How fast does PC damage rise relative to monster hit points?

[MoutonRustique]

I'm always surprised at how CharOp spent so little time building parties as opposed to single characters.

That would have been some interesting guides...

 

[Balesir]

I'm always surprised at how CharOp spent so little time building parties as opposed to single characters.

That would have been some interesting guides...

Right with you on that! For my next 4E campaign the players are already discussing party composition and coordination. The fact that there are elements of a real team game is one of the things I really like about 4E.

 

[pemerton]

I'm always surprised at how CharOp spent so little time building parties as opposed to single characters.

I'm not very familiar with CharOps for 4e (or any edition). But one of my players, who has the most optimised combat build (28th sorcerer who is able to attack with combat advantage in most rounds, and whose stand-by at-will is an area burst 2 Blazing Starfall for 2d4 (roll twice and take the best) +1d10 +50 radiant and thunder damage), has looked at CharOps. He's often commented that there is not much focus on party synergy and inter-operability.

Perhaps just by good-fortune, my group pretty early hit upon a good force structure: paladin (dender/minor leader), polearm fighter (defender/melee controller - as a dwarf and multi-class healer also packs some back-up healing), ranger/cleric (ranged striker/healer), sorcerer with bard multi-class (AoE ranged striker with good secondary leader), invoker/wizard (low-damage controller with some good "I win" buttons -eg blinding, domination - and excellent rituals and non-combat skill capabilities).

They've been pretty unstoppable since paragon - an encounter generally has to be at level+4 or above to bring out the dailies and action points.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'm always surprised at how CharOp spent so little time building parties as opposed to single characters.

That would have been some interesting guides...

It's probably based on real experience. From my own experience, players build characters independently. I insist that character personalities are built with input, but mechanical cooperation boils down to splitting roles... and that's it. Unfortunately like every previous edition of D&D, 4e got bloated near the end. Unlike other editions, the new class options generally make characters less powerful, on occasion egregiously (seeker, binder, and vampire I'm looking at you), and sometimes this isn't obvious until you've played for a while. (The sorcerer player in my campaign, an experienced optimizer, originally had a draconic sorcerer. He eventually switched to an fire elementalist sorcerer in order to "not suck".)

No DM can "force" his players to make an extremely optimized group, and no group of players will cooperate outside of game except for the minimum (splitting roles), so creating an optimization guide for an optimized party would be an exercise in typing.

 

[MoutonRustique]

I'm not very familiar with CharOps for 4e (or any edition). But one of my players, who has the most optimised combat build (28th sorcerer who is able to attack with combat advantage in most rounds, and whose stand-by at-will is an area burst 2 Blazing Starfall for 2d4 (roll twice and take the best) +1d10 +50 radiant and thunder damage), has looked at CharOps. He's often commented that there is not much focus on party synergy and inter-operability.

Perhaps just by good-fortune, my group pretty early hit upon a good force structure: paladin (dender/minor leader), polearm fighter (defender/melee controller - as a dwarf and multi-class healer also packs some back-up healing), ranger/cleric (ranged striker/healer), sorcerer with bard multi-class (AoE ranged striker with good secondary leader), invoker/wizard (low-damage controller with some good "I win" buttons -eg blinding, domination - and excellent rituals and non-combat skill capabilities).

They've been pretty unstoppable since paragon - an encounter generally has to be at level+4 or above to bring out the dailies and action points.

That... that is just SO MUCH healing! No wonder your group is un-destroyable!

Although from what I'm seeing, your group works well as a team but they seem to have few "direct synergy". But they do have a great many complementary tools - melee and ranged control, VERY strong mitigation and that is a ridiculous amount of thunderous holy damage indeed...

I'm curious (and, depending upon your players' personality, you may want to NOT discuss this) what character could be changed to increase the groups power... ? My first instinct would be to exchange the paladin for a Runepriest (but I love, love, love that class so yeah, I'm biased.)

