# At-will class powers ruining my archetypes



## Sadrik (Feb 24, 2009)

Class at-will powers suffer from being too at-will. The image of the wizard eventually knocking down a wall by magic missiling it endlessly escapes my believability standards. At least martial characters can theoretically dull their axe or explicitly run out of ammo with their at-will powers. 

A vanilla attack is supposed to be you basic attack and because of the game's design your at-wills are your vanilla attacks. Regardless of which attack they are, vanilla attacks become dull after 12 rounds of combat. Would removing class at-will powers make magic missile or reaping strike any more cool, say if they were moved to encounter powers at 21st level ability? Of course they become cooler because they don't happen every round and hey they are buffed up a bit too.

At-will powers are a limitation of the game system by my estimation. They make a lot of assumptions chiefly, you will always be attacking with your highest stat always. 

The concern is that if this is altered, it may collapse the game and no one will hit or do a proper amount of damage to contribute in a meaningful way to combat.

In previous editions, not always attacking with your highest stat was not a very bad thing. Base attacks were based upon strength or dexterity only. So you knew that if you were going to be shooting a bow or swinging a sword you needed strength or dexterity at least a little. Additionally, you know that the "to-hit" rate for your spells was much higher than it is now (saving throws were relatively easily failed). You could afford a compromise on your stat line and spread it out and take two 16's or even a 16 and several 14's and still be competent. Now you need an 18 or 20 to be competent and you don't necessarily need strength or dexterity. 

So what would the effect of removing the at-wills be? It would change character creation for sure. It may make characters invest in strength or dexterity more, when they normally would not have. This will lower the primary stat to do so (unless of course you have a class that needs one of those stats). Doing this may alter the 50% to hit rate assumption and make it more difficult to be competent.

A positive effect is that it will open up design for character types that are sub-par in the current rule set. For instance, a common character at my game table in previous editions was the elf cleric archer of correlon. This character was a dex and wis based character. Not a very viable build now. I mean, what would a cleric be doing with a bow let alone a high dex. A ranged cleric is a lazer cleric pure and simple and that only requires wisdom, and a very high wisdom at that to be effective. With making basic attacks the standard instead of lazers and reaping strikes, it says, "Ok I can make an archer cleric because I am not _losing_ anything for doing it." Thus it opens up many more character concepts than were previously available. Again this is just one of the positive effects of making at-wills into encounter powers.

So should there be a basic at-will attack for each class so they can maximize their single bloated stat in combat? I say no. What do you say?

Much of this is taken from this thread here.


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## Obryn (Feb 24, 2009)

Let me start near the end...


Sadrik said:


> For instance, a common character at my game table in previous editions was the elf cleric archer of correlon. This character was a dex and wis based character. Not a very viable build now. I mean, what would a cleric be doing with a bow let alone a high dex. A ranged cleric is a lazer cleric pure and simple and that only requires wisdom, and a very high wisdom at that to be effective. With making basic attacks the standard instead of lazers and reaping strikes, it says, "Ok I can make an archer cleric because I am not _losing_ anything for doing it." Thus it opens up many more character concepts than were previously available. Again this is just one of the positive effects of making at-wills into encounter powers.



I'll disagree on this point, first.  Elf cleric archers are very, very good in 4e.  Add a Ranger multiclass, and they're pretty amazing.

Yes, clerics have ranged powers.  However, those ranges are generally 5 - which is kinda short, really.

When I ran an Elf Cleric Archer, I didn't use the bow _most_ of the time, but I used it plenty.

Now, continuing from the start...


> Class at-will powers suffer from being too at-will. The image of the wizard eventually knocking down a wall by magic missiling it endlessly escapes my believability standards. At least martial characters can theoretically dull their axe or explicitly run out of ammo with their at-will powers.



There aren't any rules for dulling your axe on a wall.  That's a ruling, not a rule.

If you can make a ruling on dulling your axe or breaking your hammer, you can make a ruling about "fatigue" or what have you from over-casting - or alternately make a ruling that magic missiles just don't do that.



> A vanilla attack is supposed to be you basic attack and because of the game's design your at-wills are your vanilla attacks. Regardless of which attack they are, vanilla attacks become dull after 12 rounds of combat. Would removing class at-will powers make magic missile or reaping strike any more cool, say if they were moved to encounter powers at 21st level ability? Of course they become cooler because they don't happen every round and hey they are buffed up a bit too.



So, let me see if I get this right...

(1) Doing your at-will attack for 12 rounds is boring.
(2) Firing a crossbow or doing simple swings with your sword for 12 rounds is somehow _not_ boring.

I'm perplexed.  If you remove at-will powers, your basic attacks _become_ your at-wills.  Basic attacks do less interesting stuff and have less overall potency than at-wills.  What's more, the structure of 4e basically means that classes are defined primarily by their powers.  At-will powers are one way that your fighter or ranger will always play differently from your swordmage or cleric.



> In previous editions, not always attacking with your highest stat was not a very bad thing. Base attacks were based upon strength or dexterity only. So you knew that if you were going to be shooting a bow or swinging a sword you needed strength or dexterity at least a little. Additionally, you know that the "to-hit" rate for your spells was much higher than it is now (saving throws were relatively easily failed). You could afford a compromise on your stat line and spread it out and take two 16's or even a 16 and several 14's and still be competent. Now you need an 18 or 20 to be competent and you don't necessarily need strength or dexterity.



So basically this primarily works to benefit classes which already need Strength & Dexterity...?  I think there's a broader and more far-reaching effect than you anticipate.


As for the rest, I noticed that you don't seem to be talking about _all_ at-wills.  You didn't mention, for instance, any melee-type At-Wills.  Really, what you were looking at were the magical ranged at-wills, at least as far as I saw.  Is this a coincidence?

-O


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## Jhaelen (Feb 24, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Class at-will powers suffer from being too at-will. The image of the wizard eventually knocking down a wall by magic missiling it endlessly escapes my believability standards. At least martial characters can theoretically dull their axe or explicitly run out of ammo with their at-will powers.



According to the rules, axes don't get dull.

If you're prepared to rule that axes will get dull after a while, what's keeping you from ruling that magic missiles 'get dull', as well?

You can explain this effect by either stating that you get diminishing returns after using the same spell over and over on the same target or by the wizard eventually getting mentally exhausted.


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## Cadfan (Feb 24, 2009)

I'm going to disagree with you a bunch, then agree with you a little bit at the bottom.  So read to that part before you respond.



Sadrik said:


> Class at-will powers suffer from being too at-will. The image of the wizard eventually knocking down a wall by magic missiling it endlessly escapes my believability standards. At least martial characters can theoretically dull their axe or explicitly run out of ammo with their at-will powers.



Add a small amount of realism.  Look, the rules aren't going to spell out everything.  The Fighter can theoretically chop down a castle with his sword because there aren't rules for dulling your weapon, unless you ad hoc them or presume fatigue.  Just do the same for spellcasters.


> A vanilla attack is supposed to be you basic attack and because of the game's design your at-wills are your vanilla attacks. Regardless of which attack they are, vanilla attacks become dull after 12 rounds of combat. Would removing class at-will powers make magic missile or reaping strike any more cool, say if they were moved to encounter powers at 21st level ability? Of course they become cooler because they don't happen every round and hey they are buffed up a bit too.



That makes _no sense at all._

I mean, it kind of makes sense, but, if you make Reaping Strike an encounter power, there's STILL going to be a need for a generic attack power, and your complaints will STILL apply to whatever you use to replace Reaping Strike as the at will.  Even if the replacement at will is a basic melee attack, its illogical to complain that Reaping Strike becomes vanilla after a long combat and that the solution is to limit its use and add in an attack that's vanilla BEFORE a long combat.  At least with the present at will system you have a couple of at will attacks, instead of just the basic melee attack.


> In previous editions, not always attacking with your highest stat was not a very bad thing. Base attacks were based upon strength or dexterity only. So you knew that if you were going to be shooting a bow or swinging a sword you needed strength or dexterity at least a little.



No you didn't.  If you were a wizard, investing in dexterity so that your crossbow would be more accurate when you didn't want to use a spell was a noob mistake.  Unless you knew your campaign was never going to get into the middle or high levels, it simply wasn't worth it.  If you were getting something else out of it as well (maybe you like ray spells) then it was worthwhile.  Otherwise, no.


> Additionally, you know that the "to-hit" rate for your spells was much higher than it is now (saving throws were relatively easily failed). You could afford a compromise on your stat line and spread it out and take two 16's or even a 16 and several 14's and still be competent. Now you need an 18 or 20 to be competent and you don't necessarily need strength or dexterity.



This is true.


> A positive effect is that it will open up design for character types that are sub-par in the current rule set. For instance, a common character at my game table in previous editions was the elf cleric archer of correlon. This character was a dex and wis based character. Not a very viable build now. I mean, what would a cleric be doing with a bow let alone a high dex. A ranged cleric is a lazer cleric pure and simple and that only requires wisdom, and a very high wisdom at that to be effective. With making basic attacks the standard instead of lazers and reaping strikes, it says, "Ok I can make an archer cleric because I am not _losing_ anything for doing it." Thus it opens up many more character concepts than were previously available. Again this is just one of the positive effects of making at-wills into encounter powers.



Meh.  It doesn't actually accomplish this goal unless you rework every class and adjust the power level.  If you remove at will attacks, that trivially affects classes that use their primary ability score for their basic attacks, and greatly effects everyone else.  Your elf archer cleric will still suck in an at will free system.  He'll still suffer the same stat spread.  Meanwhile the Fighter is still pumping strength just like before.

This would be doable, but merely removing at wills isn't enough.  You'd need to rework the math.


> So should there be a basic at-will attack for each class so they can maximize their single bloated stat in combat? I say no. What do you say?



I'm really not bothered by how characters stats are spread.  I care a lot more about whether the characters can accomplish what their archetype suggests.  Stats are numbers.  I don't care if they're bloated or evenly spread or anything, so long as they are easy to handle mathematically and create good outcomes.

Alright, now the part where I agree with you.

Everyone worried that, in 4e, role would be destiny.  People still worry about it, actually, even though it just shows that they don't know what they're talking about.  Role isn't destiny.  Role is incredibly mutable.

But power sources?  Power sources are destiny.

Look at the 3e paladin versus the 4e paladin.  The 3e paladin was mostly a martial character that learned divine magic as his career progressed.  The 4e paladin starts out using the power of his god to augment his every attack.  The only time he doesn't is when he charges or makes opportunity attacks.

The wizard and the cleric had a little bit of this as well.  At low levels your wizard used a crossbow at times, and the cleric made basic attacks unaugmented by magic.  Of course, it didn't work quite right, particularly for the wizard.  Over time his spells per day increased and eventually his crossbow became obsolete, meaning that any resources he invested in improving his crossbow skill were lost.

4e solved that by letting everyone do their shtick immediately, and at will.  In the process, that kind of killed off dual shtick characters.

Multiclassing brings them back a bit.  If you want to create an elven cleric archer, you can just make an elf cleric, and multiclass ranger.  Or create an elf ranger, and multiclass cleric.  You'll have to split your ability scores, but that's not really a crisis.  If you're spending a lot of resources multiclassing a cleric into a ranger, dexterity will give you as much benefit as charisma would have given the straight cleric.

I suspect that this doesn't really satisfy you, because you want the look and feel of a weapon being a backup for limited use magic.  You want the weapon to be the bread and butter, generic attack, and the magic to be the big splash.  Multiclassing doesn't really do that.  In response, there isn't much I can say, except that running things your way would deny ME the archetypes I like, so maybe this conflict isn't really resolvable.

Overall, though, I think that making at wills into encounter abilities in order to force people to spread their stats more and take basic attacks is fundamentally a bad idea.  It doesn't undo the repetition problem, it makes it worse by forcing you to repeat your basic attack instead of your two or three at wills.  It encourages stat spread, but that's not an intrinsic good from where I'm sitting.  It denies access to as many archetypes as it encourages.  It makes combat less tactical (even if my fighter has used up every encounter and daily power he has, I can still try to maneuver for a cleave or shift people around with footwork lure).

And an easier solution for the lost archetypes exists.  Use encounter powers to encourage them.  The encounter power system and the weapon/multiclass system actually provide a great framework for adding unusual things to classes, like archery to a cleric.  It wouldn't be tough to draft a multiclass path just to make this archetype available.  It would do a lot less violence to the system to make these corner case character concepts available via feats and optional encounter powers than to rework the math.


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## Rechan (Feb 24, 2009)

To continue the "dulling" argument, at a different angle:

Let's assume for a second that a weapon doesn't dull. A magical weapon, for instance. 

Magic Missile does 2d4+stat. 
A falchion does 2d4+stat. 

Assuming the falchion doesn't break/dull, then both the MM and the falchion have an equal likelihood/speed when it comes to wall breaching. 

If you can conceivably say, "Even a magically sharp weapon just cannot break down a wall, no matter how many times you hit the wall with it," then how can you say the same about a magic missile?

Both the falchion and the MM are doing on average 4+stat damage. Even if you avoided the "Dull" argument, it's quite easy to say "6 points of damage isn't enough to hurt a wall". The 3e equivalent of objects having resistance.

Or you could accept it. After all, mauls, picks and chisels can take down walls in RL. Granted, they're doing more damage (2d6/1d8/whatever a chisel does). A magic missile is less efficient at breaching a wall than say, a pickax, but it is doable if you're willing to just _stand there_ and do it until you make a hole.


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## Cadfan (Feb 24, 2009)

Multiclass Feat: Archer of Corellan
Prerequisite: Cleric, must worship Corellan, must know the power Lance of Faith.
Benefit: When you hit with a basic attack with a longbow, you may choose an ally within your line of sight.  This ally gains +2 on its next attack against your target if that attack is performed before the end of your next turn.

I kind of like that.  It does require you to pump both wisdom and dexterity, but that's not THAT onerous, particularly for an elf.  And if this feat is followed up with a few other multiclass power swap feats, much like the weapon multiclasses we've seen, pumping dexterity goes from being sub par to a very good idea.

This is the strength of 4e.  Instead of making universal rules then hacking them until they do what you want, just isolate and identify what you want, and create custom rules for what you want built right into the power system.

Give me a day or two, and I'll have a whole Corellan multiclass path written.


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## Rechan (Feb 24, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Multiclass Feat: Archer of Corellan
> Prerequisite: Cleric, must worship Corellan, must know the power Lance of Faith.
> Benefit: When you hit with a basic attack with a longbow, you may choose an ally within your line of sight.  This ally gains +2 on its next attack against your target if that attack is performed before the end of your next turn.



Another solution is the Gladiator-article style of "Take this feat, modify your at-will".



> Give me a day or two, and I'll have a whole Corellan multiclass path written.



Could you also make it paladins? Because paladins suffer the same. I know "OMg defenders shouldn't be ranged", but a paladin of Corellan using a bow _makes sense_.


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## Sadrik (Feb 24, 2009)

Obryn said:


> When I ran an Elf Cleric Archer, I didn't use the bow _most_ of the time, but I used it plenty.



This is not a cleric archer then.



Obryn said:


> So, let me see if I get this right...
> 
> (1) Doing your at-will attack for 12 rounds is boring.
> (2) Firing a crossbow or doing simple swings with your sword for 12 rounds is somehow _not_ boring.




I don't think you quite grasped the argument. Yes they are both boring. So why don't you just use the most simple one and make it the basic one so other ones are more interesting. Change them to encounter  powers, give starting characters a couple more of them, and now you have opened up more interesting character archetypes.



Obryn said:


> I'm perplexed.  If you remove at-will powers, your basic attacks _become_ your at-wills.  Basic attacks do less interesting stuff and have less overall potency than at-wills.  What's more, the structure of 4e basically means that classes are defined primarily by their powers.  At-will powers are one way that your fighter or ranger will always play differently from your swordmage or cleric.




Whatever the actual vanilla attack is, it is less interesting if you do it 10 times in an encounter with your 2 encounter powers interspersed between. Give more encounter powers and make those vanilla attacks basic attacks and you wind up with a more desirable system. Not to mention the character design potentials that open up.



Obryn said:


> So basically this primarily works to benefit classes which already need Strength & Dexterity...?  I think there's a broader and more far-reaching effect than you anticipate.




I realize this lowers effectiveness somewhat of non- STR and DEX based characters. What other far-reaching effects are you referring too?


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## Vomax (Feb 24, 2009)

Rechan said:


> Could you also make it paladins? Because paladins suffer the same. I know "OMg defenders shouldn't be ranged", but a paladin of Corellan using a bow _makes sense_.




A paladin of Corellan seems like it would work better as a ranger with cleric or paladin multiclassing, and perhaps chain/scale proficiency feats.


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## Vorput (Feb 24, 2009)

Could you just cap at will powers at a certain high number?  Like 50?

I doubt any group will ever face enough combat to use 50 at will powers per day (though it's possible- in which case make the cap higher), and it would stop the wall problem you spoke of.

Eventually, one has to get tired after all- whether it's shooting arcane energy from your fingertips, or just having to swing that sword yet again.


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## Cadfan (Feb 24, 2009)

Rechan said:


> Another solution is the Gladiator-article style of "Take this feat, modify your at-will".



I considered that, but it just seemed like a whole lot of work to modify an at will with implement keywords to work with a weapon.  You'd need to change so many little things.  It seemed easier to create a feat that granted you a power attached to your ranged basic attack that was functionally the same thing as Lance of Faith with a longbow.

I have to admit, I'm a little stymied here because I don't know Corellan's lore very well.  I'm not completely clear on what his backstory is, or what powers his followers should have.  I rarely play in established universes.


Rechan said:


> Could you also make it paladins? Because paladins suffer the same. I know "OMg defenders shouldn't be ranged", but a paladin of Corellan using a bow _makes sense_.



I'd like to, but I can't seem to work out a way to make ranged attacks work with the paladin's mark in an easy and balanced manner.  You can take a look at my Godhammer paladin in my signature for a previous effort at doing this.  Its a neat design, but I just can't get it right.

It almost seems like maybe the best solution is to switch things around, and create a multiclass path for Rangers that transforms them into a paladin of Corellan.  They wouldn't have "Paladin" in their class name, but it seems like this would be much, much more efficient and much much more functional.

Multiclass Feat: Champion of Corellan
Prerequisite: Ranger, Must worship Corellan
Benefit: You may choose to deal Radiant damage with your ranged attacks that use a longbow.

Then the encounter does something Corellan and Smiting themed, the utility does something leaderish (like Lay on Hands 1/day), and the daily does something really badass.

You could also do this with a paragon path, though that would delay entry until level 11.  Or you could go crazy and do both, if you wanted a whole lot of paladin of corellan powers.


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## Agamon (Feb 24, 2009)

I don't confuse class with archtype.  I ran a doppleganger thief in a game last year.  She wasn't a Rogue or even multiclassed as Rogue, but was effective at being sneaky and manipulative.

You want an archtype that is good at something the obvious class isn't?  Pick a different class and have your character call himself whatever you want.  I've found it pretty effective for mixing things up a bit.


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## Sadrik (Feb 24, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> I mean, it kind of makes sense, but, if you make Reaping Strike an encounter power, there's STILL going to be a need for a generic attack power, and your complaints will STILL apply to whatever you use to replace Reaping Strike as the at will.




No, a basic attack would be the vanilla attack. It would be boring, but it is understandably boring not to mention easier and quicker in real time to resolve.



Cadfan said:


> No you didn't.  If you were a wizard, investing in dexterity so that your crossbow would be more accurate when you didn't want to use a spell was a noob mistake.  Unless you knew your campaign was never going to get into the middle or high levels, it simply wasn't worth it.  If you were getting something else out of it as well (maybe you like ray spells) then it was worthwhile.  Otherwise, no.




Ah but what if you wanted to be a wizard that invests in a sword and you wanted to use that as your backup weapon to your spells. No wait wait I know the answer... play a swordmage.



Cadfan said:


> Meh.  It doesn't actually accomplish this goal unless you rework every class and adjust the power level.  If you remove at will attacks, that trivially affects classes that use their primary ability score for their basic attacks, and greatly effects everyone else.  Your elf archer cleric will still suck in an at will free system.  He'll still suffer the same stat spread.  Meanwhile the Fighter is still pumping strength just like before.




I understand this, this may simply be appropriate. Those that pump strength should be effective in melee. A wizard could pump strength and go into melee, if that was how a player wanted to play their character. If you want to play a single stat character then you are able to if you want to play a character that uses more than one stat say like a fighter who uses a bow you can easily do this. All of their powers would key off of melee stuff but maybe they want to use a bow or a sword for their vanilla attacks. If they have at-wills that make using a bow a poor tactical choice then they will 9 out of 10 times ignore the bow. 



Cadfan said:


> This would be doable, but merely removing at wills isn't enough.  You'd need to rework the math.




This may very well be true. But I do know that removing them makes more character archetypes available for play.



Cadfan said:


> Everyone worried that, in 4e, role would be destiny.  People still worry about it, actually, even though it just shows that they don't know what they're talking about.  Role isn't destiny.  Role is incredibly mutable.
> 
> But power sources?  Power sources are destiny.




I don't agree, but this is neither here nor there.



Cadfan said:


> 4e solved that by letting everyone do their shtick immediately, and at will.  In the process, that kind of killed off dual shtick characters.




Except that your solution for resolving the problem of a cleric with a bow is to wait until 11th level. Yeah, touche'.



Cadfan said:


> Multiclassing brings them back a bit.  If you want to create an elven cleric archer, you can just make an elf cleric, and multiclass ranger.  Or create an elf ranger, and multiclass cleric.  You'll have to split your ability scores, but that's not really a crisis.  If you're spending a lot of resources multiclassing a cleric into a ranger, dexterity will give you as much benefit as charisma would have given the straight cleric.




So spend a bunch of character creation resources to gain a couple of encounter/daily powers that will come into play 2-3 rounds out of a 12 round combat? This does not synergize in an acceptable way. Pull out my bow make a couple of attacks and then start shooting lazers. No, sorry doesn't work for me.



Cadfan said:


> I suspect that this doesn't really satisfy you, because you want the look and feel of a weapon being a backup for limited use magic.  You want the weapon to be the bread and butter, generic attack, and the magic to be the big splash.  Multiclassing doesn't really do that.  In response, there isn't much I can say, except that running things your way would deny ME the archetypes I like, so maybe this conflict isn't really resolvable.




You are right, this does make a nice point. What archetype would you be denied? You can literally run every character/weapon combination and not have any problems doing it. Explain to me how you are now limited in you weapon choice/class archetype. You are not, just like the RAW except that you are not taking sub-par choice for making your basic attacks with a non-class standard weapon.



Cadfan said:


> Overall, though, I think that making at wills into encounter abilities in order to force people to spread their stats more and take basic attacks is fundamentally a bad idea.  It doesn't undo the repetition problem, it makes it worse by forcing you to repeat your basic attack instead of your two or three at wills.




Again, the repetition problem is not that you do it over and over and that is bad. It is that no matter what your vanilla attack is basic or at-will it becomes dry and boring after doing it ~10 times in a combat. The reality is that most classes use only one at-will power, the one the character is designed around to use best.



Cadfan said:


> It encourages stat spread, but that's not an intrinsic good from where I'm sitting.




Fair enough you prefer primary stats to be 18 or 20.



Cadfan said:


> It denies access to as many archetypes as it encourages.




This is false.



Cadfan said:


> It makes combat less tactical (even if my fighter has used up every encounter and daily power he has, I can still try to maneuver for a cleave or shift people around with footwork lure).




This could be true, some may not see this as automatically a good thing. I for one think that cutting any extra time out of an encounter to reduce grind is a good thing. If by your suggestion reduces grind I am all for it.



Cadfan said:


> And an easier solution for the lost archetypes exists.  Use encounter powers to encourage them.  The encounter power system and the weapon/multiclass system actually provide a great framework for adding unusual things to classes, like archery to a cleric.  It wouldn't be tough to draft a multiclass path just to make this archetype available.  It would do a lot less violence to the system to make these corner case character concepts available via feats and optional encounter powers than to rework the math.




This is not a clean or easy solution and it does not do what you thought that 4e was supposed to do: "4e solved that by letting everyone do their shtick immediately, and at will.  In the process, that kind of killed off dual shtick characters."


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## Sadrik (Feb 24, 2009)

Agamon said:


> I don't confuse class with archtype.  I ran a doppleganger thief in a game last year.  She wasn't a Rogue or even multiclassed as Rogue, but was effective at being sneaky and manipulative.
> 
> You want an archtype that is good at something the obvious class isn't?  Pick a different class and have your character call himself whatever you want.  I've found it pretty effective for mixing things up a bit.




Well this is not intended to make skill based archetypes any different so I am not sure how this makes anything different.


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## Obryn (Feb 24, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> This is not a cleric archer then.



Why not?

It played very similar to cleric archers I've seen.  There was one in my Expedition to the Demonweb Pits game.  Mostly, the cleric sat back and casted spells.  When those weren't appropriate, they attacked with the bow.  Now, at lower levels in 3e when a cleric's spells aren't as compelling, it may make a difference.  But by 5th, we're looking at a single-stat Zen Archery spellcaster wearing heavy armor.  Likely slinging more Hold Persons than arrows.

If you want a cleric archer who uses arrows a lot more than spells, I'd recommend starting them as a Ranger and multiclassing into Cleric, rather than the other way around.



> I don't think you quite grasped the argument. Yes they are both boring. So why don't you just use the most simple one and make it the basic one so other ones are more interesting. Change them to encounter  powers, give starting characters a couple more of them, and now you have opened up more interesting character archetypes.



I'm sorry, but I still don't quite know why that would be an improvement.

Wouldn't it maybe be a better solution to add more variety for at-wills to account for those other character archetypes you're looking for?  (I'm also having a hard time imagining what other character archetypes you could be looking for - I get the cleric archer, but I hardly see the crossbow-slinging wizard as a perennial favorite.)

As an example of a new At-Will...

Divine Archery, At-Will 1
Weapon, Radiant
Wis vs AC
Hit: [W]+Wisdom Modifier Radiant damage

...and there's your cleric archer's main at-will.  It's not too impressive, but it's cleric-y in that it uses Wisdom (much like the ubiquitous Zen Archery in 3e) and deals Radiant damage.



> Whatever the actual vanilla attack is, it is less interesting if you do it 10 times in an encounter with your 2 encounter powers interspersed between. Give more encounter powers and make those vanilla attacks basic attacks and you wind up with a more desirable system. Not to mention the character design potentials that open up.



If your goal is to make things more varied, why not keep the at-wills but just add more Encounter abilities?  This would encourage variety between characters, as well, since at-wills are a primary source of differences.  There's plenty of folks who want to encourage more Encounter and Daily powers - I think there's a big thread about Power Recharge mechanics in the house-rules forum, for example.

Can you list some other design potentials that open up with this?



> I realize this lowers effectiveness somewhat of non- STR and DEX based characters. What other far-reaching effects are you referring too?



That's not enough?

I think I'm still confused by what, specifically, you're going after here.  Is it specifically wizardly and clerical at-wills that are the problem?  What kinds of character archetypes and design innovations would be encouraged by removing at-wills, adding another encounter power, and making everyone basic attack all the time?  How would the elimination of at-wills enhance character archetypes more than making _new_ at-wills?

-O


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## GMforPowergamers (Feb 24, 2009)

my best friend currently plays a wizard with no weapons...and in a game a few months back we had a cleric with no weapons...he used his faith as his weapon...

       how would they work in this new system...


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## Agamon (Feb 24, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Well this is not intended to make skill based archetypes any different so I am not sure how this makes anything different.




My point is that if I wanted to play a bow-weilding priest of Corellon, I'd make a Ranger multi'd into Cleric.  And in fact, that was my other PC I've played in 4e.


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## Obryn (Feb 24, 2009)

GMforPowergamers said:


> my best friend currently plays a wizard with no weapons...and in a game a few months back we had a cleric with no weapons...he used his faith as his weapon...
> 
> how would they work in this new system...



They would fill the "hiding behind tables" archetype.

-O


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## Rechan (Feb 24, 2009)

Agamon said:


> My point is that if I wanted to play a bow-weilding priest of Corellon, I'd make a Ranger multi'd into Cleric.  And in fact, that was my other PC I've played in 4e.



And really, what is the "Priest" archetype, exactly? Outside of D&D, I don't see a lot of "Clerics". Moses wasn't exactly dungeoncrawling, and he wasn't using weapons or anything, really. Friar Tuck never fought. Etc etc. 

You could achieve a "Priest" archetype with any character; spreading your god's word, being reverent, and holding an official position in the Church is all in the roleplay, not in the mechanics. A ranger can be a priest, just like a wizard can be a priest. "I actually heal the wounded and buff my allies with *Divine* blessing", that's a Cleric (or a paladin, or a...) If your character can do the former without shootin' heals around, then by all means. 



> how would they work in this new system...



? Wizards don't carry weapons. Maybe in early 3e, where wizards used crossbows, but not today. Same with devoted clerics.

Hell, the bard in my group has a wand and a shield.


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## Caliban (Feb 24, 2009)

Rechan said:


> Friar Tuck never fought.



  according to some of the Robin Hood tales, Friar Tuck was a skilled swordsman and did fight.  But I understand your point.  



> ? Wizards don't carry weapons. Maybe in early 3e, where wizards used crossbows, but not today. Same with devoted clerics.




My 6th lvl eladrin wizard begs to differ with you.   He is currently +13 attack and 1d8+11 damage with his +2 adamantine longsword.


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## Sadrik (Feb 24, 2009)

Obryn said:


> I think I'm still confused by what, specifically, you're going after here.




I'm going to try and reiterate this. 
If at-wills are removed several things happen.
--> I think we touched on all of the effects. Some are very beneficial and there are a couple of stumbles. In my opinion there are more benefits than stumbles.
So here is a list:
1. Basic attacks become the vanilla attack as opposed to at-wills.
2. Different weapons can be used without becoming sub-par options to a classes at-will powers.
3. STR and DEX become more important in character creation.
4. Basic attacks are less tactical but speed up real time grind.

I think that is it. 

Making such a bold move as removing at-will attacks, would require some form of gimme for the players. I think that a good trade off would be taking those two at-wills that PCs get at first level and giving them two bonus encounter powers (so 3 at 1st level). 

By RAW, in a 12 round combat you have 1 encounter and 11 vanilla at-wills and possibly a daily (of course the number of at-wills goes down as you level up). If you have 3 1st level encounter powers, you now only make 9 vanilla basic attacks and have 3 encounter and 1 daily. Again, this may speed up real time grind.

I suppose to get your head around this second part you have to agree with the premises that at-wills cut down options.


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## Rechan (Feb 24, 2009)

Caliban said:


> My 6th lvl eladrin wizard begs to differ with you.   He is currently +13 attack and 1d8+11 damage with his +2 adamantine longsword.



Perhaps I should rephrase.

The default assumption is that they don't. They certainly don't _have_ to. So I don't get the initial point, that "What would they do in this system".


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## Cadfan (Feb 24, 2009)

Obryn said:


> I think I'm still confused by what, specifically, you're going after here. Is it specifically wizardly and clerical at-wills that are the problem? What kinds of character archetypes and design innovations would be encouraged by removing at-wills, adding another encounter power, and making everyone basic attack all the time? How would the elimination of at-wills enhance character archetypes more than making _new_ at-wills?



He wants spellcasters to be able to _nomagically_ use weapons, and to fight in a sort of dual-style, sometimes with nonmagical (martial) ability, and sometimes with spells.  More at wills, at least, more at wills designed under the same design paradigm as the present ones, won't do this.  They will instead add ways to for spellcasters to _magically_ use weapons.  Additionally, he wants the thematic feel of that nonmagical use being lesser than the spellcaster's magical abilities, in order to make the magical abilities feel more powerful by contrast.

4e doesn't do this well.  It offers a host of ways for, for example, a wizard to learn to use a sword.  But all of them involve magically using the sword, except for multiclassing, which fails to give him the thematic feel he wants of martial combat being the basic stuff.

His theory is that by eliminating at wills you will _force_ characters to use basic, nonmagical attacks.  Because players won't want to do this, and because basic attacks are weak, this will give the feel that he wants.  And since 4e forces you to use a certain amount of at wills per fight, it will make it worthwhile to invest a bit in improving them even if you are a spellcaster archetype.

You know the basic feel of a character who can always attack with scorching burst, but sometimes attacks with burning hands or a flaming sphere?  He wants the same feel, except that the character can always attack with his muscles, and occasionally uses scorching burst, burning hands, or flaming sphere.  A hypothetical new wizard at will that allows you to attack with your sword using your Intelligence to hit and dealing flame damage would totally fail to satisfy him.

I don't think that 4e does what he wants very well, at least, not without destroying things that I like.  So when he talks about this sort of stuff I won't tell him that there's ways he can accomplish it.

But on the other matters, like whether basic melee attacks would somehow be less boring than reaping strike, I think he's way out in left field.  Ditto with whether you can or can't create certain archetypes in 4e- you almost always can, or, a way to do it is almost always easily available.  Ditto whether its viable in 4e to go dual attack stat.  It is.  An elf cleric archer, the example he gave, is trivially easy to create, and the dual stat issue isn't remotely close to a problem.


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## GMforPowergamers (Feb 24, 2009)

Rechan said:


> Perhaps I should rephrase.
> 
> The default assumption is that they don't. They certainly don't _have_ to. So I don't get the initial point, that "What would they do in this system".




   Ok I should rephrase...I enjoy the at wills as is...and both character examples were to show why...those characters have at will attacks without weapons, something that would be lost in this proposed 'fix'



  I also have a counter proposal... give everyone 3 encounters and 1 at will...that way if you don't want to have a weapon cloud of daggers or Magic missle...or scorching burst are still options


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## The Human Target (Feb 24, 2009)

I pretty much completely agree with Obryn.

I'm in no rush to return to the days of "my wizard is out of spells, guess I'll start making crappy crossbow attacks."

Removing the at-wills gimps anyone who doesn't already use Dex or Str for attacks. And I don't see how removing them and reworking the entire game is the best choice. 

1. Basic attacks become the vanilla attack as opposed to at-wills.

*Why is this a good thing? At-Wills allow players to actually do what their class is supposed to do. Who builds a warlock in order to make dagger attacks?  *

2. Different weapons can be used without becoming sub-par options to a classes at-will powers.

*This is an argument that is true for encounter powers. But name an at-will that actually is affected by weapon selection? Unless you mean you want your cleric to be a master archer as well, but thats just not how the game is designed. As other people have said, make a ranger that eventually multiclasses into cleric. These are just the kind of things that happen in a classed leveled game system. You can't easily get too far out of your role. *

3. STR and DEX become more important in character creation.

*Why is this a good thing? They're already very important to a lot of classes. I see them being made dump stats no more or less than any stat outside of CHA. Should we ditch at-wills and make it so that all basic attacks use Charisma instead of DEX or STR so more people choose it at creation? *

4. Basic attacks are less tactical but speed up real time grind.

*Do at-wills really slow the game down at all past the first session? At-wills are designed to be easy to use, and super useful. *


Also, you might want to check out page 66 of the DMG "Object Immunities and Vulnerabilities." DMs can rule that certain attacks do more or less damage against certain objects. Magic Missiles are basically magical force punches, so its well within the DMs preview to say that no matter how many you cast you can never knock down a stone wall. The same way you can say no matter how many Twin Strikes a Ranger makes an an iron door, the arrows will never wear it down.


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## Cadfan (Feb 24, 2009)

Slightly off topic, but if anyone could direct me to a quick description of the myths and themes of Corellan, I'll work on my multiclass path.

I might do this for a couple of deities.  Can anyone think of any other popular deities who ought to have worshippers with abilities that don't quite work under the present system?  All I've got so far are archers and Corellan.


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## Mallus (Feb 24, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> If at-wills are removed several things happen.



The main thing that happens is you break one of 4e's design principles: that each class has combat ability related to it's shtick ie, mages fight with _magic_, clerics fight with _faith_, paladins fight with _charm_, and so on. 

If you want a character that primarily uses a weapon, start with a martial character, then multiclass (and pick up the Ritual Caster or Alchemist Feat). Easy-peasy!

I think the problem is you're trying to recreate specific 3e character builds using 4e, and that way lies disappointment. As people have already illustrated, it's not hard to take a 3e character _concept_ and build it in 4e. But if you're looking for an exact duplicate of a mechanical build, it's not going to work. 

Not unless you gut 4e's mechanics like you're suggesting.


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## Caliban (Feb 24, 2009)

Rechan said:


> Perhaps I should rephrase.
> 
> The default assumption is that they don't. They certainly don't _have_ to. So I don't get the initial point, that "What would they do in this system".




Oh, I agree with you.  Just because I chose to create a wizard who is more effective with a sword than some of his at will spells (at the cost of 3 feats and two magic items he wouldn't normally use) doesn't mean I think all wizards should be forced into being gimped fighters after the first few rounds of combat.   

I actually think it sounds like a horrible idea, and makes non-martial characters even less effective than they are now.


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## Cadfan (Feb 24, 2009)

Never mind, Wiki covered me.

Anyone know exactly HOW Corellan took Grumsh's eye?


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## Cadfan (Feb 24, 2009)

Alright, again.  All this talk about needing ways to create archer clerics of Corellan, and the dude's favored weapon is the _longsword.  _What gives?  Fans overriding canon?


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## Celebrim (Feb 24, 2009)

I don't play 4e, but I kinda get what the player is saying.

Previously, casting magic missile was 'cool', because you couldn't do it all the time.

Now, since you can do it all the time, magic missile is just ordinary.

I don't know that I'm in a position to comment on that directly.  What I can talk about is how 'making it bigger' sometimes decreases the awesomeness factor.

Normally, when you make something bigger, you make it more awesome.   For example, everyone is pretty much in agreement about the awesomeness of the opening scene of 'A New Hope' when the Star Destroyer comes into the frame and just keeps coming and coming.  There is a limit to this though.  It's hard to define, but there is a tipping point beyond which bigger is less cool, less dramatic, and less overwhelmingly awesome than smaller.

A Star Destroyer is cool, but for many people a Super-Star Destroyer is less cool and even destroys the coolness of a Star Destroyers.  Even for those that it doesn't, they might find Super-Duper-Star Destroyers to be less cool, and Mega-Thunderous-Super-Duper-Star Destroyers to be beyond the pale.  

For me, the Oliphant's at the battle of Pelinorr Fields in Lord of the Rings were cool when imagined at the scale of something like a large Mammoth.   Perhaps, something like this Columbian Mammoth, or even a bit larger (say 16'-18' at the shoulder).  But, when scaled up to 30' high at the shoulder as in the movies, they didn't become more cool to me but quite a bit less.  

Sometimes, you have to exercise some restraint so that your awesome feature retains its awesomeness rather than losing it.  I think for some people, 4e crossed some hard to define line and heroic became quite a bit less cool by virtue of it getting 'too big' in some fashion.

The other complaint by the OP that I can somewhat sympathize with seems to be that our preexisting notions of what defines a class have been thrown out the window.  Wizards are no longer 'generally weak' but with occassional strong attacks.  Were before Wizards 'to hit' with a basic attack was maybe half that of some other class, and the damage that they could expect with a basic attack less than half that of some other class, in 4e Wizards are just as good of attackers as any other class, and do roughly comparable damage with their base attacks to every other class.  Consequently, though, they can never exceed another class very greatly either.   Each class in a sense loses its expected moments of awesome.  They may still get moments of awesomeness, but its not the ones we have come to expect over years of previous play.

Previously, the fighter might do an awesome attack, an awesome attack, and an awesome attack, and then the wizard might drop an awesome attack.   Now, everyone is awesome all the time.


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## Rechan (Feb 24, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Alright, again.  All this talk about needing ways to create archer clerics of Corellan, and the dude's favored weapon is the _longsword.  _What gives?  Fans overriding canon?



There are four contributing I can suspect it came from. Granted, this is going off of almost 6+ years since I saw the relevant info, but:

A cleric with a bow isn't a bad idea, in and of itself. Zen archery, clerics get access to buffs (Cats Grace, magic weapon, etc), heavy armor, and a decent BAB. 

Next, if you're going to be an archer, be an elf. The only race that had a bonus to dex in 3e were Elves and Halflings; halflings dropped the damage die of your bow for size, and they also reduced your Str (pertinent to compound bows). 

So, if you're going to be an Elven Cleric, who's your god? In all my gaming, rarely do I see demi-humans go with a deity other than the deity of that demi-human race. The elf deity is Corellan. Corellan = Patron of Elves + Elves use bows = Elven archer cleric of Corellan.

Finally, Corellan was the only deity that had access to the Elf and Time domains (first propagated in the 3.0 FRCS), and both were a nasty combo for archers.


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## MerricB (Feb 24, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Alright, again.  All this talk about needing ways to create archer clerics of Corellan, and the dude's favored weapon is the _longsword.  _What gives?  Fans overriding canon?




Close. 

Corellon - in his earliest incarnations - tends to be good with bow and sword. You know, like the first edition elves, who got bonuses with long & short versions of bow and sword. 

When 3e came out, it artificially limited each god to one favoured weapon (even if they didn't have any!) just to fit the paradigm of how everything works in that edition.

Cheers!


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## Obryn (Feb 24, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I'm going to try and reiterate this.
> If at-wills are removed several things happen.
> --> I think we touched on all of the effects. Some are very beneficial and there are a couple of stumbles. In my opinion there are more benefits than stumbles.
> So here is a list:
> ...



Well, I'm still wondering some things that keep me from fully understanding what your goals are...

(1) Are you only worried about this insofar as spellcasters are concerned?  You haven't mentioned anyone other than wizards and clerics.

(2) What options do at-wills prevent?  What archetypes are blocked by 4e that are also enabled by the system you're proposing?  You mentioned the elf archer cleric, but it's pretty clear that this build works fine, at least IMHO.  Give me some more examples.

(3) Why is it preferable to eliminate at-wills entirely, as opposed to increasing the number of encounter powers and leaving at-wills as-is?

