D&D4e General?

What's the 3.5 way, pray tell?

Can you put what is good about it into words without comparing it to 4e?

Eh, fair enough. I guess the games I've played in have been crafted well enough that I've always found combat to be interesting and engaging. It's always been enjoyable and never felt like a chore to me. Maybe that's the GM making good encounters or maybe I just prefer the feel of the combat but it's never been a weak point for me.

>This old bait.

>Can you put what is good about it into words without comparing it to 4e?
Sure I can. But when we are literally comparing the two it'd be sorta pointless not to.

Awesome! I honestly didn't know anyone else ran 4e still.

I've been DMing my group for years now. Started at the end of my sophomore year of high school and this December will be our 7th year straight playing.

Folks, don't reply to bait. 4e generals usually do well, let's not get lost in 10-year-old trolls.

>10-year old trolls
Holy shit. This just made me realise that 4e is about 10 years old now. It's been a fucking while hasn't it?

Now I feel old again. Thanks, user. Christ, I started with 2e, back in highschool. Though 3e was out around that time.

The point is that saying something like "3.5 style is superior because it's not an MMO" doesn't actually explain anything about what makes 3.5 good.

You could say "FATAL style is superior because it's not an MMO" and it'd just as correct.

Putting aside the rather subjective judgment of which tabletop RPG is or isn't an MMO, it's a much more logical way to compare games using the things they do instead of the things they don't.

Me too, user. 4e is still my favorite D&D.

>2e
Sheesh. I never got a chance to play 2e. Was it any good? I only managed to start a bit before 4e came out.

Personally, I am very fond of 2e, it being the edition I started with (and, being a kid at the time, I had a LOT of time to spend poring over the books); but I don't think I'll be able to play it again today. The system is dated in many ways and my tastes have grown different. It still does have a fascinating atmosphere even in the corebooks and the best settings, something that neither 3.x nor 4e have (5e comes close, and it's its only redeeming feature).

>Sheesh. I never got a chance to play 2e. Was it any good?
If you're in a 4e general, there's a good chance you'd like 2e. It's a VERY different game, but there's a strong overlap between 4e fans and 2e grognards I've found. They both have a strong focus on cooperation, synergy, and team dynamics.

Well, 4e at least ported Dark Sun and some of Planescape.

I think it probably does both better, desu.

>If you're in a 4e general, there's a good chance you'd like 2e. It's a VERY different game, but there's a strong overlap between 4e fans and 2e grognards I've found. They both have a strong focus on cooperation, synergy, and team dynamics.

This is meeeeeeeeeeeee

I started with 2E and have played and liked other TSR era editions. I like 4E (though it definitely has flaws compared to 3E) a lot more than 3E (though it definitely had some improvements over 2E)

The game itself is pretty loose and has a lot of optional sub-systems. On its own, it's good.

But I got started with a group of NINE highschoolers as players. Shit was kind of insane because of that.

Also, the DM's style didn't fit my preferences. He was a great guy away from the game, but was very much an adversarial DM. The slightest mistake was met with a dead character. Plus theatre of the mind games break down where there's ten people involved who all have their own interpretations of what's going on.

He also wasn't too big on plot. He preferred throw away dungeon crawls with the barest of plots. Though he was pretty good at setting atmosphere, at least.

I prefer long campaigns with a central premise and plot progression beyond "Did you kill the villain? y/n" So we just didn't mesh.

TL;DR: Good game, not so good personal experiences. Still good enough to leave me with a lasting love of gaming, though.

The thing is, the 4e versions probably play better, as they are designed first and foremost for accessible play, but the 2e versions read better, sometimes at the cost of playability.

Well, I think they are more fitting mechanically, and the fluff can be reverted relatively easily.

Dark Sun in 4e means you don't need clerics to heal, wizards to AoE, etc. but now environment can drain surges which is a way more granular resource than whatever AD&D did.

And the more colorful power palette just fits a fantastic world like planescape better I think.

>If you're in a 4e general, there's a good chance you'd like 2e. It's a VERY different game, but there's a strong overlap between 4e fans and 2e grognards I've found. They both have a strong focus on cooperation, synergy, and team dynamics.
>This is meeeeeeeeeeeee
>I started with 2E and have played and liked other TSR era editions.

This describes a LOT of the people who still play 4e as one of their first choices. I run a 4e, and my table is consistently at-least 50% TSR-Era Grognards.

