Is Painful Oath Too Painful?

[Saeviomagy]

The way I see it, these feats and the complaint that avengers don't do enough damage are all coming from a misunderstanding of the original class design. To me it made perfect sense: the defender-level hitpoints and surges, the stickyness and class abilities punishing escape or aid all pointed to a class intended to take out a target by secluding him in a one-on-one duel and wearing him down - a scenario that the avenger excelled in. You don't kill the foe as fast as other strikers, but you do limit his involvement in a battle very early, and kill him eventually.

Giving him striker level damage (as opposed to only when his schtick isn't working) as well as all that seems destined to make for a class that is going to be better than other strikers. Making it a "must-have" feat patch is just throwing in some violation of the original design tenets of feats and classes to boot.

 

[Dice4Hire]

The way I see it, these feats and the complaint that avengers don't do enough damage are all coming from a misunderstanding of the original class design. To me it made perfect sense: the defender-level hitpoints and surges, the stickyness and class abilities punishing escape or aid all pointed to a class intended to take out a target by secluding him in a one-on-one duel and wearing him down - a scenario that the avenger excelled in. You don't kill the foe as fast as other strikers, but you do limit his involvement in a battle very early, and kill him eventually.

Giving him striker level damage (as opposed to only when his schtick isn't working) as well as all that seems destined to make for a class that is going to be better than other strikers. Making it a "must-have" feat patch is just throwing in some violation of the original design tenets of feats and classes to boot.

Yeah, the people who are going DPR only are missing the point, which is why I would notrmally disallow this feat. Avengers rarely mniss, and that increases the value of their encounters and dailies by quite a bit. Addin elf for the reroll or human ofr Action Surge, and you are looking at the Avenger's real ability. That plus their ability to isolate an enemy by teleporting htem aroudn the battlefield, and Avengers should not have equal DPR to otehr striekrs. It is not hteir hting.

So I would say Painful oath is just too good. A simple, easy +5,+6 or more damage is too good for a feat. Unsurprisingly, if is Dragon, something I have never allowed, even long before DDI.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

Addin elf for the reroll

OoE and that don't stack.

A simple, easy +5,+6 or more damage is too good for a feat. Unsurprisingly, if is Dragon[...]

It's pretty much the same, if you talk about raw damage increase by the feat alone, as Marked Scourge (MP).

 

[Shazman]

Painful Oath, a Paragon level feat, would allow my avenger to do +5 damage every round.

The feat allows (WIS Modifier) extra radiant and necrotic damage to the first hit every turn to the avenger's Oath target.

Yes, it says "the first time you hit each turn."


Questions:
1A. Is this feat too powerful?
1B. Am I going to take this feat anyway?

A damage bump to one of the lowest damage dealing striker classes isn't overpowered. In fact, I would say it's necessary. Anything that increases the ratio pf PC damage to moster hit points means faster combat which helps to mitigate one of the greatest flaws of 4E.

 

[Budalic]

The way I see it, these feats and the complaint that avengers don't do enough damage are all coming from a misunderstanding of the original class design. To me it made perfect sense: the defender-level hitpoints and surges, the stickyness and class abilities punishing escape or aid all pointed to a class intended to take out a target by secluding him in a one-on-one duel and wearing him down - a scenario that the avenger excelled in. You don't kill the foe as fast as other strikers, but you do limit his involvement in a battle very early, and kill him eventually.

Giving him striker level damage (as opposed to only when his schtick isn't working) as well as all that seems destined to make for a class that is going to be better than other strikers. Making it a "must-have" feat patch is just throwing in some violation of the original design tenets of feats and classes to boot.

Still, even with Painful Oath, Avengers damage isn't on par with a melee ranger with Prime Punisher, Called shot and Prime Quarry (+2 attack and +5 damage when you are 1-on-1 with enemy). And ranger gets Toughness as bonus feat. Stormwarden has a way higher DPR, and Pathfinder has both higher DPR and is a lot tougher thanks to huge THP regeneration.

Of course, almost all strikers lose when compared to Ranger.

