Broken? The popsicle/marshmellow attack

[dragonchild]

Alright, so I just got the 4th edition books and have been about what kind of character I'd want to play. Then I came across this message board and while reading one of the threads I suddenly realized something about two of things I had picked. Together they are, in my opinion, horrifically broken (and apparently nobody else has noticed this yet).

[sblock]So for starters I decided that I would like to try out a dragonborn character. I like that Dragon Breath (page 34) is a minor action, which means I can get two attacks in a round once each encounter. Plus its a close blast, so you get the benefit of an area of effect without opportunity attacks.

I also decided that at Epic I would probably choose the Demigod path. At 30th level they get an ability called Divine Miracle (page 175) that lets you regain one of your per encounter powers whenever you run out of per encounter powers. Which seems a bit broken just by itself (since basically your per encounters become at wills) Starting to see where this is headed?

Now regardless of class, you can just walk into combat and start throwing around your per encounter powers until you've only got Dragon Breath left (speed this up by using your action point and if your a paladin make sure you have Hand of The Gods to be able to start breathing in the 2nd round), then you can simply keep using it over and over and over ad nauseam. Why is this better than spamming a more damaging per encounter power? Well, if you switch your standard and move actions to minor actions and this nets you (at least) three attacks a round with a +6 attack modifier doing 3d6 + Con modifier damage, which is pretty spectacular (since it becomes essentially an at will that's about as good as a wizard's meteor swarm), especially given that you can use Con for your attack roll as well.

If that isn't twinky enough, use your stanard action for a more damaging attack and just use two Dragon Breaths. On top of all this, you can throw in the feats Enlarged Dragon Breath (page 195), Empowered Dragon Breath (page 202) and if you take cold breath take Burning Blizzard (page 194), plus Lasting Frost (page 203) as well to maximize your destructive power. Then you're looking at a potential 9d10 + 24 + triple your con modifier in close blast 5. Every round. Or take irrestible flame (page 207) with a Fire Dragon's Breath instead of turning your enemies into popsicles, burn pretty much anything to cinders like marshmellows in a campfire.

The only thing that keeps this from being utterly stupid is you can't do it before level 30, at which point there's not much left to do anyways (unless there's going to be levels past epic). I think Divine Miracle might need a bit of fixing....[/sblock]

So, is that not the most broken thing you've seen in 4th edition? Or do you disagree that it's broken at all? Anybody else find something massively broken?

 

[ObsidianCrane]

You are talking about a 30th level character, its not even an issue. Especially as the attack roll for the breath will be +9 behind the weapon attacks, or +6 behind the Implement attacks minimum of the same character.

 

[Goumindong]

You are talking about a 30th level character, its not even an issue. Especially as the attack roll for the breath will be +9 behind the weapon attacks, or +6 behind the Implement attacks minimum of the same character.

Dragons breath has an attack bonus to make up for that.

 

[OakwoodDM]

Also, it'll take you a good 4-5 rounds to burn through the rest of your encounter powers, so it's going to be trickier to use this power to a) effect more than 1 enemy and b) not effect any of your allies, given all the manoeuvring that will have gone on in those early rounds.

 

[Runestar]

Couldn't you just use up all your encounter powers at the start of the day and refuse to take a short rest (so you never replenish your encounter powers). This would let you start any encounter with just 1 encounter power in store, so you can quickly cycle through whatever works for that given situation and just keep spamming the same old tired combo over and over again.

 

[dragonchild]

I think I've missed something... An optimized character would probably have +1 more on their attack roll since they'd have an extra +2 to their attack stat, +6 for weapon's enhancement bonus, +3 for weapon proficiency, but Dragon's breath has +6 already, so it'd only be +4 behind plus maybe another point if you had a feat or class feature that adds a bonus. Implements would only be a few points ahead. Plus with three attacks a round you're more likely to get 20s... it seems like the extra damage potential still more than balances out the slight decrease in your chance to hit, especially against multiple enemies.

Still, I'm new to 4th edition, so please correct me if I've missed something.

 

[OakwoodDM]

And you'd never get a chance to heal and therefore die in a couple of encounters. That is, if your companions didn't execute you for stopping them from regaining abilities.

 

[dragonchild]

Also, it'll take you a good 4-5 rounds to burn through the rest of your encounter powers, so it's going to be trickier to use this power to a) effect more than 1 enemy and b) not effect any of your allies, given all the manoeuvring that will have gone on in those early rounds.

You can start doing it on the 3rd round if you pick the right powers (as in no standard action per encounter utilities) so you only have 4 per encounter powers to use besides Dragon's Breath and spend an action point.

 

[Runestar]

And you'd never get a chance to heal and therefore die in a couple of encounters. That is, if your companions didn't execute you for stopping them from regaining abilities.

At lv30, the cleric demigod would be using sunburst every round outside of combat to heal 10+cha mod hp each round, effectively doing away with the need to use healing surges to regain hp after combat, and restoring everyone back to full hp much more quickly than the 5 minutes required of a short rest.

And they can still take their short rests. You just do whatever it takes so that your short rest doesn't count as one. Or after you have taken your short rest, immediately expend all your encounter powers in preparation for the next fight. Either way, you get my gist.

The designers either did not playtest this ability at all, or they felt that it simply wouldn't matter since the campaign would be coming to a close soon.

 

[Hellzon]

I think I've missed something... An optimized character would probably have +1 more on their attack roll since they'd have an extra +2 to their attack stat, +6 for weapon's enhancement bonus, +3 for weapon proficiency, but Dragon's breath has +6 already, so it'd only be +4 behind plus maybe another point if you had a feat or class feature that adds a bonus.

The attack stat for Dragon breath is Str, Con or Dex, choose at character generation. Theoretically a 50% chance of being the same stat your regular attack power runs off (100% chance for their "favored class", the Fighter.).

The +3 (or +2 for some weapons) for proficiency is technically balanced by the fact that AC is usually higher than other defenses.

It's a wash, though I guess a dragonborn feylock might lag behind in the dragonbreath hitstat (since feylocks don't favor any of the physical stats).