D&D 4E Top 5 Encounter Powers That Need Fixing in 4e

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

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[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

To be honest I really don't care WHO says that's the intention, its not.

Are you for real? The people who wrote the power are saying that it was their intention! Post #20 in this thread even has the link to the designer saying so!

 

[satori01]

To be honest I really don't care WHO says that's the intention, its not. .

So if the designer that wrote the power were to come on to the board an unequivocally state that 2-4 attacks WAS his intention....you would still deny that is the intention of the power?

One can argue the power is badly worded or formatted, one can argue the power is badly designed and too powerful, and will be banned or modified for your game. All of these are completely valid.

You must be capable of casting higher (De)illusion spells than I can, because I can not read a clarification of a power given by a WOTC designer and exclaim that the "intention is not the intention".

Calling the power as intended misguided,or stupid is fine. Stating the power as written does not live up to the intention and will be ran as written...fine. Denying what does not fit into your world view....scary...and not really helpful to the rest of us that want to discuss.

 

[shadowoflameth]

What you're missing in this regard is that it can be used out of combat. So, take an hour and heal the whole party without spending surges. Use the power 12 times interspersed with 12 short rests. This is not in-your-face broken like storm of blades but it subverts the entire point of having healing surges which is to provide an expendable resource other than daily powers that is used from combat to combat so that PCs cannot go on forever and so that they can be worn down by successive encounters.

Without the healing surge mechanic, daily powers are the PCs' only consumable resource and PCs can pretty much adventure forever without needing an extended rest.

While some PCs may have 15 healing surges, a lot of PCs only have six or seven. That's a big deal.

Granted, but it is an encounter power isn't it? I'm cought without Arcane Power in front of me, but if you are using it out of combat, you could do it once, then after a short rest do it again. If the party is doing the repeated short rest thing to overcome the healing/rest mechanic then the DM ought to have a consequence ready. It could be the bad guys cought up to you while you were fooling around or as simple as it starts raining and you begin to sink into the mud. It is impossible to find any rest here.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Granted, but it is an encounter power isn't it? I'm cought without Arcane Power in front of me, but if you are using it out of combat, you could do it once, then after a short rest do it again. If the party is doing the repeated short rest thing to overcome the healing/rest mechanic then the DM ought to have a consequence ready. It could be the bad guys cought up to you while you were fooling around or as simple as it starts raining and you begin to sink into the mud. It is impossible to find any rest here.

For this power,the simplest "ruling" would be - it doesn't work outside combat.

 

[Blizzardb]

For this power,the simplest "ruling" would be - it doesn't work outside combat.

When I started DM-ing 4E I was very tempted to apply such houserule to all encounter healing powers, just to avoid "we rest X minutes, so we can use inspiring word Y times" situations (or a similar rule allowing you to use only the inspiring words that remained after the encounter). In the end, I decided to let healing powers work as written, but I would've introduced the rule if there was an encounter healing power requiring no healing surges such as this one.

 

[Obryn]

Bottom line, you live by the cheese, you die by it. When I see a player start to abuse RAW showing something to be broken, I change the context, not the rule. rogue stunning everybody? grey slaad stuns him instead at least in one battle. fighter meet the savage berserker, meet the feyborn medusa, or better, meet the monster with the broken power you demonstrated your rules lawyeriness with last time we played.

I'd rather make sure the powers play well with one another, and not be a vengeful DM.

-O

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

When I started DM-ing 4E I was very tempted to apply such houserule to all encounter healing powers, just to avoid "we rest X minutes, so we can use inspiring word Y times" situations (or a similar rule allowing you to use only the inspiring words that remained after the encounter). In the end, I decided to let healing powers work as written, but I would've introduced the rule if there was an encounter healing power requiring no healing surges such as this one.

Yes, that is really the only issue - it's encounter and doesn't require a surge. It would be too powerful if it allowed the use of a surge in addition to the healing, it would be too weak if it cost a surge but only gave the listed healing, and it is too weak for a daily.

So, the easiest option is to just limit it to its used during combat.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

the problem with rain of blow is:

if you read it as 1 or two attacks it is a really bad encounter power if you don´t happen to have a dagger...

even if you use a spear and do two attacks, it is still lousy, because you have a bit more damage, but no other effect... 2 or 3 seems quite ok.

maybe the easiest fix would be multiplying static damage when you have 2w powers. this way, you have easily nerfed all multi hit powers and fix the problem of mosters having too many hps...

 

[FireLance]

maybe the easiest fix would be multiplying static damage when you have 2w powers. this way, you have easily nerfed all multi hit powers and fix the problem of mosters having too many hps...

Alternatively, just have the secondary attacks of rain of blows deal Strength modifier damage. That means all the bonuses you normally get to damage rolls don't apply to the secondary attacks.