At-will class powers ruining my archetypes

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I tried this line of reasoning earlier and it didn't work. I'm still not sure why... it's so reasonable.

I think I only get it with pawsplay last post.

Whereas with a basic attack, you are free to picture it as overpowering, deft, clever, lucky, whatever. But 4e powers kind of tell you what to picture.

The point is - that's exactly what you can do with your basic attacks. They have a name and a flavor text, but that doesn't mean they can be narrated only in one specific way. They are your bread & butter. You can have a deft, overpowering, clever or lucky TIde of Iron attack.

You can even have a deft, overpowering, clever or lucky Magic Missile (at least no less then you can have a deft, overpowering, clever or lucky Crossbow Attack).

 

[Mallus]

Sadrik, here are a few more --hopefully-- constructive design considerations for you to consider...

• Converting at-wills to encounter powers will have a significant effect on game balance. Basically, it trashes the 4e encounter budget, so encounter design is going to be more time consuming.

• PC's won't be able to generate special attack/damage types --radiant, area-of-effect, burst-- as frequently.

• This makes certain monster types more powerful cf. all undead, swarms. For example, without radiant-producing at-wills undead become tougher, and some undead, like ones that regenerate unless they're hit with radiant damage during the round, become a lot tougher.

• This will make combats longer. Even if you increase the number and power on encounter powers, thanks to overall increase in monster HP in 4e.

• Remember that combats in 4e are designed to last more rounds than their 3e counterparts. Which means the majority of PC attacks are meant to be at-wills. Reducing the number of times they can be used, even if you increase their power, is inviting the dreaded grind.

• Some kind of recharge mechanism, a la Bo9S, is practically a requirement.

• But then you're going to have to balance issues with the existing encounter powers which weren't designed with unlimited recharge mechanics in mind.

• Which all leads back to encounter design now being considerable harder.

 

[Sadrik]

The problem is that at-will powers are superior to every other option that is not also an at-will power, or an encounter or daily. Hence, basic attacks do not happen. Special combat options, those that still exist in 4e, are not going to happen. Instead, the at-will power is going to be spammed, over and over and over, occasionally puncuated by a not very exciting slightly more powerful encounter or daily.

4e does two things I just cannot live with. First, it reduces the variety of combat. Despite what some claim, I have never found my 3.5 combats to be full attack slogs. There are options, so even if you ended up just attacking, you at least had the option of weighing other options. Second, it removes the basic imagery of a character engaging in swordplay or whatever. Instead, combat is a montage of special moves. If an at-will has a specific effect, then every attack you make is flavored somewhat by that effect. Whereas with a basic attack, you are free to picture it as overpowering, deft, clever, lucky, whatever. But 4e powers kind of tell you what to picture.

Brilliantly and eloquently put.

 

[Sadrik]

For a Fighter, At-Will powers can be like being able to make an (Improved) Bull Rush or use Power Attack every round, to translate these into 3E terms.

Pick two and that's all you can ever do. Nope, that is crap.

And you can still flavor your at-will attacks however you want, the ules even say so. Reaping Strike, Sure Strike, Tide of Iron, or whatever else you have as your at-will power can be described in countless ways!

Again mostly martial powers are easily defined. Try doing it that easily with lazer beams and quotes like this:

from PHB:
"You slam your shield into your enemy, bash him with your
weapon’s haft, or drive your shoulder into his gut. Your attack
doesn’t do much damage—but your anger inspires your ally to
match your ferocity."

 

[Sadrik]

You can even have a deft, overpowering, clever or lucky Magic Missile (at least no less then you can have a deft, overpowering, clever or lucky Crossbow Attack).

And you can as an encounter power.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Pick two and that's all you can ever do. Nope, that is crap.

Again mostly martial powers are easily defined. Try doing it that easily with lazer beams and quotes like this:

Think of all the interesting ways you can describe the wizard shooting a crossbow.

