Class Compendium: The Warlord (Marshal)

[Obryn]

Denying an impact on balance, though, is something I can't seem to let lie.

Then show your work. What is the impact on balance? I'm seeing theorycraft from you, while what I'm seeing at my own table with mixed classes is ... a perfectly working mix of classes, and no imbalance between characters.

In other words, if there's an imbalance, shouldn't I be seeing it? What is going on in my own game that I'm unaware of?

So, basically, if you exclude 34 years of clear evidence that daily spells vs at-will sword swinging don't balance, you can conclude that they /will/ balance in Essentials... ?

I'm sorry, but if I'm going to discard decades of crystal clear evidence and common wisdom, I want some compelling, non-anecdoteal, evidence, or some very solid reasoning as to how it's even /possible/ to do what proved impossible for so long. I mean, seriously, give me something.

Given that 4e is a different game from 1e, 2e, and 3e, I think those 34 years can safely be disregarded when we're talking about 4e. It's a completely different system.

Like, what specific mechanic(s) compensates a Slayer for his lack of daily powers? What keeps that mechanism balanced at low levels, when AEDU classes have one daily, and higher levels when they have 4? What maintains it in long, drawn-out 'grinds' and fast, brutal 'alpha strikes?' In 8 encounter days and single-encounter days?

Some classes are good at steady damage over time. Some are good at burst damage. This is already happening, and was before Essentials. Some classes rely more on their dailies, some rely on them less.

What maintains the balance for Slayers is something like this...

Mighty Slayer
Slayer Weapon Specialization
Inexorable Slayer
Armored Mobility
Constantly improving Power Strike
Constantly improving striker bonus damage

But the proof is in the play, and when we're talking something that's often subjective, like class balance, I don't know how else to look at it. I don't have a slayer in my game, but I have its close cousin, the Thief. She's doing good, solid striker damage - nothing out of line. She's up there with the S-K Pact Warlock.

-O

 

[Tony Vargas]

The rate of usage has nothing to do with it. What they are capable of is the point.

You are asserting that a daily is no more powerful than an at-will or encounter of the same level?

I acknowledged, above, that the balance issue raised is lesser in degree than it was in prior eds, because the gulf between encounter and daily resources is less than that between sword-swining and spell-slinging in the old days. But, it's still the same issue. It's like Essentials is the Flu, and AD&D was Ebola... Ebola is worse, but people do die of the Flu.

So, what do you think immunizes the Slayer, say? What specific mechanic(s) compensates a Slayer for his lack of daily powers? What keeps that mechanism balanced at low levels, when AEDU classes have one daily, and higher levels when they have 4? What maintains it in long, drawn-out 'grinds' and fast, brutal 'alpha strikes?' In 8 encounter days and single-encounter days?

 

[Vael]

Admittedly, I haven't played prior to 3.5, but I find 4e's general chassis far more forgiving and better at maintaining class balance. Defenses and attacks roughly scale at the same rate, you don't have the massive imbalances that occur in 3.5. Which, to me, indicates that 4e can support far more than only AEDU classes. Psionic classes started the process, and I do consider Essentials classes proof that you can have more variety in class structure. I'm quite pleased that we can expand beyond the shackles of AEDU.

Also, to be honest, the idea the AEDU alone guarantees class balance is a bad assumption. Certain classes struggle to do their job as effectively as others.

 

[S'mon]

You are asserting that a daily is no more powerful than an at-will or encounter of the same level?

I can only really speak to low-Heroic, but there: Wizard dailies are nice. Fighter dailies are little more than a couple extra damage dice, making almost no difference. Maybe I'll see an issue at high level, but it's not obvious.

 

[kaomera]

I'd be interested to hear in what ways you find it an improvement in balance.

Sure. OK, first of all, I'm only accounting for a certain "n" value of balance, such that I would notice it in actual play. I don't do dpr comparisons or anything of that sort at the table, and I'm only significantly concerned with the issue when it comes up in play. Frex: my scout, one of the other players at the table would not shut up about how she was horribly gimped by not being able to apply both dual weapon attack and power attack to the same strike; personally aside from that annoyance I didn't notice - I wasn't behind enough in damage that I couldn't land the finishing blow on more enemies than that player's thief, either. Given that:

Optimized pre-essentials characters are generally balanced, there are (or in some cases where, thanks to errata) some outlying cases, but I'd posit that you had to put a certain amount of work into over-optimizing a character. But you also had to do a certain amount of work in order to avoid an under-optimized character, there where "traps" and pitfalls to be avoided. Essentials characters require less work to avoid under-optimization. And since I don't feel that essentials has actually harmed balance in 4e, that's one in the plus column and nothing in the minus.

