday.

My friend Rob, who is fairly new to D&D, wanted to try his hand at DMing and had prepared a one-shot 4e story for us to play through. There were 4 PC's and 1 NPC, all 12th level (also cool because this gave us a chance to try out higher level 4e play). I played an Eladrin Invoker (I love them Controllers), and had a great time. This was actually my first time actually playing 4e... all the other times I was the DM. (actual pictures from our game, taken with my crappy cell phone camera)


Rob's story was really cool, and we found out after the game, it was actually based on an old Dragonlance short story called "The Best". (Rob is a huge Dragonlance fan, his collection of books is astounding) It involved a group of dragon hunters that were summoned by a local town to deal with their "dragon problem".. they explore the dragon's lair with the town's "sheriff", battle their way inside, only to have the "sheriff" be the dragon in disguise... it was a cool story and had some neat encounters. The dragon encounter was not as difficult as I thought it would be.. our 5 12th level players thouroughly trounced that poor red dragon. I think the dragon could have been a few levels higher than it was, I think Rob said it was level 13. But man... 12th level characters are tough...


We also used an awesome method of creating the battle mat.. it was actually projected onto the surface of the table by way of a uniquely mounted projector connected to a laptop.. We were then able to just project each room onto the table with the grid. Saved a lot of time and looked pretty darn nice.


Anyway.. a good time was had by all. Now, all eyes turn toward GenCon... only about 20 days away.. !! I will be starting our Earthynn campaign at GenCon, even though 2 players will not be there. I still have a lot of work to do on that...

Read an interesting article today concerning Role-Playing and Miniatures. Over at the clawclawpeck blog. Basically, the point is that heavy, miniatures based tactical combat in DnD ruins role-playing in those situations.. I understand the point and can easily see it happening. The blogger's point is well made... I am in agreement. Role-playing is only dead if you let it be. Sometimes all you need is the tactical challenge of the combat to have fun (4e is good at this and encourages great teamwork) but playing a character with ideals, passions, and motives is what sets DnD apart from straight up wargames. Any thoughts on the subject from the peanut gallery?