Now apply that flavor text to Sacred Flame or Magic Missile. (Hint: If you can't find so many interesting ways to describe someone shooting a crossbow bolt, think about how much flavor you add to your Wizard if you exchange Magic Missile with basic Crossbow Attacks.)

from PHB:
"You slam your shield into your enemy, bash him with your
weapon’s haft, or drive your shoulder into his gut. Your attack
doesn’t do much damage—but your anger inspires your ally to
match your ferocity."

This flavor text alone consists of several options on how to narrate the power. And that doesn't even include the rule that the flavor text is no rule!

 

[Sadrik]

• Converting at-wills to encounter powers will have a significant effect on game balance. Basically, it trashes the 4e encounter budget, so encounter design is going to be more time consuming.

Please explain this budget because I have no idea what this has to do with at-wills.

• PC's won't be able to generate special attack/damage types --radiant, area-of-effect, burst-- as frequently.

Um, this is bad?

• This makes certain monster types more powerful cf. all undead, swarms. For example, without radiant-producing at-wills undead become tougher, and some undead, like ones that regenerate unless they're hit with radiant damage during the round, become a lot tougher.

Um, this is a non-issue. Even without this change, if there was not a cleric in the party you are saying they would be dead in the water? That is just silly.

• This will make combats longer. Even if you increase the number and power on encounter powers, thanks to overall increase in monster HP in 4e.

I think by the math on the previous page or two this was illustrated to be not the case. It in fact blatantly had the opposite effect and sped up combat.

• Remember that combats in 4e are designed to last more rounds than their 3e counterparts. Which means the majority of PC attacks are meant to be at-wills. Reducing the number of times they can be used, even if you increase their power, is inviting the dreaded grind.

More rounds does not equate to at-wills. That is drawing a false conclusion. And then further by the math it averts grind.

• Some kind of recharge mechanism, a la Bo9S, is practically a requirement.

The wizard needs a boost and this is a very valid one. Lowering the tier requirement for arcane mastery feat is a good fix to them.

• But then you're going to have to balance issues with the existing encounter powers which weren't designed with unlimited recharge mechanics in mind.

Um again not a necessary change.

• Which all leads back to encounter design now being considerable harder.

Luckily the game is run by a DM and not a hack of a computer program. If you are suggesting that the DM should not tailor encounters to the PCs, that is just wrong headed thinking. Even encounters from modules have to be tweaked some for the party. I see this as a non-issue.

 

[Mallus]

Please explain this budget because I have no idea what this has to do with at-wills.

Really? Ok... your changes are going to make PC parties weaker overall, so the DM won't be able to use encounter guidelines with regard to monsters as written.

Um, this is bad?

Yes. Well, it's bad if you want to rely on the official encounter guidelines and it's going to make combat slower.

Um, this is a non-issue. Even without this change, if there was not a cleric in the party you are saying they would be dead in the water?

I said it would make certain opponents tougher. Under standard 4e rules, a party without a cleric or paladin is going to have a harder time versus undead. Do you disagree?

I think by the math on the previous page or two this was illustrated to be not the case. It in fact blatantly had the opposite effect and sped up combat.

That math doesn't prove what you think it proves (hint: it was a single test scenario pitting 1st level PC's vs. a single monster type). It wasn't a broad enough analysis (nowhere near), just a test case.

More rounds does not equate to at-wills. That is drawing a false conclusion.

They longer a combat goes on, the more at-will attacks get used, because PC's have a low, fixed number --max: 2-- of encounter powers. Unless, of course, the PC decided to do nothing in the combat round.

If you are suggesting that the DM should not tailor encounters to the PCs, that is just wrong headed thinking.

Did I write that? Nope. I said your changes will make tailoring/balancing encounters harder, because the DM won't be able to rely on the existing guidelines. This part's pretty irrefutable.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Please explain this budget because I have no idea what this has to do with at-wills.

The idea is to control pacing of an encounter. In an average 6 round combat at first level, you are expected to spend 5 of those rounds using at-will attacks at 1st level. If you allow a character more encounter powers, then they are more powerful than expected. If you force them to use Basic Attacks for those 5 rounds than they are less powerful than expected.

