Primal Power oopses

[Majoru Oakheart]

Of course not. And no, of course this makes no difference with the rules as they are; the issue is that the "deeper multiclassing" feat isn't current development, but that it's bad design vis-a-vis future development.

I still don't see it. It is designed as a "deeper multiclassing" feat for Druids. It is a Druid Multiclass feat, so you couldn't take it if you weren't multiclassed into Druid anyways. There's only one feat that allows you to multiclass into Druid. It has it as a prerequisite. The only thing it stops is if a future feat comes out that also lets you multiclass into Druids that you couldn't take this feat.

It wouldn't matter if another class had Wildshape, they'd still need to multiclass into Druid, which means they'd need Initiate as a feat.

Sure, but it's still really terrible, since you don't have any basic attacks in Beast form once you've used up the encounter ones. I suppose you could have a druid multi who uses Beast to run away, but remember that without a feat, you can only shift when changing into a human, not the other way around.

I really don't see it being that bad. If I multiclass into Druid and take this feat it means I can do things like: Attack, kill the monster, shift into animal form, move my speed+1, then next round move my speed+1 and shift back into your normal form and get a free shift 1, then attack. This essentially gives me +3 movement over 2 rounds. Not too shabby. Plus, if you have a Beast power, you can forgo the shifting back and instead attack while in Wildshape and shift back next round.

Sure, you aren't going to spend the entire battle in Wildshape, since you don't have enough powers to last an entire combat. But you could certainly use 3 or 4 powers if you paragon multiclass into Druid. During an average battle that's most of your attacks for the combat.

Plus, out of combat, you've got a cool roleplaying effect. You can shift into a wolf and run faster than everyone else.

I mean, it's certainly no worse than Elemental Assault. It gives you +3 damage when you use the basic attack from Aegis of Assault. My experience is that the Aegis triggers once every 2-3 combats.

Maybe, maybe not. Ranger and Warlock both have Prime Shot, for example, so I could totally see Wizards using "Wild Shape" if they made another class with as much emphasis on (similar) shapeshifting as druids have.

True, but that's the only time in the game so far that two classes got the same class feature. And it was the PHB, so they hadn't learned their lesson yet. Either way, in order to get the Druid Multiclass power, they'd have to multiclass into Druid. Which means they'd need the Initiate feat.

Oh, in terms of -pointless- deeper multiclass feats, look at Rampage. A basic attack on a crit...when you do so with a Barbarian attack? As a multiclass barbarian? On your, what, 2 barbarian attacks per encounter (using salve of power to reuse your daily, presumably)? How often do you expect to crit--because even with Close Burst attacks, I predict this giving you -an- extra attack every other session (more at paragon, of course, but still not something you can count on).

Most of the "deeper multiclass" feats kind of assume that you are going whole hog with multiclassing. That means that by level 21, you have at least 2 encounter powers and 2 dailies in your secondary class. Possibly another encounter power or at-will if you are a half-elf.

Combats lasting about 5 rounds means that even with just your encounter powers, close to half your attacks are Barbarian attacks.

The idea when designing a feat is to design it to worst case scenario. Otherwise you end up with balance issues. So instead of thinking "How useful is this feat, in general?" think "How useful is this feat if someone takes every choice in the game that works well with it?" In this case, a Half-Elf Barbarian who Paragon Multiclasses into Barbarian and takes the Half-Elf feat can use a Barbarian attack every round of every combat if he wanted to. Meanwhile, he has all the class features of his primary class and the ability to switch to those powers if he needs them. That's pretty powerful if you also crit on a 19-20 and have this feat.

Thus, in order to keep in balanced, you need to leave it about this amount of effectiveness.

 

[Stuntman]

I noticed this too when I flipped through the book (I haven't given it a good read yet). At first I thought it was an error, but now I'm thinking it's a deliberate design decision. You don't have to wait until paragon tier to pick up additional aspects of your multi-class. Note that we didn't get any entry-level feats either, suggesting that the ones in PHB2 are it. You get the basic class feature, and then expand with additional feats. I think we're seeing the first steps towards an alternative multiclass feat system.

