Anyone here currently playing D&D 4th Edition?

Re: NPC character sheets...This is an idea I had thought of, but the other DM said it was a bad idea. She said the reason was: you would utilize the NPC all the time and wreck the game. And the battles would end up being the four PCs + a bunch of NPCs. And then those characters would level up along with you and the whole party would become too powerful. She said if you guys win a battle with the NPCs, that the NPC's would also end up getting experience points, then it would end up being 8 vs. encounters, which would be too hard to make up challenging encounters for. Since she is the more experienced DM, I just went with what she told me. IMO, NPC characters can add a lot of fun and unexpected hijinks to the game, but there she also brings up a good point too, i.e. what if the players decide to continue to use those NPCs all the time? Then when the DM decided to add more monsters for them to fight, the players then somehow decide they don't want the NPCs in that fight?

Re: Hernandez the pirate...yeah, I'm not gonna try and outright kill him anymore. There was a moment in the game when he got poisoned by those mushrooms, when you ran to that old lady and asked for some anti-poison, that I had a decision to make, whether to kill him off, like he was suppose to, or let the story deviate in a different direction. The old lady could've just given him an even more toxic drink. And because emotions were running so high after the pirates just swarmed their village, she would've been well within her rights to help the poison along its course. But I figured, well, you guys had busted your asses just to save him, and she is suppose to be a lawful good type character. Why not let him live and see where this goes. So now you guys have Hernandez in your story. Don't worry, I have several stories already planned for this case.

So play the game the same. Whoever said it's a bad idea is a retard. You dole out the rewards and whatnot, so if you don't want them to get stronger, don't give them XP. Sure, you divide the XP by however many participants are in the battle, but that doesn't mean you have to dole it out to the NPCs. Do it how you wish, but I used to make character sheets for every NPC that was there for more than just "random tavern dude" or "shopkeeper" or whatever. Any character that would interact with the PCs on a semi-regular basis SHOULD have a sheet, if only to keep track of what they can and can't do. And good on you for adapting to a minor plot change. Sometimes it's tough, but it usually works out to make the game more fun in the end, both for the players and the DM.

I always, always, ALWAYS have at least mini-notecard character sheets made. They have AC, attack bonus, weapons, feats, and abilities, just listed on the front of the card.

For recurring NPC's I'll fill out a two-page character sheet and honestly, whether or not they are in combat doesn't matter. If you know their rolls, you can do their attack rolls in advance while your players dilly-dally around thinking of which way is best to attack.
So your players will go through an elaborate plan, and when it's the npc's turn, you'll say "NPC Eric attacks and takes a 5-foot-step to the right. He rolls an 18. Hit. 16 damage. Moving on!"

Good adventure on Friday. They went into a dungeon and fought a bunch of Kobalds.

Ok, so I wanted your guy's opinions on this.

I played a D&D Encounters game on Wednesday nights, and yesterday, there was a bit of controversy as to who should have the "moment of glory" point. For those not familiar with it, this award is given to the character that either went above and beyond what was expected of them in a game, or had the most memorable moment of the night. The interpretation is not completely clear, but generally, people give it to the "MVP" of the encounter.

There were 6 people in this encounter, a Rouge, a Warrior type, me (the Noble Ardent), a Warlock, a Wizard, and an insect-fighter type.

We are running away from these halfling cannibals/slavers,(from previous week) and get to the edge of this cliff. Two hikers are on a ledge (acting like a bridge), trying to cross a chasm, when a column of rock reigns down on them in an avalanche and kills them both. A bunch of turtle-like creatures (we'll call them Quadavs) eye the electrical staff dropped by the hikers, now sitting on the ledge. The encounter starts.

The Rouge dashes out onto the ledge and grabs the staff, and runs back to our side of the chasm. Somehow, the electricity from the staff spreads to the ground, and "electrifies" some squares on the ledge. Quadavs are pissed off, because apparently, that staff was suppose to be theirs and/or they wanted it. The Quadavs charge the ledge, but only one of them gets near it.

