Hybrid E-classes: must they take E-Encounter power?

[Joshua Randall]

Hybrid Essential classes: must they take their Essentials-style Encounter power? Or can they choose an Encounter power from their parent class, even if the sub-class would never normally get real Encounter powers?

The specific example I ran into is hybrid paladin (blackguard), which has this hybrid feature:

DREAD SMITE (HYBRID)
You can select the dread smite power whenever you have the opportunity to gain or replace a class encounter attack power that has a level. If you already have dread smite, you gain an additional use of the power if you select it again.

The word "can" suggests the hybrid blackguard is not forced to take Dread Smite as an Encounter power, and Character Builder will allow this hybrid to select regular paladin Encounter powers. However, we all know CB is not accurate in many places.

What say you, CharOpt?

 

[RSIxidor]

Hybrid Essential classes: must they take their Essentials-style Encounter power? Or can they choose an Encounter power from their parent class, even if the sub-class would never normally get real Encounter powers?

The specific example I ran into is hybrid paladin (blackguard), which has this hybrid feature:



The word "can" suggests the hybrid blackguard is not forced to take Dread Smite as an Encounter power, and Character Builder will allow this hybrid to select regular paladin Encounter powers. However, we all know CB is not accurate in many places.

What say you, CharOpt?

You are not forced to take it but have the option of doing so at encounter levels.

 

[MwaO]

Yeah, this is one of the big problems of 4e, in that there's some clear intent that either:
A) Essential PCs are supposed to be able to take encounter powers or
B) Hybrid Essentials are not.

But...when they listened to feedback for the Hybrid Essentials article, they clearly weren't concerned about some of the problematic elements of it, so Hybrid Essentials PCs can take encounter powers from the parent class, making the Hybrid Sentinel Druid a rather useful hybrid compared to the actual Druid hybrid.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Thanks for the replies.

At risk of a RAW/RAI debate, the way I would interpret this is that a hybrid blackguard (in this example) "can" take Dread Smite uses whenever he's selecting Encounter attack powers, which he is eventually forced to do after maxing out the Encounter attack powers from the other half of his hybrid.

I don't think the intent was "be a hybrid Essentials class and open up the entire range of your non-Essentials parent's choices, which makes you better than ever".

As always, this is just my interpretation.

 

[MwaO]

Thanks for the replies.

At risk of a RAW/RAI debate, the way I would interpret this is that a hybrid blackguard (in this example) "can" take Dread Smite uses whenever he's selecting Encounter attack powers, which he is eventually forced to do after maxing out the Encounter attack powers from the other half of his hybrid.

I don't think the intent was "be a hybrid Essentials class and open up the entire range of your non-Essentials parent's choices, which makes you better than ever".

As always, this is just my interpretation.

It isn't an unreasonable interpretation, but it gets into the area of guessing at designer intent rather than interpreting the rules. As an example, the designers may have designed the Essentials classes with the idea to keep things simple for players and anyone playing a hybrid probably isn't that big of a concern.

A big problem is that they were clearly busy on something else in retrospect and not worrying too much about getting everything right.

 

[Joshua Randall]

It isn't an unreasonable interpretation, but it gets into the area of guessing at designer intent rather than interpreting the rules.

You are right, so let's look at the rules. I find this a fascinating topic!

I dug up the article with the PH3 hybrid rules preview...
http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/downloads/dragon/383/383_Debut_Hybrid.pdf
... because the PH3 rules aren't actually in the DDI Compendium Glossary (*grumble*).

Starting Powers:
As a hybrid character, you start with the following powers.
At-Will:
Choose two 1st-level at-will attack powers, one from each class.
Encounter:
You gain one 1st-level encounter attack power, chosen from either of your hybrid classes.
Daily:
You gain one 1st-level daily attack power, chosen from either of your hybrid classes.

Gaining Additional Powers:
When you reach a new level and gain an encounter attack power, a daily attack power, or a utility power, you can choose that power from either class. However, if you have at least two powers in the same category (at-will attack, encounter attack, daily attack, or utility), at least one of those powers must come from each of your hybrid classes. For example, if you have two encounter attack powers, one of the powers must be from one of your hybrid classes, and the other power must be from your other hybrid class.

You're hybrid-ing an Essentials class, let's say the Blackguard so we can keep that example going. At 1st level "you gain one 1st-level encounter attack power, chosen from either of your hybrid classes."

