Proposal: Divine Power

garyh · Aug 2, 2009

TwoHeadsBarking said:
Hero of the Faith is slightly better. You get a choice from Avenger skills rather than being forced into Religion. That may not be a good enough upgrade to make it be worth the higher Wisdom cost, but it is something. The Avenger has a pretty good skill list.

Having the choice of the skill is nice, and certainly an improvement. What I'm saying is the longer-lasting Oath (note you still can't use it again after dropping the first Oath target) didn't bother me either because of the higher pre-req.

JoeNotCharles · Aug 3, 2009

Lord Sessadore said:
I agree with Joe's suggestion. If they don't change it in errata before then, I think we should change it ourselves. It's just too easy to abuse.

Now that I've actually read the book, this doesn't work. The original Disciple of Divine Wrath feat lets is already basically the errata'd version I suggested.

The only differences between the two are: Hero of Faith needs Wis 15+ instead of 13+; Hero of Faith gives you training in any Avenger skill instead of just Religion; Hero of Faith lets you use oath of enmity until end of encounter or until the foe dies (and it explicitly doesn't recharge), while Disciple of Divine Wrath lets you use it until the end of your next turn (and says nothing about recharging).

So the question is, if you're a Disciple of Divine Wrath and you use oath of enmity and kill the target in one shot, can you pick a new target and have the duration extended a turn? I'd say no, that's just weird.

So it seems like Hero of Faith is 100% an upgrade to Disciple of Divine Wrath, except you need 2 points higher Wisdom. I don't like that - the idea that some classes should be better than others because they're harder to get into was one of the bad parts of earlier editions, and I thought they were trying to stay away from it. I think we should just ban the feat if we think it's overpowered. Maybe merge the two by giving Disciple of Divine Wrath any skill instead of Religion.

elecgraystone · Aug 3, 2009

Having both Disciple of Divine Wrath and Hero of Faith seems odd to me. This is the first time that I've seen feats give more of less the exact same ability [oath of enmity]. It's almost like the person that made the Divine one didn't know about the PHB2 one.

I'll have to agree with the others though that the +2 stat requirement is enough to cover the differences. A 15 is a pretty big investment for a multiclasser, meaning Hero of Faith will only be taken by someone that has a high wisdom anyway.

Merging is an interesting idea, but I don't know...

Atanatotatos · Aug 6, 2009

I say just throw that feat down the well. It's just too abusable. We're all sure it'll be errata'ed sooner or later anyway, no sense adopting it then.
By the way, do you really find that Wisdom cost so high? Fighters like wisdom, Rangers like wisdom. Those two are already two classes that can heavily exploit the feat. Wisdom is already a stat that sees much use in high-damaging builds (Pit Fighter, marked scourge-albeit errata'ed). And if it wasn't enough, Avangers have perception as a class skill (which makes the whole Wisdom thing even sweeter).

I say nay.

CaBaNa · Aug 6, 2009

strikers aren't my thing, and maybe that is why this feat doesn't seem like much of a big deal to me. Is there some huge damage dealing thing I'm missing?

Isn't Oath of Enmity rather situational? Unlike the rangers quarry, or even the rogues sneak attack (CA is easy to get). Having someone other than the target hit you, or the target run away are difficult things to trigger, and depend more on the DM than the player.

Ok, in typing this I've become aware of exactly how ignorant on the topic I am. But I'm still going to post it, so that someone can educate me...

JoeNotCharles · Aug 6, 2009

The effects you're giving are part of the Censure feature, which is a bonus power you get to take against your Oath of Enmity target. The main feature of Oath of Enmity is that you get to roll all attacks twice against your Oath of Enmity target (as long as you're the only adjacent enemy) and take the higher.

It's like Warlock's Curse: the main point of it is that you do an extra 1d6 damage with each hit to anything under your curse; you also get Pact Boon bonuses when something under you curse dies. The Avenger gets one target, and they get to reroll attacks against them so they'll hit more often, and get Censure bonuses when their target takes certain actions.

So, imagine a two-blade ranger who can pick one target and use Oath of Enmity against them for the entire encounter. Each time they attack with Twin Strike they get to make 4 attack rolls! Getting this as a bonus once per encounter is a nice encounter power, but getting to do it for every power is too much!

(However, maybe it would be a good daily power? I think getting a new daily is a bit much for one feat, though.)