Cadfan did a good job explaining what he thinks you were saying - but I'd like to hear from you.

What benefits are you looking to gain from this?  Given those goals, is this the best way to approach it?

-O


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## RefinedBean (Feb 24, 2009)

An archer cleric of Corellan.  Have the bowstring actually be a holy symbol:  a string of hair from Sehanine Moonbow.  Simply refluff all ranged cleric powers as going through the bow instead of your delicate elven hands.

Which translates in-game to using your bow all the time as an archer cleric.

Done!



			
				Rechan said:
			
		

> Hell, the bard in my group has a wand and a shield.




Ha, I just made the same character the other day for a new campaign.  Good stuff.


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## Sadrik (Feb 24, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> He wants spellcasters to be able to _nonmagically_ use weapons, and to fight in a sort of dual-style, sometimes with nonmagical (martial) ability, and sometimes with spells.  More at wills, at least, more at wills designed under the same design paradigm as the present ones, won't do this.  They will instead add ways to for spellcasters to _magically_ use weapons.  Additionally, he wants the thematic feel of that nonmagical use being lesser than the spellcaster's magical abilities, in order to make the magical abilities feel more powerful by contrast.
> 
> 4e doesn't do this well.  It offers a host of ways for, for example, a wizard to learn to use a sword.  But all of them involve magically using the sword, except for multiclassing, which fails to give him the thematic feel he wants of martial combat being the basic stuff.
> 
> ...




Very well stated Cadfan.

This reminds me of the old arguments about the ranger and the paladin being too magical. It was such a controversy that they published alternate versions in complete warrior that were not magically bent. I suppose that the game now is more keyed in the direction of lazer beam clerics and reaping strike fighters. These are cool effects but they seem like they should not be happening at-will. Instead, every once in an while in an encounter seems more appropriate. 

At-wills simply gives the game a completely different feel than D&D once had. If there is anything that gives 4e its _feel _it is the application of at-wills.

Near the end of 3e development, it was very popular to have a classes resources revolve around the encounter. Bo9S is the best example of this. At-will powers sort of trump this encounter limitation and do it at anytime. I rather liked the encounter limitations. At-will is too at-will.


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## Obryn (Feb 24, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Alright, again.  All this talk about needing ways to create archer clerics of Corellan, and the dude's favored weapon is the _longsword.  _What gives?  Fans overriding canon?



I believe it was Sehanine Moonbow that made the 3e munchkin elf-cleric-archer dream possible.  (At least, in FR.)

Elf and War domains.  Elf gives you point-blank shot.  War gives you focus in the favored weapon (longbow).  Then take Zen Archery.  Ignore Dexterity, bulk up in heavy armor, and go forth and kill.  (Complete Champion made this even more insane with the War Domain Reserve Feat - wherein each successful attack does extra damage equal to the highest-level War domain spell you have prepared.)

-O


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## Mallus (Feb 24, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I rather liked the encounter limitations.



Encounter-use and daily-use abilities still exist. You talk like they're no longer part of the system.



> At-will is too at-will.



Don't get too hung up on semantics. At-wills _are_ a class's basic attacks, no different from sword swings and bow shots in 3e. 'Basic attacks' in 4e are badly named. What they really are a conditional minor attack forms that occur infrequently ie, when triggered by certain other abilities or OA's.


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## Oni (Feb 24, 2009)

Why on earth would anyone play a class that didn't use dex or str as their primary attribute with the changes your suggesting.  IMHO the martial classes already have a leg up, and what you propose to do would be the nail in the coffin.  Seriously ask yourself, would you want to play a wizard that had half of his control tools stripped away from him?  There is a difference between a basic melee attack and a fighter at will is relatively minor, but the difference between scorching burst or thunderwave and a basic attack that doesn't even use your primary attribute is so vast it's mind boggling.  I really hope for the sake of your players that you forget this idea.  

The guy that can shoot blast of energy from his hands or summon gouts of flame with a gesture isn't ordinary or mundane whether he can do it once a day or all day (and is arguably a hell of a lot cooler in the later case IMO).


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## Ourph (Feb 24, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> 4. Basic attacks are less tactical but speed up real time grind.



I think you are quite mistaken in this assumption. Relegating martial at-will powers like _Cleave_ (damage two opponents at once), _Reaping Strike_ (deal damage on a miss), _Riposte Strike_ (deal extra damage when you're attacked) or _Twin Strike_ (much more likely to hit than with a single basic melee or ranged attack roll) to encounter powers and forcing martial characters to, instead, use basic melee or ranged attacks drastically reduces the amount of damage they are able to deal over the course of a combat.

Similarly, by limiting an area at-will power like _Scorching Burst_ and forcing the Wizard to use a crossbow or dagger, you're drastically reducing the damage potential of that character by reducing the number of targets affected by each action (not to mention the fact that the Wizard is going to be missing a lot more often than he would with an Int-based attack).

Forcing most attacks in a combat to be basic melee or ranged attacks is going to vastly increase the grind of every combat unless you drastically retool the rest of the system. You won't end up with 3-4 encounter powers plus 8-9 basic attacks in a 12 round combat, you'll end up with 3-4 encounter powers used plus 20-30 basic attacks used as the combat stretches out over WAY too many rounds because every single character is relying primarily on attacks that are, at best, half as effective as a normal at-will power.


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## Sadrik (Feb 24, 2009)

Obryn said:


> (1) Are you only worried about this insofar as spellcasters are concerned?  You haven't mentioned anyone other than wizards and clerics.




It doesn't matter if you are martial, arcane, divine, primal, elemental, shadow, ki or whatever other power sources they are going to come up with. Characters are limited by the at-wills that they are tied to at character creation. This makes having characters that do not fit the mold of those at-wills outside of RAW and a limitation of the game system. So no I don't really care if they are martial, martial characters should do their heavy hits less often too, it doesn't matter what power source you are. Why have a special attack at will is not very special. Not to mention when it straight jackets your character creation. When I look at a class that I want to play in 4e I look first to its at-wills and class features and determine how I can maximize the effects of those. If one of them says you have to use a certain weapon or cannot use a certain weapon those are undue character creation rules that I don't prefer. You may prefer those limitation, I like options.



Obryn said:


> (2) What options do at-wills prevent?  What archetypes are blocked by 4e that are also enabled by the system you're proposing?  You mentioned the elf archer cleric, but it's pretty clear that this build works fine, at least IMHO.  Give me some more examples.




Well the cleric with a bow is just an example. But essentially any character whose at-will powers are better than simply making a character with a sword or whatever weapon the player wants. Not to mention the flash bang of certain at-wills make the game feel a lot more magical as Cadfan illustrated.



Obryn said:


> (3) Why is it preferable to eliminate at-wills entirely, as opposed to increasing the number of encounter powers and leaving at-wills as-is?




This is another solution. A pretty good one to boot. It would give some more variety to players out of the starting gates. It does nothing for the endless magical effects (or ninja effects for martial) stuff though.


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## ryryguy (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I'm going to try and reiterate this.
> If at-wills are removed several things happen.
> --> I think we touched on all of the effects. Some are very beneficial and there are a couple of stumbles. In my opinion there are more benefits than stumbles.
> So here is a list:
> ...




1. Hard to see how this is a "beneficial effect" in and of itself.  I think your point is that you've made the current at-wills feel more "special" by changing them to encounter powers, but how is that really any different than just adding new encounter powers?

2. Seems a slightly roundabout way of stating that you'd prefer to see all or most characters using weapons more often.  This is only a "beneficial effect" if that's your personal taste.  (see below)

3. _Really_ hard to see how this is a "beneficial effect" in and of itself.  What, you just like Str and Dex? 

4. I don't find the current at-wills significantly slow down combat or increase "grind".  Indeed compared to endless basic attacks they may reduce grind since their extra little bonuses can help end combat sooner (and at least promise to keep it more interesting).



Sadrik said:


> This reminds me of the old arguments about the ranger and the paladin being too magical. It was such a controversy that they published alternate versions in complete warrior that were not magically bent. I suppose that the game now is more keyed in the direction of lazer beam clerics and reaping strike fighters. These are cool effects but they seem like they should not be happening at-will. Instead, every once in an while in an encounter seems more appropriate.
> 
> At-wills simply gives the game a completely different feel than D&D once had. If there is anything that gives 4e its _feel _it is the application of at-wills.




This seems to me to be the heart of the issue and most of the stuff about basic attacks and stats and weapons and archetypes is pretty peripheral.  You prefer a style where some characters' "output" is less uniform, in particular it seems where spellcasting classes have much bigger but infrequent "booms" and are forced to fall back to much less effective weapons use fairly often.

That's fine.  It is true that the 4e system does not support that style very well, because 4e consciously tries to give every player character something interesting to do almost all of the time and a way to contribute to party effectiveness roughly equal to everyone else in the party.  The "boom and bust" wizard does not fit well into that scheme.  

The one thing that I fundamentally disagree with is that this design direction leads to less space for different character archetypes.  Partially this is a matter of terminology, since I think what you're expressing is a desire for a different style of play mechanics which has nothing to do with what I think of as character archetypes.  "Wizard who has to shoot a crossbow after running out of spells" is not, to me, a character archetype so much as an artifact of a particular system of mechanics.  One that we've all gotten used to over time so it may seem familiar and comfortable, but not really a character archetype if you look at it more closely.

Even if you want to insist that the crossbow-wizard is indeed an archetype, I don't see how removing at-wills leads to space for more archetypes.  Even if it reopens the crossbow-wizard "archetype", it closes down the "magic missile all day" wizard archetype... that may be one that you personally dislike, but I think you have to regard it as an archetype that is lost if the crossbow-wizard is an archetype that is gained.


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## nightwyrm (Feb 25, 2009)

I think there might be a paradigm problem here. In 4e, at-wills *are* that character's basic attacks. They're the bread and butter of that particular class. They're not suppose to be flashy or very awesome, you have encounters and dailies for that, those are the special powers, not at-wills. "Basic Attack" is just stuff that you do when you make an OA or a charge or when doing something that your class is not good at.

Magic missile? It's just a wizard's normal attack comparable to a fighter's sword swing.


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## ryryguy (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> It doesn't matter if you are martial, arcane, divine, primal, elemental, shadow, ki or whatever other power sources they are going to come up with. Characters are limited by the at-wills that they are tied to at character creation. This makes having characters that do not fit the mold of those at-wills outside of RAW and a limitation of the game system.
> <snip>
> This is another solution. A pretty good one to boot. It would give some more variety to players out of the starting gates. It does nothing for the endless magical effects (or ninja effects for martial) stuff though.




So maybe to get closer to the style of play you want you could just restrict all classes to using the weapon-based, non-ninja martial at-wills that you like the best.  The wizard will still fall back to his crossbow instead of to magic missile, but at least his damage output and "specials" won't drop off so much compared to making him just shoot it using ranged basic attack. 

You'd probably still need to allow the character to use their primary/secondary stats for attack and damage with these at-wills, otherwise they will just be at too much of a disadvantage vs. the martial classes that already have Strength and Dexterity as primary stats.  (I'm sensing that you want to emphasize Strength and Dexterity for basically the same reason you want to increase the use of weapons, basically for thematic reasons; it offends you if a wizard can use his Intelligence to swing a sword.  But I think this is the easiest compromise to make to get close to where you want to go without having to rewrite fundamental parts of the system.)


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## Rechan (Feb 25, 2009)

ryryguy said:


> I'm sensing that you want to emphasize Strength and Dexterity for basically the same reason you want to increase the use of weapons, basically for thematic reasons; it offends you if a wizard can use his Intelligence to swing a sword.  But I think this is the easiest compromise to make to get close to where you want to go without having to rewrite fundamental parts of the system.



Not to mention classes that use a different stat, even in melee with weapons:

Swordmages, Bards, Charisma paladins, Avengers.


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## Oni (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Characters are limited by the at-wills that they are tied to at character creation. This makes having characters that do not fit the mold of those at-wills outside of RAW and a limitation of the game system. So no I don't really care if they are martial, martial characters should do their heavy hits less often too, it doesn't matter what power source you are. Why have a special attack at will is not very special. Not to mention when it straight jackets your character creation. When I look at a class that I want to play in 4e I look first to its at-wills and class features and determine how I can maximize the effects of those. If one of them says you have to use a certain weapon or cannot use a certain weapon those are undue character creation rules that I don't prefer. You may prefer those limitation, I like options.





Hold up a sec, are you trying to say that only having basic attacks as at wills some how gives you more options for character creation than having basic attacks plus the choice of other things you can do?  That somehow by limiting everyone to whacking things with sticks you've somehow created a environment that frees you up to make any character you want?  

Wizard A can cast scorching burst and magic missle, Wizard B can cast cloud of daggers and thunderwave.

or....

Wizard X can ineffectually whack things with a stick and ineffectually fling rocks, Wizard Y can ineffectually whack things with a stick and ineffectually fling rocks. 

Which group has been more straightjacketed at character creation?


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## Minigiant (Feb 25, 2009)

I understand what is being said. 
The thing is the typical 4E fight has a lot more rounds than one in previous editions. Wizards killed or were killed back then. If the only ones who did the same thing all day were people using weapons. Fight reached the danger zone quick or draaaaaagged on. Everything was random.

4E is a different monster. Instead of the caster casting two spells then making mostly useless actions while the weapon users attack, attack and attack, every action matters. All classes have been made equal in style and the damage model is fixed. Each character is intended to use all his encounter powers and use at-will as its other actions. Basic attacks were not intended for the formula for most characters. It unbalances things.


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## GMforPowergamers (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> It doesn't matter if you are martial, arcane, divine, primal, elemental, shadow, ki or whatever other power sources they are going to come up with. Characters are limited by the at-wills that they are tied to at character creation.




Really...short of rangers twin strikeing all the time I can't think of a single class built around 1 at will...wizards (one of the two classes you complained about) right now has the most options in there at wills...



> Why have a special attack at will is not very special.



they are not ment to be special...they are ment to be your bread and butter...
   example: Fireing off a small bolt of arcane energy (magic missle) is easy, but focusing that energy into a bolt of real force (force orb) is slightly more taxing...trying to conjur and maintian a ball of fire (Flaming sphear) takes even more...



> Not to mention when it straight jackets your character creation. When I look at a class that I want to play in 4e I look first to its at-wills and class features and determine how I can maximize the effects of those. If one of them says you have to use a certain weapon or cannot use a certain weapon those are undue character creation rules that I don't prefer. You may prefer those limitation, I like options.



 let me pull out the problme here... 


> You may prefer those limitation, I like options



  by RAW as a wizard right now I have 2 at wills chosen from 6 options...how many do I have your way?? 




> Well the cleric with a bow is just an example. But essentially any character whose at-will powers are better than simply making a character with a sword or whatever weapon the player wants.



  what if the OPTION the player is going for has nothing to do with weapons? You want your weapon to matter...but what if someone else at the same table does not??






> It does nothing for the endless magical effects (or ninja effects for martial) stuff though.




why would my magic weilder want to run out of magic???


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## Cadfan (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Very well stated Cadfan.
> 
> This reminds me of the old arguments about the ranger and the paladin being too magical. It was such a controversy that they published alternate versions in complete warrior that were not magically bent.



Thanks.  I'm basically sympathetic to the desire to create what I'm going to call dual power source characters, specifically, characters who are martial with a splash of magic.  I don't think that messing with the at will system is the way to go about it though.

*I think that, if you want to create the feel of a character that you seem to be looking for, your best bet is probably this: take at wills from a martial class, but everything else from an arcane class.* 

Then just declare that you get to use your primary stat as your attack stat no matter what.  From where I sit, your primary stat is just a number.  If its balanced to have a +4 at a given level, then just assign a +4 to the relevant tasks and don't worry about where it came from.

This sort of character should give you basically what you are looking for.  A character who is mostly mundane but who pulls out powerful magic when he's in a tight spot.

It won't help you if you're even offended by the power level of Reaping Strike being used at will, but I don't think that should bother you.  The martial at wills are mostly things you could accomplish in 3e with a basic melee attack and a feat.

The only damage it will do to the game is that it will make it so that your character might not fill his combat role very effectively, particularly at low levels, and particularly if you've chosen at wills from a martial class very different from your true class.


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## Scholar & Brutalman (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> So what would the effect of removing the at-wills be? It would change character creation for sure. It may make characters invest in strength or dexterity more, when they normally would not have. This will lower the primary stat to do so (unless of course you have a class that needs one of those stats). Doing this may alter the 50% to hit rate assumption and make it more difficult to be competent.




The problem is that it won't change things for the classes that already invest heavily in Strength or Dex. The PHB(*) Fighter will barely notice the difference: none of his at-will attacks do more damage than his basic attack. And the Fighter in particular is not considered by many to be a weak class.

(*) Martiial Power changes this quite a bit. 

The Warlock on the other hand will notice it an awful lot. If she doesn't invest in Str or Dex, she is limited to her encounter and daily powers; if she does so invest, she loses points to spend in her primary stat, so her encounters and daily powers are now less likely to hit and do less damage.

4e is currently balanced assuming that characters can use their primary attack stat almost all the time. In 4e battles, especially at low level or against elites and solos, PCs spend a lot of time using their at-wills to wear down enemies HP. They don't have enough encounters or dailies to end the fight without it. 

The effect of your proposed rule change is that you have will make the non-Strength based classes much weaker than those based on other Strength. How do you intend to rebalance the classes? If you don't, I expect your players to mainly play Fighters, Warlords, Strength-Clerics and -Paladins, Brutal Scoundrel Rogues and Elven Bow Clerics.




> A positive effect is that it will open up design for character types that are sub-par in the current rule set.




And a negative effect will be to close off design for most of the character types currently in the rules.


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## Obryn (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> It doesn't matter if you are martial, arcane, divine, primal, elemental, shadow, ki or whatever other power sources they are going to come up with. Characters are limited by the at-wills that they are tied to at character creation. This makes having characters that do not fit the mold of those at-wills outside of RAW and a limitation of the game system. So no I don't really care if they are martial, martial characters should do their heavy hits less often too, it doesn't matter what power source you are. Why have a special attack at will is not very special. Not to mention when it straight jackets your character creation. When I look at a class that I want to play in 4e I look first to its at-wills and class features and determine how I can maximize the effects of those. If one of them says you have to use a certain weapon or cannot use a certain weapon those are undue character creation rules that I don't prefer. You may prefer those limitation, I like options.
> 
> Well the cleric with a bow is just an example. But essentially any character whose at-will powers are better than simply making a character with a sword or whatever weapon the player wants. Not to mention the flash bang of certain at-wills make the game feel a lot more magical as Cadfan illustrated.



And, with these two answers, I think I get the crux of what you're saying.

I don't think you want _more_ options, you want potentially non-optimal options to be more viable.  In other words, you want _other_ options.  Because what you're proposing - with making everyone resort to basic attacks and focusing on Str/Dex - that's not really more options.  It's _less_ options, but options of a type you find more appealing.

I think this confusion is really muddling the issue.



> This is another solution. A pretty good one to boot. It would give some more variety to players out of the starting gates. It does nothing for the endless magical effects (or ninja effects for martial) stuff though.



Forgive me if this has been answered - but have you played 4e yet?  Or is this mostly armchair speculation?

-O


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## WalterKovacs (Feb 25, 2009)

Even with an increase to starting with 3 encounters, a character will eventually cap out at 6 encounter powers. If the assumption is 12 round encounters, at BEST, you have 50% at-will [a bit less when dailies are used, but rarely would you use more than 1 daily per encounter]. So, _at least_ half the time ... EVERY CLASS ATTACKS THE SAME. The only difference is weapon selection, which is limited to: (a) STR or DEX, (b) +2 or +3 prof, (c) 1-H or 2-H. Which weapon you use will be based in part by whether you want to spend a feat to get the "best" weapon, or you just stick with what you have.

Of course, in that system, there are a LOT of weapons that wouldn't get used. Part of the reason to restrict weapon types for certain characters is to encourage archetypes to use those weapons. Few people would actually use a dagger, but it's a solid option for a rogue. 

Ultimatly, it would seem to hurt a lot of archetypes if every character was "what weapon do you use half the time?". And, having basic attacks that do LESS than at-wills will only make the encounters longer, making a larger percentage of your attacks into basic weapon based attacks and thus making every character EXACTLY the same, with a few cool things it can do on occaision. The number of spells that wizards and clerics had in 3x allowed them to eventually move away from being weapon wielders if they wanted to (in the case of the cleric, both then, and now, you had the option of being a weapon wielding type or not.) Heck, they introduced feats to allow wizards access to at-will magical powers (reserve feats). They created the warlock with it's eldritch blast. Now, in those cases the touch attacks usually required Dex based attacks, but there were a number of other issues at work (BAB wasn't the same across all classes, touch AC could be a lot lower than actual AC, etc). 

Basically, removing at-wills makes more characters with MAD, and limits any "archetypes" to "stuff I do less than half the time in any given fight". Every character is EITHER: STR/DEX based, or forced to be a gish of some type. There are no wizards, only fighters/crossbowmen who occaisionally use magic. No matter what level you get to, unless there is a ridiculous bloat of daily and encounter powers, you will have a significant portion of time spent using a weapon. So, ANY class that has a primary attack stat and secondary stat that doesn't have one of them as STR or DEX, you've completely neutered them. A warlock, for example, can't be CHA/INT or CHA/CON or CON/INT because they'll be completely ineffective half of the battle. Now, you can have EVERY build for EVERY class have STR and/or DEX involved, but then you have an effect on the balance of races, and make all the classes much more similar.

More classes, more at-will choices for those classes, THAT is what gives you more archetypes. Does it really matter if it's a CLERIC wielding a bow, and not a ranger MC'd into cleric to get a few Cleric powers? That person would be using the bow most of the time, and would have a limited number of encounter powers.

In fact, what you'd probably want to do with this: All the non-martial classes are multiclass only. That is sort of what this would look like. Everyone would be something like a warlord, fighter, ranger or rogue. Then there is the wizard who would be a multiclass martial/wizard that starts with less than any martial class gets.


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## grickherder (Feb 25, 2009)

Agamon said:


> I don't confuse class with archtype.  I ran a doppleganger thief in a game last year.  She wasn't a Rogue or even multiclassed as Rogue, but was effective at being sneaky and manipulative.
> 
> You want an archtype that is good at something the obvious class isn't?  Pick a different class and have your character call himself whatever you want.  I've found it pretty effective for mixing things up a bit.




This is actually a very useful an cool thing to do.  A player in a game I ran wanted to be an arcane striker but didn't want to be a warlock.  So he made an eladrin rogue and reskinned it as a wizard.  All of his attacks were described as magical.  A friend of mine out west had a player in his group who did the same thing but as a stage magician-- he was actually a rogue but pretended to be a powerful wizard.

If I were to make an archer cleric, I'd either go with cleric and dump stat strength and take dex instead and then multiclass into ranger.  Or start as a ranger and multiclass into cleric (dump statting strength in favour of wisdom).  It would depend on whether I wanted to emphasize cleric powers or not.

If I wanted to remake the old basic d&d elf-- half fighter, half wizard, I'd likely go with a rogue multiclassed into warlock (or sorcerer depending on what that feat ends up giving you).  The lighter armour of the rogue fits the archetype.  The damage output is more in line with old school fighters being the high damage dealers rather than defenders.  I might even take a Half Elf-- call it and elf-- and use the extra at will as an encounter power to add more magic off the hop.


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## FireLance (Feb 25, 2009)

I do agree with one of Sadrik's points. I think that 4e currently over-rewards specialization in your primary attack stat. One house rule that I've seen proposed to fix this is for a character's attack stat to affect the damage modifier only, while the attack bonus would receive a flat modifier of +4 or +5, as if the character had an 18 or 20 in the ability score. However, beyond that, I would like to see more benefits for say, fighters with a high Intelligence, or rogues with a high Wisdom. 

In addition, while I agree with the point that the current suite of at-will abilities makes certain character concepts less viable, I think the solution is to have more at-will abilities. A cleric at-will ability that uses the bow would then be the defining characteristic of a cleric of a god of archery or hunting. It probably would not be too difficult to come up with a thematically appropriate at-will ability for each god.

Similarly, if there are flavor issues with the current at-will abilities, it may be possible to introduce new at-will abilities with the proper flavor: fighter at-wills that simply deal more damage instead of having additional effects, or wizard at-wills that allow the character to use Intelligence with a weapon attack.


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## The Human Target (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> *When I look at a class that I want to play in 4e I look first to its at-wills and class features and determine how I can maximize the effects of those. If one of them says you have to use a certain weapon or cannot use a certain weapon those are undue character creation rules that I don't prefer. You may prefer those limitation, I like options.*




This I just don't understand 

Okay, out of all the at-wills in the game these are the ones who are affected by weapon selection....


*Fighter*

Brash Strike (gain a bonus with certain weapons)
Reaping Strike (gain Bonus with two-handed weapon)
Dual Strike (must use two weapons)
Tide of Iron (must use a shield)

*Ranger*

Twin Strike (must use ranged weapon or two weapons)
Careful Attack  (must use ranged weapon or two weapons)

*Rogue *

Piercing Strike (must use light blade)
Riposte Strike  (must use light blade)
Deft Strike (must use crossbow, light blade, or sling)
Sly Slourish  (must use crossbow, light blade, or sling)
Disheartening Strike (must use crossbow, light blade, or sling)

The ranger has two whole at-wills that have a requirement that he use two weapons, which is the rangers melee shtick in 4E. 

The fighter has one power that actually give you a benefit for using specific weapons, Brash Strike. Those weapons are the ax, hammer, and mace weapon groups. Which for the fighter basically only rules out heavy blades or more rarely polearms. Its a power designed to give axe, hammer, and mace fighters a big boost due to their innate weaknesses prior to Martial power. And it fits thematically with the barbarian-ish style of Invigorating Fighters. The fighter has a power that makes it much more useful if you use a two handed weapon _of any kind._ And then the class has a power requiring two weapons and a power requiring a shield. Which means that the final three don't limit you in weapon selection, but give you advantages in fighting style. 

And then we have the rogue. All of whose at wills (and powers in total) have weapon restrictions. Because the rogue has the most potent one target damage dealing powers in the entire game. And it would be hugely unbalancing for them to get to use their powers with a bastard sword or an executioner's axe. So they have restrictions for overall game balance reasons.

So some of the ranger at-wills restrictions help define the rangers combat techniques. The rogue's at-wills restrictions give the class balance. And the fighter's at-wills actually give the fighter a reason to pick from a wide variety of weapons.

Yeesh. 



FireLance said:


> I do agree with one of Sadrik's points. I think that 4e currently over-rewards specialization in your primary attack stat. One house rule that I've seen proposed to fix this is for a character's attack stat to affect the damage modifier only, while the attack bonus would receive a flat modifier of +4 or +5, as if the character had an 18 or 20 in the ability score. However, beyond that, I would like to see more benefits for say, fighters with a high Intelligence, or rogues with a high Wisdom.
> 
> In addition, while I agree with the point that the current suite of at-will abilities makes certain character concepts less viable, I think the solution is to have more at-will abilities. A cleric at-will ability that uses the bow would then be the defining characteristic of a cleric of a god of archery or hunting. It probably would not be too difficult to come up with a thematically appropriate at-will ability for each god.
> 
> Similarly, if there are flavor issues with the current at-will abilities, it may be possible to introduce new at-will abilities with the proper flavor: fighter at-wills that simply deal more damage instead of having additional effects, or wizard at-wills that allow the character to use Intelligence with a weapon attack.




Now these idea I can get behind.


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## Sadrik (Feb 25, 2009)

WalterKovacs said:


> Even with an increase to starting with 3 encounters, a character will eventually cap out at 6 encounter powers. If the assumption is 12 round encounters, at BEST, you have 50% at-will [a bit less when dailies are used, but rarely would you use more than 1 daily per encounter]. So, _at least_ half the time ... EVERY CLASS ATTACKS THE SAME. The only difference is weapon selection, which is limited to: (a) STR or DEX, (b) +2 or +3 prof, (c) 1-H or 2-H. Which weapon you use will be based in part by whether you want to spend a feat to get the "best" weapon, or you just stick with what you have.




Let me first say, excellent analysis. 

Yes but also by that level (30) you should have some magic items that would fill in the other 12 rounds of combat. Not to mention your daily powers. I agree, the advantage of 4e, "EVERY CLASS ATTACKS THE SAME" and this is how this system will work. As you go up in level your level bonus will out-weigh your stat bonus (in most cases). The characters will be much more potent with a weapon than in previous editions. This really starts to separate around paragon tier when the level bonus begins to outstrip the stat bonus.

If the we had BAB like in previous editions I don't think an idea like this would have worked.



WalterKovacs said:


> Ultimatly, it would seem to hurt a lot of archetypes if every character was "what weapon do you use half the time?". And, having basic attacks that do LESS than at-wills will only make the encounters longer, making a larger percentage of your attacks into basic weapon based attacks and thus making every character EXACTLY the same, with a few cool things it can do on occaision.




Yes and no, I agree that it could take a combat more rounds to complete... well maybe, remember you now begin with 3 encounter powers. So if those blast off in the first few rounds you could be left with just the scraps, it could make combats fewer rounds it depends... But in general if the fight gets past the encounter powers initial push it could drag on.



WalterKovacs said:


> The number of spells that wizards and clerics had in 3x allowed them to eventually move away from being weapon wielders if they wanted to (in the case of the cleric, both then, and now, you had the option of being a weapon wielding type or not.) Heck, they introduced feats to allow wizards access to at-will magical powers (reserve feats). They created the warlock with it's eldritch blast. Now, in those cases the touch attacks usually required Dex based attacks, but there were a number of other issues at work (BAB wasn't the same across all classes, touch AC could be a lot lower than actual AC, etc).




I like the concept of reserve feats and if you go here you can see a discussion about them and this "no at-wills idea".

Basically the idea is use reserve feats to give extra uses of a 1st level at-will power during an encounter. 



WalterKovacs said:


> Basically, removing at-wills makes more characters with MAD, and limits any "archetypes" to "stuff I do less than half the time in any given fight". Every character is EITHER: STR/DEX based, or forced to be a gish of some type. There are no wizards, only fighters/crossbowmen who occaisionally use magic. No matter what level you get to, unless there is a ridiculous bloat of daily and encounter powers, you will have a significant portion of time spent using a weapon. So, ANY class that has a primary attack stat and secondary stat that doesn't have one of them as STR or DEX, you've completely neutered them. A warlock, for example, can't be CHA/INT or CHA/CON or CON/INT because they'll be completely ineffective half of the battle. Now, you can have EVERY build for EVERY class have STR and/or DEX involved, but then you have an effect on the balance of races, and make all the classes much more similar.




I agree it does cause a bit of MAD. Here is an interesting thing though. 4e is all about maximizing your one stat 20 nearly all the time if you have to go 18. If you introduce MAD, this may be a little difficult for some to ponder, you actually lower the arms race for everyone including those that have to focus solely on a single stat. If a 16 is good enough for one character it can be good enough for another - including the fighter who only really has to focus on a single stat. I am not saying that every fighter will be made like this but they _could _be made like this. In this case MAD, may actually may be good for 4e.


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## Sadrik (Feb 25, 2009)

FireLance said:


> I do agree with one of Sadrik's points. I think that 4e currently over-rewards specialization in your primary attack stat. One house rule that I've seen proposed to fix this is for a character's attack stat to affect the damage modifier only, while the attack bonus would receive a flat modifier of +4 or +5, as if the character had an 18 or 20 in the ability score. However, beyond that, I would like to see more benefits for say, fighters with a high Intelligence, or rogues with a high Wisdom.




Yes 100% agreement here. And that is an interesting solution.



FireLance said:


> In addition, while I agree with the point that the current suite of at-will abilities makes certain character concepts less viable, I think the solution is to have more at-will abilities. A cleric at-will ability that uses the bow would then be the defining characteristic of a cleric of a god of archery or hunting. It probably would not be too difficult to come up with a thematically appropriate at-will ability for each god.




This is a good idea and has merit but it seems a lot more difficult than simply removing all at wills and converting them to bonus 1st level encounter powers (basically converting them as is to the 21st level power level). Wala, done.


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## Sadrik (Feb 25, 2009)

The Human Target said:


> Okay, out of all the at-wills in the game these are the ones who are affected by weapon selection....



I think you grasped only part of the point. At-will powers that are better than using a basic attack make using a basic attack useless which in turn makes certain options blatantly sub-par. This is obvious. However, you seem to think the point was only at-wills that require a specific weapon cannot be used with a different type of weapon. A valid point but again only part of the point.

Excellent analysis btw.


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## Sadrik (Feb 25, 2009)

Obryn said:


> Forgive me if this has been answered - but have you played 4e yet?  Or is this mostly armchair speculation?




This is a good example of the types of at-will attacks that I would like to remove.


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## Mallus (Feb 25, 2009)

FireLance said:


> I think that 4e currently over-rewards specialization in your primary attack stat.



Why is this a bad thing? D&D has always featured strong fighters, smart wizards, agile rogues (except when they were called thieves), etc. 4e's rather elegant mechanics that tie a class's _traditional_ primary stat directly to combat performance --by making it determine both to-hit and damage bonus-- is, well, rather elegant. 

What are the benefits of messing with this?


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## Cadfan (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Yes but also by that level (30) you should have some magic items that would fill in the other 12 rounds of combat. Not to mention your daily powers. I agree, the advantage of 4e, "EVERY CLASS ATTACKS THE SAME" and this is how this system will work. As you go up in level your level bonus will out-weigh your stat bonus (in most cases). The characters will be much more potent with a weapon than in previous editions. This really starts to separate around paragon tier when the level bonus begins to outstrip the stat bonus.



That doesn't really follow, actually.  Yes, level bonus outstrips stat bonus.  This doesn't mean that characters, over time, become more equal in their ability to hit regardless of their original stats.  They will be less divergent than in previous editions, but that just means that no one will be worse than they were at level 1.  They'll still be just as bad.

In short, if my attack bonus at level 1 is +6 and yours is +4, the absolute difference is 2, and that's what matters.  And at level 10 if my attack bonus is +11 and yours is +9, the absolute difference is 2, and that's what matters.


> I agree it does cause a bit of MAD. Here is an interesting thing though. 4e is all about maximizing your one stat 20 nearly all the time if you have to go 18.



Most experienced min maxers do not feel that a 20 is always the best choice for the majority of characters.  An 18 created with a 16 +2 from race is usually superior due to the high cost of buying a natural 18 using a point buy.  A 16 is considered slightly less useful, but still viable for many builds, though certainly not optimal.


> If you introduce MAD, this may be a little difficult for some to ponder, you actually lower the arms race for everyone including those that have to focus solely on a single stat. If a 16 is good enough for one character it can be good enough for another - including the fighter who only really has to focus on a single stat. I am not saying that every fighter will be made like this but they _could _be made like this. In this case MAD, may actually may be good for 4e.



This really isn't the case.  The difference between a 16 and a 20 is going to be nearly the same in either system.  You'd have to do some really, really extreme things to the internal math of the game to make that no longer the case.  Plus, "good enough" is a relative concept.  You can't make a 16 "good enough" for a guy who could get a 20 if he wanted to, because he's got the 20 available as an option.

There are a few changes to the internal math that could counteract this, but they're awfully extreme.  Like making a 16 allow you to hit on a 3+ or so.


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## Mallus (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> At-will powers that are better than using a basic attack make using a basic attack useless which in turn makes certain options blatantly sub-par.



You're getting bogged down in semantics (again? still?). 4e "basic attacks" should be called something else, say like "secondary attacks, or "conditional attacks". 

A character's at-wills *are* their basic/primary/principle attacks.


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## Cadfan (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> This is a good example of the types of at-will attacks that I would like to remove.



Its really not an attack.  Its a valid question.  There are several things you've argued that I think you would stop arguing if you actually played the system a little bit and felt how it works.  Specifically, your conviction that 4e is all about getting a 20 in your attack stat, or an 18 if you can't, and your conviction that abilities like Reaping Strike have somehow made basic attacks obsolete.  20s in your main stat are often bad choices due to the high cost of purchasing them, and attacks like Reaping Strike (and most other at wills) are really just basic attacks with the sorts of minor bonuses that in 3e would have been provided by feats.  I think that some experience with the system would cause you to change your mind on these matters.


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## Obryn (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> This is a good example of the types of at-will attacks that I would like to remove.



Sure, I get that.

But it's a valid question.

4e is not perfect, and will not meet everyone's gaming needs out of the box (or ever).  But before I do any major tinkering in any system, I find it helpful to try it more or less as-is.  Then, I have a better feel for the system than I could ever get via armchair analysis.  (See: "Monks are horrifically overpowered!")

If you try things out, you can also better-articulate your goal.  Once you have a well-articulated goal, you can find better solutions to reach that goal.

I'm absolutely *not *saying "Try it!  You'll love it!  It's perfect as-is!"  What I am saying is, "Try it before you make major overhauls, because it probably doesn't work during play how it works in your mind."

-O


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## Sadrik (Feb 25, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> They will be less divergent than in previous editions, but that just means that no one will be worse than they were at level 1.




You misunderstood the point. This is not meant to say that the wizard should fight as good as the fighter. This was meant to say that in previous editions this would not have worked but looky it works in 4e.



Cadfan said:


> Most experienced min maxers do not feel that a 20 is always the best choice for the majority of characters.  An 18 created with a 16 +2 from race is usually superior due to the high cost of buying a natural 18 using a point buy.  A 16 is considered slightly less useful, but still viable for many builds, though certainly not optimal.




I agree, an 18 is good too - what is your point? You are validating what I said, yet feigning disagreement.



Cadfan said:


> This really isn't the case.  The difference between a 16 and a 20 is going to be nearly the same in either system.  You'd have to do some really, really extreme things to the internal math of the game to make that no longer the case.  Plus, "good enough" is a relative concept.  You can't make a 16 "good enough" for a guy who could get a 20 if he wanted to, because he's got the 20 available as an option.




Like I said not everyone would be able to ponder the arms race concept. You are right good enough is a relative concept and in fact the point.


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## Festivus (Feb 25, 2009)

In my game, by the third or fourth magic missle into a wall, someone or something is going to come to investigate.  Same goes for a clanging axe or hammer attack.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I think you grasped only part of the point. At-will powers that are better than using a basic attack make using a basic attack useless which in turn makes certain options blatantly sub-par. This is obvious. However, you seem to think the point was only at-wills that require a specific weapon cannot be used with a different type of weapon. A valid point but again only part of the point.
> 
> Excellent analysis btw.




Why would it be important that the basic attacks are useless? 

I am kinda guessing where you might come from. It's like a feat that gives you a +3 bonus to hit points, accompanied with a second feat that grants you +1 hit points per level (minimum 3). 

But there is a difference - There is a cost involved with picking the +3 hit point feats, and it is the same as for the +3 or more hit point feat. Basic Attacks are free. You don't need to expend anything to get access to them. While if you learn a particular at-will power, that means you don't get to have another one. 

Aside from this, basic attacks have a use - they are used for opportunity attacks and charge attacks, and often also triggered by certain powers. (The simplest example might be Commanders Strike). (And everyone would love to have an opportunity attack when the situation comes - it's a free swing at your opponent!)


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## Sadrik (Feb 25, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Its really not an attack.  Its a valid question.  There are several things you've argued that I think you would stop arguing if you actually played the system a little bit and felt how it works.  Specifically, your conviction that 4e is all about getting a 20 in your attack stat, or an 18 if you can't, and your conviction that abilities like Reaping Strike have somehow made basic attacks obsolete.  20s in your main stat are often bad choices due to the high cost of purchasing them, and attacks like Reaping Strike (and most other at wills) are really just basic attacks with the sorts of minor bonuses that in 3e would have been provided by feats.  I think that some experience with the system would cause you to change your mind on these matters.






Obryn said:


> Sure, I get that.
> 
> But it's a valid question.
> 
> ...




If I had never played the game would you find that you could easily dismiss my ideas as coming from some inexperienced loon who simply purports change for changes sake? My argument stands that at-wills take something from the game. You can disagree with me, fine. But this line of argument is insulting.


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## Cadfan (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> You misunderstood the point. This is not meant to say that the wizard should fight as good as the fighter. This was meant to say that in previous editions this would not have worked but looky it works in 4e.



I'm responding to your arguments about half level bonuses outstripping ability score bonuses.  That's irrelevant.  What matters is the absolute difference between attack bonuses and between attack bonuses and defenses.

A game where one character having a +1 to attack while another character has a +5 to attack is exactly the same as one character having a +1001 to attack while another character has a +1005.  Granting both characters a flat +1000 to their attack bonus doesn't make the +1 character any more viable than he was before.  Against equal level challenges, they'll still be hitting on the same number as before.  If the +1 was viable before, its viable now, if it was unviable before, its unviable now.

What BAB did was make characters with low attacks grow _worse_ over the course of their career in comparison to characters with better BABs.  4e doesn't make you worse as you level up, unless for some reason you can't afford to improve your attack statistic, and even then the difference maxes out at 3 points.  But you argued that 4e would somehow make things even out as attack bonus outstrips attack stat.  And mathematically that simply isn't true.


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## Cadfan (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> If I had never played the game would you find that you could easily dismiss my ideas as coming from some inexperienced loon who simply purports change for changes sake? My argument stands that at-wills take something from the game. You can disagree with me, fine. But this line of argument is insulting.



Well, then be insulted.  You shouldn't be, but I can't stop you.

You're making specific claims.  Several of them are carefully linked to the *feel* of various aspects of the game.

If your arguments were purely mathematical or purely based on logic and reason, that would be one thing.  But you're also making arguments that are essentially based on the aesthetic experience of the game when played at the table.  You are apparently attempting to derive the nature of that aesthetic experience through armchair reasoning.  The conclusions you've derived do not mesh with the actual experience of some of the people in this forum.

