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Mar 5, 2010 -- 9:50PM, borg285 wrote:

It's not an infinite damage power, it's simply an auto-kill power.  Nothing more than an "I win" button.  What's wrong with that?

Agreed. Enemies should just be using their perfect defense charms against 'soul ripper' effects, anyway. It's not even like it's a surprise attack or something really weird.

Oh wait.... wrong game. >_>

I find Harmonious Thunder hilarious for not only being horrendously worded, but being a veritable onion of failure, each layer presenting a new area of jacking up.

At a basic level, a 2x ~1.5[W] power is alright for a daily, not amazing, but alright. A rider could be fairly powerful and make it a nice power, especially if there's any support for the storm theme. But that effect... first we have the obvious failure, the one that's so absurd it looks like a trap... the damage it deals to a target triggers itself as worded. That literally makes it the equivalent of some Exalted power attack or monk-as-Soifon-from-Bleach for the animu one hit murder. And since we can somewhat safely agree that 5 Point Exploding Heart Technique isn't an early heroic power, that's not right.

Then the first layer of interpretation for safety. This is a guaranteed, fat damage boost. Each attack from a Twin Strike or even the triggering of something like Flurry of Blows helps to stack on fat swaths of damage. No save, no restriction, just a guaranteed "jack two monsters a day". If this were a higher level daily power, it might be almost fair... but to start the game with it? Damn.

If we assume there's a once-per-round restriction, though, does this power remain useful? It basically ends up being slightly better than ongoing (Strength) that's split between two dudes. If you can slap two elites, it's pretty slick, but on standard monsters, maybe not so much. I guess it'd have to be one per round per target or something. That's even more wording, though...

I'll be curious to see what ends up happening with this power, since it doesn't feel like it'll end up with a solid power level in the end... good times.

This is why the developers "should" develop a power builder utility..

.. A few clicks of the mouse..
Add a Name.. flavor text.. and bam.. new power. Consitent wording with each and EVERY power.

Power Name =
Flavor Text =
Class =
Type =
... you get the idea.

You could greatly reduce the amount of descriptive text by clearly specifying default rules for ALL powers...

Example.. 

 - Powers deal damage of a type equal to the keyword(s) they use.
 - Powers deal damage to a individual target(s) ONLY once per round.
 - Powers with Effect & Attack sections are resolved in the order that those sections appear in the power.
 - Powers can NEVER trigger themselves.
 - Indented Sections are dependent on the section above. (so Effect: indented after Hit: means that the effect ONLY triggers if you hit.) 

The Effect in the power above would be more clearly expressed as: If the target is hit, the other target will take your Strength modifer in damage at the start of its turn.

Mar 5, 2010 -- 10:29PM, haferka wrote:

This is why the developers "should" develop a power builder utility.

Meh, not really. The problem how I see it tends to be more an issue of discipline. This is basically a problem seen in most every CCG ever published, where someone writes rules text they assume is easily understood, but fail to catch a point of vague or incorrect parsing. This is why many Magic cards can get some verbose wording, to make sure the effect described is unambiguous and (hopefully) in the desired power band. The issue with trying to standardize the form for writing a power like this is that there is no single standard to apply here. If instead of damage, the effect's applied result for damaging one target was dazing the other or giving vulnerability, the once per round restriction wouldn't really be necessary. With damage as the trigger and effect, though, there needs to be some form of restriction, either, "When one of the targets takes damage from a different source," "Once per round, when one of the targets takes damage," or "When one of the targets takes damage from one of your other attacks," would each accomplish the same main goal in different ways.

I'd expect a day zero errata on this, and might well consider abusing it in LFR until errata comes just for **** and giggles.