Creating new powers

[Paragon468]

I'm getting started on making a custom class (I know it's a ton of work, but I have the time and will to do it), and I'm having some trouble with powers. When designing new powers, are there any guidlines for damage and effects? I don't want the class's powers to be too overpowered or underpowered.

[Musco]

Well, basically, I'd suggest you draw from other powers, which work unless you're creating entirely new game terms and mechanics for them.

For instance, let's say your custom class heals. Let's also say that they are supposed to do so from a safe distance. And let's say you want to stress this "healing" aspect of the class.

I'd start by looking at leader powers, and realize that, basically, a full-on leader would get some sort of special encounter power, usable MORE than once per encounter (but not per round), and that such power adds a value to their healing surge. Your class should also add the appropriate attribute to such power. You've got Healing Word/Inspiring Word.

I'd look at Sacred Flame as an At-Will, and maybe refluff it to give temp HP equal to your main attribute, probably dock out the "free saving throw" aspec, and maybe up the damge die to d8, make it a sexy enough at will to attract players at ground level. You can also change the damage type, to stress something about your class (say it's a "good pyromancer", you could have it do fire damage).

I know it's "cheesy", but in all seriousness, most powers ARE just this, variations of cool abilities and, as such, great guidelines to create new ones.

Just remember that, if you DO create a whole class from scratch, it needs support, meaning the appropriate feats, which is why, yet again, drawing from other places is a good idea, since, if you borrowed the "Word" powers fo healing, you probably want to borrow a feat related to one of those.

Just my 2 cents.

[allonym]

If you are building a striker, you will have to consider what their extra damage feature is, and how powerful it is, before you design powers. For instance, avengers have weak powers because Oath of Emnity was seen as being so strong; rogue powers are weaker than ranger powers because sneak attack is stronger than hunter's quarry; barbarian powers do large chunks of damage because the class lacks an inbuilt damage feature, and sorcerers' damage feature is weak (+secondary to damage) because they are expected to attack multiple targets and get their feature to affect all of them.

This is incidentally why assassins and vampires are such terrible classes - they have bad damage class features and also have really bad powers.

If you are building a controller, powers are basically everything to the class. All controllers do their job by their powers rather than any class features. You'll need to be able to attack multiple targets, possibly with mild riders attached, at will. Most of the time this means bursts and blasts, but some powers, particularly invoker and seeker powers, are ranged attacks with multiple targets, which is particularly strong because they don't rely on enemy formations. Bear in mind that generally, (ranged) area bursts and blasts are more useful than close bursts and blasts on controllers, so the close powers tend to be stronger. This is especially true with ally-unfriendly close bursts, which are very difficult to use effectively.

The opposite is true for defenders, of course - they want to be up in the enemy's face tying up as many as possible, so attacks against multiple targets are to be expected, and ranged or area attacks almost unheard of.

[The_Ditto]

I actually started to muck around a bit with reverse engineering the 4e powers. I came out with the following (REALLY basic) guidelines:

Heroic Powers: 30 pts to spend.
Paragon: 40 pts.
Epic: 50 pts.

The following are then costs for a power:

Frequency:
Daily (0), Encounter(10), At-will (15)

Action:
Standard (0), Move (5), Minor(10), Immediate or Opportunity (15)

Damage:
+1[W] (5)
+1d4 (2) +1d6 (3) +1d8 (4) +1d10 (5) +1d12 (6)
+ability stat mod (5)

Defense:
Weapon vs AC (0), vs Fort/Ref/Will (5)
Implement vs AC (-3 ie 3 pts kickback) vs F/R/W (0)

Keywords:
Most keywords are just fluff, so most are 0 pts, however, some have a mechanical effect, such as (but not limited to):
Stance (10), Reliable (5), Invigorating (5), Miss (5)
Also: Implement (melee) I gave a (-2) pt back.

Conditions:
Mostly aimed at 5 pts per, some of the bigger outlying ones were:
Dominated (20), Stunned (10), Weakened (10)

And just some other misc stuff:
Can use the power as a basic attack (5)
can use with charge (5)
Ranged weapon power (5)
Multiple targets (4)
Enemies only (5)
Ongoing (or Vulnerable) 5 (4) 10 (8) 15 (12) 20 (16)
+2 to hit with the power (ie careful attack) (5)
-1 to hit (ie harder to hit) (-2 buyback)
Reach +1 (10)
Misc Ally benefit (4-6, depending)
Misc Enemy penalty (4-6, depending).