The group decides to discuss our strategy, but failing to listen to us, the warrior runs over the ledge and engages the first Quadav. He is hit by a spell or attack that pushes him off the ledge and is about to fall to the chasm below. He makes a saving throw and manages to hang on to a rock before he falls off. The Noble Ardent (me) decides not to abandon him, and runs out onto the ledge, sticking out her spear to help him up. Seeing as how our plans have already been kinda screwed up, the insect fighter moves onto the ledge as well and engages the first Quadav.

Electricity spreads and shocks the insect fighter, the warrior, and myself. We take damage. A few more moves, and the Quadavs charge us. The Warlock, Wizard, and Rouge shoot their ranged attacks and hit what they can from the other side of the ledge. The warrior pulls himself up with my help, but is swarmed by the Quadavs and is knocked unconscious. Things look pretty bad now. The Rouge make a daring leap across the chasm and lands directly behind the Quadav that knocked the Warrior unconscious. He delivers a sneak attack, and kills the first Quadav, doing a ridiculous 27 points of damage. (Average damage here being between 10-15, so he went way beyond average). I run across the ledge and also make a huge roll, impaling another Quadav with my spear (19pts. of damage), and allowing the Warrior to use a healing surge AND giving him an ardent heal, good for about 15HP recovery (We are all between 28HP to 50HP at full health). The Wizard charges forward and throws a bunch of spells at the Quadav, while the Warlock stays back behind the ledge and continues to use ranged spells to fry the Quadav.

There are two other Quadav on the other side of the chasm. and the Insect fighter, Rouge, and Warrior engage them, taking heavy damage and getting very low on HP. Suddenly, one of the Quadav jumps to the other side of the chasm, and now the Warlock, all alone, is in danger. No one tells me they are low on HP, so I quickly rush over back to the other side to protect my brother the Warlock, who's yelling all this time to please come back over to help him fight, since he's weak and the Quadav has now cast an immobilize spell on him.

Then the wizard does something pretty stupid. He rushes to the head of the battle, and the three remaining Quadavs attack him. He manages to deal pretty heavy damage to two of them, but they also manage to knock him unconscious. The Rouge, Warrior, and insect fighter rush in and kill off the remaining Quadav. I get into a duel to the death with the last remaining Quadav while the Warlock casts his spells, and I finally kill it off while using the TempHP boosts to heal the Warlock.


Then after talking about the battle and all that stuff, the group has to decide on who gets the "Moment of Glory", i.e. the MVP of the encounter. The Wizard right away starts to argue that he should get it, because he ran into the head of battle and took a bunch of HP damage when the Rogue, Warrior and insect fighter were down to half health, or down to their last slivers of health. The Warlock tended to agree with him. He said not only did he save the lives of the three, he also drew fire from the other Quadav, which was trading ranged spells with him from across the chasm. The Warrior also agreed, and gave his vote to the Wizard. The other two people thought the Rogue should get the point. First, for saving the Warrior's life by jumping over the chasm and doing his wicked 27 damage sneak attack.

The Warlock, Rouge, and I ended up getting into this discussion about why one should get it over the other. Eventually, I decided to give it to the Rogue. Firstly, because of the jump across the chasm and then the 27 hit attack, but furthermore, he also was the first across the chasm to grab that electric staff from the downed hikers. If the Quadavs had managed to get that staff, who knows what would have happened or how much harder the fight would've been. Secondly, the Wizard, although brave, is a guy who I have my doubts looked at the situation and decided to sacrifice himself. He is known to play recklessly at times, and even though him rushing into battle and being the tank for a few rounds might have ended up saving some people from being knocked unconscious, in the end, I couldn't reward someone who went out of his element and nearly gotten himself killed when he should've played to his job's strengths. This got us talking about how we should view players that just do their job well versus those who go above and beyond what they are suppose to do and manage to help the party out in a big way.

