Power Swapping for great justice.

[Asmor]

The difference shouldn't be in the _powers_, but in their class features.

Powers are a class feature, and by far the most important one.

 

[keterys]

Powers are a class feature, and by far the most important one.

No, they aren't. It's an actual term - ie, Channel Divinity cheerfully displays 'Cleric Feature' on it while Healing Strike does not. Healing Strike is an encounter 3 attack ability and with multiclassing you can swap it for one of the two paladin healing abilities, for example... and it's different, but not necessarily better.

If they've done their job correctly, there should be minor differences between the powers, but it should not be 'Class X has more hit points, more armor, and cooler class features than Y does, so Y's powers are all better than X's

If that is true for any of the classes in the PHB, then WotC has failed a basic balance test.

From everything I've seen, however, the differences are not pronounced and that is not the case. If you were making a new class, for instance, and you balanced your features properly, you could draw on powers from different classes for ideas.

Also, if the dearth of options currently available bothered you, it wouldn't be bad to do things like let a paladin take "Priest's Shield" from a cleric or "Tide of Iron" from a fighter.

Edit: Fair proof that WotC at least thought they were doing something like what I'm talking about is the Eternal Seeker that lets you take powers from any class whatsoever freely.

 

[dystmesis]

I'm all for it. I was really looking forward to seeing how classless 4e could be played back when I thought that classes in 4e would just be talents like in SAGA ed. This doesn't seem to be the case, but I think it could still work out.

 

[That One Guy]

From everything I've seen, however, the differences are not pronounced and that is not the case. If you were making a new class, for instance, and you balanced your features properly, you could draw on powers from different classes for ideas.

Yes, that is exactly what I have in mind. (or rather, one of the several. I have focus issues sometimes)

Also, Eternal Seeker may become my goal simply for those power swapping abilities.

 

[Aria Silverhands]

In a podcast or excerpt, they specifically mentioned the ability to play a classless D&D game, where you pick and choose your powers from various lists. You could always take a middle ground and delineate this by role and/or power source.

 

[Asmor]

If they've done their job correctly, there should be minor differences between the powers, but it should not be 'Class X has more hit points, more armor, and cooler class features than Y does, so Y's powers are all better than X's

I disagree. For example, a fighter is defined by his melee ability. While he might have some non-melee powers, the vast majority of his powers are melee.

A wizard is defined by his ability to hit multiple creatures and affect large areas. Hence the wizard has far more area powers than anyone else (being the only controller).

The warlock is defined by his ability to deal large amounts of single-target damage at range. Hence the warlock has lots of ranged powers.

Leaders are defined by their ability to heal and bolster their allies. Hence they almost have a monopoly on powers which heal, grant temporary hit points, and otherwise buff allies.

If you give you let the fighter take lots of area spells, then you're removing a big piece of what makes the wizard special.

 

[keterys]

I disagree. For example, a fighter is defined by his melee ability. While he might have some non-melee powers, the vast majority of his powers are melee.

I think you're disagreeing with the wrong thing. I never said that classes shouldn't have themed lists of abilities.

I'm saying that those powers should be balanced against each other. Going purely hypothetical for a second, let's say I was making a new encounter power for some classes, it might look like:

Defender: 2W + target immobilized 1 round.
Striker: 2W + shift before and after attack.
Leader: 2W + allies gain temporary hit points.
Controller: Ranged AoE 1d8 + targets slowed.

You can't look at any of those and go 'Well, his is clearly better than hers'. They each started off with 'damage + special' and made it their own.

A wizard is defined by his ability to hit multiple creatures and affect large areas. Hence the wizard has far more area powers than anyone else (being the only controller).

Though you can get a respectable amount of AoE from strikers if that's your desire.

The warlock is defined by his ability to deal large amounts of single-target damage at range. Hence the warlock has lots of ranged powers.

And defenders, leaders, and a controller have a respectable number of single target powers.

