At-will class powers ruining my archetypes

[Obryn]

WTF are you BSing me?

No, absolutely not. They're mostly Charisma, but use their Strength and Dexterity for bonus damage.

-O

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Precisely the kind of narrow focus I would like to remove. Thank you, you illustrated this well. Really this boils down to flavor, in previous editions this was a "feel" of the game and the at-wills have shifted that "feel". You may prefer that new "feel", I personally don't not prefer that "feel" I just would like the game to give me that "feel" if I want it. By removing at-will powers I think I get there.

I understand that. I even thought about doing the same thing myself when I first looked at the rules. What you want is weak casters at low level who become more powerful at high level, same as 3e. You can do that, but no one will want to be a wizard. You are taking an already weak class and making them weaker. Basically, giving your players the option to choose a martial class or suck. But at least you are leaving it up to them.

And as far as all classes having to buy STR and DEX at character creation. This is just ridiculous. Every wizard or warlock would not buy STR and DEX. Give me a break. The wizard would likely buy some DEX and not dump it to 8 like it currently gets done in most cases. Instead they grab a 14 or so and throw some daggers in combat or something at low-level, and as they level up and get more encounter powers and daily powers they do the dagger thing less and less.

I certainly wouldn't bother putting a 14 into a melee stat, even with your rules. It's still better to throw all my encounter powers then delay the rest of the combat. Because attempting to hit with +5 to hit at first level for 1d4+2 damage is kind of dumb. Against creatures with 16 AC, you only have a 50% chance of hitting for an average of 4 damage.

That's the problem with using the core of 4e to do what you want. The core of 4e assumes EVERYONE is attacking with a stat that is 16+. The average actually assumes an 18 with + or - 1 being acceptable.

And that's at 1st level. Unless you put a point into strength every time you get a choice for leveling, any attacks you make with strength fall farther and father behind.

The math is so well balanced that anything more than a point or two off the average and you might as well not bother. That's why Druids and Avengers in the PHB2 make melee attacks using their Wisdom. Of course, only some of their attacks could really be considered "magical", so how do you deal with these classes? Wardens get magical attacks that use their strength to attack, making them focus in strength with no disadvantage.

I actually think it would be easier to house rule 3e to do what you want than to force 4e to go there. It was a project I was briefly working on before 4e came out. I figure you could use the Bo9S as a template. Allow only Bo9S classes and caster classes. That pretty much gives you the "core" of 4e while encouraging the feel you want.

Unless you mean something different by "core". Do you mean the math behind all the monsters and players? In which case, I propose a quick patch to 3e to act more like it:

-Remove BAB, Save Bonuses and Skill Ranks as a mechanic, give everyone half their level to AC, Attacks and Skills, and Saves.
-Let them choose trained skills(their number of skill ranks divided by 4, can only choose class skills)
-Remove stat enhancers, enhancement bonuses on shields, and all items that give a bonus to AC other than armor.
-Change the AC, saves, and attacks of all monsters to the table listed in the 4e DMG based on what you think their role is. Don't change their hitpoints.
-Remove iterative attacks
-Allow people to add the better of their Dex or Int modifier to AC in light or medium armor, make the max Dex of all heavy armors 0. Remove the max Dex of all light armors.
-Make taking a 5-ft step a move action instead of free

And there you have an entire game that lacks at will attacks, has the core of 4e, but still has powerful encounter based powers for spellcasters and melee types without heavily favoring one. It requires a bit of work, but I think it actually could be a pretty cool hybrid.

 

[WalterKovacs]

At-wills are not a core mechanic they are a sub-system thrown on to the core mechanics.

The At-Will/Encounter/Daily seperation for powers are part of the core mechanics for 4e. It involves:

(a) Each class is able to use it's primary stat for it's attacks
(b) Characters always have something useful they can do
(c) There isn't an ability score that every class "needs"

There is no longer (many) auto-hit powers. They eliminated the gap created by BAB and saving throw modifiers. They eliminated save or die. They eliminated the 'long' durations, replacing with save end. Each defense has a choice of two different stats.

Your changes forces every class to have STR or DEX as a secondary or primary stat (making classes without STR or DEX as a primary lose any builds other than X + STR or X + DEX, and you pretty much HAVE to go with 16/16 for those stats so they can both be decent attack stats).

So you have characters of the same class being extremely similar, even characters outside of the class being different.