That classes make roughly equal contributions and share 'spotlight time' more or less equally over as many levels, situations, and play styles as possible.

Well, play styles I can't comment on beyond how I played. Or maybe I could, but I'd rather not; the only thing I could really say is that if someone wasn't having fun, maybe they should have been doing something else. The system never matters so much as what you do with if. Even when "what you do with it" is strictly limited to applying mechanics, that's still a choice and makes a huge difference, IMO.

If you found AD&D balanced, there are few games you could find imbalanced - certainly 3.x and Essentials are paragons of flawless balanced compared to AD&D.

Well, I'm no good at 3.x, but there's plenty of people who had and continue to have quite a bit of fun with that game. And I don't find there's much to compare between AD&D and 4e, they're just different games.

I take it you mostly played in the single-digit levels? The 'sweet spot' that kept getting mentioned as something 4e was trying to expand. If fighters are still important, you're at relatively low levels, if magic-users are having stand-out moments, you're probably at least 3rd... and if a theif is, also, then you have to have gotten out of the low-level doldrums where his skills are just pathetically low...

Well, yeah, highest I got in one of my games was 12th (enough XP for 13th level, but didn't survive long enough to get training done). But it took a lot longer to get from level 12 to 13 than to get from 1 to 2. I prefer lower-level games overall (or at least, games that start out at low levels and don't where PCs that are higher-level have "earned it"), and I don't find that 4e has done a really great job in fixing the "sweet spot" issues. You still need to be really invested in your character to make all the extra work of running them at higher levels worth it.

Fighters remained important all the way up. Magic users had stand-out moments at 1st with spells like sleep or charm person. And the thief was awesomesauce. The first-level thief has something roughly comparable to several extra "feats" and something like a +4 bonus to several very important skills.

I've found that the key difference is that "fiction matters" in old-school gaming. Not that fiction doesn't matter in more modern games, there's just been much more of a push to representing that fiction mechanically and / or with physical props and such. I found that magic-users, far from being invincible one-man armies where very fragile and rather wasted on artillery duties. The fighters could mow down orcs more efficiently than a fireball. The real power lay in information and abilities that the PCs couldn't get otherwise, which in turn meant cooperating with the rest of the party.

I'll admit that the AD&D games I played and ran where somewhat "separate but equal" away from the dungeon or the battlefield: fighters tended to lead armies, thieves traveled the underworld, clerics dealt with religious matters, magic-users hid in their towers and waited for the moment when one of their spells would be of use, and all of them engaged in politics to a greater or lesser degree. When there was cause to enter a dungeon or march off to war then all classes had their places, none of them where really able to function on their own or steal the spotlight.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You are asserting that a daily is no more powerful than an at-will or encounter of the same level?

Depends on The Maths.

Hypothetically:

You deal about 5 points of damage with an "at-will." You take roughly 5 turns per combat, and have about 3 combats per day, so you're dealing 75 points of damage per day.

Another class with the same role deals 3 points of damage with an "at-will." They deal about 45 points of damage each day. They ALSO have a daily ability that deals 30 points of damage all at once (TIMES TEN MULTIPLIER!!!). They're dealing 75 points of damage per day.

These classes are "balanced." They're capable of the same thing. They do it in different ways, but in the end, they have the same effect on the combats in a day.

So the usage doesn't have to affect the balance.

So, what do you think immunizes the Slayer, say? What specific mechanic(s) compensates a Slayer for his lack of daily powers? What keeps that mechanism balanced at low levels, when AEDU classes have one daily, and higher levels when they have 4? What maintains it in long, drawn-out 'grinds' and fast, brutal 'alpha strikes?' In 8 encounter days and single-encounter days?

