PDA

View Full Version : 4e at-will martial homebrews



Yakk
2008-11-08, 06:49 PM
Some at-will replacements:
Twin Strike Ranger Attack 1
At-Will + Martial Weapon
Range: Weapon
Requires: Two weapons wielded, or a Ranged weapon
Attack: Str vs AC (melee) with each weapon, or Dex vs AC (ranged) two attacks
Hit: [W] per hit. Increases to 2[W] at level 21.
Special: If you hit the same target twice with one use of this power, the second hit does half damage.

Careful Attack Ranger Attack 1
At-Will + Martial, Weapon
Range: Weapon
Requires: Two weapons wielded, or a Ranged weapon
Attack: Str+2 vs AC (melee) or Dex+2 vs AC (ranged)
Hit: [W] per hit. Increases to 2[W] at level 21.
Special: If you miss on your first attack roll with this power, you may reroll it at no cost.

Sure Strike Fighter Attack 1
At-Will + Martial, Melee Weapon
Range: Melee Weapon
Attack: Str+2 vs AC, plus half of your wisdom bonus.
Hit: [W]. Increases to 2[W] at level 21.
Special: This power counts as a basic attack.

Deft Strike Rogue Attack 1
At-Will + Martial, Weapon
Requires: Light blade, sling, or crossbow.
Special: Before this attack, you may move up to half of your character's move.
Range: Weapon
Attack: Dex vs AC
Hit: [W]+Dex, and you may move up to half of your character's move. Increases to 2[W]+Dex at level 21.

----
New powers:

Finess Blade Rogue Attack 1
At-Will + Martial, Melee Weapon
Requires: Light blade.
Special: This power counts as a basic attack
Range: Weapon
Attack: Dex vs AC
Hit: [W]+Str. Increases to 2[W]+Str at level 21.
Artful Dodger: Can replace your Str bonus to damage with half your Cha bonus to damage.

Feat: Weapon Finess Requires Rogue class and proficiency with at least one light blade. Gain the Finess Blade at-will power.

Sentinel's Strike Fighter Attack 1
At-Will + Martial, Melee Weapon
Range: Melee Weapon
Attack: Str vs AC
Hit: [W]+Str, and gain a bonus to AC equal to 1+half the number of adjacent enemies until the start of your next turn. Increases to 2[W]+Str at level 21.

Hedge of Blades Ranger Attack 1
At-Will + Martial, Melee Weapon
Target: Burst 1
Attack: Str vs AC
Hit: [W], increases to 2[W] at level 21.
Special: Attack all adjacent targets with your primary hand weapon until you hit. Then attack all remaining adjacent targets with your secondary hand weapon if you have one until it hits. Each weapon only gets to hit at most once.

Pirate_King
2008-11-09, 03:45 PM
Some at-will replacements:
Twin Strike Ranger Attack 1
At-Will + Martial Weapon
Range: Weapon
Requires: Two weapons wielded, or a Ranged weapon
Attack: Str vs AC (melee) with each weapon, or Dex vs AC (ranged) two attacks
Hit: [W] per hit. Increases to 2[W] at level 21.
Special: If you hit the same target twice with one use of this power, the second hit does half damage.

----
New powers:

Finess Blade Rogue Attack 1
At-Will + Martial, Melee Weapon
Requires: Light blade.
Special: This power counts as a basic attack
Range: Weapon
Attack: Dex vs AC
Hit: [W]+Str. Increases to 2[W]+Str at level 21.
Artful Dodger: Can replace your Str bonus to damage with half your Cha bonus to damage.

Feat: Weapon Finess Requires Rogue class and proficiency with at least one light blade. Gain the Finess Blade at-will power.

Hedge of Blades Ranger Attack 1
At-Will + Martial, Melee Weapon
Target: Burst 1
Attack: Str vs AC
Hit: [W], increases to 2[W] at level 21.
Special: Attack all adjacent targets with your primary hand weapon until you hit. Then attack all remaining adjacent targets with your secondary hand weapon if you have one until it hits. Each weapon only gets to hit at most once.

First, why did you make twin strike worse? It already doesn't get to add ability mods to the damage.

Finesse Blade: This attack's damage doesn't make sense. In 4e, generally if it's dex vs AC, then the damage is going to be [W] + dex. The power dictates what sort of ability adds damage, not whether it's ranged or melee(with the exception of basic attack). Charisma in that situation seems completely random.

Hedge of Blades: Some fluff description here would be helpful in determing what's actually happening in the game. As it is, I see a ranger closing his eyes, rapidly flinging one weapon around until he hits something, then repeating with the other. I'm pretty sure that's not what you've envisioned.

Sentinel's strike is kind of cool, but seems more like a level 1 encounter power, or take out the attack and make it a stance-related utility power

KKL
2008-11-09, 06:21 PM
Why did you do that to Twin Strike ;_;

And Made Careful Attack the NEW, even more improved Twin Strike.

Townopolis
2008-11-09, 06:25 PM
I am also confused about the dramatic changes to the two ranger powers. Perhaps some math would explain.

Yakk
2008-11-10, 12:29 AM
Twin strike is, as it stands, by far the most powerful at-will power in the game.

It is in fact so good that balancing other powers so that 'always twin strike' isn't optimal is very difficult.

So, I made it just as good, if you target two different targets. But it no longer is the single best single-target damage ability in the game by an ever-growing margin.

The Ranger still keeps the ability to try to hit once, and if it does deliver your quarry damage, then hit another target.

It really is overpowered.

---

Careful attack completely sucked. The new careful attack only gets to hit at most once. And it still requires a reasonably hard to hit target to be worth using.

