A Guide to a D&D4 Part 4

Posted May 27, 2009 by zapoqx

So we are going to do a guide out of all that was learned thus far. I had Kitteh give a few... ideas so I can make a character. In this case, the character is going to be a step by step all the way to Level 11. So lets start. Be prepared for a long winded session.

Level 1
We are going to make a Tiefling Rogue that is female. She lived on the streets and so for the purpose of RP, we add a background to it. In this case, she is going to get a +2 to Stealth since she is rejected mostly by people because of being a tiefling. On top of this, she lives in alleys and such. She steals what she needs (hence stealth is perfect so she can sneak in, get what she needs to live and keep going). Because of her style, being a trickster Rogue type is what she is going to want. So in essence, she will have the Artful Dodger for her Rogue ability which means that she can have a bonus to her AC based on her charisma when she provokes an attack of opportunity. We Will get to that in a bit.
Now that we have her class, race, and background setup, lets go with her stats...
-Now, being a Rogue, Dex is her highest stat. For being a trickster rogue, Charisma needs to be her 2nd highest. Because of this, she CAN opt to have str as her later option, but we are not going to do this. Opportunity attacks to enemies, she will be gyped a bit with, but it will be fixed later on. So we are going to do a standard type point array. Her stats are going to be 10, 11, 18, 8, 10, 14 her the stats accordingly: Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma. Now when we add her Racial addition, we are going to get:
Str 10 (+0) (Don't worry about the parenthesis just yet)
Con 11 (+0)
Dex 18 (+4)
Int 10 (+0) (Here she gets a +2 for being a tiefling)
Wis 10 (+0)
Cha 16 (+3) (Here she gets another +2 for being a tiefling)
If we made the 8 to our Wisdom, she would have a penalty on her perception which wouldn't make it right for her background, but she would of had the int at 12 so she'd be smarter than average. However, considering she's more street savvy, we'll go with her needing that perception check to make sure her ass is safe. So we will have a Wis 10 and make the Intelligence 8 so that her tiefling racial bonus will make that a 10 as well.
Also, at this point, her HP will be 23 because the starting hp is 12 and her Con Score is 11 so 12+11=23. Since she doesn't have a modifier unfortunatly, this means that she won't have a bonus to her healing surges yet so it shall be 6 and remain on 6.
Now we need her skills.
-The rogue gets 2 skills. Stealth and Thievery. Taking 2 skills already there and done with, you can choose 4 more. The best thing to get for her type would be:
Perception, Insight, Acrobatics, and Bluff. Perception she will need for the hearing. Insight to figure out if the person is lying to her or not. Acrobatics since some powers may require her to be trained in Acrobatics and in order to escape some places, she may need acrobatics to do various tricks to get out of the way of enemiesthat are trying to catch her (like running on rooftops). Bluff so she can sometimes talk her way through situations that could be manipulating or false just to pass through (think of it as a diplomacy in a false hood like saying "The army is mighty and strong." when in reality, they won't last 4 minutes against orcs during an equal numbered battle.
-Now for Feats... the best feat to start off is Backstabber. This makes it that when she does sneak attacks, instead of using d6's, she uses d8's. Thus, she can do +2d8 worth of sneak attacking damage. Since there is only 1 feat at level 1 since she is a tiefling, that ends feats.
-Powers
At level 1, we have 2 At-Will powers to make (These are the powers that aren't expended after use), 1 Encounter power to make (powers that when used is used once for that encounter, but recharges after one does a short rest which is 5 minutes or extended rest which is 6 hours), and 1 daily power you can make (A power that is heavy damaging or very useful in some way that to recharge it, you have to do an extended rest which is 6 hours). So let us take the following...
Sly Flourish (at-will)
This power can use melee OR ranged. The other bonus is it makes use of our dex AND our Cha stats. Dex it makes use of for attack rolls. The damage uses the Weapon damage + Dex modifier (which in this case is +4 from the parenthesis which is now explained here) + Cha Modifier (+3 in this case). Although, it is against AC so at later levels, we need to make sure we have something that is more focused in the Dex attack rolls (such as magical weapons and half-levels).
Probing Strike(at-Will)
Once again, Dex is key, it is against AC. Though, the damage is only Weapon damage + Dex. However, as a bonus, you get a +1 to attack rolls on the next attack you make against the target. Higher success rate now. This is also Melee OR ranged.
Fox's Gambit (Encounter)
Now we are not going for AC. We are going for Reflex. However, this is melee range, so we need to get upclose for this. Now here is the beauty of this. Remember that "Artful Dodger" we chose to be as a Rogue? Some benefits are going to pay off now. The attack roll is Dex based. So we need a light blade for this. The hit is 1 weapon damage + Dex modifier. The target can no longer mark other targets until the end of your next turn (meaning it can't force other targets to challenge anyone including you which what makes a mark bad is that they cause a person to have a -2 to their attack rolls if the person that made the mark is not included in the attacks... aka you don't attempt to attack them in an area attack, you suffer a penalty to your attack rolls). Here is the next part of the attack. You get to shift 1 square. However, because of being an Artful Dodger, you can shift up to your Dex modifier amount of squares (Which is +4). Congrats! Your in and out of the frey!
Trick Strike (Daily)
Melee or Ranged for this. Dex vs the enemies AC. On Hit, your damage just shot up to 3 weapon damages (so 3 die rolls of the same weapon damage) + Dex Modifier and you slide the target 1 square. Need some more effects? Until the end of the encounter you can slide the target 1 square everytime you hit that target. Sweet deal! Works great as a combo with Fox's Gambit.

