How will superior implements work?

[Jack99]

Have you met the dagger-rogue's basic attack?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

First, truth is, there really aren't that many "spells" (and I have to assume here you are incorrectly using that word to refer to all implement powers) that don't inflict damage.

More than you seem to think.

The point still stands, its not good design to railroad powers into only one possible viable way of working. If you haven't paid attention one of the primary complaints with 4e is the virtual impossibility of making decent non-damage-centric powers and every "lets throw a bit more bonus damage on them" rule just makes the situation worse. Its bad design, pure and simple.

Secondly, this logic of this argument is kinda questionable. If you picked a non-damaging power, you hopefully employed enough judgment to accept that you're getting a benefit that's worth foregoing the damage provided by other powers (said benefit typically being to give somebody else a good opportunity to inflict more damage on the target). And in so doing you're not just foregoing the damage expressly mentioned in those other powers, but also any damage boosts they might receive from class features, racial features, feats, magic items, utility powers, and anything else that might come down the pike.

No, I would expect that the design of the game will not continue to evolve in such a way that it continues to devalue my choices more and more. At some point these choices were designed to be equivalent choices to powers which primarily do damage. Every time you effectively up the damage of every damage dealing power you devalue the ones that don't. Even powers which do only minor amounts of damage and are primarily focused on status effects and such become relatively devalued as status effects themselves mean less and less when you can pile on enough damage to just kill things outright in a hit or two. There's nothing at all questionable about my logic, it is absolutely and utterly straightforward.

Just one moment, please. We HAD to have fullblades and greatbows? A six-foot long sword or bow doesn't cut it? Gotta find another way to add a foot or two, or it simply isn't proper sword-and-sorcery?

What's that I hear someone say? Fullblades HAD to come into existence to give the greatsword the same boost that the longsword got from bastard swords? And of course, then we HAD to have greatspears, executioner axes, and mordenkrads to let other weapon groups keep up with the boost to heavy blades? And then to balance ranged weapon attacks against all those superior melee weapons, we HAD to have greatbows? It's all one big domino effect?

This is a straw man argument. I never mentioned fullblades and greatbows. However if you actually take a minute to examine the situation you will see that 3 grades of weapons are a logical and even necessary outgrowth of the game design. Simple weapons pretty much have to exist as "those weapons pretty much anyone can pick up and use with minimal training". Military weapons then simply must exist as the contrasting set of weapons most people aren't exposed to without training and won't normally know how to pick up and use to full effectiveness. Superior weapons naturally then arise as that class of weapons that even your ordinary warrior won't instantly be familiar with. Its simply the natural consequence of the whole design. Its possible they could have done away with the whole notion of these weapon grades and just had every class spell out an exhaustive list of what weapons they could use (not great if you consider new ones are likely to be added).

Now, I can think of other alternate possibilities but fullblades and greatbows certainly work. Notice they weren't even included in the core rules and I suspect the original design never contemplated them. Because weapons have a lot of factors attached to them it was possible to easily extend the base weapon system to accomodate a class of weapons that really can be thought of more as trading a feat for even greater weapon skill. Its also kind of inevitable that players will want to have "a really really huge sword" vs just "a great big sword". Again this kind of logic does not apply at all to implements. Nobody asks for "a really really huge wand".

True, very true. Now don't you see where this is going? The genie is out of the bottle. We HAVE to have superior implements to give the lads with the wands and staves and totems a damage boost that they need so badly. In fact, they need it most of all, since implement damage is trailing behind weapon damage even when compared to those measly, worthless military weapons that no self-respecting ranger would be caught dead with. Even a lame old greataxe does a d12 damage--virtually unheard of in any implement-using powerset! For an implement-user, getting to roll a d10 is the epitome of raw power. For a weapon-user, it's a paycut you gracefully accepted because you want to use a shield.

