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

[Mirtek]

I don't see any Warlord powers which allow a re-roll. Which power were you thinking of there?

As I haver neither books nor PDF I actually don't know about any Warlord powers. It was just a guess because something like this sound "leader-like" and since the warpriest excerpt had one for the priest I just speculated that a warlord gets somthing similar

 

[Mithreinmaethor]

Just to put it in persepctive Orcus has a 48 AC. And a reach of 4 to boot. Wading in to do this one shot wonder is not going to be so easy.

 

[Aezoc]

Just to put it in persepctive Orcus has a 48 AC. And a reach of 4 to boot. Wading in to do this one shot wonder is not going to be so easy.

I think the fact that this even needs to be said about a level 15 power being used on a god kinda speaks volumes about the potential for abuse. I figure I've got some time to get more comfy with the system and ponder house rules before this comes up in my games, but a power with no real cap on damage seems like it's just begging to be abused.

 

[hong]

I'd be very careful about houseruling this as the more "stringent" the houserule, the more it punishes the non-optimizer.

For example, the TWF ranger usually has a stat breakdown of STR, DEX, and then equal weight to WIS and CON.

Easy way is a hard, low cap to the number of attacks, say at 5.

 

[Kraydak]

I'd be very careful about houseruling this as the more "stringent" the houserule, the more it punishes the non-optimizer.

For example, the TWF ranger usually has a stat breakdown of STR, DEX, and then equal weight to WIS and CON.

The best houserule for Blade Cascade is outright removal. Any power using Blade Cascadesque mechanics has to be either balanced for optimization (useless if not optimized) or balanced for normal use (utter broken if optimized). There is no middle ground: you can generate *massive* attack swings for a single attack as has been amply demonstrated. There is no way to make a power with Blade Cascade mechanics work, so don't bother trying. Replace it with something else.

 

[NoFace]

edit: nevermind. Just looked at the mutliclass feat again and I did miss something

 

[AllisterH]

The best houserule for Blade Cascade is outright removal. Any power using Blade Cascadesque mechanics has to be either balanced for optimization (useless if not optimized) or balanced for normal use (utter broken if optimized). There is no middle ground: you can generate *massive* attack swings for a single attack as has been amply demonstrated. There is no way to make a power with Blade Cascade mechanics work, so don't bother trying. Replace it with something else.

Which is a shame I think....You lose a lot of powers because of that push and pull. Kinda reminds me of the discussion about the Tiger Claw Jump manouever from Bo9S. It two was really heinous if you left it in the hands of an optimizer but as soon as you nerfed it, you wonder why the hell a normal player would bother with it.

So, if you were a game designer, do you design a rule on the basis of optimization or normal use? I think 4E did both. A good example would be Power Attack which gives a fixed bonus and then there's Blade Cascade.

 

[small pumpkin man]

The best houserule for Blade Cascade is outright removal. Any power using Blade Cascadesque mechanics has to be either balanced for optimization (useless if not optimized) or balanced for normal use (utter broken if optimized). There is no middle ground: you can generate *massive* attack swings for a single attack as has been amply demonstrated. There is no way to make a power with Blade Cascade mechanics work, so don't bother trying. Replace it with something else.

As has been pointed out, a hard cap makes it fine. There's no need to get all "the system is inherently broken" on us.

 

[Kraydak]

As has been pointed out, a hard cap makes it fine. There's no need to get all "the system is inherently broken" on us.

A non-optimizer will get about 1.5 hits out of Blade Cascade. An optimizer will get the hard cap. So what are you going to use as a hard-cap: 2 is pointless, 3 already has optimizers doing double damage and still begs the question of why you are bothering in the first place.

It is a bad base mechanic. The correct approach is to remove the disease (the mechanic) and not the worst symptom (nigh-infinite damage).

 

[Engilbrand]

I don't honestly see this coming up. Over the normal course of play, after months and months, maybe even years, I can't see someone saying, "Hahaha! Now I can do infinite damage to Orcus and kill him!"
Besides, the reality is that, if you're going up against Orcus, he knows you're coming, and he's probably not going to be identical to what's in the book. There will be bad guys to get to him and all of this other stuff that will make it so that people may have already used most of the stuff.
It's always easy to say, "Well. If I'm standing here and do this and he's standing right in front of me with his thumb up his ass, I can maybe almost do enough damage to kill him if I roll 15 attacks and don't mess up."
Right. Have fun with that. The reality is that you won't be at full everything, might not win initiative, and he might be able to one shot you. Good job with all of that.
Is it powerful? Yes. Will it ever really happen like people are hypothesizing? I seriously doubt it.