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Message: <blockquote data-quote="robertliguori" data-source="post: 4269813" data-attributes="member: 47776">That's an interesting proposal.  Would you care to post a critique of one of the example builds and note the weaknesses in their capacities and defenses?Pointe the first: it's that bonus multiplier that's the killer.  Multipliers are scarce in 4E, but flat damage bonuses aren't; this accentuates the effects of multipliers.Pointe the second: It is possible to get rerolls any number of ways, and the rerolls are the real killer.  Rerolls effectively act like multipliers on multipliers; seven chained attacks plus a reroll at +2 (like elves can get) adds another 13 expected attacks.  Moreover, the more rerolls and the higher the numbers, the flatter the prediction becomes, and the less risk is involved.They focused on happy-path optimization versus protecting the system.  That is to say, they came up with a set of assumptions (a party will fulfill these rolls over five members, they will have this amount of treasure, they will have this many combats before resting, characters will be built to be versatile, players will choose exciting over numerically optimal), and then debugged the heck out of that scenario.  However, change any of the assumptions, and the debugging is no longer perfect.Moreover, there are a lot of examples of simple poor design present in 4E.  One example is the tarrasque's grounding aura.  At first glimpse, it appears to be the perfect thing against fliers; however, a second glimpse reveals the presence of the Far Shot feat, which, combined with  a longbow and a flying creature, re-enabled the kiting of the tarrasque.    The design intent was clear for the ability; hovering above the tarrasque's head and plinking away at it until it dies was not meant to be the optimal way of killing it.  However, a fundamental truth of numeric and logical universes is that if you can reduce your opponent's offensive options to zero, he can't win, and if you can do so while leaving yourself an offensive option, you will win by attrition.Likewise, it is a fundamental truth that multiplication increases faster than addition.  If you optimize a multiplicative ability, you will see better returns than if you optimize an additive one.  You can add various confounding factors, but in general, force multipliers (both literal and figurative) have always been the way to victory.Given this, a better way to design for the Tarrasque would have been to give it an ability to affect flyers (perhaps an aura of fear that started doing psychic damage if you were exposed to it too long at a stretch, giving advantage to people on the ground who could duck behind cover), and a better design for Cascade would have been to not allow for open-ended multiplication.</blockquote>

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