The vampire starts with just 2 healing surges

[Aegeri]

I'm starting to come to the conclusion that surge-burning skill challenges are just way more common in your games than the norm, Aegeri - they're certainly quite rare in all the groups I've played in, but you seem to be working from the assumption that there will be one a session (or maybe even more).

I don't have 1/session (except in my Dark Sun game) but they are actually decently common in adventures (Dungeon included). Checking many LFR adventures there are numerous examples of such skill challenges. They are also present in official modules (Tomb of Horrors) and traps are also another common way of losing surges. Trap based adventures like Tomb of Horrors emphasize that very well.

Given that I base a lot of what I do encounter wise on official modules - without the long linear hackathon dungeons of course - I disagree with your assessment. The Dark Sun Encounters series also had a few surge draining skill challenges to. So did some previous seasons of encounters (I have not played the recent one to know though).

Perhaps you're underestimating how often they might occur Especially given that to a vampire, a trap is just as bad anyway and there are more than a few trap only encounters in 4E (Keep on the Shadowfells Statue room is a good example).

 

[IanB]

Certainly it is possible that the games I've played in are the non-norm, but even so it strikes me as something that will come up less often than, say, the fighter being screwed over by lack of useful ranged attacks, and we don't generally consider the fighter (or barbarian, or str-paladin, etc.) deeply flawed.

 

[Aegeri]

Certainly it is possible that the games I've played in are the non-norm, but even so it strikes me as something that will come up less often than, say, the fighter being screwed over by lack of useful ranged attacks, and we don't generally consider the fighter (or barbarian, or str-paladin, etc.) deeply flawed.

Fighters can get easy ways around that, such as having a simple magic handaxe with the skyrender property or similar. I have had one hilariously bad encounter, it would be in the top 10 worst encounters I ever ran in 4E with a bramble witch (IIRC). The creature immobilized all the melee characters away from it and kept them there. While the Wizard/Sorcerer had a total off day. Due to everyone being resistant to necrotic by a power it meant the druid chipped away at them 3 points of damage a turn (this was pre-MM3 at paragon tier btw).

It was in many ways kind of funny, but it didn't get anyone anywhere for a long time. It took nearly an hour to kill the thing and I was very tempted to just automatically explode the creature numerous times.

Also in fairness to your point, the fighter is less worried about a flying creature because the wizard can knock it prone then he can attack it. The vampire is uniquely screwed by skill challenges and traps, because his entire class is built around getting back surges from encounters. Durable solves this because it's impossible to have a bad day matter anywhere near as much. You could lose 3 surges going into an encounter and still not be too bad. Lose 3 surges from 2 and go into an encounter, then have a couple of rounds of "off day" rolling and that's the end of you. That's why I commented that it is hilariously swingy, but that durable fixes the swingyness. Additionally the +2 surges are almost like increasing your striker mechanics - able to burn surges for damage/extra attacks really safely/reliably helping you keep up with other strikers. Vampires need all the help they can get there, so durable is almost the most important feat in the game for them.

Personally I think if a vampire started on 4 surges that would have been a lot better than 2. I haven't seen the vampire romp all over any encounters with 4 surges (even 5 once you get the PP). They actually come up to "par" with extra surges to burn and have some interesting mechanics - but again you really need the surges to burn (and 2 is way too little). I guess it's just more bizarre design to me from Wizards (much like the shade) where I don't understand the logic behind the penalty. In play with 2 surges the swingyness is crippling - but you get durable or whatever they play really well. They're also not going to be uniquely screwed by skill challenges or traps anymore, which again makes me wonder what the point of the 2 surges was. They aren't exceptionally powerful in any way or manner, as with surges to burn they deal roughly decent level striker damage for more effort than a thief/slayer/scout/rogue/barbarian does. With extra surges they do become ridiculously resilient, but that's more than accounted for by having a huge and obvious achilles heel that any DM can take advantage of. Incidentally I'm not talking about the silly sunlight thing, which is itself is another example of wizards absolutely schizophrenic design with this class.

 

[WalterKovacs]

It definitely sounds like it to me. What is your build? Because my experience with paragon+ Oassassins is they are practically useless. While I have found that Rogues simply become amazing and Rangers are practically on auto. Unless both of those characters have made absolutely terrible decisions, I can't see how the Oassassin could outdamage them. Unless you're heavily charopped and they are not - which I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

In the case of the ranger, he's horribly designed.

The rogue (pre changing to essentials) was ok. He had backstabber, and daggermaster, and knockout. He was able to do some good damage on occaision, but the PC is played a bit ... risk averse. So he doesn't get C/A every round. [He is now a thief who has that problem solved.]

