Speculation about "the feelz" of D&D 4th Edition

[Garthanos]

On the otherhand.... with one at-will there is.

 

[Tony Vargas]

On the otherhand.... with one at-will there is.

View attachment 81771

The is Weaponmaster's Strike, yes. I think it illustrates how not to present a simplified fighter pre-build, I'd want to present a list of weapon (groups, I guess), and what you can do special when you attack with them. Just like that. With a power or two like Weaponmaster's strike underlying them.

Simplify the presentation, make it more familiar, keep the underlying consistency and balance.

I'd do the following things to fix Slayer:
Make a power called "Fighter's Strike" - it is a basic attack, usable with either Str or Dex. Dex only with specific weapons. Melee or Ranged. Fighter's Combat Challenge is modified to only work with Fighter's Strike. It is a 1w+stat.

Slayers only gain Utility powers and Fighter's Strike. They do not gain other powers. Ever, even if they take Paragon Paths other than the Slayer's Paragon Path.

They may spend a feat to gain either an encounter power or daily power. With specific weapons, they may use Dex for melee powers.

They get Double Fighter's Strike as a class feature. They may make two Fighter's Strikes instead of one. It does not count as a basic attack when they do this.

Paragon Path gives a 'Weapon Specialization' option. Use a particular weapon, gain kensai-like benefits.

Done. Basically, they're similar to Rangers with Twin Strike, except they don't get the Daily or Encounter powers that Rangers do. They do get +stat twice to damage(ooh!) and can use a big weapon(double ooh!), but Quarry+encounter+daily powers is roughly equivalent. They're straightforward to run, they're optimizable with magic items, but limited in extent of optimization.

They've basically got the complexity of a Champion Fighter in 5e.

You've captured the 5e fighter (and thus 2e fighter) pretty well.

Appalling. ;O

 

[Neonchameleon]

It'd be trivially easy to balance the stances with encounter powers.

Restrict their benefits to basic attacks. Done.

You need to go a bit further than that - you'd still overpower Rain of Blows because it gets the Slayer static damage bonus. On the other hand the Slayer static damage bonus rises at fifth level partly because the Slayer doesn't have a daily power.

and the class features could easily have come in at the same levels as the powers they replaced,

In most cases they did.

Even having MBA-boosting stances and Daily powers would be fine, as long as the stances can only boost basic attacks or movement.

The big problem with most Slayers (and thieves) was the charge-kit.

*add more utility powers to the progression

Hear, hear!

Yes! But with backwards compatibility, so you could transition from choiceless mode without re-building your character! And, so that choosing to play that character didn't put you on a different 'career track,' I suppose...

On the other hand this would make the choiceless track an explicit second-class set of choices. Why do you want to do this?

Not just the slayer, strikers in general. The role doesn't much appeal to me.

There's a running joke in my group that whenever I've played a striker it's ended up as a controller. (A monk, a warlock with a habit of chain-reacting minions, and a former drow priestess gloom-pact hexblade who brought the cloud of darkness down, popped her encounter power, and all anyone outside heard were the screams as the whip struck home).

The Knight was more disappointing.

The knight needs something to prevent forced movement. But other than that I've found it's a great NPC class although I managed to make one hammer-knight build that was fun to play.

But, no, the point is simple options could have been created without monkeywrenching the system as a whole. And, they needn't have been limited to the Fighter & Thief, the Elementalist could have been in HoFK, for instance.

Your alternatives are just as big monkey-wrenches in their way and make balancing actually quite a bit harder. But definitely agreed on the Elementalist (and I was agitating for something of the sort until it came out).

Consistency and balance can fit more such options into a game, at a lower cost in actual complexity.

That depends what you mean by "actual complexity". If we silo off options into what are effectively new classes that share utility powers then they don't add anything like as much combinatorial complexity that makes for a headache to balance as people pick one thing from column A and one thing from column B and end up with the Locate City Bomb (to pick probably the second most egregious example from 3.5).

If you mean complexity in play then it adds very little complexity to any actual game at any actual table because players are only playing one character. The DM doesn't have to worry about all the player's abilities. And neither does any player have to worry about other player options.

This just leaves complexity for optimisers and complexity for people trying to master the totality of the game for theoretical situations. And optimisers like complexity to play with while mastering the totality of the game doesn't help much in play.

Now, imagine if it wasn't only a couple of martial classes that got the simplified treatment? Not only would players not be punished with reduced effectiveness and 'agency' for wanting to play in a simpler style, they wouldn't be punished with reduced choice of character concept, either.

