Last Call for 4e Forever Issue 2

Like Chris said, Open Office is free and works great. I love the flavor of those powers!

Well, the E-martial options and the Hedge Mage are finished. Next up is typing up the Spellblade option for the bladesinger. This one took an unexpected turn as it went from just trying to make a bladesinger for non-elves/eladrin to actually changing roles and becoming an E-style version of the Swordmage (to give you an idea of how its shaped up, its key class feature is called 'Bladespell Aegis').

I'm also halfway through the design phase for an E-style version of the artificer. I've bumped it ahead of the E-style cleric because, combined with the Elementalist, these options would provide an arcane E-style option for each of the roles.

Sounds very creative and cool

I hope so. The key concept for the build is that it uses bladespells as its mark punishment and its 'aegis strike' repeatable encounter attack boosts the potency of a bladespell and extends the aegis mark to targets outside the usual E-style defender aura to give it the mobile feel of a traditional swordmage.

I'm still working out the artificer build's replacement for its daily powers, but the repeatable encounter is going to be an at-will boosting 'infused strike' that buffs your allies.

I actually can't wait to see what will be in this issue. Can we get an estimated page count? I may have to print this thing out.

I also hope to possibly make something for the next issue. Do issues have themes or separate articles?

I am definitely looking forward to these things! I wish I had the creativity to contribute, but alas I am neither artistically inclined nor creatively original.

I'm really good at telling others' stories in my own words though!

Okay... I HAVE to share.

I wrapped up the spellblade today, but the simple artificer is going on the backburner due to an inspiration I had while out and about.

One of the things I was including with the hedge mage were some extra at-wills for the schools that didn't have any good options (pyromancy, for example only has scorching burst) and I wanted each to have a decent single target and AoE option. I'd worked out a pseudo-undead minion at-will for the necromancer based on the druid's fire hawk power and had a burst of angry ghosts for an AoE, but while I was out making some deliveries I realized I could extend the psuedo-minion concept to the AoE as well and the 'Zombie Horde' at-will was born.

And that's when I realized something even cooler that just HAS to take precedence over a simpler artificer... the Hedge Mage is getting a Summoner school option.

Chris24601 wrote:

the Hedge Mage is getting a Summoner school option.

Intriguing...

Basically, it started with the thought of creating a more interesting area of effect than 'area burst 1 within 10' for a necromancer and so I considered making it be targets adjacent to X number of squares within range with the fluff that it was a horde of undead attacking.

What I came to realize the more I thought about it though was that, so long as the damage output of a summoned creature or creatures was in line with the damage inflicted by an at-will attack and you don't violate the action economy, there actually wouldn't be a balance issue to having an at-will summoned creature on the board.

For now I've decided to keep the necromancy powers as conjurations instead of summons with a sustain effect that lets you keep them in play. If you're using them as your primary attack its actually slightly more efficient action-economy-wise to just 're-conjure' them every round, but if you keep them around for their passive benefits instead of re-attacking with them, the sustain should be worth it. From a fluff standpoint a horde of undead sustained purely by their master's will and crumbling the moment their master is unable to sustain their unlives seems right on target.

Fireballs sometimes harming allies was back in the day considered one of there balancing ummm features... summonings are one of the arenas that kind of feature seems natural for.

Regardless of balancing I think its actually flavorful.

Well, the non-friendly AoE's have traditionally done a bit more damage than the friendly AoE's so I can see where you're coming from. That said I chose to use average targets as the balance factor... Summon Minions currently summons three minions that deal minion tier damage (4+1/2 level) and can't target the same enemy when they attack. Zombie Horde conjures zombies equal to your Intelligence modifier, but each zombie does a static (does not increase with level) amount of damage (currently 4 but may go down to 3 per hit based on testing).

I think having a Druid summon a flock of birds to harrass enemies and only enemies and having zombie master cause cold dead hands to sprout from the ground and cling harming everyone who goes through the area is the kind of friendly vs unfreindly I like. It creates a flavor on how much control the performer has over his effect. A Berzerker who delivers d6 damage to adjacent creatures as long as he could perform an opportunity attack till the beginning of his next turn is a threat to allies and enemies a like. And creates tactical distinctions.

Chris24601 wrote:

Well, the non-friendly AoE's have traditionally done a bit more damage than the friendly AoE's so I can see where you're coming from. That said I chose to use average targets as the balance factor... Summon Minions currently summons three minions that deal minion tier damage (4+1/2 level) and can't target the same enemy when they attack. Zombie Horde conjures zombies equal to your Intelligence modifier, but each zombie does a static (does not increase with level) amount of damage (currently 4 but may go down to 3 per hit based on testing).

