4th Edition Quirks

[RandomCasualty2]

Look, if the paladin is taking all the hits, he doesn't need Lay on Hands. And it's not as though a Paladin is short on surges -- CON should be his second- or third- highest stat (after CHA and possibly WIS)

Sure he does. What about healing himself?

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Actually, the damage isn't ongoing. It only happens the first time the marked enemy attacks another creature.

Well no it's not true ongoing damage, but you take it every round you ignore the paladin by attacking his companions so if your tactic is to just do that, then it might as well be ongoing damage.

Actually, the way I'm reading it, it only happens once. It says it happens "the first time it makes an attack that doesn't include you as a target before the start of your next turn." Assuming "your next turn" means the next turn after marking the target (as opposed to the "on your turn" wording in the section detailing what the paladin has to do to keep the mark going), that means it's also time-sensitive. So apparently the best strategy for dealing with the paladin's mark is to engage him for one round and then feel free to go after the wizard or the strikers, particularly if you've got a way to keep the paladin busy so he can't engage you.

And lay on hands really sucks. For some reason, the paladin has to spend a healing surge to heal other people, even though there's a hard limit on uses per day and per round. So you better hope your paladin isn't getting hurt a lot. Oh wait, he's a defender. If he manages to fulfill his role in spite of the futility of his marking power, he's going to take lots of damage.

Well, if his defending isn't working he can heal others. If he's the guy soaking, he heals himself. Considering he gets the most surges of any character. That's actually not bad.

A paladin gets a grand total of one more surge than the fighter, assuming both have the same Con mod. Of course, the fighter has more incentive to have a high Con than the paladin, who has to worry about Str, Wis, and Cha. Under those circumstances, the paladin will be lucky to have healing surges equal to the fighter's to divide among himself and others.

Actually, the fighter is potentially a better defender than the paladin. A fighter can have multiple targets marked, so anyone he ends up in melee with gets marked and stays marked. Furthermore, once he closes into melee and marks you, he gets to make a basic attack against you anytime you attack anybody else or try to move out of melee with him. Really, the fighter's only weakness as a defender is that he's short on surefire ways to force enemies into melee so he can mark them.

I don't know I mean I've always felt that the AoO you draw isn't qite as bad as the damage that you're taking from the paladin's divine challenge. At least at low levels. A sword and board fighter is going to do about 1d10+4 damage, which is 9.5. A paladin is doing around 5-7 automatic damage. now consider that the fighter only hits about half the time and he's only doing 4.25 damage. The paladin's automatic damage is much better.

You may have a point that the paladin's automatic damage is a little better as a one-time effect because of its reliability. Of course, as they level up, neither of these "sticks" for the monsters is going to scale, so it probably doesn't matter much.

Now the fighter can mark more than one person which is kind of nice, but I'd still probably rather have the paladin since he can heal as well. The fighter just doesn't really have the staying power. While he can draw fire decently, he cant' heal himself well enough, and his AC isn't any better than anyone elses.

Again, he can heal himself about as well as the paladin. Actually better, given that nobody's going to expect him to spend his surges on other people.

Not to mention if you do hit his companions there's no a heck of a lot he can do to you, besides take his AoO. And given how 4E works, you're best off ignoring the fighter to hit the cleric or the warlord because taking out the healer should be your top priority if the group only has one healer. The paladin is nice because he can heal too. So if they do decide to ignore him, it was all for nothing, because he can heal up a fallen comrade.

Again, the paladin's mark is only a one-time effect (at best), so there's not that much difference. Also, the fighter's mark stays until it's superseded by another mark, so the target takes a -2 to hit basically forever. The paladin, OTOH, has to work to keep his mark going.

Actually, if the DM is running the monsters strategically, some enemy's going to be in a position to make it hard for the paladin to do that. After all, the mark and its -2 to damage goes away if the paladin doesn't attack or move next to the target. And if it's a solo, it's got so many hit points it doesn't care how much damage you throw at it.

Solos take a while to kill, but extra damage per round can't hurt. You're going to have to saw away at it, so being able to autodamage it and also be able to heal the guy that it hurts is a pretty useful ability.

Again, the solo's not going to notice that one little burst of radiant damage enough to care.

EDIT: And it looks like RC messed up a tag somewhere.

