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Tharag Bocc wrote:

I must wonder what is up with this new policy of not compiling the playtest articles. I don't play LFR, but it seems to me WotC is eliminating the most controlled playtest environment by not making these new options RPGA legal.

Did the barbarian and artificer playtests generate significant complaints or some such?

Well, those were both pretty straightforward playtests. Given how ambitious and experimental these rules are, I suspect they feel the benefits of the extensive playtesting isn't worth the perils of letting unbalanced material into the shared campaign on such a scale.

Serphet wrote:

I think this system is VERY experimental right now. I bet we'll have RPGA legel stuff before hb 3 though.

And I can totally understand why it's not in the CB yet. The ddi team must be crapping themselves everytime R&D throws around a new system idea.

R&D: "Why don't we cut every class in half and allow players to glue classes together with limited class features. Also allow characters to restore features with a feat. Also still can MC. Also warforged components"

WoTC_DM: FFFFFFFFFFFF!

I can't use CB because I have a Mac (and if on more person tells me to use parallels, I swear I will stab you in the eye with an alchemist's fire), but does the system allow you to enter "homebrew classes"? If so, then you could just write up a "new" homebrew class for whatever hybrid you are playing...

MrMyth wrote:

Sure - here are the earliest ones that a character could easily pick up:

Archer Ranger/Rogue: Disruptive Strike (Ranger 3, PHB), Snap Shot (Rogue 7, Martial Power), Shaft Splitter (Sylvan Archer 11, Martial Power Paragon Path) or Combined Fire (Battlefield Archer 11, PHB Paragon Path)

Melee Ranger/Rogue: Off-hand Strike (Ranger 1, Martial Power), Low Slash (Rogue 3, Martial Power), Two-fold Flinch (Ranger 7, Martial Power) or Disruptive Strike (Ranger 3, PHB), Critical Opportunity (Daggermaster 11, PHB Paragon Path) or Cross-body Parry (Blade Dancer 11, Martial Power Paragon Path)

Fighter/Ranger: Off-hand Strike (Ranger 1, Martial Power), Parry and Riposte (Fighter 3, Martial Power), Two-fold Flinch (Ranger 7, Martial Power) or Disruptive Strike (Ranger 3, PHB) or Not So Fast (Fighter 7, Martial Power), Cross-body Parry (Blade Dancer 11, Martial Power Paragon Path)

Fighter has a couple more conditional immediates that would rely on adjacent enemies attacking allies, and can also get a few other options by using a shield (which would likely require investing some feats in using a spiked shield so as to count as dual-wielding at the same time.) The shield powers also could be decent options for a Fighter/Rogue hybrid.

Martial Power is really where a lot of these powers showed up, and they are already pretty strong in their own right - in general, a 'free' attack (Minor or Immediate Encounter Power) plus a Standard Action At-Will usually comes out as better damage than just a Standard Action Encounter power, and it only gets better as you stack damage modifiers. (Which most optimized builds do.)

Warlock doesn't have as much in the way of minor action attacks (though who knows what Arcane Power will bring) - but it does often have daily powers which make new attacks when sustained as a minor action, which can produce the same effect for an Encounter. Examples: Crown of Stars (Warlock 1, Dragon 366), Hunger of Hadar (Warlock 5, PHB), Summons of Khirad (Warlock 9, PHB), Thief of Five Fates (Warlock 9, PHB), Visage of Vhudun (Warlock 15, Dragon 366), Tendrils of Thuban (Warlock 15, PHB), etc. Many of these are a bit volatile to keep going, as they either require continually hitting or keeping enemies in a zone, but the optential is still there.

One possible solution would be to only have these abilities (Sneak, Quarry, Curse, Mark) only work for attacks that are Standard Action. It would certainly directly weaken those classes - though the limitation on only using those class features on class powers is already a somewhat arbitrary direct limitation for the purposes of balance. (And, again, we'd only really be weakening powers that are among the strongest choices anyway.)

Another option would be to tag all these features under some sort of overall category, and put a limitation that you can only use one feature from that category each round. But that could get rather cumbersome (especially as they have to assign more abilities into this area from new classes, especially ones that use mechanics that aren't quite as similar. How would you balance Barbarian against these, for example? Etc.) This would also potentially limit the effectiveness of Action Points for these characters.