Are the new Essentials Classes too powerful?

[Dracomaxis]

Alright, I am currently running a party through the H1-3 modules in order, we are on H2 Thunderspire Laybrinth and it seems that my 3 essentials characters; two controllers (Mage and Hunter) and a striker(Hexblade), do more than 75% of the damage in the encounters. This is partially to the fact that the mage has an encounter power that will do 10 damage in a burst 2 on a miss. As well due to the fact that the Hunter has an at will slow with feats that allow him to prone said target. And the Hexblade also has at will slayer damage, but then again that is just how it is for them, the slayer is no exception to this rule.

I did look through the other essentials classes, and it seems that defender and healer roles are equally diverse in how usable they are. But then again, I am the DM and to me the encounters don't nearly seem as hard as they should be.

My question to the reader is, do you think the essentials classes are too powerful compared to their latter classes with the miss effects that they gain, or are they just more powerfull now compared to say a two bladed ranger with lots of feats and a paragon path at lvl 11 when they are at 11?

Thanks for the input!

 

[keterys]

The wizard has the same benefits as the mage - ie, he would also deal half damage on miss. The half damage on miss powers were actually considered pretty bad by folks, and the half on miss only brought things up to parity.

I'm less certain of how the hunter plays over a wide range of levels, but it doesn't read as all that scary from a damage perspective.

The hexblade is considered one of the lowest grades of striker, below all of the other essentials, as well as the non-essential ranger, rogue, barbarian, sorcerer, etc.

I guess what I'm saying is... what else do you have in your party? The PCs you mentioned should not be exceptional for damage, and the problem may more be that the other people are, say, a pacifist cleric, and a low damage chaladin.

That said... in general, the wotc core adventure path will be too easy for most parties. It suffers not only from perhaps being balanced against _just_ the PHB, with not even AV items, but also really could use updated monsters (see the big shift from MM3 changes)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I had a party with 4 controllers:

and essential illusionist, a hunter, a psion and a druid...

and they did so much damage because they were able to take advantage of grouped enemies, and the hunter also could easily kill solitary targets... but all in all, he did not overperform. When the party built up, i was worried, because noone wanted to play a striker... they absolutely didn´t need one...

also, it is impossible that an adventure is too easy. Just make some random encounters during the night. So you deny them extended rests. Which will make their life very hard.

 

[Obryn]

I had a hard time challenging my group in H2 for much of it, but that was back when Essentials weren't even a glimmer in Mearls's eye.

Off the top of my head, some issues may be (1) You're using older monsters, which tend to be less challenging even by mid-heroic, and (2) You might have a group of 6, based on your other post, and if you're not modifying the encounters they will walk all over you.

What else is in the party?

The general thought on the simplified Essentials classes is that they take less work to make effective, but can't get to the peaks of effectiveness that Core classes can with their varied Encounter and Daily powers. Your Core classes shouldn't be left behind if they're doing even minor optimizations.

-O

 

[Tony Vargas]

My question to the reader is, do you think the essentials classes are too powerful compared to their latter classes with the miss effects that they gain, or are they just more powerfull now compared to say a two bladed ranger with lots of feats and a paragon path at lvl 11 when they are at 11?

I haven't seen Essentials classes in action at higher levels, yet, just in Encounters. The basic-attack martial builds could fall off in relative effectiveness as other classes get more daily powers, but more likely, they'd just be 'overshadowed' in the sense of drama and spotlight time, not in the sense of actual overall contributions.

Compared to the PCs that were going through H1-3 when those modules were brand new, yes, they're going to be more powerful. Games like D&D inevitably experience some power inflation as more material is added on, and there was some very rappid output in the first two years of 4e. A non-Essentials party, built with the full range of 4e options available prior to Essentials would also seem pretty powerful going through them. Also, if your group's been playing 4e for a while, you're better at it than you were when you first tackled Irontooth.

But, Essentials character classes, more than being 'more powerful' are sort of in 'easy mode.' It's not that a Knight is more potent than a Fighter, it's that an indifferently played Knight is every bit as potent as an expertly-played Fighter (and hardly behind an expertly played Knight, either). This is true across the HotFL classes. If you compare them to their PH equivalents, they aren't a lot more powerful, but their features perform at full power more consistently.

