Barbarians seem very effective, too effective?

[Iron Sky]

Maybe it's just my DMs, but I'm pretty sure the opportunities for me to mount my obsidian steed and charge round after round at exposed bosses would last for, maybe, one encounter...

He hasn't been able to use his steed more than once or twice since he got it. I don't really design fights with my players "builds" in mind. Last fight, the barbarian and warden spent the whole fight using hand-axes since they happened to be fighting rocket-powered warforged in a stolen flying craft. The session before, the barbarian did the charge-crit I mentioned before(without much room to maneuver - just enough in fact).

Even so, beyond all the charge-specific stuff, that's an 8th level barbarian with a str of 22 and enough magic stuff to fill a dragon's treasure chest. Is that even a "legal" character, in the Character builder sense?

He was built legally with the character builder at level 3. I've given out exactly the parcels listed in the DMG for each level since. So he is completely game-legal.

 

[brassbaboon]

He was built legally with the character builder at level 3. I've given out exactly the parcels listed in the DMG for each level since. So he is completely game-legal.

I'm curious. How do you get an 8th level barbarian to str 22 and still be legal? Is there an option that lets you start with 18? I thought you had to have some combination of 16, 14, 13, 12, 11 and 10 to be legal. Maybe I just haven't seen all the character creation options.

Mostly I'm curious because I might want to do the same thing for my next build.

UPDATE: LOL, never mind, I picked up the PHB... the array we used was mandated by our DM, not the PHB. I see how you do it. My bad.

 

[keterys]

That's option 1 in the PHB for stat array. Option 2 lets you point buy and then, yes, you can get an 18.

 

[brassbaboon]

That's option 1 in the PHB for stat array. Option 2 lets you point buy and then, yes, you can get an 18.

Yep, you're right, of course. This is the first 4e character I built and our DM set the rules. I bought the DDI subscription and downloaded the Character Builder because everyone told me that was easiest, and I used the CB to build my ranger, I never used the PHB. Now I feel sorta silly seeing there are a number of ways to get 18. I just got it into my head somehow that the way our DM had us do it was the ONLY way. D'oh!

For this character though, I think the way I did it is still best, it would be hard to balance melee and ranged attacks with an 18 and a bunch of mediocre scores to go along with it.

I see that you can still roll your scores too, but I suspect those would not be allowed in RPGA.

 

[Chimera]

Reading this thread points out something about 4e that I really do not like.

People have tried to tell me that 4e is somehow less dependent on magic items and I have strongly disagreed. Then I walk into a thread where everyone has all the exact special magic items piled up to fill a very specific optimization path. I have NEVER seen that sort of thing in previous editions and I have to say that I find it pretty disgusting in 4e. Yeah, I've seen it in games I'm in too.

Somehow, people are allowed to design characters and cherry pick entire chains of very specific magic items, which in previous editions would be considered extremely rare finds, to do exactly what they want.

Then people complain about how people are able to dish out such high levels of damage, when they're allowing such things in their games.

 

[boolean]

Then I walk into a thread where everyone has all the exact special magic items piled up to fill a very specific optimization path.

FWIW, this happened in previous editions, too. Maybe not in any games you played, but it happened.

 

[abyssaldeath]

I have NEVER seen that sort of thing in previous editions and I have to say that I find it pretty disgusting in 4e. Yeah, I've seen it in games I'm in too.

What? I've been power-gaming my characters since 2e and it always almost completely was centered around magic items. To even suggest that item selection in 4e has more of an impact then any other edition is ridiculous.

Somehow, people are allowed to design characters and cherry pick entire chains of very specific magic items, which in previous editions would be considered extremely rare finds, to do exactly what they want.

No different then any other edition. Wish lists are not mandatory. The DM can handle handing out magic items just like he did in previous editions.

Then people complain about how people are able to dish out such high levels of damage, when they're allowing such things in their games.

The damage that is done in 4e is nothing compared to previous editions. Especially not 3.X.

