DMs: What Powers Do PCs Get That You Hate?

[BobTheNob]

My party's sorcerer is the only one I really am frustrated by. Draconic Majesty (encounter, 1 round burst 3 zone that gives enemies -7 on attacks), as well as platinum scales (+7 to defenses for one encounter), and sudden scales (+10 to defenses for one attack per encounter) - both of which stack!

I once put in the character builder a Paladin just to see how I could abuse platinum scales . I took Eternal seeker Epic destiny (allowing me to choose any power I liked) and to do this.

+8 to all defences till end of encounter? That just shouldnt be.

I reckon that WOTC made a big mistake in allowing anything that links chance to hit (whether defence or to hit) to stats. Its alright to link damage to a stat, but things that affect d20 rolls get out of control.

I feel that most features are balanced, maily becuse they only work agains some targets or on some special situations, but this:

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Certain Justice - Champion of Order level 11 attack: Marked target dazed + weakened until not marked.
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This is one of the few that I really feel its just plain wrong.

Ditto ditto double ditto. This power is just ill conceived to me. In a true solo fight (i.e. no minions or others) your healer has to support your paladin against a dazed and weakened enemy. pfft.

I have read threads advising how to beat this power.
"Have them fly away!". What if they dont have specific abilities to escape with? They are dazed so can only take one action. With standard movement they will never get away. An entire subset of solo's simply cannot get away.
"Solo fights should have minions/followers". Yes, but you have an entire party other than the pally to deal with that. Not hard...

At the end of the day, this is a power which, in order for solo fights to be viable, requires that the solo have a specific means by which to counter it, and if they dont, the fights not worth doing. So as DM's we are forced into artificial encounter design to ensure that the pally doesnt completely neutralise it.

There is no way known I believe that ANY power in the game should singularly effect encounter design. Just plain wrong.

This power is houseruled in our game to allow a save, thus removing its bosskiller status (I hold to the belief that encounter powers should NOT be bosskillers), and our champion of order is perfectly happy with that.

 

[keterys]

Yeah, I'd be happier even with something that still kicked ass for a whole encounter like:
Hit: 1[W] damage. For the encounter, the target deals half damage on any attack that does not include you and whenever the target ends its turn farther away from you than it started, it is slowed until the end of its next turn.

 

[Herschel]

Anything teh controller gets that's not straight damage.

Actually, the Psion was giving me headaches with its attack bonus nerfage because I wasn't running higher-level baddies against them. Grind looked imminent. I thought I would have to adjust the attack bonuses, but the Psion got too far out front and alone against a group of trolls and an Oni. Problem solved, I guess.

 

[Dice4Hire]

For me the powers I dislike as a DM are almost all the multi-target ones, especially those with multiple attacks, or secondary actions. They slow a player's turn to a crawl.

 

[Markn]

Many cleric powers but the worst one are:

Sealing Deaths Door
Moment of Peace (it's effective even on a miss) and this totally hoses melee encounters when everyone is in close quarters.

 

[Negflar2099]

Like a few of the people who've posted already I generally want my players to enjoy their character's powers. That said there is one power that does burn me a little, just because it's become the go to power for the PC playing the Swordmage. It's Dimensional Vortex. I do hate that power. For those who don't know it interrupts an attack teleporting the attacker to another square where he makes the attack against an ally. I hate rolling some high hit and damage for a Solo only to have the player teleport it away where it heavily damages some other creature in the battle. It's especially bad that it's an encounter power and comes up well every single encounter.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's a cool power, and I don't really believe it's broken but man is it annoying.

 

[fba827]

i know this is a cheap answer... but I dislike any power that is too complex for the particular player who uses it (note that different players have different complexity thresholds)... just, if it's a PC/power that you've had for a while and is used often and everytime you use it you have to decide how exactly it works again or if it can do 'this' or 'that' then, really, it's too complex for you.

 

[Felon]

Solar Wrath - Radiant Servant 11 attack: used to wipe out whole encounters worth of minions and stun a couple fights full of demons, haven't seen it since it was nerfed. Almost every time our cleric used it, the DM would say "that's an encounter power?"

Yep, I had big hate for this one. So blatantly OTT. Nerfed now in the May update. In fact, it's supernerfed.

[

Knockout Strike - Rogue level 9 Daily: Our daggermaster saves this for bosses. KO + AP + another daily(coup de grace auto-crit), triggering daggermaster's Critical Opportunity attack power = a crap ton of damage(I've seen 250+ from the combo in mid-paragon when he crit with Knockout or Critical Opportunity as well).

Yep, a power like this should be called "Anticlimactic Strike".

 

[gnfnrf]

Earthgrasp Strike

Earthgrasp Strike, from an Earthstrength warden.

Very low level, knocks a target prone, prevents him from standing for a turn, and hurts him if he ever stands again.

By the time he can, he's been hurt several times, and since the standing damage is a new damage roll, it gets the weapon/feat bonus all over again. Usually the creature can't stand because it'll probably kill him at that point.

Drives me batty.

--
gnfnrf

 

[firesnakearies]

Earthgrasp Strike, from an Earthstrength warden.

Very low level, knocks a target prone, prevents him from standing for a turn, and hurts him if he ever stands again.

By the time he can, he's been hurt several times, and since the standing damage is a new damage roll, it gets the weapon/feat bonus all over again. Usually the creature can't stand because it'll probably kill him at that point.

Drives me batty.

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gnfnrf

Yep. Earthgrasp Strike is so good that my 24th level Warden is still using this level 3 encounter power.