>Nearly 10 years of 4e

Started out with 4e way back in Middle School, damn. Still feel like a goddamn newfag. I still try and optimize for crazy stuff like the Ranger who was really a Defender in disguise.

The appeal is pretty straight forward

>Also, the DM's style didn't fit my preferences. He was a great guy away from the game, but was very much an adversarial DM. The slightest mistake was met with a dead character. Plus theatre of the mind games break down where there's ten people involved who all have their own interpretations of what's going on.
>He also wasn't too big on plot. He preferred throw away dungeon crawls with the barest of plots.
Sounds like the guy started in earlier editions that while had similar enough mechanics, didn't drape them over with heroic narratives the way 2e did

That's a terrible room for a 4e fight

Not necessarily. Mindless dungeon crawlers are like babby's first D&D, in any edition and possibly in any game. The problem is stopping there.

The advantage of 4e dark sun is that 4e's power sources seem almost custom-made to fit with Dark Sun

Gods don't exist in Dark Sun, so divine classes are disallowed, arcane classes are distrusted and have access to arcane defiling, psionic classes get their wild talents, and primal classes fill the rolls normally filled by the divine in other settings

Yeah, Healing Surges are utterly fantastic for Dark Sun and other harsh environment games.

>I really don't see how people could prefer it to 3.5

Are you blind?

What are some cool locations you've fought in in 4e?

I've had some great ones, like a field of waist-high grass that was on fire (the fire was slowly spreading through the grass, small characters had concealment in the grass but also treated it as difficult terrain, and the wind was shifting, which meant the grass fire was moving in odd directions throughout the fight), or in a corridor filled with portal-like doorways that opened into other doorways in the same corridor, and one great fight in a wizard's library where knocking over bookshelves occasionally activated spells in the spellbooks on the shelves causing them to do random shit

I enjoyed the back of a lightning rail in ebberon.

That is a friend of mine, and myself to a degree.
I started with 2e, have enough fond memories.
I generally play games for the cooperative tone, and how 4e's groups work, where everyone can do their part, not alone, but together greater than the sum of their parts, is phenomenal when the players get their shit together.
As a DM, that is the most satisfying thing I have experienced in 12 years of running rpgs.

Regardless of how 4e handles other 3.5 things, how do you think 4e's Eberron Dragonmarks compare to the 3.5 versions of them?

They do very different things, and honestly, even though I prefer 4e Eberron over 3.5 Eberron, in this one area I think I prefer the 3.5 version

I prefer the 4e ones myself. The 3.5 ones were really kinda dull and could be emulated pretty easily by a couple of magic items. The 4e ones are more unique.

The 4e dragonmarks offer more for having them, making them commensurate for the price you pay in the setting.

Honestly, the best fight I've run was in a cluttered alleyway. I've had halfling enemies abusing cover like crazy

For the more fantastical environments...
A greenhouse full of overripe watermelon-like fruits that had a chance to detonate if there was fighting in an adjacent square. They exploded into sweet juice and attracted a swarm of wasps that did nothing otherwise.
A lab on the back of a giant stone bird in flight. The whole thing happened in dreamspace so physics wasn't an issue.

I ran an adaptation of the Red hand of Doom, and my favorite encounters ever were from that, a string of fights against the invading army of goblinoids in the streets of the city, going in and out of (possibly burning) buildings, up and down rooftops and so on. It really played to the dynamic characters of 4e.

Collapsing scaffolding around and above a molten metal pit. At one moment, some chains get around the bard's feet, dragging him from one of the higher ones. End result is a bard swinging around in circles firing at every enemy in sight (the entire build was ranged but he was Valor and as a Half-Elf took Twin Strike because that's what you do) like that scene from Casino Royale.

Or, alternatively, the fight in a sandstorm in Dark Sun where the "walls" shifted around every round.

I've never liked much the way 3.5 boiled everything down to free spells. I played and DMed a lot of 3.5, so please don't take this as a troll, but there are objectively a ton of things like "regular dude with a SLA", "Wolf with a SLA", "+1 sword with a SLA". 3.5 Dragonmarks make sense in that context, as a way to give access to a few minor utility spells, but are not ultimately all that interesting. Some 4e Dragonmarks are better in that sense.

Is there anyone who plays 4e who actually feels like 4e feels like D&D? Having played 3.5, 4, and 5e, I feel like 4e is far different from the others, feeling like a completely different d20 tabletop system. On the other hand, 5e feels like a simplified 3.5.