The Knight & Fighter, to start, both mark (though the Knight doesn't call it that) and punish adjacent enemies for defying that mark. The Fighter marks the enemy(ies) he attacks, and has a variety of choices for encounter multi-target attacks, making him able to mark a lot of enemies, some of the time, and his mark punishment is 1/round, so, when marking multiple enemies, he may sometimes decline mark punishment against one to retain the threat of it against another. The Knight, OTOH, marks all adjacent enemies, all the time, regardless of when or how they became adjancent, and his mark punishment is 1/turn, so he can take it every time his mark is ignored. In theory, that makes the Knight 'more powerful,' but, a very well-played fighter can generally have the right enemy marked at the right time, with mark punishment threatening him, and be just as effective. The Knight just delivers the same performance as a flawlessly-executed Fighter, but with very little effort on the part of the player.

Similarly, the Theif and Rogue both do extra damage when they have combat advantage, and gain an extra bonus when using certain weapons. The Rogue gets a +1 with the dagger. The Theif gets it with all his initial weapons of proficiency. The Rogue can get combat advantage by flanking, which requires going into melee, and, often, braving OAs and getting flanked in turn. The Rogue can output a lot of damage, but takes risks to do so. The Theif can use Ambush Trick and Tactical Trick to get CA, every round, of every fight, at range (if he didn't happen to pick those up, he can also get CA from Fortune Cards), CA just comes effortlessly, so he's always outputting high damage, with little risk or effort. And, the Theif gets his SA per turn, not per round. (Though, unlike the Knight/Fighter mark-punishment, this has been errata'd for the Rogue, too).

The Slayer gets not a per-turn damage bonus, but a per-attack striker damage bonus, and gets his weapon talent with all weapons. Very potent, very simple. Not much else to be said about the Slayer. There are some outre CharOp builds that use dagger-wielding Sorcerers to capitalize on a similar damage bonus to MBAs in a broken way. The Slayer prettymuch does that out the box.

The Knight and Slayer also get 'power strike,' an encounter power damage boost used /after/ a hit, so it's 'never wasted,' rather like a reliable encounter power (which is a pretty rare thing).

It's not just the Martial classes. The Warpriest gets riders on his attacks that are comparable to what the Cleric gets, but are in Effect lines, rather than Attack lines.
The Mage gets more 'targets enemies' AEs than the Wizard, which has many 'all creatures' AEs, and the Mage's encounters all get 'miss' or 'effect' lines, so they're 'never wasted.'

 

[RangerWickett]

One slight boon on the DM side of things is, come epic level, it's a lot harder for a player to make an Essentials-only build that is quite so frustrating. I ran a 30th level game with a (very well powergamed) sentinel druid with pets and summons, as well as a revenant-tiefling swordmage who marked everything and was impossible to kill, and I'd much rather deal with the "raw power" essentials class than the "convoluted but invincible combo" older class.

 

[Aegeri]

But, Essentials character classes, more than being 'more powerful' are sort of in 'easy mode.' It's not that a Knight is more potent than a Fighter, it's that an indifferently played Knight is every bit as potent as an expertly-played Fighter (and hardly behind an expertly played Knight, either).

Heh, you should see what I do to parties that use a Knight who isn't a dwarf for their defender. To say it's an absolute massacre where the Knight wonders what he's supposed to be doing is an understatement. I personally find the Knight the easiest defender to circumvent in the game. They struggle so hard against enemies that can slide them as effects or auras (which is why being a Dwarf is so important - or the Knight rapidly becomes impotent).

The Knight, OTOH, marks all adjacent enemies, all the time, regardless of when or how they became adjancent, and his mark punishment is 1/turn, so he can take it every time his mark is ignored.

This is not correct because the Knight doesn't "Mark" and this may seem like I'm splitting hairs - but it's unbelievably important to how they function in this scenario. The difference between the -2 defender aura and a mark, is that once out of your defender aura that's it - you have zero effect on that monster. Skirmishers that can leave without provoking AoOs make the Knight Struggle, because once away they don't even take the -2 penalty to attacks. While other defenders with a mark have the same problem, it isn't as debilitating because the creature at least will end up with a -2 penalty. Those penalties count for a lot in many situations, so when the Knight fails to even impose that consistently they can fail to draw any attention.

