All posts by Ashgar

Tabletop

On Terrible Ideas, Re-examined

Wrapping up a week of posts primarily about D&D, I think I’ll take another look at that evoker from earlier.

Actually a Bad Idea

Overchannel does let you use it on spells from 1st to 5th level, but there really are limits to this sort of thing. Using it on Cone Of Cold is nice for your first maximized spell of the day, but as the second it will do 10d12 damage to you. At level 14 on average rolls you would have 80 hit points as a wizard (Con 14 assumed, which might be generous), so this is 65 damage to yourself on average and has a roughly 10% chance of dropping you from full HP. Fireball isn’t quite so bad, but 39 damage is a rather high number to be doing to yourself. If cast in a 5th level spell slot (the highest number for which you have more than 1/day). This represents a ~25 damage increase over casting it normally per target that doesn’t save, so you’re technically doing more damage out than you’re taking if you can catch two or more targets. It’s still a bad idea except in the most desperate of circumstances. Don’t do this.

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Maximizing Potential

A generally better idea is to maximize something big for the one you get for free, and spend the rest on something like Chromatic Orb. As a first level spell, you only take 2d12 damage (average 13) from overchannelling this. It does 7d8 damage in a 5th level spell slot (4 points less when maximized than Fireball), but only hits a single target, and uses an attack roll instead of a DEX save (which is better for hitting monks/rogues and worse for hitting heavily armored fighters/paladins). Burning Hands (7d6) or Thunderwave (6d8) are other first level spells worth considering for use with this feature if you are a bit too close to a few too many enemies.

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Since Concentration rules make CC in general worse than it used to be, I don’t think evoker is as much of a noob trap as Kodra makes it out to be. It just requires not overdoing it, and being aware that Fireball is not the only spell on your spell list.

For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust initiative. For a quick look at Divinity: Original Sin, check out Stargrace’s post from yesterday.

Tabletop

On Character Options

The Iron Kingdoms game I’m currently playing in is winding down, and with the launch of the new edition, it’s looking likely that I’ll end up in a D&D game soon. As always, the question becomes what to play. Since getting the book last week, I’ve been tossing a few things around. Since I happen to know that I’m going to be rolling stats for this character, what I play may depend on what stats I end up with.

The Default Choice

Now that there are a lot more animals to pick from, my default choice (a Druid focusing on shapeshifting) seems like a good option. The playtest druid encouraged focusing on martial stats, and wild shape provided a bonus to them (like in Pathfinder). The final druid lets wild shape replace your physical stats (like 3.5) but also adds the shape’s HP on top of your own. (To make up for this, most forms have fairly low AC.) I don’t know what race I’d use for this; Elf would be the obvious choice but I avoid playing elves whenever possible. Given the druid ability to mostly ignore physical stats, I’ll probably end up here if my rolls are particularly low.

The Bad Idea

I went over this one with a friend yesterday, but it would be entertaining to play a dragonborn (black dragon heritage) warlock for maximum bad ideas (also works with Half-Orc). I tend to avoid playing squishy arcane casters, but warlocks have a few options to help them stay alive and with blade pact at level 3, the ability to mix it up in melee themselves. This probably works better with a DEX-based character, but STR seems like it would be more fun. I haven’t played the big guy in the party in a while. It would take a lot of stats to make this work, however.

The New Toy

Paladins have 3 class options available to them. Oath of Devotion is similar to the traditional paladin, (with Flame Strike thrown in as a bonus spell for good measure). Oath of Vengeance is similar to the 4e avenger, and it’s a bit less supporty than the other options. The option I would play is Oath of the Ancients, which has a bit of the 4e Warden, making the paladin a bit less “holy warrior” and a bit more “defender of nature”. This gives it some spells from the druid spell list (including my new favorite, Moonbeam) and changed abilities (Channel Divinity allows you to turn fey instead of undead, for example). I like having a paladin that has “removed the stick”, so this might be an interesting thing to try.

All of these have a bit of magic and a lot of beatdown, so I guess that’s the sort of character I’ll be playing in whatever comes next. I expect some of my time is going to go into developing backgrounds for these characters, whether they see play or not.

