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I can't help but feel as though the Swordmage's challenge complete overwhelms the paladin Divine Challenge. There's no silly jumping through hoops that the paladin has to do, and the Swordmage challenge actually protects someone. It doesn't do a paltry 3+Cha damage. I hope they can find a way to redesign it, or maybe make the Divine Challenge better.
I can't help but feel as though the Swordmage's challenge complete overwhelms the paladin Divine Challenge. There's no silly jumping through hoops that the paladin has to do, and the Swordmage challenge actually protects someone. It doesn't do a paltry 3+Cha damage. I hope they can find a way to redesign it, or maybe make the Divine Challenge better.
I think this is on par with divin challange before it got reworked, since this doesn't have the abuse that divine challange did, it is a little more bang for the buck...but only a little
Doing a small amount of damage doesn't protect someone from an attack unless this damage kills the attacker. Preventing damage protects them, it's a form of pre-healing almost. It makes it much better, especially against elites/solos.
Also it has a 10 range once it's in place, and doesn't require the Swordmage to chase the monster around to keep the challenge up. That's another drawback to divine challenge. The monster supposedly is drawn to you, but if it walks away and attacks someone else, you are now drawn to it if you want to bother keeping your mark up.
I agree much of the problems probably stem from the Divine Challenge re-write. But as it stands I would use the Swordmage's Challenge each and every time. The enemy knows what has happened to it so it has two choices A) Recieve an attack penalty and do much less damage, or B) Recieve no penalty, and do full damage.
Swordmage's only triggers if the attack hits (which is one vital difference), is potentially of far less consequence when doing an area attack, requires an immediate action, has a range limit on the interrupt, does nothing to stop status effect attacks on allies, etc.
I can't help but feel as though the Swordmage's challenge complete overwhelms the paladin Divine Challenge. There's no silly jumping through hoops that the paladin has to do, and the Swordmage challenge actually protects someone. It doesn't do a paltry 3+Cha damage. I hope they can find a way to redesign it, or maybe make the Divine Challenge better.
Eh, Paladins can have their cake and eat it too, though. Check out Hospitaler's Blessing paragon path feature...
__________________ "I took a risk... and I ended up in the bag of holding" -the player of Ian Whitefire (deceased)
Ok, so did anyone from Origins feel, or hear anyone else feel otherwise?
I played the LFR preview, and the 3rd level version of the dwarf swordmage was at the table. His mark never really came into play...but that could have just been because the monsters decided to attack him after being marked. Which, after all, is the point.
His AC was equivalent to a fighter in heavy armor with a shield, and he went on Total Defense at least once to hold a choke point. My take is that a swordmage is better defending against a single tough target, while a fighter is the better choice when defending against several targets. The swordmage also has a few AoE powers to go on the attack against small groups of foes.
The swordmage was definitely one of the most effective characters, but that may be in comparison to the other characters. The human wizard was given Cloud of Daggers, Magic Missile, and Ray of Frost as at-will powers...not a single AoE as an at-will. She was also a orb specialist without Sleep. The cleric missed with her encounter powers every time, and the main bad guy had resistance to the damage type of her daily.
I played the LFR preview, and the 3rd level version of the dwarf swordmage was at the table. His mark never really came into play...but that could have just been because the monsters decided to attack him after being marked. Which, after all, is the point.
His AC was equivalent to a fighter in heavy armor with a shield,
What armor was he wearing? Cloth? Leather?
Heavy fighter + shield is 18 - 19 AC, so with Int-mod of +3 applied two times he need at least leather armor to get to the scale + light shield AC or hide armor to get to the scale + heavy shield AC.
Doing a small amount of damage doesn't protect someone from an attack unless this damage kills the attacker. Preventing damage protects them, it's a form of pre-healing almost. It makes it much better, especially against elites/solos.
Have you seen this happen in game with a Paladin you play with?
The small amount of damage my Paladin's mark does has deterred enemies from attacking in all cases except: 1) Where the enemy was mindless, 2) Where the enemy had so many hp that it was willing to take the damage - and this only on OAs, its primary attacks were still on the Paladin.
