D&D4: Most Unique and Interesting Powers.

[The Crimson Binome]

The most interesting single power in D&D4 was, for me, the Fey Step.

Not because of its tactical uses (although it had many), but because of its world-building potential. It significantly changed how the whole race interacted with the world and it was a great fun to explore in play.

In the game I played, it meant that all Eladrin criminals were to be executed immediately, since it was impossible to imprison them. It was huge and world-defining, but not in a good way.

 

[Tony Vargas]

In the game I played, it meant that all Eladrin criminals were to be executed immediately, since it was impossible to imprison them. It was huge and world-defining, but not in a good way.

Actually you just had to drop them in a windowless cell. Teleportation powers were line of sight. But it could be an interesting point depending on how common they are and how well-known. If they're just another race, every jail will have such simple 'accommodations' for them - if they're rare, but notorious, all your better jails will, and some might have special enchanted cold-iron chains. But if they're rare & mysterious, then they will just get away, a lot, giving them an air of mystery, almost like they were otherworldy visitors from another plane or something.

"Come and Get it!,"

Come & Get It was a great power, very genre-appropriate, and strong support for the Fighter's role as Defender. The fighter could've used another 40 powers that creative & effective.

Other cool/interesting Fighter powers: Footwork Lure (slide enemy), Reaping Strike (DoaM), Cleave (hardly unique, it was in 3e), Grappling Strike & Tide of Iron. And those are just the at-wills. Oh, and Threatening Rush. Beyond the basics: Bash & Pinion, Covering Attack, Comeback Strike, C&GI of course, Warrior's Urging, Spinning Sweep, Thicket of Blades, Reaper's Stance, Shield Bash, Pass Forward, Rain of Steel, Slamming Rush, and Crushing Foot (no, really). While the 4e fighter had a lot of powers, with two Martial Power supplements and several dragon articles adding to them, it didn't have the most varied (really, so many of them were some combination of shifting & attacking) range of powers - fighter powers just seemed particularly memorable/interesting in contrast to what had come before, which, prior to 3e, was, well, weapon specialization.

In your opinion, what's some of the most interesting powers in 4th edition? I'm especially looking for powers beyond the standard escalation of damage, pushing, pulling, and so on...

Of course, one thing about 4e was that there were so many powers, and each class had it's own list, and they were all on the AEDU schedule, so both were fairly balanced against eachother & couldn't be spammed. (OK several things.) So, you didn't have a few obvious-best (or outright broken) powers overshadowing all the rest. When you did have an obvious-best power, it crowded out 1 level of 1 class, maybe half a dozen inferior powers faded into obscurity. So even if you've played for years, played a campaign to Epic, and seen a lot of characters played, there'll still be lots of powers that aren't familiar that might pop up at the table the next time you played.

Anyway, more in no particular order, and avoiding the many good powers that were already well-established as spells in prior eds:

Mantle of Glory, Astral Condemnation, Visions of Avarice, Mirror Sphere, Arms of Hadar, Thunderwave (of course, it even made it into 5e, might as well add Healing Word to the list), Fire Shroud, Dire Radiance, Infernal Moon Curse, Creeping Vines, Claws of the Eagle, Blood Pulse, Solar Wrath, The One Sword, Buffeting Wave, Stone Panoply, Windfury Assault, Wind Step, Elemental Escalation, King's Castle, Bait & Switch, Handspring Assault, Close Quarters, Blinding Barrage, Crucial Advice, Weave Through the Frey, Eye for an Eye, Evade Ambush, Divine Mettle, Valiant Strike, True Nemesis, Thundering Armor... and a bunch more that were cool at the time, but the /names/ didn't stick with me.

And, of course, I can't leave out the Warlord: Commander's Strike, Wolf Pack Tactics, Fearless Rescue, Inevitable Wave, Lead the Attack, No Gambit is Wasted, Hold that Thought, Powerful Warning, Join the Crowd, Hammer & Anvil, Pillar to Post, Surprise Attack, Death from Two Sides, Lamb to the Slaughter, Help or Hinder, Band of Fellows, Heart of the Titan, Own the Battlefield, Warlord's Recovery, Vigilant Commander, Pincer Shot, Forbidden Ground, Bolt of Genius (technically Battle Captain), Pull out the Stops, and, of course, Inspiring Word.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Actually you just had to drop them in a windowless cell. Teleportation powers were line of sight. But it could be an interesting point depending on how common they are and how well-known. If they're just another race, every jail will have such simple 'accommodations' for them - if they're rare, but notorious, all your better jails will, and some might have special enchanted cold-iron chains. But if they're rare & mysterious, then they will just get away, a lot, giving them an air of mystery, almost like they were otherworldy visitors from another plane or something.

In this case, they were common enough that they could be identified on sight and most people knew what they could do, but rare enough that nobody bothered to do any testing to figure out what would be sufficient to stop them. Even if a simple blindfold would work, the DM couldn't figure out why the human muggle law enforcement of any given kingdom would go through all of the trouble to test that. Killing them is way easier.

