D&D 4E How is the 4e essentials Slayer??

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right - R&D has a really bad idea about how damage works in their system - multi-attacking is almost always the way to go, yet most of the Essentials PCs don't have it unless they do something on the odd side.

If I were going to make a Slayer, I'd make it have Twin Strike+Stat damage - and that's it. No encounters or daily powers, Str for melee attacks and heavy thrown, Dex for finesse weapon or ranged attacks. Fighter armor & skills. There'd be a power called Fighter's Strike which essentially was 1w+stat - and Slayer would have an option to make two of them as part of a standard. Combat Challenge would use it when doing an interrupt, etc...

Yeah, brain dead simple and boring as all get out, but solves the 'hey, someone just wants to play a dead simple beat stick fighter or archer...'

I don't think R&D was in any doubt about the over-effectiveness of multi-attacks. That's why Essentials basically doesn't get them (there are some exceptions IIRC, but mostly you have to bring in 'classic' 4e material to get multiple attacks). I believe the performance level of Essentials classes is exactly what WotC designed it to be. They don't 'fall off' at Paragon and Epic, they do what WotC BELIEVED they were doing with the classic classes when they wrote them, but by the time they figured out it wasn't so they lacked time to go back and do another round of redesign to fix things. So classic classes are above the designed power curve at higher levels. Later they just went with it and figured people would sort out how to make it work. The fact that they mostly gave up on Epic made it semi-moot to them anyway.

 

[MwaO]

I don't think R&D was in any doubt about the over-effectiveness of multi-attacks. That's why Essentials basically doesn't get them (there are some exceptions IIRC, but mostly you have to bring in 'classic' 4e material to get multiple attacks). I believe the performance level of Essentials classes is exactly what WotC designed it to be. They don't 'fall off' at Paragon and Epic, they do what WotC BELIEVED they were doing with the classic classes when they wrote them, but by the time they figured out it wasn't so they lacked time to go back and do another round of redesign to fix things. So classic classes are above the designed power curve at higher levels. Later they just went with it and figured people would sort out how to make it work. The fact that they mostly gave up on Epic made it semi-moot to them anyway.

Actually, the Essentials Strikers are for the most part way below the power curve once Paragon/Epic hits. They don't do enough damage unless there are some relatively wild assumptions about magic items, especially if the Strikers take the Paragon Path they're intended to take. An unoptimized Striker should do about 20/40/60 hp of DPR per round to kill an opposing Standard in 4 hits.

The Essential Strikers edge up in total damage, but nowhere near fast enough - they don't fall off a cliff early because they start off with a relatively large damage option in Heroic, but it loses it around mid-Paragon.

The problem isn't multi-attacking per say - the problem is getting more than 4 attacks in a round due to minor/move/standards - both because damage gets too hit and the amount of attack rolls necessary is also too arduous.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually, the Essentials Strikers are for the most part way below the power curve once Paragon/Epic hits. They don't do enough damage unless there are some relatively wild assumptions about magic items, especially if the Strikers take the Paragon Path they're intended to take. An unoptimized Striker should do about 20/40/60 hp of DPR per round to kill an opposing Standard in 4 hits.

The Essential Strikers edge up in total damage, but nowhere near fast enough - they don't fall off a cliff early because they start off with a relatively large damage option in Heroic, but it loses it around mid-Paragon.

The problem isn't multi-attacking per say - the problem is getting more than 4 attacks in a round due to minor/move/standards - both because damage gets too hit and the amount of attack rolls necessary is also too arduous.

I think you're not getting what I am saying. Essentials is a re-baselining of the 4e power curve by WotC, pure and simple. They WANTED those classes, and probably to some extent all classes, to fall on a lower power curve. The point is, they weren't ignorant of the way their own game design works, they simply chose to make fighters that would never hit the most incredible numbers. They KNEW that if you were to pick EXACTLY the right items, maybe add in some 'classic' 4e stuff to achieve some power swaps, using alternative PPs, etc then you could scrape the bottom edge of the optimized power envelope of classic 4e, but if you played them in a pure Essentials environment with a more routine level of optimization, they'd just be adequate and roughly hit the numbers WotC probably originally envisaged for the whole game.