A Blizzard dragon for example can slide your fighter, battlemind or warden (as examples) away 1 square - suffering that -2 penalty even if it attacks your wizard. The same dragon against a Knight immediately renders him ineffective straight off, meaning it can now freely do whatever it wants. Worse, it's sliding you away on the end of your own turn. So the Knight cannot do much, except ready an action and pray he doesn't get the trigger wrong. It's often advisable for a Knight to MC another defender, or take a paragon path (like Warpriest) to mark enemies specifically. Using defender aura for creatures that lack special movement powers and the ability to force move the Knight away.

Due to the Knights considerable drawbacks though, they are very viciously build and item specific. Your average Knight needs a weapon like feyslaughter to stop teleporting enemies. They need an aurakiller weapon to deal with things with auras that force move them (like the Blizzard Dragon). Build wise the only effective Knight I've ever seen uses Defend the Line (Slows on hit) and Worlds Serpent Grasp (Knocks a slowed enemy prone). Otherwise many skirmishers can again find it very easy to ignore them.

This doesn't mean the Knight is useless, but they have drawbacks that over a while of play your DM will really notice. If your DM exploits any of your weaknesses you can be absolutely nullified instantly. This is also why Dwarf is so important to a Knight - the resistance to that 1 square of forced movement is gold. Quite a few controllers can just slide a square as an effect - not even relying on hitting. 1 square is more than good enough to completely stop you from doing anything to monsters in your aura. If you have 3 monsters in your aura and the controller slides you 1, you now have no monsters in your aura. If you were trying to defend the two brutes - well let's just say anyone squishy in the party is immediately in trouble.

This of course is bearing in mind that other defenders have the same issue - but the -2 mark penalty sticks around. Stick that penalty on top of an illusory ambush, another penalty and so - suddenly your Wizards normally quite sad 16ish AC is looking impressive at effectively AC20 or even higher.

The other problem is with base effectiveness - all of the Martial classes in essentials basically - is their lack of options. They are basically very effective, but the severe lack of options and powers means they can find life extremely tough when the tough gets going. A fighter can have come and get it for multimarking + holding enemies adjacent - plus stops movement on an AoO (something the Knight lacks). The fighter can have rain of blows for alpha striking with the party - the Knight cannot. So the lack of options - even with supreme base effectiveness - can backfire on essentials classes when an encounter tests their inflexibility. This is something to really remember here as well. AEDU classes are much more "swingy" I would say, but their flexibility is a huge amount of power and when AEDU classes get "abusive" they far outstrip essentials classes by miles.

I think RangerWickett put it very well when he wrote this:

One slight boon on the DM side of things is, come epic level, it's a lot harder for a player to make an Essentials-only build that is quite so frustrating. I ran a 30th level game with a (very well powergamed) sentinel druid with pets and summons, as well as a revenant-tiefling swordmage who marked everything and was impossible to kill, and I'd much rather deal with the "raw power" essentials class than the "convoluted but invincible combo" older class.

This is exactly my experience as well.

Alright, I am currently running a party through the H1-3 modules in order, we are on H2 Thunderspire Laybrinth and it seems that my 3 essentials characters; two controllers (Mage and Hunter) and a striker(Hexblade), do more than 75% of the damage in the encounters. This is partially to the fact that the mage has an encounter power that will do 10 damage in a burst 2 on a miss. As well due to the fact that the Hunter has an at will slow with feats that allow him to prone said target. And the Hexblade also has at will slayer damage, but then again that is just how it is for them, the slayer is no exception to this rule.

There are a couple of things here:

1) Those modules are quite old and frankly very poorly balanced. While they can be fun, when I ran them back in the day before the time I started telling young people to get off my lawn - they weren't any harder (except Irontooth, Jesus that encounter was nuts back then if you dragged in two encounters at once). H3 for example was romped through by a largely PHB party of Warlord, Rogue, Fighter, Swordmage (FRPG, the odd man out), Warlock and Wizard. So really you shouldn't feel dejected if you aren't challenging your players - they weren't challenging back then either.