For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative. Two posts today to make up for the lack of one yesterday: Maevrim starts to write about her 15 games, and Thalen talks about what he wants out of the new Sierra.

Tabletop

On Min-Maxing

There’s a certain mentality when it comes to pen and paper RPGs, the drive to “win the game” as it were. Kodra speaks about this in his preface to his post from two days ago, and I want to expand on it a bit. (For the record, I think the big winner in Wizard schools is Conjuration.)

Optimization is not Bad

There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting your character to be better. Kodra and I occasionally talk about this sort of thing, we spent a lot of playtest time trying to figure out what was “broken”. When it came time to actually play the game proper, we mostly shied away from these things. Also, our usual DM probably would have murdered one or both of us if we brought in a triple-class character with an AC of 22 and 4 attacks per round at level 6.

But even in play, there’s no reason not to make informed decisions. While it might be fun to have a Monk with high strength, one with more dexterity will usually be better. While Rogues are proficient in clubs and longswords, class features are more effective if you use a rapier or dagger. If you’re a Wizard, you should probably try to have an intelligence of more than 8.

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Roleplaying is Good

How much is too much depends on the playstyle of the group. An adventure that is a straight dungeon crawl may call for characters that are more combat-focused. If your adventures mostly require dealing with people in town and rarely getting into combat, then that wizard with 8 int might not slow you down too much, and will provide amusing RP possibilities. (You may also want to explore roleplaying systems that aren’t D&D; many others are better at this sort of thing.) Most groups will be somewhere in the middle, it depends on what your group finds fun.

When I feel it goes too far is when winning the game becomes a primary character goal. It can cause problems when not playing the same game as everyone else and rolls Pun-Pun when the rest of the party is more-or-less standard. There are more reasons for this than just roleplaying, an unbalanced party makes encounter design somewhat challenging. Things that challenge the super-character would crush the rest, and things that would challenge the rest are brushed aside handily. I think it’s better to come up with characters that fit the direction of your campaign, and see where it goes from there.

For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative.

Gaming

On “Sequels”

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I would find it very difficult to write about the Robin Williams thing without getting extremely personal, and I don’t think I’m ready for that. At the same time, I’ve been thinking about it and so it must be mentioned. I am saddened by his loss, and I think that mental illness is not a topic that we (as a society) are good at talking about. I’m not sure what it’ll take for us to get better, but maybe this can be a start. It would be nice if we could talk about things without tragedy, but that’s a separate issue.

With that out of the way, I want to talk about Sequels. Geometry Wars 3 was announced recently, and so was Roller Coaster Tycoon World. The former actually has some people who were at the studio that made the first two games (but not the creator of the series), the latter does not. The game I mentioned yesterday (Sacred 3) was made without any of the team that made Sacred 1 and 2. There are probably lessons that can be learned from that going forward.

Cautious Optimism

I expect these games to deviate somewhat from their predecessors, RCT especially. (As an aside, deviating from RCT4 is likely to only be a good thing.) Chris Sawyer isn’t involved and hasn’t been involved for a long time. There has not been a game like Roller Coaster Tycoon since RCT3 10 years ago, and it’s not because people haven’t tried. That’s not to say the game will be bad, but it probably won’t be the same.

Geometry wars I’m more hopeful about, simply because there are fewer moving parts to mess up. While the quality of twin stick shooters does vary, I have some confidence that access to the IP and (hopefully) mechanics represented by the series will result in a fun game. That said, they could throw me for a loop and make it play like Star Fox, for all I know. Information isn’t exactly available yet.

I continue to insist that Sacred 3’s reception is mostly about its name, so maybe these examples should be careful. It’s too late for RCT4, but RCT World is at least being structured as a spin-off, and they’ve already said it won’t have microtransactions, so there’s almost nowhere to go but up from there. As long as the games that come out are good, I don’t mind if they’re not 100% faithful to the series.

For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative. Take a look at Isey’s post from yesterday for an opinion on silent protagonists.