Also, on book of nine swords: They all had ways of regaining their powers. They had a number of encounter powers, but they always had a way of getting back all the encounter powers. It basically meant 1 turn of "basic attacks" before going back to encounter powers again. The one thing you may like about it is that it forces each character to use EACH of the powers before they can use the same one again.

So having 3 to 6 encounter powers, with the ability to regain the encounter powers only after you've used them all, would approximate the Book of Nine Swords. Or perhaps have 3 "at-wills" but with the similar restriction that you need to use each one once before you can use another one again.

 

[Lanefan]

Late to the party as usual, and having just waded through all this, a few random thoughts leap to mind:

1. It's an extremely valid point that something special made ordinary isn't special any more. Example: Magic Missile. In all previous editions it was at least somewhat special, as it could only be cast so many times a day. Now, it's ordinary - a Wizard has a limitless number of bullets in her gun and never has to reload.

2. I'm going to hazard a guess that one of the things behind the OP's original ideas is that having magic-based at-wills e.g. Magic Missile simply puts too much magic in the game; hence, a desire to reduce such. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this. But the archetype of the full-time Wizard who can only cast so many spells of any type over a day and the rest of the time has to rely on weapons (example: Gandalf) falls apart when they can cast all day.

3. If removing at-wills causes concern that combats will grind even longer, there's a simple solution: reduce everyone's hit points - character, monster, whatever; except of course minions - by a blanket percentage. Let's say, a 50% reduction. That will make combats on average last half as long (probably less, in fact, as the ratio of encounter powers to at-wills/basics will be higher), and add some randomness and swinginess back in.

4. If the math really is as finely-tuned as is suggested a few posts upthread, such that a character is essentially useless (as opposed to slightly less effective) without one high stat, that to me is a serious problem of overdesign.

5. I'm not sure if this came from a long-ago article in Dragon, or whether it's a homebrew from the dark ages, but the Elvish deity of the bow has always to us been Rillifane. Her consort, Corellon, uses the sword.

Lanefan

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

1. It's an extremely valid point that something special made ordinary isn't special any more. Example: Magic Missile. In all previous editions it was at least somewhat special, as it could only be cast so many times a day. Now, it's ordinary - a Wizard has a limitless number of bullets in her gun and never has to reload.

I agree with this. And I admit that reducing the magic in a campaign is a valid goal. Just not one I would want in my game. As I said previously, I understand the desire. I just think it'll have unforseen side effects if you just remove at wills. If you turned all the at-wills into mundane attacks and left the rest of the class as it is, I wouldn't see a problem with it.

4. If the math really is as finely-tuned as is suggested a few posts upthread, such that a character is essentially useless (as opposed to slightly less effective) without one high stat, that to me is a serious problem of overdesign.

Since this is me, we are taking about, I should respond. The problem is, as it usually is, in the math. While using a d20, even a small difference affects it a lot. The difference between a 14 Strength Battlerage Vigor Fighter with a hammer(+4 to hit) vs the 20 Strength longsword fighter with one handed weapon focus(+9 to hit) is +5. Which is a 25% difference in hit chance.

Against an AC 17 opponent, the first fighter hits 40% of the time. The second fighter hits 65% of the time. Even with his class bonus for having temporary hitpoints, the first fighter is doing an average of (9.5*0.4=)3.8 damage per round. The second fighter is doing (9.5*0.65=)6.175 damage. That's a 61% increase in damage. But he also has a 25% greater chance to stun, daze, knock prone, push, or whatever his opponent. And the difference becomes even larger when you use encounters or dailies.

This is a fairly reasonable range. 25% difference is about the greatest difference you should see in one class if you want to plan out the defenses of your enemies. I'd say it's designing just enough.

So, I'm saying that at first level, being a wizard with a 14 in your strength seems like it is plausible to hit in melee. However, at 30th level the Fighter who started with a 20 strength puts all his points into strength and takes Demigod and ups his strength 2 more has +28 to hit. The same wizard who put all his points into Int and Wis(since he's an Orb wizard) and doesn't buy a magic melee weapon(since it cost him all his money to get armor, implement, and neck item) has +20 to hit. If the standard chance to hit is 55% for the fighter, then the wizard has a 15% chance to hit. Or, not really worth trying.

