Swordmages and half-orcs hit the streets!

[keterys]

Given the +1 weapon, Int is clearly used for attack and damage in general.

While it might be 1d6+Con thunder for booming blade, it could also be 1d6 + Int, with a +1 Enhancement or focus bonus.

Guess we'll see soon enough how the swordmage works.

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

I can't help but feel as though the Swordmage's challenge complete overwhelms the paladin Divine Challenge. There's no silly jumping through hoops that the paladin has to do, and the Swordmage challenge actually protects someone. It doesn't do a paltry 3+Cha damage. I hope they can find a way to redesign it, or maybe make the Divine Challenge better.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I can't help but feel as though the Swordmage's challenge complete overwhelms the paladin Divine Challenge. There's no silly jumping through hoops that the paladin has to do, and the Swordmage challenge actually protects someone. It doesn't do a paltry 3+Cha damage. I hope they can find a way to redesign it, or maybe make the Divine Challenge better.

I think this is on par with divin challange before it got reworked, since this doesn't have the abuse that divine challange did, it is a little more bang for the buck...but only a little

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

Doing a small amount of damage doesn't protect someone from an attack unless this damage kills the attacker. Preventing damage protects them, it's a form of pre-healing almost. It makes it much better, especially against elites/solos.

Also it has a 10 range once it's in place, and doesn't require the Swordmage to chase the monster around to keep the challenge up. That's another drawback to divine challenge. The monster supposedly is drawn to you, but if it walks away and attacks someone else, you are now drawn to it if you want to bother keeping your mark up.

I agree much of the problems probably stem from the Divine Challenge re-write. But as it stands I would use the Swordmage's Challenge each and every time. The enemy knows what has happened to it so it has two choices A) Recieve an attack penalty and do much less damage, or B) Recieve no penalty, and do full damage.

 

[keterys]

Swordmage's only triggers if the attack hits (which is one vital difference), is potentially of far less consequence when doing an area attack, requires an immediate action, has a range limit on the interrupt, does nothing to stop status effect attacks on allies, etc.

It's not a complete slam dunk.

 

[Silverfox13]

Only has a range of Burst 2 versus 5 for the Paladin

 

[Destil]

I can't help but feel as though the Swordmage's challenge complete overwhelms the paladin Divine Challenge. There's no silly jumping through hoops that the paladin has to do, and the Swordmage challenge actually protects someone. It doesn't do a paltry 3+Cha damage. I hope they can find a way to redesign it, or maybe make the Divine Challenge better.

Eh, Paladins can have their cake and eat it too, though. Check out Hospitaler's Blessing paragon path feature...

 

[Fedifensor]

Ok, so did anyone from Origins feel, or hear anyone else feel otherwise?

I played the LFR preview, and the 3rd level version of the dwarf swordmage was at the table. His mark never really came into play...but that could have just been because the monsters decided to attack him after being marked. Which, after all, is the point.

His AC was equivalent to a fighter in heavy armor with a shield, and he went on Total Defense at least once to hold a choke point. My take is that a swordmage is better defending against a single tough target, while a fighter is the better choice when defending against several targets. The swordmage also has a few AoE powers to go on the attack against small groups of foes.

The swordmage was definitely one of the most effective characters, but that may be in comparison to the other characters. The human wizard was given Cloud of Daggers, Magic Missile, and Ray of Frost as at-will powers...not a single AoE as an at-will. She was also a orb specialist without Sleep. The cleric missed with her encounter powers every time, and the main bad guy had resistance to the damage type of her daily.

 

[Mirtek]

I played the LFR preview, and the 3rd level version of the dwarf swordmage was at the table. His mark never really came into play...but that could have just been because the monsters decided to attack him after being marked. Which, after all, is the point.

His AC was equivalent to a fighter in heavy armor with a shield,

What armor was he wearing? Cloth? Leather?

Heavy fighter + shield is 18 - 19 AC, so with Int-mod of +3 applied two times he need at least leather armor to get to the scale + light shield AC or hide armor to get to the scale + heavy shield AC.

 

[Iron Sky]

Doing a small amount of damage doesn't protect someone from an attack unless this damage kills the attacker. Preventing damage protects them, it's a form of pre-healing almost. It makes it much better, especially against elites/solos.

Have you seen this happen in game with a Paladin you play with?

The small amount of damage my Paladin's mark does has deterred enemies from attacking in all cases except: 1) Where the enemy was mindless, 2) Where the enemy had so many hp that it was willing to take the damage - and this only on OAs, its primary attacks were still on the Paladin.

In play, the divine challenge has been incredibly effective at deterring enemies from attacking anything but the Paladin, especially effective at stopping OAs, and absolutely destructive against undead. My mark's damage has killed two or three undead...

We were fighting on big undead brute that hit for 28 damage one round, then 22 the next vs 2nd level characters. It was on my paladin, but had it been against another player, the undead would have taken 17 damage from the mark each attack(7 + 10 radiant vulnerability). With the swordmage's, assuming 10 reduction, whatever it hit would have taken 18 and 12 damage, still enough to drop anyone not my Paladin, requiring just as many healing words to top off from the cleric, but without the 34 damage done to it. Yes, this is a corner case, but it is an in-game example of divine challenge's potential effectiveness in play.

Of course, you are just your stating opinion. My opinion, based on my experiences with the Paladin's challenge in-play, is that it is not inferior to the Swordmage's in any way. I consider both useful, depending on play preference.