D&D 4E One Houserule to Rule Them All; Or Fixing Epic 4E

[Nyronus]

I agree the number of seperate attacks can get ridiculous, but why not just talk to your players and ask them to not take them?

Because then we spend a great number of rounds chewing through the gobs of HP monsters have, which is the other end of the spectrum. Without efficient strikers at hand, epic does become a grind. Now, this can be fixed by halving monster hit-points, but that point you've done everything I suggested but fixing multi-attack powers to be more like single attacks.

 

[the Jester]

I am truly shocked to admit that I read the entire first post- normally, something that long loses me pretty quickly.

I haven't seen the problem in play yet, but I believe you when you mention that it exists. I am intrigued by your proposed solution, and might try it out if I had a bunch of multistriking pcs in my game.

 

[S'mon]

Hi there,

interesting problem. Recently I did a revision of the 4E Fighter class and it was pointed out to me that multi-attacks are generally broken in 4E.

The number of attacks should subdivide the base [W] of a same level power AND also add a cumulative -2 penalty.

I agree that multi-attacks are too good in 4e, but cumulative penalties will just slow things down even more.

I think we can stay closest to the RAW as follows:

1. Require pre-calculated average damage when multi-attacking. Pre-calc crit damage too, but still roll the bonus damage dice.
2. Just disallow multi-attack powers that are way too good. I think that it's better to disallow powers in 4e than try to nerf them until the balance is just right.

That said, Strikers *should* be putting out enormous amounts of damage; the game expects it. In my Heroic Tier games I've had more trouble with weak Striker builds and Rangers who Twin Strike (no STR/DEX bonus) and can't seem to roll higher than a '3' on their damage dice.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey S'mon!

I agree that multi-attacks are too good in 4e, but cumulative penalties will just slow things down even more.

I was thinking more along the lines that the penalties would dissuade players from using multiple attacks. If they are not gaining any advantage (because they are balanced) then they might try something different.

 

[C4]

You've clearly put a lot of thought into your Three Rules to Rule Them All. But personally I'd rather do one of two things: Just ban offensive powers, as Dice4Hire suggests, and cut down on HPs.

Or use a slightly unwieldy house rule of my own, which limits multi/minor/immediate attacks to three bonus types: ability, enhancement and item. (Also no extra damage or vulnerabilities.) I've done the math, and those three bonus types create a balance which I believe is close to what the devs originally intended.

When a character makes more than one attack a turn, only the first attack that hits counts for full damage. Each additional attack only adds its [W] damage as Extra Damage. If a character is making more than one attack as part of a single power, if any blow is a critical hit, the entire power is treated as a critical hit. Attacks made with a standard action granted by an action-point or power are treated as a separate turn for the purposes of Flurry.

This helps the multiattack issue, but what about minor and immediate action attacks? IME, immediates are much more annoying than multiattacks because of how they interrupt the flow of initiative.

That said, Strikers *should* be putting out enormous amounts of damage; the game expects it.

I'm not convinced that it does. I've never seen a dev comment about intending strikers to deal multiples more damage than non-strikers, and I don't see anything published that conclusively implies that intent.

The various basic striker mechanics create a fractional increase in dpr. Striker powers tend to focus on damage over effects, but it's far from unilateral. Multiattacks, minor attacks and immediate attacks can generate massive damage when combined with lots of damage boosters, but I think this is more likely a general design oversight than evidence of intent that strikers should be dealing truckloads of damage.

 

[D'karr]

Hey S'mon!



I was thinking more along the lines that the penalties would dissuade players from using multiple attacks. If they are not gaining any advantage (because they are balanced) then they might try something different.

The attack penalties in 3.x never dissuaded any of my players from not wasting their time, even though at least 2 of their 5 attacks would usually miss. It just made for very long turns.

 

[mneme]

An alternative (or additional) means of speeding things up would be to automate a hell of a lot more than you're already automating. Instead of just using a die roller app, you could pretty easily put the damage equasions for a character -- including adding in temporary damage buffs -- into an app/spreadsheet/whatnot as well. Put the crit expressions in too! Computers are, it turns out, a lot better at remembering and adding up numbers than humans.

 

[Nyronus]

I'm not convinced that it does. I've never seen a dev comment about intending strikers to deal multiples more damage than non-strikers, and I don't see anything published that conclusively implies that intent.

The various basic striker mechanics create a fractional increase in dpr. Striker powers tend to focus on damage over effects, but it's far from unilateral. Multiattacks, minor attacks and immediate attacks can generate massive damage when combined with lots of damage boosters, but I think this is more likely a general design oversight than evidence of intent that strikers should be dealing truckloads of damage.

The problem is not that Strikers can outstrip non-strikers, its that monster HP balloons way faster than player damage can keep up without dipping into multi-attacks in some form or another. Consider the following.

At level 5, a rogue is facing a sea kraken. It has about 420 HP. Your "big" powers are going to be landing for 4d8+11, or about 30 damage on average, and that's not a totally unoptimized Rogue either. That's about 1/14 of its health. 7%. Your allies will be hitting it for around 1d8+7, or 11.5, 3~%. In a five man team with no other strikers, you will be pinging it for somewhere around half 19%, which means, not accounting for spike damage, the fight should be ten rounds. Accounting for novas, buffs, and spikes, it should be less. 5-6 rounds. Which is good for a boss fight.

Fastforward to Lolth, who has 1260~. To fight at the same speed, i.e., ten rounds without using nova powers, you need to be pumping out 126 DPR. Which means, unless you min-maxed for accuracy, you need to be throwing over 252 damage at her a round. Even if you did min-max accuracy you'de still need to be tossing 252. It's only when the party can start hitting Lolth on 10+ that that number can drop. Now, that same party that was doing 1d8+7 damage a hit in heroic? All told, in epic, unless they invested extra any reasources into damage, their only going to be doing 2d8+14. Double the damage, while the monster HP has trippled. You're other four teamates are only pulling 92 average damage, leading you, sir striker, to do 160 at-will damage to keep up the same pace. All the while, Lolth is going to be running around beating your face in. Theoretically, a really twinked controller can make up the difference by just stunning and dominating Lolth every round, but that makes the fight beyond boring. So, strikers feel pressure to over-preform to make up for PC damage scaling in epic. Which means fewer and fewer striker classes, and even fewer builds per class, can survive into epic without the game becoming a long, boring grind. This is he reason why I think just halving HP seems to be so effective for a lot of people, because few play on the cutting edge of optimization, which is where you need to be to keep the game balanced in epic.

By using the flurry and the revised HP scaling this allows more people to be effective with less damage focused builds, and allow way more classes to enjoy being an effective striker at the table.

 

[C4]

The problem is not that Strikers can outstrip non-strikers, its that monster HP balloons way faster than player damage can keep up without dipping into multi-attacks in some form or another. Consider the following.

Oh, you don't have to convince me!

I'm just saying that if strikers were intended to deal so much more damage than non-strikers, it wouldn't be a matter of taking the right powers. I think the extra damage would have been built right into the strikers. For example quarry wouldn't be 1d6 per tier; it'd be 2d6 per sub-tier or something.

I think the devs did intend combats to get lengthier as the game progresses. I also think they didn't quite realize how much lengthier all those HPs were making it, or how multi/minor/immediate attacks combined with damage boosters would skyrocket the dpr of optimized PCs.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy D'karr!

The attack penalties in 3.x never dissuaded any of my players from not wasting their time, even though at least 2 of their 5 attacks would usually miss. It just made for very long turns.

In 3.x iterative attacks were mandatory. Thats no longer the case in 4E.