Charge! Should I be worried about this druid?

[msherman]

There's a new druid joining my game at 6th level. He's packing some gear that seems to do a lot of bonus damage on a charge:

- Badge of the berserker (movement while charging doesn't provoke)
- Earthfall totem (+1d6 on a push/slide/prone, and he has an at will BMA that pushes)
- Horned Helm (+1d6 on a charge)
- Claw Gloves (+1d10 vs CA, which is easy if he charges into a flanking position w/ 2 other melee fighters in the party)

Should I be worried about all that extra damage? He might even be out-DPSing the archer ranger with the bracers of archery at this point.

Are there any anti-charging tactics I should be using here (obviously not with all monsters, but at least the smart ones, once they figure out his game)?

 

[Saagael]

I wouldn't worry about it, because druids are squishy enough that if they charge into combat, they'll most likely get ahead of the rest of the group with their extra movement (especially an elf) and won't be able to handle being the focus of all the baddies.

 

[Larrin]

The simplest anti-charge tactic is get next to him, or within 1 square of him. He can't charge them without moving first, and that WILL provoke OA's. Enemies that slow, create difficult terrain, etc also hurt chargers.

As for being worried...He's spent alot of gold making this build work, he's got one trick, and I'm betting that he won't be able to pull it off as often as you fear. He'll have round when he pulls out some nice damage, and rounds where he has to fall back on other tactics that his gear isn't helping with. Sounds fair. And as was mentioned....nothing says "swarm me" like a skinny druid charging where he doesn't belong....I'm betting he'll be one of the first to run out of surges in a day....(this is from my short experiences with other charge happy players)

 

[KarinsDad]

I think this is a bit much. I'm always leery of characters coming in that have the best items (4 of them at 6th level) for a given shtick.

Also, Druids are not that squishy. Compared to a controller Wizard for example, they have 2 more hit points at level one, gain one more hit point per level, can start out in Hide compared to Cloth, and have an additional healing surge per day.

So, the Druid is +1 to hit with the charge and does 1D8+2D6+Wis and quite often +3 to hit with 1D8+2D6+D10+Wis damage without magic. Using the +2 Earthfall totem, that's either 17.5 or 23 damage on average.

His chances to hit a same level foe (Reflex 18 on average) will typically be either 65% without help from other PCs, or 75% or more (CA).

Effectively, he is increasing his damage from 10.5 to either 17.5 or 23. That's double damage on some charges and he doesn't provoke and he gets the bonuses to hit.

Double normal damage is typically considered powerful.


And, he doesn't have just one trick. Every time he gets CA, he gets +D10. The +2 for the totem is still +2. He has a nice way of getting out of a problem area by charging a foe outside it and not provoking. And, his other powers still work fine. He did not put feats into this build for this, so he probably has a lot of other options.


I would suggest allowing him 2 of the 4 items his choice and then assigning 2 items to him as DM.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I play a charging barbarian and find that I'm not able to charge as much as I want to. At best its two or three times per combat, often just once.

If you are still worried, I'd let the player try it, but let him know that if things turn out to be too powerful in play that you will ask him to change things.

 

[spasheridan]

If you think an extra 10 HP of damage every other round is something to worry about.

Honestly, with the bags of hitpoints monsters have in this game that damage will be a rounding error.

 

[keterys]

If you're worried about it, disallow either the earthfall or the claw gloves. I'd suggest the claw gloves as those seem less specific to the concept and seem really, really dumb when you consider rogues. If it's on par with the rest of the party, don't worry about it. Without listing the levels, I assume all his items are on par for what a starting 6th level character should have?

As for 10 damage being a rounding error, does that mean 6th level bracers that gave +10 damage would be balanced, when we have ones that give +2 already? No. Don't be silly.

 

[msherman]

Yeah, he's got all the items paid for fairly -- a couple of them aren't actually starting items, but on his wishlist. So I can not give them to him if I'm really worried. That's why I'm asking -- I'm honestly not sure if I should be. I hadn't considered the squishiness of druids, that probably makes things ok (and, in fact, nicely deals with another problem we've been having, where the laser cleric has been getting a bit bored spending all her time trickle-charging the Fighter).

I already promised the new player that he could take a few extra retcons/retrains after the first game or two (since he's new to 4e and wasn't sure how his character was going to play out), so if the combo looks like too much once we see it in play, I'm sure he'll grant me the same courtesy.

 

[Turtlejay]

Well, it looks like your problem is not so bad then. If he only has *some* of those things, then you can let him play and see how much of a monstrosity/nuisance he is (my guess, not much of one). If his charging is ruining your fun, then give him different things from his wishlist. If you still think he is a problem, just talk to him about it. Mention that his character seems pretty one dimentional, and you'd like him to work on some other aspects.

I predict it won't be a problem. We play with a charging barbarian, and he gets to charge one or two times an encounter. charging requires a minimum of 2 squares, so once things get hot and heavy, it is tougher to get that to work.

Jay

 

[renau1g]

I don't think the 1-hit wonder will be all that powerful. As others have pointed out he's kinda squishy so I would have monsters pound him into the ground if he charges in. Having monsters with immobilizing powers helps, difficult terrain and slow help, shifty kobolds are always fun.