An utterly ginormous update has been made to the Cast page. Extra gold has been spent on better equipment, some attribute points have shifted around, some feat choices have been changed, and the companions have been fully fleshed out. Most of it will probably never make it into the comic's foreground, but now you get to see even more of it!
For all the insane amount of hours I've put into this - Photoshopping image after image, going back and tweaking the characters over and over in the Character Builder - building Angel was easily the highlight.
I had almost forgotten about Fluttershy until the final frame speech balloon and its humorously long voice arrow heading up towards the stratosphere. Well done, gave me a nice chuckle.
Poll Time:
Today is going to be a reverse of last time. What episode do you think he can't do. Reasons could be not fun enough, can't translate to D&D, or what ever you think. 2 guess each.
Me: Ticket Master, and Sisterhooves Social.
Look Before you Sleep. He may grab images from it, but the episode itself is just three ladies having a slumber party. Not exactly a gripping D&D story.
I always thought "Look Before You Sleep" would be Twilight's attempt at DMing, running a session for Twilight and Rarity to become closer friends in, except AJ is there too, and AJ and Rarity are both constantly kibitzing on how Twilight should be running the campaign...until Twilight, in frustration, shouts out, "Tree falls, everypony dies!"
Hearts and Hooves Day. The only one of these characters to make an appearance is Twilight in a role normally filled for Zecora -- with about as much screen time.
Spike at your service. Too centered around Spike, who we established is a GM character. Would be hard to make a story that wasn't made up of him talking to himself.
1) May The Best Pet Win. Maybe as a one-session where Rernberdersh dips into druid or wizard and gets a familiar.
2) Read it And Weep. Daring Do's adventures are classic D&D material, but her parts of the episode are solo. The rest of the story is Rernberdersh in bed.
3) The Last Roundup. Aside from Pinkie going Pazuzu, this entire episode is a waste of flash animation, and wouldn't make any sense with the setup for the comic.
4) Fall weather Friends. I'm noticing a trend where Rernberdersh isn't really good for group games...
I think there may be a typo in Fluttershy's stat block. Her Diplomacy and Intimidate skills used to be at the same number (15), but now Diplomacy is 18 and Intimidate is still 15. Her charisma didn't go up and the feats list shows she took Skill Focus for both of these skills, so shouldn't Intimidate be at 18 as well?
All six PCs are based off actual 4th edition characters using the official Character Builder. And this time around, on top of spending gold on better items, I changed quite a bit under the hood to make them more fleshed out and distinct while trying to change as little as possible from last time. Some things got shifted around in transition, but usually for the better, I think.
In Fluttershy's case, the extra 3 points in Diplomacy come from 1) her being based on the half-elf race (+2 Diplomacy) and 2) an item, an implement I think, that gives her a +1 item bonus.
I'm not listing items in these condensed character sheets. Items include rituals, which is what Glib Limerick is. Don't worry, Pinkie Pie still has it.
It's more likely to be an "enchanted" item than a "masterwork" item.
There's one I know about that gives a +1 to Diplomacy at low levels, and that would fit Fluttershy well: Oalian's Balance Totem from the 4E _Eberron Player's Guide_. In its simplest form, this item gives a +1 enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls, boosts critical hits by 1d6, gives a constant +1 to Diplomacy & Nature checks, and grants a daily healing power as a free action. Sentinel Druids (such as FS) can use Totems as magical implements, so it works for her.
OK, according to your rules Spud, no spoilers for the episode until Tuesday. Well it is now Tuesday so what does everyone think of the episode? OK and I love Angel's stats, gave me a laugh.
The bit where Twilight is fretting about whether she could handle her first Royal Duty? Luna could have easily been the one to reassure her, bonding with her over the 'fish out of water' feeling (Luna's from the time jump), and reassured her of Celestia not expecting perfection with a story from when they were younger showing that Celestia herself is far from perfect.
I liked how they did Discord. Reformed but still kind of a dick. Everyone of his screen time made me laugh. And giving up the elements of harmony is an interesting plot twist. It will be interesting how the series works out.
TS: In order to save Equestria, we have to return the Elements to the Tree.