Have you read a Slayer thread? The consensus on the interwebs is that they are possibly more powerful than other strikers. This consensus is formed of three main pillars:

• +DEX modifier to damage (the Heroic Slayer and Mighty Slayer features)
• STR and DEX being the only required stats (giving you an extra 2-4 points of damage each attack).
• The never-miss, never-useless Power Strike ability that you get multiple times, and can use in every encounter.

The onus, I think, is on you to show that lacking dailies is a problem for them. They can't blast 4[W] in a single attack, but, as I showed above, that doesn't necessarily make them any weaker in a day than any other Striker.

 

[kaomera]

Have you read a Slayer thread? The consensus on the interwebs is that they are possibly more powerful than other strikers.

And that's the slayer. From what I've sen written of the thief (and ignoring silly things like actual play experience), if essentials is the flu and AD&D ebola, then the thief is a freakin' suborbital nuklear strike, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, one, one, one, exclamation point.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What maintains the balance for Slayers is something like this...

Mighty Slayer
Slayer Weapon Specialization
Inexorable Slayer
Armored Mobility
Constantly improving Power Strike
Constantly improving striker bonus damage

And how does that work, exactly?

Clearly, improved power strike and weapon specialization keep the Slayer's Power Strike roughly on par with 'E' part of AEDU classes. Additional uses of power strike are accumulated about as fast as additoinal Encounter attacks, and, the way it upgrades very aproximately matches the way AEDU classes turn in low level Encounters for higher level ones. But, unless it's somehow demonstrably superior to more varied Encounter attack powers, it can't contribute to compensating for the lack of dailies.

Mighty slayer is the improving striker damage bonus, other strikers do have damage bonuses - the Sorcerer's, I believe, is very strongly comparable to the Slayers, isn't it. A secondary stat adding directly to damage rolls? So it's the amount over the secondary stat that's contributing to balancing out dailies...

That tops out at +8 damage.
Inexorable Slayer is a +1 saving throws.
Armored mobility is DR vs OAs.
The slayer also eventually takes no movement penalty for armor.

Two of those are about equivalent to feats, armored mobility is more unusual, but the net effect (worry a lot less about OAs) is basically comparable to the artful dodgers AC bonus vs OAs.

So, really, it's down to +8 damage, which is pretty sweet, I have to admit, especially for a striker. And, the Slayer's basic-attack emphasis gives him yet more easily obtained damage bonuses, and the ability to exploit charge enhancements, OA enhancement, and granted basic attacks. OK, it mostly comes down to using Bracers of Mighty Striking over Iron Armbands of Power, but it's nice.

+8 is actually looking good. Let's compare it to the damage potential - just the damage potential, none of the other rage effects - of the top-level Barbarian's dailies. The Barbarian can potentially have 3 7[W] dialies (one from Frenzied Berserker) and a 4[W]. I'm going to assume a Mordenkrad, because it just makes the math really easy - at 2d6 Brutal 1, it averages 8 damage. (see, easy) At-wills do 2[W] at top level, so the Barbarian is getting 17 [W] out of his dailies. All the Slayer has to do is attack 17 times (we'll ignore that the daily might have a miss line) in the course of a /day/ and he's matched that. In a 4 encounter day, that just requires 4-round encounters. That's not hard at all.

Damn. I'm mildly dissapointed. I was expecting the tipping point to be a little less on-the-nose. Clearly, someone at WotC - contrary to CharOp opinion - does have math skills.

So, imbalance occurs when you deviate in either direction: If you have a one-encounter day - and it doesn't go 17 rounds - the Barbarian comes out ahead. If it's critical to bring down an enemy quickly in an 'alpha strike,' and combats are very short, the Barbarian comes out ahead. If you have a grueling 8-encounter day, the Slayer pulls ahead. If you tend towards many-round brutal 'grinds,' the Slayer pulls ahead.

Since damage is central to the Striker roll, it's an easy analysis - which is why I asked for the Slayer, not the Knight. We could try to account for everything rages do besides damage, or every feature the slayer gets as it levels, but there's no point. On the basic Slayer function, we've isolated a point where the Slayer theoretically balances with a conceptually comparable AEDU Striker.

Whether, I got the estimate or math right, and whether every other non-AEDU balances out at quite the same point as every other AEDU class, I'm will to bet that WotC did their best to get them all balancing around the same 4-kinda-short-encounters point. Encounters is using 4 kinda-easy encounters a day. I believe the DM kit recomends 3-5 encounters/day, and the new higher-damage monsters edge the game towards slightly shorter combats.

