mattdm
First Post
So, I understand the basic intention behind having the Dex/Int, Str/Con, Cha/Wis overlap for defenses. It makes me a little bit sad, but okay, from a practical point of view, I can live with it.
The main casualty, though, as discussed in a thread on the WotC forums, seems to be the "fast-smart" character archetype — high dex, high int. You sensibly can be strong-smart, or tough-smart (or fast-wise or fast-charismatic), but the game seems to basically penalize you for picking fast-smart.
(This is less of a problem for tough-strong, but wise-charismatic seems to also suffer. But that's another thread.)
This could be the wizard who happens to be nimble, but I'm more concerned with the martial/rogue version — primary Dex, but also high Int. So, I'm more talking about ways to make Int for non-wizards useful than about rewarding Dex for wizards. There don't seem to be any non-wizard powers that use Int (no Combat Expertise feat tree equivalent), and there's relatively few feats. The Int-based skills are good, but they fit the magic user more than general intelligence.
With that background in mind, I think there's three areas of expansion that could basically fix this problem.
First, there could simply be some more nice feats that have Int as a prereq and which are generally useful.
Second, there could be additional martial-power-source powers which use Int as a key ability.
Or, perhaps this just isn't a good fit for any of the current classes, and a new class is called for? Maybe even with a new power source? If so, what's the proper combat roll for this class? Striker, or controller?
Or, as I think about the role question, perhaps the answer is: high intelligence / high dex is always the wizard archetype to some degree, so multiclassing covers this. "Intelligence" really just represents that specific sort of learning and mental power. The martial fast-smart is really represented better by high dex and high wisdom, or high dex and high charisma (the swashbuckler, for example).
Thoughts?
The main casualty, though, as discussed in a thread on the WotC forums, seems to be the "fast-smart" character archetype — high dex, high int. You sensibly can be strong-smart, or tough-smart (or fast-wise or fast-charismatic), but the game seems to basically penalize you for picking fast-smart.
(This is less of a problem for tough-strong, but wise-charismatic seems to also suffer. But that's another thread.)
This could be the wizard who happens to be nimble, but I'm more concerned with the martial/rogue version — primary Dex, but also high Int. So, I'm more talking about ways to make Int for non-wizards useful than about rewarding Dex for wizards. There don't seem to be any non-wizard powers that use Int (no Combat Expertise feat tree equivalent), and there's relatively few feats. The Int-based skills are good, but they fit the magic user more than general intelligence.
With that background in mind, I think there's three areas of expansion that could basically fix this problem.
First, there could simply be some more nice feats that have Int as a prereq and which are generally useful.
Second, there could be additional martial-power-source powers which use Int as a key ability.
Or, perhaps this just isn't a good fit for any of the current classes, and a new class is called for? Maybe even with a new power source? If so, what's the proper combat roll for this class? Striker, or controller?
Or, as I think about the role question, perhaps the answer is: high intelligence / high dex is always the wizard archetype to some degree, so multiclassing covers this. "Intelligence" really just represents that specific sort of learning and mental power. The martial fast-smart is really represented better by high dex and high wisdom, or high dex and high charisma (the swashbuckler, for example).
Thoughts?
