A couple abilities in Martial Power seem WAY too good...

[Plane Sailing]

Compare the class features of a level 1 Battlerage Vigor Dwarven Fighter with Con 18 with a level 1 Dwarven Cleric with Wis 18.

The Fighter gains 4 temporary hit points each time he is hit with melee or close. The Cleric heals that same Fighter 31 points per encounter with Healing Word.

Wouldn't that 1st level fighter have a 33hp, and thus a healing surge of 8?

Thus 'healing word' would only heal 8 each time, maximum of 16 in the encounter.

So if the BRV fighter was hit 5 or more times in a melee (which seems pretty likely) it is already more important in terms of hp 'saved'.

And clearly knocks +1 hit into a cocked hat in terms of usefulness IMO.

Cheers

 

[Doctor Proctor]

I'm not sure that Battlerage Vigor is that bad, it's the ability to use feats and magic items to improve on it that make it ridiculous.

Compare the class features of a level 1 Battlerage Vigor Dwarven Fighter with Con 18 with a level 1 Dwarven Cleric with Wis 18.

The Fighter gains 4 temporary hit points each time he is hit with melee or close. The Cleric heals that same Fighter 31 points per encounter with Healing Word.

So, the Fighter has to get hit 8 times for Battlerage Vigor to be more potent (hit point-wise) than Healing Word.


If the Fighter is being attacked by non-minions, the opposition only has to average 8 hit points per attack to knock him unconscious.


I don't hear anyone saying that Healing Word is broken.

Eh...yes and no. The difference here is that the Weapon Talent Fighter needs to have a Cleric around to get that healing...a Battlerager doesn't. He can just do it all himself.

The real problem for me is magic items (if they exist) and feats that improve upon BRV. Improved Vigor adds 1 to 3, Dwarf Stoneblood adds +1/2 Con mod, and Bloodied Invigoration adds 2 when a Dragonborn is bloodied.

That's too much. At high level, the Dragonborn will get 12 per attack when bloodied and the Dwarf will get 15 per attack all of the time.

My house rule would be to not allow any feats or magic items to improve upon the base number of temporary hit points.

Granted, BRV is better than Fighter Weapon Talent. But, that does not bother me too much. If a PC takes a 16 Str 18 Con Dwarf BRV Fighter, that PC will have two defenses that are bad, etc. Good luck with having a not too balanced PC.

I was originally one of the people that didn't think that Battlerager was that powerful. That was because when it first came out a lot of people were creating these very imbalanced builds that were impractical. Things like a Dwarf with 14/20 STR/CON and every BRV feat there was. However, there's been a lot more balanced builds lately that can still hit just as hard, if not harder, than the Weapon Talent Fighter while still retaining their massive damage soaking potential.

The way I see it is that there are two problems here.

1) The feats that increase the effectiveness of BRV seem a bit overpowered. Bloodied Invigoration is okay, but Dwarven Stoneblood is basically a no-brainer and way overpowered. You can be gaining 6 THP at level 1, which is really strong. Perhaps the BRV healing should just be 1/2 CON mod in the first place? Then you'd only be gaining 2 THP per attack with an 18 CON at first level. Or maybe a limit where you couldn't have more BRV hitpoints than your level, or level + 1? This would keep it under control during the Heroic tier, while not tying your hands in Paragon and Epic.

2) The Weapon Talent ability is now pretty weak copared to the other builds. It needs something extra I think. With the Rangers at least, the Beastmaster build means that you don't get access to what is considered to be the best Paragon Path for Archers. With the Weapon Talent build though, there is no such incentive.

We may see the same sorts of issues with other classes in the new Power books. What are you going to remove from the Wizard, for example? Cantrips? I'm guessing it won't be Implement Mastery, although that would probably be the best for balancing the normal Wizard with a new build.

I think that maybe some of the core builds could use a slight buff. Giving the Weapon Talent Fighters a free Superior Weapon proficiency seems fair, don't you think? This way, you would have a +1 to hit and do a little bit of extra damage compared to a BRV or Tempest. They could catch up with a feat of course, but then your FWT Fighter is still a feat ahead. This would help to make the FWT more versatile and help to reinforce the idea that they're the "Weapon Masters" of the Fighter builds.

 

[Mengu]

1) So the Battlerager build becomes the hardest fighter build to pull down, but perhaps the worst at dealing damage.

Not really. If you look at the difference between a typical great weapon fighter dwarf and a greatweapon fighter Battlerager, the difference in damage output is negligible (-1 attack, +2 damage), compared to the bump in survivability (-1 AC, +a lot temporary hitpoints).

The Tempest fighter deals perhaps an edge more damage, but trades off for some weaker defenses.

Aagin not quite. The difference in defense between a guardian fighter and tempest fighter is 1 point of AC and 1 point of reflex. And comparing to the greatweapon fighter, the tempest is better off.

3) There is no way that any of the fighter builds comes anywhere close to the regular average damage outlay of the PHB striker classes. Fighters almost exclusively target AC, and do little more than weapon + ability modifier damage. The strikers often target weaker defenses and get to add their bonus damage dice to really lay on the hurt.

