At-will class powers ruining my archetypes

[Remathilis]

Obviously I disagree. There is another way to mollify my interested in regards to at-will powers. Namely to make them equal to basic attacks instead of better than.
If you have a selection of 3 options (A, B and C), but 2 are clearly better than the first, you essentially have 2 options.
If all three are roughly equal, but have varying effects so as to make them more useful in varied situations, THAT would have been more interesting.
As it stands option A (basic attack) is ignored 98% of the time. So it really don't exist as an option.
For example: your at will power might not include your stat bonus to hit, but still cause the target to be dazed for one round (or what have you). This should cause the basic attacks to be useful a significant portion of the time, which would make the game more interesting [to me].

See, the flaw to that is assuming A, B, & C are supposed to be equal. They clearly are not. B & C are supposed to be better and A is supposed to be an option of last resort. Basic Attacks are supposed to be used if you are prevented from using an at-will or better (such as OAs, charging, dominated attacks, warlord "free" attacks) as a sub-par but better-than-nothing attack.

So sure, you could try to make A, B, & C equal, but that means dragging B & C down to A's level or raising it to D (encounter) level. Both are massive undertakings that affect far-more than the obvious elements (check out my post above and the other on page 6 for just a few things that would need to change to remove at-wills).

Again, more power to you if that is what you want.

 

[Cadfan]

Cadfan, you see, when you say this I am thinking the exact opposite of what you intend. 4e at-will powers are in a vacuum and balanced within that vacuum. How do wizards with powers to blast endlessly affect the game world? I don't think that that was figured into their "balance".

BALANCE may be considered in a vacuum. "Interesting-ness" is not.

If you succeed in making Reaping Strike more interesting, but in the process make an entire character taken as a whole less interesting, have you succeeded? Maybe you've succeeded at something, but if the problem you intended to remedy was how interesting the game was, you haven't succeeded at that.

Doing the same thing all of the time is still doing the same thing all of the time, be it basic attack or an at will power. Viewing the powers in or out of a vacuum makes no difference to that fact. Using reaping strike every round is no more interesting in the long run than using basic attack every round. Repetition of ANY power is no more cool long term than repetition of basic attack (or full attack in 3.x).

This is really something you should understand before you undertake game design.

Asking whether an individual power is more or less interesting post-change is the wrong approach. Instead, ask whether a character with a particular suite of powers is more interesting than whatever you're giving him instead.

Right now, my fighter has the following offensive choices:

3 things he can do every round, each a little better in a different circumstance.
3 things he can do once each every fight
3 things he can do once per day.

You seem to want to change it to:

1 completely vanilla thing he can do every round
5 things he can do once each every fight
3 things he can do once per day.

You need to compare the whole, not the individual level of interest you find in the at wills you change to encounter! Its entirely possible to make the two items that went from the first slot to the second more interesting after the move, but to find the character as a whole less interesting, because that first slot there, the "every round" slot, the one slot you use more than any other, now has only one choice in it, and the choice is totally vanilla.

Maybe you'll come up with the same conclusion after you think about it from the right perspective. You seem... pretty determined, so you probably will. But at least you'll get there a way that makes sense.

You wouldn't pick your clothes by isolating each article of clothing and determining whether it interested you, and then combining them afterwards and being surprised by whether they matched. You wouldn't cook food by selecting the ten most interesting ingredients you could and combining them, and then being surprised by the taste. You would consider each of these items in light of the others, because they come together to create a complex aesthetic whole. There's an end-goal here, and it isn't to make Reaping Strike more interesting. If that was the goal we'd just make it a level 29 daily and be done. The goal is to make the Fighter more interesting.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Right now, my fighter has the following offensive choices:

3 things he can do every round, each a little better in a different circumstance.
3 things he can do once each every fight
3 things he can do once per day.

You seem to want to change it to:

1 completely vanilla thing he can do every round
5 things he can do once each every fight
3 things he can do once per day.

One thing you left out of the equation that is also important:

1 completely vanilla thing he can do every round ... that every other class is also doing.

Part of at-wills is that it helps make classes seem different. Once the fight reaches basic attack only mode every class suddenly plays exactly the same, the only differences being stats. The only thing really defined by class is weapon proficiencies, but that is one feat away from not mattering.

