This One Goes to . . . Ten [Merged four Oct 29 Playtest Package announcement threads]

Salamandyr said:

4 skills and the ability to add expertise dice to skill checks.

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Manbearcat said:

Max damage by squares in total AoE is really a poor metric to evaluate AoEs. Encounters are encounters. You may see 10 - 12 mooks, at most, in virtually all of the cases where an AoE will be brought to bear. Amongst those 10-12 mooks you may, if you're lucky you'll be able to deploy it against 3/4s of them (unless they are oddly in fireball formation). Fireballs AoE spread is just about the upper limit of necessity and further, it is about at the upper level of tactical wieldiness given the demands of positioning and avoiding friendly fire. Further, Cone of Cold is a Blast/Cone so its range is "Melee". As such, it requires the Wizard to be in a compromising position (in range of enemies melee attacks). Whats more, in most cases, if the Wizard is in melee, amidst the enemies he is "coning/blasting" will also be his allies. If the spell was (as 4e) Target; All Enemies in Blast then it would be much more wieldy. However, as is, in almost all cases, Cone of Cold's extra AoE spread will be useless and in some cases it will be worse than useless - tactically unwieldy due to melee requirements and friendly fire implications.

The only time my player's have typically used Cone Spells, in 3e and prior, is when playing Fighter/Mages or when they had immediate get out of jail free contingencies available. Wizards in 4e used Blasts-aplenty.

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Stalker0 said:

In my 4e game we have a player playing a Deva (1/encounter can add 1d6 to a skill check or attack roll).

That ability is very powerful for skills, so I can imagine that a rogue doing that 1/round will feel very much like a skill monkey.


That said, I was all for rogues getting expertise dice, but I had assumed it would be a lesser version combined with some other "roguey" things. This version really does make the rogue look like a fighter-lite with a few skills added in.

I think I will need to see just how useful and flavorful skill expertise is before drawing final conclusions.

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Salamandyr said:

I just thought of something that might provide a little more "oomph" to the rogue side of the ledger. Consider, if they could also have an ability that allowed them to add expertise dice to Saving Throws?

You could call it Evasion, but I think you could let it work with most kinds of saving throws. What I'm thinking of though, is doing it like some of the other maneuvers, where you can roll multiple dice, but only apply the highest one.

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Stalker0 said:

In my 4e game we have a player playing a Deva (1/encounter can add 1d6 to a skill check or attack roll).

That ability is very powerful for skills, so I can imagine that a rogue doing that 1/round will feel very much like a skill monkey.


That said, I was all for rogues getting expertise dice, but I had assumed it would be a lesser version combined with some other "roguey" things. This version really does make the rogue look like a fighter-lite with a few skills added in.

I think I will need to see just how useful and flavorful skill expertise is before drawing final conclusions.

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Ultimatecalibur said:

Uh, that's exactly what the Great Fortitude (Strength and Constitution), Iron Will (Wisdom and Charisma) and Lightning Reflexes (Dexterity) maneuvers do.

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Blackbrrd said:

Personally I mostly disliked how they "cheapened" Sneak Attack by giving the Fighter a version that is slightly better. Sneak attack has in my eyes always been a signature feature of the Rogue and now it just feels like a slightly worse Deadly Strike.

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I didn't really like Whirlwind attack either, compared to the 3.x version of the attack it just feels weak. I was expecting something more along the lines of "use 3 expertise dice to do attack all enemies that's adjacent to you". Not a maneuver that does the exact same damage as Deadly Strike, but divided out over more enemies.

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I thought cleave was the same thing, but looking it over, it looks like you can actually get some very nice great cleavage out of it. (I am interpreting so that you after dropping an enemy can move if you still have some squares left, attack another enemy and do you normal damage, except you exchange your weapon damage dice with your expertise dice).

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