How have fox hengeyokai featured in your games before, as PCs or NPCs?
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.
Does a wizard at-will power that has been turned into an encounter power via arcane initiate or dilettante count as an "arcane at-will" for the sake of white lotus feats or the academy master PP?
Colton Richardson
It's not at-will anymore, so no.
Christopher Peterson
Got a citation?
Leo Harris
So you're saying stacking at-will-turned-encounter skald songs actually works.
Andrew Collins
Does 4e have a merfolk race? How would you homebrew one?
Jaxon James
Water Gensasi would work.
Evan Carter
No swim speed.
Asher Butler
That's actually a cool concept, but how'd you get more than one?
That could make a pretty interesting leader-type character on an essentials chassis.
Probably either Knight, or one of the strikers, since those seem to be the classes using the most basic attacks.
Ryan Hall
Or, and I can't believe I'm just realizing this, Hunter.
Chase Morales
The ranger (hunter) is a ranged class, while Skald's Aura only goes out to 5 squares.
You will want to save the Master of Stories + Unexpected Flourish/Corellon's Boon of Arcane Might combo for a *melee* basic attack-spammer who has little use for two minor actions at the start of combat.
Colton Price
Divine Bolts Power of Skill invoker should be able to double up on skald bonuses.
Asher Long
The problem here is that your melee allies could be outside of your aura 5, and you are using Divine Bolts as opposed to Hand of Radiance.
Xavier Butler
What are some of your favorite defender setups?
Logan Barnes
Invokers should have fewer qualms about staying in melee, and you're also assuming melee allies are the important targets.
I love paragon paths that allow you to take a secondary stat that isn't inherent to your class
Ryder Allen
>Invokers should have fewer qualms about staying in melee Invokers are not especially durable, and even with Staff Expertise in play, they may as well take advantage of the ease of targeting of ranged attacks.
>you're also assuming melee allies are the important targets They might as well be, seeing how ranged allies will probably be more spread-out than relatively clustered-together melee allies.
The problem with the Wandering Swordmage is that from levels 1 to 10, the Wisdom investment is accomplishing practically nothing on a swordmage, and having to hold out with an aegis other than the Aegis of Shielding is awful.
Lucas Roberts
Hey 2hu, how do I make a striker-Invoker? I heard that Invokers make the best ranged radiant blasters and I love radiant damage, so I want to give it a look
Jace Young
Wisdom 18+2 to start with. Covenant of Wrath. Staff Expertise, Superior Implement Training (Accurate Staff), Implement Focus (Staffs). Wield an Accurate Staff of Ruin outfitted with a Siberys Shard of the Mage. Be sure to take Hand of Radiance as a level 1 at-will power, Thunder of Judgment as a level 1 encounter power, and Silent Malediction as a level 1 daily power.
At level 11, enter the Morninglord paragon path. By level 16, switch from a Staff of Ruin to a Radiant Staff.
This build would be better off as a hybrid cleric. A Wisdom/Constitution-invoker is a poor ritual caster, and Armor of Wrath is an awful Channel Divinity power, so little of value is lost save for free Religion training.
This is all fairly basic striker optimization that any implement-user can accomplish.
An Intelligence/Charisma-based "striker psion" could do something similar, with Staff Expertise, Superior Implement Training (Accurate Staff), Implement Focus (Staffs), Psychic Lock, the Life Singer paragon feat, an Accurate Staff of Ruin with a Siberys Shard of the Mage, Resplendent Gloves, and a Headband of Intellect.
Luis Gomez
Wouldn't a radiant blaster be taking the solar enemy channel divinity feat anyway? So a shitty inherent channel divinity isn't much of a problem
And I take it from this that force damage is an optimization dead-end?
Chase Gonzalez
You just need two legal targets when you attack. I think you can pull that off without sitting in front of a monster.
Samuel Nguyen
Solar Enemy is probably better for avengers, melee clerics, and paladins. Ranged invokers, not so much.
My point is that Hand of Radiance is simply better out of the box due to having a third target, and that spending resources to upgrade Divine Bolts merely brings it on the level of Hand of Radiance.
Jace Myers
And you can have both, if you want. But Divine Bolts has its own merits, adding a bunch of skald buffs to two allies at a time being one. Another is Spirit Infusion, which doesn't specify a target for the basic attack, unlike Direct the Strike, and has its own damage bonuses to apply to both attacks.
