4e falls apart if you don't play it like the devs?

[Orion]

Ah.

I work off the PHB, that's where most of my statements come from.

Obviously cherry-picking paragon paths from supplements increases the odds that there's something better than paragon multiclassing, and the proliferation of at-wills also helps there.

Based on the PHB alone, Spiral Tower wizard seems to be nothing special, or in fact pretty sucky.

[koz]

Dumpster-diving is something 4E makes mandatory, as you are supposed to collect like a zillion +1s from all over the place just to remain competitive these days.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Ah.

I work off the PHB, that's where most of my statements come from.

Obviously cherry-picking paragon paths from supplements increases the odds that there's something better than paragon multiclassing, and the proliferation of at-wills also helps there.

Based on the PHB alone, Spiral Tower wizard seems to be nothing special, or in fact pretty sucky.

If nothing else, WotST makes all of your spells eligible for Wintertouched and Lasting frost, which translates to a +5 bonus to damage and +2 bonus to attack. Which with this feature still sadly makes it competitive to even a Blood Mage until level 20.

Dumpster-diving is something 4E makes mandatory, as you are supposed to collect like a zillion +1s from all over the place just to remain competitive these days.

Dumpster-diving isn't just something that's used to stay competitive, it's pretty much mandatory to play the game.

The fact that there's going to be a PHBII just to give people iconic D&D options like the bard and the half-orc should be ample evidence of this.

[Lago PARANOIA]

What is "Dual Strike Steel Blitz Jagged Weapon tjeese"?

Dual Strike for a fighter pretty much does what you'd think it does; it's like the Ranger's Twin Strike but can only be applied against one target and can't be used with ranged weapons.

Jagged Weapons have an expanded critical hit range of 19-20. Of course, this becomes irrelevant in the epic levels when you can just pick up the expanded crit range feat without even caring.

Steel Blitz lets you recover a fighter enmcounter power if you nail a critical hit.

Reckless Attacker lets you take an extra melee basic attack as a free action if you score a critical hit with a fighter power.

Martial Recovery is a feat that lets you regain an expended martial keyword encounter power as a free action when you expend an action point.

So as a fighter, your tactics pretty much revolve around spamming Rain of Blows and hoping for a critical hit with your expanded critical hit range so that you get it back, perpetuating the cycle. For example, here's how your opening move would look:

Rain of Blows. If you score a critical hit with one of these attacks, take a chill pill for a round. If you don't, blow an action point and use martial recovery for your Rain of Blows back.

This method can be 'enhanced' by picking up feats, powers, and magic item powers that increase the number of attacks that you can make to spur the cycle for extra attacks or just recover Rain of Blows. At the really high end of the scale, having Force the Battle, Martial Recovery, a Violet Solitaire, and Heavy Blade Mastery means that sometimes you can complete a battle using nothing but Rain of Blows.

If your DM will go for it (not currently possible because there isn't a barbarian multiclassing feat) you can also try to snag Hurricane of Blades and combo that with Epic Recovery. Unfortunately that's a level 27 trick, so.

[Orion]

Having played around some more, It's turning out more difficult to get paragon multiclassing to work even than I had remembered. So I'll give you that one.

Question: Why is Daggermaster not on the list of good Paragon Paths?

[Username17]

Question: Why is Daggermaster not on the list of good Paragon Paths?

Off the top of my head it would probably be because Daggermaster's Meditation of Blades gives you less bonus damage per attack for one encounter as a Daily than Pit Fighter gives you ambiently on every one of your attacks forever.

Yeah it gives you 18-20 crits. But you're also using daggers - the weapon that cares least about crits in the whole game.

-Username17

[Judging__Eagle]

Jagged Weapons have an expanded critical hit range of 19-20. Of course, this becomes irrelevant in the epic levels when you can just pick up the expanded crit range feat without even caring.

I've always hated that shit. I also tend to see jagged = more crit in several games.

A jagged weapon deals more damage. Because it's got extra bits hanging out and they deal extra cuts/blows/etc..

A balanced, smooth or keen weapon is more precise; precision leads to a more critical blow, since you've hit a vital spot.

Just my two bits.