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

[RangerWickett]

Should we make a list of overpowered Daily Powers? Because I could name a few. The Twiceborn Leader's level 12 utility stance that lets him and an ally both roll twice for each of their attacks whenever they're within 5 squares of each other.

 

[tmatk]

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I think the tempus is an overpowered feat - wotc has said in the past they toss a couple of spells in that are broken to help sell books... i think this is that feat.

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I

Whoa really? Link?

edit - Oh, i see you answered. But no link.

 

[cdrcjsn]

Yep

I believe it was an interview with one of the designers of Races of the Dragon about Mighty Wallop the spell being too powerful and they said something to that extent.

That design philosophy was in 3e. It was called system mastery and is basically found in Magic the Gathering as well. The basic premise is that those with the most rules knowledge gain the most from the rules by being able to create combos that are more powerful than the average player can figure out.

This is 4e though. The design philosophy mentioned above was actually one of the things the designers spoke out against in the early days when they were talking about the decisions for a new edition, and was one of the reasons for making the game more open and transparent with the math behind the mechanics.

 

[blargney the second]

I'm certain the interview in question was about Magic the Gathering. They were saying that they purposely put some cards that are better than others in each set. It makes much more sense in the context of a collectible card game.
-blarg

 

[Wrathamon]

I dont want to detract from the OP topic so lets keep it to...

the TOP 5 Encounter Powers that you feel that unbalanced play

 

[Jools]

If somebody qualified wants to make a different thread of the top 5 broken dailies, that'd be awesome.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

That design philosophy was in 3e. It was called system mastery and is basically found in Magic the Gathering as well. The basic premise is that those with the most rules knowledge gain the most from the rules by being able to create combos that are more powerful than the average player can figure out.

This is 4e though. The design philosophy mentioned above was actually one of the things the designers spoke out against in the early days when they were talking about the decisions for a new edition, and was one of the reasons for making the game more open and transparent with the math behind the mechanics.

It's probably a lot more accurate to say that "system mastery" is how the marketers of 4th edition decided to tell the designers to retroactively characterize the 3.x design philosophy. The designers fed us a lot of nonsense that no thinking person has any business believing in the early days of the runup to 4th edition.

Anyone remember how characters were going to be defined by their class abilities and items wouldn't matter much? They would basically be flavor. One book after the 4th edition core books, everyone was running around with iron armbands of power reckless and bloodclaw (or subtle) weapons and off-hand staffs of ruin. Yeah, they delivered on that one.

How about there no longer being bad powers? Compare careful attack to twin strike some time. Or Turning Point to inspiring war cry. Or Forward Observer to guileful switch. Or for a resourceful warlord, war of attrition to stirring force. (For an inspiring warlord, you want to compare phalanx assault to war of attrition). It seems like there are proportionally as many bad powers in 4th edition as there were bad spells in 3.x. Another instance of hype delivered... not.

Now, if you want to discuss system mastery as putting together combos... well, that might as well be the whole point of 4th edition. Putting together a combo of powers that do more together than they would individually is the key skill of 4th edition play. What's more, while in 3.x you could buy off that bandwagon by playing a barbarian, making the obvious choices and doing your job pretty much as well as any other barbarian, 4th edition offers no escape from system mastery. The barbarian, as much as any other class has to select his powers to work together and use them synergisticly.

So, it may be that designing deliberately overpowered spells and feats was a WotC marketing choice designed to sell more books. (Presumably to 3.x players of clerics and druids and to 4th edition fans of Str/Con fighters and barbarians). If so, there is no reason to believe it other than the self-congratulatory pre-release posts of a bunch of designers with a financial interest in making you believe 3.x was unplayable but 4th edition would be perfect. 4th edition carries the exact same features that were supposed to be a hallmark of that philosophy.

 

[Cadfan]

It's probably a lot more accurate to say that "system mastery" is how the marketers of 4th edition decided to tell the designers to retroactively characterize the 3.x design philosophy. The designers fed us a lot of nonsense that no thinking person has any business believing in the early days of the runup to 4th edition.

Sorry, but the system mastery issue and the related WotC quotes (see designer quotes about feats like Toughness, etc) were around long before 4e was even a rumor. It did gain a new lease on life of its own once 4e was announced and WotC announced an intention to eskew that design philosophy, but it wasn't new. The original quotes date from a time period when system mastery (as in knowing which feats not to take because they suck) was considered a positive trait.

 

[Saeviomagy]

How about there no longer being bad powers? Compare careful attack to twin strike some time.

Prior to expansion books, the difference between the two at low levels(at least) is fractions of a point of damage per round across some of the range of possible target acs.

Careful attack is an example of bad maths and late mechanic changes (take a look at how much the numbers fluctuated through previews). It's just that noone recognised/accepted that on a fundamental level either twin strike or careful attack would have to be more powerful than the other.

Furthermore, in later books it seems that they have indeed aimed for power creep. But you'd have to be incompetent to think that filling every RPGA event with fun-destroying munchkins is a good strategy for growing your market. I think the more egregious examples of imbalance are just more bad design and rushed deadlines.

There's a general rule that fixes all the multi-hit powers: bonuses only apply on the first damage roll of a power.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

From what I can tell system mastery is still way in. Obviously, since threads such as this wouldn't exist anymore.