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JamesonCourage's First 4e Session
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6184339" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>Fair enough! So under these parameters... personally, I'd switch out <em>Storm Pillar</em> myself. It's a theoretically good battlefield control spell, as it creates an area where enemies should not / won't want to move to/through. However... the only time that really comes into play is when the party is fighting in a hallway or other enclosed space and the wizard can drop it prior to the enemies advancing on the group (and thus they HAVE to go through the pillar to reach the party).</p><p></p><p>If the wizard goes later in the first round of initiative, then the enemies will all have probably gotten to where they want to be and won't ever run through it... or if the fight is in a larger room or open space it will be too easy for them to just run around it and completely avoid the pillar entirely. As a result... it ends up being a spell that doesn't often actually do any damage. I think it's a GREAT <strong>third</strong> at-will... because situationally it will be extremely useful. But when you only have two at-wills, that battlefield control ends up being wasted more often than not.</p><p></p><p><em>Hypnotism</em> is a lot of fun... but even this one is only able to cause damage in a single situation-- when you have two melee enemies who are adjacent to each other. If you don't have that (and again, in a larger battlefield you often won't because the enemies will oftentime move/shift to get into flanking rather than remain adjacent)... then you can't get any damage out of it since the enemy who gets <em>Hypnotised</em> isn't allowed to move to go attack one of his friends. It's only good against a friend already within melee range.</p><p></p><p>But because I find having enemies attack each other a lot of fun, I like this at-will a bit more than <em>Storm Pillar</em> (if you only get two). Which then means... if you already have a single-target damaging spell... your second at-will would probably want to be a multi-target Area burst spell. In that regard, your two good options are <em>Freezing Burst</em> and <em>Winged Horde</em>. They both do 1d6 damage, with FB adding in INT mod to damage but affecting all creatures, as opposed to WH not adding in INT mod but only affecting enemies. So you do more damage with FB but run the risk of friendly fire. (And then you throw in the extras of FB sliding the targets 1 square and WH not allowing enemies to make Opportunity Attacks-- which is good for dropping in the front line of melee and allow your party members to run around their opponents freely to get in better positions without fear of OAs.)</p><p></p><p>Either one could be a nice pairing with <em>Hypnotism</em>. Myself... I'd probably go with <em>Winged Horde</em> because it seems like it would pair up with <em>Hypnotism</em> nicely. If you found that during combat that the enemies had spread themselves out to attack the party via flanking or a large battlefield (and thus were out of range for Hypnotism to get used)... you could drop <em>Winged Horde</em> on one of your frontline warriors to hopefully catch and damage multiple enemies adjacent to him, and then allow the warrior to freely move elsewhere on his turn (perhaps up next to an ally) so that the enemies chase after him and make them end up adjacent to one another (thus allowing <em>Hypnotism</em> to be used by the wizard the next turn.) <em>Winged Horde</em> won't do as much damage as <em>Freezing Burst</em>... but centering a spell on top of your tank to actually catch all the enemies surrounding the tank (and then letting the tank skate away with no repercussions) is a very useful ability I think.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 6184339, member: 7006"] Fair enough! So under these parameters... personally, I'd switch out [I]Storm Pillar[/I] myself. It's a theoretically good battlefield control spell, as it creates an area where enemies should not / won't want to move to/through. However... the only time that really comes into play is when the party is fighting in a hallway or other enclosed space and the wizard can drop it prior to the enemies advancing on the group (and thus they HAVE to go through the pillar to reach the party). If the wizard goes later in the first round of initiative, then the enemies will all have probably gotten to where they want to be and won't ever run through it... or if the fight is in a larger room or open space it will be too easy for them to just run around it and completely avoid the pillar entirely. As a result... it ends up being a spell that doesn't often actually do any damage. I think it's a GREAT [B]third[/B] at-will... because situationally it will be extremely useful. But when you only have two at-wills, that battlefield control ends up being wasted more often than not. [I]Hypnotism[/I] is a lot of fun... but even this one is only able to cause damage in a single situation-- when you have two melee enemies who are adjacent to each other. If you don't have that (and again, in a larger battlefield you often won't because the enemies will oftentime move/shift to get into flanking rather than remain adjacent)... then you can't get any damage out of it since the enemy who gets [I]Hypnotised[/I] isn't allowed to move to go attack one of his friends. It's only good against a friend already within melee range. But because I find having enemies attack each other a lot of fun, I like this at-will a bit more than [I]Storm Pillar[/I] (if you only get two). Which then means... if you already have a single-target damaging spell... your second at-will would probably want to be a multi-target Area burst spell. In that regard, your two good options are [I]Freezing Burst[/I] and [I]Winged Horde[/I]. They both do 1d6 damage, with FB adding in INT mod to damage but affecting all creatures, as opposed to WH not adding in INT mod but only affecting enemies. So you do more damage with FB but run the risk of friendly fire. (And then you throw in the extras of FB sliding the targets 1 square and WH not allowing enemies to make Opportunity Attacks-- which is good for dropping in the front line of melee and allow your party members to run around their opponents freely to get in better positions without fear of OAs.) Either one could be a nice pairing with [I]Hypnotism[/I]. Myself... I'd probably go with [I]Winged Horde[/I] because it seems like it would pair up with [I]Hypnotism[/I] nicely. If you found that during combat that the enemies had spread themselves out to attack the party via flanking or a large battlefield (and thus were out of range for Hypnotism to get used)... you could drop [I]Winged Horde[/I] on one of your frontline warriors to hopefully catch and damage multiple enemies adjacent to him, and then allow the warrior to freely move elsewhere on his turn (perhaps up next to an ally) so that the enemies chase after him and make them end up adjacent to one another (thus allowing [I]Hypnotism[/I] to be used by the wizard the next turn.) [I]Winged Horde[/I] won't do as much damage as [I]Freezing Burst[/I]... but centering a spell on top of your tank to actually catch all the enemies surrounding the tank (and then letting the tank skate away with no repercussions) is a very useful ability I think. [/QUOTE]
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