D&D 4E Player's Strategy Guide - 4E Book

It was payday, and that $30 was burning a hole in my pocket. Plus, I'm a sucker for 'comic' art.

So I purchased the 4E "Player's Strategy Guide."

WotC info here. Excerpt here.

It's a fun book. If you are looking for some ideas for your next character, it has several suggestions.

My favorite stuff:

• A table matching ability scores to classes;
• Overviews of skills by category, including a nice sidebar titled "Toughness or Durable?";
• Help with Multiclassing and Hybrid options;
• "How to" sections, including "Get the Best Initiative" and "Get the Best AC";
• A table matching classes to skills;
• Sample parties of characters;
• Tactics 101 (see excerpt, above);
• Some funny 'comic/cartoon' art; and
• The final chapter: "Don't Be A Jerk."

Overall, I would suggest this book for people new to D&D, and people with too much money.*



*You may also PM me to send me money. Ain't too proud.

The Tactics 101 excerpt is interesting.

Unlike the author, I find that multi-attack powers are the bomb in 4e, especially for weapon users. With Come and Get It, I usually attack three or more targets and do just as much damage against each one as my melee basic attack.

Our party didn't have a controller for many levels, so similar multi-attack powers are spread throughout the group. A couple of us usually focus brutal single-target damage on one enemy while everybody else makes sure to include that bad guy in the multi-attack powers. Consequently, most fights seem to last 3 or 4 rounds.

I would be interested in seeing a new player's reaction to this book. So anyone who is new to RPG's let me know!!!

blargney the second said:

Unlike the author, I find that multi-attack powers are the bomb in 4e, especially for weapon users. With Come and Get It, I usually attack three or more targets and do just as much damage against each one as my melee basic attack.

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Agreed. In one of my PBP, my Hybrid Swordmage / Wizard did 19 with a critical against one foe in round one, and 15 against 3 (out of 4) foes in round two. I'll take 15 against 3 foes over 19 against 1 foe any day of the week.

KarinsDad said:

Agreed. In one of my PBP, my Hybrid Swordmage / Wizard did 19 with a critical against one foe in round one, and 15 against 3 (out of 4) foes in round two. I'll take 15 against 3 foes over 19 against 1 foe any day of the week.

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From my reading of the article I believe the author isn't talking about the type of attacks you are making, but just that you should all(as a group) be focusing on the same targets.

Dealing 9 damage to five different targets isn’t the same as dealing 45 damage to a single enemy (unless those targets are minions).

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This is the only time he really mentions area attacks vs single target attacks. That quote is absolutely correct and the point I think he is trying to make is to be careful about the powers you choose.

abyssaldeath said:

From my reading of the article I believe the author isn't talking about the type of attacks you are making, but just that you should all(as a group) be focusing on the same targets.


This is the only time he really mentions area attacks vs single target attacks. That quote is absolutely correct and the point I think he is trying to make is to be careful about the powers you choose.

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Yes, he is discussing focusing fire.

But the fact that he is not addressing multiple target attacks is telling.

Some characters—particularly controllers—can’t help but spread their damage out. That’s okay

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He is missing an important aspect of focus fire in his discussion. He is missing area attacks. Every PC that can take area attacks in the game system, should take area attacks.

A group with nobody who takes area attacks will do LESS focus fire than a group that has many PCs with area attacks.

The reason is that of increased overall damage. His statement here is totally misleading:

Because most monsters fight at full potency until they reach 0 hit points, only the last point of damage you deal—the one that reduces a monster to 0 hit points—makes any significant contribution to winning the fight.

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This is wrong. All damage makes significant contributions to winning the fight.


If one has a 50% chance to hit a foe, he is doing 50% damage. Attacking two foes instead of one averages 100% overall damage. Attacking three foes instead of one averages overall 150% damage. Even if the area attack does 80% of the damage of a stronger single foe attack, that's still 80% damage spread between two foes and 120% damage spread between three foes. Both of these are more damage than the 50% average damage of targeting a single foe.

And by definition, it is difficult to not attack a foe who is already damaged if a PC is throwing out area attacks most rounds. The PC is bound to sometimes or often attack an NPC that some other PC or PCs are focusing on.

Focus fire is important. No doubt. But, area attacks which he mostly avoids in his discussion and he actually cavalierly dismisses by dismissing the spread out damage of controllers, will actually end an encounter quicker than just using single foe Focus Fire attacks.


