D&D 4E Is Multi-Attacking Really Control? A different Fireball

I know if enemies know you have big area effects and they spread out or even 1e fashion if the spell is so ubiquitous and ally unfriendly that they know to close quickly so your wizard will be reluctant to use it as it would harm his allies there is sort of nebulous second hand control. But without a lot of assumptions about spells gameworld and monster tactics etc. that fireball kind of isnt control...

Now a fireball that pushed enemies away from its center point (or where those who succeed in the saving throw are moved away to represent their own efforts) and which left burning ground afterwards would feel like a control power and would be a better more tactical Fireball than the original.

Kind of like having your cake and eating it too in nice Tactically Interesting sandwich.

I very much think the Fireball and also Lightning* are so wizard canonical that if the role is control they need to really be control.

Multi-attacking really seems to be another type of striker unless we make it less so.



I made the above slightly larger. the original had a 2 inch radius which was in dungeon (40 foot diameter... maybe it isn't needed) I did reduce the damage back to what was originally printed in 4e. The addition of the Region particularly if the sulfurous smoke is used seems like better recompense.

I think Lightning needs to be made more controllerish tool.. Delivering a payload of stunning seems appropriate

One of the things I wanted to see in a 5e was a refinement of the Wizards tactical role as a controller...
It really really looks like that isn't happening.

Area attacks "could" be considered control, since you're controlling the enemy's ability to attack in formation. But, strikers get a fair amount of area attacks, often with boosted damage.

My issue with controllers in 4E was that control was baked into their powers, they didn't have a class ability for it. This meant multiclassing allowed other classes to steal more controller abilities than other roles could.

I agree, though. Area attacks with forced movement or hindering terrain feel more controller focused than others.

More artillery, control as such usually just slows the game down. Death is the best debuff really.

Zardnaar said:

More artillery, control as such usually just slows the game down. Death is the best debuff really.

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Focused damage is probably a faster debuff than spread damage if that is the only target UNLESS one is dealing with outclassed adversaries like minions.

And if one wants MORE damage to a lot of adversaries the Sorcerer is your go to class

Xeviat said:

My issue with controllers in 4E was that control was baked into their powers, they didn't have a class ability for it. This meant multiclassing allowed other classes to steal more controller abilities than other roles could.

I agree, though. Area attacks with forced movement or hindering terrain feel more controller focused than others.

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That would be another reason to revise them from the ground up. Though the essentials mages pointed towards class features that seem to work, but they are pasted on top of powers with their power already baked in.

Xeviat said:

But, strikers get a fair amount of area attacks, often with boosted damage.

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I think with strikers they still do consider area of effect damage as a value or an option

So you consider things like nova, ongoing rate and multitarget too.

1. Nova: The most damage you can do to a single target in one turn / round, +/- daily powers, action points, etc.
2. DPR: The most damage you can do to a single target in every round.
3. AoE: The most damage you can do to a bunch of targets at once.

Everyone gets some control but I feel the controller as a role specialization was just coming together and classic Wizard effects even the Fireball can be visualized better in terms of it than they were.

A Sorcerer wearing a wizard hat for those who want the striker flavor seems fine

One thing about the area effect Sorcerer.

When your allies have significant buffs against bloodied enemies or a fondness for using intimidation to short circuit the situation,thenhaving good broad damage on the field can accelerate the fight too... but without such a thing the enemy tend to be just as potent and dealing back just as much damage till the last hit point.

A DM who has appropriately human like enemies themselves run when bloodied or having allies go down fast regardless of an explicit intimidation is probably doing old fashioned roleplaying of the bad guys (not particularly a bad thing in my opinion).

The more and more I look back at 4E, I feel like "artillery" would have been a better role than controller. It would have been easier to build around. Classes like the wizard could have still been built with supportive hard control attacks, but that's part of their class; a trick Archer could do similar things, knowing how to shoot to slow, to make someone Dodge attacks and move, to pin someone to a wall or the floor.

But, I also would like to go back and redesign the classes so the classes could be multiple roles, as defined by their build options. The core four could be all four roles (a healing domain cleric is a leader, a war domain cleric could be more of a defender; a Warlord is a leader fighter, a Slayer is a striker fighter, a knight is a defender fighter, an Archer is an artillery fighter ...). Class bloat could have been managed, powers would have to be duplicated less (there are a lot of damage and slow weapon attacks).

Xeviat said:

a trick Archer could do similar things, knowing how to shoot to slow, to make someone Dodge attacks and move, to pin someone to a wall or the floor.

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The hunter from essentials.(though they mixed in Primal so they could say magic for higher level effects)

Although a really feat invested ranger could do a fair nice amount of control effects. (against a lot fewer enemies)