Sounds like your summoned minions really "are" minions.

A bit... the ones that are basically the "AoE" attack though can't make opportunity attacks (though they do take up space and offer cover to allies), which combined with the 'can't target the same creature' limitation really just makes them a complex way of doing a 'target: one, two or three creatures' power.

ETA: the summoner options are done as is the Chaplain build for the warpriest (which took surprisingly little time) and I'm back to hammering out the artificer build. I'd like to do something with the Sentinel, but I need ideas for the animal companion for the 'Druid of Winter' (I'm planning on using a boar for the 'Druid of Autumn') so I get the options for all four seasons done and don't have to re-invent the wheel when I create the E-style builds for it.

As it stands, here's what's actually complete with 12 days until the deadline...
-Knight: Skirmisher Knight
-Knight: Knight of the Lance
-Hunter: Sling Hunter
-Slayer: Archery Slayer
-Skald: War Skald
-Scout: Sneaky Scout
-Thief: Brutal Thief
-Executioner: Martial Utilities (for the levels that lacked them)
-Mage: The Hedge Mage (including paragon path and new at-wills for the wizard)
-Bladesinger: Spellblade (defender role)
-Warpriest: The Chaplain
-Sentinel: Druids of Autumn and Winter

If anyone's got ideas for the winter sentinel companion, please let me know... I'd love to add new options for as many of the Essentials classes as possible in this thing.

ETA2: Thanks to the person who suggested 'Flock of Ravens' and who immediately made me think of Bran and 'Winter is Coming'. Gotta be Ravens for winter.

ETA3: And the Druids of Autumn and Winter are complete. Next up for completion are the virtues of compassion and justice mentioned in HotFK but not written up. As much as I normally hate grid-filling for the sake of grid-filling, there's something mildly cathartic about this whole process as I'm writing it up.

Chris24601 wrote:

A bit... the ones that are basically the "AoE" attack though can't make opportunity attacks (though they do take up space and offer cover to allies), which combined with the 'can't target the same creature' limitation really just makes them a complex way of doing a 'target: one, two or three creatures' power.

ETA: the summoner options are done as is the Chaplain build for the warpriest (which took surprisingly little time) and I'm back to hammering out the artificer build. I'd like to do something with the Sentinel, but I need ideas for the animal companion for the 'Druid of Winter' (I'm planning on using a boar for the 'Druid of Autumn') so I get the options for all four seasons done and don't have to re-invent the wheel when I create the E-style builds for it.

As it stands, here's what's actually complete with 12 days until the deadline...
-Knight: Skirmisher Knight
-Knight: Knight of the Lance
-Hunter: Sling Hunter
-Slayer: Archery Slayer
-Skald: War Skald
-Scout: Sneaky Scout
-Thief: Brutal Thief
-Executioner: Martial Utilities (for the levels that lacked them)
-Mage: The Hedge Mage (including paragon path and new at-wills for the wizard)
-Bladesinger: Spellblade (defender role)
-Warpriest: The Chaplain
-Sentinel: Druids of Autumn and Winter

If anyone's got ideas for the winter sentinel companion, please let me know... I'd love to add new options for as many of the Essentials classes as possible in this thing.

ETA2: Thanks to the person who suggested 'Flock of Ravens' and who immediately made me think of Bran and 'Winter is Coming'. Gotta be Ravens for winter.

ETA3: And the Druids of Autumn and Winter are complete. Next up for completion are the virtues of compassion and justice mentioned in HotFK but not written up. As much as I normally hate grid-filling for the sake of grid-filling, there's something mildly cathartic about this whole process as I'm writing it up.

Sounds interesting.

I think a Divine Pact or Shadow Pact Hexblade/Warlock would be cool. Divine might change up the Warlock entirely though. Some more warpriest domains would be nice too. Perhaps a Law Domain, Death Domain, or War Domain (It is called Warpriest).

I might work on some more Cleric domains... I feel like the current Warpriest is a bit to confining. Basically you either worship a storm god or sun. Pretty much every e-class needs a few more paths to choose from.

So, Update. I've been sick for the past couple of days. So not much got typed up during that time. BUT, I have plenty of time available 3 of the next 4 days to work on the article. My plan is to do an "article" on each of the four Types of Elemental, so If I do not have time for all of them I can at least contribute something to the Mag.

