Hero of the Faith: Broken, or just Unbalanced and in need of meds? You decide.

Tomalak · Aug 16, 2009

I'm forking this thread here because the discussion has completely taken over the Divine Power discussion, and I'd like a chance to discuss the rest of the book.

The general consensus is that HotF should not be played as written. Comment please.

garyh · Aug 16, 2009

I think HotF is fine as is, personally. If it's truly "broken," WotC will fix it soon enough.

CaBaNa · Aug 16, 2009

though I do respect the general consensus, and would not raise a "stink" if HoTF gets nerf'd or banned, I disagree that it is either broken or unbalanced.

I like the feat, I think it is appropriate.

I've heard the argument that, Avengers only OoE once per encounter. If the striker is only killing one monster per encounter...

the team, isn't working together properly.(insert comment about how teams can work many ways, and the previous statement is far too general.) By focusing on one threat at a time, and taking that damage potential off the board, the party reduces the total damage they take. This also lets the Avenger OoE 2+ times per encounter.

If we are going to nerf HotF, how about this.

Hero of the Faith, Prerequisite Wis 15, not a Ranger.

stonegod · Aug 16, 2009

garyh said:
I think HotF is fine as is, personally. If it's truly "broken," WotC will fix it soon enough.

Before L4W gets it, anyway. Me, I happy just not allowing it until they do fix it (which is what I'll recommend over in LEB).

Tinwe · Aug 17, 2009

I'm not convinced that HoF is overpowered. On the face of it, rolling twice for every attack on one creature per encounter is strong, but there are other options just as powerful (mainly because of the paragon classes they open up- avenger paragon options are... bad). Rangers in particular have much better MC options if minmaxxing.

The worst I can see happening is Rogue MC Avenger / Daggermaster, which is a bit OP compared to other rogue builds but not compared to other striker builds (it's not the rogue's fault he's underpowered).

JoeNotCharles · Aug 17, 2009

Tinwe said:
I'm not convinced that HoF is overpowered. On the face of it, rolling twice for every attack on one creature per encounter is strong, but there are other options just as powerful (mainly because of the paragon classes they open up- avenger paragon options are... bad). Rangers in particular have much better MC options if minmaxxing.

Like what?

To me, it still boils down to this: was the feat that gave Hunter's Quarry for an entire encounter overpowered? If yes, why is this better? If no, why did they nerf it?

Tinwe · Aug 17, 2009

JoeNotCharles said:
Like what?

To me, it still boils down to this: was the feat that gave Hunter's Quarry for an entire encounter overpowered? If yes, why is this better? If no, why did they nerf it?

Like Ranger MC Fighter / Pitfighter or / Stormwarden. Rolling twice on Twin Strike doesn't come close to matching up to snagging Rain of Blows (yes, even the nerfed one), Trip Up, Quicksilver Stance, and all the goodies from the paragon classes.

That point you make is valid, and WotC will probably nerf the feat after a while to bring it down to the 1 turn/encounter benefit of the other MC feats, but when you take everything together, the people who are saying that every striker will take HoF are just as silly and just as wrong as the people who said that every striker would go barbarian MC when PHBII came out. There are paragon classes that are just too good for strikers to seriously consider anything besides Fighter or Rogue MC (and possibly Warlock for radiant characters).

KenHood · Aug 17, 2009

Folks,

Why don't y'all communicate this to WOTC, instead of trying to fix it over here? That way, they'll address the problem and apply the update before we adopt the book, and you end up benefitting a much larger community of roleplayers with your actions.

JoeNotCharles · Aug 17, 2009

Tinwe said:
Like Ranger MC Fighter / Pitfighter or / Stormwarden. Rolling twice on Twin Strike doesn't come close to matching up to snagging Rain of Blows (yes, even the nerfed one), Trip Up, Quicksilver Stance, and all the goodies from the paragon classes.

Ok, but that's a different topic. It's not the fighter multiclass feat that's too strong, it's the paragon paths you can move into after taking it. Student of the Sword itself isn't broken - if you replaced it with a feat that said only, "You qualify for Fighter paragon paths" it wouldn't change anything.

We can't easily do anything about weird paragon path combinations, even if we were to agree they're a problem, because there's no simple thing we can point at to ban, unless we ban multiclassing entirely. So there's really no point in letting it distract us.

We're talking about the actual specific effects of the Hero of the Faith feat.

covaithe · Aug 17, 2009

I think HotF is overpowered, and not just for strikers. In my epic game (see sig links if you're curious), Sessadore has a lvl 21 cleric with HotF. No problems with the wisdom requirement there. It's only come up once so far, but he used it to (effectively) guarantee a hit wth Righteous Brand, granting +7 to hit to the barbarian in the party, who promptly went nova with Storm of Blades and something else. It was impressive.

Now, I don't think that use in itself was overpowered, as such, but... I play HotF in that game with the (to me) obvious nerf that it lasts until the end of next turn. Even thus nerfed, and even not on a super-twinked-cheese build, it has been an important factor at a crucial point in a big fight.

If it's that good while nerfed, it seems to me that it shouldn't be played un-nerfed.