Handing out the occasional item 11-15 levels above PC level seems like a good way to make items significant. More than that raises issues of them swamping the campaign with cash if the PCs are able to sell them.
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Handing out the occasional item 11-15 levels above PC level seems like a good way to make items significant. More than that raises issues of them swamping the campaign with cash if the PCs are able to sell them.
Storminator
First Post
Yeah, it was a reputation boon, so it couldn't be sold.
The GP numbers for items are pretty crazy.
PS
Manbearcat
Legend
It does make sense. This one has been through the ringer so I'm very familiar with all of the respective positions.
Unfortunately, I don't follow all that jargon
Lets see if I can clear up the jargon for you and go from there. Lets use the classic Come and Get It as our means of probing the two design approaches.
OUTCOME BASED DESIGN - The hierarchy for the framework of the design approach works like this.
> Warriors of Legend have the ability to (i) throw down the gauntlet, challenging their enemies to pursue a prideful, perhaps reckless, course in wading into melee with them. They also have the ability to (ii) wrongfoot their foes into engaging them through their warrior acumen and veteran savvy; perhaps creating the appearance of an opening and whirling to deal death or perhaps through a well devised physical juke or fake (faking running away or seeking a better position and then turning to engage). I've seen it and read about it in plenty of action-packed movies and books within genre. ** We need to make that happen because its awesome!...it needs to be genre-relevant, its tactically deep, its fun, and its thematically compelling for this archetype. Lets do it.
> Is the system/setting filled with abstractions? Yes? Ok, lets codify an abstract means of mechanical resolution for such an ability.
> Do we want elegance, ease-of-use, and minimal overhead for handling at the table? You betcha.
> Is balance important? Absolutely. Ok, if other "of-level" abilities of the same scope of power is a singular check for hit, then we need to work off of that principle the best we can and abstractly model this interchange between hero and enemies. If we make it work off of an ability modifier that will cripple his chance to hit or if we make it a multi-check function to hit the enemy, then the genre-relevance, tactical depth, and fun is rendered obsolete...because it won't work and our hero will look like a buffoon rather than what we're going for; Warrior of Legend. Further, because of this, he won't bother taking or using this ability...and the entire point of the exercise will be wasted.
> Ok. A burst area around the warrior congruent with other "of-level" exploits. Str primary. Will to test the foes ability to resist the challenge or detect some falseness in the warrior-driven movements that outline the ruse or fake-retreat and subsequent spinning athletic fury of melee engagement. Enemies "pulled" (not literally) to the warrior and he whacks them. Got it. Here we go:
Originally posted by WotC
[h=1]Come and Get It
[/h]You brandish your weapon and call out to your foes, luring them close through their overconfidence, and then deliver a spinning strike against them all.
EncounterMartial, Weapon
Standard Action Close burst 3
Target: Each enemy you can see in the burst
Attack: Strength vs. Will
Hit: You pull the target up to 2 squares, but only if it can end the pull adjacent to you. If the target is adjacent to you after the pull, it takes 1[W] damage.
Result? Thematic, genre-relevant, tactically deep, fun awesomeness. Mission ** accomplished.
Lets take a look at an effort for
PROCESS BASED DESIGN
> What should warriors be able to do in combat? *** Well, folks in our world have an upper limit of biophysical capability so we need to have his "cool stuff to do" constrained by these bounds and there needs to be causal logic underwriting the phenomenon. Ok. Disarm, push someone a few feet, knock down, hit with his weapon, shield bash, intercept a blow with his shield, parry with his weapon. Check. That all sounds good. Hey guys. What about that cool scene we see in movies where the Legendary Warrior challenges his enemies and they're inexorably drawn to him...or he fakes an opening or taking to the high ground and wheels on them and engages? Uh. That's going to be tough because of ***. That's most important. He's not magic. Lets try it anyway...
> Is our setting fudgable enough for this? Well, we've got all kinds of setting fudges all over the place. We've got giant spiders and scorpions as big as cars that shouldn't be able to grow bigger than a chicken due to real world physical laws...why shouldn't a warrior be able to do cool things that defy our understanding of physical relationships and causal logic in our world? Uh. Well. Because some stuff has *** Um. Ok? So *** takes precedence over all other interests. Gotcha.