Gaming

On Steam’s Worst Game

Sometimes a game will release where users and reviewers disagree on how good it is. There are usually a few reasons for this whenever it happens. Recent games with server problems (Sim City, Battlefield 4) have resulted in the user scores getting review-bombed. Cult classics sometimes review poorly but are well-liked by players later (like Nier or God Hand). And then they’re this. Sacred 3 Released (in the US) last Tuesday, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. According to reviewers it’s somewhat mediocre (a few really liked it), but according to players it’s the worst thing since The War Z.

sacred reviews

Bait And Switch

It’s absolutely worth mentioning that the game is a giant bait and switch, being named as the third game in the series but playing nothing like the previous games. Sacred (and Sacred 2) are dungeon crawlers reminiscent of Diablo, with randomized loot and an “open” world and everything else that goes with the genre. Sacred 3 is not like this. Instead, it’s similar to Gauntlet, but with some additional features. This means that you only have access to two abilities at a time, there is no random loot, and the levels are fairly linear with hidden secrets. Personally, I like 3 (so far) more than I liked 2, but this is clearly an uncommon opinion.

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Two Steps Forward

That’s not to say there’s no character development whatsoever. Characters gain levels and can unlock additional skills or skill variations to buy. Weapon Spirits are (so far) unlocked via the storyline and provide some additional benefit and drawback to your character, that is the same across all character options. The first one you find (The Battlemage) decreases your energy earned but gives your hits a chance to generate chain lightning. Different primary weapons can change the effects of your normal attack, and all of these can be upgraded with gold and experience.

One Step Back

However, the writing is Bad. There was a constant attempt to be funny, and it doesn’t really work (maybe because I’m not 12 anymore). The dialogue is particularly bad from the main villain, and his voice acting is even worse. Your constant NPC help has a better voice actor, but still terrible (and frequently, annoying) lines. This is my largest complaint about the game by far, and I might see if I like it more by turning off the voice entirely.

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I’m only a few hours in (most of which is trying the characters to see which one I liked best), so perhaps my opinion about the game will change, but as of right now I’d call it a good, but not great game. I’d recommend it if you like fighting lots of enemies, looking for secrets, and co-op (which I’m hoping to talk some people into soon).

For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative. For something I can relate to, see Simcha’s day 10 post. With this post I’m a third of the way through, with 20 posts to go.

Tabletop

On Terrible Ideas

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D&D had always been fairly good at allowing this, but the new edition does seem to have a lot of potential for amusing bad ideas. The new edition is no different, and maybe even better. A lot of these were in playtests or teasers, so I hope there’s no problem with me posting them here.

My personal favorite by far I mentioned yesterday, the Wild Magic Sorcerer. I’m not the biggest fan of tables for loot, but this table for wild magic effects is awesome My personal favorites are “07-08 You cast fireball as a 3rd level spell centered on yourself” and “53-54 You are immune to being intoxicated by alcohol for the next 5d6 days”.

Also worth of mention is the overchannel feature for Wizards specializing in Evocation that reads as follows:

…When you cast a wizard spell of 5th level or lower that deals damage, you can deal maximum damage with that spell. The first time you do so, you suffer no adverse effect. If you use this feature again before you finish a long rest, you take 2d12 necrotic damage for each level of the spell, immediately after you cast it. Each time you use this feature again before finishing a long rest, the necrotic damage per spell level increases by 1d12. This damage ignores resistance and immunity.

This is the only printed way of accessing the maximize spell effect. I know at least one player who would abuse this, mostly to their detriment.

An Honorable mention goes to the Warlock class, for being entirely based on a questionable idea. I feel like this class is just asking for your DM to inflict you (and your party) with a variety of unfortunate encounters courtesy of (or tangentially related to) your choice of patron.

For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative. I’m a slacker and don’t have another post to highlight for today.

Tabletop

On D&D Next

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For those who have not heard, the Player’s Manual for the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons released yesterday. I don’t know what the official term for this edition is, but since they’re no longer calling it D&D Next I’m just going to call it 5e. I played a bit with the playtest packets that were out near the end of last year, but there were some balance issues there. I look forward to giving the full rule set a bit of a workout.