Except the Blackguard doesn't have Encounter powers. What do you do?

You refer to the Blackguard hybrid rules for Dread Smite (Hybrid), and see that "You can select the dread smite power whenever you have the opportunity to gain or replace a class encounter attack power that has a level." So you do that -- you take a use of Dread Smite instead of a nonexistent Blackguard 1st-level Encounter attack power.

 

[MwaO]

You're hybrid-ing an Essentials class, let's say the Blackguard so we can keep that example going. At 1st level "you gain one 1st-level encounter attack power, chosen from either of your hybrid classes."

Except the Blackguard doesn't have Encounter powers. What do you do?

But Paladins do and Blackguards are considered Paladins for the purposes of selecting powers when they are given the ability to pick powers. To quote page 57 from the Heroes of the Fallen Lands:
"Whenever you choose a new class power, you can select it from the list presented in this book or you can take a power of the same class, level and type(attack or utility from another source."

It then goes to detail how a Slayer could pick a Fighter 2 utility from another book.

So a Fighter|Blackguard at level 1 gains an encounter attack power, from which he can pick powers from either class. If he then chooses Valorous Strike, that's a legal Paladin power to pick, so he can pick it.

It is almost certainly a problem where R&D simply wasn't thinking about hybrids when they wrote that paragraph. But they did, so that's the problem...

 

[Joshua Randall]

Interesting! This is what I get for blowing off the Heroes of X/Y books and assuming everything I needed was in the DDI Compendium.

Let me make sure I have the chain of logic correct in my own head.

Whenever you choose a new class power, you can select it from the list presented in this book or you can take a power of the same class, level, and type (attack or utility) from another source.

Most normal, non-hybrid most Essentials characters can never choose any other encounter attack power of the same level as his pre-selected encounter attack power because his pre-selected encounter attack power doesn't have a level.

But a hybrid Essentials character instead abides by the hybrid rules:

Starting Powers: As a hybrid character, you start with the following powers. [...]
Encounter: You gain one 1st-level encounter attack power, chosen from either of your hybrid classes.

Because this rule explicitly states a "1st-level encounter attack power", now the hybrid Essentials character can look around for "a power of the same class, level, and type" and find the plethora of 1st-level encounter attack powers from his parent class (in this example, paladin).

A normal (non hybrid) Blackguard can't choose to take Valorous Smite, because it has a level, and Dread Smite does not. A hybrid Blackguard *can* choose to take Valorous Smite, because he is being given the opportunity to take a 1st-level encounter attack power, and Valorous Smite *is* a 1st-level encounter attack power from "either of [his] hybrid classes".

 

[MwaO]

Interesting! This is what I get for blowing off the Heroes of X/Y books and assuming everything I needed was in the DDI Compendium.

Let me make sure I have the chain of logic correct in my own head.

Most normal, non-hybrid most Essentials characters can never choose any other encounter attack power of the same level as his pre-selected encounter attack power because his pre-selected encounter attack power doesn't have a level.

But a hybrid Essentials character instead abides by the hybrid rules:
Because this rule explicitly states a "1st-level encounter attack power", now the hybrid Essentials character can look around for "a power of the same class, level, and type" and find the plethora of 1st-level encounter attack powers from his parent class (in this example, paladin).

A normal (non hybrid) Blackguard can't choose to take Valorous Smite, because it has a level, and Dread Smite does not. A hybrid Blackguard *can* choose to take Valorous Smite, because he is being given the opportunity to take a 1st-level encounter attack power, and Valorous Smite *is* a 1st-level encounter attack power from "either of [his] hybrid classes".

Correct. And if the hybrid Blackguard wants to do so, he can take Dread Smite. If the hybrid language had said something along the lines of "You can only select the dread smite power whenever you have the opportunity to gain or replace a Paladin encounter attack power that has a level.", then it would be a different conversation.

Also, on the list of 'what the heck' is that the various hybrid 'work with an MBA' classes should have been given an at-will that was an MBA and/or RBA and then their class features set to only work with powers from their class.

 

[Joshua Randall]

As you've said, hybrids + Essentials classes (especially MBA classes) is a big mess, and it's likely the designers had their hands full preparing for 5e by that point, which is why the mess never got cleaned up. I suppose we are lucky we got as much hybrid support as we did.

Thanks for the help talking through this.