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Reinboom
2009-04-27, 07:34 PM
To get straight to the point:
http://pifro.com/IncarnistPREVIEW3.pdf

And older versions:
http://pifro.com/IncarnistPREVIEW2.pdf
http://pifro.com/IncarnistPREVIEW.pdf

This is available up to level 10 currently. I have a significant portion beyond that done, however, it is not playtested nor as complete as I would like and will take awhile to release, as I have yet to grasp an appropriate balance perception upon higher level play.

The original ideas behind this include:
My "Utility" class, that doesn't need to attack. And indeed, it is possible to make a build that doesn't require an attack roll. Extensive research went in to trying to figure out expected functions and damage for this.

Multi-role, I wanted this to fill in two roles slightly, while working best in combination with others from either of those roles. To be the 5th leg.

And a weird little figurine I saw in the game store I work for, of a woman with tentacles ripping from her back and a demon head for a hand.

To have a class that fit the concept of a character I'm currently playing.


I am currently playing Celestia/Hell origin in a campaign. Balancing is affected by this.


So...
PEACH? :smalltongue:

Lappy9000
2009-04-27, 10:15 PM
Impressive. Very impressive indeed!

From my (extremely) limited knowledge of Fourth Edition, I can tell you've put a metric ton of hard work into this. It certainly looks like it does a fine job of making itself into another unique niche.

Beyond that, however, I'm not really qualified to critique.

FdL
2009-04-28, 11:32 PM
Pretty much an unique take on the role. It looks really fun to play, besides being a varied class according to build, with a strong unifying identity mechanic and fluff wise. We need more classes like this one.

More comments later when I read more on it. I recommend everyone to do so, it's quite interesting. Kinda like a warlock, but not.

Ceiling009
2009-04-29, 01:19 AM
I don't like Agony Barbs. Not on aesthetic level in a sense, but rather the auto-hit option is rather... no. It's an auto minion killer. Which is kinda ridiculous; even if it does that punitive damage. From the quick glance I've taken... I don't know what else to make of it, but Agony Barbs needs a bit of a change.

Reverent-One
2009-04-29, 01:58 AM
First off, I think it does look like a very cool class, and it's an interesting idea.

I've really only looked at a little of it in depth, so I'll start with what I've examined, the origins. You choose two origins to begin with and you get both their Presence/focus powers, correct? And any future power you get has to come from one of their two origins? The having two origins thing kinda throws me off to begin with, so you're with say, Celestia AND the Shadowfell... Granted, your origins are not literally where you are from but where you draw your power, but it still doesn't exactly feel right to me. Also, the being limited to powers in the two origins you pick at the beginning really restricts your character, I think.

The Celestia presence almost feels weak to me at level one, but healing is healing and it ramps up quickly, so it's all good. The only problem I have with the Elemental Focus is that you don't have a whole lot of choices for powers of the different elemental types, at least not from what I've seen skimming over the first few levels. The Hell Presence seems to do too little damage, perhaps a d4 at level 1, going to d6, then d8, then 2d4, ect, you're a leader/controller, you're not supposed to be up in melee range that much after all. And I see the Shadowfell Presence as "Your allies get 10 temporary hit points when you roll initiative." In the games I've played, I don't know if I can think of a time when the players haven't been within 10 squares of each other at the beginning of a battle. I'd limit it to adjacency, and even then, reduce it to starting at 5 temp HP.

Reinboom
2009-04-29, 02:51 AM
I don't like Agony Barbs. Not on aesthetic level in a sense, but rather the auto-hit option is rather... no. It's an auto minion killer. Which is kinda ridiculous; even if it does that punitive damage. From the quick glance I've taken... I don't know what else to make of it, but Agony Barbs needs a bit of a change.

I have rarely seen minions not come in packs, or meant for other functions, such as you throwing out an action just to get rid of it.
For action wasters: Good, it did its job.
For packs: Agony Barbs is entirely inefficient. Compare it to, say, Scorching Burst (wizard) and assuming 2 to 3 minions are in the burst (reasonable in my experiences). By simple averages, scorching burst is incredibly more efficient at this job.

Now, there are attacks that do worry me (and I'll be watching very closely, as, I'll be using them) that they might cause a minion issue.
One of these, I had to outright declare an exception for (Storming Meteor).
The current power on watch is Deleterious Escutcheon (Celestia), for autodamage-ability.
Agony Barbs, however, has not proved to be one of these troublesome powers.


First off, I think it does look like a very cool class, and it's an interesting idea.

I've really only looked at a little of it in depth, so I'll start with what I've examined, the origins. You choose two origins to begin with and you get both their Presence/focus powers, correct? And any future power you get has to come from one of their two origins? The having two origins thing kinda throws me off to begin with, so you're with say, Celestia AND the Shadowfell... Granted, your origins are not literally where you are from but where you draw your power, but it still doesn't exactly feel right to me. Also, the being limited to powers in the two origins you pick at the beginning really restricts your character, I think.

The Celestia presence almost feels weak to me at level one, but healing is healing and it ramps up quickly, so it's all good. The only problem I have with the Elemental Focus is that you don't have a whole lot of choices for powers of the different elemental types, at least not from what I've seen skimming over the first few levels. The Hell Presence seems to do too little damage, perhaps a d4 at level 1, going to d6, then d8, then 2d4, ect, you're a leader/controller, you're not supposed to be up in melee range that much after all. And I see the Shadowfell Presence as "Your allies get 10 temporary hit points when you roll initiative." In the games I've played, I don't know if I can think of a time when the players haven't been within 10 squares of each other at the beginning of a battle. I'd limit it to adjacency, and even then, reduce it to starting at 5 temp HP.