Now Trick Strike I was debating with because another good set of choices is Blinding Barrage, Handspring Assault and Confounding Attack. Why Confounding attack? Its 2 Weapon damage + Dex modifier and as a free action, that target you hit can then do a melee basic attack against a creature of your choice adjacent to it. If you or he has combat advantage against the target and you haven't used your sneak attack damage for that round yet, you can add your sneak attack damage with his damage. However, that is once during that moment. Handspring Assault makes you manouverable should you hit while doing 3 weapon damage + dex because you can shift 2 squares. You can also use that power during a charge, however, we want more manouverability to get the hell out of danger when needed as our Con isn't giving alot of HP at level 1. Blinding Barrage would do 2 weapon damage and the target is blind until the end of your next turn (which would make it mean you can have combat advantage against it again). However, This affects ALL enemy creatures in a blast 3 (so 3x3 set of squares which means 9 squares). And if you miss, its half damage, but the target isn't blinded. I would reccomend that if you need to dish out a bit more of a controller aspect.

One last thing, You also have another power called Infernal Wrath. This comes with your race and this is even an encounter power. You get a +1 Power bonus to the next attack roll against an enemy that hit you since your last turn. If your attack hits and it deals the damage (so the damage has to be accepted), then you can add your charisma modifier as extra damage. That means that that little Sly Flourish power at max damage could potentially do 6 (1d6) + 4 (dex modifier) + 3 (Cha modifier) + 16 (2d8) for sneak attack damage if you get it + 1 if they are bloodied and + 3 from this power if you crit or just roll max rolls with just the normal equipment you have. That's right, you would have 32 - 33 damage. Ya... you just hurt the crap out of a monster and hell, even a PC.

