Rain of Blood encounter power lvl 7/Invoker is too powerfull

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, we cannot evaluate what it will be like in the future. I do think it is a pretty awesome power RIGHT NOW. Assuming the party has some reasonable degree of coordination I can see a rogue, a fighter, and an invoker putting together some pretty nasty setups this way. Rogue and Fighter move into combat together (normal procedure anyway). Fighter triggers Come and Get It, then the Invoker drops Rain of Blood on the whole wad. Worst case you have 2 PCs buffed and 3 target monsters of which on average you'll hit 2. Even without using an AP the rogue and the fighter are now going to get +5 damage and probably at least +3 to-hit next round. With a bit of action readying and AP use I can see 8 attacks getting those bonuses and we haven't even gotten to the rest of the party...

Of course the more extreme cases are going to be some pretty advanced players, but still, powers shouldn't be THAT far out of line regardless of who's using them. It really could easily be justified as a daily power. Maybe its not old RoB+cheese level broken but it is a good bit above the norm.

I know what you mean about "Enemy Only" AoEs too. Personally I think it was a design mistake for such powers (that do damage anyway) to exist at all. They are just too "no think" and that really isn't 4e. They should definitely at the very least be a lot weaker in damage output than AoEs that hit everything, yet that doesn't always seem to be the case, like here.

 

[Felon]

It is, however. It may not have been explicitly called out in the DMG, but the fact is that the average fortitude defense is 1 to 2 points higher than ref or will. Particularly close-combat brutes - with whom this power is a likely choice due to the likeliness of their being in melee with the party.

A +1/+2 to attack (and quite possibly more for most common cases) is pretty significant. Course, as more monster manual's are written, this advantage may fade; it's already less significant with the release of MM2, but it's not irrelevant.

I'm just repeating myself now, but the preponderance of high-Fort creatures in the MM doesn't translate directly into a preponderance of high-Fort creatures in actual encounters. The logic just doesn't follow. Just because there are more soldiers than artillery monsters in the MM doesn't mean the DM will have use fewer artillery than soldiers in his encounter design.

 

[keterys]

For what it's worth, the DMG does actually suggest using a concentration of creatures that are higher in brutes and soldiers than any other type. Look at how it advocates doing a random dungeon, for instance.

Also, if you plan on hitting your allies with this as well that often means you'll be hitting the enemy's melee along with your own, which further slides it towards Fort.

All that said, I find it a tiny detail that it targets Fort, not particularly important compared to the rest of what the spell can do.

 

[Mengu]

I tried to pay a little extra attention to how much mileage I got out of my two Rain of Blood's per encounter when we played.

In 4 encounters, I used the power 6 times total. We were often fighting large creatures, so I had some trouble getting multiple enemies in it. Here is what was effected in each use:

1. 1 enemy, 3 allies (missed 1 other enemy)
2. 2 enemies, 2 allies
3. 2 enemies, 3 allies
4. 0 enemies, 2 allies (missed 2 enemies)
5. 4 enemies (all minions that died), 1 ally (missed 1 non-minion enemy)
6. 1 enemy, 3 allies (missed 1 minion)

The last use was right after using Astral step, and I was able to position most my allies where I needed them, so I could affect as many as possible.

This power synergizes extremely well with our stormwarden ranger, since he does damage 3 times a round easy, and 4-5 times if he wants to put the extra effort. It also combos well with the warlock when she has Armor of Agathys up, and the fighter when he has Rain of Steel up.

One crazy thing that happened was a round where I used Rain of Blood, our Bard/Warchanter used an action point, and the Ranger and Warlock were doing pretty fancy damage with their attacks. It was a very potent round of attacks with a +8 attack bonus, +4 damage bonus, with one creature on the board suffering vulnerable 5.

I can see why this power is considered overpowered. It does good damage, has a great status effect, and helps allies. But it's also a good "party combo" power, so I'd hate to lose it. I suppose I'd be happy with just the vulnerability even without the attack bonus, or if the area was shrunk down to burst 1.

In our party, since everyone has such different jobs, I don't feel like my Rain of Blood is stepping on anyone's toes, and while it's up, our bard can make it even better by giving someone else an extra attack, or boosting our damage. For now I'll stick with it as keterys suggested. Our DM in that game doesn't mind us killing his monsters faster. I wouldn't mind allowing it as is in my game either, if there was an invoker.

Having said that, if there is errata down the road I probably won't complain though.

On a side not about the attacking fortitude problem, all my encounter powers and 2 of my 3 dailies target fortitude. This has not been a problem for me yet. Almost all of these also benefit from Coordinated Explosion, so if I was losing out two points by not attacking Reflex, I'm making up one from Coordinated Explosion. I have not felt handicapped by my prominently fortitude targeting attacks.

 

[eamon]

I'm just repeating myself now, but the preponderance of high-Fort creatures in the MM doesn't translate directly into a preponderance of high-Fort creatures in actual encounters. The logic just doesn't follow. Just because there are more soldiers than artillery monsters in the MM doesn't mean the DM will have use fewer artillery than soldiers in his encounter design.

I suppose it is possible for a DM to cherrypick the monsters with a low fort from MM1, but it's not something likely to occur by chance. In MM2, this is certainly more reasonable.

In short, it doesn't follow necessarily, but it does follow with huge likelihood.

I think Mengu's conclusion on this one makes sense: it's not a problematic power because, after all, it won't disturb intra-party balance (since it's a buff). It is powerful, however, and an errata wouldn't be a bad idea - it's just that overall balance matters less than intra-party balance.

 

[sfedi]

Felon's right.

A better estimate would be to look at the encounters that come with published adventures (official or not)