Look Ma- Rules Updates!

[Shag]

Wait a sec? The rogue ability change...once a turn? I didn't think 4E had turns?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Wait a sec? The rogue ability change...once a turn? I didn't think 4E had turns?

Sure it does. A turn is when your initiative comes up until the end of all your actions(i.e. from the beginning of a turn step until the end of turn step). There's actually a number of things that are limited per turn: Free Attacks, Opportunity Actions, and now sneak attacks.

 

[TerraDave]

Almost there!




(and what disguise?)

 

[Mapache]

[MENTION=64751]Mapache[/MENTION]: Is that interpretation correct? Weapon focus now reads, "...bonus to the damage rolls of weapon attacks you make with a weapon of that group..."

As I understand it, just because you are using a weapon as an implement, that doesn't make it a "weapon" attack. It would have to have the "weapon" keyword, and I don't know off the top of my head of any attack powers that have both "weapon" and "implement" keyword. In other words, everyone is just as nerfed.

Prior to this update, there was only Weapon Focus, which required you to pick a weapon, but didn't care about the type of attack you made with it. So, if you used a weapon that was also an implement for you, you got the bonus on all your attacks.

Now, there's (new) Weapon Focus and Implement Focus, each of which only works on the appropriate type of attack. If before you were a Wizard using a Staff (which is also a weapon) with (old) Weapon Focus, you can just switch to Implement Focus and not lose anything (except for the melee basic attacks you never, ever make with your staff because you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn), and actually gain the ability to use Implement Focus with wands and orbs instead of just staves. However, if you're a Swordmage, you're now screwed because half your attacks are Weapon and half are Implement, so you need two feats to do what one feat used to do for you.

I want to point out again that there is another book coming out. They will probably address a lot of other things, like it sucks for swordmages but some builds/classes don't have anything right now either. Like Tome Wizards, Totem using primal classes and similar.

Give them time to publish the other book and then harass wizards mercilessly about what they left out.

It's not that they're "leaving out" stuff for classes that aren't in Essentials, which is perfectly reasonable. It's that they're changing existing things which affect classes not in Essentials by actively making them worse. (If they explicitly felt the need to nerf things, they've always explained why in the past. That this change comes off as collateral damage without even caring is why it's so galling.)

 

[shamsael]

I kind of wonder about both of those.

The rogue in two campaigns I play/DM in (levels 1 and 3 only) is already the best damage-dealer, in front of another striker in both cases. What are people's impressions about letting him benefit from multiple leader attacks and other attacks on other creatures' turns? How compatible is this rule with the PHB rogue: if the PHB rogue was house-ruled to benefit from the once-per-turn sneak attack, would be not become significantly more powerful? Does this mean that the Essentials rogue loses some other powers or abilities compared to the PHB rogue and that the increased sneak attack compensates this? How do the Essentials and PHB rogues now compare?

It's a moot point since the change applies to all rogues.
As for differences, the essentials rogue also has the Backstab encounter power so, his out-of-turn sneak attacks are, occasionally, a bit better.

As for the dwarf being a strong fighter race, I've seen this in a few threads recently. Could someone please explain to me what makes him such a strong race option? (apart from the CON/STR ability mod combo in Essentials.) What are the racial features that make him so good?

Thanks for thoughts and explanations,

Sky

The dwarf gets his second wind as a minor action and is resistant to pushes. Both of these are probably more important to his success as a fighter than his Con score.

A sad consequence is that he must now choose between the +2 to Str so he can hit more often and the +2 to Wis for his Combat Superiority. Personally, for a Dwarf Fighter, I'll probably stick with Con/Wis.

 

[AngryMojo]

A sad consequence is that he must now choose between the +2 to Str so he can hit more often and the +2 to Wis for his Combat Superiority. Personally, for a Dwarf Fighter, I'll probably stick with Con/Wis.