Having two quite separate origins is strange, yes. However, this is intended more as a opening for different character models and less as strict as the fluff, of course, I'm used to players re describing their characters away from their class quickly. In short, I was hoping the class provide more of a model (and this is why I supplied a simple refluffing example at the end of the pdf).
It is difficult to change this now, given how much work was poured in to this.

On the two origin limit... it's not as restrictive as you may imagine, except when picking utilities, from what I've felt. Usually, when playing a different class, stats have restricted me down to about 2 choices already, and this is just making that obvious.
Now, this is before considering the X Power books, which, I simply can not compete with as just a single person designing in such short amount of times. I am trying to double over as much as I can, though.

For the Celestia presence: This and the hell presence has proven /slightly/ weak mid game, and has been adjusted with much the same thought. They both have been entirely increased by 1 more point of healing. Further testing will come after this.

On the shadow presence: I have not been able to properly test this, so... yes, it's probably overpowered. This class does, however, exclude the standard "word" for leaders, and it was intended to sort of make up for that. Because of this, yes I will probably drop everything by 5.
The 10 range is intentional. I wanted it to include most/all your allies for that combat, while excluding allies from the neighboring city or sniping.


Elemental origin has proved difficult to define as unique away from the sorcerer and wizard, and without turning it in to a striker origin. And thus, has been difficult to design for.
Any hints towards ideas to fix that would be greatly appreciated.

Edit:
Before I forget, thank you for the critique, and also, thank you to those who just outright liked it. :smalltongue:

Ninetail
2009-05-02, 03:26 PM
It's a good idea, but it's overpowered as hell. No pun intended.

At will auto-hit for ongoing 3? Might not seem like much, but a lot of leader/controller at-wills only do 1d6 or so -- so you have about the same average damage, but without the need to roll an attack, and you'll keep doing that same damage without further effort until the target makes a save?

An at-will close burst 3 that inflicts a -2 to all enemies' defenses and doesn't require an attack roll? That's quite strong, especially at lower levels.

Revel the Cadaver inflicts dazed (save ends) on an encounter power. Save-ends effects on encounter powers are extremely rare, and daze is a powerful status condition. This should be a daily power.

Shrouds of Hell is a utility power, not an attack power, and probably belongs at level 2. It doesn't even vaguely resemble an attack.

Contract in Blood and Earthly Embrace are encounter power buffs that last until the end of the encounter. That means they're always up. Probably not a good idea. Make them dailies, or limit their durations to a round.

Nupperibo Ruination inflicts blinded (save ends) on a level 3 encounter power.

Flashfreeze: Another auto-hit encounter power, this time with an area effect (close burst 5). At least it only auto-hits bloodied targets, but I think that's still a little much.

Infernal Debt: Another encounter power that inflicts a status until the end of the encounter. Wouldn't be so bad if part of its effect wasn't a -2 to saves; saving throws are one of the few non-scaling mechanics of the game, so bonuses or penalties to them, especially unnamed ones, are a big deal.

Basically, in general it's a bad idea to inflict automatic damage in large amounts, to put (save ends) on encounter powers (aside from the occasional ongoing damage, or perhaps very weak status effects on higher-level powers), or to have encounter powers last until the end of the encounter (most should end at the start or end of your or the target's next turn).

Reinboom
2009-07-06, 03:12 AM
Oh dear, I missed Ninetail's post completely!
:smallfrown:
Sorry

Anyways, I've returned with a decent sized fix to this class of mine.

First, I took Ceiling009's post to a little more consideration and tried tipping Agony of Barbs back and forth. Putting a slow instead of dropping requirement under test, as well as other ideas.
Ultimately, it went back to similar to how it originally was, though adjusted some more. Mostly due to noticing the Wizard has an auto-hit at will that drops Minions without notice, and, has the chance of dropping more than 1 if well placed (Cloud of Daggers).

Next, to reply to Ninetail:
In playing (actively), it has actually proven to be consistently underpowered, though rather difficult to adjust.
First, to auto-hit ongoing 3 (Agony Barbs):
You forgot to calculate that most controllers do NOT do 1d6 or so damage. Rather, 1d6 + [Modifier]. The modifier alone is greater than 1d6's average. Further, most attacks of this nature hit multiple targets.

On Soul's Shackles: It was slightly good, though, not very overpowered. It has been adjusted down to a single chosen defense due to specific interactions. However, the average damage it provides from comboing with other attacks... is not as high as you would imagine.

On the Revel the Cadaver... it deals no damage, is target exclusive, the save roll against it steadily decreases... in practice, this has proven to be very /not/ overpowered. When it has been kept, it has been due to other power interactions and because it is commonly good on the first round of combat to hold a single target back. Usually, what occurs, is the target just delays. Now, something to comment on is the combat advantage it provides. That requires more testing, however.

You are right on shrouds of hell. It has been scrapped.

On earthly embrace and contract in blood: "Probably not a good idea" shows not considering what they actually do. Both of them play as constant at-will and minor abilities. Which... is basically what they are intended to do. Just, because of how they work, I had to write them as they are now.
Contract in Blood, for example, is only a "Give up a utility power slot and get the ability to get a small bonus (overall) to diplomacy checks in specific situations." Setting these to daily effectively makes them worthless.

Your statement on Nupperibo Ruination treats that as a bad thing without describing the entire power.
Nupperibo Ruination inflicts blinded (save ends) if the enemies hold their movement while adjacent to you after an entire round of warning. On a level 3 encounter.
In practice, this has done /exactly/ what is was intended to do. "Get the hell away from me." I have only seen 1 enemy blinded with this version of this ruination. This was because it was already stunned.

On flashfreeze, restricting its auto hit to bloodied means it, usually, doesn't touch minions. Otherwise, it still does less than your average area of effect controller encounter at level 7. I see no problem here.