Kalidrev · Aug 6, 2009

CaBaNa, what you are thinking of is the specific features of each of the two builds of Avenger. What Oath of Enmity does is allows an Avenger to roll TWICE for it's attack roll and take the better of the two rolls when no other enemy is adjacent to the Avenger (they don't work well in crowds). Combined with the (sometimes) disgusting damage that a ranger can pull off, not to mention the fact that they are already a two-weapon build, having the ability to roll TWICE on EACH of the two attacks is simply wrong. Being able to do that even ONCE in an encounter is a big deal, let alone what it does to a rangers best two-weapon attack against an enemy! It's almost an auto-bonus-wisdom-mod-to-damage with some of their two-weapon powers!

EDIT: DANGIT JNC, you got to it before I could, lol!

CaBaNa · Aug 6, 2009

Thanks for the clarification guys!

As far as I've read the OoE two attack thing only works when you are next to a single enemy right? And only on the one enemy you picked at the beginning of the match. Then you don't get to pick another...

It doesn't seem like that strong a bonus unless the fight is against a solo, and I hate the HP grind on solo's anyway, so more power to it. Further, I don't see how the TWF ranger with the OoE on one target, outshines other strikers. They have to give up a hefty amount of that split str/dex thing they do...

If this feat was allowed, would every TWF ranger suddenly become an avenger when they level up? Is it that good?

Keep in mind I don't plan on using this stuff, just trying to help discussion.

EDIT: I just thought of Kamotz taking this before his fight with Slardazial over in Long Arm of Lauto: Broken Wards. How thematically perfect it would be.

So maybe I would use the feat if it passed... I was wrong...

Everyone's biggest issues seems to be the ranger getting ahold of this power, ban the power for rangers?

EDIT2: Nope, upon thinking about it, Kamotz was rarely if ever next to Slardazial, without another enemy being adjacent to Kamotz. Probably wouldn't take this feat, even if it passed. That only adjacent to one enemy clause is hard to do for a cleric...

JoeNotCharles · Aug 6, 2009

A melee ranger doesn't need to be split Dex/Str, as far as I know - you can go Str-only for melee, or Dex-only for ranged.

If you take this, you'll start arranging yourself to be adjacent to only one enemy. If you're adjacent to two, you'll shift around to the other side of one before you attack. Things like that. Just like being a rogue, you'll try to get combat advantage way more often.

It's not that big a deal in an ordinary fight, since you can only use it on one target and can't retarget it like Hunter's Quarry, but it's definitely a big deal on elites and solos.

I think the HP grind you're talking about on solos is mainly from the ones in MM1 - the ones in MM2 have less hp and do more damage. I'd say the hp grind should be fixed by altering the solo, not giving extra solo-killer powers to just one class. (Insert orb wizard complaint here.)

CaBaNa · Aug 6, 2009

JoeNotCharles said:
A melee ranger doesn't need to be split Dex/Str, as far as I know - you can go Str-only for melee, or Dex-only for ranged.

If you take this, you'll start arranging yourself to be adjacent to only one enemy. If you're adjacent to two, you'll shift around to the other side of one before you attack. Things like that. Just like being a rogue, you'll try to get combat advantage way more often.

It's not that big a deal in an ordinary fight, since you can only use it on one target and can't retarget it like Hunter's Quarry, but it's definitely a big deal on elites and solos.

I think the HP grind you're talking about on solos is mainly from the ones in MM1 - the ones in MM2 have less hp and do more damage. I'd say the hp grind should be fixed by altering the solo, not giving extra solo-killer powers to just one class. (Insert orb wizard complaint here.)

The more we talk about this, the more I want it for Kamotz...

Ok I'm changing my stance on this officially now.

The feat is really powerful, and in the hands of a TWF ranger possibly ridiculous, but I want it.

It fits Kamotz character concept exceptionally, and he easily qualifies for it. It improves his chances of healing his allies with Healing Strike, while helping to raise his damage slightly.

It's not going to break Kamotz, nor will he all of a sudden outshine every other PC, cleric or otherwise. I don't think every cleric would take it.

In this case the feat is just fine, I think... might be wrong... I'm not good with math.

So ban munchkin rangers access to the feat, or elf rangers under 5 foot, or someone, anyone, except poor Kamotz. He needs the sweet lovin, encounter long OoE on people like Slardazial, (who will probably come back some time in the future for an epic, rocket-sauce-supreme, rematch-of-doom, in which... Kamotz should be able to define Slardazial as his OoE target...) because otherwise he is just that chump who feints every time he gets hit...

So there you have it. My new stance...

because JNC and Kalidrev have shown me the light on Hero of the Faith, it is golden goodness.