As for my Ossassin, it's a changeling with 22 Dex, 20 Cha and is using the bonus damage vs. isolated target build. It's got a shadowblade, iron armbands of power and bloodied guantlets. More importantly, it's multiclassed into rogue, and has both "extra shroud" feats (the generic "get an extra shroud this round" feat, and the "get a shroud when you changeling trick"). So, on the first or second round of each fight, I ussually drop a 3d8+7d6+28 on a target, with the attack being against Reflex and, thanks to c/a, being about +21 to hit. Once per day, with the marked for death daily (and an action point) I'm able to put all four shrouds on a target two turns in a row (my feat enabling 2 ways to do 2 per turn, and each shroud counting double). Often if I'm "out" of easy ways to drop extra shrouds I'll build up shrouds while turning into a pseudo defender with the garotte daily. It does help as well that (a) our party has 3 exceptionally stealthy people and (b) I have the daily utilty to make the entire party stealthy and (c) I took the admitedly 'weak' feat that makes my shrouds unnoticed to people who can't see me. So on a few occaisions, I've been able to build up shrouds before the encounter started, and once or twice was even able to shroud up and coup de gras a sleeping target.

Admitedly, I've seen some powerful strikers, but in terms of damage available every encounter (crit or not), he does have a solid spike. Then again, I would gladly switch him over to the Executioner variant, as the 1/encounter spike is simplified greatly, and the garotte power is made more available. As far as shade form goes, I don't really use it that often, but then, we don't end up with radiant powers thrown at us too often either.

The Ossassin, had it been a vampire, would have been toast at the start of the game though, as we had a skill challenge where I failed at every edurance check costing me surges. It wasn't that my endurance were bad, it was my dice.

 

[Aegeri]

I can see how that works actually. I love the irony of making a combination of a poor class and one of the worst supported races work well though! Kudos to that. Albeit I am not surprised to see all the tricks that everyone else can pretty much do to boost damage (Rogue MC has to be one of the best for non-rogue striker, which uses light blades) and the rogue changing to thief will make his life much easier (thieves plain autoplay themselves). At the same time, to show my original point about the oAssassin your damage isn't actually that much more than what the executioner in my Dark Sun game is doing. Bearing in mind he is a lot worse off for equipment as well. His first starting encounter nova is:

Rapier + Surprising Charge (one of the bst feats ever)

2d8 + 1d8 (attack finesse) + 2d10 (Assassin's Strike) + 5 (dex) + 1 (enhancement) + 2 (Flaming Bracers) + 1d6 (Elemental Boon) + 2d6 (sneak attack) + 1d10 (another triggered on hit fire power) + 4 (poison) = 3d8+3d6+3d10+10 = 50 damage or so.

Due to heroic effort, charging and having CA from cunning stalker that tends to hit 95% of the time. Unless he rolls a 1, just to reroll it due to reckless breakage (DO THIS MORE PCS IN MY GAME).

Your nova does 66 damage average (assuming those are all the relevant numbers you put up), I'll assume it gets pretty high % wise as well (actually 95% to be consistent in my assumptions here). So you will out damage him - but look at the difference. The thing is you are level 12 and he's level... 5. Plus he hasn't got anywhere near the equipment choices (though I make sure my PCs get items that help them, in this case items he can use to add some extra damage). Technically there is also the conditional death strike, which usually (and very hilariously) commonly ends up 1-2 HP from actually working. Though that will fix itself with a higher static bonus. I don't really know how to calculate that into his DPR to be honest but it would raise it a bit again.

So he's actually not far off you and has under half your level. This kind of shows just how far off the mark the oAssassin was. Bearing in mind his equipment and weapon choices are much more restricted due to Dark Sun being quite restrictive on magic items. I don't know what he'll do between level 5 and level 12 of course, but depending on his PP he's going to get a pretty big boost to that damage.

It's actually already scaring me to think about what he might end up accomplishing on a critical hit...

The Ossassin, had it been a vampire, would have been toast at the start of the game though, as we had a skill challenge where I failed at every edurance check costing me surges. It wasn't that my endurance were bad, it was my dice.

It's interesting to me you pointed this out, because this is pretty much the argument I made some time ago in the thread. At the same time you *surely* would have taken durable and if you lost more than 4 surges in that skill challenge - well there are bad days and then there are bad days.

Edit: Just to reiterate this, it's a bad day like Walter describes that can make or break a low level vampire particularly hard. This is why I do make a lot of emphasis that durable is really quite a game changer for the class. Even people who agree with me who dislike the vampire, should give them a fair shot with durable as a feat choice. It might just work out!

 

[Grabuto138]

I am honestly baffled by this most recent exchange regarding the Vampire.

In my experience D&D is a collabrative hobby. All the "woulda/shoulda/coulda" walls of text don't recognize that most DMs would run an adventure with the knowledge that a Vampire was in the party and would adjust accordingling to make sure everyone had fun. D&D adventures don't just happen on their own as spontaneous forces of nature. People get together for the sake of having fun.