Infernal Debt is also a melee attack on a nonhigh hp character, that can't use proficiency to hit bonuses given by weapons, still hits AC, and has a rather easy to perform condition in which to remove it, that can easily be accomplished before the next time the target has to make a saving throws.
Once again, no problem here. In theory or in practice.

Basically, in general, a greater study of the game both in play and in theory is required. Especially noting that most of these 'rules' and guidelines have already been broken by Wizards.

All that said, the new PDF:
http://pifro.com/IncarnistPREVIEW2.pdf

Yakk
2009-07-06, 09:29 AM
WotC is moving away from V shaped classes. Build an A shaped class. It was a wise decision for WotC, and it will reduce the amount of work you have to do significantly.

Secondly, I'd advise doing a playtest of one build first.

The origins: Good idea, but do you really need to limit it to "only X"? Instead, just toss on bonus effects if you have a particular planar origin. Use one primary attribute, and then a different secondary attribute for each origin.

This does a few things. First, it means that members of your class can use the powers of your class at least as well as members of other classes can. And together with allowing you to use powers from other origins (not as well), it reduces the amount of power-spam you have to put out to give every build a decent collection of choices.

...

Agony Barbs: Change it to "This creates a zone of Agony Barbs that lasts until the end of your next turn. The first enemy to move into or out of a square in the zone, or attack while in the zone, takes ongoing [stat] ongoing [elemental] damage (save ends). This increases to 5+[stat] at level 21. The second enemy to move into or out of the zone or make an attack takes [secondary stat] damage. "

This turns it into action denial or auto-hit damage. And creates the wonderful image of agonizing barbs hovering over the flesh of every opponent in the zone, waiting for them to do anything...

...

Divine Wind. Make it +[secondary stat] to AC if it is of the right origin. And maybe change it to a basic attack as a free interrupt?

Hailstone: Special only works if you are of the right origin, and it adds +secondary stat to the damage instead of upping the damage die. And maybe drop the -2 to attack (because that makes the secondary option very questionable).

Mark of Purity: If you lack the origin, the save only happens if you hit. If you have the origin, it also happens if you miss. And maybe drop the damage die 1 size.

Shadow Convulsion: Grant a bonus equal to your secondary stat to damage if you have the origin.

Soul's Shackles: Burst 2 if you lack the origin, Burst [secondary stat] if you have the origin.

Storming Meteor: The zone allows a secondary attack if you lack the origin to deal [secondary stat] mod damage. If you have the origin, the secondary attack deals [secondary stat] mod damage on a miss as well.

...

See what I intended to do? I'm not sure it is needed for the at-will powers, but the idea is that you can have 1 primary stat, 1 secondary stat that is important, and grant bonuses if you match the origin that leaves the power as being useful.

This creates more choice from players without having to craft as many powers.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-06, 10:59 AM
WotC is moving away from V shaped classes. Build an A shaped class. It was a wise decision for WotC, and it will reduce the amount of work you have to do significantly.

I haven't followed WotC's 4e articles much; is the V-shaped vs. A-shaped classes analogy one the designers made, and what exactly does that mean?

Mando Knight
2009-07-06, 12:19 PM
I haven't followed WotC's 4e articles much; is the V-shaped vs. A-shaped classes analogy one the designers made, and what exactly does that mean?

V-shaped is the Cleric, the Paladin, and the Ranger: The class has powers that use two different stats for attack rolls. Strength is somewhat weaker for all three than their other main stat, BTW. (TWF Rangers lose out on AC unless they invest in Constitution and armor or they sacrifice Wisdom, Str Paladins have weaker Divine Challenges unless they sacrifice Wisdom, and Str Clerics don't heal their pals as much... unless they sacrifice Charisma.) The Warlock is the only V-shaped class that I can think of that doesn't have a Strength build... and most of the extra powers for Warlocks (from FRPG, Arcane Power, etc.) depend on Charisma, IIRC.

A-shaped means that there is only one attack stat, and two (or more *stares at Wizard*) secondary stats that provide bonuses to various powers and such. The Wizard, Rogue, Warlord, and Sorcerer are all good examples of these classes. They allow you to dabble in the other builds a lot easier, since they do not require second attribute to be a viable attack attribute, and it is easy to get a 14 or so in the extra attributes so you get a decent bonus from extra effects.

Yakk
2009-07-06, 12:37 PM
An A shaped class is a class with one primary "attack" attribute, and 2 (at least to start) secondary attributes that grant various secondary bonuses to powers.

A V shaped class is a class with two primary "attack" attributes, and one secondary attribute that grants various secondary bonuses to powers.

Ranger, Warlock, Paladin and Cleric are all V shaped classes.

Every other class is A shaped.

In some cases, A shaped classes get more than 2 secondary attributes. Fighters, Bards and Wizards all now have a wide selection of secondary attributes -- you can do an Int Cha Wizard, an Int Wis wizard, an Int Con wizard or an Int Dex wizard.

Bards got Wis as a possible secondary attribute in some recent material (I forgot what).

But the point of the A shaped class is that there is one stat that is expected to be high for the entire class. This has a bunch of advantages:

All powers from that class are usable by characters in that class. They might not be ideal, but they are usable. So they don't clutter up your class power list with powers that you auto-skip.

The secondary stat can grant either static bonuses to powers, or bonuses conditional on build. Practically the two are quite similar. WotC has been moving towards making sure that the power isn't dominated without the 'build-specific boost', and then the build-specific boost is just a neat little addition.

So instead of a power saying:
Hit: 3d6+Stat
Special: If you have build $foo, target is weakened (save ends).
it says:
Hit: 3d6+Stat and target is weakened until end of their next turn.
Special: If you have build $foo, the target is weakened (save ends).

