Essentials multiclassing playtest?

[Neonchameleon]

Funny; that's what the DM thought too as I was robbing his creatures of actions, occasionally tugging on a puppet's strings for kicks, and quietly spreading 100+ of multi-keyword damage around the board. Of course that wasn't a pure Feylock, but that was the idea

Oh, and my party loved it when I used Mire the Mind.

So you were playing a high level Warlock with multiple encounter powers and dailies. Right. But we're talking about Eyebite, not the whole warlock package - Warlocks don't have the whole package for quite a few levels to come.

To quote myself a few posts up

The core problem with that defence of Eyebite is that At Wills are most needed at low levels. The levels where you have only one or two encounter powers and one daily. As a Warlock, your other At Will is the frankly sucky Eldritch Bolt - weak damage, no control and poor at low levels when you are likely to be facing lots of kobolds and goblins. Eldritch Bolt has the approximate accuracy and damage of a longbow RBA with absolutely no control.

Over the first two levels, something like 75% of your attacks are going to be At Wills; this is where the power of the at wills is most important. And Eyebite might set a few things up (and I'm certainly not ragging on the Feylock as a whole) - but with only one encounter you have almost nothing to set up. Its use for setting things up is therefore negligable.

Eldritch Bolt compares unfavourably with just about every other RBA implement power in the game (with the arguable exception of Magic Missile) especially at low levels where reflex not fort is the high defence and RBA attacks compare unfavourably to normal At Wills. And Eyebite is a nice combo spell, or would be if the Warlock had anything to combo it with most of the time (one encounter power - which might be a very nice one but is still just one power and the daily is ... daily).

When your only powers are Eldritch Blast (poor) and Eyebite (poor unless you have support for it/something for it to support), this means that you are going to be making a poor attack. This means that 75% of Feylock attacks across the first two levels are going to be poor. I'd call that a fundamentally negative play experience at the time when it most matters. And this is why Eyebite needs sprucing up (and Eldritch Blast needs fixing).

Drop a Pact Weapon on the Feylock and things change a lot. They now have an At Will that actually does damage and can be their main attack power. And they have something that combos with Eyebite - eyebite and walk up to someone invisibly with the feyblade and they are in a messy situation as attacking you is a mistake and you're threatening them with an opportunity attack if they try to get away. Eyebite can be effective if you have something decent to combo it with - but there's no point supporting Eldritch Blast (Eldritch Strike is a little better but not in the PHB). And the Feyblade therefore becomes a feat tax at the levels where you have no feats to spare.

 

[Neverfate]

I think the standard interpretation is that an at-will usable 1/encounter (such as dilettante grants) is still an at-will power for rules purposes, you simply only get to use it less often. So I don't think powers like that would count for surge stuff. Still, the whole concept sounds pretty funny. I'm thinking they're going to have to put a 1/encounter limit on that whole feature.

Does anyone know where to find this in the rules compendium or online one? Just curiosity really, because it's been on my mind the last couple days as I build various hybrids.

 

[Ryujin]

So you were playing a high level Warlock with multiple encounter powers and dailies. Right. But we're talking about Eyebite, not the whole warlock package - Warlocks don't have the whole package for quite a few levels to come.

To quote myself a few posts up

Over the first two levels, something like 75% of your attacks are going to be At Wills; this is where the power of the at wills is most important. And Eyebite might set a few things up (and I'm certainly not ragging on the Feylock as a whole) - but with only one encounter you have almost nothing to set up. Its use for setting things up is therefore negligable.

Eldritch Bolt compares unfavourably with just about every other RBA implement power in the game (with the arguable exception of Magic Missile) especially at low levels where reflex not fort is the high defence and RBA attacks compare unfavourably to normal At Wills. And Eyebite is a nice combo spell, or would be if the Warlock had anything to combo it with most of the time (one encounter power - which might be a very nice one but is still just one power and the daily is ... daily).