As to the resulting question of how they would have been juxtaposed with the Mage (and to some extent the War Priest, though its a bit more limited) I think you only have to look at 5e, they just didn't care. It was fine with MM that wizard blow the doors off fighters, screw fighters!

 

[MwaO]

I think you're not getting what I am saying. Essentials is a re-baselining of the 4e power curve by WotC, pure and simple. They WANTED those classes, and probably to some extent all classes, to fall on a lower power curve. The point is, they weren't ignorant of the way their own game design works, they simply chose to make fighters that would never hit the most incredible numbers. They KNEW that if you were to pick EXACTLY the right items, maybe add in some 'classic' 4e stuff to achieve some power swaps, using alternative PPs, etc then you could scrape the bottom edge of the optimized power envelope of classic 4e, but if you played them in a pure Essentials environment with a more routine level of optimization, they'd just be adequate and roughly hit the numbers WotC probably originally envisaged for the whole game.

A level 10 MM3 standard has 104 hp. A level 20 standard has 184 hp. A level 30 standard 264 hp. A level 10 PC Striker should kill that MM3 level 10 standard on average just as fast as the level 20 kills the level 20 and the level 30 kills the level 30.

4e assumes that Strikers get 4 standard action attacks off, ~3 hit and thereby kill the creature. Have 4 strikers in your party being attacked by 4 at-level monsters? The combat should end by round 5 regardless of level. You should likely typically fight 4 combats in a 5 encounter day. This has a number of interesting outcomes by 7th:
You'll get 2 APs to spend and 2 daily powers in a given day. Those you use to make up the unexpected miss.
You have 3 encounter powers and an at-will - i.e. if you use either an AP or a daily in every combat, you use a different power every round. At 11th, this transitions to you don't typically use at-wills except basic attacks.

Here's the problem - if damage doesn't increase quickly enough, then combat turns into a slog. Damage increases too quickly, then you get into weird optimization as players optimize number of attacks over doing interesting things.

4e baseline works. Most Striker PCs have some sort of option that allows them to do 2 damage rolls a round for 3-4 rounds and damage increases at about the right speed. There was a problem with to-hit(missing the extra +1/2/3 to hit) that Versatile Expertise fixed though they should have just given a bonus to hit/defenses at levels 5/15/25. Default Ranger actually works near-perfectly - simple to use, no big damage problems.

4e optimization has the problem that damage increases too quickly with more than 2 damage rolls a round. That's a problem. Plus they get higher than 75% to-hit, so that's also a problem.

4e Essentials Strikers have the problem that over 4 standard action attacks, yes, at level 10, they likely do about 35 damage per hit, killing the level 10. But they don't do anywhere near 61 or 88 damage at level 20/30. Scout pulls this off because they're modeling the Ranger, but the other ones don't.

That's the problem with Essentials Strikers. It isn't usually a problem in a typical game, because WotC wrote off Paragon/Epic in Essentials as too hard to do given Next, but do the classes work as original designers intended? No.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So the topic has moved on to "Essentials: Incompetence or Malice?"

 

[MwaO]

So the topic has moved on to "Essentials: Incompetence or Malice?"

No, just the Slayer isn't well-designed for a 'default' 1-30 campaign, because unless you optimize, it doesn't actually work quite right.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No, just the Slayer isn't well-designed for a 'default' 1-30 campaign, because unless you optimize, it doesn't actually work quite right.

The converse problem was that with even fairly reasonable optimizing, and CERTAINLY with significant optimizing, classic 4e strikers put out FAR FAR more than those numbers. To the degree that you could expect a really top-notch optimized striker to put out easily enough damage once per fight to take down 2 standard monsters (IE one elite). Bloodying a solo on round one was certainly well within reach. This was FAR beyond what WotC had envisaged. Indeed the Slayer, seen in that light, is pretty close to being spot on the design curve. It can pump out enough damage on a routine basis to mostly chew through standards at the expected rates, and if you emit an alpha strike you can probably burn down a standard in one round, or so.