Something Old

5e is a return to the ways before 4e in most cases. There’s a mostly familiar set of classes (Warlock is the only class that wasn’t in the 3.5 Player’s Handbook), although there are some changes I’ll mention later. Gone are the encounter/daily/at-will powers from 4e, returned are the concepts of spell slots and spell levels (although these don’t work exactly like they used to either). Also gone are fort/ref/will defenses, but the saves that they were replacing are a bit different now. It’s a return of familiar things, without just being 3.5++, like Pathfinder.

Something New

A completely new concept (for D&D anyway) is the advantage/disadvantage system, where you can roll 2 d20s and take the higher or lower of the two depending on which one you have. Things like Sneak Attacks and various bonuses and penalties were reworked to use this system. The action system is also changed up a bit, in that (generally speaking) players get to take an action and a bonus action per turn, with movement being separated from that system. (This means that you can do things like move in between attacks if you have more than one, or move, attack, and move again, etc.) Advancement is also a bit different, since feats are semi-removed from the normal level progression.

Something Borrowed

A concept from 4e that did stick around is the concept of class variants. Most classes get to make a decision at level 3 that affects the rest of their progression; A few classes (like Clerics) make this decision before then. There’s a lot of variation locked in these, including an option for the Fighter that adds spellcasting progression, a Druid option that makes wildshape far more powerful, and this Sorcerer option which looks like a terrible (but awesome) idea.

Something Blue

I’m a bit sad about the staggered release of the books, since the player’s handbook doesn’t contain much about magical items (probably in the Dungeon Master’s Guide) and had only a tiny list of creatures (which is unfortunate for both Druids and DMs). I like what’s there, and I especially like the variety of class options available, but I just with there was a bit more.

For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative. For an interesting look at what solving an ARG is like, check out Kodra’s post about The Secret World launch ARG.

MMO

On Getting Carried

…be sure to make yourself as light as possible.

That’s advice I heard about League of Legends, but it clearly has wider implications. As you may have heard from Belghast, we finished our respective relic quests yesterday, earning himself a Bravura and myself a Curtana (with accompanying Holy Shield). I was dreading having to tank Garuda, which was a somewhat difficult encounter in 4-man form. On the advice of Kodra, I queued up for it anyway, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as anticipated. The other tank was massively more geared than I was, so my entire function was to be a cheerleader. It took one try, and I’m pretty sure the group would have succeeded if I’d somehow dropped dead on the pull, rather than contributing my meager tank DPS.

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Titan was a different sort of carry. Through sheer dumb luck, the other tank was also someone looking to complete his relic quest. As a result, I was the MT for that fight. I had severe aggro issues simply due to gear differences, but I did all I could to keep up. The first attempt we failed to kill the heart (several DPS had been knocked off, and I died during that phase). Second attempt looked like it was going better, but we wiped late in the fight when both healers got Venn diagrammed. On the third attempt, we lost the Scholar very early, and I saw the other healer’s ridiculous ability to carry a group given enough gear and skill. I came out of it suitably awed and with a fancy new sword+shield.

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I guess I was light enough. I’m probably going to do it again soon for my own Bravura, as I got the raw crafted weapon ready before we left the game, so I just have to do all of the bosses again. Hopefully I’ll get to do my own carrying once I get enough gear.

For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative. For a look at how the Lego games manage to retell complex stories without words, check out Hello Cynical Badger’s post from yesterday.

MMO

On Stupid CNJ Tricks

I joked yesterday that Eorzea Roulette was like Russian Roulette, but instead of bullets you had Stone Vigil. (Stone Vigil isn’t actually that bad, I find Toto-Rak far more annoying to get randomed into.) As luck would have it when I went for my daily random on my Warrior, I got Stone Vigil. Stone vigil has some very annoying patrols, and some enemies that spawn directly on top of the group. Without prior knowledge of this (or if you’ve forgotten exactly where they are, like I did), it’s likely that some pulls are going to get very rough. Fortunately, the White Mage in the group was very good and used a tactic I’ve never seen before to help keep mobs under control. I’m going to share this (and some other tricks) that can be extremely helpful for a group.

