Rule of Three and THEMES! FINALLY THEMES!!!!

[Aegeri]

There is no mathematical difference between saving the first 10 hp and the last 10 hp. For any given number of attacks and given number of hit points, doing either would "prevent them going unconscious".

I don't think you quite get what the concept is. If you prevent 10 HP initially on round 1, that's not going to do anything and the PC will get his next turn. A few rounds down the track after damage is inflicted, preventing 10 damage will give them their next turn. While not doing so will prevent them from getting that turn in the first place. Also the point that you've missed here is that the 10 HP prevented initially was on ANY attack on any PC. The tactical situation is irrelevant, the power is used just to boost DPR and so any consideration like that isn't important. Effectively I see these powers being used just to continue one PCs turn during another creatures turn.

In order to make my point clear we'll just assume a party of a Ranger (quite frankly, Rangers are the main culprits here), 4 other characters and 5 monsters.

Typical scenario is round 1 (assume grouped initiative for some monsters):

PC A
Ranger
Monster 1
PC B
PC C
Monster 2 (2 creatures)
PC D
Monster 3 (2 creatures)

The first monster hits PC B for some irrelevant amount of damage, Ranger disruptive strikes it as he hit it on his turn, increasing his damage but not really changing anything. Rounds continue and then on a subsequent round such as round 2, PC D (going after 2 of the monsters) gets in major trouble when both creatures going on monster 3 hammers him. By the time combat rolls back around to monster 2, the first one then almost dropped PC D (who has been in some trouble for a while). The second one then whacks PC D unconscious. On the next initiative immediately after, the sole surviving creature on monster 3 (they probably killed one of them and monster 1 during the previous turn) finishes off PC D.

Had the ranger saved disruptive strike and not just thrown it away on an irrelevant attack, he could have changed the entire combat in a dramatic fashion. But he didn't, because that's not how these powers are used IME. That's my problem with them as they're just great theoretical DPR increasing effects, when they should be dramatically changing combats on their use. It's little wonder that rangers stock up on them while optimizing twin strike as much as possible. It's effectively like getting 3 attacks per round and that, funnily enough is the reason I see them so commonly used.

Incidentally, this is actually a real example and PC D was killed by a shadow (Shadows teleport adjacent to unconscious enemies and gain a +2 bonus to attacks!).

I think I can count on one hand the number of combats I've seen (in 13 levels of play) during which a PC unexpectedly went unconscious.

It's more how the power is used and when that matters. Using them right away at the start of the fight is irrelevant. Using it when it matters is the key and I rarely see that with regards to certain classes like Rangers especially (the Artificer in my game Dark Prophecy breaks this tradition in fairness, because shocking feedback gives resist 5 all and so is best used when a target is surrounded. It's damage also isn't terribly great.).

The latter half of your sentence (DPR) strikes me as a playstyle issue. I don't accept that D&D design should be focuses on CharOP.

I agree, but that's exactly what these powers are used for: Optimizing DPR. Because more attacks = higher DPR.

Edit: I should also add that my first example is a rarity and a fairly extreme one. In reality, 90% of the time, maybe even more, the ranger would get away with doing that without consequence. So in effect the game directly rewards using these powers every round you can far more than saving them. Indeed there is very little incentive or point to do so. While it did get someone killed a couple of times, for the most part the advantage of increasing your DPR every round far outweighs trying to use these powers tactically, pretty much always.

 

[Colmarr]

I don't think you quite get what the concept is.

I get it. My point is that (assuming you're making the same number of attacks in each example), preventing the first 10 hp means your ally is on 20 hp rather than 10 hp when the last hit lands. Therefore, they're not on 0 hp and they're not unconscious.

Hence, in a theoretical one attacker/one defender/consistent damage scenario it's irrelevant whether whether you interrupt the first attack or the last makes no difference.

I fully understand your aversion to the DPR aspects of these powers. I haven't encountered them in play but they might annoy me no end if I did, but to be honest I half suspect that I'd be too busy enjoying those later crits and/or dazes and/or forced movement that the ranger could have prevented if he hadn't blown his wad on a little extra damage. In fact, that's exactly the outcome your example describes.