[RandomCasualty2]

Actually, the way I'm reading it, it only happens once. It says it happens "the first time it makes an attack that doesn't include you as a target before the start of your next turn." Assuming "your next turn" means the next turn after marking the target (as opposed to the "on your turn" wording in the section detailing what the paladin has to do to keep the mark going), that means it's also time-sensitive. So apparently the best strategy for dealing with the paladin's mark is to engage him for one round and then feel free to go after the wizard or the strikers, particularly if you've got a way to keep the paladin busy so he can't engage you.

You may just be misreading it. it happens once per round, but it can happen many times over the course of a battle. I mean, it's not like most creatures are going to attack more than once in a round anyway.

A paladin gets a grand total of one more surge than the fighter, assuming both have the same Con mod. Of course, the fighter has more incentive to have a high Con than the paladin, who has to worry about Str, Wis, and Cha. Under those circumstances, the paladin will be lucky to have healing surges equal to the fighter's to divide among himself and others.

If the paladin is healing others, then he's probably not also needing to heal himself.

You may have a point that the paladin's automatic damage is a little better as a one-time effect because of its reliability. Of course, as they level up, neither of these "sticks" for the monsters is going to scale, so it probably doesn't matter much.

I think your'e still thinking in 3.5 terms. Remember this is padded sumo, not rocket launcher tag. You don't need to deal massive damage for it to matter, nor is the enemy going to take down the mage in one shot.

Think of it this way, the extra damage from the challenge means you're doing about as much damage as a rogue's sneak attack. This means that if ignored, the paladin becomes a striker who can heal.

Now that's pretty good, and I don't think it's something that most monsters will want to do.


EDIT: And it looks like RC messed up a tag somewhere.

[Orion]

STR is a dump stat for paladins. Yeah, STR paladins are a build in the book, but the majority of powers are CHA based, the good paragon paths are CHA-based, the good multiclasses are CHA based, etc.

Yeah, they have only about as many surges as fighters -- which is to say, a fucktonne.

You're probably a Dragonborn (which means your healing surges restore substantially more than the party wizard's) or if you're that concerned about dying, play a dwarf. I know, I know, no CHA-buff. But you get WIS and CON, and the awesome Dwarven Resilience feat, so you have more surges, more uses of lay on hands, easier self-healing through second wind, etc. And you don't need to actually hit with your attacks to defend the group.

More on Fighters later.

[Voss]

If you're going to go that route, go half-elf. Charisma and Con. The problem is, Charisma and Wisdom is a kick in the pants, and those secondary effects for the Tron Paladin really *need* the wisdom. You have to blow dex/int off altogether, and you don't have all that much to stick in Con.

Its pretty much a MAD nightmare, and you aren't going to be effective most of the time.

Its one of the things that bothers me about all the 4e strength based classes [in the PH]- having a high CON is actually a detriment to your performance, which is absurdly counter-intuitive, whereas ranged classes can easily afford to have a moderate CON.

The fighter pretty much has to focus on Str and dex/wil as secondaries, and a good fighter will always half a 20 str, 13 dex, and 13 wis to start. Otherwise they can't qualify for the feats they need to remain functional. Two-handed weapons seem a bad idea. The drop in attack bonus and AC and Reflex just seems to high an opportunity cost for a marginal damage increase. [Yeah, two handed swords. Bastard swords are just better].

[Orion]

Yeah, Greatswords probably aren't worth it. Polearm Gamble, on the ohter hand, is absurdly powerful.

And yeah, paladins dump dex/int, so they end up with sucky reflex. Thats not the worst thing that could happen. And while Half-elf is a decent choice, I still prefer dwarf. Swift Second wind is very good, Dwarven Resilience is very good, and the WIS bonus, while not as good as a CHA bonus, does help. Meanwhile, Dilettante doesn't give you anything good unless you're low enough level for Eyebite to work.

[Username17]

Paladins exist in two forms: Grind Paladins (who are Charisma/Wisdom) and Tron Paladins (who are Strength/Wisdom). Regardless of which way they go, they do get minor but noticeable bonuses for having a non-zero modifier for Strength or Charisma (whichever doesn't apply to the type of Paladin that they are). Which means that Constitution is at best going to be their 4th best stat (and personally I'd take Dexterity), and it will only get bonuses when you get your +1 to every stat increases, because all your +1 to two stat increases will go t Wisdom and the primary stat f your build.