 

[Tony Vargas]

In this case, they were common enough that they could be identified on sight and most people knew what they could do, but rare enough that nobody bothered to do any testing to figure out what would be sufficient to stop them. Even if a simple blindfold would work, the DM couldn't figure out why the human muggle law enforcement of any given kingdom would go through all of the trouble to test that. Killing them is way easier.

Well, that does say something about the world. It says the humans really don't mind killing things with pointy ears.

That's also a really odd way of looking at it, considering your usual rules-as-laws-of-physics agenda. I seem to recall you asserting that inhabitants of a D&D world would be able to derive the existence of hps. ;P

Seriously, though, humans came up with superstitions to deal with the supernatural, even when the latter didn't exist. If a RL culture can go to the trouble of figuring out how to positively identify whether someone was a witch. Then the ones in a D&D world could certainly figure out that Eladrin can only teleport to places they can see. Then they could settle for putting their eyes out, instead of killing them (since they seem to be, just, really mean people over there).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That's also a really odd way of looking at it, considering your usual rules-as-laws-of-physics agenda. I seem to recall you asserting that inhabitants of a D&D world would be able to derive the existence of hps. ;P

They certainly can! Although it's much harder in 4E, where lost HP definitely don't correspond to physical wounds, and someone could surreptitiously recover their HP if you took your eyes off of them for five minutes.

Humans are prone to taking the first viable solution they come across, without really thinking about all of the alternatives, and the uncertain benefit of keeping the elf-thing alive was outweighed by the certain inconvenience of coming up with a new strategy for dealing with them. We could have played it as a more enlightened high-fantasy society, where all races were understood and respected for their differences, but it was only our first or second campaign in 4E and we really wanted to play it by the book, so as to figure out a baseline experience for the game (and know what needs to be house-ruled in later campaigns). This seemed like the most reasonable solution, at the time.

 

[Tony Vargas]

They certainly can!

Well, that's orders of magnitude more finicky than figuring out Eladrin Teleportation.

Humans are prone to taking the first viable solution they come across, without really thinking about all of the alternatives, and the uncertain benefit of keeping the elf-thing alive was outweighed by the certain inconvenience of coming up with a new strategy for dealing with them. This seemed like the most reasonable solution, at the time.

I'm still seeing a big disconnect, there. Were Eladrin being encountered for the first time or something? How is it their certain the pointy-eared guy with funny eyes can teleport, but clueless that he can only teleport to places w/in 30' that he can see? In the default setting, Eladrin had been around forever, and Elves had split off from them and settled the natural world from the feywild. All it took was a 6th level ritual (6 levels out of 30) to cross between the two. It seems highly improbable that the details of the ability would never have gotten out.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm still seeing a big disconnect, there. Were Eladrin being encountered for the first time or something? How is it their certain the pointy-eared guy with funny eyes can teleport, but clueless that he can only teleport to places w/in 30' that he can see?

The first time some Humans tried to tie up an Eladrin, it escaped. Or it woke up in a jail cell, and just escaped through the bars when nobody was looking. Or maybe someone was looking. Or maybe it worked the first few times without anyone figuring out what happened. Eventually, someone figured out that they can teleport, and the word spread that these weird elf-things with funny eyes all have magic powers, so it's pointless to even try and detain them. The DM didn't have to spell it out in detail, because everyone at the table instantly agreed that this was the most logical chain of events for what probably happened at some point within the background of the setting.

It's not a mistake you would make if you knew anything about magic, but for a bunch of scared muggles, it's good enough. Better solutions surely existed, but you'd need a reason to look for them, and nobody cares about sparing the life of a criminal.

 

[Illithidbix]

I always liked the Sword Mage's Dual Lightning Strike (Level 3 Encounter power).
Make a melee attack, mark the target if you hit, then teleport 5 squares and make another attack and mark them.
Esp. amusing if you combined it with a teleporting move action power.


My favorite power use though was the party monk using "Drunken Monkey", which if you hit causes damage and then slides the target one square and gets them makes a melee basic attack against one enemy of your choice.

The Monk used it on a Gelatinous cube, and 4E not being a killjoy edition with "sensible" rules like "gelatinous cubes are immune to mind effecting powers"... this caused the cube to kinda.. wooble like jelly over to another gelatinous cube and attempt to engulf it.

Rest of Party: Woah! What did you just do?
Monk: I.... don't know...

 

[TwoSix]

Fear my oracular powers, but I foresee that we will soon discover from this thread that Tony Vargas likes 4e and Saelorn does not.

 

[TwoSix]

Any of the Warden transformation dailies. Totally class-defining, with great visuals.

Level 1 Vampire powers. Vampire got a lot of (fairly justified) crap for being a weaker class with limited options, but damn if the suite of abilities it got right off the bat didn't make it FEEL like a Vampire right at level 1.