It is entirely reasonable for them to point out that they _literally possess a superior source of information_ about the game than you possess, and for them to invite you to investigate further before you draw conclusions.

Lets say that you were a nobel prize winning biologist and a master chef, and I brought to you a recipe.  You might analyze my recipe, and conclude that it won't taste good.  You might base this conclusion on extensive experience in cooking similar dishes.  You might base your conclusion on a chemical analysis of the component ingredients and the known chemical interactions between their molecules and human taste buds.  But all of this is still not the same as taking a bite of the dish.

The biggest issue that I think you will likely change your mind upon once you try the game out, presuming that opposition hasn't rooted you in your ways, is your belief that martial powers like Reaping Strike don't provide the same aesthetic feel as a basic attack, and your belief that some aesthetic, some feel, some archetype, has been lost by their inclusion as usable at will.  Most of these powers boil down to actually being a basic attack, augmented by a minor ability of the sort typically granted by feats in the previous edition.  If you didn't feel that Rapid Shot or Two Weapon Fighting created problems in 3e, then the odds are that you won't find that Trin Strike or Dual Strike create problems now.  They're close to the same thing as they were before.


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## Sadrik (Feb 25, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Why would it be important that the basic attacks are useless?
> 
> I am kinda guessing where you might come from. It's like a feat that gives you a +3 bonus to hit points, accompanied with a second feat that grants you +1 hit points per level (minimum 3).




Yes, if you gain nothing from a basic attack and you gain some minor boon from an at-will why would you use a basic attack unless forced to? A wizard shoots magic missiles why would he ever dream of throwing a shuriken? That is just dumb right. But if Magic missile was a 4d4+INT encounter power and he had no at-will powers. Then he might need to throw a shuriken now and again.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Aside from this, basic attacks have a use - they are used for opportunity attacks and charge attacks, and often also triggered by certain powers. (The simplest example might be Commanders Strike). (And everyone would love to have an opportunity attack when the situation comes - it's a free swing at your opponent!)



Strangely, by removing at-wills all of the maneuvers that you just cited become more powerful - as players add more stat points to STR and DEX. An interesting side effect.

Additionally "tricks" from page 42 of the DMG and other "at-will" basic maneuvers could be used more with that open space (the rounds freed up from sheepishly at-willing your best at-will).


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## Obryn (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> If I had never played the game would you find that you could easily dismiss my ideas as coming from some inexperienced loon who simply purports change for changes sake? My argument stands that at-wills take something from the game. You can disagree with me, fine. But this line of argument is insulting.



I'm not dismissing anything - it's clear that you see some things you don't like in the rules, and are looking for ways to make it more to your taste.  That's an admirable goal.  Like I said, 4e out of the box (just like 3e out of the box) won't suit everyone's tastes.

I'm not questioning your goals, and I'm not questioning your preferences.  But there are a lot of folks offering suggestions to help make this work in ways that are conscious of the game design, and you're more or less dismissing them out of hand.

I mean exactly what I said in my post - I am *not* saying that playing the game will make you love everything about it.  That would be insulting.  I am saying that, just like with every game, major tinkering might do things you wouldn't expect.  Getting practice and experience will help you learn what to expect.

I'd be telling you the same thing if you were planning to tinker with 1e, RC, 3e, or WFRP.  Tinkering and house-ruling are awesome.  But it's best to learn a system before you make major changes.  I wouldn't make any major changes or customizations to a car engine before I learned how to change my oil and sparkplugs, either.

-O


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## Alas (Feb 25, 2009)

> My argument stands that at-wills take something from the game.



I've read through the entire thread, but I still feel like I'm coming late to the party, so I hope my question doesn't sound impertinent-- but can you clarify what at-wills _take_ from the game?

In my understanding, at-wills are one of the design spaces where a class's schtick resides. Rogue at-wills allow a character to stab and slip away, a wizard's at-wills allow a character to blast or befuddle at range, and so forth. The at-wills are like the class features-- they're what the class does instinctively (or first nature, or with practiced ease, whatever idiom floats your boat). I think there could stand to be a few more choices in at-wills for each class, but the supplements and _Dragon_ are making me happy so far, and the mechanics for the existing at-wills seem robust enough to take a fair amount of refluffing in the interest of better portraying particular character concepts.

I guess I just don't understand how currently having the option to use at-will A, at-will B, or a basic attack is worse than only having the option to use a basic attack. What are at-wills taking away?


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## Sadrik (Feb 25, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Well, then be insulted.  You shouldn't be, but I can't stop you.



I am not insulted I just feel it is kind of asinine that I would have to throw out my credentials to not be dismissed offhandedly.


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## Sadrik (Feb 25, 2009)

Obryn said:


> I'm not dismissing anything - it's clear that you see some things you don't like in the rules, and are looking for ways to make it more to your taste.  That's an admirable goal.  Like I said, 4e out of the box (just like 3e out of the box) won't suit everyone's tastes.



I think it might be good for you to go back and read what you have written.



Obryn said:


> I'm not questioning your goals, and I'm not questioning your preferences.  But there are a lot of folks offering suggestions to help make this work in ways that are conscious of the game design, and you're more or less dismissing them out of hand.



Again, go back and read what I have written.


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## Caliban (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Yes, if you gain nothing from a basic attack and you gain some minor boon from an at-will why would you use a basic attack unless forced to? A wizard shoots magic missiles why would he ever dream of throwing a shuriken? That is just dumb right. But if Magic missile was a 4d4+INT encounter power and he had no at-will powers. Then he might need to throw a shuriken now and again.




I'm a wizard not a ninja. Why the hell would I want to throw a shuriken? 




> Strangely, by removing at-wills all of the maneuvers that you just cited become more powerful - as players add more stat points to STR and DEX. An interesting side effect.




Seems to be that you are basically advocating magic magic using classes weaker and martial classes stronger.

The points you put into STR and DEX have to come from somewhere. So you will end up with characters being weaker in their primary casting stats because those stats are less useful. Or having even less variety among casters because they will all be forced to have Str, Dex, and 1 casting stat. Dumping Con, and 2 of their mental stats. Sounds like the will have less variety under your system.



> Additionally "tricks" from page 42 of the DMG and other "at-will" basic maneuvers could be used more with that open space (the rounds freed up from sheepishly at-willing your best at-will).




I don't "sheepishly" doing anything. I gleefully blast away with my arcane might, because I'm not being reduced to sticks and stones like a fool who doesn't know how to cast spells. 

Some classes can make excellent use of basic attacks (primarily the martial based classes) while others do not (primarly the arcane classes). 

I have a wizard who makes a basic melee attack as well as most melee focused characters, but it was a choice. You shouldn't force people into making every character a melee or bow fighter as well as whatever their class attack theme is supposed to be. 

You are simply reducing the number of viable builds for characters, and making the combats drag out more. 

The more you argue for it, the more poorly thought it seems. You strip the classes of their basic powers and force them to use the weakest attacks in the game and claim that it opens up more "variety". I don't need to find out how many ways my wizard or rogue can suck with a basic attack they weren't meant to use.


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## Sadrik (Feb 25, 2009)

Alas said:


> I've read through the entire thread, but I still feel like I'm coming late to the party, so I hope my question doesn't sound impertinent-- but can you clarify what at-wills _take_ from the game?



Well, I am afraid that if you did not get it from reading the last 4 pages then you may not get it at all. I think most people get it, it just is not to some people's taste. 



Alas said:


> I guess I just don't understand how currently having the option to use at-will A, at-will B, or a basic attack is worse than only having the option to use a basic attack. What are at-wills taking away?




An interesting solution from another thread was to give every class 10 at-will power level encounter powers. With the assumption that combat would go 10 rounds and that then the player would have just as many options to use with their single bloated stat. I actually like this solution. It deals with the fundamentally-designed-in-the-game-stat-bloat in a sensible way and makes characters have plenty of options.


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## Skallgrim (Feb 25, 2009)

I _think_ I've gotten the major points, and to me, what the OP is looking for is simply something that D&D (particularly 4e) doesn't do very well.  One of 4e's biggest strengths, I feel, was in looking at what D&D does well, and what it does poorly, and stop doing the latter to do more of the former.

For instance, GURPS handles this in a manner that seems like it would be to the OP's liking.  All attacks which physically hit the target (as opposed to sway it's mind, or poison it's lungs) are determined by Dexterity plus skill.  Thus, if a mage wants to be good at tossing a lot of missile spells, he will need a good DEX, which would also pay off in using weapons.  Then, on top of that, GURPS has a wide variety of skills, which each individually cost very little out of your character point allotment.  Someone can get a marginal skill pretty easily, though the specialist will have to spend a bunch of points.  Thus, it is easy for everyone to have a passable set of backup combat skills.

GURPS also uses a much more flexible time system than D&D, in that you will be able to attack and defend each round (which is a second) with most melee weapons, but a powerful ranged spell, like an Explosive Fireball, will need to be charged for 3 seconds, aimed for a second, and then released.  

Thus, the system lets you balance powerful magical effects versus mundane martial attacks fairly easily.  The powerful effects can take longer to create, as well as requiring more skill points to learn.  The less potent attacks can be used more often, and require less skill point investiture.

What GURPS does not do well is allow you to make iconic, easy to run characters quickly.  Unless you are very practiced with the system, it can take HOURS to generate a character.  In addition, character generation is a skill in GURPS (Character Optimizers in D&D have nothing on GURPS).  It is possible to create weak, virtually useless characters, or, in the absence of good supervision, broken, hideously over-powered characters.  GURPS also can allow you to throw archetypes on their ear.  The mage with invisibility and death touch (and little else), who goes around killing everyone by tapping them, or the mage with Enlarge Self who simply grows to giant size and crushes his enemies, but knows very little other magic.

D&D 4e has rules which replicate a particular type of epic fantasy feel, with an emphasis on character growth in power, and is easy to play, learn, and run.  I think that altering the system in this manner could do a great deal of violence to the system's ability to meet those goals (but, of course, it is your game).


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## Sadrik (Feb 25, 2009)

Caliban said:


> I'm a wizard not a ninja. Why the hell would I want to throw a shuriken?




Can you buy me another keyboard


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## Obryn (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I think it might be good for you to go back and read what you have written.
> 
> Again, go back and read what I have written.



I've read the entire thread, and I don't know how I can be more clear or more helpful.  It took a bit to grasp what you're looking for - and I'm not even sure I'm 100% clear on that now - but it seems like you're treating criticism and questions as hostility.

So - good luck to you.  I hope you find a way to make this work for you.

-O


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## Spatula (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I agree it does cause a bit of MAD. Here is an interesting thing though. 4e is all about maximizing your one stat 20 nearly all the time if you have to go 18.



And yet somehow there doesn't seem to be a shortage of dwarven fighters (judging by comments in these forums).  16 is perfectly acceptable for a starting primary score.

Buying an 18 with the standard point-buy (in order to get a 20 with a racial bonus) requires severely gimping your other stats, and thus your defenses.  It's a trade-off, and not a particularly good one IMO (especially if you're going to be in melee).


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I am not insulted I just feel it is kind of asinine that I would have to throw out my credentials to not be dismissed offhandedly.



[META DISCUSSION]
Offhandedly? If your opinion and ideas were dismissed offhandedly, we wouldn't discuss is over multiple pages. 

Offhandedly is this:
"Doesn't look like you tried the game. Next!"

But that's not what has happening. People are explaining that their experiences don't match your opinions or experience. Apparently you are not bringing your point or opinion across, at least not in a way that convinces others. That doesn't mean you're dismissed offhandedly. It just means people have different opinions. And some try to figure out how these different opinions can exist. 
[/META DISCUSSION]


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## Campbell (Feb 25, 2009)

Spatula said:


> And yet somehow there doesn't seem to be a shortage of dwarven fighters (judging by comments in these forums).  16 is perfectly acceptable for a starting primary score.
> 
> Buying an 18 with the standard point-buy (in order to get a 20 with a racial bonus) requires severely gimping your other stats, and thus your defenses.  It's a trade-off, and not a particularly good one IMO (especially if you're going to be in melee).




Let's check out the difference - 

Assumptions

 Two standard point buy 8th level fighters.
 Both use long swords.
Assume +2 Items across the board. 
 one handed weapon talent for both. 

Human Fighter (Strength Boost)


Initial Ability Scores - 20 Strength, 13 Constitution, 10 Dexterity, 8 Intelligence, 13 Wisdom, 10 Charisma.
 He raised Strength twice, and Constitution and Wisdom once.
 Current Ability Scores - 22 Strength, 14 Constitution, 10 Dexterity, 8 Intelligence, 14 Wisdom, 10 charisma.
 Attack Bonus with +2 Long Sword +16
 Attack Bonus on Opportunity Attacks +18
 hp 71, surge value 17, 10 healing surges. Up to 241 hp over the course of the day, barring leader abilities.
Fortitude Defense 23, Reflex Defense 17, Will Defense 19.

Dwarven Fighter

Initial Ability Scores : 16 Strength, 17 Constitution, 10 Dexterity, 8 Intelligence, 16 Wisdom, 10 Charisma.
 He raised Strength and Wisdom twice.
 Final Ability Scores: 18 Strength, 17 Constitution, 10 Dexterity, 8 Intelligence, 18 Wisdom, 10 Charisma.
 Attack Bonus with +2 Long Sword +14
 Attack Bonus on Opportunity Attacks +18
 hp 74, surge value 18, 11 healing surges. Up to 272 hp over the course of the day, barring leader abilities.
Fortitude Defense 22, Reflex Defense 16, Will Defense 20. 

This comparison doesn't account for skills, and the vagaries of individual powers. The Dwarven fighter is only slightly behind the human in attacks (although equal with opportunity attacks), but has one more surge, and a higher Will Defense.

I'd say the 16 Strength build is slightly suboptimal, but of the sort that won't get noticed that much during play, especially if he picks up feats and powers to take advantage of his Wisdom - which there should be more of.


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## WalterKovacs (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Let me first say, excellent analysis.
> 
> Yes but also by that level (30) you should have some magic items that would fill in the other 12 rounds of combat. Not to mention your daily powers. I agree, the advantage of 4e, "EVERY CLASS ATTACKS THE SAME" and this is how this system will work. As you go up in level your level bonus will out-weigh your stat bonus (in most cases). The characters will be much more potent with a weapon than in previous editions. This really starts to separate around paragon tier when the level bonus begins to outstrip the stat bonus.
> 
> If the we had BAB like in previous editions I don't think an idea like this would have worked.




However, monster design is much different in 4e than it was in 3x. In 4e, Monsters have their attack bonuses going up at just about every level. The 1/2 level bonus, plus magic items, plus your abilities being updated at every level ending 4, 8 and 1. In 3x, monster defenses don't ramp up that much, because the people with the highest BAB are EXPECTED to hit the first time, it's the later iterative attacks that might end up missing.

However, in 4e, your attack roll is currently expected to be close to 50/50 the entire time. In fact, even with maxing out your stat the whole way up, it would still fall behind based on where you started. So even if your 1/2 level counts "more" than your ability score, that doesn't mean that your attack roll is going to be high enough to actually hit anything.



> Yes and no, I agree that it could take a combat more rounds to complete... well maybe, remember you now begin with 3 encounter powers. So if those blast off in the first few rounds you could be left with just the scraps, it could make combats fewer rounds it depends... But in general if the fight gets past the encounter powers initial push it could drag on.




It may make earlier encounters a bit quicker. But if the goal is to NEVER have to use your at-will powers, that seems to be a bit of a weird fix. "Give them enough encounter powers to never have to use the at-will powers that they never want to use."



> I agree it does cause a bit of MAD. Here is an interesting thing though. 4e is all about maximizing your one stat 20 nearly all the time if you have to go 18. If you introduce MAD, this may be a little difficult for some to ponder, you actually lower the arms race for everyone including those that have to focus solely on a single stat. If a 16 is good enough for one character it can be good enough for another - including the fighter who only really has to focus on a single stat. I am not saying that every fighter will be made like this but they _could _be made like this. In this case MAD, may actually may be good for 4e.




Sorry ... but it's very rare for people to actully go with a 20 in their primary attack stat. Almost most that go for optimization go with 18 [after modifiers], because it allows you to have a secondary stat, that applies to your class. There are feats as well that require a bit more spread in your stats. And then there are the non-AC defenses. If you put 20 into your main attack stat, 2 of your NADs are going to suffer, your secondary class features suffer.

At the moment, people have reasons to go with 16-20 for their main attack stat. If you have a cetain race/class combo, you may go with 16 for your attack stat. Most go with 18 by taking advantage of a racial bonus so they can still have points to spend elsewhere. It is possible for some to go with a 20.

The arms race isn't some imaginary thing between players where, if all the players agreed that 16 was "enough" they would solve the issue. The monsters are designed assuming people would be optimizing their characters.


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## Sadrik (Feb 25, 2009)

If it is not known this is a discussion about at-will class powers. Specifically we are talking about what the game would do if we removed them completely. My argument is that it would actually be a good thing. Others have argued that removing them would affect the game in a harsh and negative way.

As a trade off, to removing the at-will powers, I thought that increasing the number of encounter powers by 2 (make the 2 lost at-wills 1st level encounters basically) would be a good way to offset. My arguments come from this assumption so don’t think I am giving nothing back to my players.

I will try and elaborate some of the more pertinent discussions relating to the point at hand. Just like the system some of the effects of this change are good some are bad. So I don’t want there to be an assumption that - I think that everything is perfect with a cherry on top. I do believe the good effects outweigh the bad. 

First of all, having at-will powers in the game removes the need to be decent at basic attacks. How do you become decent at a basic attack? You pump your dexterity and or strength at character creation. Strength allows for basic melee and heavy thrown weapon attacks and dexterity allows for basic ranged and light thrown weapon attacks.

The concern is that if this fundamental is altered, it may collapse the game and no one will hit or do a proper amount of damage to contribute in a meaningful way.

I am not sure this would be the case. You would have 2 additional encounter powers. Encounter powers are much more powerful and would quickly knock out a lot more creatures. A controller for instance would actually be pretty good under this system imo. They could hit multiple creatures with spells that actually do more than scratch them. So despite the wizards INT based limitation they are actually contributing more with three encounter powers than they would with a myriad of crap at-wills. This could revitalize the controller role.

Another important factor is, in 4e a character’s vanilla attacks are their at-will attacks. Having a special attack at will is not very special. They are not very interesting after doing them ten times every combat. It is like a one trick pony that is given a bunch of tools that can only be used in two ways. It removes imagination because when you have a cool thing like reaping strike of eldritch blast why would you ever pull out a bow throw a dagger or do anything of the sort? Also if all you have to do is rely on a basic attack you are more likely to try a “DMG page 42 trick”.

Removing at-will powers opens up design space for character types that are currently sub-par by the RAW.  It doesn't matter if you are martial, arcane, divine, primal, elemental, shadow, ki or whatever other power sources they are going to come up with. Characters are limited by the at-wills that they are tied to at character creation. 

This makes having characters that do not fit the mold of those prefab at-wills outside the ability for the RAW to deal with and a limitation of the game system. 

The perfect example is the elf cleric archer of correlon. This character is not a very viable build. I mean, what would a cleric be doing with a bow let alone a high dex. A ranged cleric is a lazer cleric pure and simple and that only requires uni-pumped wisdom to be effective. With making basic attacks the standard instead of lazers it says, "Ok I can make an archer cleric because I am not losing anything for doing it." Thus it opens up many more character concepts that were previously unavailable.


A large portion of this discussion has revolved around stats-
Forcing players to spend stat points at character creation on dexterity or strength forces them to lower their ultra high bloated uni-stat. If they do not do this they will either be good at their powers or good at basic attacks. This has a number of effects, five out of twelve of the PHB classes/builds will be effected by this because their primary stats are not strength or dexterity.

STR
Primary for Fighters
Primary for two-weapon Rangers
Primary for melee Clerics
Primary for Warlords
Primary for strength Paladins

DEX
Primary for Rogues
Primary for archer Rangers

CON
Primary for infernal Warlocks

INT
Primary for Wizards

WIS
Primary for lazer Clerics

CHA
Primary for charisma Paladins
Primary for fey Warlocks

4e makes a lot of assumptions about your stats. They are hard coded into the system. Chiefly, you will always be attacking with your highest stat, always (unless you made poor character creation choices). There is a 50% attack roll assumption and much of that assumption is based off of having a high stat by my estimation. You need an 18 or 20 to be competent. Feats provide only a minor boost to the power of your stat’s game effect so it is innately more effective to boost a stat than to select a feat. So the system forcibly directs you into having an uber stat, most notably the 50% attack assumption.

In previous editions, base attacks were based upon strength or dexterity only. So you knew that if you were going to be shooting a bow or swinging a sword you needed strength or dexterity at least a little. Additionally, you know that the "to-hit" rate for your spells was much higher than it is now (saving throws were relatively easily failed). You could afford a compromise on your stat line and spread it out and take two 16's or even a 16 and several 14's and still be competent.

Now if you want to be good in a class you need to invest in its primary stat and one of its secondary ones and you are done. By lowering the stats it does the following. Potentially lowers the stats arms race between characters, if it ok for a character to have a 16 then it might be ok for the fighter to have a 16 too. This is a relative and flighty change but it does change perception on what you need.


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## Spatula (Feb 25, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> The perfect example is the elf cleric archer of correlon. This character is not a very viable build.



And yet, several people have created & played this character in actual games.



Sadrik said:


> I mean, what would a cleric be doing with a bow let alone a high dex.



Elves start with proficiency in the longbow.  Elves also get a bonus to DEX and you want either a decent DEX or INT for your Reflex defense.  And clerics don't have much use for INT unless you want to focus on rituals / knowledge skills.  Futhermore, the longbow does more damage and has a *much* longer range than the cleric at-wills.  The character can also pick up some ranger attacks via multiclassing for even more archery goodness.



Sadrik said:


> You need an 18 or 20 to be competent.



Dwarven fighter & paladin, eladrin warlord, half-elf warlord, tiefling rogue & warlord.  Those are all race & class combos that the PHB tells you are well-suited for one another, where the race does not give a +2 to the class' primary stat.  And the assumed stat distribution tops off with a 16.  So either your assumptions are faulty (and most of the are, IMO - where are these 12 round combats coming from?) or the game authors, playtesters, and the people who have been playing the game for the past 8 months have been deluding themselves.


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## GMforPowergamers (Feb 26, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Removing at-will powers opens up design space for character types that are currently sub-par by the RAW.  It doesn't matter if you are martial, arcane, divine, primal, elemental, shadow, ki or whatever other power sources they are going to come up with. Characters are limited by the at-wills that they are tied to at character creation.
> 
> This makes having characters that do not fit the mold of those prefab at-wills outside the ability for the RAW to deal with and a limitation of the game system.



ok I have tried to ask this 3 times now...

      wont your system also limit characters to a prefab mold...

     If i want to play the wizard with a wand but no weapon...how can I in your system???

      What about a cleric, druid, any other class???  You want your concept with wepons to matter but why take away concepts without???

      If my wizard can't xloud of daggers and scortching burst at will...then he can run out of magic....what fun is playing a magic caster that has run out of magic??


edit: My LFR character is a half elf swordmage...that started with a 16 Int...and considers Basic attacks to be his most used 'at will' power...I also have sword burst and lightning lure...but I have Int blademaster...


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## eryndel (Feb 26, 2009)

Well, I might be a little late to the party...


Sadrik said:


> First of all, having at-will powers in the game removes the need to be decent at basic attacks. How do you become decent at a basic attack? You pump your dexterity and or strength at character creation. Strength allows for basic melee and heavy thrown weapon attacks and dexterity allows for basic ranged and light thrown weapon attacks.




The issue here is that 4e isn't particularly focused on ensuring that everyone is reasonable good at using a weapon.   In fact, those that are typically utilize the Martial power source.   The expectation seems to be that if you are Divine, Arcane, Primal, etc... using a weapon is often, though not always, secondary.

That may not be stylistically you're thing.  However, it's not that dissimilar to earlier editions.   The poor 1st edition magic user's hit table was pretty bad, and could hardly be called decent with a basic attack.   I think it was only with 3e (or maybe 2e Player's Options series) which brought some of these characters up to the sub-par level.



> You would have 2 additional encounter powers. Encounter powers are much more powerful and would quickly knock out a lot more creatures. A controller for instance would actually be pretty good under this system imo. They could hit multiple creatures with spells that actually do more than scratch them. So despite the wizards INT based limitation they are actually contributing more with three encounter powers than they would with a myriad of crap at-wills. This could revitalize the controller role.




Would the new encounter powers be upgraded in effect as well?  If not, then a wizard with 1 encounter power and magic missile/scorching burst would outperform a wizard with 1 encounter power and only two uses of magic missile/scorching burst and the rest basic attacks. Significantly.



> Another important factor is, in 4e a character’s vanilla attacks are their at-will attacks. Having a special attack at will is not very special. They are not very interesting after doing them ten times every combat. It is like a one trick pony that is given a bunch of tools that can only be used in two ways. It removes imagination because when you have a cool thing like reaping strike of eldritch blast why would you ever pull out a bow throw a dagger or do anything of the sort?




IMO, they are special because they are iconic of the role the character plays.  At wills help the character consistently perform his/her role.  Leader never lose the ability to aid their team members, controllers never lose the ability to manage minions or change the battlefield, if even on a minor level.  Taking at-wills away reduce the significance on role in the game.  Again, for some people that might be a good thing.   

Also, I have a hard time really understanding your "repetitive" argument.  In the end, you're proposing reducing two (or three) at-wills to one (the basic attack) and I don't see how that will get _less_ repetitive.   Instead of a two trick pony, it is a one trick pony.   Certainly, increasing the number of encounter abilities can fix the tedium of combat, but that solution can be done without removing at-wills.  That, and relying on basic attacks would increase the grind feel.   At wills have a little something extra to make a combat interesting.   Using tide of iron to push an enemy into a flanking position with rogue is a lot more fun, and makes for a shorter combat, then "I swing my sword."



> Removing at-will powers opens up design space for character types that are currently sub-par by the RAW.  It doesn't matter if you are martial, arcane, divine, primal, elemental, shadow, ki or whatever other power sources they are going to come up with. Characters are limited by the at-wills that they are tied to at character creation.
> 
> This makes having characters that do not fit the mold of those prefab at-wills outside the ability for the RAW to deal with and a limitation of the game system.
> 
> The perfect example is the elf cleric archer of correlon. This character is not a very viable build. I mean, what would a cleric be doing with a bow let alone a high dex. A ranged cleric is a lazer cleric pure and simple and that only requires uni-pumped wisdom to be effective. With making basic attacks the standard instead of lazers it says, "Ok I can make an archer cleric because I am not losing anything for doing it." Thus it opens up many more character concepts that were previously unavailable.




Your discussion has been focused on opening up options by encouraging/focus more dependence on weapons.   The design space I see opened up is making up the cleric archer, or the cleric crossbowman, or the wizard quarterstaff wielder.   True, certain at-wills (primarily those from power sources other than martial) don't really help the character swing a sword or shoot a bow.  The reason, I believe, is that the expectations is if you want your character to do cool stuff with weapons, you'll look into the martial power source.  

It's important to look at the role you want to have.   Do you want your cleric archer to primarily assist the rest of the team?   Cleric is the way to go, with maybe a multiclass into Ranger.   It sounds as if you more want a hotshot archer who's also a devoted follower of Corellon.  That's mostly striker, you can do that completely as a Ranger.   However, if you want to add some healing and/or holy smiting, multiclass into Cleric.  I think that's a completely viable build.

If, however, you simply want the characters to really focus on using weapons and don't like all that other flashy stuff, go with an all Martial campaign.   Throw in some extra encounters if you think the combats are getting too dull.  If you want, you can try removing at-wills in your campaign (no-one's stopping you).   However, my opinion would be that it would:

1)  Make combats longer unless the adversaries were scaled down.  Even the current encounter powers aren't finishers, they are just slightly scaled up at-will powers (depending on level).   

2)  Make combat more dull as the players use their abilities early (to bring the opponents down) and then grind away with basic attacks.

3)  Make non martial characters less optimized (having to spread abilities out) while allowing martial characters to optimize as they please.   This would tend to make the non martial characters more fragile and probably less interesting to play.

According to your posts, I think you're trying to get away from 1) and especially 2).   My opinion is removing at-wills would have the opposite effect of what you hope.

But give it a shot and see if you want.


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## The Human Target (Feb 26, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I think you grasped only part of the point. At-will powers that are better than using a basic attack make using a basic attack useless which in turn makes certain options blatantly sub-par. This is obvious. However, you seem to think the point was only at-wills that require a specific weapon cannot be used with a different type of weapon. A valid point but again only part of the point.
> 
> Excellent analysis btw.




Okay, I think I get what you're saying now.

Now I don't agree that its a problem, but I get it.


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## FireLance (Feb 26, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Why is this a bad thing? D&D has always featured strong fighters, smart wizards, agile rogues (except when they were called thieves), etc. 4e's rather elegant mechanics that tie a class's _traditional_ primary stat directly to combat performance --by making it determine both to-hit and damage bonus-- is, well, rather elegant.
> 
> What are the benefits of messing with this?



It's not objectively bad, it's a matter of taste. I just happen to prefer characters with more balanced ability scores.  I'm not for taking away all the benefits of a high traditional primary stat for a character, by the way - I like that aspect of 4e, too. I just wonder whether providing a scaling damage bonus would be enough of an advantage to having a high traditional primary stat, while giving the player the leeway to have a character that runs against type without feeling too disadvantatged mechanically.


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## Ourph (Feb 26, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Removing at-will powers opens up design space for character types that are currently sub-par by the RAW.  It doesn't matter if you are martial, arcane, divine, primal, elemental, shadow, ki or whatever other power sources they are going to come up with. Characters are limited by the at-wills that they are tied to at character creation.
> 
> This makes having characters that do not fit the mold of those prefab at-wills outside the ability for the RAW to deal with and a limitation of the game system.
> 
> The perfect example is the elf cleric archer of correlon. This character is not a very viable build. I mean, what would a cleric be doing with a bow let alone a high dex. A ranged cleric is a lazer cleric pure and simple and that only requires uni-pumped wisdom to be effective. With making basic attacks the standard instead of lazers it says, "Ok I can make an archer cleric because I am not losing anything for doing it." Thus it opens up many more character concepts that were previously unavailable.



If you eliminate at-wills and grant more encounter powers to make up for the decrease in effectiveness that will cause, it makes hitting with those new encounter powers that much more important to prevent over-extended, grindy combats. I think you'll still see Clerics pumping their Wis and Str to the detriment of their Dex because Str and Wis are the stats they need for hitting with their more-effective daily and encounter powers. A Cleric, under your system, that gives up one of those stats to have a decent Dex so that they can have a chance of being effective with their basic ranged bow attack is doing so at the cost of missing more often with the encounter powers you are relying on to balance out the loss of at-wills.

I think the much better solution here is to just make up some at-will powers that exactly fit the archetype you're going for. If you want an archer Cleric of Corellon, just create some new at-will powers that feature AC-targeting archery damage rather than Will-targeting radiant damage.  As long as the archery attacks are still Wis vs. AC you won't be changing any of the assumptions of the game, but you'll have the flavor you want.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Feb 26, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Can you buy me another keyboard




You can laugh, but I think this is the key point in the thread.  If I'm a Wizard, I don't WANT to throw a shuriken.  I'm a Wizard, not a Ninja.  I also don't want to swing my sword at anyone, use a bow or any other option that doesn't involve casting a spell.

What you are suggesting is to put a limit on the number of times I can cast a spell.  If you increase the number of encounter powers to 10 at first level then I will still be able to cast a spell every round.  I will still not put any points into Strength or Dex because I'll just assume I have enough encounter powers to last until the end of every fight.  I still won't use a sword of bow.  It basically changes nothing except that I'll be using a DIFFERENT spell every round.

On the other hand, if the number of encounter powers is less than the number of rounds, than I will be forced to use basic attacks.  It becomes very important to me to take Strength or Dex.  But, I'll be forced to play a character who uses a bow or sword, whether I want to or not.


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## WalterKovacs (Feb 26, 2009)

This new system would basically mean that Wizard now has recommended stats as:

INT, STR, DEX

Warlock have:

CON or CHA, STR, DEX

And so on. So the "more archetypes" translates to every character being secondary melee weapon or secondary ranged.

Since most of the non-weapon using classes are limited to simple weapons anyway, they are all going to look relatively the same, since they have access to the same weapons, they are the same number of feats (one) away from getting the precise weapon proficiency they want, they get the same access to racial weaponry (so an eladrin wizard or eladrin warlock both have longswords). 

They have to buy twice as many magic items as martial characters. They have to split their stats unlike martial characters. And the monster defenses don't change. The arms race isn't PC vs. PC ... It's PC vs. monster. Arguably, if the entire group agrees to collectively be mediocre, the DM may pity them and send lower level monsters against them.

Not to mention, this completely destroys the concept of the shapeshifting druid whose basic attack/at-will powers in beast form are a deliberate way to avoid forcing weapon use.

Eliminating future class concepts. Having EVERY class be based around: 1 stat, plus STR and DEX, makes for more classes being very 'samey'.


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## Sadrik (Feb 26, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> You can laugh, but I think this is the key point in the thread.  If I'm a Wizard, I don't WANT to throw a shuriken.  I'm a Wizard, not a Ninja.  I also don't want to swing my sword at anyone, use a bow or any other option that doesn't involve casting a spell.




Precisely the kind of narrow focus I would like to remove. Thank you, you illustrated this well. Really this boils down to flavor, in previous editions this was a "feel" of the game and the at-wills have shifted that "feel". You may prefer that new "feel", I personally don't not prefer that "feel" I just would like the game to give me that "feel" if I want it. By removing at-will powers I think I get there.

And as far as all classes having to buy STR and DEX at character creation. This is just ridiculous. Every wizard or warlock would not buy STR and DEX. Give me a break. The wizard would likely buy some DEX and not dump it to 8 like it currently gets done in most cases. Instead they grab a 14 or so and throw some daggers in combat or something at low-level, and as they level up and get more encounter powers and daily powers they do the dagger thing less and less.

Also there seems to be some confusion about what these two bonus encounter powers are. They are exactly that two bonus encounter powers not at-will powers treated as encounter powers.

I have some ideas on how to convert all the current at-will powers into encounter powers, namely, give them the 21st level damage bonus and be done with it. I think twin strike is the only one that would have to be deleted or modified.


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## Burrito Al Pastor (Feb 26, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Precisely the kind of narrow focus I would like to remove. Thank you, you illustrated this well. Really this boils down to flavor, in previous editions this was a "feel" of the game and the at-wills have shifted that "feel". You may prefer that new "feel", I personally don't not prefer that "feel" I just would like the game to give me that "feel" if I want it. By removing at-will powers I think I get there.




I reserve the right to say "I told you so" when it doesn't work.

There _are_ other systems that _do_ have that "feel", you know. Might I suggest Pathfinder?


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## Sadrik (Feb 26, 2009)

Burrito Al Pastor said:


> I reserve the right to say "I told you so" when it doesn't work.
> 
> There _are_ other systems that _do_ have that "feel", you know. Might I suggest Pathfinder?




Ah but I think the core mechanics of 4e ar better than 3e. So now what?


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## Burrito Al Pastor (Feb 26, 2009)

It's nice to want things, isn't it?


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## Obryn (Feb 26, 2009)

OK, I'll try one more time, since I'm bored and the thread is apparently still here.

As I understand it, you would rather that characters used more encounter & daily powers, and would give more of them to suit that purpose.  As a trade-off, all characters would lose their At-Will abilities and instead just use Basic Attacks when Encounters and maybe Dailies are gone.

So, let's look at games that basically work that way, see why they work, and see if the situation is comparable in 4e.

3e is a great example, IMHO.  Simplified: Your fighters/rangers/paladins basically fight the whole time.  Your wizards will cast some very impressive blammies, and maybe plunk with a crossbow when they're done.  Your Fighters will max out their Strength, likely boosting it more than anything else.  Your Wizards will max out their Intelligence, since it's huge for them.

This works for 3e, and for prior editions as well.  What _makes _this work, imho, is that the wizard's blammies are far more impressive than any normal attack from a fighter/ranger/paladin/etc.  They can do things fighters just can't, and often their spells have rider effects that could be very impressive.  What's more, they often deal a lot of damage to a lot of characters.

Now, let's look at 4e and see if the situation is comparable.

Right off the bat, imho, we have problems.  Wizards' blammies are not significantly more effective than anyone else's.  In fact, while everyone's powers do different things, they are fairly even, potency-wise.  A Level 7 Encounter power will have similar potency from a Fighter or from a Wizard.

Both Fighters and Wizards will have, of course, maxed out their bread & butter stats.  This isn't 4e-specific; it just happens in every edition.  When a Fighter's powers run out, they're still using their prime stats and have only slightly dropped in effectiveness.  When a Wizard's powers run out, they are basically done.  Unless, that is, the Wizard has decided to seriously boost their Dexterity for missile attacks.  They can do this, of course, but it's not as helpful as most other stats.  It won't help their defenses, and really they're probably better off getting a few more HPs, taking a hit on their basic attacks, and hoping the bad guys die before they need to pull out the crossbow.  On the other hand, Fighters are still using Strength, so there aren't any MAD issues.

So that's why I think this solution, as you've written it, won't work well.  It takes a lot away from casters, while taking very little away from weapon-users.  And casters don't get anything back from this; they're sizably nerfed.

That's about as clear as I can make it...  Take it or leave it...

-O


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## Remathilis (Feb 26, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I have some ideas on how to convert all the current at-will powers into encounter powers, namely, give them the 21st level damage bonus and be done with it. I think twin strike is the only one that would have to be deleted or modified.




While I don't agree with your idea, let me throw you a couple of suggestions.

* Consider a class ability (or at least a feat) that allows rogues to make basic attacks with the rogue weapon list using DEX for melee. (akin to weapon finesse). Otherwise, you're effectively swapping STR with DEX for primes, limiting rogues to archers (well, crossbowmen, since they can't use bows with their powers) or making brutal scoundrels THE ONLY class ability worth taking (goodbye artful dodgers). 

* Consider making Twin Strike a power any class can use when fighting with two weapons (replacing the current TWF benefit with it; two attacks, not bonus to damage). This will keep rangers as twf people and open it back to fighters, rogues, warlords, and such.

*Figure out what you're doing with Intelligent Blademaster and Swordmages (Swordmage only: use Int for basic attacks) or you've just made the best fighter in the game. 

* Keep Eldrich Blast as an at-will power. Warlocks in 3.5 could use it all day, so should 4e ones. We're keeping the theme of previous editions and not limiting archetypes, right?

* Certain builds will become less prominent due to increased MAD: lazer clerics, artful-dodger rogues, & shielding swordmages. They won't be as inviting as their str-based compatriots.


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## Cadfan (Feb 26, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> And as far as all classes having to buy STR and DEX at character creation. This is just ridiculous. Every wizard or warlock would not buy STR and DEX. Give me a break. The wizard would likely buy some DEX and not dump it to 8 like it currently gets done in most cases. Instead they grab a 14 or so and throw some daggers in combat or something at low-level, and as they level up and get more encounter powers and daily powers they do the dagger thing less and less.



This is bad game design.  The players would rebel against it.

No one likes investing character resources in something that only matters for a few levels, and then stops being important, especially when those resources can't be regained, and trade off with resources that will be useful forever, and more and more as you level up.

I don't know what to tell you except that countless video games have made this error, and players always find a way around it. The quickest solution for most people will simply be to start playing at a higher level, and bypass the whole matter.


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## Mallus (Feb 26, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Ah but I think the core mechanics of 4e ar better than 3e.



It's a little hard to tell that from the changes you're looking to make to them.


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## Caliban (Feb 26, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Precisely the kind of narrow focus I would like to remove. Thank you, you illustrated this well. Really this boils down to flavor, in previous editions this was a "feel" of the game and the at-wills have shifted that "feel". You may prefer that new "feel", I personally don't not prefer that "feel" I just would like the game to give me that "feel" if I want it. By removing at-will powers I think I get there.
> 
> And as far as all classes having to buy STR and DEX at character creation. This is just ridiculous. Every wizard or warlock would not buy STR and DEX. Give me a break. The wizard would likely buy some DEX and not dump it to 8 like it currently gets done in most cases. Instead they grab a 14 or so and throw some daggers in combat or something at low-level, and as they level up and get more encounter powers and daily powers they do the dagger thing less and less.
> 
> ...





The question isn't really what we on this board think of your system.  It's pretty clear that most of us think we wouldn't enjoy it, but that's really beside the point. 

You have a vision of how you want the game world to "feel" and you want to change the mechanics of the game to better suit your vision. 

The real question is: who is going to be playing your game and do they share your vision?   Do you have any prospective players, and have you asked them how they feel about such wholesale changes to the rules?


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## Sadrik (Feb 26, 2009)

Obryn said:


> As I understand it, you would rather that characters used more encounter & daily powers, and would give more of them to suit that purpose.  As a trade-off, all characters would lose their At-Will abilities and instead just use Basic Attacks when Encounters and maybe Dailies are gone.



That's the crux of it, yup, with the added benefit of a couple more encounter powers.



Obryn said:


> So, let's look at games that basically work that way, see why they work, and see if the situation is comparable in 4e.
> 
> 3e is a great example, IMHO.  Simplified: Your fighters/rangers/paladins basically fight the whole time.  Your wizards will cast some very impressive blammies, and maybe plunk with a crossbow when they're done.  Your Fighters will max out their Strength, likely boosting it more than anything else.  Your Wizards will max out their Intelligence, since it's huge for them.
> 
> This works for 3e, and for prior editions as well.  What _makes _this work, imho, is that the wizard's blammies are far more impressive than any normal attack from a fighter/ranger/paladin/etc.  They can do things fighters just can't, and often their spells have rider effects that could be very impressive.  What's more, they often deal a lot of damage to a lot of characters.




That is very accurate by my estimation.