 

[MoutonRustique]

It's probably based on real experience. From my own experience, players build characters independently. I insist that character personalities are built with input, but mechanical cooperation boils down to splitting roles... and that's it. Unfortunately like every previous edition of D&D, 4e got bloated near the end. Unlike other editions, the new class options generally make characters less powerful, on occasion egregiously (seeker, binder, and vampire I'm looking at you), and sometimes this isn't obvious until you've played for a while. (The sorcerer player in my campaign, an experienced optimizer, originally had a draconic sorcerer. He eventually switched to an fire elementalist sorcerer in order to "not suck".)

No DM can "force" his players to make an extremely optimized group, and no group of players will cooperate outside of game except for the minimum (splitting roles), so creating an optimization guide for an optimized party would be an exercise in typing.

Quite true - except for that one guy(girl) that never seems to know exactly what he wants to play and keeps asking the other players what they're playing and what he should play.

And typing is one of the most useful skills to have in most job environments! Practice is never wasted! (hehehe)

It would be fun though to take the idea presented in Dungeon Delve (to use the 4e combat engine as an oppositional wargame) and really push it - make the encounters extremely hard. As in requiring CharOp builds that synergies and players that are tactically savvy to survive. Make the battles over very large area maps... ooh! I want to play "War D&D machine 1k" now... Man, that would be a cool game...

 

[pemerton]

That... that is just SO MUCH healing!

Not really. With a full-time leader they would have Healing Word (or equivalent) three times per encounter. Instead they have it once per encounter, plus two daily uses (fighter MC cleric; sorcerer MC bard), plus 5 LoH per day from the paladin. The paladin can also second wind as a free action when bloodied (from the Questing Knight paragon path).

The ranger-cleric has the epic feat that lets Healing Word target two individuals. He also has Word of Vigour (cleric encounter utility that heals all in CB 1), Mass Cure Serious Wounds (cleric daily utility that grants surgeless healing) and Healing Torch (an encounter AoE attack that lets allies in the area heal).

The fighter-cleric has two additional sources of healing: 1x/enc close burst that heals bloodied self and allies within 10 sq; and (much more importantly) second wind as a free action, with two surges via Cloak of the Walking Wounded.

That's a fair bit of healing, but a straight leader with 3x/enc Healing Word would replicate it pretty effectively, I think. The one thing they would miss is the paladin's "surgeless" healing (LoH draws on the paladin's rather than the target's pool). This can be pretty important sometimes for keeping the invoker/wizard up (who has few surges with a low value, and whose low defences I have a habit of targetting).

your group works well as a team but they seem to have few "direct synergy". But they do have a great many complementary tools - melee and ranged control, VERY strong mitigation and that is a ridiculous amount of thunderous holy damage indeed...

They have good control - the fighter is the strongest, then the sorcerer for forced movement/teleport (Mark of Storms plus Walk Among the Fey and Unlucky Teleport) and the invoker/wizard for adverse conditions (blind, daze, domination). The ranged striking is strong. And the paladin and fighter can hold a frontline.

There are no ridiculously tight synergies, but the fighter and sorcerer can do a pretty good job of clumping enemies together (Warrior's Urging, Footwork Lure, slide/teleport on everything thunderous, Thunder Summons, etc) which then permits effective use of AoEs, damaging zones (eg Swords of the Marilith, Fire Storm, and the paladin upper-paragon daily that is very similar to Fire Storm), etc.

I'm curious (and, depending upon your players' personality, you may want to NOT do this) what character could be changed to increase the groups power... ? My first instinct would be to exchange the paladin for a Runepriest (but I love, love, love that class so yeah, I'm biased.)

The paladin's combat contribution is mostly single-target lockdown. Once a target is bloodied he gets more dangerous (+2 to hit, +12 to damage from being a tiefling with a Bloodthirsty (?) Khopesh and Gauntlets of Blood). Plus he has Wintertouched/Lasting Frost/a Raven Queen Winter Domain feat from Divine Power to set up +5 to damage from frostcheese using Enfeebling Strike as his default at-will (most of his encounter powers are off-turn attacks). This lets him hit for 50-odd with an at-will, which is not too bad.