 

[UltimaGabe]

Reading this thread points out something about 4e that I really do not like.

People have tried to tell me that 4e is somehow less dependent on magic items and I have strongly disagreed. Then I walk into a thread where everyone has all the exact special magic items piled up to fill a very specific optimization path. I have NEVER seen that sort of thing in previous editions and I have to say that I find it pretty disgusting in 4e. Yeah, I've seen it in games I'm in too.

Somehow, people are allowed to design characters and cherry pick entire chains of very specific magic items, which in previous editions would be considered extremely rare finds, to do exactly what they want.

Then people complain about how people are able to dish out such high levels of damage, when they're allowing such things in their games.

No, I'm afraid you're mistaken. Here's the difference between 4e and 3.x's magic items:

In 3.5, Magic Items were incredibly powerful, and typically granted you bonuses to just about everything you do. There were some very powerful combinations, but even when you weren't using that specific combination, you were very powerful, because all of your items were usually so general. A character without magic items was very weak, because, again, magic items were very broad and very powerful.

In 4e, items in general are a lot more specific- in most cases, they turn out to be less powerful, but when you get them lined up, oh boy, everyone's sure to remember it.

Nobody comes onto a message board to talk about how mediocre their characters are. All you're going to hear about are the few times when someone finds the perfect combination and absolutely tears through a solo or something. The rest of the time, when these characters aren't filling the very specific niche that their items are made for, they're not amazing, just good. That's why you're hearing about broken combinations so much- because if 100 people all make 4e characters, and 10 of them have awesome combinations, chances are only those 10 will talk about it.

The same thing happened in 3.5. The only difference was that when you weren't filling your very specific niche, you were still very very powerful.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The same thing happened in 3.5. The only difference was that when you weren't filling your very specific niche, you were still very very powerful.

this is only partially true...

there were a lot of feat and paragon path combinations which made you one-trick-ponys... sometimes you even made yourself less powerful overall.

There were only few characterclasses which let you outperform anyone in any situation...

 

[kaomera]

Reading this thread points out something about 4e that I really do not like.

Unfortunately there has always been a need to take into consideration the bonuses provided by magic items. In 1e AD&D most weapons only got up to +3, and those should (ok, IMO) have been pretty rare! With weapons going up to +5 and +6 (in 3e / 4e respectively; and it was easier to stack bonuses in 3e, IME) you need to be more careful. If you scale monsters with magic items taken into account, PCs without them are at a fatal disadvantage; if you don't then the ones with the bonuses just stomp all over everything...

One thing (that's been mentioned, I know) to keep in mind is that, aside from enhancement bonuses, 4e items are generally quite a bit weaker than their 3e equivalents. For one (huge) thing, there are no longer any stat-boosting items.

People have tried to tell me that 4e is somehow less dependent on magic items and I have strongly disagreed. Then I walk into a thread where everyone has all the exact special magic items piled up to fill a very specific optimization path. I have NEVER seen that sort of thing in previous editions and I have to say that I find it pretty disgusting in 4e. Yeah, I've seen it in games I'm in too.

In many various games I've played in players had at least some level of control over what magic items their characters carried. Personally, I agree that it's not awesome (to put it politely), but magic items have become more and more of simply a character customization option. In fact the only really good excuse I can see for the behavior is that items interact with a lot of other character options; if you've taken three feats specializing in the use of the Greatsword, and all you find is axes... It does kinda suck.

Then people complain about how people are able to dish out such high levels of damage, when they're allowing such things in their games.

And people also complain that fights take too long. 4e PCs are supposed to dish out big chunks of damage.

The DMG2 has an awesome sidebar on reducing the need for magic items in 4e. Personally I would have liked to have seen something like that factored into the core of 4e, but that's not really a reasonable hope. The ideal, IMO, would be for magic items to be nifty toys, treats for the players and the PCs, but not a necessary or automatic part of the game. I used to really enjoy coming up with custom items that really fit the PCs and made their players go "Wow, that's awesome!", and wishlists have really killed that for me.