Obryn said:


> Now, let's look at 4e and see if the situation is comparable.
> 
> Right off the bat, imho, we have problems.  Wizards' blammies are not significantly more effective than anyone else's.  In fact, while everyone's powers do different things, they are fairly even, potency-wise.  A Level 7 Encounter power will have similar potency from a Fighter or from a Wizard.




Ah but they do effect an area and one of the things that a "controler" is supposed to do is affect more area and so, by that they become more powerful - even though the damage is comparable.



Obryn said:


> Both Fighters and Wizards will have, of course, maxed out their bread & butter stats.  This isn't 4e-specific; it just happens in every edition.  When a Fighter's powers run out, they're still using their prime stats and have only slightly dropped in effectiveness.



I also agree, wizards will be less effective with a bow and a sword than a fighter. This is how it should be by the way. Conceptually I don't think that magical powers should be as at-will as regular sword swings or bow shots.



Obryn said:


> When a Wizard's powers run out, they are basically done.  Unless, that is, the Wizard has decided to seriously boost their Dexterity for missile attacks.  They can do this, of course, but it's not as helpful as most other stats.  It won't help their defenses, and really they're probably better off getting a few more HPs, taking a hit on their basic attacks, and hoping the bad guys die before they need to pull out the crossbow.  On the other hand, Fighters are still using Strength, so there aren't any MAD issues.




A wizard can be pretty good with their staff in the game. They just need to have a 12 to 14 strength and that will make them -2 to -3 to hit from where a fighter might be with a staff. Will they be less effective than the fighter still in a fight? Hell yes, but that is not the point.



Obryn said:


> So that's why I think this solution, as you've written it, won't work well.  It takes a lot away from casters, while taking very little away from weapon-users.  And casters don't get anything back from this; they're sizably nerfed.




I agree it makes the:
Warlocks,  Wizards, Lazer Clerics and Charisma Paladins them arguably worse. 

Honestly I think that really it only makes the Warlock and Wizard worse because the cleric and paladin both have strength powers that they can easily take so they are already spending stat points in those areas anyway! 

The Wizard has a lot of area of effect powers that can do a lot of damage to a lot of guys, this makes them pretty powerful anyway. So if they specialize in INT only they can be pretty effective at their relatively few encounter and daily powers. They could possible use a boost in damage though, I don't know for sure.

The warlock is a different beast all together, they have a curse ability and it works with basic attacks so they are still very viable and interesting strikers. In fact I think they become MORE interesting without the auto eldritch blast.

I think I would also add some "reserve" feats that allow multiple uses of a power during the combat, eldritch blast would be a perfect fit for that feat. I was thinking of using the limitation of the healing word ability (2 times for levels 1-15 and 3 times for levels 16-30).


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## Sadrik (Feb 26, 2009)

Mallus said:


> It's a little hard to tell that from the changes you're looking to make to them.




At-wills are not a core mechanic they are a sub-system thrown on to the core mechanics.


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## Sadrik (Feb 26, 2009)

Remathilis said:


> * Consider a class ability (or at least a feat) that allows rogues to make basic attacks with the rogue weapon list using DEX for melee. (akin to weapon finesse). Otherwise, you're effectively swapping STR with DEX for primes, limiting rogues to archers (well, crossbowmen, since they can't use bows with their powers) or making brutal scoundrels THE ONLY class ability worth taking (goodbye artful dodgers).




This is a good idea. Possibly off-hand melee weapons can be included in the light thrown weapons bracket and be used with DEX instead of STR or interchangeably with either.  



Remathilis said:


> * Consider making Twin Strike a power any class can use when fighting with two weapons (replacing the current TWF benefit with it; two attacks, not bonus to damage). This will keep rangers as twf people and open it back to fighters, rogues, warlords, and such.




This is also a good idea, in this way you don't remove the ability of the ranger to make two attacks "at-will". You also make fighters who want to fight with two weapons more powerful and so on. There is a hitch though should everyone basically get "rapid-shot"? Not sure about that one. It may be too big of a change.



Remathilis said:


> *Figure out what you're doing with Intelligent Blademaster and Swordmages (Swordmage only: use Int for basic attacks) or you've just made the best fighter in the game.




I don't have the FR book and am not too familiar in with the swordmage or that feat (it is also not available in our game for use). What I gather though is that there is a feat that allows you to use your INT bonus for your basic attacks. This feat would have to be dropped, it might be too advantageous.



Remathilis said:


> * Keep Eldrich Blast as an at-will power. Warlocks in 3.5 could use it all day, so should 4e ones. We're keeping the theme of previous editions and not limiting archetypes, right?



Did you notice it is actually a class feature? This could be doable, it is the only at-will attack power that is actually cited as a class feature. Perhaps it is an artifact from an iteration where classes did not have at-will powers. Before the "siloing".


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## Sadrik (Feb 26, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> This is bad game design.  The players would rebel against it.
> 
> No one likes investing character resources in something that only matters for a few levels, and then stops being important, especially when those resources can't be regained, and trade off with resources that will be useful forever, and more and more as you level up.
> 
> I don't know what to tell you except that countless video games have made this error, and players always find a way around it. The quickest solution for most people will simply be to start playing at a higher level, and bypass the whole matter.




Good point, so the wizard has the choice of being good with their Powers or good with their basic attacks, at low levels it is a tough choice but the way around it is that they choose the powers knowing that they will be weak early on anyway and hopefully be better later on. 

The wizard is by far the worst hit class with these changes as I illustrated a few posts back. Wizards are already kind of sub par anyway.  Possibly upping their damage by a die on every power might give them more a "boom" that makes them worthwhile. Still though, when I am a player I generally play wizards and I still would under these rules even without the "boom" damage bonus. So it just depends on why the player plays. Have the most powerful character? Don't play a wizard then.


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## Obryn (Feb 26, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I agree it makes the:
> Warlocks,  Wizards, Lazer Clerics and Charisma Paladins them arguably worse.
> 
> Honestly I think that really it only makes the Warlock and Wizard worse because the cleric and paladin both have strength powers that they can easily take so they are already spending stat points in those areas anyway!



Well, that's kind of the point...  If you're making half the classes worse, and making it so half the builds of existing classes are pointless, well...  Why play those classes?  A group of fighters, rangers, rogues, and warlords will be more potent than a mixed group.

And as for concentrating in a single stat, which was one of your concerns...  Str/Dex classes would continue to be able to buff up their main stats without restraint.  It's everyone else who gets a dose of MAD.



> The Wizard has a lot of area of effect powers that can do a lot of damage to a lot of guys, this makes them pretty powerful anyway. So if they specialize in INT only they can be pretty effective at their relatively few encounter and daily powers. They could possible use a boost in damage though, I don't know for sure.



I think you'd find that the Wizard is probably the least-powerful character class right now.  Those bursts & blasts can just as easily hurt enemies as friends, and overall their damage output is sub-par.  What's more, although they do have area effects, those area effects generally do less damage to each creature than single-target effects.  You're nerfing an already-weak class.

So yeah.  Basically, if you have no problems making the existing caster classes significantly underpowered (until the Sorceror comes out, whose spells use Strength and Dex), and more or less making them second-fiddle to the frontline, go ahead.  It's your game.  It's not a game I'd ever play in - especially not as anything other than a fighter - but you seem pretty convinced this is a brilliant system, and I don't think I can dissuade you.

-O


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## Mallus (Feb 26, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Wizards are already kind of sub par anyway.  Possibly upping their damage by a die on every power might give them more a "boom" that makes them worthwhile.



You'd need to make wizard's encounter/daily powers a lot more powerful than the martial class's counterparts. Which is using 4e to recreate 3e/2e/1e. Not that there's anything wrong with that.



> So it just depends on why the player plays. Have the most powerful character? Don't play a wizard then.



And the benefit of creating deliberately unbalanced classes is?

edit: maybe you're looking for something like a mash-up between 4e and 3.5e's Book of Nine Swords? Characters would have no at-wills but more and broader encounter powers.


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## Sadrik (Feb 26, 2009)

Obryn said:


> Well, that's kind of the point...  If you're making half the classes worse, and making it so half the builds of existing classes are pointless, well...  Why play those classes?  A group of fighters, rangers, rogues, and warlords will be more potent than a mixed group.



Well lets be clear, clerics and paladins are still very viable and are only slightly affected, I see no reason why you could not do a 14 or 16 STR and 18 WIS for a cleric and an 14 or 16 STR and an 18 CHA for a Paladin. Or vice verse on those stats. These are still very viable. 

Quite honestly from a design perspective, I really don't care for the design on the classes that have two primaries and one secondary (cleric, paladin, ranger and warlock). It is almost like they have placed two classes into one class. But that is neither here nor there.

Back to the point Wizards and warlock are both the heaviest hit by removing at-wills. Warlocks less so than wizards.



Obryn said:


> And as for concentrating in a single stat, which was one of your concerns...  Str/Dex classes would continue to be able to buff up their main stats without restraint.  It's everyone else who gets a dose of MAD.




Luckily in 4e you can bump up 2 or all of your stats. So this is not that bad because you can bump up what you need. A very nice core feature of 4e.



Obryn said:


> I think you'd find that the Wizard is probably the least-powerful character class right now.  Those bursts & blasts can just as easily hurt enemies as friends, and overall their damage output is sub-par.  What's more, although they do have area effects, those area effects generally do less damage to each creature than single-target effects.  You're nerfing an already-weak class.



This does concern me some but the added boom of more encounter powers at their disposal may be what the doctor ordered. It may not be enough. If not I only have to up an already weak class, that I have been thinking of boosting anyway.



Obryn said:


> (until the Sorceror comes out, whose spells use Strength and Dex),



WTF are you BSing me?


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## Sadrik (Feb 26, 2009)

Mallus said:


> edit: maybe you're looking for something like a mash-up between 4e and 3.5e's Book of Nine Swords? Characters would have no at-wills but more and broader encounter powers.




Absolutely, I mentioned a couple pages back that Bo9S and later development cycles were moving 3e into a more encounter based system from the day based systems. I really like that design. [SARCASM]And hey when you used Bo9S, martial characters truly were more powerful than casters.[/SARCASM]

I would also like to get rid of daily powers and make them encounter powers for a number of reasons. This one is more difficult to adjust though.


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## Obryn (Feb 26, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> WTF are you BSing me?



No, absolutely not.  They're mostly Charisma, but use their Strength and Dexterity for bonus damage.

-O


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## Majoru Oakheart (Feb 27, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Precisely the kind of narrow focus I would like to remove. Thank you, you illustrated this well. Really this boils down to flavor, in previous editions this was a "feel" of the game and the at-wills have shifted that "feel". You may prefer that new "feel", I personally don't not prefer that "feel" I just would like the game to give me that "feel" if I want it. By removing at-will powers I think I get there.



I understand that.  I even thought about doing the same thing myself when I first looked at the rules.  What you want is weak casters at low level who become more powerful at high level, same as 3e.  You can do that, but no one will want to be a wizard.  You are taking an already weak class and making them weaker.  Basically, giving your players the option to choose a martial class or suck.  But at least you are leaving it up to them.



Sadrik said:


> And as far as all classes having to buy STR and DEX at character creation. This is just ridiculous. Every wizard or warlock would not buy STR and DEX. Give me a break. The wizard would likely buy some DEX and not dump it to 8 like it currently gets done in most cases. Instead they grab a 14 or so and throw some daggers in combat or something at low-level, and as they level up and get more encounter powers and daily powers they do the dagger thing less and less.



I certainly wouldn't bother putting a 14 into a melee stat, even with your rules.  It's still better to throw all my encounter powers then delay the rest of the combat.  Because attempting to hit with +5 to hit at first level for 1d4+2 damage is kind of dumb.  Against creatures with 16 AC, you only have a 50% chance of hitting for an average of 4 damage.

That's the problem with using the core of 4e to do what you want.  The core of 4e assumes EVERYONE is attacking with a stat that is 16+.  The average actually assumes an 18 with + or - 1 being acceptable.

And that's at 1st level.  Unless you put a point into strength every time you get a choice for leveling, any attacks you make with strength fall farther and father behind.

The math is so well balanced that anything more than a point or two off the average and you might as well not bother.  That's why Druids and Avengers in the PHB2 make melee attacks using their Wisdom.  Of course, only some of their attacks could really be considered "magical", so how do you deal with these classes?  Wardens get magical attacks that use their strength to attack, making them focus in strength with no disadvantage.

I actually think it would be easier to house rule 3e to do what you want than to force 4e to go there.  It was a project I was briefly working on before 4e came out.  I figure you could use the Bo9S as a template.  Allow only Bo9S classes and caster classes.  That pretty much gives you the "core" of 4e while encouraging the feel you want.

Unless you mean something different by "core".  Do you mean the math behind all the monsters and players?  In which case, I propose a quick patch to 3e to act more like it:

-Remove BAB, Save Bonuses and Skill Ranks as a mechanic, give everyone half their level to AC, Attacks and Skills, and Saves.
-Let them choose trained skills(their number of skill ranks divided by 4, can only choose class skills)
-Remove stat enhancers, enhancement bonuses on shields, and all items that give a bonus to AC other than armor.
-Change the AC, saves, and attacks of all monsters to the table listed in the 4e DMG based on what you think their role is.  Don't change their hitpoints.
-Remove iterative attacks
-Allow people to add the better of their Dex or Int modifier to AC in light or medium armor, make the max Dex of all heavy armors 0.  Remove the max Dex of all light armors.
-Make taking a 5-ft step a move action instead of free

And there you have an entire game that lacks at will attacks, has the core of 4e, but still has powerful encounter based powers for spellcasters and melee types without heavily favoring one.  It requires a bit of work, but I think it actually could be a pretty cool hybrid.


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## WalterKovacs (Feb 27, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> At-wills are not a core mechanic they are a sub-system thrown on to the core mechanics.




The At-Will/Encounter/Daily seperation for powers are part of the core mechanics for 4e. It involves:

(a) Each class is able to use it's primary stat for it's attacks
(b) Characters always have something useful they can do
(c) There isn't an ability score that every class "needs"

There is no longer (many) auto-hit powers. They eliminated the gap created by BAB and saving throw modifiers. They eliminated save or die. They eliminated the 'long' durations, replacing with save end. Each defense has a choice of two different stats.

Your changes forces every class to have STR or DEX as a secondary or primary stat (making classes without STR or DEX as a primary lose any builds other than X + STR or X + DEX, and you pretty much HAVE to go with 16/16 for those stats so they can both be decent attack stats). 

So you have characters of the same class being extremely similar, even characters outside of the class being different.

Also, on book of nine swords: They all had ways of regaining their powers. They had a number of encounter powers, but they always had a way of getting back all the encounter powers. It basically meant 1 turn of "basic attacks" before going back to encounter powers again. The one thing you may like about it is that it forces each character to use EACH of the powers before they can use the same one again.

So having 3 to 6 encounter powers, with the ability to regain the encounter powers only after you've used them all, would approximate the Book of Nine Swords. Or perhaps have 3 "at-wills" but with the similar restriction that you need to use each one once before you can use another one again.


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## Lanefan (Feb 27, 2009)

Late to the party as usual, and having just waded through all this, a few random thoughts leap to mind:

1. It's an extremely valid point that something special made ordinary isn't special any more.  Example: Magic Missile.  In all previous editions it was at least somewhat special, as it could only be cast so many times a day.  Now, it's ordinary - a Wizard has a limitless number of bullets in her gun and never has to reload.  

2. I'm going to hazard a guess that one of the things behind the OP's original ideas is that having magic-based at-wills e.g. Magic Missile simply puts too much magic in the game; hence, a desire to reduce such.  Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.  But the archetype of the full-time Wizard who can only cast so many spells of any type over a day and the rest of the time has to rely on weapons (example: Gandalf) falls apart when they can cast all day.

3. If removing at-wills causes concern that combats will grind even longer, there's a simple solution: reduce everyone's hit points - character, monster, whatever; except of course minions - by a blanket percentage.  Let's say, a 50% reduction.  That will make combats on average last half as long (probably less, in fact, as the ratio of encounter powers to at-wills/basics will be higher), and add some randomness and swinginess back in.

4. If the math really is as finely-tuned as is suggested a few posts upthread, such that a character is essentially useless (as opposed to slightly less effective) without one high stat, that to me is a serious problem of overdesign.

5. I'm not sure if this came from a long-ago article in Dragon, or whether it's a homebrew from the dark ages, but the Elvish deity of the bow has always to us been Rillifane.  Her consort, Corellon, uses the sword.

Lanefan


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## Majoru Oakheart (Feb 27, 2009)

Lanefan said:


> 1. It's an extremely valid point that something special made ordinary isn't special any more.  Example: Magic Missile.  In all previous editions it was at least somewhat special, as it could only be cast so many times a day.  Now, it's ordinary - a Wizard has a limitless number of bullets in her gun and never has to reload.



I agree with this.  And I admit that reducing the magic in a campaign is a valid goal.  Just not one I would want in my game.  As I said previously, I understand the desire.  I just think it'll have unforseen side effects if you just remove at wills.  If you turned all the at-wills into mundane attacks and left the rest of the class as it is, I wouldn't see a problem with it.



Lanefan said:


> 4. If the math really is as finely-tuned as is suggested a few posts upthread, such that a character is essentially useless (as opposed to slightly less effective) without one high stat, that to me is a serious problem of overdesign.



Since this is me, we are taking about, I should respond.  The problem is, as it usually is, in the math.  While using a d20, even a small difference affects it a lot.  The difference between a 14 Strength Battlerage Vigor Fighter with a hammer(+4 to hit) vs the 20 Strength longsword fighter with one handed weapon focus(+9 to hit) is +5.  Which is a 25% difference in hit chance.  

Against an AC 17 opponent, the first fighter hits 40% of the time.  The second fighter hits 65% of the time.  Even with his class bonus for having temporary hitpoints, the first fighter is doing an average of (9.5*0.4=)3.8 damage per round.  The second fighter is doing (9.5*0.65=)6.175 damage.  That's a 61% increase in damage.  But he also has a 25% greater chance to stun, daze, knock prone, push, or whatever his opponent.  And the difference becomes even larger when you use encounters or dailies.

This is a fairly reasonable range.  25% difference is about the greatest difference you should see in one class if you want to plan out the defenses of your enemies.  I'd say it's designing just enough.

So, I'm saying that at first level, being a wizard with a 14 in your strength seems like it is plausible to hit in melee.  However, at 30th level the Fighter who started with a 20 strength puts all his points into strength and takes Demigod and ups his strength 2 more has +28 to hit.  The same wizard who put all his points into Int and Wis(since he's an Orb wizard) and doesn't buy a magic melee weapon(since it cost him all his money to get armor, implement, and neck item) has +20 to hit.  If the standard chance to hit is 55% for the fighter, then the wizard has a 15% chance to hit.  Or, not really worth trying.

The math actually works pretty good, in that, if you absolutely have NOTHING better to do than attack with that dagger, it might work.  Unlike 3e, where you'd only hit on a 20.  But, then again, 4e is designed so you ALWAYS have something better to do that has a GOOD chance of success.  If you remove at wills, then you actually have to resort to that useless attack.

I'd just like to add that the difference was always that big.  In 3e, if you had a 10 strength wizard and were attacking with a dagger vs the 18 strength fighter with Weapon Focus attacking with his weapon, it was a huge difference which only got bigger and bigger.  The only thing that made it even somewhat tolerable was that enemies AC varied so much that you might run into a 9 or 10 AC opponent that you could hit, and that the game forced you to by giving you no other way to attack.


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## Fredrik Svanberg (Feb 27, 2009)

If "Magic Missiles" and similar obvious magic is too magical and makes magic seem trivial and boring, why not change the at-wills of wizards (and warlocks and other casters too, I guess, but I'll focus on wizards for now) to make them less blatantly magical?

How about:

True Strike
Standard; at-will * Weapon
You use magic to guide your arm and strike with ultimate accuracy.
Int vs. AC; [w]+Int damage.
You can use this attack as a basic ranged or melee attack.
Upgrade to 2[w]+Int at level 11, 3[w]+Int at level 21.

Mage Armor
Standard; at-will
You create an invisible magical armor of force around you.
You gain +2 to AC until the end of your next turn.
Sustain minor.

Shield
Minor; at-will
You create an invisible magical shield of force floating in the air next to you.
You gain +1 to AC and Reflex Defense until the beginning of your next turn or until you are attacked, whichever comes first.


There, now the wizard can run around making ranged and melee weapon attacks all day long without feeling sub-par, and without trivializing the feel of magic in your game. If he sacrifices one or two actions per round he can also gain some much-needed defense to survive such activities. None of these "spells" have obvious effects (but if you want you can house-rule the Mage Armor and Shield to be visible, of course) so they can be explained away as superior magical training or whatever if you prefer.

Similar at-will powers can be created for clerics, warlocks, sorcerers, etc, to make them seem less magical and make them more combat-worthy, but based on their respective preferred abilities of course. In fact I wouldn't mind playing a wizard with at-will powers like this. It would not be very good at its intended role but it would make for some interesting concepts.


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## UngeheuerLich (Feb 27, 2009)

Mallus said:


> You'd need to make wizard's encounter/daily powers a lot more powerful than the martial class's counterparts. Which is using 4e to recreate 3e/2e/1e. Not that there's anything wrong with that.




from the preview books it seems that once upon a time in development, martial classes had more powerful at wills when the wizard had weaker at wills, good encounters and very powerfull dailies...

This has changed to: every class should be able to fullfill its role with their at-wills...

This could also have lead to the "powers of all classes are similar" feeling...

actually i could live with a class with very weak at-wills which are solely used to fullfill its role and relying on base attacks and strong encounter/dailies...

(imagine a warlord chosing commanders strike and the str = damage attack)


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## glass (Feb 27, 2009)

*Slight tangent...*



Celebrim said:


> Normally, when you make something bigger, you make it more awesome.   For example, everyone is pretty much in agreement about the awesomeness of the opening scene of 'A New Hope' when the Star Destroyer comes into the frame and just keeps coming and coming.  There is a limit to this though.  It's hard to define, but there is a tipping point beyond which bigger is less cool, less dramatic, and less overwhelmingly awesome than smaller.
> 
> A Star Destroyer is cool, but for many people a Super-Star Destroyer is less cool and even destroys the coolness of a Star Destroyers.



If the existence of the Executor in TESB reduces the coolness of Star Destroyers by being too big, how come the existence of the Death Star in ANH doesn't? 

I don't necessarily need an answer, I just pointed out that what makes awesome is not always consistent when you are talking about one person, let alone from one person to the next.


glass.


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## UngainlyTitan (Feb 27, 2009)

Fredrik Svanberg said:


> If "Magic Missiles" and similar obvious magic is too magical and makes magic seem trivial and boring, why not change the at-wills of wizards (and warlocks and other casters too, I guess, but I'll focus on wizards for now) to make them less blatantly magical?
> 
> How about:
> 
> snip




Also late to the thread but reading through it this also occured to me. If the at wills are a problem then why not change the at wills to something more acceptable?

If that is no good then I think an encounter power recovery should be considered to encourage people to play caster types. Otherwise, it would be better to play a fighter/caster multiclass and dip into the caster encounter and dailies via feats than go for a straight caster, especially wizard.


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## Sadrik (Feb 27, 2009)

Obryn said:


> No, absolutely not.  They're mostly Charisma, but use their Strength and Dexterity for bonus damage.




So, cool I guess, they should fit right in if we open up the game outside of the PHB.


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## Sadrik (Feb 27, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> I certainly wouldn't bother putting a 14 into a melee stat, even with your rules.  It's still better to throw all my encounter powers then delay the rest of the combat.  Because attempting to hit with +5 to hit at first level for 1d4+2 damage is kind of dumb.  Against creatures with 16 AC, you only have a 50% chance of hitting for an average of 4 damage.



I agree, it is still more beneficial to focus on your powers and not on basic attacks. However, it does give the option to focus on basic attacks and I think that opens up a whole new avenue that is not there in 4e currently.



Majoru Oakheart said:


> That's the problem with using the core of 4e to do what you want.  The core of 4e assumes EVERYONE is attacking with a stat that is 16+.  The average actually assumes an 18 with + or - 1 being acceptable.
> 
> And that's at 1st level.  Unless you put a point into strength every time you get a choice for leveling, any attacks you make with strength fall farther and father behind.
> 
> The math is so well balanced that anything more than a point or two off the average and you might as well not bother.



So you are a proponent of:
The concern is that if this fundamental is altered, it may collapse the game and no one will hit or do a proper amount of damage to contribute in a meaningful way.

Fair enough, I don't think it will be that drastic, again the wizard is not supposed to be as good as the fighter, if it were that way then it would be a problem.



Majoru Oakheart said:


> I actually think it would be easier to house rule 3e to do what you want than to force 4e to go there.



I don't. First of all, getting rid of the at-will powers is easy. Doing what you propose is rewriting 3e.




Majoru Oakheart said:


> Unless you mean something different by "core".  Do you mean the math behind all the monsters and players?



 Yes, I mean the core fundamental mechanics that make the game work. +1/2 level bonus, how skills work, stats, experience and encounter design, easy to prep and stuff like that. Those in my mind are the core mechanics to the game. Sub-systems on top of that include classes, powers, magic items, etc. Anything that you could easily take away is a sub-system. For instance you could easily take away classes and throw in some generic template that gives you 4 skills and that is it and play the game. I don't think that would be very interesting but it would be playable.

Out of the core mechanics I think I only have one problem (stat polarity), out of the sub-systems I have a few but sub-systems are easily fixed core mechanics are much more difficult.

As far as removing the at-wills and adding 2 more encounters at 1st level, that is a snap. Does it open up more archetypes of characters more easily? Yup. Does it make the wizard and to a lesser extent warlock less powerful? Yup. Does it give you more a D&D feel? Yup. Does it utilize the superior core mechanics? Yup. Does it allow for a less magical, less wuxia feel for the game? Yup.


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## Sadrik (Feb 27, 2009)

WalterKovacs said:


> The At-Will/Encounter/Daily seperation for powers are part of the core mechanics for 4e.



See my previous post.



WalterKovacs said:


> Your changes forces every class to have STR or DEX as a secondary or primary stat (making classes without STR or DEX as a primary lose any builds other than X + STR or X + DEX, and you pretty much HAVE to go with 16/16 for those stats so they can both be decent attack stats).



Everyone is not supposed to be perfectly in sync, A wizard is supposed to be worse than a fighter at fighting. I am ok with that happening. I also still think that the wizard will still invest heavily into his INT. 

Classes this change does not affect:
Fighter
Ranger
Rogue
Warlord
Classes this change affects a little:
Cleric
Paladin
Classes this change affects more:
Warlock
Wizard

The first group will function as normal with very little change to the way the character was designed.
The second group's classes both have STR as one of their primary stats, so the player can choose to be really good at basic attacks and their STR based powers at little cost or become better with their other powers at the cost of not being as effective with their STR powers and basic attacks.
The last group is a little different 1/2 of their powers are not based on STR or DEX so they have to make a choice between powers or basic attacks, I think that they always choose powers, but there is on option for melee warlocks and wizards. I actually think it would be pretty cool to have a warlock with a big weapon cursing and blasting away with their weapon possibly selecting a multi-class feat to pick up some fighter powers. If I had EB, it would be sub-par to do that.



WalterKovacs said:


> Also, on book of nine swords: They all had ways of regaining their powers. They had a number of encounter powers, but they always had a way of getting back all the encounter powers. It basically meant 1 turn of "basic attacks" before going back to encounter powers again. The one thing you may like about it is that it forces each character to use EACH of the powers before they can use the same one again.



Ew, nice idea. Recovering powers during a fight could be a way to make the wizard more viable. That way they just recover powers, hang back and blast away. Recover and then blast some more. I have no idea how to exactly make that work. But it is a definitely viable solution for improving the wizard over just giving them bonus damage. It could be a wizard feat, though.


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## Sadrik (Feb 27, 2009)

Lanefan said:


> one of the things behind the OP's original ideas is that having magic-based at-wills e.g. Magic Missile simply puts too much magic in the game; hence, a desire to reduce such.  Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.



You are right on the money. That one thing that gives 4e its flavor, is the at-will powers. If you would rather have a feel like the previous versions of D&D remove these at-wills and you should arrive somewhere near that.



Lanefan said:


> If removing at-wills causes concern that combats will grind even longer, there's a simple solution: reduce everyone's hit points



Grind is a problem by the RAW not just with this tune up, but it is a very easy fix as you have remarked.


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## Sadrik (Feb 27, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> I'd just like to add that the difference (in classes to hit bonus) was always that big.



This is why I fond it interesting that everyone is coming out of the woodwork arguing that the attack bonus for a wizard should be just as high as a fighter with their vanilla attacks.


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## chaotix42 (Feb 27, 2009)

So how soon is this change going to be implemented (looks like your mind was made up many pages ago so it's only a matter of time)? I'm curious to hear how no at-wills/more encounter powers works out in play!


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## Sadrik (Feb 27, 2009)

Fredrik Svanberg said:


> If "Magic Missiles" and similar obvious magic is too magical and makes magic seem trivial and boring, why not change the at-wills of wizards (and warlocks and other casters too, I guess, but I'll focus on wizards for now) to make them less blatantly magical?




This or something like it is a solution. But what you have proposed is just a shell game switching one at-will magical effect for another. I would rather they just have the bonus encounter powers, delete the at-wills and be done. It is a very simple fix, without the need of writing 20 or 30 new powers.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 27, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> This is why I fond it interesting that everyone is coming out of the woodwork arguing that the attack bonus for a wizard should be just as high as a fighter with their vanilla attacks.




Because, unlike in previous editions, he need to make those vanilla attacks in your proposal. 

A 3E 5th level Wizard had a magic missile that dealt 3d4+3 damage (auto-hit)or a Fireball that dealt 5d6 damage (half on a save) in a 20 ft radius. (And not just one of each of these spells) The Fighter only had his melee attack at 1d8+6 damage (no damage on a miss). 

The 4E Wizard modded by you has a Fireball that deals 3d6+4 damage, or one Bigby's Icy Grasp that that deals 2d10+4, once per day, and a Acid Arrow that deals 2d4+4 and 5 ongoing acid damage.
But the Fighter has, besides his 1d8+6 damage attack also a 2d10+6 attack that is guaranteed to work at some point and give him hit points back, and a 2d10+6 points of damage attack that deals ongoing 5 untyped damage.

Even if we ignore for a moment the dailies and replace them with extra encounter powers, not much changes - a Wizard might get more area attacks, but these deal less damage than the Fighters attacks, and an area attack is only useful if there are even enough enemies in a radius. Having 3 Fireball-like spells per encounter might turn out useless once the enemies have figured out you have it and flank the party and otherwise spread out.


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## Sadrik (Feb 27, 2009)

ardoughter said:


> Also late to the thread but reading through it this also occured to me. If the at wills are a problem then why not change the at wills to something more acceptable?
> 
> If that is no good then I think an encounter power recovery should be considered to encourage people to play caster types. Otherwise, it would be better to play a fighter/caster multiclass and dip into the caster encounter and dailies via feats than go for a straight caster, especially wizard.




Something that keys off of "spells" that way both the warlock and wizard, both the hardest hit, would be able to do things with their non-bloated DEX and non-bloated STR.

I don't think the warlock is that far off form being decent, give them a bonus "reserve feat" that I will be writing up for the eldritch blast power as a class feature. They should be fine.

The wizard could then have a feat that keys off of their "spellbook" class feature and gives them a recharge of an encounter power every once in a while during an encounter. Standard action? does that seem reasonable or should their be more cost? AP?


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## Sadrik (Feb 27, 2009)

chaotix42 said:


> So how soon is this change going to be implemented (looks like your mind was made up many pages ago so it's only a matter of time)? I'm curious to hear how no at-wills/more encounter powers works out in play!




We are playing in a pretty big game 7 players and I am not currently the DM, that will shift to me at the next option to and the current DM will become a player. I'll institute it then. I also, am pretty excited to try this out. I think it will really make the game better and bring a nice D&D feel.


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## Sadrik (Feb 27, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Because, unlike in previous editions, he need to make those vanilla attacks in your proposal.



This is true, before when the wizard attacked it was usually with a touch attack or they need to make a save and those generally favored the spell caster. So having a good BAB was not that important.

Contrasting that point to this change, we have a wizard who has an 18 INT whose powers all go off of that. The wizard starts with 3 encounter powers and a daily picks up a utility power at 2nd and continues adding powers. The wizard is not limited to what a 5th level 3e wizard can do in a day - he can do way more! This is advantage 4e.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> damage



This rather eloquently illustrates how the 4e wizard is underpowered. As far as I am concerned they were _already _underpowered. So, adding anything to them to boost them up is almost a non-issue in this context. Adding something to spellbook class feature to recharge spells or giving them a bonus damage die to all of their spells both seem like good ways to go.


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## UngeheuerLich (Feb 27, 2009)

you need to add a dice or two to wizard dailies to have the right feel... don´t think that is too difficult to do...

I would however not take away all his at wills... i would give him all his at wills and allow him to prepare some of them as dailies...


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## UngainlyTitan (Feb 27, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> The wizard could then have a feat that keys off of their "spellbook" class feature and gives them a recharge of an encounter power every once in a while during an encounter. Standard action? does that seem reasonable or should their be more cost? AP?



I have no comment on the warlock, I have not seen them enough in play to really comment. The restoration of eldritch blast seems ok. For the Wizard, I would go with standard action recharge. Wizard powers in 4e tend to be hit or miss and if recharge is too hard then playing a wizard could become an excerise in frustration. 
I would also chime in that in the wizard Dailies need more oomph. They will miss quite often so when they work then need to work well.


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## WizarDru (Feb 27, 2009)

I'm just curious: in your combats, how many opponents and players do you normally have?


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## pawsplay (Feb 27, 2009)

I'm kind of surprised that, having settled on everyone having at-will powers, they didn't come up with some non-spell powers for Wizards. Why couldn't they have at-wills that affected crossbows or daggers or whatever? Maybe a dagger attacks that adds Int to damage and causes the enemy to take -1 on defenses if he doesn't step back next round, or something. I don't see any reason why a Wizard couldn't secondarily have powers related to crossbows or darts.


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## Obryn (Feb 27, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I'm kind of surprised that, having settled on everyone having at-will powers, they didn't come up with some non-spell powers for Wizards. Why couldn't they have at-wills that affected crossbows or daggers or whatever? Maybe a dagger attacks that adds Int to damage and causes the enemy to take -1 on defenses if he doesn't step back next round, or something. I don't see any reason why a Wizard couldn't secondarily have powers related to crossbows or darts.



Well, one of the nice things about 4e is that there's plenty of design space to add those, should you wish to do so.

I think giving them a melee at-will would be a neat idea, maybe tying it to Staff Mastery.

-O


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## WalterKovacs (Feb 27, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> As far as removing the at-wills and adding 2 more encounters at 1st level, that is a snap. Does it open up more archetypes of characters more easily? Yup.




The thing many have pointed out though, is that it really doesn't. It adds new archetypes, but it also ruins existing archetypes ... unless you implement fixes that make it so that a character never has to actually use their basic attacks, otherwise that archetype is gone. The archetype for wizard is: Wizard with a melee weapon, wizard with a ranged weapon, wizard that cowers when out of spells. Warlock has warlock with a knife, warlock with a thrown knife ... warlock that cowers when out of spells. 

People talk about how the at-wills make classes seem the same. The weapons are all very similar, just different ways of having either +2 or +3 to hit with the damage die being close to each other as well. So a wizard with a quatterstaff isn't that much different mechanically than a wizard with a scythe. And, even if the respective weapons seemed cool, they would stop being cool once you ended up having to use them when your spells run out.

It just seems odd that the goal is to get rid of at-wills to make them have to use basic attacks ... but then you have to make it so that they never really will be making basic attacks (unless they want to), in order to make it balanced in the 4e system.


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## WalterKovacs (Feb 27, 2009)

UngeheuerLich said:


> actually i could live with a class with very weak at-wills which are solely used to fullfill its role and relying on base attacks and strong encounter/dailies...




One of the problems with this is the option of multiclassing. A class with "good" at-wills and weaker encounter/dailies will steal powers from the class with more powerful encounters and dailies that balance out the weaker at-wills.


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## Fredrik Svanberg (Feb 28, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> This or something like it is a solution. But what you have proposed is just a shell game switching one at-will magical effect for another.




Except the powers I suggested had no visible effects and could just as easily be described as "smart fighting" or whatever you prefer, instead of "magic".



> I would rather they just have the bonus encounter powers, delete the at-wills and be done. It is a very simple fix, without the need of writing 20 or 30 new powers.




It's simple, alright, but it's not a fix.


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## Zustiur (Feb 28, 2009)

Allow me to present an analogy, just in case anyone hasn't got it already.
Chocolate is special.
If you have chocolate with every meal, it will cease to be special.

Like Sadrik, I have toyed with the idea of removing at-will powers in some manner. I find all their finicky effects to be a significant factor in battle-grind. Particularly for martial characters, but also for some of the others. Removing at-wills probably won't speed up the combat in terms of rounds, but it may speed it up in terms of real elapsed time. Less counting of when effects start and stop, and all the tiny bonuses or penalties that they inflict, more getting on with the job of actually fighting.

The way I envisioned the changes is as follows:

Melee characters (defenders and strikers): Have no at-wills. Each at-will power becomes an encounter power, and may get improved to reflect that fact. Melee characters may or may not get additional encounter powers per encounter, this is to be decided by actual playtest.
Spellcasters (wizards and warlocks): I think warlocks would remain fairly much as they are. Wizards however would have their at-wills converted to encounters, be able to use a greater number of encounter powers per battle, and be able to learn ALL spells. They would still have to choose which spells they prepared each day, but they'd go way beyond the limit of spells known that is normally imposed by 4E.
Leader/healer types: The ability to heal someone should never be tied to your ability to hit someone else. I would remove cleric at-will powers altogether and boost their ability to heal instead. Personally I'd remove warlords altogether, so I'll skip class that for this discussion.

So apart from the warlock's at wills (mainly eldritch blast), there are no at-wills in my model. While I fully realize my model is not balanced to the same degree as 4E, I feel it is much more pleasant starting point to work from. Balance from there on would be handled by how many encounter powers each class had available, or in how powerful they are.

Personally I'd also make other sweeping changes if I were to run 4E, like halving all HP. But this discussion isn't about me.

Were I in the same location as Sadrik, I'd volunteer to test his version, but I'm on the other side of the world. Nevermind.


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## Cadfan (Feb 28, 2009)

Zustiur said:


> Allow me to present an analogy, just in case anyone hasn't got it already.
> Chocolate is special.
> If you have chocolate with every meal, it will cease to be special.



I think this reasoning is very flawed.

Its not about how interesting the individual powers are, viewed in a vacuum.  Its about how interesting the character as a whole is, viewed in total.  Having things that you can do whenever you like makes your character, overall, more interesting.  Reaping Strike might not be as awesome as an at will power in comparison to how awesome it would be if we enhanced it and made it an encounter power, but so what?  

Right now my human fighter has a suite of three at will attacks.  Each individual power might be cooler as an encounter power, but my fighter is cooler as a guy who can choose between three different tactical effects at any given time than he would be if he couldn't.  And its more important that my character be cool than that his attack powers be cool viewed in a vacuum and unconnected to him.


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## Sadrik (Feb 28, 2009)

ardoughter said:


> I have no comment on the warlock, I have not seen them enough in play to really comment. The restoration of eldritch blast seems ok. For the Wizard, I would go with standard action recharge. Wizard powers in 4e tend to be hit or miss and if recharge is too hard then playing a wizard could become an excerise in frustration.
> I would also chime in that in the wizard Dailies need more oomph. They will miss quite often so when they work then need to work well.




This would get wizard players to actually have a lower INT if they wanted because they knew they can recharge their spells during an encounter. So hitting with them is not as, "Holy crap, I have to hit with this power right now or I will lose it forever".


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## Sadrik (Feb 28, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I'm kind of surprised that, having settled on everyone having at-will powers, they didn't come up with some non-spell powers for Wizards. Why couldn't they have at-wills that affected crossbows or daggers or whatever? Maybe a dagger attacks that adds Int to damage and causes the enemy to take -1 on defenses if he doesn't step back next round, or something. I don't see any reason why a Wizard couldn't secondarily have powers related to crossbows or darts.




It is still a problem even if the had an INT based weapon at-will power that they could select.


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## Sadrik (Feb 28, 2009)

WalterKovacs said:


> The thing many have pointed out though, is that it really doesn't. It adds new archetypes, but it also ruins existing archetypes ... unless you implement fixes that make it so that a character never has to actually use their basic attacks, otherwise that archetype is gone.




It restores, some of the original D&D feel. You may prefer the new feel and I am sure that their are a ton of people who do. So I don't want to knock your play style. But to satisfy you, I am going to include a reserve feat that allows you to use a lesser version of powers twice an encounter and at 16th thrice during an encounter.



WalterKovacs said:


> It just seems odd that the goal is to get rid of at-wills to make them have to use basic attacks ... but then you have to make it so that they never really will be making basic attacks (unless they want to), in order to make it balanced in the 4e system.




I don't get it what are you talking about?


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## Sadrik (Feb 28, 2009)

WalterKovacs said:


> One of the problems with this is the option of multiclassing. A class with "good" at-wills and weaker encounter/dailies will steal powers from the class with more powerful encounters and dailies that balance out the weaker at-wills.




This is a good reason to make the wizard fix (if it winds up being +1 damage die to all powers) a class feature or a wizard feat rather than actually modify the powers.


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## Sadrik (Feb 28, 2009)

Fredrik Svanberg said:


> Except the powers I suggested had no visible effects and could just as easily be described as "smart fighting" or whatever you prefer, instead of "magic".