Carson Moore
I thought superior staff implements couldn't have weapon enchantments on them
Jonathan Perez
>And you can have both, if you want. Optimizing for a single at-will power that you *might* use beyond your other at-will power and all your standard action encounter and daily powers is a fool's game.
>But Divine Bolts has its own merits, adding a bunch of skald buffs to two allies at a time being one. And also requiring a non-negligible investment.
>Another is Spirit Infusion, which doesn't specify a target for the basic attack, unlike Direct the Strike, and has its own damage bonuses to apply to both attacks. Divine Bolts with Power of Skill is one of the better at-will powers to apply a Spirit Infusion to, yes, so that could be a good way to vindicate the purchases. That said, shamans have exactly one non-standard-action encounter attack power and two non-standard-action daily attack powers, so Spirit Infusion might not be as spammed as often as you think by level 7+.
No, that is incorrect. The first paragraph of page 195 of the Player's Handbook 3 makes this clear.
Grayson Green
No it doesn't
Maybe page 195 in PHB3 explains it, but the way it explains it is not clear at all
Jose Gomez
To explain what I am saying here in another way, I fully believe that optimizing for a single at-will on an AEDU class without many good non-standard-action powers is *poor* optimization, because your investments will be irrelevant every time you do not use that single at-will power.
>Despite their magical origin, superior implements aren't magic items per se, but like non-superior implements, they can be enchanted with the Enchant Magic Item ritual.
This is fairly clear to me.
If it matters to you, the online Character Builder has a drop-down box specifically for selecting what type of superior implement you would like a magic implement to be. This had to be deliberately and mindfully programmed in, which can only mean that, yes, superior implements can be magic implements.
Superior implements are supposed to be analogues for superior weapons, which can most certainly have enchantments on them.
Asher Walker
Ok, I get that, but the accurate staff implement is a staff implement, not a quarterstaff. So it's one-handed and can be used as a quarterstaff, but isn't one inherently, sort of like how spiked chains can't receive light-blade-only enchantments
Gabriel Baker
You are correct there.
Here is where it gets murky.
The online Character Builder has no selection for superior implements on quarterstaffs... but it *does* allow quarterstaffs to be held one-handed and used as staff implements.
At this point, I would not know whether or not an Accurate Radiant Quarterstaff is legal. If it is not, then a level 16 staff-based Morninglord should retrain away Superior Implement Training and settle for a regular Radiant Quarterstaff.
Leo Davis
That makes sense
Think about staves being an overarching category, similar to "light blades" over two separate items, quarterstaffs and staff implements. Its murky here because both can be used as the other, but this does not make them the same item, the game still considers them separate, in practice the most notable effect of this is that quarterstaffs can only be used two-handed while staff implements can be held in one hand, but since superior staff implements are superior staff IMPLEMENTS, it means that they fall into the category of "staff implement" rather than quarterstaff, and since implement enchantments can only be placed on staff implements and weapon enchantments can only be placed on quarterstaffs, that means you can't have an accurate radiant staff
Blake Adams
>quarterstaffs can only be used two-handed
This does not seem to be the case, as the online Character Builder allows quarterstaffs to be used one-handed... but only as implements, not as weapons.
Elijah James
That's my point. The staff implement, which you can find in the builder under "implements" is considered by the game to be a different kind of item to a quarterstaff, listed under "simple, two-hand weapons"
The quarterstaffs can be used as implements by any implement-user capable of using "staffs" as implements, and staff implements can be used to whack people as if they were quartstaffs, but they can't be enchanted as each other, and staff implements can be used in one hand, while quartstaffs require 2
Thomas Phillips
>while quartstaffs require 2
Again, the online Character Builder allows quarterstaffs to be used one-handed, but only as implements, not as weapons.
Adam Garcia
Huh... that is really fucking weird
I don't even know how that's supposed to work
Christian Ramirez
Is it a valid rules resource tho? Pretty sure it should be taken with pinch of salt.
Jack Cooper
Ioun Grey Stone Marker. Hilariously fun.
Caleb Allen
I have been considering a defender abusing Riposte strike, probably using Vigilante Justice and a Spiked Chain for reach.