Consider a round where a Wizard uses a Flame Burst(or whatever it's called) and hits 3 enemies for 7 damage. He is doing 21 damage total. If he instead attacks with a Longbow, he might hit for 1d10+3, for a max of 13 damage(average around 8). It's dramatically lower.

If, you allow Flame Burst to do 2d6+int instead, you've increased the damage to 33 damage on average to those 3 creatures. Which, as you've mentioned, actually speeds up combat. Which may not be a good thing. If monsters die quicker, they don't have as many actions per combat. If they have less actions per combat, they have less chances to do damage to the PCs. Which means they are weaker than expected. If the PCs lose less healing surges than expected, they can survive longer and fight more battles. This causes a huge imbalance in the encounter design/wealth expectation/pacing of an adventure.

Um, this is bad?

When the game expects otherwise, yes.

Um, this is a non-issue. Even without this change, if there was not a cleric in the party you are saying they would be dead in the water? That is just silly.

Not dead in the water, just harder. But it cancels out one of the advantages of playing a cleric...that it is easier to fight undead.

More rounds does not equate to at-wills. That is drawing a false conclusion. And then further by the math it averts grind.

It depends on the solution you use. As I mention, if you give them more encounter powers, it does speed up combats. Mostly by making anyone with more encounter powers better than all the other classes. If you give all classes no at-wills and more encounter powers, it just makes them ALL better and reduces the difficulty of all monsters.

The wizard needs a boost and this is a very valid one. Lowering the tier requirement for arcane mastery feat is a good fix to them.

I don't think they need a boost. They appear to, if you are used to them being more powerful in older editions, but the ability to hit multiple creatures with most of their powers while hitting Reflex helps them a lot. If you remove their at-wills, they will for SURE need a boost, however.

Luckily the game is run by a DM and not a hack of a computer program. If you are suggesting that the DM should not tailor encounters to the PCs, that is just wrong headed thinking. Even encounters from modules have to be tweaked some for the party. I see this as a non-issue.

If he isn't suggesting it, then I am. I'm telling you that the vast majority of DMs out there don't have time to tailor encounters to their PCs. I'm also telling you that a number of them don't WANT to tailor encounters to their PCs.

I certainly don't think it should be a necessity. I think of encounters as a "what if" scenario. What IF there was a group of cultists planning to bring back their dark god. What IF a group of PCs decided to stop them. What happens? At the same time, I want my players to be able to play whatever the most fun is for them and not have to change the entire scenario around them. If I tailor the encounters to my group, it ruins the what if. It turns it into "What if a group of PCs ran across a bunch of encounters specifically designed for them?" Which isn't that much fun for me.

I've been running Living Greyhawk adventures for years without adjusting them to the party that was playing it. I've been running Living Forgotten Realms now for 6 months in 4e without adjusting adventures to the party. I've run published adventures in my home games for years in 3e and 3.5e without adjusting a single one of them to my party.

They don't need to be adjusted, and I'm not going to do unneeded work when there is laundry to be done, movies to be watched, books to be read, lawns to be mowed and so on. I think that the game system should be balanced enough so I don't have to. I also take offense to the fact that your implication is that I'm somehow a mindless computer because I don't adjust them.

Even if I was going to adjust them for my party...how do you adjust them? This is always the question I have when someone says, "You need to adjust for your party". If I have a wizard who uses 90% fire spells but has 10% of his spells as cold spells...well, is a creature with fire immunity but vulnerability to cold a bad idea to send at the party? What if is is Fire Resistance 30? 20? Is it worth it to make the wizard feel useless for a battle in order to allow the fighter to shine?

Sure, I could come up with answers to these questions, but they'd be guesses. Not based on anything other than a gut feeling of what they'd be able to handle. I could be(and have been) completely wrong when adjusting things. I've nearly killed off an entire party. I've made an enemy so easy that they died before taking an action. All while thinking I was doing the right thing.

 

[Remathilis]

A possible fix could be to use the Saga system: rolling a natural 20 on a power refreshes your encounter powers. Check out SAGA for more details.