Rarity: That's not how to optimize a Rogue. They're best at single-target Novas- unless you've got some blasphemous OP burst Sneak Attack feat...
Applejack: The answer is definitely NO. Unless you have Chainmail proficiency, Two-bladers need a DEX of at least 16 for AC. It's also a good idea to boost WIS, though, for skills and utilities. Best spread is probably 16/16/16 (assuming two racial modifiers to applicable stats).
Twilight: Shoulda gone Orb of Imposition, dude. Unless for some reason you want to be a Mage without taking the Mage subclass, anyway... Also note that it's possible to get AC 18 at level one with a high enough INT and Staff of Defense
DM: Stop telegraphing your encounters! Unless it's a ruse, what you're doing is wrong.
Fluttershy: ...is actually doing pretty well. I'm very proud of her for not getting caught up in Gilda's toxic web of munchkining.
Pinkie: Basically, Gilda ruined the party by goading them into a min-max challenge. You're next!
I fully agree on the Orb of Imposition. That was incredibly powerful back when I played 4e. Add the armor that lets you switch weapons as a free action and 10+ orbs, and nothing is ever going to resist your spells.
You can easily one-shot a boss encounter with a sleep spell and that combo. Especially when you take the wrong corridor and suddenly go from the entrance to the boss chamber with no preparation.
Also, not sure if it's RAW legal, but my group let me change the phantom bolt wand into an orb with a ritual. A cantrip that pushes 2 squares is really good. So many of our party's enemies fell off cliffs, over the edges of platforms, or repeatedly into a pit every time they climbed out.
Aww, yeah, sleep! Usually (though not always), if there's a choice between doing more damage and doing something that affects the action economy (giving the enemies less actions per turn or giving your party more), the latter is the way to go. HP can and usually will be scaled into gigantic sponges, but a shut down enemy is a mostly defeated enemy no matter how many HP remain.
(One could even put this on a meta level to explain why there are so many sealed evils lying around: even centuries of being totally bound up and taking suffocation/lava/other environmental damage each turn hasn't whittled their HP down to 0, but at least they're not bothering anyone. When they finally escape, their titanic HP is down to what some adventurers can actually deal with in a reasonable time, and after being sealed away for so long of course they quickly invest in defenses against being shut down again.)
When Rarity says "burst damage," she sort of means Novas. In some circles, the terms are interchangeable.
Applejack will probably agree with that assessment.
Twilight's still deep in the comparison phase. On a production level, I have a small problem in that there are no screencaps of Twilight casting spells with the help of an orb, but there are a few screencaps with Twilight casting spells alongside books. Twilight in the show would absolutely go Tome of Readiness for flavor and access to just more spells.
A funny line beats out sensible DMing in this case.
Fluttershy has a sense of what's going on, but doesn't have the confidence to speak up, since it looks like they're at least engaged anyway and they probably wouldn't appreciate her arguing with Rainbow Dash's best friend and <continued Fluttershy murmuring, fading into silence>
I think this is the first time Pinkie has done something that could be interpreted as breaking Friendship is Dragons' fourth wall. Which I think is cool.
Which circles? O_O The optimization forums use Nova to mean daily deal-as-much-damage-as-you-can flurries. Bursts are actually a mechanical term that refer to AoE attacks, either adjacent to you or at a distance.
It sounds like it should be completely the opposite. I have NEVER heard "Burst" used to describe AoE- to me that just means "Lots, quickly"- and Nova is an explosion (so AoE)- you know, like Supernova, or any of the Diablo Nova-style spells.
The reasoning is along the lines of "the attacks 'burst' outward from a specific origin square." It's just the mechanical terminology for the system.
Also, I kinda like thinking of the term "nova" as a finishing move.
It's like "burst" refers to an attack that has an AoE spread, but "burst damage," that specific phrase, also refers to how much damage you can deal in a single attack/turn.
I dunno, it's the semantics of smaller groups; it doesn't have to always make sense, so long as most people understand what it means.
This is how we always referred to it in my group. "Burst damage" is synonymous with "Nova"ing, and "burst" is the term used to describe area of effect.
In my old local groups, "Burst" and "Blast" were always used for attacks that dealt area damage. For the amount of damage one can deal in a round, we used "DPR".
As Godzfirefly says, in 4e, Burst and Blast are the two most common AoE area types. Burst is all squares within # of the origin, equivalent to a radius area of effect. Blast is a # by # square adjacent to the origin, equivalent to a cone.
However, the specific term "burst damage" primarily refers to "how much damage one can output at once, but not constantly." So it's not DPR, it's essentially the same thing as Nova damage, the terms are interchangeable. So basically, exactly what Crazy Tom said.
