Displacement - a bit wussy eh? Mirror image too...

[Puggins]

The displacement spell mechanics raises another question in my mind (which might have been addressed in other general text somewhere we haven't seen yet). How do various reroll abilities interact? The elf shoots at a halfling. He uses Elven accuracy to re-roll the attack. The Halfling wants to use his second chance... does he do that after the Elf has determined the actual results of his roll, or can the Elf use his elven accuracy *after* the halfling has used his second chance to force a reroll of the initial attack?

I fail to see the issue here. The Halfling Power explicitly says that you apply it after an attack *has hit*. So you have a couple of possibilities.

(1) Ranger attacks doesn't like result, uses accuracy. Hits Halfling. Halfling uses luck, which makes the Ranger re-roll his attack. Both attacks used.

(2) Ranger attacks and hit. Halfling uses luck. Ranger re-rolls, doesn't like his attack, uses accuracy and takes the best result.

Neither are confusing. I suppose you may think that the Ranger in #1 is entitled to a re-roll of his second attack, but he isn't as long as you take each roll as a clear and distinct event, which is clearly the case.

I do hope that 4e does spell this out, just to be sure. However, you shouldn't be attacking the confusion caused by this interaction before actually reading the book, don't you think? If they have a "rerolls in combat" section, your attack will look sorta silly once the book comes out.

What if the elven ranger wants to "Split the Tree" and so rolls twice and takes the best one, but even that isn't so good and he wants to use elven accuracy - does he reroll one of those two attack rolls or both of them, or compare his re-roll to his final result?

Each roll is distinct. Splitting the Tree says he uses the best of two rolls. Elven accuracy says he gets to reroll the result of a roll. Thus, no, you don't reroll both dice.

If the elven ranger wants to use Split the Tree to shoot two enemies, a halfling and a kobold. He wants to use his elven accuracy and the halfling wants to use his Second Chance and his wizard friend wants to use displacement on the halfling. What combination of rolls are going to be used then?

This is my take on it, and I don't find it particularly confusing. Just go roll by roll and don't back up.

(1) Elf shoots using split the tree. Rolls twice. He may use elven accuracy at this point. He applies the results to both targets.

(2) The halfling may use luck, the result as already been applied to the kobold and is a seperate "event", so only the halfling's roll is rerolled. (I may be wrong about this one- thus the reason for some clarification in the rules, which I hope and expect to be there). The elf may use accuracy after the reroll to improve it.

(3) The attack is determined as being a hit or a miss on the two targets. The wizard then uses displacement, which forces the elf to reroll the attack on the halfling. Again, the elf may use accuracy after the reroll.

A minor bit of confusion, and only on whether the halfling's power applies to the kobold as well. I think the way the halfling's power is worded indicates that it applies only to the halfling, but yes, some coverage of these interactions would be expected.

As for whether this is an appropriate 16th level power, I don't know- it depends on the number of encounter powers you have by 16th level. Force Orb is moderately more powerful than magic missile, but not so much more powerful as to make it invaluable. The two options we're talking about are (1) having displacement memorized and using magic missile, which does approximately the same amount of damage as force orb but to only one target, or (2) having force orb available and not using displacement. Since you can use both magic missile and displacement in the same round, I'd give the edge to displacement, but you can make arguments either way. Being able to pop someone out of the way of a sleep spell or away from the critical hit once an encounter is pretty powerful, especially if you're able to see the DM's rolls.

 

[OgreBane99]

By the time fighters in our 3e campaigns hit level 20 they could easily make 300 damage a round at the high end they could top 1000 without overspecializing.

Ughhh. Halfling outrider. *shudders*

 

[Lacyon]

But... you can get a reroll at level 1 or level 16. If they're equally awesome, something is seriously wrong. Especially since the 1st level power is apparently better.

You can have a reroll at level 1, if you're playing a halfling. At level 16, you can give anyone a reroll within 5 squares no matter what race you are, and if the target is playing a halfing it's a second reroll for him this encounter.

I'm not sure what about the first level power is supposed to make it better.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But... you can get a reroll at level 1 or level 16. If they're equally awesome, something is seriously wrong. Especially since the 1st level power is apparently better.

The Halfling's ability isn't really better, as far as I can tell. It can't help a comrade, and that can be very important. Both have their uses.

There is another thing to consider: These powers "stack" e.g. you can have both.

Think about it. Weapon Focus (1st level feat) grants a +1 bonus. By your logic, a 10th level Weapon Focus feat should grant a higher bonus, shouldn't it? But that's only true if the bonuses don't stack. If they do, the 10th level Weapon Focus is good at +1. (at least it is not worse or better then the Weapon Focus at 1st level. We might think neither feat is that great, but, if the first one sucks, so does the second. )

So, maybe you can get a Heroic Tier reroll ability. And you can get a Paragon Tier reroll ability. And you can get a Epic Tier reroll ability. If the per encounter powers can be all used (and are not replacing each other), this means you have one ability of these at your disposal each round, reducing your enemies chance to do serious harm to you by 50 %.

@ Dausuul- actually, 4e seems to scale more than 3e did. 3e spells usually didn't scale. Level 1 spells were largely irrelevant at higher level, and save DCs quickly become level inappropriate. 4e doesn't do that- most things look like they scale now, and attacks (replacing save DCs) definitely do. Sleep, for example, is effective across multiple levels.

But if you're claiming that they're level independent, they can really all be assigned to level 1. What will really matter is the opportunity cost of the power- what you have to give up to get the reroll. In this particular case its pretty low, what with the gutted versions of fly and invisibility, but some levels might have powers you don't want to give up.

