Double Weapons and Oversized/Brutal weapons in Adventurer's vault (Discussion
here.)
The basic argument was that the double weapons with two groups (ie - double sword, which is a heavy blade and light blade) can be abused mechanically. Also, since it doesn't specify that the off-hand property only applies to one end of the weapon, double weapons can push tempest fighter damage into the range of all-out-damage melee rangers. In my opinion, a fighter shouldn't be able to accomplish this without heavy multiclassing into ranger or another striker class.
Of course, if we make a policy of using the common sense interpretation of double weapons (that stonegod is talking about, and which is the intent IMHO) then there's really no problem with them.
Oversized brutal weapons were banned because increasing damage dice makes the brutal property better than intended. For example, an executioner axe. Normal version is 1d12 damage, brutal 2; a Large version would be 2d6 brutal 2, which makes the brutal property a
lot better than for the normal version. 6-12 base damage is a pretty big jump from 3-12.
I agree with stonegod - it's easiest to just take oversized away from bugbears. That way there isn't the problem of trying to decide whether or not to nerf bugbear characters in the future when WotC officially takes oversized away from bugbears.
Whether or not damage from the Dark Pact powers in FRPG should be voluntary or involuntary (Discussion
here.)
Definitely agree that there needs to be at least an OOC agreement between players, especially in a living world where the characters in your party have the potential to change frequently.
Whether or not to drop implement/weapon expertise feats from PHB 2 and just fix the broken math that they seem to be a patch for (Discussion
here.)
I like the L4W fix. Of course, I have absolutely no bias.
As an aside, I intended to make that fix in the RL game I was running ... it just died before they hit level 5. I guess the only question is whether to ban the feats as well - we could allow people to take the feat at level 1, 2, or 4, and then just 'refund' it when they hit level 5. Might be worth it for making sub-optimal race/class combinations more viable, since we're going with the normal 22-pt buy.
Is there actually technical game info in the eberron players guide or is it just flavor and background?
Any other thoughts yay or nay to the attack power and armor I mentioned above from quintessential fighter?
I don't actually have the EPG, but I believe the Artificer class is in there in full detail. Similar to how they did the swordmage in the FRPG.
I've already given my thoughts on the armor, so I won't repeat myself. I'm sort of on the fence about the power ... I don't think there are any other at-will powers that give ongoing damage, and the ongoing damage from that at-will has the potential to out-do several encounter and daily powers that deal ongoing damage. Also, I'd lean more towards the rogue having an at-will ongoing damage power than the fighter. While some fighters do fight dirty, fighting dirty is pretty much all that rogues do. Make of that what you will.
