Okay... couldn't bring it down to a summary, so I ended up with a bit of a story. Pasting it in now.

@iszi jesus, that's like a full page

Yeah... I tend to have a bit of difficulty getting going, but once I've started...

Hrmm, interesting.

We'll see what other backgrounds he ends up with

foodtime

Already found one or two others that would fit that one well, but I'll leave those to whomever has him next.

"editorial comments in the voice of your player"

does that mean the character you're fleshing out?

:5939 ... yes

:D Distinctions are important!

I'm going with "This is how the character would respond if (s)he knew." Which does not necessarily mean they know or don't know.

yes

So, these backgrounds... there's like a list of them? Somewhere?

@Sohum Some of the rulebooks have them, as well as the Character Builder. Or, you could just describe a couple features of your character's backstory. If it matches an official background, we can fill it in for you.

Some backgrounds confer bonuses. In the end, you're allowed to select one bonus for the character, from those offered by the backgrounds that were picked.

*min-max mode activated*

no, bad, off

LOL

You can choose up to 5 backgrounds when building a character normally. Most backgrounds offer a choice of two skill bonuses, with the option to add either training or +2 to one of those. In the end, of the 20 options you have (5 backgrounds, 2 skills associated with each, 2 options for each skill) you have to choose only one bonus to actually apply.

Off-topic, does anyone else think that's a HUGE horse? Aren't they usually 1x2, if even that large?

it's, like, a hippo

I mean, seriously? 10'x10'?

maybe it's two horses?

You tend to need two horses to pull a wagon anyway...

Yeah, but they should still be separate. I mean, one horse could pull it alone if he had to...

And, what if we wanted to leave the wagon and just mount them?

They're horsemates. They will never leave each other, never ever ever ever.

Eeeeww.... lovebug-horses!

aaand now we scroll up

....

um

horse is large creature

it occupies some volume within that circle

also, if you want cheese...

I recommend "auspicious birth"

or "born under a bad sign"

cause mm, using highest stat for HP is great

of course, what the others think is simple "he's a cheesy munchkinpants"

C'mon, I'm no zoologist, but I'm pretty sure most horses will fit in a 5'x10' rectangle.

I agree. But I'm /delighted/ by the fact that large is 2x2, and I don't have to think about thin or long or wide or square or whatever

I know I've seen some 1x2 minis, but it's interesting that the Compendium and Monster Builder don't seem to specify.

Though, I've now just come up with a good question to post, I think.

aargblgubh

axe murderer is actually pretty damn funny

....

::mutter::

er.. are the backgrounds you've mentioned real or fake?

er, actual 4e backgrounds?

I have been told that it's okay to just describe a couple features of their backstory?

um

And I totally do not have the highest wordcount :P

I get grumpy. Are you ok with the "mapped" backrounds that I provided?

Well done.

::covers his head and neck::

What's the difference between Gritty Sergeant and Haunted Veteran?

good question!

gritty sgt, mechanically, gains +1 to init and a free simple or military proficiency

haunted vet gets a reroll against a fear effect

They /sound/ okay, from their names, but I can't... I can find dragon 373 somewhere I assume.

the first two are from 366

what about flavorfully?

I have 366!

haunted vet is "saw stuff no one should see. Now i'm here. Go die in a fire.'

Gritty Sgt is um..

"Many of my people have bled on me. But I've patched them up and sent them right back. "

Does what it says on the tin

Gritty Sergeant is perfect

yup

What does "Good background: Human" even mean

?

in dragon 366. Gritty Sergeant is supposed to be a good background for a human.

I can't see how you can make that judgement

I... don't know?

humans like to go to war a lot in SoW?

fair enough

I try not to pay attention to SoW fluff. It makes my head hurt more.

and apparently the wilden is english.

ahhahahaha

that is awesome

Not sure how it happened, really

Um.

Just a quick note -

not that I'm not okay with it!

Moar Britishness is always good!

but... you don't have to overdo it

hehehehe

yeah

Mystic Slayer is pretty accurate. the Art of the Kill backgrounds look a lot less... proscribed? flavourful? than the SoW backgrounds.

yeah

the quality of backgrounds are /all/ over the place

also 366 to 373 shows experience

4e has had vintages

holy crap there's a lot of feats

(poking at pathguy.com/cg4.htm )

Just a bit, yeah

Is why I mostly use the charOp guides if I'm in a hurry

well, by now, I use my brain. But same thing.

