Proposal: Things to be nerfed

Atanatotatos · May 28, 2009

What do you mean, you don't know ways of being (kinda) sure to hit? Just have your tactlord drop a warlord favor(or similar power) for a huge bonus to hit, flank, use an action point to get the tactical presence bonus, and action surge bonus if you're a human. At level 3 this would be somewhere near +13 to hit(on top of your own bonus, of course).
I know this is a pretty specific example, but the higher the level, the more the ways to improve your to-hit when you really want to.
Now I know you're going to say: "hey, but weren't you complaining about the difficulty to hit at higher level?"
Well, true, but that is a problem on "normal" attacks(where you don't have a bonus from an ally, most of the time), especially if you don't know well what you're doing. The problem is, a player that know how to abuse these things will probably never really have a problem with hitting, but a player that doesn't know the game all that well, will. That's how I see it, anyway.

elecgraystone · May 28, 2009

LOL Well sure if you use a bunch of other powers/abilities together, you can do that. Assuming you have a tactlord, flank, ect...

What you are saying is that this power is AWESOME if I add 20 other things to it to boost the static damage and hit.

Well that's fine if you KNOW you're going to get those thing every single time. Not the kind of thing you can expect in a game like this. Also the 7w attack guy isn't doing 18 damage to himself every round...

Small clarification Tinwe. 3x 1[W] + mods, NOT 4x 1[W] + mods. As I pointed out, the secondary attack on rain of blows isn't indented, so it's NOT dependent on the primary attack as per PHB2 rules for reading powers. As such you only get 1 secondary attack by RAW.

Tinwe · May 28, 2009

elecgraystone said:
What you are saying is that this power is AWESOME if I add 20 other things to it to boost the static damage and hit. Well that's fine if you KNOW you're going to get those thing every single time. Not the kind of thing you can expect in a game like this. Also the 7w attack guy isn't doing 18 damage to himself every round...

Let's talk about something that you can get every time: the strength modifier. Let's examine damage with a +6 greatspear ([W] = 1d10). The average value of a 1d10 roll is 5.5. That means that a 7[W] attack does less damage than a 3x 1[W] attack if the fighter has at least 22 strength.

You tell me how likely that is to happen at level 29, when you pick up your awesome reliable huge damage power. Now you can consider Iron Armbands, Bloodclaw, stacking damage modifiers ala ptifighter, and all the other little goodies that you might pick up.

Small clarification Tinwe. (clip)

I don't care to argue RoB semantics. The guy who designed the power is on-record as saying it's 4 attacks and "probably too strong". That's good enough for me. In any case, what I was actually talking about was the "opportunity cost" of missing with your big reliable power, allowing the guy who's using multiattacks to get even further ahead of you in damage with another attack.

elecgraystone · May 28, 2009

Sigh... It only does more damage IF they all hit. And you roll average. And you aren't using a 2d6 weapon. If you don't mind hurting yourself doing it. If you are a pitfighter with a high wisdom. Crapload of if's...

As far as the RoB semantics and the guy who designed the power, the fact is they have NOT put out an errata for it. Something they have NOT been afraid to do MANY times. As such, his statement holds no weight with me. If he felt it was a mistake, then it should be in the official errata. Until then the RoB semantics trumps internet guys unofficial word.

And I know your point, I just don't agree with it. On hard to hit foes, a reliable big damage attack does more damage than a flurry of less damaging smaller attacks in my experience. Your spreadsheet may tell you different but that's what I've seen.

Tinwe · May 28, 2009

elecgraystone said:
Sigh... It only does more damage IF they all hit. And you roll average. And you aren't using a 2d6 weapon. If you don't mind hurting yourself doing it. If you are a pitfighter with a high wisdom. Crapload of if's...

The example I gave you has only 1 "if". IF the fighter's strength is 22 or higher, he will do more damage. Everything else that you're tryingto throw out there as a conditional just makes the imbalance greater.

For instance, "if" you're a pitfighter with 28 str / 24 wis and "if" you have a bloodclaw weapon, and "if" only 50% of attacks hit, and "if" you have a 2d6 weapon, and "if" you decided to snag Weapon Focus, and heck, "if" you have epic Iron Armbands, and "if" we assume RoB is 3 attacks, not 4, then RoB will, on average, outdamage that 7[W] attack by exactly double.

And I know your point, I just don't agree with it. On hard to hit foes, a reliable big damage attack does more damage than a flurry of less damaging smaller attacks in my experience. Your spreadsheet may tell you different but that's what I've seen.

I don't use a spreadsheet. I use pretty accessible math that I learned in junior high. Frankly, if your mantra is "anecdote is a valid form of evidence", I don't see much point in continuing to try to convince you with actual math.

Atanatotatos · May 28, 2009

Btw I've always sucked at math and my eyes start to bleed as soon as I lay them upon a spreadsheet so... yeah, what I say comes from gaming experience, as well. Just though I'd say that

But, it's pointless to continue like this. I suggest we simply state that RoB gives 3 attacks max in L4W, and that's all. It's still more powerful than the other fighter powers at (not only) that level but heh...

JoeNotCharles · May 28, 2009

elecgraystone said:
Small clarification Tinwe. 3x 1[W] + mods, NOT 4x 1[W] + mods. As I pointed out, the secondary attack on rain of blows isn't indented, so it's NOT dependent on the primary attack as per PHB2 rules for reading powers. As such you only get 1 secondary attack by RAW.

Except the secondary attack IS indented.

It was always indented in the PHB. For a while it was not indented in the online Compendium, but that's been fixed. (In fact, when the designer clarified that it was 4x, he said, "Some of the confusion probably comes from the fact that it's indented incorrectly in the Compendium..." But it's always been indented in the PHB.)

corncob · May 28, 2009

nothing to see here...

elecgraystone · May 28, 2009

JoeNotCharles said:
Except the secondary attack IS indented.

I'll have to check that the next time I get my hands on a physical PHB [who knows when that'll be. sigh...]. What I have here I copied from the Compendium before I lost access to it.

What I'm trying to say Atanatotatos and Tinwe is that you are looking it in a perfect storm kind of way. If I have a tactlord Siamese twin, if I flank ect. When everything is perfect, that power comes out on top. I'm looking at it from a normal gametop way. We might not have a tactlord. We might not be able to get a flank. The fighter might not be a pitfighter and he might not want to take damage every time he hits. And I'm damn sure the fighter doesn't assume he's hitting with all his attacks.

And my spreadsheet comments are about the type of argument NOT you actually using a spreadsheet. Far too often I've seen people 'do the math' and come up with a totally different conclusion that I do after I actually see it in action. If you are commenting on your personal experience then that's fine but if you are telling me what the 'math' says, I'm telling you it's lied to me many times.