GF

Chris24601 wrote:

A bit... the ones that are basically the "AoE" attack though can't make opportunity attacks (though they do take up space and offer cover to allies), which combined with the 'can't target the same creature' limitation really just makes them a complex way of doing a 'target: one, two or three creatures' power.

ETA: the summoner options are done as is the Chaplain build for the warpriest (which took surprisingly little time) and I'm back to hammering out the artificer build. I'd like to do something with the Sentinel, but I need ideas for the animal companion for the 'Druid of Winter' (I'm planning on using a boar for the 'Druid of Autumn') so I get the options for all four seasons done and don't have to re-invent the wheel when I create the E-style builds for it.

As it stands, here's what's actually complete with 12 days until the deadline...
-Knight: Skirmisher Knight
-Knight: Knight of the Lance
-Hunter: Sling Hunter
-Slayer: Archery Slayer
-Skald: War Skald
-Scout: Sneaky Scout
-Thief: Brutal Thief
-Executioner: Martial Utilities (for the levels that lacked them)
-Mage: The Hedge Mage (including paragon path and new at-wills for the wizard)
-Bladesinger: Spellblade (defender role)
-Warpriest: The Chaplain
-Sentinel: Druids of Autumn and Winter

If anyone's got ideas for the winter sentinel companion, please let me know... I'd love to add new options for as many of the Essentials classes as possible in this thing.

ETA2: Thanks to the person who suggested 'Flock of Ravens' and who immediately made me think of Bran and 'Winter is Coming'. Gotta be Ravens for winter.

ETA3: And the Druids of Autumn and Winter are complete. Next up for completion are the virtues of compassion and justice mentioned in HotFK but not written up. As much as I normally hate grid-filling for the sake of grid-filling, there's something mildly cathartic about this whole process as I'm writing it up.

Structure is good  Sense of Completion is Good.
...and Martial Control is a thing and the ranger was a bit of a cop out. Intimidation based influence of enemies ought to be a Warlord thing and so on and so forth  

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

I think a Divine Pact or Shadow Pact Hexblade/Warlock would be cool. Divine might change up the Warlock entirely though. Some more warpriest domains would be nice too. Perhaps a Law Domain, Death Domain, or War Domain (It is called Warpriest).

Shadow Pact Hexblades were in Heroes of Shadow and Darkness pact Warlocks were all the way back in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide. A divine Hexblade I suspect would be an Avenger (and I might get around to an E-class of that if I can get the time).

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

I might work on some more Cleric domains... I feel like the current Warpriest is a bit to confining. Basically you either worship a storm god or sun. Pretty much every e-class needs a few more paths to choose from.

Actually, there were quite a few domains added to the Warpriest in supplemental material.
-Corellon (Fey) - Neverwinter Campaign Guide
-Death - Heroes of Shadow
-Domination - Dragon Magazine
-Earth - Dragon Magazine
-Oghma (Knowledge) - Neverwinter Campaign Guide
-Selûne (Moon) - Neverwinter Campaign Guide
-Storm - Heroes of the Fallen Land
-Sun - Heroes of the Fallen Land
-Torm (Justice) - Neverwinter Campaign Guide

Of the domains that appeared in Divine Power the ones that do not have a direct parallel are...
-Arcana (semi-covered by Corellon)
-Change
-Civilization*
-Creation
-Darkness (semi-covered by Death)
-Destruction
-Fate*
-Freedom*
-Hope
-Life (semi-covered by Sun)
-Love
-Luck
-Madness
-Poison
-Protection (semi-covered by Torm)
-Sea*
-Strength*
-Strife
-Torment
-Trickery
-Undeath (mostly covered by Death)
-Vengeance
-War

That said, you'd probably be better off looking at which core deities aren't covered by any of the existing warpriest domains, since the design paradigm seems to be that the Warpriest domains line up better with a god than with one of their domains (the focus on healing as well as radiant in the Sun domain is clearly due to Pelor and the focus on extra damage in Storm is clearly a nod to Kord. Likewise, Neverwinter states that Earth is Moradin's domain and Torm/Justice is Bahamut's).

The big ones needed in that regard would be the good/unaligned deities... Avandra (change, luck and travel), Erathis (civilization, invention, laws), Melora (wilderness and seas) and the Raven Queen (she could get by with Death, but her Winter and Fate aspects are actually as or more important).