VERY few classes rely on a single at-will exclusively. There is the ranger, which basically twin strikes unless they need to get away. That however has to do with lack of compelling options for the ranger's at-wills more than anything else. However, even in the current system, there are quite a few uses for basic attacks:

1 - Charging. Extremely important during the surprise round, and when you are getting up from prone. With many STR based characters focussing on melee combat, it's basically a ranged attack which they would otherwise lack.

2 - Heavy thrown. Similar to the above, in situations where a STR based character needs to attack from ranged, such as against flying foes, they will rarely have an at-will power that can give them the distance they need, so a javelin or throwing hammer, etc is needed.

3 - Opportunity attacks, and with them stuff like the fighter's interupt, and the swordmage's reaction. This is a situation where characters that don't focus on STR end up being "ignorable" as threats in terms of OAs.

4 - Warlords, more than any other class, provide basic attacks (although there are some magic items, etc, that provide free basic attacks). It is, in part, because of this that there are many spellcasting classes that have at-wills which are usable as basic attacks, so that those classes can benefit from a warlord as well. Still, there are situations where classes are rewarded for their STR. One great example is the rogue, as the warlord can often give a strong rogue extra chances to hit his sneak attack damage in the event he missed earlier. Heck one of their at-wills is another PCs basic attack with a bonus.

Now basic attacks aren't going to be what people go to as their first choice, but it will come up in play. And the characters that choose to completely ignore their basic attacks (specifically str) will end up being completely non-threatening in terms of OAs, and enemies will probably treat them accordingly as far as walking past them, etc.

 

[Sadrik]

Also, using Intelligence to fight isn't any stranger than using Charisma or Wisdom or Dexterity.

Agreed, but those should be special attacks not your basic attack.

 

[Sadrik]

Ok Sadrik, instead of bickering about the feel of this change, lets see what the "math" says.

Absolutely. Break it before the players do. Surprise me now before they surprise me later.

I guess that solves the "combat-speed" problem too.

Some very excellent analysis. Thanks!
Yes, with the assumption that those two characters hit every time they blast through the 5 kobolds. Add two more characters and the 50% to hit assumption and you get to where you want to be. Four characters killing 5 kobolds quickly. This is an awesome realization, perhaps fiddling with the HP and other things to lessen the grind is not necessary when implementing this.

1.) Are all encounter powers equal? At 13th level, you must swap out an encounter power to gain a 13th level power. Do I get to swap out one of my "super at-wills" because in a choice between retaining 4 damage to adjacent foes, push a foe 1 square, and knock a foe prone, I'm fairly certain I'm keeping "knock a foe prone" because its more universally useful.

I would say you can swap out which ever encounter powers you want. I would also so that you can select any encounter powers you want too. So you are not limited to taking former at-will powers as encounter powers in your two at-will slots.

2.) Humans get a bonus at-will as a racial feature (as Joe and Bob show us). So a human starts with four encounter powers. Sweet. We're keeping that right?

As of right now I am inclined to simply make it a bonus encounter power from your class.

3.) Because if you do, you have to fix some of the other races. Half-elves get an at-will from another class as an encounter power. Do they still? Is it sill an encounter power? If so, they're nearly as awesome as humans (depending on stat of other-class power). Or is it a daily now?

Give them the bonus encounter power from another class. Half-elves kind of suck anyway so giving them an encounter instead of encounter as a daily will boost 'em up.

4.) More importantly, dragonborn's dragonbreath is only 1d6+con starting, and is clearly inferior to nearly any of our super-at wills (making humans a much better choice, or half-elves if we keep dilettante an encounter power). My suggestion, of course, is to boost dragonbreath to 2d6+con starting, and raise it +1d6 over the character's life as normal. There are some other races like this as well (firesoul genasi and probably more in the MM) that would need dice bumping.

This is fair, 2d6 for the dragon breath

Lets see going through the races:
Dragonborn - breath weapon (boosted to 2d6)
Dwarf - wtf???
Eladrin - fey step (still balanced)
Elf - re-roll attack (still balanced)
Half-elf - encounter from another class
Halfling - force enemy to re-roll attack (still balanced)
Human - encounter power from own class
Tiefling - hit me I hit you back better (boosted to +2 to hit and charisma to damage)

5.) Does our ban on "at-will" magic apply to class features (like paladin's divine challenge or a wizard's cantrips?) as well? If so, kiss the paladin class goodbye.

