My Geek Life

So the Reverend Dr. Evil (Rob Schwalb) is running an epic-level D&D 4e game for us at GenCon. Chris Pramas (busy company president that he is) out-sourced the creation of his 21st level character for the game. I didn’t have any trouble coming up with a character: I quickly settled on a kalashtar invoker, a champion of the Path of Light (which has gotten me into 4e Eberron in a big way). However, I could use some outside aid when it comes to setting my character up with the right gear. So I’m following Chris’ example and turning to the experts who read my blog on LiveJournal and Facebook.

The specifications are for level 22, 21, and 20 magic items and 225,000 gp worth of equipment. My character is a 21st level kalashtar invoker/lightwalker/demigod (1st level of his epic destiny) with the Covenant of Preservation build. Anything from the official Wizards D&D books is fair game. Help me bling him out with the right equipment list!

“Today, on a very special episode of Keep on the Shadowfell...”

Yes, it’s life lessons from D&D. Seriously, though, this past game I retired my human rogue/warlock and replaced him with an eladrin wizard/ranger ... what a difference! D&D 4e wizards rock the house! Funny thing is, I like playing magic-users (dating myself here) but went with the rogue character (with just a touch of warlock) for a “change of pace.” Turns out sometimes you’re better off just going with what you know you like and enjoy, which in my case with is the cool magical guy with lots of explodey.

In the space of one game, my new character got to waste a whole bunch of hobgoblins with a perfectly placed burning hands (once the tiefling paladin slid to out of the way; “When the wizard says ‘you might want to move,’ you move!”) and seriously thinned the ranks of a horde of zombies with fire shroud (fantastic because it only targets enemies). He teleported across a chamber out of melee range to pepper the hobgoblin soldiers with magic missiles and blocked one nasty attack with shield (which is fun because it’s an interrupt you can use after you get hit).

Plus, I discovered that while the rouge/warlock multiclass was kind of weak, apprently the way you do a “fighter/magic-user” in 4e is play an eladrin, because not only is my guy a kickass wizard, but he wears leather armor (Armor Proficiency) and is as good with a longsword as a fighter (thanks to the Melee Training feat and his eladrin proficiency), so he fights with wand in one hand and sword in the other. Eventually, I want to pick up Eladrin Sword Wizardry, letting him use his blade as his arcane implement, and I think Wizard of the Spiral Tower will be a pretty clear paragon path for him (although it has a version of Sword Wizardry as one of its features, so I’d want to retrain the feat at that point).

So, in short, eladrin wizards rock!

So ... when we finished designing our characters for the D&D 4e game Lyle is going to run starting this weekend, he brought his copy of Martial Power along. So naturally, I flipped through it to see if there were any good alternative 1st level rogue goodies for my character.

The Confounding Attack daily ability caught my eye. Basically, it lets you trick a foe into hitting one of his own allies. Suits the kind of trickster-rogue I want to play. I very nearly dropped Easy Target for it. Then I glanced to the end of the description.

No “Miss” listing.

You see, many, if not most, Daily abilities in D&D 4e do something even if you brick the attack roll, not as much as when you hit, naturally, but if you use your precious one-a-day ability, it will do something. This is good design, because it alleviates the inevitable player frustration of spending that one-time ability and getting... nothing.

No such option for Confounding Attack, whereas Easy Target still does half damage and grants combat advantage for one round on a miss. Given that, it was no contest.

The lesson: the coolest ability isn’t worth that much if you only get one shot with it and there’s a reasonable chance that it won’t work at all.

Looking forward to playing this weekend!