Dungeons and Dragons Bloggin' 2: This time, it's Personal.

When D&D 4th Edition first came out, everyone in my gaming group was amazed. Everything was new and shiny, and just seemed so cool. Then came creating characters, which brought with it the following proclamation: "You don't need an 18 in this edition."

For those of you who weren't there in 3rd edition, if you didn't have an 18, or better yet, a 20 in your main stat (generally Strength or Intelligence, but possibly Dexterity) and proceed to acquire the magic items to boost that by whatever was reasonably priced, you were shooting yourself in the foot. Trying to be a fighter with a strength of 16 was like trying to take on three machine gun nests at the top of Tiger Mountain: unless you were Yogendra Singh Yadav you were going to die a bloody bloody death.

Today, we've a few more games of D&D under our belts, and it looks like you do really need an 18 in your primary stat, and if you can swing it, a 20 is the way to go. It makes sense, too. You've got to hit to do most of the cool stuff in the game.

But I stand by our original claim, and I also stand by the Standard Array (rray ray ay). Mind you, this takes a lot more work and the style of play it caters to isn't everyone's cup of tea. More on that style after the jump, but suffice it to say that it hits my secret weak points for enjoying a game.

You guys have one of these... right?

It is also important to bear in mind that these are based on my own, admittedly limited, observations from playing D&D, and also a lot of looking at theoretical situations. So, it may be that I am just making things up, but I still think it is possible.


So let's take a look at the style of play that I was talking about earlier. It consists of three things which hit my secret weak points; running around doing crazy stuff with my friends, combos stretching across multiple characters (like dual and triple techs in Chrono Trigger), and the Grand Gesture (like in StarCraft, when you build up a massive invasion fleet that you teleport in to your enemy's unsuspecting base and completely wipe them out--I don't win many games of StarCraft). I'll illustrate this kind of play with two examples in my recent gaming experience.

The first comes from a delve my friend Tim ran Sunday last. I was playing a two-sword Fighter, and also in our party was a Bard with Virtue of Cunning, another Fighter who was all about the Sword and Board, an Avenger with the Oath of Pursuit, and a Warlord with Tactical Presence. We were level 7 and fighting a draconic warforged solo that could breathe force, fly, and had reach. It was pretty rough going, as well you might imagine. As far as ranged powers go, we had our Bard and the Warlord had a throwing shield. That was it. So we resorted to things like leaping through the air to make attacks, while trying to pull down the dragon robot. We were getting roughed up pretty bad, but then, we got it together and pulled off some amazing teamwork.

My favorite round came after the dragon made a melee attack on the Warlord. He was at the edge of her reach, and the Bard had a power that would cause her to miss, sliding both of them one square. When that happened, we looked around the table and said, "alright, does anyone have something amazing coming up?" After a moment's discussion, we figured out that, yes, we did. I still had two encounter powers, one of which was a two attack power. The Bard said, "Oh really? I have just the thing." And so we hatched our plan. The dragon missed. As a result of the miss, the Bard slid the dragon down one square, putting her in easy melee reach.

And then it was on. The bard laid in with a damage boosting power, the warlord used an attack boosting power, the other fighter moved in to flanking to use an ac penalizing power, and on my turn I charged in and action pointed with both of my encounter powers, one of which left the dragon granting combat advantage for the Avenger, who charged in and mopped up with one of his dailies and a heaping pile of damage. The net result was a super bloodied dragon who now had to worry about the Fighter combat challenges and opportunity attacks and so on.

I like to think it kinda looked like this.

The next example comes from the Star Wars game I'm in, in which we're all playing Fighter Pilots, who fly around in X-Wings being awesome. especially so since Frank and I have both taken an Attack Pattern maneuver, which results in us being more defensive while flying in formation. As a result, we synchronized our initiatives and flew around using the attack run maneuver to get us up close, or at least within torpedo range. It felt really cool, like actually being a starfighter squadron. As a result, we were able to dish out some nice damage and were still able to protect each other. Everything had a certain strategy to it.

Pictured: Strategy

I love stuff like that. And I love the camaraderie that comes from being an awesome team. It's the same in video games and even board games. I have more fun planning stuff out with someone than on my own. Which is where the being able to live long and prosper with only a 16 comes in. It's a lot harder to do on your own. You've got to be able to rely on the rest of the group to be keyed in to the fight, and willing/able to help each other out. It lets you do all kinds of things that you oughtn't survive otherwise. And for the love of everything, remember the Aid Another action! It makes such a huge difference but no one ever does it.

Like, ever.

Now, in the former example, there were a lot of rounds where we'd miss the dragon and get hit and bitten and thrown. It wasn't until we started giving up an attack or two here and there that we started hitting and turning things around. There's something to be said for not having to give up an action to help someone else hit. It's way cooler to be the one doing all of the awesome stuff all the time. I like the breakup of pacing, and the fumbling around for crazy bs to pull off to help you out.

And a lot of times you have to work harder to leverage the crazy options you've got. You have to look through the volume of feats out there and pick something that you think you can make work. It's true, it's kinda like doing your D&D homework, and nobody likes that. Above everything else, gaming should be fun. It's why we play the games instead of doing them. Heheh. Doing games.

But I digress. It's just as fun (and way more consistent) to pick a stat, give it a lot of points, and hit all the time. You get to feel meaningful with every action, because you're almost always hitting and doing a fair amount of damage. It's a ton of fun to be like, "What was your AC? I don't care, I have plus your AC to hit. Ahahah, now here have all the damage in the world."

I just wanted to show it can be done, it can be fun, and um, something else that rhymes, like bun.