They don't stack - use the worst - unless you are a victim of
entropic slaads, in which case it all stacks!
I thought as much... well I'll keep playing it as stacking : I find it strange that if you deal ALL x, only x applies but as soon as there is a 1 point of something else, both apply...
Especially when juxtaposed to x and y vulnerable which do stack.
That was one of the major mistakes of 4e for me - having untyped damage. It just leads to weird stuff...
[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]
That first party was a very strong group indeed!
It'd be curious to compare all martial Vs all primal, Vs all divine, etc parties in terms of feel and capabilities... My gut feeling is something along the lines of :
All
martial : very strong. Requires a few items against specific foes to make life easier, but other than that... very strong.
- Fighter : great tank, high damage
- Ranger : great damage, nice utility
- Rogue : great damage, nice utility
- Warlord : good healer,
immense synergy with melee classes
- Knight : meh, good enough
- Slayer : for those who
really need the top of the sheet to say
fighter and don't want to tank
- Scout : a slightly lower damage ranger, but with a wider variety of competing options in play (only played this one once)
special note: will require some characters to invest in some items or builds to avoid too much overlap and to cover some deficiencies (energy damage, AoE, ranged damage, mobility, social encounters, etc.)
All
divine : pretty strong. Might require some more system mastery to get a party as effective as all martial. Stupid strong against some foes (undead? don't bother friend, you're better off staying in your crypt...) Damage might be a bit harder to come by, but there are very strong leader, tanking and control options. Feels like it might lead to a "slow and steady" kind of group.
- Paladin : ok tank, nice secondary leader, some interesting utility
- Cleric : very good leader (potentially ridiculous healer), good utility (rituals and +)
- Runepriest : ok leader, good synergy with low-mobility allies, potential utility
- Avenger : a very mobile striker, can work as a form of off-tank
- Invoker : very strong control and utility (rituals)
- Warpriest : a strong leader (I'm told) with off-tanking capabilities
special note: a high ratio of radiant damage - which is almost always very good. Some excellent social skills. Could have some troubles with stealth... Awesome roleplaying hooks built-in.
All
primal : hard control might be an issue... but then again, maybe not. Damage output certainly isn't. Haven't had a chance to play many of the classes...
- Barbarian : ARGGHHHHH!! DAMAGE! (hehe) with the possibility of very strong minion destruction and good physical challenge utility
- Druid : good control (but harder to build right) and some leader possibilities,
excellent utility
- Seeker : controller - but is considered weaker than others (too much soft-control), offers impressive versatility in play though.
- Shaman : good leader, potential off-tank, excellent utility
- Berserker : a cool idea - starts encounter as tank, finish as striker
- Warden : a very strong tank (melee control)
special note: versatility of damage types is a non-issue, undead could prove challenging and control can be a bit more challenging. Travel-type challenges will be laughed at
All
arcane : oohh, this one's for me! (as a personal prefence) These groups would probably always be on the move and create some very dramatic fights - unless they hard-control everything... Single-large foes might take a bit more time to go down, but groups vulnerable to AoE would explode! This would probably more tactically-savvy players as they would be pretty squishy if allowed into bad positioning... (An excellent shielding swordmage would do wonders in this setup.)
- Wizard : excellent control, excellent utility
- Swordmage : can be a very strong tank, tends to have lower damage, high combat utility but has a fairly high system mastery/game play power variance (but SO much fun)
- Artificer : a good leader with excellent utility
- Sorcerer : things will go boom. A lot. (also has a fairly high power variance)
- Warlock : dripping with story. Mechanics wise, ok damage and potential control. Some cool variants.
- Mageblade : strikery-control. Very, very cool. Some options much stronger than others (high power variance)
special note: versatility of damage types is a non-issue. Most classes are fairly squishy : tanking, mobility and action-denial are critical assets. Excellent out-of-combat utility. May be easy to dupe (low insight scores... hehehe). Could tend to have lower single-target damage output, but control options can cancel that draw-back. Groups of enemies will be obliterated.
All
psionic : my greatest regret is not having played this game yet! While I don't like the psionic fluff, their mechanics look like so much fun! (And they're easy to re-fluff into arcane!) I have NO way of knowing if it would work, but I'm pretty confident it would.
special note: On paper, this reads like the one with the greatest breath of tactics.
All
shadow : yeah... IMO that's a stupid power source. Somebody else do this one.
[will be continued]