First level halfling rogue with dagger, sly flourish, and CA has +11 attack, and does 1d4+2d8+8, average 19.5. First level dwarf with craghammer, brash strike, and CA has +10 attack and is doing 2d6+11 (brutal 1) damage, average 19. I'd say that's somewhere close. The rogue's average damage goes 9 points down when he doesn't have CA. The battlerager's average damage goes down 2 when he doesn't have temporary hit points.

And while the calculations become a bit more complex for the Dwarf tempest with Urgosh, they can do as much damage as the BRV fighter if not more.

 

[Stormtower]

Wouldn't that 1st level fighter have a 33hp, and thus a healing surge of 8?

Thus 'healing word' would only heal 8 each time, maximum of 16 in the encounter.

So if the BRV fighter was hit 5 or more times in a melee (which seems pretty likely) it is already more important in terms of hp 'saved'.

And clearly knocks +1 hit into a cocked hat in terms of usefulness IMO.

Cheers

Hmm, wouldn't the Healing Word, assuming an 18 WIS cleric, heal closer to [Surge] + 7.5 = 15.5 on average per use? That's where he's getting the 31 HPs number from. Healing Word adds 1d6+WIS modifier to the surge value.

In any case, I too think that BRV, especially with Dwarven Stoneblood and other feats/items added at higher levels, clearly outweighs FWT in usefulness. I hope the THP stacking issue in particular is errata'd in the near future. Most of 4E has been marvelously balanced (IMO) but this one they really missed on.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

3) There is no way that any of the fighter builds comes anywhere close to the regular average damage outlay of the PHB striker classes. Fighters almost exclusively target AC, and do little more than weapon + ability modifier damage. The strikers often target weaker defenses and get to add their bonus damage dice to really lay on the hurt.

-Dan'L

I assume you have not seen the numbers for a tempest fighter or just most dual wielding fighters with Dual Strike?
They rank second after stormwardens.

 

[KarinsDad]

Wouldn't that 1st level fighter have a 33hp, and thus a healing surge of 8?

Thus 'healing word' would only heal 8 each time, maximum of 16 in the encounter.

Healer's Lore adds Wisdom mod (4) to healing and Healing Word adds D6.

So, two Healing Words (the entire Class Feature at low level = 8 + 8 + 4 + 4 + D6 + D6 = 31 per encounter.

So, 33+31 = 64 hit points for an 18 Con Dwarf via Healing Word.

8 hits at 8 points per hit = 33 + 8 * 4 = 63 hit points for an 18 Con Dwarf via BVR.

I really doubt most Fighters will be hit 8 times in a combat (unless there are minions in the combat).

 

[Prism]

And clearly knocks +1 hit into a cocked hat in terms of usefulness IMO.

Cheers

+1 to hit can be useful all the time. Temporary hit points are only useful if you would have otherwise fallen or died without them. They can also be useful if you would run out of daily surges without them. You only need the battlerager class feature if you often go down.

Not really. If you look at the difference between a typical great weapon fighter dwarf and a greatweapon fighter Battlerager, the difference in damage output is negligible (-1 attack, +2 damage), compared to the bump in survivability (-1 AC, +a lot temporary hitpoints).

Often the difference will be -2 AC since the great weapon fighter can take the plate feat. Not getting hit by something that stuns, dazes, slows you is nothing to be ignored

Also the Battlerager will be clearly CON focused whereas the great weapon fighter could go WIS focus which means they will be doing lots more damage. Giving up WIS as a fighter is a big loss to gain effectively DR. You won't go down but you may well persuade monsters to ignore you since your damage output might be much lower and opportunity attacks much worse

CON Battleragers will stand for ages against none ranged attacks but don't provide the attacking threat that a WIS fighter can produce

 

[KarinsDad]

Eh...yes and no. The difference here is that the Weapon Talent Fighter needs to have a Cleric around to get that healing...a Battlerager doesn't. He can just do it all himself.

True. And, he does it without Healing Surges.

But I don't have a problem with that. He cannot heal at range. He cannot heal others. He's not really a Cleric, he just lets the Cleric (or other Leader, most parties have at least one) concentrate on helping the other PCs.

Yes, it is better than Weapon Talent, but it's not so much better. He survives against melee, but that doesn't help against ranged attacks, area attacks, etc. The Weapon Talent Fighter typically does better against those foes.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

Yes, it is better than Weapon Talent, but it's not so much better. He survives against melee, but that doesn't help against ranged attacks, area attacks, etc. The Weapon Talent Fighter typically does better against those foes.

I don't know that I agree with that. While yes, non-melee attacks are the BRV's weakness, they don't really handle them any better or worse than the FWT Fighter. The BRV Fighter is perfectly free to take heavier armor, which will make them equally well equipped for non-ranged combat, he just misses out on a couple points of damage.

 

[SabreCat]

+1 to hit can be useful all the time. Temporary hit points are only useful if you would have otherwise fallen or died without them.

+1 to hit isn't so much useful all the time, as useful when you otherwise would have missed by 1. Temporary hit points are useful not only when you would have otherwise fallen or died, but anytime it means you save on spending one or more healing surges.

Just going by intuition here, but I feel BRV has the edge in that particular comparison of utility.