Rule of Three and THEMES! FINALLY THEMES!!!!

Aegeri · May 2, 2011

Finally, for the first time in MONTHS and I mean MONTHS I have something unequivocally happy to celebrate. We are finally getting themes in the game as a whole. About damn time Wizards. I couldn't be more excited about this and can't wait to see them! I am most curious about the Outlaw and what the Animal Master might do.

So excited!!!!! (For once)

There was also a Rule of Three. No hybrids or multiclassing for essentials stuff until they release themes. I am fine with that because themes are infinitely more important to me (others mileage may vary). Number 2 is a common question that keeps popping up, from the answer it may even be a huge debate internally at Wizards. I also entirely agree with the answer to number 3 in so many ways. There has been a huge propagation of immediate action effects in the game. So much so that some strikers DPR is strictly so superior to others because they have a good chunk of them. For example the Ranger has more than a few immediate interrupt and similar out of turn attacks - not something shared by say a Warlock. It actually makes me wonder what the proper damage of a striker should be.

Either way, the addition of themes into the game makes me so overjoyed, I cannot even manage to get my usual sarcasm into anything this week. WHEEEE!!

Peraion Graufalke · May 2, 2011

I share your excitement. The first two questions are from one of my posts here at ENWorld, though I'm not that happy about the answer to #2. At least they're discussing it.

As for #3 and the abundance of interrupt powers, would it help to limit characters to 1 interrupt power per tier?

AbdulAlhazred · May 2, 2011

Wow, I missed being ninjaed by you by maybe 20 seconds, Aegeri, lol.

Yeah, the themes should be interesting. Ro3 is kind of interesting. I think Mike is starting to get it. There's a lot more than just Immediate Actions and other triggered stuff though. The game seriously needs a major housecleaning of cruft. Answer 2 sort of tells me they haven't quite got there with feats yet, there just REALLY REALLY needs to be a way to deprecate them so they don't even show in CB unless you turn them on. For most players there is just way too much to look at. Conditions were nice, but sadly they don't use them enough, instead we constantly get "+2 to blah, -2 to blahblah and one enemy gets foo, and bar happens when the guy saves" AAAGGGHHHH! You can make a good tactical game with each character doing some unique stuff without such proliferation. They still haven't quite mentally gotten to the top of that hill, but I think they will eventually. Questionable where that leads, but...

Aegeri · May 2, 2011

No that wouldn't be very workable I feel Peraion Graufalke, because there are a lot of them and some of them aren't that bad to be honest. You'd need to do a lot of editing or make a huge chunk of them useless to make that work. I honestly think his solution is the best: Make the triggers important events - not just stuff that happens. So they aren't triggering on a hit, they're triggering on a hit that drops the target to 0 HP. Or they're triggering on a critical or something similar. This means they are less likely to come up constantly (in terms of attacks, less likely to be a significant part of DPR calculations now), but have a greater impact when they do (as they prevent an ally dropping to 0 HP, instead of just being used on the first attack you can to boost your damage).

Colmarr · May 2, 2011

Contrary to everyone else (or so it seems), I like interrupt powers. They're a much more flavourful and cinematic way of shutting down monsters than stun, daze immobilise etc.

IMO if they're playing havoc with turn length, then the answer is to simplify them by removing the attack and/or damage rolls, not to reduce or marginalise them. If they're playing havoc with expected DPR, then make them deal no damage.

Likewise I'm not sure why there is so much love for themes. At heart, they're not that different from skill powers except for the bonus encounter power at level 1. I don't see what the fuss is about.

Aegeri said:
have a greater impact when they do (as they prevent an ally dropping to 0 HP, instead of just being used on the first attack you can to boost your damage).

I'm not sure that logic follows. How is saving an ally's last 10hp any different to saving their first 10hp?

In fact, having those powers trigger off dropping to 0hp potentially lessens their effect. If a monster hits an ally for his first 20hp and you avert that hit, you've saved 20hp. If a monster hits an ally that is on 10hp for 20hp damage, you've only really saved 10hp because the cleric's healing word is going to make the extra 10hp damage redundant anyway.