> Are our mechanics really super granular? Do they simulate 1st, 2nd, 3rd order physical interchanges on a moment to moment level? No way! We've got flurries and parries modeled by one roll vs target number and HPs and all the rest. But some of our stuff is kind of granular...and has causal logic from an abstract perspective. But remember, *** is our top priority.
> Do we want ease of use, user-friendliness? Yes, but not at the expense of ***
> Do we want balance? Oh yes. If we're going to spend the time to make something then it darn well needs to be cool enough and functional enough for folks to take it...but not too powerful or robust such that there is no choice; eg its too good not to take. OK. LETS DO IT!...but remember ***
> OK! TO THE MECHANICS! This needs to be an affect in an area around him. Folks need to be able to hear him or see him. Ranged characters need to be immune to this because ummmm...why would they engage a warrior wielding a melee weapon? Um, because he's wrong-footing them with his warrior acumen? What about that? Maybe he's cutting out their line of sight with a tree or a rock or a wall and they need to see him to attack...Ummmm...ok...maybe. We will have to put a caveat in for that. Strength as the attack-resolving ability score. WAITAMINUTE, HOLD THE PHONE. REMEMBER ***. Faking people is like bluffing and that is Charisma and that makes sense. Charisma is guile; hence faking. But, but, but. What about warrior acumen and athleticism being the primary causal mechanism attached to this; a defiant challenging roar, or through warrior training and body control you perform the surrender ruse or backing off or presenting opening, etc. Uhh...that kinda makes sense. Ok, another caveat entry. What about mindless creatures or hive-mind creatures...they obey protocol that sort of defies a challenge to their Will defense? But does it? They still understand their world, even if on a basic, primitive level. Maybe they perceive the weakness that the warrior presents through body movements...or the sensory input of the roar stimulates them to engage? Uh, I don't know about that. This is all making my head spin. So a Charisma (but sometimes Str) vs Will attack and then automatic damage with tons of caveats. AUTOMATIC DAMAGE? WHAT WHAT WHAT? NO WAY! HOW DOES HE AUTOMATICALLY PHYSICALLY HIT WHEN HE HAS ONLY ATTACKED WILL? WE HAVE TO MAKE HIM PERFORM A PHYSICAL CHECK TO OVERCOME PHYSICAL DEFENSES! Um, but then we would have a horrible balance issue. If he's attacking Cha vs Will, he probably wouldn't hit that much in the first place...and then, on top of that, we're going to for him to make melee attacks to hit? And then there are all of these immunities and caveats (a mental overhead nightmare). Let's give it a go anyway:
[h=1]Warrior Challenge or Fake Out
[/h]You brandish your weapon and call out to your foes, luring them close through their overconfidence, and then deliver a spinning strike against them all.
Encounter
Standard Action 15 feet radius around Fighter
Target: Each melee-weapon-wielding enemy, who is not mostly mindless, you can see in the burst. However, if you inhibit line of sight, via adjacent blocking terrain, with an enemy who is using a ranged mode of attack, it can potentially work against them but with a - 2 initial attack versus Will. Creatures of 3 Intelligence or less are immune unless the PC can come up with a really good reason that it would provoke their primal or automotonic protocol...and the DM agrees of course (see DM discretion below).
Attack: Charisma vs. Will mostly with rarely Strength vs. Will (DM discretion).
Hit: The target moves adjacent to you or piles up aound the blocking terrain that is adjacent to you (they may not all be in melee range because of the number of spaces taken up by the blocking terrain).
Effect: Make a Melee Basic Attack against each adjacent target.
> Hmmmm...thats a bit crap boys and I think I may be ill. Forget it. It kind of accomplishes our mission statement of *** but its obnoxious and impossible to make work with that mission statement; process simulation and causal logic as our guiding principle. Its either (i) not balanced, (ii) not fun, or (iii) fiddly (inelegant with too much mental overhead/handling time) and is (iv) going to be susceptible to inconsistency in interpretation by way of DM fiat. Destroy our meeting notes and pretend this never happened. I'm taking the rest of the week off.
See above examples. There are plenty of narrative post-hoc justifications for swarms of insects (primal protocol), constructs (mindless automatons) to attack a warrior who makes a spectacle of himself (sensory input is a primary a causal mechanism for primitive creatures actions) or presenting a well feigned, athletic opening/feint (which is as much physical coordination as guile..and in this case the "guile" portion would be more Int than Cha).
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D'karr
Adventurer
Remember than in later revisions of the rules swarms became immune to push/pull/slide effects with melee or ranged attacks.
