Half-Elves cross class power

[Kirnon_Bhale]

I have noticed lately that the current thinking regarding the Half Elves is that their cross class power transforms an at will into an encounter ability as evidenced by the downloadable pdf from the wizards site.

The sheets handed out at DDXP have the ray of frost as an at will.

People are saying that the sheet available for download is a corrected sheet. I personally don't buy this and would appreciate if anybody has a link stating it is corrected.

My thinking is that the sheet handed out at DDXP is correct and the one on the wizards site is incorrect and that in the excitement around the success of DDXP they simply uploaded the wrong one.

The reason I don't buy into it being corrected is because:

1. It makes the H/elf ability much weaker then that of the human.

2. At Will powers are much weaker then encounter powers and thus bumping it up a level effectively kills the power for use over other powers.

3. If they had make corrected sheets then they would have corrected the paladin's sheet as well.

4. They would not have left the power named as an at will even though it is in the encounter section, these are quickplay sheets and they will not leave info to be debated.

 

[Patlin]

I think the frost power was a poor choice, but getting to pick an at-will power from any class as a per encounter power could be good. For example, choosing the Wizard's at-will fire blast ability would be a way to get an AOE attack for your first level warlock, which otherwise appears to be absent.

I also wonder if there is some other half-elf benefit we are missing, such as "you may choose one trained skill that is not on your class list. This does not increase the number of trained skills you may have, the skill chosen replaces a class skill you might otherwise choose."

I'm also curious as to the half elven racial feats. Do they have a unique list? Can they choose human or elven feats? Both?

Much remains to be seen.

 

[Kirnon_Bhale]

Yes - possibly true - I still think it would be a poor relation to the human choice of a bonus at will in its class.

I think that people have assumed that the power is per encounter. However if it was not played that way at DDXP then I think the assumption is wrong or it would have been mentioned before that the sheet was wrong at the show and people would have been told that the power was actually an encounter power and we would have heared about it on the forums.

 

[Kordeth]

My thinking is that the sheet handed out at DDXP is correct and the one on the wizards site is incorrect and that in the excitement around the success of DDXP they simply uploaded the wrong one.

Given that the original sheet posted for download was the sheet from DDXP, and it was only a day or two later that they changed it to the corrected version, I'm going to have to say your thinking is probably incorrect on this one. Moreover, some of the changes (like the tweaking of a couple of ACs or the removal of the +4 damage on the ranger's careful shot) are things Mearls and other WotC folks flat-out said were errors on the DDXP sheets. Sorry, but the sheets currently available for download are the most recent and correct ones.

The reason I don't buy into it being corrected is because:

1. It makes the H/elf ability much weaker then that of the human.

Umm...how so?

2. At Will powers are much weaker then encounter powers and thus bumping it up a level effectively kills the power for use over other powers.

But it's not like it actually costs you anything except an action. If you've already spent all your regular per-encounter powers, who cares if this one's weaker? It's still an extra power. And there might very well be times when a weaker ability is nonetheless more optimal (take a hypothetical half-elf cleric fighting on a 5-foot wide bridge over a chasm. Suddenly that per-encounter use of Tide of Iron looks a lot more useful, huh?)

3. If they had make corrected sheets then they would have corrected the paladin's sheet as well.

The fact that they didn't update the text of the divine challenge is odd, but as I mentioned before they most definitely did make several changes that fixed things listed as errors by the developers. The ranger's careful strike was one, one of the other characters' AC (I think the paladin) was another.

4. They would not have left the power named as an at will even though it is in the encounter section, these are quickplay sheets and they will not leave info to be debated.

Meh. They made a quick fix to get the errata'd version up as quick as possible and just moved the power stat block to the correct section. An easy oversight to make and hardly compelling evidence that the current version of the character sheets are the less-recent ones.

If all that isn't enough, check the "last modified" dates on the files. The current versions of the sheets were updated on 3/6/2008, four days after the DDXP. Not likely, then, that they are the older, incorrect ones.

 

[Kirnon_Bhale]

Meh. They made a quick fix to get the errata'd version up as quick as possible...

This would be my argument against it being correct - quick fix means that they moved it in error.

Umm...how so?

The human gets an extra power that is useable any time he likes - even though it is not out of his normal suite it is still going to provide a different effect and greater options then the half elf would get having an ability that works only once per encounter and as it is only a first level ability it is certain that it will not be brilliant and it will be very short lived in effect.

 

[lvl20dm]

That correction really confuses the issue, I think. While they shifted ray of frost under the encounter powers, it is still listed as "At Will" in the power description. I'm assuming it was moved there for a reason, but I don't think they finished the correction - shouldn't it say "Tira may only use Ray of Frost once per encounter" or "Tira treats Ray of Frost as an Encounter power"?

Not seeing the full racial write-ups, I'm not sure I can make a guess on balance. But the Half-elf does seem to get many things the Human doesn't (a +2 to two stats, for one). Gaining a mercurial encounter power would also fit with what we've seen for many of the races (INfernal wrath, second chance, elven accuracy, fey-step). If the power gained can be any at will from another class, then something that plays off a high charisma would be ideal (or Constitution, as that seems to be important for some Warlocks).

 

[Jhaelen]

I don't think there will be any ability that allows changing the category of powers. All powers seem to be balanced only within their category of daily/encounter/at will. Changing categories could mess things up pretty badly.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

There seems to be 4 to 6 round in a typical 4e encounter.

If you use that cross-class power more than once, you might as well have been from that other class.

 

[Vempyre]

But it's not like it actually costs you anything except an action. If you've already spent all your regular per-encounter powers, who cares if this one's weaker? It's still an extra power.

The thing is that it's not an extra power. It replaces one of your normal class encounter powers.

 

[small pumpkin man]

The thing is that it's not an extra power. It replaces one of your normal class encounter powers.

No it doesn't. The Warlock still has a normal encounter ability.

The human gets an extra power that is useable any time he likes - even though it is not out of his normal suite it is still going to provide a different effect and greater options then the half elf would get having an ability that works only once per encounter and as it is only a first level ability it is certain that it will not be brilliant and it will be very short lived in effect.

If the Teifling Wizard was a Human, it would get something like Ray of frost, which is nice, but doesn't give him an effect he doesn't already have access to, if he was a half-elf, he could take something like nimble strike, eyebite, or lance of faith, powers which allow him access to combat actions outside his role, that let him actually act in a quite different way, allowing for much more powerful combinations. These abilities are not equal, and making them both at will is not balanced either.

Not to mention, whether or not the abilities as they are now are balanced isn't important, so long the races as a whole are balanced.