Ranged Defender: Doable?

[mneme]

oops. Accidental double post is accidental.

 

[andy3k]

I agree that wizard summons can act like defenders, but a defender needs to be around ALL the time. A 1st level wizard can't summon every combat. A wizard also doesn't have the HP/surges to withstand the beating a defender would take. A wizard subclass would not be possible since the changes necessary for summoning wizard to be a defender would be too grand to keep it a subclass.

Same thing goes for Shaman. Leaders don't have the HP and surges to be adequate defenders. Yes, you could make a passable leader with heavy defender strategy (as suggested above), which would be a good backup to a primary defender, but I want a full-fledged primary defender that can do the whole job himself.

You mentioned the Sentinel as a defender with a pet, but neither of my table-top groups are including Essentials into their games. I will read over the Sentinel write-up, and possibly steal some of its ideas, but I want a true blue 4e (non-essentials) ranged defender. Maybe I should convert the Sentinel to non-essentials or maybe just borrow a few ideas. I'll take a look.

 

[bargle0]

You can do this right now with a Swordmage|Artificer hybrid. Basically, take Aegis of Shielding, Hybrid Talent for Swordmage Warding, and Artificer powers with con riders. Notably, Magic Weapon works with both ranged and melee weapons, so you could do this with thrown light blades, thrown heavy blades, or a Farbond Spellblade. You'd still be a pretty decent melee defender, as well.

 

[andy3k]

Swordmage|Artificer hybrid is a make-do defender but not what I want. You can only use the Aegis once per encounter until the target hits 0 HP. If Foe A attacks the wizard, I mark Foe A, so Foe A attacks the Barbarian and Foe B attacks the wizard, I'm handicapped.

Someone might claim that a [defender]|Bard hybrid can solve that problem with Misdirected Mark, but that still requires that I hit with the Misdirected Mark to be effective.

I won't be happy with any ranged defender that does not mark as well as any other full-fledged defender.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But fine. The ranged defender doesn't do enough defender-ing.

Dance!
At-Will
Standard Ranged Attack
Attack: Dex vs. AC
Hit: 1[w]+Dex damage, and if the target does not move towards you on its next turn, it takes 1d6+Con damage.

Congratulations. You've just come up with an at will more powerful than Twin Strike under many circumstances - if the enemy is dazed or just blocked he takes more than twin strike damage And if in difficult terrain he's going to be eating OAs. (Prone with that just wins).

The equivalent of booming blade would be "and if the target willingly moves away from you on its next turn..." Booming Blade penalises the target for doing something - your at will penalises them for not doing something which is an entirely different kettle of fish.

 

[andy3k]

The Sentinel is a Leader, so there are still no defenders with pets.

Problem: Pets can die during an encounter. A defender needs to be more permanent.

Solution: Have the pet be a projection of the defender, thus, hits on the pet damage the defender directly. If this were a divine ranged defender, the projection could be an aspect of the defender's soul. Role-play-wise, this is great because then the pet's appearance reflects the core values of the defender and is defined however the player wants while remaining medium-sized. Unlike standard animal companions, if the defender dies or ends his turn over 20 squares away from the pet then the pet disappears.

It's a start of an idea.

 

[Rechan]

Which actually brings me to my main point -- a defender is a controller who causes enemies to attack them (to take advantage of superior defensive abilities) rather than nobody. A melee controller -is- a defender.

Someone should tell the melee druid that he's a defender. I doubt he knows this.

Functionaly, this also means that a ranged defender is a controller. If you're standing back and making enemies attack -nobody-, you're a controller.

I'd prefer a defender at ranged who gets enemies to attack him at ranged, or who forces melee guys to come get him. But he has few melee offense/defenses. So the idea is to 1) Draw enemy ranged fire, 2) draw enemy melee guys.

That raises the question "Alright, so the melee-oriented monsters come at him. Then What?"

A few options:

1) He takes the hits and offers minimal melee offensive response. The Defender's point is to take the punches for other people. So all he needs is a reasonable melee defense. He doesn't have to hurt the opposition once they get to him, because he's already got what he wanted: isolating them. Now allt hat's necessary is to survive.

2) He could avoid the enemy, once they reach him. That sounds odd, marking a target and then avoiding them. But the enemy is penalized for not attacking the defender, and they have to waste valuable effort pinning him down/attacking him. Perhaps the Defender's defenses aren't fully avoidance, but have some of that - teleports, attack negation, etc.

3) This Defender depends on his party. He lures the enemy away from them, and once he's swarmed, his party needs to hammer the guys surrounding him. Much like the Melee Fighter, he can get bogged down and entrenched, and its his allies job to obliterate the opposition while he's taking hits. Because he ends up all alone off to one side, he can get isolated.

