At-will class powers ruining my archetypes

[Celebrim]

I don't play 4e, but I kinda get what the player is saying.

Previously, casting magic missile was 'cool', because you couldn't do it all the time.

Now, since you can do it all the time, magic missile is just ordinary.

I don't know that I'm in a position to comment on that directly. What I can talk about is how 'making it bigger' sometimes decreases the awesomeness factor.

Normally, when you make something bigger, you make it more awesome. For example, everyone is pretty much in agreement about the awesomeness of the opening scene of 'A New Hope' when the Star Destroyer comes into the frame and just keeps coming and coming. There is a limit to this though. It's hard to define, but there is a tipping point beyond which bigger is less cool, less dramatic, and less overwhelmingly awesome than smaller.

A Star Destroyer is cool, but for many people a Super-Star Destroyer is less cool and even destroys the coolness of a Star Destroyers. Even for those that it doesn't, they might find Super-Duper-Star Destroyers to be less cool, and Mega-Thunderous-Super-Duper-Star Destroyers to be beyond the pale.

For me, the Oliphant's at the battle of Pelinorr Fields in Lord of the Rings were cool when imagined at the scale of something like a large Mammoth. Perhaps, something like this Columbian Mammoth, or even a bit larger (say 16'-18' at the shoulder). But, when scaled up to 30' high at the shoulder as in the movies, they didn't become more cool to me but quite a bit less.

Sometimes, you have to exercise some restraint so that your awesome feature retains its awesomeness rather than losing it. I think for some people, 4e crossed some hard to define line and heroic became quite a bit less cool by virtue of it getting 'too big' in some fashion.

The other complaint by the OP that I can somewhat sympathize with seems to be that our preexisting notions of what defines a class have been thrown out the window. Wizards are no longer 'generally weak' but with occassional strong attacks. Were before Wizards 'to hit' with a basic attack was maybe half that of some other class, and the damage that they could expect with a basic attack less than half that of some other class, in 4e Wizards are just as good of attackers as any other class, and do roughly comparable damage with their base attacks to every other class. Consequently, though, they can never exceed another class very greatly either. Each class in a sense loses its expected moments of awesome. They may still get moments of awesomeness, but its not the ones we have come to expect over years of previous play.

Previously, the fighter might do an awesome attack, an awesome attack, and an awesome attack, and then the wizard might drop an awesome attack. Now, everyone is awesome all the time.

 

[Rechan]

Alright, again. All this talk about needing ways to create archer clerics of Corellan, and the dude's favored weapon is the longsword. What gives? Fans overriding canon?

There are four contributing I can suspect it came from. Granted, this is going off of almost 6+ years since I saw the relevant info, but:

A cleric with a bow isn't a bad idea, in and of itself. Zen archery, clerics get access to buffs (Cats Grace, magic weapon, etc), heavy armor, and a decent BAB.

Next, if you're going to be an archer, be an elf. The only race that had a bonus to dex in 3e were Elves and Halflings; halflings dropped the damage die of your bow for size, and they also reduced your Str (pertinent to compound bows).

So, if you're going to be an Elven Cleric, who's your god? In all my gaming, rarely do I see demi-humans go with a deity other than the deity of that demi-human race. The elf deity is Corellan. Corellan = Patron of Elves + Elves use bows = Elven archer cleric of Corellan.

Finally, Corellan was the only deity that had access to the Elf and Time domains (first propagated in the 3.0 FRCS), and both were a nasty combo for archers.

 

[MerricB]

Alright, again. All this talk about needing ways to create archer clerics of Corellan, and the dude's favored weapon is the longsword. What gives? Fans overriding canon?

Close.

Corellon - in his earliest incarnations - tends to be good with bow and sword. You know, like the first edition elves, who got bonuses with long & short versions of bow and sword.

When 3e came out, it artificially limited each god to one favoured weapon (even if they didn't have any!) just to fit the paradigm of how everything works in that edition.

Cheers!

 

[Obryn]

I'm going to try and reiterate this.
If at-wills are removed several things happen.
--> I think we touched on all of the effects. Some are very beneficial and there are a couple of stumbles. In my opinion there are more benefits than stumbles.
So here is a list:
1. Basic attacks become the vanilla attack as opposed to at-wills.
2. Different weapons can be used without becoming sub-par options to a classes at-will powers.
3. STR and DEX become more important in character creation.
4. Basic attacks are less tactical but speed up real time grind.

I think that is it.

Making such a bold move as removing at-will attacks, would require some form of gimme for the players. I think that a good trade off would be taking those two at-wills that PCs get at first level and giving them two bonus encounter powers (so 3 at 1st level).

By RAW, in a 12 round combat you have 1 encounter and 11 vanilla at-wills and possibly a daily (of course the number of at-wills goes down as you level up). If you have 3 1st level encounter powers, you now only make 9 vanilla basic attacks and have 3 encounter and 1 daily. Again, this may speed up real time grind.

I suppose to get your head around this second part you have to agree with the premises that at-wills cut down options.

Well, I'm still wondering some things that keep me from fully understanding what your goals are...

(1) Are you only worried about this insofar as spellcasters are concerned? You haven't mentioned anyone other than wizards and clerics.

(2) What options do at-wills prevent? What archetypes are blocked by 4e that are also enabled by the system you're proposing? You mentioned the elf archer cleric, but it's pretty clear that this build works fine, at least IMHO. Give me some more examples.

(3) Why is it preferable to eliminate at-wills entirely, as opposed to increasing the number of encounter powers and leaving at-wills as-is?

Cadfan did a good job explaining what he thinks you were saying - but I'd like to hear from you.

