D&D 4E 4E Power Calculator?

Xeviat

Hero

• Sep 23, 2017

• #1

Has anyone made a power calculator for 4E? Something that tells the relative balance of 1st level vs 3rd level encounter powers, and so forth? My Google-fu is weak. I'm beginning to work on one of my own, but there are a lot of powers to consider.


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Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

• Sep 23, 2017

• #2

I know of one I just recently saw it... it also printed cards and allowed custom classes and the like.

 

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

• Sep 23, 2017

• #3

This online tool might be handy

http://tools.omnichron.net/dnd/pow.html

trying to find the other one as I have actually used it a little.

 

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

• Sep 23, 2017

• #4

here it is

http://www.theplaywrite.com/dungeon...our-own-classes-races-powers-and-power-cards/

 

Xeviat

Hero

• Sep 24, 2017

• #5

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but this just looks like a power card generator. I'm looking for guidelines for designing balanced powers of given levels.


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MoutonRustique

Explorer

• Sep 25, 2017

• #6

Xeviat said:

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but this just looks like a power card generator. I'm looking for guidelines for designing balanced powers of given levels.

Click to expand...

As far as I know, there are no such guidelines.

The way to do it is to look at the other powers of the same level - and post them on boards to have eager enthusiasts tear... I mean critique them!

The big, big big thing to remember is that balance matters only at the table during play. In other words : if you create something that would be completely broken when combined with Y but your table doesn't have Y, then the point is moot - your stuff isn't broken at your table.

There is a huge difference between making a homebrew thing work correctly for a campaign and making something to "add to 4e for everyone" (as a Dragon article for example.)

As an example:
- I gave a player a "cursed abyssal staff of ruin" : every time he casts a spell (he's a warlock), he takes 3 damage and deals +9 damage. - That is completely bonkers on it's face! But in this game, it works - and the player still manages to under-perform... (he legit rolls 8 or below on d20 rolls 90% of the time!)
- In the same campaign, I gave the swordmage a boon that basically copies the Runepriest's healing power. That's also bonkers! But again, in this campaign, with this group, with these players, it works!

None of this is to mean that anything is a good idea - but it does illustrate the point that 4e is fairly resilient.

TL;DR - you can probably eyeball it.

 

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

• Sep 25, 2017

• #7

I am thinking the guys at WOTC might have had such a toy with the system numbers built in then tweak the result.

 

Dalamar

Adventurer

• Sep 25, 2017

• #8

You can get a pretty good idea for the expected [W] for weapon powers by looking at the simplest Fighter powers at each level.

At least for encounter powers, note that damage does not increase at all levels.

And I recall there was a Dragon article about improvised actions that ranked the conditions to a couple of different levels based on their power.

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Xeviat

Hero

• Sep 26, 2017

• #9

Dalamar said:

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Click to expand...

Oh! I'll have to go digging.


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Tony Vargas

Legend

• Sep 26, 2017

• #10

I never got the knack for assigning a level to a power with any confidence. Monster powers were way easier.