Comments on the 4th Ed fact thread

[alhoon]

Attention ! ! ! Some of the monsters out there, especially those copied from stat cards don't seem to follow the same rules as the rest of the monsters presented so far!

I.e while the undead, the kobolds etc seem to have (lvl+1) x 6/8/10 hp based on "class" + con... others seem to have a lvl x 2/3/4 +2xcon...

And check the waraxe the Bodak Reaver has... critical = max damage +2d12 I ... thought that the critical was to be less deadly?
A 1st level orc brute with say 16 str and a greataxe could get lucky and land 2d12+16 damage... that's again cleaving the mage in half with one hit!
Yes, better than 3rd's 3d12+12 damage (for 16 str) but close enough.

[Lord Soth]

The differences might be a result of their "classes". Soldiers, Artillery, Lurkers, etc.

[alhoon]

No, I checked. Skirmishers have 6 x (lvl+1) + con in some while 3 x lvl + 2x con in others. Soldiers have 8 x lvl+1 + con (check skeleton) or 3 x lvl + 2xcon (check chillborn) guess the "less" stats are the "wrong" stats.

Anyone noticed BTW that a hobgoblin in robes has the same AC as a hobgoblin in leather armor... and that's 17 for a level 3 monster. Yes, a 3rd level monster with robes.
And not to mention that this robed individual has 19 intelligence to boot.

[Lord Soth]

After breaking down the stats from the sample characters (they're supposed to be 28 Point Buy, but the guy who wrote them up accidently made three or four of them 29 Point Buy), it appears the player races have the following stat bonuses:

Dragonborn ?
Dwarf +2 Str, +2 Con
Eladrin +2 Dex, +2 Int
Elf +2 Dex, +2 Wis
Half-Elf +2 Con, +2 Cha (Or +2 Cha, +2 to any one stat)
Halfling +2 Dex, +2 Cha (Or +2 Wis. Cha's more likely, though)
Human +2 to any two stats
Tiefling +2 Int, +2 Cha

And Humans appear to have the following Racial Traits:

- +2 bonus to any two stats
- Bonus Trained Skill
- Bonus Feat
- Bonus Power (May be restricted to At Will Powers, only)

Humans may also get a +1 bonus to Initiative.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Anyone noticed BTW that a hobgoblin in robes has the same AC as a hobgoblin in leather armor... and that's 17 for a level 3 monster. Yes, a 3rd level monster with robes.

The "Armor and Shields" pages I posted a link to this afternoon says that the lightest-weight "armors" in 4E will be ordinary garments made out of magically-enhanced fabric. That's probably what the robed hobgoblin in question is wearing, not just regular cloth.


BTW, if you guys want to give the DDXP PCs another workout, stats for the grick (Level 7) have been added to the Aberrations thread, along with some others.

[alhoon]

I don't think we could trust everything's out there Roti. Many monsters seem to be lacking some stats and others don't seem to follow the same rules and guidelines as of hp.
Most monsters go as:

Brute: (lvl+1) x10 +con or soldier (lvl+1) x8 +con or artillery/lurker (lvl+1) x6 +con. However so seem to go as (lvl+1) x3 +2 xcon or (lvl+1) x2 + 2 xcon ... those are the "sketchy" ones, with some of the information missing. I wouldn't trust those figures.

as for the pieces: Astral diamonds go 1/10th of the weight and cost 10000 gp?! That means that a pound of astral diamond is worth 5 million gold pieces. Epic will have prices from hell if they use that. No, I guess buying your epic 25th level sword would cost as much as buying a kingdom!
Also I like the new platinum piece fluff. Ancient coins etc. worth a fortune each, not because platinum is so more rare, but because they're not mint anymore.

What I hate: 10 years after the 3rd and people in the WotC hasn't learned basic things that children learn at the age of 10.
Gold is heavy!! ! ! You can't have a gold piece an inch across weighting a 1/50 of the lb except it's almost paper thin!
The same goes for silver! Haven't they ever seen a gold coin? Not even in a picture? The canadian gold maple of 1/4th oz for example?

Examples: It will be in the metric system that all the world except Americans use.
18K gold density is about 17 grams/cubic centimeter. 1"=25,4 cm. Diameter = almost 5 square cm.
In order of a gold piece of that size to weight 9grams (1/50th of the lb) it has to be about 1,1 mm thick! (1/25th of the inch)
In order for a silver piece to weight 1/50th of the lb it has to be 1,8 mm thick!

