New Way to One-Shot Orcus

[Keenath]

Never mind. I misread.
This isn't the post you're looking for. You can go about your business. Move along. Move along.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I dislike the rerolls. Why not just set the damage at 1d10+2?

Because if the axe was Brutal 3, you'd have to roll 1d9 + 3.

 

[SSquirrel]

Legitimate Targets, p40. In general limit "allies" to the a squad-sized group of PCs and 1 or 2 NPCs is the basic rule.

What!? You mean I can't count the 200 rats I have in my bag of rat holding or the 10 autistic midget eladrin I have accompanying me as my bodyservants can't count as allies!? LAME!!!

*tongue removed from cheek*

 

[Saeviomagy]

The power is a really good example of really bad design.

In the hands of a competent player, the power does:
A little bit more damage that the other warlock 29 dailies, assuming it gets all 4 allies (on the order of about 50 damage or so)
In exchange for
40 points of damage to the party

Yeah, good trade there.

Furthermore, if it misses, it STILL does 40 damage to the party, and the damage done by it to foes drops to 40

This all assumes you're a dark pact warlock - otherwise it's much, much worse.

Further, any effort by you to increase the damage it does to make it a meaningful power will likely be thwarted by an explicit rule in the DMG.

So - if you've got a good DM who follows the rules, the power sucks, and most likely (and also with good reason) pisses off your fellow players (mostly because YOU don't take the damage - only them).

So, in the scenario where you've got a bad DM? A player still has to go to a lot of effort to exploit the power (and by exploit, read "make it worth casting"). It's not easy for a player to run around with a lot of allies.

A DM on the other hand?
Hmm, one warlock of [level+2] and 30 minions of [level-2] should do it.

And do you think this style of DM is likely to ban the power?

So, I vote the power as "worst power we've seen to date". It's a waste of a daily, a waste of your turn, will piss off your fellow players, and is eminently abuseable by DMs and only by DMs. I award it no points, and may god have mercy on it's soul.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Spoiler

Nothing here!

 

[pemerton]

Given that Ally is a voluntary status (ie the ally has to be willilng), why would it piss off fellow players? They can just elect for their PCs to not contribute.

 

[Jhaelen]

Because if the axe was Brutal 3, you'd have to roll 1d9 + 3.

Well, isn't it a good thing then, that the axe doesn't have a 'Brutal 3' property?

Apart from that it isn't actually difficult to create a d9: use 2d6 with different colours and interpret the results as the lines/columns in a 3X3 matrix:

____| 1,2 | 3,4 | 5,6 |
1,2 |  1  |  2  |  3  |
3,4 |  4  |  5  |  6  |
5,6 |  7  |  8  |  9  |

Voila!

 

[Runestar]

On a side note, using dark pact means each player is paying 10 life to deal an extra 6.5 damage on average on the enemy. This tradeoff doesn't quite seem worth it...

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Well, isn't it a good thing then, that the axe doesn't have a 'Brutal 3' property?

Apart from that it isn't actually difficult to create a d9: use 2d6 with different colours and interpret the results as the lines/columns in a 3X3 matrix:

____| 1,2 | 3,4 | 5,6 |
1,2 |  1  |  2  |  3  |
3,4 |  4  |  5  |  6  |
5,6 |  7  |  8  |  9  |

Voila!

Har!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

On a side note, using dark pact means each player is paying 10 life to deal an extra 6.5 damage on average on the enemy. This tradeoff doesn't quite seem worth it...

Well, that depends - how much damage do you expect the monster to deal in the time it has "lost" thanks to the extra hit points? Imagine it still has 24 hit points and you are the last to act before its next action. It has one power that deals 3d6+7* (average ~16) points of damage in an area sufficient to cover all your allies.
Or imagine the monster was knocked unconcious for one round - if you manage to deal enough damage in one hit to reach its bloodied value, it will instantly die... Might be worth getting the maximum damage potential you have...)

And then there are many characters that will need to spend a healing surge eventually, but still take little damage overall, so the damage against them might not have any net effect after the encounter is over.

*) I don't remember the typical level 29 damage values at the moment.