• NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.

cracking the power code

Quickleaf

Legend
After looking over the various class powers I concluded that there must be a governing point system. I was especially interested because I am trying to create a new controller class. Here's what I deduced (rightly or wrongly)...

POINT SYSTEM

Attack/Save Modifier
+4 [1]

Damage
1(W)/1d6/1d8 [1]
2(W)/2d6/2d8/1d10 [2]
3(W)/3d6/3d8/2d10 [3]

Minor Status Effects [1]
Counter threatening reach
Counter second wind
Counter leadership benefits
Counter tactical advantage (higher ground, flanking)
Forced movement (up to 3 squares)

Major Status Effects [2]
2 Minor
Disarm
Prone
Blind
Slow
Immobilized

Target
Single [0]
Adjacent/Multiple [1]
Mass [2]

Advantage [1]
Gain threatening reach
Gain cover/concealment
Bonus AoO

Effect
Personal [0], Allies [1], Zone [1]

Duration
Until end of your next turn [0], Save [0], Encounter [1], Condition [1], Sustain Minor [1],
Recharge [-1]

POINT TOTALS BY POWER TYPE/LEVEL
At-Will [2]
Encounter 1 [3] Encounter 3 [4] Encounter 7 [5] Encounter 13 [6] Encounter 17 [7] Encounter 23 [8] Encounter 27 [9]
Daily 1 [4] Daily 5 [5] Daily 9 [6] Daily 15 [7] Daily 19 [8] Daily 25 [9] Daily 29 [10]
Utility 2 [3] Utility 6 [4] Utility10 [5] Utility 16 [6]

SAMPLE POWER POINT BREAK-DOWNS

Careful Attack (Ranger At-Will)
single target [0], +1 attack [1], 1(W) [1] = 2 pts

Bolstering Strike (Paladin At-Will)
single target [0], 1(W) [1], advantage [1] = 2 pts

Eldritch Blast (Warlock At-Will)
single target [0], 1d10 [2] = 2 pts

Ray of Frost (Wizard At-Will)
adjacent/multiple targets [1], 1d6 [1] = 2 pts

SAMPLE POWER CREATION
Test of Honor (Knight At-Will)
mass target [2], minor status effect OR ongoing damage [1], recharge [-1] = 2 pts
Test of Honor
Knight Attack 1
You challenge your shameful foes to fight honorably.
At-Will * Martial, Morale, Challenge (Recharge 4,5,6)
Special: A creature is only subject to one ‘challenge’ power at a time.
Standard Action Area burst 10
Target: Each enemy in burst
Effect: 5 + Charisma modifier damage if the target flanks, attacks a flat-footed opponent, deals lethal damage to a helpless foe, or flees. Save ends. On a failed save the target takes 5 damage. The target may opt not to make a save. If the target’s HP is reduced to 0 or less, they surrender.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Hmm. Thats an interesting assumption. I suspect it isn't true. Assigning mathematical values to complex concepts never works out in practice. Particularly after rounds of playtesting, when something is tweaked multiple times to a final version.
 

Voss said:
Hmm. Thats an interesting assumption. I suspect it isn't true. Assigning mathematical values to complex concepts never works out in practice. Particularly after rounds of playtesting, when something is tweaked multiple times to a final version.
While this is true, point systems can give you a starting point - it's like a formalized version of comparison with other powers - and playtesting is ALWAYS crucial for stuff like this.

However, I don't see how you address then range and defence type (AC, Fort, Ref, or Will, as AC is usually higher) of the attacks.

Cheers, LT.
 

Fantastic analysis! Thanks for the effort. I question the use of Recharge with a class power - this is not something we have seen before. Also, I would think that the reduction would be influenced by the recharge rate. A recharge of 4,5,6 is much more reliable than a recharge 6, for instance.

I would look at putting a cost on various ranges (meless, short, long) and area (1, 3, 5, etc. . .), too: a Burst 10 effect has 441 potential targets; a Burst 5 has only 121
 

You could argue that the whole point of playtesting to is figure out what the point costs should be. For example if sleep is too powerful, maybe you move the "Immobilized" effect from Minor [1 point] to Major [2 points]. Or if a particular encounter attack which does 2d6 with a +4 attack bonus and forces the target to move 1 square is too weak then you might drop the level from 7 to 3, increase the damage or add another effect...
 

I agree that it's more of a guideline, and actual play is the deciding factor.

However, as DemonLlama says, WotC has already done lots of playtesting, so it stands to reason we can extrapolate a point system which allows creation of mostly balanced powers, leaving the tweaking to playtesting.

Thyrwyn, I agree there should be valuation for range and area, but wasn't sure how to do it.
 

I think you got it wrong at almost every single point.