Careful attack does this many hits on average (if a P chance to hit with a basic attack) :
(P+.15) + (.85-P)*(P+.15)
= P + .15 + .85 P + 0.1275 - P^2
= -P^2 + 1.85 P + 0.2775

The old twin strike did:
2P
hits on average.

Old Twin Strike - New Careful Attack
P^2 + .15 P - 0.2775
P = 0.46
Ie, if you hit on a 9+ or better, the old twin strike beat out the new careful attack in terms of average hits/attack. Add in miss damage, and the old twin strike starts becoming even more abusive.

Even at that point, I suspect the new Careful Attack might be too good. I giving it a +2 to hit with the reroll is probably enough, given that twin strike has been made weaker.

---

Finess Blade is aimed at being a feat power. It gives a Rogue a high-accuracy Dex-based basic attack in exchange for a feat. As a full dex-to-hit and dex-to-damage power, it would be too good for a mere feat. It isn't intended to be picked up as a real at-will power.

(The only class that gets that trick -- a non-str based basic melee attack -- is a defender class who doesn't have strength among their main attributes.)

---

Hedge of Blades would consist of attacking everyone around the Ranger with your weapons. Each weapon eventually stops when it hits someone. It is better than twin strike when there are lots of opponents nearby, but it isn't a true area attack power.

Pirate_King
2008-11-10, 01:05 AM
Finess Blade is aimed at being a feat power. It gives a Rogue a high-accuracy Dex-based basic attack in exchange for a feat. As a full dex-to-hit and dex-to-damage power, it would be too good for a mere feat. It isn't intended to be picked up as a real at-will power.

(The only class that gets that trick -- a non-str based basic melee attack -- is a defender class who doesn't have strength among their main attributes.)



buh? None of the rogue's at wills are str based, they're all dex, and they can all be melee. two of them can also be ranged, but they are all melee attacks. Look at sly flourish. Not only is that dex to hit, thats dex+cha to damage. I have a rogue in my party that's rolling a + 8 to hit (4 dex, 3 prof, 1 weapon talent) and d4 + 7 (4 dex, 3 cha)damage at first level.

EDIT: just caught the basic attack bit. which defender are you talking about? the only basic attack that I can think of that uses stats that they wouldn't normally use is the Wizard's magic missile

twin strike is not broken. It doesn't let you add your mod to the damage, and it requires you to wield two weapons to use it in melee. The highest damage die for 1handed weps is a d10

Yakk
2008-11-10, 01:00 PM
Sorry about that. I assumed you knew that twin strike is be far the best at-will power.

Spoiler contains the side-dicussion of a model of twin strike that explains why it kicks ass:

Let B = non-stat bonus, S = stat bonus, and W = average weapon damage, P = chance of hitting with no to-hit modifiers against AC.

Then twin strike does:
2*P*(W+B) damage
A basic attack does:
P*(W+B+S)

Let's take the difference between them: Twin Strike - Basic Attack:
P*(W+B) - P*S
past level 21, this changes to:
P*(2W+B) - P*S

Now, Stat based bonuses tend to be about 4, increasing to about 8 or 9 by level 30. We'll call it 9, or ~+Level/6.

W dice at level 21 double.

B from enchantment increases by ~Level/5 -- but it also has other components from feats and the like. We'll say that B = L/5 + X for some value X.

From 1 to 20:
P(W + L/5 + X) - P*(4+L/6)
P(W-4) + P(L/30) + P*X
From 21 to 30:
P(2W-4) + P(L/30) + P*X
And there is where the power of twin strike comes from.

That X factor -- which can be boosted up quite highly -- can end up growing quite quickly. And at level 21 the additional W dice you roll kick in.

On top of that, twin strike already has the advantage for the ranger of getting 2 chances to set off Hunter's Quarry damage.

In comparison, sly flourish deals Cha*P additional damage per attack.

Reaping Strike (2H weapon) deals Str*(1-P) additional damage per attack.

Cleave deals Str*P additional damage per attack on average, but to a 2nd target.

The Reflex-based attack on the Rogue deals about .1*(W+S+B) additional damage per attack (and is the 2nd best at-will melee attack in the game, behind twin strike), assuming a 2 point gap between AC and Reflex.

You could claim that this is intended to balance against the Ranger's weaker striker dice compared to the Rogue -- but the Warlock has even weaker striker dice, and not all of the Ranger's powers scale nearly this good.

---
Finess blade is, quite simply, a feat that gives a power that allows a Rogue to deal better basic attacks. This makes the Rogue better at opportunity attacks, and better when a warlord delivers a basic attack through them, without having to pump strength in order to do it.

It isn't a full power ability, because I set the cost at a mere feat. If it wasn't a power you could buy with a feat, it would probably end up doing dex to hit and damage. But it is intended to be both cheaper, and less effective than that.

Pirate_King
2008-11-11, 12:24 PM
hm. the argument for finesse blade actually makes sense. I can see that as a feat.

You also present a compelling argument for why twin strike is the most powerful at will melee power. However, that doesn't make it broken. Factors ignored include the needing both melee weapons to have high enhancement bonuses (although the double-weapons sort of nullify that balance) and the ranger's weaknesses in defense in melee. Twin Strike would be broken as a melee power if rangers were defenders, but they have lower defenses, lower hit points, and fewer surges. It may not be balanced against other melee powers, but it is balanced within the class. It certainly isn't the only ranger at-will power worth using. My ranger player often plays like a defender because of all the damage he can do to multiple adjacent enemies with twin strike and dire wolverine strike, only to remember how many fewer hit points he has and how much lower his AC is and use hit and run to get out of the way while My paladin player takes his spot.