In 4th edition, any stat mod that isn't one of your primary 2 stats starts between -1 and +2, and only ever increases by +1 between 1st and 30th level. Your primary 2 stats start between a mod of +3 and +5 and increase by +5 to +6 over the course of 30 levels. So if a class doesn't have Constitution as a primary stat (as only certain Warlocks and Fighters do), it is unreasonable to expect a character to have any meaningful Constitution modifier at any level.

-Username17

[Tydanosaurus]

The part I don't get is where the authors of 4e think that being a guy with decent defenses who draws fire is one of the central 4 character roles. That's just silly, because there are two other means of being a defensive character that are at least as easy to implement. Indeed, 4e design seems to have fallen right on its ass because frankly the Defenders don't provide enough incentive to attack them. Seriously, they don't. Fundamentally, a Paladin is just a character who does a little automatic damage every round and provides a global +2 AC to all his friends (that doesn't stack with other defenders and only works against one enemy at a time). That's not even a big deal.

Actually I find that the paladin's challenge is pretty effective at controlling monsters. I mean, if you ignore him, and attack allies, you're taking a -2 to hit and you're also taking 8 or so damage each round automatically.

Every time the Paladin has marked something after L3, the monster has ignored it. It matters a little bit, but the debuff is too small to matter. Compare a Paladin to any Tank in a MMO, and you can see why it doesn't fit the Defender role very well.

We houserule that a Paladin and Fighter can, as a "free" interrupt, force one opponent to attack it if it fails a saving throw (using the Paladin mark definition). That gives it something to do.

[Username17]

This is absolutely true. Let's say you're 4th level and one of your enemies is a Human Berserker (about as bland and generic a 4th level opponent as exists). It has the choice of attacking the Halfling/Elven Rogue (AC 17) or the Dragonborn Grind Paladin (AC 20). Now, if the Paladin has successfully marked our Berserker friend, he will be confronted with an effective AC of 19 for the Rogue and an effective AC of 20 for the Paladin - still favorable to attack the Paladin by a substantial margin.

But wait! The Paladin has the ability to hit with an enfeebling strike sometimes, giving it an additional -2 to-hit for a round. But that's against everyone, Paladin included. It still hits the Rogue more often than the Paladin, and the Rogue has 6 less hit points, and the Rogue can't generate 3-4 additional temporary hit points for himself every other round. So the Berserker will drop the Rogue substantially faster than it will drop the Paladin.

Now what about damage? The Rogue and the Paladn hit essentially the same amount of the time, assuming that we are using a Rapier build. On a hit, the Paladin inflicts d8+6 damage, and the Rogue inflicts d8+2d6+9 damage. The Paladin will inflict an additional 8 damage automagically if the Berserker turns to the Rogue, but neither character is really missing that often at this level (misses happen at higher levels when the fact that ACs go up every level and to-hit bonuses don't eventually crushes you with a padded sumo RNG shift). Against our Berserker friend, the Rogue does more damage round by round even if the Paladin is getting his Mark damage (which is incredibly poorly worded, while it is probably supposed to go off once per round, every round, it literally does say that the damage only happens the first turn nd then is over forever).

So... the Rogue is still the preferential target. He is easier to hit, is inflicting more damage, and has less hit points. So if the WotC people think that the Paladin's job is getting enemies to attack him, the Paladin has failed miserably. The Paladin does provide an additional -2 or -4 to the Beserker's attacks every round while he continues to attack the Rogue, and that's an awful lot like healing friends or dropping enemies faster, so he's not a total failure as a character (indeed, against solos, the fact that you have a large number of good targets on your team makes one guy who can hand out marks be a decent addition, even if it is precious close to meaningless in the actual normal battle where you are fighting the human berserker with 4 other enemies at the same time, and spending all your actions to effectively paralyze a single enemy less than 20% of the time is a god damn joke). But aside from the fact that the role of "Defender" is frickin retarded on first principals, the Paladin demonstrably and mathematically does not do that job.