Except that the powers spellcasters are using were DESIGNED with that in mind. You're fixated on the size of damage dice and you aren't looking past that. Spellcasters are doing fine. They are quite effective. In fact I would say they were almost a bit on the high side on day 1, especially at higher levels where conditions and other effects still predominate over raw damage. Talk to people who are experienced at playing beyond 15th level and they'll gladly tell you the same thing I've observed, that wizard you don't think much of is suddenly a very bad dude you don't want to mess with.

In fact with all the weaplement tricks that have opened up of late its a good thing that melee has gotten a decent boost. Its ironic that a lot of those boosts manage to apply to casters too if they get a bit clever but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

I would never argue that the rules for implements aren't a mess, but adding in another implement subsystem is the anti-fix. It will just make the situation even worse or at best not fix it. The problem isn't an issue of balance between melee and casting, its an issue of the rules for implements are simply byzantine and filled with stupid pitfalls that randomly nerf certain builds for no logical reason. No amount of patches to the core rules is going to make that mess go away and applying additional crap on top of existing crap will just make it even less intelligible and logical. WotC should just walk away from the implement mess, chalk it up to experience, and let the whole festering thing lie. At least we can manage to work around its existing misfeatures. Who knows how much worse they'll make it if they mess with it more? There is ZERO track record in 4e so far of it getting any better.

 

[Felon]

The point still stands, its not good design to railroad powers into only one possible viable way of working. If you haven't paid attention one of the primary complaints with 4e is the virtual impossibility of making decent non-damage-centric powers and every "lets throw a bit more bonus damage on them" rule just makes the situation worse. Its bad design, pure and simple.

Bad design is putting such discrepencies in place to begin with. Bad follow-up design is deciding not to address a major discrepency for fear that it might result in some minor discrepency. Right now, the damage of an implement-user is devalued in its relation to weapon damage, and that's much more prominent than the argumentative devaluement of a smattering of hedge powers.

This is a straw man argument. I never mentioned fullblades and greatbows. However if you actually take a minute to examine the situation you will see that 3 grades of weapons are a logical and even necessary outgrowth of the game design. Simple weapons pretty much have to exist as "those weapons pretty much anyone can pick up and use with minimal training". Military weapons then simply must exist as the contrasting set of weapons most people aren't exposed to without training and won't normally know how to pick up and use to full effectiveness. Superior weapons naturally then arise as that class of weapons that even your ordinary warrior won't instantly be familiar with. Its simply the natural consequence of the whole design. Its possible they could have done away with the whole notion of these weapon grades and just had every class spell out an exhaustive list of what weapons they could use (not great if you consider new ones are likely to be added).

Now, I can think of other alternate possibilities but fullblades and greatbows certainly work. Notice they weren't even included in the core rules and I suspect the original design never contemplated them. Because weapons have a lot of factors attached to them it was possible to easily extend the base weapon system to accomodate a class of weapons that really can be thought of more as trading a feat for even greater weapon skill. Its also kind of inevitable that players will want to have "a really really huge sword" vs just "a great big sword". Again this kind of logic does not apply at all to implements. Nobody asks for "a really really huge wand".

I would've snipped this quote down a bit, but I want to present it in its full glory for what it comes across as: two huge paragraphs of pure conjecture about what's "inevitable" what's "unnecessary", and trying to pass off this "mandatory" stratification as taking precedence over game balance. The discrepency between weapons and implements, on the other hand, is a matter of math. Let me go ahead and just crush your whole supposition: I'm asking for a really, really huge wand, or anything else that'll fix the damage discrepency. Other people in this thread are asking for it. So, there you go.

Except that the powers spellcasters are using were DESIGNED with that in mind. You're fixated on the size of damage dice and you aren't looking past that. Spellcasters are doing fine. They are quite effective. In fact I would say they were almost a bit on the high side on day 1, especially at higher levels where conditions and other effects still predominate over raw damage.