Yes, if you play up into the upper half of the level range you'll have to fish hard and use classic 4e 'stuff' to keep to that performance, which arguably may not have been fully intended. OTOH the laughable ease with which decently optimized, heck even just kinda haphazard, epic PCs can dispatch the earlier grades of epic monsters tells me that maybe it IS what they intended.

Its not that I disagree with you on the judgement that a Slayer is boring and feels underpowered at high levels, they do, but presumably what WotC would say about that is that, had they continued with Essentials as a product, that they'd have mapped out monsters, items, and other elements that would have redeemed that. I mean what else COULD they say? We don't really know what that might have looked like, though I don't really think WotC had anything in mind either at the time.

Anyway, frankly what I found the Slayer to be excellent for was to be a 'guest character'. We kept the character sheet around and leveled him up now and then so when people showed up and wanted to jump in and play they could just run the Slayer. It worked fine for the several people that played it at various times, though I don't think anyone considered it a very interesting option. Still, it was not too bad for someone that wasn't really up on the intricacies of 4e and needed to hack on stuff. Of course a bow ranger would have worked pretty much as well, modulo needing to be aware of when to fire off your various off-turn attacks.

 

[Tony Vargas]

To the degree that you could expect a really top-notch optimized striker to put out easily enough damage once per fight to take down 2 standard monsters (IE one elite). Bloodying a solo on round one was certainly well within reach. This was FAR beyond what WotC had envisaged.

Probably, and those builds seemed a little iffy, like if we hadn't veered off into Essentials and developed a reluctance to update they'd've gotten nerfed, like Fey Chargers and the like before them.

Though part of the problem was also 'fixing da math' at high level, when epic level characters didn't need the boost.

Anyway, frankly what I found the Slayer to be excellent for was to be a 'guest character'. We kept the character sheet around and leveled him up now and then so when people showed up and wanted to jump in and play they could just run the Slayer. It worked fine for the several people that played it at various times, though I don't think anyone considered it a very interesting option. Of course a bow ranger would have worked pretty much as well.

Since my ongoing campaign is public & open, I do keep 'loaner' characters available, I have a full CB version, and a Companion Character version, available. The latter works for the 'keep it simple' option.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Probably, and those builds seemed a little iffy, like if we hadn't veered off into Essentials and developed a reluctance to update they'd've gotten nerfed, like Fey Chargers and the like before them.

Though part of the problem was also 'fixing da math' at high level, when epic level characters didn't need the boost.

Since my ongoing campaign is public & open, I do keep 'loner' characters available, I have a full CB version, and a Companion Character version, available. The latter works for the 'keep it simple' option.

Yeah, I agree that the later high level "math fixes" completely unneeded, though arguably more on the expertise side than with defenses, where it can kinda suck to be auto-hit (though far from catastrophic, given epic PCs options to deal with the consequences). Just the sheer weight of added options tended to lead to a slow advance of power in epic particularly where it all kicks in. I actually think that it IMPROVED the epic game, but in some sense it did clearly outstrip the original higher level monsters. Problem was, they really were short of offense and rather heavily larded with hit points, so in effect things got more interesting with greater damage outputs and everyone getting more options to both shed conditions and do other interesting stuff.

CCs are always a great option for a simple character for someone to just pick up.

 

[MwaO]

Indeed the Slayer, seen in that light, is pretty close to being spot on the design curve. It can pump out enough damage on a routine basis to mostly chew through standards at the expected rates, and if you emit an alpha strike you can probably burn down a standard in one round, or so.

Better to be close and above the curve than close and below. It has a lot of consequences for how fights play out. I've said this before, but the Slayer really need to be built roughly the way it was, except instead of any damage bonuses or stances or daily powers(and it doesn't gain the E11 from Paragon Paths), give it the following two options:
Power: Fighter's Strike - counts as a basic attack, does 1w+Str or 1w+Dex(with finesse/ranged weapons), 2w in Epic.
Class Feature: Dual Fighter's Strike: Standard Action, make 2 Fighter's Strikes

Done. Boring as all get out and a little bit on the high damage side early on, but should be reasonably balanced by 5th.