The problem with saying something "feels" like D&D is that D&D is a really (really) barebones game especially how most people play it.

Most people tend to do a lot of fudgeing in 3.X/PF and I mean a LOT of fudgeing. Like to the point where it's basically a *World game and the question of "what can the fighter do?" becomes "whatever you can think up and is rule of cool because that's literally all we can offer you at this point!"

Spells become either "okay you just do this" or "ignore the wording it just does this" and "stop fucking buffing yourself you CoDzilla munchkin!"

4e at least in combat actually expects you to ya know... understand how each ability/power works and apply the math correctly. You can't really fudge with 4e because the math actually WORKS (most of the time) so going outside of it is not encouraged. This is why combat tends to go so much "faster" in 3.x aside from the obvious reason like fighters only really being good at full attacking/charging.

I've met multiple 3.x/PF GM's who fully admit that they don't even track monster HP and just just go "okay this battle's gone on long enough I'll end it now". Which really is the only way you can do it past a certain level since HP becomes practically invalidated as a measure of when an enemy is out of combat.

I'll admit, I haven't played a game of D&D (3.5, 4, OR 5e) that didn't require at least some fudging. That's the point of a roleplaying game, you're collectively forming and telling a story.

>Spells become either "okay you just do this" or "ignore the wording it just does this" and "stop fucking buffing yourself you CoDzilla munchkin!"

Played through 10th level in 3.5. Never saw this happen, we played spells by the book. Only spell we (I) invented was to counteract the DM's damage-reducing mechanic, which was offset by deities of his world. My character worked with one to form a spell mimicking Scorching Ray, except it removed the damage-reduction effect for a turn so I could support my teammates that way. Still, it had rules and fired off the same.

I WILL say combat feels very different in 4e, and despite one fight taking forever, is actually fun. My wife and I played twin sorcerers in a campaign and it was interesting. (I was wild magic, she was dragon magic. Both tieflings.)

Also, I'd like to point out that I'm not bashing 4e, I actually found it fun. I just don't think it feels the same.

It feels different, but I wouldn't say it feels less like DnD, because "feels like DnD" is up to the DM, not the system

Hell, FATE can "feel like DnD" if it's run that way

I should clarify:

Spells become like this primarily for utility spells or other bullshit.

Spells that're mostly blastey/evocation spells are usually played by the book since they're really just attacks that deal damage and have saves rather than AC.

Having played the same I don't know what d&d is supposed to feel like. I've fought gelatinous cubes and had crazy dimension hopping shenanigans in all editions. I can say I've only ever done those things in d&d; is that what it feels like?

I'm one of the "started with 2E" guys from before and 4e feels the most like D&D to me - in the sense that high-action heroics are exactly what I want from the games I run. For the first time in years I felt really free as a DM to run the game I wanted to run, playing with the system and not against it. I could trust the game not to break whenever I wanted to do something outside of the norm. Also, character and monster creation that is not a chore is a plus. I know this is pretty subjective, but for me it works.

>4e is literally a fixed 3.5

That's okay. If you started with the era of 3e, and all (or most) of what you have to compare 4e to is 3e the OGL-era [insert genre]d20 games, 3.5, pathfinder, and 5e (which, to me, feels like a slightly fixed 3.PF) 4e very much seems like the odd one out.

If, however, you started with 2e or earlier, 4e doesn't so much feel different from"D&D" as it does feel different from "that whole 3.PF OGL d20... thing."

That's not to say that the whole 3.pf OGL d20... thing is bad. [Granted I would personally say it's bad, but that's beside the point.] For many who played before the Wizards-era, 4e both accomplishes what most 2e tables tried to do but failed due to old-school-design-assumptions, and brings back a sense of cooperation, teamwork, and party cohesion, that 3.PF got rid of in lieu of individual power-builds.

I constantly see the same basic story

>2e was cool. It was broken, but we made it work for the fantasy-novels we were trying to emulate.

>3e worked better OOTB, but the system and culture resisted the house-rule-into-fantasy-novel-world common house-rules that popped up due to many MTG-inspired design choices

>4e does OOTB what 2e did with years of a whole community coming up with house-rules, and even more effectively.

Even in this thread I've seen a lot of mirroring that general sentiment.

It is. 4e is taking 3.5 as it was at the time, with its million splats, fixing the issues people who actually bought/played with those splats had with it, like the massive imbalance and shitty martials, skill points, HP being reduced from a resource you need to manage to CLW-wand charges, etc. and fixing all that.

