Low and no damage characters

[Turtlejay]

A Pacifist Cleric, an Illusionist, a Battlerager, and a Feylock walk into a bar...

Seriously though, Divine Power introduced options for Clerics to do little or no damage. Arcane Power did a similar thing with Illusion powers. A Battlerage Vigor fighter who takes all of the Invigorating powers will be doing significantly less damage than other fighters, and Fey Pact Warlocks seem to be verging on controller.

Of course, such a party, well built, is still a powerhouse, with more healing and resilience than most, with status effects and control in spades. As much as I am against the charop, more damage is king philosophy, a party built to *those* specs might actually be better.

My question for the posters is, do you think that low damage builds hurt the game? Do they hurt your gaming experience, or the development of 4th edition D&D? Are they a legitimate contribution to a party?

It seems like the race to uber damage has blinded me, and I just need validation that other paths are just as valid.

Jay

 

[Stalker0]

Having one or two low damage people in your party is fine, as they can contribute to helping the high damage guys finish off bad guys.

If the whole party is that way, your going to have trouble killing people. combats could get really long unless the DM takes the low damage into account, or your running a low combat game.

 

[DracoSuave]

This combination would up your accuracy between the various effects they dish out.... and battleragers don't do poor damage. Brash. Strike.

But yeah, you'd hit more often with all the bouncing around combat advantage; it might even be supereffective.

 

[Turtlejay]

I only ever looked at powers up to paragon, but the invigorating encounter powers just do con mod damage and some effect. Dailies are not as powerful as others too.

Mind you, I know that this is a corner case, not a lot of folks would build such a fighter (I would, but I'm mental).

Dracosuave kind of alludes to what I'm thinking. Those characters, optimized for something *besides* damage will be great at what they do (debuffing, and setting up nice combos for good bonuses), and pretty easliy survive most anything. I need to stop babysitting this thread and let it grow first. I'm out...

Jay

 

[Chimerasame]

Less damage and more resilience/healing may or may not make you more tactically advantageous--the tradeoffs aren't clear.

It will, however, make combats take longer...

 

[Saeviomagy]

I think that having a wide variety in the capabilities of a party (offensive, defensive or otherwise) can only be bad for the game as a whole, as it reduces the value of common ground for adventure building and discussion. The bigger a divergence in mechanical terms between the top and bottom of performance, the less possible it becomes to balance the game.

 

[DracoSuave]

I think that having a wide variety in the capabilities of a party (offensive, defensive or otherwise) can only be bad for the game as a whole, as it reduces the value of common ground for adventure building and discussion. The bigger a divergence in mechanical terms between the top and bottom of performance, the less possible it becomes to balance the game.

It depends. Inter-character synergy certainly plays a role, to a greater extent than individual optimization. If there's a disparity in power, but the 'weaker' character is designed to dovetail in and make the other characters better, then it's not a problem. And while damage is something that easily dovetails with other damage, there are other viable combinations, otherwise the only powers worth taking would be the high-damage ones.

 

[Shin Okada]

One of a campaign I am attending is using "Decide the character’s not there" or "Have the character fade into the background" rule for Missing Players.

So, configuration of the party often changes. As others pointed out, if a party is composed of less damage dealers, the party will not become "weak". They are tougher, can control opponents better, and can heal more. But as you still need to inflict damages to kill opponents, combats take longer.

It is OK if your playing group can have enough playing time. But maybe a problem if your play group is composed of busy people.

 

[ObsidianCrane]

Seriously though, Divine Power introduced options for Clerics to do little or no damage. Arcane Power did a similar thing with Illusion powers. A Battlerage Vigor fighter who takes all of the Invigorating powers will be doing significantly less damage than other fighters, and Fey Pact Warlocks seem to be verging on controller.

Feylocks can do damage just fine, but if we assume the more controller like powers, and less damage output you have:
Defender
Leader
Striker
Controller

That's 4 PCs. If you add a more damage optimised character to that mix, especially one that can take advantage of the controller like nature of the Defender and Striker you should have less problems with combat taking a long time.

Everyone doing a little damage and the big damage guy doing big damage more often should be fine.

There are certainly encounter mixes that would be very bad for such a party though, more so than more damage able general builds that dip into those low/no damage powers.

 

[Infiniti2000]

If combats do take longer and yet everyone's having fun, just have the bad guys give up earlier once the outcome is a foregone conclusion. However, you'll have an issue if your players like to "mop up the field", i.e. not leave anyone alive, ever. Sometimes my players are like that, which is annoying, and I have to break them of that stupid habit (starting with me by assuring them that most enemies will not be recurring, so letting them live will not come back to haunt them unless it has a major story-related impact).