D&D 5E How much should 5e aim at balance?

[pemerton]

I think there are some assumptions on your part that aren't really clear to me for example saying the to hit chance is equal seems odd to me when one power requires 3 to hit rolls to work to its full effect and the other only one.

Your maths is a bit wonky here.

It's true that one needs 3 hits to work at full effect. But equally it has 3 chances to work at least at partial effect.

Let's call the hit chance H/20.

Then the chance of Tide of Iron hitting is H/20. So the expected damage from Tide of Iron is H/20 * (W + STR + fixed bonuses from feats, items etc).

The expected damage from RoB (2 attacks) is equal to the sum of the expected damage from each attack:

(H/20 * (W + fixed bonuses) ) + (H/20 * (W + fixed bonuses))​

Collecting the common factor, this equals:

H/20 * (2W + 2*fixed bonuses)​

Notice that both expected damage expressions have a common factor, namely, H/20.

If we want to compare the ratio of the two powers' ouput we can cancel out this common factor, and get a ratio of:

Tide of Iron : Rain of Blows = (W + STR + fixed bonuses) : (2W + 2*fixed bonsues)​

Rain of Blows will do more damaeg than Tide of Iron any time that (W + fixed bonuses) is greater than STR. Which, as [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] points out, is likely to happen as soon as any item bonus is factored in.

And once you get three attacks, the "2" in the statement of the ration becomes "3" - which means that Rain of Blows will do more damaeg than Tide of Iron any time that (2W + 2*fixed bonuses) is greater than STR. Which will be true at all levels.

 

[Underman]

Dailies are a particular issue because of the nova problem associated with Vancian casters. So at least some people want a viable martial PC who can also keep up with the nova schedule.

I think the other side of that is that dailies make a fighter more fun and tactical

Anyway, your question was "But who is saying that D&Dnext should not be able to support sim/immersive play?"

Well, if the "4e crowd" insists on martial dailies in 5E for whatever reason, they're chipping away at support for sim/immersive play.

If something like Combat Superiority works, then it will show that martial dailies are NOT required for balance or other metagame reasons. In which case, all the resistance against reform and half-baked (less pejorative than "half-assed"?) fluff justifications for martial dailies will turn out to be i) moot, as well as ii) at least partially antagonistic to sim/immersion.

 

[Shadeydm]

Your maths is a bit wonky here.

It's true that one needs 3 hits to work at full effect. But equally it has 3 chances to work at least at partial effect.

Let's call the hit chance H/20.

Then the chance of Tide of Iron hitting is H/20. So the expected damage from Tide of Iron is H/20 * (W + STR + fixed bonuses from feats, items etc).

The expected damage from RoB (2 attacks) is equal to the sum of the expected damage from each attack:

(H/20 * (W + fixed bonuses) ) + (H/20 * (W + fixed bonuses))​

Collecting the common factor, this equals:

H/20 * (2W + 2*fixed bonuses)​

Notice that both expected damage expressions have a common factor, namely, H/20.

If we want to compare the ratio of the two powers' ouput we can cancel out this common factor, and get a ratio of:

Tide of Iron : Rain of Blows = (W + STR + fixed bonuses) : (2W + 2*fixed bonsues)​

Rain of Blows will do more damaeg than Tide of Iron any time that (W + fixed bonuses) is greater than STR. Which, as [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] points out, is likely to happen as soon as any item bonus is factored in.

And once you get three attacks, the "2" in the statement of the ration becomes "3" - which means that Rain of Blows will do more damaeg than Tide of Iron any time that (2W + 2*fixed bonuses) is greater than STR. Which will be true at all levels.

My 11th level fighter is +D7 with ToI and +2 with RoB

 

[Neonchameleon]

zI think there are some assumptions on your part that aren't really clear to me for example saying the to hit chance is equal seems odd to me when one power requires 3 to hit rolls to work to its full effect and the other only one. Additionally the assumption that one is using a weapon which allows 3 attacks seems odd to me its not as if the power states certain weapon types as a prerequisite like ToI states you must be using a shield.

Breaking it down further:

1: My DPR comparison was based on two attacks not three. DPR is still superior. A third attack increases this 50%. I didn't include this in my maths.

2: The hit chance is for Damage Per Round calculations. Both powers will require the same target number to hit. So the proportion of damage they do over the long run due to their to hit chance, is equivalent.

3: You can use RoB without one of the weapons that gives you a third attack - you can flail away with a greataxe. You just shouldn't choose the power unless you are wielding a weapon that allows the third attack. It's a situational power.

And this ties in to the vast difference in building a character between 3.X and 4e. In 4e you start with the vision of your character. What should they be able to do? And you then pick powers to reflect that. The 20 level build has almost gone. And RoB reflects the fast moving fighter whose weapon flickers round the enemy's defences.

I just don't see RoB or even Hack and Hew as superior powers that need to be balanced by restricting them to once per encounter.

