D&D 4E Coolest or fun D&D4ed powers

[RedSiegfried]

One of my personal favorites, the 16th level Endurance skill power, Diehard.

"Though blood pours from a dozen wounds, you refuse to lie down and die."

Basically, it makes it so that when you go below 0 hp, you don't fall unconscious, but are just dazed. I love imagining the character who refuses to fall when others would be out cold.

 

[pemerton]

Love it or hate it, Come And Get It is iconic and character-defining for a Fighter.

Love it!

(And hated the errata/quasi-nerf. In our game we mostly use the errata, but not in this case.)

Nothing better than combining polearm master, polearm momentum, mark of storms and rushing cleats with that beauty of a power. Flavor it as you becoming and storm of lightning and wind for bonus cool points. Expanded range, expanded sliding, knocking them prone. Mmmm.

Make sure you set up your rain of steel/unyeilding avalanche before for some nice autodamage.

The fighter in my game uses this with Deadly Draw for combat advantage. Maybe something else for knocking prone (can't remember, too many intricate combos on this fighter). A Sunsphere for follow up damage (radiant, so especially good vs undead). And these days Cruel Reaper, for two follow-up AoEs each of which does bonus damage with an action point (from Warpriest).

Other cool/interesting Fighter powers: Footwork Lure (slide enemy), Reaping Strike (DoaM), Cleave (hardly unique, it was in 3e), Grappling Strike & Tide of Iron. And those are just the at-wills. Oh, and Threatening Rush. Beyond the basics: Bash & Pinion, Covering Attack, Comeback Strike, C&GI of course, Warrior's Urging, Spinning Sweep, Thicket of Blades, Reaper's Stance, Shield Bash, Pass Forward, Rain of Steel, Slamming Rush, and Crushing Foot

Footwork Lure with Rushing Cleats sees a lot of use from our fighter (the slide knocks prone). Covering Attack was in there for a while, and Comeback Strike. Warrior's Urging these days, rather than CaGI.

He has some nice dailies that let him do free action attacks on a crit or bloodying.

Climactic Chord, a Bard Utility, is simply amazing. It let's everyone get a whack in with big bonuses to hit and damage, and since it's a minor action, you get an attack too.

The sorcerer in my game is a MC bard and uses this one. From the GM's point of view it's terrible! From memory, it was pretty key in defeating Torog and Orcus. (I don't think it was used against Lolth, at least.)

The wizard spell arcane gate has been incredibly useful in circumventing terrain in combats such as chasms, rivers etc

A very cool spell, very versatile both in and out of combat.

Another verstaile wizard spell that sort both in-combat and out-of-combat use while a PC in my game had it is Twist of Space. I remember it being used to teleport a catoblepas above a group of cultists so it fell on them and squashed them. And being used more than once out-of-combat to help rescue people trapped in various sorts of extradimensional spaces.

 

[pemerton]

One of my personal favorites, the 16th level Endurance skill power, Diehard.

"Though blood pours from a dozen wounds, you refuse to lie down and die."

Basically, it makes it so that when you go below 0 hp, you don't fall unconscious, but are just dazed. I love imagining the character who refuses to fall when others would be out cold.

Our epic-level party has a lot of interesting come-back-from-death powers.

The fighter has a ring (the Ring of Pelor, maybe published as a Phoenix Ring?) that lets him burn to ash and come back to life. The paladin has the 22nd level (?) paladin utility that lets him spend surges and (I think) stand from prone. Last session the invoker/wizard used Reverse Time (from Sage of Ages) for the first time.

These powers really contribute to that epic feel.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Tide of Iron was a great Fighter At-Will. I liked two powers I had: one was push (con mod) and the other was push 3. With a con-primary hammer & shield fighter, they were very effective. And then I discovered Gauntlets of the Ram. Oh Smeg. I broke one encounter by pushing 2 monsters from the landing of a stairway carved into the side of a mountain. One did survive the 150ft fall, but decided not to spend the 30 minutes climbing up the stairs to rejoin the battle. That was half the fight over!
Fighter's Grit was a great utility.

While I understand that CharOppers poopoo it as a Red/Trap power, Storm Countess's Kiss can be amazingly effective in the right conditions. Like suspending the monster leader in the air higher than his aura, allowing us to wipe out his allies, and than ganging up on him to pound him to pemmican. Sure, it meant he had to fail a bunch of saving throws... Oh, did I mention he was a melee-only monster, with no range attacks whatsoever? DM was a trifle miffed.

The Vampire class had a lot going for it, but again, not according to CharOppers.
Actually, Heroes of Shadow had a lot of great flavor text--just not the mechanics to back it up.

