Dragonborn, Wintertouched & Lasting Frost

[MarkChevallier]

No, actually it isn't. Both Lasting Frost and Wintertouched specify that you gain their advantages only when attacking with a power with the Cold keyword. While a Frost weapon can make your damage Cold typed, it doesn't grant the Cold keyword to your powers*.

* - not explicitly, anyway. It's a reasonable assumption, but there's not really any direct wording to back it up.

A frost weapon does explicitly give the cold keyword to your attacks:

p226, PHB: "When you use a magic item as part of a racial power or a class power, the keywords of the item’s power and the other power all apply."

 

[Nifft]

Frost weapons have an At-Will that applies to all damage AND has the Cold keyword.

It works fine.

Cheers, -- N

EDIT: Also, the Tiefling with a Flaming weapon gets an extra +1 to attack and damage.

 

[phil500]

Doesn't seem overpowered to me.

I think the winter/frost combo can be overpowered if the whole party is using cold weapons and attacks.

ranger's twin strike deals 10 more? nice. against a solo monster, everyone ALWAYS has combat advantage and ALWAYS does 5 more per hit.

seems like its worth 2 feats, esp considering they have no requirements.

 

[Xect]

I think the winter/frost combo can be overpowered if the whole party is using cold weapons and attacks.

ranger's twin strike deals 10 more? nice. against a solo monster, everyone ALWAYS has combat advantage and ALWAYS does 5 more per hit.

seems like its worth 2 feats, esp considering they have no requirements.

Depending on the situation, it could be very powerful. Overpowered depends on situation I guess.

I'm not much of a fan of the 'dm can just fix the problem, so it's not broken' excuse. But in this particular case, where the potential unbalance springs from the whole party directing their abilities in one direction, I might have to go with their tactics being commonly known among those that they fight.

Another option is to let them have their fun. If it does deviate from the normal balance scheme and forces the DM to up the challenges, that might well be worth it just for the sheer awesomeness of roleplaying 'the company of eternal winter'. Might even go all cheesy and quote 'A Song of Ice and Fire' all the time.

"Winter is coming"

 

[Surgoshan]

If the party deliberately self-optimizes in that way, the DM could easily fix it by throwing frosty mobs at them.

 

[Sitara]

Another sexy combo for fire-breath dragonborn paladins is Astral Fire.

And yeah, dragonborn are really popular. The +1 when bloodied really helps. And ofcourse, empowered dragonbreath makes dragonbreath something thats actually quite powerful and deadly and a great option at hand!

 

[Nifft]

This combo is just a bit too obvious to be an error.

Presumably WotC expects many Rogues to follow this path.

Cheers, -- N

 

[phil500]

If the party deliberately self-optimizes in that way, the DM could easily fix it by throwing frosty mobs at them.

the fact that the DM would consider doing that tells you its broken.

I def. think a winter/frost party with 2 dragonborns and a wizard would hands-down be better than the average party- open with 3 AOE frost attacks, then clean up. You get to keep combat advantage while holding formation, and the +5 damage is obscene at heroic levels.

The problem is:
1) cold weapons and attacks are already balanced against others
2) two feats is a laughable price for what you get.

Thats why im surprised to see these feats.

 

[Zaruthustran]

A frost weapon does explicitly give the cold keyword to your attacks:

p226, PHB: "When you use a magic item as part of a racial power or a class power, the keywords of the item’s power and the other power all apply."

Wow. Just wow. This makes Irongorn , the ranger/pit fighter, even more crazy when he does his deadly payback + armor splinter + blade cascade thing.

I flavored that build for defense, but it's simple to optimize it for offense by swapping con with dex, and ditching the axe and armor feats for bastard sword, twf, lasting frost, and wintertouched.

Assuming two +4 frost bastard swords (appropriate for 16th level), that's:

+28 attack (+8 for level, +6 Str, +3 proficiency, +4 enhancement, +2 combat advantage, +3 Action Surge, +2 deadly payback)
...vs a target with at least a -4 penalty to AC
...for 2d10 + 16 (+ 6 Str, +4 Wis, +2 Weapon Focus, +4 enhancement) + 10 (+2 deadly payback, +8 extra damage action) + 5 (vulnerable cold) damage per hit.

That's a range of 33 to 51 damage per hit, he keeps rolling attacks until he misses, and with that attack bonus and the AC penalty on his target he only misses on a "1".

Brrrr!

 

[Zurai]

Double post.