Giving some dailies more oomph

[Plane Sailing]

I'm concerned at the moment about the relative balance of the daily powers (and daily spells in particular). I feel that a number of them are seriously lacking in oomph (e.g. Fireball) or suffer more than they should from missing.

Wizards get some 'sustainable' daily powers and they seem far and away the best at the levels where they are attained, as the daily spell can keep on working. Powers that give a bonus for the rest of the fight whether or not they hit (like Lead the Attack (warlord) or Villains Menace (fighter)) are fine.

One of the standout categories that seem to be really bad on a miss are powers which do damage + 5 ongoing on a hit but just half damage on a miss.

So some of the general changes I'm contemplating include:

a) if the power normally does ongoing damage on a hit and none on a miss, turn it into half ongoing damage on a miss.

b) if the power just does damage dice(not [W]) and half damage on a miss and doesn't have any other effects and isn't reliable, double its damage (e.g. fireball does 6d6+Int damage).

Do these options sound completely off the wall, or do they sound interesting or reasonable?

Cheers

 

[Paul Strack]

Half ongoing damage sounds OK, but doubling damage is probably too much. I'd maybe add 50% instead.

My personal house rule is that action points can be spend for a re-roll as well as for an additional action. This means dailies go off maybe 75-85% of the time rather than 50%-60%. I've found that mostly compensates for the excessive whiff factor in 4E.

 

[Omnifarious Grey]

I understand that a lot of people hate missing with Daily powers, but its just how it goes sometimes. Increasing the power of Daily powers or guaranteeing some effect to go off for every power seems a bit much.

It has always been an issue to me that people complain about missing to such an extent that they almost seem to want to eliminate Hit roles in general (for PCs that is). I am an advocate of letting things play out, such as if you role bad it happens or if you miss with a Daily power don't worry because there is always tomorrow (maybe).

I would consider the action point re-roll Paul mentioned over trying to reinvent the wheel about Daily powers. I mean in the end you get a good amount of Daily powers, so what is the issue if you miss every once in a while?

 

[BarkingDeathSquirrel]

Hmm, the half ongoing damage on a miss probably wouldn't be so bad of an idea. However, instead of doubling the damage of category b powers, why not give them a flat +2 bonus to hit or something similar?

 

[Stalker0]

Powers that give a bonus for the rest of the fight whether or not they hit (like Lead the Attack (warlord) or Villains Menace (fighter)) are fine.

I'll agree with this 100%. To me, the only dailies of note are the ones that last the whole fight. When you have a 6+ round fight, which is most 4e combats in my experience, I get so much more bang for my buck with an all fight daily than a 1 hit daily.

Your idea on doubling straight damage might work, although that is a huge amount of damage...I mean that's what the daily is all about. If your choosing a single boom over a continuous amount of pain, then that boom needs to be big.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'll agree with this 100%. To me, the only dailies of note are the ones that last the whole fight. When you have a 6+ round fight, which is most 4e combats in my experience, I get so much more bang for my buck with an all fight daily than a 1 hit daily.

Your idea on doubling straight damage might work, although that is a huge amount of damage...I mean that's what the daily is all about. If your choosing a single boom over a continuous amount of pain, then that boom needs to be big.

That's exactly my feeling. A single boom ought to be worth it.

A wizard dropped his first fireball last Sunday - all 5 enemies were within the blast zone. He rolled 4 on his 3d6 for damage, which came to a total of 12. He actually 'missed' all the targets, so they took 6 damage each.

The other players all raised their eyebrows and said "That's your 5th level daily?!?"

Compare that with the other wizard in my campaign whose 5th level daily is bigbys freezing grasp, which did 2d8+8 damage to a single target then 1d8+8 each round that he sustained it, controlled the target via the grab and move, moved to new targets when the first target died... and being a sustain minor he was typically squeezing with the hand while also launching one of his at-will attacks too. Total damage inflicted over the combat was much higher, and damage inflicted to a particular high-value target was about five times as great!

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

I understand that a lot of people hate missing with Daily powers, but its just how it goes sometimes. Increasing the power of Daily powers or guaranteeing some effect to go off for every power seems a bit much.

That's not the real issue though. The real issue is that some dailies are really effective even on a miss, while others pale into insignificance on a miss (or sometimes even on a hit)!

Cheers

 

[CapnZapp]

Allowing APs to grant rerolls seems to be the easiest solution, requiring no mucking about in individual power descriptions.

I've wisened up since 3E. Tweaking individual spells aint worth the trouble. Far simpler then to say "okay so Fireball sucks. So does Careful Strike. So choose your powers wisely, or use retraining if you dont".

The Wizard seems to be on top of the list of potential candidates for official "revisions". I'd wait for Arcane Power; perhaps they'll "errata" Fireball there?

 

[Stalker0]

Allowing APs to grant rerolls seems to be the easiest solution, requiring no mucking about in individual power descriptions.

I've wisened up since 3E. Tweaking individual spells aint worth the trouble. Far simpler then to say "okay so Fireball sucks. So does Careful Strike. So choose your powers wisely, or use retraining if you dont".
[\QUOTE]

That works in 3e when you have 20 spells to choose from. A bit harder in 4e when you have like 4.

 

[Nebulous]

I would consider the action point re-roll Paul mentioned over trying to reinvent the wheel about Daily powers. I mean in the end you get a good amount of Daily powers, so what is the issue if you miss every once in a while?

I would consider this too. There's the chance the PC can burn an AP and miss yet again, which would crush their morale, but at least the Dungeon Master would get a kick out of it. I would.