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Really Pants posted:Just be a Monk. 
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Sep 18, 2014 21:48
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Chaotic Neutral posted:Then use Firewind Blade to repeatedly trigger fire vulnerability, and.. Firewind blade is the most busted thing. I swear whoever designed that item either was 1) An idiot or 2)A powergamer from hell. . . . . . . . . . . . I love Firewind Blades.
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Sep 18, 2014 21:54
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Chaotic Neutral posted:No, but it's called out as being a damage roll, which is what makes it independent. It is not a modification to a damage roll, or a bonus, or extra damage. It is a damage roll. That has very definite meaning, since a damage roll is what all those bonuses and modifiers stick to. Damage rolls don't deal damage. Attacks deal damage. Attacks often use damage rolls to determine how much damage they deal. Here's the definite meaning of being, specifically, a "damage roll": damage rolls can benefit from bonuses to damage rolls. That's it. That's what's special about damage rolls - they can do the thing that Assassin's Shroud explicitly can't do. Otherwise, a damage roll is a general, commonplace means used as part of calculating damage - the mere fact of its existence doesn't otherwise cause anything to happen. For instance, the bonus damage inflicted by a sneak attack is calculated with......................... ...a damage roll. You roll dice, to determine a sneak attack's damage. If there was a thing that said it gave you a bonus to sneak attack damage, it would work, because damage rolls can enjoy bonuses. In fact, there is such a thing: quote:Brutal Scoundrel "Independent" isn't a game term. RC 222 has absolutely nothing to do with Assassin's Shroud, because Assassin's Shroud explicitly negates the one thing RC 222 tells us about damage rolls that has any kind of declarative force. Incidentally, I think there's a very strong argument to be made that RC 222 is a mistake - that it was only supposed to tell us that Come and Get It applies bonus damage to each target, but not that Twin Strike applies bonus damage to the same target twice - but that's another discussion entirely. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 21:56
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Chaotic Neutral posted:thespaceinvader... You raaaang? The second part is pretty accurate. Assassins are pretty terrible even in a lightly optimised party, unless you read two elements (Black Flame Form and shrouds as separate damage instances) in a decidedly lawyerish way. Annd even then, they struggle unless you put a LOT of work into opping them, especially compared to Rangers, which are opping on easy mode - just taking things which give extra attacks. I come down on the side of 'give assassins everything they need to be effective even if it's lawyerish', but not firmly so. But yeah, the rabbit hole is deep, and to be avoided IME. Play an executioner instead, they work a lot better and with less fiddling. Or just play a Rogue. E: and yeah, Firewind Blades are hilarious. I still haven't tried an FWB character, but I kind of want to.
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Sep 18, 2014 22:02
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Madmarker posted:Firewind blade is the most busted thing. I swear whoever designed that item either was 1) An idiot or 2)A powergamer from hell.
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Sep 18, 2014 22:04
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How is the Assassin for hybriding?
Nihilarian fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 22:11
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Hybrid assassin actually dodges one of the limitations on hybrid strikers because you can stack shrouds while being a defender (or whatever) and then trigger them all during one striker turn.
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Sep 18, 2014 22:12
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Of course, Hybrid Assassin also dumps all the features that make it less worthless into the Hybrid Talent toilet, leaving you with an anemic striker feature and shoddy proficiencies, so.. roll Hybrid Executioner instead. As for the rest, I'm not really keen on any interpretation that drags other mainstay powers into doubt retroactively. Ultimately, this is all meaningless because the real solution is to just recast Shrouds as extra damage and let the first attack each turn apply a Shroud, as you said. And then invent a bunch of feat support for Assassin. And even then you'll still just want to be an Executioner.
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Sep 18, 2014 22:21
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I mean, I wouldn't be keen on acknowledging that I'd been cheating out extra damage for the past two years or something either, but frankly there's no surprise at all that huge chunks of commonly-accepted charop turn out to consist entirely of smoke and mirrors. It's a calling that runs on getting the idea that something works and then becoming excited about it. These orthodoxies are powerfully self-reinforcing. Also, 4e's actual rules teach you to think in those terms because of how special damage rolls end up being because of a single innocent-looking line of rules text. Any 4e player knows that a power that deals 1d4+100 damage is insanely, tremendously, brutally superior to a power that deals 105 damage, even though a normal person can plainly see that the latter yields a higher sum. Making 4e characters, you become so myopically focused on finding and sequencing together as many staggered XdYs as you possibly can that you start to see damage rolls themselves as characters in the game, imbued with fierce vitality and boundless potential. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 22:35
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There are mountains of precedent and CustServ rulings on this matter and many similar conflicts, some of which are openly contradictory, some of which were overwritten by errata or the advent of the RC, some of which stand alone in isolation as weird mountains of rules interactions, and some of which have just been lost to the sands of time and Wizards changing their forums for the 15th time. The "actual rules" rarely so clear as you might like. Or heavily imply, as the case may be.
