Forked from: Art of the Peel
While I don't really care to dive into Carpe DM's argument that Paladins don't defend well enough over Strikers, part of his argument seemed to rely on the idea that Enfeebling Strike is the worst of the Paladin at-will abilities. This sort of "incensed me", as I consider far-and-away the best Paladin at-will, so I figured I'd throw in my two cents.
Here's my rationale:
0) My argument relies heavily on the idea that the Chaladin is the better build option for Paladins, which I think it's class-features and role make more or less self-evident, but the original post implied that it was the worst of all the at-wills, including Bolstering Strike.
1) Enfeebling Strike can help everyone, as opposed to just the Paladin. The basic point of the Paladin is to "defend", that is to ensure that his allies don't get hit, while at the same time, staying up himself (often done by ensuring that he also doesn't get hit by wearing heavy armour). The -2 on all of his attack rolls helps ensure he hits no one, including you, not only on his own turn, but on all his Opp Atts as well... this means the benefit will apply at least once, if not multiple times, which is more then Bolstering Strike can muster, since it always only works the once (provided you even get attacked... otherwise it does nothing)
2) The -2 applies until the end of your next turn. This means it will penalize the enemy on his own turn, and any opp atts he will get on your next turn as well. You use your movement to invoke an Opp Att, while at the same time getting into a better position, providing a flank or maybe getting in touch range for a Lay on Hands. If the opponent takes the Opp Att, he still gets a -2 to hit. If you combo this with On Pain of Death, he will take damage to boot.
3) Essentially Bolster makes you take less damage from your next attack, provided they actually attack you. Enfeebling Strike gives you a better chance of not being hit at all, which should be about equal in most cases, and in some cases significantly better.
4) Bolster gives you Temp HP, which are nice because they last indefinitely until you get hit. Problem is they don't stack. This makes a difference, not only for your own further uses of Bolstering Strike, but also for the Cleric as well. One of his better powers, Sacred Flame, gives Temp HP, and his gives them much better than yours does (Cha + 1/2 level, as opposed to your own Cha + nothing). Debuffs like -2 to attack always stack, regardless of their source. Meaning if the opponent of Enfeebling Strike, once marked, suffers a whopping -4 to all his attacks against allies. Against certain foes (boss-monsters, so forth), this is like giving every ally +4 to his AC (while you still get +2).
The few advantages Bolster has over Enfeebling:
1) Bolster's benefit lasts the whole encounter. But only sort of. It's more accurate to say that they only last until you get hit, at which point the benefits all basically go away...
2) Enfeebling Strike's benefit only works against a marked opponent. However, if I remember, Paladins at the very least need to stay adjacent to an opponent for his marks to stay around anyway, or attack him, so this isn't that big a deal.
So when would I use Bolster?
It's great for attacking minions. You're going to kill them anyway, who cares if they have -2 to attacks after they are dead? This same logic applies to anyone you think you are likely to drop with your next attack anyway.
If you absolutely want to attack a different opponent then the one you have marked.
While I don't really care to dive into Carpe DM's argument that Paladins don't defend well enough over Strikers, part of his argument seemed to rely on the idea that Enfeebling Strike is the worst of the Paladin at-will abilities. This sort of "incensed me", as I consider far-and-away the best Paladin at-will, so I figured I'd throw in my two cents.
Here's my rationale:
0) My argument relies heavily on the idea that the Chaladin is the better build option for Paladins, which I think it's class-features and role make more or less self-evident, but the original post implied that it was the worst of all the at-wills, including Bolstering Strike.
1) Enfeebling Strike can help everyone, as opposed to just the Paladin. The basic point of the Paladin is to "defend", that is to ensure that his allies don't get hit, while at the same time, staying up himself (often done by ensuring that he also doesn't get hit by wearing heavy armour). The -2 on all of his attack rolls helps ensure he hits no one, including you, not only on his own turn, but on all his Opp Atts as well... this means the benefit will apply at least once, if not multiple times, which is more then Bolstering Strike can muster, since it always only works the once (provided you even get attacked... otherwise it does nothing)
2) The -2 applies until the end of your next turn. This means it will penalize the enemy on his own turn, and any opp atts he will get on your next turn as well. You use your movement to invoke an Opp Att, while at the same time getting into a better position, providing a flank or maybe getting in touch range for a Lay on Hands. If the opponent takes the Opp Att, he still gets a -2 to hit. If you combo this with On Pain of Death, he will take damage to boot.
