Melee Basics that rock your face...

[Joval]

Anybody got any examples of some At Will powers that are treated as Melee Basics?

I found a thread on here that has a really cool Homebrewed At Will that can be treated as a Melee Basic. I can tell my DM is hesitant, and I was hoping to find some of the At Wills with the Melee Basic Special Feature so that he has something to compare it to.

[allonym]

Attacks that can be used "as a melee basic attack" include the Vampire's Slam, the Paladin's Virtuous Strike (which mostly is just a way to allow a chaladin a good opportunity attack, but it has some powerful domain support), and the Warlock's Eldritch Strike, which is a cha or con-based MBA with a slide 1, but has a lot of tricks it can pull by being arcane, being able to trigger Curse damage, and all the forced movement shenanigans.

Some powers can be turned into MBAs with the Power of Skill domain feat, most notably the Avenger's Overwhelming Strike.

Generally, the MBA powers aren't hugely strong, because there's a huge amount of support you can stack onto basic attacks. They also tend to be some of the powers most often taken by a half-elf. Some other powers can be used "in place of a melee basic attack", or "in place of a melee basic attack when charging". These are inherently weaker because they do not count as a basic attack, so they wouldn't, for example, target Reflex with the Deft Blade feat, or allow you to trigger skald powers. On the other hand, this means they have more scope for being powerful in themselves. An example of the former is the Sorcerer's Encorselled Blade, and an example of the latter is the Barbarian's Howling Strike.

[ghost_warlock]

Omitting the ones that require you to charge to count as a MBA (of which there are a few):


Moonfire Blade (Hexblade) - vs. Reflext; target takes extra damage if it ends its turn adjacent to you.
Resplendent Blade (Hexblade) - enemy adjacent to target takes damage.
Flesh Rend (Hexblade) - slide target and inflict penalty to attack rolls.
Unraveling Strike (Hexblade) - target gains vulnerability to a type of damge you choose.
Icy Skewer (Hexblade) - gain a bonus to defenses against the target.
Soul Eater (Hexblade) - gain a bonus to next damage roll against the target.
Intent Laid Bare (Ardent) - target can't shift and you gain telepathy with target (can be further augmented).
Sonnlinor's Hammer (Cleric) - penalize target's next damage roll.
Grasping Claws (Druid) - slows target.
Savage Rend (Druid) - slide target.
Wicked Strike (Fighter) - extra damage.
Virtuous Strike (Paladin) - gain a bonus on saving throws.
Ensorcelled Blade (Sorcerer) - if the target hits or misses you with a melee attack on its next turn it takes additional damage.
Vampire Slam (Vampire) - vs. Reflex; push target.
Eldritch Strike (Warlock) - slide target.

[Joval]

Great stuff guys. I really appreciate it:smallsmile:

[Tegu8788]

Not quite right, some of those can be "used as" instead of "counting as" MBAs. Check out this site (http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/database.aspx#), look for melee basic attacks, then narrow down as you please.

[Vhex]

For the sake of clarity, "can be used as" is the same as "counts as." There are only 2 powers in the compendium that use the wording "counts as" and they're both warlock powers.

The distinction is between "can be used in place of" and "can be used as." When a power "can be used in place of" it does not gain the bonuses. When it "can be used as" it does.

[Shatteredtower]

For the sake of clarity, "can be used as" is the same as "counts as." There are only 2 powers in the compendium that use the wording "counts as" and they're both warlock powers.

The distinction is between "can be used in place of" and "can be used as." When a power "can be used in place of" it does not gain the bonuses. When it "can be used as" it does.

Good grief. That's complicated for no good purpose.

[ghost_warlock]

Good grief. That's complicated for no good purpose.

Especially when the majority of these powers are just ones you can use in place of a MBA when you charge. So, really, they could have just said "Special: you can use this power when you charge" and not referenced MBA at all.

The same goes for the different powers that say something along the lines of "Special: if you miss with this power, it is not expended." They could have just given the power the Reliable keyword. The keyword is there in the PHB1, so it's not like they have the excuse that it was added in a latter book.

But I guess if you're not being overly complicated and redundant, you're not doing WotC right. :smalltongue:

[Shatteredtower]

The same goes for the different powers that say something along the lines of "Special: if you miss with this power, it is not expended." They could have just given the power the Reliable keyword. The keyword is there in the PHB1, so it's not like they have the excuse that it was added in a latter book.

To be fair, I have lost track of the number of times I had to point out to players that a given power had the Reliable keyword, even when the keyword was one of the reasons the power was chosen in the first place. I don't think that keyword has been used anywhere since the Rules Compendium: every power since then that might have featured it went with the Special entry instead. WotC might have decided the keyword was causing too much confusion and traded it in for the sake of greater clarity.

[Kurald Galain]

The distinction is between "can be used in place of" and "can be used as." When a power "can be used in place of" it does not gain the bonuses. When it "can be used as" it does.

Well actually, there is no mention anywhere in the rulebooks that this distinction is at all meaningful. There is a vocal minority on the WOTC boards that assumes that any subtle difference in wording is an important difference explicitly intended by the game designers, but whenever the designers speak about this they suggest that it really isn't.

D&D is not a book of law. It was not written by bureaucratic legalists, but in everyday English. That means that sometimes, different words can be used to mean the exact same thing, and there's no problem with that.

[ghost_warlock]

Well actually, there is no mention anywhere in the rulebooks that this distinction is at all meaningful. There is a vocal minority on the WOTC boards that assumes that any subtle difference in wording is an important difference explicitly intended by the game designers, but whenever the designers speak about this they suggest that it really isn't.

D&D is not a book of law. It was not written by bureaucratic legalists, but in everyday English. That means that sometimes, different words can be used to mean the exact same thing, and there's no problem with that.

When I first read this thread I looked and couldn't find anything about this distinction either in the Rules Compendium, Player's Handbook, or online Glossary. The only thing I could think of was that it might have been mentioned in some obscure errata, but if it was wouldn't the powers that were changed by it note that in the online compendium?

In fact, the only evidence I found to support it was that a character built in the online builder that had the +2 damage bonus from Bracers of Mighty Striking automatically added to Eldritch Strike but not to Intent Laid Bare. But the online builder isn't exactly reliable for this sort of thing.

[MeeposFire]

Well actually, there is no mention anywhere in the rulebooks that this distinction is at all meaningful. There is a vocal minority on the WOTC boards that assumes that any subtle difference in wording is an important difference explicitly intended by the game designers, but whenever the designers speak about this they suggest that it really isn't.

D&D is not a book of law. It was not written by bureaucratic legalists, but in everyday English. That means that sometimes, different words can be used to mean the exact same thing, and there's no problem with that.

This is the case. The big distinction is made by people like us on the boards that decided that the language used was made intentionally (or even unintentionally) to distinguish some powers as mbas and not mbas. As I recall there was a FAQ, cust serv, or similar note left by an actual writer of one of the powers which basically stated that they did not write these powers with the intention of having each type of wording to be seen as different. Each was supposed to say essentially the same thing of this is now an mba in all or some circumstances.

D&D is full of rules lawyers and we eat up these word differences for breakfast.

[testsubject27]

Don't forget divine classes belonging to deities with the Skill domain.

You can then take the Power of Skill feat. It works with 4 different powers, one per divine class. I can't remember all of them but the most common are:

Overwhelming Strike - Avenger
Divine Bolts - Invoker

Remember that half-elves can take an MBA sub as their dilettante power. This effectively allows a half-elf to have a worthy MBA with any class, esp if they take Adept dabbler to make the statistic work right, although this usually isn't needed.