The lack of multiclassing feats in the paragon tier that requires paragon multiclassing to be a prerequisite leads me to believe that multiclassing is being tweaked. I'm wondering what changes to multiclassing will appear in the PH3.

 

[mneme]

I still don't see it. It is designed as a "deeper multiclassing" feat for Druids. It is a Druid Multiclass feat, so you couldn't take it if you weren't multiclassed into Druid anyways. There's only one feat that allows you to multiclass into Druid. It has it as a prerequisite. The only thing it stops is if a future feat comes out that also lets you multiclass into Druids that you couldn't take this feat.

Or if you already had Wildshape (or do you think "+1 speed, but only in Wild Shape" is really too good for a base-level multiclass feat?). Or, yeas, if you already are multiclassed into Druid -- because unless they don't print Primal Power 2 and Primal Power 3, there -will- eventually be other base-level multiclass feats for Druid.

Feats should always be as powerful as they can be and still not be overpowered (or make the game overpowered; stacking is a signficiant consideration). They shouldn't be "just good enough".

It wouldn't matter if another class had Wildshape, they'd still need to multiclass into Druid, which means they'd need Initiate as a feat.

Do you think this is a -good- thing?

The issue isn't "is there ever, possibly, a situation where this widget is useful?" it's "is this widget where it should be--or has it been nerfed to the point where it's mostly not worth taking?" there are far easier to get +1 speed feats than the PP one; enough that it's a pretty poor design as a feat. Similarly, the barbarian one, even if you minimax towards it, is still barely average; it's one of the weakest Barbarian features, and it's given in a very expensive form.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Of course not. And no, of course this makes no difference with the rules as they are; the issue is that the "deeper multiclassing" feat isn't current development, but that it's bad design vis-a-vis future development.

Maybe, maybe not. Ranger and Warlock both have Prime Shot, for example, so I could totally see Wizards using "Wild Shape" if they made another class with as much emphasis on (similar) shapeshifting as druids have.

Well, unless the design is to preserve distinct class features as unique to the class. That seems to be the direction. There won't be any other way to get Wild Shape if you're not a Druid; Initiate of the Old Faith is it. If you want to have Wild Shape, you must be a Druid in some form.

Oh, in terms of -pointless- deeper multiclass feats, look at Rampage. A basic attack on a crit...when you do so with a Barbarian attack? As a multiclass barbarian? On your, what, 2 barbarian attacks per encounter (using salve of power to reuse your daily, presumably)?

Leaving aside the "On Critical" part, here you're deliberately ignoring the system to make your point. Using MC feats, you'll have an Encounter and a Daily; more if you do Paragon Multiclassing. Using the Hybrid system, you'll have half your powers as a Barbarian.

Or, yeas, if you already are multiclassed into Druid -- because unless they don't print Primal Power 2 and Primal Power 3, there -will- eventually be other base-level multiclass feats for Druid.

Again, this doesn't seem to be the direction they are going in. Otherwise, there would be alternative multiclass feats in PP, just like in every book before. However, there aren't.

My suspicion is that we'll see something, either in PHB3 or in MP/AP/DP2, that will revamp the multiclass feat system so there is only one entry.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Does feel like an FAQ waiting to happen. That said, I'd be extremely curious to see any rules citation that suggests you get critical dice from the off-hand weapon that you didn't make an attack roll (and critical) with.

Especially in the theory of using a weapon with a greater crit range in the main hand

Sure, I'm game! When you hit with the main weapon and get a crit, the ATTACK has scored a critical hit. There is no doubt that some sort of crit benefit accrues to all damage done by the power.

As far as damage goes there are two weapons involved and each one independently rolls damage. Nothing suggests to me that the damage rules don't apply in exactly the normal sense to each of the two damage rolls. The rule for what a magic item does on a critical is PHB 225. The nut of this argument is what does "using that item" actually mean? Well, Whirling Rend says you must be wielding 2 weapons and then the attack line specifies you are making an attack with the main weapon, but there is NO other power in the game AFAIK which then goes on to simply do damage with a different weapon. So we don't actually know if you are using the off-hand weapon or not in this case since "using" is never precisely defined.