Note that the power is usable if you lack the build, and contains the essential part of the power. If you have the build, it has a nice little upgrade.

In PHB 1, there where lots of powers that where just gimp without the Special.

Between building A-shaped classes (where your build determines what your secondary stat is), making sure that all powers worked for all members of your class (with extra bennies if you have the right build, or right secondary stats), they increase the 'yield', or return on design investment, on new powers.

With Paladins, you have to put forward 2 powers (one str, one cha) whenever you want to every Paladin player 1 more viable option.

With an A shaped class, all new powers are viable options.

Do this for your class, and instead of each origin having 1 daily/encounter power at each level, they will have 5+ options. Two of which they'll get bonuses for, but if they like neither, they can grab another one.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-06, 12:40 PM
V-shaped is the Cleric, the Paladin, and the Ranger: The class has powers that use two different stats for attack rolls.
[...]
A-shaped means that there is only one attack stat, and two (or more *stares at Wizard*) secondary stats that provide bonuses to various powers and such.

Interesting; I'd noted the differences between the two types when I perused the PHB, but I'd never heard it put quite that way before. Thanks.

Reinboom
2009-07-06, 02:12 PM
WotC is moving away from V shaped classes. Build an A shaped class. It was a wise decision for WotC, and it will reduce the amount of work you have to do significantly.
I prefer to think of my class as more of a の-Shaped class, or perhaps a (*^▽^*)-Shaped.


Secondly, I'd advise doing a playtest of one build first.
Huh?
I'm doing a major playtest/actually playing the class as a Celestia/Hell as I said in the first post. That is of one build.
I also do 'stress tests' for elemental and shadowfell - however - those are just there to hopefully provoke others to give them a shot and tweak them.
I believe that is doing a playtest at least focused towards 'one build'.


The origins: Good idea, but do you really need to limit it to "only X"? Instead, just toss on bonus effects if you have a particular planar origin. Use one primary attribute, and then a different secondary attribute for each origin.

This does a few things. First, it means that members of your class can use the powers of your class at least as well as members of other classes can. And together with allowing you to use powers from other origins (not as well), it reduces the amount of power-spam you have to put out to give every build a decent collection of choices.
Only X is a design attempt to test something Wizards isn't doing. Which, is much of the goal of the entire class.
Though, I'm being provoked of different ideas now.

Tangent:
How does this sound:
Primary stat: Intelligence.
Each origin designates a 'secondary' stat. Celestia would designate Charisma, Hell would... designate... something, Elemental : Constitution.
Then, have powers that directly call for your choice of one of your secondary stats / if / it's in origin.



Agony Barbs: Change it to "This creates a zone of Agony Barbs that lasts until the end of your next turn. The first enemy to move into or out of a square in the zone, or attack while in the zone, takes ongoing [stat] ongoing [elemental] damage (save ends). This increases to 5+[stat] at level 21. The second enemy to move into or out of the zone or make an attack takes [secondary stat] damage. "

This turns it into action denial or auto-hit damage. And creates the wonderful image of agonizing barbs hovering over the flesh of every opponent in the zone, waiting for them to do anything...

I like this. Thank you.


Other powers in consideration only with requiring to adjust the class more. Will refer back later.



This creates more choice from players without having to craft as many powers.

I want to craft many powers. I want it to be between externally as optional as a standard class + their [X] Power book and the normal book.
Eventually, preferably, as class to a full power book.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-06, 02:32 PM
Tangent:
How does this sound:
Primary stat: Intelligence.
Each origin designates a 'secondary' stat. Celestia would designate Charisma, Hell would... designate... something, Elemental : Constitution.
Then, have powers that directly call for your choice of one of your secondary stats / if / it's in origin.

If I understand this correctly, you're saying that a Celestia/Hells build would have Int primary and Cha and Str (for instance) secondary, and whenever you use a Celestia or Hells power, you would gain the secondary effect using your choice of either Cha or Str for it? If that's the case, I think that would work very well; it's a nice break from the usual without being too weird, and ensures that different origins aren't pigeonholed into different builds when multiclassing.

Reinboom
2009-07-06, 02:46 PM
If I understand this correctly, you're saying that a Celestia/Hells build would have Int primary and Cha and Str (for instance) secondary, and whenever you use a Celestia or Hells power, you would gain the secondary effect using your choice of either Cha or Str for it? If that's the case, I think that would work very well; it's a nice break from the usual without being too weird, and ensures that different origins aren't pigeonholed into different builds when multiclassing.

That's exactly what I'm referring to. :smallsmile:

This would be, of course, in addition to the Special origin clause on each plane specific power.

Yakk
2009-07-06, 04:59 PM
*nod* -- more powers good.

But with 4 origins and 2 origins per player, that makes 50% of the powers barred for any one character. Which puts you at about Ranger level efficiency.

So after putting out as many powers as a PHB and a Powers expansion, you end up with a class where each player has a choice of about 3-4 powers per level.

With an A-shaped class, where you don't ban people from 'crossing' the origin lines, each player has a choice of 6-8 powers per level instead. They will have a definite bias towards the 3-4 powers that line up with their origins (as they add extra bennies), but it won't be an absolute bias.

...

And I do understand you are being experimental. But there is little need to be experimental in multiple different orthogonal ways at once. Experiments, by their very nature, tend to require more work and fail.

Do the experiment to build a Controller/Leader who avoids doing direct attacks. Stick with the standard "you can pick any power from a level" and "the class has one primary attribute, and secondary attributes that are based off of the build choices".

...

Hmm. We could get really funky with the origins and that 4 choose 2 thing.