Hell no. I mentioned this several times through the thread.

6.) Similarly, certain utility powers (like the Rogue 2 powers Fleeting Ghost or Great Leap) is at-will. Encounter?

I am fretting over these a bit but by my rule they would be encounter powers. There are 5 in the PHB, perhaps these 5 powers can become encounter powers without too much detriment. I have never actually seen them in play so I don't know. Here they are for reference:

Great Leap level 2
Effect: Make a high jump or a long jump. Determine the DC
of the Athletics check as though you had a running start.
The distance you jump can exceed your speed.

Fleeting Ghost level 2
Effect: You can move your speed and make a Stealth check.
You do not take the normal penalty from movement on
this check.

Chameleon level 6
Effect: Make a Stealth check. Until the end of your next
turn, you remain hidden if a creature that has a clear line
of sight to you does not beat your check result with its Perception
check. If at the end of your turn you do not have
cover or concealment against a creature, that creature
automatically notices you.

Nimble Climb level 6
Effect: Make an Athletics check to climb a surface. You can
move at your full speed during this climb.

Shadow Stride level 10
Effect: You must be hiding to use this power. You can move
your speed. At the end of that movement, if you have
cover, you can make a Stealth check with no penalty for
moving. If you make the Stealth check, you stay hidden
during your movement.

They could possibly be changed to feats, they seem very feat like to me anyway. In fact Nimble Climb is duplicated as a feat called Sure Climber. It appears that these at-will were just thrown into the rogues list because they have so many to choose from anyway.

7.) Oh yeah, multi-classing feats?

It looks like their are only two that need to be worried about - Arcane Initiate and Pact Initiate. If the Warlock retains the class feature to shoot 1d10 EBs at-will then the pact initiate is not a problem. If that is not the case then the feat could give them a pact boon over their choice.

The wizard one would need changing. Perhaps give them the cantrips as encounter powers instead.

The big thing this system does is encourage you to open with all 3(4?) of your encounter powers for the most damage, the clean up with basic attacks. The effect is moot. Every time you begin a fight, you want to launch your 2 dice attacks first, then resort to your 1 dice basics. This has the effect of watching your party go nova for 3+ rounds, then resorting to chipping away at weakened, bloody foes. Then rest 5 minutes and do it again.

It really seems no different that the standard rules, except that they can nova for +2 rounds than their level would indicate.

This, of course, will get worse when your PCs hit paragon and have eight or more encounter powers to burn through, then resort to chipping. It will get better in epic though; those 2 dice super-at-wills will be useless damage (equal now to their basics, which go up to 2 dice at 21st) and probably only recalled when their secondary effects are useful (like slow or extra damage to adjacent foe).

Agreed. By that level they will likely fire off their big guns first and then switch down to their weaker effects when needed. And this seems fine to me. Every power should not be as useful by that level. In 3e it would be equivalent of low level spells not packing the same punch as the upper level ones.

If you DON'T double at will dice, your making the fight even LONGER. The wizard is expected to be doing 1d6+int damage min every round (barring misses and excluding magic missile). If he does it three times and resorts to his inferior crossbow, the fight lasts longer because his to-hit is lower (more chance of missing) and his damage is lower (much lower in some cases).

I don't feel that the wizard should be expected to do 1d6+INT every round. If you expected your character to do that much or more you can easily fix that. Take a couple of feats that buff up your character, such as weapon training and weapon focus and get a decent magic weapon. You can contribute with the right character in the form of your basic attacks. I just feel like it should not be necessary for a wizard to contribute with basic attacks.

Neither promote tactical use of encounter powers: go nova and get it over-with.
Tactical uses of powers are still there. I don't understand this.

If you think you can live with the repercussions, go for it man. I just think as soon as this see's field-testing with live PCs, all bets go off and you'll see a lot of "three rounds of encounters, now lets slowly chip away with basics" fights.

