[4E] Worst epic destiny capstone?

[Aron Times]

Not all epic destiny capstones were made equal. Some, like the Demigod's Divine Miracle, are OVER 9000, while others... Well, here's a list of those that don't make the cut:

1. Avatar of Death

Harbinger of Demise (30th level): Enemies that end their turn adjacent to you and have 25 hit points or fewer die.

I can kill people within a 5-ft. radius. Oh wait, it's only for those with 25 or fewer HP, who would die from a single at-will attack from a level 30 character.

2. Avatar of War

Lord of War (30th level): Your first attack of each encounter that hits deals 25 extra damage.

Not as bad as Harbinger of Demise, but really? My capstone lets me deal the damage of an at-will once per encounter? And that's it?

3. Mythic Sovereign

Sword of Kings (30th level): Choose one encounter power with the weapon keyword that you know. When you use that power, it is not expended unless you miss all targets.

Not bad, and strictly better than Practiced Reliability (which only works on single-target martial encounter powers), but for a capstone, I expect much better than something slightly better than a feat.

4. Elf High Mage

Empowered by Life (30th level): When you have no healing surges left, you can choose to use the tension of the boundary between your life and your death to power your magic. You can use an encounter power you have already expended or gain a +4 bonus to any attack roll with a spell. At the end of your turn after doing either, you lose hit points equal to one-quarter your maximum hit points. You can use a daily power you have already expended or turn a hit with a spell into a critical hit. At the end of your turn after doing either, you lose hit points equal to one-half your maximum hit points. You can do more than one of these in a single turn.

Let me get this straight. Once per turn, when I'm about to die, I can die faster?

5. Harbinger of Doom

Doom's Reward (30th level): Whenever you make an attack and miss every target, you gain temporary hit points equal to one-half your level.

15 temporary HP for whiffing an attack? A bit underwhelming for my level 30 real ultimate power.

Since the Compendium doesn't have Primal Power yet, these are all I can find. Discuss.

[TMZ_Cinoros]

6. Dispossessed Chapmion

Driven by Duty (30th level): The first time you drop to 0 hit points or fewer after an extended rest, you can spend a healing surge as an immediate interrupt. Any ally who can see you regains 2d6 hit points. Any hit points in excess of an ally's maximum number of hit points become temporary hit points.

So, once a day when you drop to 0, you can spend a healing surge to heal all of your allies a little bit. Of course, you need to have an immediate interrupt available. I don't know about you guys, but I am usually using my immediate interrupts to prevent myself from dying.

[Kurald Galain]

From the Player's Handbook: trickster's disposition.

Once per day, you get to change one of the DM's rolls to a one. In essence, you make somebody miss on an attack, once. That's only slightly more powerful than the ability every halfling gets at level one...

[cupkeyk]

My issue is that you are looking at the capstone feature, which cannot possibly dictate how good or bad an ED is. I can't vouch for most of these but Elf High Mage is TOP TIER. You can create magic items at half the price three levels before the Lorekeeper can. Fluff-wise you can easily convince your dm that an elf high mage would have access to a fey line intersection and now you can create magic items at a quarter of the cost. If for some odd reason taht your DM lets you use a FR ED in an Eberron campaign and you have the mark of making and master crafter feats, you are now making cheap AND high level items.

You have to weigh all of an ED's features and powers before saying that it sucks.

EDIT: did the title of this thread change while I was typing?

[Dixieboy]

Nay, nay it did not.

Anyway: The Elven mage doesn't seem so bad.
One quarter your hp (Current I assume) in order to use a daily again.
The "You have to be out of healing surges" clause blows, but i think that's there for balance.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

1. Avatar of Death

Harbinger of Demise (30th level): Enemies that end their turn adjacent to you and have 25 hit points or fewer die.

I can kill people within a 5-ft. radius. Oh wait, it's only for those with 25 or fewer HP, who would die from a single at-will attack from a level 30 character.

What about minions? This dude could mop the floor with those puppies. Although I don't remember offhand what this is an ED for.

[Grynning]

Nay, nay it did not.

Anyway: The Elven mage doesn't seem so bad.
One quarter your hp (Current I assume) in order to use a daily again.
The "You have to be out of healing surges" clause blows, but i think that's there for balance.

No. It takes half of your maximum hp to use a daily again. That's pretty terrible.

What about minions? This dude could mop the floor with those puppies. Although I don't remember offhand what this is an ED for.

You can mop the floor with minions anyways if you're level 30. There are so many better ways to do cheap and easy AoE damage.

I do agree with cupkeyk though. Capstone is hardly a statement on the effectiveness of an ED.

[Moff Chumley]

Agreed. Although it is extremely disappointing for the ONLY ability you get at level 30 to suck...

