Proud Nails?

[LittleFuzzy]

My proud nail *and first house-rule, implemented as soon as I reread the description* was for the Remove Disease and Affliction rituals. The only potential no-save death effects still in the game, and you do them to your own allies. Blech.

 

[DracoSuave]

To me, the biggest proud nail is the wizard's hitpoints.

It used to be that the wizard got shafted on hitpoints in return for ULTIMATE COSMIC POWER!!

In 4e, wizards are not any stronger than other classes, yet they still suffer the weak hitpoints due to tradition. It also makes them terrible to multiclass with, its much better to go fighter and multiclass into wizard then vice versa.

If by 'weak' you mean 2 or so hps per level compared to the defender, they're not trailing -that far- behind. Hps aren't given out as a 'balance' like that anymore, they're more given out to roles that need more hps to do their job. Fighters need more hps in order to take blows. Thus they get them as part of their class traits. Wizards, on the other hand, have no reason to take blows, so instead they have hit avoidance powers.

Are you seriously telling me you'd rather have a small amount of hitpoints rather than staff of defense and the shield utility absolutely negating hits against you every encounter?

Hell wizards don't even have low AC anymore.

 

[dammitbiscuit]

Hell wizards don't even have low AC anymore.

I was amazed, when I rolled up my first wizard, at how high his AC was. Wizards will generally have better AC than clerics and warlocks, and comparable AC to rangers and rogues (when wearing leather). They have pretty good defensive utility powers, too.

I don't think wizards need the HP, though it did somewhat annoy me that druids don't have the same low HP. Invokers do, at least.

I don't know if this counts as a "proud nail", but it seems to me that listing cloth armor is almost unnecessary. Leather armor proficiency has no prerequisites. Who would pass up on a feat that gives them +2 to AC with no armor check penalty or prerequisites? I guess the easy way to "nail down" this problem would be to give leather armor some light prereqs, such as 11 str and 11 con. It still annoys me that they waste all that paper on describing various magic or masterwork cloth armor, when almost everyone in an average game will be grabbing leather proficiency.

 

[Eccles]

I'm still getting grumpy at the gaming table over the fact that I can jump up onto a table, but can't jump down. Either I train in acrobatics, climb, or land prone. (as written, anyway)

 

[Hambot]

The illumination rules bug me - bright light so many squares then DARKNESS. How does that work with low light vision? The rules don't tell me... I know what they are trying to do making the game faster and all, but telling my eladrin and elf players that they get no extra benefit to see beyound the illuminated torch area because the bright light "screws up their IR vision cameras" was painful.

The concealment vs line of sight stuff seems like it was all changed last minute so there are lots of little inconsistencies sticking out all over the place.

I hate how there are no odd powers for the non ranger classes to take to let them do 2[W] damage with ranged weapons. I know the ranger is the "ranged guy", but honestly every class should have a couple of options so those who want to very occasionally shoot a ranged weapon don't feel so gimped. Basic attacks vs powers beyond low levels just doesn't feel like a fair comparison.

It bugs me how the very best Rituals do not require pc's to be trained in the requisite skill. Raise dead, enchant magic item etc. don't rely on the d20 skill checks at all, which makes me sad because something interesting could have been done there. But then I am a sadistic DM who loved rolling up the reincarnation table in 3.5e, so maybe they did the right thing there.

I love most of the 4e sysem and how fun, fast and dynamic things can be, but there are so many crappy magic items with crappy conditional daily powers that just add mental overhead to the system for so little payoff. Some of them feel like a really cool thing to do once a day that makes for memorable moments like the level 7 cold melee gloves from adventurers vault or jumping off a cliff with catstep boots, but there are so many useless arms slot items that it feels like they haven't figured out what they are doing with that slot yet.

I just wish rings were the one slot where the gloves came off and they just allowed them to do super cool things again, several times a day. So many rings suck so bad, yet they were originally going to be "paragon only" items so cool players couldn't wait to get them! What went wrong?

Finally, insisting that both sides are aware of each side before a combat unless one side is using stealth just bugs me for overland encounters. The section is written for dungeons really, I just wish there was a little more substance there to provide more variety to beginning encounters at different distances or with one side not quite aware of the other due to lower perception scores. I don't want my PC's to be going everywhere in super slow stealth mode if they want to suprise the monsters in a random encounter.

Basically the nail of all of this is - sometimes they tried making things so simple, they wound up making things more difficult to play, rather than less.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Actually, it makes a fair bit of sense. Try it for yourself.

Walk around in twilight, and you should be able to see quite far (once your eyes adjust).
But if you're near a bright light, such as a campfire, you can't see very far out, 'cos your pupils have contracted.

So low-light vision is having eyes that are able to adjust to conditions of very poor illumination, but with contracted pupils, aren't any more effective in bright light.

 

[On Puget Sound]

My current pet peeve:
Fighter combat challenge is, errr is not, errr is, uhh no it isn't an opportunity attack, but it's just like one except that it's not quite, and our short description of this feat says it works on OAs, but really it works on combat challenge...just a bit of editing clarity would have made a huge difference here.

 

[Stalker0]

If by 'weak' you mean 2 or so hps per level compared to the defender, they're not trailing -that far- behind.

Its not just the fewer hitpoints, they also heal less per surge because of it. And they get bloodied easier, and there are many monsters that do extra damage on bloodied targets.

I've seen it be a noticeable difference.

 

[DracoSuave]

I've seen wizards never get hit, because they play smart and -use- their abilities to avoid being hit... to... well... avoid being hit.

You have a high AC, and abilities to make those high defenses higher when it matters. If your wizard's lower hit points are a continual problem then either your wizard needs to consider his lower hit points in his tactics (which will make him better at his job) or your defender needs to consider his -higher- hit points in his tactics (which will mean actually -doing- his job).

If they aren't really a problem and the wizard's just taking the stray hit now and then, but others are spending more healing surges, then you don't -have- a problem; things are working as intended, and the wizard needs to stop whining.

If that isn't enough, take Toughness and quit whining.

After that, the only conclusion is you can't handle 4e combat. Play a safer game like Bunnies and Burrows.

Also, Druids have more hit points because they melee. I figured that was pretty obvious.

 

[DracoSuave]

I don't want my PC's to be going everywhere in super slow stealth mode if they want to suprise the monsters in a random encounter.

There are no random encounters in 4e adventure design. Every encounter is there for a reason, so that the players are constantly continuing towards a story, rather than bumbling through random detached monsters with no connection other than appearing on the same table.

Also random encounter design is a lot harder when the majority of encounters involve multiple monster types designed to cover a spread of tactical options.