As for 1-on-1-isolation-and-slowly-killing thing: it isn't a viable tactic. It basicaly comes to: you have one party member less and face one enemy less. When you kill other enemies, you will also have to kill that enemy thanks to Avengers low damage. Avenger has to have comparable DPR to other strikers, because you're always better off picking other striker which has higher damage, and can bring more teamwork. That's also why Censure of Unity Avengers are best - they can really use teamwork.

In short: Painful oath is a feat tax. It makes non-crit-fisher avengers viable.

 

[mneme]

OoE and that don't stack.

Yes--yes it does. Reread OoE. It's not a reroll -- and if you reroll the attack, you get to reroll both dice.

Re Painful Oath...I think it's fine. It's a fairly limited striker feature (no repeat customers)--a feat tax of a type that nearly every class gets in paragon in some form.

Re the nature of avengers vs other strikers...they're a little more durable than rogues, but not by much (equivalent AC, can bump it higher with feats). They're more durable than rangers -- but rangers Do More Damage.

Moreover, rogues have a huge advantage relative to avengers -- they can get their striker feature and a full set of powers at range. Moreover, they're about as accurate as Avengers are (no, they don't roll twice -- but they have weapon attacks against reflex, +1 to hit, -and- are usually attacking with combat advantage; if the "average" avenger has a 75% chance to hit hitting on an 11, the "average" melee rogue is hitting on a 5 (+2 for CA, +1 for dagger, +3 for attacking reflex) and getitng the same 75% chance to hit with more damage. And that's without most attacks doing damage -and- inflicting conditions, the much easier access to Stealth, etc.

Now, Barbarians you might have a case--except that Whirling Barbarians are just as durable as Avengers -- and I think most other Barbs are a bit underpowered (but at least with the right equipment can become giant balls of spiky death).

 

[Black Knight Irios]

Yes--yes it does. Reread OoE. It's not a reroll -- and if you reroll the attack, you get to reroll both dice.

You're right of course I confused it with the rule that when other effects let your roll twice and so on don't stack with OoE. Rerolling my statement.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Still, even with Painful Oath, Avengers damage isn't on par with a melee ranger with Prime Punisher, Called shot and Prime Quarry (+2 attack and +5 damage when you are 1-on-1 with enemy). And ranger gets Toughness as bonus feat. Stormwarden has a way higher DPR, and Pathfinder has both higher DPR and is a lot tougher thanks to huge THP regeneration.

So... did you just say that 3 feats for +1 attack and +5 damage is equivalent to one feat for +5-6 damage?

As for stormwarden being high dpr... well, yeah. It was far and away the top DPS build in the PHB. Other ranger builds didn't compete with it and neither did any other striker.

As for 1-on-1-isolation-and-slowly-killing thing: it isn't a viable tactic. It basically comes to: you have one party member less and face one enemy less. When you kill other enemies, you will also have to kill that enemy thanks to Avengers low damage. Avenger has to have comparable DPR to other strikers, because you're always better off picking other striker which has higher damage, and can bring more teamwork. That's also why Censure of Unity Avengers are best - they can really use teamwork.

If 5 damage per hit is what it takes to bring an avenger up to the average striker's damage level, then he's not exactly tickling his foe while he's got him isolated. He's still doing some serious damage, and his high defenses and hitpoints mean that the foe won't be dishing out much in return.

It's standard for powers to trade raw damage for crowd-control power. The avenger just has that built in to the base class.

If we follow your line of logic, then any power that trades damage for limiting a foe is a tactic that doesn't work, and I don't really think that's true.

 

[Dice4Hire]

It's pretty much the same, if you talk about raw damage increase by the feat alone, as Marked Scourge (MP).

Well, Marked Scourge is a secondary stat, for one, where as Oath is not.

I think the errata changes over the past year have shown that primary stats boosting attacks or damage are too powerful. I would think this is true of Painful Oath. Secondary stats are far more balanced.

Also add in the radiant, the most common vulnerability in the game. Scourge is just damage.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Lots of good discussion here regarding question 1A.

Not so much regarding question 1B.

Spoiler

Made you look!

That's also why Censure of Unity Avengers are best - they can really use teamwork.

Whew. I'm glad my Avenger is a Unity guy. "All for one, and all against my OoE target!"