Powers can be themed all they want to be - don't care. I care about powers being balanced for their level and frequency. I'd go so far as to say you should be able to take all of the powers and look at them for balance without considering which class had them. It might be tough in some instances, but a 'close enough' test should be possible.

In the same way that you should be able to take a lot of powers and change 'cold' to 'lightning' or 'radiant' to 'necrotic', adjust flavor appropriately, and still use the powers. Flavor's great, but I'm talking balance.

Leaders are defined by their ability to heal and bolster their allies. Hence they almost have a monopoly on powers which heal, grant temporary hit points, and otherwise buff allies.

Someone should let paladins know about their monopoly.

If you give you let the fighter take lots of area spells, then you're removing a big piece of what makes the wizard special.

There are a _lot_ of AoE effects in the other classes you may not have noticed. A lot are close bursts and blasts, but especially the warlock and ranger have some.

 

[Asmor]

This all stems from your assertion that powers should not be balanced by other aspects of the character, including class features (and keeping in mind that you don't consider powers a class feature and I do).

However, lets take a look at strikers vs. defenders.

Strikers powers tend to allow for ranged attacks, and frequently have abilities to move the striker, allowing for hit-and-run tactics even in melee.

Defender powers tend to be melee attacks. They rarely get abilities to move themselves, usually instead focusing on helping allies or hampering enemies.

A striker's power set allows them to stay out of combat and avoid taking an excessive amount of hits. A defender's power set requires them stay in the thick of combat and take a lot of hits.

If we completely ignore all class features and just take two generic characters with X hit points, but give one a suite of striker powers and one a suite of defender powers, then the striker is clearly superior to the defender except perhaps in extraordinary circumstances. Both can take the same amount of punishment, however the striker is able to minimize the damage it takes over time, allowing it to survive longer.

 

[That One Guy]

In a podcast or excerpt, they specifically mentioned the ability to play a classless D&D game, where you pick and choose your powers from various lists. You could always take a middle ground and delineate this by role and/or power source.

Could someone point me in the direction of this? I think I might almost be there with my mental exercise, but official things are fun. Also, I think there's somewhere in the DMG about creative uses of abilities that result in power-like attacks... like skill checks for knocking down a chandelier and how much damage a stunt like that would deal. This implies to me an internal sense of balance among powers. I'm thinking of eventually letting martial characters snag martial powers, divine characters snag other divine powers, and the wizard... he'll have company later.

(Related tangent, The Eternal Seeker strongly implies to me that 4e may've been in a way designed classlessly, and then roles and classes were made based on what people like to do and how those things could be done. A ranger is only a ranger so much as we say, "This is a ranger. We expect rangers to ____________ and ____________." (use 2 weapons and bows) ...but if a game were not bound by the anticipations an associations of D&D editions prior, I wonder if rangers would have been quantified as is.)

Perhaps... (more on topic) two axes of exchange. One axis is power source and the other is role. Say we are making a martial defender. We'll name him Joseph. Joe could take Paladin (defender) or Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, or Warlord (martial) powers. His default features would be those of martial defender (There's only fighter... so for sake of ease we'd do that). But, this would create a rather intuitive classless system that I think could be fun. Granted, a declassed character would not mesh well w/ a normal class party because Joseph could be a rogue/ranger in powers, but have the class features of a fighter. He'd be sly flourishin', two-weapon fighting, and holding multiple enemies at bay. Joseph sounds like a swashbuckler.

...hm.

 

[Asmor]

Ignoring any balance issues, I see a slight problem with what you describe.

Allowing people to pick powers of the same source makes sense from a fluff standpoint.

Allowing people to pick powers of the same role makes sense from a gamist standpoint.

Allowing people to pick powers of the same source or the same role just doesn't seem to jive with me. If you're letting them take off-role powers and off-power-source powers, it seems... incongruous to disallow off-role, off-power-source powers. It's elegant from a design standpoint, I'll give you that, but it just doesn't feel right to me.

Put another way, I'd say either choose to limit based on role, or choose to limit based on power source, or don't limit it at all.