No one ever cheers an extra 1[W] but my group sure did when our bow ranger saved the fighter 29 hp by turning a crit into a hit.

Edit in response to your edit:

Indeed there is very little incentive or point to do so. While it did get someone killed a couple of times, for the most part the advantage of increasing your DPR every round far outweighs trying to use these powers tactically, pretty much always.

I think I'd like to see some more empirical evidence before accepting this assertion as fact, while at the same time accepting that it's almost impossible to provide it. I think we might need to accept me as "unconvinced".

In many ways, it's an equivalent argument that arises when comparing Weapon Focus with Deadly Axe (as an off-the-cuff example); small change every round vs big change occasionally. To be honest, I don't think the mathematical answer is the only one. If a player wants the nickel and dime benefit (DPR) rather than the game changer (preventing crits or forced movement or stun), then why not let them choose it?

 

[mneme]

There is no mathematical difference between saving the first 10 hp and the last 10 hp. For any given number of attacks and given number of hit points, doing either would "prevent them going unconscious".
...
I see what you're getting at in the first portion of this sentence. It's theoretically true that the ally that 'triggers' the interrupt might not be the one who is later in danger, but I'm not sure it is terribly true from a practical perspective. I think I can count on one hand the number of combats I've seen (in 13 levels of play) during which a PC unexpectedly went unconscious.

Er, what? This just isn't true.

There's a huge amount of variety in combat, and you basically have no idea, the first time someone gets attacked, whether they're going to get focused and go down, or whether the monsters are going to go for another target instead after the first few hits. Assuming the monsters aren't focused on the first round (which they aren't always), negate an early hit and the monsters will focus on a different damaged target.

Whereas if you negate a hit that would bring someone unconcious (or dead) you -know- it affected the action math of the fight; one path the party lost at least one action, another they are up at least one action.

I think the problem is the number of encounter immediate effects -- which mean that in paragon, a character might have 4 or more (including item powers) immediate effects on -top- of any Immediate features -- PER ENCOUTER. It's not a question of which rounds/fights party members use immediates, but which immediateness they use when.

The solution is probably to only make rare/uncommon item powers, dailies, and class features provide Immediate actions. That way, they're throwing out class feature immediates (which are basically fine, particularly since they're usually mark punishment and very avoidable) and up to 4 daily immediates (5 in epic) -- a long, long way from throwing out that many per fight.

That said, I can count (in 16 levels of LFR play, plus running a bunch of adventures, plus playing other characters) on one hand the number of times I've seen Disruptive Strike used when it wasn't very likely to negate a hit. And usually that was late in a fight, to kill one of the few surviving monsters.

 

[Aegeri]

That actually is a really good point Colmarr, there is indeed very little point to using them in a smart way. The game directly rewards upping your DPR as much as possible, because as the old adage goes "The best condition to impose is dead". Indeed for many rangers, the point of stocking up on these attacks is to attack 3 times a round (5+ with an action point) every single round to incredibly boost damage. A twin strike + brutal barrage + disruptive strike in one round, for a good nova example. The disruptive strike is used regardless of its effect, just to boost damage and kill the creature faster. Indeed these powers are used 90% of the time very well in this manner.

The fact is that you can get away with using these powers stupidly and with no regard to if they'll help or not. If you're loading up on them, you're going to be using 1/round regardless of the actual situation. This results in the rangers hideous DPR compared to every striker in the game for example. Sure every now and again a corner case like my example above will backfire, but the game directly rewards the "stupid" usage more than a tactical usage. If a monster you have quarried (and whatever else) hits, you use it. Then next round, you use your other immediate interrupt power etc.

In this way you just do way more damage than everyone else and consistently out action every other character. It has become a major flaw of these actions.

That said, I can count (in 16 levels of LFR play, plus running a bunch of adventures, plus playing other characters) on one hand the number of times I've seen Disruptive Strike used when it wasn't very likely to negate a hit. And usually that was late in a fight, to kill one of the few surviving monsters.

With a -5 (or whatever it is, something hideous) penalty to attacks you would certainly hope so. Actually I've seen it fail to negate the attack rarely, it's just if the attack actually mattered in the first place.