I know this case is a close burst, but it seems applicable to the same issue.
One of the reasons I really like playing with my current group is that they don't get hung up on the rules. If something doesn't seem to make sense from the "mechanical" standpoint they either provide a "sound" justification for it, or don't use it. Makes my job easier. They do spend a lot more time doing cool stuff within the game than trying to justify those things that might not make sense.
I like that the game leaves that option open to me as DM and to them as players, rather than to strict adherence to the rules.
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Manbearcat
Legend
@D'karr
Yup. They are definitely immune to single target slide/push/pull effects (just as they have resistance against their damage). However, as you noted, CaGI is an AoE burst without direct force being applied to them by a single target. So RAW, that immunity wouldn't apply.
However, also as you noted, you guys are certainly able to take issue with causal logic problems that "grate" or "jar" and rule that it does. Just as Quickleaf and his table is able to do the same. Further, if some of those "loose causal logic" exploits created under the auspices of "outcome-based design" cause you guys problems and you need more process sim exploits...4e is rife with them. So CaGI (and abilities like it) doesn't ever have to see the light of day at your table. Win, win for all!
Yup. They are definitely immune to single target slide/push/pull effects (just as they have resistance against their damage). However, as you noted, CaGI is an AoE burst without direct force being applied to them by a single target. So RAW, that immunity wouldn't apply.
However, also as you noted, you guys are certainly able to take issue with causal logic problems that "grate" or "jar" and rule that it does. Just as Quickleaf and his table is able to do the same. Further, if some of those "loose causal logic" exploits created under the auspices of "outcome-based design" cause you guys problems and you need more process sim exploits...4e is rife with them. So CaGI (and abilities like it) doesn't ever have to see the light of day at your table. Win, win for all!
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
So, one or two things I had forgotten, that really need to be fixed.
Small creatures. The weapon restrictions don't make sense. Not only is there no tradeoff (small races don't have a bonus that others don't get, and no, it's not made up for in the race writeup for each), but many individual weapons don't make sense as being out of reach for small creatures. Even GURPS is less annoying about this, I think we can do better.
Alchemy. It's broken, and in a remotely fun way. The best fix for it is to allow the use of your normal attack bonus, instead of one predetermined by the item. In fact, that should be the case for all item power attacks. The damage can be determined by the item, that's fine.
Also, if it's ok for magic ammo to add to a basic attack, why can't Alchemical ammo? Alchemist Fire and Fire ammo are otherwise the same, for instance.
Small creatures. The weapon restrictions don't make sense. Not only is there no tradeoff (small races don't have a bonus that others don't get, and no, it's not made up for in the race writeup for each), but many individual weapons don't make sense as being out of reach for small creatures. Even GURPS is less annoying about this, I think we can do better.
Alchemy. It's broken, and in a remotely fun way. The best fix for it is to allow the use of your normal attack bonus, instead of one predetermined by the item. In fact, that should be the case for all item power attacks. The damage can be determined by the item, that's fine.
Also, if it's ok for magic ammo to add to a basic attack, why can't Alchemical ammo? Alchemist Fire and Fire ammo are otherwise the same, for instance.
Matrix Sorcica
Hero
just wanted to chime in and say I'm enjoying this thread and look forward to see what will come off it.
In the meantime, I don't know if you're aware of Upper Krust's work on revising some of the 4e classes, in an attempt to avoid an ever increasing number of powers. http://eternitypublishing.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/revised-4e-fighter/
In the meantime, I don't know if you're aware of Upper Krust's work on revising some of the 4e classes, in an attempt to avoid an ever increasing number of powers. http://eternitypublishing.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/revised-4e-fighter/
Manbearcat
Legend
One more go at making outcome based design versus process based design clear (in non-RPG terms).
In engineering/product design, outcome-based design is building, top-down, toward a specific idea/spec/prototype. The parts inherent to the process of creating it (overhead, infrastructure, overall budget, time-constraints) are all peripheral or irrelevant. The inverse is true for process-based. Process-based would be more bottom-up, nebulous, roundtable or think-tank stuff and hopefully something marketable/useful will emerge from the process.
** edit
1 more.