When your only powers are Eldritch Blast (poor) and Eyebite (poor unless you have support for it/something for it to support), this means that you are going to be making a poor attack. This means that 75% of Feylock attacks across the first two levels are going to be poor. I'd call that a fundamentally negative play experience at the time when it most matters. And this is why Eyebite needs sprucing up (and Eldritch Blast needs fixing).

Drop a Pact Weapon on the Feylock and things change a lot. They now have an At Will that actually does damage and can be their main attack power. And they have something that combos with Eyebite - eyebite and walk up to someone invisibly with the feyblade and they are in a messy situation as attacking you is a mistake and you're threatening them with an opportunity attack if they try to get away. Eyebite can be effective if you have something decent to combo it with - but there's no point supporting Eldritch Blast (Eldritch Strike is a little better but not in the PHB). And the Feyblade therefore becomes a feat tax at the levels where you have no feats to spare.

Yes, I ultimately took that character to 20th level. I found Pact Weapons insufficient to my character concept, so I took Arcane Implement Proficiency and used a Weapon of Summer.

At lower levels I managed to do reasonably well, despite having a CHA that was 2 points lower than INT, by using things like Eyebite and Witchfire. So what, if I wasn't doing big damage to the BBEG. I was knocking his attacks down by 6 at level 1, so that everyone else could concentrate fire on him for a turn. Once a day I was doing reasonable damage to said BBEG, slamming him into the Defender and melee Striker, then slipping him back in their direction until he made a save. In one case that was for the whole 6 rounds of combat, by a fluke of horrible DM save rolling.

My biggest success, in playing a Deceptive Warlock, was in deceiving the DM into thinking that I wasn't contributing much to the combat. There were quite a few combats in which I took not a single point of damage, either by dint of being ignored or teleporting away from (blinded) danger.

And for at-will suckage, I think that the Bard's Staggering Note is right up there. No damage *roll* so no bonuses, and low fixed damage. Yes, it's a leader, but it's still painful.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Does anyone know where to find this in the rules compendium or online one? Just curiosity really, because it's been on my mind the last couple days as I build various hybrids.

It is more a matter of the rules never say different. If you are say a half-elf and you pick up Twin Strike usable 1/Encounter the power itself is still a "Ranger at-will Attack 1" and when you use it you are still using an at-will power. The dilettante rule specifies an additional usage constraint, but usage constraints are different from power types even though normally power type does define default usage. It is a bit of a subtle point but it seems to be pretty much clearly RAW. It doesn't come up too often so you don't hear a lot of discussion of it, but for instance you couldn't use a power swap feat to swap your dilettante power for a different encounter power even though you use it 1/Encounter.

 

[keterys]

And for at-will suckage, I think that the Bard's Staggering Note is right up there. No damage *roll* so no bonuses, and low fixed damage. Yes, it's a leader, but it's still painful.

The damage in Staggering Note is from the basic attack it grants, not its own damage.

 

[Ryujin]

The damage in Staggering Note is from the basic attack it grants, not its own damage.

Right, so it's 'bonus damage' that's only a bonus, if the MBA hits. Otherwise it's just crappy damage, with no possibility of increase to speak of.

 

[keterys]

You might want to look at every other at-will basic attack granting power in the game, for comparison. They each have their benefits and penalties, but they're all about on par.

CharOp, for example, considers Staggering Note the bard's best at-will, along with Vicious Mockery, clearly above all other contenders.

 

[Ryujin]

Depends on the party. If you don't have someone built for a kickin' MBA, then it's no good.

 

[keterys]

Yep. In many groups, that's actually _far more_ than the bard could do on their own.

In other groups, you don't take the power.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Depends on the party. If you don't have someone built for a kickin' MBA, then it's no good.

Just like my resourceful warlord who gives attacks almost every turn rocks in my party with a battlerager a Druid a slayer and a scout... But would suck with an invoker swordmage rouge sorcerer set up...

It all comes down to the group.

In my group my 2w encounter that adds 2 stats averages the same damage as 2'of my team mates basic attacks, and is far belies either striker basic attack... So if I took a 4w power commander strike could be better under the right circumstance... But my daily is 1w that does massive (since two allies get basics on top of it)