I prefer the feel of characters being able to do whatever a commoner could do but better, not a hey I am smart so I can fight really good. That seems weird. I don't want a militant wizard unless I sacrifice my spell power to do it (a lower INT for a higher STR or DEX). By this the wizard can be just as good at fighting as the fighter, his bonuses would be very close to theirs. Fundamentally, I feel,  the wizard should be worse at fighting than a fighter. Making it so that a wizard is as good at fighting as a fighter does not fix the issue I think it exasperates it!




Fredrik Svanberg said:


> It's simple, alright, but it's not a fix.



Fair enough, from your position that is understandable.


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## Sadrik (Feb 28, 2009)

Zustiur said:


> Allow me to present an analogy, just in case anyone hasn't got it already.
> Chocolate is special.
> If you have chocolate with every meal, it will cease to be special.




If Christmas was every day, it is a chore and not a pleasant thing. Too much of a good thing can make that thing not any good.



Zustiur said:


> Like Sadrik, I have toyed with the idea of removing at-will powers in some manner. I find all their finicky effects to be a significant factor in battle-grind. Particularly for martial characters, but also for some of the others. Removing at-wills probably won't speed up the combat in terms of rounds, but it may speed it up in terms of real elapsed time. Less counting of when effects start and stop, and all the tiny bonuses or penalties that they inflict, more getting on with the job of actually fighting.




This will make the rounds go faster. Absolutely. Now it may increase the number of rounds in a battle and HP may be a bit bloated as you have commented below. Lowering the HP a bit may introduce a bit of swingyness as others have pointed out but it will make fights faster and more deadly.



Zustiur said:


> The way I envisioned the changes is as follows:



Your changes are more sweeping than mine but sure, its your game.



Zustiur said:


> Were I in the same location as Sadrik, I'd volunteer to test his version, but I'm on the other side of the world. Nevermind.



Thanks.


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## Sadrik (Feb 28, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Its not about how interesting the individual powers are, viewed in a vacuum.




Cadfan, you see, when you say this I am thinking the exact opposite of what you intend. 4e at-will powers are in a vacuum and balanced within that vacuum. How do wizards with powers to blast endlessly affect the game world? I don't think that that was figured into their "balance".



Cadfan said:


> Its about how interesting the character as a whole is, viewed in total.  Having things that you can do whenever you like makes your character, overall, more interesting.




You can still make an attack whenever you like, it is just a more mundane attack, not a magical or wuxia-like one.



Cadfan said:


> Reaping Strike might not be as awesome as an at will power in comparison to how awesome it would be if we enhanced it and made it an encounter power, but so what?




So what? Again a weak power that is "spammed" is not as interesting as one that is more limited and more powerful.



Cadfan said:


> And its more important that my character be cool than that his attack powers be cool viewed in a vacuum and unconnected to him.




Doing your three weak at-will powers interspersed between your one encounter power is not as interesting as doing FOUR encounter powers (human bonus would give an extra encounter instead of at will) interspersed between your basic attacks. You may have a different feel for this I do but I think that their is a pretty solid group of people out there that may like if not even prefer this concept.


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## Fredrik Svanberg (Feb 28, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I prefer the feel of characters being able to do whatever a commoner could do but better, not a hey I am smart so I can fight really good. That seems weird. I don't want a militant wizard unless I sacrifice my spell power to do it (a lower INT for a higher STR or DEX). By this the wizard can be just as good at fighting as the fighter, his bonuses would be very close to theirs. Fundamentally, I feel,  the wizard should be worse at fighting than a fighter. Making it so that a wizard is as good at fighting as a fighter does not fix the issue I think it exasperates it!
> 
> 
> 
> Fair enough, from your position that is understandable.




Ok, so wizards shall not be allowed to use magic, and they shall not be allowed to fight as well as fighters. Got it. What you're saying is "don't play a wizard".

My suggestion would not grant wizards any new weapon proficiencies, and they certainly wouldn't get the fighters' bonus to one or two-handed weapons. So a wizard would still be behind the fighter, no matter what. To even get close to a fighter he would have to spend a feat to learn how to swing a martial or superior weapon, and even then he'd still not be as good as a fighter.

Also, using Intelligence to fight isn't any stranger than using Charisma or Wisdom or Dexterity. Swordmages do it all the time.


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## Remathilis (Mar 1, 2009)

Ok Sadrik, instead of bickering about the feel of this change, lets see what the "math" says. 

Lets create two characters: Bob the Fighter and Joe the Wizard. 

Bob has an 18 str, fights longsword & shield, and the rest of his stats are negligible. He picks Cleave, Tide of Iron, Reaping Strike (human), Spinning Sweep (all E) and Brute Strike (D)

Joe has an 18 Int, 8 str, 12 dex. He has a crossbow and a a wand implement. He picks Magic Missile, Ray of Frost, Cloud of Daggers (human), Force Orb (all E), Sleep and Acid Arrow.

Lets do some comparisons.

At 1st level, the fighter has a few interesting combat options. If two foes are lined up, he can hit one for 2d8+4 damage and his buddy for 4, he can push a foe and move (along with his 2d8+4) or knock the foe prone and do 2d8+4. Or he can once/day do 3d8+4. 

His average damage with one of his attack is (4.5 x2 +4 or 13 damage). If he fights a level 1 foe, like a kobold skirmisher (27 hp/13 bld) He could effectively take him down in 2 rounds barring a miss (one attack bloodies, one attack kills). In one encounter, he effectively opens with four 13 point attacks (+/-) before resorting to his 8 pt basics. 

Joe, Otoh, begins with magic missile (4d4+4, avg 14), moves onto ray of frost (2d6+4, 11 hp), cloud of daggers (2d6+4, 11), and finally force orb (2d8+4, 13 + 1d10+4, 9, adjacent) Again, assuming all four hit, he's done average damage of 49 damage to the primary target (as well as slowed him for one rd and done 1-2 pts of dmg from CoD). His first two attacks nearly cleaned up our kobold skirmisher. 

In fact, If Bob and Joe were out-numbered 2-1 by skirmishers and did the "always hit/average damage) they could take out the kobolds alone in five rounds tops without resorting to their dailies. (total damage output from their eight encounter powers: 101 hp, total kobold hp 108) and this is ignoring the residual damage from CoD and the carry-over damage from cleave, as well as OAs and APs. 

And that's two PCs alone; add a rogue (with his sneak attack dice), a cleric, and another striker (lets say a warlock with eldrich blast and warlocks curse) and those poor kobolds are toast! Probably in three rounds without resorting to a daily. 

I guess that solves the "combat-speed" problem too. 

Now, here are more things to consider:

1.) Are all encounter powers equal? At 13th level, you must swap out an encounter power to gain a 13th level power. Do I get to swap out one of my "super at-wills" because in a choice between retaining 4 damage to adjacent foes, push a foe 1 square, and knock a foe prone, I'm fairly certain I'm keeping "knock a foe prone" because its more universally useful.

2.) Humans get a bonus at-will as a racial feature (as Joe and Bob show us). So a human starts with four encounter powers. Sweet. We're keeping that right?

3.) Because if you do, you have to fix some of the other races. Half-elves get an at-will from another class as an encounter power. Do they still? Is it sill an encounter power? If so, they're nearly as awesome as humans (depending on stat of other-class power). Or is it a daily now?

4.) More importantly, dragonborn's dragonbreath is only 1d6+con starting, and is clearly inferior to nearly any of our super-at wills (making humans a much better choice, or half-elves if we keep dilettante an encounter power). My suggestion, of course, is to boost dragonbreath to 2d6+con starting, and raise it +1d6 over the character's life as normal. There are some other races like this as well (firesoul genasi and probably more in the MM) that would need dice bumping.

5.) Does our ban on "at-will" magic apply to class features (like paladin's divine challenge or a wizard's cantrips?) as well? If so, kiss the paladin class goodbye.

6.) Similarly, certain utility powers (like the Rogue 2 powers Fleeting Ghost or Great Leap) is at-will. Encounter? 

7.) Oh yeah, mult-classing feats?

The big thing this system does is encourage you to open with all 3(4?) of your encounter powers for the most damage, the clean up with basic attacks. The effect is moot. Every time you begin a fight, you want to launch your 2 dice attacks first, then resort to your 1 dice basics. This has the effect of watching your party go nova for 3+ rounds, then resorting to chipping away at weakened, bloody foes. Then rest 5 minutes and do it again. 

This, of course, will get worse when your PCs hit paragon and have eight or more encounter powers to burn through, then resort to chipping. It will get better in epic though; those 2 dice super-at-wills will be useless damage (equal now to their basics, which go up to 2 dice at 21st) and probably only recalled when their secondary effects are useful (like slow or extra damage to adjacent foe). 

If you DON'T double at will dice, your making the fight even LONGER. The wizard is expected to be doing 1d6+int damage min every round (barring misses and excluding magic missile). If he does it three times and resorts to his inferior crossbow, the fight lasts longer because his to-hit is lower (more chance of missing) and his damage is lower (much lower in some cases). 

Neither promote tactical use of encounter powers: go nova and get it over-with. 

If you think you can live with the repercussions, go for it man. I just think as soon as this see's field-testing with live PCs, all bets go off and you'll see a lot of "three rounds of encounters, now lets slowly chip away with basics" fights. 

Just breaking your system before your PCs do.


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## Zustiur (Mar 1, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> I think this reasoning is very flawed.



Obviously I disagree. There is another way to mollify my interested in regards to at-will powers. Namely to make them equal to basic attacks instead of better than.

If you have a selection of 3 options (A, B and C), but 2 are clearly better than the first, you essentially have 2 options.
If all three are roughly equal, but have varying effects so as to make them more useful in varied situations, THAT would have been more interesting.
As it stands option A (basic attack) is ignored 98% of the time. So it really don't exist as an option. 
For example: your at will power might not include your stat bonus to hit, but still cause the target to be dazed for one round (or what have you). This should cause the basic attacks to be useful a significant portion of the time, which would make the game more interesting [to me].



> Its not about how interesting the individual powers are, viewed in a vacuum.  Its about how interesting the character as a whole is, viewed in total.  Having things that you can do whenever you like makes your character, overall, more interesting.  Reaping Strike might not be as awesome as an at will power in comparison to how awesome it would be if we enhanced it and made it an encounter power, but so what?



Doing the same thing all of the time is still doing the same thing all of the time, be it basic attack or an at will power. Viewing the powers in or out of a vacuum makes no difference to that fact. Using reaping strike every round is no more interesting in the long run than using basic attack every round. Repetition of ANY power is no more cool long term than repetition of basic attack (or full attack in 3.x).

A Chinese friend of mine eats Chinese food all of the time. He doesn't get the same pleasure from it that I get, because I only have Chinese food occasionally. The same concept applies to D&D, whether you think my reasoning is flawed or not.



> Right now my human fighter has a suite of three at will attacks.  Each individual power might be cooler as an encounter power, but my fighter is cooler as a guy who can choose between three different tactical effects at any given time than he would be if he couldn't.  And its more important that my character be cool than that his attack powers be cool viewed in a vacuum and unconnected to him.



I find being able to do a few spectacular things to be cooler than to do many not-so-spectacular things. Our likes appear to differ on that point, and I doubt we'd be able to change the other's view point.


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## Remathilis (Mar 1, 2009)

Zustiur said:


> Obviously I disagree. There is another way to mollify my interested in regards to at-will powers. Namely to make them equal to basic attacks instead of better than.
> If you have a selection of 3 options (A, B and C), but 2 are clearly better than the first, you essentially have 2 options.
> If all three are roughly equal, but have varying effects so as to make them more useful in varied situations, THAT would have been more interesting.
> As it stands option A (basic attack) is ignored 98% of the time. So it really don't exist as an option.
> For example: your at will power might not include your stat bonus to hit, but still cause the target to be dazed for one round (or what have you). This should cause the basic attacks to be useful a significant portion of the time, which would make the game more interesting [to me].




See, the flaw to that is assuming A, B, & C are supposed to be equal. They clearly are not. B & C are supposed to be better and A is supposed to be an option of last resort. Basic Attacks are supposed to be used if you are prevented from using an at-will or better (such as OAs, charging, dominated attacks, warlord "free" attacks) as a sub-par but better-than-nothing attack. 

So sure, you could try to make A, B, & C equal, but that means dragging B & C down to A's level or raising it to D (encounter) level. Both are massive undertakings that affect far-more than the obvious elements (check out my post above and the other on page 6 for just a few things that would need to change to remove at-wills). 

Again, more power to you if that is what you want.


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## Cadfan (Mar 1, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Cadfan, you see, when you say this I am thinking the exact opposite of what you intend. 4e at-will powers are in a vacuum and balanced within that vacuum. How do wizards with powers to blast endlessly affect the game world? I don't think that that was figured into their "balance".



BALANCE may be considered in a vacuum.  "Interesting-ness" is not.

If you succeed in making Reaping Strike more interesting, but in the process make an entire character taken as a whole less interesting, have you succeeded?  Maybe you've succeeded at something, but if the problem you intended to remedy was how interesting the game was, you haven't succeeded at that. 


Zustiur said:


> Doing the same thing all of the time is still doing the same thing all of the time, be it basic attack or an at will power. Viewing the powers in or out of a vacuum makes no difference to that fact. Using reaping strike every round is no more interesting in the long run than using basic attack every round. Repetition of ANY power is no more cool long term than repetition of basic attack (or full attack in 3.x).



This is really something you should understand before you undertake game design.

Asking whether an individual power is more or less interesting post-change is the wrong approach.  Instead, ask whether a character with a particular suite of powers is more interesting than whatever you're giving him instead.

Right now, my fighter has the following offensive choices:

3 things he can do every round, each a little better in a different circumstance.
3 things he can do once each every fight
3 things he can do once per day.

You seem to want to change it to:

1 completely vanilla thing he can do every round
5 things he can do once each every fight
3 things he can do once per day.

You need to compare the whole, not the individual level of interest you find in the at wills you change to encounter!  Its entirely possible to make the two items that went from the first slot to the second more interesting after the move, but to find the character as a whole less interesting, because that first slot there, the "every round" slot, the one slot you use more than any other, now has only one choice in it, and the choice is totally vanilla.

Maybe you'll come up with the same conclusion after you think about it from the right perspective.  You seem... pretty determined, so you probably will.  But at least you'll get there a way that makes sense.

You wouldn't pick your clothes by isolating each article of clothing and determining whether it interested you, and then combining them afterwards and being surprised by whether they matched.  You wouldn't cook food by selecting the ten most interesting ingredients you could and combining them, and then being surprised by the taste.  You would consider each of these items in light of the others, because they come together to create a complex aesthetic whole.  There's an end-goal here, and it isn't to make Reaping Strike more interesting.  If that was the goal we'd just make it a level 29 daily and be done.  The goal is to make the _Fighter_ more interesting.


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## WalterKovacs (Mar 1, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Right now, my fighter has the following offensive choices:
> 
> 3 things he can do every round, each a little better in a different circumstance.
> 3 things he can do once each every fight
> ...




One thing you left out of the equation that is also important:

1 completely vanilla thing he can do every round ... that every other class is also doing.

Part of at-wills is that it helps make classes seem different. Once the fight reaches basic attack only mode every class suddenly plays exactly the same, the only differences being stats. The only thing really defined by class is weapon proficiencies, but that is one feat away from not mattering.

VERY few classes rely on a single at-will exclusively. There is the ranger, which basically twin strikes unless they need to get away. That however has to do with lack of compelling options for the ranger's at-wills more than anything else. However, even in the current system, there are quite a few uses for basic attacks:

1 - Charging. Extremely important during the surprise round, and when you are getting up from prone. With many STR based characters focussing on melee combat, it's basically a ranged attack which they would otherwise lack.

2 - Heavy thrown. Similar to the above, in situations where a STR based character needs to attack from ranged, such as against flying foes, they will rarely have an at-will power that can give them the distance they need, so a javelin or throwing hammer, etc is needed.

3 - Opportunity attacks, and with them stuff like the fighter's interupt, and the swordmage's reaction. This is a situation where characters that don't focus on STR end up being "ignorable" as threats in terms of OAs.

4 - Warlords, more than any other class, provide basic attacks (although there are some magic items, etc, that provide free basic attacks). It is, in part, because of this that there are many spellcasting classes that have at-wills which are usable as basic attacks, so that those classes can benefit from a warlord as well. Still, there are situations where classes are rewarded for their STR. One great example is the rogue, as the warlord can often give a strong rogue extra chances to hit his sneak attack damage in the event he missed earlier. Heck one of their at-wills is another PCs basic attack with a bonus.

Now basic attacks aren't going to be what people go to as their first choice, but it will come up in play. And the characters that choose to completely ignore their basic attacks (specifically str) will end up being completely non-threatening in terms of OAs, and enemies will probably treat them accordingly as far as walking past them, etc.


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## Sadrik (Mar 1, 2009)

Fredrik Svanberg said:


> Also, using Intelligence to fight isn't any stranger than using Charisma or Wisdom or Dexterity.



Agreed, but those should be special attacks not your basic attack.


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## Sadrik (Mar 1, 2009)

Remathilis said:


> Ok Sadrik, instead of bickering about the feel of this change, lets see what the "math" says.




Absolutely. Break it before the players do. Surprise me now before they surprise me later.



Remathilis said:


> I guess that solves the "combat-speed" problem too.




Some very excellent analysis. Thanks!
Yes, with the assumption that those two characters hit every time they blast through the 5 kobolds. Add two more characters and the 50% to hit assumption and you get to where you want to be. Four characters killing 5 kobolds quickly. This is an awesome realization, perhaps fiddling with the HP and other things to lessen the grind is not necessary when implementing this.



Remathilis said:


> 1.) Are all encounter powers equal? At 13th level, you must swap out an encounter power to gain a 13th level power. Do I get to swap out one of my "super at-wills" because in a choice between retaining 4 damage to adjacent foes, push a foe 1 square, and knock a foe prone, I'm fairly certain I'm keeping "knock a foe prone" because its more universally useful.



I would say you can swap out which ever encounter powers you want. I would also so that you can select any encounter powers you want too. So you are not limited to taking former at-will powers as encounter powers in your two at-will slots.



Remathilis said:


> 2.) Humans get a bonus at-will as a racial feature (as Joe and Bob show us). So a human starts with four encounter powers. Sweet. We're keeping that right?



As of right now I am inclined to simply make it a bonus encounter power from your class.



Remathilis said:


> 3.) Because if you do, you have to fix some of the other races. Half-elves get an at-will from another class as an encounter power. Do they still? Is it sill an encounter power? If so, they're nearly as awesome as humans (depending on stat of other-class power). Or is it a daily now?



Give them the bonus encounter power from another class. Half-elves kind of suck anyway so giving them an encounter instead of encounter as a daily will boost 'em up.



Remathilis said:


> 4.) More importantly, dragonborn's dragonbreath is only 1d6+con starting, and is clearly inferior to nearly any of our super-at wills (making humans a much better choice, or half-elves if we keep dilettante an encounter power). My suggestion, of course, is to boost dragonbreath to 2d6+con starting, and raise it +1d6 over the character's life as normal. There are some other races like this as well (firesoul genasi and probably more in the MM) that would need dice bumping.



This is fair, 2d6 for the dragon breath

Lets see going through the races:
Dragonborn - breath weapon (boosted to 2d6)
Dwarf - wtf???
Eladrin - fey step (still balanced)
Elf - re-roll attack (still balanced)
Half-elf - encounter from another class
Halfling - force enemy to re-roll attack (still balanced)
Human - encounter power from own class
Tiefling - hit me I hit you back better (boosted to +2 to hit and charisma to damage)



Remathilis said:


> 5.) Does our ban on "at-will" magic apply to class features (like paladin's divine challenge or a wizard's cantrips?) as well? If so, kiss the paladin class goodbye.



Hell no. I mentioned this several times through the thread.



Remathilis said:


> 6.) Similarly, certain utility powers (like the Rogue 2 powers Fleeting Ghost or Great Leap) is at-will. Encounter?



I am fretting over these a bit but by my rule they would be encounter powers. There are 5 in the PHB, perhaps these 5 powers can become encounter powers without too much detriment. I have never actually seen them in play so I don't know. Here they are for reference:

Great Leap level 2
Effect: Make a high jump or a long jump. Determine the DC
of the Athletics check as though you had a running start.
The distance you jump can exceed your speed.

Fleeting Ghost level 2
Effect: You can move your speed and make a Stealth check.
You do not take the normal penalty from movement on
this check.

Chameleon level 6
Effect: Make a Stealth check. Until the end of your next
turn, you remain hidden if a creature that has a clear line
of sight to you does not beat your check result with its Perception
check. If at the end of your turn you do not have
cover or concealment against a creature, that creature
automatically notices you.

Nimble Climb level 6
Effect: Make an Athletics check to climb a surface. You can
move at your full speed during this climb.

Shadow Stride level 10
Effect: You must be hiding to use this power. You can move
your speed. At the end of that movement, if you have
cover, you can make a Stealth check with no penalty for
moving. If you make the Stealth check, you stay hidden
during your movement.

They could possibly be changed to feats, they seem very feat like to me anyway. In fact Nimble Climb is duplicated as a feat called Sure Climber. It appears that these at-will were just thrown into the rogues list because they have so many to choose from anyway.



Remathilis said:


> 7.) Oh yeah, multi-classing feats?



It looks like their are only two that need to be worried about - Arcane Initiate and Pact Initiate. If the Warlock retains the class feature to shoot 1d10 EBs at-will then the pact initiate is not a problem. If that is not the case then the feat could give them a pact boon over their choice. 

The wizard one would need changing. Perhaps give them the cantrips as encounter powers instead.



Remathilis said:


> The big thing this system does is encourage you to open with all 3(4?) of your encounter powers for the most damage, the clean up with basic attacks. The effect is moot. Every time you begin a fight, you want to launch your 2 dice attacks first, then resort to your 1 dice basics. This has the effect of watching your party go nova for 3+ rounds, then resorting to chipping away at weakened, bloody foes. Then rest 5 minutes and do it again.



It really seems no different that the standard rules, except that they can nova for +2 rounds than their level would indicate.



Remathilis said:


> This, of course, will get worse when your PCs hit paragon and have eight or more encounter powers to burn through, then resort to chipping. It will get better in epic though; those 2 dice super-at-wills will be useless damage (equal now to their basics, which go up to 2 dice at 21st) and probably only recalled when their secondary effects are useful (like slow or extra damage to adjacent foe).



Agreed. By that level they will likely fire off their big guns first and then switch down to their weaker effects when needed. And this seems fine to me. Every power should not be as useful by that level. In 3e it would be equivalent of low level spells not packing the same punch as the upper level ones.



Remathilis said:


> If you DON'T double at will dice, your making the fight even LONGER. The wizard is expected to be doing 1d6+int damage min every round (barring misses and excluding magic missile). If he does it three times and resorts to his inferior crossbow, the fight lasts longer because his to-hit is lower (more chance of missing) and his damage is lower (much lower in some cases).



I don't feel that the wizard should be expected to do 1d6+INT every round. If you expected your character to do that much or more you can easily fix that. Take a couple of feats that buff up your character, such as weapon training and weapon focus and get a decent magic weapon. You can contribute with the right character in the form of your basic attacks. I just feel like it should not be necessary for a wizard to contribute with basic attacks.



Remathilis said:


> Neither promote tactical use of encounter powers: go nova and get it over-with.
> Tactical uses of powers are still there. I don't understand this.
> 
> 
> ...


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## Sadrik (Mar 1, 2009)

Remathilis said:


> See, the flaw to that is assuming A, B, & C are supposed to be equal. They clearly are not. B & C are supposed to be better and A is supposed to be an option of last resort. Basic Attacks are supposed to be used if you are prevented from using an at-will or better (such as OAs, charging, dominated attacks, warlord "free" attacks) as a sub-par but better-than-nothing attack.



Most characters have two at-wills and they are pretty weak, one of them is clearly superior and is your default attack and the other is more a if the other one is not working right the use this one. So again having two weak at-will attacks of which one is often secondary you are just adding unnecessary tedium to the game for what exactly? Just go with the basic attacks and give your characters more options than just "spamming" your best at-will. Not to mention the archetypes that are opened up.


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## Sadrik (Mar 1, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Asking whether an individual power is more or less interesting post-change is the wrong approach.  Instead, ask whether a character with a particular suite of powers is more interesting than whatever you're giving him instead.



Point taken. I have however considered the whole ball of wax so to speak. What you have below is good solid analysis. I think a round by round comparison would even be better.



Cadfan said:


> You seem to want to change it to:
> 
> 1 completely vanilla thing he can do every round
> 5 things he can do once each every fight
> 3 things he can do once per day.



Yep, versus your guy who can do more slightly different vanilla at-will attacks and less things once per fight.



Cadfan said:


> You need to compare the whole, not the individual level of interest you find in the at wills you change to encounter!






Cadfan said:


> Its entirely possible to make the two items that went from the first slot to the second more interesting after the move, but to find the character as a whole less interesting, because that first slot there, the "every round" slot, the one slot you use more than any other, now has only one choice in it, and the choice is totally vanilla.



The every round slot should be as quick and vanilla as possible and eat up as little game time as possible. It is more interesting to have outright booms than to take 'em out from a million nicks with little time eating mini-bennies attached to them.


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## Sadrik (Mar 1, 2009)

WalterKovacs said:


> Now basic attacks aren't going to be what people go to as their first choice, but it will come up in play. And the characters that choose to completely ignore their basic attacks (specifically str) will end up being completely non-threatening in terms of OAs, and enemies will probably treat them accordingly as far as walking past them, etc.



I fail to see this logic. The game will have more people focusing on basic attacks which will in turn make their OAs, charges and throwing heavy weapons better.


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## Cadfan (Mar 1, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Most characters have two at-wills and they are pretty weak, one of them is clearly superior and is your default attack and the other is more a if the other one is not working right the use this one.



This is NOT the case with the typical character.

From our group:

Fighter: Cleave, Crushing Surge, Footwork Lure.  Helps with groups, durability, and mobility.

Rogue: Piercing Strike, Riposte Strike, Deft Strike.  Helps with accuracy, defense, and mobility.

Cleric: Lance of Faith, Radiant Strike.  Helps with accuracy, and healing.

Wizard: Scorching Burst, Cloud of Daggers, Ray of Frost.  Helps with groups, single foes, and action denial.

Ranger: Twin Strike, Hit and Run.  Helps with damage, and mobility.

The only one you might have a case with is the paladin.  She's got both charisma at wills, one of which gives temporary hit points, and the other which penalizes enemy attacks.  Both of these help with durability.


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## Sadrik (Mar 1, 2009)

If you want to implement this in your game here is what I have so far. Is there anything that I am forgetting? Perhaps others can speak to the newer classes and feats from further supplements.

Powers
*At-Will Powers*
Characters select three encounter powers at 1st level. All class level 1 at-will powers become encounter powers with their 21st level damage.

Races
*Dragonborn*
Increase the Dragon Breath encounter power to 2d6 damage.

*Half-Elf*
Dilettante racial feature allows you to select an encounter power from another class and use it as an encounter power.

*Human*
Bonus at will power racial feature allows you to select a bonus encounter power from your classes encounter powers.

*Tiefling*
Increase the bonus to the attack roll for the infernal wrath power to +2

Classes
*Ranger*
The twin strike at-will power is deleted.

*Warlock*
The eldritch blast at-will power does not convert to an encounter power. The warlock retains it as a class feature as is. The pacts must select the encounter power (former at-will power) listed.

Feats
*Heavy Blade Opportunity*
You can use an encounter power with this feat.

*Arcane Initiate*
You can use each wizard cantrip as an encounter power.


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## Felon (Mar 1, 2009)

ardoughter said:


> I have no comment on the warlock, I have not seen them enough in play to really comment. The restoration of eldritch blast seems ok.



I have some long-running experience with the warlock. The Eldritch Blast as it currently stands is a bit of a shaft, since its damage it just gives the warlock the equivalent of a basic attack--in other words, it just gives the warlock what the ranger takes completely for granted and never uses.

I think in the system proposed, it makes sense to allow the warlock to simply keep this as a basic attack.


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## Sadrik (Mar 1, 2009)

Felon said:


> I have some long-running experience with the warlock. The Eldritch Blast as it currently stands is a bit of a shaft, since its damage it just gives the warlock the equivalent of a basic attack--in other words, it just gives the warlock what the ranger takes completely for granted and never uses.
> 
> I think in the system proposed, it makes sense to allow the warlock to simply keep this as a basic attack.




Warlock
The Eldritch Blast class feature is an encounter power that deals 1d10 + Charisma damage and can be used two times during an encounter and three times at 16th level.

How does this look? That way it is not an auto no-brainer. They may have to rely on a weapon in an extended combat. Basically it is a "reserve feat" for the Eldritch Blast power.

Btw I stuck the rules for this 4e change down at the bottom of page 8. I think I will duplicate them here also for easier reading.



Sadrik said:


> If you want to implement this in your game here is what I have so far. Is there anything that I am forgetting? Perhaps others can speak to the newer classes and feats from further supplements.
> 
> Powers
> *At-Will Powers*
> ...


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## Zustiur (Mar 2, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> You seem to want to change it to:
> 
> 1 completely vanilla thing he can do every round
> 5 things he can do once each every fight
> 3 things he can do once per day.





			
				WalterKovacs said:
			
		

> 1 completely vanilla thing he can do every round ... that every other class is also doing.



That is exactly what I want. I want all classes to share enough of their abilities in combat that I can believe they're non-magical humanoids at heart. I don't want 'flashy' super-beings who can cast magic all day, or shoot two arrows every 6 seconds, or hit enemies over the head to make them glow with holy guiding light (that only benefits one companion) every round.
I want bless instead of priest's shield. I want bane instead of righteous brand. 
I want firing two arrows in one round to be special, not something that is considered normal.
I want wizards to have their limits _like they've always had in every edition of D&D going back to the beginning._

Doing something every round is a feat or a class feature, or a basic ability that everyone can do. Not a class specific power or spell.



Sadrik said:


> The every round slot should be as quick and vanilla as possible and eat up as little game time as possible. It is more interesting to have outright booms than to take 'em out from a million nicks with little time eating mini-bennies attached to them.




And above all I want this. If you're doing something you can do every round, I don't want it to take more time to figure out than "I hit/miss, I deal damage". None of the "Fred gets a +2 against this specific creature, in this unlikely circumstance, and it only lasts for a round so I'll have to repeat myself if I do exactly the same thing next round".

Effects that alter circumstances (like +2 to hit) should last for more than one round. Preferably for the whole encounter once initiated. In other words, I don't want to be making notes every round and crossing them out every round. Just like I don't want to alter my Str or Dex and have to recalculate my character every round in 3E.


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## GMforPowergamers (Mar 2, 2009)

Felon said:


> I have some long-running experience with the warlock. The Eldritch Blast as it currently stands is a bit of a shaft, since its damage it just gives the warlock the equivalent of a basic attack--in other words, it just gives the warlock what the ranger takes completely for granted and never uses.
> 
> I think in the system proposed, it makes sense to allow the warlock to simply keep this as a basic attack.




Isn't Magic missle the same for wizards...just the basic ranged attacks???


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## Fredrik Svanberg (Mar 2, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Agreed, but those should be special attacks not your basic attack.




Why should members of a class not learn special ways to fight so that even their basic attacks are based on their strengths rather than on their weakest traits? You are punishing/nerfing a lot of classes for no reason.


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## WalterKovacs (Mar 2, 2009)

Zustiur said:


> That is exactly what I want. I want all classes to share enough of their abilities in combat that I can believe they're non-magical humanoids at heart. I don't want 'flashy' super-beings who can cast magic all day, or shoot two arrows every 6 seconds, or hit enemies over the head to make them glow with holy guiding light (that only benefits one companion) every round.
> I want bless instead of priest's shield. I want bane instead of righteous brand.
> I want firing two arrows in one round to be special, not something that is considered normal.
> I want wizards to have their limits _like they've always had in every edition of D&D going back to the beginning._




However, they are going to be doing a _lot_ of things that are different each time. Instead of doing the same "little" thing every round, they are using a completely different encounter power every oher turn.

And the "limits" of wizards only really existed at lower levels. Once a wizard hit a certain point, it was off to the races. This is sort of what is being proposed hear. Give the wizard a limit BUT make the fights short enough that the limit never comes up, or comes up rarely.



> Doing something every round is a feat or a class feature, or a basic ability that everyone can do. Not a class specific power or spell.




Ignoring the previous editions warlock ... the ranger got their feat for free ... as a class feature. Rapid Shot/Two Weapon Fighting is basically a melee power. Since there are NO "powers" in 3.5 for martial types (until book of nine swords) there aren't going to be many cases of this. One example: Is the monks flurry of blows a class feature or a class specific power? It _is_ class specific. It is an attack. However it would probably qualify as being a class feature. Either way though, it was something they could constantly do, that only they could do. It was part of what made them monks.

Part of what made rangers what they were was their fighting style that either involved two weapon fighting ... which gave them extra attacks ... or archery powers ... that gave them extra attacks. Kind of like twin strike.

Magic users may not have had unlimited attacks ... they did however invest in magic items (and later reserve feats) that could make them effectively have unlimited magic. Or, more often, they would force the entire party to rest whenever they ran out. Since it was daily based, instead of encounter based, it is a lot easier to do this. If you run out of powers IN an encounter, you can't just "give up and rest". However, if you are running low on dailies, you can stop before the next encounter.

So, while in the past magic users had limits ... in many cases players would just find ways of circumventing that. Part of that involves skipping the first few levels (not just for this reason, but also things like the sweet spot, HP ammounts, access to magic items, etc). Part of it involves loading up on "cure sticks" and other useful wands to give more resources over time. As time went on, magic items started to convert from charges to uses per day, and feats were added to give at-will options for magic users (reserve feats).



> And above all I want this. If you're doing something you can do every round, I don't want it to take more time to figure out than "I hit/miss, I deal damage". None of the "Fred gets a +2 against this specific creature, in this unlikely circumstance, and it only lasts for a round so I'll have to repeat myself if I do exactly the same thing next round".




Because if you are doing the same thing constantly its going to remain difficult to keep track of? How is having more encounter powers, which each do something different, and unlike daily powers rarely have long term durations that much different. The ability you use once per fight (and is 1 of at least 3, up to 6 or 7, not counting utilities or dailies, etc) is going to be easier to remember all the details than something you use multiple times during a fight.

Ignore that a number of at-wills are fire and forget as well, like twin strike, eldritch blast, magic missle, heck even some stuff like thunderwave, tide of iron, and things like that are also fire and forget. Giving people THP? Again, you right it on the sheet and voila, you just do a bit of extra damage. Give someone an immediate attack, move someone around, attack multiple targets, attack a non-AC defence, move before or after the attack, etc, etc, etc ...

Only a few involve round long effects you have to remember, and which are comparable to a number of round long effects that are class features, like the fighter's mark, or the warlock's concealment, that provide the same kind of numbers you need to track. [Unlike mod'ing STR or DEX, you don't have to recalculate one value that in turn recalculates a LOT of values ... you are told directly what 'final' value is modified instead]. If you use the power often enough, and you know what the "special condition" is, you can easily know when it isn't going to matter.

I'm not going to say there isn't a case of "remember your modifiers" at the table during the sessions ... but continuous modifiers and feat based modifiers are just as easy to forget about.

Ultimately, it would seem that if an at-will is being used say ... 3 times per fight, it's going to be easier to remember the math involved [including your encounters and dailies] than having no at-wills and more encounters. You have less to calculate for your basic attacks (except of course, their initial math is probably different than your class based abilities, and if you have powers with longer durations as you've suggested, you have to apply that math to these powers anyway). And, since you are never using the same "complex" power twice, you have to get used to more powers that recur less often.


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## pawsplay (Mar 3, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> I think this reasoning is very flawed.
> 
> Its not about how interesting the individual powers are, viewed in a vacuum.  Its about how interesting the character as a whole is, viewed in total.  Having things that you can do whenever you like makes your character, overall, more interesting.  Reaping Strike might not be as awesome as an at will power in comparison to how awesome it would be if we enhanced it and made it an encounter power, but so what?
> 
> Right now my human fighter has a suite of three at will attacks.  Each individual power might be cooler as an encounter power, but my fighter is cooler as a guy who can choose between three different tactical effects at any given time than he would be if he couldn't.  And its more important that my character be cool than that his attack powers be cool viewed in a vacuum and unconnected to him.





The problem is that at-will powers are superior to every other option that is not also an at-will power, or an encounter or daily. Hence, basic attacks do not happen. Special combat options, those that still exist in 4e, are not going to happen. Instead, the at-will power is going to be spammed, over and over and over, occasionally puncuated by a not very exciting slightly more powerful encounter or daily. 

4e does two things I just cannot live with. First, it reduces the variety of combat. Despite what some claim, I have never found my 3.5 combats to be full attack slogs. There are options, so even if you ended up just attacking, you at least had the option of weighing other options. Second, it removes the basic imagery of a character engaging in swordplay or whatever. Instead, combat is a montage of special moves. If an at-will has a specific effect, then every attack you make is flavored somewhat by that effect. Whereas with a basic attack, you are free to picture it as overpowering, deft, clever, lucky, whatever. But 4e powers kind of tell you what to picture.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Mar 3, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> The problem is that at-will powers are superior to every other option that is not also an at-will power, or an encounter or daily. Hence, basic attacks do not happen. Special combat options, those that still exist in 4e, are not going to happen. Instead, the at-will power is going to be spammed, over and over and over, occasionally puncuated by a not very exciting slightly more powerful encounter or daily.
> 
> 4e does two things I just cannot live with. First, it reduces the variety of combat. Despite what some claim, I have never found my 3.5 combats to be full attack slogs. There are options, so even if you ended up just attacking, you at least had the option of weighing other options. Second, it removes the basic imagery of a character engaging in swordplay or whatever. Instead, combat is a montage of special moves. If an at-will has a specific effect, then every attack you make is flavored somewhat by that effect. Whereas with a basic attack, you are free to picture it as overpowering, deft, clever, lucky, whatever. But 4e powers kind of tell you what to picture.



I still don't get how having two attack options with different effects mean less variety than having one attack options with no effect but dealing damage. THINK ABOUT IT!

Forget Basic Attacks. They don't exist. Name them "Reaction Attacks", triggered by powers, opportunity attacks and class features. 

For a Fighter, At-Will powers can be like being able to make an (Improved) Bull Rush or use Power Attack every round, to translate these into 3E terms.

And you can still flavor your at-will attacks however you want, the ules even say so. Reaping Strike, Sure Strike, Tide of Iron, or whatever else you have as your at-will power can be described in countless ways!


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## Majoru Oakheart (Mar 3, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I still don't get how having two attack options with different effects mean less variety than having one attack options with no effect but dealing damage. THINK ABOUT IT!



I see this, you see this, but they do not.  I understand where they are coming from.  They see at-will powers as all being "special".  And for something to be special, it can only be done some of the time.

When you label basic attacks "normal", then there has to be a reason to use them more often than your other attacks.  Which there isn't.  It is one of the first things I teach new people who are playing the game.  Basic attacks aren't done.  Forget you have them.  Except on a charge, opportunity attack or attack granted by a Warlord, you'll never use it.

I know I don't have a problem with that.  To me, at-will attacks are the absolutely most basic thing a class can do.  Anyone who knows how the fight in the slightest is using attacks like Cleave or Reaping Strike rather than swinging wildly(basic attack).  Just like anyone who knew how to fight in 3e was using Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Cleave, Great Cleave, Two Weapon Fighting, Trip, Grapple, and the Full Attack action rather than doing a standard attack.  I viewed these all as the at-will powers of 3e.

In that same way, I view at-will powers for wizards as the absolutely most basic magic you learn when you study to become a wizard.  It requires almost no energy to channel a Magic Missile.  And it didn't require any real energy for my Wizard in 3e to do it either.  He prepared 6 of them on an average day.  He could Magic Missile every round he was not casting a higher level spell for the whole day.  The only time he'd run out is when there were more than 4 fights in a day.  Which happened...well, never.  Even then, he could use Fiery Burst(the reserve feat) every round, forever.  It did more damage than Magic Missile anyways.

I used a bow when I was level 1 and 2.  By the time I was level 3, I pretty much never touched one again.  I'm just happy to skip the bow phase.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Forget Basic Attacks. They don't exist. Name them "Reaction Attacks", triggered by powers, opportunity attacks and class features.



Yeah, I think this is the key point.  Nearly every option listed in the Combat section of the PHB is to be used only in special circumstances.  Normally, you use your at-will powers, because they are the bread and butter of your class.  They are what define you as a Fighter and not just some guy with a sword.


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## Mallus (Mar 3, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Forget Basic Attacks. They don't exist. Name them "Reaction Attacks", triggered by powers, opportunity attacks and class features.



I tried this line of reasoning earlier and it didn't work. I'm still not sure why... it's so _reasonable_.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Mar 3, 2009)

Mallus said:


> I tried this line of reasoning earlier and it didn't work. I'm still not sure why... it's so _reasonable_.




I think I only get it with pawsplay last post. 



> Whereas with a basic attack, you are free to picture it as overpowering, deft, clever, lucky, whatever. But 4e powers kind of tell you what to picture.



The point is - that's exactly what you can do with your basic attacks. They have a name and a flavor text, but that doesn't mean they can be narrated only in one specific way. They are your bread & butter. You can have a deft, overpowering, clever or lucky TIde of Iron attack.

You can even have a deft, overpowering, clever or lucky Magic Missile (at least no less then you can have a deft, overpowering, clever or lucky Crossbow Attack).


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## Mallus (Mar 3, 2009)

Sadrik, here are a few more --hopefully-- constructive design considerations for you to consider...


Converting at-wills to encounter powers will have a significant effect on game balance. Basically, it trashes the 4e encounter budget, so encounter design is going to be more time consuming.

PC's won't be able to generate special attack/damage types --radiant, area-of-effect, burst-- as frequently.

This makes certain monster types more powerful cf. all undead, swarms. For example, without radiant-producing at-wills undead become tougher, and some undead, like ones that regenerate unless they're hit with radiant damage during the round, become a _lot_ tougher.

