Classes need to be ready to go from the beginning

[MerricB]

Yeah, what feats did you take? As a hunter, you have excellent access to lore and tactics feats. You could bump up your intelligence to high levels and take weapon bond, and be a good combatant with your high int, or you could take the tactics of the mind feat chain and... be a good combatant with your high int. Did you consider venom mastery? You could sneak around with a hunter's huge skill points and stab and poison people! How awesome is that?

It'd be awesome if I was higher level. I was 2nd level.

The PC was created for me, which definitely made it somewhat worse, but when I attained 2nd level I wasn't seeing all that much that was interesting.

14 Str, 14 Dex, 16 Int. I had the feat that gave me my Int to attack (both Str & Dex), but that was really a Weapon Focus with my stats.

Tactics of the Mind... that's the one for it's first level gives you "Take a standard action to get a token if you make a DC 10 check", and "you can spend this token to delay, and act immediately before someone else?" Forgive me if I was underwhelmed. The later abilities looked good, but the basic ability of the feat? Pathetic.

Cheers!

 

[wgreen]

I think the Hunter gets really effective from levels 4 onward, but from my experiences, I am beginning to think Iron Heroes is a really, really badly developed game. That the designer of Iron Heroes is the lead developer of D&D 4e worries me.

FWIW, ISTR that Mearls left Malhavoc Press for WotC before the game was quite ready to be released. It's definitely a little rough around the edges. They did recently release a revised version of it, though I haven't looked at it. The IH forum at Malhavoc Press is a pretty good resource for house rules to patch the system up, if you're still interested.

Perhaps the Hunter has good skills? Well, they're not bad. Only problem is this: the Rogue/Thief of the group had better.

Were you stunting? I noticed that the guys in my group who had the most fun were the ones who made abundant use of stunts and skill challenges.

All that said, you're right -- the hunter kind of sucks at low levels. I consider it one of those "rough edges" I mentioned.

-Will

 

[Rystil Arden]

It'd be awesome if I was higher level. I was 2nd level.

The PC was created for me, which definitely made it somewhat worse, but when I attained 2nd level I wasn't seeing all that much that was interesting.

14 Str, 14 Dex, 16 Int. I had the feat that gave me my Int to attack (both Str & Dex), but that was really a Weapon Focus with my stats.

Tactics of the Mind... that's the one for it's first level gives you "Take a standard action to get a token if you make a DC 10 check", and "you can spend this token to delay, and act immediately before someone else?" Forgive me if I was underwhelmed. The later abilities looked good, but the basic ability of the feat? Pathetic.

Cheers!

No, Tactics of the Mind 1 lets you use your Int bonus for attack rolls (later #7 lets you add both!). #2 is the crappy one.

I think the trouble is that the GM made the character for you and made the character badly. In my Convention game, I built the characters with the goal of making them each as effective as possible in their niche so that they can work together well as a team. I also definitely gave my Hunter the Charisma to use Charisma skills. If you do that and also have him grab Perform, the Hunter gains what is effectively the Bard's Inspire Courage ability, which is also a powerful boost.

BTW, I would have grabbed War Leader 2, if I were you, since you clearly have War Leader 1 (the flanking one). War Leader 2 is really really great--it gives an immediate second AoO for an ally whenever the enemy provokes one, for one of those tokens.

 

[king_ghidorah]

I don't find the Bard underpowered.

I do find the Cleric overpowered, but it was designed that way on purpose. You can run the numbers and see that it's overpowered.... cast in armor, more hp than wizard, same spell levels, more spells/day, plus turning, better weapons than wizard. They were more balanced in older editions, where top end spells were the province of wizards. I just don't know why they were designed the way they were, apart from people in Mearls's group not wanting to play a cleric or whatever.

You do realize that Mike Mearls didn't design the 3.x cleric, right?

