D&D 4E 4e Ranger: New God of Damage? Armor Splinter + Blade Cascade + High Wisdom Ranger

[SableWyvern]

I had a bit of a brainstorm.

If you allow this power to only make one main-hand and one off-hand attack per foe, it suddenly becomes balanced against the rangers other close-burst 1 powers (unless you manage to get reach). It does more damage than most of the others, but the others all have secondary effects, and it's balanced by the potential for it to be stopped early if you used it in the wrong situation.

Mind you, it still does end up being potentially too weak if you're not optimized and only really balanced if you do.

Isn't delivering melee damage to large numbers of foes and cutting a swathe through minions mean to be the Defender's thing?

 

[Mirtek]

Well the Tarrasque is quite fast. All it would have to do is move forward and then you'd be in the aura, suddenly with a fly speed of 1 and rather unlikely to escape without teleportation or flat out landing and running.

Big T still can't fly and her aura is only 40 ft.

So any flying ranged attacker flying and firing from 50 ft. is still safe from her aura and can slowly kill her

 

[Njall]

Big T still can't fly and her aura is only 40 ft.

So any flying ranged attacker flying and firing from 50 ft. is still safe from her aura and can slowly kill her

Can't the Tarrasque just jump? Maybe screaming "Tarrasque smash!"

 

[Lore Raithbone]

Can't the Tarrasque just jump? Maybe screaming "Tarrasque smash!"

I agree with Njall here

To begin with, its hard to fly in 4e, and even if you are flying the Tarrasque can just jump after you. More importantly, why would the Tarrasque stand there and let you slowly pelt it? It could go take cover, or ignore you and attack the rest of the party, or a million other things. The "Tarrasque is weak becuse you can ping it to death with ranged attacks!" is something which will absolutely never come up in play.

Want the Tarrasque to attack a city? Well, it can be eating women and children on the ground while the 'heroes' very slowly pelt it with ranged attacks. Maybe it can walk into the local orphanage and start chowing down. Its not a fool proof monster if the DM does not put it into a situation where its a threat; the Tarrasque on a giant, open plain is not a very interesting encounter, whereas it ravaging a city, or in its lair, would be.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Give the right build, Cascade of Blades is way too powerful. This is from the WotC Character Opts board...

A level 30 rogue/ranger/Shadow Assassin/Deadly Trickster can, in fact, brutally murder Orcus all by himself in just one round. And he can do it flawlessly too, because if he doesn't win initiative naturally, he can use his daily Trickster's Disposition to make Orcus' initiative roll a natural 1. I'll repost the statistics over here for convenience:

Imperiling Strike Attack Bonus
+15 half level
+8 Dexterity bonus
+6 Duelist's dagger
+1 Rogue Proficiency
+1 Nimble Blade
+3 proficiency bonus
+2 combat advantage (First Strike, Duelist's dagger, flanking, etc.)
+4 Shadow Assassin
TOTAL: +40 (against 51 Fortitude defense)

Blade Cascade Attack Bonus
+15 half level
+7 Strength bonus
+6 Duelist's dagger
+1 Rogue Proficiency
+1 Nimble Blade
+3 proficiency bonus
+2 combat advantage (First Strike, Duelist's dagger, flanking, etc.)
+4 Shadow Assassin
+7 Imperiling Strike
TOTAL: +46

Non-Critical Damage
2d4 with Gauntlets of Destruction: 6 average damage
+8 Strength modifier
+6 Duelist's silver dagger
+10 Belt of Titan Strength
+3 Weapon Focus
+2 Light Blade Precision
(+1 Two-Weapon Fighting) for main hand
TOTAL: 36 on main hand dagger, 35 on off-hand dagger

Final Statistics
Chances of landing crit on hit with Light Blade Mastery: 2/19
Total average damage of main hand including crits: 40
Total average damage of off-hand including crits: 39
Total average damage of both hands: 39.5
Number of hits required to deal 763 damage to bring Orcus to bloodied, from 1525 hp to 762 hp: 19.32
Number of hits required to deal 1535 damage to bring Orcus to dead, from 1525 hp to -10 hp: 38.86
Number of rerolls available: 4

THE MATH:

Assuming a maxed +46 attack bonus (after Imperiling Strike), we have a Blade Cascade chain with an average number of hits equal to 19 times the number of rerolls plus one (if somebody bothers to do the math and finds it's wrong, please tell me so and why.) Now, Imperiling Strike, with a +40 attack bonus, has a 50% chance of hitting with a regular attack, so half of the time we will start our Blade Cascade with less than four rerolls. In particular, we should note that our racial reroll has a +2 bonifier, so that's the one we'll use first, since any extra bonifiers on the Cascade are wasted.

Considering all this, we have a 50% chance of having 4 rerolls when starting Blade Cascade, 30% of 3 rerolls, 10% of 2 rerolls, 5% with one, 2.5% with none, and a 2.5% of losing all rerolls and failing to land Imperiling Strike (this, as you already know, means you are already dead). The average damage values of each are 3752.5 (4 rerolls), 3002 (3 rerolls), 2251.5 (2 rerolls), 1501 (1 reroll), 750.5 (no rerolls) and 59.25 with no IS.

With 39.5 average weapon damage, this gives a final average damage of 3097.29 hit points, enough to kill Orcus twice. To that we could add an average 33 damage from Imperiling Strike and a maxed 6d8 from a critical sneak attack done when Orcus is bloodied. If we added Raise the Stakes, these numbers would improve a bit, but the point is already made.

 

[Duelpersonality]

Big T still can't fly and her aura is only 40 ft.

So any flying ranged attacker flying and firing from 50 ft. is still safe from her aura and can slowly kill her

That's 40 squares, not 40 ft., thus making the aura extend out to 200 feet. Given the Big T's speed, if you can hit it with consistancy from 200 feet away flying isn't really going to do much in way of avoiding his attacks. Far shot sounds like the deal breaker here, but how many standard parties (or even non-standard parties) are going to have multiple characters with Far Shot, longbow proficiency and powers with a ranged weapon that can really effect the Tarrasque enough for it to care?

 

[Mirtek]

Can't the Tarrasque just jump? Maybe screaming "Tarrasque smash!"

Oh, that's good, didn't think about this tactic. Sounds really awesome

Does anyone know how high the Tarrasque can lift of with a jump check?

That's 40 squares, not 40 ft., thus making the aura extend out to 200 feet.

Even better, with 40 squares she doesn't even need to jump. Also a 200 feet aura is a nice way to introduce the Tarrasque "you all suddenly feel very heavy and slow" *4 rounds later* "the Tarrasque burst from the ground"