At Will

Resources, News, and Cool Stuff, all related to 4th edition D&D

PHB In-Play: Furious Fighters

Posted by gamefiend    

After finishing up the PHB2, I got a lot of people requesting for me to go back to the basics.  So here we are at PHB1!

You’ll notice that I’m starting with the fighter and not the cleric.  With Divine Power looming, there’s no use touching a class that will doubtless have hundreds of new options in a week or two.  Divine classes will get their own special in play after Divine Power comes out.

Fighters.  Masters of weapon fighting, they’ve always been the red-headed stepchild of D&D –good in the early levels, good as fodder in the later levels.

WotC made up for decades of fighter abuse in 4th edition.  Fighters are worth playing at all levels of the game. You can highlight several features of the class that make fighters better, but the fundamental reason fighters win “most improved”?

It’s because there is one game, and every class plays it.

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PHB2 In-Play: The Sorcerer

Posted by gamefiend    

Another arcane striker?  Really?  You’d think that the warlock was enough…but the Sorcerer is a whole different beast, with more AOEs and a penchant for static bonuses that focuses on the absurd (see Zebith below).  Plus, the flavor on the Sorcerer is at once flexible, yet well-themed.  If you like some particular source of damage, be it fire, frost, necrotic, or lightning, the Sorcerer is the class for you!

So grab yourself some static bonuses,drop lightning on some unsuspecting minion, and check out these builds.

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PHB2 In-Play: The Shaman

Posted by gamefiend    

Let me talk to you about my ancestors for a sec…ok, forget about that.  We’re talking about Shamans here.  Leaders with aggressive, striking tendencies (but also able to go very defensive)  the shaman is the one class I didn’t get excited about at first.  But then I realized something –the shaman is the 4e skillbot.  If you get a shaman jack of all trades and combine it with their predilection for talking to people who aren’t there , i.e. spirits, you can have a substantial bonus to any skill in the game.  With the Spirit Speaker feat, you can give that ability to a friend! That’s on top of channeling powers out by proxy and have a ton of agressive, get the party in the bad guys faces powers.
I’ve spent a bit of time with the shamans and I’m liking them much more.  Here’s what we’ve got:

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PHB2 In-Play: The Invoker

Posted by gamefiend    

Here it is, the most “pure” controller we’ve yet to see in D&D to date. Built to “triple S” –Slide, Stun, Stop — the invoker gets a lot of powers that let him make everything just so for him and his allies.

While they certainly out-control wizards, they have very little of the wizard’s striker tendencies. There aren’t ways to really punish enemies (though I try in one of the builds), so it’s best to keep your focus on one of the triple S abilities mentioned above when selecting your powers.

Without further adieu, the builds:

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PHB In-Play: The Druid

Posted by gamefiend    

It’s been pointed out to me that the really neat thing about the In-Play series are the builds.  This is fine with me because Character Builder is my obsession.  Since I almost always GM, I live vicariously through my players and the CB.  I have approximately one hundred characters of various races, classes, and levels sitting on my hard drive.  So sharing my various builds is something I’m more than happy to do, and will most certainly proceed to do right now.  Character level is still paragon.

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