This will make combats longer. Even if you increase the number and power on encounter powers, thanks to overall increase in monster HP in 4e.

Remember that combats in 4e are designed to last more rounds than their 3e counterparts. Which means the majority of PC attacks are _meant_ to be at-wills. Reducing the number of times they can be used, even if you increase their power, is inviting the dreaded grind.

Some kind of recharge mechanism, a la Bo9S, is practically a requirement.

But then you're going to have to balance issues with the existing encounter powers which weren't designed with unlimited recharge mechanics in mind.

Which all leads back to encounter design now being considerable harder.


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## Sadrik (Mar 3, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> The problem is that at-will powers are superior to every other option that is not also an at-will power, or an encounter or daily. Hence, basic attacks do not happen. Special combat options, those that still exist in 4e, are not going to happen. Instead, the at-will power is going to be spammed, over and over and over, occasionally puncuated by a not very exciting slightly more powerful encounter or daily.
> 
> 4e does two things I just cannot live with. First, it reduces the variety of combat. Despite what some claim, I have never found my 3.5 combats to be full attack slogs. There are options, so even if you ended up just attacking, you at least had the option of weighing other options. Second, it removes the basic imagery of a character engaging in swordplay or whatever. Instead, combat is a montage of special moves. If an at-will has a specific effect, then every attack you make is flavored somewhat by that effect. Whereas with a basic attack, you are free to picture it as overpowering, deft, clever, lucky, whatever. But 4e powers kind of tell you what to picture.




Brilliantly and eloquently put.


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## Sadrik (Mar 3, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> For a Fighter, At-Will powers can be like being able to make an (Improved) Bull Rush or use Power Attack every round, to translate these into 3E terms.



Pick two and that's all you can ever do. Nope, that is crap.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> And you can still flavor your at-will attacks however you want, the ules even say so. Reaping Strike, Sure Strike, Tide of Iron, or whatever else you have as your at-will power can be described in countless ways!



Again mostly martial powers are easily defined. Try doing it that easily with lazer beams and quotes like this:

from PHB:
"You slam your shield into your enemy, bash him with your
weapon’s haft, or drive your shoulder into his gut. Your attack
doesn’t do much damage—but your anger inspires your ally to
match your ferocity."


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## Sadrik (Mar 3, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> You can even have a deft, overpowering, clever or lucky Magic Missile (at least no less then you can have a deft, overpowering, clever or lucky Crossbow Attack).




And you can as an encounter power.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Mar 3, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Pick two and that's all you can ever do. Nope, that is crap.
> 
> Again mostly martial powers are easily defined. Try doing it that easily with lazer beams and quotes like this:



Think of all the interesting ways you can describe the wizard shooting a crossbow.

Now apply that flavor text to Sacred Flame or Magic Missile. (Hint: If you can't find so many interesting ways to describe someone shooting a crossbow bolt, think about how much flavor you add to your Wizard if you exchange Magic Missile with basic Crossbow Attacks.)



> from PHB:
> "You slam your shield into your enemy, bash him with your
> weapon’s haft, or drive your shoulder into his gut. Your attack
> doesn’t do much damage—but your anger inspires your ally to
> match your ferocity."



This flavor text alone consists of several options on how to narrate the power. And that doesn't even include the rule that the flavor text is no rule!


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## Sadrik (Mar 3, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Converting at-wills to encounter powers will have a significant effect on game balance. Basically, it trashes the 4e encounter budget, so encounter design is going to be more time consuming.



Please explain this budget because I have no idea what this has to do with at-wills.



Mallus said:


> PC's won't be able to generate special attack/damage types --radiant, area-of-effect, burst-- as frequently.



Um, this is bad?



Mallus said:


> This makes certain monster types more powerful cf. all undead, swarms. For example, without radiant-producing at-wills undead become tougher, and some undead, like ones that regenerate unless they're hit with radiant damage during the round, become a _lot_ tougher.



Um, this is a non-issue. Even without this change, if there was not a cleric in the party you are saying they would be dead in the water? That is just silly. 



Mallus said:


> This will make combats longer. Even if you increase the number and power on encounter powers, thanks to overall increase in monster HP in 4e.



I think by the math on the previous page or two this was illustrated to be not the case. It in fact blatantly had the opposite effect and sped up combat.



Mallus said:


> Remember that combats in 4e are designed to last more rounds than their 3e counterparts. Which means the majority of PC attacks are _meant_ to be at-wills. Reducing the number of times they can be used, even if you increase their power, is inviting the dreaded grind.



More rounds does not equate to at-wills. That is drawing a false conclusion. And then further by the math it averts grind.



Mallus said:


> Some kind of recharge mechanism, a la Bo9S, is practically a requirement.



The wizard needs a boost and this is a very valid one. Lowering the tier requirement for arcane mastery feat is a good fix to them.



Mallus said:


> But then you're going to have to balance issues with the existing encounter powers which weren't designed with unlimited recharge mechanics in mind.



Um again not a necessary change.



Mallus said:


> Which all leads back to encounter design now being considerable harder.



Luckily the game is run by a DM and not a hack of a computer program. If you are suggesting that the DM should not tailor encounters to the PCs, that is just wrong headed thinking. Even encounters from modules have to be tweaked some for the party. I see this as a non-issue.


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## Mallus (Mar 3, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Please explain this budget because I have no idea what this has to do with at-wills.



Really? Ok... your changes are going to make PC parties weaker overall, so the DM won't be able to use encounter guidelines with regard to monsters as written. 



> Um, this is bad?



Yes. Well, it's bad if you want to rely on the official encounter guidelines and it's going to make combat slower. 



> Um, this is a non-issue. Even without this change, if there was not a cleric in the party you are saying they would be dead in the water?



I said it would make certain opponents tougher. Under standard 4e rules, a party without a cleric or paladin is going to have a harder time versus undead. Do you disagree? 



> I think by the math on the previous page or two this was illustrated to be not the case. It in fact blatantly had the opposite effect and sped up combat.



That math doesn't prove what you think it proves (hint: it was a single test scenario pitting 1st level PC's vs. a single monster type). It wasn't a broad enough analysis (nowhere near), just a test case. 



> More rounds does not equate to at-wills. That is drawing a false conclusion.



They longer a combat goes on, the more at-will attacks get used, because PC's have a low, fixed number --max: 2-- of encounter powers. Unless, of course, the PC decided to do nothing in the combat round. 



> If you are suggesting that the DM should not tailor encounters to the PCs, that is just wrong headed thinking.



Did I write that? Nope. I said your changes will make tailoring/balancing encounters harder, because the DM won't be able to rely on the existing guidelines. This part's pretty irrefutable.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Mar 3, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Please explain this budget because I have no idea what this has to do with at-wills.



The idea is to control pacing of an encounter.  In an average 6 round combat at first level, you are expected to spend 5 of those rounds using at-will attacks at 1st level.  If you allow a character more encounter powers, then they are more powerful than expected.  If you force them to use Basic Attacks for those 5 rounds than they are less powerful than expected.

Consider a round where a Wizard uses a Flame Burst(or whatever it's called) and hits 3 enemies for 7 damage.  He is doing 21 damage total.  If he instead attacks with a Longbow, he might hit for 1d10+3, for a max of 13 damage(average around 8).  It's dramatically lower.

If, you allow Flame Burst to do 2d6+int instead, you've increased the damage to 33 damage on average to those 3 creatures.  Which, as you've mentioned, actually speeds up combat.  Which may not be a good thing.  If monsters die quicker, they don't have as many actions per combat.  If they have less actions per combat, they have less chances to do damage to the PCs.  Which means they are weaker than expected.  If the PCs lose less healing surges than expected, they can survive longer and fight more battles.  This causes a huge imbalance in the encounter design/wealth expectation/pacing of an adventure.



Sadrik said:


> Um, this is bad?



When the game expects otherwise, yes.



Sadrik said:


> Um, this is a non-issue. Even without this change, if there was not a cleric in the party you are saying they would be dead in the water? That is just silly.



Not dead in the water, just harder.  But it cancels out one of the advantages of playing a cleric...that it is easier to fight undead.



Sadrik said:


> More rounds does not equate to at-wills. That is drawing a false conclusion. And then further by the math it averts grind.



It depends on the solution you use.  As I mention, if you give them more encounter powers, it does speed up combats.  Mostly by making anyone with more encounter powers better than all the other classes.  If you give all classes no at-wills and more encounter powers, it just makes them ALL better and reduces the difficulty of all monsters.



Sadrik said:


> The wizard needs a boost and this is a very valid one. Lowering the tier requirement for arcane mastery feat is a good fix to them.



I don't think they need a boost.  They appear to, if you are used to them being more powerful in older editions, but the ability to hit multiple creatures with most of their powers while hitting Reflex helps them a lot.  If you remove their at-wills, they will for SURE need a boost, however.



Sadrik said:


> Luckily the game is run by a DM and not a hack of a computer program. If you are suggesting that the DM should not tailor encounters to the PCs, that is just wrong headed thinking. Even encounters from modules have to be tweaked some for the party. I see this as a non-issue.



If he isn't suggesting it, then I am.  I'm telling you that the vast majority of DMs out there don't have time to tailor encounters to their PCs.  I'm also telling you that a number of them don't WANT to tailor encounters to their PCs.

I certainly don't think it should be a necessity.  I think of encounters as a "what if" scenario.  What IF there was a group of cultists planning to bring back their dark god.  What IF a group of PCs decided to stop them.  What happens?  At the same time, I want my players to be able to play whatever the most fun is for them and not have to change the entire scenario around them.  If I tailor the encounters to my group, it ruins the what if.  It turns it into "What if a group of PCs ran across a bunch of encounters specifically designed for them?"  Which isn't that much fun for me.

I've been running Living Greyhawk adventures for years without adjusting them to the party that was playing it.  I've been running Living Forgotten Realms now for 6 months in 4e without adjusting adventures to the party.  I've run published adventures in my home games for years in 3e and 3.5e without adjusting a single one of them to my party.

They don't need to be adjusted, and I'm not going to do unneeded work when there is laundry to be done, movies to be watched, books to be read, lawns to be mowed and so on.  I think that the game system should be balanced enough so I don't have to.  I also take offense to the fact that your implication is that I'm somehow a mindless computer because I don't adjust them.

Even if I was going to adjust them for my party...how do you adjust them?  This is always the question I have when someone says, "You need to adjust for your party".  If I have a wizard who uses 90% fire spells but has 10% of his spells as cold spells...well, is a creature with fire immunity but vulnerability to cold a bad idea to send at the party?  What if is is Fire Resistance 30?  20?  Is it worth it to make the wizard feel useless for a battle in order to allow the fighter to shine?

Sure, I could come up with answers to these questions, but they'd be guesses.  Not based on anything other than a gut feeling of what they'd be able to handle.  I could be(and have been) completely wrong when adjusting things.  I've nearly killed off an entire party.  I've made an enemy so easy that they died before taking an action.  All while thinking I was doing the right thing.


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## Remathilis (Mar 3, 2009)

A possible fix could be to use the Saga system: rolling a natural 20 on a power refreshes your encounter powers. Check out SAGA for more details.


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## Wrathamon (Mar 4, 2009)

I havent read the entire thread so many this has been said...

I made a Cleric Archer in 4e by making a laser cleric build and changing the fluff of the ranged attacks to "arrows fired from my holy bow"

It worked fine. I had fun. The rest of the group had fun. The game didnt break. I had my archtype.


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## Wepwawet (Mar 4, 2009)

EDIT: Nevermind... I was just suggesting to move the thread to the houserules forum, because I thought this was another forum

Anyway, I'm amazed by the amount of text written, and the intransient opinions expressed


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## Zustiur (Mar 4, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I still don't get how having two attack options with different effects mean less variety than having one attack options with no effect but dealing damage. THINK ABOUT IT!
> 
> Forget Basic Attacks. They don't exist. Name them "Reaction Attacks", triggered by powers, opportunity attacks and class features.



No. They exist. That's the basis of this whole thread. For me this all comes back to a preference on the quantity of wuxia. Basic attacks must exist to satiate a desire for believability (which for some, is required for fun). 

Key point: One of the things I really detest about 4E is the premise that all characters are _already heroes._ I cannot stand this idea, because it pushes characters up to what used to be say 3rd or 4th level by comparison. I want my 1st level characters who aren't much better than commoners. Characters who have to _earn_ their hero status.

Basic attacks are required to give that feeling of 'not much more than a commoner'. Moreover they must be used frequently, even into the levels where the characters have achieved hero status compared with 'the general populace'. At-Will powers being automatically better than basic attacks, to the point where you suggest pretending they don't even exist, ruins that feeling.



> For a Fighter, At-Will powers can be like being able to make an (Improved) Bull Rush or use Power Attack every round, to translate these into 3E terms.



Yes... which you only get to have two of, for any character. And which you 'spam' every round. Compare with complaints about players/characters who spam disarm or sunder every round... It's ANNOYING and that detracts from the game.



Majoru Oakheart said:


> I know I don't have a problem with that.  To me, at-will attacks are the absolutely most basic thing a class can do.  Anyone who knows how the fight in the slightest is using attacks like Cleave or Reaping Strike rather than swinging wildly(basic attack).  Just like anyone who knew how to fight in 3e was using Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Cleave, Great Cleave, Two Weapon Fighting, Trip, Grapple, and the Full Attack action rather than doing a standard attack.  I viewed these all as the at-will powers of 3e.



Did you have and use all of those at full competency at level 1? Or did your characters have to learn and improve them throughout the game? I prefer the latter method.

Characters start off as nobodys, and eventually learn to do cool things all the time. 



> In that same way, I view at-will powers for wizards as the absolutely most basic magic you learn when you study to become a wizard.



Those would be cantrips... Magic missile became a cantrip by that line of thought. See my earlier complaint about wuxia and starting off slow.



> I used a bow when I was level 1 and 2.  By the time I was level 3, I pretty much never touched one again.  I'm just happy to skip the bow phase.



Whereas, I'm not happy to skip that phase. 
It might help understanding if I point out that my various gaming groups _never started above 1st level._ And that throughout our attempts at 3rd edition, we never got beyond 6th level (due to life getting in the way). That formative stage with the bow _*is*_ DND to me.




> Normally, you use your at-will powers, because they are the bread and butter of your class.  They are what define you as a Fighter and not just some guy with a sword.



Again, 'some guy with a sword' is where I like to start the game.
I would have liked to see formalized rules for 0th level or apprentice level characters being in the PHB or DMG. I got the opposite. Characters effectively start at 3rd level and move up from there. Not my cup of tea.



Mallus said:


> I tried this line of reasoning earlier and it didn't work. I'm still not sure why... it's so _reasonable_.



Reason requires a common ground to start from, which we appear not to have. We understand what you're saying. We just disagree based (primarily) on preference.


We're not saying that everyone has to play 4E in this manner. We're examining if it is possible to make 4E in to a game that Sadrik or myself would enjoy.



			
				Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> If he isn't suggesting it, then I am. I'm telling you that the vast majority of DMs out there don't have time to tailor encounters to their PCs. I'm also telling you that a number of them don't WANT to tailor encounters to their PCs.



We're not trying to tailor the game for those DMs. We're experimenting with tailoring the game for DM's like myself and Sadrik, and whose players enjoy the game so much more, *because of* that tailoring. Your comments along this line are essentially irrelevant. This thread is about an idea, and making that idea work as best as possible. About identifying the pit falls and mitigating them. Not about selling a product to the widest possible audience.



> If you allow a character more encounter powers, then they are more powerful than expected. If you force them to use Basic Attacks for those 5 rounds than they are less powerful than expected.



Yes, and you went on to explain that... but you appear to have missed the question. You examined what happens if the mage uses a bow instead of scorching burst... You examined what happens if scorching burst is improved... But you did not examine what happens if both are true.
If you do *both*, how close to even is the end result? Can we take that premise and get it to balance close enough that the existing encounter guidelines work? Or work with a minor tweak?

Bear in mind that a number of gaming groups have halved hit points across the board, to speed up combat, without reports of this breaking the balance of encounters.


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## Zustiur (Mar 4, 2009)

WalterKovacs said:


> However, they are going to be doing a _lot_ of things that are different each time. Instead of doing the same "little" thing every round, they are using a completely different encounter power every oher turn.



Eventually. My preference is to have even less encounter powers (at low level) than Sadrik was suggesting...



> And the "limits" of wizards only really existed at lower levels. Once a wizard hit a certain point, it was off to the races. This is sort of what is being proposed hear. Give the wizard a limit BUT make the fights short enough that the limit never comes up, or comes up rarely.



Yes, we're trying to restore the previous order, using a new core mechanic.




> Ignoring the previous editions warlock ...



Agreed, I never even bought PHB2, so warlocks are out of that equation for me.


> the ranger got their feat for free ... as a class feature. Rapid Shot/Two Weapon Fighting is basically a melee power.



I cannot argue with that. However I would point out that Rangers gained spells later on, which clearly are not martial equivalents of powers.


> Since there are NO "powers" in 3.5 for martial types (until book of nine swords) there aren't going to be many cases of this. One example: Is the monks flurry of blows a class feature or a class specific power? It _is_ class specific. It is an attack. However it would probably qualify as being a class feature. Either way though, it was something they could constantly do, that only they could do. It was part of what made them monks.



Again, no argument from me. However, I'd point out that their basic attacks were still used, particularly when precision was required.



> Part of what made rangers what they were was their fighting style that either involved two weapon fighting ... which gave them extra attacks ... or archery powers ... that gave them extra attacks. Kind of like twin strike.



Yes. Rangers do seem to be the closest match between editions in that regard.



> Magic users may not have had unlimited attacks ... they did however invest in magic items (and later reserve feats) that could make them effectively have unlimited magic.



That has always been play-group dependent. It will continue to be so.



> Or, more often, they would force the entire party to rest whenever they ran out. Since it was daily based, instead of encounter based, it is a lot easier to do this. If you run out of powers IN an encounter, you can't just "give up and rest". However, if you are running low on dailies, you can stop before the next encounter.



Suits me.



> So, while in the past magic users had limits ... in many cases players would just find ways of circumventing that. Part of that involves skipping the first few levels (not just for this reason, but also things like the sweet spot, HP ammounts, access to magic items, etc). Part of it involves loading up on "cure sticks" and other useful wands to give more resources over time. As time went on, magic items started to convert from charges to uses per day, and feats were added to give at-will options for magic users (reserve feats).



As mentioned in my previous post, my groups never skipped level 1. If anything we savoured it. Having to stop and rest frequently is part of how the story works for me. It's that 'scared of the next battle' factor, which is sorely missing at present in my games of 4E.



> Because if you are doing the same thing constantly its going to remain difficult to keep track of?



No, because it's tedious, slow, and just plain annoying. 


> How is having more encounter powers, which each do something different, and unlike daily powers rarely have long term durations that much different. The ability you use once per fight (and is 1 of at least 3, up to 6 or 7, not counting utilities or dailies, etc) is going to be easier to remember all the details than something you use multiple times during a fight.



Remembering effects is not the issue I was seeking to remove. Repetition is.



> Ignore that a number of at-wills are fire and forget as well, like twin strike, eldritch blast, magic missle, heck even some stuff like thunderwave, tide of iron, and things like that are also fire and forget. Giving people THP? Again, you right it on the sheet and voila, you just do a bit of extra damage. Give someone an immediate attack, move someone around, attack multiple targets, attack a non-AC defence, move before or after the attack, etc, etc, etc ...



While I'll concede that some of those you listed are just damage effects (and therefore of little consequence to speed of combat) others are not.
Thunderwave: Damage + push. 
Tide of Iron: I can't find this one, but I'm sure it's not just damage.

Move someone? Yes. Do damage? Yes. Move someone and do damage? No. Not for actions you can repeat every round.



> Only a few involve round long effects you have to remember, and which are comparable to a number of round long effects that are class features, like the fighter's mark, or the warlock's concealment, that provide the same kind of numbers you need to track. [Unlike mod'ing STR or DEX, you don't have to recalculate one value that in turn recalculates a LOT of values ... you are told directly what 'final' value is modified instead]. If you use the power often enough, and you know what the "special condition" is, you can easily know when it isn't going to matter.



Using the power 'often enough' is precisely what I'm trying to avoid. Less frequent use = More mystery. More mystery = More interest(ing). More Interest = More fun [for me].



> I'm not going to say there isn't a case of "remember your modifiers" at the table during the sessions ... but continuous modifiers and feat based modifiers are just as easy to forget about.



Sure. Again, that's not the issue I'm trying to fix.



> Ultimately, it would seem that if an at-will is being used say ... 3 times per fight, it's going to be easier to remember the math involved [including your encounters and dailies] than having no at-wills and more encounters. You have less to calculate for your basic attacks (except of course, their initial math is probably different than your class based abilities, and if you have powers with longer durations as you've suggested, you have to apply that math to these powers anyway). And, since you are never using the same "complex" power twice, you have to get used to more powers that recur less often.



Changing the calculations every round annoys me, and part of that is based on probability. I prefer bigger effects less often.
Take Righteous Brand and Bless as the examples from 4E and 3E respectively.
One gives a +2 to hit (assuming 14 str)... for a round, *if* your one ally can attack that given target during the next round. Which is a benefit of 1 in 10... that is, one in ten times you use righteous brand, it will convert a miss to a hit. So on average, you have to activate the effect 10 times to get any benefit out of it.
The other - gives a +1 to hit for the rest of the combat, or even multiple combats if they're close together. So once out of 20 rounds it will convert a miss to a hit... but you only activate it once to achieve that. In fact from 7th level, you can expect it to work twice (assuming a stupendously long combat) from one activation. That is, two converted hits from 40 rounds. But that's not all. It affects your _whole party_. 

Taking the 'default' 3E party of 4 characters, that's one converted hit every 5 rounds (instead of 10), after activating the spell once (instead of 10 times). So bless is clearly 'more effective' than Righteous brand. That's fairly obvious. The 'balancing factor' involved is that you only get to cast bless a few times per day.

Now that I've shown the different mechanics and their results, imagine if bless wasn't more powerful.
Imagine if the choice was between bless and righteous brand, but they both worked out to one converted hit every ten rounds. But where the only difference was that bless was activated once, and righteous brand was activated every round. 
_THIS_ is the premise we're discussing. This is what I'm aiming for. Both are equally balanced, neither alters the way encounter guidelines work. Neither fundamentally alters the balance of the game. One must be spammed. The other is a once off but lasting effect.
I chose the lasting effect.
I believe that is what Sadrik is seeking also.

I leave it to Sadrik to confirm or deny my understanding of his intentions here, but what I am seeking is summarized below:

How do we alter 4E, so that it fits a less wuxia feel, with more single-fire-lasting-effects, and less round by round repetition, _without_ altering the balance of the game and thereby upsetting the core mechanic?

I believe it is possible to achieve this by replacing most/all At-Will powers with more powerful encounter powers. What then are the pit falls of this? How should we go about it? Discuss.


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## Mallus (Mar 4, 2009)

Zustiur said:


> I believe it is possible to achieve this by replacing most/all At-Will powers with more powerful encounter powers.



Sure, it's possible. But it'll take a lot of work to put any semblance of balance (both PC vs. monster and class vs. class) back into the system. A _lot_ of work. 



> What then are the pit falls of this?



Did I mention it'll take a lot of work? The system as is assumes that PC groups can generate a certain amount of damage, and more importantly, certain _kinds_ of damage plus rider effects like pushes, _every_ round. It's going to take experimentation to figure out how to power up the encounter powers to compensate for that. 



> How should we go about it?



That's actually easy. Draft some replacement encounter powers and run test combats. A lot of them. Make sure you pick a wide variety of monsters, paying particular attention to those with resistances and abilities like conditional regeneration (ie incorporeal undead). Run mixed-type fights. 

You probably won't get back to 4e's original balance, but you probably can get close. I think...


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## Majoru Oakheart (Mar 4, 2009)

WARNING.  There is a lot of math in this post.  I apologize for that, but this is a complicated subject that can't be analyzed easily.  That's pretty much the point of my entire post.  That it isn't as simple as some people are making it sound.



Zustiur said:


> Yes, we're trying to restore the previous order, using a new core mechanic.



You are attempting to recreate the imbalance that 4e worked so hard to fix?  Well, then it's no problem at all.  Just change things and don't worry about the consequences.  But it seems rather strange to take the carefully balanced 4e core and purposefully remove the balance.  At that point, it really is easier to run 3.5e with some house rules to make it more like 4e than it is to houserule 4e to be more like 3.5e.



Zustiur said:


> That has always been play-group dependent. It will continue to be so.



It may have been play group dependent, but it was play group dependent in the same way that Fighters using weapons instead of their bare fists was play group dependent.  The rules let you do it another way, but heavily encouraged one way.  It is certainly possible that a DM said "Sorry, you can't buy wands or scrolls, you can't take reserve feats, I don't want my game to be some sort of fantasy game filled with magic.  You have to be normal."  But the game encouraged a heavily magical game.  It always has.

But if you were already making changes to 3.5e to support this style and you didn't care about the imbalance caused then.  I don't see why the solution needs to be more complicated than turning all at-wills into encounter powers and doubling their damage.  Anyone with high strength or dex will hit with their attacks.  No one else will except for their one encounter power per battle.  Magic will become even more special because it won't be able to be used more than once per combat.  Everyone will be ordinary until the higher levels.



Zustiur said:


> Suits me.



Once again, this reads: "I want the game to be exactly like 3.5e".  If that's the case, I'm still failing to see why 4e is the better option.



Zustiur said:


> As mentioned in my previous post, my groups never skipped level 1. If anything we savoured it. Having to stop and rest frequently is part of how the story works for me. It's that 'scared of the next battle' factor, which is sorely missing at present in my games of 4E.



Fair enough.  If you find an entire group like that who honestly doesn't like being more powerful better, then go with it.  However, be careful not to project your likes and dislikes on your group.  I've seen more than once when someone can just assume their group likes their way of playing more than any other simply because they've never asked them, they've never exposed them to other types of styles, or they just went with the group preference even though they were against it.



Zustiur said:


> No, because it's tedious, slow, and just plain annoying.
> Remembering effects is not the issue I was seeking to remove. Repetition is.
> 
> While I'll concede that some of those you listed are just damage effects (and therefore of little consequence to speed of combat) others are not.
> ...



And now you've managed to remove one of the core tenants of 4e.  It shows a lack of understanding of the problems 4e was trying to correct.  Now, if none of those were problems for your group, fair enough.  However, that's just one more part of 4e you need to reverse to get back to 3.5.  Implying that it's still easier to start with 3.5e and work forward.

In case it needs explanation, the core of 4e is created around the idea that all the players are working together in the same game, toward the same goal in the same way.  In 4e, this is lowering hitpoints.  Any round you are not lowering the enemies hitpoints is a round you aren't contributing meaningfully to defeating the enemies.  So, in order to do interesting things, you need to be able to do damage AND something else cool.  Otherwise you're back to "I make a basic attack.  I hit, I do 7, go."

That seems to be what you are trying to create, but one of the major reasons 4e was created in the first place was the remove that.



Zustiur said:


> Using the power 'often enough' is precisely what I'm trying to avoid. Less frequent use = More mystery. More mystery = More interest(ing). More Interest = More fun [for me].



The ultimate fun must be when you never get to use powers ever.  Then they are so rare as to be the most interesting.

Keep in mind, if you are attempting to make the players more mundane, you need to remove the assumption that all commoners in 4e die in one hit without even having an AC.  It was based on the idea that the PCs were heroes.  In order to rebalance this, I'd suggest either giving all commoners the stats of a 1st level monster or reducing all PCs to one hitpoint so they can feel like a normal person.



Zustiur said:


> Changing the calculations every round annoys me, and part of that is based on probability. I prefer bigger effects less often.



Fair enough.  You didn't change your calculations every round in 3.5e?  Oh, right, you didn't make it over 6th level.  That explains it.  Not enough spells to change it all the time.

However, I can tell you this was much worse at even medium levels in 3.5e.  The average combat for my fighter tended to go like this:

Precombat:
-Get Greater Magic Weapon cast on my 2 weapons.  Figure out my new attack and damage modifiers.
-Get Magic Vestment cast on my armor.  Figure out new AC.
-Have Heroes Feast cast.  Figure out temporary hitpoints, attack modifier, will saves.

Combat:
Round 1:
-Get Haste cast on me.  Figure out new attack and AC
-Get Prayer cast on me from a wand.  Figure out new attack, damage and saves.
Round 2:
-Have Enlarge Person cast on me.  Based on my new strength, figure out new attack, damage, and AC
-Have Righteous Wrath of the Faithful Cast on me.  Figure out new attack and damage while remembering that it only give me a free extra attack when using a melee weapon, that it's extra attack doesn't stack with haste and that the bonus to hit and damage doesn't stack with Prayer.  But I still get the save bonus from Prayer.
Round 3:
-Have Fires of Purity cast on me.  Which adds extra fire damage on all my attacks.  Add that into the total damage I'm doing.
Round 4:
No changes.
Round 5:
-Get hit by a targeted Dispel Magic that gets rid of Righteous Wrath of the Faithful.  Recalculate attack and damage.
Round 6:
-Prayer runs out.  Recalculate attack, damage, and saves.



Zustiur said:


> Take Righteous Brand and Bless as the examples from 4E and 3E respectively.
> One gives a +2 to hit (assuming 14 str)...



This is a dangerous assumption.  I've never seen anyone take Righteous Brand without having an 18 strength.  So, +4.  But, let's move on.



Zustiur said:


> for a round, *if* your one ally can attack that given target during the next round. Which is a benefit of 1 in 10... that is, one in ten times you use righteous brand, it will convert a miss to a hit. So on average, you have to activate the effect 10 times to get any benefit out of it.



If you are giving a bonus of +4, it's 1 in 5.  Still, if it has no effect, you haven't lost the damage you did with the attack.  It's an attack with a bonus.



Zustiur said:


> The other - gives a +1 to hit for the rest of the combat, or even multiple combats if they're close together. So once out of 20 rounds it will convert a miss to a hit... but you only activate it once to achieve that. In fact from 7th level, you can expect it to work twice (assuming a stupendously long combat) from one activation. That is, two converted hits from 40 rounds. But that's not all. It affects your _whole party_.



That's correct.  In a group of 6 people, it gives an extra hit every 3 rounds or so.  Assuming the average hit does 10 damage, your action just did 30 damage in a 9 round combat.  And that's why it's unbelievably powerful in 4e balance terms.  It allows you to get a huge bonus for just one action.  4e is balanced around an action economy.  One action gets you X benefit.  That's why there's all the repeating of actions.  If you want the benefit again, you need to spend more actions.

Compare that to a Righteous Brand that adds +4 to hit.  It adds 20% more damage to one attack(essentially), meaning that it does its own damage(let's say 10) and 2 more damage on someone else's attack for a total of 12 damage for one standard action.

Not only that, but Bless is swingy.  If nobody misses by 1 it has no effect. If Righteous Brand hits, but its bonus is useless, you still did 10 damage with the hit.

The other thing to consider is that Bless automatically succeeds.  Which is a no no in 4e philosophy.  You don't have to make an attack roll to give the bonus unless it's a daily.  Whereas Righteous Brand essentially reads: "You have a 60% chance to activate this power" simply by having an attack roll.  Because of this, you need to factor that chance into the resulting damage.  Which means it normally does 6 damage(60% of 10 damage), with the possibility of 8.  Compare that to the 30 damage Bless did and you see how much more powerful it is.



Zustiur said:


> Now that I've shown the different mechanics and their results, imagine if bless wasn't more powerful.
> Imagine if the choice was between bless and righteous brand, but they both worked out to one converted hit every ten rounds. But where the only difference was that bless was activated once, and righteous brand was activated every round.



So, you are basically saying, assuming an average 10 round combat, that we Bless should be about 14 times more powerful than RB due to the number of actions it takes.  That's assuming they both had an initial hit in order to do damage.  If you mean that RB still gets a 60% chance to do 10 damage PLUS giving someone else a hit once every 10 rounds while Bless only gives the hit chance, then I'll use RB every round rather than Bless, which would suck.

It's nearly impossible to balance these two effects.  Bless has too much of a swing effect.  On a good round where all 6 party members get a hit because of the Bless bonus, it does 60 points of damage in one round.  Which is more than some of the highest level dailies.  In a bad round it does nothing.

The thing with RB is that you know they can use it every round.  So, it's going to hit 60% of all rounds for the whole combat(if that's all they use).  If it has no effect, they have another chance next round.  No big deal.

That's on of the reasons that nearly everything in 4e requires an attack roll and why there is at-wills.  It is easy to measure the average damage of a fighter against a wizard if you know their approximate chance to hit and average damage of both using at-wills.  If you know their average damage, you can also figure out the hitpoints the enemy needs in order to survive the number of rounds you want them to.  And you can predict this no matter what the makeup of a party is.

On the other hand, if one class is doing attacks that always work(like 3e magic missile), or something that has extremely swingy effect, then the calculation goes out the window.  One combat might end in 2 rounds due to the party being entirely wizards and able to auto hit with their magic missiles every round.  While another combat might take 20 rounds because the party is entirely clerics with spells that don't actually do damage, they only enhance each other.  That was one of the problems from 3e that was fixed in 4e.


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## Sadrik (Mar 4, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> I'm telling you that the vast majority of DMs out there don't have time to tailor encounters to their PCs. I'm also telling you that a number of them don't WANT to tailor encounters to their PCs.
> 
> I certainly don't think it should be a necessity. I think of encounters as a "what if" scenario. What IF there was a group of cultists planning to bring back their dark god. What IF a group of PCs decided to stop them. What happens? At the same time, I want my players to be able to play whatever the most fun is for them and not have to change the entire scenario around them. If I tailor the encounters to my group, it ruins the what if. It turns it into "What if a group of PCs ran across a bunch of encounters specifically designed for them?" Which isn't that much fun for me.
> 
> ...



Majoru Oakheart, I am going to agree with you. And disagree as well. From my DMing experience I have modify things when I thought they were dumb and convoluted. I have also ran straight through modules verbatim before too. I always try to add in different elements to spice them up. Lets face it running through an endless string rooms with combat encounters is not that interesting. 

Where I really agree with you is most DMs (again from my XP) do just throw together encounters in a lets see what happens fashion. The take that and learn from it and begin to see weaknesses and strengths in the group and whether consciously or not they can plan encounters with that experience of how the party handled previous encounters. So I agree, not as formulaic in designing encounters that will deeply challenge the party maximizing their weaknesses and minimizing their strengths. But... the DM learns and adapts their encounters to suit the party and make for challenges, possibly throwing in a couple extra reinforcements or throwing that fire giant in knowing the fighters flaming sword will be less than helpful.

I understand if you are running the "living" stuff, mostly those lend the as per the book types of games, I don't think most gamers are limited in that way. And don't be offended by what I said about mindless computer bla bla bla. The living stuff should be played by the rules in the book because there are too many house rules out their and if one DM is doing it one way, then you can pretty much count on every DM doing it a different way and consistency is important for the players. Most D&Ders do not play "living" stuff so are more free to house rule things and mod encounters and stuff.



			
				Mallus said:
			
		

> You probably won't get back to 4e's original balance, but you probably can get close. I think...



I am hearing you say that 4e is _not _a robust system that it _cannot _handle any change to its intricately fragile system and a single up tick or down tick will collapse the game. That is bogus. I argue your perfect balance never existed in the first place. I argue that this 4e balance that is always touted was a driving design factor but never materialized. A game by default never can be balanced. It is all a matter of how subtle you want the discrepancies to be. They are less severe than 3e, but it is still unbalanced. Balanced is achieved with no options - the same class, the same race, the same feats, the same weapons, the same everything even tactics. The closer you get to that balance the less interesting things become (IMO). The point is, I submit the game _will not_ collapse with a change like this.



			
				Zustiur said:
			
		

> I leave it to Sadrik to confirm or deny my understanding of his intentions here



I think you mostly have it.


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## nightwyrm (Mar 4, 2009)

This arguement has been going on for ten pages, isn't it time for some empirical data? Go ahead Sadrik, remove at-wills from your game and post your game results.

It's obvious that no one is gonna be convinced by what the other side is saying.  It's time for some actual playtesting and results.


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## Mallus (Mar 4, 2009)

nightwyrm said:


> It's time for some actual playtesting and results.



I recently suggested that. What I got back from the OP was a... less than constructive response.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Mar 4, 2009)

Zustiur said:


> How do we alter 4E, so that it fits a less wuxia feel, with more single-fire-lasting-effects, and less round by round repetition, _without_ altering the balance of the game and thereby upsetting the core mechanic?
> 
> I believe it is possible to achieve this by replacing most/all At-Will powers with more powerful encounter powers. What then are the pit falls of this? How should we go about it? Discuss.




Fair enough, a lot of my previous post already goes into a discussion of this.  This is the post for those who didn't want to read through the last one.

Here's the basic summary:
There are two major problems with removing at wills for longer lasting, more powerful encounter powers:

1. *Swingy Combat*.  If all powers still have attack rolls, then this method makes combats a LOT more swingy.  If someone has one encounter power and misses, and it would have done 30 damage while their basic attack does 6(adjusted for probability of hitting), they've just extended the combat by 5 rounds.

The reverse of this is if everyone hits with their more powerful encounter powers on the first round, the battle ends really quickly with nearly no challenge at all and no resources wasted.

2. *The Action Economy*.  What an action is worth in a combat.  Long lasting effects have their effect in every round of combat.  This means that they have the same effect as a power that lasts a round multiplied by the number of rounds they last for.

This also allows you to stack powers.  Each round you get to add the effects of all powers you've used together for the entire encounter.  And there's no way to predict how long an encounter will last anymore, due to how swingy it is.  So, a +2 to hit might last 20 rounds and give you huge amounts of damage or it might last 1 round and do nothing.  So, there's no way to tell how powerful it is.  How do you balance powers against each other with no way of knowing how powerful they are?


These two issues, when combined mean that all the predictability that has been designed into the core 4e mechanics is thrown out.  Since the goal of the 4e core mechanic is to add predictability to the game, I suggest that your goal is impossible.  If remove at-will powers you sacrifice the core 4e mechanic.


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## Mallus (Mar 4, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I am hearing you say that 4e is _not _a robust system that it _cannot _handle any change to its intricately fragile system and a single up tick or down tick will collapse the game.



Then you should listen more carefully.

What I said was that the changes your suggesting will have a number of consequences, chief among them being invalidating the existing encounter-building guidelines, next being the intra-class balance. You'll need to make fixes and then test them. 



> A game by default never can be balanced.



Not a chess player I see...


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## Parlan (Mar 4, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> This or something like it is a solution. But what you have proposed is just a shell game switching one at-will magical effect for another. I would rather they just have the bonus encounter powers, delete the at-wills and be done. It is a very simple fix, without the need of writing 20 or 30 new powers.




It's simple, but it's not a "fix". 

1. Melee attacks are boring.  

Maybe this suits your vision of a game world, but it's a step backward for me.  A rogue getting to shift a couple squares into flanking position before striking, or a Fighter using Tide of Iron to push an opponent off of a bridge and into lava, that gives players options and makes encounters more interesting.

More interesting than having no options other than to slug it out toe to toe, "I missed. I hit, 6 dmg.  I hit, 7 dmg. I missed..."

2. Magic Missile is Uninspired, but no Worse than 3e

I agree, it's a pretty boring At-Will.  It's the magical equivalent of slugging it out toe-to-toe.  However, Wizards have plenty of other options for At-Wills, ones that let them Push, Slow etc.  

4e Wizards have some interesting At-Will options. 

Still, MM is no worse than 3e.  The argument that MM being more "special" because it could only be cast a certain number of times per day holds no water.  It was cast multiple times in every encounter I've played in.  Being cast half a million times in the course of a campaign instead of a million didn't make it any more "special" for me.  

3. Increasing the Number of Encounter/Daily Powers won't compensate for the Lack of At-Wills.

Encounters/Dailies do, on average, 2W or 3W.  Since the ability modifier only gets added once, this means that Encounters/Dailies only increase the damage by 50%-100% or so.  If they hit. 

That's not going to shorten the length of encounters in any meaningful way, when opponents have more HP.  


In short, I don't see how the OP's proposals do anything but make the game *less* fun.  

If I want less fun, I could just go back to RL.


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## Cadfan (Mar 4, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> Compare that to a Righteous Brand that adds +4 to hit. It adds 20% more damage to one attack(essentially), meaning that it does its own damage(let's say 10) and 2 more damage on someone else's attack for a total of 12 damage for one standard action.



Its more than that, actually.  4 is 20% of the distribution from 1 to 20, but what you seem to want to calculate is increased damage per round.  And since the attack that's being boosted by Righteous Brand already has a miss chance, you have to factor that in.

Lets say you hit with Righteous Brand.  You grant +4 attack to someone who was previously hitting on a 9+.  Now he hits on a 5+.  Previously his expected damage was .6*X, now its .8*X.  That's a 33% increase.


			
				nightwyrm said:
			
		

> This arguement has been going on for ten pages, isn't it time for some empirical data? Go ahead Sadrik, remove at-wills from your game and post your game results.
> 
> It's obvious that no one is gonna be convinced by what the other side is saying. It's time for some actual playtesting and results.



This conversation isn't about the actual game.  The people trying to change 4e aren't actually playing it.  They just want to armchair debate how things _ought_ to be.  Which is fine.  That's the perspective from which I've been engaging in this thread as well.  I mean, I actually play the game, but I've been treating this thread as a gameplay-experience-free zone.  Its all good fun, even if its pointless.  Its the internet.