Of course, the obvious reasons (to me) that clerics are more powerful is a combination of trying to keep sacred cows of the cleric's abilities in the past and making clerics more attractive to play. It was hard IME to get players to willingly play the cleric in AD&D. Somebody would jump on the cleric grenade, and as a DM I often tried to make sure the cleric got chance to shine in the campaign so the part was more fun to play than just doing support until he was out of spells, then guarding the retreat of the damaged party.

 

[king_ghidorah]

The model of dependence (needing the fighter to keep the monsters off the heroes, the cleric to heal, the wizard for damage and battlefield control, and the rogue/thief to deal with dungeon threats) while refined in MMORPGs came from D&D. Using that model does not make something like a MMORPG. It makes it like... well, D&D. That's the point of having a class-and-level based system rather than a skill-based system -- characters are given fairly narrow roles to play in the party that others depend upon.

That's why some support roles (I'm talking to you, bard) are problematic -- jack of all trades, master of none as a concept meshes poorly with the general design philosophy of focused specialization.

Okay.

Cooperation means working together, not depending on each other. If we go by your homemade definition, and model DND after it, wouldnt that be like playing the MMORGs you mention, just with dice and no graphics?

Second of all, this balance you speak off, only exists in the minds of some players. To circumvent this, all you need to do is think outside the box. For example regarding the healer needing to heal or they fail:

"If you bring enough dps, you dont need the healing"

This holds true in MMORGS, and in DND.

Lets not try to model DND after a certain perception of WOW raiding.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I just don't know why they were designed the way they were, apart from people in Mearls's group not wanting to play a cleric or whatever.

Yeah, because Mike Mearls was working on the original design of Third Edition in 2000. Riiiiiight.

When you don't even know whom you should be recklessly blaming for perceived faults in the game, perhaps it's not a good idea for you to recklessly blame anyone.

 

[Merlion]

Yeah, because Mike Mearls was working on the original design of Third Edition in 2000. Riiiiiight.

When you don't even know whom you should be recklessly blaming for perceived faults in the game, perhaps it's not a good idea for you to recklessly blame anyone.

Well, he may have got the name wrong, but the upshot is correct. Whoever was designing 3e had had experiences of no one wanting to play the Cleric, and this combined with their belief that every group MUST have a major healer led to the incredibly overpowered Cleric we have now.

That's why some support roles (I'm talking to you, bard) are problematic -- jack of all trades, master of none as a concept meshes poorly with the general design philosophy of focused specialization.

This is what I was talking about with the Bard, with my point being 3.x hasnt executed the concept of a support character very well. The Bard has the issues you describe, and the Cleric is a scene stealing monstrosity.

 

[Nyaricus]

Maybe he meant Monte Cook? A lot of people just refer to him as Monte after all...

 

[Stalker0]

As far as leader/support classes go, I'm hoping for some of the following in 4e:

1) When I do something cool, everyone benefits. If the warlord gets a crit and kills a creature, everyone is so inspired they get a morale bonus next round or something like that. When you do something awesome and you get congratulated, its fun. When everyone gets really excited because you just helped the whole party then its awesome!!

2) You guys get a bonus, I get a bigger one. Just because your support doesn't mean you can't shine too. An example is the paladin's aura of courage. They give bonuses to everyone against fear, but they are immune to it themselves. If your willing to spend an action to give your party some bonuses, nothing wrong with you benefiting a little more.

 

[MerricB]

As far as leader/support classes go, I'm hoping for some of the following in 4e:

1) When I do something cool, everyone benefits. If the warlord gets a crit and kills a creature, everyone is so inspired they get a morale bonus next round or something like that. When you do something awesome and you get congratulated, its fun. When everyone gets really excited because you just helped the whole party then its awesome!!

2) You guys get a bonus, I get a bigger one. Just because your support doesn't mean you can't shine too. An example is the paladin's aura of courage. They give bonuses to everyone against fear, but they are immune to it themselves. If your willing to spend an action to give your party some bonuses, nothing wrong with you benefiting a little more.

'

I totally agree.

Cheers!