RoB is one of the two fighter encounter powers people actually multiclass in 4e to get when optimising. (The other, of course, being CAGI). If you don't see three attacks per round even without a strength boost as massively superior to one then you need to look again at quite how static damage bonusses work. If you're playing at low heroic then it's only about a 50% damage improvement (complete with focus fire) if you're using it with the correct weapons. But it scales to the point that people routinely don't swap it out at epic tier.

4e is deeper than you think, and the overwhelming power of multiattacks wasn't quite grasped when it was being designed.

 

[Neonchameleon]

My 11th level fighter is +D7 with ToI and +2 with RoB

Then with all due respect your 11th level fighter really doesn't do very much damage at all. +2 is incredibly low for 11th level.

I assume the +2 means you have a +2 weapon? Which is the lowest you should have at 11th level.

As a matter of routine, I would expect a 11th level fighter to have Iron Armbands of Power for a further +2 - it's a level 6 item. Also given how important damage is to a fighter (it's how they control for one) I'd expect Weapon Focus for another +2.

So I'd therefore expect a minimum of +6 static damage from a fighter, meaning that it wouldn't be +7 vs +2, but +11 vs +6. (+12 vs +7 would actually be my expected minimum). Try running those numbers.

On the other hand you appear to have gone for an extremely specialist build from what I can make out if you are talking about Push 3 and Prone from ToI. One of those is from Spear Push? And you've added Polearm Momentum? And you've got an item for the second added square of Push? (Rushing Cleats?)

So that's three feats and an item that are helping your Tide of Iron that do nothing at all for your Rain of Blows. Yes, an At Will augmented by three feats and an item is probably better than an unaugmented encounter power. If you're focussing that heavily on forced movement and almost completely ignoring damage in your feats then you should be doing the same in your powers. RoB is one that focusses on multiplying static damage and completely ignores forced movement - you do almost no static damage to leverage.

Now for comparison with a high damage fighter, let's take a sixth level greatweapon fighter. Str 20, Dex 15 Dwarf with Dwarven Weapon Proficiency to wield a gouge. Spear Expertise. (One other unnamed feat). Iron Armbands of Power. +2 weapon. Which means that his Rain of Blows does 2d6 (Brutal 1) + 6 damage per attack for an average of 14 damage per blow for each of the three attacks - or more than your Tide of Iron. DPR = 42*(To Hit %) as opposed to around 19*(To Hit %) for an at will.

tl;dr: From what you've said, Rain of Blows has almost no synergy with the rest of your fighter build and therefore doesn't help much. Out of interest, why did you pick it?

 

[Ratskinner]

But this I don't follow. I've watched Jacky Chan movies where he is too tired to kick but has the arm strength to slash.

Is the thought that this sort of thing can't happen ever? Because the FitM narration doesn't require that it happen continously. Just once.

Not that I want to get in on this argument.

I don't actually think that this is a FitM problem. Without hard narrative constraints, (older-school) D&D can be played as FatE (the default) or FitM. For instance;

FatE:
Player: I try to lop his smug head off!
DM: If you're actually trying to decapitate him, its a -10 to hit.
Player: Sure.
<rolls>
Player: Yes! His head bounces away!

FitM:
Player: I attack him. <rolls>
Player: Crit! <rolls> Sweet 28 damage!
DM: Wow! (thinking: that's way more than he had left) You twirl around past his blade and your sword neatly removes his head from his shoulders.
​

I think this conflict arises from the specificity of 4e's powers and their attendant flavor text. I feel that 3e actually had a similar problem to a lesser degree with feats ("I can't do that until I have Improved Electric Boogaloo). I think, with the lack of abstraction, people feel far less empowered to add that narrative tweak on their own. So, since a 4e Fighter's "Crack the Shell" power says "You break through you enemy's armor and deal a painful bleeding wound." and its a Daily, many people think they can only crack their opponent's armor once a day. People feel like they can't narrate that with another attack (even if it had no mechanical impact). Its sorta the reverse of 4e fighter fans not feeling like they could narrate anything cool at all in older editions (thus "spamming I attack!" being boring.)

Of course, I could be wrong. I'm kinda guessing what's going on in other people's heads.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You could be wrong, but it makes sense that what some people may think and this creates a problem for them. Though the rules state that the flavor text is actually malleable and changeable, IIRC - so not only doesn'T have Cracking shell break to your enemies armor, Tide of Iron could do it as well. What matters is mostly that it makes sense to the players what you describe.*
But this is probably almost as obscure as trying to find out that summoned monsters cannot summon other monsters in 3E.

*) WHich I think is typical constraint in player descriptions - you could say that your character is breaking out in a break-dance during a funeral scene**, but... the DM and other players would probably go WTF and reassure that's what you really wanted to do, or if you were just joking...
**) My excuses for anyone having created an adventuring scenario where break-dancing at a funeral may be expected or a sensible action.

