Assess the Striker

[Retreater]

I'm relatively new to DMing 4E. We've worked up from 1st level to 5th. One of the players (who traditionally gimps his characters no matter the system), seems in my estimation to have a weak striker. (There's also a defender who literally never marks opponents - though I know that's a problem with him, and I'm going to talk to him.)

The group limps from near-TPK to near-TPK, and I think the group has been fairly ineffective.

The striker in question is a hybrid PHB 1 warlock and PHB 1 rogue. I don't know if I'm exactly right on this, but he seems to reliably deal 7 points of damage when he hits. (Other strikers seem to be able to deal much more damage a round.)

 

[Sebastianelgar]

It looks like he is maintaining the tradition of gimping his character since warlock and rogue do not use the same primary attribute which will impact the stat based portion of his damage. The other question then becomes is he getting combat advantage to use his sneak attack with rogue powers or cursing enemies to get the extra curse damage die with the warlock powers?

 

[mkill]

As long as all players have fun, you're fine. This situation would really only be a problem if you have some highly competitive players who get annoyed by this. As DM, you don't need to care at all.

Just lower the encounter difficulty a bit, without telling your players. There is no law that forces all groups to optimize their characters. You'll see that 4E takes a while to click, and for some players, it can take a year. Just wait a bit, they will probably get the hang of it at some point.

That said, it's really hard to build a 4E character that genuinely sucks. You need to use hybrid rules for that. Your Warlock / Rogue player seems to have a certain talent. There probably is a way to pull of a powerful Warlock / Rogue hybrid, but your player would be much better off single-classed as either Rogue or Warlock. Maybe ask him what he tried to achieve there. If it's just "extra-sneaky arcane guy", he'd be better off as a Warlock with an appropriate theme. If he wanted a rogue with some magic talent, a straight Rogue with Wizard multiclass for cantrips + ritual caster feat would be better (and surprisingly effective).

As for the Defender who doesn't mark... What's the class? Maybe he liked the feel of the class, but didn't want to be the guy who takes hits for the party after all. Or maybe he is simply still learning the rules, in which case you can just remind him to use his mark if he forgot. That even happened at our table from time to time, and we only have veterans who played for a decade or more.

 

[OnlineDM]

Is the question just, "Is this a weak striker?" If so, the answer is "Yes."

A rogue without any super-special optimization would probably have something like this at 5th level:
- 18 Dex
- +3 proficiency weapon like a short sword
- Light Blade Expertise
- Quite likely a feat to bump sneak attack dice up to d8s
- Thus, +10 vs. AC to hit (+4 Dex, +2 half-level, +3 proficiency, +1 expertise) - and +2 more with combat advantage
- 1d6 + 2d8 + 4 damage on an at-will hit with combat advantage, for an average of 16.5 damage.

A warlock would be similar, but the +2d8 from Sneak Attack would be +1d6 from Warlock's Curse, and the 1d6 weapon die would be more like a 1d8 from the warlock's attack power. So, around 12 damage on average (no combat advantage required).

Yes, 7 damage is very low for a striker. That's what you get if you're a non-striker and you're wielding a crappy weapon. A plain vanilla fighter with a longsword and an 18 in the primary stat would deal 1d8+4 damage on an at-will hit, which averages 8.5. It's hard to get down to an average of 7 damage without really trying hard to gimp yourself (16 in primary stat, attacking with a short sword with no combat advantage).

That said, if the whole party is aggressively non-optimized, you could just dial down the challenge level of the encounters a bit. Instead of throwing level 5 encounters at them at 5th level, go with level 4. Similarly, if you had a very optimized party, you could just ramp up the challenge a bit.

 

[Retreater]

The defender is a battlemind (so without marking, he can't use his mindspike ability). He is essentially playing the character like a 3.5 fighter ... which is a slayer with less damage potential, better AC, and more HP. I keep reminding him to mark, and he'll say things like "but I'm prone so I can't mark" or "I want to be able to attack this round." I try to tell him this isn't the case, but he just shrugs and says he just wants to attack.

It's a challenge because I have the following group configuration: the warlock/rogue hybrid who wants to gimp his character; the battlemind who never uses his abilities to mark (or even his other psionic abilities other than At-Will melee attacks); a highly competitive and effective ranger; a warpriest who is effective despite not understanding that she doesn't need to spread her ability scores across 3-4 good scores; and a pretty effective invoker - played by a new player - but designed by me to be awesome.

