Instant Friends

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

I think I have a problem with this being a Wizard Utility 2 power (Heroes of the Fallen Lands, page 209).

I'm having a hard time articulating it. It doesn't "feel" right.

The crux of the power is the target gets a saving throw with a +5 bonus if it's your level or higher and -5 if its lower level. On a failed throw "the target treats you as a trusted friend for 1d4 hours. It truthfully answers all questions you ask and aids you in any way it can as long as doing so does not risk its life or property."

I don't think my problem is the effect. While the "aids you in anyway it can" is a little nebulous, overall there are a number of powers that let a character force an enemy to attack the enemy's allies or force a creature to answer its questions truthfully. Since I don't have a DDI account and don't have my books at hand: could someone cite these and compare and contrast to this power?

I think one of my problems is that this really, doesn't feel like a "power". This should be a ritual. Make it a short casting time ritual, but it should be a ritual. It has an explicit "Requirement: You must use this power outside a combat encounter." I don't understand what they are trying to do, forcing this ritual-shaped peg into a power-shaped hole.

Level 2 seems very early for this power. And 1d4 hours seems long. I think the earliest "force a creature to answer a question honestly" ritual is level 5. And that's grants just one question if I recall. Granted wizards are supposed to be exceptionally good at this stuff. The thought of a level 2 Wizard (Mage) encountering a mind flayer--or even Orcus for that matter--and having a 25% chance of instantly becoming BFFs for 4 hours rankles.

So, thoughts?

 

[MrMyth]

People have long been asking for Utility powers that are, in fact, non-combat powers with usefulness in various types of non-combat situations. Most such powers from previous editions were converted to Rituals, which have a useful place in the game, but a limited one due to their casting times and component cost.

Thus, it looks like WotC is trying to reintroduce lesser versions of Rituals as utility powers, and I think there is a place for that. Is this a successful approach? I do like the saving throw mods to reflect the difficulty/ease of affecting those of higher/lower level than you.

I do think the strength of the power overwhelms that of some Rituals. But I think that may be an issue with Rituals more than this power. The only real game-breaking issues here are the usual ones that accompany charm-type affects, and the limitation on risking life or property avoids most abuses.

I'm interested to see more powers along these lines, certainly. But yeah, they will need to be careful how they go about doing so.

 

[renau1g]

Well Orcus would have a 0% chance as he'd have a +5 saving throw for being solo +5 for being higher level so +10 on the roll and 1's aren't auto-fails right? I get what you're saying though.

 

[Piratecat]

Interesting. That feels really, really 1st Edition. Friends and charm Person worked this way. I love the idea.

 

[Gadget]

I think the main reason is that the designers have left Rituals out of Essentials. The Cleric's Resurrection ability is a class feature that can be used after an extended rest rather than a Ritual. This may have been done to streamline the system and not overwhelm the new user with so many options and sub-systems. So far it seems to be a rather elegant solution, time will tell of course.

Also, I think with the initial release of 4e the design team was rather conservative with "open-ended" spells and abilities that caused so many balance concerns in previous editions. This is basically the old charm person spell of previous editions, and it made sense at the time to change such open-ended spells to Rituals to curtail potential abuse. However, over time, I think the designers have become more comfortable with moving some of these abilities around and loosening up some of those restrictions. It is rather awkward to have to perform an extended Ritual to charm a potentially unwilling victim (unless you capture and tie them up first). So it makes sense as an 'out of combat' utility power. Besides 4e is frequently criticised (rightly or wrongly) for focusing too much on the 'combat encounter' and leaving things like exploration and role playing by the wayside. More out of combat utility powers could only help in this area.

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

I agree that it seems really old school, and definitely made me think of charm person.

Does anyone have the 1st Edition or Basic D&D charm person spell at hand to compare this to?

I've been playing Labyrinth Lord by email off and on over the past couple years and my magic users almost always first pick charm person.