There are a few spells that scale relatively good with level:
- Buff spells. +4 to Strength is +4 to Strength is +4 to Strength
- Magic Missile - low damage, for sure, but if you need to conserve resources (which you're supposed to do in 3E, after all), it's very good.
- Scorching Ray can even beat Fireball in damage against individual opponents.
- Glitterdust stays useful, regardless whether you fight a Phantom Fungus or a 16th level Illusionist.
- Divine Favor: Bread & Butter spell for Clerics.
- Barkskin, Mage Armor, Shield: Useful over all levels (Mage Armor might be the weakest, since Bracers of Armor aren't that expensive at high (15+) levels.)
- Haste.
There are more spells like this.

The exceptions really are those spells that require saving throws and are directed at enemies. And there are enough that do different things and are still very useful.

 

[JosephK]

I think that while displacement might look at bit shabby at first glance, it'll probably be really good in practice. Immediate action that forces a reroll.. Forcing a reroll was an exceptionally rare ability in 3e for a reason (off the top of my head I can only think of the fatespinner and some of the stuff in Bo9S is reminiscent). It'll be even more potent in 4e, when basically everything has an attack roll. Even if you have to keep the 'worse' result, I still think it'll be very good.

Basically once per encounter you have a chance to really save someones bacon, big time (or your own), that's a pretty solid ability to have imo, especially EVERY encounter and as a immediate action.. I would predict way more DM frustration with the new displacement than with the old If I learned anything from playing a high-level Bo9S character, it is that the counters are -very- good in practice, they can really make a difference in those critical combat situations, especially because you chose when to burn them. Imo 3e displacement was probably too good a spell.. Especially at that level.

I agree that mirror image looks a bit on the weak side to me, mainly because it's a daily.. I think it would be more suitable as an encounter power.

 

[Imban]

- Buff spells. +4 to Strength is +4 to Strength is +4 to Strength

This one is actually pretty weird, and I would suggest doesn't scale at all, actually. +4 to Strength is a carrying capacity modifier, which you may or may not care about, a +2 to hit which scales perfectly with level, and a +2 or +3 to damage, which is useful at all levels but does not scale with level. The problem is that, assuming you're talking about Bull's Strength, it's an enhancement bonus and so can't stack with the belts of strength everyone wears. Whoops.

On the topic, Mirror Image sucks and I'd need to rewrite it before I'd feel comfortable playing with it. The designers may think patent nonsense is better than the tiny bit of extra math, for instance, required to implement the "if it hits your image" solution, but I definitely feel otherwise. Fly is still awesome assuming flight still lets you rain down death on your foes, which I will because the alternative is one of those "WotC are monkeys" things. Greater Invisibility is kinda questionable - if that's Greater, what the heck is normal invisibility?

Displacement, on the other hand, is actually pretty quality mechanically, though the flavor provided for it is a bit questionable, for reasons detailed extensively on this thread already. If anything, I'd just swap out the flavor, which is the easiest of things.

 

[Stalker0]

I think we're still going to see some of this in 4e. Not so much "daze several monsters for several rounds", but better status effects, better targeting, etc. If they keep the rate of progression to a more reasonable level, it's not so bad. Then dazing several monsters for several rounds (i.e. save ends, in 4e-talk) is more like a mid to high epic spell, and probably a daily at that.

My guess is that you won't necessarily see a lot better spells. However, as wizards gain access to more encounter spells, they will be able to build up combos.

For example:

Withering Field
Encounter
Burst 3 within 20
Benefit: All creatures within the mist suffer a -5 to saving throws. The mist ends at the end of your next turn.
Sustain Minor.

Combine this with the sleep spell and you suddenly have a much stronger version of sleep, without actually adjusting the spell itself.

 

[Cadfan]

Displacement, on the other hand, is actually pretty quality mechanically, though the flavor provided for it is a bit questionable, for reasons detailed extensively on this thread already. If anything, I'd just swap out the flavor, which is the easiest of things.

It would be kind of cooler if, instead of creating an image that confuses your opponent (while leaving your ally in the same spot), it warped your ally a few inches over and left an image behind.

This one is actually pretty weird, and I would suggest doesn't scale at all, actually. +4 to Strength is a carrying capacity modifier, which you may or may not care about, a +2 to hit which scales perfectly with level, and a +2 or +3 to damage, which is useful at all levels but does not scale with level.

You're correct that the bonus to hit scales just fine. The bonus to damage does scale due to multiple attacks. Whether it scales well depends on your opinion about whether multiple attacks makes melee damage scale well.

Greater Invisibility is kinda questionable - if that's Greater, what the heck is normal invisibility?

I'm not sure I understand the Greater Invisibility entry. Does sustaining the ability with a minor action mean that attacking no longer causes it to end? Because if that's the case, we now have our rules for how we get invisible stabby rogues.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The Displacement Spell was already discussed and I concur that a forced reroll is ALWAYS great.

What, even when the attack was a 19, you force a reroll and it gets a 20 and crits you? ALWAYS better even in that case

There is nothing in the spell that says take the lowest of the two rolls.

(Indeed, after just checking I notice that the Halfling ability doesn't either... it says take the second roll even if lower, doesn't put any limit on if it is higher. In fact I remember when I did a 4e 'playtest' there was much laughter when a kobold skirmisher threw a javelin at the halfling paladin and hit him, so the paladin said "second chance!" and the kobold re-rolled it getting a critical )

Cheers

 

[Nebulous]

I don't care about its effect on magic. I care about its effect on play.

Well, in D&D, magic is an integral part of play; they go hand in hand. What i meant is that the feel of magic in D&D is going to be vastly different in 4e than past iterations of the game. If the game is still rocking fun, i think we'll get used to the changes. Assuming they fix that messed up Displacement and Mirror Image