[dragoonsgone]

From the Player's Handbook: trickster's disposition.

Once per day, you get to change one of the DM's rolls to a one. In essence, you make somebody miss on an attack, once. That's only slightly more powerful than the ability every halfling gets at level one...

I figure you would use it on a save not an attack roll. Not the greatest, but making sure the baddie is stunlocked 1 more round ain't horrible.

[Aron Times]

The Deadly Trickster's capstone can force the solo BBEG to roll a 1 on initiative, basically granting the party an extra turn against him.

Anyway, I know that judging an epic destiny by its capstone doesn't do it justice, but the point of this thread is to talk about underwhelming capstones. For example, the Avatar of War actually gets pretty cool abilities; it's just that his capstone sucks.

[Starsinger]

6. Dispossessed Chapmion

Driven by Duty (30th level): The first time you drop to 0 hit points or fewer after an extended rest, you can spend a healing surge as an immediate interrupt. Any ally who can see you regains 2d6 hit points. Any hit points in excess of an ally's maximum number of hit points become temporary hit points.

So, once a day when you drop to 0, you can spend a healing surge to heal all of your allies a little bit. Of course, you need to have an immediate interrupt available. I don't know about you guys, but I am usually using my immediate interrupts to prevent myself from dying.

When you spend a healing surge, you gain 1/4 of your health. Pretty sure precedent is that it has to say you don't regain HP, like Lay on Hands.

[Asbestos]

What about minions? This dude could mop the floor with those puppies. Although I don't remember offhand what this is an ED for.

Declare a city of chumps your 'Enemy' ... proceed to walk through it.

[Thajocoth]

4. Elf High Mage

Empowered by Life (30th level): When you have no healing surges left, you can choose to use the tension of the boundary between your life and your death to power your magic. You can use an encounter power you have already expended or gain a +4 bonus to any attack roll with a spell. At the end of your turn after doing either, you lose hit points equal to one-quarter your maximum hit points. You can use a daily power you have already expended or turn a hit with a spell into a critical hit. At the end of your turn after doing either, you lose hit points equal to one-half your maximum hit points. You can do more than one of these in a single turn.

Let me get this straight. Once per turn, when I'm about to die, I can die faster?

No no... You can die faster multiple times per round. Which would kill you even faster! So lets say you have no surges, but you're at maxhp and have an action point:
Expended Daily, Enlarge it, turn all the hits into crits
Action point: Expended Daily, Enlarge it, turn all the hits into crits
Expended Move action Daily Utility
Expended Minor action Daily Utility

Then, at the end of your turn, you'll be a few thousand hp into the negatives and promptly die. But at least you went out dealing immense damage... Perhaps it was awesome enough for the party to even Raise Dead you!

[AgentPaper]

No no... You can die faster multiple times per round. Which would kill you even faster! So lets say you have no surges, but you're at maxhp and have an action point:
Expended Daily, Enlarge it, turn all the hits into crits
Action point: Expended Daily, Enlarge it, turn all the hits into crits
Expended Move action Daily Utility
Expended Minor action Daily Utility

Then, at the end of your turn, you'll be a few thousand hp into the negatives and promptly die. But at least you went out dealing immense damage... Perhaps it was awesome enough for the party to even Raise Dead you!

Or you can come back to life via a variety of items. And you don't use this when you're at full HP, you use it when you're close to dying anyways. You could even come out ahead in HP if you're already below 1/4 of your max HP or so.

[MCerberus]

The Deadly Trickster's capstone can force the solo BBEG to roll a 1 on initiative, basically granting the party an extra turn against him.

Anyway, I know that judging an epic destiny by its capstone doesn't do it justice, but the point of this thread is to talk about underwhelming capstones. For example, the Avatar of War actually gets pretty cool abilities; it's just that his capstone sucks.

I agree with this, the epic destinies get different things and aren't meant to have uniformly good stuff at x level. Compare a couple of PHB level 26 utilities, Archmage and Dreadly Trickster. The former let's you get one power back as a standard action. The latter is an extended rest as a minor action. Taking in only the capstone is a rather narrow view of the ED, especially since you can accidentally overlook how it gels with other ED features.

[Mando Knight]

Or you can come back to life via a variety of items.

Such as the Cloak of the Phoenix. If you're already out of healing surges, it's a free full heal whenever you drop to 0 HP.

[Jothki]

Is there anything that restricts the Deadly Trickster's capstone to combat rolls? If your DM is particularly dice-happy, I'd think that you could possibly seriously warp the plot that way.