So, we have balance at something like a 16 round (one-and-two-third minute) Day.

Deviate from that point consistently in both directions, in the same magnitude, and you retain a sort of overall balance of contrasting imbalances. Deviate from it consistently in one direction or the other, and you have a clearly imbalanced state.

Contrast that to 4e, where you do not introduce imbalances by deviating from a given number of encounters per day and rounds per encounter.

That's what I mean about Essentials degrading class balance, in the same way, but to a lesser degree as earlier eds.

Like I said, feel free to be fine with that.

 

[S'mon]

And that's the slayer. From what I've sen written of the thief (and ignoring silly things like actual play experience)...

Re actual play experience - my E-Thief certainly pumps out vastly more damage than the other Striker, a PHB/PHB-3 Minotaur Ranger who dual-wields bastard swords, but is mostly good for attracting enemy attacks, which is nice for activating the Fighter's mark. While I'm throwing Mr Pointy every round for d4+2d8+12, avg 23.5, he's attacking with a much lower attack bonus and if he hits he's doing 2 x 1d10+1 with twin strike, avg 13. Usually he only hits once though, while I never miss.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And how does that work, exactly?

...SNIP...

That's what I mean about Essentials degrading class balance, in the same way, but to a lesser degree as earlier eds.

Like I said, feel free to be fine with that.

I disagree with your analysis.

Power Strike is an ALWAYS HIT damage bonus. Now, assume that a fighter has a 2W encounter power at level 1. This power will hit roughly 50% of the time, though maybe the chance is really more like 65%. So Power Strike is worth almost TWO fighter encounter powers (presumably the encounter power also has an ancillary effect, so it somewhat balances out).

The Slayer is doing an extra 2-3 points of damage every round vs the fighter. The fighter has a 3W daily, roughly a 7 point damage add over an at-will once a day. Now, the fighter isn't a striker per-se, so we can consider this reasonably balanced (actual play confirms this).

The result is that on the whole the slayer is doing a bit more damage, maybe even a bit more than a PHB1 rogue and equivalent to a bow ranger (who also has few other options besides just attacking BTW). The fighter or other PHB1 character OTOH has a bit more control of when and where to drop his big damage and gets some kind of special effect when he does that.

As other people have pointed out, because 4e has a built-in system of bonus progression which controls your core to-hit and defense bonuses it is actually fairly hard to have things go totally out of whack. Beyond that there is a rather definite damage increase progression as well, again mostly built into the various powers and such.

Given that attack bonus and damage are the MAIN indicators of combat balance for most characters 4e REALLY IS largely self-regulating. No plausible class design is going to be very far out from being balanced. You're going to have to make some value judgments about effects vs damage, how much advantage are area attacks, etc. Still, these are things the 4e devs clearly figured out. I don't see frequency of use balancing as being a harder tweak than those.

As for 1e, I still maintain it offers not even the slightest lessons on balancing classes (nor do 2e or 3.x either for that matter). 34 years of sending cars careening down the road with nobody behind the wheel will not teach you jack all about how to drive. It may teach you a lot about the consequences of crashing, but you'll still have to get behind the wheel and learn how to run the car. So the only lesson we can draw from previous editions is that they were indeed totally unbalanced and that we're sick of that. We can hypothesize what made them unbalanced and what might fix them, but 4e clearly has actually done it and equally clearly the 4e devs understand the how and why of that.

Now, you may find Essentials martial classes produce slightly different results in your game than other classes. I don't know. I seriously doubt it is going to be very noticeable or amount to anything more than the existing slight variations between AEDU classes. In THEORY it should be easier to balance classes that all use the same exact mechanics. In practice it may be harder to do that with non-AEDU classes, but you'd have to ask Mike Mearls about that. All we can see is that the result is pretty darn close.

Honestly I think the analogy of the chasm between Fighting Man and Magic User and that between Mage and Slayer is like comparing the Grand Canyon to a rivulet made in your driveway by a leaky garden hose. They may arise from the same basic process in theory but they are so quantitatively different that we can't even really make a qualitative comparison. I've DMed since the very start of D&D and in this respect I find the difference too vast to really gage.