Ranger's Careful Attack house rule...

[breschau]

Looking over all the info leaked from the con, I can't imagine that the ranger's Careful Attack power will stay as it appears on the sheet. The name implies a delay, the description implies delay ("you study the enemy, looking over his defenses"), I can't justify letting a character have a +4 to hit from an at-will power (essentially gaining it infinitely). This is an aimed attack pure and simple. The action should not be standard. It should take longer to "study the enemy" than a standard action. I will likely house rule this to be a full-round action (no minor, or move actions in the same round); or at least no move action in the same round. I know we are months away from the full release and things may change, but as it stands, Careful Attack is just too much.

What do you think?

Disagreement and discussion welcome. Flames are not.

 

[Ebon Shar]

You have a point. It does seem a bit overpowered and open to abuse. Your rule makes sense. However, I'm willing to wait to see how it plays out in game a bit before jumping on the houserule bandwagon. Nevertheless, your solution is an elegant one.

 

[Timeboxer]

I think that would make Careful Attack not worth taking in your game. I wouldn't take it, anyway.

 

[Kordeth]

I believe it was WotC's own Rodney Thompson who said the math appeared to be done incorrectly on the careful strike ability, and that there is a drawback. Probably another case of the large lead-time needed to gin up convention material, in the same vein as the paladin's divine challenge.

 

[Benimoto]

One thing I noticed is that this is probably the power that was changed from "roll two dice" to "+4 to hit" that was mentioned in an earlier developer blog.

The power seemed strong, but generally okay to me. The ranger's a striker, so hitting the enemy is all he does. So, having a good power that allows the ranger to hit the enemy is pretty important. It's unlimited, but you can only use it when a) you're acting, and b) you're not using another power.

I would worry that introducing restrictions on it would only serve to make the ranger's other powers more appealing, and then one of them would start to look broken instead, until all the ranger's powers were nerfed.

 

[breschau]

I believe it was WotC's own Rodney Thompson who said the math appeared to be done incorrectly on the careful strike ability, and that there is a drawback. Probably another case of the large lead-time needed to gin up convention material, in the same vein as the paladin's divine challenge.

Really, that's cool. Could you link please?

 

[small pumpkin man]

I think you should stop worrying about houseruling things for a game you've never played. Against many enemies it's no more powerful than the rogue's ability to target reflex instead of AC (sometimes less powerful) which had been described by Mouseferatu IIRC as "(one of) the power(s) he'd used the least", not to mention the fact that even though it's "at will", you don't actually get it on every attack, you get it on most attacks on your turn, as long as your other powers aren't a better option.

 

[Kordeth]

Really, that's cool. Could you link please?

Nope. Sorry, I've probably read about 150 4E threads in the last few days and I honestly have no recollection of which thread I saw that in. I do remember it was one of the WotC crew and I'm pretty sure it was Rodney, but that's all I recall.

 

[themilkman]

From my experience, it isn't really that overpowered in play. Maybe a nerf of 1 or 2 on the to-hit, but anything more than that would make it pointless.

 

[Voss]

Its pretty much +4 to compete with the fact that the other strikers are going after the defenses rather than AC. Sometimes the math works out better in favor of one or the other.

Without careful shot, the sample ranger is pretty poor. The daily is fairly low damage, but useful for spreading some damage to multiple targets, and his other powers are pretty much only for getting out of melee unscathed. Careful shot is really his bread and butter.