Overall I have some sympathy for a desire to make characters diversify outside of their general shtick a little bit, particularly by adding non magical combat options.  I disagree a bit with Sadrik on what the _point_ of doing that is: I'd rather have a character who can competently fight with both spells and nonmagical melee combat and accomplishing different things with each, so that the player embraces both as interesting options.  He'd rather make nonmagical melee combat something that spellcasters _have_ to do whether they like it or not, and force them to begrudgingly invest exactly enough resources in it to survive until they learn enough magic to stop caring.  As a result, he prefers to take away at will powers so that basic attacks will have to be used once limited use powers run out.  I'd rather diversify at wills or add in melee encounter powers so that characters can do whatever they prefer for a given situation.

I just think its nuts to claim that the game is lacking options because the basic attack isn't a strong choice.  Its pretty obvious to anyone paying attention that your at wills for your melee classes are just basic attacks upgraded with the sorts of things that existed in 3e as feats.  By making them powers instead of basic attacks augmented by feats they prevent them from stacking, making the system as a whole more resilient to breaks and power creep.


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## nightwyrm (Mar 4, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Not a chess player I see...




Well technically, white has a minor advantage since it moves first....


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## Majoru Oakheart (Mar 4, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Majoru Oakheart, I am going to agree with you. And disagree as well. From my DMing experience I have modify things when I thought they were dumb and convoluted. I have also ran straight through modules verbatim before too. I always try to add in different elements to spice them up. Lets face it running through an endless string rooms with combat encounters is not that interesting.



We have fun with dungeon crawls now and then.  I modify things when I think they are dumb.  I just have a high tolerance.  I almost never think something is dumb.  New elements are always fun.  I'm certainly not knocking people who modify their adventures.  If you have the time, go ahead.  But, the way you were making it sound was that a game system doesn't have to work, because you'd modify your game around any problems.  I think a game system should just work without modification.

I understand that you can guess and get it "mostly" right.  But I'd prefer not to guess at all.



Sadrik said:


> The living stuff should be played by the rules in the book because there are too many house rules out their and if one DM is doing it one way, then you can pretty much count on every DM doing it a different way and consistency is important for the players. Most D&Ders do not play "living" stuff so are more free to house rule things and mod encounters and stuff.



I have the freedom to change things in my home game.  I don't, because I like consistency as well.  And Living Forgotten Realms encourages people to modify the encounters if they think it'll be more fun.  We just don't allow changing of the rules.  I prefer to be able to move from game to game without learning new rules all the time.  I prefer to know my powers will work the same way each time I use them, even if I switch DMs.

I work my home games the same way.  The rules are never changed, but the encounters are where I get to make things up and make things interesting.



Sadrik said:


> I am hearing you say that 4e is _not _a robust system that it _cannot _handle any change to its intricately fragile system and a single up tick or down tick will collapse the game.



This is correct.  More than any previous edition, 4e has had a LOT of math and probability theory put into it.  I'm not on the design team.  I'm just pretty good at math.  But there was no math behind 3e(or at least, not much).  It was pretty much completely random.  Changes one way or another didn't affect things much because there was no way to really see what effect the change had.

The math behind 4e reduces the factors involved to a couple of easily predictable numbers.  Since they are so predictable, other portions of the game can depend on them.

As a rough example.  In 3e, a PC could be doing 1 damage a round or 100.  No real way to tell.  They might have decided to play a halfling with 6 Strength who attacks with a dagger for 1-2 damage per round.  They might have decided to play a half-orc barbarian with Power Attack who has a +1 weapon at first level who does 46 damage on a crit.  How long does a creature with 18 hitpoints and an AC of 16 last for?  No way to tell.  Might as well just make up numbers that looks sort of correct and see what happens.

In 4e, the average plus to hit is +6 at 1st level.  The average enemy has a 15 AC.  The average damage is 8 damage per hit.  With a 60% chance to hit that means each character does 5 damage per round.  We assume 5 characters.  So, 25 damage total per round.  If there are 5 enemies, each has 30 hitpoints, then the combat should last 6 rounds.  We want the PCs to win an average fight with no one dying.  A character has and average of 25 hitpoints on average.  We want the total damage of the enemies to be around 62(hitpoints of 2 characters plus 2 healing surges).  The average AC of a PC at first level is 16.  If we give the enemy +5 to hit, they'll hit 50% of the time.  Assuming we that one enemy dies in every round after the first, that means they get 20 attacks total.  That means each enemy should do an average of 12 damage on an attack when it hits.

And there you have the main formula for the math in 4e.  Due to the randomness of die rolls, character choices, monster choices and types, the rest works itself out.  The individual numbers don't matter since we can accurately predict the average.  However(and this is key), the only way the math continues to work is if we don't let people get too far away from the average.  4e lets people get between +4 and +8 to hit at first level(without going to extremes).  If there are people with +0 to hit in the same group as people with +10 to hit, the difference is too great to determine the average accurately.  Since you can't do that, you can't determine what the AC of the enemies should be, which means you can't determine their hitpoints nor their attack bonus nor their damage.

The whole house of cards falls apart.

This is what happens when you force someone to make melee attacks with their 10 strength with a +2 prof bonus quarterstaff in an average round instead of their 20 int vs Ref Magic Missile(average 1.8 damage per round vs 6.5).  This is basically 5 damage less a round.  Assuming the same 30 hitpoint creatures, it means an extra round of combat.  If you have 2 casters in your group, it means 2 extra rounds of combat.  Now, remember how we balanced the damage the enemy did so it wouldn't kill anyone in 6 rounds of combat.  Well, now there's 8 rounds of combat.  The enemy does 12 more damage(on average) during those 2 rounds.  Which is just enough to be the difference between someone living and dying.

Really small differences create large problems in 4e.


----------



## Sadrik (Mar 4, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Then you should listen more carefully.
> 
> What I said was that the changes your suggesting will have a number of consequences, chief among them being invalidating the existing encounter-building guidelines, next being the intra-class balance. You'll need to make fixes and then test them.



Ah, so if guidelines are now skewed slightly from this change then now the game will not function? 

My personal opinion is that this change won't alter the guidelines for encounter design.

Invalidating intra-class balance, what is that anyway? Are you saying that the classes are so balanced as written that altering that mix would be detrimental to playing said game?



Mallus said:


> Not a chess player I see...




And I know you are not...


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## Sadrik (Mar 5, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> I'm certainly not knocking people who modify their adventures.  If you have the time, go ahead.  But, the way you were making it sound was that a game system doesn't have to work, because you'd modify your game around any problems.  I think a game system should just work without modification.



Of course a game has to work. But that is not the only factor a game has to be _fun_ too. Most DMs modify what they play I would venture. Others may alter it more than others. 



Majoru Oakheart said:


> I understand that you can guess and get it "mostly" right.  But I'd prefer not to guess at all.



Yes, nothing is ever perfect it is good enough. 



Majoru Oakheart said:


> Sadrik said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



First, effective analysis. 3e - damage was more variable, 4e has more average damage. The example of 10 STR guy attacking with a staff is perfect for accentuating your overall point but it fails to see the role that a player with a 10 STR character is trying to fill with their character. If you have a 10 STR character do you really expect your character to be good at attacking with a staff? I don't think so. The expectation should be that you are not effective at doing that. So where this was effective analysis it was simply pointing out that a 10 STR guy is not very effective at fighting. 

Assuming the 10 STR guy is a Wizard, the player is mostly a ranged character so can attack with their powers at range if they wanted to focus that way. If they wanted to use a bow (or throw shuriken ) or wield a sword the player would create their character with a mid ranged DEX or STR or both. That character concept is so completely sub-par in the current rules. It is almost pointless to even consider one because your at-wills are easily superior and work off your single uni-bloated stat. This is what this whole thread is about.

Speaking toward your point, the math is their and I believe it to be much more robust than you do. I don't feel removing at-wills will alter the game in a negative way. This does need testing and I concur with several posters with that sentiment. I will try and get some of my own "math" together and post my findings.


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## Cadfan (Mar 5, 2009)

Rumor from rpg.net: Feat: Melee Training.  Use stat of your choice for basic attacks.

Everything I wanted in terms of making melee viable for non melee characters.  Won't make other people happy, but from my results-based orientation, that's all I need.  I can build the rest with existing feats and powers.


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## Mallus (Mar 5, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Ah, so if guidelines are now skewed slightly from this change then now the game will not function?



The changes you're proposing will do more than slightly skew things. They're a significant redesign of a core part of system.

Look, I'm trying to help you out here. I raised a number of specific issues, but all you seem to do is want to argue (without actually addressing any specifics). Do you want to discuss design or not? 

edit: BTW, glad to hear you're going do some testing. Best way to proceed.


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## Sadrik (Mar 5, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Rumor from rpg.net: Feat: Melee Training.  Use stat of your choice for basic attacks.
> 
> Everything I wanted in terms of making melee viable for non melee characters.  Won't make other people happy, but from my results-based orientation, that's all I need.  I can build the rest with existing feats and powers.




I don't like it. It gives everyone the exact same chance to hit (minus proficiency, magic items, feats and powers).

A fighter should not attack as good as a wizard. Sorry I think that diminishes the fighter. Outside, of that this feat gives almost no effect to the standard game. As argued, "basic" attacks are the at-will powers and true basic attacks are only used when triggered by a specific event. This virtually makes this feat useless. I attack you with my CON??? This does follow with Iron Heroes. Was this a rumor for being in PHB 2 or something?

Why use any of the DMG page 42 stuff when you can simply use an at-will?

Why are the martial at-wills simply not covered under that chart? Throw in a couple of other effects on it like push 1 square etc. Instead we have at-wills that force a player to "spam" the two at-wills they do have.


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## Cadfan (Mar 5, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I don't like it. It gives everyone the exact same chance to hit (minus proficiency, magic items, feats and powers).
> 
> A fighter should not attack as good as a wizard. Sorry I think that diminishes the fighter. Outside, of that this feat gives almost no effect to the standard game. As argued, "basic" attacks are the at-will powers and true basic attacks are only used when triggered by a specific event. This virtually makes this feat useless. I attack you with my CON??? This does follow with Iron Heroes. Was this a rumor for being in PHB 2 or something?
> 
> ...



Hah, I knew you wouldn't like it.

I only care about in game effect.  Yeah, it might be unrealistic to wield a melee weapon with your constitution.  But who cares?  The in game effect of this weapon is to let you make basic melee attacks exactly as good as someone who specializes in strength based melee.  If they have a +8, then you will have a +8, since your best stat probably matches theirs numerically.

As for making the wizard just as good as the fighter, uh, it makes the wizard just as good as the fighter at making basic melee attacks.  That's it.  And the wizard is still using a staff while the fighter is wielding a longsword or better.  Plus the fighter has all those crazy melee powers that the wizard hasn't got.

As for the feat's usefulness, it has two major uses.  First, there are melee classes that don't use strength for their primary attacks.  That usually means that they have weak charges and opportunity attacks.  This helps make them more well rounded.  Second, there are ranged classes that have trouble when they're caught unexpectedly in melee.  This gives them a backup plan.

It gets the job done quickly and efficiently.  And best of all, its going to absolutely enrage the sort of people who want to view the rules of the game as laws of physics, which is always a plus.


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## Remathilis (Mar 5, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I don't like it. It gives everyone the exact same chance to hit (minus proficiency, magic items, feats and powers).
> 
> A fighter should not attack as good as a wizard. Sorry I think that diminishes the fighter. Outside, of that this feat gives almost no effect to the standard game. As argued, "basic" attacks are the at-will powers and true basic attacks are only used when triggered by a specific event. This virtually makes this feat useless. I attack you with my CON??? This does follow with Iron Heroes. Was this a rumor for being in PHB 2 or something?
> 
> ...




[Jack Sparrow] Welcome to Fourth Edition Mate! [/Jack Sparrow]

Seriously, at this point, you're better off starting with a different system. I think C&C might be right for you; most characters are limited to melee or ranged attacks; magic is limited to casters-only, saves are based on all six scores, and every thing else (pushing, stunting, etc) is left to DM fiat. Tack on a good skill system and you're off to the races.


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## Mallus (Mar 5, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> A fighter should not attack as good as a wizard. Sorry I think that diminishes the fighter.



What really diminishes the fighter are magic spells/spellcasters that make the fighter's contribution to the combat either insignificant or of marginal significance. 4e attempted to address this issue. 

The by-product of the method they chose is that wizards now attack as well as fighters. But they _effect_ of those attacks are more in line with a fighters, not dramatically better (as spells in previous editions were). 



> This virtually makes this feat useless. I attack you with my CON???



It's a broader version of the Swordsage feat Intelligent Blademaster, which is good if you want to hit more often w/OA's and with powers that grant extra basic attacks. 



> Why use any of the DMG page 42 stuff when you can simply use an at-will?



Because the stunts described on page 42 can be as strong as Encounter or Daily powers, depending on the circumstances.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Mar 5, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I don't like it. It gives everyone the exact same chance to hit (minus proficiency, magic items, feats and powers).
> 
> A fighter should not attack as good as a wizard. Sorry I think that diminishes the fighter. Outside, of that this feat gives almost no effect to the standard game. As argued, "basic" attacks are the at-will powers and true basic attacks are only used when triggered by a specific event. This virtually makes this feat useless. I attack you with my CON??? This does follow with Iron Heroes. Was this a rumor for being in PHB 2 or something?
> 
> Why use any of the DMG page 42 stuff when you can simply use an at-will?



maybe it's not clear from the rules, but it is noted in the example: Stunts can be as powerful as encounter powers, so they are better than at-wills. The problem is coming up with a good stunt - unlike real powers, you have to convince your DM to stunt, requiring a DM that is not too stingy and a player that is creative.


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## Sadrik (Mar 5, 2009)

Fighter (Dragonborn)
Level 1
STR 20
CON 11
DEX 14
INT 8
WIS 10
CHA 12

Armor
Plate
Heavy Shield

Weapons
Long Sword +9/1d8+6
Long Bow +4/1d10+2

Feats
Weapon Focus Heavy Blades

Features
+1 w/one-handed weapons
Dragon Breath +7/1d6
Dragonborn Fury (+1 to attack when bloodied)

Powers
E1 Tide of Iron +9/2d8+6 (push 1)
E2 Cleave +9/2d8+6 (+5 to adjacent)
E3 Spinning Sweep +9/1d8+6 (knock prone)
D1 Brute Strike +9/3d8+6 (reliable)

Wizard (Eladrin)
Level 1
STR 13
CON 11
DEX 15
INT 20
WIS 8
CHA 10

Armor
None

Weapons
Dagger (melee) +4/1d4+1
Dagger (thrown) +5/1d4+2
Wand (+2 once per encounter)

Feats
Arcane Recovery (spend an AP to recover an encounter power)

Features
Wand of Accuracy
Cantrips
Fey Step

Powers
E1 Magic Missile +5/4d4+5
E2 Scorching Burst +5/2d6+5 (burst 1)
E3 Force Orb +5/2d8+5, +5/1d10+5
D1 Flaming Sphere +5/2d6+5

Rogue (Human)
Level 1
STR 14
CON 10
DEX 20
INT 8
WIS 10
CHA 11

Armor
Leather

Weapons
Light Armor
Dagger (melee) +6/1d4+2
Shuriken (thrown) +8/1d6+5

Feats
Backstabber
Action Surge

Features
Brutal Scoundrel
Sneak Attack +2d8+2
Daggers +1 and shuriken 1d6

Powers
E1 King’s Castle +9/2d4+5 (switch positions)
E2 Dazing Strike +9/1d4+5 (dazed)
E3 Riposte Strike +9/2d4+5, +6/2d4+2
E4 Torturous Strike +9/2d4+7
D1 Trick Strike +9/3d4+5 (slide 1)

Cleric (Elf)
Level 1
STR 12
CON 12
DEX 18
INT 8
WIS 18
CHA 10

Armor
Chain

Weapons
Long Bow +6/1d10+5
Mace +3/1d8+1

Feats
Weapon Focus (Bows)

Features
Divine Fortune (+1 to attack or save)
Turn Undead
Healing Word

Powers
E1 Cause Fear +4/(moves away)
E2 Divine Glow +4/1d8+4 (+2 bonus to attacks for allies)
E3 Lance of Faith +4/2d6+4 (+2 bonus to attacks for an ally)
D1 Beacon of Hope +4/(weakened)

Warlock (Human)
Level 1
STR 10
CON 12
DEX 16
INT 12
WIS 8
CHA 18

Armor
Leather

Weapons
Rod (club) +2/1d6 + curse
Crossbow  +5/1d8+3 + curse
Eldritch Blast +5/1d10+5 (twice per encounter) + curse

Feats
Action Surge
Improved Misty Step

Features
Eldritch Blast
Curse +1d6
Fey Pact

Powers
E1 Eyebite +4/2d6+4 (invisible)
E2 Witchfire +4/2d6+4 (-3 to attacks)
E3 Dreadful Word +4/2d8+4 (-1 will)
E4 Eldritch Blast
D1 Curse of the Dark Dream +4/3d8+4 (slide 3)


A 12 round encounter without dailies
Average damage if all hit:
Warlock 139
Cleric 114
Rogue 176 (1/2 attacks are sneak attacks)
Wizard 81 + 22 to secondary targets
Fighter 130 + 5 to secondary targets

A 12 round encounter with spammed at-wills without dailies
Warlock 135
Cleric 88
Rogue 143 (1/2 attacks are sneak attacks)
Wizard 102 + 49 to secondary targets (1/2 hit secondary- scorching burst)
Fighter 125 +25 to secondary targets (1/2 hit secondary- cleave)

What is the difference?
Most of the damage is front loaded into the first few rounds of combat in the group with no at-wills in the other group the wizard and fighter become much better with spammed scorching burst and cleave, both almost rivaling the striker over the long haul. It is interesting that the cleric is much better with the bow than using his spammed lance of faith. The strikers are both better with their bonus damage from encounter powers hitting heavy early on in a fight. The wizard suffers from going to the dagger.

With the to-hit chances factored in the fighter and rogue should do more average damage. The warlock’s, wizard’s and cleric’s damage will go down, most dramatically the warlocks will, then the wizard then the (bow)cleric. The spammed (lance of faith)cleric will decrease in damage proportionally to the warlock. Accounting for bonuses it is generally harder to hit REF than AC on many creatures.


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## Sadrik (Mar 5, 2009)

Remathilis said:


> Seriously, at this point, you're better off starting with a different system. I think C&C might be right for you; most characters are limited to melee or ranged attacks; magic is limited to casters-only, saves are based on all six scores, and every thing else (pushing, stunting, etc) is left to DM fiat. Tack on a good skill system and you're off to the races.




It is interesting that you have used this line of thought several times. Do you seriously think that I and all of the people who possibly agree with this change should just pick up and go? My group plays 4e, I am going to play 4e. Sure I personally would be happy with Savage Worlds but not everyone shares my sentiment. Should I suggest our group dump 4e? So what now, what is your suggestion still to dump the 4e system?

I enjoy the 4e core mechanics.

Getting back on track.



			
				Mallus said:
			
		

> The by-product of the method they chose is that wizards now attack as well as fighters. But they effect of those attacks are more in line with a fighters, not dramatically better (as spells in previous editions were).



Ok, I'll concede the point this is one of the "ideas" of 4e. This feat actually moves the game further in that direction and if you can use any Stat to make an attack with your powers why not allow it with a basic attack. Sure.

It still does not touch that At-wills are limited sit in front of the TV brain dead attack that makes people turn off their creativity in favor of the designers creativity and only two tiny aspects of that.

Stunts should be good, they should encourage to think creatively the game mechanics should encourage this. And they do. However if you are busy spamming two nifty mini-bonus powers your eyes will never open to that awesomeness.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Mar 6, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> Of course a game has to work. But that is not the only factor a game has to be _fun_ too. Most DMs modify what they play I would venture. Others may alter it more than others.



Of course it has to be fun.  I'm just saying that I have a lot of fun fighting my way through dungeons killing monsters.  Always have.  It's why I continue to play.  No need to modify the dungeons.



Sadrik said:


> Yes, nothing is ever perfect it is good enough.



Nothing is ever perfect.  But what is "good enough" is highly subjective.  Once, I had a DM who just kept increasing the hitpoints of one of the bad guys we were fighting because he felt the stats of the enemy weren't good enough.  He was going to die in 2 rounds instead of the 8-10 rounds he wanted him to last.  So, as the battle went on and on, everyone at the table kept complaining that they had no idea what they were doing wrong, because no matter what they did, the enemy seemed indestructible.  Around round 7 or so, all of us weren't having any fun anymore.  We wanted our characters to be cool and able to defeat the enemies.  We'd trapped him in a corner and were just making attacks on him over and over again.  It wasn't much fun.

Finally, the creature died.  The DM later revealed that that he'd been modifying the hitpoints of the creature in order to make the game better for everyone.  Everyone universally agreed that it was not "better".  The DM said it was and got in a big argument with us over it.

That's where I learned a valuable lesson.  People have more fun when things aren't changed.  Even if something seems like it'll be better to me, I attempt to avoid it. 



Sadrik said:


> First, effective analysis. 3e - damage was more variable, 4e has more average damage. The example of 10 STR guy attacking with a staff is perfect for accentuating your overall point but it fails to see the role that a player with a 10 STR character is trying to fill with their character. If you have a 10 STR character do you really expect your character to be good at attacking with a staff? I don't think so. The expectation should be that you are not effective at doing that. So where this was effective analysis it was simply pointing out that a 10 STR guy is not very effective at fighting.



Of course you don't expect to be good at the staff if you have a 10 STR.  But, then again, perhaps your character concept is "A super intelligent wizard, a prodigy in spellcasting.  His spells are very hard to resist and are very powerful, but he's weak and uncoordinated."

If I make that character in 4e, I can have fun beating up the enemies.  I can cast magic missiles at them and hit on a regular basis and do effective damage.  If you remove my at-will powers, however, I can only use a couple of encounter powers each combat that are spells.  The rest of the time, I'm forced to attack with my staff with my 10 STR.  And I'm really bad at it.  So it's no fun.

So, my only recourse is to lower my INT from 20 to 16 in order to have enough points to have a 16 STR, so that I have some chance of hitting with my staff attacks.  But now, my INT is so low that I'm only moderately good at casting spells, and I'm strong.  It doesn't fit my character at all.

You are telling me that in your game, either you have a STR or DEX score or you are a bad character.  Which, IMHO, would take away the fun of some people.

For instance, I played a character with 8 STR and 20 INT in 3.5e.  I recreated him in 4e with the same stats(well, the STR and INT were the same).

In 3.5e, it was no fun to play him for the first 4 levels or so.  He didn't have enough spells, and I couldn't hit anything with an 8 STR.  I had a 12 DEX, so I couldn't really hit anything with a bow either.  If I didn't think the fight was hard enough, I'd simply delay every round without doing anything.  I'd often read a book instead of paying attention to the fight in these cases.  It wasn't much fun, but I was biding my time until the role playing portions of the game and for the time when I'd be high enough level to have a spell to cast every round.

In 4e, it was fun from the beginning.  I was Magic Missiling every round, I was using Flame Burst.  In an average 7 round combat at 1st level, I used Force Orb once, Flame Burst 4 times and Magic Missile twice.  Not a huge amount of "spamming".  But it was better than the equivalent in 3.5e: 2 Magic Missiles then delaying for 3 rounds.  I am doing something that feels effective every round now and I am playing the character I want to play.

In your proposed system, I'd be forced to be a mediocre Wizard if I wanted to help my party do damage after I was out of encounter powers.

Compare that to a Fighter who can basic attack with the exact same stat as his at-will powers.  He loses nothing at all.  In fact, if you give him the same solution and give him more encounter powers, he just gets better.

He gets to basic attack every round.  Spamming basic attacks instead of his at-will powers(which changes almost nothing for fighters).  He can keep his 20 STR.  He gets to do something cool and powerful every round while I get to...watch him play.



Sadrik said:


> Speaking toward your point, the math is their and I believe it to be much more robust than you do. I don't feel removing at-wills will alter the game in a negative way. This does need testing and I concur with several posters with that sentiment. I will try and get some of my own "math" together and post my findings.



I've shown multiple times now that it isn't.  You are telling someone to accept a greater than 30% decrease in their effectiveness at their spells in order to satisfy your need to have more basic attacks in your game.  Meanwhile, you are taking away almost nothing from other classes.  I would agree with this is you changed basic attacks to be based off of everyone's worst stat instead.

I'm fairly certain you'd disagree if I said:

I dislike that fighters can attack so well with basic attacks.  They only practice with advanced techniques, all the basics are mostly forgotten.  They should use their STR in order to use Encounters and Dailies, but in order to do the mundane stuff they have to remember how to do it properly.  They should be using INT for all their basic attacks in order to simulate this.

I think this would make for a good balance.  Fighters are forced to use INT for most of their attacks while Wizards are forced to use STR for most of theirs.  It balances things out nicely.


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## grickherder (Mar 6, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> He gets to basic attack every round. Spamming basic attacks instead of his at-will powers(which changes almost nothing for fighters). He can keep his 20 STR. He gets to do something cool and powerful every round while I get to...watch him play.




I think you nailed it here.  I remember how mind numbingly boring it was to run out of cool effects for low level casters in the previous editions of the game.

Sadrik, I know you've responded negatively when people have told you this before, but the at-wills allowing you to always do effective/cool stuff regardless of your class is one of the strengths (if not the greatest strength) of 4E.  It's a key part of the design.  So 4E isn't doing it for you.  Find something that does and please don't inflict this idea on a group of players expecting to play 4E.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Mar 6, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> I enjoy the 4e core mechanics.



You keep saying this.  But what are the "core mechanics" that you like about 4e that aren't in 3e or 3.5e?

I can summarize the changes from 3.5e to 4e:

-Rebalance the math around having one stat for all of your attacks.  Make the math predictable by not allowing it vary much from character to character(all characters have between 16 and 20 as their attack stat for all their attacks).
-Change all the monsters to work with the new math.  Give them easier to understand powers and less of them so they are easier to run.
-Remove skill ranks and instead use trained skills.  Give everyone improving skills as they go up levels.
-Give all classes a combination of at-will, encounter, and daily powers that give you have something interesting to do every round that isn't as boring as "basic attack" while limiting more powerful abilities to less often.  Also, use at-will powers to emphasis the "feel" of a class(class that casts spells, class that attacks in melee, and so on).
-Rebalance feats so they don't have more effect on your class than your class abilities and powers

If you remove all of these things, you have 3.5e.  Your proposal removes 3 out of the 5 of them.  If you make people use multiple stats, then it throws the math off.  Throwing the math off makes all the monsters unbalanced.  It removes the uniqueness of each class and makes everyone basic attack all the time.



Sadrik said:


> It still does not touch that At-wills are limited sit in front of the TV brain dead attack that makes people turn off their creativity in favor of the designers creativity and only two tiny aspects of that.



I keep hearing that from people.  I don't know what games you are playing where everyone is being super creative every round and their behavior is being rewarded by your DM.  Plus, some people just aren't creative.  I want them to play with me as well.  But here's how my games from different editions went:

*1/2e*(they worked about the same):
DM: "Alright, I hate individual initiative.  We go clockwise around the table.  When I point at you, tell me what AC you hit and how much damage you do.  There are 8 people in this group and I want this battle to be done this year."
P1: "I hit AC -2 for 10 damage"
DM: "Miss"
P2: "AC -5, 16 damage"
DM: "Good, next"
P3: "I don't want to waste my spells.  This doesn't look that hard.  I don't do anything."
DM: "Next"
P4: "Uhh, can I flip over the enemies head and surprise him with an attack from behind?"
DM: "No, you don't have that ability"
P4: "Come on"
DM: "Fine, Make a Dex check"
P4: "I failed by 2"
DM: "You fall on your head and take...14 damage and are laying on the ground.  Next"
P5: "AC -6 for 17 damage"
DM: "The enemy dies"
P5: "Hah, shows you for trying to flip over someone's head.  My attack killed him.  You took 14 damage"

*3e:*
P1: "I move into melee with him, I attack.  I hit AC 22 for 15 damage"
DM: "Alright, next"
P2: "I move into flank with him, I attack.  I hit AC 25 for 13 damage"
P3: "I don't want to waste my spells.  I think the melee guys have this, I delay"
...
(next round)
P1: "I full attack. First attack hits..."
P2: "I full attack.  First attack hits..."
P3: "I delay again"
...
(next round)
P1: "Another full attack"
DM: "It dies"
P2: "Alright, I move to the next enemy and attack"
(This is leaving out a reminder every round by the cleric on what his 8 hour long buffs do every time someone attacks, since everyone forgets about them every round.  It also leaves out the "5-ft step dance" that happens every round where the monster takes a 5 ft step then so does the Rogue and Fighter)

*4e:*
P1: "I move into melee with the enemy and then Cleave.  I hit AC 19 for 12 damage and the minion over here takes 4 damage and dies"
P2: "I move, then use Deft Stike to move into the flank.  I provoke.
DM: "He hits AC 19."
P2: "That would hit, but my Artful Dodger power makes my AC 20.  I hit AC 22 for 25 damage"
P3: "I use a Magic Missile at caster looking one at the back.  It'll be difficult for you guys to get around their frontliners to attack him.  I hit Reflex 16 for 7 damage"
DM: "Enemy hits P1 and does 15 damage and Daze, save ends"
P4: "That's no good.  We need you to be able to make OAs in order to protect the Rogue.  I use Sacred Flame to give you a save"

Now, I don't think any of these descriptions is exactly "creative".  However, out of all editions, I think 4e has the most "interesting" stuff going on.  I've never understood why someone would think that basic attacking every round was somehow creative or interesting.



Sadrik said:


> Stunts should be good, they should encourage to think creatively the game mechanics should encourage this. And they do. However if you are busy spamming two nifty mini-bonus powers your eyes will never open to that awesomeness.



I don't think that something out of the ordinary should be encouraged.  Because when it is, then the out of the ordinary becomes the ordinary.  I certainly don't want to make up rules on the fly for EACH person's turns for an entire combat.  And every time someone tries something outside of the rules, that's what I have to do.  I agree that page 42 makes this a lot easier.  However, I still don't want to be using page 42 more often than I use the PHB.

I don't want the rules to encourage it either.  Otherwise you end up with this:

Wizard: "I cut down the tapestry and let it fall on the enemy's head"
Fighter: "You have the ability to shoot magic out of your hands and you are cutting down a tapestry.  Why?"
Wizard: "Because I'm going to do 2d6 damage from it falling on those 4 enemies and they aren't going to be able to attack anyone for at least a round as they have to try to break their way out of it.  My Magic Missile is limited to 2d4+4 damage to one target and doesn't hinder them at all."
Fighter: "Why does anyone learn magic if tapestries can do so much damage?"
Wizard: "I'm not entirely sure.  Been thinking of asking the DM to let me switch to Rogue.  I can do more damage with Acrobatic Maneuvers and it's easier to blind people with bags of flour than it is with magic since the DM ruled that it was a Dex vs Ref attack to blind(save ends)."

Plus, improvised stunts are the bane of predictability in terms of encounter difficulty and strategy.  It becomes nearly impossible as a player to figure out what you should do when you have nearly infinite options.  If you reduce them to just 3 or 4, it becomes much easier.


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## Lanefan (Mar 6, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> These two issues, when combined mean that all the predictability that has been designed into the core 4e mechanics is thrown out.  Since the goal of the 4e core mechanic is to add predictability to the game, I suggest that your goal is impossible.  If remove at-will powers you sacrifice the core 4e mechanic.



If the design has been micro-managed to make it so fine-tuned that some relatively minor changes throw the whole thing out of whack, I humbly suggest that the design is too fragile. (and to think I used to maintain 3e was bad for this...yikes!)

Predictability, in a game essentially based around random rolls of dice, equals boredom.

*Re: attacking using any stat for your bonus:*


			
				Cadfan said:
			
		

> It gets the job done quickly and efficiently. And best of all, its going to absolutely enrage the sort of people who want to view the rules of the game as laws of physics, which is always a plus.



It's a plus, is it?

I could not disagree more.

Lanefan


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## Majoru Oakheart (Mar 6, 2009)

Lanefan said:


> Predictability, in a game essentially based around random rolls of dice, equals boredom.



I agree, you certainly want some randomness, but it's a sliding scale.  The more randomness you have, the less strategy and tactics mean and vice versa.  If the best laid plans have a 50/50 chance of succeeding and the worst laid plans also have a 50/50 chance of succeeding, then it doesn't matter what your plans are.  Even WORSE is if your best laid plans have a 5% chance of succeeding because of how random the game is and the worst laid plans have a 90% chance of succeeding.

It's the difference(to use a non-D&D analogy) between the board game Diplomacy(which has no dice at all and which has only a couple of basic rules that are easily predicted) and Fluxx(In which you don't even know what the rules are going to be each round and any player could win first turn randomly).

Most people will tell you that Diplomacy is HEAVILY determined by the strategy and intelligence of the players involved.  Each move you make must be heavily considered because one bad turn can lose you the game.  Fluxx is so random that you can win the game without even realizing it.  It doesn't matter what you do during your turn, since what you do has nearly no effect on winning or losing.

I like BOTH games.  But I like them for different reasons.  Sometimes it's fun to just play a bunch of random cards and have fun with whatever happens.  Other times, I like to challenge myself to try to out think other players without the dice giving the game to my opponent despite coming up with the better plan.

I don't think D&D should go to either extreme.  But I think the game was TOO far on the randomness side of things in past editions.  Now your choices really matter.  Pre 3e, I wouldn't care if someone was playing the Gnome Fighter with an 10 strength.  It wouldn't matter that much to our chances of success.


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## Cadfan (Mar 6, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> Pre 3e, I wouldn't care if someone was playing the Gnome Fighter with an 10 strength. It wouldn't matter that much to our chances of success.



Gnomes rarely affect your chances of success.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Mar 6, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Gnomes rarely affect your chances of success.




LOL.  Sure they do...it's normally for the worse, however.


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## Gimby (Mar 6, 2009)

Lanefan said:


> If the design has been micro-managed to make it so fine-tuned that some relatively minor changes throw the whole thing out of whack, I humbly suggest that the design is too fragile. (and to think I used to maintain 3e was bad for this...yikes!)




I think the fine tuning has been overstated a little, but the point is that for encounter building guidelines to be of any use, its got to be possible to predict the capabilities of the party.  

A simple example would be two high level 3e parties, say 17th.  Both parties are built on the same point buy, have wealth spot on the wealth by level guidelines and access to the same splatbooks.  

Party A consists of a Fighter, a Monk, a Paladin and a Soulknife.
Party B consists of a Cleric, a Druid, a Wizard and an Artificer. 

Party A spent their wealth on Cloaks of the Manta Ray, Rings of Regeneration and Stone Horses.
Party B spent their wealth on the Big 6 and Metamagic rods.  They also got the Artificer to make them so they effectively have twice as much.

Any encounter that challenges Party B will splatter Party A in short order, conversely one that party A will find challenging will be steamrollered by Party B.  

Now, if the players move tables such that the Soulknife and Druid swap parties, we have a different problem - the Druid will dominate Party A, while the Soulknife will barely contribute to party B.

Now, if you are happy with tailoring encounters to your party and your players are happy with widely varying power within the party then thats great - you don't need to worry about inter- or intra-party balance and can make really any changes to the system that you want.  

The point of the mathematical basis of the system is so that you can have encounter building guidelines, that its possible to design new classes and abilities that are in line with the old ones and to ensure that all characters and hence players remain relevant at the table at all times.  The more you diverge from the system assumptions, the harder these things are to maintain.

If you do make the changes that have been suggested in this thread, the game won't suddenly stop working, any more than 3e somehow couldn't be used to run both Party A and Party B.  Its just that the DM will have to do more work to ensure that the encounters remain interesting, as now the encounter building system will not produce reliable results.  

Even with the changes suggested however, I don't think the game would break that much - the core assumptions of +1/2 level to rolls and so on would remain, so the capabilites of the party would not be massively changed (particularly if you are generally using Str or Dex based classes in the first place - then it would hardly change at all).  I'd not expect as massive a divergence as would be seen between Party A and Party B for example.



Lanefan said:


> Predictability, in a game essentially based around random rolls of dice, equals boredom.




Predictible for the players? Yes, I agree.  It should be predictable for the DM however, so that you can plan a climactic battle and not have it ended anticlimactically in the first round, or so you don't accidently TPK your party on what was meant to be a filler fight.  

-

I think one thing to note about balance arguements is that you'll still get them no matter how close you get - from WoW for example, where the difference between best and worst is of the order of 10% or so to Exalted, where one character can be orders of magnitude more capable than another.  The changes discussed here are likely to cause a variation of somewhat less than 20% or so in capability, so its robuster than it sounds.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Mar 6, 2009)

Gimby said:


> I think one thing to note about balance arguements is that you'll still get them no matter how close you get - from WoW for example, where the difference between best and worst is of the order of 10% or so to Exalted, where one character can be orders of magnitude more capable than another.  The changes discussed here are likely to cause a variation of somewhat less than 20% or so in capability, so its robuster than it sounds.




I agree with almost everything you've said.  Still, the difference between the Wizard who decides to put a 12 into their STR or DEX and is using a staff or bow(+3 to hit) vs the Fighter who puts a 20 in his STR and has a fullblade, longsword, or greatsword(+9 to hit) is a difference of 30% just to hit.  It's bigger than that in average damage per round.  It also causes even weirder problems that are harder to quantify(AC and REF of wizards goes down due to putting points in STR instead of INT).

You are right that it won't cause the huge problems that exist in some other games or some previous editions.  But when the difference between the average character is 5-15% then someone who is 30% different seems really far out.


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## Gimby (Mar 6, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> You are right that it won't cause the huge problems that exist in some other games or some previous editions.  But when the difference between the average character is 5-15% then someone who is 30% different seems really far out.




Right, but its the difference between the 10 strength gnome fighter and the 18 strength half-orc fighter we are looking at, not the difference between the 10 strength gnome and CoDzilla. Its a relatively large difference, not an absolutely large one.


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## Katemare (Mar 6, 2009)

I'm not an expert on 4E (quite otherwise, actually), but I've been following the thread for some time and got an idea. The problem is that magic doesn't feel magical when you can hurl it easier than shooting a gun, right?

So, you can keep combat mechanics intact, but add some minor magic-realism crunch. Such as readying spells for 1 round prior to combat (that would affect only surprise encounters, but adds some meaningful flavor) or requirement of holding a magic component, which must be replaced or refreshed every week or so. Or via ritual. That way mages have a minor drawback to take care of and to feel that their magic is justified, special, but balance is almost the same.


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## CleverNickName (Mar 6, 2009)

I don't play 4E either, but I have been lurking in this thread for a while.  I'm not sure how these at-will powers are intended to work in 4E, but I get the impression that they are supposed to be "swords by another name."  Meaning, something that you can use all day and be moderately effective with, while saving your "zowie" attacks for special occasions.  Is that pretty much how they are supposed to work?

If so, why couldn't you just add some extra oomph and bump them all up to "encounter" abilities, and let the characters use mundane gear and skills for their at-will actions?  In 4E, it seems like "magic missile" is just another way of prounouncing "light crossbow" anyway. 

But like I said, I'm not very familiar with (or fond of) the 4E mechanics.  This could very well make the wonkiness even wonkier, so feel free to school me on the subject.


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## nightwyrm (Mar 6, 2009)

CleverNickName said:


> I don't play 4E either, but I have been lurking in this thread for a while. I'm not sure how these at-will powers are intended to work in 4E, but I get the impression that they are supposed to be "swords by another name." Meaning, something that you can use all day and be moderately effective with, while saving your "zowie" attacks for special occasions. Is that pretty much how they are supposed to work?




Yes, this is pretty much how it's suppose to work. The 4e paradigm for caster is that "casters should never run out of magical effects, even though the one that don't run out are just minor effects", thus the magic missiles that you can shoot all day. 

Sadrik's PoV is that all magical effects should be extra special and _*something you can run out of *_and when the wizard runs out of magical effects, he should be happy to go from caster to crossbowman or staffdude.

Basically, Sadrik's whole premise is that if it's something that is more than just simply swinging a sword at an enemy and doing some hp damage, it should be something that can run out.


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## Mallus (Mar 6, 2009)

CleverNickName said:


> Is that pretty much how they are supposed to work?



Yes.



> If so, why couldn't you just add some extra oomph and bump them all up to "encounter" abilities, and let the characters use mundane gear and skills for their at-will actions?



Conditionally yes. At-wills do more than generate plain damage. They're a source of different damage types (which get around resistances or exploit vulnerabilities) and valuable effects (like Thuderwave's push). The system assumes PC's can produce these effects... well, at will. Which means calculating encounter difficulty will be more of chore.  

Also, at-wills all key off of a classes primary stat, which mundane weapons don't (unless that stat is STR or DEX).



> In 4E, it seems like "magic missile" is just another way of prounouncing "light crossbow" anyway.



Yes.


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## Remathilis (Mar 6, 2009)

nightwyrm said:


> Yes, this is pretty much how it's suppose to work. The 4e paradigm for caster is that "casters should never run out of magical effects, even though the one that don't run out are just minor effects", thus the magic missiles that you can shoot all day.
> 
> Sadrik's PoV is that all magical effects should be extra special and _*something you can run out of *_and when the wizard runs out of magical effects, he should be happy to go from caster to crossbowman or staffdude.
> 
> Basically, Sadrik's whole premise is that if it's something that is more than just simply swinging a sword at an enemy and doing some hp damage, it should be something that can run out.




Still, his system doesn't fix that. All it does is extend the recharge value from 1/6 seconds to 1/five minutes. 

go back to his original post: 



			
				Sadrik said:
			
		

> Class at-will powers suffer from being too at-will. The image of the wizard eventually knocking down a wall by magic missiling it endlessly escapes my believability standards. At least martial characters can theoretically dull their axe or explicitly run out of ammo with their at-will powers.




What his system does, in that regard, is change the timeframe. The wizard can still endlessly magic missile that door down; it just takes 50 times as long. He's STILL not running out of magic ju-ju in a day, he's just taking longer to get refuel it. Given enough time, He's going to magic missile that wall down, it will just take hours rather than minutes. 