No need for point system for damage. At-will powers are 1[W], encounter 2[W], daily 3[W]. Assigning points to them and then saying that encounter has +1 and daily +2 compared to at-will doesn't make sense, as there will be no 3[W] encounter powers at 3rd lvl.

Careful attack is -4 dmg, +4 to hit. Hardly worth 1 point, isn't it? It is more or less like a basic attack from power level.

How have you came to idea of at-will rechargeable power??? From the very definition, rechargeable powers are encounter.

Ray of frost is single target + slow, so 3 points according to your table - 1 too much for at-will.

etc, etc.

If we got bit further, you propose

Encounter 27 [9]

Let's check:

Binding Smite
Paladin 27
Encounter • Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Charisma vs. Will
Hit: 2x[W] + Wis damage and target cannot gain line of effect to anyone but you until the end of your next turn.

2[W] is 2 points. So you suggest that blocking line of sight to only you for one turn is worth 7 points? I would certainly prefer blind for 2 points...

I would suggest giving up on point system for powers. Basic rules are simple - 1[W] for at-will, 2[W] for encounter, 3[W] for daily. On top of that you add or remove some flavor effects depending on the role. I'm sure that there will be 27 lvl powers on some classes which are considerably weaker than 5lvl powers on another. No point system will explain that. Sometimes it is about the choice, not only power.
 

Revinor said:
Careful attack is -4 dmg, +4 to hit. Hardly worth 1 point, isn't it? It is more or less like a basic attack from power level.

Do we know for certain it's -4 Damage, +4 to hit? Could it also be -Dex, to damage, +Dex to hit? I know this counts Dex twice for attack rolls, but you are losing your Dex to damage.

Revinor said:
Ray of frost is single target + slow, so 3 points according to your table - 1 too much for at-will.

I agree it would be 3 under the proposed system.

Revinor said:
I would suggest giving up on point system for powers. Basic rules are simple - 1[W] for at-will, 2[W] for encounter, 3[W] for daily. On top of that you add or remove some flavor effects depending on the role. I'm sure that there will be 27 lvl powers on some classes which are considerably weaker than 5lvl powers on another. No point system will explain that. Sometimes it is about the choice, not only power.

Although I agree with many of your points I do think there is an underlying math behind 4e... moreso than previous editions and so a "power guideline" should be possible. One of those guidlines would be 1[W] for at-will, 2[W] for encounter, 3[W] for daily. Another guidline would be to weigh "versatile" powers more heavily than straitforward ones. So I think there is room to work with in this regard... perhaps not a direct "point buy" system, but something with a general... this level power can appropriately do these things.

After all as a designer this is one of the more interesting aspects of 4e... it actually has been built with math as a foundation rather than an accident. The question over the next few years will be whether there was an "accident" in the math ;)
 

Revinor said:
I think you got it wrong at almost every single point.
Heh, work in progress. :) For example, I haven't looked over every single condition and valued them compared to one another; it's likely that immobilized is worth 5+ points. My post was more intended to get other folks thinking. This is too much for one person to tackle, but I think it's important for those of us desining classes to make sure our powers are balanced. In the absence of any indication that WotC will release a power design doc, I wanted to get the ball rolling in the community to reverse engineer the power creation system.

Revinor said:
I would suggest giving up on point system for powers. <snip> I'm sure that there will be 27 lvl powers on some classes which are considerably weaker than 5lvl powers on another.
While I agree that power creation is part art, there need to be mathematics behind it, otherwise you get exactly the problem you describe. How do you differentiate between a 1st and 27th level encounter power, let alone 1st and 3rd level encounter powers?

Revinor said:
Binding Smite
Paladin 27
Encounter • Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Charisma vs. Will
Hit: 2x[W] + Wis damage and target cannot gain line of effect to anyone but you until the end of your next turn.

2[W] is 2 points. So you suggest that blocking line of sight to only you for one turn is worth 7 points? I would certainly prefer blind for 2 points...
Blocking line of effect is much more powerful than blind. You are protecting every ally in your group from ranged attack. Period. With blind the enemy would have a penalty to attack. This power prevents the enemy from attacking your allies (ANY number of allies). So, yes, I think it's worth a lot of points.
 

I agree that there are some underlying design principles that WotC must be using - though whether its exactly a point system like this I'm not sure. But, it might be a decent approximation.

One thing you might consider is whether the point cost ought to be the same between classes. In another thread I looked at some of the power effects for different roles and power sources. There definitely seemed to be a clustering, especially a correlation between martial/arcane/diving power source and the defense attacked. E.g. martial seemed to almost always attack AC, so you might consider that attacking Will costs a divine class 1 point, while it costs a martial class 2 points. Similarly, getting the AoE effect might be free for a controller, while it might cost several points for a striker.
 

Into the Woods

Remove ads

Top