Flaming Weapon Stealth Errata?

[Nemesis Destiny]

And yeah Ironskin Belt has a daily that gives resist 5 weapon until end of next turn, pretty pathetic item if you ask me...

It may sound weak, but, believe me, it's not.

We had a paladin with one wade into a horde of zombie minions one time to save the party's cleric from certain doom. The turn he went in, he activated it. It blocked pretty much all the zombie damage that round, which would have dropped him, and resulted in both their deaths.

Before that, we all thought it was weaksauce too.

 

[Aegeri]

So as an update, I'm just back from the hospital. It turns out if you're made of the same stuff your opponent is using as a weapon, it doesn't logically mean you're automatically immune! Next time I get into a Kung-Fu fight I'm bringing his only weakness: Bullets.

 

[Mengu]

It may sound weak, but, believe me, it's not.

We had a paladin with one wade into a horde of zombie minions one time to save the party's cleric from certain doom. The turn he went in, he activated it. It blocked pretty much all the zombie damage that round, which would have dropped him, and resulted in both their deaths.

Before that, we all thought it was weaksauce too.

Except... Most zombies have slam attacks that are not weapon attacks, so it doesn't work. Something like a Cloak of Resistance is far superior to the Ironskin Belt.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Except... Most zombies have slam attacks that are not weapon attacks, so it doesn't work. Something like a Cloak of Resistance is far superior to the Ironskin Belt.

Heh, I guess our DM missed that one then. Lucky for the cleric and the paladin. It was very early in 4e, so I'll give him a pass...

 

[aurance]

So as an update, I'm just back from the hospital. It turns out if you're made of the same stuff your opponent is using as a weapon, it doesn't logically mean you're automatically immune! Next time I get into a Kung-Fu fight I'm bringing his only weakness: Bullets.

"You must spread some Experience Points around before giving it to Aegeri again."

 

[Dausuul]

I'm hoping they'll errata it back to the way it was. All things considered it is a retarded decision, so.

Actually, I think it was pretty stupid the way it was. Take something like ray of frost. It does cold damage, and it chills you so you can't move as fast. Makes sense. Now you use your fire-weapon implement and turn it into a ray of fire... and it still chills you so you can't move as fast? Huh?

Elemental attacks often have rider effects that follow the theme of the chosen element. Cold attacks slow or immobilize, fire and acid deal ongoing damage, lightning stuns or dazes, et cetera. Swapping out elements while keeping the original rider destroys the flavor of the different elements and makes no sense conceptually.

If WotC is errata-ing this trick out of the game, good for them.

 

[MrMyth]

Count me in as someone who never really liked how this worked, and was a big part of my dislike for 'weapons as implements' as a whole.

I mean, I can sympathize for those who built their characters around it, sure. But I think the change is good for the game as a whole.

 

[Incenjucar]

While I do feel sorry for the people whose builds would be seriously disrupted from this, I have to say I like it from a design standpoint. It opens up a lot of design space, as well, since there will actually be a reason to focus on a variety of damage types again.

 

[RLBURNSIDE]

They should

be consistent and make the same change for all damage type changing enchantments. Also, to be fair, they need to add the equivalent "cheese" for the other element types. As it stands, with cold, you get both the cold "slowness" effects of your powers, AND the extra +5 damage and CA, but with fire, whose main purpose is just pure damage, it should make sense that you can provoke the same type of vulnerability cycle as Wintertouched / Lasting Frost.

E.g. "Firestarter / Deep burn". What would be even more fun was if "Deep burn" would confer, instead of extra damage, the inability to recover / regenerate any lost hit points UEONT. That would be far better than just a boring albeit powerful +5, and thematically aligned with fire damage too. Essentially it would mirror cold's needing extra damage because it has status effects, and add a status effect to the burn. Burninate!!

Preventing enemies healing is at least as worthwhile a goal to killing them faster as just straight up damage.

 

[Kinneus]

Preventing enemies healing is at least as worthwhile a goal to killing them faster as just straight up damage.

Eh... it would be, if enemies ever actually healed. Very, very few do. The only ones that come to mind are the old MM1 orcs (who gained a tiny amount of HP if they hit with their encounter power) and monsters with regeneration.
And, I suppose, monsters with the Cleric template. But then the DM's just screwing with you.