You won't find Thri-keens or Muls in our game. Right now we are doing a stylized "Age of Sail" game kind of in Eberron where the Korvaire people are the colonialists, the Dragon Marked houses are essentially the trading companies, the elves and tieflings are the natives and the party is in the process of encouraging a slave rebellion among the elves on a distant island. A Vampire could probably fit. A Shardmind has no place here. Sorry Shardmind, move along.

That stupid Bladeling thing? Why do you exist, exactly? I can see a cool campaign that includes the Shadar-kai. Not this one, though. Freakin' Wilden? What role does that fill that the shifters and elves don't already occupy? As a player my favorite class by far is the Taclord but I just can't get my head around the Genasi enough to play one. I don't get them.

But many of you do. It is great that people have the option and I like options. If they don't fit don't allow them. The more options, the less painful eliminating one option is.

But by God I freakin' hate the Bladeling. That is the one thing that is so stupid I can't forgive. But if you want to play one and you have a roleplaying hook I would probably make it work.

 

[Incenjucar]

Well-designed classes generally don't force the DM to do any extra work.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Well-designed classes generally don't force the DM to do any extra work.

NOT running a ton of encounters that are just traps with no monsters and skill challenges that eat surges is extra work?

Then again, a player should also know what kind of campaign they are getting into. A slayer would also do poorly in that campaign, as unlike a number of other strikers he doesn't get a bunch of skills, and utility powers, that would be useful in all these trap/skill challenge encounters.

A vampire is something that isn't just about to pop up anywhere. I did say a player can play a drow vampire in my Dark Sun campaign if he really wants to, but he has to be named Ash. As in Pile of.

Regardless, a DM should at least know what his party is like AND a player should know what the DM and/or campaign world is like. A Charisma based Paladin may be solid in an expected fight, but when he finds out the party is spending most of it's time fighting at sea, the "no strength, no athletics, plate armor and heavy shield" suddenly doesn't seem like such a good idea. [The vampire, on the other hand, doen't care if he sinks to the bottom of the ocean, he can't suffocate].

 

[Aegeri]

All the "woulda/shoulda/coulda" walls of text don't recognize that most DMs would run an adventure with the knowledge that a Vampire was in the party and would adjust accordingling to make sure everyone had fun.

You know this is a really interesting point you bring up. The vampire has its advantages, but as I've mentioned several times it has some specific disadvantages as well that really penalize the class considerably. These disadvantages uniquely penalize the vampire a lot and make those encounters considerably more lethal than they are for - well - just about anyone else. The question you've raised is interesting: If a class is poorly designed for a significant part of the game, should I change the game to fix the poorly designed class or fix the poor designed class' issue?

Personally I prefer to think that when nothing else in the game is as uniquely susceptible to these things: The problem is the class. I am not going to design the game differently because Wizards makes a poorly designed class. Instead, I'll try to fix the actual problem or find a solution. It turns out that durable is a really viable solution. Another solution - a soft one at that - is to pace encounters/skill challenges with a very easy encounter (or soft enemies that can be easily hit) before or immediately after. Letting the vampire easily regain surges that may have been lost before they would run into trouble or get them out of it. This is something I often do anyway, just in case PCs suffer a bad day from the trap or skill challenge in the first place. The previous shipwreck encounter -> Skill Challenge -> Trapped Room of Doom was followed by an EL-2 encounter. Not enough to threaten the PCs, but could be hairy if they had a bad day on any of the three elements before hand. For a vampire a soft encounter like that would be almost perfect to get back on their feet and again, I designed that well before I even knew Wizards would release a class that worked like the vampire*.

But of course you can just have a bad day. For most classes this is just a session spent frustrated. The problem with the core of the vampires design is this is a session spent making a new character. Because without durable, when the vampire goes wrong it goes really wrong. It's also very frustrating for the party leader to have to heal a guy from unconscious for a whole 1 HP. Only to just to go down again and anyone who has seen a leader have to do this, knows how frustrating it is for the players in question.

In the end, I won't design the game differently just because of the vampire. The vampire will have to live with the considerable in built disadvantage and find a workaround. It does exist and even if it didn't, I would certainly houserule the vampire to 4 surges or something similar anyway if a PC wanted to play one.

*Edit: Sometimes I do like to think I am psychic.

 

[Grabuto138]

Well-designed classes generally don't force the DM to do any extra work.

Unless you are talking RPGA adventures I am not sure what you mean.

The "outlaw biker" party I DMed for a while back was fun. A Warforged STR Cleric, A Dwarf big-ass hammer Fighter, a half-orc brutal Rogue, A gnoll charging Barbarian and a shifter two-weapon Ranger.

They were melee gods but at range absolutely useless. Since we all got together to have fun and stuff I created encounters that challenged them, let them play to their strengths, challenged their weaknesses (with environmental events that might make the battlefield even) and otherwise made it fun for everyone.

Are you honestly suggesting that the ideal is that any assemblage of character should be able to plug into any adventure? What is the DM for?