[Lunix Vandal]

No no... You can die faster multiple times per round. Which would kill you even faster! So lets say you have no surges, but you're at maxhp and have an action point:
Expended Daily, Enlarge it, turn all the hits into crits
Action point: Expended Daily, Enlarge it, turn all the hits into crits
Expended Move action Daily Utility
Expended Minor action Daily Utility

Then, at the end of your turn, you'll be a few thousand hp into the negatives and promptly die. But at least you went out dealing immense damage... Perhaps it was awesome enough for the party to even Raise Dead you!

Or you do it every single round for entire combats at a time in the presence of the party's Legendary General TacLord, who lets you stay alive and conscious indefinitely as long as he does, even if you drop into hundreds thousands hundreds of thousands of negative hit points.

And if you see he's about to go down, just Quick Draw and down one of the 50-gold Heroic-tier healing potions. Bang, you're back up in positive HP, and thus don't get instantly splattered (into ludicrous gibs!) when he falls. It's only one HP (so you're probably still pretty vulnerable), but still.

[Kurald Galain]

Is there anything that restricts the Deadly Trickster's capstone to combat rolls? If your DM is particularly dice-happy, I'd think that you could possibly seriously warp the plot that way.

If your DM actually bases his plot on d20 rolls, then that would be hilarious.

I agree that you can't judge an ED on its capstone, but then this thread is about comparing capstones, not comparing EDs. On the one hand, the capstone doesn't matter much since you'll be playing with it for only two or three sessions anyway before the character retires permanently; on the other hand, since it the capstone exists only to make characters "go out" with a bang, it had better be flashy and memorable.

[Aron Times]

If your DM actually bases his plot on d20 rolls, then that would be hilarious.

I agree that you can't judge an ED on its capstone, but then this thread is about comparing capstones, not comparing EDs. On the one hand, the capstone doesn't matter much since you'll be playing with it for only two or three sessions anyway before the character retires permanently; on the other hand, since it the capstone exists only to make characters "go out" with a bang, it had better be flashy and memorable.

Thank you for pointing this out. The point of an epic destiny capstone is for the character to go out with a bang, and an underwhelming capstone is just anticlimactic.

[Mando Knight]

And if you see he's about to go down, just Quick Draw and down one of the 50-gold Heroic-tier healing potions. Bang, you're back up in positive HP, and thus don't get instantly splattered (into ludicrous gibs!) when he falls. It's only one HP (so you're probably still pretty vulnerable), but still.

You need to have a Healing Surge in order to use any of the healing potions. Having access to a potion or power that grants regeneration and spending your last HS on that might work, though.

[Kurald Galain]

You need to have a Healing Surge in order to use any of the healing potions. Having access to a potion or power that grants regeneration and spending your last HS on that might work, though.

Doesn't regeneration stop working when you're below zero HP?

[Hzurr]

Doesn't regeneration stop working when you're below zero HP?

Yes it does, much to the frustration of my players.

[LibraryOgre]

Yes it does, much to the frustration of my players.

DAMN YOU, HZURR!

On the other hand, most versions of regeneration start working again once you're positive.


Huh. I wonder what level cleric power it would be that would heal 1 point to everyone within a 20 burst?

[Shadow_Elf]

With the elf high mage destiny, is you've got a Swordmage Demigod with Unicorn's Touch, they should be able to keep ya alive pretty well with the permanent free hps, provided you don't start slashing your wrists before they get their loop going.

And I am pretty sure that healing pots heal 1 HP (from 0) to a person utterly lacking in surges.

[ocato]

There certainly are still methods to heal someone without surges. Lay on Hands and Artificer Infusions come to mind.

[LibraryOgre]

There certainly are still methods to heal someone without surges. Lay on Hands and Artificer Infusions come to mind.

Though artificers are probably the worst healers of the Leaders. Sure, they don't use healing surges, but they also are 2/day instead of 2/encounter.

[DSCrankshaw]

Though artificers are probably the worst healers of the Leaders. Sure, they don't use healing surges, but they also are 2/day instead of 2/encounter.

That's not how it works. They get 2 at the start of the day, but they can refresh their supply every short rest, as long as someone contributes surges. In other words, they let surges become more of a party pool (so the person with the most leftover surges can contribute to the one with the least), and add 2 extra surges to the pool each day.

[LibraryOgre]

That's not how it works. They get 2 at the start of the day, but they can refresh their supply every short rest, as long as someone contributes surges. In other words, they let surges become more of a party pool (so the person with the most leftover surges can contribute to the one with the least), and add 2 extra surges to the pool each day.

Ah, ok. Our Artificer was trying to go with "I can do this all day, without surges", and so we nipped it in the bud, but I didn't read the rest too closely.

[Hzurr]

Ah, ok. Our Artificer was trying to go with "I can do this all day, without surges", and so we nipped it in the bud, but I didn't read the rest too closely.

Yeah... the artificer sometimes has problems with reading the fine print (and understand what things are balanced, or overpowered, or underpowered, or...useful...)