Yup, this sounds more like previous editions to me. Instead of we'll chip 'em down in a very linear and programmed way. Technically we still do that but it is quicker and flashier and by my estimation more fun.

 

[Sadrik]

See, the flaw to that is assuming A, B, & C are supposed to be equal. They clearly are not. B & C are supposed to be better and A is supposed to be an option of last resort. Basic Attacks are supposed to be used if you are prevented from using an at-will or better (such as OAs, charging, dominated attacks, warlord "free" attacks) as a sub-par but better-than-nothing attack.

Most characters have two at-wills and they are pretty weak, one of them is clearly superior and is your default attack and the other is more a if the other one is not working right the use this one. So again having two weak at-will attacks of which one is often secondary you are just adding unnecessary tedium to the game for what exactly? Just go with the basic attacks and give your characters more options than just "spamming" your best at-will. Not to mention the archetypes that are opened up.

 

[Sadrik]

Asking whether an individual power is more or less interesting post-change is the wrong approach. Instead, ask whether a character with a particular suite of powers is more interesting than whatever you're giving him instead.

Point taken. I have however considered the whole ball of wax so to speak. What you have below is good solid analysis. I think a round by round comparison would even be better.

You seem to want to change it to:

1 completely vanilla thing he can do every round
5 things he can do once each every fight
3 things he can do once per day.

Yep, versus your guy who can do more slightly different vanilla at-will attacks and less things once per fight.

You need to compare the whole, not the individual level of interest you find in the at wills you change to encounter!

Its entirely possible to make the two items that went from the first slot to the second more interesting after the move, but to find the character as a whole less interesting, because that first slot there, the "every round" slot, the one slot you use more than any other, now has only one choice in it, and the choice is totally vanilla.

The every round slot should be as quick and vanilla as possible and eat up as little game time as possible. It is more interesting to have outright booms than to take 'em out from a million nicks with little time eating mini-bennies attached to them.

 

[Sadrik]

Now basic attacks aren't going to be what people go to as their first choice, but it will come up in play. And the characters that choose to completely ignore their basic attacks (specifically str) will end up being completely non-threatening in terms of OAs, and enemies will probably treat them accordingly as far as walking past them, etc.

I fail to see this logic. The game will have more people focusing on basic attacks which will in turn make their OAs, charges and throwing heavy weapons better.

 

[Cadfan]

Most characters have two at-wills and they are pretty weak, one of them is clearly superior and is your default attack and the other is more a if the other one is not working right the use this one.

This is NOT the case with the typical character.

From our group:

Fighter: Cleave, Crushing Surge, Footwork Lure. Helps with groups, durability, and mobility.

Rogue: Piercing Strike, Riposte Strike, Deft Strike. Helps with accuracy, defense, and mobility.

Cleric: Lance of Faith, Radiant Strike. Helps with accuracy, and healing.

Wizard: Scorching Burst, Cloud of Daggers, Ray of Frost. Helps with groups, single foes, and action denial.

Ranger: Twin Strike, Hit and Run. Helps with damage, and mobility.

The only one you might have a case with is the paladin. She's got both charisma at wills, one of which gives temporary hit points, and the other which penalizes enemy attacks. Both of these help with durability.

 

[Sadrik]

If you want to implement this in your game here is what I have so far. Is there anything that I am forgetting? Perhaps others can speak to the newer classes and feats from further supplements.

Powers
At-Will Powers
Characters select three encounter powers at 1st level. All class level 1 at-will powers become encounter powers with their 21st level damage.

Races
Dragonborn
Increase the Dragon Breath encounter power to 2d6 damage.

Half-Elf
Dilettante racial feature allows you to select an encounter power from another class and use it as an encounter power.

Human
Bonus at will power racial feature allows you to select a bonus encounter power from your classes encounter powers.

Tiefling
Increase the bonus to the attack roll for the infernal wrath power to +2

Classes
Ranger
The twin strike at-will power is deleted.

Warlock
The eldritch blast at-will power does not convert to an encounter power. The warlock retains it as a class feature as is. The pacts must select the encounter power (former at-will power) listed.

Feats
Heavy Blade Opportunity
You can use an encounter power with this feat.

Arcane Initiate
You can use each wizard cantrip as an encounter power.