Can one PC choose not to take a rest? (Dark Spiral Aura and Rod of Corruption woes.)

[twilsemail]

I'd make a suggestion, that might only work once, but who knows.

There's an aura of dark energy spiraling around the Warlock from the energy he's abosorbed from cursed foes, neh? Why not have the BBEG notice that and just not hit him. I mean... That stuff looks scary, neh?

Just once.

I mean his job, as a striker, is to do damage. No need to nerf him forever, but it'd be a lesson learned in Nova-ing. Many DMs have to cope with a Nova on occasion. Does the party get frustrated by him contributing less from encounter to encounter until, after 6-8 of them there's a BBEG that's taken down quickly?

Edit: apologies for language.

Edit2: Alternately, make rests party-wide. I mean, if he's doing jumping jacks and such, how's a wizard supposed to meditate?

 

[Obryn]

IMO, losing out on Encounter powers for several fights probably isn't worth the extra d6's gained through darkspiral abuse.

If it gets to be a problem, you can always cap it. Say, 10 at Heroic, 15 at Paragon, and 20 at Epic?

-O

 

[Artoomis]

I'd make a suggestion, that might only work once, but who knows.

There's an aura of dark energy spiraling around the Warlock from the energy he's abosorbed from cursed foes, neh? Why not have the BBEG notice that and just not hit him. I mean... That stuff looks scary, neh?

Just once.

I mean his job, as a striker, is to do damage. No need to nerf him forever, but it'd be a lesson learned in Nova-ing. Many DMs have to cope with a Nova on occasion. Does the party get frustrated by him contributing less from encounter to encounter until, after 6-8 of them there's a BBEG that's taken down quickly?

Edit: apologies for language.

Again, this is simply not an issue.

He has made a tactical choice of giving up renewing encounter powers and spending healing surges to get more damage with one swing.

Let him do it. It's a balanced choice. The price to do it is high enough.

 

[twilsemail]

Again, this is simply not an issue.

I would argue this is untrue.

It still leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, but I'm sure I'll get over that.

Overall, we all had a good time, but I'm seriously considering limiting it in the future. I'd greatly appreciate any input.

The OP, and a later response seem to indicate that there is an issue. That's why I made my suggestion. It's an in game response by what is possibly an intelligent, malevolent force that might just understand the repercussions of it's own actions. I also said not to do it often, as he is the Striker and damage is really his job.

 

[keterys]

It only works against melee or ranged attacks - you could just not make those on him when he's surrounded by a veritable torrent of dark energy. Maybe not with all creatures, but certainly some like the boss in question - who knows a lot about darkness and shadows and what not all.

It's also an immediate, so good for whenever those aren't possible.

 

[Thanlis]

It'll become less of an issue as he levels up, as well -- when you're forgoing one use of an encounter power each encounter, so what? But when you're giving up four uses, that's a more significant problem.

 

[UltimaGabe]

I'd make a suggestion, that might only work once, but who knows.

There's an aura of dark energy spiraling around the Warlock from the energy he's abosorbed from cursed foes, neh? Why not have the BBEG notice that and just not hit him. I mean... That stuff looks scary, neh?

Just once.

I mean his job, as a striker, is to do damage. No need to nerf him forever, but it'd be a lesson learned in Nova-ing. Many DMs have to cope with a Nova on occasion. Does the party get frustrated by him contributing less from encounter to encounter until, after 6-8 of them there's a BBEG that's taken down quickly?

Oh, absolutely. That especially made sense in this last encounter, because the BBEG was a high priest of Vecna- you know, the god of secrets and whatnot- so he knew all kinds of things about the PCs (especially the fact that his elven spy, who arrived immediately before the PCs to warn him of their arrival, was actually the PC Warlock in disguise- he played along just long enough to surround the warlock with his minions before starting the battle). He didn't attack the warlock at all (much to the warlock's dismay) until he knew he could take him down in one hit. At that point, taking the tons of damage (since he wasn't even bloodied yet) was worth being able to take down the Warlock.

But, yes, I don't want to have to do that all the time.

Thanlis brings up a very interesting point, however- this "exploit" will become much less appealing at higher levels, when 15d6 is a much smaller portion of the BBEG's HP than at level 3. (Meanwhile, his encounter powers will continue to be awesome.)

Once again, thanks for the input!

 

[Aulirophile]

Actually, if you read the Warlock guide on CharOp, there is quite a lot of discussion about how their DPR primarily comes their At-Wills, and their Encounter/Daily powers are highly situational and controller-y. Warlocks probably suffer the least by being limited to At-Wills for fulfilling their role, out of any class (which isn't to say they have the best At-Wills).

 

[Thanlis]

Actually, if you read the Warlock guide on CharOp, there is quite a lot of discussion about how their DPR primarily comes their At-Wills, and their Encounter/Daily powers are highly situational and controller-y. Warlocks probably suffer the least by being limited to At-Wills for fulfilling their role, out of any class (which isn't to say they have the best At-Wills).

Yeah, CharOp is great if you want to know how good a class is gonna be against a block of tofu. Which is not meaningless; but bear in mind that in practice, DPR isn't everything. Warlocks who aren't bothering with the control side of their powers are a lot like sorcerers who're trying to do single target damage.

 

[Aulirophile]

Yeah, CharOp is great if you want to know how good a class is gonna be against a block of tofu. Which is not meaningless; but bear in mind that in practice, DPR isn't everything. Warlocks who aren't bothering with the control side of their powers are a lot like sorcerers who're trying to do single target damage.

Or they are being strikers and leaving the controlling to the controller..... the real error being that a Warlock's At-wills do more damage then their dailies or encounters, meaning in a straight up fight a Warlock would be using just his At-Wills even if he had all his encounters/dailies available. Fun.

And baring the DPR Kings thread, every respected build on CharOp is practically optimized, fully playable in a real campaign from 1-30. Theoretical optimization only forms the groundwork for making practically optimized builds.