Proposal: Minotaur - MM, (Dragon,) PH3 - which one(s) allow for L4W

[evilbob]

Yeah, I don't disagree. Does just about anything suck next to oversized weapon? Probably. But I suspect that once all the neat feats and options and paragon paths start hitting the shelves folks won't look back.

 

[elecgraystone]

Does just about anything suck next to oversized weapon? Probably.

If the ONLY thing your interested in is squeezing out every ounce of damage, then you might be right. Now say your more interested in being a true defender, keeping people off the rest of the party. Maybe re-rolling your daily that can daze the big bad guy is a better option. Or knocking everyone adjacent prone. Damage isn't the only thing people think about.

And I've seen the list of heroic feat for PHB3. They aren't enough to make me go PHB3 minotaur. As far as paragon paths I may worry about them when I get a character close to 11th. I'm guessing that there's going to be plenty of cool paths to take without a few racial specific ones.

 

[elecgraystone]

Check out here to see just how exciting minotaur feats can be... That's sarcasm. I dare you to look at Minotaur Weapon Talent and say it it's not one of the worst feats ever.

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I think Adslahnit makes a good breakdown of why the current dragon minotaur is lackluster at best and not looking very exciting in PHB3 unless they rework the dragon minotaur to make it not suck. One small good thing to hear is that the minotaur will be getting the stats of +2 Strength and either +2 Constitution or +2 Wisdom. It's something at least.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

I'm sure it LOOKS like the oversized barbarian should have been doing 8 more damage but that's not what I saw.

Well good for you if probabilities are suspended when you look at them. It doesn't LOOK that way, it IS that way. If you 'saw' otherwise, it was either a very short term fluke or observer bias.

Normal Maul (8d6=18, 8d6=32, 8d6=31, 8d6=31, 8d6=22, 8d6=27, 8d6=30, 8d6=34, 8d6=31, 8d6=31, 8d6=33, 8d6=28, 8d6=36, 8d6=22, 8d6=22, 8d6=33, 8d6=37, 8d6=36, 8d6=28, 8d6=32)

Oversized Maul (8d8=37, 8d8=35, 8d8=22, 8d8=40, 8d8=34, 8d8=43, 8d8=29, 8d8=45, 8d8=32, 8d8=45, 8d8=33, 8d8=43, 8d8=29, 8d8=42, 8d8=31, 8d8=38, 8d8=39, 8d8=32, 8d8=43, 8d8=38)

Look at that; Sure, once in a while, the guy with the normal maul will roll better than the guy with the oversized one. But there is no denying that the other set is substantially better. 8 hp better on average.

This doesn't even account for the fact that a crit will yield 48 hp on the normal maul but 64 on the oversized one. By epic level, most melee specialist have the mastery feat so 10% of hits are a crit... In practice, the difference on average damage becomes even bigger than 2 hp per [W].

In L4W we often have large groups tha includes similar characters. I.E. I just started an avdneture with two cunning bards.

Now call me petty, but if I played a two handed warrior, I wouldn't want to adventure with a colleague who has a similar PC using an oversized weapon.

 

[elecgraystone]

LOL Looks nice on paper but that's all it is. I'll take my real life experiences over some nifty math anyday. However lets look at some things you ignored that will change those damage totals a bit. Give the other fighter brutal, something the minotaur here can't use.

Now lets attach a race to that other unnamed fighter. Lets make him a dwarf. Now the dwarf takes Dwarven Weapon Training and the minotaur takes weapon focus so same damage bonus at paragon. All other feats ans stats the same. The minotaur has a maul while the dwarf has a Mordenkrad. Lets go back and see how many of those 160 rolls the dwarf made where 1's. It'd be average that's 26 rerolls. How do you think the damage stacks up now?

Now look at the same two fighter, but with weapon and shields. The minotaur ends up with a d12 broadsword and the dwarf has a d10 craghammer. Make those damage rolls once and see how it comes out with all 1's and 2's rerolled. I'm betting it's not a big difference.

The only time the minotaur comes out ahead is in crits and that's only 5% until we're in epic and we really don't need to worry about that ANYTIME soon. I think we don't need to worry about super optimized epic minotaurs anytime soon.

 

[elecgraystone]

87-23 for 1's=64 extra damage from brutal. (23 1's rolled, then 6 rerolled, then 1)
23d6=64
6d6=24
1d6=6

So that's 658 for the dwarf and minotaur 730. That's 3.6 more damage per attack the minotaur did. Or to put it another way the minotaur does less than a point extra per [W]. As I said, nothing earthshattering here...

EDIT: If we instead use a githzerai with the blade master feat and a fullblade we're looking at a 5.8 difference. However the crit is much closer with the fullblade having 2d12 extra added vs the +16 for oversized. And this is only looking at big one damage attacks. Lets say it's a 2[w] primary and 2 secondary attacks of 1[w]. That 5.8 difference drops to 3.8 or less than +1 per [w].

 

[renau1g]

Check out here to see just how exciting minotaur feats can be... That's sarcasm. I dare you to look at Minotaur Weapon Talent and say it it's not one of the worst feats ever.

I would go even further and say it's the worst feat ever. I'm really hoping they forgot the +2 damage that every other racial weapon training has.

 

[elecgraystone]

Yeah, it's really bad. Gaining 2 martial weapons when every other racial weapon feat at least gets you the bonus in damage and most get you a superior weapon. Here's what I'd have done: When charging with an axe or hammer you deal +2(+4/+6 for paragon/epic). That works with their racial, normal charges and some of the nifty charge powers barbarians/rangers get.

It really makes you feel good that you gave up oversized for racial feats doesn't it?

 

[renau1g]

So true, to be fair though the racials for the minos have been terrible.... pure garbage. Every other supported race has cool feats that I'd trade oversized for in many cases.

Now, the fluff from that article was pretty good. Maybe we can incorporate some of that here for the short-arms

 

[elecgraystone]

The fluff seemed good. If we wanted to use it for our fluff that seems fine.

Minotaur Natural Weapons feat someone posted on the link I posted seemed like a good idea too. The ability wield a second weapon while wielding a 2 handed one has possibilities.