RD: ...This is basically just trying to have us give up the nuke, isn't it?
RY: Probably. But let's be realistic, it's a bit hard for the DM to come up with viable threats when we essentially have one big "we win automatically" button at our disposal.
RD: Don't worry, I get it. Besides, when the next big bad shows up, it'll give us an excuse to actually beat their sorry behinds.
I wrote this for elsewhere, but I repost it hither:
I watched Princess Twilight Sparkle. ¡I love it! I did spot 1 missed opportunity:
Rather than the other 5 rescuing Princess Twilight Sparkle from the Rockodile, Stephen Magnate should have done it. Stephen Magnate rescuing Princess Twilight Sparkle would have been
I never realized that Rarity and Fluttershy were playing Essentials characters, though I should have known for the latter. I see how it makes sense for Rarity as well. Angel is an interesting home brew. I take it that some of his abilities are borrowed from the imp?
Applejack's a ranger without Twin Strike? Always good to see. Was Driving the Quarry house-ruled, because I'm not sure Applejack was designed to use powers with the Beast keyword.
Pinkie... ah, what an appropriate power list. While it may irritate the other characters, I appreciate how she's trying to bring some feel of her more prescient powers into play, rather than just leave them as purely tactical mechanics. I wish I had more time to review those abilitie (and the other characters) today. :(
By all means, review at your leisure. Optimization isn't the goal, but I definitely want to correct the things that simply don't work.
You were right about Driving the Quarry. I guess I must have been thinking about Winona, but AJ's not that kind of ranger (yet). I thought about giving her Split the Tree instead 'cause of the name, but she's not really a Dex-based ranger either. So now she has Skirmishing Stance. (Make sure to refresh the page.)
Re: Rarity -- is her "Unicorn Thievery" based on "Fey Thievery?" If she's based on the Eladrin race, shouldn't "Fey Step" be listed as one of her powers?
Pre-Level-7, all the ponies were based on Humans. I thought that was a little strange. So now, Twilight and Rarity are based on Eladrin. But they're not Eladrin, they're Unicorns - a race that I haven't really nailed down mechanics-wise and didn't want to hard-define just yet. So I took the most telling racial powers out (except Heroic Effort for the Earth Ponies), and just let the rest be defined via inference in the comic.
But then I saw Fey Thievery, which was just too darn good to pass up. Because if you assume that the house-ruled Unicorns might have something similar - using their TK to perform Thievery checks up to 25 feet away - then a grasping thief like Rarity wouldn't dare pass it up either. So it became the other big exception to the aforementioned rule.
What Terry Pratchett reference? Unless you're referring to "Interesting times," which isn't unique to his work. That's an old joke. (A good one, though.)
Why is Angel Bunny classified as a "Small Natural Beast (Devil)"? A devil wouldn't exactly count as "Natural", I think. I mean, it certainly fits the character, but...
Also, just what did the Mane Six get themselves with their money? I'm failing to see / notice any mention of their wealth/equipment in the cast page. Or is that going to be revealed in due time?
Ah, the money. When I GM for players creating characters, I encourage them to write money sinks into their backstory. Then whenever they gain some money, I give them more with the understanding the extra will go into the sink.
For Angel Bunny, the type keyword was kind of a holdover from the Assassin Imp he's based off. I changed it initially, but (beast) didn't really suit him, and try as I might, I couldn't give him the (rabbit) keyword in good conscience.
And as I said above, I've left money and equipment out. I had enough to list as it was, and I don't foresee them having a huge impact on the main comic story save for damage rolls and defenses.
Also, thanks for the clarification, Digo. I think I've got the picture now.
Assuming, of course, that the PM has got a plan.
Today is going to be a reverse of last time. What episode do you think he can't do. Reasons could be not fun enough, can't translate to D&D, or what ever you think. 2 guess each.
Me: Ticket Master, and Sisterhooves Social.
"Just for Sidekicks"
Our heroes are too heroic for committing genocide.
2) Read it And Weep. Daring Do's adventures are classic D&D material, but her parts of the episode are solo. The rest of the story is Rernberdersh in bed.
