Giving some dailies more oomph

[Plane Sailing]

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

The problem is that a rising tide floats all boats - that kind of approach is probably less effective than layering an additional attack (even an at-will) on top of the initial daily, and even if it is more effective... it is more effective for the already good dailies as well as the poor dailies.

Cheers

 

[Mengu]

I would take the powers case by case. If I was fixing fireball, I'd probably just add a push 2 on a hit to make it more controllery. Half damage on a miss is actually not terrible, 7-8 points of damage at 5th level, 10-11 points of damage at 11+ level (same as expected damage from ongoing 5). It adds up to good damage on potentially a lot of targets that you hit, and a little bit of damage to targets you miss. And if you manage to get a tactical assault bonus or the like on top of it, fireball has pretty crazy total damage potential. Having seen it in action, sending it into a room full of undead some of whom you might not even be able to see, the fireball can soften up a lot of targets. You are attacking everything in a 7 square by 7 square area.

With a bit of foresight as to what you may be doing on a given day (we knew we were going up against mummies and other undead), fireball is not a bad second option for a wizard after stinking cloud (especially since Stinking Cloud doesn't work too well against undead).

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.

I would recommend against this. There are certain paragon paths whose feature is precisely to allow rerolls with action points. Giving it to everyone just means action points are no longer going to be used for additional actions, since rerolling a daily or encounter power is usually better than taking an additional action. When you reroll a power that wouldn't have done much (or anything) on a miss you essentially are taking an extra action, and get to use the power that should have been spent. This is a very potent use of an action point.

 

[Evilhalfling]

I would recommend against this. There are certain paragon paths whose feature is precisely to allow rerolls with action points.

I use AP as reroll, with the addtion that PP that grant this feature instead get a +3 to the rerolled attack. My players use APs for both, the fighter mostly uses multiple attacks, as does the rogue (even when he shouldn't)
the warlord only uses AP to reroll dailies, the Ranger does both, even occasionally using an AP for a follow-up twin strike. The rogue is really looking forward to the feat that allows SA again when using an AP (which he will take at 6th lvl).

The PCs most important consideration is to make sure they benifit from the warlords AP healing.

 

[Armadillo]

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.

This is a good fix, and one that would address the larger problem of whiffing with encounter powers.

Has your experience been that this speeds up play?

 

[StAlda]

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

That is 30 points dealt with just one power though... Probably on par with the damage to all targets using bigby's.

 

[JasonZZ]

That is 30 points dealt with just one power though... Probably on par with the damage to all targets using bigby's.

Not just that, but 30 points with every roll a miss. IIRC, a miss with Bigby's wastes the power entirely. There's tradeoffs and benefits to both.

 

[Plane Sailing]

That is 30 points dealt with just one power though... Probably on par with the damage to all targets using bigby's.

I don't think so - Bigbys does 17 on round 1, 12 on round 2 (in addition to an extra attack), moves and grabs another target on round 3 for another 17 (or keeps squeezing the first target for another 12)

By round 3 it is already ahead, and it could last for 9-15 rounds!

Additionally, I think that people often overestimate the benefit of doing a little damage to a lot of targets. They multiply up 6 damage by five targets and say "hey, that's 30 damage, that's pretty good".

But it isn't.

In 4e just as in other earlier editions, you MUST focus fire to take targets down, because everything fights at full efficiency until it is dead. Extra damage against a single target is almost always better except for a few odd situations - like there is hordes and hordes of minions. The WotC modules don't have hordes of minions for the PCs with 5th level dailies, so what do we make of that? Should fireball only be useful for the occasional corner case? It is still less useful at minion killing than the same level stinking cloud (which is at least guaranteed to kill and can last more than one round!_

Cheers

Cheers

 

[keterys]

Frankly, I think that some of the powers you're comparing to are to blame for being too good.

Consecrated Ground compares too well to Fireball, for instance. Is that Fireball's fault? Not entirely, certainly.

 

[keterys]

For example, Martyr's Retribution is a 4W paladin daily, half damage, costs a healing surge to make. If Fireball hits two targets, it will do as much damage, and three it will do more. And I'd certainly hope you'd hit more than 2 with a spell that large... and sure, it's spread out, but there is value in that. And hey, didn't cost a surge. And had great range.

Now, I do think Fireball is somewhat lackluster, particularly considering that it's _Fireball_ and should be more popular via grandfathering... but to double its damage? That would make it do as much damage to a single target as Martyr's Retribution, nevermind multiple.

P.S. Bigby's Grasping Hand is pretty cool, but I think you're far overestimating the likelihood of a creature to remain grabbed and take the sustain damage.

 

[Paul Strack]

This is a good fix, and one that would address the larger problem of whiffing with encounter powers.

Has your experience been that this speeds up play?

Using AP for re-rolls seems to shorten the fight by a round or two.

Just to be clear, I use the same rule for monsters as well. It really sucks to have your big bad roar and haul out his major attack ... and totally whiff.