Just as 5e is fixing 3.5 for the people who CRB only, because everything else is weeaboo shit.

Interesting point, but I don't think that's the whole story. You see, we actually have some idea of what kind of design process 4e went through, since WotC published two books about that. So yes, it is true that many design decisions in 4e stem directly from the desire of finding a different approach to what were the perceives issues of 3.5; and it is also true that late 3.5 served in part as a test for some of the innovations of 4e. But I think that saying that 4e is literally fixed 3.5 is wrong - there are also many design ideas that come from different directions, and the game grew organically from VERY different assumptions about what the game was about.

These.

Does anyone have experience with battleminds?
A player has picked one up, and I know fuckall about them.

They need something, anything that can let them MBA with constitution

The main weakness of the Battlemind is they lack stickiness, a battlemind with a weak OA can not force marked targets to stick to him, and thus can't do it's job

Also Lightning rush, take lightning rush at level 7 and never swap it out

I've started somewhat recently a campaign with a new group. We take turns DMing, me and one other guy. And while we both started with pathfinder, since the ambient dissatisfaction wasn't just mine own with the system, while he tried (and is still trying) to fix it, I decided that instead of trying to make fights go faster, I'd make them more fun, thanks to a shift to 4e. Thankfully, the transition wasn't that hard. We had a bard, a druid, and a barbarian that kinda dipped into sorcerer, all reasonable. And one guy that's probably gonna join once his schedule frees up wanted to play paladin.So we even have a working group!

With all the enthusiasm that got reignited for this game, I'm even going to do one thing I never did in my ten years of mastering: a dungeon. Like, one with a map, and randomly determined loot, and traps and secret passages. And given that the foes here are kobolds (that were dismayed when in-setting, dragons everywhere fucked off to an archipelago to watch the world burn, until they decided to worship the eons-old earth elemental imprisonned in an ancient wizard's ruined underground lab) there's gonna be plenty of shenanigans.

Gonna start slow, with traps in the forest and around the entrance. But then things will go a bit crazier with the terrain. Like a tower with a 3w3 opening on the floor above, for some verticality, a water reservoir with a beast lurking beneath, or a lab with some random hazards flying around as mayhem increases.

That game's system just has something that inspires me with cool tactical situations. And once I'll have it done, I'll have to see how feasible will be some shadow of the colossus level shit going on, once they go big game hunting. Because monsters as terrains and hazards just tickle me in funny places.

Can a two-handed weapon ranger be done, without going full beastmaster? Disregarding the fact it probably shouldn't be done anyway

Depends on your definition of two handed weapon. Spiked chain is technically a two handed weapon that you can use as a double weapon, for example.

Yes and no

Yes you can do it and be a decent striker, you have enough powers available to you that don't require a weapon in each hand, no because you're just a worse avenger by that point, and far worse at your job than the two-blade ranger

Charging with Marauder's Rush should be a decent start at low levels, not sure where to go from there.

again
Dragonborn Ranger mcFighter with Staggering Strike, Draconic Arrogance and Polearm Momentum (alternatively Hobbling Strike and World Serpent's Grasp) might be able to accomplish things. Hybrid Ranger|Cleric is very attractive for this, of course.

The comparison I like to use is that 4e is analogous to the Final Fantasy Tactics spinoff series to the other editions' mainline Final Fantasy series.

It feels very different, but I enjoy the hell out of FFT.

Same guy, I'm back after a day. Might as well chip in.

My biggest utility spell was Create Water. Fucking useful.

>create rush of water to temporarily blind a few people and get a party member out of a bad situation
>create pool of water underground to push away loose sand around an object we know is underneath via displacement (spawns in the space between the grains of sand)
>create a turn of rain to locate an invisible level 20 rogue, negating the invisibility bonus for a turn

All of that works without going against what the book says.

As for 4e feeling like 2e, I've never played 2e, so I wouldn't know. And I can agree, team builds are definitely better in 4e, but being someone who occasionally splits from the group (mainly because it consisted of a Chaotic Stupid barbarian and her sister's character following her around), I like individual builds.

I'd say 4e characters can solo as well as a 3.5 barbarian, so if that's your problem...

3 and 5 are notably similar to each other, but 2, 3, and 4 are all quite different. Also 3 and 4 are more similar to each other than they are to 2.

The one thing about 4E that's really strange for D&D is how durable level 1 characters are. In every earlier version, you could get one-shot by a kobold. 5 actually kept some of this though.