Edit:

I think I'd like to see some more empirical evidence before accepting this assertion as fact, while at the same time accepting that it's almost impossible to provide it. I think we might need to accept me as "unconvinced".

Well I can't provide said evidence, because the number of ACTUAL real and entirely non-theorycraft times I've seen it matter is like, four? The example above with the shadow would probably be the best one, bearing in mind the shadow was pushed away by turn undead and then immobilized as well. Unfortunately the PCs didn't expect it to be able to teleport back to the downed character and finish him off anyway - so that's a REAL corner case right there. In reality, most of the time killing something faster is just the better strategy. Getting as many OoT (Out of Turn) attacks as possible, then using them as much as you can (you only get 1/round anyway) is just doing a lot more damage than being conservative.

I mean it doesn't require evidence to realize attacking 3 times per round for a ranger (Twin Strike + Encounter OoT attack) is BETTER than just using twin strike every round. So the more lenient the attacks triggers the better they are and the more likely you get that extra attack every round. Especially if you're a battlefield archer, because that means you are more likely to drop an enemy and get an AP every encounter for an additional standard action attack (albeit you can't use two APs in an encounter, even with battlefield archer). Once you play a lot of paragon and epic tier, you can really see how the effects of the extra damage from classes that have easy access to OoT attacks compared to others really changes them. A high level ranger is scarier than any other striker in the game by miles.

 

[mneme]

In this way you just do way more damage than everyone else and consistently out action every other character. It has become a major flaw of these actions.

That's certainly a big issue, yes. The fact that the Ranger at-will is so hideous does push things in this direction, though; with very little reason to use an encounter power rather than an at will, virtually all optimized Rangers load up on immediate action encounter powers instead.

(re not using disruptive strike unless it makes an attack miss)

With a -5 (or whatever it is, something hideous) penalty to attacks you would certainly hope so. Actually I've seen it fail to negate the attack rarely, it's just if the attack actually mattered in the first place.

The penalty is 3+Wis. It's completely absurd, except on a Str/Dex ranger, where it's only going to be crazy (-4 or -5, probably). But my point is that it's not being thrown out with -no- tactical consideration most of the time -- you don't even have to use Disruptive Strike on a hit; you can use it on any attack. Both the fact that it almost always turns a hit into a miss and the fact that it likely makes a monster die around (or so) faster are big issues making DS absurd for a level 3 encounter power (and contributing to the ranged Avenger being amazing).

 

[Aegeri]

Yeah, in my experience disruptive strike is always around -5 at minimum, sometimes up to -9. Heck, I've seen that power on epic rangers it is that useful. It doesn't really matter what the penalty is, because even a -3 penalty is super damn good. Typically I see most rangers built to be purely dex/wis (archer rangers) or strength/dex with a bit of wisdom. Really though, it's not that disruptive strike won't negate the hit, as let's face it - I can't think of many times it won't. It's that there isn't a good reason not to just use it immediately (or at least one of the other immediate actions the ranger has).

Of course we are getting the class compendium ranger eventually. I have to wonder if they are going to go over things like disruptive strike.

 

[DNH]

Just to sort of drag this thread back to the topics of its title ...

Very much looking forward to seeing these themes. I don't have the Dark Sun book but I have seen it and something about themes elsewhere and they look to be very interesting. Certainly something I would be VERY interested in as a player (although unfortunately, I only DM for 4e). Issue #399 looks to be a must-have (if that applies anymore).

Does anyone here also play Pathfinder and have the Advanced Players Guide? This book (published just a week after Dark Sun, if Amazon is a reliable guide) brought "archetypes" into the game. These are options for character classes (builds, if you like) where you swap out certain abilities for others or take specific feat choices. For example, the Sniper - a Rogue archetype - gets Accuracy in place of Trapfinding, Deadly Range in place of Trap Sense, and so on. All very similar stuff, from what I can see. I don't really have a point here - I am certainly not saying that Paizo pinched WotC's idea - only to say that this is the way that gaming is going and that's all good.

Concerning the Rule-of-Three article ...

