Is "Shield" too powerful?

[KarinsDad]

That sounds a bit too convenient for me, especially coming from the guy who asserts he doesn't know what he's being attacked with or how good the roll is.

Actually, that is the only time in 3 levels that this has happened (maybe 24 or so encounters, I use it at least half of encounters). Probably because my Wizard tends to stay away from melee.

Typically, it works about 1 time in 3 for my PC like I mentioned earlier in the thread.

And, I did not state that I do not know what the PC is being attacked with. I stated that the DM does not tell me what defense it goes against. But, it's not too tough to figure out that a Greataxe typically goes against AC.

Your entitlement speech fell on deaf ears, too.

Of course it did.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

In the game I'm in the DM announces what the attack result was before I have to decide, and I've yet to use Shield at all. The party has a lot of melee types so I'm rarely in the front row, and the times I have been hit the result has been more than 4 points higher than my defences. I'm starting to think I should carry Expeditious Retreat instead.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

And after last night's game I've come to the conclusion that Shield is totally useless! Expeditious Retreat would have saved my bacon, Shield had me extra crispy.

 

[Fedifensor]

2) In the Wyatt podcasts, the players do not appear to know anything about how to play 4E.

You mean, like EVERYONE? The game wasn't released yet. That actually makes it more important to show the 'official' way to play, especially on a podcast that people will be listening to in order to find out how the game plays.

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(For those following along, KarensDad is a master of the Straw Man argument, which is summarized below. This appears to be a classic 2.1 example.)

1. Person A has position X.

2. Person B ignores X and instead presents position Y.
Y is a distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:

1. Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position and then refuting it, thus giving the appearance that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.[1]
2. Quoting an opponent's words out of context — i.e., choosing quotations that are not representative of the opponent's actual intentions (see contextomy and quote mining).[2]
3. Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender and then refuting that person's arguments, thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position, and thus the position itself, has been defeated.[1]
4. Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs that are criticized, such that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
5. Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking the simplified version.​

3. Person B attacks position Y.

4. Person B draws a conclusion that X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself.
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Furthermore, even if we take your statement at face value, it undercuts your own argument. You state that "Even WotC designers DM differently and they sometimes even DM differently based on what they roll on the dice." Thus, the argument that you should not tell players what AC is hit is undercut - how can it only be one way if it is DM preference?

Really, when you want to engage in a discussion, instead of straw man arguments for the sole purpose of 'winning', it may be worth responding to your posts. Arguing with someone who can't even accept the possibility there are other ways to interpret the rules besides his own viewpoint is an exercise in futility. So, if you feel that posting last in a subject is a win, enjoy your victory.

 

[FadedC]

FadedC - you made a point that narration shouldn't effect rules at all: aren't you making the case that 'logically, the character couldn't know until the attack is resolved". That sounds awfully like the narrative is interfering with the mechanic.

For a wizard with shield, I'd be perfectly happy to tell him when an attack hits reflex or ac, and I'd be perfectly happy telling him how many points it hits by. In my opinion, that is no more powerful than him being able to move to anywhere on the battlefield that he chooses (which is effectively what expeditious retreat does).

Well I'm just saying I wouldn't even attempt to narrate a hit before it was clear that it actually was a hit. It's kind of poor narration to say "the minotaur cuts a bloody slash across you with his battle axe causing you to stagger back in pain and collapse on the floor" only to have to say oh wait....no he doesn't really do that, he instead bounces off your shield. None of this has any effect on rules though and is just a personal style thing, much like I'd say the whole narration section of the DMG is.

Anyway I just feel that there are powers with automatic effects , and powers that sometimes fail and that this is a design decision. Taking a non automatic power and making it automatic makes it much stronger then it probably should be, and I have not seen anything that I would personaly consider remote evidence for shield being intended to be an automatic power.

But this is all just my take on it, if wizards ever posted a clarification on it, I'm not 100% sure they would necesarily support my view (though I obviously I feel it's more likely then not). If after all our discussion you still feel that shield is meant to always work and never be wasted then we just view things differently. Perhaps you will turn out to be correct in the long run.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Anyway I just feel that there are powers with automatic effects , and powers that sometimes fail and that this is a design decision. Taking a non automatic power and making it automatic makes it much stronger then it probably should be, and I have not seen anything that I would personaly consider remote evidence for shield being intended to be an automatic power.

Even if the player does know the exact terms of a hit or miss, it's not making the power automatic - it's just preventing it from being wasted.

 

[FadedC]

Even if the player does know the exact terms of a hit or miss, it's not making the power automatic - it's just preventing it from being wasted.

Well that's kind of semantics really. If it can't be wasted it will always be useful for something meaning it's essentially automatic. Quite a few powers in the game can easily be wasted (in fact the vast majority if we include attack powers). Quite a few others cannot. My opinion is just that shield is intended to be in the can be wasted category rather then the cannot be wasted category. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Well that's kind of semantics really. If it can't be wasted it will always be useful for something meaning it's essentially automatic. Quite a few powers in the game can easily be wasted (in fact the vast majority if we include attack powers). Quite a few others cannot. My opinion is just that shield is intended to be in the can be wasted category rather then the cannot be wasted category. Your mileage may vary.

Well, there is one way it can be wasted. If the Wizard is not attacked in a particular encounter or all of the attacks either a) miss or b) hit by a large margin, then the power will be wasted.

Of course, something analogous could be said about every power, so you may feel this is just a statement of the obvious. But I think it deserves to be stated, as so many of these conversations (including this one) make it sound as though the power in question is a big Win button. It isn't.

Sure there are powers that are a little too good. But a party with a Wizard with Shield can still be TPK'd, and a party with a Wizard without Shield can sail through a session unscathed. The decisions a DM makes concerning monsters, environment, pacing, etc. will play a much larger role than one stinking little Level 2 Utility power: a power that just might, maybe, possibly give a player a chance to feel that his/her character did something magical.

 

[FadedC]

Well, there is one way it can be wasted. If the Wizard is not attacked in a particular encounter or all of the attacks either a) miss or b) hit by a large margin, then the power will be wasted.

Of course, something analogous could be said about every power, so you may feel this is just a statement of the obvious. But I think it deserves to be stated, as so many of these conversations (including this one) make it sound as though the power in question is a big Win button. It isn't.

Sure there are powers that are a little too good. But a party with a Wizard with Shield can still be TPK'd, and a party with a Wizard without Shield can sail through a session unscathed. The decisions a DM makes concerning monsters, environment, pacing, etc. will play a much larger role than one stinking little Level 2 Utility power: a power that just might, maybe, possibly give a player a chance to feel that his/her character did something magical.

Well I can agree with you on that playing shield one way or another may not have a huge effect on the game. But I don't think the argument "a party with this spell can still be TPK'd" is an excuse to completely ignore both game balance and intent of the rules when adjudicating that spell.

But of course you probably disagree with me about at the very least the intent of the rules, and that's one of those things that unlikely to be resolved. At least not until we got an official ruling.

 

[Patlin]

Beguiling tongue? Adding a +5 to one Cha skill check is your big impressive warlock utility?

So far I've used it to bluff a dragon out of the way of the exit, allowing the party to flee and survive; I've used it to intimidate an elite oponent into surrendering, and I've used it (less dramatically) to breeze through a skill challenge.

I've been satisfied with Beguiling Tongue.