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D&D 4E Some Thoughts on 4e

KarinsDad

Adventurer
Once per encounter, up to 5 squares (25 feet), within line of sight is "all over the place?" Hyperbole does not become you.

Eladrin: Fey Step, 1 per encounter
Warlock Fey Pack: Misty Step, max 1 per encounter per enemy

So with 5 enemies, such a 1st level PC could teleport as many as 6 times in an encounter, max 7 times per encounter at level 2, max 8 times per encounter at level 3.

So yes, "all over the place" is hardly hyperbole.
 

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The Little Raven

First Post
Eladrin: Fey Step, 1 per encounter
Warlock Fey Pack: Misty Step, max 1 per encounter per enemy

So with 5 enemies, such a 1st level PC could teleport as many as 6 times in an encounter, max 7 times per encounter at level 2, max 8 times per encounter at level 3.

So yes, "all over the place" is hardly hyperbole.

So, a very specific character build that is disposed towards movement can move a lot, so long as he has enough time and actions to curse all of the enemies present before they die.

And yet, all of those teleports added up (5 Misty Steps = 15 squares, plus 1 Fey Step = 5 squares; total 20 squares) isn't even a single Dimension Door (80 squares + 8 squares per level), nor does it make the warlock or eladrin better than any other class at that class's own role, which was the subject of my original complaint.

And unless you're counting other powers (which you don't state in your complaint) aside from just Misty Step and Fey Step, then your math is off.
 

KarinsDad

Adventurer
So, a very specific character build that is disposed towards movement can move a lot, so long as he has enough time and actions to curse all of the enemies present before they die.

And yet, all of those teleports added up (5 Misty Steps = 15 squares, plus 1 Fey Step = 5 squares; total 20 squares) isn't even a single Dimension Door (80 squares + 8 squares per level), nor does it make the warlock or eladrin better than any other class at that class's own role, which was the subject of my original complaint.

Dimension Door is max 10 squares per day.

With 5 encounters, the example above is max 100 squares per day with no spells involved. Just a class ability and a race ability. One could even drop the race and it would still be max 75 squares per day.

Thrown in Improved Misty Step and it's max 150 squares.

Versus the 6th level Dimension Door power of 10 squares per day. If teleport is so weak as an ability as you claim, why is Dimension Door a Daily power?


No OA movement, can sometimes get totally out of melee combat, can do it on someone else's turn. Teleport sounds fairly potent to me.

And unless you're counting other powers (which you don't state in your complaint) aside from just Misty Step and Fey Step, then your math is off.

Ethereal Stride and Otherworld Stride. Pretty common warlock powers.


A max of 30 or so teleports per day without using a single power is pretty much "all over the place".

The math doesn't really agree with your POV.
 

Zsig

Explorer
Except Misty Step is totally unreliable. You have no control when it's going to trigger, and sometimes when it does you have no use for it.

Sure Fey Step is an Encounter and Dimension Door a Daily, but two things comes to attention:

One, range. You can hardly break the game by moving 5 squares (up or down or straight ahead), but 10 squares is a bit too much.

Two, Eladrin balances the fact that they have such an incredible racial power by having poor ability score bonuses (some might disagree).

Yeah, but then we also got the Swordmage which gets as a 6th lvl encounter utility power that works as Fey Step, except a bit better.

Which finally leads me to believe that, it's not really what Wizards are supposed to do after all (teleport all over the place).
 
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AndrewRogue

First Post
So... certain classes have certain advantages over other classes, granting each a unique sort of play experience and possess their own little niche in which they function?

I'm not seeing how one class having enhanced mobility (at the cost of other advantages) is a problem here.

More to the point... while I do feel that 10 minutes is a bit on the long side, frankly, I find that "clever" uses of non-combat magic tend to make me grit my teeth and desire to slap the taste out of the player's mouth for such silliness.

But hey.
 

WalterKovacs

First Post
Warlocks = strikers = mobility is important for their class. All of the striker classes have some means of mobility. Warlock's, being the magical/arcane striker [as opposed to the now 3 different flavors of martial-esque strikers] has teleportation instead of shifting. Their teleportation however, is USUALLY limited to a few squares. Outside of a couple of instances, it's going to be the equivalent of a shift, while sometimes they couldn't normally get their on a shift.