Yeah, I used to baseline a number of random powers from the books, and it really does come close with most. There are some, however, that are just way off. Not sure if that's the power, or just something in my numbers that isn't quite right, but oh well :)

Also, I didn't really manage to figure out a good crunch for utilities (yet).

Anyway, hope this helps!

[incandescent]

With how many books and builds there are out there, it's hard to make a completely solid call on whether something is truly overpowered or underpowered, especially when you start looking at feat, paragon path, multiclass, and power swap interactions. And by the time you get something on paper, you find out it plays totally different from that blue print (or worse you get a false impression of it based on the other characters it is interacting with). The best approach I've found (as someone has already posted) is to look at similar powers and use them as boundaries. Find the upper bound and lower bound of the ability you're going for and tweak it according to the new class's role and/or subrole.

[Sorcerer Blob]

*snip* amazing class building template *snip*

Wow. Just wow.

That looks great. I do have a question though, when creating multiple options for a power, say At-Will, do you try to keep them all within the same point value for balance sake?

Currently the system, as amazing as it is, looks like something you'd use to make one choice of powers for a class. This isn't meant as criticism or a bad thing, I'm just curious how you would use this system to balance within itself.

[ArcturusV]

Only thing I really see missing from the list for power building there is the "Miss: Half Damage" or "Miss: Minor effect". I suppose that applies under Effects. But it might be something that throws off your calculations since most Daily Powers have the "Half damage" plus "minor effect", or they have Reliable. So those are supposedly equatable in system (Not that I think they play out to be equatable, but the system assumes so).

[NecroRebel]

I actually started to muck around a bit with reverse engineering the 4e powers. I came out with the following (REALLY basic) guidelines:

-snip-

Anyway, hope this helps!

"Really basic" hell, this is probably the most detailed analysis posted anywhere. A while ago, probably a year and a half or so, I tried to figure out the average damage powers of a given level and type did, but I never considered using such a point system. Even if not perfectly accurate, it's still an amazing piece of work.

Did you keep track of which powers seem to be major outliers, and did you compare those to the char op board's ratings of the various powers? If you found that the powers the community feels are terrible score low and the powers it feels are great score high, that just supports your analysis further.

I will say that powers with multiple damage types tend to have slightly lower damage then similarly-leveled choices, so perhaps each damage type beyond the first should be counted. They are vastly harder to resist, after all.

[Paragon468]

Anyway, hope this helps!

Wow. That definitely helps. Thanks a lot, this'll really come in handy.

[Musco]

Only thing I really see missing from the list for power building there is the "Miss: Half Damage" or "Miss: Minor effect". I suppose that applies under Effects. But it might be something that throws off your calculations since most Daily Powers have the "Half damage" plus "minor effect", or they have Reliable. So those are supposedly equatable in system (Not that I think they play out to be equatable, but the system assumes so).

It's listed in his keywords, there's a "Miss" there at 5 points. And yes, it is an awesome piece of work, like everyone has said.

[Sol]

just off-hand, without actually running numbers on a bunch of powers, it looks to me like he's over-valuing Immediate/Opportunity actions as compared to Minor actions.

Most all minor action attacks are at a -1[W] penalty as compared to standard action attacks of the same level, and come with only minor other effects, while many Immediate action attacks deal similar [W] to standard action attacks of the same level and/or offer immensely powerful effects.

For instance, Mighty Hew (Cleric 1) is a 2[W]+STR interrupt that causes an enemy's attack against an ally to deal half damage. This would appear to be worth (Encounter(10)+Interrupt(15)+2[W](10)+Statmod(5)+Weakened(10)) 50 points. It's a good attack, but, aside from occurring as an interrupt doesn't particularly do anything better or worse than other level 1 encounter powers.

Off-Hand Strike, on the other hand, is a Minor-action 1[W]+STR attack with no other effect. It would cost exactly 30 points as expected.

It's my guess that the difficulty (or perceived difficulty) of meeting an triggered action's trigger allows for immediate actions to be more powerful sometimes?

This also doesn't appear to express numbers for multi-attacks. How does it handle something like Twin Strike?

On the whole, though? Pretty amazing, and a great "ballpark estimate" tool for those looking to make new powers from scratch.

[Tegu8788]

I actually started to muck around a bit with reverse engineering the 4e powers. I came out with the following (REALLY basic) guidelines:

Heroic Powers: 30 pts to spend.
Paragon: 40 pts.
Epic: 50 pts.