-so now we need our gear. We start off with 100 GP. So lets first take the Adventurer's Kit which is 15GP. It will give us a backpack, a bedroll, flint and steel, a belt pouch, two sunrods, ten days worth of trail rations, 50 feet of hempen rope, and a waterskin. This handles all of our adventuring needs. We also need some armor so Leather Armor will be our max armor. Why not go with it. +2 to our AC at the cost of our 25GP. Lets get 5 daggers so we can round out our melee and ranged if need be. Shuriken will round out all melee ranged needs so lets get 50 of those. With that, that was 15 GP total between the daggers and shuriken. Thieves' Tools is nice to have to get that nice little +2 bonus to our thieves checks when disarming traps and opening doors. So lets get that which cost 20 GP. We are now down to 25 GP. If we need to, lets buy a short sword. This will give us 1 TRUE melee based weapon and useful as the weapon damage is 1d6 instead of the 1d4 for throwing (daggers) or striking (daggers only). However, our Shurikens are doing 1d6 instead of 1d4 because of being a rogue. On top of that, if we wield a dagger at any given point, we will also deal a +1 bonus to attack rolls. And it still can be used in our off hand. 10 GP down so 15GP remains. Let's keep the rest.

-Since its a female, for this character, we will call her Art for the Artful Dodger part of her. We will finish her flavor now. Alignment and Deity will be up to you all. For Height, she can be 5'6" to 6'2" so we'll go with 5'9" and around 165. Lean looking and plus since she has horns, the weight would make some sense. So let us continue Art, we have to go through a bit more.

So lets see how we fair:
Str - 10 (+0)
Con - 11 (+0)
Dex - 18 (+4)
Int - 10 (+0)
Wis - 10 (+0)
Cha - 16 (+3)

HP - 23
Speed - 6
Initiative - 4

AC: 16
Fort: 10
Ref: 18
Will: 15

Acrobatics - 9
Arcana - 0
Athletics - 0
Bluff - 10
Diplomacy - 3
Dungeoneering - 0
Endurance - 0
Heal - 0
History - 0
Insight - 5
Intimidate - 3
Nature - 0
Perception - 5
Religion - 0
Stealth - 13
Streetwise - 3
Thievery - 9 (11 with Thievery tools)

Don't be too concerned over your semi bad stats. For Art has lots of good things to trade off. Plus, her combat skills is quite decent. Though, her Fort will be suffering for a bit.

Level 2
-Feat
We Will need to get her quicker drawing actions now. So Let us get Quick Draw. It gives us a +2 to initiatives and you can now draw weapons with an attack action. Heck, now you can also draw a few other things quickly (potions and the similar).
-Utility Power
Well here we have some good choices to make. She could take Tumble which would allow her to shift up to half her speed (so 3) or maybe take Sneak in the Attack which if the next ally that hits the target and has combat advantage against it, they get to deal your sneak attack damage as well. Its only 1 target and its a utility (Varying from the encounter similar usage, At-will usage, or daily usage depending on how good the power is). However, since she is probably not so well in good terms with the adventurers just yet, perhaps Fleeting Ghost would be good for RP. Its an At-Will with movement cost for the action. You can move your speed and make stealth checks with no penalties.

Level 3
-Encounter Power
Seeing as at this point, we only target AC and Reflex with out powers, we need to balance something with something that can hit easily against non-casters. What better way than taking Bait and Switch! Hit the target's Will and do 2 weapon damage + Dex modifier. Also, you get to switch squares with them and then shift your cha modifier. So you could possibly trap the enemy at the same time. Nice!

Level 4
-Stat upgrade
We can choose 2 stats and put +1 to those 2 stats for the base value now. So Lets do Cha and Dex. This way, the stat will up when level 8 hits.
-Feat
By this point, the monsters are getting tougher. You might need to take toughness to handle yourself better. This means you will get +5 to HP for heroic tier (aka level 1 - 10), +10 instead of +5 when you hit Paragon tier (so level 11-20) and +15 instead of +10 when you hit epic (level 21-30). This should help you last longer in battle now.
Let's stop and take a look at her stats...
43 HP
Initative +8
Str 10
Con 11
Dex 19
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 17

AC: 18
Fort: 12
Ref: 18
Will: 15
Surge Value: 10
Healing Surges/Day: 6

Hmm... Healing Surges are suffering a bit, but we are hoping to not be in the frey that much. The Defender better be helping. How about the skills right now?
Acrobatics - 11
Arcana - 2
Athletics - 2
Bluff - 12
Diplomacy - 5
Dungeoneering - 2
Endurance - 2
Heal - 2
History - 2
Insight - 7
Intimidate - 5
Nature - 2
Perception - 7
Religion - 2
Stealth - 15
Streetwise - 5
Thievery - 11 (13 if you use the theivs' tools for the doors and traps)

From here on, it will bemuch more tough so we now have to rely on the DM to give some decent equipment. We won't bother with the equipment until Level 11 where we will cover what equipment we can hope to have at that point.

