Jason Bulmahn Speaks about DDXP(His take on the system)

[Zinegata]

Encounter and Daily powers are generally meant to be combat applicable. They will also be able to do rituals, which are supposed to be the out-of-combat things like identifying and raising dead. I haven't seen any details yet on how often you can do these things, but you have to add these to the pile of things the wizard can do.

DS

True, but again the amount of variety you get when it comes to combat Per Day encounters seems to be rather small. Two for a level 5 character doesn't seem to be much.

 

[Zinegata]

That's at least 4 unique attacks per encounter. That's significant, especially when you factor in potential dailies, additional at wills and utility spells.

That's four potential unique attacks. The somewhat limited usefulness of some of the abilities may make their use impractical however.

The Quickstart sheet explicitly stated that the At-Will abilities are the default. The basic attack is the exception. What does that matter?

Simple. Why have a basic attack in the first place if the At-Wills are clearly superior?

If a casual gamer wants to shoot their magic missile every round without worrying about the complexities of resource management, that's fine. In previous versions of the game, such a person would usually be stuffed into the role of the fighter. Now they can fill other needed roles. This is a good thing.

I dunno. On the flip side, you could also say that all characters now play like Fighters. That's not necessarily a good thing.

 

[hong]

True, but again the amount of variety you get when it comes to combat Per Day encounters seems to be rather small. Two for a level 5 character doesn't seem to be much.

And so it should be. If you can blow off per-day stuff in every battle, that defeats the purpose of making them per-day.

 

[hong]

Simple. Why have a basic attack in the first place if the At-Wills are clearly superior?

Is this a trick question?

 

[Zinegata]

And so it should be. If you can blow off per-day stuff in every battle, that defeats the purpose of making them per-day.

The thing is, I'm assuming that each per-day ability is different from one another. That means you can't just spam Fireballs anymore. You Per-day suite of abilities will consist of several different abilities. Maybe you have one Fireball, and one Haste. But you can't have 2 Fireballs.

And if you can only pick two options out of the whole arcane power list, you might run into a situation where both of your Per Day abilities end up being rather useless.

 

[Zinegata]

Is this a trick question?

Nope. I'm referring to the fact that if basic attacks are clearly obsolete in the face of At-wills, why have a basic attack in the first place?

 

[fafhrd]

That's four potential unique attacks. The somewhat limited usefulness of some of the abilities may make their use impractical however.

The examples of play provided by various people have repeatedly shown that this isn't the case. Positioning, quantity and types of foes and a host of externalities determine what is optimal on a given round. The one exception may be the ranger and that very well could have been due to a typo on the character sheet.

Simple. Why have a basic attack in the first place if the At-Wills are clearly superior?

For the reasons stated on the Quickstart Guide, charging, opportunity attacks and powers like Fox's Cunning.

I dunno. On the flip side, you could also say that all characters now play like Fighters. That's not necessarily a good thing.

If you mean that they have something meaningful to contribute every round, then yes it's a good thing.

 

[hong]

The thing is, I'm assuming that each per-day ability is different from one another. That means you can't just spam Fireballs anymore. You Per-day suite of abilities will consist of several different abilities. Maybe you have one Fireball, and one Haste. But you can't have 2 Fireballs.

Why?

And if you can only pick two options out of the whole arcane power list, you might run into a situation where both of your Per Day abilities end up being rather useless.

One of the specific points they said they wanted to address in R&C is the nerfing of character schticks, eg rogues not being able to sneak attack many types of monsters. I have trouble foreseeing wizards being unable to boom spell more than a handful of people over the course of their careers.

 

[Zinegata]

The examples of play provided by various people have repeatedly shown that this isn't the case. Positioning, quantity and types of foes and a host of externalities determine what is optimal on a given round. The one exception may be the ranger and that very well could have been due to a typo on the character sheet.

Like I said above though, this seems to be more of "the right tool for the right enemy" approach we're already used to in 3E. Not really any real revolution in terms of how tactics radically change the battlefield.

For the reasons stated on the Quickstart Guide, charging, opportunity attacks and powers like Fox's Cunning.

I'm aware of it. Again though, the thing that bugs me is that the "basic" attack is more of an exception rather than the rule. Maybe I'd just like it better if they added something to complement the basic attacks of the old editions - not replace it.

If you mean that they have something meaningful to contribute every round, then yes it's a good thing.

Not always. A Fighter rolling an attack roll is contributing meaningfully every round, but it can get a tad boring since it's the same action every round. Granted, the Fighter at-will, per encounter, and per day abilities are an improvement as far as martials are concerned, but on the whole it still feels like a mere extension of the old "right tool for the right enemy" approach.

 

[hong]

I'm aware of it. Again though, the thing that bugs me is that the "basic" attack is more of an exception rather than the rule. Maybe I'd just like it better if they added something to complement the basic attacks of the old editions - not replace it.

The solution to this is to not let it bug you.