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Sep 18, 2014 22:47
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No, the actual rules are pretty clear. They're not as rigorous as they look like they're supposed to be - despite the fact that it has a giant pile of fiddly, interacting exceptions, 4e doesn't have anything like Magic: the Gathering's ruthless consistency - but there's a difference between being uncertain of how to resolve something and actually making up and promulgating nonexistent rules for the sake of making some gimmick work. There are confusing edge cases in 4e, but the Assassin isn't one of them. For your sake and mine I am going to pretend I did not just read "CustServ" in your post.
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Sep 18, 2014 23:04
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If the rules were pretty clear we would not have just had an page-long argument about it. Posts like the original one about shrouds would not exist. Before that, the RC would never have been necessary. Nor some major errata changes, or many of the endless appeals to ~CustServ~. Yes, I'm aware of their notoriously incorrect rulings on just about everything, but hey, it is what it is. Sometimes 'what it is' happens to be the only clear take available on a given mechanic. Anyway, given that I'm not inclined to change my opinion here, and it doesn't look like you are either, and we both agree on the solution, mind if we drop it and let people draw their own conclusions from the entire page of presented text and move on to something more interesting?
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Sep 18, 2014 23:14
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I conclude Ferrinus is correct! Ten points to Hufflepuff. For real though, RIP Assassins, your shrouds are gimmicky poo poo for RP Reasons and should be reskinned Hunter's Quarry dice.
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Sep 18, 2014 23:21
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We didn't have a page-long argument because of unclear rules. We had a page-long argument because of tradition and inertia. Some number of years ago, someone who really wanted to squeeze out extra DPR decided to make up new rules for themselves, and the thing they made up was superficially similar enough to actual rules (specifically, in a game in which damage rolls already had one really good unique property, Patient Zero posited that damage rolls had a second, separate really good unique property) that other people were willing to swallow it because charop is fun. You said it yourself - at the end of the day, you don't want "mainstay" powers to fall into doubt.
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Sep 18, 2014 23:23
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Or you can continue insisting that I am some sort of Char-Op Traditionalist who cheats and makes up rules, that's cool too, I guess.
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Sep 18, 2014 23:30
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If you, mechanically, had to sum up what a class is good at in a few sentences (stuff like "sorcerers are good at area blast damage" and "fighters are good at keeping your opponents in one place" and "vampires are bad and such (hoho)), what would you write? I'm thinking of just using 4e as a tactical combat engine, stripping out all flavor and such before houseruling a bunch of stuff.
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Sep 18, 2014 23:34
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Prison Warden posted:If you, mechanically, had to sum up what a class is good at in a few sentences (stuff like "sorcerers are good at area blast damage" and "fighters are good at keeping your opponents in one place" and "vampires are bad and such (hoho)), what would you write? Warlocks (hexblade) are good at: Dealing very consistent damage from short/melee range while gaining moderate status bonuses and occasionally imposing mild status effect penalties. Monks are good at: Dealing moderate damage to one target or a cluster of targets in melee range, and repositioning themselves and enemies throughout combat. As examples of the classes I've played the most, that spring to mind. However! Our very own Jimbozig is doing something kinda-like-this, in his game, Strike! http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3656713 which owns.
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Sep 18, 2014 23:55
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Both sides of this argument are dumb and spergy but if I had to pick one it would be the one that actually lets assassins Kill Things.
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Sep 18, 2014 23:56
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Warlords are force multipliers. They make a party with good attacks use those good attacks more often, when people use action points they also get substantial buffs, if they're not in the right place they will be soon, and if people are too busy getting stabbed to fight then they can heal them right back up. Warlords are good at Making Punching Happen. Wardens are walls of meat. Really tempting walls of meat. They have huge HP pools, several ways to recover it and tons of powers based around drawing people in and keeping them there. Wardens are good at turning battlefields into horrible quagmires where the only good choice is hitting the warden. Warlocks are evil persistent bastards. They throw out a relatively consistent stream of damage and mild-to-painful disabling effects from range, while at the same time being loving impossible to ever hit or lock down since they will always be A) concealed B) teleporting all over the place and C) gaining ridiculous bonuses to defense through blinding powers or warlock magic items. Also they have some of the coolest and most unique status effects. Warlocks are good at Hurting Without Being Hurt. Warpriests are versatile leaders. Depending on the domain they choose they will be doing a variety of different things from granting extra attacks to imposing vulnerability to buffing ranged parties to inflicting heavy auto damage. What they all have in common is relatively beefy defenses, decent HP, a variety of self buffs and access to all of the cleric's incredible healing powers. They're like paladins with more focus on healing over punishment. Warpriests are good at Healing And Punching.
