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You'd be _amazed_ how many Avengers with +2 Vicious Fullblades and RRoT there are in LFR.
I hear there is a factory of them in Impiltur. On the entry side there are three separate lines for Devas, Elves, and Others. On the exit, they are handed their Fullblades and walk off to battle.
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This isn't so much a crit dependant power as much as it is one that gets you a crit more often. If all 5 players had this power you'd see several crits per encounter.
If the Rogue, Swordmage, Fighter, Warlord, etc. want to spend points/feats to multiclass to get it then they lose something elsewhere.
If the Rogue, Swordmage, Fighter, Warlord, etc. want to spend points/feats to multiclass to get it then they lose something elsewhere.
no one is disputing this... they are saying the trade off isnt balanced. That what they are losing they are gaining more with these powers/feats
I think the tempus is an overpowered feat - wotc has said in the past they toss a couple of spells in that are broken to help sell books... i think this is that feat.
But, on the positive the list of things that people feel are "broken" is very small.
we have two very similar powers that grant multiple hits
a healing abusive ability
couple magic item abilities that people feel are a bit unbalancing in conjunction with other abilities
stunning solo monsters
and a initiative changing ability
really, that's it? well this topic is really about encounter powers, and we really only have a couple mentioned.
I hear there is a factory of them in Impiltur. On the entry side there are three separate lines for Devas, Elves, and Others. On the exit, they are handed their Fullblades and walk off to battle.
Between all the avengers, clerics, and invokers (and a few orb wizards)who call impiltur their home, it's a wonder there are any devils left there.
But, on the positive the list of things that people feel are "broken" is very small.
Make no mistake, I love the fact that the number of things that are unbalanced are so few that I cut off the list of encounter powers at 5 because I couldn't think of 10. I could add a couple more to that list, but not 5 more.
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If the Rogue, Swordmage, Fighter, Warlord, etc. want to spend points/feats to multiclass to get it then they lose something elsewhere.
Sure. But if the party is made up of Clerics, Paladins, Avengers and Invokers they really aren't giving up much at all, are they? Besides, you need the Channel Divinity Class Feature to take the feat that allows the power -- which you can't get via multiclassing by the classes you mentioned.
But the point isn't whether someone multiclassing to get RRoT, Rain of Blows, Guileful Switch, Storm of Blades, [insert your own overpowered power here], etc. is getting the best bang for their buck, is it? The point is whether those powers are overpowered/broken.
I think the tempus is an overpowered feat - wotc has said in the past they toss a couple of spells in that are broken to help sell books... i think this is that feat.
I think you're missing the point here. If UT was fixed, you didn't have to come up with fixes to the starvation rules.
UT isn't the thing you take issue with, it's surgeless healing. UT is just the most obvious example because it's an encounter power.
Mass cure light wounds is a cleric utility 10 that heals your healing surge value at no cost to you. Even a 30th-level wizard with an average Con will heal more per use of this power than starvation takes away in a day (30th-level wizard with Con 10 heals 34 hp per surge, loses 30 per day from starvation).
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In other words, the point is: why not fix the problem (unlimited surgeless healing) at its root?
Because surgeless healing is a solid tactical design choice that really only creates a problem in this one limited edge case (yes, theoretically a party could use UT to never spend a healing surge, but it requires so much time taking short rests that it's no more feasible than "do one encounter then retreat and extended rest").
The starvation rules are what's wonky here--heck, there's not even a rule that says a starving character doesn't wake up from an extended rest fully healed, so UT isn't even needed to survive forever without food! Even if that rule were in place, the fact that hp by level doesn't scale the same way any more means you're left with 1st-level characters who can survive a month after they lose their last healing surge (since they take 1 point of damage a day) and 30th-level uber-warriors who keel over after a week (taking 30 points of damage per day).
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I believe it was an interview with one of the designers of Races of the Dragon about Mighty Wallop the spell being too powerful and they said something to that extent.
Should we make a list of overpowered Daily Powers? Because I could name a few. The Twiceborn Leader's level 12 utility stance that lets him and an ally both roll twice for each of their attacks whenever they're within 5 squares of each other.
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I think the tempus is an overpowered feat - wotc has said in the past they toss a couple of spells in that are broken to help sell books... i think this is that feat.
I believe it was an interview with one of the designers of Races of the Dragon about Mighty Wallop the spell being too powerful and they said something to that extent.
