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3 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2010 - 4:47AM
#451
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Date Joined:
May 13, 2009
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You're not exactly a Ranged Defender anymore once you switch to a Melee weapon...
Epic Dungeon Master Want to give your players a kingdom of their own? I made a 4e rule system to make it happen! Your Kingdom awaits!Update 5th Sep 2011: Added a sample kingdom, as well as sample of play.
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3 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2010 - 6:30AM
#452
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Date Joined:
Mar 18, 2009
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Just a question: on the whole "ranged defender" concept, with a large percentage of the creatures out there wanting to do melee damage, how would you remain a "ranged defender" if you're doing your job and getting things to attack you?
Well, if you're on the other side of the battlefield from your marked enemies, and those enemies only have short-range or melee attacks, then you're doing your job by forcing those enemies to choose between
(A) not attacking anyone and just moving closer to the ranged defender that marked them, so as to avoid the mark penalty; or
(B) attacking someone other than the ranged defender that marked them, and getting hit with the mark penalties.
EDIT: By posing that question, I wonder if you're really asking about the "potency" required by the mark of a ranged defender?
It seems to me that a ranged defender's mark will have to be pretty strong to convince a melee-only monster to abandon all potential targets in range to pursue the ranged defender, or at least just not trigger the mark by not attacking at all. This increased strength of the mark may be unbalanced, and may be why we haven't seen a ranged defender yet.
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3 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2010 - 7:09AM
#453
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Date Joined:
Jun 11, 2008
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Mostly I think they are setting the "balance" point too low. They need to be boosting more items and more powers instead of taking the nerf bat to just about everything.
You forget that DnD isn't an MMO or a card game - the core competition isn't between players, but between the players and the environment.
Yes, balance between classes is important and yes, balance between "player toys" can be also achieved by boosting everyone instead of nerfing an offender.
However, such arms race would extend to adversaries as well.
I'd point you to the recently released Dark Sun solo, the Oba of Gulg. In order to be threatening, we got a monster that can curse players with a small thing that makes so that whenever she damages someone, all cursed enemies take that damage. She deals an average of 50ish damage every time she's hit, something more when bloodied, can teleport or slide cursed targets while hitting other targets and so on. She has a DPR potential of hundreds of damage per round, and will require some really wicked characters to kill.
I'm all for powerful monsters, but we're starting to see more and more high level monsters that are built around the idea that players are exploiting things, which leads parties who DON'T exploit things towards a situation where they're shut down from facing most "endgame" beings. I prefer WotC's approach of balancing the baseline, instead of having to either make content for optimizers and "normal people" or even having optimizers have no content for them at all (like in 3rd ed).
Interested in reading about a Dark Sun 4e game? Here's the blog of our current campaign. My homebrew Dark Sun material: - the Lord of Blades, a melee oriented Kaisharga/Dead Lord
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3 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2010 - 7:17AM
#454
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Date Joined:
Apr 28, 2008
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Just a question: on the whole "ranged defender" concept, with a large percentage of the creatures out there wanting to do melee damage, how would you remain a "ranged defender" if you're doing your job and getting things to attack you?
Well it depends on the class, but you could have a melee weapon that works as an implement or you could just switch to close burst/blasts. Or you could just move away.
The key point being that your mark and defending abilities work at range and help defend your allies.
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3 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2010 - 12:55PM
#455
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Just a question: on the whole "ranged defender" concept, with a large percentage of the creatures out there wanting to do melee damage, how would you remain a "ranged defender" if you're doing your job and getting things to attack you?
Well, if you're on the other side of the battlefield from your marked enemies, and those enemies only have short-range or melee attacks, then you're doing your job by forcing those enemies to choose between
(A) not attacking anyone and just moving closer to the ranged defender that marked them, so as to avoid the mark penalty; or
(B) attacking someone other than the ranged defender that marked them, and getting hit with the mark penalties.
EDIT: By posing that question, I wonder if you're really asking about the "potency" required by the mark of a ranged defender?
It seems to me that a ranged defender's mark will have to be pretty strong to convince a melee-only monster to abandon all potential targets in range to pursue the ranged defender, or at least just not trigger the mark by not attacking at all. This increased strength of the mark may be unbalanced, and may be why we haven't seen a ranged defender yet.
I think the bigger issue is simply kiting in general. Swordmages are already getting infamous for this and plenty of players have happily discovered they can just slap a Swordmage hybrid class onto their character concept and gain a VERY nasty and practically free ability to kite. This is a defender that isn't even truely 'ranged'. A truely ranged defender will open up some serious issues. Players with a high degree of tactical ability and a good knowledge of character builds will probably walk all over encounters with it.
At any rate if I were considering creating some sort of mechanics along those lines I'd run it through the charops gauntlet, they'll rip it apart and examine every aspect. Actually I'm pretty sure this sort of class design has been suggested numerous times before. I don't know what the final evaluations on viability were but you might want to dig around if you're really into it.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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3 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2010 - 1:04PM
#456
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2001
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It occurs to me that in prior editions, all the way back to 1e AD&D, there were 'Strength bows' - missle weapons made to take advantage of higher STR, generally by adding damage.
There's no reason you couldn't introduce a superior draw bow, in long and short flavors. With the 'heavy thrown' property, so you could make STR-based RBAs with it. Fighter's a good archer again. Nothing to it, really. He can mark at range - even long range - he just doesn't do a lot with the mark. Additional powers could further flesh it out, as nothing stops a ranged weapon power from using STR (or any other stat, for that matter).
Love 4e? Concerned about its future? Join the Old Guard of 4e"You want The Tooth? You can't handle The Tooth!" - Dahlver-Nar. "If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D&D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly" - E. Gary Gygax
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3 years ago ::
Jul 20, 2010 - 4:50PM
#457
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A lot of what people are talking about with ranged defenders is exactly how I play my shielding swordmage. I mark the nastiest enemy in range and then try to stay as far away from him as possible. That way he's forced to either stay where he is and fight my allies (with a -2 attack penalty and a once per round -X damage penalty) or take OAs from those same allies to come after me. Which frees me up to either make repeated ranged attacks against him (if he's the only enemy left) or to go and tie up a group of his henchmen. Since I have the nastiest MBA in the party, they're not likely to try and run away from me. And since most of my powers are close bursts, I can take them down fairly quickly while my well-protected allies work on their boss.
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