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djw175 posted:Don't battleminds tend to have ways to follow if their target moves away? They can shift if the monster shifts. Not if the monster moves. At that point they need a good OA.
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May 10, 2014 03:35
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:They can shift if the monster shifts. Not if the monster moves. At that point they need a good OA. The harrying step feat is awesome, btw.
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May 10, 2014 03:54
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The general solution is one of two things: they have an at-will that can be used as an MBA when augments (Twisted Eye I think), or, be a Half-Elf, take Eldritch Strike. Half-elves make the best, and for actually defending practically the only, battleminds. Or, you take Heavy Blade Opportunity at Paragon and Brutal Barrage them when they try to leave.
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May 10, 2014 08:50
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What would y'all make if you had to build a character to the following specifications: - functions as secondary defender and secondary leader in a six-person party that has a full-time defender and leader already - as a defender, takes attacks for the team, as a leader, mainly heals - isn't overly concerned with dealing damage - flavour-wise, has to pass as a dwarf worshipping a particular god, so has to include the divine power source - ideally CON/WIS-based - pre-Essentials, no Dragon magazines That's what my unoptimal-paladin-playing buddy wants to redirect himself towards and I'd like to be able to suggest one or two things to him, even though I have this feeling that the answer is something like "lower CON, raise CHA, take feats for more healing surges and maybe a leader multiclass, carry on as you were."
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May 12, 2014 10:07
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My Lovely Horse posted:What would y'all make if you had to build a character to the following specifications: Runepriest is p. cool, if not super optimal due to having less options than the earlier classes. Warden is primal but could probably be reskinned super-easy to be a paladin of stone. I would pick Warden myself.
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May 12, 2014 10:45
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My Lovely Horse posted:What would y'all make if you had to build a character to the following specifications: Cleric, though you'd have to go Strength/Con. They get some off-defender melee abilities (Sentinel Strike is the first one, I think?), and Warpriest PP gets an actual for-real mark with an interrupt. Multiclass Fighter to get another interrupt and you should be good to go.
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May 12, 2014 16:31
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My Lovely Horse posted:What would y'all make if you had to build a character to the following specifications: You're absolutely right on the read you have. Grabbing Warlord is always a good choice, cleric might be better synergy, though. I have a dragonborn paladin in my party and he heals pretty well. We did warlord for the awesome breath weapon and other feats the Warlord offers. ungulateman posted:Runepriest is p. cool, if not super optimal due to having less options than the earlier classes. Warden is primal but could probably be reskinned super-easy to be a paladin of stone. I would pick Warden myself. The Runepriest can't do defender worth a drat, they're too fragile. They don't get much in the way of armor, they don't get much in the way of attack redirection, and they have mediocre HP/surges at best. They're more leader/controller due to all the debuffs and AoEs. However, they end fights faster if they heal, which is really kickass. Rune of Mending might not be as much HP, but +5 to damage rolls for everyone is nothing to sneeze at. Well, I could see going Serene Blade, if you can get a pass on one Dragon article. It's the best of the class features by a mile. Getting tHP when you get hit is a nice perk and increases your survivability by quite a bit because you get hit a LOT when you best armor is Hide or Chainmail and you don't use Dex or Int for anything.
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May 12, 2014 17:24
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Runepriests get scale armor and light shields, and one of their specs has con as a secondary so getting Plate and heavy shields isn't a problem and it boosts their HP and surges.. They've also got a paragon path that gives an Untyped +4 to all adjacent allies defenses. And not that they're any good as a defender, but you're wrong about Serene Blades, they get to use their wisdom for their armor class in place of Dex or Int, if you go 18/18 you can wear hide armor and break even.
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May 12, 2014 17:34
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I'm not surprised that I'm off, been a while since I built my Runepriest. I forgot they got scale, that's pretty good. I could see a Rune Shield/Serene Blade Runepriest doing a good job of frontlining, but yeah, not a replacement for a Paladin. Might be more fun, though.
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May 12, 2014 18:37
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Make an avenger, I dare you
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May 12, 2014 18:41
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My Lovely Horse posted:What would y'all make if you had to build a character to the following specifications: Warpriest of Torm, PP Tactical Warpriest. E: wait, pre-essentials no dragon makes this a LOT harder. Why the restrictions? Fighter|Cleric, probably.