So thematically similar, mechanically divergent? Seems accurate.

>All of that works without going against what the book says.

Actually,

>create rush of water to temporarily blind a few people and get a party member out of a bad situation
>create pool of water underground to push away loose sand around an object we know is underneath via displacement (spawns in the space between the grains of sand)
>create a turn of rain to locate an invisible level 20 rogue, negating the invisibility bonus for a turn

This is pure fiat. Nowhere in the spell's description is it said it can be used in any of these ways. It doesn't say the water shoots out of your hands or anything. It'd have been an entirely reasonable ruling that the water when you cast create water just appears in a container of your choice, or, failing that, on the ground in a puddle.

I've mostly switched over to 5e, but I really, really like 4e's combat. Not just the powers and such, but monster roles and encounter building guidelines.

3.X is garbage.

Partial example: an inn that was in the act of being burned down by me.

also, in 4e traveler's feast is a ritual that creates water and there's a class from essentials that gets create water as a class feature. Rituals aren't the best, but still. Using abilities (because they're not all spells, you can use martial exploits too) to solve out combat puzzles works exactly the same way as it did in previous editions. If your 4E DM says you can't use the fireball to blow down the rickety wooden door because the door isn't a targetable enemy, you have a bad DM.

I remember there was a 4e thread a while back here where someone complained that all 4e spells are combat focused, and there aren't immersive out-of-combat spells like speaking with animals, feather falling, or spider climb.

All three of those are totally abilities you can have in 4e.

Thank you, I covered the one.

>tfw mostly play OSR games
>tfw missed out on 4e and want to try it

It's a strange overlap of preferences to be sure, but it seems to be relatively common

So what exactly is peoples issue with 4e? Ive only played a bit of 3.5 and pathfinder but I always see people bash 4e or awkwardly dismiss it and I never get a real answer.

3.x kids threw a shit fit because 'not muh D&D!' and persist in bitching about it, despite often times never giving it a chance.

See previous posts about how people who started with 2e tend to like, or at least not hate, 4e.

There are people that genuinely just don't care for 4e's style, but those are the sort to just quietly play their preferred system instead of getting their panties in a twist.

So, to get off of the old edition warring. What does your table consider "tax feats" and how many of them does it give away for free?

The Improved Defenses feats, the various +1/2/3 feats that add small numbers to your combat bonuses.
I am currently using pic related, a homebrew version of the innate bonuses rule that affectly makes the tax feats obsolete.
>rules query, do feat bonuses to things like defense stack? Would something like Unarmored Agility stack with the chart listed if they were listed as feat bonuses, for example?

Any bonus that explicitly references a "type" does not stack with other bonuses of the same "type".

If you listed the bonuses supplied by that chart as "feat bonuses" then they wouldn't stack with improved defenses or unarmored agility or the armor specialization feats. But the innate bonuses rule states that all bonuses given by it are "enhancement bonuses", so it already doesn't stack with magical items.

Personally I give out improved defenses as a free feat and give everyone a feat bonus to attack rolls that scales with tier (+1/+2/+3, like the expertise feats). The reason I do it like that instead of via giving out free versatile expertise is because this way it buffs attack rolls that aren't using a weapon or implement, which by RaW tend to be really, really weak

It's been a long time since I played, but my DM was a bit of a grognard who didn't believe in free feats. The result is we had a few less slots to fill with fun stuff since we used up our slots on the "feat taxes," but it's not like the game ground to a halt. Plus I hate the process of choosing feats out of a fucking giant alphabetically sorted list spread out over multiple books anyway so it worked out fine for me.

All things being equal I'd recommend at least giving out Improved Defenses or Unarmored Agility, and one weapon expertise (or even all of them) for free, but it's not going to bring the sky down if you don't. I definitely would at least alert the players that they SHOULD buy defense/expertise feats if you're not going to give them out.

I wouldn't give unarmored agility out for free

The only class that absolutely needs it is sorcerer. Wizards, psions, monks and avengers all like to take it, but it's not a steadfast required feat for them, merely an excellent choice when you're not sure what to pick

Seconding this.

Though as a DM, I'm up for letting a PC swap out leather proficiency for Unarmored Agility, if they want a cloth clad rogue or something. No one has ever taken me up on the offer, though.

Thinking of making a rogue for an upcoming game. Would a dex/cha rogue be good? What's a rogues best strength?