3) The Last Roundup. Aside from Pinkie going Pazuzu, this entire episode is a waste of flash animation, and wouldn't make any sense with the setup for the comic.
4) Fall weather Friends. I'm noticing a trend where Rernberdersh isn't really good for group games...
In Fluttershy's case, the extra 3 points in Diplomacy come from 1) her being based on the half-elf race (+2 Diplomacy) and 2) an item, an implement I think, that gives her a +1 item bonus.
I'm not listing items in these condensed character sheets. Items include rituals, which is what Glib Limerick is. Don't worry, Pinkie Pie still has it.
Red: Encounter.
Gray: Daily.
Knock out drugs are optional.
There's one I know about that gives a +1 to Diplomacy at low levels, and that would fit Fluttershy well: Oalian's Balance Totem from the 4E _Eberron Player's Guide_. In its simplest form, this item gives a +1 enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls, boosts critical hits by 1d6, gives a constant +1 to Diplomacy & Nature checks, and grants a daily healing power as a free action. Sentinel Druids (such as FS) can use Totems as magical implements, so it works for her.
The Slice-of-lifey bits at the start was especially entertaining.
And God, did it make me realize how much I missed watching pony.
The bit where Twilight is fretting about whether she could handle her first Royal Duty? Luna could have easily been the one to reassure her, bonding with her over the 'fish out of water' feeling (Luna's from the time jump), and reassured her of Celestia not expecting perfection with a story from when they were younger showing that Celestia herself is far from perfect.
Easily was the best part. I also adore Celestia's reaction when Discord had her tail.
TS: In order to save Equestria, we have to return the Elements to the Tree.
RD: ...This is basically just trying to have us give up the nuke, isn't it?
RY: Probably. But let's be realistic, it's a bit hard for the DM to come up with viable threats when we essentially have one big "we win automatically" button at our disposal.
RD: Don't worry, I get it. Besides, when the next big bad shows up, it'll give us an excuse to actually beat their sorry behinds.
I watched Princess Twilight Sparkle. ¡I love it! I did spot 1 missed opportunity:
Rather than the other 5 rescuing Princess Twilight Sparkle from the Rockodile, Stephen Magnate should have done it. Stephen Magnate rescuing Princess Twilight Sparkle would have been
¡Fabulous!
Applejack's a ranger without Twin Strike? Always good to see. Was Driving the Quarry house-ruled, because I'm not sure Applejack was designed to use powers with the Beast keyword.
Pinkie... ah, what an appropriate power list. While it may irritate the other characters, I appreciate how she's trying to bring some feel of her more prescient powers into play, rather than just leave them as purely tactical mechanics. I wish I had more time to review those abilitie (and the other characters) today. :(
You were right about Driving the Quarry. I guess I must have been thinking about Winona, but AJ's not that kind of ranger (yet). I thought about giving her Split the Tree instead 'cause of the name, but she's not really a Dex-based ranger either. So now she has Skirmishing Stance. (Make sure to refresh the page.)
I think Pinkie Pie's using Psion source abilities that Applejack and Twilight's players aren't familiar with.
Pre-Level-7, all the ponies were based on Humans. I thought that was a little strange. So now, Twilight and Rarity are based on Eladrin. But they're not Eladrin, they're Unicorns - a race that I haven't really nailed down mechanics-wise and didn't want to hard-define just yet. So I took the most telling racial powers out (except Heroic Effort for the Earth Ponies), and just let the rest be defined via inference in the comic.
But then I saw Fey Thievery, which was just too darn good to pass up. Because if you assume that the house-ruled Unicorns might have something similar - using their TK to perform Thievery checks up to 25 feet away - then a grasping thief like Rarity wouldn't dare pass it up either. So it became the other big exception to the aforementioned rule.
I'm not really doing anything for Thanksgiving anyway. Except working...
Also, just what did the Mane Six get themselves with their money? I'm failing to see / notice any mention of their wealth/equipment in the cast page. Or is that going to be revealed in due time?
And as I said above, I've left money and equipment out. I had enough to list as it was, and I don't foresee them having a huge impact on the main comic story save for damage rolls and defenses.