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May 12, 2014 18:51
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Why does it have to be Con/Wis? A dwarf Strength primary/Wisdom secondary paladin is pretty doable, take a cleric multiclass feat for the 1/day healing word and you'd be a decent leader defender. What I like about the way Lay on Hands is treated in 4e is that while it looks a lot like healing, it works as retroactive defending so it hits the defender/leader spot really well. For a more in-depth change, leader|defender hybrid ok together since leaders' encounter healing usually uses a minor and defenders make heavy use of their immediate and opportunity actions. A resilient build Battlemind|Cleric would be a constitution wisdom combo, I don't know enough about battleminds to get anymore specific.
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May 13, 2014 01:06
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The guy's ideas about how 4E works and how it actually works don't always run concurrent to each other, let's put it that way. When he makes a character that's supposed to soak up damage, sure he picks a defender and gets defending powers and extra healing surges and all that, but he also maxes CON because CON = HP, even though it's insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I can't come down too hard on this because 1) it's his character, 2) it doesn't make him completely ineffective and 3) he's the sixth wheel in a party that otherwise covers all roles, I figure he's got a little leeway to experiment. That's also why there has to be an actual divine class involved. I doubt he'd even change from paladin if the alternative wasn't exceptionally good. I'm just sourcing some advice so I can maybe make up one or two quick alternative builds and say, hey man, keep doing what you do, but how'd you like your guy if he looked like this? Or otherwise, stuff that supplements his idea and can be tacked on to what he has already. How does Healer's Mercy hold up in practice, for example? He could get that easily and it seems right up his alley. Using a standard action and weakening him isn't that big a deal because he wants to go for support more than attacking anyway.
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May 13, 2014 07:52
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My Lovely Horse posted:but he also maxes CON because CON = HP, even though it's insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I can't come down too hard on this because 1) it's his character Wrong again, Flanders.  I'm sure this makes me some sort of fascist, but when I DM'd 4e, I expressly told my players "Thou shalt not have less than an 18 in thy primary attack stat." If you want to make another rule be "no for real, if CON isn't your primary attack stat, you can't bump it higher than like 15 after racials" go ahead and do that, too. IME there's not reason it should really be higher than that anyway. Like, 4e is very paint-by-numbers. If dude wants an off-leader + off-defender class, find a class that does that and build it properly. gently caress roleplaying your ability scores and fluff/power source and all that, the mechanics just have to work. I'd make like, a Skald with a Paladin multiclass, so you can DC one dude per encounter, and keep him marked all encounter. Pick up some armor/heavy shield proficiency for extra paladin "style points." I basically did this with a Dragonborn, and ran it as a Paladin of Kord and he was paladin-as-gently caress, let me tell you.
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May 13, 2014 09:21
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Melee training: constitution or wisdom and some decent counts as melee basic attacks would really help out here. Is the no essentials dragon thing negotiable at all? Healer's Mercy is really good, I've seen it turn a fight or two around.
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May 13, 2014 09:46
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P.d0t posted:gently caress roleplaying your ability scores and fluff/power source and all that, the mechanics just have to work. I wholly agree with mandating a 18-20 primary stat after racial adjustments, but dismissing a player's preference with regards to power source seems silly. There's loads of class options out there, and it's easy to play poo poo like cleric|fighter and your paladin|skald as a holy warrior of sorts, and it really doesn't affect gameplay outside of some power source-related PP and feat options.
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May 13, 2014 14:47
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There is a reason that the chief rule of 4e is "reskin everything".
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May 13, 2014 15:37
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Hey you and I know that but I know better than to wrap this particular player's head around it. v v
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May 13, 2014 16:26
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Oh for heavens sake I might be back up to 7 players
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May 13, 2014 17:09
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My Lovely Horse posted:Hey you and I know that but I know better than to wrap this particular player's head around it. v Aww, it's like telling a kid there is no Santa. Just let him live the dream for a while, one day he will have to learn about primary stats, but that day doesn't have to be today.
