Ridiculous Search

Oh gosh, this one's great! And two people found my blog through this search, which is...

calvin and hobbs piss on you

Ha!

4eMOD: The oAssassin

I can't remember exactly what my initial reaction was when I originally saw the Assassin come out on DnD Insider. I know it involved a lot of staring, shouting, and eventually screaming in joy. I do remember the lasting peace that spread through everywhere and warmed the cockles of my overjoyed heart, though. That was pretty distinctive.

So was my letdown upon seeing the boards. Apparently the Assassin sucks.

Now, this was news to me. My friend Sunohara had played an assassin awhile back in one of my games, and he had a blast. He played the class as it should have been: someone who hides in the shadows, destroys one target with a well-placed blow, and moves on. Granted, in that game I had cut the HP in half and doubled the damage of the monsters, but that's moot, right? Wrong. Turns out when you mess with the math like that it pretty severely skews things in the assassin's favor. I looked at charts and graphs and arguments, and concluded the naysayers were right. Had I not modified the math as I did, Sunohara's assassin (named Blackstar after an anime character who I just now had the... pleasure... of meeting... *twitches*) wouldn't have been nearly as effective. "Well, I thought, we'll just have to fix that." So I did.

The assassin is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting and well-designed classes in the game, even if its not one of the most effective. It sets up a style of play extremely effectively, to the point to where I try to push that in all my 4eMOD classes. But, it does need a few tweaks for effectiveness. Here are a few things I would add:

Weapon Finesse: This lets the assassin use Dexterity for his melee basic attack and damage rolls. That little change alone lets the assassin play so much more offensively it's almost ridiculous. Seriously, an assassin can charge now! Laugh if you will, but sometimes that extra movement can make all the difference, especially because of...

Death Attack: If any attack of yours would reduce a target to 10 HP or less you may kill the target as a free action. At level 21 you may kill  a target when you reduce it to 15 HP instead. So what if I stole this from the Essentials assassin, and then made it better? It's a pretty flavorable (and powerful) ability. And really, who wants Essentials to be better?

Poison Adept: An assassin has sold his soul to the Shadowfell, and has gained power from it. His soul itself is death, and your body now oozes a black fluid that's deadly to whomever touches it. As a minor action you may make your next attack gain the poison keyword. If the attack used has the poison keyword already you get a +2 power bonus to the damage roll of the next attack. At level 11 increase this damage to +4, and at level 21 increase this damage to +6. Why have this? It makes the Venom Hand feat tree actually worthwhile now! The assassin should be a poisoner, it's built right into the idea of an assassin. So let's push that as far as possible. This makes the DPS the assassin deals without shrouds more potent, and allows us to get to the Death Attack that much quicker!

Assassin's Shroud: Finally, the ability that got the most tweaks. The Shroud is an awesome idea in theory, but in practice it could have done much much better. So I changed the flavor. Instead of putting "invisible shrouds" on your foe, you make your own shadow a creature of death.

Basically, Noob Saibot from MK9

So all the time spent "building up shrouds"? You're making your own shadow solid, so it can leap out and deal a huge attack when least expected! This is the essence of the Shroud ability, to catch someone so completely unawares you destroy them.

Change the range on Assassin's Shroud to Personal, and the target yourself. And then, change the first line of the second paragraph to this instead:

Before you make an attack roll against any target, you may choose to invoke either all of your shrouds or none of them. 

Add the following special:

Special:  When you invoke your shrouds and have all four of them your shroud dice become d10's instead of d6's and deals normal damage even on a miss. This includes minions.

All powers talking about the target of your shrouds must now be changed to any target. The assassin's only reason for not attacking from round to round is only that he has so few hit points that getting hit once will almost certainly bloody him (especially if he's been an annoyance before).

And we're still not done. More insult must be given to injury. Two of the At-Wills have to be modified, because they're essentially worthless. Make sure Inescapable Blade adds the assassin's dexterity modifier to the damage roll, and leaping shade does 2 extra damage for each shroud you've invoked, not 1 (and 4 extra damage per shroud at 21st level), and the assassin is mostly fixed. And by mostly fixed I mean some of the other powers aren't as great as they could be, but with those baseline fixes to the class the assassin is now a huge threat. I mean, huge. This is a guy who will be pinballing between all available targets to kill them with a deadly mix of poison, well-placed attacks, and his own shadow! The fact that he has such low HP is more of a thrill now, if you ask me! One good hit and you're dead. But the same is true of your target.

