The Official "4e Critique and Rebuttal" Thread

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Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

RandomCasualty2 wrote:The whole point of short rest should have been to get healing back in the hands of the person resting and not worry about what others are doing. The fact that you can use healing words during rest (and it's actually more effective) really annoys me. Since then you get those weird situations where people will want to short rest twice.
Why does it wreck the game for players to have 15 minutes of downtime instead of 5?
souran wrote: So, yeah the healing is good, its probably a bit to good even if you just had a party with 5 people and 2 leaders. However its not nearly as broken as described here.
It's certainly getting that way, though.

I mean, right now, let's take a level 16 cleric. There are going to be huge gaps in the character build because I'm going to just post what's relevant. I'm also going to avoid using the Pacifist Healer feat, which would heal an additional 2d6+charisma modifier in hp.

16 Cleric / Artificer (paragon path agnostic)
22 wisdom, 20 charisma.
Healing Word/Healing Infusion: 4d6
Feats: Student of Artifice {EPG, page 94} (gives them healing infusion 1/day)

Potent Restorables {EPG, page 92}: At level 16, increases any healing with the healing keyword by 5; artificer-only feat.

Healer's Implement {DP, page 135}: When you grant healing with any of your cleric healing powers, add holy symbol's enhancement bonus to hit points the recipient receives.

Moon Touched {DP, page 116}: Channel Divinity feat. More details below.

L12, 13,000 gp (Paragon Tier) Gloves of the Holy Healer {AV, page 134}: Adds 1d6 healing to all powers with the healing keyword.
L13, 17,000 gp +3 Mace of Healing {AV, page 72}: Adds a +3 item bonus whenever you use a power that restores hit points to an ally.
L4, 840 gp +1 Medic's Weapon (Mace) {AV, page 72}: When you use a CD power in combat, an ally in 10 squares regains an amount of hit points equal to your Charisma modifier plus weapon's enhancement bonus.
L14: 21,000 gp +3 Healer's Brooch {AV, page 152}: When you use a power that enables you or an ally to regain hit points, add brooch's enhancement bonus to hit points regained.
L15: 25,000 gp +3 Healer's Armor (Chain) {AV2, page 8}: When you use a healing power, the target regains additional hit points equal to the armor's enhancement bonus).
L13: 17,000 gp +3 Symbol of Divine Reach: When used to deliver a ranged or area prayer, adds enhancement bonus (+3) to the range.
L11: 9,000 gp Healer's Sash {AV, page 166}: See below.

So anyway. Before we look at the powers, let's take a look at how much extra mojo we get when we use a healing power.

1d6 (Gloves of the Healer) + 6 (wisdom, healer's lore) + 5 (Potent Restorables feat) + 3 (Healer's Implement feat) + 3 (item, Mace of Healing) + 3 (Healer's Brooch) + 3 (Healer's Armor) = 1d6+23 = Average 26.5 extra healin's. However, the Gloves of the Healer can only heal one person per use of the power. So we'll have to downwards adjust when necessary.

The hit points of a class with 5 hp/level or fewer (which is 2/3rds of them) are about 100-110 or so. This means that every time our cleric activates any healing surge it's like they get an extra one for no added cost.

But wait! There's more! We haven't even gotten into powers yet. Let's ladle them up.

Astral Seal At-Will {DP, page 31}: Wis+2 vs. Reflex implement attack that also sinks an enemy's defense by 2 until the end of your next turn. Alas, it does no damage. However, the next ally who hits an enemy hit by this attack regains 2 + charisma + extra healin's hit points; in other words, 33.5 hp of healing. Did I mention that this is an At-Will?

Beacon of Hope L1 Daily {PHB, page 64}: At lower levels, we pick Moment of Glory {DP, page 32} instead because at that point in the game each ally in a close burst 5 getting resist 5 as long as you sustain it prevents more damage. But this power gives you and your buddies 5 hit points when you want it and increases the hit points restored by yor healing powers by 5. Stacked with your extra healing it's 36.5 hit points for one person, 33 hit points for everyone else.