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May 13, 2014 17:12
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dwarf74 posted:Oh for heavens sake I might be back up to 7 players Don't do it man! You have so much life left to live for!
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May 13, 2014 17:46
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Iunnrais posted:Don't do it man! You have so much life left to live for!
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May 13, 2014 18:24
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dwarf74 posted:I've done it before and we're only 3rd level, so I mostly am looking for ways to up fight difficulty without adding a lot more baddies... Give your monsters abilities that scale in # of targets (or recharge faster) based on the number of opponents within aura 1/2.
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May 13, 2014 18:28
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dwarf74 posted:I've done it before and we're only 3rd level, so I mostly am looking for ways to up fight difficulty without adding a lot more baddies... The simple answer seem like it would be "more damage"
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May 13, 2014 19:37
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Use elites where you'd normally use normals?
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May 13, 2014 20:02
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Gort posted:Use elites where you'd normally use normals? Especially if they can act on multiple initiative steps.
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May 13, 2014 20:05
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Make extensive use of area attacks, temporary domination effects, terrain deformation, and zone control (threatening reach and/or persistant zone attacks like setting the ground on fire). You can also increase the damage. If (and only if) your players have too many strikers, increase the HP too. All that to say... use more elites/solo monsters, and if a standard monster looks like a good idea, give it additional elite/solo abilities.
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May 13, 2014 20:08
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Also, monsters and terrain that spawn minions are pretty great.
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May 13, 2014 20:11
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dwarf74 posted:Oh for heavens sake I might be back up to 7 players
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May 14, 2014 17:40
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To start with, I suggested an alternative build to my paladin buddy - CON, WIS and CHA at 16 each, one or two powers exchanged for CHA-based ones, and Devoted Paladin. One less Lay On Hands per day but each would be roughly about 1.5x as effective, plus with a CHA mod above +1 he could actually start properly defending as his Divine Challenge becomes a notable threat. Not super great by any means but I think it'd work fine for his particular needs.
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May 14, 2014 19:27
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Still makes me twitch all to hell. If you're at the appropriate level, give him a Ring of Tenacious Will and Born Under a Bad Sign background and make his CHA actually determine his toughness in all ways apart from FORT.
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May 15, 2014 00:04
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So in encounters I am running a kobold samurai/speed of thought battlemind with light blade expertise, a jagged katar, and brutal barrage. I would not call it the optimal approach for a battlemind--kobold provides almost no benefit besides the ability scores, and light blades make little sense on a defender, but it's pretty fun to start a battle by going wherever I want and then using Stall Tactics to set up the alpha strike.
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May 15, 2014 10:05
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My Lovely Horse posted:To start with, I suggested an alternative build to my paladin buddy - CON, WIS and CHA at 16 each, one or two powers exchanged for CHA-based ones, and Devoted Paladin. One less Lay On Hands per day but each would be roughly about 1.5x as effective, plus with a CHA mod above +1 he could actually start properly defending as his Divine Challenge becomes a notable threat. Not super great by any means but I think it'd work fine for his particular needs. The only way I see out of this that doesn't result in a downright lovely character is to: 1) Demonstrate that you can make a pound-for-pound far tougher paladin without using Con than he can with Con 2) Gently explain that ability scores really mean nothing in 4E P.S. We should just merge this thread and the charop thread at this point, the charop thread is pretty dead.
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May 17, 2014 04:58
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:kobold provides almost no benefit besides the ability scores, Dragon's Indomitability. 