Level 5
-Power (Daily)
So now we have a new power. We are already versed in Reflex and Will and the AC is easily covered. So lets find a daily that can work. All the powers that seem really useful deal 2 weapon damage + Dex modifier and have some special effects happening. So we must decide how Art will be. Since she is a Trickster Rogue, lets figure what would be more for her. Society already sees her as a not so nice person. She doesn't have to act good or bad depending on what her alignment is. So since we went with Unaligned and can pretty much do whatever we want, lets just make her more of a threatening person. So lets say we have something for those foolish enough to go into melee range against her. We are going to go with a power called Clever Riposte. What that does is you attack their AC in melee range. You hit them with what was said before. Now here is the nifty trick... until the end of the encounter, anytime that target decides to attack you, they take your dex modifier (+4) of damage and you can shift 1 square. So this could also be useful against solo bosses (a monster that can take on a group by themselves). Worst case, we can always re-train the level 5 power to something more interesting later on so we can leave Downward Spiral, Driving Assault, or Walking Wounded as an option.

Level 6
-Feat
Ok, so we have Backstabber, quick draw, toughness, and now we need something else. Well I think we have our necessaries so lets find something else to help us. Since we don't have a rattling power yet, Rattling Wrath is worthless. So lets use something to get ourselves out of danger even more... Reckless Scramble. It allows you to shift the distance + 2 squares whenever a power tells you that you can shift. That means Clever Riposte will let you shift 3 squares, Bait and Switch will let you shift 5 squares, and Fox's Gambit will let you shift 6 squares. You are now THE mobile machine.

-Power (Utility)
So as we have been making this person so far without know the group members playstyle, we are still working with just Art. By now, you should have a good feel with the group. We are assuming that there is 1 defender, 1 controller, and 1 leader which makes you the 1 striker so a group of 4. Now since we like hiding and combat advantage, lets use Chameleon. You make a stealth check and you remain hidden from the triggering enemy and you can remain hidden without needing any cover or conealment. Nice deal. Guess what, this is an At will! Lets go!

Level 7
-Encounter Power
Let's make more use of that feat you got at level 6. We are going to take "From the Shadows" which has many effects for you. For 1, its melee or ranged weapon. 2, its Dex vs AC. 3, you can shift 2 squares before the attack... oh wait, make that 4 squares because of our useful feat. But Wait... this has Artful Dodger mod... so make it 1 + cha modifier (+3) and your feat... so 6. If the Target couldn't see you before the shift, you gain combat advantage for this attack. If you hit, its 1 weapon damage + dex modifier and you can shift those 6 squares because its Artful Dodger modifier for the power and your feat. That is 12 movements total for this power and if you haven't used your move action yet, well 6 more movements is waiting. If you have any cover or concealment after the hit shifting, you can make a stealth check as a free action. Great power.

Level 8
-+1 to 2 stats
So its that time again for 2 stats to gain a +1. We are doing one more time of Dex and Cha.

-Feat
Well as we have many different methods of feats to go through... we have either Durable for more healing surges, Escape Artist to get out of a grab as a minor action and a +2 to acrobatics, and Distant Advantage. So lets take Distant Advantage as by now, you should probably notice that you are needing combat advantage alot. This will allow you to gain combat advantage with ranged or area attacks against enemies flanked by your allies.

Right now without any enhancements, your stats should be up a bit now. I won't do the break down just yet. I'll save it to level 11 as we are almost there.

