Is this companion character balanced?

[ravenheart]

Ok, long version:

My group is restarting a campaign after a 7 month long pause. A lot of things have happened since then (new material, rules updates etc.) and I feel it's more tha fair of me to allow them a free rebuild of their PC's based on their concepts.

A couple of the player's were first or second time 4E players when we started (late 2008), and a two of them were "completely" new to tabletop RPGs at the time. I tried to point them in the right direction so as they wouldn't needlessly gimp their characters - still, one of them ended up with a genasi trickster rogue with a dash of religion (very MAD!). We managed to tweak her character to some extent along the way, but now with this rebuild, I think we finally managed to eloquently bridge the gap between story and mechanics.

The other new player, part of the reason I'm posting in the first place, decided to make elven beast master ranger. He's very keen on the tactical elements of combat, and enjoyed the ability two move around with two characters, so to speak. But at the same time he wanted to be equally good at fighting at range as he was good at melee combat (Twin Strike and Predator Strike as at-wills), making him quite MAD (Str, Dex, Wis). Hw was also MC warlord for story reasons, subbing as a secondary healer, and after our Paladin player became unavailable he started to sub as the defacto defender. You can probably see my concerns here.

The party was also consistently difficult to challenge at that point; 4 characters, the two aforementioned and a slightly optimized eladrin wizard (first OoI, later OoD) and a charging half-elf bravura warlord. The difficulty here was of course in balancing between near-TPKs and walk-in-the-park-encounters. Also I felt that the player of the ranger felt conflicted in combat situations as he was straddling three roles, making him quite ineffectual at his most important one: striking. Combats tended to drag on for hours at end.

I've decided to dump most of my houserules (as they only added needless complexity to the game) and go with the flow more often - winging it, if you will. This rebuild has definitely improved all the characters, the eladrin even more optimized, the warlord scarily effective (thank you, Armored Warlord and Direct the Strike!) and the rogue actually matching fluff with crunch! Martial Power 2 also gave the ranger what he was looking for - the hunter fighting style, allowing him to switch seamlessly between ranged and melee. But that would make him lose his beast, which he was quie fond of.

Then, this idea came to me: Why not make the beast companion into an ACTUAL companion character?

This would actually be beneficial in many differnet ways:
- a fifth character to fill out the party, allowing for more interesting and hopefully balanced encounters
- allowing the ranger to excel at what he does without gimping his concept
- giving the player who is most keen on combat encounter more to do during combat

Therefore, I tried to make a companion character that would match the concept and fit the party composition. Here it is:
Ok, long version:

My group is restarting a campaign after a 7 month long pause. A lot of things have happened since then (new material, rules updates etc.) and I feel it's more tha fair of me to allow them a free rebuild of their PC's based on their concepts.

A couple of the player's were first or second time 4E players when we started (late 2008), and a two of them were "completely" new to tabletop RPGs at the time. I tried to point them in the right direction so as they wouldn't needlessly gimp their characters - still, one of them ended up with a genasi trickster rogue with a dash of religion (very MAD!). We managed to tweak her character to some extent along the way, but now with this rebuild, I think we finally managed to eloquently bridge the gap between story and mechanics.

The other new player, part of the reason I'm posting in the first place, decided to make elven beast master ranger. He's very keen on the tactical elements of combat, and enjoyed the ability two move around with two characters, so to speak. But at the same time he wanted to be equally good at fighting at range as he was good at melee combat (Twin Strike and Predator Strike as at-wills), making him quite MAD (Str, Dex, Wis). Hw was also MC warlord for story reasons, subbing as a secondary healer, and after our Paladin player became unavailable he started to sub as the defacto defender. You can probably see my concerns here.

The party was also consistently difficult to challenge at that point; 4 characters, the two aforementioned and a slightly optimized eladrin wizard (first OoI, later OoD) and a charging half-elf bravura warlord. The difficulty here was of course in balancing between near-TPKs and walk-in-the-park-encounters. Also I felt that the player of the ranger felt conflicted in combat situations as he was straddling three roles, making him quite ineffectual at his most important one: striking. Combats tended to drag on for hours at end.

I've decided to dump most of my houserules (as they only added needless complexity to the game) and go with the flow more often - winging it, if you will. This rebuild has definitely improved all the characters, the eladrin even more optimized, the warlord scarily effective (thank you, Armored Warlord and Direct the Strike!) and the rogue actually matching fluff with crunch (brutal, but charismatic)! Martial Power 2 also gave the ranger what he was looking for - the hunter fighting style, allowing him to switch seamlessly between ranged and melee. But that would make him lose his beast, which he was quie fond of.

Then, this idea came to me: Why not make the beast companion into an ACTUAL companion character?