What if each Origin had an Alpha and an Omega.

A: Alpha is Str, Dex, Con, Omega is Int, Wis, Cha.
B: Alpha is Str, Int, Wis, Omega is Dex, Con Cha.
C: Alpha is Con, Int, Cha, Omega is Str, Dex, Wis
D: Alpha is Dex, Wis, Cha, Omega is Str, Con, Int

A given character picks their Alpha based on their pair of origins. A&B is Str, B&C is Int, C&D is Cha, A&C is Con, B&D is Wis, A&D is Dex.

And your Omega might be determined on a per-power basis (based on the origin associated), but cannot be your Alpha...

Laugh. And I was talking about doing less weird stuff. I just found it interesting that the math happens to perfectly line up for 6 stats and 4 choose 2 origins.

Reinboom
2009-07-06, 06:38 PM
I was originally going to reply that the 'I want to make more powers!' comment was supposed to also be in conjunction with me accepting to remove the absolute restriction, as noted in the last big post.
But then I realized I failed to type such clearly.

So, yes, I already know the figuring for it.
Instead of that, I was hoping more for a reply to the secondary stat idea. :smalltongue:

Ninetail
2009-07-06, 07:22 PM
Next, to reply to Ninetail:
In playing (actively), it has actually proven to be consistently underpowered, though rather difficult to adjust.
First, to auto-hit ongoing 3 (Agony Barbs):
You forgot to calculate that most controllers do NOT do 1d6 or so damage. Rather, 1d6 + [Modifier]. The modifier alone is greater than 1d6's average. Further, most attacks of this nature hit multiple targets.


No, I was comparing it to other burst effects.

Invokers have one burst for 1d6+Wis (+Int if the target makes an opportunity attack) and one for Wis mod with no dice.

Druids have one burst for 1d6 (+ slide 1 square). They also have one ranged power that hits for 1d6 and creates a zone in squares adjacent to the target that causes Wis mod damage.

Wizards, however, do have two bursts for 1d6+Int.

Ongoing 3 is about equal to 1d6 per turn it persists. The value of auto-hit depends on the character's normal chance to hit, but it's safe to say that it's at least a 33% damage boost, and it could very well be in the area of 80% to 100%.

It is, in short, quite a damaging effect for a controller at-will. Unbalanced? Maybe not... most bursts do hit multiples, if there are multiples to hit. But I don't see how it could end up underpowered. Maybe if you don't use any saving-throw reducers, but what controller doesn't use those?



On Soul's Shackles: It was slightly good, though, not very overpowered. It has been adjusted down to a single chosen defense due to specific interactions. However, the average damage it provides from comboing with other attacks... is not as high as you would imagine.


It's not the damage that concerned me (much), it's the riders. -2 to all defenses made it much easier to hit those targets with anything else. -2 to a single defense is better, though still very strong for an automatic effect on an at-will. Close range may or may not be enough to counterbalance that. It's more reasonable in its current form, though.



On the Revel the Cadaver... it deals no damage, is target exclusive, the save roll against it steadily decreases... in practice, this has proven to be very /not/ overpowered. When it has been kept, it has been due to other power interactions and because it is commonly good on the first round of combat to hold a single target back. Usually, what occurs, is the target just delays. Now, something to comment on is the combat advantage it provides. That requires more testing, however.


Combat advantage -- the entire Effect line -- is redundant. Daze causes the afflicted creature to grant combat advantage. Therefore, it provides combat advantage until it makes the save.

Dazed (save ends) is insanely so on a level 1 encounter power, even with the cumulative save bonus. Don't your playtesters use zones and slide the dazed enemy back in? Don't they kite the dazed enemy around, sniping at it while it can't attack back? Don't they, well, exploit the lack of actions daze inflicts?

Heck, (save ends) on an encounter power condition is rare enough, even when the condition is as relatively innocuous as immobilize.




On earthly embrace and contract in blood: "Probably not a good idea" shows not considering what they actually do.


No, it shows considering that they're encounter powers that last until the end of the encounter, which is generally poor design. I did the same thing once or twice with my monk class's powers, in the initial draft, and was rightly called on it.



Both of them play as constant at-will and minor abilities. Which... is basically what they are intended to do. Just, because of how they work, I had to write them as they are now.
Contract in Blood, for example, is only a "Give up a utility power slot and get the ability to get a small bonus (overall) to diplomacy checks in specific situations." Setting these to daily effectively makes them worthless.


Contract should probably be an at-will utility, honestly (although I'd reduce it to 2 successes, and perhaps a -2 modifier).

Earth's Embrace probably deserves to be a daily. Ignoring push/pull/slide effects is not a small bonus, even with the -1 movement speed. Sure, it's not something that will always be useful, but when it is, it will make a big difference. It removes a wide array of environmental effects as potential threats.



Your statement on Nupperibo Ruination treats that as a bad thing without describing the entire power.
Nupperibo Ruination inflicts blinded (save ends) if the enemies hold their movement while adjacent to you after an entire round of warning. On a level 3 encounter.
In practice, this has done /exactly/ what is was intended to do. "Get the hell away from me." I have only seen 1 enemy blinded with this version of this ruination. This was because it was already stunned.


That's great, but the reason you're seeing enemies move away like that is because blindness is a very debilitating condition to inflict, and inflicting it in an area-effect with (save ends) tacked on, on a per-encounter basis, is very powerful, probably more powerful than a level 3 encounter power should be.

I understand that you probably don't want to use a push or slide for flavor reasons, but I think save-ends blindness on a level 3 encounter power is a bad thing, even if it's meant as a "do what I really want you to or else" hammer.

Particularly because it could easily be combined with, say, daze or immobilize to force a blind. If the defender is on the ball, it's not even that dangerous for the incarnist.