Level 9
-Daily power
So that we can get out of harm's way more, we will take Vexing Escape. It will dish out 3 weapon damage + dex modifier (now +5) and you can shift a number of squares equal to your charisma modifier (+4 now) except you get 2 more since your shifting. So now its shifting 6 square. If you miss, you deal half the damage and can shift 1 square which means 3 squares. Now, until the end of the encounter, each time that target enters a square adjacent to you, you can shift 1 square as an immediate reaction. Yes, that also means you would do 3 squares instead.

Level 10
-Feat
So now we are 1 more level away from paragon tier, aka level 11. Thusly, we could take that Escape Artist we talked about, but we are going to take Melee Training (Dexterity) because then if we can make an opportunity attack with creatures, lets use what we are good at for our basic Melee attack... Dex instead of Str. Now our melee basic attack is now Dex vs AC and does 1 weapon damage + Dex modifier instead of Str modifier.

-Utility Power

Now both of these utilities are equally good. If we want to refer to our background and survival for Art, lets take Dangerous Theft. Dangerous Theft is an encounter power so used only once during the battle. Then, in the middle of the battle, as a free action, you can attempt to pick-pocket the enemy. Or we can continue the lethality of shadow movement with Shadow Stride for sneakyness which is an at-will and take it as an enhancement with Fleeting Ghost. But that would mean it may be better to retrain Fleeting ghost at that point.

Level 11 (Last)
-Feat
I think we shall take Paragon Defenses just so we can handle ourselves more.

- +1 to all stats
Finally, we are here. So we gain our +1 to all our stats. Let us take a look at our stats, shall we?

Str - 11 (+0)
Con - 12 (+1)
Dex - 21 (+5)
Int - 11 (+0)
Wis - 11 (+0)
Cha - 19 (+4)
Our half level is 5 right now

Hey, we hit Paragon so our HP went up 5 more!
HP: 84 (It went up 1 HP after the 5 HP increase cause of uping the con score to 12... similar to saying the base HP went from 23 to 24 as if we had 12 con score)
Initiative +12
Healing Surges: 7 (We gained a +1 on our con modifier)
Healing Surge Value: 21
Bloodied: 42

Skills:
Acrobatics - 16
Arcana - 5
Athletics - 5
Bluff - 16
Diplomacy - 9
Dungeoneering - 5
Endurance - 6
Heal - 5
History - 5
Insight - 10
Intimidate - 9
Nature - 5
Perception - 10
Religion - 5
Stealth - 19
Streetwise - 9
Thievery - 15 (17 with thieves' tools)

AC: 22
Fort: 17
Ref: 23
Will: 20

-Gear

At this point, we've been talking in the guide with just the level 1 equipment. Let's say we obtained new equipment now. Normally, we would gain equipment randomly through encounters and buying random equipment. Let's see what we could obtain importantly...

Neck:
All neck items increase our 3 defenses that isn't AC. So we should gain a cloak. Let's assume you get a +2 cloak. That will bring your 3 defenses up by 2 so a 19 Fort, 25 Ref, 22 Will. For ranged Defenses... lets go with a Cloak of Distortion +2 (This is Level 9). This will give you a -5 to attack rolls that are Ranged base when its against you if they are 6 or more squares away. Translation: If they are 6+ squares away, whatever their attack roll is, they have to subtract 5 from it.

Body:
Because we are in paragon, we can have masterwork armor. So lets say we got new armor to up that AC. We are going to go with Drowmesh Leather Armor. This gives a +3 enhancement minimal to the already existing +2 to AC. That means at minimal, you will have a +5 AC. The Drowmesh also gives you a +1 bonus to your Reflex. So lets have Feytouched Drowmesh Leather Armor +3 (Level 12). This will give you a +3 bonus to your initiative checks and as a special armor power that is daily for the armor itself, you can turn invisible until the end of your next turn. Useful for those situations that you need sneak attack and have no cover available. Of course, it will last until the end of the next turn.