1. Get Swiftcast

Swiftcast is a cross-class ability for CNJ/WHM (requires 26 Thaumaturge), but it’s probably the most important one you can get and has myriad uses. The first and most obvious is that at level 22 conjurers get a trait that allows Raise to be cast in combat, but the 8 second casting time makes that difficult. Swiftcast can make it instant. If you’re personally swarmed by enemies, Blizzard II (another cross-class skill, but you pick it up on the way to Swiftcast anyway) can be swiftcast for a pseudo-frost nova, Holy works even better for this when you get it. Swiftcasting cure spells seems like a good idea, but since most of them don’t have longer cast times than the GCD, you don’t save much time overall doing it. It does allow you to cast a cure spell while moving, which is useful in a number of situations.

2. Fluid Aura Tricks

When you get Fluid Aura at 15, it serves primarily as a tool to annoy your tank, or for survivability (and a bit of extra damage) when soloing. It also has use in getting a mob that the tank won’t pick up for whatever reason to leave you alone for a few seconds. (While I have done this, being on the other side of it is a bit frustrating. Give your tanks some opportunity to pick up mobs before resorting to this.) The clever use for it I saw yesterday was as a spell right before casting Repose, to take something completely out of the fight for 30+ seconds. (Repose can be recast, but it does have diminishing returns.)

3. Get Surecast

While far less important than Swiftcast, Surecast mostly has applications when the group is going to take predictable heavy AOE damage (Geocrush, Primal signature spells). Normally, these spells do enough damage to interrupt any cast in progress. Surecast can allow you to time a group spell to go off just after the damage lands without being interrupted. While this could also be accomplished with Swiftcast, this can be doubled up on (Surecast+heal -> Swiftcast+heal) for additional healing if necessary.

My White Mage is now 41, and healing isn’t my usual role, so I’m sure I still have a lot to learn. I still don’t have a DPS class higher than 35, but I have both tanks at the cap and a healer quickly approaching it. Maybe someday I’ll get a clue.

For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative. For an experience I can somewhat relate to, Isey wrote about tracking down pet skills.

Meta, MMO

On What’s In a Name

Names are Hard. I’ve been playing a series of Tabletop games, and it’s pretty much always the hardest part. My general online handle, HiddenWings, came about shortly after high school. It’s taken directly from a song title posted to an online music site that I’m surprised to see still exists. (When I found it, there was literally no artist name posted.) I’ve been using it since 2007 on forums, and since 2008 in games on PSN and Steam. It’s become my go-to default username ever since.

Even less creative is my go-to character name. Ashgar was a character in the GBA game Magi-Nation, and also a card in the related TCG (which I knew very little about at the time). In the game, Ashgar is the not-very-bright elder of Cald, the fire region. He does have in his possession a key that opens almost every door in the entire game; you have to steal it as part of the plot. (As a side note, there are severe penalties for not returning it before a certain point when he notices it’s missing.) The idea that “Ashgar’s Key” could open everything was fascinating to me, and so I remembered the name. It became the name of my horde-side druid in the summer of 2007, and since that was my first character to see serious play, the name stuck. When I transferred to Argent Dawn the name was taken, and so the name Ashfang came about.

Ashgar
Other names come from other places. When I need a full name (especially for a human), I tend to look up name meanings and pick something that has the right feeling, even if these names have completely different origins, or would be unlikely to occur together due to being popular in different parts of the world. Zane Dimetrius is from a variation on my actual name, and a surname meaning “Earth-lover”, an appropriate name for the earth mage that the name represented. Another example is Trevor Lowell, a name for a werewolf of sorts from nowhere special. This one’s a bit of a joke, as the names mean “big town” and “little wolf”. I liked that one enough that it became the name of my TSW character. As I play more things my stable of names slowly expands, but I’ll probably keep using a lot of the same ones whenever I can make similar characters.

For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative. This post is inspired by Tyluroth’s post on his names from yesterday.