On flashfreeze, restricting its auto hit to bloodied means it, usually, doesn't touch minions. Otherwise, it still does less than your average area of effect controller encounter at level 7. I see no problem here.


I think you undervalue the "damage value" of auto hit. Regardless of that, you're wrong about controller encounter powers. Flashfreeze is a close burst 5, meaning it encompasses 121 squares, and does 2d8 + stat + minor condition.

Invoker - Baleful Eye of Judgment (9 squares, 2d8 + stat + minor condition), Invoke Obedience (9 squares, +5 to hit, 2d6 + stat, no extra effect), Thunderbolt of the Heavens (9 squares, 2d8 + stat + push 1).

Druid - Has no level 7 encounter AoEs.

Wizard - Fire Burst (25 squares, 3d6 + stat, no extra effect), Winter's Wrath (25 squares, 2d8 + stat + grants concealment + stat again next round), Enemies Abound (9 squares, 2d8 + stat + target counts as an ally for flanking purposes), Twist of Space (9 squares, 1d6 + stat + minor condition + teleport 3).

In other words, Flashfreeze is strictly superior in most respects to most if not all other controller level 7 encounter AoEs. Its only mitigating factor is that its huge AoE is likely to also catch most or all of the caster's allies. (It does have shorter range than most of those other AoEs, but at burst 5, this is not that much of a factor for practical purposes.)



Infernal Debt is also a melee attack on a nonhigh hp character, that can't use proficiency to hit bonuses given by weapons, still hits AC, and has a rather easy to perform condition in which to remove it, that can easily be accomplished before the next time the target has to make a saving throws.
Once again, no problem here. In theory or in practice.


This is probably correct; I'd missed the AC targeting, and there are worse debuffs available at level 7. In fact, I think this is probably a subpar power, all in all.



Basically, in general, a greater study of the game both in play and in theory is required.


You know, it's funny... I'd say the same thing.

I don't think you appreciate how powerful certain things are in 4e. I think your playtesting is suspect if it shows that these things are not a problem -- not intentionally, mind you, but all the same. Or it might just be that your playtester and his group don't use these features to their fullest extent.

All that said, the new PDF:
http://pifro.com/IncarnistPREVIEW2.pdf[/QUOTE]

It's an improvement. I'd second the advice regarding choosing a single primary attribute -- I didn't do this for my monk, but if I were starting today, I would. (And I just might yet, if I can muster the will to revise the whole thing...) It makes for a cleaner and more unified setup all around. I've come to believe that splitting attack stats is almost always a poor idea, because it leads to a much greater degree of pigeonholing.

Reinboom
2009-07-06, 08:56 PM
Theoretically:
Assuming an average experienced life span of 5 turns once targeted and ignoring minions, ongoing 3 deals an average of 6.48 damage.
Σ(0.55^i(i=1:5))*3+3
(3 is the ongoing, 5 is the turns, 0.55 is the chance of repeat)
When saving throws are decreased by 2 (the most common decrease this class can perform), this changes to an amazing 7.92 damage.
Σ(0.65^i(i=1:5))*3+3
In comparison, a single 1d6+Mod, calculating in critical hit chance and noting a 10 to hit average, is 4.38 damage average /per target/.
In practice:
The rules that constant damage under the same source comes in to play, causing this to be unrepeatable if ongoing. So, the average damage even becomes less.
Further, damage from critical hit weapons, special conditionals on hitting, and the like never come in to play, as well as various bonuses one can obtain to increasing damage.
And... once again, further, the damage dealt has proven rather minor when a creature is under target. Not only is it not stackable with itself, but the creature tends to be fended off or dies before it matters. When it is a creature with higher HP, the damage can become more noticeable but tends to be played around more.


With the riders included, this means that 10% of all possible rolls on the hit die are directly flipped one way or the other by means of Soul's Shackles. The overall chance of it compared to before is completely dependent on the chance before it, however, no matter what, the dice only care about that 10% of the time. The average damage is very not up to grounds (averages calculated, it will adjust damage an average of 2 per attack, assuming 3d8 + 5 as a starting point, which is decently high). Even with attacks from 4 other party members, the damage is still subpar to a 2 hit attack of a standard controller. Though, it does do good damage average flipping when comboed with a wizard. However, 10% riding a random effect on it, well... it does not prove to be overpowered in either practice or in theory.

No, the entire effect line, is not redundant. You tried to make a large point about auto-hit, and then go an exclude this from that consideration?
The Daze effect can be force saved from, making a very low heal check from an ally, after a successful hit. Or from the monster itself. The combat advantage is automatic.
On you stringing along monsters... does your DM not even bother with heal checks?


"Generally poor design" needs to have a reason why it is so. I say that you should have called back on those who tried to call you on it.


I would concede earth's embrace. However, I will not change it until I properly - or see someone else actually willing - test it in an extended campaign.


And once again, in practice, this has simply not been the case. It's done exactly what it has intended to do. Usually, in the form of "Fine... I'll still hit you again, then move away." Even when it was used in combination with other effects, it became a "...I win more, I guess." and with the extended value of, they are saving from these constantly against the same time they are saving against their other effect.


With Flashfreeze, I see I was modeling too much on the wizard, in which case, I will concede its power a little bit. However, I will not declare it stronger than what the wizard is putting out as such a level.


Further, I will refuse to concede any point on underevaluating auto-hit, at least, in the respects of damage wise, without a very specific and very well drawn out - and mathematical - idea on why. I have put way too much work on that end to make this thing work, with constant checks of my own math.