-Username17

[Tydanosaurus]

I don't agree that Defender is stupid on general principles. It's a core concept for milions of gamers, and I know a few people who really, really like the idea of playing the tough character that sucks up all the damage and keeps the other guys safe.

I can't see a good way to create a PnP game that lets it work, though. Tank is the one role that forces the needed character structure on the game.

[MartinHarper]

"Defenders have abilities and powers that make it difficult for enemies to move past them or to ignore them in battle".

Difficult != impossible.

The rogue is the preferred target for the beserker, if the rogue does nothing to keep himself safe. However, the rogue should be using a power like Riposte Strike or Tumble, and the occasional ranged attack, so the rogue isn't always an accessible target. Given that defenders aren't much tougher than other characters in the first place, focus fire on the defender is a viable monster strategy.

I think that's ok. The rogue shouldn't be able to stand right next to the ogre without occasionally getting a faceful of mace. Though this may mean I won't like the swordmage.

[Bigode]

"Defenders have abilities and powers that make it difficult for enemies to move past them or to ignore them in battle".

Difficult != impossible.

The rogue is the preferred target for the beserker, if the rogue does nothing to keep himself safe. However, the rogue should be using a power like Riposte Strike or Tumble, and the occasional ranged attack, so the rogue isn't always an accessible target. Given that defenders aren't much tougher than other characters in the first place, focus fire on the defender is a viable monster strategy.

I think that's ok. The rogue shouldn't be able to stand right next to the ogre without occasionally getting a faceful of mace. Though this may mean I won't like the swordmage.

And this means the rogue's defending themselves just fine, and the "defender" could be a horse instead of a PC.

[Tydanosaurus]

"Defenders have abilities and powers that make it difficult for enemies to move past them or to ignore them in battle".

Difficult != impossible.

The rogue is the preferred target for the beserker, if the rogue does nothing to keep himself safe. However, the rogue should be using a power like Riposte Strike or Tumble, and the occasional ranged attack, so the rogue isn't always an accessible target. Given that defenders aren't much tougher than other characters in the first place, focus fire on the defender is a viable monster strategy.

I think that's ok. The rogue shouldn't be able to stand right next to the ogre without occasionally getting a faceful of mace. Though this may mean I won't like the swordmage.

Why is the Rogue an accessible target?

Why aren't Defendders much tougher than Rogues?

The answers to those questions "Why play a Defender?"

[MartinHarper]

And this means the rogue's defending themselves just fine, and the "defender" could be a horse instead of a PC.

The paladin will do it better than a non-defender, because the paladin inflicts a bigger penalty if the monster ignores him to go after the Tumbling/ranged rogue (an opportunity attack, divine challenge damage, and a -2 to hit), and can absorb more attacks. However, a non-defender can do that job in a pinch.

Why is the Rogue an accessible target?

Because he's played by an idiot? Since you like the MMO analogy, I'll remind you that rogues that are played by idiots get stomped in WoW too. If the rogue plays well, he'll be inaccessible to melee monsters enough of the time that he dies after the defender dies.

Why aren't Defenders much tougher than Rogues?

The same reason that Strikers aren't much better at damaging single targets, Controllers aren't much better at damaging multiple targets, and Leaders aren't much better at healing. I'm guessing that's because in d&d you can't yell "LF1M Sunless Citadel, PST" to fill out the group.
You've already said that an MMO-like tank wouldn't work in a pen and paper game. Why are you complaining that paladins aren't MMO-like tanks? I don't get it.

[RandomCasualty2]

Now what about damage? The Rogue and the Paladn hit essentially the same amount of the time, assuming that we are using a Rapier build. On a hit, the Paladin inflicts d8+6 damage, and the Rogue inflicts d8+2d6+9 damage. The Paladin will inflict an additional 8 damage automagically if the Berserker turns to the Rogue, but neither character is really missing that often at this level (misses happen at higher levels when the fact that ACs go up every level and to-hit bonuses don't eventually crushes you with a padded sumo RNG shift).

Frank this is a terrible strawman and equates to a best case scenario for the rogue's attacks... you've chosen an enemy with a notoriously poor defense, so that the rogue can pretty much always hit. try against something like a ghoul, where you're looking at a 21 AC. Also consider that alot of times you'll be against stuff that's higher in level and probably has more formidable defenses. There an autohit attack is going to be very useful.

