Flaming Weapon Stealth Errata?

[Kinneus]

WARNING: This post may descend into whiny nerdrage. Reader discrection is advised.

So I'm trying to build a back-up Defender in case my current character (the only Defender in the party) dies (which has a pretty good chance of happening in our next combat... facing the big bad guy with only two healing surges to rub together and no surgeless healing at our disposal). I decided to go Hybrid Wizard/Swordmage and take the Master of Flame Paragon Path and a Flaming Weapon. Now he can increase the radius of all of his blasts and bursts by 1! Sure, he's not the greatest Defender, and fire resistance/immunity will give him a headache, but it looked like a lot of fun to play, just blanketing huge swaths of the battlefield with flame. I was super stoked to play it (sorry, I had to).

But then I noticed that, after yesterday's update, the text for Flaming Weapon mysteriously changed in the Character Builder and the Compendium. It now specifies that it only changes untyped damage dealt by the weapon into fire damage. This, of course, makes the Flaming Weapon useless to implement users about 99% of the time. And it invoked in me a flaming, fiery nerdrage for crushing my beloved new Hybrid character literally the day after I made him.

Now, this isn't an official errata yet, but Flaming Weapon now cites the DM's Kit as a source, which makes me nervous. What I want to know is:

1) Why make this change? Why is it okay for a Rogue, Fighter or Ranger to effortlessly turn all their attacks into Fire attacks, but implement-users have to blow all their Paragon feats on Arcane Admixture to achieve the same?

2) It's not just the change that bothers me. The change, in a vacuum, I can understand and appreciate. It's the waffling. When I first started playing 4e, the common wisdom was that weapons like Flaming Weapon or Lightning Weapon don't add keywords to a power. It wasn't until later when errata was issued and the Rules Compendium stated that adding a damage type adds a keyword that this became explicitly okay in most groups. It felt like implement-users were finally given permission to start specializing in damage types in fun and flavorful and mechanically powerful ways. And then... this.

3) This is the big one... why was this change made only to Flaming Weapon? Why are Githyanki Silver Weapon, Lightning Weapon, and Frost Weapon unscathed? I mean... FROST WEAPON! The source of Frostcheese, the 'broken combo' that has existed untouched since 4e's debut. Why? WHY? RARGH NERD SMASH!!!

Phew. Sorry. I just needed to get this off my chest.

Anyway, there's a chance I'm just jumping at shadows, but somehow I don't think so. It's that new rules source citation that worries me. Does anybody have the DM Kit? Would they be willing to check it for me?

This issue also puts me in a moral quandry. It doesn't just gimp my hypothetical replacement-character... it also seriously messes up the Dragon Sorcerer in our group. His build was literally built around Flaming Dagger, and this change would seriously hurt him... like inflict a -2 to attacks and -4 to damage on almost all of his attacks sort of hurt him, just for starters.

So do I bring this to the attention of my DM? The DM's a cool guy, but he's also very by-the-books, so I don't think he'd be willing to houserule flaming weapon into the way it was before, simply because he's not into house rules in general. I'm leaning toward keeping my mouth shut for the time being, at least until it's published as "official" errata... and praying that this is all some horrible, Flaming Weapon-nerfing dream I'll wake up from tomorrow!

[/melodrama]

 

[TwoSix]

That does strike me as bizarre that it's only Flaming Weapon. Maybe it's a bug.

 

[jodyjohnson]

The text in the Dungeon Master's Book from the Kit released in October matches the compendium.

 

[Aulirophile]

I'm hoping they'll errata it back to the way it was. All things considered it is a retarded decision, so.

 

[kaomera]

1) Why make this change? Why is it okay for a Rogue, Fighter or Ranger to effortlessly turn all their attacks into Fire attacks, but implement-users have to blow all their Paragon feats on Arcane Admixture to achieve the same?

Well, ideally I'd think that allowing implement-users to cherry-pick elemental types should be overpowered. The elemental type is supposed to be factored into balancing the powers... It's also probably got something to do with the Pyromancer...

2) It's not just the change that bothers me. The change, in a vacuum, I can understand and appreciate. It's the waffling. When I first started playing 4e, the common wisdom was that weapons like Flaming Weapon or Lightning Weapon don't add keywords to a power. It wasn't until later when errata was issued and the Rules Compendium stated that adding a damage type adds a keyword that this became explicitly okay in most groups. It felt like implement-users were finally given permission to start specializing in damage types in fun and flavorful and mechanically powerful ways. And then... this.

