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

[entrerix]

rangers can use two longswords w/no penalty

 

[pawsplay]

You can't wield two longswords, only weapons with the Off-Hand keyword can be wielded effectively in your off-hand. The difference isn't large, but it's there.

Really? What happens? There's a bit of 1e silliness I don't miss.

 

[Scarface6174]

A ranger can use 2 one handed weapons with no penalty if he takes the 2 wep fighting class feature. You can attacks with either weapon as a basic attack, but can only attack with both if an exploit (power) says so.

 

[mattdm]

and so, what then?

Do you think twin strike is too good, or careful shot always awful, or some combination of the above? Would making careful shot be +3 or +4 fix the problem, or does twin strike really need a penalty?

 

[Kraydak]

Do you think twin strike is too good, or careful shot always awful, or some combination of the above? Would making careful shot be +3 or +4 fix the problem, or does twin strike really need a penalty?

Careful Shot compares poorly with basic attacks... let us leave it at that. Careful Shot should probably be around +6 or +7. I'm not joking about those numbers, as it happens. That is what it needs to be competitive with Twin Attacks, Reaping Strike or Cleave (Fighter's Sure Strike is a Careful Shot clone).

 

[Otterscrubber]

I remember prior to the release of the actual rules, careful shot was thought to grant a +4 bonus hit, via the characters released for DDxp. I guess that changed somewhere along the line. I was not impressed with only a +2 bonus to hit with careful shot but keep in mind also that with Twin Strike you dont get any bonus to damage for high Str/Dex. I didn't see this taken into account in any of the calculations above. I would assume most people are going to design a character with a 16 in their prime damage stat (my dragonborn ranger as an 18 str) and when you get to higher levels this means you are missing a lot of extra damage. Although you will probably get offset by just hitting and having a higher crit rate I guess as well, especially since at higher levels you will crit much harder with magic weapons.

 

[tomtill]

Now something more typical, with something more your level - say a roll of 14 hits.

Careful:
12-19 hit, 20 crits. 5% crit and 40% hit.
.4 * 4.5 + .05 * 8 = 2.2 per use
Twin:
14-19 hit, 20 crits: 5% crit and 30% hit
.3 * 4.5 + .05 * 8 = 1.75 per roll = 3.5 per use.

Wouldn't an event with a 30% chance of occurring only have a 9% chance of occurring twice in a row?

 

[parasyte]

statistics

Wouldn't an event with a 30% chance of occurring only have a 9% chance of occurring twice in a row?

Yes, but that's not what these numbers measure. You still have a 30% chance of hitting on a second roll regardless of whether you hit on the first. The probabilities are independent.

 

[baberg]

Yes, but that's not what these numbers measure. You still have a 30% chance of hitting on a second roll regardless of whether you hit on the first. The probabilities are independent.

Yes, but he's just flat-out doubling the damage per attack together. There's higher math at work here that I'm trying to work out...

 

[tomtill]

that's the point

the fact that they are independent means that you have (for example) a 30% chance of hitting once.

Once you have already hit or missed once, you still have a 30% chance of hitting a second time.

But, the likelihood of hitting twice in a row (calculated before your first attack) is 0.3 x 0.3 = 0.09

Thus your chance of getting the 2[W] is a little less than 10% vs. the 40% chance of [W]+3 (using your example).

On the other hand, the chance of hitting at least once for [W] is 1-(.7*.7) =0.51