Feet:
You should buy Acrobat Boots when you can. 520 GP will be useful to get up from proning with a minor action and making your move actions useful.

Hands (Optional):
As we are pushing it, perhaps we should gain a nice little hand item. Gloves of Storing Level 8 is nice because each glove will let you hold 1 item and you can bring it out to your head accordingly. So store a nice dagger in there so you have an extra place to store your dagger. Same with a Short Sword. The only rule is they can't weigh more than 10 lbs.

Head (Optional):
Diadem of Acuity would be useful as it would increase perception and Insight by +2.

Arms (Optional):
We won't worry about this as we are in need of weapons much more. If you had to take anything, I would say get Bracers of Tactical Blows. This will allow you to gain a +1d6 extra damage when you hit with an opportunity attack.

Waist (Optional):
You could take a Belt of Recovery. This will give you a +2 Item bonus to AC When a crit is scored against you and you have that bonus until the end of your next turn. Could be useful on a random day the DM is rolling unusally high.

Weapons:
Since we like ranged attack, we should get a dagger that would be beneficial to us for both ranged and melee. Ranged for a last ditch effort if we don't pull out any shuriken. Since we only need one Dagger, its not a big deal. If we can get 2, that would work great. So let's get this...
Duelist's Dagger +2. This would ideally make it so if you crit, you do +2d6 damage. Since combat advantage is the forte for Art, if you crit while having combat advantage, you do +2d8 damage. Nice? As a minor action for this weapon's daily power, you gain combat advantage against the next creature you attack with the weapon during that turn. Now that helps you more.
Shurikens are your main so lets get a pack of shurikens. If a DM is overly generous, you may get multiple. If not, hope you havean alchemical wizard so you can get poison and other things added to your shurikens. So what we'll do is we'll say we get 20 Poisoned Shuriken +2. That is 20 uses of this poisoned weapon. Free action, when you hit the person with this weapon, you make them take ongoing 5 poison damage and is weakened. Save Ends Both. Really nifty if I do say so.

-Paragon path choice
We are now on the bread and butter. The path that enhances the heck out of your character. This can be many options. For the purpose of this sample character Art, I will choose 1 paragon path, but the options are big and each has its advantages and disadvantages. You could validate each paragon path via "I want this because of my RP so far" or "I want this because the way my character does combat, it makes sense." Note, you cannot have multiple paragon paths, but the NPC's are the only ones that can pull it off cause... well... NPC is a DM's choice. So we are going to use a PHB choice because that is what random choice I rolled for. And the path is called Master Infiltrator. You now get 2 new class features at this level.

-Level 11 Class Feats
Infiltrator's Action - When you spend an action point to take an extra action, you also gain a move action. Essentially, if you used your standard action, your minor action, and your move action, you use an action point to do a standard action and you also get a move action. Works quite well

Skillful Infiltrator - You gain a +2 bonus to acrobatics, athletics, and Stealth Checks. Sweet.
-Level 11 Paragon path power
You get Distracting Wound freely from your paragon path. This is an encounter power and it doesn't leave the fact that you have the same melee or ranged weapon. You have to target a creature you have combat advantage against. Its a Dex vs AC and to hit, you would do 2 Weapon damage + Dexterity mod damage (+5) and the target grants combat advantage to you AND all your allies until the end of YOUR next turn.

Congrats, you made it to the end. Our Final Result:
Skills:
Acrobatics - 16
Arcana - 5
Athletics - 5
Bluff - 16
Diplomacy - 9
Dungeoneering - 5
Endurance - 6
Heal - 5
History - 5
Insight - 12
Intimidate - 9
Nature - 5
Perception - 12
Religion - 5
Stealth - 19
Streetwise - 9
Thievery - 15 (17 with thieves' tools)

AC: 25
Fort: 19
Ref: 26
Will: 22

Initiative - 15

Your Attack with a Poisoned Shuriken is a +15 and your Duelist Dagger is a +16, both having a +7 to damage.