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Sep 19, 2014 00:09
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Cerepol posted:Anyone run Zeitgeist in this thread? Was thinking about running it for my group and was wondering if there is anything I should know off the bat about it. Been reading through the players guide and about to start the Campaign guide. I do also realize it's not done and they are taking their sweet time to finish it I have not yet, buy our DM is interested in possibly running it with us! ... After our current Scales of War campaign is finished. ... We just hit level 19. But I still have a character all planned out already  Cindersoul Genasi Shielding Swordmage Vekesh. Even at level 1, he's making me think, "this guy looks like he'll be so fun to play, but geez I really hope the DM will forgive me for it."That does lead me to a question, though. I'm planning to give him a Rapier as a weapon. Would doing so lock me out of any cool Heavy Blade properties/feats/powers/etc.? I'm taking Intelligent Blademaster at level 1, for the record. Prison Warden posted:If you, mechanically, had to sum up what a class is good at in a few sentences (stuff like "sorcerers are good at area blast damage" and "fighters are good at keeping your opponents in one place" and "vampires are bad and such (hoho)), what would you write? Brawler Fighters: Single-target lockdown incarnate. They beeline for the largest opponent on the battlefield, chokeslam them into the floor, and bash their head in while pinning them in place and screaming bloody murder at them. Tactical Warlords: Battlefield computers with weapons. They dance around a target while poking it with pointy sticks, pointing out weaknesses and vulnerabilities for allies to exploit, and will frequently trick their enemies into creating such openings directly. ? Psions: DISHEARTEN DISHEARTEN DISHEARTEN DISHEARTEN DISHEARTEN Infernal Pact Warlocks: Everyone is different. No two people are not on fire. Also, using demonic powers to fling people around the room while running around as a hard-to-hit cloud of ashen smoke. ? Rangers: You shoot about a million arrows per turn. Serene Blade Runepriests: Nigh-perpetual fields of constantly changing fiddly little bonuses (which are very helpful when you remember them). Also protected by a constantly-regenerating buffer of Temp HP. Dragonborn Paladin: I BREATHE FIRE ON IT AND THEN HIT IT WITH MY AXE Sword and Board Fighter: Completely ignores ranged attacks while tripping and slowing anyone unfortunate enough to end up nearby. ? Avenger: Select a specific target. Then hunt them down forever and don't stop stabbing them with super-accurate holy vengeance and light until they're dead. Any time anybody crits, things start escalating. Wild Mage Sorcerer: "Okay, so I know I'm starting my turn stunned, but my unconscious body rises up anyway like a puppet on strings. First I summon a burst of icy fangs to devour those enemies, then I turn into a coyote made out of lightning, and run through this group of minions here... Hit, hit, miss, crit, hit, mi- Oops." "Oh god drat it, Lucan; what did you do this time?" (Serious answer, area burst effects with no or okay bonuses on odds, and good or fantastic bonuses on evens. And some REALLY weird utilities.)
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Sep 19, 2014 01:33
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AXE COP posted:
And DWARF Wardens are twice as good as any other warden  Minor action second wind to trigger their class ability, extra surges and HP from dwarven durability. Plus beards. Mr Beens fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 03:19
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Mr Beens posted:And DWARF Wardens or twice as good as any other warden That's not how you spell Warforged, Having minor action second wind can't compare with being a freaking beastwars transformer.