In play, the divine challenge has been incredibly effective at deterring enemies from attacking anything but the Paladin, especially effective at stopping OAs, and absolutely destructive against undead. My mark's damage has killed two or three undead...
We were fighting on big undead brute that hit for 28 damage one round, then 22 the next vs 2nd level characters. It was on my paladin, but had it been against another player, the undead would have taken 17 damage from the mark each attack(7 + 10 radiant vulnerability). With the swordmage's, assuming 10 reduction, whatever it hit would have taken 18 and 12 damage, still enough to drop anyone not my Paladin, requiring just as many healing words to top off from the cleric, but without the 34 damage done to it. Yes, this is a corner case, but it is an in-game example of divine challenge's potential effectiveness in play.
Of course, you are just your stating opinion. My opinion, based on my experiences with the Paladin's challenge in-play, is that it is not inferior to the Swordmage's in any way. I consider both useful, depending on play preference.
I think the only way people would claim that the Swordmage is not a gish, is if they aren't familiar with the term as it is normally used, say, on the D&D boards. How is the Swordmage not gish? A gish is a character that uses martial skill and arcane prowess together in battle. Whether he shoots a fireball then swings his sword, or enhances himself with blur, bull's strength, haste, wraithstrike etc. and attacks. One of the more popular gish are the tankers and skirmishers, the ones who use magic to enhance their melee abilities.
The swordmage is an arcane-based warrior. He attacks with an ensorcelled blade and protects himself with magical wards. What about that is not gish?
Because he doesn't get ranged spells he isn't a mage? He teleports people, shoots lightning and acid from his blade.. whats the problem? He just uses his blade as a focus, unlike other mage's orbs, wands and staves.
A gish uses magic and arms together. The Swordmage seems to be a decent gish.
edit: I'm sorry, he actually DOES get ranged spells. Lightning bolt daily, nice.
edit: In the end though, I suppose it depends on a person's own definition of the term.
Last edited by igotsmeakabob!!; 30th June 2008 at 09:42 PM..
I have herd that the basic orgion of swordmages is that Warwizards of cormyre trained with Purple Dragon knights to supplament their lack of spells after the spell plauge.
So I think they should have wizard like dailys to show their spell caster roots.
Heavy fighter + shield is 18 - 19 AC, so with Int-mod of +3 applied two times he need at least leather armor to get to the scale + light shield AC or hide armor to get to the scale + heavy shield AC.
The dwarf swordmage had AC 20 at 3rd level with a 16 Int, wearing +1 surge leather armor (daily: gain +2 power bonus to all attack rolls and defenses, this bonus is reduced by 1 at the start of each of your turns). He also had a +1 defending longsword (when you take the total defense or second wind action, add the enhancement bonus of this weapon as an item bonus to all of your defenses until the start of your next turn). With a combination of his base AC and item abilities, he could get his AC quite high.
So, leather is +2, enhancement bonus is +1, Int mod is +3, swordmage warding is +3, level mod is +1, for a total of +10. 10+10=20.
The dwarf swordmage had AC 20 at 3rd level with a 16 Int, wearing +1 surge leather armor (daily: gain +2 power bonus to all attack rolls and defenses, this bonus is reduced by 1 at the start of each of your turns). He also had a +1 defending longsword (when you take the total defense or second wind action, add the enhancement bonus of this weapon as an item bonus to all of your defenses until the start of your next turn). With a combination of his base AC and item abilities, he could get his AC quite high.
So, leather is +2, enhancement bonus is +1, Int mod is +3, swordmage warding is +3, level mod is +1, for a total of +10. 10+10=20.
Wow...is the defending sword in the phb? I don't remember it
His AC was equivalent to a fighter in heavy armor with a shield, and he went on Total Defense at least once to hold a choke point. My take is that a swordmage is better defending against a single tough target, while a fighter is the better choice when defending against several targets. The swordmage also has a few AoE powers to go on the attack against small groups of foes.
We figured that out as well in our demo game. The Mark a Swordmage puts on it's chosen target is really, really effective.
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