Personally, I thought I should've gotten the MVP, because of the constant healing of people, keeping them alive, and also doing heavy damage with my spear, taking down a full health Quadav down to about half HP, and then running back across the ledge to help the Warlock. But they barely award MVP to the same person two weeks in a row, and I got it for my heroics last week.

Who would you have given the "MVP" to?

My group doesn't do MVP for this very reason. It's a clusterfuck and should be avoided.

I like getting MVP. I have done pretty well so far, earning it 3 times, out of maybe 8 or 9 times we've played.

The one I go to on Wednesdays is an offical Wizards sponsored event. Basically, they tell us what to play.

But the good thing about that is, more organization, and some of the DMs get free books. Since I got MVP so many times, they give you these cards that let you make a free saving throw, or add +5 to a skill check, or a multitude of various helps each game. They can also be used in official Wizards sanctioned tournaments. I don't think I'll ever join one of those, but it makes it fun to keep coming back.

Youve used gith at all in a game?

The whole MVP thing sounds pretty gay to be honest. But if I had to pick, it'd go to the rogue because the wizard was being reckless and is really just lucky he didn't get killed in the first place.

RE: Scorponok's rep comment - Well that makes a bit more sense, both as to why he was so reckless, and as to why he was whining about how he should get the MVP for it

EDIT: And for those who don't know, Patrick is a semi-regular in our (attempting-to-be) weekly game. He has a tendancy to want to do stupid shit that would likely get him (or possibly someone else) killed. It's lucky for him we tend to lean toward meta-game conversation in that game so we can talk him out of things like casting spells in melee range, or using all his spells attempting to fight a single kobold when we already know there's a den full of them not far off from our location. He's a good kid, but he has no head for strategy whatsoever.

Then quit meta-gaming and let him kill himself. If he's out of spells by the time you get to the next room... too bad. Pretend he's not there. If he runs into melee range, good, let him. So long as he's only endangering himself... I say let him.

And besides, death isn't permanent in D&D, is it? Even if he kills himself, there are suppose to be resurrection spells....somewhere.

It's not, but it can be. You're more than welcome to say that there are no resurrection spells in your campaign unless a Wish spell is used (preventing all but the highest level spellcasters from doing it), and Wish spells are so unpredictable that it may not be a truly viable option with regard to resurrection, due to the unpredictability of the spell's effect. You say "I want so and so to return from the dead" the spell could have them come back as a lich and destroy the party, or he could return in a reincarnated form, perhaps as a budgie or something. You're the DM, you make the rules. If he's dead due to stupidity, then make it so that he suffers for it. Maybe the only person who could raise the dead lives far off our regular path, and it's so trecharous that it's not worth it to the rest of the party to even bother. It's not like we're attached to him anyway...he's kind of just the lovable idiot. You know, he's a good guy, but you just want to throttle him when he does something retarded. I just dread the day he starts casting Fireball spells and shit...

Ok time for another update to the Friday night adventure. Not sure how many people are reading this, but so long as the_wizard_666 and I are, Imma gonna continue. Plus, I don't want to forget what has happened so far.

Resurrection spells require mages of decently high level and expensive spell components. A level 5 party can't possibly afford a resurrection spell.
Unless, of course, a super rich mage is a character's uncle or something and he can get the hookup, but that would be making the game too easy.

Damnit, I said he was masturbating VIGOROUSLY! You don't masturbate furiously, you'll pull your dick off!

And now the adventure that happened this past Friday, for those that missed it.

Sorry I missed it dude, I had to work. Temp job this week, you know how it is. I'm free again for next week

Ok, I have a question regarding 3.5 regarding Cleric spells. The table on page 31 of the player's handbook tells you how many spells a Cleric can cast per day, but it also says they need to prepare for their spells by praying, etc. And also, she can't cast spells contrary to their beliefs.

Now here's the part I don't really get. It says they have to prepare their spells and choose which ones they want to cast. Can a Cleric choose all of them? (Besides the ones contrary to their beliefs)

How many DIFFERENT TYPES of spells can a Cleric prepare per day?