2) The Hunter doesn't really remind me of a controller, he feels like a single target striker that does some controlling on the side to be honest. It's easy to optimize for damage and your player behind him clearly knows what he's doing. He's obviously using world serpents grasp there with the at-will slow. What mage do you have? An evocation mage is basically a striker-lite and the hexblade is also a fairly reliable striker (albeit he's actually a bit lower on the damage rung compared to thieves/scouts).

To be honest I wouldn't be worried at all. You should see what a well optimized fighter or the original PHB ranger with a properly built twin-strike build does (shudders in horror at the thought).

 

[fba827]

My question to the reader is, do you think the essentials classes are too powerful compared to their latter classes with the miss effects that they gain, or are they just more powerfull now compared to say a two bladed ranger with lots of feats and a paragon path at lvl 11 when they are at 11?

Thanks for the input!

I don't think "powerful" is the right word as it implies too much depending on the context.

essentials classes are focused. And if you are in a situation in which the essentials-build pc is able to use the thing for which he is focused, then, yes, he will seem powerful. conversely, in a situation in which the essentials-build pc is unable to use something that he is focused on, he will seem weaker than average.

for example, essentials built pcs often focus on their primary stat and occasionally secondary stat. there is rarely any incentive to invest in a tertiary stat (unlike some of the original builds). so let's say you have an essentials thief. he pretty much has little reason to do anything other than invest in his dex score: it increases his ac, accuracy, damage, and many skills. but put him in a noncombat situation or a situation where he needs to use a skill that is not dex based, and he will suffer more than an original build rogue might since his stat spread has some reliance on secondary stats.

in the same vein, if i built an essentials thief and an original rogue. the stat incentives for the different builds would -tend- to suggest my original rogue build would have -at least- average chance to do stuff like athletics and endurance, and so on. whereas if i did the same concept with an essentials thief, he'd probably have -at best- only average athletics and endurance.

or, the hunter, his class features build in some dependence on weapon choice (bow or crossbow) whereas a original build ranger could potentially switch between different ranged weapons and be just as effective (baring proficiency and damage expressions for the respective weapons)

and so on.

i think the essentials classes are great in their focus and ease of use. but it comes at the some minor cost of flexibility and customization. sure, you get the same number of feats and all, but things that would have been choices (such as an encounter power that you can choose from) get turned into a single repeated class feature. either approach has its benefits, but it just depends on what your preference and mood to play is.

so i'm not sure powerful is the right term. but more powerful in the situations in which he can do what he focused on, yes.

 

[pemerton]

A fighter can have come and get it for multimarking + holding enemies adjacent - plus stops movement on an AoO (something the Knight lacks).

I didn't know that about the knight. Given how important the ability to stop movement with an OA has proven in my game, I would say that right there is a reason for a player to favour a fighter over a knight (though maybe I'm an atypical GM in having my monsters try and move around so much?).

 

[Aegeri]

I didn't know that about the knight. Given how important the ability to stop movement with an OA has proven in my game, I would say that right there is a reason for a player to favour a fighter over a knight (though maybe I'm an atypical GM in having my monsters try and move around so much?).

The Knight gets an OA on shifting (or when an enemy attacks your ally), but doesn't get any special rider for this and neither does his OA stop movement. The Fighter only gets an immediate interrupt on an enemy shifting/attacking his ally, but his OAs are better due to them completely stopping movement dead. This is just another reason defend the line and worlds serpents grasp is so important to the knight actually functioning - while it just makes the original fighter ridiculously difficult to deal with. The fighters opportunity attacks also get +wisdom to accuracy, meaning he nearly always hits.

The other curious effect with the knight is that unless multiple PCs can AoO an enemy, if the knight lacks defend the line it is 90% of the time worth-while just provoking the AoO anyway. One attack and then the creature is into the tasty tasty wizard - all without the mark penalty. Hence why Defend the Line and Worlds Serpents Grasp are almost essential to the knight having any real effect on monsters deciding to stick around.