The following are then costs for a power:

Frequency:
Daily (0), Encounter(10), At-will (15)

Action:
Standard (0), Move (5), Minor(10), Immediate or Opportunity (15)

Damage:
+1[W] (5)
+1d4 (2) +1d6 (3) +1d8 (4) +1d10 (5) +1d12 (6)
+ability stat mod (5)

Defense:
Weapon vs AC (0), vs Fort/Ref/Will (5)
Implement vs AC (-3 ie 3 pts kickback) vs F/R/W (0)

Keywords:
Most keywords are just fluff, so most are 0 pts, however, some have a mechanical effect, such as (but not limited to):
Stance (10), Reliable (5), Invigorating (5), Miss (5)
Also: Implement (melee) I gave a (-2) pt back.

Conditions:
Mostly aimed at 5 pts per, some of the bigger outlying ones were:
Dominated (20), Stunned (10), Weakened (10)

And just some other misc stuff:
Can use the power as a basic attack (5)
can use with charge (5)
Ranged weapon power (5)
Multiple targets (4)
Enemies only (5)
Ongoing (or Vulnerable) 5 (4) 10 (8) 15 (12) 20 (16)
+2 to hit with the power (ie careful attack) (5)
-1 to hit (ie harder to hit) (-2 buyback)
Reach +1 (10)
Misc Ally benefit (4-6, depending)
Misc Enemy penalty (4-6, depending).

Yeah, I used to baseline a number of random powers from the books, and it really does come close with most. There are some, however, that are just way off. Not sure if that's the power, or just something in my numbers that isn't quite right, but oh well :)

Also, I didn't really manage to figure out a good crunch for utilities (yet).

Anyway, hope this helps!

Ok, that is awesome. There is a big difference between something being simplistic and something being simple. While not perfect, it's not meant to be, just a guideline.

Care to do one for features next? Get that done and 4E Homebrew becomes very simple.

[Paragon468]

Care to do one for features next? Get that done and 4E Homebrew becomes very simple.

Yes, that would be great. Sometimes I find that features are harder to balance than powers are.

[The_Ditto]

Wow. Just wow.

That looks great. I do have a question though, when creating multiple options for a power, say At-Will, do you try to keep them all within the same point value for balance sake?

Currently the system, as amazing as it is, looks like something you'd use to make one choice of powers for a class. This isn't meant as criticism or a bad thing, I'm just curious how you would use this system to balance within itself.

*shrug* I just tried to make numbers up that, when plugged into an existing power (ie magic missile, careful strike, fireball, etc.), it came out *roughly* close to the same target for each tier.

so, short answer: no. :)
But yeah, plopping a stun on an at-will is probably not a "balanced" thing to do, even though my point guide would suggest it's "balanced" :) There's still a lot of "DM Caveat" going on there, but helped me build some custom powers and get a good nod from the DM on them :) (and in play test they proved very on par).



Only thing I really see missing from the list for power building there is the "Miss: Half Damage" or "Miss: Minor effect". I suppose that applies under Effects. But it might be something that throws off your calculations since most Daily Powers have the "Half damage" plus "minor effect", or they have Reliable. So those are supposedly equatable in system (Not that I think they play out to be equatable, but the system assumes so).

I have "Miss" under keywords, I didn't really distinguish between those two, but yes, you certainly good. As I indicated, what I provided is NOT a complete list of what I have, just a sampling. :)


"Really basic" hell, this is probably the most detailed analysis posted anywhere.

Oh, thanks! :smallredface:
Comes from liking the Champions Hero system, really. Everything costs points :)



Did you keep track of which powers seem to be major outliers, and did you compare those to the char op board's ratings of the various powers?
[quote]
No, I did not, however, now that you mention it, I may just do that when I have some free time.
I'm guessing twin strike is over cost :)

[QUOTE=Sol;14784367]just off-hand, without actually running numbers on a bunch of powers, it looks to me like he's over-valuing Immediate/Opportunity actions as compared to Minor actions.

Probalby :smallbiggrin:
I haven't had a large enough sampling to really tune it out yet.
Hmm, perhaps you guys don't mind helping? :)
I have a spreadsheet with all these numbers in it, I'll load it into google docs, and post the link shortly.



This also doesn't appear to express numbers for multi-attacks. How does it handle something like Twin Strike?


I did have a "Secondary attack" cost, and then of course, since it does:
1{w} + ability stat
and then: +1[w] + ability stat (off hand)
That's like 20 pts right there (+2{w} + 2x ability stat )
So it adds up fast.



On the whole, though? Pretty amazing, and a great "ballpark estimate" tool for those looking to make new powers from scratch.

Thanks!!