I'm getting slightly off topic, but just to add another one to your list ...
Sure Strike/Careful Attack = good to offset penalties if target has cover/concealment.
Anyway, back to topic of thread ...
D&D 4E Pre PHB2: Are we happy with WotC's maintenance of 4ED
- Thread starter the8bitdeity
- Start date
I'm getting slightly off topic, but just to add another one to your list ...
Sure Strike/Careful Attack = good to offset penalties if target has cover/concealment.
Anyway, back to topic of thread ...
the8bitdeity
First Post
Perhaps there is a miscommunication, when I say basic attacks I mean
melee: str vs AC, 1[w] +STR
ranged :dex vs AC, 1[w] + DEX
My ranger player will always use Twin Strike over a basic ranged melee, my fighter player will always use brash strike over a basic melee attack. The only time they use basic attacks is making OAs, or granted attacks (Combat Challenge, Warlord, etc..)
Mad Hamish
First Post
Twin shot is more likely to get at least one hit than Sure Strike or Careful Attack for any attack roll where you don't need an unmodified 19, 20 or 21 to hit.
It might make some sense for a fighter but I doubt it.
Mad Hamish
First Post
In the PHB there are (iirc) only 2 1st level at will class powers that are usable as basic attacks.
Magic Missile and the Warlock compulsary at will (Eldrich Blast???)
Most classes will have at wills that are better than the basic attacks so will very rarely use basic attacks as their actions -> apart from when charging.
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
They haven't. I ran the numbers recently (after spending a few hours working on the formula with my brother and a statistician friend of his) and was shocked at just how bad the numbers are for high complexity skill challenges. In order to get even a 50% chance at beating a complexity 12 skill challenge with the new system, you need to swing around an 85% aggregate chance of success on the individual skill checks that go into it. So, skill challenges come very close to being automatic success or automatic failure at high complexities without much in between. The way the math works, the goofball who rolls a few checks at 50% odds hurts your party much more than Skilly McSkillmeister who automatically succeeds on the checks helps your party.
As far as the math goes, they are absolutely horrible. The effect is not quite so pronounced at low complexity skill challenges--complexity six, for instance requires an aggregate 75% odds on the individual checks to breach the 50% mark, but that still approaches the auto-success/autofailure problem. In Living Forgotten Realms, there are a few other hacks that disguise these problems--player reward cards like "that'll do" have a dramatic impact on the math by essentially turning one failure into a success and the ability to use the +1 (or +2) secondary die bump feature of the cards also makes a big difference in the margins.
It doesn't get much better when it comes to conceptual or fluff related matters, but that is more open to debate and it is not really the subject of this thread. I will limit myself to this: the stated goal was to make non-combat encounters interesting--to introduce strategy to them and make them worthy of experience in a manner comparable to combat. What they ended up doing was imitating a combat where you roll 6-14 dice at a limited set of 14 or so applicable defenses and the result is always "hit. hit. hit. miss. hit." You can describe it however you like just like 2nd edition fighters were free to describe the hit/miss/hit/hit however they liked, but in the end it's hit/miss/hit/hit.
I'd like to point out that there are situations where Twin Strike is a bad choice:
There are monsters/powers that allow for an immediate interrupt whenever an attack misses. If you're fighting against something/someone with such an ability/power, it's better to only attack once with a higher probability to hit.
the8bitdeity
First Post
Um, both players and monsters only get 1 immediate action on their "off" turn.
Even so, if the Ranger is the only one targeting the creature, its odds of getting the interrupt off goes from 50% versus a single attack power to 75% versus Twin Strike.
Granted, if there are more than 2 attacks per round against the creature as per what keterys wrote, it doesn't matter too much. For example, jumping from 2 attacks per round to 3 attacks per round only increases its odds of using its ability to 87.5%, 3 attacks to 4 increase it to 93.25%, etc. It starts getting to the point that Twin Strike might be preferable.
Nahat Anoj
First Post
I agree, and I think the WoW analogy is apt, particularly now that D&D has the Compendium. The convenience of the Compendium makes it much easier for Wizards to update D&D without forcing people to buy new books. And for those without the Compendium, Wizards can still publish update pdfs.
While the Compendium has most of the info needed to run the game, I wish it had basic rules as well. Or at least a searchable index of terms, like Wikipedia. That way, when they makes updates like the ones they made to the Saving Throw rule, players can just type in "Saving Throw" to see what the current rule is.
I'm also not at all opposed to massive updates. Things like wizard at-wills don't count IMO - those just need to be beefed up a bit and that's no more difficult than standard errata IMO. What I'm talking about are things like redesigning the "ugly duckling" classes - paladins, warlocks, rangers, and clerics. Unlike the other classes, which have one attack ability score, these classes have two, and as a result suffer from MAD and a lack of a unifying class theme IMO. However, Martial Power is out and Arcane Power and Divine Power are probably mostly written by now, so the sheer number of powers that would have to be changed makes this no small task.
I do like how Wizards is forward focused and applying what they learn to future classes (if PH 2 is any indication, I don't think we're only going to see single attack ability classes from now on). But, I can dream they'll return to these classes and "fix" them sometime, can't I?