I've never liked the "damage type = keyword" errata, myself. It seemed like a cheat to get around not being able to provide enough options for all elemental types.

3) This is the big one... why was this change made only to Flaming Weapon? Why are Githyanki Silver Weapon, Lightning Weapon, and Frost Weapon unscathed? I mean... FROST WEAPON! The source of Frostcheese, the 'broken combo' that has existed untouched since 4e's debut. Why? WHY? RARGH NERD SMASH!!!

Because the Flaming Weapon is actually in the DM's Book, with the updated text. Also, Pyromancer...

This issue also puts me in a moral quandry. It doesn't just gimp my hypothetical replacement-character... it also seriously messes up the Dragon Sorcerer in our group. His build was literally built around Flaming Dagger, and this change would seriously hurt him... like inflict a -2 to attacks and -4 to damage on almost all of his attacks sort of hurt him, just for starters.

So do I bring this to the attention of my DM? The DM's a cool guy, but he's also very by-the-books, so I don't think he'd be willing to houserule flaming weapon into the way it was before, simply because he's not into house rules in general. I'm leaning toward keeping my mouth shut for the time being, at least until it's published as "official" errata... and praying that this is all some horrible, Flaming Weapon-nerfing dream I'll wake up from tomorrow!

IMO, you should bring this up to your DM. However, given that the campaign is already ongoing if I where your DM I would waive the implementation of this "fix" for the duration of the campaign, at least. Mind you, I'd also "ask you nicely" to not glom the Pyromancer's ability to ignore fire resist in return...

 

[Kinneus]

Mind you, I'd also "ask you nicely" to not glom the Pyromancer's ability to ignore fire resist in return...

As far as I know, it's impossible for Hybrid wizards to gain the benefits of "Mage" wizards, so that's a total non-issue.

Something I forgot to mention in my OP... the guys over at the CharOp boards commonly cite the Weapon of Summer as an alternative to Flaming Weapon, but that always smelled fishy to me. Summer Weapon specifically says: "You gain a +3 item bonus to damage rolls with this weapon. This damage is fire damage."

Some people are claiming that since it's Fire damage, it would add the Fire keyword to the attack, but I think I smell cheese. What do you all think? If it did work, it'd be the perfect workaround. We're just at the level where getting a Weapon of Summer would be possible/appropriate.

 

[Aegeri]

Is this actual errata or is the compendium just being stupid?

Because if this is actual errata, it's terribly dumb errata.

 

[Kinneus]

Is this actual errata or is the compendium just being stupid?

Because if this is actual errata, it's terribly dumb errata.

I direct you to this helpful fellow, earlier in the thread:

The text in the Dungeon Master's Book from the Kit released in October matches the compendium.

So either A) it's errata or B) it's an error in the Dungeon Master's Book that's going to need errata.

Either way, it's going to mess up our campaign for a good amount of time while we wait for this to be resolved.

 

[Aegeri]

I'd stick with the part that isn't from a crappy book personally. Bear in mind the DM's kit gave us such wonderful stuff as a rare item that adds +2 damage over an encounter as a daily power and a +2 bonus to athletics checks. I would be tempted to stick with the original wording until they actually put it out in proper errata.

 

[Aulirophile]

Something I forgot to mention in my OP... the guys over at the CharOp boards commonly cite the Weapon of Summer as an alternative to Flaming Weapon, but that always smelled fishy to me. Summer Weapon specifically says: "You gain a +3 item bonus to damage rolls with this weapon. This damage is fire damage."

Some people are claiming that since it's Fire damage, it would add the Fire keyword to the attack, but I think I smell cheese. What do you all think? If it did work, it'd be the perfect workaround. We're just at the level where getting a Weapon of Summer would be possible/appropriate.

Weapon of Summer is Heavy Blade only though, so you'd need to MC swordmage or AIP: Heavy Blade.

It has been that way since May 2010 btw. If you do a type of damage, the attack gains the keyword. There is no equivocation on this in the rules, and has been confirmed multiple times by dev Q&As via Twitter/Podcats/etc.

[MENTION=38357]kaomera[/MENTION]: If powers were natively given keywords for balance, instead of fluff, reasons your argument would make some kind of sense. But they give them keywords purely for fluff reasons, not mechanical ones, for the most part.