OK, I'm game. let's look past damage. What else do you want to look at? You've already had it explained to you that it's fallacious to suggest that weapon-users can't inflict status conditions, or attack multiple targets, or NADs. So, are you just in denial? What assets put them on the "high side on day 1"?

The class I've been playing since day 1 is the warlock. Its damage output is quantifiably awful compared to virtually any weapon-using class, not even other strikers. The counter-argument I hear is that the warlock has all these great status effect powers that the weapon-using classes lack. In reality, that's a canard that's easily exposed once the rogue runs up and bonks the BBEG over the head and knocks it unconsious, typically sentencing it to death. Then he'll throw a blinding barrage, and the ranger will toss out wolverine's strike, and the claim that weapon-users don't get AOE comes crumbling apart.

 

[Felon]

Have you met the dagger-rogue's basic attack?

Y'know, I feel pretty good about saying that even though magic missile does a whopping d4 more damage than a dagger, the rogue still comes out ahead in the deal by virtue of getting his BA for free while the wizard had to cough up one of his two at-wills.

 

[Turtlejay]

Perhaps the point was that the Rogue has to make his BA with a non-optimal stat score in melee.

Just like the Cha Paladin, the Shielding Cleric, etc.

Jay

 

[AngryMojo]

Perhaps the point was that the Rogue has to make his BA with a non-optimal stat score in melee.

Just like the Cha Paladin, the Shielding Cleric, etc.

Jay

Or for that matter, any melee character that doesn't use strength for his primary attack stat. I remember a bunch of people complaining about that when the game first came out, then complaining about stealth eratta and feat taxes when PHB2 came out with the feat that lets you swap out the ability score of your choice for basic attacks.

That actually began to make me think about the feat tax solution seriously, and I still wonder what your character will look like if you take every feat that's been dubbed "feat tax."

 

[Felon]

Perhaps the point was that the Rogue has to make his BA with a non-optimal stat score in melee.

Just like the Cha Paladin, the Shielding Cleric, etc.

Fair enough. Basic attack problems exist for some weapon-users. But which commodity is more finite: a feat, or an at-will power?

 

[Diirk]

Perhaps the point was that the Rogue has to make his BA with a non-optimal stat score in melee.

But the dagger rogue gets two free basic attacks, a ranged one and a melee one. The ranged one is pretty good (especially when he can sneak attack with it) and while the melee one ordinarily isn't very good (unless he's a brutal rogue), there's a feat for people that are desperate for melee basic attacks. Pretty sure there's no feat to give casters ranged basic attacks, not even a 'ranged training' for wis to bow attacks etc.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Bad design is putting such discrepencies in place to begin with. Bad follow-up design is deciding not to address a major discrepency for fear that it might result in some minor discrepency. Right now, the damage of an implement-user is devalued in its relation to weapon damage, and that's much more prominent than the argumentative devaluement of a smattering of hedge powers.

No, bad practice is simply throwing in bigger plusses all over the case into a system in a misguided attempt to "fix" things. Its just a horribly bad idea. Power creep is the worst and most common issue with evolving systems. Whatever the good or bad of the original design was, more powerful implements is a terrible way to fix it at the most basic level.

I would've snipped this quote down a bit, but I want to present it in its full glory for what it comes across as: two huge paragraphs of pure conjecture about what's "inevitable" what's "unnecessary", and trying to pass off this "mandatory" stratification as taking precedence over game balance.

I think you're missing the point, which is that the designers of the game don't have a blank slate to work from when it comes to weapons. Yes, it was essentially inevitable that weapons would form a progression of bigger badder weapons and that factor is dictated by the expectations of the people who BUY the game, lol. It isn't dictated by some game-theoretic factor. Since you're soooo obviously smarter about how this should be done than the rest of us, hey, lets see your design for a better game. I'll buy. lol. My argument stands perfectly and its entirely appropriate in this context.

