Interpretation of rules: Sorcerors, daggers and feats

[Eldorian]

Heh, going directly for the cheese? Only problem is none of the daggermaster abilities key off the storm power, or the heroic feat that works like weapon focus but for lightning/thunder spells. So does the 18-20 crit really outweight the extra lightning spells + making adj enemies take 2d6+cha dmg at start of turn?

If we continue talking about cheese, level 30 Sorc/Lightning fury/signature spell. Make the level 15 daily I think it is, the one that summons daggers doing 2d4+cha and you are allowed to use it every turn thereafter as a free action, into the signature spell. Pumping out 2 attacks a turn every encounter without action points. (3 if you count the lightning fury adj damage.) That work too?

No one cares how overpowered your level 30 guy is.

 

[Davachido]

No one cares how overpowered your level 30 guy is.

Erm Ok? You cared enough to post?

Its very rare people play epic campaigns anyway, I was just giving another example of cheese since we were on the topic. It was only really said in passing to show examples of something that I can probably guess is overused similar to sorc/daggermaster.

 

[webrunner]

Just as an aside, 'ki' as a power source has been nixed and the classes will be given other power sources. The first of which, Monk, was previewed (1-30, one build) in Dragon magazine and is a Psionic Striker.

 

[eamon]

You do not get the ability to use all aspects of the weapon, specifically, most magic weapon powers don't apply - you just gain the benefits from enhancement, critical and properties (see Q16 in FAQ for the Player's Handbook!). However, reckless, in particular, doesn't actually specify that you must attack with that weapon - so that power is actually technically usable on an entirely unrelated attack - such as an implement attack. That's really heading into thoroughly fermented milk territory though... I mean, you could probably just use a +1 dagger hanging around your neck under that reading of the power.

 

[DracoSuave]

Pffft. That's not cheese.

Cheese is making your off-hand weapon a hand-crossbow so that every time you crit you get a free basic attack with it because you take the Two-Fisted Shooter feat. Which requires Rogue. Which you need for Daggermaster.

Then you hybrid Bard/Sorcerer, and make that hand-crossbow a spellbow of some sort.

Then every time you crit, you shoot acid orbs out of your hand-crossbow as melee attacks.

Then you focus on AoEs for everything else so that you roll the maximum number of dice, and get a crit every other round.

Yeah.

 

[Davachido]

Pffft. That's not cheese.

Then you hybrid Bard/Sorcerer, and make that hand-crossbow a spellbow of some sort.

Don't know much about the hybrid rules, I don't use DDI stuff and only have the currently released power books, PHB 1 & 2, forgetton's realm and eberron.

Just as an aside, 'ki' as a power source has been nixed and the classes will be given other power sources. The first of which, Monk, was previewed (1-30, one build) in Dragon magazine and is a Psionic Striker.

Incidently I don't know much about the psion classes aside from how the powers work, our gaming group only really only uses the books stated above, so daggers with electricity mimicking a ninja works fine for now. Though I will look over monk when it does eventually come out (in hardback book form that is).

 

[Diirk]

Don't forget to make your off-hand dagger a Mage's Parrying Dagger. The Parrying Dagger gets you +1 to AC, and being a Mage's Weapon means you get proficiency with it automatically.

That doesn't even work. A parrying dagger isn't a dagger, whether you're proficient with it or not, so you can't use it as an implement. So while you may get +1 AC, you also lose all the benefits of dual implement etc resulting in a rather drastic drop in damage.

 

[eamon]

That doesn't even work. A parrying dagger isn't a dagger, whether you're proficient with it or not, so you can't use it as an implement. So while you may get +1 AC, you also lose all the benefits of dual implement etc resulting in a rather drastic drop in damage.

I don't think dagger is a defined term in the base rules; so whether a parrying dagger counts as a variation of the base dagger or not is up to interpretation.

However, it is explicitly noted that it counts as a dagger for rogue weapon talent; for what it's worth. It's certainly possible with arcane implement proficiency, anyhow (though, if that's required, it's unlikely to be worth it.)

 

[Prestidigitalis]

That doesn't even work. A parrying dagger isn't a dagger

My first inclination was to say that you are just being silly, but on reading the description of the Parrying Dagger (AV page 10) I have to admit that you might be correct. ("Might be" as in "I'm not going to try to figure out the probability, but it's more than 0.")

It would be nice to get a clarification on the issue.

 

[Diirk]

I don't think dagger is a defined term in the base rules; so whether a parrying dagger counts as a variation of the base dagger or not is up to interpretation.

However, it is explicitly noted that it counts as a dagger for rogue weapon talent; for what it's worth. It's certainly possible with arcane implement proficiency, anyhow (though, if that's required, it's unlikely to be worth it.)

A dagger is a 1d4 +3 proficiency.
A parrying dagger is a DIFFERENT weapon that has other properties (mainly the defensive). Just because it has the word 'dagger' in its name doesn't make it the same thing. Unlike say spears, 'dagger' isn't a weapon group, its a specific weapon.

That it counts as a dagger for rogue weapon talent only reinforces my point. If a parrying dagger WAS a dagger, that line wouldn't even be needed and they could instead say something like 'this weapon qualifies as a dagger'. As is tho, it can be used with rogue weapon talent, but anything else that needs a dagger you can't use a parrying dagger with.

In a similar vein, while a 'spear' is a monk weapon, 'spears' in general aren't, and so a monk can't use a longspear or a greatspear with his monk powers. Whereas if you say a parrying dagger is a dagger, you'd almost be obligated to say a greatspear is a spear...