Indeed. You would instead somehow have a massive amount of developer time needed to oversee every single class in the game and check about spammability for very little reward. You can not just arbitrarily say all classes can do this - you need to develop and playtest each separately.

That said, I absolutely agree that the Elementalist should have turned up in HOF* (and replaced the Mage - swapping your implement expertise for a school of specialisation should have been a Dragon thing).

'Need?' Does a game need consistency? What's the payoff for the added complexity of making them arbitrarily different?

That people who otherwise struggle with 4e have a much better time of it. There were two of them at one of my tables.

And if you don't consider being able to have more people enjoying the same game to be a positive result I really don't know what to tell you.

 

[Garthanos]

On the other hand this would make the choiceless track an explicit second-class set of choices. Why do you want to do this?

huh why does that follow... only in optimizer - ville would that follow .... a build that is pretty darn good and evocative doesn't have to inferior regardless of the choices it took to get there. This just seems to be an 3.x land assertion.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My offhand whip use distracts the enemy like a fighters mark and is defendery and joes basic offhand whip use is controllerish and entangles their legs (slowing them save ends but is an encounter use because its price sacrifices the weapon). Or I can do both.

Well, ONE of these can be the default functionality of whip, which will work with BA. The other can be some other power that you acquire in whatever normal way that happens to work well with a whip (and nothing stops you of course from having a series of very similar powers that work with different weapons and produce slightly different effects, or having a single power that has different weapon riders, etc). There's really a lot of ways to add variety.

One of the things I did in HoML was to get rid of the huge laundry lists of different weapons. There are about 15 basic weapons, and a few other 'oddball' ones like whip, garrot, kusarigama, etc. This means that you can now do a lot of work with powers and whatnot to add different sorts of techniques with each one. Instead of weird and impossible 'double axes' and nonsense like that, or endless "its just a cleaver but more bad-assed" and such instead you go out and learn how to MAKE your chosen weapon(s) more bad-assed. Or you can just pick up stuff that is basically "eh, just hit it harder" (IE keys onto BA). Note that while BA buffing can still be a bit nasty since it may happen off-turn or whatnot, you just don't get much with the unaugmented version. The real nice stuff kicks in when you bother to spend some VPs to kick it up a notch.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

huh why does that follow... only in optimizer - ville would that follow .... a build that is pretty darn good and evocative doesn't have to inferior regardless of the choices it took to get there. This just seems to be an 3.x land assertion.

And and even better answer is that the Slayer and Knight ALREADY ARE SECOND CLASS INFERIOR CHOICES. Ever played one at Paragon? How about Epic? An Epic Slayer is just sad sack. I mean, if you really seriously super optimize it, you can ALMOST create a credible Epic Slayer, but you basically need to everything available to make it NOT a Slayer anymore, which is really just reinforcing my point. The 'choiceless' Slayer option plays OK up to about level 12, and after that? Its crap.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You need to go a bit further than that - you'd still overpower Rain of Blows because it gets the Slayer static damage bonus. On the other hand the Slayer static damage bonus rises at fifth level partly because the Slayer doesn't have a daily power.

So, if a Slayer did have a pre-chosen, use-after the attack roll, Daily, it wouldn't need so much static damage bonus, and wouldn't break so easily?

On the other hand this would make the choiceless track an explicit second-class set of choices.

I already is. That's one reason I think it could've been done better.

There's a running joke in my group that whenever I've played a striker it's ended up as a controller. (A monk, a warlock with a habit of chain-reacting minions, and a former drow priestess gloom-pact hexblade who brought the cloud of darkness down, popped her encounter power, and all anyone outside heard were the screams as the whip struck home).

Supposedly the Warlock was originally a controller and not all of it's powers were re-written to reflect the change...

The knight needs something to prevent forced movement. But other than that I've found it's a great NPC class although I managed to make one hammer-knight build that was fun to play.

I like using companion characters or monster stat block write-ups for NPCs, but I could see that, certainly.

Your alternatives are just as big monkey-wrenches

They're just vague ideas, not like they're designs that've been playtested.

in their way and make balancing actually quite a bit harder.

I'd expect the opposite if they were done professionally. Just sticking to the structure should make balance easier.

That depends what you mean by "actual complexity".

The overall complexity of the game. The learning curve to become comfortable with it. The chores involved in running it. The moments of disequilibrium when players just don't get it.

