*D&D 4ed*

[RandomCasualty2]

Well apparently based on my browsing of the WotC boards, they've figured out a way to break 4E already.

It involves the wizard's orb mastery + the sleep spell, with a wis maxed wizard.

orb mastery causes the target to take a penalty to his saves equal to your wisdom modifier for one spell effect.

So at high levels (considering your wisdom modifier increases, but monster saves dont), you basically have a powerful save or die effect. Granted, it requires that your party goes and saw on the monster a while with CdGs, but it's a greay way to take out solos and elites.

And orb mastery works once per encounter, and against any effect with a save. So a lot of the immobilization spells like web can work well wtih orb mastery too.

It looks like the high level wizard is once again made of awesome. You can't really do anything worthwhile out of combat anymore, but you still are the master of preventing enemies from acting.

[josephbt]

Some of the powers aren't worded like they should be. Sometimes you're better off missing then hitting.

EG

Easy Target
Hit: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage, and the target is
slowed and grants combat advantage to you (save ends
both).
Miss: Half damage, and the target grants combat advantage
to you until the end of your next turn.

[Voss]

Well apparently based on my browsing of the WotC boards, they've figured out a way to break 4E already.

It involves the wizard's orb mastery + the sleep spell, with a wis maxed wizard.

orb mastery causes the target to take a penalty to his saves equal to your wisdom modifier for one spell effect.

So at high levels (considering your wisdom modifier increases, but monster saves dont), you basically have a powerful save or die effect. Granted, it requires that your party goes and saw on the monster a while with CdGs, but it's a greay way to take out solos and elites.

And orb mastery works once per encounter, and against any effect with a save. So a lot of the immobilization spells like web can work well wtih orb mastery too.

It looks like the high level wizard is once again made of awesome. You can't really do anything worthwhile out of combat anymore, but you still are the master of preventing enemies from acting.

Its good, but not that absurdly broken. It isn't assured, even against normal monsters. (You can cap out the modifier at 10 if you really try), which means with solo monsters, who are +5 to save all the time, are down to a -5, so they go from a 80% to save to a 30% chance. (And you're at 28th level at that point). At low levels you're just putting them back at 55% to save like everyone else, at 8th, they're down to 50/50, and so on. Which is definitely good, but you still have to hit them, which requires int, and if you're maxing wis to that degree, you're probably going to have problems hitting.

[Voss]

I just love how Pelor will reject Lawful Good clerics, but Unaligned ones are fine by him. Especially the way it's not just a side effect of the new alignment system, but an actual example they give.

He likes normal people and good people. Crazy good and lawful stupid are madmen that he just doesn't want.

[Maxus]

Okay, a friend of mine found out about 4e being leaked. He downloaded it, which I don't condone, for the record, and actually had a game with some friends last night.

Today, he gave me the report.

In his own words:

The Good points?
It's much much easier to run and design encounters.
Also: There are no dead levels.
Also: You will never just spend a whole encounter repeating the full attack action.


Me: Okay. Any difficulties?

Him: Plenty.

Ok..

So one of the big problems I've had so far is everything is becoming very specialized.

Classes have specific roles in their description

Striker, Controller, Defender, and Leader

And if you're not THAT CLASS.

You're pretty much incapable of doing that job if you need to.

I had a problem, a big one, Tanking as a Warlord, which is a Leader.

And with two leaders and two strikers we had absolutely no battlefield control at all. Party balance is extremely important which leads people away from playing what they like.

So, yeah, there's so in-the-field reporting.

[RandomCasualty2]

Its good, but not that absurdly broken. It isn't assured, even against normal monsters. (You can cap out the modifier at 10 if you really try), which means with solo monsters, who are +5 to save all the time, are down to a -5, so they go from a 80% to save to a 30% chance. (And you're at 28th level at that point). At low levels you're just putting them back at 55% to save like everyone else, at 8th, they're down to 50/50, and so on. Which is definitely good, but you still have to hit them, which requires int, and if you're maxing wis to that degree, you're probably going to have problems hitting.

Well, really it's not that bad until you get really high in level, where you've got a +9 wisdom modifier or so. It's never really 100%, but you've still got about as good a chance to save or die someone as you would in 3.5, the only difference is you can only do that once per encounter.

