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Aug 4, 2010 -- 8:42AM, rampant wrote:

I think the idea is that you're shaking the guy up so badly it doesn't matter who he's targeting.

Hmm... I can see the idea...

I still think it's really too much - at a guess I'd say if that was a class power we'd be looking at a encounter power at least!

Of course it does affect your allies as well... But that's kind of strange as well, you'd think they'd get used to their friend after a while!

I'd really prefer if it was more limited (only affecting the enemy's interaction with the Dragonborn in question, no effect on allies). Thought I could see an argument for adding Push 1 to the effect (a lot of fear powers seem to have Push effects), but I'm not sure how powerful that would be!

Aug 5, 2010 -- 11:03AM, rampant wrote:

Sorry the fear power is supposed to say enemies in burst.

Supposedly it's supposed to be about on par with dragon breath. 

Enemies only, OK.

I wonder how it's supposed to be balanced, thought. Dragonbreath isn't all that special - a pretty standard blast 3 at-will power (as a minor action).

But a Burst 5 that, while not causing any damage, gives a -2 to attacks and combat advantage? Pretty darn impressive!

I really think it has to be taken down a notch. Are there any class powers with similar effects to compare it to?

Obviously I wasn't clear enough. Dragonbreath is as powerful as a class at-will.

From the few existing examples that seems to be the general rule: To make a racial power, take a class at-will power and make it an encounter power.

Thus, logically, Dragon Fear should be roughly equivelent to a comparable class at-will power.

I think the current writeup is more in line with a class encounter power. And thus overpowered for a racial power.

Personally I think it's the "grants combat advantage" part that's the problem. Any characters that gets extra damage when attacking from combat advantage is going to love that!

Thought it should actually be possible to make some kind of comparision of the effects...

A well-timed Dragonbreath should hit 3 enemies for some 12 points damage total (3 attacks at ~50% hit chance and ~8 damage. Heroic-level damage, but if breath damage also scales it should be comparable at any level).

A well-timed burst 5 should take in most of an encounter, say 6 enemies (I'm assuming a fairly large total number of enemies here. But if there are fewer both powers should be equally affected). Half of them suffer a -2 to hit (lose ~20% damage or ~2 points each). That's 6 points (it seems safe to assume that most enemies will attack during any given round). Combat advantage is harder to quantify, and the effect depends on how many allies you have. Making it rather extreme you can have 4 allies, one of them a Rogue, and at least some of them take the opportunity to burn an encounter/daily power. That will easily add 10-20 damage from that effect!

OTOH if your allies aren't free to attack vulnerable targets, you don't have a Rogue in the party and so on - the total effect might be only a few points, if any...

Is the combat advantage part really important to the power? It doesn't really say "fear!" to me at least... To me it would feel better to have the power give a -2 attack penalty and Push 1 - "Flee before me!" seems a lot more fear-like!