What benefits are you looking to gain from this? Given those goals, is this the best way to approach it?

-O

 

[RefinedBean]

An archer cleric of Corellan. Have the bowstring actually be a holy symbol: a string of hair from Sehanine Moonbow. Simply refluff all ranged cleric powers as going through the bow instead of your delicate elven hands.

Which translates in-game to using your bow all the time as an archer cleric.

Done!

Hell, the bard in my group has a wand and a shield.

Ha, I just made the same character the other day for a new campaign. Good stuff.

 

[Sadrik]

He wants spellcasters to be able to nonmagically use weapons, and to fight in a sort of dual-style, sometimes with nonmagical (martial) ability, and sometimes with spells. More at wills, at least, more at wills designed under the same design paradigm as the present ones, won't do this. They will instead add ways to for spellcasters to magically use weapons. Additionally, he wants the thematic feel of that nonmagical use being lesser than the spellcaster's magical abilities, in order to make the magical abilities feel more powerful by contrast.

4e doesn't do this well. It offers a host of ways for, for example, a wizard to learn to use a sword. But all of them involve magically using the sword, except for multiclassing, which fails to give him the thematic feel he wants of martial combat being the basic stuff.

His theory is that by eliminating at wills you will force characters to use basic, nonmagical attacks. Because players won't want to do this, and because basic attacks are weak, this will give the feel that he wants. And since 4e forces you to use a certain amount of at wills per fight, it will make it worthwhile to invest a bit in improving them even if you are a spellcaster archetype.

You know the basic feel of a character who can always attack with scorching burst, but sometimes attacks with burning hands or a flaming sphere? He wants the same feel, except that the character can always attack with his muscles, and occasionally uses scorching burst, burning hands, or flaming sphere. A hypothetical new wizard at will that allows you to attack with your sword using your Intelligence to hit and dealing flame damage would totally fail to satisfy him.

Very well stated Cadfan.

This reminds me of the old arguments about the ranger and the paladin being too magical. It was such a controversy that they published alternate versions in complete warrior that were not magically bent. I suppose that the game now is more keyed in the direction of lazer beam clerics and reaping strike fighters. These are cool effects but they seem like they should not be happening at-will. Instead, every once in an while in an encounter seems more appropriate.

At-wills simply gives the game a completely different feel than D&D once had. If there is anything that gives 4e its feel it is the application of at-wills.

Near the end of 3e development, it was very popular to have a classes resources revolve around the encounter. Bo9S is the best example of this. At-will powers sort of trump this encounter limitation and do it at anytime. I rather liked the encounter limitations. At-will is too at-will.

 

[Obryn]

Alright, again. All this talk about needing ways to create archer clerics of Corellan, and the dude's favored weapon is the longsword. What gives? Fans overriding canon?

I believe it was Sehanine Moonbow that made the 3e munchkin elf-cleric-archer dream possible. (At least, in FR.)

Elf and War domains. Elf gives you point-blank shot. War gives you focus in the favored weapon (longbow). Then take Zen Archery. Ignore Dexterity, bulk up in heavy armor, and go forth and kill. (Complete Champion made this even more insane with the War Domain Reserve Feat - wherein each successful attack does extra damage equal to the highest-level War domain spell you have prepared.)

-O

 

[Mallus]

I rather liked the encounter limitations.

Encounter-use and daily-use abilities still exist. You talk like they're no longer part of the system.

At-will is too at-will.

Don't get too hung up on semantics. At-wills are a class's basic attacks, no different from sword swings and bow shots in 3e. 'Basic attacks' in 4e are badly named. What they really are a conditional minor attack forms that occur infrequently ie, when triggered by certain other abilities or OA's.

 

[Oni]

Why on earth would anyone play a class that didn't use dex or str as their primary attribute with the changes your suggesting. IMHO the martial classes already have a leg up, and what you propose to do would be the nail in the coffin. Seriously ask yourself, would you want to play a wizard that had half of his control tools stripped away from him? There is a difference between a basic melee attack and a fighter at will is relatively minor, but the difference between scorching burst or thunderwave and a basic attack that doesn't even use your primary attribute is so vast it's mind boggling. I really hope for the sake of your players that you forget this idea.

The guy that can shoot blast of energy from his hands or summon gouts of flame with a gesture isn't ordinary or mundane whether he can do it once a day or all day (and is arguably a hell of a lot cooler in the later case IMO).

 

[Ourph]

4. Basic attacks are less tactical but speed up real time grind.

I think you are quite mistaken in this assumption. Relegating martial at-will powers like Cleave (damage two opponents at once), Reaping Strike (deal damage on a miss), Riposte Strike (deal extra damage when you're attacked) or Twin Strike (much more likely to hit than with a single basic melee or ranged attack roll) to encounter powers and forcing martial characters to, instead, use basic melee or ranged attacks drastically reduces the amount of damage they are able to deal over the course of a combat.

Similarly, by limiting an area at-will power like Scorching Burst and forcing the Wizard to use a crossbow or dagger, you're drastically reducing the damage potential of that character by reducing the number of targets affected by each action (not to mention the fact that the Wizard is going to be missing a lot more often than he would with an Int-based attack).

Forcing most attacks in a combat to be basic melee or ranged attacks is going to vastly increase the grind of every combat unless you drastically retool the rest of the system. You won't end up with 3-4 encounter powers plus 8-9 basic attacks in a 12 round combat, you'll end up with 3-4 encounter powers used plus 20-30 basic attacks used as the combat stretches out over WAY too many rounds because every single character is relying primarily on attacks that are, at best, half as effective as a normal at-will power.