4e NPC/monster creation = outcome based
3.x/PF NPC/monster creation = process based
In engineering/product design, outcome-based design is building, top-down, toward a specific idea/spec/prototype. The parts inherent to the process of creating it (overhead, infrastructure, overall budget, time-constraints) are all peripheral or irrelevant. The inverse is true for process-based. Process-based would be more bottom-up, nebulous, roundtable or think-tank stuff and hopefully something marketable/useful will emerge from the process.
** edit
1 more.
4e NPC/monster creation = outcome based
3.x/PF NPC/monster creation = process based
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Here are some of the problems I have with 4e:
1: Feat power bloat. The power of each feat scales with tier, and the number of feats a character has scales with the character level. This means that the power contribution feats have to your character can grow quadratically, crowding out other sources of power growth.
A symptom of this happening is that charop tends to revolve around an at-will exploit boosted with items and feats, because the power growth from encounter/daily powers is often not worth the bother, and you can focus better on an at-will.
Another side effect is that powers end up
2: The "default" power curve flattens out without charop. While each level has a +1 accuracy/defence boost, at low levels it also has a massive increase in damage output and HP. A level 4 monster or character has about twice as many HP as a level 1 monster or character! Meanwhile, a level 30 character or monster has nearly identical HP and damage to a level 27 character or monster.
Fixing this is tricky.
4e has an exponential power curve from accuracy/defence, but the power curve from HP/damage is linear. And accuacy/defence power curves are not-fun: someone who does half as much damage feels like they are contributing, but someone who hits half as often is going to be really bored.
One approach would be to ramp up HP/damage exponentially as well as accuracy/defence. Basically, the rate at which you gain damage each tier (or each half-tier) speeds up.
Another approach would be to (mostly) linearize 4e -- either reduce accuracy/defence boosts to nearly zilch, or make them logarithmic. Then a challenging opponent for a level 20 party of 5 might be a single level 100 monster, or 5 level 20 monsters.
3: Static bonuses dominate over damage dice, mostly because power damage dice grow crappily, due to #1 above. And meanwhile, you can stack static damage bonuses like no tomorrow.
4: Multiple taps wins over single big taps because of #3, hard.
5: The save system falls apart by paragon/epic if someone pushes against it.
6: Striker damage mechanics, for the most part, are not all that impressive. And their powers tend not to be (due to #1), which makes strikers only as good as their feat support (and some exceptions, like the twin strike at-will and avenger oath mechanics).
7: Skills where originally designed to keep pace with attacks/defences, but they don't. There are a bunch of legacy systems that presume this, and the game would be much tighter if it somehow held. But because skills are a one-evaluation effect (you roll to succeed, unlike attacks where you roll to succeed then roll to determine effect), you can easily fall into the not-fun part of the exponential power curve of DC vs roll bonus.
8: The Skill Challenge system took some interesting design points from indie games, and missed some of the core messages.
For a skill check to matter, it must have stakes. Success should mean something, and failure should mean something. The source of these stakes should be clear in the in-game universe, not "3 strikes and you are out" without it being tied to in-game fiction.
For a set of skill checks to be a group problem, having more people (even people who don't have the highest bonus) help needs to be optimal. Otherwise it is merely a single character challenge. So if the only punishment is from failure (ie, no time pressure), then only the most optimal roller should roll -- a single character challenge, not a group challenge.
For a skill challenge to be an encounter, there needs to be meaningful decisions for the players and the characters. Not just a series of rolls. The decisions that the players make about what their characters do should matter, and not just be a plausible excuse to roll a skill check.
For skill challenges to be systematized, you need some kind of ability to measure how hard a challenge is, and how competent players are, other than "eyeball it".
9: The core game system isn't designed with speed of play in mind. Comparing the essentials fighter to the pre-essentials fighter to demonstrate:
The weaponmaster fighter has to plan out their turn. They need to work out which of a bunch of powers they are going to use, and if they are going to use low power at-wills, medium power encounters, or high power dailies. After they make that decision, they plot out their movement. Then they roll. Then they evaluate the power using that roll. Then based on hit or miss, evaluate the effect of the power. And meanwhile, they are looking for a use for their "minor action" so as to not waste resources.
If the weaponmaster fighter walks up to someone and rolls to hit, they are playing ridiculously suboptimally, because they just made a basic attack.
In comparison, the essentials fighter is always in a stance. If they do not choose to change stances, they are in the last one they are in. They move to where they want to engage, then they roll to hit. Then they see if they hit, and apply the effect of the last stance they activated. At this point, they choose if they want to use power attack.