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Sep 19, 2014 04:44
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Ferrinus posted:We didn't have a page-long argument because of unclear rules. We had a page-long argument because of tradition and inertia. Some number of years ago, someone who really wanted to squeeze out extra DPR decided to make up new rules for themselves, and the thing they made up was superficially similar enough to actual rules (specifically, in a game in which damage rolls already had one really good unique property, Patient Zero posited that damage rolls had a second, separate really good unique property) that other people were willing to swallow it because charop is fun. You said it yourself - at the end of the day, you don't want "mainstay" powers to fall into doubt. Tradition and Inertia? Please, spare me. The main problem with 4e, and this is as someone who loves the system, is that it is a poorly proofread system with very specific meanings for certain phrases, that then promptly either ignores the use of those defined terms and at the same time has very vague sections with conflicting meanings as well. A key example is the word "Attack" is an "Attack": A) A attack power. b)An attack roll. c)A Damage roll and all its effects. D) All of the above, depending on the book you are reading The answer of course is D. Combine this with phrasings that misuse defined game terms, or try and redefine them in the middle of the power, as in the shroud example, causes the vagaries we saw in the shroud example. Second, even in the most permissive interpretation of shrouds, the shroud assassin is only raised to slightly above benchmark dpr, still utterly playable, but nowhere near the insanity other classess can generate, without any hyper-legalistic interpretations of the rules. Hell a Revenant-Genasi Werebear/Battlemind/Morninglord/Radiant One with a Firewind Blade does such insane amounts of damage its staggering and relegates the assassin to the novelty bin. A archer-ranger elf using frost greatbow similarly deals crazy amounts of damage, less than the above Battlemind though, with simply stuff printed in the players handbook. Then there are rebreather sorcerors that just negate entire encounters on their own. Madmarker fucked around with this message at 13:38 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 13:30
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OH MY GOD WOULD YOU ALL SHUT UP
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Sep 19, 2014 13:32
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I really liked playing a minotaur warden.
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Sep 19, 2014 14:19
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Nihilarian posted:I really liked playing a minotaur. I'm not much on warden's but there is something udderly awesome about minotaurs. Their build options aren't to labyrinthine to figure out, but still solid. Besides, who can forget the awesome work of the minotaur writer and politician, Gore Vital, who was able to milk his words for all they were worth. Though, not to put to sharp a point on it, his reputation for hornedness preceded him wherever he went. That being said, his toughness was certainly proven when he last hoofed it along the Aegean Way. It never seemed to matter what troubles he faced, or how far up poo poo's Crete he was, he would never have a cow, and would never hide, but bull forward as only he could. . . . . . . . . . . Moo. Madmarker fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 14:29
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ElegantFugue posted:Brawler Fighters: Single-target lockdown incarnate. They beeline for the largest opponent on the battlefield, chokeslam them into the floor, and bash their head in while pinning them in place and screaming bloody murder at them. Both of these are me! He forgot the part where that brawler fighter was basically unkillable and managed to resist most auras on the things he was wrasslin'. Done correctly, a dwarf Fighter/Dwarven Defender is effectively immune to forced movement and can have access to roughly 7 of his 15 healing surges in a given fight, more with the right items. Basically dwarves own, is what I'm getting at.
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Sep 19, 2014 16:08
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Madmarker posted:The answer of course is D. Combine this with phrasings that misuse defined game terms, or try and redefine them in the middle of the power, as in the shroud example, causes the vagaries we saw in the shroud example. The answer isn't D because a damage roll isn't an attack. That's one of the biggest points of confusion here - damage rolls aren't independently-acting characters with agencies and initiative totals. The attempted "fix" for the assassin, and no doubt a bunch of the top tier killer builds within the charop canon, are founded on wishes and sawdust. Like, at this point I'd be shocked if it turned out that whatever the Firewind Blade gimmick is doesn't lose a good 25% of its damage if it stops making game rules up. (My theory is that it relies on confusing the boundary between "power" and "property" but I haven't looked into it) This stuff doesn't actually help the assassin, because it just piles bucketloads of unearned bonus damage into the laps of other, non-assassin classes and also mandates that would-be assassin players perform those same contortions - but with a bunch of annoying restrictions, because the good old Damage Bonus, freely available to rangers and rogues and so on, is crippled in the assassin's hands.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:41
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Dude, the 4e charop peops tear each others' throats out when they get a rule wrong. The DPR/KPR kings thread was full of debates and people ripping builds to shreds. They're not some insular cabal determined to interpret things in the most broken way possible. I'm not going to comment on the shroud debate because it was done to death like 3 years ago and the assassin is still poo poo no matter what the ruling. Try to find the old threads regarding it on the wotc forums if you like, but it really does not matter because no one plays this horrible class.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:53
