What he said.
Will WotC ever get it right?
- Thread starter Marshall
- Start date
What he said.
Jack99
Adventurer
Could have been an old version who snuck in by mistake. Either way, it's hardly what unbalances a game, since all players "suffer" the same conditions during the skill challenges. Was it bad? Yes. Should they have tested it more or made sure the right numbers went in? Yes indeed. But the concept of skill challenges is great, and even while flawed, it was less of an imbalance than say spells like glitterdust.
Now please explain to me why you play 4e - for months, I have been reading your posts, and about 90% of them seem overly hostile towards 4e. If you hate it that much, why you do even bother. I am pretty certain that no one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to play.
Lord Pendragon
First Post
I'm not seeing your logic here. Let's take your theoretical example. The best AoE is 25th, the best single target is 21st, and the best penalty is 29th. How does this present any sort of false choice? At 21st, you pick up the best single-target. If you're focused on single-target damaging spells, then at 25th you swap out one of your lower-level AoE or effect spells for another single-target spell. That this single-target spell is less powerful than the one you picked up at 21st doesn't make the choice false in any way. That single-target spell will likely still be more powerful against single-targets than the AoE or effect spell you're trading out.
Likewise, if you've picked up the best AoE spell at 25th, then at 29th you can trade out a single-target or effect spell for another AoE spell. Sure, it might be slightly less powerful than the 25th-level spell, but it's going to do better AoE than the single-target or effect spell you swapped out for it.
If anything, balancing it in this way means that players will gain their "bread-and-butter" spells earlier, then expand their repertoire within their chosen specialization afterward.
keterys
First Post
It's odd, but I think I liked skill challenges under the old DCs better, at least in heroic tier.
The DCs are so easy now that I'm not sure it's worth rolling. Easier to just RP and assume stuff works out.
Which I'm sure is a feature for some people, but I used to find skills an actually important part of balancing a character's abilities with things like skill training and focus a mathematical consideration rather than _purely_ a RP one
Nail
First Post
Me too. In fact, I've always lobbied for other Skill Challenge systems in the games I've played in. This is beating a long-dead horse, but: the DMG skill system (pre- or post- errata) is poor.
....but all of that is far from the subject of this thread: "Does WotC balance class powers correctly?"
The evidence suggests that for most powers, the answer is: Yes.
Nifft
Penguin Herder
Yeah, I could see that. It's certainly the case that my Wizard would take a 7th level variant of Color Spray, even if the damage sucked, just to be able to throw that particular spell twice per combat, because he likes inflicting both Radiant damage and the Dazed condition.
Cheers, -- N
Amphimir Míriel
Explorer
Jack, we all need to recognize that there is a handful of people who insist on posting venomous and trollish comments in as many 4E threads as possible.
Let's just stop responding to them.
I mean, it is perfectly understandable that some people prefer another edition of D&D (or other games whatsoever). However, I don't go to the Paizo forums to trash-talk Pathfinder and I would expect the same courtesy in the ENworld RPG.net 4E forums and threads
WalterKovacs
First Post
One note:
The main damage of the first one is acid, then does thundering ongoing. The main damage of the second is thunder, then does fire ongoing. While fire is resisted a lot by monsters ... acid resistance is more common than thunder resistance. Thus the first hit of damage for the 29th level power is less likely to be resisted than the 25th level power.
The main damage of the first one is acid, then does thundering ongoing. The main damage of the second is thunder, then does fire ongoing. While fire is resisted a lot by monsters ... acid resistance is more common than thunder resistance. Thus the first hit of damage for the 29th level power is less likely to be resisted than the 25th level power.
I think overall WOTC did a decent job with power balancing but there are a few stinkers in there. Mainly its the ones where at Level X you have a power that is obviously (by obvious I mean its not really different in any way...its just flat out better at what it does) than a power of X + Y.
Dice4Hire
First Post
I'd like to see someone model statistically all the powers, feats, and monsters to see if the combat system is balanced because I ahve never seen anyone's head actually explode before.
But seriously this is a tempest in a teacup. So a couple of powers are possibly, or even probably wrong. A lot are not. So now we know which powers to take or avoid in the off chance any of us play a sorcerer up to level 29.
I do agree that the powers do not seem to be designed to be strictly better at higher levels, though they usually are. I mean, look at Shield, a level 2 utility. That one will be a gem all the way up to the end of the game. And there are encounters the should be retrained or replaced immediately when possible. Finding those is part of the fun of the game, but seriously they are a minor part of the game.
But seriously this is a tempest in a teacup. So a couple of powers are possibly, or even probably wrong. A lot are not. So now we know which powers to take or avoid in the off chance any of us play a sorcerer up to level 29.
I do agree that the powers do not seem to be designed to be strictly better at higher levels, though they usually are. I mean, look at Shield, a level 2 utility. That one will be a gem all the way up to the end of the game. And there are encounters the should be retrained or replaced immediately when possible. Finding those is part of the fun of the game, but seriously they are a minor part of the game.