3) Essentially Bolster makes you take less damage from your next attack, provided they actually attack you. Enfeebling Strike gives you a better chance of not being hit at all, which should be about equal in most cases, and in some cases significantly better.
4) Bolster gives you Temp HP, which are nice because they last indefinitely until you get hit. Problem is they don't stack. This makes a difference, not only for your own further uses of Bolstering Strike, but also for the Cleric as well. One of his better powers, Sacred Flame, gives Temp HP, and his gives them much better than yours does (Cha + 1/2 level, as opposed to your own Cha + nothing). Debuffs like -2 to attack always stack, regardless of their source. Meaning if the opponent of Enfeebling Strike, once marked, suffers a whopping -4 to all his attacks against allies. Against certain foes (boss-monsters, so forth), this is like giving every ally +4 to his AC (while you still get +2).
The few advantages Bolster has over Enfeebling:
1) Bolster's benefit lasts the whole encounter. But only sort of. It's more accurate to say that they only last until you get hit, at which point the benefits all basically go away...
2) Enfeebling Strike's benefit only works against a marked opponent. However, if I remember, Paladins at the very least need to stay adjacent to an opponent for his marks to stay around anyway, or attack him, so this isn't that big a deal.
So when would I use Bolster?
It's great for attacking minions. You're going to kill them anyway, who cares if they have -2 to attacks after they are dead? This same logic applies to anyone you think you are likely to drop with your next attack anyway.
If you absolutely want to attack a different opponent then the one you have marked.
Carpe DM said:After playing through and running a few games, I'm discovering that monsters still find it in their best interest to ignore the tanking paladin, and tear into the strikers. In our game (which I am not DMing, for the first time in 25 years) the paladin does his best: piercing smites every encounter, etc, divine challenges galore. And, the Chaladin damage on the challenge is not all that bad.
But it's still in the mob's best interest to drop the striker. Given that 14 or 15 is standard AC for a first level squishy, the -2 AC isn't enough to deter the monster from wanting to shut down the low-HP, high-damage party members.
What this does is force the paladin into a very crappy role: that of peeler. He is throwing Enfeebling Strikes (often considered the worst at-will) in an attempt to decrease the damage output of the mob on the strikers. And, of course, his damage is quite high given that his marked target is eating his challenge every round.
But the monster's better damage output on the strikers, combined with the damage loss that the loss of a striker entails means that it is entirely rational from the monster's point of view that a wizard or warlock ends up tanking every single fight. It's getting pretty old.
Note: this is *not* a DM complaint. The DM is quite right: monsters fight to win, and don't hammer uselessly on the shiny armor-plated guy. This is, IMO, a design tweak problem. The damage-incentive system is simply insufficient to incentivize monsters--even challenged monsters--to stay on the tank.
We've tried to increase the damage, but since Astral Fire only adds to "damage rolls," and because there is no feat upgrade to Divine Challenge, there's not a whole lot to be done.
This leads to my current inquiry. Enfeebling Strike is commonly considered the worst Paladin at-will. It is a major downer for the paladin to continually use his worst power in a vain attempt to perform the role of tank (now starring the Wizard).
So, the current question: at what damage value, and at what estimated level of monster hitpoints would Holy Strike (or Valiant, if the Paladin is sufficiently surrounded) outperform Enfeebling Strike as a peel--that is, the extra damage would drop the monsters enough rounds early that it would be worth more defensively than the -10% damage of Enfeelbling.
It's complicated, of course, because for minions, any attack will do, and Enfeebling is +Cha (so, for a protecting paladin, is better). At the mid-range, though, either Valiant or Holy is likely to drop a standard creature some fraction of a round early.
Of course, due to bloodied values, we get a good view of the hitpoints of a creature. So I'm hoping that by discussing things here, we can work out a metric to tell the paladin -- "hey, it took 20 points to get the thing to bloodied. Best switch to Valiant strike and try to drop it early."
Math on this is particularly welcome. Please, no discretionary gameplay-based remarks (OMGz ur DM shud onlee attak the tnak!). I'm fully aware the DM could fix this if he decided the monsters were idiots. I find that if the DM must compensate for poor rules by deciding to not use an ability (OMGz ur DM shud not attak pipl on the ground!) that that is merely apologetics for bad game design.
best,
Carpe