The City's Lights: The Decision to Be Better

As always, I would like to thank Clannad Central for all their lovely videos. Thanks, guys, for all your help with The School's Trees and now, with The City's Lights. It's much appreciated.

 


To me this is one of the most interesting clips from well... anything... I've ever watched. Most of it is just Tomoya complaining about how much life sucks, with a bit of advice that's spoken as much for him as it is for Nagisa. There's nothing really all that revolutionary about a bitter teenager complaining, really. But something really important does happen here. Tomoya meets Nagisa, and they make the decision to be better people.which is what the next few episodes are for. Tomoya and Nagisa attempt to break out of their respective funks, each in their own way.



ERHEM. In their own ways!!!

What I found so odd about these beginning episodes was how intentionally awkward the writers made Tomoya and Nagisa. Both of them had no real indication for romance at all, and it showed. The only thing really connecting the two of them is their shared moment. There isn't a magical "it all gets better" button. It's long and slow and arduous, and the two of them have to wrestle with their own inner crap to be able to make this decision. Ultimately, however, they both want to be better people, and that discontent with being less than what they can be is the thing keeping them together for the first four episodes of the show.



And then they meet Fuko.

FINE, ANDY, FINE!

So Andy was very unhappy with the first The City's Lights posts. He said he was promised, and I quote "milk, cookies, and a sparkly-glowy Jar Jar Binks" (from Facebook). Since Andy's in Ohio and I'm in Kansas, I can't give him the milk and cookies, so HERE!

HAPPY NOW??????

Ridiculous Search 3/22/12

Once again, it's that time of the week! The ridiculous search of the week is...


all boobs all the time!!!

... do I even have that phrase on my blog? Beyond this post?

A close runner-up was "awful ending", but two, yes, count'em, TWO people found my blog via "all boobs all the time" at the last second, and there we are.

What'll it be next week? I have no idea, I'll probably find out when you do!

The City's Lights: Introduction

If you've paid any amount of attention to this blog, then you'll know of my fanatical-obsessive love of the show Clannad. As a matter of fact, I love Clannad so much that was originally why I started blogging! So I went and started up my own Clannad-based blog. That blog, The School's Trees, very quickly turned into something I was genuinely proud of. Which is why, when it was done, I ended it. As an artist, I knew that thing was done and needed stay that way. So I did the only thing I thought would actually do the blog any credit. Now, granted, I've made a few posts on The Kitchen Sink that are a continuation of The School's Trees, but that blog ended a year ago. It's done.

So why am I starting another Clannad-related series of blog posts and reflections? Well, beyond the obvious nostalgia in covering Clannad, there are a few good reasons. First is that The School's Trees was a blog that I let be derailed by my own need for catharsis. The Week of Tears (where I covered all the key emotional scenes in Clannad in a single week) was not something I had in mind at the beginning of the show. I wanted the blog to be a bit more objective, but realized it was something I needed to write about. Other people needed to know what had happened, so I wrote about it. But that one thing derailed most of what I had in mind for my portion of the blog. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm glad I did it! I don't regret writing about my experiences with the last half of After Story in the least. But at the beginning of that blog I had made a goal: prove Clannad was a Catholic/Orthodox work. I don't think I did that. Oh, sure, I made a case for it at the end of the blog, but I don't think that was really the best job I could have done. So I'm going to try again.

The second reason is, again, a matter of pride: I don't think I did a very good job writing down my thoughts. When I re-read The School's Trees I saw how convoluted and jumbled it was, and that if people followed me at all it was probably in spite of myself. Disagree if you will. I'm not going to change my mind. I think I could do a better job.

The third reason? Well, it's more of a variation on the other two reasons, but different enough. I have something a bit different to say this time around, so I want to say it.

The reason for the name change is simple: it fits the theme of what I'm going to cover. Clannad is about approaching life together. It's about community and family. I can't think of a better way than calling it The City's Lights (OK, I suppose I could call it The Big Dango Family, but that's been done already!).

So buckle up, people. This is gonna get interesting... (hopefully not in the Firefly sense, but with Clannad you can never tell...)

Two Clannad-Related Announcements!

1. All of Andy's (Carpe's) posts are up on this blog. They're under the tag "andy", so you can find them that way. I'll retrofit them with The School's Trees tag when it's not five minutes before class.
2. I will definitely be starting another series of Clannad reflections, starting next week! I've had awhile to sit on the show, and I've got more to say. Yes, more. And, more importantly, it will not be called The School's Trees. The School's Trees is officially done. What'll it be? Find out next week...

Honestly, I can't wait! This is gonna be a blast...