Bahamut is covered by Torm/Justice, Corellon has his own domain, Ioun can use Oghma/Knowledge, Kord has Storm, Moradin has Earth, Pelor has Sun and Sehanine has Selune/Moon and Bane (who seems to get a decent amount of unaligned PC worship despite his evil alignment) easily falls under the Domination domain.

Chris24601 wrote:

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

I think a Divine Pact or Shadow Pact Hexblade/Warlock would be cool. Divine might change up the Warlock entirely though. Some more warpriest domains would be nice too. Perhaps a Law Domain, Death Domain, or War Domain (It is called Warpriest).

Shadow Pact Hexblades were in Heroes of Shadow and Darkness pact Warlocks were all the way back in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide. A divine Hexblade I suspect would be an Avenger (and I might get around to an E-class of that if I can get the time).

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

I might work on some more Cleric domains... I feel like the current Warpriest is a bit to confining. Basically you either worship a storm god or sun. Pretty much every e-class needs a few more paths to choose from.

Actually, there were quite a few domains added to the Warpriest in supplemental material.
-Corellon (Fey) - Neverwinter Campaign Guide
-Death - Heroes of Shadow
-Domination - Dragon Magazine
-Earth - Dragon Magazine
-Oghma (Knowledge) - Neverwinter Campaign Guide
-Selûne (Moon) - Neverwinter Campaign Guide
-Storm - Heroes of the Fallen Land
-Sun - Heroes of the Fallen Land
-Torm (Justice) - Neverwinter Campaign Guide

Of the domains that appeared in Divine Power the ones that do not have a direct parallel are...
-Arcana (semi-covered by Corellon)
-Change
-Civilization*
-Creation
-Darkness (semi-covered by Death)
-Destruction
-Fate*
-Freedom*
-Hope
-Life (semi-covered by Sun)
-Love
-Luck
-Madness
-Poison
-Protection (semi-covered by Torm)
-Sea*
-Strength*
-Strife
-Torment
-Trickery
-Undeath (mostly covered by Death)
-Vengeance
-War

That said, you'd probably be better off looking at which core deities aren't covered by any of the existing warpriest domains, since the design paradigm seems to be that the Warpriest domains line up better with a god than with one of their domains (the focus on healing as well as radiant in the Sun domain is clearly due to Pelor and the focus on extra damage in Storm is clearly a nod to Kord. Likewise, Neverwinter states that Earth is Moradin's domain and Torm/Justice is Bahamut's).

The big ones needed in that regard would be the good/unaligned deities... Avandra (change, luck and travel), Erathis (civilization, invention, laws), Melora (wilderness and seas) and the Raven Queen (she could get by with Death, but her Winter and Fate aspects are actually as or more important).

Bahamut is covered by Torm/Justice, Corellon has his own domain, Ioun can use Oghma/Knowledge, Kord has Storm, Moradin has Earth, Pelor has Sun and Sehanine has Selune/Moon and Bane (who seems to get a decent amount of unaligned PC worship despite his evil alignment) easily falls under the Domination domain.

Wow. I didn't realize that much work had already been put into those classes. Should've figured a Shadow Pact was already made. I was thinking the same about the Avenger though. You're right though. It probably would be better to design the domains around gods instead of just regular domains. The god can always be re-fluffed anyway.

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

Wow. I didn't realize that much work had already been put into those classes. Should've figured a Shadow Pact was already made. I was thinking the same about the Avenger though. You're right though. It probably would be better to design the domains around gods instead of just regular domains. The god can always be re-fluffed anyway.

Exactly so. The main reason why I think deity would probably work better is because, unlike standard clerics who can potentially select multiple domain feats based upon their choice of deity, the Warpriest only gets one domain... so it should probably fit a broader concept than a single domain.

Incidentally, the Chaplain build has an option for each of the currently available domains. If you decide to do any, let me know and I'll see about adding an extra option for those as well. If not for the fact that I have to devise around nine new powers (the 13th, 17th, 23rd and 27th level powers are merely scaled up versions of the 1st, 3rd and 7th level powers and some existing powers might be useable instead) and six class features for each domain I'd actually try to do something with the ones I mentioned. As it stands I could probably design two more cavalier virtues (of which there are only two at the moment) AND the simple artificer class in the same amount of time.