Or try against an elite monster or solo who will have significantly more defenses.

The paladin just doesn't have that much more hp than the rogue that you can't take him down. And it's a lot better to take him out of the fight and then focus on the rogue, considering the two are doing comparable damage. Because once the paladin drops, the rogue can't flank anymore, and thus loses a lot of his damage, plus you don't have to worry about the paladin's challenge so you're attacking a weaker AC. The paladin is dealing rogue like damage anyway while you're pounding on the rogue, so you're dealing with two strikers hitting you, so you can take the rogue down in maybe 1 round earlier? It just doesn't seem worth it to me.

8 automatic damage can be pretty nasty. Unless you're dealing with a glass cannon like the berserker who has a god awful AC for its level, you're going to be taking more damage from that 8 autodamage than the rogue's attacks.

[Tydanosaurus]

Why is the Rogue an accessible target?

Because he's played by an idiot? Since you like the MMO analogy, I'll remind you that rogues that are played by idiots get stomped in WoW too. If the rogue plays well, he'll be inaccessible to melee monsters enough of the time that he dies after the defender dies.

Uh, have you looked at the Rogue powers?

[josephbt]

Does anyone know what is to stop me from replacing paragon gained powers with some more usefull ones from my base class? I tried to find rules on which power i may replace, but there are no restrictions aside from "you can' replace free stuff".

[MartinHarper]

Uh, have you looked at the Rogue powers?

Indeed I have. Here's my list of the first few levels:
Level 1 at-will: Riposte Strike (1 in 4).
Level 1 encounter: All except Torturous (3 in 4)
Level 1 daily: Trick Strike (1 of 2 melee)
Level 2 utility: Tumble (1 of 4)
Level 3 encounter: All except Setup Strike (3 of 4)
Level 5 daily: All except Deep Cut (2 of 3)

Does anyone know what is to stop me from replacing paragon gained powers with some more usefull ones from my base class?

You could use the paragon multi-classing rules to replace your paragon path with more powers from your base class. That'd probably be a little weak.

[Amra]

You may just be misreading it. it happens once per round, but it can happen many times over the course of a battle. I mean, it's not like most creatures are going to attack more than once in a round anyway.

The damage happens once for a particular mark. The -2 penalty is ongoing throughout the encounter or until the mark ends (either because you haven't engaged or because you've used the power on something else), but the marked creature only suffers X+[Chr] damage the first time it makes an attack that doesn't include you before the end of your next turn. You can, of course, continue to mark that enemy with your minor action each round, provided it doesn't have some way of stopping you engaging with it.

The requirement to engage the target every turn ironically makes the ability nigh-useless against the creatures you most need to be sticky against; those with flight or other enhanced movement capabilities. The Paladin only gets a handful of ranged attacks and until 7th level they're all dailies, so there are plenty of creatures against which he's not going to easily be able to fulfill the engagement criteria.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

You may just be misreading it. it happens once per round, but it can happen many times over the course of a battle. I mean, it's not like most creatures are going to attack more than once in a round anyway.

I might be misreading it, but it would be nice if you'd give me some evidence from the text to actually demonstrate that I am. I've actually quoted from the text to back up my interpretation, while you have provided absolutely no evidence to support yours.

I think your'e still thinking in 3.5 terms. Remember this is padded sumo, not rocket launcher tag. You don't need to deal massive damage for it to matter, nor is the enemy going to take down the mage in one shot.

Think of it this way, the extra damage from the challenge means you're doing about as much damage as a rogue's sneak attack. This means that if ignored, the paladin becomes a striker who can heal.

Now that's pretty good, and I don't think it's something that most monsters will want to do.

If the attacks don't scale with the monsters' hp, then they're taking away less of a percentage of the monster's hp total. Therefore, monsters care less and less about these attacks as the PCs advance in level. Now the same logic applies to the fighter's basic attack, so it's not a special knock against the paladin. It's a problem with core defenders and with the way WotC scales at-will attacks and class features.

Against our Berserker friend, the Rogue does more damage round by round even if the Paladin is getting his Mark damage (which is incredibly poorly worded, while it is probably supposed to go off once per round, every round, it literally does say that the damage only happens the first turn nd then is over forever).