Consecrated Ground L5 Daily {PHB, page 65}: Called Zone of Invincibility and for good reason. In a close burst 1 zone you and any buddies of yours regain 1 + charisma modifier hit points at the start of each of your turns. You can also move the zone 3 squares as a move action. At this level, this is you pretty much telling the DM to go fuck himself. Heals a cool 32.5 hit points a round to bloodied ppl in the zone. This also means that it's nearly impossible to kill or even disable a PC who dies on one of these squares, since they pop right back up at the beginning of their turn after being healed.

Stream of Life L6 Daily {DP, page 35}: Minor action. You take ongoing 5 damage (save ends) that can't be reduced. You can choose to fail a save against this effect. In return, anytime you take this damage an ally in 5 squares of you regains 15 + your extra healing value in hit points. Which is a cool 41.5 hit points per round. Does not have to be sustained.

Spirit of Healing L6 Daily {DP, page 34}: Ranged 10, conjure healing spirit in range. When an ally in the square or adjacent to it it hits an enemy, they regain hit points equal to twice your wisdom modifier. Which means that they regain 38.5 hit points every time they hit an enemy. As a move action, you can move the spirit 5 squares. Sustain minor.

Cloak of Courage L16 Encounter Power {DP, page 38}: Close burst 2. Each ally in burst gains extra temporary hit points equal to their healing surge value. No healing keyword here, sorry guys. But did I mention that this is a frickin' encounter power? That doesn't burn healing surges? This means you should be using this goddamn power every time you take a rest. And then rest again to get it back! Use this power in battle after people have been being beat up on for awhile. It's like printing your own money.

Healing Word: You get three of these babies per encounter now. If something breaks through the Moon Touched/Healer's Sash wall you start using these. These bastards heal HS + 41.5 hit points in value. Your buddies are not going down. There are a lot of ways to enhance this; my favorite way is that you can grab a feat which gives your buddies +CHA to defense in heroic tier until the end of your next turn when you use this power on them. There's a feat in epic (sadly a few levels off) that lets you target two people with healing words at once. Killer.

Healing Infusion: This power is actually completely pointless for you at this level unless you're sucking so hard that the enemies break through your healing wall. You just wanted it for Potent Restorables. Even so, it still heals quite a goddamn lot. HS + 12 (L16 healing infusion + 6 WIS) + 5 (PR) + 3 (healer's armor) + 3 (Medic's Weapon) + 3 (Healer's Brooch) + 1d6 (gloves of the holy healer) = HS + 29.5 hit points. It is literally the last thing in your goodie bag you'll use but not because it's bad. It's just that everything else you have is so much better.

Moon Touched L0 Channel Divinity Power {DP, page 116}: Minor action encounter power that allows you or a bloodied ally to regain hit points equal to your Wisdom or Charisma modifier. At start of each of your turns, roll a d8/d10/d12 depending on tier. If odd, they gain temporary hit points; if they already have temporary hit points then the effect ends. If the roll is even, target regains hit points equal to the roll and the effect ends. Which means that as a minor action that doesn't blow any healing surges someone regains at least 23.5 hit points. But wait! Medic's weapon! That suddenly jumps up to 29.5 hit points! If you are lucky enough to roll an even, they heal 53 hit points as an encounter power that eats up your channel divinity but doesn't blow through any healing surges! Awesome!

Healer's Sash L11 Magic Item Power {AV, page 166}: {AV, page 166}: Encounter power: use power when ally in 5 squares takes damage. Expend 1 charge from belt. Ally regains hit points as though they spent a healing surge and gets an extra 1d6 hit points. You can put extra charges into the sash by expending healing surges, but after each extended rest it comes with one charge for free. This means that everyone gets healing surge + 21 hit points of healing for free every goddamn encounter.

Advancement: Next level, we pour all of our goddamn money into getting Salves of Healing. They will be used to get our asses more Consecrated Grounds/Beacon of Hopes so that we can have healing-surge free healing every encounter. But for the most part we stick to the Astral Seal + Healer's Sash + Moon Touched combination. From a character-design standpoint, I'm kind of bummed that there aren't any low-level ranged encounter powers that restore hit points without burning surges. We can't even plunder anything from the artificer.

I'm starting to think that the Battle Captain has just been dethroned as the 'have this guy in your party, fuckholes' character. Obviously you would want both in your party (along with 3 or 4 melee rangers) but if it came down to it...
Last edited by Lago PARANOIA on Tue Sep 01, 2009 1:21 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Doom »

Certainly a good overview of how little effort it takes to effectively double any particular character's healing surges. You can call surges a limited resource, but after a certain point, they're about as limited as grains of sand.