For 4 sessions, I had convinced people that I was playing a different build of Paladin instead of a Blackguard by renaming "Dread Smite" to "Righteous Sanction" and such-like. When I didn't have daily powers to bust out for the big boss fight, I got rumbled. Everyone laughed though.

I loved all the people complaining that 4E didn't offer enough variety. I figured some 150 options of Race, class, build, and all, just with lvl1 characters. Sure, some weren't optimal, but all were workable.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Footwork Lure with Rushing Cleats sees a lot of use from our fighter (the slide knocks prone).

Our very first Fighter retrained to Footwork Lure as soon as it came out. Not long after she was zapped by a Korred Dancecaller, and had to move 2 squares every round or take damage. She just kept marking him with footwork lure & shifting with her move to meet the requirement. At the end of the battle, after the korreds had surrendered, he complemented her on her 'dancing.'

She made frequent good use of that at-will (and also the infamous G&GI+Rain of Steel+Thicket of Blades combo, of course) but the korreds' dance was the most memorable.

 

[MwaO]

While I understand that CharOppers poopoo it as a Red/Trap power, Storm Countess's Kiss can be amazingly effective in the right conditions. Like suspending the monster leader in the air higher than his aura, allowing us to wipe out his allies, and than ganging up on him to pound him to pemmican. Sure, it meant he had to fail a bunch of saving throws...

In other words, a single target mostly control-only power that mainly works on melee-only targets incapable of teleporting, something that gets uncommon at higher levels, particularly Paragon.

The Vampire class had a lot going for it, but again, not according to CharOppers.
Actually, Heroes of Shadow had a lot of great flavor text--just not the mechanics to back it up.

Actually, I liked the Vampire class(and was a member of the CharOp regulars). Unless you looked outside the box though, power choice wasn't particularly good - and despite powerful D&D Vampires having a very long history being both Vampire and belonging to a class, some people would react badly to the idea that you'd do just that. I was half-tempted to play one in LFR and make people complain to me that Vampires were overpowered. Except I don't actually try to break the game, which throws a wrench into that idea...

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

One that I've gotten a lot of use out of lately is Inspiring Fortitude (Endurance Skill Utility 2). My Bard (MC Paladin) didn't have many compelling choices at that level, and granting all my allies a heaping pile of thp when I use my Second Wind seems like a no-brainer, even if it is a Standard Action. Plus, the fictional component is fun fluff - the noble and bloodied bardic knight stands up, triumphant, after taking a royal beatdown, shouting to his allies, "fight on!"

I've also been enjoying the thunder-based powers a lot more when I decided they were less musical and more like the Thu'um shouts in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Fus Ro Dah!!! has been used for pretty much any thunder power he knows that has a push effect.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually, I liked the Vampire class(and was a member of the CharOp regulars). Unless you looked outside the box though, power choice wasn't particularly good - and despite powerful D&D Vampires having a very long history being both Vampire and belonging to a class, some people would react badly to the idea that you'd do just that. I was half-tempted to play one in LFR and make people complain to me that Vampires were overpowered. Except I don't actually try to break the game, which throws a wrench into that idea...

Vampire is great. I mean, its definitely lacking in SUPPORT, but conceptually and in terms of its basic mechanics it really is perfectly fine. It just needed to have a full repertoire of powers and feats to put it on par with other options. I really liked the idea of Vampire as a class too. It makes sense to be able to mix in some elements of other classes too, depending on the character concept, but its not exactly hard to do that. Even just an appropriate theme can suffice for "Yeah, I was a wizard once, but now I'm just a bad-assed nightcrawler!"

I liked the Blackguard too, a pretty decent spin on the old anti-paladin concept.

 

[Silvarion]

Beguiling Strands wizard at will with Polearm Momentum feat (and Arcane Implement Proficiency: glaive). Lol

Close blast 5 pushing enemies only and then knocking them prone. Having a blast with this combo build in our zombie apocalypse campaign now.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Beguiling Strands wizard at will with Polearm Momentum feat (and Arcane Implement Proficiency: glaive). Lol

Close blast 5 pushing enemies only and then knocking them prone. Having a blast with this combo build in our zombie apocalypse campaign now.

heh, yeah, I never thought of using a polearm as an implement with that feat. The wording doesn't say anything about 'weapon attack' though, just 'polearm attack', so I'm guessing that would pass muster.

Another option would be to MC Warden and pick up Maneuvering Attack. It has the same wording and grants you CA. You could also tack Spear Push on there if you want an extra square of push.