I love how Pinkie casually breaks the fourth wall, or does impossible stuff that directly references the camera. The latest Equestria Girls movie being a prime example. Gloriosa Daisy has transformed into a powered cosplay version of Gaia Everfree and is terrorizing the camp. She's also floating about a foot off the ground. When someone comments on it, Pinkie pops into the scene from halfway up the side, as if hanging off the picture frame, to comment on it.
Wait it's Pinkies first time breaking the 4th wall in Friendship is Dragons? *Thinking...*
OH MY GOD IT IS! HOW IS THAT WE MANAGED TO GO 815 PAGES WITHOUT PINKIE PIE BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL ONCE!?!
Oh dear, they're too focused on their stats.
They have forgotten this was supposed to be a get together type of party.
Pinkie Pie, please snap them our of it.
Yeah, Cheese Sandwich was the one I was referring to. I'm betting that it's going to come down to a bizarre battle between Pinky's RP and the various mechanical social benefits of Cheese Sandwich's spells and rituals.
I... have no words about what is happening. In fact I've never seen any group do that. Yeah I've seen individuals do that during character creation, but not whole groups.
It's a little exaggerated, but it can definitely happen to a group. I was probably the Gilda in my old group (not a munchkin but a min-maxer who wanted a competent character to go along with the story).
Anyways, I noticed as I made my character better and used more tricks to increase my effectiveness, others in the group would too. In part from help I gave (cause it's always fun to help improve a character) and in part from them looking into it more and becoming better optimizers.
It's a little sad because it's been forced a bit by and outside source and is throwing them out of whack to a degree
My old local group did this several times, but never as sad as this. It was usually more cheerful/upbeat because they always loved to make characters. We've had a session where we all made characters without a campaign to put them into.
I fail to see what is worrying or abnormal about this in any way. You have one munchkin rules heavy session so you know you're at least competent in case the RPing fails then play as normal knowing that yes your character can hurt things.
I'm rather curious. Are what the players and all of you saying possible in 5th edition. I've only played 3.5e (only 1 game though) and 5e (Still in the early stages) and yet to find a game I'm interested in use 4th edition.
Are what you all describing something in 4e and can be transferred to 5e? Or did the changes in 5e made them unusable so they are 4e exclusive?
Yes, I'm a newbie. Sorry if I'm being troublesome.
The *concepts* of optimization are still in play, though the specific mechanics (Not as gear-driven/more inherent abilities, less grid-focused effects) differ. Compared to 3.5, there's a smaller floor-ceiling range of optimization, mostly from having fewer stackable bonuses (though you can still get some truly ludicrous Theoretical builds).
Barring add-ons... Orb of Imposition doesn't exist, Strength-based Rangers can dual wield and get by just fine on DEX14 (or *8* if they get heavy armor and eschew stealth), and if you want to push people away at will, get two levels of Warlock.
Sleep will temporarily shut down anything if you upcast it enough / beat down the target first... and make sure there isn't anything with fewer hit points in the area.
There are some things that don't translate- or rather, do not have rules and features to let you do it with officially published rules.
Storytime: When's a time you've been so focused on your stats that you changed your build from what made the game fun for you?
So, in my first Pathfinder game, I played an enchanter wizard who abhored violence. Theminar's goal was to rid the world of violence through any means possible, willing to do anything, even mind control, to prevent death.
So, naturally, I picked a lot of enchanting spells, and nothing offensive aside from magic missile for my first several levels. It turns out, as fun as an enchanter sounds, nearly everything in pathfinder has mental resistance. This wizard was pretty underpowered, though it didn't matter to me much, I still had fun in this game.
As we were leveling up, the rest of my group noticed that my wizard had no firepower, and convinced me to choose fireball as an offensive spell. I wasn't too keen on taking it, but figured that as long as I used it against high health targets, I could probably expand my inventory and only attack enemies with high health, it would probably be fine.
Eventually, our group got in to a combat against a few wizards who were plotting to create a golem to attack the city to destroy the city's internal defenses when a powerful necromancer attacked from the outside. Out of options, Theminar decided to attack an enemy wizard who was at near full health with a fireball.
Cue extraordinarily high damage roll here.
Cue painful death of enemy wizard.
Cue mental status of Theminar broken forever.
And that's how peer pressure helped my pacifist wizard become a murderer.
Well, Myra from SkinDeep is best bugbear, but literal bugbear is close second.
Applejack: The answer is definitely NO. Unless you have Chainmail proficiency, Two-bladers need a DEX of at least 16 for AC. It's also a good idea to boost WIS, though, for skills and utilities. Best spread is probably 16/16/16 (assuming two racial modifiers to applicable stats).
