Like a good Charisma? The breath is great for multimarking and clearing out minions, and they both get the Con to surges though the dwarf makes better use of it, but... what?
Given that the Dragonborn gets 10 more levels of use out of it than the Dwarf, that means that +1 hit point has to make up for 10 levels worth of healing surge bonuses to 'make up for it.'
Of course, +1 hit point is a drop in the bucket at 11th level. So 'more use out of it' is relative.
+1 hp at 11th level vs 10 levels of heroic level adventure, having it without spending a feat.
Yeah. Who gets the most use out of it?
For quite a while, dwarf battlerager with a mordenkrad was more defense _and_ offense than anyone needed
Was. Operative word being 'was'.
Dwarf has more Con out the gate.
Though I'll admit that I've never seen a fighter run out of surges so the point may all be moot. It's always someone else first. Slackers.
Yes, but Con isn't as MUST HAVE THIS as it has been in previous editions. It's +2 hps and a single healing surge, and +1 to various other things. It's not even essential for defense.
b1 stands for brutal 1 - which you overlooked. It gives the dwarf an extra 1 damage. Which, of course, puts the edge on him numerically.
I concede this point. However... we're not talking about Martial Power's balance points. We're talking about PHB1.
He's actually behind, but I'm disappointed you didn't factor in the half-orc's once per combat extra W of damage to balance it out
Cause that depends on number of swings per combat. So, sure. Add in 140/x to the Half Orc, where X is the mean number of swings per combat said Half-Orc takes.
Eh, you're the one who wanted to discuss someone using a maul + weapon focus vs. mordenkrad + DWT. So we have to assume 1st level for only one feat. And that they didn't like the Mordenkrad, since it's still better than WF even with one feat available
True. But I suppose I could tip the scales in the other direction if we're allowed to pull from later tomes.
Goliath + Maul + GGW vs Mordenkrad + DWT.
Hmmm.
Very few heroic feats disappear from usefulness. That argument doesn't really work.
Quite a few do, however. That's why the 'retrain your heroic feats' rule exists, where at level 11 you can train out heroic feats for higher tier feats, as prerequisites only care about -current- level, not about the level you'd have gotten that feat.
You're making a lot of assumptions about the playtesting of AV there. Reckless, Bloodclaw, and a host of other things beg for attention.
Perhaps they do, and I'm not disputing that. But again. Big Axe + Dwarf is a lot higher on the layers of obvious things to test than Reckless, Bloodclaw, etc.
And so far, they've only readdressed Veteran's Armor for balance purposes.
Maybe they figure heavier damage can be fun for some groups, and that the fundamental assumption that a DM is in charge should apply if things are problematic.
And they don't oversee every single thing created. A _lot_ of people put in a lot of things, and stuff slips through. Stuff like Righteous Rage of Tempus which did something specifically spelled out to never do in their design documents. And Battlerager, which maybe did something different before it was released, or just wasn't playtested in actual games. And a host of items which give abilities far greater than others. A little slips through every book. One person doesn't stop that, and I've sat down with notable WotC folks and used something and had them go 'Where the hell did that come from?' and it's like 'Your last book?'. 'That should be once an encounter maybe. That's stupid'
Yes, things do slip through, and mistakes are made. And it is quite possible that a weapon might have gone through and they went 'wow, why did we print that?'
Except the things you mention got fixed. The developer's attention was brought back to it, and it was fixed. And mordenkrad -has- gotten developer's attention after the fact. And the result of said attention was 'Yep, it works exactly as it says.'
So, the argument that it slipped through is rather shakey on those grounds. They've said 'Yes it works as intended.'
Of course it works like that, and of course they did that. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't do it differently now than they did it then. Like the 'Effect: Make another attack' and the assassin 'Make several attacks and add Ws for more than 1 hit', they've shown another way to do this type of feat.
I agree, but just because they -can- do things differently for another class doesn't mean they didn't want things to work as they did for the -first- class.
Walk with me here. See, -maybe- the Assassin does things differently so you can see 'Oh hey, this is different!' Look at the Barbarian, Avenger, and Sorcerer. All strikers, none of which use the 'Do X more damage once per round' template. All use completely different ways of making their strikerness happen.
It's more reasonable to think that Assassins are a continuation of -that- trend rather than an attempt to 'fix' twin-strike.
Course, they might instead do the +2/+3/+4 and leave it also giving the superior weapons.
But then again, they might leave them completely alone: After all, Talenta Weapon Training and Xen'Drik Weapon Training all follow the 'Gain exotic weapon proficiencies and +2 damage' sort of design.
Of course all this assumes that 'stuff does more damage' isn't intentional. Maybe Staff of Ruin -is- intentional. Maybe the crit-does-more-damage-stuff -is- intentional. Maybe they -do- want to offer items and feats that push the damage envelope a little further.
I mean, you guys kept bitching about the drag and grind of fights, so maybe they answered it with items that add more damage. Cause sometimes a player -doesn't- want tricks or stuff that adds 'options.' Some players just want 'more damage go' and those players need to be addressed as much as any other.
And if it's not appropriate to a game, the DM can and should say 'no' just the same as any -other- problematic effect.
Not every item/feat/class/power is designed for every game table, nor is it even a reasonable thing to ask for.