About those hobgoblins: Nope Roti. Problem solved. You may add your intelligence to your AC. Oh my... this is going to bring a riot from my players.

[alhoon]

Note that, while it's [black dragon] listed as "level 4", it's also a solo monster. That means it's actually more like level 16, and could potentially eat those chuul-slaying DDXP characters for breakfast.

Come on Roti! That's a mistake of the past! 875 XP = about 13th level monster. Plain and simple.

16 level = 1400 XP.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

I don't think we could trust everything's out there Roti. Many monsters seem to be lacking some stats and others don't seem to follow the same rules and guidelines as of hp.

Good point. Duly noted in the fact-thread: information from other forums may not be wholly correct.

Also I like the new platinum piece fluff. Ancient coins etc. worth a fortune each, not because platinum is so more rare, but because they're not mint anymore.

IIRC, that's what they said about platinum coins in 2E as well.

The irony is that, IRL, platinum wasn't even discovered by European metallurgists until after the Middle Ages, as platinum in its pure form is found almost exclusively in far southern Africa and the Americas. Just having it in the game is a bit of an anachronism.

Gold is heavy!! ! ! You can't have a gold piece an inch across weighting a 1/50 of the lb except it's almost paper thin!
The same goes for silver! Haven't they ever seen a gold coin? Not even in a picture? The canadian gold maple of 1/4th oz for example?

Maybe it's not pure gold? Given how ridiculously abundant gp are, in your average D&D game, they're most likely alloyed with some more common (and lighter) metal.

Problem solved. You may add your intelligence to your AC. Oh my... this is going to bring a riot from my players.

No kidding? I'd heard that you modified your Fort/Ref/Will defenses by the higher of two ability modifiers, but I hadn't realized that was true for the baseline AC as well.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Come on Roti! That's a mistake of the past! 875 XP = about 13th level monster. Plain and simple.

16 level = 1400 XP.

D'oh! Guess that'll teach me not post when half my brain's busy writing an exam....

[alhoon]

Check this. Not the answer the video... There will not just be rules for social interaction like diplomacy turns the barman to friendly ... but kinda like social combat. They don't seem so confident about it though, whatever they say. And they actually admit that while they're happy with the results so far they have some issues to work out.

So, no all you 4th edition bashers. It won't be all about combat. Yet, they seem afraid to admit that since they're breaking in a new ground those issues they work may be hard to solve.
And if you listen the video you'll see that the guy there tries to seem comfortable but he's not. He admits the system won't be perfect or even near perfect and he's afraid how hard-core RPlayers will take it since most of them admittedly will say "How dare you put rules about that!?"

[alhoon]

No kidding? I'd heard that you modified your Fort/Ref/Will defenses by the higher of two ability modifiers, but I hadn't realized that was true for the baseline AC as well.

Yeap. In cloth and leather armor you apply either dex or intelligence. In heavy armor you don't add a thing. No max dex... nothing.
I like the new categories of armor. Studded leather now is probably a better version of leather. Banded armor a lesser category of plate armor or better version of scale etc. Even if it's not there... you can add it.
I guess that the different categories have the same (or mostly the same) penalties.

I don't like that they have so many categories of armor. Couldn't it be light, medium and heavy again? Hide armor and scale... I don't think they deserve their own category. And dragon scale armor... hmm? Hide or scale? Scale by the rules. But why?

Endpoint I can't wait 8 more years for the 5th edition! It will be the best thing ever in D&D. Those weird stacking conditions that you have to roll each round will be resolved and the social-combat systen would be perfected. And armor will indeed be simpler.

[alhoon]

Some smart guy has started posting monsters of his own creation 3 months before the books are published!

Check it here

[alhoon]

Fomorians: A curse, power, madness... I would make an underdark Ravenloft domain using the info of the later addition but I really don't think I have much to add.

[Sorti]

Let's make a domain based on power creep! The darklord is a Hulking Hurler...

[DocBeard]

I like the idea of social combat. It makes your social skills worth buying instead of, "Things for the hard core RPers to ignore because of <longwinded reason>.".

In Exalted, at least, putting some effort into that inspiring speech is still rewarded with stunt dice. Which is why I house rule some kind of "stunt" bonus into most of my games-it's a quick, easy way to reward good RP without making it unbalancing.