This would actually be beneficial in many differnet ways:
- a fifth character to fill out the party, allowing for more interesting and hopefully balanced encounters
- allowing the ranger to excel at what he does without gimping his concept
- giving the player who is most keen on combat encounter more to do during combat

I made a companion character based on the rangers beast companion concept, you can view it as an attachment to this post. What I'd like is your opinion - is this a solid CC? Too good? Not good enough?

A few things to note:
- The party is level 6, it it wasn't obvious from the CC
- I made it a skirmisher to better fit the flavour, and because a joining player is making a defender (fun fact: it's actually the same player who played the paldin before)
- I gave her Wild Step to emulate the feat Elven Beast Mastery that the ranger had while he was a beast master ranger
- I made her a sort of amalgam of a gray wolf (lvl 3) and a dire wolf (lvl 5)

tl;dr - Is this a good companion character for a lvl 6 party with a elf hunter ranger, genasi brutal rogue, hlaf-elf bravura warlord and eladrin OoD wizard (+ a new player with a defender or hybrid defender)?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't think its excessive. I might not be quite as liberal about the ease of knocking things prone left and right. I'd figure it this way, its pretty easy to set up charges, especially against enemies you just knocked prone and more so when you can shift across difficult terrain. The minor action's CA requirement is usually going to be irrelevant as it only requires an ally to be adjacent to the enemy.

You're going to see a LOT of prone opponents. Its not the worst status condition in the world, but it can actually be pretty nasty to knock someone prone and then shift away one square. The enemy has to stand up and burn their move action, then you're too close for them to charge you, so they essentially can't do much (ready an action is their only real option at that point). On your next turn you shift back another square and charge them again, knock them prone again, wash, rinse, repeat.

So you may want to consider whether you really need trip as a minor action at-will power. Maybe it should be an encounter power.

You also want to think about how level advancement will go with your CC. What will it look like at 11th level? New or enhanced powers, or just better to-hit and damage?

 

[jbear]

That was the only problem I saw. you're going to have the wolf doing consistently 2d8 + dmg and setting up CA for all your melee characters. And your monsters are going to spend most of their time on the floor.

For a slightly more difficult restriction on its use, maybe flanking is required as opposed to CAdv? Or 2 allies adjacent? Or Encounter Power that recharges on a Crit? Encounter Power fullstop is a good option as well, but I have the feeling you want the companion to be effective for more than just once per encounter.

 

[Mengu]

I'll echo the others. From using my Thunder Hawk Rage with my barbarian, I know how powerful an at-will non-standard action prone action can be. It also essentially gives two attack rolls to the companion which I believe takes too much spotlight time, you want the companion to have quick activations. I'd make it an encounter power. If you really want a recharge mechanic, just have the power recharge and immediately use it as a free action when the companion is bloodied. Of course, that's one more thing to remember, I'd probably leave it alone at once per encounter.

 

[ravenheart]

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

It was actually the Trip power that got me wanting a second opinon. I mirrored the dire wolf's combat advantage feature ("The dire wolf gains combat advantage against a target that has one or more of the dire wolf’s allies adjacent to it. If the dire wolf has combat advantage against the target, the target is also knocked prone on a hit"), but I wanted to give the CC a way to use their minor action fairly regularly. I guess this actually made it more powerful, and indeed does steal some of the spotlight. Maybe I should've just stayed with the dire wolf version?

Alternatively (or additionally), I could make it an encounter power of some sort (while bloodied, perhaps?), perhaps slightly more powerful (can't stand up until the end of the CC's next turn as long the CC is adjacent to the creature)?

A few more things: I am correct in thinking CCs don't have second wind? Or dela extra damage on criticals? How about action points (maybe a single one/day)?

 

[Insight]

A few more things: I am correct in thinking CCs don't have second wind? Or dela extra damage on criticals? How about action points (maybe a single one/day)?

One of the only differences between a standard monster and a companion character is that the companion has Healing Surges. These must still be "invoked" using healing powers or out of combat. Companion characters do not have Second Wind (unless you give it to them as an encounter power) and do not have magic items (and thus would do nothing extra on a crit). They do not have action points.

The companion character section in the DMG2 consists of guidelines, however, and you can choose to ignore those if you want.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, a CC certainly could wield a magic weapon, though the wolf won't of course. Actually all monsters have one surge per tier. Only a couple monsters have any way to access them though. A CC wouldn't generally have an AP. I think that's in keeping with their supporting role.

 

[surfarcher]

You know I've made a few CCs lately.

When I started working on them I was wondering if a thread of CCs on here would be useful. Or maybe a wiki of them somewhere or something like that.

What do folks think?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Seems like it could be handy. There is no resource for CCs right now.

 

[surfarcher]

*heh* Well I couldn't find one when I was looking so I figured...