 

[LuckyAdrastus]

It does seem a little... non-4e-ish to me in a way I don't like. And to say the least, I'm not one of the "sky is falling" crowd about Essentials. Like TikkchikFenTikktikk said, I'd prefer to keep the powers in one place, and the rituals in another. There are balance reasons for that -- it is hard to balance a combat power vs. a skill challenge or ritual.

Some caveats why this might not be so "bad" (some inspired by posters here already):

1) There are already are non-combat feats (linguist, skill training in most cases) as well as non-combat (or mostly non-combat) utility powers. My preserving invoker has Arcane Mutterings as his level 2 utility, and I use it constantly for role-playing purposes both in and (usually) out of combat.

2) The current ritual system is a mess, with way to many rituals, too much bookkeeping, etc., so simplifying it is a very nice idea.

Still, I'd prefer that rituals ended up being subsumed into skills (or skills + feats/class features) instead of having them fill up the utility spots where they compete with combat utilities like Shield.

 

[Zaran]

This is more of the "Hey! Retro-Player! We now have auto-hit magic missile and Friends spells! Come play 4e!" kind of effect. It's so low level because Friends was a low level spell and it did pretty much the same thing.

An Orb wizard can really abuse this power. An orb wizard could theoretically Insta-Friend Orcus with a low roll.

I really don't know if this bothers me. It seems out of place in 4e but so does an Auto-Hit Magic Missile and I've accepted that. I've always felt that the 4e Wizard did not have the coolness factor that it did in the old editions so I'm glad that they are trying to give them little boosts like this.

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

There is a big problem with rituals being subsumed into utility powers: a Heroic-tier Wizard (Mage) gets no more and no less than 3 utility powers by level 10, 2 more as a Paragon-tier Enigmatic Mage, and only 1 more when they become an Epic-Tier Indomitable Champion.

By contrast, you can have as many rituals as you have pages in your ritual books or scrolls regardless of level.

Thinking about it more, I don't think this effect should be a ritual. "Rituals are complex ceremonies that create magic effects. You don't memorize or prepare a ritual; a ritual is so long and complex that no one could ever commit the whole thing to memory." (PHB p.296) This doesn't fit the fluff of the spell, or the fluff of the arcane-enhanced glib-tongue of a wizard.

Saruman didn't need a scroll.

I should finish my read-through of the RC this week. Now I'm anxious to see what else they've done with utility powers in Essentials. Did they build on this idea, or is Instant Friends a weird outlier?

I'm getting used to this idea of non-combat utility powers, and coming around to liking it. Just needed to think outloud (or online, as the case may be).

 

[LuckyAdrastus]

There is a big problem with rituals being subsumed into utility powers: a Heroic-tier Wizard (Mage) gets no more and no less than 3 utility powers by level 10, 2 more as a Paragon-tier Enigmatic Mage, and only 1 more when they become an Epic-Tier Indomitable Champion.

By contrast, you can have as many rituals as you have pages in your ritual books or scrolls regardless of level.

Thinking about it more, I don't think this effect should be a ritual. "Rituals are complex ceremonies that create magic effects. You don't memorize or prepare a ritual; a ritual is so long and complex that no one could ever commit the whole thing to memory." (PHB p.296) This doesn't fit the fluff of the spell, or the fluff of the arcane-enhanced glib-tongue of a wizard.

Saruman didn't need a scroll.

I should finish my read-through of the RC this week. Now I'm anxious to see what else they've done with utility powers in Essentials. Did they build on this idea, or is Instant Friends a weird outlier?

I'm getting used to this idea of non-combat utility powers, and coming around to liking it. Just needed to think outloud (or online, as the case may be).

It is interesting stuff to post about! I'd also prefer that non-combat stuff be kept away from the combat stuff for balancing reasons, but Friends may not be any worse than the slight mix we saw in PHB1. Of course, that was the kind of stuff I was hoping to see fixed by Essentials/Errata.