Weapons as Implements. Working as intended?

[DracoSuave]

That article was written by Rob Heinsoo one of the Lead Designers for 4th edition. I guess he is wrong too.

Yeah, since when does a Lead Designer have a clue what the Rules as Intended are?!?

Less facetiously....

Dragon and Storm Sorcerers often make use of this feature, adding keywords to their powers by elemental daggers or staffs, so that they can take advantage of their resistance reduction all the time while maintaining power flexibility.

Stormies take it a step further, often taking nothing but Thunder powers, using a Lightning Staff or Dagger (later a Thunderbolt weapon), so that all their powers except one at-will have Thunder and Lightning... thusly all their powers benefit from Resounding Thunder, Oncoming Storm, Lightning Arc, Solid Sound... and so on. These can add up to have an even greater benefit than Lasting Frost/Wintertouched.

As well, a fire-based arcane character can use a Frost weapon to pull of Lasting Frost/Wintertouched in heroic tier through Arcane Fire. (This also works with cold-based powers and a flame weapon, tho flame is better for raw damage)

IMO, if we ever see a 4.5, there will be a massive overhaul of the weapon/implement division.

But yes, as it stands, the Wizard can definitely do what you're describing.

-O

If by 'massive overhaul' you mean 'make the current system clearer, more concise, and consistant' I'd agree.

If by 'massive overhaul' you mean 'completely divorce implements and weapons' than I'll disagree. I doubt they'll do that, and make 4 or more classes' creation needlessly complex and inelegant by making the same item work in 2 radically different ways.

Creating a swordmage was a nightmare trying to figure out what happened based on what with each individual power, and so many people made so many mistakes because they did what was instinct rather than what interpretations of the rules would have implied.

It makes a lot more sense now, it's simple, and it's elegant. Any replacement would have to do these three things even better, and no suggestion put forth accomplishes that.

 

[ValhallaGH]

No, whenever they mean [W] they say Weapon Damage, Weapon Damage Dice or damage die for this weapon.

Examples: Vorpal Weapon, Ironskin Belt, Rogue Weapon Talent, Killer’s Eye Shadow Assassin Attack 11, Hammer Rhythm, Scimitar Dance, High Crit, ect...

There is also a Dragon article "Sorcerer Essentials" that says you can use a radiant weapon to change your implement attacks to radiant damage. That article was written by Rob Heinsoo one of the Lead Designers for 4th edition. I guess he is wrong too.

Good citations.

I admit my mistake and withdraw further incorrect comments from this discussion.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Unfortunately the rules do seem to work that way, with weapon powers usable on implement attacks.

I was hoping WOTC would clarify this with AVII, but they did not.

But with the shenanigans characters can pull by abusing this, it is not a good subsystem of the rules.

 

[DracoSuave]

Unfortunately the rules do seem to work that way, with weapon powers usable on implement attacks.

I was hoping WOTC would clarify this with AVII, but they did not.

But with the shenanigans characters can pull by abusing this, it is not a good subsystem of the rules.

the alternative was weapon-based characters abusing elemental (i.e. implement-based) feats and items to make themselves better.

It's really better when the road goes both ways.

 

[abyssaldeath]

According to WotC_GregB Weapons as Implements and Implements as Weapons will be in the March update. They couldn't be included in this months update because of time constraints for the CB.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

What about the example in the PHB for the Flaming Weapon?

"
Originally Posted by PHB 226
For
instance, if a paladin uses a flaming sword to attack
with a power that deals radiant damage, the power
deals both fire damage and radiant damage."

Are Paladins special for some reason? For that matter what makes non-martial melee classes so special that the {insert energy type here} Weapons that they get to convert their damage, but implement users don't?

Well, there's one issue with this example. Paladins have attacks that are both weapon, and implement attacks. As do Clerics. And looking in the PHB there's a level 1 power called Radiant Smite that has the weapon keyword, does [W]-type damage and is also radiant. So, unfortunately, the example from the PHB clarifies nothing since they could've easily been talking about changing the Radiant Smite power.

 

[Obryn]

If by 'massive overhaul' you mean 'completely divorce implements and weapons' than I'll disagree. I doubt they'll do that, and make 4 or more classes' creation needlessly complex and inelegant by making the same item work in 2 radically different ways.

Creating a swordmage was a nightmare trying to figure out what happened based on what with each individual power, and so many people made so many mistakes because they did what was instinct rather than what interpretations of the rules would have implied.

It makes a lot more sense now, it's simple, and it's elegant. Any replacement would have to do these three things even better, and no suggestion put forth accomplishes that.

No, I think there would continue to be Weapons used as Implements, but there'd be a stronger firewall between the two kinds of powers. I think one of the overhauls would be with Weapon Focus. I'm still strongly of the opinion that it's an unintended rules loophole, which is nevertheless sufficiently ingrained by now that it's just left open rather than closed. After all, they didn't seem to mind distinguishing Weapon from Implement attacks in the Expertise feats.

-O

 

[Ryujin]

Ah, so now MY character is about to be nerfed too. Our Battlerager was getting annoyed that every update for the last three months had stripped his character of a chunk of his schtick and now I guess my longsword-wielding Warlock is about to get a taste of it too

 

[Pyrex]

Ok, so according to this thread of custserv responses, and to abyssaldeath's reporting of WotC_GregB's comments, this shouldn't work.

So if it doesn't work, and the Staff of Acid and Flame is the model for how this is supposed to work; why do Sorcerers get Daggers natively as an implement when none of them work with his powers?

And, of course, that's completely ignoring the fact that the Sorcerer Essentials article explicitly says it *does* work. :/

 

[Tale]

Ok, so according... to abyssaldeath's reporting of WotC_GregB's comments, this shouldn't work.

The only thing I read from abyssaldeath's comment is that they're going to include an update. An update isn't necessarilly going to end the practice, it just might clarify it.

And the thread on Custserv rulings calls it inconsistent.