Are stance utilities less desirable for essentials fighters

[BobTheNob]

So lets say I take a knight or slayer. I pick a utility power which is a stance (cant think of one off the top of my head, just hyperthetical) which is daily and till end of encounter or change stance.

Now, the "at-wills" of the knight and slayer are stances. So lets say I use my daily utility power to go into a stance, then change to an "at-will" stance the next round...did I just loose the benefit of my daily stance? (Ouch...)

Or, if I use a daily stance and want to keep using, have I just alienated my "at-will" stances, which to a large part define what my fighter does?

Are stance style utilities a little less desirable for the slayer and knight for this reason?

 

[Ahrimon]

Pretty much.

You can only have one stance active at a time and starting one stance ends another.

 

[On Puget Sound]

Yes, characters with at-will stances probably won't have much use for encounter or daily stances unless they are so good that once you start them you won't ever want to go back to your at-wills.

 

[Zaran]

Yes, characters with at-will stances probably won't have much use for encounter or daily stances unless they are so good that once you start them you won't ever want to go back to your at-wills.

It's one of those things that make essentials not totally compatible with core. Makes me wonder if we will see new non at-will stances in the future

 

[Mad Hamish]

Essentials and core are compatable, it's just that chosing some combinations of things might not be a good idea.

 

[DracoSuave]

Stop the presses, some powers are not optimal for some builds!

Wait... don't. This is normal.

 

[Lord Ernie]

Stop the presses, some powers are not optimal for some builds!

Wait... don't. This is normal.

This. Just like 'Shielded Sides' is no good for a character without a shield, so are utility stances that aren't exceptionally powerful no good for the Slayer or Knight.

The new players that Essentials is targeting won't run into this problem, given that you only have access to these options if you go cherrypicking powers across books. If you're doing that, you're supposed to know what you're doing, like not picking powers that require shields for your Fullblade or Mordenkrad-wielding slayer.

 

[Blue]

Essentials and core are compatable, it's just that chosing some combinations of things might not be a good idea.

You are correct. They are compatible, just a poor choice.

4e has done a better job then 3.x of stopping people from making poor characters. However with Essentials we have power choices (like above) that don't synergize well, and a ton of feats that are still "live" but lose out to new feats. It's becoming easier and easier for a new player to make a character that isn't on par with the rest of the table.

I really think they should give up the "it's all backwards compatible" that leaves in increasingly numbers of meh choices and trim some of the chaff.

 

[Lord Ernie]

You are correct. They are compatible, just a poor choice.

4e has done a better job then 3.x of stopping people from making poor characters. However with Essentials we have power choices (like above) that don't synergize well, and a ton of feats that are still "live" but lose out to new feats. It's becoming easier and easier for a new player to make a character that isn't on par with the rest of the table.

I really think they should give up the "it's all backwards compatible" that leaves in increasingly numbers of meh choices and trim some of the chaff.

Oh please. To make poor choices for the Essentials martial characters, meaning you choose utility powers or feats that don't work well for them, you have to go outside of HotFL and actually pick Fighter powers/feats from previous books - and you THEN need to actually pick a bad power/feat.

If anything, it's even harder to screw up an Essentials martial character, since the book guides you in the build procedure, more of your class features are hardcoded, and you can't pick subpar powers.

 

[Shin Okada]

Even before essentials, there were many fighter builds. The choice of class features and weapons affected much on which powers (utility or not) is good or bad for that character.

And Essential offered two more builds. Some powers are not good for those builds. That's all, isn't it?

Well, it is certainly easy to avoid making ineffective Fighter when you just use HoFL powers and feats. It is indeed easier than to avoid making an ineffective (or not-so-effective) fighter just using PHB. It is at least an improvement on that part, isn't it?

When you are trying to mix elements from various books, you are trying to be technical. So it will need some technique to make a truly effective PC. It is natural.