However multiple SHORT teleports [many you have to decide to use as soon as you get a chance and thus can't be set up with amazing effectiveness] are not as powerful as a single long range one. A 10 square teleport can get you to places it would be nearly impossible to get to otherwise. Even if you could have 2 encounter powers back to back with say 5 squares of teleportation, you can't teleport 5 squares into the air [or 5 squares across an open area] and then teleport the second time so that you end up on solid ground.

Also, wizards are not strikers, mobility isn't the main purpose of a controller, especially one that might be burning his move actions to keep spell effects going and moving them around the battlefield. Having the option of, when the pressure is on, hopping 10 squares away, possibly putting many of your allies, not to mention your sustained magical effects between you and the people coming to get you is huge. Sure, assuming no other conditions, 10 squares is easily a move and charge away for most monsters ... but wizards aren't likely to be in a generic space with no distinguishing features, no allies, no spells going, no conditions placed on the monsters that would make rushing the wizard more difficult, etc, etc, etc.

Considering the entire party needs to move to the location of the next encounter, the ammount of squares the warlock teleported during the fight doesn't really matter that fight. Unless he curses everyone he passes and waits for the party to catch up and kill those people, he's not really getting anywhere with all those teleports. [Compared to the teleportation powers available through rituals or 3E wizards, which can send you MUCH farther, and don't involve a string of walking distance teleports that require something to die adding up to a lot of area travelled without getting you anywhere, except a few times where you'll get across [or out of, or into] a pit or onto a ledge or some other strategic terrain within the encounter area.

EDIT:

Rogue's Great Leap Utility -> You get an AT-WILL, move action that lets you go as far as you want. So, with training you have 5, let's go with a brutal rogue type, so say, +3 for strength [at 1st], and you have the level adjust. At level 2, that's +9 to athletics, meaning you are hitting 10 minimum, 29 maximum, that's 2 to 5 movement at that point.

Fast forward to say level 8. You have +4 for level adjustment, your strength is now giving you +4 as well, with the 5 from training, that's +13, which can become +16 with a single feat. Now you are able to go a minimum of 3 squares, a maximum of 7 squares. Now jumping isn't as good as teleportation, but you can do this over and over again without rest or need to worry about meeting specific conditions. You may have to worry about attacks from people next to you as you leave the square, and you don't get the "line of sight but not line of effect" clause of teleports, but the at-will nature is huge. And, there is always a chance you might want to jump somewhere that you have line of effect but NOT line of sight to.
 
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Teleports will only move you around a room. It is just like walking without the OAs, so it isn't exactly unbalanced. If a character could do it every round then yes it would be.

Plus, as I understand it, they do it by slipping into the Feywild and then slipping back, so it would be completely resonable for a DM to say that, as the crevass exists in the Feywild as well, they cannot use the teleport to bypass it. They would slip into the Feywild, walk over the gap and die in the Feywild. The rest of the party would see him dissappear and never come back.

I was heavly on the WOTC boards and I started a couple of threads saying that they should install this kind of slipping for Fey in general and that was the principle of the movement (only in my version the Fey live in the gap between the land of the living and the land of the dead - because that is how they are said to live - guarding the gates to the afterlife. Halloween is the day when the year is being remade (pagan new year - cyclical - we are basically living the same year over and over) and reality is like a chaotic dreamy mess and the land of the living and the land of the dead are almost mixed together. On that day things can slip through/over - but you must return to your own side before dawn or be trapped for the year. Somewhere along the way that got turned into Feywild and Shadowfell apparently. If it was based on my version it would be Prime Material --> Feywild --> Shadowfell --> Astral Sea)
 
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Plane Sailing

Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
I find myself on KarinsDad's side here - to me, having any class or race that can be teleporting around an essentially limitless number of times a day breaks ranks with all fantasy literature that I've ever read (i.e. pre-1980) and conceptually with all swords and sorcery that I've read or played.

It just doesn't sit well with me. It is going into the land of 'too fantastic'.

And eladrin fey step absolutely obviates climb and jump for many typical low level obstacles - climbs and crevasses. Not to mention bars and grills.

Furthermore, I don't know what kind of game was being played by those who claim that wizards could outdo every other class in 3e, but frankly I never saw the 3e wizard get close to the functionality and survivability of 3e clerics or druids. Yes, there was a problem with casters vs non-casters in 3e relating to what they could potentially accomplish, but that was true for all casting classes (and more so for the divine casters).
 

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