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FWIW, Firewind Blade definitely works, but is only really super-broken because of hideous stupidity at Epic (Radiant One/Morninglord, or Elemental Warlock). In the hands of someone not loving about with vulnerabilities, it's a nice chunk of extra damage roughly akin to Lasting Frost only without the setup round.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:57
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Generic Octopus posted:Dude, the 4e charop peops tear each others' throats out when they get a rule wrong. The DPR/KPR kings thread was full of debates and people ripping builds to shreds. They're not some insular cabal determined to interpret things in the most broken way possible. I'm sure they've had plenty of debates, but in an ironic parallel to 4e itself those debates have produced the illusion of rigor, not actual rigor. There are clearly widely-agreed-upon concepts and rules tricks floating around contemporary charop canon that are just... made-up. Their strict legalism just plain wasn't strict or legalistic enough, but in such a way as to favor, rather than quash, their ideas.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:01
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Ferrinus posted:I'm sure they've had plenty of debates, but in an ironic parallel to 4e itself those debates have produced the illusion of rigor, not actual rigor. There are clearly widely-agreed-upon concepts and rules tricks floating around contemporary charop canon that are just... made-up. Their strict legalism just plain wasn't strict or legalistic enough, but in such a way as to favor, rather than quash, their ideas. TBF, (and I don't often agree with you) this is very true. A lot of the rules on which CharOp operates are consensus interpretations of unclear rules, rather than rules themselves. I REALLY wish 4e's rules had been written and edited more systematically.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:16
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I mean, I'm not unsympathetic here. 4e writes a lot of checks it almost can, but actually can't, cash, and it's in the nature of roleplaying groups (even giant, forums-wide roleplaying groups) to settle into informal canons. Like I said, 4e strongly encourages you to impute a lot of power and consequence to the simple fact of a lowercase D existing between two integers.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:35
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OK, confession time. I really wish the Invoker in the party I'm currently DMing for would go back to being a ranger. Between monstrous damage and fiddly bullshit I have to track on all my monsters, I'll take the monstrous DPR every time. I wonder how many potential 4e-lovers were put off by tracking fiddly bullshit (and how many were put off trying to play the game without power cards)
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Sep 19, 2014 20:07
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Fiddly bullshit is the one thing that really makes me fear DMing 4e at anything faster than play-by-post speed. I have no idea how you'd keep track of everything without a battle log to work through at your own pace. e: and I really like DMing 4e, I just can't see doing it face to face at all.
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Sep 19, 2014 20:13
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Gort posted:OK, confession time. I really wish the Invoker in the party I'm currently DMing for would go back to being a ranger. Between monstrous damage and fiddly bullshit I have to track on all my monsters, I'll take the monstrous DPR every time. I'm sure a few were, but I think the larger issue was the lack of support 4e had compared to Pathfinder. Pathfinder was a very easy continuation of 3.5 and Paizo actually supported there player base and DM's quite well, wheres WOTC did not. Pathfinder consistently releases new modules very frequently, whereas 4e definitely suffered in that regard.
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Sep 19, 2014 20:13
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Madmarker posted:I'm sure a few were, but I think the larger issue was the lack of support 4e had compared to Pathfinder. Pathfinder was a very easy continuation of 3.5 and Paizo actually supported there player base and DM's quite well, wheres WOTC did not. Pathfinder consistently releases new modules very frequently, whereas 4e definitely suffered in that regard. At least for part of it, 4e had Dungeon pumping out content every month, which Pathfinder does not. It has parts of it in various ways (the back matter in Adventure Paths, monthly Player Companions, etc) but nothing like the magazines.
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Sep 19, 2014 20:16
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Arivia posted:Fiddly bullshit is the one thing that really makes me fear DMing 4e at anything faster than play-by-post speed. I have no idea how you'd keep track of everything without a battle log to work through at your own pace. I was lucky enough to find a set of Gale Force 9's DM tokens at my FLGS and they have been enormously helpful.
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Sep 19, 2014 20:19
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Arivia posted:Fiddly bullshit is the one thing that really makes me fear DMing 4e at anything faster than play-by-post speed. I have no idea how you'd keep track of everything without a battle log to work through at your own pace. e: I used to, in high epic levels no less, but all it did was teach me that life's too short. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 20:21
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| # ? May 9, 2024 13:37 |
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I think the shrouds-as-separate-damage instance is dumb if only because it requires you to optimize the assassin in a very narrow and specific (and unintuitive) way. Like usually I come to a board like this to answer a question about whether a character class is poo poo based on some poor noob who wants to play one in my game and I'm not going to hand him a binder full of acceptable options that narrowly work within the confines of an ambiguous ruling. Houseruling the assassin is both easier and more fun.
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Sep 19, 2014 20:23
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