Official Rules Updates (March 02, 2010)

[Wormwood]

surprised that no one has mentioned the Blood Pulse nerf...I'm expecting our wizard to complain loudly about it...

Between Blood Pulse and Winged Horde, our resident Wizard wept bitter, bitter tears.

Sooooo delicious.

 

[Colmarr]

Between Blood Pulse and Winged Horde, our resident Wizard wept bitter, bitter tears.

Gee, wizard fanboys must be throwing up on this rollercoaster.

3.5 = omghaxxors!
4e = not bad
4e post invoker = weaksauce
4e post blood pulse and winged horde = zomghaxxors
4e post march 2010 = ?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

hah, that's not WotC's way.

Powerful stuff gets errata, weak stuff gets new books published with similar feat/item/powers that are more powerful.

And need future errata...

Well, Sure Strike or Careful Attack (which was the Ranger power again?) did get updated to be more powerful (but not the other so far).

 

[Walking Dad]

...

None of these guys can qualify for heavy without putting points into Str or Con in addition to their secondary stat, which is annoying.
...

But only the swarm druid looses his class feature by wearing heavy armor...

 

[Starfox]

In our game, the Cleric took 2 feats to get her AC up 2 and it's the rare game where a Wizard or Sorcerer doesn't take Leather. I think the game has a fundamental flaw when the players think they need to do this, just so that they won't get smacked with monster debilitating conditions too often. It's more or less a feat tax for these classes.

The problem is that AC is just that good. And each point is better than the last one. Going from 55% to be hit to 50% chance to be hit is a 10% improvement; going from 10% chance to be hit to 5% chance to be hit is a 100% improvement!

This kind of thing is very hard to avoid without using a bell curve model (that is, rolling 2 or more dice).

 

[Ferghis]

As I said before, changing it to temp hit points would mean the power would no longer be a healing power and therefore would not gain the benefit of Healer's Lore. That would reduce the amount of hit points by 4-5.

I'm obviously not making myself clear enough for you. Let me try again. I would change the formula to determine the temp hit points to 2+Cha modifier+Wis modifier, and add a clause that states something along the lines of "further, increase this number by any magic item that would increase hit points healed by a clerical healing power."

As I also said before, I don't have the phrasing down, but the houserule (and proposed errata) would leave Astral Seal a very useful power, but remove the healing effects that so offend the hp economy of 4e.

 

[Herschel]

I'm largely in favor. Lots of great stuff - especially the Student of Caiphon radiant stuff. Now we just need a nerf to Eladrin Swordmage Advance!

This is good news, even though I won't be able to play for a few weeks... My wife and my first child was born this past Friday, and we need to get our lives in order first.

-O

Acquiring 'baby's first dice set' is of the utmost importance.

 

[Aduro]

The problem is that AC is just that good. And each point is better than the last one. Going from 55% to be hit to 50% chance to be hit is a 10% improvement; going from 10% chance to be hit to 5% chance to be hit is a 100% improvement!

This kind of thing is very hard to avoid without using a bell curve model (that is, rolling 2 or more dice).

But going from a 90% chance to miss to a 95% chance to miss isn't a 100% improvement. That kind of math is faulty, and each point of increase is only a 5% improvement, where each point is no more better than the last, unless you can hit a threshold where you can't be hit at all.

Additionally, that's why I like the Feats that give you the +1 to hit, because they're just as good at level 30 as they are at level 1.

 

[Turtlejay]

Oooooooh yes, the Salve of Power is destroyed. I never saw one in a game I was in, and now I never have to. I was pretty annoyed by the amount of cheese wrung out of that one item on the charop boards. I am kind of interested to see how Expertise interacts with the other to-hit bonuses, but since it is banned in my home game, I'll just keep an eye on the board. I'm sure it'll crop up.

Jay

 

[Nymrohd]

But going from a 90% chance to miss to a 95% chance to miss isn't a 100% improvement. That kind of math is faulty, and each point of increase is only a 5% improvement, where each point is no more better than the last, unless you can hit a threshold where you can't be hit at all.

Additionally, that's why I like the Feats that give you the +1 to hit, because they're just as good at level 30 as they are at level 1.

Ah you see, there is the problem. The actual increase always is (P1-P2/P2) where P1 is the probability after the change and P1 is the original probability; that is because an increase in chance for something to happen from a previous state is a conditional probability. So all probabilities that involve a roll of 1d20 + modifiers face diminishing or increasing effect depending on the direction we are moving at. In short, in the d20 system any increase in defensive DCs presents increasing returns and any increase in offensive d20 rolls faces decreasing returns.
The same does not stand if we use a bell curve approximation (3d6 works well on that). This concept lies in the very foundation of the d20 system and largely defines the feel of combat in this system in a way that is poorly understood by most.