Newest 4E Update

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 5:48 pm

RandomCasualty2 wrote:
Lago PARANOIA wrote: There is also no point to the Battlerager fighter now.
Honestly, I don't see how the battlerager is killed off now. The original one was ridiculously powerful and he got nerfed heavily (for good reason). But you still have to remember that you're getting that battlerager power instead of a +1 to attack.

Because invigorating powers suck and there aren't that many of them.

It's not that bad at lower levels, but once you gain enough levels (again, around level 11) to the point where you use four encounter powers and a daily per combat, you can either A) pick invigorating powers, which suck compared to other powers. or B) pick non-sucky powers and not use your class feature for three to five rounds, giving you bupkiss.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sat Jul 04, 2009 5:50 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote: It's not that bad at lower levels, but once you gain enough levels (again, around level 11) to the point where you use four encounter powers and a daily per combat, you can either A) pick invigorating powers, which suck compared to other powers. or B) pick non-sucky powers and not use your class feature for three to five rounds, giving you bupkiss.

Well no, you don't gain nothing. Whenever you hit, you get temp HP regardless. Invigorating only matters because it grants temp HP on a miss. I mean, even just picking up like 5-8 bonus HP every turn you hit something is pretty nice. It's not complete invulnerability like it was, but it's still better than a +1 to hit.

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Sun Jul 05, 2009 4:46 pm

Fuchs wrote:It really looks like an MMOG now. Patches after patches to rebalance the system.

The above echoes my sentiments.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Sun Jul 05, 2009 5:48 pm

And this differs from 3.5 how exactly? How many times did we see "errata" for polymorph effects or spells and feats reprinted in nerfed form in multiple supplements until you either had to genetate a hierarchial tree sorted by release date or just say fuck it and move on with your life?

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Sun Jul 05, 2009 7:37 pm

At least they're addressing some of the problems. Multihit fighter/strikers were too good before, so they nerfed them. Okay. There are other awesome things out there, some maybe too-awesome, but I wouldn't call things worse for this change.

Still, this is total MMO bullshittery. I'm amazed that all these niggling incremental changes are deemed necessary: I have a massive RPG collection and some are good, some are bad, and none are OMG SO AWESOME AND PERFECT. They're generally as good as the players and GM can manage to make them which is, in most cases, pretty damn good.

Supplements I can live with and like, but changing shit you published is underlining laziness or flagrant bullshittery. Design well, playtest and live with it and let people play. These things are just fucking annoying to track and deal with.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sun Jul 05, 2009 7:53 pm

I don't recall 3E, aside from polymorph, ever having incremental errata; which I think they mean, NIN.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jul 05, 2009 8:06 pm

I'm not sure about 3.0E, but I know that 3.5E did.

That is, the basic books of 3.0E. I do know that 3E had some weird errata like for Dirty Fighting and Divine Power, but nothing strong enough to change the way entire classes worked.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sun Jul 05, 2009 11:10 pm

mean_liar wrote: Supplements I can live with and like, but changing shit you published is underlining laziness or flagrant bullshittery. Design well, playtest and live with it and let people play. These things are just fucking annoying to track and deal with.

Honestly I never understood why there was so much hate for errata. Sometimes there are going to be unforeseen balance problems. And seriously, I'd rather have them fix it than just shrug and say "oh well fuck it, we'll save those changes for 5th edition or 4.5"

Now they shouldn't change stuff unless its absolutely necessary, and I think a lot of their errata is filled with basically garbage wording changes that don't do much. But still, fixing shit like the battlerager is a good thing. Because I dont' want that broken garbage in my game.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Mon Jul 06, 2009 12:24 am

Allow me to backtrack a little.

Fixing it is okay, but the flurry of incremental changes is needlessly annoying. Pick a supplement, take a look at what you have, peruse the CharOp boards and make a list. When you issue an errata, you shouldn't have to revisit it.

Listening to your playtesters beforehand is even better.

Like, how could the Battlerager playtest have worked? Did no one notice he was invincible?

Did Guileful Switch really surprise them when it gave an extra action, considering that was what it was designed to do? Did they not realize how awesome that was right out of the box? "Free Action Point" didn't occur to them? Ditto with the Veteran's Armor?

I don't like seeing errata, but I consider it an acceptable evil: houserules usually take care of that stuff as it rears its ugly head in-game anyway, but its nice that they're paying attention. It's the iterations that piss me off, I suppose.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Jul 06, 2009 3:00 am

mean_liar wrote: Fixing it is okay, but the flurry of incremental changes is needlessly annoying. Pick a supplement, take a look at what you have, peruse the CharOp boards and make a list. When you issue an errata, you shouldn't have to revisit it.