[UmaroVI]

I just love how Pelor will reject Lawful Good clerics, but Unaligned ones are fine by him. Especially the way it's not just a side effect of the new alignment system, but an actual example they give.

He likes normal people and good people. Crazy good and lawful stupid are madmen that he just doesn't want.

Yet LG gods will reject G clerics, but not U clerics. I guess you either need to be really good, or not good at all.

[Voss]

I just love how Pelor will reject Lawful Good clerics, but Unaligned ones are fine by him. Especially the way it's not just a side effect of the new alignment system, but an actual example they give.

He likes normal people and good people. Crazy good and lawful stupid are madmen that he just doesn't want.

Yet LG gods will reject G clerics, but not U clerics. I guess you either need to be really good, or not good at all.

Well, I didn't say it made much sense. Though since unaligned covers everything from LN to CG, with bits of both CN and LN to LE being covered by Evil, it gets pretty random. You could gibber about how the LG goods pick up the 'LN' unaligned people.

But the alignment system gets rid of some of the stupidity of the old alignment system, and makes it more wacky. LG is sort of both Even More Good, and just plain vanilla anal-retentive good.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Its good, but not that absurdly broken. It isn't assured, even against normal monsters. (You can cap out the modifier at 10 if you really try), which means with solo monsters, who are +5 to save all the time, are down to a -5, so they go from a 80% to save to a 30% chance. (And you're at 28th level at that point). At low levels you're just putting them back at 55% to save like everyone else, at 8th, they're down to 50/50, and so on. Which is definitely good, but you still have to hit them, which requires int, and if you're maxing wis to that degree, you're probably going to have problems hitting.

Well, really it's not that bad until you get really high in level, where you've got a +9 wisdom modifier or so. It's never really 100%, but you've still got about as good a chance to save or die someone as you would in 3.5, the only difference is you can only do that once per encounter.

They do get a feat that reduces saves by 2.

[JonSetanta]

Party balance is extremely important which leads people away from playing what they like.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Username17]

Can anyone tell if you are allowed to get the Staff Proficiency bonus to spell attack rolls if your class can use Staves as implements?

I do like how you can't make melee attacks with rods. That breaks my mind. Special props to the Rod of Harvest. At high levels you can have literally dozens of them, each of which can store an Infernal Pact Boon indefinitely. Sacrifice some cursed chickens in downtime and walk into major battles with dozens of piles of temporary hit points that are each your level in size. A high level Warlock can tank.

-Username17

[virgil]

At initial glance, I think they intended the proficiency bonus to apply to attacks with the weapon, whereas spell attack rolls are made with the spell rather than the implement. I can't find an official sample wizard with the numbers totalled, but I suspect that the staff proficiency bonus is not factored.

Of course, intention and what they write are two seperate things.

[Koumei]

One of the rods (or perhaps the rods section in general) mentions that you don't add a proficiency bonus, only the enhancement bonus, when casting spells through rods. Presumably that also applies to staves. Except staves can be used to attack normally, and rods can't. Presumably because someone is on crack.

[Endovior]

Hmm. The equipment section specifies that nonmagical implements grant no bonuses to magical attack rolls, and that magical ones only grant their enhancement bonus. The only thing you really get from a nonmagical implement is your implement mastery.

From this, I would surmise that the proficiency bonus on a staff only applies to whacking someone over the head with it, and not to shooting a magic missile at them.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Maybe it's me?

I mean, I seem to be among the only ones to preform any of these actions within a campaign:
1 - hit someone with an object not normally meant to hit someone (props go out to bow, rocks, altar, and tree branch)
2 - hit someone with a thrown object not meant to be thrown (props go out to sword, glaive, altar, and sunrod)
3 - shove hand into magic-users mouth to prevent spellcasting
4 - bite warrior that attempts to stifle my awesome spellcasting

Also, I haven't read the pdf yet, but if you disarm a wizard of his rod, is he essentially out of combat?

[Endovior]

Implement: Many arcane spells are more effective
when used in conjunction with an implement—a wizard’s
staff, orb, or wand, or a warlock’s rod or wand.
Many divine prayers use holy symbols as implements.
To grant its benefit to a divine character, a holy symbol
must represent the character’s patron deity or one of a
group of deities the character serves. It’s not necessary
to have an implement in order to use a power that has
the implement keyword.