Now, the essentials fighter does have far fewer choices, but it also makes one choice at a time. You move, you attack, you choose if you want to use a boost -- one at a time. This collapses decision paralysis, because doing something doesn't screw you over because you failed to make the proper decision before doing it! The number of players who want to roll, then decide what power to use, is non-trivial: and the essentials fighter design covers this well.
You could rework the non-essentials fighter to have a myriad of boosts (daily and encounter) on at-will stance boosted basic attacks, and you'd have close to the same choice depth as the essentials fighter, but with streamlined play of one thing at a time.
In short, 4e needs to more optimized for speed of play: damage per second should be as important as damage per round when designing powers.
If and only if a power has a higher damage per round, it can be more complex and take marginally longer to resolve, with few exceptions. And even controller powers should debuff the opponents defences more than they debuff the opponents offence, because offensive debuffs turn the game into molasses.
10: Magic item problems. At low levels, a magic item is nice but not game breaking. By level 30, a character without their magic items is crippled just from the lack of +8 to 12 to AC, +6 to all attacks, and +6 to 9 to non-AC defences (or more in some cases!) A 6 point swing in both your accuracy and defence makes you about 3 times weaker!
Meanwhile, at low-heroic, losing your magic items costs you a factor of 1.2x power.
Bonuses to accuracy and defence that scale with level are a bad thing. If all magic items granted a +1 bonus if they where tier-appropriate, and nothing otherwise, to your AC, Fort, Ref and Will and Attack bonus, they would still be very useful things to have. Their power could instead be back-loaded onto damage, where a scaling amount of damage doesn't result in an exponential impact on character performance.
Ie, imagine if Heroic tier magic weapons did 2[W] on a basic attack, 3[W] at paragon, and 4[W] at epic (and almost all weapon attacks where riders on basic attacks). This could even be steeper -- 1-5 magic weapons are +1 to hit, 1[W] damage, 6-10 is +1/2[W], 11-15 is +1/3[W], 16-20 is +1/4[W], 21-25 is +1/5[W] and 26-30 is +1/6[W].
A 6d12 damage weapon does an average of 39 damage from [W] dice, and monsters have upwards of 264 HP at level 30 -- every basic attack dealing 6[W] at level 30 with 4e level monster HP does not break the game! (This is part of the problem with level 30 daily powers which do 7[W] damage -- 7[W] is a chickenscratch on a level 30 monster).
1: Feat power bloat. The power of each feat scales with tier, and the number of feats a character has scales with the character level. This means that the power contribution feats have to your character can grow quadratically, crowding out other sources of power growth.
A symptom of this happening is that charop tends to revolve around an at-will exploit boosted with items and feats, because the power growth from encounter/daily powers is often not worth the bother, and you can focus better on an at-will.
Another side effect is that powers end up
2: The "default" power curve flattens out without charop. While each level has a +1 accuracy/defence boost, at low levels it also has a massive increase in damage output and HP. A level 4 monster or character has about twice as many HP as a level 1 monster or character! Meanwhile, a level 30 character or monster has nearly identical HP and damage to a level 27 character or monster.
Fixing this is tricky.
4e has an exponential power curve from accuracy/defence, but the power curve from HP/damage is linear. And accuacy/defence power curves are not-fun: someone who does half as much damage feels like they are contributing, but someone who hits half as often is going to be really bored.
One approach would be to ramp up HP/damage exponentially as well as accuracy/defence. Basically, the rate at which you gain damage each tier (or each half-tier) speeds up.
Another approach would be to (mostly) linearize 4e -- either reduce accuracy/defence boosts to nearly zilch, or make them logarithmic. Then a challenging opponent for a level 20 party of 5 might be a single level 100 monster, or 5 level 20 monsters.
3: Static bonuses dominate over damage dice, mostly because power damage dice grow crappily, due to #1 above. And meanwhile, you can stack static damage bonuses like no tomorrow.
4: Multiple taps wins over single big taps because of #3, hard.
5: The save system falls apart by paragon/epic if someone pushes against it.
6: Striker damage mechanics, for the most part, are not all that impressive. And their powers tend not to be (due to #1), which makes strikers only as good as their feat support (and some exceptions, like the twin strike at-will and avenger oath mechanics).