Also, because he is a CHA-paladin he has good social skills. (Plus a Ring of Tenacious Will to put his healing surges through the roof.)

I'm not sure what a Runepriest would add (it's an interesting class, but I don't know it that well): more healing, but fewer hit points and surges, lower defences, and perhaps less damage output? And weaker social skills. I'm not sure that the trade would lead to a powering up.

 

[pemerton]

It would be fun though to take the idea presented in Dungeon Delve (to use the 4e combat engine as an oppositional wargame) and really push it - make the encounters extremely hard. As in requiring CharOp builds that synergies and players that are tactically savvy to survive. Make the battles over very large area maps... ooh! I want to play "War D&D machine 1k" now... Man, that would be a cool game...

Does this sort of thing count?

 

[MoutonRustique]

Not really. With a full-time leader they would have Healing Word (or equivalent) three times per encounter. Instead they have it once per encounter, plus two daily uses (fighter MC cleric; sorcerer MC bard), plus 5 LoH per day from the paladin. The paladin can also second wind as a free action when bloodied (from the Questing Knight paragon path). [...]

My bad. I interpreted Ranger/cleric as more healer than he was. (I also counted the dwarf as healing - SW as a minor.)

There are no ridiculously tight synergies, but the fighter and sorcerer can do a pretty good job of clumping enemies together (Warrior's Urging, Footwork Lure, slide/teleport on everything thunderous, Thunder Summons, etc) which then permits effective use of AoEs, damaging zones (eg Swords of the Marilith, Fire Storm, and the paladin upper-paragon daily that is very similar to Fire Storm), etc.

That is, indeed, quite good.

The paladin's combat contribution is mostly single-target lockdown. Once a target is bloodied he gets more dangerous (+2 to hit, +12 to damage from being a tiefling with a Bloodthirsty (?) Khopesh and Gauntlets of Blood). Plus he has Wintertouched/Lasting Frost/a Raven Queen Winter Domain feat from Divine Power to set up +5 to damage from frostcheese using Enfeebling Strike as his default at-will (most of his encounter powers are off-turn attacks). This lets him hit for 50-odd with an at-will, which is not too bad.

Also, because he is a CHA-paladin he has good social skills. (Plus a Ring of Tenacious Will to put his healing surges through the roof.)

I have no doubts at all that he contributes meaningfully - it's more of a "win more" question.

I'm not sure what a Runepriest would add (it's an interesting class, but I don't know it that well): more healing, but fewer hit points and surges, lower defences, and perhaps less damage output? And weaker social skills. I'm not sure that the trade would lead to a powering up.

A bunch of zones that offer bonuses (which may not be that good, considering the heavy movement your battles entail...) AND an at-will strike that inflicts vulnerable 6 all for one round. It also offers 3 heals per encounter that come with a free ~+5 dmg for one round for everyone. In parties with many multi-attack characters, the damage increase against a chosen foe is... significant.

My own runepriest deals around 80 dmg on a standard round (level 26) but he does use frost. Honestly, it's probably not the best choice for your group - I'm just trying to sell the runepriest

Last one - is there an official ruling on how vulnerable all and vulnerable x interact? (We play it like all is its own type.)

 

[MoutonRustique]

Does this sort of thing count?

Pretty much yeah. But I was thinking of a completely-story-free challenge.

Something along the lines of : "Players! Tonight, you will face the Darkest Darkness of Darkdungeon Tower! You do not know what manner of foes you will face, but you can build characters of level 7*. Let us see if you can survive to claim the Tower as your own! (insert evil laugh plus choking cough after) Alright guys, you can use XYZ books, we'll be using the errata from dec. 2043. You have 45 minutes to build your party. Understand, I'll be trying to kill you guys. All rolls in the open, anything at an angle is rerolled, anything off the table is the minimum result, a forgotten save is a failed save, take-backs from forgetting cost a surge. Let's ROLL!"

*The level being subject to change with each "module".