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May 17, 2014 05:35
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My Lovely Horse posted:To start with, I suggested an alternative build to my paladin buddy - CON, WIS and CHA at 16 each, one or two powers exchanged for CHA-based ones, and Devoted Paladin. One less Lay On Hands per day but each would be roughly about 1.5x as effective, plus with a CHA mod above +1 he could actually start properly defending as his Divine Challenge becomes a notable threat. Not super great by any means but I think it'd work fine for his particular needs. Been a lot of comments on this already, but I have to chime in, that from experience (Both as a Player and a GM), you don't always have to have an 18 in your primary attack stat from the starting gate. The only possible exception is if your character is a Striker, but even then if you have a Leader doing their job, having a 16 in your primary attack stat as a Striker is barely even noticeable because you'll likely be getting bonuses to hit or the defenses of the target will be lowered somehow. You might be thinking that the Leader also needs to hit in order to do that, so THEY should have an 18 in their primary attack stat, but not if you have a Controller doing THEIR job! Most Controllers don't actually need to hit with their attacks and powers in order to throw penalties to defenses around like candy, so even THEY don't need an 18 in their Primary. It's kind of a rock/paper/scissors deal if you have a well synergized party with all the roles covered: Controller helps the Leader help the Striker help the Defender help Everybody. If you're a Defender, you can definitely swing a 16 in your primary attack stat because the Defender's power doesn't come so much from connecting with their punishments but from the sheer fact that Marking always slaps the enemy with a -2 attack penalty by default if that enemy ignores the Mark and doesn't include the Defender that Marked them as a target. Anything else is just extra bells and whistles that are totally awesome when they work, but if they don't, the enemy is still less effective at hitting your friends regardless. If they're targeting you, even if its including you in an area attack, it just means you're doing your job as Defender and wouldn't be able to use your Defender punishments anyway so don't sweat it. Also, Paladins add auto-Radiant damage to enemies who ignore their Mark ANYway so... yeah. I do have to comment though, that if this player is bound determined to increase CON at every chance, the good news is that it's +1 to TWO stats every 4 levels and +1 to ALL scores at 11th and 21st, so all they have to do is NOT ignore their primary attack stat, so he could swing +1 CON / +1 CHA every time they get a bump to ability scores. It might even work out better defenses-wise (Though not bumping WIS may hurt later) since were this player to do the recommended +1 WIS / +1 CHA for this specific build, it may help with the Paladin's WIS bennies, but they'd be extremely top heavy in Will Defense (Which only needs either WIS OR CHA, not both, to remain high) and... sub-par in everything else. Defenders really need as high of Defenses as they can swing, because that plays into their Role. I'll also tell you to recommend the Toughness Feat because in 4E it doesn't suck donkey balls and can allow the player a little leeway to drop one of those 2 ability score bumps to something other than CON every tier. Just a personal anecdote on why I feel this way about not needing an 18 or higher in your primary attack stat at Level 1: I'm currently playing a Human Fighter who is Multiclassing as a Wizard and he started with a 16 in both STR and INT (He also may or may not literally be Indiana Jones, whip in one hand and cryptography book as an implement in the other). Because of the rock/paper/scissors type synergy I mentioned earlier, he has become the lockdown King of the party because I've been taking the Power Swap MC Feats every chance I get, giving him access to a wide variety of Area attacks. Since Fighters don't need to HIT with their attacks to Mark, this means huge swathes of enemies are suddenly taking -2 penalties to their attack rolls in addition to whatever OTHER penalty riders the Wizard powers slap onto them (Like Chilling Cloud adding an extra -2 penalty to attack rolls to any enemy in the zone of the attack for a round, and since I am also the Defender and not afraid to get up in their face and KEEP them there, the enemies are usually in a lose/lose situation). This is a pretty specific case of it working, and of course, it won't work for all builds, but in general as long as you keep the build in mind while selecting Feats, Powers, etc. a 16 in your primary attack stat shouldn't hurt you too much.
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May 20, 2014 19:01
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I sorta assumed this was about about post-racial boost ability scores; 16/16 pre-racial is good and sometimes preferred/necessary for certain build (like your fighter pmc wizard). The thing here I really disagree with is the idea that the mark penalty is the important part of the mark, when the mark punishment is what defines most defenders. Yeah, penalty to hit is good (Dishearten Psion), but if all you're expecting from the defender is a -2 or drawing enemy attacks, then that defender is seriously under-utilizing his defender mechanic. Possible exception being the Paladin, since the auto-damage isn't all that high, but they've got enough tools to work with to compensate.