But, and this important, you also need to compare this level of healing against the kind of damage monsters of the same level can dole out. Granted, some monsters are mislabled, and some are underpowered, but even "level + 3"'s worth of 'typical' monsters just can't reasonably do enough damage to bring down a party member.

Yes, there are exceptions, but, for the vast majority of monsters, this is how it plays out now.

Note how much of your theoretical character's abilities are coming from books outside the PHB.

I imagine with the first 3 books (can't use the word 'core' since it's been whored to mean everything), the game worked reasonably well, but the same thing has happened to WotC's game in a year as what happened to Dungeons and Dragons over the course of decades...power creep has distorted the definitions of what a 'same level' challenge is to the point that a GM needs mastery of the game in order to balance (read: "increase monster damage and abilities off the scale) encounters adequately.
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Post by RandomCasualty2 »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
RandomCasualty2 wrote:The whole point of short rest should have been to get healing back in the hands of the person resting and not worry about what others are doing. The fact that you can use healing words during rest (and it's actually more effective) really annoys me. Since then you get those weird situations where people will want to short rest twice.
Why does it wreck the game for players to have 15 minutes of downtime instead of 5?
It doesn't wreck the game exactly. It just slows it down.

I always got annoyed waiting for people to handle all that short rest healing bullshit in 3.5 even before short rests existed. But we all remember how annoying it was for a cleric to roll out all those fucking d8s for the wand of CLW. Now 4E actually seemed like it might fix that, with the whole "Okay, tick off your surges that you use and then lets continue."

Resting was a personal thing instead of having the cleric run around asking "Okay who needs healing?" and then we wait for him to roll and all that bullshit.

It's just unnecessary tedium in the game, and it really has no reason to be there.

I wouldn't mind so much if they handled it like the bard's ability, that just applies to everyone as a passive rest benefit. That's fine. But I just don't want actual dice being rolled to bog the game down on tedious noncombat healing.
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

RC2 wrote: I wouldn't mind so much if they handled it like the bard's ability, that just applies to everyone as a passive rest benefit. That's fine. But I just don't want actual dice being rolled to bog the game down on tedious noncombat healing.
The healing has to happen somewhere; I personally find it more annoying to roll for things in the middle of battle when it could've been done earlier.

It sounds more like you just don't like the idea of people actually taking care of things between combat.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Anyway, regarding that build I posted, there's still quite a lot of room for improvement.

The Medic's Weapon is all right, but I would rather have something else in the character's off-hand; unfortunately I can't find anything good. Similarly, I want to find a better Holy Symbol. Actually, I'm just going to make a list of things that I want for this character.

Paragon Path: None of the paragon paths are really all that great at boosting healing. They do stupid bullshit like require second winds or boost healing words or make you sacrifice hit points for a buddy.
Ring: Need two of these.
Tattoo: Need one of these.
Boots: Boots of Eagerness are so awesome that I can't think of any sub-epic item that could possible replace it. But they don't boost the character's core schtick, so, ehn.
Arms: Need something here.
Head: Need something here.
Feats: There's a LOT of room for feats here. This character pretty much just needs 4 feats to get their healing mojo on. Okay, everyone takes Implement Expertise so it's really 5, but still, there's a lot of room for advancement.

I might just give in and go with that holy symbol that increases an enemy's radiant vulnerability by 5... and railroad this character into taking the Morninglord PP from the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Said character has a level 16 ability that gives any creature he hits vulnerability to radiant 10. I think PHB3, Divine Power 2, and Adventurer's Vault 3 will fill up the holes in this character real nice.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by tzor »

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Resting was a personal thing instead of having the cleric run around asking "Okay who needs healing?" and then we wait for him to roll and all that bullshit.

It's just unnecessary tedium in the game, and it really has no reason to be there.
I feel so old, so fucking old. Where did my game go? Where is the healing, the searching, the carefully examning the items of treasure, the post mortum discussions on how we really fucked up the last encounter and how we need to get our act together? Unnecessary? That was half the game and half of the fun!