 

[pemerton]

I think this conflict arises from the specificity of 4e's powers and their attendant flavor text. I feel that 3e actually had a similar problem to a lesser degree with feats ("I can't do that until I have Improved Electric Boogaloo). I think, with the lack of abstraction, people feel far less empowered to add that narrative tweak on their own. So, since a 4e Fighter's "Crack the Shell" power says "You break through you enemy's armor and deal a painful bleeding wound." and its a Daily, many people think they can only crack their opponent's armor once a day. People feel like they can't narrate that with another attack (even if it had no mechanical impact). Its sorta the reverse of 4e fighter fans not feeling like they could narrate anything cool at all in older editions (thus "spamming I attack!" being boring.)

Ratskinner, one day I'll be able to XP you again.

As you say, it's hard to get inside others' heads, but I think you are on to something.

One thing I notice quite often is that discussions of reskinning in 4e often take place in disregard of keywords - keywords get treated as if they were just more flavour text.

I think that 4e works best if the keywords and mechanical effects are taken very seriously, but the flavour text is otherwise ignored (except where utterly crucial to make sense of what is going on - I'm thinking something like "Charm of the Dark Dream", 15th level wizard daily which dominates the target and removes the wizard from play - the name plus favour text help make sense of what is going on, that the caster physically vanishes and inhabits the target's mind).

So brute strike is just a [weapon] attack that deals X hp damage. And hence in the fiction is not inherently different from a basic attack - but at the metagame level gives the player a better chance of a higher damage result. (Crack the Shell is a bit different, because of its OG damage and debuff. I think that that is better incorporated into the fiction than treated as a mere metagame consequence of the attack - otherwise the game really is at risk of becoming a mere tactical skirmish.)

In relation to what [MENTION=710]Mustrum_Ridcully[/MENTION] said, it's actual worse than the hidden text for summoning in the 3E PHB. While the 4e books stress the importance of keywords for linking mechanics to mechanics, they say nothing at all about keywords as the central anchor of mechanics to fiction (except obliquely, when the DMG discusses damage to objects). I assume the designers took it for granted. But it's a big gap in the rules.

 

[Shadeydm]

Breaking it down further:



3: You can use RoB without one of the weapons that gives you a third attack - you can flail away with a greataxe. You just shouldn't choose the power unless you are wielding a weapon that allows the third attack. It's a situational power.

So its a system mastery issue where its a bad choice if you aren't using certain weapons but its not a power for only those weapons hmm...

 

[Shadeydm]

Then with all due respect your 11th level fighter really doesn't do very much damage at all. +2 is incredibly low for 11th level.

I assume the +2 means you have a +2 weapon? Which is the lowest you should have at 11th level.

As a matter of routine, I would expect a 11th level fighter to have Iron Armbands of Power for a further +2 - it's a level 6 item. Also given how important damage is to a fighter (it's how they control for one) I'd expect Weapon Focus for another +2.

So I'd therefore expect a minimum of +6 static damage from a fighter, meaning that it wouldn't be +7 vs +2, but +11 vs +6. (+12 vs +7 would actually be my expected minimum). Try running those numbers.

On the other hand you appear to have gone for an extremely specialist build from what I can make out if you are talking about Push 3 and Prone from ToI. One of those is from Spear Push? And you've added Polearm Momentum? And you've got an item for the second added square of Push? (Rushing Cleats?)

So that's three feats and an item that are helping your Tide of Iron that do nothing at all for your Rain of Blows. Yes, an At Will augmented by three feats and an item is probably better than an unaugmented encounter power. If you're focussing that heavily on forced movement and almost completely ignoring damage in your feats then you should be doing the same in your powers. RoB is one that focusses on multiplying static damage and completely ignores forced movement - you do almost no static damage to leverage.

Now for comparison with a high damage fighter, let's take a sixth level greatweapon fighter. Str 20, Dex 15 Dwarf with Dwarven Weapon Proficiency to wield a gouge. Spear Expertise. (One other unnamed feat). Iron Armbands of Power. +2 weapon. Which means that his Rain of Blows does 2d6 (Brutal 1) + 6 damage per attack for an average of 14 damage per blow for each of the three attacks - or more than your Tide of Iron. DPR = 42*(To Hit %) as opposed to around 19*(To Hit %) for an at will.

tl;dr: From what you've said, Rain of Blows has almost no synergy with the rest of your fighter build and therefore doesn't help much. Out of interest, why did you pick it?

I am absolutly open to any suggestions to improve him although this thread might not be the best place. Regarding augmenting ToI believe it or not its been very helpful in a number of situations to get enemies off certain positions on the battlefield or getting them off other more squishy party members. If there is a better place to start a thread to go over tweaking the build I am certainly open to all suggestions. Honestly I picked RoB becauseIi like the idea of iterative attacks and that plus Hack and Hew helps emulate that to a certain extent also Hack and Hew allows me to mark multiple opponents which can be handy.