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May 20, 2014 19:31
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The value of your defender mark depends wildly on how the DM plays the monsters. If he plays them as "monsters don't ignore marks, ever," which some DMs do, it's not that important to buff your mark, and can be counterproductive, because you're blowing resources on something that's never going to happen in-game. If your mark is good out of the box (i.e. you are a fighter) you really don't need to do much to buff it. If your mark is lovely (certain paladins, battleminds, off the top of my head) it may pay to put some resources into it. EDIT: There also defender builds that concentrate on being off-strikers, in which case your mark really isn't the point--it's nice if it's good, but not why you built the character. Also you should never not have a primary attack stat that is below, at worst, 18. Whether you should put a 20 or an 18 depends on your class and build. Doing anything else is just plain bad advice. A huge amount of any character's effectiveness is predicated on hitting, and if you are dependent on another character to bridge the gap, that's going to bite you in the rear end really hard at some point, and probably often. Your DPR contributions are generally also going to be bad, so at best you are also slowing the game down and giving monsters extra rounds to lay in the hurt. Name Change fucked around with this message at 19:43 on May 20, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 19:41
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I probably should have specified, but I meant post-racial. As long as your Primary attack stat POST-Racial is 16+, you're good to go. As far as the Bells and whistles on top of Marks go, only a handful of them actually require a roll to be useful. Only the Fighter and ONE specific Warden and Swordmage build actually need to roll for their Defender bennies: Fighter can Melee Basic once per round to do some damage if it hits against a Marked target that ignores the Mark. They are the only Defender that doesn't have an auto-hit option for their Mark. Paladin has auto-damage once per round on a single Marked target that ignores the Mark. Swordmages either shave off damage dealt to an ally by a Marked enemy that ignores their Mark automatically OR Teleport to said Marked enemy and make a Melee Basic Attack. Before Melee Training was a Feat, the latter build was the most useless thing ever. Wardens get a choice between possibly missing a Marked target that ignores the Mark with a rider that grants Combat Advantage OR the ability to Pull a Marked Enemy that ignores the Mark without ever having to roll. Battleminds get to either chase after Marked foes that try to Shift away OR deal Psychic damage to a Marked target that ignores the Mark equal to the amount of damage it deals to an ally. Neither of these require rolling. Defenders are the one archetype you can definitely get away with not having an 18 post-racial because a lot of their Defender punishments auto-trigger and don't require rolls. Strikers, not so much, but again, only if you don't have a party that really gels well with one another, and believe me, one way or another, that is REALLY difficult to screw up. I also suppose it really depends on whether you're using Monsters straight out of the box or fixing them so they actually follow their own drat math. This was a huge issue with Monsters from MM1 and 2, where their attacks and defenses were obscenely high and didn't follow the formulas as laid out in the DMG. As a GM I ALWAYS double check the Attack/Defenses of the Monster by cross-referencing it with the formula, and if it doesn't follow it, I fix it immediately (The defenses are ALWAYS higher if erroneous I notice). The Monsters in MM3 generally have fixed this issue, but a few have definitely slipped through the cracks. It's also good to point this out to any GM who DOESN'T know this so they can keep an eye on it or any GM that is first starting out. In terms of how GMs play monsters, it depends highly on combat encounter tactics for said monsters. You have to weigh the benefit to ignoring the Mark vs. not ignoring the Mark. Minions generally should never ignore a Mark because it usually means they get squicked immediately. More often than not, depending on party makeup and how well they work tactically together, whenever any kind of Marking comes into play, a monster is pinned between a lose/lose situation regardless, which is kind of the point of Marking in the first place. Edit: It might also just be because every group I've GMed for or played with has been extremely tactics oriented. As in, specifically building characters in a natural way that compliments the other party members and helps each other do better than were they working on their own. In 4E this is extremely easy to do without sacrificing character concept, and generally tends to make combats run efficiently when everyone knows what everyone else is going to do and formulates a plan together. Might actually share the story of "Team Divine" in the cat-piss thread; the Level 21 Party that took down a Level 35 Solo Monster in 3 Rounds because the entire team was built to perfection. Agent Boogeyman fucked around with this message at 21:07 on May 20, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 20:14
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An extra 10% of your attacks doing 0 damage and having no effect certainly can't be a problem. No siree. I can't see any problems there. Just work better as a team!
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May 20, 2014 21:50
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At wills, anyways. Plenty of other attacks do stuff on miss, but yeah I don't know why you'd ever be okay with less than an 18 in your primary.
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May 20, 2014 21:51
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