Powers that weren't as good as you thought or were better.

[Keenath]

Right, right, the point is, unlike Slow or Stun or Daze, knocking someone prone is useless unless you add extra fiddly bits.

So it's situationally good. Huzzah, just like everything else in the game! Sounds like a balanced system to me...

I mean, we're talking about mostly encounter powers here, right? Surely you can find one time during a fight when the 'extra fiddly bits' are in place! Most conditions require some tactical thinking to get the best use out of them, so I don't see the issue with knockdown being the same.

For that matter, how is "slow" useful without "extra fiddly bits"? Slow is most useful when the monster is more than 2 squares away or needs to escape. Just like how prone is most useful when the enemy is going to act after the melee guys or is exactly one square away from its target or what have you.

It seems to me that stun and daze are particularly GOOD condition effects, and that's why they're pretty hard to find outside of daily powers.

 

[keterys]

Prone is almost always better than slow - but, yes, daze is a better condition and stun is much better.

 

[Cadfan]

So it's situationally good. Huzzah, just like everything else in the game! Sounds like a balanced system to me...

I'm not saying it isn't balanced. I'm saying its fiddly. It doesn't do what you'd expect, and what it does do requires some rules manipulation that doesn't work the way you'd intuitively expect it to work.

If you hit someone with a power that says it "knocks the target prone," then you expect that after you knock them over, you get to beat on them while they're laying on the ground. Seems obvious, why else would you want to knock them down? If they just get back up like nothing happened before you can do anything to them, then that was silly, wasn't it? Obviously its so you can curb stomp them a bit. Except that's the one thing that you absolutely cannot do, because they get back up just as fast as you knock them over.

You have to have a partner to do the curb stopping part. And even that's not enough- your partner has to be somewhere in the initiative order between you and the monster's next turn. Which means you may have to delay your action, or your partner has to, or you have to have a lucky coincidence in initiative.

Its certainly not broken. Its just that using it doesn't happen in an obvious way.

And that continues with other matters. Suppose I knock you over, then run for the hills. That doesn't work! I can't escape like that, because you can stand back up and charge me from behind. I can only pull that off if I run away only one space, or around a corner, because you can get up and attack, or you can get up and charge 2+ spaces in a straight line, but you can't get up and move 1 space.

Its just all very finicky, and a bit counterintuitive.

 

[keterys]

Action pointing after knocking prone works, too.

 

[Keenath]

If you hit someone with a power that says it "knocks the target prone," then you expect that after you knock them over, you get to beat on them while they're laying on the ground. Seems obvious, why else would you want to knock them down? If they just get back up like nothing happened before you can do anything to them, then that was silly, wasn't it? Obviously its so you can curb stomp them a bit. Except that's the one thing that you absolutely cannot do, because they get back up just as fast as you knock them over.

Well, okay, I see what you're getting at now.

I guess all I can say is, that's what action points are for -- or you need a feat like what Improved Trip used to do; something that lets you throw down an extra melee basic attack when you knock the target prone.

And that continues with other matters. Suppose I knock you over, then run for the hills. That doesn't work! I can't escape like that, because you can stand back up and charge me from behind. I can only pull that off if I run away only one space, or around a corner, because you can get up and attack, or you can get up and charge 2+ spaces in a straight line, but you can't get up and move 1 space.

Actually it would work... If you use the Run action, you get to move two extra spaces, and the guy who's getting up can only move his speed during a charge, so he couldn't catch up to you and do anything, though theoretically he could catch up with a run action.

That does seem kind of counterintuitive though.

 

[Klaus]

Have you had a chance to try them out since this post? What's the rest of your party composed of?
-blarg

Not yet, we were going to play next Sunday, but I just remembered it's Fathers' Day.

Our party is:
Bracknar, male dragonborn warlord 2
Aria, female tiefling warlock (fey) 2
Angelina, female human fighter 2 (sword-n-board)
Donnar, male human ranger 2 (two-weapon)

 

[Klaus]

double

 

[cmbarona]

I'm playing a Dragonborn Inspiring Warlord with a Rogue and Wizard. I took Furious Smash, which would have been great, but unfortunately one of our players never showed up. An extra body in melee would make a ton of difference, especially since I ended up as the tank.

So I keep trying to position myself for flanking to give the Rogue combat advantage for sneak attack, and it never seems to work out just right, or else we need to spend a round shuffling initiative so the flanked target doesn't just shift out of the flank. I just leveled up and retrained to Viper's Strike; Wolf Pack Tactics to get the flank, Viper's Strike to keep it. I'm hoping that combo works a lot better.

 

[Stalker0]

Prone is almost always better than slow - but, yes, daze is a better condition and stun is much better.

Depends on how you rule slow. If you rule it as 2 square move per action, then yeah its pretty crap. But if you rule it as 2 squares total, it gets a lot cooler, and can be better than prone for stopping an enemy.

 

[Goumindong]

Depends on how you rule slow. If you rule it as 2 square move per action, then yeah its pretty crap. But if you rule it as 2 squares total, it gets a lot cooler, and can be better than prone for stopping an enemy.

2 square speed. So 4 on a run, and 8 on a double-move-run.

Slow is good, especially with difficult terrain(and wizards get a full encounter difficult terrain as soon as level 5 or 9).

But prone is still better most of the time.

Remember, its not "they can't attack" its "they can't attack and end non-adjacent to a friendly"

A shifty enemy, cannot shift when prone, loses its benefits. And they grant CA