LEB Discussion Thread '10

[renau1g]

Remind me to have the first paragon adventure in a frozen wasteland with lots o' cold immunities

 

[evilbob]

I know that post is sarcastic but this is actually a pet peeve of mine... Personally, I find it very unappealing to use in-game tactics to counter problems with mechanics. This is a bit of a soapbox for me, but 4.0's legions of options/items are quite problematic; there are several specific items/combinations that are just plain better than everything else. And if someone has made a heavy investment to exploit one of these, I dislike simply squashing their investment with something tailor-made to counter it. It seems needlessly confrontational in my opinion; you're using your power as a DM to circumvent their choices and tell them how you think they should play the game. I'd rather address the problem up front: either ask the player to respec, house rule it beforehand, or these days... wait 2 years for WotC to actually proof-read their material and then correct it.

 

[Velmont]

There is not a single perfect combo, so expect at some moment, things will not goes as you expect. Artemus, my melee Rogue can easily have his sneak if he fight side to side with another melee character. Well, in the actual adventure, it is hard for him to sneak because of the encounters. happen...

 

[KarinsDad]

There is not a single perfect combo, so expect at some moment, things will not goes as you expect. Artemus, my melee Rogue can easily have his sneak if he fight side to side with another melee character. Well, in the actual adventure, it is hard for him to sneak because of the encounters. happen...

And that is why it was called ahead of time a Challenging adventure. Players don't just get their cheese for free, they have to work at it.

 

[hero4hire]

How? I was trying to mess around with that and I couldn't see how to "attach" it.

> Right click on the weapon

> Click "Customize Item"

> Choose Drop down "Dragonshard Augment"

> Choose the Dragonshard in question

 

[KarinsDad]

I know that post is sarcastic but this is actually a pet peeve of mine... Personally, I find it very unappealing to use in-game tactics to counter problems with mechanics. This is a bit of a soapbox for me, but 4.0's legions of options/items are quite problematic; there are several specific items/combinations that are just plain better than everything else. And if someone has made a heavy investment to exploit one of these, I dislike simply squashing their investment with something tailor-made to counter it. It seems needlessly confrontational in my opinion; you're using your power as a DM to circumvent their choices and tell them how you think they should play the game. I'd rather address the problem up front: either ask the player to respec, house rule it beforehand, or these days... wait 2 years for WotC to actually proof-read their material and then correct it.

Actually, if someone makes a heavy investment in cheese, by definition they are asking to be hit with the nerf bat one way or another.

Almost everyone goes out of their way to put together a competent PC, but the good players avoid finding the obviously broken combinations.

For example, I have never seen actual frost cheese in any of the games that I have played in or DMed. I have never seen an Orbizard (pre or post errata). The worst I ever saw was a heavily optimized Battle Rager where our group threw house rules in after the first session (pre-errata, errata handled this for us, so we removed our house rules).

This is a maturity issue. Make your PC good, but don't go too crazy on a given game mechanic. If in doubt, check with the DM. It's not just the DM's responsibility to confirm balance on a PC, it's also the player's. I have 6 14th level PCs in my home game with dozens of different abilities each. There is no way I will necessarily spot every potent or broken combo unless Character Builder points it out for me. So putting the onus of balance and playability solely on the DM is just wrong.

 

[renau1g]

Yeah it was sarcastic. Just a joke. However I dislike people abusing a hole in the rules (frost cheese, Student of Caiphon/Avenger, Daggermaster on sorcerers or twin striking half-elves, RRoT, Salves of Power, etc, etc.) I have no issue whatsoever with a PC making an optimized PC, but obviously broken stuff I'm not ok with. Likely I'd just not take the PC on the adventure if it was something I wasn't cool with.

End of the day if the DM wants to screw you, guess what? You're screwed. In 3.xe if you played a rogue and the DM threw nothing but undead/golems at you, too bad you were in trouble.

It's very easy for me to spot both here and in home game as I frequent the CO boards (which it was great to see them running around after March errata ) looking for super-broken

 

[evilbob]

Actually, if someone makes a heavy investment in cheese, by definition they are asking to be hit with the nerf bat one way or another.

While I generally agree with your other points, as I said above I disagree with this. But it's just a personal style thing; this opinion is certainly valid.

For me, the problems aren't "is a player mature enough to avoid broken-ness", they're "why is this so good that WotC published it in the first place?" I mean, the classic example is bloodclaw. It took WotC two years to actually read that and understand that it was better than anything else. Was it broken? Sure. Did it see constant play? Yes. Was it only used by immature players who were trying to break the game? Nope. Anyway, like I said this is a soapbox for me so I'll step down now.

r1: If a ranger can still do 1700 damage in 1 round, I'd say the Char Op boards are still doing fine.

 

[renau1g]

Yes they're fine, but it's always fun to see what happens when things get nerfed (OoI, Salve's of Power, Bloodclaw, etc) as they try to come up new ways. Although I think Ranger will always be amongst the top, if not the highest, among the DPR crowd as there's not much to do to nerf multi-attacks and static damage modifiers, unless they radically change things....

 

[evilbob]

Multi-attacks and static mods aren't even the heart of the issue with the ranger: it's multiple attack powers that allow free attacks as part of a single turn. I mean, one hit isn't the issue: it's the 14 individual power attacks (about 20 attacks total) in one turn that can make anything god-killing.