It's like the game is designed for ADD. Non stop combat; can't let something as trivial as GAME PLAY/ROLE PLAY get in the way; pass the jolt cola we're on a roll here!
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Post by Doom »

tzor wrote: I feel so old, so fucking old. Where did my game go? Where is the healing, the searching, the carefully examning the items of treasure, the post mortum discussions on how we really fucked up the last encounter and how we need to get our act together? Unnecessary? That was half the game and half of the fun!
Where did it go? Allow me to point it out:

Healing? It's been cranked up to the point a power nap can fix decapitations...and even the sickliest character can have 3 power naps a day.

Searching? That's a Perception roll...and you can have passive perception of 25 at level 2 (where a really difficult roll is considered to be a 20), so all that hidden stuff is easily found even if you forget to look for it.

Examining? Sorry, all items instantly identified...and don't worry, nothing's cursed, so no need to be careful, anyway. Examining is optional anyway, since the GM places items according to your wish list.

Discussions of how you messed up the last encounter? Character power is cranked up so high and challenge set so low that 'fair' fights for a party of five can be reasonably won by two characters, just using the other three as reinforcements. "Messing up the encounter" is sandpapering the monsters to death in an hour and a half, instead of an hour. "Getting your act together" is simply not being afk for most of the fights.

Glad I could help identify where those things went.
Last edited by Doom on Tue Sep 01, 2009 3:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Roy »

Doom314 wrote:
tzor wrote: I feel so old, so fucking old. Where did my game go? Where is the healing, the searching, the carefully examning the items of treasure, the post mortum discussions on how we really fucked up the last encounter and how we need to get our act together? Unnecessary? That was half the game and half of the fun!
*stuff*
Win.
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Post by MartinHarper »

tzor wrote:It's like the game is designed for ADD. Non stop combat; can't let something as trivial as GAME PLAY/ROLE PLAY get in the way; pass the jolt cola we're on a roll here!
While I agree with your assessment of the focus of 4e, I should point out that the Cleric rolling dice to heal people during downtime, which is what Random is complaining about, is a feature of d&d that has been kept.
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Post by RandomCasualty2 »

Lago PARANOIA wrote: The healing has to happen somewhere; I personally find it more annoying to roll for things in the middle of battle when it could've been done earlier.

It sounds more like you just don't like the idea of people actually taking care of things between combat.
Well I don't mind combat healing so much because it's someone's turn and they're rolling dice, and then it becomes someone elses turn. What I hate about noncombat healing is that it's just one guy doing everything and ticking off wand charges. And that's just boring.

But personally I hate logistical crap like that. If you're going to have a paradigm where you can basically buy infinite wands of CLW at trivial cost, you might as well let people just heal to full.
Searching? That's a Perception roll...and you can have passive perception of 25 at level 2 (where a really difficult roll is considered to be a 20), so all that hidden stuff is easily found even if you forget to look for it.
Yeah, I honestly never really liked the whole perception/search check in the first place to find hidden objects.

I sorta liked it better when searching was a matter of checking the right place. Like back in the 2E days where you'd have to say "I search inside the fireplace" and you'd automatically find it. As opposed to now where it's just "I take 20 and search the room" (3E) or "I don't bother to search cause I find shit anyway" (4E).
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

RC,

My own group used to rely on wands of lesser vigour in our eberron game; for a flat 11 hp. I hated to roll dice for out of combat healing. I just had everyone pitch in for a wand every adventure; we had about 3 in the last adventure, and people would simply state out how many 11 point heals they'd need; and the right amount of ticks would be put by the entry for the wand; when it hit 50, we'd go to the next wand.

Rolling dice for out of combat healing is super boring and completely lame; there's no 'need' for tension or randomness, you'll max the target's HP pool, so even average rolls could be used to determine HP healed per tick.
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Post by violence in the media »

RandomCasualty2 wrote: But personally I hate logistical crap like that. If you're going to have a paradigm where you can basically buy infinite wands of CLW at trivial cost, you might as well let people just heal to full.
But then you run into suspension of disbelief issues like with 4e healing surges and Schrodinger's Wound. Everyone cites action-movie healing, like it's the ideal thing to emulate, while mystically ignoring all of the "that was such bullshit" commentary that goes along with it. A CLW wand, like bacta tanks, nanomachines, and Dr. House, is simply a fetish that allows people to believe in the rapid healing that occurs. Healing surges provide no such consideration and turn everyone into the "I'm not quite dead" squire from Python's Holy Grail.