Ninetail
2009-07-07, 01:32 AM
Theoretically:
Assuming an average experienced life span of 5 turns once targeted and ignoring minions, ongoing 3 deals an average of 6.48 damage.
Σ(0.55^i(i=1:5))*3+3
(3 is the ongoing, 5 is the turns, 0.55 is the chance of repeat)
When saving throws are decreased by 2 (the most common decrease this class can perform), this changes to an amazing 7.92 damage.
Σ(0.65^i(i=1:5))*3+3
In comparison, a single 1d6+Mod, calculating in critical hit chance and noting a 10 to hit average, is 4.38 damage average /per target/.


What about when they're reduced by 4?

By 6?

Think bigger.



In practice:
The rules that constant damage under the same source comes in to play, causing this to be unrepeatable if ongoing. So, the average damage even becomes less.


What? No, it doesn't, because you don't target the same enemy with it. You spread it around. It's pretty trivial, really, unless one enemy runs around playing spoiler for some reason -- and in that case, you still win because you're directing that enemy's action.



Further, damage from critical hit weapons, special conditionals on hitting, and the like never come in to play, as well as various bonuses one can obtain to increasing damage.


So you lose out 5% of the time, but win out 45% of the time (using your "10 or better to hit").

I'm not so sure about the bonuses to damage, either, although it might be a little harder to find those than it would if the power had an elemental damage type or used some manner of implement... fairly sure I've seen things that boost ongoing damage.



And... once again, further, the damage dealt has proven rather minor when a creature is under target. Not only is it not stackable with itself, but the creature tends to be fended off or dies before it matters. When it is a creature with higher HP, the damage can become more noticeable but tends to be played around more.


Well, sure... this isn't a power you spam when you're focusing fire on one enemy. Who ever said it was?



With the riders included, this means that 10% of all possible rolls on the hit die are directly flipped one way or the other by means of Soul's Shackles. The overall chance of it compared to before is completely dependent on the chance before it, however, no matter what, the dice only care about that 10% of the time.


Sure. But it's not the -2 that's the issue, really. Lots of powers in this range inflict a -2. However, all of them have to roll to hit. And most of them aren't AoEs, at this level.



However, 10% riding a random effect on it, well... it does not prove to be overpowered in either practice or in theory.


I disagree. An effective +2 to hit is not a small bonus in 4e terms. Especially not when you get it automatically and it applies to the entire party. Now that it applies to only one defense, it's not quite so bad, but the initial version was pretty powerful.



No, the entire effect line, is not redundant. You tried to make a large point about auto-hit, and then go an exclude this from that consideration?


You are correct, since it's possible, though unlikely, that the daze could end before the start of your next turn.



The Daze effect can be force saved from, making a very low heal check from an ally, after a successful hit.


Which requires a successful saving throw -- not a sure thing -- and requires the ally to blow his standard action. And also to be adjacent to the afflicted target, which is not where you want to be when you're fighting people with demonstrated area-effect capabilities. (Although I suppose it's possible that in a given fight, this happens before those capabilities have in fact been demonstrated... if so, it will surely lead the players to rectify that.)

For that matter, it requires there to be an ally in the first place. An effect like daze (save ends) is most powerful against a Solo monster, so...



Or from the monster itself.


No, sorry. Heal only allows you to grant an adjacent ally a saving throw. It does not allow you to grant yourself a saving throw.



On you stringing along monsters... does your DM not even bother with heal checks?


I am the GM, generally. I use Heal checks when it seems like an advantageous thing to do, which is not nearly so often as you suggest. In general, my intelligent creatures know that clumping up together against certain sorts of opponents is a poor tactic, and therefore they try to avoid doing that.



"Generally poor design" needs to have a reason why it is so. I say that you should have called back on those who tried to call you on it.


Because one should not have per-encounter effects that last for an encounter, generally. If such effects are relatively low-impact, such that having permanent access to them is not unbalancing, then they should be at-will. If such effects are higher-impact, then they should usually have a specified duration, be sustainable, or be a daily power. There are very few "fire and forget" powers that are encounter powers and last for an encounter (actually, I can't think of any, offhand, though I wouldn't swear there are none), and I believe that this is by design and that therefore deviating from that design is a poor design choice, rather than believing that this was just an oversight.



I would concede earth's embrace. However, I will not change it until I properly - or see someone else actually willing - test it in an extended campaign.


Fair enough. There's always room for more testing.



And once again, in practice, this has simply not been the case. It's done exactly what it has intended to do. Usually, in the form of "Fine... I'll still hit you again, then move away." Even when it was used in combination with other effects, it became a "...I win more, I guess." and with the extended value of, they are saving from these constantly against the same time they are saving against their other effect.


I think your players must play in a very different manner from mine. Mine love to combine powers and stack up effects to make their wins much easier.



With Flashfreeze, I see I was modeling too much on the wizard, in which case, I will concede its power a little bit. However, I will not declare it stronger than what the wizard is putting out as such a level.


Only Winter's Wrath even arguably matches it, by my reckoning. I suppose you could make a claim for Fire Burst, which gets 1.5 more damage on average, but it has a smaller AoE and it doesn't have any additional effect. Slow is pretty minor, but considering the character is a controller, I'd take it over 1.5 damage, easy.



Further, I will refuse to concede any point on underevaluating auto-hit, at least, in the respects of damage wise, without a very specific and very well drawn out - and mathematical - idea on why. I have put way too much work on that end to make this thing work, with constant checks of my own math.

The flaw here is that you're examining the math based on a single character, but that's not how 4e parties work. The characters interact, boosting each other. To use one of the above examples, -2 to defenses isn't a big deal when you're considering one attack from one character... but it's a whole lot better when you're considering five-plus attacks from five characters.

