D&D 4E Careful Shot vs Twin Strike....No Contest (4e spoilers)

[Makaze]

It offers versatility. It hits more often than a basic attack, period. It may not offer as much expected damage round by round as the basic attack, but sometimes damage now is more important than damage later. Besides which, some monsters have abilities that trigger on misses. I don't think it's as clear-cut as you claim.

It offers versatility over basic attack. It's just plain worse than the other at-wills. Same thing with Sure Strike. Both of those abilities seem to be balanced on the same scale as basic attack rather than their fellow at-wills.

 

[Zurai]

How about this to balance out the Careful Attack-alikes:

You may use this ability as a basic <ranged/melee> attack.

That, at least, gives it something that the more powerful at-wills can't do.

 

[Rystil Arden]

To be fair, I don't think Careful Attack sucks, it's just that Twin Strike is so good that it's usually a better option.

The Fighter at-will Sure Strike is effectively the same power as Careful Attack, but it's not getting anywhere near the same amount of flack because there's not another fighter at-will that steps on its toes.

Reaping Strike is strictly better in damage than Sure Strike for two-handed weapon and sufficient Strength. With two-handing:

Reaping: no +2 to hit, on a hit it does W+Str, on a miss it does Str

Sure: +2 to hit, on a hit it does W, on a miss it does nothing.

If Str ~= to W (or greater), Sure Strike is strictly worse in all situations for expected damage. Even if its a little bit lower, Sure Strike really sucks.

The only time you wouldn't always use Reaping is versus minions, and as Kraydak said, Cleave is better than Sure Strike on them.

 

[Stalker0]

I like the idea of Careful Shot having a higher plus to hit rather than increasing its damage. You could always add in other effects that affect a sniping type shot; such as ignoring certain cover or somesuch.

Twin Strike should be damage.
Careful Shot should be about connecting with hard to hit foes.

I completely understand this point of view, but with the powers written as is this isn't feasible. The reason twin strike gives a very nice boost in accuracy from a base attack. In many cases its effectively as high as a +5 to your attack roll. But you pay for it with the loss of damage, making it balanced with other ranger powers and powers from other classes.

In order for CS to beat TS in the "accuracy" department, you would have to skyrocket its attack bonus, and that would imbalance it as a power. Or you would have to change TS, and there's no reason to do that unless we have to.

With that in mind, damage is the way to go for CS. If you think of it more as a sniper type shot,l that one shot one kill kind of attack that just does brutal damage, then it makes more sense.

 

[Stalker0]

Alright, I've made some charts to highlight to people some houserule ideas. I'm attaching a copy of the excel in the post.

The charts read as follows. The first column of charts shows a comparison of average damage between CS and TS, at specific chances to hit (which is calculated based on the chance of a hit before power bonus is added in). The second column shows the difference in effective accuracy. For CS, this includes its power bonus. For TS, its how often at least 1 attack will hit.

There are three rows. The first are the powers as normal. The second one is with the houserule, CS is now +0 to attack, but you gain your dex mod (which I'm assuming is a +4) and your wisdom mod (which I'm assuming is a +3). The third row is allowing CS to keep its +2, while also giving it dex and wis to damage.

ANALYSIS:
1) I hope it is very obvious from row 1 that CS and TS are just not balanced as currently written.
2) Row 2 shows that with this houserule, the two powers do near equal damage. However, note the 2nd chart. TS is a LOT more accurate than CS, meaning CS is still a poor choice of powers.
3) Both powers now have a clear niche. CS just does more damage than TS, but TS hits more often than CS.

 

[Final Attack]

I like Twin strike at -2

Careful shot at +4

Only changes the accuracy not the damage. Not sure if -2 is enough.

An idea would be to penalise the offhand greater than the main hand. Too complicated?