Twilight: Shoulda gone Orb of Imposition, dude. Unless for some reason you want to be a Mage without taking the Mage subclass, anyway... Also note that it's possible to get AC 18 at level one with a high enough INT and Staff of Defense
DM: Stop telegraphing your encounters! Unless it's a ruse, what you're doing is wrong.
Fluttershy: ...is actually doing pretty well. I'm very proud of her for not getting caught up in Gilda's toxic web of munchkining.
Pinkie: Basically, Gilda ruined the party by goading them into a min-max challenge. You're next!
You can easily one-shot a boss encounter with a sleep spell and that combo. Especially when you take the wrong corridor and suddenly go from the entrance to the boss chamber with no preparation.
Also, not sure if it's RAW legal, but my group let me change the phantom bolt wand into an orb with a ritual. A cantrip that pushes 2 squares is really good. So many of our party's enemies fell off cliffs, over the edges of platforms, or repeatedly into a pit every time they climbed out.
(One could even put this on a meta level to explain why there are so many sealed evils lying around: even centuries of being totally bound up and taking suffocation/lava/other environmental damage each turn hasn't whittled their HP down to 0, but at least they're not bothering anyone. When they finally escape, their titanic HP is down to what some adventurers can actually deal with in a reasonable time, and after being sealed away for so long of course they quickly invest in defenses against being shut down again.)
Applejack will probably agree with that assessment.
Twilight's still deep in the comparison phase. On a production level, I have a small problem in that there are no screencaps of Twilight casting spells with the help of an orb, but there are a few screencaps with Twilight casting spells alongside books. Twilight in the show would absolutely go Tome of Readiness for flavor and access to just more spells.
A funny line beats out sensible DMing in this case.
Fluttershy has a sense of what's going on, but doesn't have the confidence to speak up, since it looks like they're at least engaged anyway and they probably wouldn't appreciate her arguing with Rainbow Dash's best friend and <continued Fluttershy murmuring, fading into silence>
I think this is the first time Pinkie has done something that could be interpreted as breaking Friendship is Dragons' fourth wall. Which I think is cool.
Also, I kinda like thinking of the term "nova" as a finishing move.
But it's really just semantics, in the end.
I dunno, it's the semantics of smaller groups; it doesn't have to always make sense, so long as most people understand what it means.
However, the specific term "burst damage" primarily refers to "how much damage one can output at once, but not constantly." So it's not DPR, it's essentially the same thing as Nova damage, the terms are interchangeable. So basically, exactly what Crazy Tom said.
OH MY GOD IT IS! HOW IS THAT WE MANAGED TO GO 815 PAGES WITHOUT PINKIE PIE BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL ONCE!?!
They have forgotten this was supposed to be a get together type of party.
Pinkie Pie, please snap them our of it.
It looks kind of sad.
:(
Anyways, I noticed as I made my character better and used more tricks to increase my effectiveness, others in the group would too. In part from help I gave (cause it's always fun to help improve a character) and in part from them looking into it more and becoming better optimizers.
It's a little sad because it's been forced a bit by and outside source and is throwing them out of whack to a degree
Are what you all describing something in 4e and can be transferred to 5e? Or did the changes in 5e made them unusable so they are 4e exclusive?
Yes, I'm a newbie. Sorry if I'm being troublesome.
Barring add-ons... Orb of Imposition doesn't exist, Strength-based Rangers can dual wield and get by just fine on DEX14 (or *8* if they get heavy armor and eschew stealth), and if you want to push people away at will, get two levels of Warlock.
Sleep will temporarily shut down anything if you upcast it enough / beat down the target first... and make sure there isn't anything with fewer hit points in the area.
There are some things that don't translate- or rather, do not have rules and features to let you do it with officially published rules.
So, in my first Pathfinder game, I played an enchanter wizard who abhored violence. Theminar's goal was to rid the world of violence through any means possible, willing to do anything, even mind control, to prevent death.
So, naturally, I picked a lot of enchanting spells, and nothing offensive aside from magic missile for my first several levels. It turns out, as fun as an enchanter sounds, nearly everything in pathfinder has mental resistance. This wizard was pretty underpowered, though it didn't matter to me much, I still had fun in this game.
As we were leveling up, the rest of my group noticed that my wizard had no firepower, and convinced me to choose fireball as an offensive spell. I wasn't too keen on taking it, but figured that as long as I used it against high health targets, I could probably expand my inventory and only attack enemies with high health, it would probably be fine.
Eventually, our group got in to a combat against a few wizards who were plotting to create a golem to attack the city to destroy the city's internal defenses when a powerful necromancer attacked from the outside. Out of options, Theminar decided to attack an enemy wizard who was at near full health with a fireball.
Cue extraordinarily high damage roll here.
Cue painful death of enemy wizard.
Cue mental status of Theminar broken forever.
And that's how peer pressure helped my pacifist wizard become a murderer.