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What is the essence of 4E?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7452271" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>There are a few things which lead 'stock' encounters to become easier at high levels. There is much more scope by then to have constructed the most effective builds. Depending on the vintage of your playing experience that could be a 'frost cheese' based setup, a 'radiant mafia' (hospitaler plus lots of radiant), charge builds, super teleporting warlock cheese, etc. Even if you avoid all of those (and many others, this is not a catalog of them all) just going through your feats, powers, and items with the rest of the party and looking for synergies and then reinforcing them will get you a LONG ways. Paragon introduces things like AP bonuses, some of which can be exceedingly strong. There are also things that let you re-use powers (cut back on by errata over time, but even late game there are some). Many EDs include "come back from the dead" options (at least one of which can famously make the character utterly unkillable) which are a nice addition. Another major dimension of this is 'frontloading', the selection of powers and feats which allows multiple attacks to be made in rapid succession. The most obvious practitioner is the ranger, and I've seen Epic rangers unleash as much as 8 attacks in round 1, each one of which is a REALLY deadly striker shot.</p><p></p><p>At the same time, monsters don't gain MUCH. Yes, they can get stuns and dominates now and then, but your average monster is either dusted completely or reduced to ineffectiveness by conditions by round 2 in epic. The move to more elite and solo monsters only makes this WORSE as the same condition that is barely worth applying to the standard that will go down before its next turn anyway is a HUGE windfall when it cripples the 'good as 4 monsters' solo. MM1/2 solos are just fodder for this, lacking almost any usable condition shedding. </p><p></p><p>However, even quintessential MM3 monsters, such as Lolth (which completely regenerates itself and sheds all condition at bloodied ON TOP OF having a couple other ways to shed them) are not going to cut it against a party without a lot of support. Even Demogorgon can't handle a level 30 capstone encounter without a bunch of supporting cast. </p><p></p><p>Honestly, Epic powers are the LEAST factor in all of this. There are some nasty ones, no arguments, but even without those it wouldn't be significantly different. 4e is a game that features a lot of cool powers and such, but no one thing makes the game. Its not like AD&D where you had a few really crazy spells that just paved your opponents whenever you got to roll them out.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7452271, member: 82106"] There are a few things which lead 'stock' encounters to become easier at high levels. There is much more scope by then to have constructed the most effective builds. Depending on the vintage of your playing experience that could be a 'frost cheese' based setup, a 'radiant mafia' (hospitaler plus lots of radiant), charge builds, super teleporting warlock cheese, etc. Even if you avoid all of those (and many others, this is not a catalog of them all) just going through your feats, powers, and items with the rest of the party and looking for synergies and then reinforcing them will get you a LONG ways. Paragon introduces things like AP bonuses, some of which can be exceedingly strong. There are also things that let you re-use powers (cut back on by errata over time, but even late game there are some). Many EDs include "come back from the dead" options (at least one of which can famously make the character utterly unkillable) which are a nice addition. Another major dimension of this is 'frontloading', the selection of powers and feats which allows multiple attacks to be made in rapid succession. The most obvious practitioner is the ranger, and I've seen Epic rangers unleash as much as 8 attacks in round 1, each one of which is a REALLY deadly striker shot. At the same time, monsters don't gain MUCH. Yes, they can get stuns and dominates now and then, but your average monster is either dusted completely or reduced to ineffectiveness by conditions by round 2 in epic. The move to more elite and solo monsters only makes this WORSE as the same condition that is barely worth applying to the standard that will go down before its next turn anyway is a HUGE windfall when it cripples the 'good as 4 monsters' solo. MM1/2 solos are just fodder for this, lacking almost any usable condition shedding. However, even quintessential MM3 monsters, such as Lolth (which completely regenerates itself and sheds all condition at bloodied ON TOP OF having a couple other ways to shed them) are not going to cut it against a party without a lot of support. Even Demogorgon can't handle a level 30 capstone encounter without a bunch of supporting cast. Honestly, Epic powers are the LEAST factor in all of this. There are some nasty ones, no arguments, but even without those it wouldn't be significantly different. 4e is a game that features a lot of cool powers and such, but no one thing makes the game. Its not like AD&D where you had a few really crazy spells that just paved your opponents whenever you got to roll them out. [/QUOTE]
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