Let's take the example of a Striker and a Controller. The Striker averages 10 points of single target damage per round. The Controller averages 5 points of damage per round and can attack n-1 foes per round (if there are 5 foes, he can attack 4, if there are 4 foes, he can attack 3, etc.). They have 5 foes with 30 hit points each.

The Striker attacks one foe every time. The Controller attacks the foes that the Striker is NOT attacking.

Round 1: Foe A (10), Foe B (5), Foe C (5), Foe D (5), Foe E (5)
Round 2: Foe A (20), Foe B (10), Foe C (10), Foe D (10), Foe E (10)
Round 3: Foe A (dead), Foe B (15), Foe C (15), Foe D (15), Foe E (15)
Round 4: Foe B (25), Foe C (20), Foe D (20), Foe E (20)
Round 5: Foe B (dead), Foe C (25), Foe D (25), Foe E (25)
Round 6: Foe C (dead), Foe D (dead), Foe E (dead)

Here is an example of the Controller NOT doing focus fire and the foes get 23.5 attacks against the PC (assuming a dead foe gets to attack an average of 0.5 times in the round it was killed).

Let's compare it to two Strikers that ARE doing focus fire.

Round 1: Foe A (20), Foe B (0), Foe C (0), Foe D (0), Foe E (0)
Round 2: Foe A (dead), Foe B (10), Foe C (0), Foe D (0), Foe E (0)
Round 3: Foe B (dead), Foe C (0), Foe D (0), Foe E (0)
Round 4: Foe C (20), Foe D (0), Foe E (0)
Round 5: Foe C (dead), Foe D (10), Foe E (0)
Round 6: Foe D (dead), Foe E (0)
Round 7: Foe E (20)
Round 8: Foe E (dead)

Here, the foes get 21.5 attacks against the PCs. This is only a slight improvement.

The foes get 2 fewer rounds to attack in this second case, but the first was a scenario where the Controller does not attack the foe that a Striker attacks. If we change it so that area attacks are combined with focused fire, then it becomes:

Round 1: Foe A (15), Foe B (5), Foe C (5), Foe D (5), Foe E (0)
Round 2: Foe A (dead), Foe B (10), Foe C (10), Foe D (10), Foe E (0)
Round 3: Foe B (25), Foe C (15), Foe D (15), Foe E (0)
Round 4: Foe B (dead), Foe C (dead), Foe D (20), Foe E (0)
Round 5: Foe D (dead), Foe E (5)
Round 6: Foe E (20)
Round 7: Foe E (dead)

It drops to 19.5 rounds of attacks by the foes. This is 4 better than the first case of 23.5 rounds.

Area attacks are a significant contributing factor to focus fire and the author mostly ignored/dismissed them.

I'm curious about the book. Does it take into account the May Errata? Esp. relating to Clerics?

renau1g said:

I'm curious about the book. Does it take into account the May Errata? Esp. relating to Clerics?

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Maybe. What specifically are you looking for?

KarinsDad said:

Area attacks are a significant contributing factor to focus fire and the author mostly ignored/dismissed them.

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I think you might be missing the point. The article is written from the perspective of looking at which of your existing options to use when you are fighting a given fight. Its a tactics article, not a character building guide article.

GIVEN that a character with an area attack power has an option he should clearly try to include the current target being focused on in the area of his attack, all other things being equal. In some cases it may be advisable for such a character to pick a higher damage single target attack and finish off a specific enemy vs leaving it standing for a round simply because he can do more total damage instead.

Remember too that the VAST majority of area attack powers are going to be encounter or daily powers. Often it makes sense to make a single target attack in lieu of an area attack when the area attack has no IMMEDIATE benefit, you can always execute that attack on another round. Its rarely a choice where you can decide to spam an area attack, and even if you can its likely to be a much less effective power.

I agree that it can be a better idea to do a whole bunch of spread out damage vs a much lower amount of single target damage to a key target, but that doesn't in any way invalidate the idea of concentrating fire. Nor does the fact that the author didn't go into area attack powers in depth mean anything in particular. He never even suggested that single target powers were better, or even as good as area attacks.

Reading it right now, and I like its approach. I have a few new players in my campaign, and I'm going to suggest that they read it. For new players, the book really ties concepts together and shows how the whole game fits together, and how to have fin with it.