I'm with you on the searching thing though. I miss having to pay attention to setting descriptions for environmental clues and hidey hole locations.
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Post by RandomCasualty2 »

violence in the media wrote: But then you run into suspension of disbelief issues like with 4e healing surges and Schrodinger's Wound. Everyone cites action-movie healing, like it's the ideal thing to emulate, while mystically ignoring all of the "that was such bullshit" commentary that goes along with it. A CLW wand, like bacta tanks, nanomachines, and Dr. House, is simply a fetish that allows people to believe in the rapid healing that occurs. Healing surges provide no such consideration and turn everyone into the "I'm not quite dead" squire from Python's Holy Grail.
Well, I mean the only time I've ever really had a problem with surges is when someone gets dropped. Because up until you take that final wound and get critical existence failure, I'm kinda okay with not knowing how much of that is actual serious wounds. I mean D&D doesn't have wound penalties anyway, so it doesn't matter that much and stays consistent.

It's just that when you go to unconscious from wounds, it should take something magical to bring you back. I mean that's where the whole Action Movie healing breaks down. I mean it's one thing to have James Bond get grazed by a bullet, and only minorly affected. Nobody really questions that. However if you have your hero bleeding to death on the ground and then suddenly he's up like nothing happened next scene. People have problems with that.

And that's precisely what 4E does that's so bad. Really they just need to change the rules for when you go to 0 hp and I think it'd be fine.
I'm with you on the searching thing though. I miss having to pay attention to setting descriptions for environmental clues and hidey hole locations.
Yeah. I mean with the new search skills, you can basically just ignore the description of the room since it doesn't matter anyway. You search 5 ft squares, and not actual room features.

I thought the search checks took a lot of out of actual searching. Especially since it now just became a rogue/ranger thing. Before the fighter could have a good idea now and then and decided he wanted to search behind the tapestry to find the secret door.
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Post by hogarth »

RandomCasualty2 wrote: I thought the search checks took a lot of out of actual searching. Especially since it now just became a rogue/ranger thing. Before the fighter could have a good idea now and then and decided he wanted to search behind the tapestry to find the secret door.
I never liked that kind of thing. Too often it turned into "guess what Gary Gygax is thinking".

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Post by MartinHarper »

RandomCasualty2 wrote:It's just that when you go to unconscious from wounds, it should take something magical to bring you back.
Warlords can't have nice things? Or are we proposing that they can throw healing potions into the open mouths of their dying comrades?
(there may be other martial healers, but that's the only one I'm aware of)
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Post by shau »

hogarth wrote:
RandomCasualty2 wrote: I thought the search checks took a lot of out of actual searching. Especially since it now just became a rogue/ranger thing. Before the fighter could have a good idea now and then and decided he wanted to search behind the tapestry to find the secret door.
I never liked that kind of thing. Too often it turned into "guess what Gary Gygax is thinking".

"Oh, you didn't turn the candle holders around 315 degrees? Too bad; rocks fall, everybody dies."
"Oh, you turned the candle holders 360 degrees? Rocks fall, everyone dies."

Lago, I think you want symbol of the warpriest for your uber healer. It does...something I can't remember right now for healing.

I also think you want to take healer's mercy instead of moontouched, which gives more healing and does not cost a feat and is not nearly so goddamn annoying, but whatever.
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Post by RandomCasualty2 »

MartinHarper wrote: Warlords can't have nice things? Or are we proposing that they can throw healing potions into the open mouths of their dying comrades?
(there may be other martial healers, but that's the only one I'm aware of)
Well I'd do this.

Warlords can heal people at range, but only if they're conscious.

Clerics require touch, but can revive people.
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Post by RandomCasualty2 »

hogarth wrote:
RandomCasualty2 wrote: I thought the search checks took a lot of out of actual searching. Especially since it now just became a rogue/ranger thing. Before the fighter could have a good idea now and then and decided he wanted to search behind the tapestry to find the secret door.
I never liked that kind of thing. Too often it turned into "guess what Gary Gygax is thinking".

