Balancing (Save Ends) with UENT

[C4]

Alright folks, here's what my Chapter 9 house rules are looking like:

Regular Saves: Rolled on the inflictor's turn. I myself am going to try Tequila's index card idea, or something like it to help with condition tracking.
Extra Saves: Can end any condition. I'm going to start giving elites and solos bonus start-of-turn saves, instead of their usual save bonus, 'cause I think it'll be a simple and effective way to make boss fights less predictible and boring.
Eamon's Rule: Yes!
Lunge: Eliminates the 1-square no-charge zone.

So, as I'm finalizing this thing, is there anything from Chapter 9 that you'd tweak if you could? Things that are broken? Things that just don't make sense, even within the context of D&D weirdness? For example, someone mentioned elsewhere how easy it is to get around the Slow condition, by using powers that say "shift X squares" or "move X squares." Which I admit, is pretty weird.

 

[Neubert]

You could add a clause saying you can only ever shift up to your speed. I don't know if this will mess with any monster powers though, so it might be better to leave it. Simpler rules over realistic ones.
(and shifting x squares would often require some sort of power, so negating the slowed condition would cost some resources, which I am ok with).

I assume changes to conditions go here as well. Perhaps change stun and petrify into something that doesn't ruin the turn/encounter for a player.
I was thinking that petrify could make you slowed, dazed, weakened (and describe it as being in the process of turning to stone, your movement slowing), and one the encounter is over, you become a statue, per the petrify condition.

I have seen stunned being house ruled to dazed, weakened and -5 to hit. In that case you could also make petrify into slowed + stunned.

Thirdly, there was some discussion long ago about using a teleport power to teleport an opponent over an edge. Some people mind, some don't. If you do mind, could change it so you have to teleport to a solid surface or only 1 square away from the edge (so the monster at least gets a saving throw). Remember this can be used against players too!

Fourthly, perhaps change the melee (and ranged?) basic attack into using your primary stat? If you think the feats that does the same is a feat tax.

 

[C4]

You could add a clause saying you can only ever shift up to your speed. I don't know if this will mess with any monster powers though, so it might be better to leave it. Simpler rules over realistic ones.
(and shifting x squares would often require some sort of power, so negating the slowed condition would cost some resources, which I am ok with).

Yeah, I'm torn on this one. Bypassing Slow with rule technicalities seems sketchy, but usually you do have to use a limited power to do so. And who knows? Maybe Slow really is intended to be that bypassable.

I assume changes to conditions go here as well. Perhaps change stun and petrify into something that doesn't ruin the turn/encounter for a player.
I was thinking that petrify could make you slowed, dazed, weakened (and describe it as being in the process of turning to stone, your movement slowing), and one the encounter is over, you become a statue, per the petrify condition.

I have seen stunned being house ruled to dazed, weakened and -5 to hit. In that case you could also make petrify into slowed + stunned.

So Stun and Petrify would basically be "this is a good time to use your second wind." Well that doesn't sound bad, but I'm reticent about nerfing conditions unless a lot of people do it already.

Thirdly, there was some discussion long ago about using a teleport power to teleport an opponent over an edge. Some people mind, some don't. If you do mind, could change it so you have to teleport to a solid surface or only 1 square away from the edge (so the monster at least gets a saving throw). Remember this can be used against players too!

Hm, I think I'd be okay with PCs teleporting monsters clear over a cliff edge, but the other way around could easily lead to a TPK. I'm a bit surprised there's not already a saving throw clause about this.

Fourthly, perhaps change the melee (and ranged?) basic attack into using your primary stat? If you think the feats that does the same is a feat tax.

Is there a feat that does that for RBAs? I wouldn't want to allow any stat for RBAs for free, 'cause heavy thrown weapons would be pointless. (Although I do love the potential humor of using Str for a crossbow attack. "I aim it with my muscles!" )

 

[Neubert]

Hm, I think I'd be okay with PCs teleporting monsters clear over a cliff edge, but the other way around could easily lead to a TPK. I'm a bit surprised there's not already a saving throw clause about this.

I don't think there is. I haven't kept up with all the errata, so there might be something there.
Would you be okay with PCs teleporting your solo over a cliff? (somewhat of a corner case, and perhaps your own fault you put a cliff there, but still).

Is there a feat that does that for RBAs? I wouldn't want to allow any stat for RBAs for free, 'cause heavy thrown weapons would be pointless. (Although I do love the potential humor of using Str for a crossbow attack. "I aim it with my muscles!" )

I believe I read about RBA's somewhere, but I don't remember where..

 

[Oldtimer]

Ending everything on the target's turn certainly does make tracking simpler, but I have a few questions:

1. How did you decide which powers to change? Do you change them on a case-by-case basis, or did you go thru your books to find all the powers that need changing?

2. What did you change about them?

3. Do you have any high-initiative PCs in your group? Do they enjoy essentially giving up that advantage whenever they want to inflict a condition on a monster that happens to be one or two places lower in the initiative order?

I'm all for tactics, but there're a couple guys in my group who'd be mighty annoyed if they had to give up their initiative advantage because of a house rule.