The only reason I'm bringing this up is that they are complaining about the challenge and that their characters are ineffective.

I can't help but think that the players would be happier and their characters more effective if they took other characters.

 

[Nebten]

It may be easier to tone down your encounters instead of trying to bang your head against the wall in dealing with multiple players. If they played levels 1 through 5, they should know their character by now. You can't force people to play their character as you see fit.

If that doesn't work for you, I have only one other suggestion:

Wipe them out, all of them.

 

[keterys]

Give the battlemind a defender aura 1, so he doesn't have to manage that.

The rogue / warlock is clearly just doing something wrong. I suspect not using anything that adds to damage - namely, feats, powers, enhancement bonus, or striker mechanic. Probably also using a dagger (which can be fine)

Either way, if they're going from near-TPK to near-TPK, just make the game easier.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The defender is a battlemind (so without marking, he can't use his mindspike ability). He is essentially playing the character like a 3.5 fighter ... which is a slayer with less damage potential, better AC, and more HP. I keep reminding him to mark, and he'll say things like "but I'm prone so I can't mark" or "I want to be able to attack this round." I try to tell him this isn't the case, but he just shrugs and says he just wants to attack.

This player doesn't seem to know the rules or they're also gimping themself. Battlemind's Demand is a minor action, close burst 3, one target, no attack roll. If he's within 3 squares of an enemy, he can mark them. The mark lasts until the battlemind uses the power again.

BD also does not prevent the battlemind from attacking, either that target or anyone else.

The action economy doesn't hurt the PC either; the battlemind won't be using their minor actions for anything else.

It's a challenge because I have the following group configuration: the warlock/rogue hybrid who wants to gimp his character; the battlemind who never uses his abilities to mark (or even his other psionic abilities other than At-Will melee attacks); a highly competitive and effective ranger; a warpriest who is effective despite not understanding that she doesn't need to spread her ability scores across 3-4 good scores; and a pretty effective invoker - played by a new player - but designed by me to be awesome.

The only reason I'm bringing this up is that they are complaining about the challenge and that their characters are ineffective.

I can't help but think that the players would be happier and their characters more effective if they took other characters.

No kidding. I see lots of non-core classes, advanced classes (I would count the battlemind and maybe invoker there) and a ... hybrid! Hybrids are one of the worst innovations in 4e IMO; it's not just too easy to make a PC who is overpowered, it's also too easy to make a PC that sucks, and that's precisely what happened.

I think you need to teach them character builds and tactics. Letting them learn by themselves doesn't seem to be working.

 

[Spatula]

Yeah, tricky situation. Sounds like the battlemind would be better off with a Slayer or Knight from essentials, and the hybrid with a hexblade, maybe. But it also sounds like they're resistant to advice or help.

Instead of playing the game as you think it should be played, you may be better off playing the same game that at least half of the players are already playing. Which is to say, intentionally throw weak monsters at them because that's all they can handle. Not everyone is going to grok the tactical combat part of the game, and 4e isn't a terribly good fit for those folks.

 

[OnlineDM]

The problem here is that you have wildly divergent power levels in the party. It's fine to have a party that's optimized to the teeth. It's also fine to have a party where no one has anything higher than a 15 in any stat and there are no combat-related feats taken. The problem comes when you have some characters at a much higher power level than others. I wrote about this topic here.

So, you have a problem. It's especially clear when you have two PCs with the same role and wildly differing power levels - your ranger and your warlock/rogue hybrid. The problem will be that the ranger will always far outshine the hybrid, even though they're trying to do the same thing. If the hybrid player doesn't care, then I guess you're okay. But it sounds like it's a problem for the party.

I think you need to handle this between sessions, talking to the hybrid character's player about what he/she wants from the character. Is it a hybrid because of some cool flavorful character concept? Was the player thinking that it would be powerful and flexible in combat? Try to understand what the player was going for, and then offer to help the player rebuild the character in a way that will be more in line with the rest of the table.

As for the battlemind, if the player doesn't mark then the character is going to be very weak. My wife played a battlemind in one campaign, and it felt like a pretty weak character class - and she was at least using the mark! I like the suggestion from [MENTION=43019]keterys[/MENTION] of treating the battlemind's mark like a defender aura that's always on instead of a single-target mark that has to intentionally be activated.