I've not played Cleric yet (no interest at all in the class), but let's see... 3.5? Read the PHB, page 32: Deity, Domains, and Domain Spells.
You can cast anything that matches your alignment, as far as I know. But you cannot cast domain spells that are outside of your two chosen domains.
Then as far as your alignment, if you are Good, you cannot cast Deathwatch, which is labeled on page 217 as "Necromancy [Evil]."

So long as your spells match your alignment, and so long as your domain spells match your domain, you can get spells that are as different as "Find the Path" and "Cure Light Wounds" under your spells for the day.

The Player's Handbook, in terms of the spell list, is a true clusterfuck, IMHO. They list all the Cleric spells, without mentioning which spells are good, and which ones are evil. I kinda understand the domain spells part, but the 0 level spells for Cleric are:

How are we suppose to know which ones are part of the alignment with the Cleric?

Skip a few pages ahead of that. I think this is a case of either no one explained to you how to use the book (which is likely, since everyone assumes people just know how to use it), or you never read the PHB cover to cover (which you should, otherwise you end up making comments like the one above, which are answered in over 100 pages of the PHB itself).

Page 196 lists every spell alphabetically with a detailed description. Deathwatch, which is "Necromancy, [evil]," is listed on page 217 with a one-paragraph description, and other information including level, components, casting time, range, area, duration, saving throw, and resistance.

When you build a character, skim over the spells in the lists that give quick descriptions (for example, pages 183-185 give a quick overview of Cleric spells, and pages 185-189 contain domain and domain spell information). If you're a necromancy-oriented Cleric, you'd read through the list looking for things to fit your theme. Then you'd pick a spell from the Death Domain. Then you'd look up each spell individually for more details on pages 196-303, to be sure that it fits your theme, alignment, and whatnot, and to be sure exactly how to use it.

Yeah, I did not read it cover to cover. Unfortunately, I only have so many hours of the day to devote to this. There are some parts that I won't read right now however, just because, for example, there is no Barbarian or Druid in our setup at the moment, so I'll skip over those.

So basically, you pick your spells, pick your domain spells, then you look them up in more detail to see if you are allowed to cast them?

What's this part about "praying for" spells? Are you praying for a certain spell in particular (i.e. I pray for Cure Light Wounds) or just the power to cast 3 level-1 spells today? Can you say to the DM, "I pray for all the spells except for the ones I am not suppose to cast"?

I'm just gonna quote straight outta my PDF version of the PHB for that one:

Source: PHB 33

And yes, reading the PHB is time-consuming and horrendously boring at times. But ya gotta at least skim through the whole thing so you can use it as a guide.
I also recommend looking through the Magic Item Compendium, if you have it, and glance at the augments you can give yourself, or the specialized gear they sell. You'd be amazed how much ridiculous crap you can get away with by buying level-appropriate gear.

For more Cleric spells, you can also see the Complete Divine.

I've personally always felt that since divine spells are essentially prayers, then the cleric shouldn't have to pick them in advance. Always figured it would be more of an innate thing, like with sorcerers. If I were DM, I'd use that ruling instead of the PHB because it makes sense in my mind. However, I'm not the DM

Not saying that they should be casting with impunity, but at the same time, it should be known what prayers need to be said to cast the spell, and shouldn't have to be memorized regularly. If I were running a campaign with such a ruling, I would also rule that perhaps not every prayer would be answered, depending on the scenario. There's all sorts of ways to limit what can be cast without resorting to a cleric having to memorize spells.

I think with any "newbie" DM, there has to be a certain amount of trust in the players that they are not breaking the rules. Heck, the players could probably throw a bunch of spells they aren't suppose to, and I'd be none the wiser.

Up to this point, I've been only creating enemies that either have melee, or ranged attacks. I didn't want to start with spells till the first boss battle - which should be this Friday.

Only because I had said we should go take back the town instead of doing all the distractions you've put on the table. I took one day off and the party just went nuts signing up for side quests