Indeed. You would instead somehow have a massive amount of developer time needed to oversee every single class in the game and check about spammability for very little reward.

I don't think letting people play the type of character they want in spite of a benign playstyle preference is a small reward, especially when it comes to accommodating new players.

But definitely agreed on the Elementalist (and I was agitating for something of the sort until it came out).
I absolutely agree that the Elementalist should have turned up in HOF* (and replaced the Mage - swapping your implement expertise for a school of specialisation should have been a Dragon thing).

Nod. Think one simplified martial sub-class/pre-build, one arcane (like the elementalist), one divine, one psionic, etc...

more people enjoying the same game to be a positive result

I was thinking of exactly that sort of positive result, yes. Maybe the choiceless martial classes did that for some players, but, I think they could have done it for /more/ if they'd not all been martial, and had all been done in a more consistent way, that left open the possibility of transitioning organically to more choice if the player ever felt the itch to do so.

I also, cynic that I am, don't really believe that the martial sub-classes were done that way in HotFL just to create simple new-player/training wheel classes. My sense of it is that they were primarily to make those classes more familiar to returning players, and restore the martial/caster double-standard. Thus the fighter and rogue Essentials-only options were stripped of choice, options and flexibility in HotFL, while the wizard was powered up with Errata and the Mage and subsequent Wizard sub-classes all added to Wizard spells until it had more powers than any other class.

Like I said. Cynical.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

@Neonchameleon: I get what you're driving at, and I agree with a lot of it. I enjoy the essentials classes, in general. I have a hard time choosing between the warlock and hexblade, and between the assassin and executioner. I love the scout/hunter's wilderness knacks and the Thief's movement tricks, and the Skald is one of my favorite parts of 4e.

But, I don't think that anything those classes accomplished had to be accomplished without real compatibility, and I don't think hat literally anything was gained by making them so incompatible.

OTOH, I disagree with [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] about the need for them to have precisely the same structure, and the idea that the essentials classes should have just been a "pre-built" build of heir class. I think a little variation of structure is fine, and stuff like stances instead of daily powers is great. But why not let a PHB fighter choose Power Attack, let a Slayer or Knight pick normal encounter powers, and identify and solve for any obvious abuse potential?

i mean bring up Rain of Blows all you want, but the three E-Fighters I've had in my group that took power swap options to ditch power attack (we dropped the feat requirement) took other powers, and the interaction that makes stances+RoB broken could have been addressed! It isn't worthy of restricting the versatility of the classes as much as they did just to avoid the combo.

 

[Neonchameleon]

huh why does that follow... only in optimizer - ville would that follow .... a build that is pretty darn good and evocative doesn't have to inferior regardless of the choices it took to get there. This just seems to be an 3.x land assertion.

Optimizer-ville is a land with very loosely defined boundaries. And unless you give bonuses for sticking with the whole package either you have to min-max to a razor's edge your pregens or there will always be something better at some levels that sticks out like a sore thumb due to the modular package.

I'm very much in favour of the "Free utility power for picking a pre-gen package" option.

So, if a Slayer did have a pre-chosen, use-after the attack roll, Daily, it wouldn't need so much static damage bonus, and wouldn't break so easily?

Indeed. It would also add overhead to the Slayer for the players the Slayer is a good match for, making the Slayer a lot less good at serving players under-served by most normal character classes.

I like using companion characters or monster stat block write-ups for NPCs, but I could see that, certainly.

The knight feels like it was made to mesh with a party in the way most other classes weren't - and most soldiers don't make good defenders. It's boring to play but is very good to play off with for example provoke tactics.

The overall complexity of the game. The learning curve to become comfortable with it. The chores involved in running it. The moments of disequilibrium when players just don't get it.

The overall complexity is not that different. The chores are almost entirely unaffected. The learning curve? As I have already explained repeatedly I have seen multiple players who did not really get characters in two years of 4e take to Slayers, Hunters, and Scouts like a duck to water.

To use a metaphor you are complaining that adding a wheelchair ramp makes buildings less accessible because the guides have more to remember when showing people around and many people find walking up stairs easier than walking up a ramp.

I don't think letting people play the type of character they want in spite of a benign playstyle preference is a small reward, especially when it comes to accommodating new players.

And yet you really don't like them having access to characters that fit them in the form of a slayer or a scout?

And when I say a lot of developer time I mean a lot. We're talking about doubling the design time for just about every class.

Nod. Think one simplified martial sub-class/pre-build, one arcane (like the elementalist), one divine, one psionic, etc...