You have the entire set of feats and their applicability in your brain?

ummmm... patterns, roughly yeah

and beyond that, I've got a search function and then the boards for specifics

fair enough

/me nod

why?

I'm trying to figure out whether this is, in fact, an anti-power-gaming measure

No new - or even, in most cases, old - player can hope to understand all the existing feats in a reasonable amount of time

so, he intuitionists

and thus, he roleplays

it's interesting.

::blink::

The trick is to know the patterns

Right!

Patterns are more closely related to character concepts than character mechanics

sure, there will always be people who do manage to hold the thing in their head and optimise away

and they're happy

because there's so many different options

eeer.

Okay, all I know is I practice inductive character creation and I don't have problems?

But everyone's confused when I explain it to them.

but for the rest of us, "Oh, yea, he totally needs to be a sharpshooter. That feat looks like it's sharpshooter-related."

"Yay!"

right

well, more to the point, they start by looking at the books (and this is where their brains explode)

and they look through for stuff that looks "interesting"

and then stuff falls off their mental stack, because deductive logic doesn't tell them anything they already know

I start with a /requirement/

right!

and that's valuable, I think

/me notes down "Force an intuitionistic approach to Building/Customising"

::scratches head:: Okay?

sorry, back in a bit.

inductive, not intuitionsitic

big difference

technically its probably abductive

yeah, more abductive than inductive.

Um. I may not be using the word "intuitionistic" in the strict formal sense

bbiab

so, I nabbed the demo for the D&D CB. It... doesn't seem to be recent? It has Doppelganger, f'rinstance, instead of Changeling, with ability scores +2Cha and +2Int.

yeah, it's um... version 2008

will answer your question tomroorw (BTW, that should be in comments)

bad bad headache tonight

as to why horses are 2x2, you have to remember there is no facing in dnd, so they are facing all directions at all times, so they have to have the 2x2 to be able to do that with out sharing a square.

Good answer. Someone may want to ask the question so that you can answer it and get points :)

i'

m at like 100 points already, do i need more?

@Kedearian To participate in this exercise, all you needed was 20. (That much is required to gain chat privileges.) But feel free to contribute more to the parent site! :-)

:6255 You could always ask more questions ;-)

morning all

morning

Oookay, so we've got 2 laggards

indeed

@RMorrisey Can you update your backgrounds?

one question

Aaand I'll... just e-mail eric

da?

are you ok with Therin's statement on "Master Chief"?

I didn't write it, and it doesn't seem to jive to me

...

hrmmm

Hrmmmm... I didn't specify /who/ should write them

but ::mutter::

they just sound... generic?

but for an urban wealthy elf, not particularly good?

Is community building. Build on what their tone is.

my thought, yes

Therin is supposed to be urban, wealthy, arrogant, and calm

not wordy, not directly insulting

he wouldn't use the term respect

that was my doing, but yes, probably poor word choice

aaand e-mail sent

I love how we already have a 4k word document

with real backstory for these guys

a bit overkill in some cases, methinks, but good none the less

Now I'm going to consume some breakfast... probably. There may be mastication involved first, considering that eggs are essential..

Rule 37: there is no such thing as overkill. There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload"

::grin::

(and apparently alliteration, too..)

or should it be... as well? :)

Sorry, I'm odd in the morning.

and... in the afternoons and the evening. But I do set aside an hour on alternate tuesdays to be "not odd"

bbiab

that's wierd, being not odd on alternate tuesdays.. i thought wednesdays should be normal days. between 1:30 and 2:45 pm EST only.

and the rest of this crew isn't?

Is it ok if I don't fill in ever relationship opportunity

again, in my mind Therin doesn't say much

Greetings. What resides at the higher altitude?

cold air?

Yeah... for some reason, no one ever seems to get that one.

lower atmospheric pressure.

Hehe.

@BrianBallsunStanton I'm on IM with Russell. He's on the road right now.

And for those who have Google Talk, I've added you all.

I suppose if we ever go to fully-individual character ownership, that or GMail should be our "note passing" mechanism?