D&D 4E How is the 4e essentials Slayer??

[CTurbo]

I never got a chance to play one, but I'm still curious to hear from anybody that actually got play one a significant amount of time.

They SEEM like a pretty solid option.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've only got to DM monster equivalents (same ability text but monster damage). They were pretty cool, but being combat NPCs, disposable.

My group had gotten together before 4e started and pretty much nobody liked Essentials. The one person who might have played one consistently described the barbarian as "superior", and was a big fan of the barbarian's complexity.

 

[MwaO]

They're solid in Heroic, but the lack of actual encounter powers ends up being an eventual big limit in a campaign with even semi-optimized PCs.

Basically, multi-attacks are important. So Reserve Maneuver used on your Paragon Path's E11 power in exchange for Rain of Blows and then Martial Mastery to get a 2nd use after an AP is relatively important. Or take Shock Trooper.

Vampire got a lot of 'OMG, sucks!', but they're actually the powerhouse Striker of Essentials because not only do they bring the basic attack, but they also gain an encounter power that can be swapped *and* keep their E11 from the Paragon Path.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I never got a chance to play one, but I'm still curious to hear from anybody that actually got play one a significant amount of time.

From a long-time player PoV, they're fun - moderately tough, high-DPR beatsticks, evocative of the 1e fighter - for as long as that can be fun for you. For me the nostalgia wore off in about an hour.

I also played a Slayer as an Archer, which was clearly an off-label use (Power Strike only works in melee, so it's throwing away even encounter powers in return for doubling up on DEX bonus to damage, still quite effective). It was fun because it was a reprise of a 3.5 Barbarian/Thief character, a primary archer who would rage to kick it when forced into melee, this worked out similarly, when 'forced' into melee he'd throw down Power Attack. Not quite as cool, but I'd developed a whole personality for the character that made it fun.

From a system perspective, like much of Essentials, The Slayer (like other martial E-classes) is more problematic. Really, Essentials and the mass of errata that accompanied it could be seen as ill-advised complication (ironically in the name of simplification) or even the intentional sabotage of an otherwise pretty decent game. In the case of the Slayer, specifically, it deviates from AEDU (adding to the overall complexity of the game, including making day length matter to class balance), deviates from Role support (being a striker with defender AC, hps & surges), can abuse the many minor options that let you buff basic attacks (it's at-wills & encounters all augment basic attacks), and, though it is presented as a fighter build or sub-class, introduces at-will and encounter powers that cannot be used by previous fighter builds (a first) and, similarly, cannot avail itself of a lot of extant fighter material (contrast that to the Mage, which can take any extant wizard power and provides a bunch of new & improved wizard powers other wizard types can use).

They SEEM like a pretty solid option.

They are a solid enough striker in Heroic (it's hard to do striker too badly, it seems, even the Vampire is a pretty good striker - all 4 possible Vampire characters you can play), also 'solid' in the sense of being tougher than typical for non-primal strikers. But they lack options, resources and tactical flexibility compared to 4e classes, and even most other E-classes, limiting their long-term appeal. But they do peter out pretty quickly - Essentials, in general, like 3e-and-earlier & 5e today, seems to have been designed without an expectation of higher level (11+) seeing a lot of use.

 

[MwaO]

But they do peter out pretty quickly - Essentials, in general, like 3e-and-earlier & 5e today, seems to have been designed without an expectation of higher level (11+) seeing a lot of use.

Right - R&D has a really bad idea about how damage works in their system - multi-attacking is almost always the way to go, yet most of the Essentials PCs don't have it unless they do something on the odd side.

If I were going to make a Slayer, I'd make it have Twin Strike+Stat damage - and that's it. No encounters or daily powers, Str for melee attacks and heavy thrown, Dex for finesse weapon or ranged attacks. Fighter armor & skills. There'd be a power called Fighter's Strike which essentially was 1w+stat - and Slayer would have an option to make two of them as part of a standard. Combat Challenge would use it when doing an interrupt, etc...

Yeah, brain dead simple and boring as all get out, but solves the 'hey, someone just wants to play a dead simple beat stick fighter or archer...'

 

[Kamui]

Vampire got a lot of 'OMG, sucks!', but they're actually the powerhouse Striker of Essentials because not only do they bring the basic attack, but they also gain an encounter power that can be swapped *and* keep their E11 from the Paragon Path.

How would you go about building a optimal Vampire, out of curiosity?

 

[MwaO]

How would you go about building a optimal Vampire, out of curiosity?

Not too complicated:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?468787-Three-Step-Role-Handbook(by-MwaO)&prefixid=wotc

Pick a sky blue path to taking on another role. So Striker would be Fighter+Rain of Blows+Shock Trooper or Sorcerer+Flame Spiral+Demonskin Adept. Defender would be Paladin+Champion of Order+eventual weakening challenge. Leader would be Warlord+Vengeance is Mine/Death from Two Sides+Freedom Fighter(or PMC for 2 encounters - doesn't work when you don't have an encounter to swap...). Controller would be a little weird in actual 1-30 play as you'd need to dump Dex for Int and that doesn't make a lot of sense until Paragon - Wizard also doesn't really have a killer level 1-7 encounter power option.

Something to realize about actual Vampires is that they generate huge number of surges per combat - +2+regen and as long as they end up over 2(and eventually 3), they heal to full over a short rest - Martial Vampire can easily make that +4 surges per combat. They have a solid MBA. They're really tough, crazy so in fact, as long as you're not going through a one encounter day without any short rests. They'd like a Cha score, but they only really need a 12. Really strong chassis, but lousy powers. Fix with power swapping. And they can use the Auspicious Birth background well, gaining potentially +12 hp from it at first level if they dump Constitution.

And you can also swap out utility powers for skill powers, some of which are really good.

Yes, I know, that's not a 'real' vampire', but it is classic D&D vampire - Drelzna in S4 was a Fighter Vampire as an example, so the Shock Trooper kind could actually be her...except I'd make her an Elf with Str 16, Dex 18, Wis 14,Cha 12 as starting values - the Wis 14 allows for Battle Awareness as a feat choice.

 

[masteraleph]

Can't believe no one's mentioned this yet, but Martial Cross-Training, a feat from the Class Compendium, lets you swap out a Power Strike for a Fighter Encounter power (you need to be level 7 to do so). So Slayers can also get Rain of Blows.

 

[MwaO]

Can't believe no one's mentioned this yet, but Martial Cross-Training, a feat from the Class Compendium, lets you swap out a Power Strike for a Fighter Encounter power (you need to be level 7 to do so). So Slayers can also get Rain of Blows.

Ah, forgot about that one. Still though, there's a big practical play advantage to getting Rain of Blows/Flame Spiral at level 3 over level 7...especially in the context that Battle Awareness provides an interrupt...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

They're solid in Heroic, but the lack of actual encounter powers ends up being an eventual big limit in a campaign with even semi-optimized PCs.

Basically, multi-attacks are important. So Reserve Maneuver used on your Paragon Path's E11 power in exchange for Rain of Blows and then Martial Mastery to get a 2nd use after an AP is relatively important. Or take Shock Trooper.

Vampire got a lot of 'OMG, sucks!', but they're actually the powerhouse Striker of Essentials because not only do they bring the basic attack, but they also gain an encounter power that can be swapped *and* keep their E11 from the Paragon Path.

Vampire is ACTUALLY a PHB1 style classic class, but simply with only one or two power choices provided at most levels, one class-specific PP provided, and formatting that looks a lot like the E-classes. So it doesn't suffer from some of the issues that the fully essentials-style martial classes do (slayer and knight especially, but the thief and the scout also have similar issues).