Sorry for the late reply. I was out of town for a few days and had to do without EN World.

1. This is very much a work-in-progress (and the progress is slow), but I started with the powers actually selected by my players. I hope to cover everything eventually.

2. Recognising that the change can amount to a nerf, I tried to add a little something extra to the power. If we assume that each and every power is well balanced as-is (which is quite an assumption), I need to add something. I think some power actually got changed from UENT to Save Ends. In some cases, though, I thought the power was fine despite the change and left it without anything extra. Of course, the affected player gets a free retraining anyway if he's unhappy.

3. I didn't have a player character built around high Initiative and massive UENT debuffs. I'm not even sure I would like to have one.
Maybe the game is better without alpha strike/stunlock builds.

 

[C4]

Chapter 9 will be finalized today!

I don't think there is. I haven't kept up with all the errata, so there might be something there.
Would you be okay with PCs teleporting your solo over a cliff? (somewhat of a corner case, and perhaps your own fault you put a cliff there, but still).

Just checked, and it turns out there is a teleport clause. If you teleport an enemy anywhere they could fall from, they get a save. If they pass, the teleport fails. Period. If they fail, they get to do a Wile E Coyote reference.

I'm not sure that's how I would have written the rule, but I don't think it's worth tinkering with unless it's popular to do so.

Sorry for the late reply. I was out of town for a few days and had to do without EN World.

My sympathies.

Maybe the game is better without alpha strike/stunlock builds.

I don't think the game would suffer for it either, but high initiatives aren't limited to specific optimized builds either.

I guess the bottom line is that I don't have the time to go thru all the powers to tweak (or remove) the ones I made lame with a house rule. But thanks for your thoughts!

 

[Saeviomagy]

As Neubert pointed out, you can no longer set up a condition to take advantage of it yourself in your next turn. Also, you might want to delay until just after the target's turn before you hit it with that heavy de-buff. Which makes for more tactics and tactics is good.

Ouch - that really hurts (specifically) rogues: none of the powers whos primary purpose is to set up CA for next round work any more. What sort of changes have you made to mitigate that?

For any EONT power who's prime purpose is to mess with the target's turn, changing them to save ends is usually a power upgrade for player powers and a power downgrade for NPCs, simply because players tend to get many more granted saves.

For a lot of powers their bonus is twofold though, allowing both interference with enemy turns and benefits on your own (ie - blinding a foe EONT not only messes up his attack, but it also grants you OA-free movement and a chance to hide in cover or concealment).

Ideally you want removal of conditions to be during the turn of whomever is afflicted - because they have a stake in getting rid of them and are more likely to remember to do it.

So....
Perhaps saves and EONTs are moved to the beginning of the afflicted's turn with a 1-round "you can't save this turn".

Mind you, that's still a little more complex to handle - you have to remember whether you just got afflicted or not.

 

[Oldtimer]

Ideally you want removal of conditions to be during the turn of whomever is afflicted - because they have a stake in getting rid of them and are more likely to remember to do it.

This is precisely why I find it so tempting to do this. For me it's worth a lot of effort in my DM's workshop, since things will be so much easier at the table.

Then I'm in a rather unique position in that I'm not actually playing 4e, but rather my own swedish OGL d20 fantasy game, which has incorporated a lot of 4e mechanics. Since it's in swedish I've no use of the DDI tools, so radical changes don't really affect me. For someone who prefers to use Character Builder and Compendium, rewriting a lot of the powers might not be as palatable.

But on the issue of loss of effectiveness for a power that normally inflicts a condition UENT, what do you think would be a reasonable compensation? Turning it into Save Ends? Ramping up the damage a bit?

 

[Saeviomagy]

But on the issue of loss of effectiveness for a power that normally inflicts a condition UENT, what do you think would be a reasonable compensation? Turning it into Save Ends? Ramping up the damage a bit?

This is all from the point of view of a rogue - in order to ramp the damage up enough to make up for this change, you'd basically need to be granting whatever proportion of sneak attack damage the guy misses out on, which is 9/13.5/22.5 (ie - a big chunk) PLUS a return for the loss of mobility.

Turning it into a save helps, but you still lose the ability to plan ahead - instead of guaranteeing a sneak attack target on your next turn PLUS improved mobility, you've got a 50/50 chance at it. Also cheezing saves would definately be a very powerful tactic for a rogue with this rule in place: a first level encounter power daze for multiple rounds is massively good, same for a first level daily that blinds.

I suppose another alternative would be to implement a rule that says that sneak attack is assessed after applying conditions from an attack.

So - if you hit someone with an attack that causes them to grant CA, you get to apply sneak attack damage to that attack instead of waiting for next round.

Hell, you could make sneak attack a totally seperate power!

Sneak attack
At-will, no action, close burst 20
Target: One foe in burst that you have damaged this turn and who is granting CA to you
Effect: The foe takes 2d6 damage.
At paragon increase this damage to 3d6
At epic increase this damage to 5d6
Special: You may use this power only once per turn