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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MrGrenadine" data-source="post: 5293812" data-attributes="member: 62619">To cut to the chase, my question is this:  does it unbalance the game to make all powers that have no effect on a miss Reliable?I play in a weekly 4e campaign--a great mix of RP and combat.  In the last session, we were in a pitched battle with a dozen foes who surprised us, and things looked sketchy--one guy was already down, another was surrounded and close to falling.  On top of that, we were all spread out on the battlefield.  Bad news.My Battleguard of Tempus was boxed in by a couple foes who'd already taken some damage, and I saw an opportunity to take out one, possibly both of them.  It was a situation where high damage was needed, and--bonus!--I had Divine Favor and Weapon of the Gods in play.  I decided to use an At-Will on one enemy, and then use an Action Point (adding +3 to the attack with Action Surge), Righteous Rage of Tempus and Power Attack with the last of my 2[w] Encounter powers on the same guy, (if he was still up after the first attack), or (I hope) the other guy.  So  attack and miss with the At-Will, then AP and attack with the Encounter power...and roll a 1.Wasted my CD.  Wasted my AP.  Wasted one of my two 2[w] powers.  Not fun.  So then I was basically down to plinking away with At-Wills for the rest of the fight.  And with the higher monster hp in 4e, and the way the enemies seem to be hitting on anything higher than an 8, things looked so bleak I was about ready to start rolling up a new character.  Luckily, we figured out a cool way to win the day without slogging through round after round of combat, so it turned out ok, but missing on that one turn had a chance to be way more significant than it had any right to be.I know missing has always been part of the game, and 1's suck in any edition.  But I think the 4e power system has made missing way more significant in any encounter.As a 7th lvl Cleric/MC Fighter, I have access to 5 possible high damage/effect powers--3 Encounters and 2 Dailies.  And of all the powers available to me, there are a few 2[w] powers and only a couple 3[w] powers, so my opportunities to do a lot of damage are limited.  Add in the fact that I took Weapon of the Gods and Guardian of Faith for my Dailies, and that of my Encounter powers, one is a 1[w] vs Fort with a push effect (nice) and two are 2[w] powers, and that means I really only have 2 good chances per encounter to do significant damage if I need to.  And despite all the cool stuff my Cleric/Fighter is good at, sometimes the only thing thats needed is to make sure there's one less enemy when the next round comes around.Now, I know this was a very specific situation which definitely won't come up every session, or even every combat.  And feel free to critique my power choices, and/or remind me that 4e combat is more about synergy between allies, and less about one guy doing massive damage.  Yes, I know 4e Clerics aren't made to do significant damage, (in hindsight, I probably should've made a Fighter or a striker of some sort and MC'd into Cleric).  But I didn't do too much research into the viability of the character at first--I just made the character I wanted to play.  And now, over the past few levels, I'm seeing how significant a few bad rolls can be.Is it just me, and my less-than-optimal character, or is everyone seeing possibly game-changing situations like a significant depletion of resources after a miss?  And if thats true, why not make powers that do nothing on a miss Reliable?  Or give 'em a recharge on 5-6 on a d6, or something--anything to avoid that feeling of "I just burned through my best resources and gained nothing!"</blockquote>

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