Yeah that's for sure. It's not a lot of these problems have recently sprung up out of nowhere. Often like the first or second day a supplement is released, people are figuring out how to break it.

I really wish they'd produce just one errata after the books were out a month or two and they've figured out the relevant problems. So yeah,the incremental errata is annoying. But I'd rather have them do that then no errata at all. Of course, even their errata fucking sucks. I still can't believe they haven't errated the orbizard yet. Seriously.

Like, how could the Battlerager playtest have worked? Did no one notice he was invincible?

I don't even think there was a playtest on that.

Did Guileful Switch really surprise them when it gave an extra action, considering that was what it was designed to do?

Stuff like that i tend to blame on bad editing and bad english. Things like Rain of blows fall in this category. The designers mean to say one thing, but write it in a fucked up way so it reads as something overpowered. But honestly I'm not sure why it took them so long to get to Rain of Blows.

Really, I find myself more pissed off that there are so many things they havent' fixed yet, as opposed ot the fact that they haven't fixed things.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Mon Jul 06, 2009 4:19 am

Yeah, the Orbizard with the Cunning Swordmage Parrying Dagger (lulz) and Earthroot Staff is just a hoot. Whip out the orb AFTER you've used the power. Teehee etc. Phrenic Crown? Why not? Spider familiar? Sure! Spell Focus? Pile it on.

The Cunning weapon thing I can see how they missed. But the rest of that is a bunch of stackable incremental penalties. They made the same effect over and over and over and over again and just changed what shape it was taking. It's one thing to do that with damage items since the ceiling is much higher, but when you're dealing with Save effects, having ANY combination of powers and whatnot that totals to -12 or more is just stupid.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Jul 06, 2009 4:50 am

Errata should come fast and with a swiftness. I have no tolerance for errata that takes eight months to a friggin' year to come out, especially over things that have been complained about by a long time.

It's really unprofessional to come out with sweeping changes when people have already gotten used to it. Now for the battlerager fighter, sure, any change would've been better than leaving it as it is, but for that other crap if you're going to go that long without updating then just leave it like it is. Guileful Switch and Rain of Blows didn't really even hurt anything in the long run.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Jul 06, 2009 5:32 am

I still can't believe they haven't errated the orbizard yet.

Somebody on the dev team must play one.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Jul 06, 2009 5:38 am

I don't think Psychic Robot's snark is too far off.

Wizards are the only class in the Players' handbook that have their own epic destiny and own epic-level class feat--and both are ridonkulously good. They also get more powers than anyone else.

Now this extra attention is kind of moot, considering that the people who designed the class said that they weren't even sure what a wizard was supposed to do, but wizards did get extra attention.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Mon Jul 06, 2009 7:18 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:the people who designed the class said that they weren't even sure what a wizard was supposed to do

When the designers of a fantasy RPG have no idea what wizards should do, the end result is not surprising at all.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Mon Jul 06, 2009 11:42 am

Starmaker wrote:
Lago PARANOIA wrote:the people who designed the class said that they weren't even sure what a wizard was supposed to do
When the designers of a fantasy RPG have no idea what wizards should do, the end result is not surprising at all.

Plus Fucking One.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 2:30 pm

Regardless, nerfing top-tier options only works when there isn't any more top-tier options.

Now the only classes worth really giving a damn about anymore are the wizard, Battle Captains, and both flavors of rangers. And bow rangers become kind of superfluous after a certain level anyway, since around level 13 or so wizards can do more damage bow rangers and still do other stuff on top of that.

How in the world is that an improvement?

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 2:50 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Regardless, nerfing top-tier options only works when there isn't any more top-tier options.

Now the only classes worth really giving a damn about anymore are the wizard, Battle Captains, and both flavors of rangers. And bow rangers become kind of superfluous after a certain level anyway, since around level 13 or so wizards can do more damage bow rangers and still do other stuff on top of that.

How in the world is that an improvement?

It's not. It's like core only 3.5 where you have clerics, druids, wizards, and the odd sorcerer and rogue and the others might as well not exist. Except that's a longer and broader list by far.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 2:54 pm

Well, that's the bad part about it for sure.

I've only played one MMO and that was my experience with it: that the moderate classes felt underpowered and horrid once you tasted or saw the power of the truly awesome. Part of it is my own personal view on things (powergame ahoy!), but the other part is you have to buy into the idea that you're sucking comparatively and that's okay... when that's totally not okay.