OK, I'm game. let's look past damage. What else do you want to look at? You've already had it explained to you that it's fallacious to suggest that weapon-users can't inflict status conditions, or attack multiple targets, or NADs. So, are you just in denial? What assets put them on the "high side on day 1"?

The class I've been playing since day 1 is the warlock. Its damage output is quantifiably awful compared to virtually any weapon-using class, not even other strikers. The counter-argument I hear is that the warlock has all these great status effect powers that the weapon-using classes lack. In reality, that's a canard that's easily exposed once the rogue runs up and bonks the BBEG over the head and knocks it unconsious, typically sentencing it to death. Then he'll throw a blinding barrage, and the ranger will toss out wolverine's strike, and the claim that weapon-users don't get AOE comes crumbling apart.

I never said weapon users CANNOT inflict status conditions. Where are you getting that from? If you think they have anywhere near the same facility at doing so as casters do then we're reading from different books because I've run a LOT of 4e and there is simply no contest there. Casters are dishing out status effects with practically every attack.

I'm sorry for your warlock man, but you know what? You need to pay attention to doing damage output if that's what you want to do. The starlock in the game I'm running now is consistently the highest overall damage generator. Certainly competitive with the great weapon fighter and the rogue. He has phenomenally high accuracy and just plain keeps hitting practically every round. Again, its a fixation with the big hunk of damage these melee characters dish out when they hit big, but what are they doing the rest of the time? Decent damage, but its also just damage and the rare status effect where the starlock is dropping a status effect on practically every attack.

The combat encounter I ran last night is a perfect example. The STR cleric did some pretty decent damage, and the rogue did quite a bit of damage to a soldier (canoloth) but it was the starlock that finished the job. Then he went on to knock out a runespiral demon single handed, PLUS he wiped out 2 of the 4 minions that were present and finished off a phantom soldier. Meanwhile the lowly horribly disadvantaged by the weapon users wizard disabled 3 other phantom soldiers with a zone and then hurled the BBEG into a pit with Spectral Ram (a very tough BBEG that had not been touched at all yet). Once the guy went in the pit the fight went from "we're very likely going to lose" to more or less cleanup. The psion, another of your poor disadvantaged non-weapon-using classes likewise did great damage, hitting constantly.

Now, I could pick examples of fights that were the other way around too, but oddly they are mostly examples where the casters made bad choices (wizard picks Stinking Cloud and party runs into a whole bunch of undead, lol). Weapon users have a bunch of nice features, like doing all untyped damage and simply being able to go around the battle and stop up terrain with their armored bodies. Overall I'm not finding this imbalance that needs to be rectified.

On top of that if you want to lay blame for any imbalance, don't lay it at the feet of either implements or weapons per se. Lay it at the feet of 2 items, Bloodclaw Weapon and Iron Armbands of Power. I have no sympathy for groups that give away piles of only the top items for weapon users and then complain that something is broken (unless they're complaining about those very items, but isn't that ironic...).

 

[Destil]

But the dagger rogue gets two free basic attacks, a ranged one and a melee one. The ranged one is pretty good (especially when he can sneak attack with it) and while the melee one ordinarily isn't very good (unless he's a brutal rogue), there's a feat for people that are desperate for melee basic attacks. Pretty sure there's no feat to give casters ranged basic attacks, not even a 'ranged training' for wis to bow attacks etc.

Two of the three rogue options are Str based, and dagger rogues effectively get a +4 proficiency bonus. Usually their melee basics are on par with an axe-wielding dwarf warrior for accuracy, at least.

The problem is that of the ranged attackers, only three get good ranged basics by default: rangers, seekers, and warlocks. And warlocks are just forced to take an at-will that counts as a basic. Melee types sucking with ranged basics is the rules working as intended (though don't underestimate a trident and shield fighter). And there's some magic items that can help here if you feel it's a weakness.

I've always thought magic missile should deal Int damage on a miss, to reflect it's pre-4E accuracy. Ranged basic shouldn't really 'cost' anything as far as at-wills go...