WalterKovacs · May 2, 2011

Colmarr said:
Likewise I'm not sure why there is so much love for themes. At heart, they're not that different from skill powers except for the bonus encounter power at level 1. I don't see what the fuss is about.

It's a couple of different things.

Similar to skill powers and the new racial ones, they allow you to further customize your character and make them more thematic. Also, unlike skill powers and racial utilities, you actually get attack powers as well.

The big thing is that, even if it only matters a little bit, it's something that is deeper than just the background because even if the encounter power is minor ... it's something you interact with more than just a flat skill bonus or out of class skill or language.

Aegeri · May 2, 2011

I'm not sure that logic follows. How is saving an ally's last 10hp any different to saving their first 10hp?

Because saving the allies last 10 HP actually matters more, when it prevents them going unconscious. Saving their first 10 is irrelevant, because the useage there isn't when it's important (it might not even be on the ally that was going to go down) - it's just used purely to boost DPR.

I don't know how much you read CharOps, but you'll soon see that most of the time II and IR powers are used to boost DPR. Their tactical use has degraded into just throwing them at the first thing their trigger is valid for, so you can boost your DPR. The number of times I've seen disruptive strike used to boost DPR exclusively is quite considerable. I mean that power is a very solid one and has a great tactical use, except that 99% of the time it's thrown onto the first enemy attack of something the ranger wants to die solely to inflict more damage. I can say the same is true for a great deal of these other powers. It has got to the point where some strikers like Rangers, who are filled with these things are outright BETTER than other strikers. They've become a DPR tool, not something to change the battlefield in a tactical and impactful way (as the original intent probably was).

So I wouldn't mind them pulling the triggers back into areas they will actually have a significant effect. Not just being thrown out at the first opportunity to boost DPR. It would also help to significantly balance out the power of Rangers (who again, are the prime criminals of this argument) against other strikers if II/IRs had much more restrictive triggers. The tactical usage should be the advantage - not just being thrown out to achieve 200+ DPR numbers easily.

Mummolus · May 2, 2011

Yeah, I really am tremendously excited about the new themes. If, as stated by one of the WoTC employees, the Neverwinter Campaign Setting adds even more, we'll soon have a wonderfully solid selection for any given campaign.

That said, I hope there are/will be Eberron specific themes coming up. It would be a shame seeing such a vibrant setting being left out in the cold (like artificers or changelings) when DS has themes and presumably the Neverwinter themes will be appropriate for FR.

Aegeri · May 2, 2011

Perhaps that is a question best submitted to Rule of Three? I'd love Eberron specific themes as well.

Colmarr · May 2, 2011

Aegeri said:
Because saving the allies last 10 HP actually matters more, when it prevents them going unconscious.

There is no mathematical difference between saving the first 10 hp and the last 10 hp. For any given number of attacks and given number of hit points, doing either would "prevent them going unconscious".

Although talking hp is probably misleading (I started it, I know). We're really talking about averting the first attack or averting the last.

Aegeri said:
Saving their first 10 is irrelevant, because the useage there isn't when it's important (it might not even be on the ally that was going to go down) - it's just used purely to boost DPR.

I see what you're getting at in the first portion of this sentence. It's theoretically true that the ally that 'triggers' the interrupt might not be the one who is later in danger, but I'm not sure it is terribly true from a practical perspective. I think I can count on one hand the number of combats I've seen (in 13 levels of play) during which a PC unexpectedly went unconscious.

The latter half of your sentence (DPR) strikes me as a playstyle issue. I don't accept that D&D design should be focused on what CharOP does*. I'd much rather have powers that allowed PCs to prevent an ally being pushed over a cliff, for example (which Disruptive Strike currently does but a 'reduced to 0 hp' version would not).

* With the exception of balance issues, where I accept that CharOP plays a useful role in identifying issues and worrying corner cases.