I will add too that one of the biggest advantages of developing more options for the E-style classes has been that the road maps for which features are needed for a given option are pretty clearly laid out and, by and large, tend to be modifications to existing powers or a single repeated use power that develops as you level up which really does save on design time.

ETA: Okay, I've completed the druid of autumn and winter and the 'Sentinel's Aura' option for an E-style version akin to the Chaplain. As a side-note... should I refer to the winter companion as an 'unkindness of ravens' or as a 'flock of ravens'? I'll admit to liking 'unkindness', but at the same time 4E tends towards plain language so there is less confusion and 'flock of ravens' can be understood by anyone. Thoughts?

I think I've figured out which two virtues I'm going to try and hammer out for the cavalier as well. Truth is the obvious choice for one since it lines up with the other traditional knightly virtues of courage (i.e. valor) and compassion (i.e. sacrificing for others) and should be fairly traditional. But for the fourth virtue I want to push the limits a bit more and do a 'Virtue of Humility' which will be a light armor (perhaps no armor) variant of the class that encourages the use of simple weapons (I'm thinking a damage or accuracy bonus to simple weapons and a feature to let them use the enhancement bonus and properties of a holy symbol for attacks with simple weapons). For the E-style option I'm thinking I'll probably go virtue agnostic (i.e. doesn't interact with the virtues) to save development time.

If I can get an E-style for the Hexblade hammered out (I'm thinking replacing the dailies with a pact specific minor action 'curse') I'll have at least one new option for every HotFL/HotFK class and E-martial style options for the ones that got AEDU options.

I've got 9 days... time to get cracking.

So the virtues of truth and humility are complete, although the virtue of humility ended up being a bit more humble than I'd originally planned (ah, irony) because as I read through various sources about the nature of humility the more I realized that my image of a sack-cloth wearing figure with nothing more than a staff would actually be a figure of false humility (i.e. trying to draw attention to their action to gain sympathy and praise from others) while the truly humble would dress like every other common man so as not to draw excess attention to themselves and one who fought would arm themselves with the weapons and armor of the common infantry... again so as to not draw undo attention to themselves.

Fingers crossed, but I think I'm going to reach my stretch goals of new options for every HotFX class as well as daily-less/simple options for those E-classes with daily powers. This should put this beast at somewhere around two-dozen pages of mostly crunch (I formatted thing E-style, but tended towards single sentences where they'd use a paragraph).

So, Second Update. Spent most of Sunday and Monday sleeping off the last of my illness and the side effects of the Meds for it. I'm not sure I'll get the Whole Article done in time, so I'm trying to Finish up the Water Elementals info, at least. If I do not have it done by this Sunday, I will not have it put in this Issue in an incomplete form. In that case, I'll make sure it is ready for Issue #3.

GF

And my Essentials Options article (with all the non-martial stuff I dropped the KISS title) is COMPLETE and clocks in at just under 17,000 words.

Added since my last update were the Hurling Hunter (who uses light and/or heavy thrown weapons), the Improved Radiance feature for a daily-less cavalier, the Improved Pact Boon option for a daily-less Hexblade, the Gadgeteer Artificer build I'd mentioned previously and saved for last and about three and half pages of design notes on why I made some of the choices I did and some of the thought that went into the design process.

Now if Froth could just PM me an e-mail address to shoot this beast off to I'll be in good shape.

Frothsof at gmail

And my article is SENT. Sorry for the delay, but you'd mentioned needing artwork So I did 14 half-page (landscape) pieces for the article (I only did them at 100 dpi since this is going to be in an e-zine, but if you'd like higher-rez versions I can render them out and e-mail them to you).

The final piece is 17,629 words. As I formatted it for my own use (using appropriate 4E fonts and the two column landscape 4E layout) the article ended up being a solid 30 pages including the artwork. Unformatted (no pictures; one column single-spaced 10 point Calibri font) its 27 pages.

ETA: I'm already starting development work for a follow-up article. Suggestions from my friends include a simple version of the Avenger (with the actual words "Divine-Pact Hexblade" being uttered), a wand-based simple arcane bard (i.e. the opposite direction of the war skald), simple laser cleric build, and a simple version of the controller druid (which I'm thinking of centering around the wild-shape feature at the moment) with the target goal for this one of having a simple version of every class from the PHB1-2 plus the monk that wasn't covered by the first article.

I'm also about halfway through development on my 'faster off-turn attacks' Unearthed Arcana-style article and might have enough feedback from the flat-math rules I floated around here a while back to actually turn that into an article as well.