Classes/Builds that fall apart (miffed a bit)

[Herschel]

I started a Prescient Bard a while back and have played him a few times in the LFR group. I had him on the shelf for a while because I really had no feel for where I wanted to go with it. Then I pulled him out when a group needed a leader and I shot off Arrow of Warning and teh DM goes "Oh no, you're not an interrupt Bard, are you?" and I thought, "Hey, THAT would be a really great concept to go with the character theme" so I stated playing him a bit more.

Well, I started to look ahead, and now that I had a clear idea in mind I find out Interrupt (and immediate reaction) goodies get few and far between soon. "Huh", I thought, that's odd, what about other leaders that don't have a prescient theme. Rangers have a ton of interrupts/reactions. Well, how about leaders? The Warlord does too.

I guess it's not that big of a deal, it's just a little annoying when the build flavor isn't supported very deeply by powers, especially since there's also only one at-will choice without taking an Imp feat.

Anyone else run in to this with a character they were enjoying?

 

[barbiomalefico]

Wrong post sorry

 

[Ferghis]

PHB 1 classes have more powers in general, since they've received the most attention, so they're bound to usually have more powers of a certain variety. On the positive side, if you've got the stats, you can steal quite a few of those powers, as a bard, if you've got the feats.

 

[Quickleaf]

Yep, the seeker. My basic concept was the elf who says "come no closer unless you want to become a pincushion. After 2 levels I switched to a hybrid seeker-ranger, exploiting the RBA granting ranger powers. That change dramatically improved how the character played.

 

[OnlineDM]

First, I haven't actually experienced this myself (lack of options for a character I wanted to build), but I've heard it from others. It stinks to have a cool idea for a character and then find out that the options to support it don't exist. This can sometimes be addressed via house rules with your DM, but not always (and certainly not for LFR games).

Second, I'm actually kind of glad that there aren't a ton of options for an "interrupt Bard" - immediate actions are quite messy, in my opinion. There was a good Critical Hits podcast on this topic earlier this week. Immediate actions break the action economy of the game (leading to PCs being overpowered), and they also slow things down quite a bit.

I know that some classes have more immediate action options, but I wouldn't call that a good thing. Having maybe one or two immediate actions per encounter is fine, but having them in most rounds is a mess, I think. (I'm excepting things like defender marks that punish foes as an immediate action; those are usually fine.)

 

[Herschel]

Second, I'm actually kind of glad that there aren't a ton of options for an "interrupt Bard" - immediate actions are quite messy, in my opinion. There was a good Critical Hits podcast on this topic earlier this week. Immediate actions break the action economy of the game (leading to PCs being overpowered), and they also slow things down quite a bit.

I know that some classes have more immediate action options, but I wouldn't call that a good thing. Having maybe one or two immediate actions per encounter is fine, but having them in most rounds is a mess, I think. (I'm excepting things like defender marks that punish foes as an immediate action; those are usually fine.)

Immediate actions do kind of mess up the action economy, that's why many can be (need to be?) less strong to not throw things out of whack. It's not a deal-breaker, but I do find it funny the character most flavored for immediate actions and interrupts run out of them much faster than some other, "standard" concept class builds. Also, even the Warlord has two ranged weapon at-wills avail.

 

[Zaran]

I would say the Whirling Barbarian has this issue except that I don't think there is a time when it worked as a Striker.