All that being said I think the better analysis is that the off-hand damage is simply a bonus damage you do and isn't modified at all by anything except the enhancement bonus of the off-hand weapon and any "add this when you roll damage" type effects or kickers provided by feats, etc that would apply on doing damage. In other words don't count it as a hit at all, its like an automatic damage roll and works the same way as something like Rain of Steel damage. I can see a pretty good argument for maximizing the secondary W on a crit though.

The best argument to make about how it works though is balance. WR is already nastier than Dual Strike. At least limiting the bennies from crits brings it back down a LITTLE.

Anyway, yeah, there's going to have to be a whole mini-FAQ on this style of power. I thought they would have learned their lesson on introducing whole new power layouts by now, sigh.

 

[keterys]

It seems to me that arguing that you get the off-hand weapon's crit dice would be very similar to an argument that you get a dual implement's crit dice.

That said, the really interesting question will be things like weapon focus bonus and such. Expect a lot of table variation until that's FAQed. After all, it is one damage roll, so adding two enhancement, feat, or item bonuses to it would break stacking rules, but I bet everyone tries to make it work that way.

 

[Eric Finley]

The one I'm noticing is actually an old oops related to the "two tier deep feats are too specific" problem. Spirit Talker grants you either Spirit's Fangs or Spirit's Shield as an encounter power. Want Spirit's Prey or World Speaker's Command as an encounter power? Tough (by RAW). They chose to be specific rather than saying "the opportunity action from one of the available Companion Spirit class feature bundles" or something like that. Errata incoming!

Oh, and as discussed in another thread, there's a horrible ambiguity about the Keen Eagle paragon path ability, Eagle Summons the Fire. Does it grant LoS? LoE? Range? All three? Any of them is powerful, and any of them could equally well fit the text of the path feature. And CustServ is down, so I can't even ask right now.

 

[DracoSuave]

Well, you get all the critical properties of an item you attack with when you critical.

For dual implement, you only attack with one implement, the other simply gives you a damage bonus. Tho you are wielding both, you're only -attacking- with one.

For a Whirling Slayer, the Barbarian powers usually only have a single attack, made by the main weapon. Just like if you critical with your main weapon attack in Twin-Strike, you only apply the critical effects of that weapon.

 

[DracoSuave]

The one I'm noticing is actually an old oops related to the "two tier deep feats are too specific" problem. Spirit Talker grants you either Spirit's Fangs or Spirit's Shield as an encounter power. Want Spirit's Prey or World Speaker's Command as an encounter power? Tough (by RAW). They chose to be specific rather than saying "the opportunity action from one of the available Companion Spirit class feature bundles" or something like that. Errata incoming!

This problem didn't exist for previous classes? Rogues can only pick Ruthless Ruffian, but can't get the others?

Oh, and as discussed in another thread, there's a horrible ambiguity about the Keen Eagle paragon path ability, Eagle Summons the Fire. Does it grant LoS? LoE? Range? All three? Any of them is powerful, and any of them could equally well fit the text of the path feature. And CustServ is down, so I can't even ask right now.

Yeah, when I read it I was like 'You mean, you -couldn't- before? What does this do?

 

[WalterKovacs]

The lack of multiclassing feats in the paragon tier that requires paragon multiclassing to be a prerequisite leads me to believe that multiclassing is being tweaked. I'm wondering what changes to multiclassing will appear in the PH3.

Possibility:

These feats replaced the "paragon multiclass required" feats from earlier books. For this to be most effective, you would NEED to paragon multiclass (or be a half-elf) so you can have an at-will power of that class to be able to use the Barbarian and Druid feats to their fullest. The other two don't need it as much, and fit with the earliest concept of "at-will becomes encounter" in the warden situation while the shaman one is an upgrade (although going from 2 to 3 per encounter to 1/day was a bit of a drop off ... errating the old ones to be 2/day [3/day at 15 and above] would be interesting ... although 1/encounter would probably do it, especially if the x/day was limited to once per encounter anyway).

This 'idea' can hopefully be applied to future multiclasses. However, it would likely be in the X Power 2 books, instead of PH3. PH3 could potentially make paragon multiclassing more appealing perhaps?