Primal Power Discussion

[Destil]

That one feat raises my camp's 17th level barbarian's ac by 5. The epic one that stacks raises it by 2 more.

That's a giant move. His ac will be defender levels, plus defender hp. But doing striker damage.

Yeah, the hide armor feat was completely unnecessary, too.
A Str/Con barb already had lots of feat choices for better AC. They have Str and Con! They can take ARMOR feats. At the same time the Str/Cha barb still has sucky AC unless he sinks a lot into Con for armor or Dex.

There's some bugs in the AC seheme MUCH worse than the Str/Con barb that should have been fixed, primary classes that need to divert their secondary to even look at armor feats:
Con/Wis Shaman
Str/Cha Barb
Str/Wis melee ranger
Con/Cha Warlock

The fact that they 'fixed' this for one of the least broken ACs, especially given that Con barbs already have plenty of defense options, is just sad. Everyone else above is wearing leather or hide and falls behind fast, while the barb already has Barbarian Agility, to boot. The only class/race this feat makes sense for is the new Con swarm druid... The above classes can all pump Str/Con to get armor, but they already have a Fort related stat, so it's a heavy cost.

There's got to be a feat to ban in every power book, I suppose.

EDIT: If anything, there should be a feat that makes Hide heavy armor and increases the bonus based on tier... That would work pretty well for 2 of the 4 above, just need an option for Bear Shaman and split Warlocks, then.

 

[Felon]

That one feat raises my camp's 17th level barbarian's ac by 5. The epic one that stacks raises it by 2 more.

That's a giant move. His ac will be defender levels, plus defender hp. But doing striker damage.

Well, without some elaboration from you, it sounds like the barb basically tanked his Dex and Int.

It is unnecessary bullcrap, for reasons that others have already gone into--I really feel for the Cha barb--but I guess this whole thing doesn't bother me overmuch for a few reasons:

First, the couple of barbs I've seen in play just feated themselves into scale mail anyway. That's, like, +6 points of AC in the low-paragon campaign I run.

Second, all the campaigns I play in use an array (specifically, 16,14, 13, 12, 11, 10). Using point-buy in 4e is just an open invite to the absolute worst kind of min-maxing.

And on a braoder note, I'm a little jaded because I'm used to seeing the spread in AC's across the party only amount to a couple of points. In the 9th-level campaign I play in, I believe it's as follows: Fighter 25, Ranger 24, Wizard 23, Bard 23, Invoker 23.

 

[Felon]

Be aware he has defender HP not because he's a barbarian, but because he's a primal class. ALL Primal classes get a boost in their HP, period.

So to me it's less like "We need to make the barbarian more durable" and more like "We need to give this divine class a Channel Divinity power".

And "We need to give this arcane class...um...ah....errr...."

 

[yesnomu]

Be aware he has defender HP not because he's a barbarian, but because he's a primal class. ALL Primal classes get a boost in their HP, period.

So to me it's less like "We need to make the barbarian more durable" and more like "We need to give this divine class a Channel Divinity power".

And the Shaman is...?

Not that it really needs defender HP, mind you, but it does break the formula.

 

[WalterKovacs]

And the Shaman is...?

Not that it really needs defender HP, mind you, but it does break the formula.

They also lack transformation abilities (druid has wild shape, warden has polymorph, and the barbarian has the rages). They are the "monk" of the primal characters, the exception to the theme that goes through the other classes.

Either way, I can't wait for an opportunity to have a barbarian running around with a pair of say ... craghammers and being able to just fling one at someone's head on the off chance I can't get to them on a charge. Few things are sadder than an immobilized/restrained Barbarian with no targets in melee range.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

A reason why the Barbarian needs higher defenses despite tons of hit points - Hit points don't protect against conditions. That has become apparent with both Barbarian builds I saw that didn't max their defenses with heavy armor. A dazed or immobilized Barbarian doesn't get to deal his impressive damage. He is just standing there, hoping to maybe charge someone once in a while.

Even this feats won't necessarily eliminate this problem entirely. Will defense and Reflex defense will still be low. (The Thaneborn will not have that issue, but then he doesn't benefit from the Hide Armor feats all that much, either.)

 

[Nai_Calus]

I think Primal Power may be the first 4e book I have utterly no interest in outside of fluff. (There's some I've had no interest in period, but.) Fluff for spirits and stuff, yay. Options for four classes I have no interest at all in, unyay.

I'll care when Primal Power 2 comes out and covers the Seeker.

 

[Felon]

A reason why the Barbarian needs higher defenses despite tons of hit points - Hit points don't protect against conditions.

See, that's not a "need", that's a "want". There's no entitlement to having an achilles-heel patched. There should be some give-and-take. With the barb, there's a lot of taking and little giving.

 

[abyssaldeath]

See, that's not a "need", that's a "want". There's no entitlement to having an achilles-heel patched. There should be some give-and-take. With the barb, there's a lot of taking and little giving.

Well, if a RBV Barb relies solely on this feat for AC they are going to be very deficient in their Reflex defense.

 

[Mad Mac]

Feats now support a damage focused Warden who uses a Hammer and takes powers that slow and immobilize. Didn't really have a high damage Warden prior to this.

This actually bugs me a little. Con based Wardens got a lot a love in Primal Power, with a second powerful build, expanded controller abilities, and better damage.

The Wildblood Warden was supposed to the "secondary striker" build, and now they just shift around doing less damage (and less control) than the Con based Wardens. It doesn't help that the new Wis build isn't that hot either. It's not just the feats, Wildblood literally has the lowest damage powers in Primal Power.