Even the bonus to Will defense is nice. My favorite thing about the sword and board fighter I played a while ago was his high NADs. Primary ability for Fort, Shield for Ref, and secondary ability for Wis. Throw in human on top of that, and you've got some very decent defenses across the board.

 

[eldoen]

I own both Heroes of the Fallen Lands and Rules Compendium. All of these changes are in one or both of those books. That's the reason they posted those Updates today. New versions of those powers, feats, class features, and rules were printed in the new books.

As per WOTC's own rules, as soon as a new version of a rules item is printed in a book, it becomes the correct version. There is a new Weapon Focus feat in Heroes of the Fallen Lands. Since it has the same name as a feat from the PHB, it automatically errata's the PHB.

Which explains why none of the PH2 races are updated with the new stats feature from PH3 and now from Heroes of the Fallen lands. Kinda sucks but not all of those races are going to be in the next essentials book either. Although it does appear we will complete the races from the PH and do one in the PH2 and add a race.

El

 

[DracoSuave]

Prior to this update, there was only Weapon Focus, which required you to pick a weapon, but didn't care about the type of attack you made with it. So, if you used a weapon that was also an implement for you, you got the bonus on all your attacks.

Now, there's (new) Weapon Focus and Implement Focus, each of which only works on the appropriate type of attack. If before you were a Wizard using a Staff (which is also a weapon) with (old) Weapon Focus, you can just switch to Implement Focus and not lose anything (except for the melee basic attacks you never, ever make with your staff because you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn), and actually gain the ability to use Implement Focus with wands and orbs instead of just staves. However, if you're a Swordmage, you're now screwed because half your attacks are Weapon and half are Implement, so you need two feats to do what one feat used to do for you.

We'll see tho. Having seen them go down the versatile expertise route so that those who use both don't get hammered down, I can see certain classes getting an equivalent feat for themselves. I can see Swordmages and Artificers getting an 'Arcane Weapon Casting Focus' feat or something, Divine weapon users maybe getting 'Holy Caster Focus' but it's only really needed for a subset of classes.

A better solution would be simply to have 'Signature Item Focus' where you 'pick a weapon group or implement type. You get +1/2/3 feat bonus to damage rolls with attacks using that chosen accessory group or type.'

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Altho, the two-weapon fighting thing comes across to me as a way to fix the CB bugs without having to fix them.

 

[LuckyAdrastus]

Unless, you know, your class is supposed to use both weapons and implements. Swordmages are getting hosed by doubling the Weapon Focus feat tax to needing both Weapon Focus AND Implement Focus just to be at the same point they were previously, and needing to stick with Versatile Expertise and not being able to get the side benefits of the next feats like Heavy Blade Expertise. (Also getting smacked around, paladins, bards, and warlocks that went to the trouble of spending their precious weapon property on a weapon that works as an implement for them.)

Swordmages and Valor Bards do get the poor end of the change. Of course, Weapon Focus is usually a pretty low priority for them.

It's really more a result of a different flaw -- limited numbers of feats mean that you are heavily encourage to stick to a single attack type, since you don't want to get attack-boosting feats multiple times for each type. This is a problem whether they change the Weapon Focus feat (for example, the impact you mention on Expertise type feats is not the result of this change). As is, it created a weird system where Staffs were just better implements than the other options, because of what was pretty likely a design oversight that let their implement attacks benefit from weapon focus. The change is logical b/c it puts the staff on line with the other implements. It doesn't fix the incentive to stick with a single weapon type, but it didn't create that either.

As other posters have mentioned, they seem likely to introduce new weapon and implement focus feats in the future to fix this anyway.

Also, IMHO, weapon focus wasn't that good a feat anyway. My level 10 human invoker has found 7 feats to take first already -- he probably wasn't going to get to Weapon Focus for a while longer.

 

[emebrtiger]

The silly thing is that Implement Focus would have made all the other implements on par with the staff anyway. This just serves to hose swordmages.