Currently, his system (in essence) makes PCs rely on a few key opening strikes (encounter powers) then switch to alternate ability score strikes to ping out damage. It mildly weakens melee-based strength characters (like fighters, warlords, or battle-clerics) or dex-based ranged characters (like crossbow rogues or archer rangers) and weakens everyone else. The uptick is that IF you hit with those juiced up bonus encounters, you deal more damage. The downside is that those encounters become extremely important to land and things go south in a hurry if one or more of those attacks miss.

If his group likes it, more power to them.


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## Fredrik Svanberg (Mar 6, 2009)

You mean: "if his group likes it *less* power to them"


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## Kichwas (Mar 7, 2009)

Sadrik said:


> In previous editions




Don't compare 4E to past versions of DnD.

When I think of an at-will magic missile, I think of how, in most other RPGs as well as in most computer games, my magical character has something on her list she can spam.

Be it 'wanding' in World of Warcraft, or casting that low rank fire-bolt in GURPS (been too many years to remember the name).

Frankly, the at-will magic missile, despite looking way too much like a WoW-Mage spamming her wand to save mana... also serves to let the character be more magical, even while being less 'arcane / mysterious'.

I was always bothered about (and here I go breaking the don't compare rule) how in past DnD, your magical characters could spend a large part of their existence without access to magic... At-will's mean a magical character is always magical.

But...

It also means no more comparing them to the sword-and-board members of the group and coming up short. Just like your fighter can spam her mace or sword... your wizard can spam her magic missile. The wizard shouldn't run out of missiles any sooner than the fighter runs out of sword swings.

You can disarm the fighter, or silence the wizard. But otherwise they both have something to spam.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Mar 7, 2009)

CleverNickName said:


> I'm not sure how these at-will powers are intended to work in 4E, but I get the impression that they are supposed to be "swords by another name."



That is correct.



CleverNickName said:


> If so, why couldn't you just add some extra oomph and bump them all up to "encounter" abilities, and let the characters use mundane gear and skills for their at-will actions?  In 4E, it seems like "magic missile" is just another way of prounouncing "light crossbow" anyway.




It is.  However, your at will powers are based on your INT as a Wizard, CHA for some Paladins, CHA for Warlocks, etc.

So, you are adding the same modifier to hit and damage with all of your at-wills that you do with your encounter and daily powers.  But the game forces you to use STR with melee weapons and DEX with ranged weapons if you just pick up a weapon and attack with it.  It's possible, even likely that your STR and DEX will be low if you want to hit with your spells.  Which means, you have almost no chance to hit with weapons.

The easy fix to this is to simply say "All classes get to use their primary stat for all their basic attacks".  But, this suggestion has been brought up and Sadrik doesn't like it as he thinks it's bad to allow classes to your their INT modifier to attack with a crossbow(Even though Artificers already do).

Simply telling everyone that they should suck it up and expect to miss most rounds in order to use bigger, more powers encounter powers doesn't work.  It hinges too much of the battle on whether those encounter powers hit.  And it doesn't punish Fighters in the same way it punishes Wizards.


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## CleverNickName (Mar 7, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> It is.  However, your at will powers are based on your INT as a Wizard, CHA for some Paladins, CHA for Warlocks, etc.
> 
> So, you are adding the same modifier to hit and damage with all of your at-wills that you do with your encounter and daily powers.  But the game forces you to use STR with melee weapons and DEX with ranged weapons if you just pick up a weapon and attack with it.  It's possible, even likely that your STR and DEX will be low if you want to hit with your spells.  Which means, you have almost no chance to hit with weapons.



Bleah...I don't like that at all.  This sounds like it would encourage the annoying practice of isolating, optimizing, and buffing a single ability score to reap an absurd amount of benefits.  But that's just a matter of personal opinion...there is nothing inherently wrong with the mechanic.



Majoru Oakheart said:


> Simply telling everyone that they should suck it up and expect to miss most rounds in order to use bigger, more powers encounter powers doesn't work.  It hinges too much of the battle on whether those encounter powers hit.  And it doesn't punish Fighters in the same way it punishes Wizards.



I think I see the problem.  Combat is what drives the mechanics, not the other way around.  So if someone wanted to remove these problematic at-will powers, they would first need to change the flow of combat, and then work backwards.  That's a lot of work.

I don't see why a wizard wouldn't be able to apply his Intelligence modifier to attack rolls with a crossbow, though.  Who says that being able to move quickly automatically makes you an expert marksman?

That Intelligence bonus could represent a knowledge of physics and geometry, the ability to do advanced calculations in one's head to solve for things like air resistance and trajectory arcs that would improve one's chances for hitting their mark.  While we are at it, we could also let it represent a measure of one's knowledge of anatomy, to know exactly where to hit a monster to inflict the most damage.

Presto.  Intelligence modifier to attack and damage rolls with a crossbow.  Write up a house rule stating that wizards can apply their Intelligence modifier to attack rolls made with projectile weapons, bump magic missile up to a per-encounter power (possibly with more damage), and let the good times roll.


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## Zustiur (Mar 7, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Not a chess player I see...



Does the player who has the first move not have an advantage over the player who is forced to react?



Parlan said:


> 1. Melee attacks are boring.



To you.



> Maybe this suits your vision of a game world, but it's a step backward for me.  A rogue getting to shift a couple squares into flanking position before striking, or a Fighter using Tide of Iron to push an opponent off of a bridge and into lava, that gives players options and makes encounters more interesting.



All of which the 3E players can do also, they're just not laid in the form of powers.



> 2. Magic Missile is Uninspired, but no Worse than 3e



Agreed.



> 4e Wizards have some interesting At-Will options.



3e wizards have many options other than magic missile. Something you seem to have ignored for this post.



> 3. Increasing the Number of Encounter/Daily Powers won't compensate for the Lack of At-Wills.



6 * 10 damage is the same as 5 * 2 damage and 1 * 50 damage. That's what we're looking at. How to employ the 5 * 2 damage and 1 * 50 damage style to 4E's mechanics. You can do 60 damage slowly and evenly, or you can do 60 damage very slowly, but with one big spike. Same 'balance', different type/level of interest.

[/QUOTE]



Cadfan said:


> This conversation isn't about the actual game.  The people trying to change 4e aren't actually playing it.  They just want to armchair debate how things _ought_ to be.  Which is fine.  That's the perspective from which I've been engaging in this thread as well.  I mean, I actually play the game, but I've been treating this thread as a gameplay-experience-free zone.  Its all good fun, even if its pointless.  Its the internet.



Exactly. This thread has nothing to do with 3e vs 4e, or with convincing each other to prefer one style over the other.
It's about taking a kooky idea and seeing if we can make it work.


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## Zustiur (Mar 7, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> As a rough example.  In 3e, a PC could be doing 1 damage a round or 100.  No real way to tell.  They might have decided to play a halfling with 6 Strength who attacks with a dagger for 1-2 damage per round.  They might have decided to play a half-orc barbarian with Power Attack who has a +1 weapon at first level who does 46 damage on a crit.  How long does a creature with 18 hitpoints and an AC of 16 last for?  No way to tell.  Might as well just make up numbers that looks sort of correct and see what happens.



Yep. No argument from me on that. Both methods work. They come from a different mindset, and encourage a different mindset.
In my opinion 4E encourages DMs to make up the stats of the monsters to be balanced first, and then put a description on top. On the other hand 3E and earlier editions encourage DMs to create an interesting creature, and assign stats that make sense based on that creature's features in the story, because it's impossible to make a perfectly balanced creature, so you may as well have the rules for the creature make sense instead.



> Once, I had a DM who just kept increasing the hitpoints of one of the bad guys we were fighting because he felt the stats of the enemy weren't good enough. He was going to die in 2 rounds instead of the 8-10 rounds he wanted him to last. So, as the battle went on and on, everyone at the table kept complaining that they had no idea what they were doing wrong, because no matter what they did, the enemy seemed indestructible. Around round 7 or so, all of us weren't having any fun anymore. We wanted our characters to be cool and able to defeat the enemies. We'd trapped him in a corner and were just making attacks on him over and over again. It wasn't much fun.



Sounds like your DM was applying 4E principles. This creature is supposed to last for 8 rounds, so I'll ensure that happens. Regardless of the fact that killing him in 2 rounds would have been more fun.



> That's where I learned a valuable lesson. People have more fun when things aren't changed. Even if something seems like it'll be better to me, I attempt to avoid it.



I think you got the lesson slightly wrong. People have more fun when things aren't changed in ways they don't understand or agree with.
Also be careful of changing things on the fly.
A similar example from my 4E group:
We just fought a small bunch of undead, and went in to our normal post-battle clean up mode. How much XP, how much treasure etc, and moved on. Starting the next battle I went to use my encounter power, but the DM disallowed it because we hadn't declared a short rest. _Despite the fact we'd never had to declare one after any previous combat._
Your DM changed things mid game, the same as mine did. Both made the same mistake. Yours also made the mistake of altering the rules in a way you couldn't follow - the bad guy you fought should never have been able to have that many HP, even if he'd had it from the start of the fight instead of gaining HP as it went. Your DM ignored the mechanics of the game that you had all agreed to play by (ie the ruleset).

Regarding the Con based staff attack: [sarcasm]I hope there's going to be a feat that lets a 20 Str fighter fire his crossbow with his strength instead of Dex! Or better yet, fling Strength based magic missiles around (since that's a basic attack also). Otherwise it wouldn't be balanced [/sarcasm]



> I agree, you certainly want some randomness, but it's a sliding scale. The more randomness you have, the less strategy and tactics mean and vice versa. If the best laid plans have a 50/50 chance of succeeding and the worst laid plans also have a 50/50 chance of succeeding, then it doesn't matter what your plans are.



You just described 4E. It doesn't matter how much I try to alter things as a player, I'm always going to come back to that 60% average you were talking about earlier. 



			
				Remathilis said:
			
		

> What his system does, in that regard, is change the timeframe. The wizard can still endlessly magic missile that door down; it just takes 50 times as long. He's STILL not running out of magic ju-ju in a day, he's just taking longer to get refuel it. Given enough time, He's going to magic missile that wall down, it will just take hours rather than minutes.



Actually it takes the same length of time because the encounter version is intended to deal the same damage as the repeated at will version.



			
				arcady said:
			
		

> You can disarm the fighter, or silence the wizard. But otherwise they both have something to spam.



Actually... I don't think the rules cover that.
If the fighter loses his weapon he gets to punch instead. But there's no instance I can think of where the wizard can't cast magic missile, because there are no components. There are statuses which state 'take no actions', that achieves it, but otherwise... tying and gagging a wizard doesn't stop him because magic missile 'just happens'.



			
				CleverNickName said:
			
		

> That Intelligence bonus could represent a knowledge of physics and geometry, the ability to do advanced calculations in one's head to solve for things like air resistance and trajectory arcs that would improve one's chances for hitting their mark. While we are at it, we could also let it represent a measure of one's knowledge of anatomy, to know exactly where to hit a monster to inflict the most damage.



Yep. Now try to explain it using Con. I can't.


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## Zustiur (Mar 7, 2009)

Yikes I'm glad I copied the text of this one to notepad. It failed to post the first time.



Majoru Oakheart said:


> WARNING.  There is a lot of math in this post.  I apologize for that, but this is a complicated subject that can't be analyzed easily.  That's pretty much the point of my entire post.  That it isn't as simple as some people are making it sound.



Understood.



> You are attempting to recreate the imbalance that 4e worked so hard to fix?  Well, then it's no problem at all.  Just change things and don't worry about the consequences.  But it seems rather strange to take the carefully balanced 4e core and purposefully remove the balance.  At that point, it really is easier to run 3.5e with some house rules to make it more like 4e than it is to houserule 4e to be more like 3.5e.



I come from the school of thought that DnD doesn't require that balance to be fun, and is in fact more fun if everyone contributes at different times, rather than always being equal. Yes it's easier to stick with 3.x. Which is precisely why I'm starting a pathfinder game tonight. However, I was not the OP of this thread, to me this is more of a though experiment to identify any remaining 4E elements that might improve my 3.x games. The OP appears to actually want to run 4E with such changes as suggested so far. 



> It may have been play group dependent, but it was play group dependent in the same way that Fighters using weapons instead of their bare fists was play group dependent.



 Not to the same scale, but I know what you're getting at. Bear in mind that I never expanded beyond the core 3 books, so a certain amount of 3.x's emphasis on magic items was ruled out that way.



> But if you were already making changes to 3.5e to support this style and you didn't care about the imbalance caused then.  I don't see why the solution needs to be more complicated than turning all at-wills into encounter powers and doubling their damage.  Anyone with high strength or dex will hit with their attacks.  No one else will except for their one encounter power per battle.  Magic will become even more special because it won't be able to be used more than once per combat.  Everyone will be ordinary until the higher levels.



And when those few encounter powers kick in they should be the kind of effects that turn the tide of a battle. Or so the theory goes...



> Once again, this reads: "I want the game to be exactly like 3.5e".  If that's the case, I'm still failing to see why 4e is the better option.



For me, yes. As above, I'm in this thread to see if we can identify;
a) a way of me actually enjoying 4E
b) any points about 4E that are worth porting back to 3.x, that I haven't already considered.



> Fair enough.  If you find an entire group like that who honestly doesn't like being more powerful better, then go with it.  However, be careful not to project your likes and dislikes on your group.  I've seen more than once when someone can just assume their group likes their way of playing more than any other simply because they've never asked them, they've never exposed them to other types of styles, or they just went with the group preference even though they were against it.



A worthy warning, and I'll try to keep that in mind.



> And now you've managed to remove one of the core tenants of 4e.  It shows a lack of understanding of the problems 4e was trying to correct.  Now, if none of those were problems for your group, fair enough.  However, that's just one more part of 4e you need to reverse to get back to 3.5.  Implying that it's still easier to start with 3.5e and work forward.



Given my lack of game time in 3.x, a lack of understanding of the problems is to be expected. I haven't worn out 3.x the way other groups have. I'm still going through that '3E Rules!' phase, trying to catch up with the rest of the RPG crowd. Until I've experienced the problems that are so often lamented on these boards I'll be unable to appreciate the benefits of 4E.



> In case it needs explanation, the core of 4e is created around the idea that all the players are working together in the same game, toward the same goal in the same way.  In 4e, this is lowering hitpoints.  Any round you are not lowering the enemies hitpoints is a round you aren't contributing meaningfully to defeating the enemies.  So, in order to do interesting things, you need to be able to do damage AND something else cool.  Otherwise you're back to "I make a basic attack.  I hit, I do 7, go."



I understand that this is the intent. I don't happen to like it... HP were already abstract, and 4E has taken that abstraction further than I'm comfortable with.



> The ultimate fun must be when you never get to use powers ever.  Then they are so rare as to be the most interesting.



I know what you're driving at, and you're not far off. Holding the trump card that hardly ever comes up is something I find fun. Having it never come up, not so fun. I recognize that such a point is tricky to achieve. Compare the following:
Building a house out of lego, and building a house out of cards.
Which is more accessible? The lego.
Which is more impressive and exciting? The cards.



> Keep in mind, if you are attempting to make the players more mundane, you need to remove the assumption that all commoners in 4e die in one hit without even having an AC.  It was based on the idea that the PCs were heroes.  In order to rebalance this, I'd suggest either giving all commoners the stats of a 1st level monster or reducing all PCs to one hitpoint so they can feel like a normal person.



 I have no problem with commoners having more than 1 HP. Minions too for that matter.



> Fair enough.  You didn't change your calculations every round in 3.5e?  Oh, right, you didn't make it over 6th level.  That explains it.  Not enough spells to change it all the time.



Correct on all counts.



> However, I can tell you this was much worse at even medium levels in 3.5e.  The average combat for my fighter tended to go like this:[snip]



Yes, I'd be only too happy to have some of that removed from 3.x. But that doesn't make me like 4E's solution.




> This is a dangerous assumption.  I've never seen anyone take Righteous Brand without having an 18 strength.  So, +4.  But, let's move on.



I was basing this on my own 4E cleric... Or we could use lance of faith with is a flat +2, not based on the clerics stats at all.



> That's correct.  In a group of 6 people, it gives an extra hit every 3 rounds or so.  Assuming the average hit does 10 damage, your action just did 30 damage in a 9 round combat.



-10 for the fact the cleric wouldn't be hitting anyone while he casts bless (which below you also worked as an average of 10). Still at +20. The cleric has sacrificed 10 damage to generate 30, for a result of 20.


> 4e is balanced around an action economy.



Which is precisely what makes it so bland to play. Everything is always the same, or so similar as to make no difference.



> One action gets you X benefit.  That's why there's all the repeating of actions.  If you want the benefit again, you need to spend more actions.



Whereas it used to be that you had to substitute an attack to do a different type of action (still focusing on buffs like bless here, we'll handle fireball some other time!!)



> Compare that to a Righteous Brand that adds +4 to hit.  It adds 20% more damage to one attack(essentially), meaning that it does its own damage(let's say 10) and 2 more damage on someone else's attack for a total of 12 damage for one standard action.



So, sticking with our 9 round combat as for bless, you're expecting 18 HP damage? Where as I was expecting 20 from bless? Did I follow your maths right here?



> Not only that, but Bless is swingy.  If nobody misses by 1 it has no effect. If Righteous Brand hits, but its bonus is useless, you still did 10 damage with the hit.



Yes, Bless is swingy, but you only need to set it off once. Because you do not need to roll to hit (every round) it will be actively providing that chance of a bonus to your allies every round. The bonus from RB & LoF are equally swingy, if not more so, because they require you to
a) select the right opponent
b) select the right companion
c) hit
d) have your companion miss by X (2 or str mod)



> The other thing to consider is that Bless automatically succeeds.  Which is a no no in 4e philosophy. You don't have to make an attack roll to give the bonus unless it's a daily.



It's a utility in 4e philosophy. i.e. a bonus you grant by giving up your attack. Not a daily.


> Whereas Righteous Brand essentially reads: "You have a 60% chance to activate this power" simply by having an attack roll.  Because of this, you need to factor that chance into the resulting damage.  Which means it normally does 6 damage(60% of 10 damage), with the possibility of 8.  Compare that to the 30 damage Bless did and you see how much more powerful it is.



This looks wrong again.
60% is the cleric's chance of hitting, and 10 is the average damage we were assuming from the cleric hitting.
Which translates to an average of 6 damage from the cleric each round.
Assuming from earlier that the bonus to hit works out to be 2 damage when your ally hits, it's now 60% x 2hp, or 1.33 damage.
For a total of 7.3 damage 'from the cleric'. Per ROUND.
You're comparing a RB cleric's single round vs the bless cleric's effect across 9 rounds. 1.3 is the figure to compare with the 20, except that it's 1.3 * 9, or 11.7 damage across 9 rounds. Slightly better than your 8, and 30.

Or I've completely flipped out and not understood your figures at all.



> So, you are basically saying, assuming an average 10 round combat, that we Bless should be about 14 times more powerful than RB due to the number of actions it takes.  That's assuming they both had an initial hit in order to do damage.  If you mean that RB still gets a 60% chance to do 10 damage PLUS giving someone else a hit once every 10 rounds while Bless only gives the hit chance, then I'll use RB every round rather than Bless, which would suck.



HUH? You were just arguing that bless would be too powerful, now you're saying you'd choose RB in favour because it's more effective.



> It's nearly impossible to balance these two effects.  Bless has too much of a swing effect.  On a good round where all 6 party members get a hit because of the Bless bonus, it does 60 points of damage in one round.  Which is more than some of the highest level dailies.  In a bad round it does nothing.



On many rounds with RB you achieve nothing because
a) the target is dead
b) your ally cannot act
c) your ally cannot attack the specified target
d) your ally did not roll within the margin of Str Mod -1 (the difference between str mod and the bonus from bless)
e) you missed and therefore the benefit is dropped

So every round you get to think 'dammit, my RB didn't achieve anything again'. With bless you have the satisfaction of knowing that whenever that margin of 1 AC occurs in the combat, bless will have achieved something. 
You do have a point though - bless can achieve much more in that the party might all miss by one (ie hit because of bless), every round, where RB cannot have the same effect. What I'm saying is bless is more swingy in its potential damage, but no less swingy in it's potential to be a complete waste of time on any given round. We need to examine that top end of swingy further, but that's a big part of where the +1 to hit balances against the +StrMod to hit. The number of 5% chances you're talking about is statistically small.
You said 6 hits in one round, that's a chance of 0.000000015625. 



> The thing with RB is that you know they can use it every round.  So, it's going to hit 60% of all rounds for the whole combat(if that's all they use).  If it has no effect, they have another chance next round.  No big deal.



The thing with bless is that once you've activated it you can go and find something more useful to do than trying to hit the same specific target as the ally you're trying to assist. Particularly when the benefit of +_anything_ to hit is usually targeted by players towards the hardest to hit creature (boss creature for example). Making that 60% of it activating far lower. 



> That's one of the reasons that nearly everything in 4e requires an attack roll and why there is at-wills.  It is easy to measure the average damage of a fighter against a wizard if you know their approximate chance to hit and average damage of both using at-wills.  If you know their average damage, you can also figure out the hitpoints the enemy needs in order to survive the number of rounds you want them to.  And you can predict this no matter what the makeup of a party is.



That I cannot argue with.



> On the other hand, if one class is doing attacks that always work(like 3e magic missile), or something that has extremely swingy effect, then the calculation goes out the window.  One combat might end in 2 rounds due to the party being entirely wizards and able to auto hit with their magic missiles every round.  While another combat might take 20 rounds because the party is entirely clerics with spells that don't actually do damage, they only enhance each other.  That was one of the problems from 3e that was fixed in 4e.



And that final point is one of those things we disagree on.
Yeah, it's far easier to figure everything out for the game designers the 4E way. Easier for the DMs too. 
But variation in the length of combat due to the make up of the party? You call that a problem. I do not. I call it variety. Interest. FUN. Any number of other synonyms. 
I find 4E to be dull, unexciting and tedious. Grind is the term often bandied about. It comes from the idea that combats should last for a fixed number of rounds, regardless of what the players do. It makes no difference how much effort they put into their tactics because the combat will still turn into a slug fest while they grind down the HPs of the bad guys.
Variability wasn't problem that was fixed. It was a design philosophy that was replaced with another design philosophy. 'Balance' at the cost of variety. Predictability at the cost of the excitement you get from the unexpected. Game mechanics before story.


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## Cadfan (Mar 7, 2009)

Zustiur said:


> In my opinion 4E encourages DMs to make up the stats of the monsters to be balanced first, and then put a description on top. On the other hand 3E and earlier editions encourage DMs to create an interesting creature, and assign stats that make sense based on that creature's features in the story, because it's impossible to make a perfectly balanced creature, so you may as well have the rules for the creature make sense instead.



Wow.

4e doesn't do what you said.

And 3e doesn't do what you said.

4e gives you arrays of balanced stats for every level of monster.  It doesn't say you should start there.  It just tells you things like, "If you want a monster to be a level 12 threat and hit hard, this is the damage it should have."  So if your concept is, say, an ogre who has received military training and wears heavy armor, 4e would say to conceptualize what you want that monster to be, lets say a level 12 soldier, and then to use stats that make a good level 12 soldier, and then finally to add on one or two trademark abilities that will make the monster memorably ogrish and militant.  You can see this design philosophy in every monster from level 1 onwards.  Take a basic kobold skirmisher- its got good stats for a skirmisher that threatens level 1 or 2 pcs, its got a trademark kobold abilty (shifty), and its got a trademark skirmisher ability (bonuses with combat advantage).  Bingo, you're done.

And your view on 3e is wildly off.  Instead of giving you an array of expected values, 3e attempts to procedurally generate those expected values by adding together hit dice and levels like Legos.  So if your concept is the aforementioned ogre with military training, it would suggest starting with an ogre, and then adding levels of fighter.  Eventually, as you add levels of fighter, you will reach a CR you find appropriate, and you stop.  Sometimes this worked very well.  Othertimes it created three common problems.  First, its a lot of work sometimes for not a lot of benefit.  Had the game just told you the target values, you could have assigned them instead of procedurally generating them by advancing hit dice and class levels.  Second, you could confuse the system by combining things that didn't work well together, or by adding in unpredicted extras- an ogre with 4 more levels of monstrous humanoid and a club is a very different difficulty foe from an ogre with 4 levels of fighter, magical platemail armor, and a magical shield, even though both are technically the same CR.  Had the system focused more on assigning CR to the end result instead of procedurally generating an end result with a procedurally predicted CR, this wouldn't have happened.  Finally, it tended to lead to most humanoid opponents being about the same, since they all used the same pc and npc classes as they advanced.  That's where 4e's focus on racial trademark abilities was born- you always know you're fighting kobolds because they're shifty.  You always know you're fighting hobgoblins because they shake off dehabilitating effects.  That applies whether you're fighting level 1 kobolds or custom designed level 25 epic kobold ninja assassin wizards.

4e gives you a bit more of a "behind the scenes" take on monster creation.  The positive side of this is that it does almost everything 3e's monster creation rules could do, except better and more.  The negative side is the one thing 4e's monster creation rules can't do- create monster PCs.  The other pseudo-negative is that it breaks DM's suspension of disbelief, because instead of imagining a real ogre who goes to fighter school for a while and emerges with four levels of fighter and some fancy equipment, they're delving into numbers to craft a balanced and thematic monster.  I only consider that a pseudo-negative though, because I don't think DMs should have a suspension of disbelief.  Its kind of like the little man behind the curtain complaining that he just doesn't find the Great Oz all that believable.  Meanwhile, the system does focus reasonably well on making the monsters more believable _for the players_, through the aforementioned use of racial and role/class trademark abilities and the design philosophy of combat lasting long enough for these trademarks to be used.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Mar 7, 2009)

Zustiur said:


> On the other hand 3E and earlier editions encourage DMs to create an interesting creature, and assign stats that make sense based on that creature's features in the story, because it's impossible to make a perfectly balanced creature, so you may as well have the rules for the creature make sense instead.



I completely agree.  You have problems both ways.  One way, a particular mechanic may be slightly off and hard to wrap your brain around it because it is designed around balance first and making sense second.  It'll work fine inside the game but those who attempt to make sense of it might find it dissatisfying.  The other method causes accidental TPKs, player frustration at being unable to hurt an enemy, unsatisfying encounters which go way too long or end too early, and so on.



Zustiur said:


> Sounds like your DM was applying 4E principles. This creature is supposed to last for 8 rounds, so I'll ensure that happens. Regardless of the fact that killing him in 2 rounds would have been more fun.



No, the 4e principle is that the average fight should be X rounds.  Monsters should be designed to survive X rounds and should be interesting to fight for that length of time.  If players come work well together and come up with good ideas, they can cut the time down by 2 or 3 rounds.  But there will be a minimum length so it doesn't feel too short.

The example in question shows what happens when you change one thing without considering all the factors.  The reason it was boring wasn't that it lasted 8 rounds.  It is because:

-We expected it to die in 1 or 2 rounds after we crit it a couple of times and did pretty stupid damage for our level.  Our damage didn't matter, since he added more hitpoints than we did every round.  At least if you determine a creature has 250 hitpoints and everyone decides to use their dailies in the same round, it'll die in 3 rounds.  You have the power to make it shorter.
-It was a fighter and we were all fighter types.  So, it was 8 rounds worth of "I attack, He attacks, I attack, He attacks".  With no at-will powers, it was just rolling attack rolls with no variation.



Zustiur said:


> Your DM changed things mid game, the same as mine did. Both made the same mistake. Yours also made the mistake of altering the rules in a way you couldn't follow - the bad guy you fought should never have been able to have that many HP, even if he'd had it from the start of the fight instead of gaining HP as it went. Your DM ignored the mechanics of the game that you had all agreed to play by (ie the ruleset).



No disagreement here.  Not following the rules of the game you are all playing causes problems.  That was the main lesson I learned.  Like, not removing at-will powers from all the classes or not allowing people to short rest when they obviously have.



Zustiur said:


> Regarding the Con based staff attack: [sarcasm]I hope there's going to be a feat that lets a 20 Str fighter fire his crossbow with his strength instead of Dex! Or better yet, fling Strength based magic missiles around (since that's a basic attack also). Otherwise it wouldn't be balanced [/sarcasm]



Ironically enough, I believe there IS a feat that does that.  I'll have to wait for the full text, but the feat in PHB 2 lets you use a stat other than strength for basic attacks.  Although, I believe it is melee attacks only.

Still, you miss the point.  The goal is to have each class have their own cool thing to do that they don't suck at and fits their class.  They do things other than their shtick badly.  That's why the group needs to work together.  Fighters do melee attacks.  Of course, they aren't good at ranged weapons.  That's what the Ranger is for.  And he can do ranged attacks well every round, but he's unlikely to be able to also do melee attacks well.  The wizard shoots magic missiles well but doesn't use weapons well.

The exact point is NOT allow Fighters to throw around STR based-magic missiles so they don't start doing the Wizard thing as well as the Wizard.



Zustiur said:


> You just described 4E. It doesn't matter how much I try to alter things as a player, I'm always going to come back to that 60% average you were talking about earlier.



That's not true at all.  The entire point of establishing a baseline is so that you can accurately predict the effect of going OFF of that baseline.

If you set a DC 15 skill check at first level, the average person who is not trained in the skill and has a 0 modifier to the check has a 30% chance of succeeding.  With this as the baseline, you know that someone who is trained in the skill has a 55% chance of succeeding, those trained in it with a good stat have a 75% chance of succeeding and those who also take Skill Focus have a 90% chance of succeeding.

In combat the same thing applies.  If the average AC of 1st level enemies is 16, then those with an 20 Strength, a +3 prof weapon and fighter bonus have a 75% chance to hit.  They are better.  Those who put a 14 into their Strength and use a +2 prof weapon have a 45% chance to hit.  They are worse.

Contrast that to whether or not a Cleric with a 16 Strength who can cast Righteous Might and Divine Power is better than the 22 Strength Barbarian at melee combat.  The answer like depends on who you ask and the exact factors at play.  But normally ends up as "The Cleric is better".  Possibly a LOT better.

It didn't matter what you chose, it was random.  Which monster were you fighting, how did your DM plan the session?  The number of random factors was so high, you didn't know if your choices made you good or bad.  Against a creature with an AC of 12, you can hit every time.  If a creature has a will save of -1, the cleric might be able to use his best spell without chance of failure.  So why bother predicting?  Just do whatever you do and see what happens.  The creature might have a will save of +30 for all you know.  There was no standard.  Your powers might be completely useless this combat.

That's my point about randomness.  Your choices don't give you a distinct advantage or disadvantage.



Zustiur said:


> Actually it takes the same length of time because the encounter version is intended to deal the same damage as the repeated at will version.



True.  It doesn't change much outside of combat at all, just inside.


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## Mallus (Mar 7, 2009)

Zustiur said:


> Does the player who has the first move not have an advantage over the player who is forced to react?



White does have a _slight_ advantage. Emphasis on the _slight_.


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## Mallus (Mar 7, 2009)

Zustiur said:


> 6 * 10 damage is the same as 5 * 2 damage and 1 * 50 damage. That's what we're looking at. How to employ the 5 * 2 damage and 1 * 50 damage style to 4E's mechanics. You can do 60 damage slowly and evenly, or you can do 60 damage very slowly, but with one big spike. Same 'balance', different type/level of interest.



This analysis is shallow. It doesn't take into account the ability, or inability, to produce different damage types _every_ round. Wizards, for instance, have at-will area of effect attacks, which are great for minion&swarm clearing, clerics and paladins have radiant at-wills which are great against undead, especially regenerating undead --radiant damage prevent regeneration.

So it's not simply a case of 5*10 = 25*2...


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## Remathilis (Mar 7, 2009)

Zustiur said:


> Does the player who has the first move not have an advantage over the player who is forced to react?




Never seen a three-move checkmate with black, huh?


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## CleverNickName (Mar 7, 2009)

Zustiur said:


> Yep. Now try to explain it using Con. I can't.



Yeah, that doesn't sound so easy.  I'll try, though.  First, which character class uses Constitution as the base ability score for at-will attacks?


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## Cadfan (Mar 7, 2009)

Who cares whether you can explain the logic behind it.

Look, lets say the feat were worded like this:

Melee Training
_You've drilled in basic combat skills just as thoroughly as you have trained yourself in other matters._
Benefit: When making basic melee attacks, treat your strength score as being equal to your best ability score.

Same mechanical effect, and now we don't have to complain about using constitution to attack with a sword.

Its all about how the game plays, not how the game runs behind the scenes.  The behind the scenes combat mechanics could run on a dGERBIL system for all I care, as long as it creates good _in-game_ results.


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## Ourph (Mar 7, 2009)

CleverNickName said:


> Yeah, that doesn't sound so easy.  I'll try, though.  First, which character class uses Constitution as the base ability score for at-will attacks?



Some Warlocks use Con as their main attack stat; which actually meshes well with the flavor of their powers. As another example, a Dragonborn's breath attack can also key off of Con.


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## Sadrik (Mar 8, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> The easy fix to this is to simply say "All classes get to use their primary stat for all their basic attacks". But, this suggestion has been brought up and Sadrik doesn't like it as he thinks it's bad to allow classes to your their INT modifier to attack with a crossbow(Even though Artificers already do).



Initial thought


			
				Sadrik said:
			
		

> I don't like it. It gives everyone the exact same chance to hit (minus proficiency, magic items, feats and powers).



Then


			
				Sadrik said:
			
		

> Ok, I'll concede the point this is one of the "ideas" of 4e. This feat actually moves the game further in that direction and if you can use any Stat to make an attack with your powers why not allow it with a basic attack. Sure.


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## CleverNickName (Mar 8, 2009)

Ourph said:


> Some Warlocks use Con as their main attack stat; which actually meshes well with the flavor of their powers. As another example, a Dragonborn's breath attack can also key off of Con.



Interesting idea: what if all at-will abilities were based on race, and not class?

Dwarves and Half-orcs use their Str mod for melee weapons, Halflings and Gnomes use their Dex mod for thrown weapons, Dragonborn use their Con mod for breath weapons, Elves use their Int mod for projectile weapons, Tieflings use their Cha mod for melee damage rolls, etc.


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## Ourph (Mar 8, 2009)

CleverNickName said:


> Interesting idea: what if all at-will abilities were based on race, and not class?



I think it adds complexity without any real pay-off in fun, plus it restricts archetypes by further shoehorning specific races into specific classes. I don't like it.


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## Dausuul (Mar 8, 2009)

If you ask me, there's no need to mess around with caster at-wills. Just ban all non-martial classes except as multi-class options. Or, if you want to take it a step further, ban them entirely and let the only kind of spellcasting available be ritual magic.

There you go; rare magic. The warlord might be able to throw a _scorching burst_ once an encounter, and the ranger might know a few healing and nature rituals, but nobody will be using magic for every attack. Call it "Iron Heroes Second Edition."

(Of course, if you're going that route, you should probably ban nonhuman races as well. As far as I'm concerned, trying to make magic feel rare and exotic is ridiculous when your party consists of an eladrin, a goliath, a gnome, and a dragonborn.)


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## Sadrik (Mar 8, 2009)

I thought that I would clean up this thread a bit.

There are two sides to the thoughts on removing at-wills, here are some of the thoughts presented over the last few pages and a few other thoughts that have occurred to me that have had merit to be placed on my list.

1. The game is not robust enough to remove at-wills it is calibrated in such a way that a single up tick or down tick will cause a catastrophic error in the math. This is obviously hogwash.

2. Removing at-wills will remove certain damage types that the game is expecting. By doing this it will cause problems to ripple through the system. This is a variation on point 1.

3. The new PHB2 feat which allows you to use any stat for your basic attacks is a further advancement of the 4e idea - any stat = any attack. Yes this can bring up wonkey things but it is all in the realm of 4e. Using STR with your crossbow is a good thing because the high STR fighter can now compete equally with the high DEX archer.

Yet: 


> The exact point is NOT to allow Fighters to throw around STR based-magic missiles (a basic attack) so they don't start doing the Wizard thing as well as the Wizard.



The Warlock crossbowing and rod fighting with his CON score. Neat! Again, I don't like it thematically, it is being argued that the game needs stuff like this to be fully functional. I agree, to a point only as far as this is one of the "ideas" of 4e. A wizard fighting with his INT or a Cleric fighting with his WIS does make making basic attacks more viable.

4. 
20 + 20 + 20 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 is not the same as 20 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10

Making a few assumptions, if the the DMs turn takes 5 minutes to control the monsters and the players on average take 1 minute each (counting the whose turn is it stuff too). One pass around the table with 5 players could take 10 minutes. That 7 round combat takes 70 minutes and the 9 round combat takes 90 minutes. This doesn't even get into the fact that all the mini-bonuses from the at-wills will eat more real time than the basic attacks will. That bonus 20 or more minutes better be super-fun.

5. 


			
				arcady said:
			
		

> Don't compare 4E to past versions of DnD.
> 'snip'
> I was always bothered about how in past DnD...



That gave me a smile.

6.


			
				nightwyrm said:
			
		

> Sadrik's PoV is that all magical effects should be extra special and something you can run out of and when the wizard runs out of magical effects, he should be happy to go from caster to crossbowman or staffdude.



Yup, and the fighter can do some wuxia effects in an encounter and then they are limited to sworddude or bowman. 

Additionally, spell casters (wizard) can select some feats that give them reserve feats (use an encounter power twice during an encounter or three times at 16th level) and lowering arcane mastery feat (action point for daily) to heroic tier.


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## Ourph (Mar 8, 2009)

I'm curious Sadrik, are you planning on applying the same thing to monsters? There are quite a few monsters with "magical" at-will abilities that lack any real basic attack form, like a mundane claw or bite. For example, the Blazing Skeleton uses either a Blazing Claw or Flame Orb at-will. Do you plan to makes these into encounter powers and give the Blazing Skeleton some kind of basic, mundane claw attack or are your concerns about endlessly spammed "special" attacks only related to PC abilities?


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## Zustiur (Mar 9, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Wow.
> 
> 4e doesn't do what you said.
> 
> And 3e doesn't do what you said.



I think it rather depends on how much reading-between-the-lines you are doing at the time. The obvious example being the lack of fluff in the monster manual. While neither directly states that you should create a monster in a given way, by providing 3-400 canon examples it does encourage one line of thought or the other. 

I think the point I was getting at (in my awfully long winded way), was as follows:
4E encourages you to think of the balance/stats first, and then hang a description on top. Simply because it provides all the instructions for balance.
3E lacked those tools, which caused the opposite effect - you created a creature first, and fit the appropriate stats etc afterwards, because until you knew _what_ the creature was, you had no guideline to work with.

I'll admit it's a fairly subtle difference in reality. I'll also admit that 4E is easier, and provides a more predictable result.



Majoru Oakheart said:


> No disagreement here.  Not following the rules of the game you are all playing causes problems.  That was the main lesson I learned.  Like, not removing at-will powers from all the classes or not allowing people to short rest when they obviously have.



The way you've phrased that suggests that you never house rule anything. Amusingly it also suggests that you should still be playing original DnD, because anything else would be a change, and therefore cause problems. I realize what you mean of course.



> Ironically enough, I believe there IS a feat that does that.  I'll have to wait for the full text, but the feat in PHB 2 lets you use a stat other than strength for basic attacks.  Although, I believe it is melee attacks only.
> 
> Still, you miss the point.  The goal is to have each class have their own cool thing to do that they don't suck at and fits their class.



So is the fighter who uses Str with his crossbow not encroaching on the archer's territory?
It seems 4E's ideal is that no class should ever overlap another's shtick, yet it has feats that allow them to do exactly that. Wizards now play a lot closer to fighters than they used to be, because they have so few spells to choose from. Fighters now play a lot closer to wizards than they used to be because they have all these spell-like powers. That seems to be considered okay while at the same time you're saying that they shouldn't overlap. Which is it to be? 

Previous editions have taken the assumption that everyone starts out the same and diverges. 4E appears to take the assumption that everyone is already different and will possibly merge over time.

Playwise they're becoming the same, while fluffwise they're spreading further apart. It's all "X[W]" across the board, while trying to make the fighter not an archer.



> That's not true at all.  The entire point of establishing a baseline is so that you can accurately predict the effect of going OFF of that baseline.



Yes... You can vary off the baseline in either direction. Is the resulting average still 60%? It sure feels like it when I play.



> True.  It doesn't change much outside of combat at all, just inside.



Which defeats one of the initial reasons for wanting to make the change in the first place. But then, I never was a fan of encounters being the measure of recharge. (Note to those about to tell me 4E isn't for me, I already know that, we're not discussing which game I _should_ play).



Mallus said:


> This analysis is shallow. It doesn't take into account the ability, or inability, to produce different damage types _every_ round. [snip]
> 
> So it's not simply a case of 5*10 = 25*2...



Granted. But is it as unbalancing as some were suggesting earlier? I think not.



Remathilis said:


> Never seen a three-move checkmate with black, huh?



No, as it happens, but that doesn't invalidate the point anyway. The starting comment was that 'no game is perfectly balanced'. Black being able to win doesn't break the argument. Not even chess is perfectly balanced.


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## Sadrik (Mar 9, 2009)

Ourph said:


> I'm curious Sadrik, are you planning on applying the same thing to monsters? There are quite a few monsters with "magical" at-will abilities that lack any real basic attack form, like a mundane claw or bite. For example, the Blazing Skeleton uses either a Blazing Claw or Flame Orb at-will. Do you plan to makes these into encounter powers and give the Blazing Skeleton some kind of basic, mundane claw attack or are your concerns about endlessly spammed "special" attacks only related to PC abilities?



I thought I replied to this yesterday but apparently Enworld ate it.
No, monsters are their own thing. They have their own set of rules (recharge). I think that trying to change the monsters needlessly complicates things. If a racial feature is at-will I don't really care, it is specifically the level 1 at-will class powers that concern me.


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