The math actually works pretty good, in that, if you absolutely have NOTHING better to do than attack with that dagger, it might work. Unlike 3e, where you'd only hit on a 20. But, then again, 4e is designed so you ALWAYS have something better to do that has a GOOD chance of success. If you remove at wills, then you actually have to resort to that useless attack.

I'd just like to add that the difference was always that big. In 3e, if you had a 10 strength wizard and were attacking with a dagger vs the 18 strength fighter with Weapon Focus attacking with his weapon, it was a huge difference which only got bigger and bigger. The only thing that made it even somewhat tolerable was that enemies AC varied so much that you might run into a 9 or 10 AC opponent that you could hit, and that the game forced you to by giving you no other way to attack.

 

[Fredrik Svanberg]

If "Magic Missiles" and similar obvious magic is too magical and makes magic seem trivial and boring, why not change the at-wills of wizards (and warlocks and other casters too, I guess, but I'll focus on wizards for now) to make them less blatantly magical?

How about:

True Strike
Standard; at-will * Weapon
You use magic to guide your arm and strike with ultimate accuracy.
Int vs. AC; [w]+Int damage.
You can use this attack as a basic ranged or melee attack.
Upgrade to 2[w]+Int at level 11, 3[w]+Int at level 21.

Mage Armor
Standard; at-will
You create an invisible magical armor of force around you.
You gain +2 to AC until the end of your next turn.
Sustain minor.

Shield
Minor; at-will
You create an invisible magical shield of force floating in the air next to you.
You gain +1 to AC and Reflex Defense until the beginning of your next turn or until you are attacked, whichever comes first.


There, now the wizard can run around making ranged and melee weapon attacks all day long without feeling sub-par, and without trivializing the feel of magic in your game. If he sacrifices one or two actions per round he can also gain some much-needed defense to survive such activities. None of these "spells" have obvious effects (but if you want you can house-rule the Mage Armor and Shield to be visible, of course) so they can be explained away as superior magical training or whatever if you prefer.

Similar at-will powers can be created for clerics, warlocks, sorcerers, etc, to make them seem less magical and make them more combat-worthy, but based on their respective preferred abilities of course. In fact I wouldn't mind playing a wizard with at-will powers like this. It would not be very good at its intended role but it would make for some interesting concepts.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You'd need to make wizard's encounter/daily powers a lot more powerful than the martial class's counterparts. Which is using 4e to recreate 3e/2e/1e. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

from the preview books it seems that once upon a time in development, martial classes had more powerful at wills when the wizard had weaker at wills, good encounters and very powerfull dailies...

This has changed to: every class should be able to fullfill its role with their at-wills...

This could also have lead to the "powers of all classes are similar" feeling...

actually i could live with a class with very weak at-wills which are solely used to fullfill its role and relying on base attacks and strong encounter/dailies...

(imagine a warlord chosing commanders strike and the str = damage attack)

 

[glass]

Slight tangent...

Normally, when you make something bigger, you make it more awesome. For example, everyone is pretty much in agreement about the awesomeness of the opening scene of 'A New Hope' when the Star Destroyer comes into the frame and just keeps coming and coming. There is a limit to this though. It's hard to define, but there is a tipping point beyond which bigger is less cool, less dramatic, and less overwhelmingly awesome than smaller.

A Star Destroyer is cool, but for many people a Super-Star Destroyer is less cool and even destroys the coolness of a Star Destroyers.

If the existence of the Executor in TESB reduces the coolness of Star Destroyers by being too big, how come the existence of the Death Star in ANH doesn't?

I don't necessarily need an answer, I just pointed out that what makes awesome is not always consistent when you are talking about one person, let alone from one person to the next.


glass.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

If "Magic Missiles" and similar obvious magic is too magical and makes magic seem trivial and boring, why not change the at-wills of wizards (and warlocks and other casters too, I guess, but I'll focus on wizards for now) to make them less blatantly magical?

How about:

snip

Also late to the thread but reading through it this also occured to me. If the at wills are a problem then why not change the at wills to something more acceptable?

If that is no good then I think an encounter power recovery should be considered to encourage people to play caster types. Otherwise, it would be better to play a fighter/caster multiclass and dip into the caster encounter and dailies via feats than go for a straight caster, especially wizard.

 

[Sadrik]

No, absolutely not. They're mostly Charisma, but use their Strength and Dexterity for bonus damage.

So, cool I guess, they should fit right in if we open up the game outside of the PHB.