Like I said, the only thing an implement does is give you bonuses, like letting you use that implement mastery of yours, or granting pluses if it's magic. You can still cast normally without one, just like a disarmed fighter can use unarmed attacks. You'll just be somewhat less effective (but less so then the disarmed fighter).

[Username17]

I found the rule. It's on page 275. Only powers with the Weapon keyword actually gain a proficiency bonus. Therefore, the correct choice for Wizards is to carry an Orb and go Int/Wis (Constitution is third, naturally). I suggest investing in Ray of Frost and Cloud of Daggers as your At-Wills. Unless you have a Warlord on your team, in which case you will roll your eyes and grudgingly take Magic Missile because otherwise the Warlord will be even more useless.

Implements without magic properties seriously don't do anything other than allow you to use abilities that trigger off of you having implements. And those magic properties they do have only come in on powers that have the implement key word and only for classes with the implement type specified for them.

Look out for secret bullshit powers like Solar Wrath (Radiant Servant Cleric Paragon blah blah blah), because they don't have the Implement Keyword, they technically don't get the enhancement bonus of your holy symbol or hammer, or anything else. They just fall farther and farther behind the curve as you rise in level.

Also look out for secret bullshit like characters who have the option of using an Implement or a weapon on different attacks. For example, a Paladin has no access to at-will lasers, so he has to run around with a fully charged magic weapon. However, he has the option of getting Implement powers that run off of the bonus on your Holy Symbol, which will of course really screw you if you try to keep all your magic items up to snuff later on. Of course, not everything that has an Implement keyword makes any difference. For example: the Paladin's Sacred Circle involves no attack roll, no damage roll, no healing, and no Saves, so there is literally no effect whatsoever from you having or not having any sacred symbol you care to mention.

-Username17

[Koumei]

SunTzuWarmaster:

He can still use the powers, he just doesn't get a bonus. That being said, you want every bonus you can grab.

My favourite melee weapons were a table and a ladder. My favourite ranged weapon was a dragon. Well, a skinned dragon corpse.

Drow: Where is the dragon?
Urak' Guy: *throws it at them, hits, deals a shitload of damage*
Drow: *dies*
Cleric: It's right on top of you, are you blind or something?

[Fwib]

... if you disarm a wizard of his rod, is he essentially out of combat?

Sadly, I think that there is no disarming. Can anyone please prove me wrong?

[Shatner]

Special props to the Rod of Harvest. At high levels you can have literally dozens of them, each of which can store an Infernal Pact Boon indefinitely. Sacrifice some cursed chickens in downtime and walk into major battles with dozens of piles of temporary hit points that are each your level in size. A high level Warlock can tank.

To tank the warlock would either need a huge stack of temporary HP or the ability to rapidly replace temporary HP. Since temporary hit points don't stack (PHB 294), what kind of action is required to pull the temporary HP out of the Rod of Harvest? I haven't found anything on magic-item activation so I don't know what it costs to get the various effects out of items.

[Endovior]

*Double-Checks Rules*
Yep; looks like disarming has been removed from the game entirely; as with sundering.

[Username17]

To tank the warlock would either need a huge stack of temporary HP or the ability to rapidly replace temporary HP. Since temporary hit points don't stack (PHB 294), what kind of action is required to pull the temporary HP out of the Rod of Harvest? I haven't found anything on magic-item activation so I don't know what it costs to get the various effects out of items.

It is a Minor Action to pull hit points out of the rod. And you fill a rod as a free by wielding the rod when someone under your curse drops.

Interesting note: while the game tries to get you to use a Holy Avenger as some sort of Charisma based Laser Paladin, that weapon is actually for the Strength Based Tron Paladin. There is no Laser Paladin.

-Username17

[virgil]

There is one way to disarm, and that is with a Level 17 Encounter power available to Fighters alone.

[MartinHarper]

I mean, 4e doesn't even have summoning of any kind anymore.

Not got the rules, but it seems like there are rules for summoned monsters (like archons) and raised monsters (like zombies) but no rules for doing the summoning/raising.

[virgil]

They seemed to have given summoning/raising as the sole purview of the NPC/Villain, which is solely through DM fiat.