Actually, it's hard to tell what the intent was. I mean, the swordmage's marking effects are worded to indicate that they can happen multiple times, but little clues in the wording ("if this attack hits") make it look like the intent may have been for them to only be triggered once. It's possible that the designers meant for single-target marks to have effects that can happen multiple times, while the fighter's mark, which can be put on multiple creatures, gets only a one-time effect. But they keep wording things so poorly that it's hard to piece anything together for sure.

The requirement to engage the target every turn ironically makes the ability nigh-useless against the creatures you most need to be sticky against; those with flight or other enhanced movement capabilities. The Paladin only gets a handful of ranged attacks and until 7th level they're all dailies, so there are plenty of creatures against which he's not going to easily be able to fulfill the engagement criteria.

Not only that, but it looks like divine challenge can be used to control the paladin's actions. All you have to do is move away from the paladin, and the paladin has to follow you or lose his mark. Which is kind of odd, considering that the purpose of marks is to allow defenders to control the actions of the monsters.

[Orion]

Frank, the Paladin "defends" his group with a combination of healing and blocking. I guess in 4E terms that means he's not really a pure defender like a fighter, but rather a hybrid Defender/Leader.

Seriously, it's true that sometimes the enemies will go for the party rogue first. In which case the paladin busts out his minor action Lay on Hands to heal up the rogue. If he has hat soothing hands feat or whatever, it even gives bonus HP, so he's restoring about the same health whether he uses his surges on himself or others.

Also, a minor quibble on stats. The tertiary stat mod actually increases by at least +2 over the course of the game. By level 30, you have 2 +9 level mods to place, but your highest stats started even anyway. So two of those pluses get shipped off to the odd stats. You might say this applies only at levels 28-30, but it can kick in at lower levels if one is expecting a fairly short game. For instance, when generating level 11s for a one-shot.

So really, a level 16 Dwarf Paladin could easily have a +4 CON mod.

EDIT: +3, sorry.

[Bigode]

Frank, the Paladin "defends" his group with a combination of healing and blocking. I guess in 4E terms that means he's not really a pure defender like a fighter, but rather a hybrid Defender/Leader.

Frank already weighed in on this: there are no defenders (it's not a role). The fighter's a striker and the paladin's a leader.

[Orion]

@Bigode -- exactly. I am agreeing with Frank that "forces enemies to attack me" is not actually the paladin's entire role, so while 4E bills him as a "defender" they might just as well have billed him as a leader.

I do still feel that Fighter is a true defender-- he's certainly not a striker.

Honestly, here's the thing. I get that the 4E "roles" aren't as fundamental as possible. Some of them can be reduced to different flavors of the other. *IF* one defines a "role" as one of Frank Fundamental Actions, then sure Defenders and Leaders (other than Tactical Warlords) both fall under the "negate enemy actions" role. So do Controllers (Orb Wizards, at last) And arguably some strikers too-- Warlocks are as good at incapacitating their targets as killing them.

The Fact is that while Fighters and Clerics both keep your Rogue from dying, they do in distinctly different ways, not only in flavor but in mechanics. A Fighter will be more effective at saving you from some types of enemies, a cleric from others. If the designers want to set "party roles" at a level of granularity where "heals damage" is a different role from "trips/blocks enemies" why can't they?

Hell, if all classes were identitcal save that attacks came flavored "red" and "blue" then Red and Blue would be party roles, wouldn't they?

[RandomCasualty2]

One thing I've noticed from playing 4E, the biggest drawback for the defender types seems to be that healing is so good, generally it seems you're better off using a cleric or a warlord as a defender, since their healing is good enough to negate enemy attacks well, just in a different way.

The thing is that the defender's AC isn't much higher than the rest. So he's still taking a lot of damage and isn't really saving your party on any healing. His only real advantage is a lot of healing surges.

[MartinHarper]

One thing I've noticed from playing 4E, the biggest drawback for the defender types seems to be that healing is so good, generally it seems you're better off using a cleric or a warlord as a defender, since their healing is good enough to negate enemy attacks well, just in a different way.

I guess the only real advantage of a defender is that you can go through more encounters in a day, because you won't run out of Healing Surges as quickly. That's pretty minor.