Should ability damage gain other damage bonuses? (is reaping strike good at 30th?)

[small pumpkin man]

Both of those feats only work if you would not otherwise do damage - no stacking.

In fact, I would argue that this is the reason Reaping strike is less than exceptional at high levels, the damage as a percentage of your weapon damage only goes from a bit over 30 to a bit under 30, but if you're using a two handed weapon Maul does seem to be the best choice, so for the majority of high level two handed fighters, cleave + hammer rhythm will, unless you're fighting a solo monster, far too often just be a better choice.

 

[jasin]

I see no reason to mess with the basic math. Because once you change that, you have to change Cleave. And once you change those two, you end up having to change Sure Strike (because the more additional damage you do, the less significant the bonus to hit is.)

You have to change Sure Strike to begin with, if you want it to be of any use.

 

[Khanedur]

Both of those feats only work if you would not otherwise do damage - no stacking.

I just reread the feats and you are right. How incredibly disappointing.

 

[DracoSuave]

Yeah, but if you take Hammer Rhythm and Scimitar Dance, you're swapping Reaving Strike for either Tide of Iron or Sure Strike.

Reaving Strike isn't meant to have scaling damage on the miss, otherwise the miss would be meaningless. The fact that you do damage -at all- on a miss makes it a good attack for high-defense enemies. It's not that much damage, but it's not -supposed- to be great damage. It's -some- and that's all it has to be.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Something that might be worth considering:

At Epic levels, the at-will powers start doing 2[W] rather than 1[W].

You could probably double the 'attribute' damage of reaping strike, cleave, riposte strike etc. at epic levels too, keeping them in the same pattern.

This wouldn't introduce low-mid level strangeness, but would fit well with the epic level kicker given to the damage dice.

Cheers

 

[Tony Vargas]

Your STR bonus does go up as you level, so it scales, just not quite (OK, not nearly) as fast. Also, it's very hard to keep up with monster AC, so, having an at-will that does even a little damage on a miss is a nice fallback for those rounds when you're not recieving a substantial attack buff of some kind.

 

[Minigiant]

Reaping Strike is good enough.
The fighter's "I beating on 1 guy" at wills are Sure and Reaping Strikes. The fighter is also a defender. A reaping strike using fighter's job is to mark enemies while providing a constant steam of damage so the enemies want to kill him. There ain't no more constant damage than Miss: X damage.

By epic most twf fighters get about 25-35% of their damage from their strength. That's good for an at-will. Considering you need to use a daily to get 50% on a miss.

 

[RigaMortus2]

I think Reaping Strike is fine as is. Look at it this way. How much damage would you have done if you attacked with a different At-Will and missed? Some damage on a miss is better than no damage on a miss (and there isn't much that can prevent this "automatic" damage).

 

[Cadfan]

There are three ways your attacks scale in 4e. The first is each individual attack getting more powerful, say, by your strength bonus going up. The second is by replacing attacks with other, better attacks. This isn't applicable to at wills. Finally, your attacks scale by you gaining a higher number of per encounter and daily attacks, so that you don't use your at wills as often. This is the key here. At level 30, Reaping Strike may not be as awesome as it was at level 1. But you're also using it a whole lot less often.

 

[Saeviomagy]

If you miss 50% of the time, then in terms of averages, reaping strike adds half your strength bonus to your damage.

So, for that guy with +8, it's effectively adding +4 damage per attack. Since you're missing half the time, at epic tier weapon focus (for instance) is only adding 1.5 per attack.

In short, it (and hammer rhythm and scimitar dance) are fine without adding bonuses too.