Aaargggh!!!

What is a psionic character supposed to do? What is a divine character supposed to do? To have a simple character working effectively you need a simple concept. The Slayer is a simple concept. The elementalist (blasts people with their element) is a simple concept. The power source is a second order concept that unifies various themes.

This isn't to say that you can't have a simple psionic character. Both a telepath and a telekinetic could work (although both of them can easily be created as hacks of the elementalist). And there's a lot of room for reworking to get a simpler shapeshifter druid. But to get simple working you need to start with high concept.

I was thinking of exactly that sort of positive result, yes. Maybe the choiceless martial classes did that for some players, but, I think they could have done it for /more/ if they'd not all been martial, and had all been done in a more consistent way, that left open the possibility of transitioning organically to more choice if the player ever felt the itch to do so.

Once again you are trying to set up some people as second class citizens. If you look at my personal irritant of a class, the (Essentials) Hunter, try counting the number of At Will attack options the Hunter has. Two stances, multiplied by five at will attacks (Aimed Shot, Rapid Shot, three separate variations of Clever Shot (Slow/Prone/Push)). And yet. For some people playing the Hunter is a lot more natural than playing a classic Ranger to the point that when I respecced a twin-striking archer ranger with strong power pics into a Hunter for someone after about six months of play he suddenly got a lot more effective and a lot more comfortable with the game.

Yes, I just said that a twin-striking ranger became more effective when they were turned into an Essentials Hunter. Mathematically this should not be. But I have seen it happen - a poor tool you understand is frequently better than a good one you don't. (And their turns taking about half the time was another bonus).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Once again you are trying to set up some people as second class citizens.

I'm bubbling this to the top, because it's exactly what I see Essentials as having done, and I'm talking about ways it could have avoided doing so.

Essentials-only punishes a player for wanting to play a fighter or rogue.

Essentials-only punishes a player for wanting a smaller or simpler set of choices at chargen/level-up, and in play.

In part, it does so because it conflates the two.

What is a psionic character supposed to do? What is a divine character supposed to do? To have a simple character working effectively you need a simple concept.

Think about the rogue concept, for a moment - a cunning opportunist, an expert in multiple skills, who tricks and outmaneuvers enemies to get it lethal surprise attacks. Is that a /simple/ concept? I mean, compared to "I can bast stuff with fire," for instance.
No.

But D&D had this pervasive stereotype that interesting options came only with magic, and when it defied that stereotype, and reined in magic while building up martial options, expectations weren't met.

The Slayer is a simple concept. The elementalist (blasts people with their element) is a simple concept.

The rogue isn't. The Psion and Ardent aren't, but a Telekinetic or Pyrokinetic (shades of the elementalist, there) could be. Cleric isn't a simple concept, it's not even an intuitive genre concept, but a weird D&Dism. But a healer could be (though, like the Pacifist cleric, could be hard to make workable and worthwhile). 0

And there's a lot of room for reworking to get a simpler shapeshifter druid.

Hadn't thought of that. Hm.

If you look at my personal irritant of a class, the (Essentials) Hunter, try counting the number of At Will attack options the Hunter has. Two stances, multiplied by five at will attacks (Aimed Shot, Rapid Shot, three separate variations of Clever Shot (Slow/Prone/Push)). And yet. For some people playing the Hunter is a lot more natural than playing a classic Ranger

That seems to contradict the whole point you made before about pre-attack decisions being the critical issue, speaking of which...

Indeed. It would also add overhead to the Slayer for the players the Slayer is a good match for, making the Slayer a lot less good at serving players under-served by most normal character classes.

It doesn't add decision points ahead of making an attack, and the overhead is ticking off one to three uses of a daily that you can decide to use on a miss. You don't even have to choose between it and the encounter power attack that's available on a hit. That seems to fit the desired sort of simplicity you laid out, minimizing multiple-option decision points and eliminating analysis paralysis. And the game is back to being consistent, so practical to balance over a wider range and easier for new players to learn - and combined with similar simplified pre-builds in each source, the desire for a simpler decision tree at chargen no longer makes you a second-class citizen.

Another thing I think might have worked better in Essentials would have been to map utilities to skill choices. So, you choose a skill, and your utilities (skill powers, hopefully with some out-of-combat utility) just map to that. Stances, I suppose, would be another option or pre-built utility choices, or at-will utilities like pass-forward, lest uses need to be ticked off again, maybe?