On the specific matter of the value of auto-hit, I think there are two examples you should consider:

1) Looking at those level 7 controller AoEs again, how does Invoke Obedience compare to the others? The designers have figured a rough value for that +5 accuracy, so what is it, and how much more value should auto-hit have?

2) Consider the various striker classes. Avenger is designed such that it is extremely accurate, yet it does less damage than other strikers (except perhaps for control-focused Warlocks, which is another story). Damage is the central purpose of the striker, so what does the Avengers' powers' lower damage say about the value of accuracy? How much lower should the damage be if the Avenger had perfect accuracy? What should happen to the powers of a controller with perfect accuracy, since damage is not the purpose of a controller?

I doubt there's any hard mathematical answer to these questions, at least with the information available in the books alone. But they're two obvious places where the accuracy-vs.-effect question came into play in the official rules, so they're good places to start approaching the issue from.

Reinboom
2009-07-07, 03:03 PM
I'm posting at work, so, my own documentation isn't available. That said...

About 11.5 damage with only rerunning the equation in my head. That is also 2 powers spent specific to that monster before it - and still without a huge damage gain.
The use of the power also has come up only to a max of 4 times in an encounter. Simply, using it a lot means you are not invoking you encounter powers.

I'm unsure about ongoing boosts, will check later.
Damage bonuses with powers interacting together has played very strongly in these games, making an impact clear.

I've yet to see someone experienced use just a solo. Single entities just fall over to status anything. This has been apparent in most editions.

You are specifically wrong about powers inflicting a -2 all requiring hit. Off the top of my head, there is a warlord utility that grants free combat advantage.

As said, its also not redundant since the daze can miss.

Can't check heal, you're probably right.


Have them ordere the minions to do the heal checks, common enough. In any case, they can stay distance then move in to make the check in one turn.

Ran out of time, will finish later

Ninetail
2009-07-07, 09:33 PM
I'm unsure about ongoing boosts, will check later.
Damage bonuses with powers interacting together has played very strongly in these games, making an impact clear.


Yes, using many damage buffs would make the thorns a weaker option.



I've yet to see someone experienced use just a solo. Single entities just fall over to status anything. This has been apparent in most editions.


Yes, and I wouldn't recommend using a solo alone, either. But they're supposedly meant to be used alone, so...



You are specifically wrong about powers inflicting a -2 all requiring hit. Off the top of my head, there is a warlord utility that grants free combat advantage.


You're speaking of Tempting Target, Warlord Utility 6, which allows the warlord to grant combat advantage to all enemies in exchange for causing adjacent enemies to grant combat advantage to your allies? I wouldn't call that free. It's true that you don't need to hit to cause it, but instead, you paint a huge target on yourself for all of the enemies... especially the ones with ranged attacks or sneak attack-style powers. It also is a daily power, not an at-will power. (It's also one of the more powerful options at that level, IMO, even with its drawback.)

I don't think that really compares to causing a -2 to all defenses at will to anything within 3 squares of you.

There are a number of leader powers that grant attack buffs as an effect, regardless of hit or miss. Most of these, however, only affect a single ally, whereas a debuff affects potentially all allies.



Have them ordere the minions to do the heal checks, common enough. In any case, they can stay distance then move in to make the check in one turn.


Yes, but they end up clumped together. They can't move, Heal, and then move again. About the best they could do would be to delay until just before the afflicted enemy's turn, then move in and Heal, and hope that the check and the save succeed and "boss" can move away. That also has its opportunity costs, though.

One other major problem with that approach: Not many monsters are trained in Heal, so even a modest DC 15 is not all that sure to succeed until higher levels. An intelligent bad guy will need to weigh the potential disadvantage of having his ally spend a turn moving into a poor tactical position, do something other than attack the PCs (who are usually pretty certain to continue attacking when their turn comes around), and risk wasting that action altogether... against the potential benefit of gaining a chance to remove the daze (or one ongoing effect, if there are others).

Now, that's from a metagame perspective, but in-game, it boils down to the enemy's intelligence and personality. Some bad guys will throw away their minions' lives easily enough. Some bad guys are just not particularly bright and will focus on their immediate gain to their longer-term detriment. Some bad guys will feel it's worth the risk.

But a lot won't.

A word about the whole analysis thing. This is anecdotal, but illustrative, I think.

For about two months, I've had a steady party composition: fighter, rogue, wizard, druid, bard. If you asked me to tell you the most powerful member of the group, I would say, without a doubt: the bard.

If you were to analyze the bard's powers mathematically, you would not find his numbers to be anything extraordinary. And if you placed the bard onto a featureless combat grid by himself, you would see that you were correct. If anything, he would be on the weak side.

If you watch a session, though, you'll see the exact opposite happen.

The bard doesn't put out scads of damage, mind you. He doesn't inflict incredibly debilitating conditions often, certainly not more than the wizard and druid do. He buffs pretty well, but no better really than the warlord who preceded him.

What he does, mainly, is move things around. His friends, his enemies. Almost every turn he moves someone, and it really changes the course of the battle. With him around, complicated combinations become easy. Zones become vastly more effective. AoEs become mightier. Decisive attacks rarely miss.

This is, of course, the sort of thing a leader is supposed to be doing. But the point I'm getting at is: his impact is far greater than his numbers would suggest. He couldn't do it alone, no, but he doesn't have to. 4e isn't about going it alone.

This isn't a particularly optimized group, either. They make pretty good choices, but mostly, they just work very well together. When that happens, you can't measure a leader or a controller by raw numbers.

Reinboom
2009-08-30, 11:20 PM
With much stuff happening in between updates, I have finally made another update to this.
This time, incorporating a lot of Yakk's suggestions, such as the two ability score dichotomy and making power access closer to the Warlock.

I have also thrown the 'aura' powers into the planar jaunt.