That design philosophy was in 3e. It was called system mastery and is basically found in Magic the Gathering as well. The basic premise is that those with the most rules knowledge gain the most from the rules by being able to create combos that are more powerful than the average player can figure out.
This is 4e though. The design philosophy mentioned above was actually one of the things the designers spoke out against in the early days when they were talking about the decisions for a new edition, and was one of the reasons for making the game more open and transparent with the math behind the mechanics.
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I'm certain the interview in question was about Magic the Gathering. They were saying that they purposely put some cards that are better than others in each set. It makes much more sense in the context of a collectible card game.
-blarg
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That design philosophy was in 3e. It was called system mastery and is basically found in Magic the Gathering as well. The basic premise is that those with the most rules knowledge gain the most from the rules by being able to create combos that are more powerful than the average player can figure out.
This is 4e though. The design philosophy mentioned above was actually one of the things the designers spoke out against in the early days when they were talking about the decisions for a new edition, and was one of the reasons for making the game more open and transparent with the math behind the mechanics.
It's probably a lot more accurate to say that "system mastery" is how the marketers of 4th edition decided to tell the designers to retroactively characterize the 3.x design philosophy. The designers fed us a lot of nonsense that no thinking person has any business believing in the early days of the runup to 4th edition.
Anyone remember how characters were going to be defined by their class abilities and items wouldn't matter much? They would basically be flavor. One book after the 4th edition core books, everyone was running around with iron armbands of power reckless and bloodclaw (or subtle) weapons and off-hand staffs of ruin. Yeah, they delivered on that one.
How about there no longer being bad powers? Compare careful attack to twin strike some time. Or Turning Point to inspiring war cry. Or Forward Observer to guileful switch. Or for a resourceful warlord, war of attrition to stirring force. (For an inspiring warlord, you want to compare phalanx assault to war of attrition). It seems like there are proportionally as many bad powers in 4th edition as there were bad spells in 3.x. Another instance of hype delivered... not.
Now, if you want to discuss system mastery as putting together combos... well, that might as well be the whole point of 4th edition. Putting together a combo of powers that do more together than they would individually is the key skill of 4th edition play. What's more, while in 3.x you could buy off that bandwagon by playing a barbarian, making the obvious choices and doing your job pretty much as well as any other barbarian, 4th edition offers no escape from system mastery. The barbarian, as much as any other class has to select his powers to work together and use them synergisticly.
So, it may be that designing deliberately overpowered spells and feats was a WotC marketing choice designed to sell more books. (Presumably to 3.x players of clerics and druids and to 4th edition fans of Str/Con fighters and barbarians). If so, there is no reason to believe it other than the self-congratulatory pre-release posts of a bunch of designers with a financial interest in making you believe 3.x was unplayable but 4th edition would be perfect. 4th edition carries the exact same features that were supposed to be a hallmark of that philosophy.
It's probably a lot more accurate to say that "system mastery" is how the marketers of 4th edition decided to tell the designers to retroactively characterize the 3.x design philosophy. The designers fed us a lot of nonsense that no thinking person has any business believing in the early days of the runup to 4th edition.
Sorry, but the system mastery issue and the related WotC quotes (see designer quotes about feats like Toughness, etc) were around long before 4e was even a rumor. It did gain a new lease on life of its own once 4e was announced and WotC announced an intention to eskew that design philosophy, but it wasn't new. The original quotes date from a time period when system mastery (as in knowing which feats not to take because they suck) was considered a positive trait.
How about there no longer being bad powers? Compare careful attack to twin strike some time.
Prior to expansion books, the difference between the two at low levels(at least) is fractions of a point of damage per round across some of the range of possible target acs.
Careful attack is an example of bad maths and late mechanic changes (take a look at how much the numbers fluctuated through previews). It's just that noone recognised/accepted that on a fundamental level either twin strike or careful attack would have to be more powerful than the other.
Furthermore, in later books it seems that they have indeed aimed for power creep. But you'd have to be incompetent to think that filling every RPGA event with fun-destroying munchkins is a good strategy for growing your market. I think the more egregious examples of imbalance are just more bad design and rushed deadlines.
There's a general rule that fixes all the multi-hit powers: bonuses only apply on the first damage roll of a power.
Last edited by Saeviomagy; 13th June 2009 at 05:00 AM..
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