Ultimately, my view is that Defenders are a losing game for the opposition. If you don't attack the defender, you're punished. If you choose to attack the defender, you're playing into the player's hands and losing anyways. Trying to attack a fighter or paladin is like attacking a brick wall. But a well-armored defender who can trade punches doesn't have to be the only option. Another option is being the fly that's too hard to swat, but too troublesome to ignore.

 

[Herschel]

If we place a ward or pledge on our allies (instead of marking foes) then that protection should transfer damage from the ally to the defender. ... I want to keep intact the concept that the defender should be absorbing damage that would otherwise be directed to the ally (if not taking the hits himself).

So the character class you want to create is the Archer/Arcane Sponge.

Interesting concept, just not very practical as it's ripe to be abused and create an arms race.

 

[mneme]

Someone should tell the melee druid that he's a defender. I doubt he knows this.

He usually figures it out after he gets knocked unconcious a few times. More specifically, if your druid is getitng enemies to attack him rather than not be able to attack at all (or at tack the defender) he's playing defender--and he isn't very good at it. The sentinel can manage it better, despite being a leader, because he can take controller powers and use his pet as a pseudo-controller (if, yes, it doesn't die. But then, a defender can die too).

I'd prefer a defender at ranged who gets enemies to attack him at ranged, or who forces melee guys to come get him. But he has few melee offense/defenses. So the idea is to 1) Draw enemy ranged fire, 2) draw enemy melee guys.

The problem is that this is either awful or problematic. A defender's assets consist largely of stickiness, threat, and defenses. It's possible for them to do without threat (if the stickiness and defenses are good enough), and even sometimes without stickiness if the threat is strong enough to act as pseudo-stickiness, but the defenses--and using them actively, is non-optional.

The problem with a ranged defender who largely acts on ranged opponents is that melee opponents are far more common. So it's a trap.

The problem with a ranged defender who can keep out of range and force melee opponents to close is that it's largley unbalanced; you're not taking hits, so you're not really using your defenses as one of your assets in this situation. So if it's too weak to work, it's just weak; if it's weak enough to be effective, you're being a controller/striker with defenses like a defender, and that's just too much.

Thus, the idea of a pet defender.

Regarding a pet defender, I think it would be -easy- to make one a Shaman subclass. Remember, the shaman doesn't need defender defenses/HP; only the pet needs this. The defender shaman can probably get away with defender defenses and mage (ok, probably cleric) HP, as if you keep the existing "when the spirit dies, you take 5+1/2 level" mechanic, you're effectively taking half damage (or less) and getting double healing. Drop the leader healing for better defenses (or at least better defenses for the spirit) and a way to let the spirit mark enemies and you're nearly good to go (you probably a defender spirit -not- to vanish when a hit gets through its resistance, as then it stops defending, and that's kinda bad).

Also, for a ranger style pet defender, I'm not seeing the problem with "the pet can die". Of course the pet can die. If it does, the party defender is dead! Don't let that happen! You know, the beastmaster ranger in a party can die too; the player can keep playing the beast until it also dies or the ranger's raised, but, well, the party's down a ranger. The fact that the player can play a far weaker verison of their character once the "business" side of the pair is dispatched is an a feature of the build--not a sign that the ranger is not a true striker.

 

[andy3k]

mneme, I agree that the shaman COULD be heavily altered to become a defender, but that breaks the generic D&D 4e rule of consistency. The Shaman class is labeled as a "leader" so any subclasses should also be a "leader" supported by purpose, power functionality, HP, defenses, etc. No where else in the RAW do you find a class of one role with a subclass that is a different role. Also, subclasses can utilize that RAW powers of the base class and we simply can't do that with strikers or leaders and still call it a defender.

For example, why is the runepriest not just a cleric subclass? Because the designers probably decided that it would be overpowered for a cleric to access the entire range of cleric powers AND runepriest powers. There were probably combos that were downright nasty.

The way the spirit works is not defender-like. A spirit that is hit disappears and that is not sticky and/or punishing. I don't want my punching bag to disappear when the first bad guy in line disappears him so that all other foes can attack with impunity that round. Also keep in mind that the ability for the spirit to fly/hover is very unbalancing when it becomes more offensive. You'd have to totally revamp the spirit.

The ranger pet is more permanent and requires less revamping ... but the ranger is a striker and changing his damage, ability to mark, etc. would change his role and we go back to the consistency issue. Not only that but you'd still have to rewrite a great number of ranger powers to take away the striker aspect and create the defender aspect. If we're going to do all that work, we might as well create a new class with a new mechanic that makes our defender with a pet truly different and interesting to play.

I'm not saying we can't steal pieces from this class and that class, which would save some time for sure, but we shouldn't try to paint a cat black and white, cover him in sewage, and call him a skunk. If a subclass is barely recognizable as its base class, I don't think it can rightly be a subclass.