Obryn
Hero
Hmmm, yeah, that's really weak for a 20th-level Daily power. It only deals damage without other effects, takes up a Minor and 3 Standard actions, and you're disarmed for the rest of the battle at the end of all that. I know that my own player doesn't look at the explosion as a benefit, but as a pretty serious disadvantage.The 20th level power was meant to be:
Minor action, super-charge your weapon
Standard action - shoot for 3d8+Dex (or whatever)
next turn Standard action - shoot for 4d8+Dex
next turn Standard action - shoot for 5d8+Dex, then it blows up at the end of turn dealing 5d8 damage in a burst
Is that low-powered? It's been a while since I paid a ton of attention to the player side of powers, since I'm mostly making monster stats these days. But the idea was to deal some bonus damage, and then have the ability to deal a lot of damage by getting close, dropping your gun, and running away as it explodes.
I think it could be enough if there were side-conditions and Miss damage; like the first shot adds Ongoing 10, the second Dazes, and the third Stuns (all save-ends).
Alternately, my gut feeling is that allowing each of those attacks to be Minor actions (limited to 1x/round) would also be enough. So the blaster starts going crazy and shooting in all directions before exploding.
As a final option, simply upping the damage by like 2-3 dice each stage and adding Miss damage may be sufficient.