"Oh, you didn't turn the candle holders around 315 degrees? Too bad; rocks fall, everybody dies."
Yeah, it had some big flaws when handled by a bad DM. But it was good when done right.

But I mean really, what can't a bad DM fuck up?
Last edited by RandomCasualty2 on Tue Sep 01, 2009 11:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

shau wrote: Lago, I think you want symbol of the warpriest for your uber healer. It does...something I can't remember right now for healing.
The healing of the Symbol of the Warpriest is not a power, though; it doesn't get all of the uber-healing stacking associated with it.
I also think you want to take healer's mercy instead of moontouched, which gives more healing and does not cost a feat and is not nearly so goddamn annoying, but whatever.
This build tries to avoid spending healing surges whenever possible for healing and when it does only spends it through effects which grant additional healing in addition to burning a surge.

Healer's Mercy is good at lower levels when people have more healing surges than ways to activate them, but it grows inefficient. Moontouched does not burn a surge, which means that it stretches out the party's healing more. It uses up your Channel Divinity, but honestly, when are you ever going to use that aside from undead? The feats by and large suck.
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Post by NineInchNall »

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Yeah, it had some big flaws when handled by a bad DM. But it was good when done right.

But I mean really, what can't a bad DM fuck up?
I think it's far too easy to simply say that when something doesn't work, it's the fault of the DM. Thing X didn't work? Oh, that's due to a bad DM; a good DM would have made it work. The fact that people say it about just about everything that anyone has ever complained about should be a signal to drop that ridiculous Scotsman off at the pub and spend some more time at the game design drawing board.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

I'm kind of bummed that there aren't any low-level ranged encounter powers that restore hit points without burning surges
Why?

All you need is Astral Seal and a wall/tree/rock/the Earth.

Target: "Creature" powers can also target objects. (see basic melee attack listing in PHB)

It's an at will that heals without a healing surge - all by itself Astral Seal relegates healing surges to the realm of "in combat or very limited timeframe healing only"
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Doom
Duke
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Post by Doom »

Astral Seal is a classic power creep ability.

Reducing defenses by two, at least in a large party, will deal more damage via other successful attacks than any of the other cleric at-wills, PLUS it does uber healing. The darn thing STACKS with combat advantage, which is bloody annoying.

Toss in its +2 to hit, versus Reflex (which tends to be the weakest defense, and varely rarely strong--even the Quickling has better AC than Reflex), and this is as much a no-brainer ability as Twin Strike.
Last edited by Doom on Wed Sep 02, 2009 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
RandomCasualty2
Prince
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Post by RandomCasualty2 »

NineInchNall wrote: I think it's far too easy to simply say that when something doesn't work, it's the fault of the DM. Thing X didn't work? Oh, that's due to a bad DM; a good DM would have made it work. The fact that people say it about just about everything that anyone has ever complained about should be a signal to drop that ridiculous Scotsman off at the pub and spend some more time at the game design drawing board.
Well, there are lots of times when people say that and it doesn't apply, like as a defense for bad mechanics. But this is more a case of adventure design, which is basically all in the DM's hands.

It's like you can have an adventure where there's some kind of unstable corridor that collapses...

A good DM might describe the passageway as being unstable with rocks and dirt falling here and there, and give PCs a chance to turn back or use skills to identify it as unstable.

A bad DM is simply going to rule that the PCs who choose the unstable path walk along and suddenly get crushed in a cave in.

Whether you provide adequately clues to what path to take in the adventure or you expect PCs to read your mind is entirely a DMing skill and really has very little to do with mechanics.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Josh_Kablack wrote:
I'm kind of bummed that there aren't any low-level ranged encounter powers that restore hit points without burning surges
Why?

All you need is Astral Seal and a wall/tree/rock/the Earth.

Target: "Creature" powers can also target objects. (see basic melee attack listing in PHB)

It's an at will that heals without a healing surge - all by itself Astral Seal relegates healing surges to the realm of "in combat or very limited timeframe healing only"
Sorry, Josh, the DMG has a 'No Bag of Rats' clause.

Because this totally is a tabletop game and not an MMORPG; therefore being 'in combat' is a totally different state than being 'out of combat'!
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Psychic Robot
Prince
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Post by Psychic Robot »

That's a completely acceptable rules clause.
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