1 - Good to see this kind of editorial decision. I don't think anyone would disagree that sometimes it is better to concentrate on one item in order to complete it sooner, even if that means putting back another to a later date. No-one would be happy to wait until they were both complete.

2 - You don't hear it so often these days, thankfully, (or maybe I just don't read the right forums) but comparisons between 4e and MMORPGs used to be legion, not to mention pejorative (I always preferred to compare 4e with Magic: The Gathering, but that's by-the-by). Anyone who has ever played MMORPGs for any length of time will have experienced so-called "nerfing" whereby the game developers rejig the mechanics of certain powers, or sometimes remove the thing wholesale. There are complaints, of course, but because the thing is done in the interests of balance, the complainers don't really have much ground to stand on.

My point here is that, in my view, WotC are well within their rights to withdraw certain elements of the game from circulation (eg the CB). If people really want to use those elements, well, no-one can actually stop them, just as no-one can stop anyone from house-ruling any part of the game. But perhaps certain elements should be flagged up as being "Deprecated" or "Unbalanced". For my money though, I would happily watch as WotC took a stiff brush to the game and swept out all the bits that don't work (anymore, if they ever did), have been superceded or are unbalanced.

3 - "We started columns like this one back in February precisely because we saw a gap between what the audience wanted and saw as important, and what we were dealing with in R&D. We’re not going to bridge that gap overnight, but I think we’ve made steps forward in correcting that."

Agreed. Say what you like about Wizards, and this forum has said it all before now and will say it all again, but this is a valid point. They ARE starting to listen to the players. Rule-of-Three may occasionally get used as a channel for announcements (witness the themes thing with question one, this month) but it also occasionally allows them/us to turn the spotlight on some parts of the game or aspects of the company that would not normally get much of a mention. I applaud the courage in answering such questions and I applaud also the efforts being made to make sure 4e D&D is a game played by gamers the world over and not just the people in the R&D offices.

As for the immediate actions thing, I agree with Nick ... sorry, I mean Mike! (A joke for the Brits, there.) These things can be interesting but they quickly get old if they get used (or not even used; as Mike says, sometimes the game halts while these immediate actions get investigated to see if they are worth implementing) every round. Keying the triggers to more rare and dramatic events seems to me to be a sensible method of resolving that issue.

 

[vaultdweller]

Themes ahoy!

I'm pumped for the content this month. Stoked, even. I had some passing interest in Heroes Of books last year, but I haven't been really eager to see any new content since Dark Sun. This is a good thing!

Regarding Immediate Actions: I like them. Some of them are too convoluted and seem to be designed to confuse, but in general I like them. They're fun, they let you do cool things, and they can greatly enhance the tactical level of battles.

Maybe I wouldn't like a game where players that don't really know how their characters work have a lot of Immediate actions... but then again, if they didn't have the Immediate actions, I still wouldn't be a fan of playing with people that don't know how to play. So, that's kind of a wash.

 

[Nullzone]

Wow, what?

Just because you feel like it was a more valuable use of Disruptive Strike (et al) to wait until it saves someone who's near death doesn't actually make it more valuable.

If the net difference is 10 hp, then you've saved 10 hp, no matter when you use it. And before anyone brings up combat ebb and flow as though there were a strategic reason to wait in case monster tactics change, I can think of a lot more cases where being bloodied is more dangerous than not, so riding your hp bar until it gets perilous and then popping interrupts is not smart tactics. "The best condition is 'dead'" applies to PCs too, from a monster's perspective.

There are a few cases where it may be more intelligent to wait, such as realizing with a knowledge check that the BBEG has some kind of 'smash your face in' move that requires certain criteria be met first. But if you're just fighting a bunch of goblins, it's a waste to hold off until people are hurting; the faster you turn the field to your advantage by dropping monsters, the better off the party is.

You guys are thinking way too micro on this.

 

[Zaran]

They don't have to remove the obsolete feats. Just change them so they are no longer obsolete. They don't seem to realize that the grumpy people that don't want to change their old feats could care less if they get errata'd or not.

There is absolutely no reason why Weapon Expertise (Heavy Blade) and Heavy Blade Expertise shouldn't be the same exact feat.