Cool. That's actually originally the modified inherent bonuses I created for my online game. Glad to see others are using it.... unless you're just one of my players, in which case G'DAY M8.

Pic Related MFW others are using my homebrew.
>Any bonus that explicitly references a "type" does not stack with other bonuses of the same "type".
>If you listed the bonuses supplied by that chart as "feat bonuses" then they wouldn't stack with improved defenses or unarmored agility or the armor specialization feats. But the innate bonuses rule states that all bonuses given by it are "enhancement bonuses", so it already doesn't stack with magical items.

As the creator of the chart, I can tell you it's intended to fold in the assumed numerical "feat bonus" feats, and feats no longer grant their numerical "feat bonuses" though some can still be taken for their effects that aren't numerical feat-bonuses (many rogues still want to take light blade expertise anyway for example.)

I found it posted here, probably by you, and I decided to give it a whirl.
I'll let you know how it goes.
>greentext
Oooh, that explains it.
Does it, as the previous user said, count for the enhancement bonus as well?
If so, one of my optimizers may get fairly salty, but Idgaf.

As long as you aren't making a ruthless ruffian rogue, your rogue is probably good.

dex/cha rogues tend to be better at control than dex/str rogues, but worse at straight damage, but that's ok, because rogues will always be playing second fiddle to rangers in terms of straight damage.

That said, take dexterity melee training, even if your DM uses the nerfed version of melee training, you still need a decent MBA as a rogue, especially if you're planning to be a daggermaster

Was probably gonna focus on daggers and yeah the group seems to have a warlord so I know Dex training is mandatory. Right now the group seems to be fighter, rogue, warlord - and two undecided.

>Oooh, that explains it.
>Does it, as the previous user said, count for the enhancement bonus as well?
>If so, one of my optimizers may get fairly salty, but Idgaf.
Well, I always say that a GM should use his/her best judgement, HOWEVER, if you want to use it as I intended it to work, the inherent does not stack with enhancement bonuses. Weapons and items still give their abilities other than enhancement bonuses. Yes, this does change the "meta" of what weapons, armor, and neck slots are optimal, however, in almost all cases this makes the more FUN choices optimal, and the "more numbers" options not optimal. In my opinion, this improves the game, though certain players who have memorized post-essentials power-builds do find it a hard pill to swallow.

By looking at the chart, I think it's safe to say that it's including enhancement bonuses for everything, and feat bonuses for attack and damage rolls. Basically it's just the inherent bonuses rule, + expertise, + weapon/implement focus

If you're using daggers, take the daggermaster paragon path.

Also, consider being a kenku, kenku make crazy good charisma rogues thanks to bonus accuracy when flanking

Personally I don't care much about the sort of optimized characters you often see in this threads, and I never felt the need to give out free feats, as I feel the game works well enough as is.
That said, I too tinkered with an unified table like the one the other user posted. I think feats are the weakest part of 4e, too many of them and often too small benefits. I'd rather throw out most of those ultra-conditional fiddly bonuses and use more themes and meatier feats.

What's a kenku?

A bird person.

funin.space/compendium/race/Kenku.html

>IDC if there's a copypasta, but if there is someone put it up.

D&D 4e General /4eg/
If you are GMing, remember...
1. To strongly consider giving out at least one free "tax feat," like Expertise and pre-errata Melee Training.
2. To use Monster Manual 3/Monster Vault/Monster Vault: Nentir Vale/Dark Sun Creature Catalog math. Avoid or manually update anything with Monster Manual 1 or 2 math.
3. That skill challenges have always been scene-framing devices for the GM, that players should never be overtly told that they are in a skill challenge, and that the Rules Compendium has the most up-to-date skill DCs and skill challenge rules.

If you would like assistance with character optimization, remember to tell us what the what the rest of the players are playing, what books are allowed, your starting level, the highest level you expect to reach, what free feats you receive, if anything is banned, whether or not themes are allowed, your starting equipment, and how much you dislike item-dependent builds.
If you wish to talk about settings, 4e's settings are Points of Light (the planes and the natural world's past empires are heavily detailed in various sourcebooks and magazines), 4e Forgotten Realms, 4e Eberron, 4e Dark Sun, and whatever setting you would like to bring into 4e.

Pastebin with all the useful links: pastebin.com/paPzDyS4

Footpad's Friend weapon, level 10, gives charisma rogues a lot of damage.

Looking at a Valor Bard, with a goal of offering team support while still being able to mix it up in fisticuffs.
I'm open to any advice people have to offer.