7: Skills where originally designed to keep pace with attacks/defences, but they don't. There are a bunch of legacy systems that presume this, and the game would be much tighter if it somehow held. But because skills are a one-evaluation effect (you roll to succeed, unlike attacks where you roll to succeed then roll to determine effect), you can easily fall into the not-fun part of the exponential power curve of DC vs roll bonus.
8: The Skill Challenge system took some interesting design points from indie games, and missed some of the core messages.
For a skill check to matter, it must have stakes. Success should mean something, and failure should mean something. The source of these stakes should be clear in the in-game universe, not "3 strikes and you are out" without it being tied to in-game fiction.
For a set of skill checks to be a group problem, having more people (even people who don't have the highest bonus) help needs to be optimal. Otherwise it is merely a single character challenge. So if the only punishment is from failure (ie, no time pressure), then only the most optimal roller should roll -- a single character challenge, not a group challenge.
For a skill challenge to be an encounter, there needs to be meaningful decisions for the players and the characters. Not just a series of rolls. The decisions that the players make about what their characters do should matter, and not just be a plausible excuse to roll a skill check.
For skill challenges to be systematized, you need some kind of ability to measure how hard a challenge is, and how competent players are, other than "eyeball it".
9: The core game system isn't designed with speed of play in mind. Comparing the essentials fighter to the pre-essentials fighter to demonstrate:
The weaponmaster fighter has to plan out their turn. They need to work out which of a bunch of powers they are going to use, and if they are going to use low power at-wills, medium power encounters, or high power dailies. After they make that decision, they plot out their movement. Then they roll. Then they evaluate the power using that roll. Then based on hit or miss, evaluate the effect of the power. And meanwhile, they are looking for a use for their "minor action" so as to not waste resources.
If the weaponmaster fighter walks up to someone and rolls to hit, they are playing ridiculously suboptimally, because they just made a basic attack.
In comparison, the essentials fighter is always in a stance. If they do not choose to change stances, they are in the last one they are in. They move to where they want to engage, then they roll to hit. Then they see if they hit, and apply the effect of the last stance they activated. At this point, they choose if they want to use power attack.
Now, the essentials fighter does have far fewer choices, but it also makes one choice at a time. You move, you attack, you choose if you want to use a boost -- one at a time. This collapses decision paralysis, because doing something doesn't screw you over because you failed to make the proper decision before doing it! The number of players who want to roll, then decide what power to use, is non-trivial: and the essentials fighter design covers this well.
You could rework the non-essentials fighter to have a myriad of boosts (daily and encounter) on at-will stance boosted basic attacks, and you'd have close to the same choice depth as the essentials fighter, but with streamlined play of one thing at a time.
In short, 4e needs to more optimized for speed of play: damage per second should be as important as damage per round when designing powers.
If and only if a power has a higher damage per round, it can be more complex and take marginally longer to resolve, with few exceptions. And even controller powers should debuff the opponents defences more than they debuff the opponents offence, because offensive debuffs turn the game into molasses.
10: Magic item problems. At low levels, a magic item is nice but not game breaking. By level 30, a character without their magic items is crippled just from the lack of +8 to 12 to AC, +6 to all attacks, and +6 to 9 to non-AC defences (or more in some cases!) A 6 point swing in both your accuracy and defence makes you about 3 times weaker!
Meanwhile, at low-heroic, losing your magic items costs you a factor of 1.2x power.
Bonuses to accuracy and defence that scale with level are a bad thing. If all magic items granted a +1 bonus if they where tier-appropriate, and nothing otherwise, to your AC, Fort, Ref and Will and Attack bonus, they would still be very useful things to have. Their power could instead be back-loaded onto damage, where a scaling amount of damage doesn't result in an exponential impact on character performance.
Ie, imagine if Heroic tier magic weapons did 2[W] on a basic attack, 3[W] at paragon, and 4[W] at epic (and almost all weapon attacks where riders on basic attacks). This could even be steeper -- 1-5 magic weapons are +1 to hit, 1[W] damage, 6-10 is +1/2[W], 11-15 is +1/3[W], 16-20 is +1/4[W], 21-25 is +1/5[W] and 26-30 is +1/6[W].
A 6d12 damage weapon does an average of 39 damage from [W] dice, and monsters have upwards of 264 HP at level 30 -- every basic attack dealing 6[W] at level 30 with 4e level monster HP does not break the game! (This is part of the problem with level 30 daily powers which do 7[W] damage -- 7[W] is a chickenscratch on a level 30 monster).
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