Are the new Essentials Classes too powerful?

[Neonchameleon]

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?

Nothing does more damage than a well built two bladed ranger except possibly a well built archery ranger - with the statics possible even from level 6 or so (it only gets worse at higher levels) number of attacks is king. Scouts are a little behind, but they are behind. By third level, a ranger can have two interrupt attacks per encounter (Fox's cunning, Disruptive Strike) which basically means they get two extra attacks per encounter.

Hunters, on the other hand, are like warlocks. Single target controllers somewhere between high damage and high control. Poor strikers, limited controllers - but small groups of enemies hate them and with good reason. (And hunters don't have the buggy features of warlocks).

Meanwhile evokers do a lot of total damage - but focus fire is really useful and they don't.

 

[Argyle King]

That's undoubtedly true. I think the designers have done a better job of dialing in the effectiveness of feats, recently.


And thank goodness for that! Wizard PHB1 At-Wills compared to most other Controller At-Wills are somewhat lacking in the control department. Thunderwave is still pretty good, as long as you've invested in Wisdom, but the others have fallen behind. (OTOH, PHB1 dailies are among the best in the game, still.)


I don't think this works like you think it does.

"When you make a melee weapon attack with a staff, the weapon’s reach for that attack increases by 1."

Monks' powers are implement, generally with a range of melee touch, and no weapon keyword whatsoever.

-O

True, however, based on past rulings... being used as an implement doesn't cause the staff to stop being a weapon. Though, I'm not very familiar with a lot of the new rules, so I am inclined to accept the word of others.

My thinking -the case of the monk- was that some of the wording which is specific to the monk class would be a more specific rule which over-rides the feat. ...since, to my knowledge, there's still no generally accepted way in 4E to apply order of rules or an order of what is most specific and/or more general.

 

[sigfile]

True, however, based on past rulings... being used as an implement doesn't cause the staff to stop being a weapon. Though, I'm not very familiar with a lot of the new rules, so I am inclined to accept the word of others.

My thinking -the case of the monk- was that some of the wording which is specific to the monk class would be a more specific rule which over-rides the feat. ...since, to my knowledge, there's still no generally accepted way in 4E to apply order of rules or an order of what is most specific and/or more general.

Staff Expertise is phrased rather specifically - you must be making a melee weapon attack with the staff to qualify for the bonus reach. Since monk attacks lack the "melee" component, it's a clear no-go. The "Implements" section of the class write-up touches on this. What other wording specific to the class are you considering?

It's the same reason that Hexblades sidestep the issue. Their attacks are specifically melee, specifically weapon, and specifically implement. They use implements to empower the pact weapon's melee attacks. Because of this, they can make melee weapon attacks with a staff while actually swinging a pact blade.

The feat probably ought to read "when you make a melee weapon attack with a staff, the staff's reach (instead of "the weapon's reach") for that attack increases by one."

 

[Argyle King]

The monk attacks, from my understanding, are both melee and implement. While it is true that they do not have the 'weapon' keyword, the monk is able to use weapons as implements. It is my understanding that being one type of item doesn't make something stop also being a different kind of item.

For example, weapon focus: staff, I believe, would work with monk powers. The Kensei pp is a good example too; though -in the case of kensei- I'm under the impression there was errata applied to this.

 

[Dracomaxis]

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).

I remember that well, you don't need to remind me about rangers; but then again, the swordmage that never dies is always a problem, and don't even get me started with what a a good player can do with some items. Urgh, players that don't think of ways to circumvent the rules are hard to find, but then again I do that too!

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...

I think that is one of my problems UngeheuerLich, luckly for now one of my controllers still has no idea what to do in combat! Oh yea, my races include 2 warforged and 2 shardminds... so ambushing them would need to happen in the underdark with no light, and epic tier ambushers, one of the warforged is a druid, who has a lovely passive 25 perception thanks to an elf in the party.

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.

Yes, Obryn the party has six people. a mage, hunter, druid with the ability to gain combat adv. on a slowed target and has cat paw's, fighter, cleric, and hexblade. I am currently in the process of revamping the monsters, but my party have 3 new commers that don't play often, and 3 guys that always play with me, a balance is eluding me currently.

What mage do you have? An evocation mage is basically a striker-lite

Aegeri, to answer your question , I have a evocation mage that mainly is there for crowd control but took some damage as well.

I think if you're seeing an imbalance between your players in terms of effectiveness, it's more than likely that your non-essentials players have done something wrong.

Saeviomagy you are absoultly right, I am going to have to think of some inventive ways to chalenge the old guys and the new guys at the same way, but keep it easy enough that the three new players don't go on strike.

But then again, what fun is the game if I don't have to do a bit of work everyonce in awhile to make it work? Am I right?

 

[WalterKovacs]

The monk attacks, from my understanding, are both melee and implement. While it is true that they do not have the 'weapon' keyword, the monk is able to use weapons as implements. It is my understanding that being one type of item doesn't make something stop also being a different kind of item.

For example, weapon focus: staff, I believe, would work with monk powers. The Kensei pp is a good example too; though -in the case of kensei- I'm under the impression there was errata applied to this.

While the staff is still a weapon, the wording refers to weapon attacks, which specifically means attacks with the weapon keyword. This is why, for example, the light blade expertise feat (which gives a bonus to attack rolls for weapon attacks) would not help out a sorceror using a dagger as an implement for his implement attacks.

While there are cases where a weapon/implement gets the benefit of being both, this is only in the cases where it refers to all attacks, instead of specifying which keyword it works with.

 

[MrMyth]

Yes, Obryn the party has six people. a mage, hunter, druid with the ability to gain combat adv. on a slowed target and has cat paw's, fighter, cleric, and hexblade. I am currently in the process of revamping the monsters, but my party have 3 new commers that don't play often, and 3 guys that always play with me, a balance is eluding me currently.

There are generally two ways to scale encounters for a larger party. Use more powerful (higher-level) monsters, or just use more monsters.

I'd recommend the second. When designing encounters, just note to include an extra copy of one of the monsters when you have all 6 players. If you just add or remove monsters as needed, it should be much easier to adjust the encounters on the fly depending on how many people actually have shown up.

 

[Argyle King]

While the staff is still a weapon, the wording refers to weapon attacks, which specifically means attacks with the weapon keyword. This is why, for example, the light blade expertise feat (which gives a bonus to attack rolls for weapon attacks) would not help out a sorceror using a dagger as an implement for his implement attacks.

While there are cases where a weapon/implement gets the benefit of being both, this is only in the cases where it refers to all attacks, instead of specifying which keyword it works with.

So, would a monk benefit from the Kensei pp?

I don't mean to derail the thread, but it's a character idea I've been kicking around recently. I'm somewhat behind the curve of keeping up with the most recent 4E rules.

 

[IanB]

The problem is mark penalties can have other penalties frequently stacked on them. A -2 penalty that follows you around is extremely difficult to deal with on top of other penalties imposed as well. Additionally, something is always absolutely better than nothing and if I told you "Here is a way for me to give you a free +2 to all defenses" would you say no?

Per the Rules Compendium, penalties to the same thing don't stack, so you can't stack up the -2 from marking with the -4 from break the spirit, etc. Just apply the worst.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

penalties stack indefinitely... but not from the same power etc.