Items and Healing: Artificers are unable to add things like Gloves of the Healer to their main healing power (Healing Infusion: Curative Admixture) and Paladins are unable to use it on Lay on Hands. This issue affects any class that is able to grant surgeless (or misdirected surges, in the case of Paladin/Artificer) healing that is based on Healing Surge Value.
Actually according to the cs answer like one year ago you indeed never get the bonus to surgeless healings that are worded "as if one spend an HS" because it's not actually "spending an HS".
But I guess it would be good to get a more official update.
Items and Healing: Artificers are unable to add things like Gloves of the Healer to their main healing power (Healing Infusion: Curative Admixture) and Paladins are unable to use it on Lay on Hands. This issue affects any class that is able to grant surgeless (or misdirected surges, in the case of Paladin/Artificer) healing that is based on Healing Surge Value.
Actually according to the cs answer like one year ago you indeed never get the bonus to surgeless healings that are worded "as if one spend an HS" because it's not actually "spending an HS".
That's the point. It shouldn't be that way; and needs errataed.
Item bonus to damage: Staff of Ruin, Iron Armbands, Bracers of Archery, Radiant Weapon, Goblin Totem weapon, etc. are taking over item slots unnecessarily. At this point in the game, it would be simply better to assume characters will have +1 item bonus to damage per half tier. There are various solutions to accomplish this, make every arm slot item add an item bonus to damage, or make every weapon add an item bonus to damage, etc.
My personal suggestion there is a combination of a lot of things
Add a "hit it with a stick" dragonshard. (+1/3/5 to damage rolls from weapon attacks)
Turn all the shards into Item bonuses
Create a common weapon that's Radiant, minus the radiance. 3/8/... sounds about right fo the level
Go through and turn every popular item that gives bonus damage to an item bonus. Use 2/4/6 for those that are based off conditions the PCs can control, or 3/6/9 for those based off conditions the PCs can not. 1/3/5 for those that don't take a normal slot. For example, make the gauntlets of bonus-damgae-when-enemy-bloodied something like "You get a +1/3/5 item bonus to melee damage rolls. That bonus increases by two if the target is bloodied"
So then, you can use a weapon. Or a shard. Or Ice Gloves and your frost weapon. Or gauntlets, or Iron Armbands.
"Nice assumptions. Completely wrong assumptions, but by jove if being incorrect stopped people from making idiotic statements, we wouldn't have modern internet subculture." Kerrus
Practical gameplay runs by neither RAW or RAI, but rather "A Compromise Between The Gist Of The Rule As I Recall Getting The Impression Of It That One Time I Read It And What Jerry Says He Remembers, Whatever, We'll Look It Up Later If Any Of Us Still Give A Damn." Erachima
The feat taxes: Expertise and Improved Defenses really are annoying because they remove two slots that we'd like to use for flavor feats. We can't really afford to drop them or else at Paragon+ we're being hit on a 3+.
I would suggest implementing the popular solution and either giving it to PCs for free as a "level 5 expertise feature (or some such)" or by giving PCs the inherit bonus and stripping the Expertise feats of their +tohit.
Also, Net Training, Bola Training, and Polearm Momentum probably need to be clarified if they're intended to be purely weapon attacks, because right now we have wizards and bards with holy nets/bolas/glaives using their powers with things like Vicious Mockery and Thunderwave.
Dragon Shard provides item bonus sounds like a good idea :3
Elemental issues
Does adding "2 extra cold damage" give the entire power the cold keyword? (less confusion here these days. It does, except for Fritz who thinks it doesnt)
Speaking of which, the CS answer I recently got indicates it does not...
Bards and Rapiers: Bards are only proficient in certain melee weapons. The rapier has long been an iconic bard weapon. The rapier was a superior weapon when the bard was designed, but then the rapier became a military melee weapon. The bard already has proficiency with the longsword, so it should get proficiency with the rapier.
For a brief period Mand12 had a thread about unclear questions. It hasn't been kept up to date but credit where credit is due, I'm poaching things from it.
Iterative damage from zones. A Wizard with Charm of False Glory, Time Stop, and Quickened Spellcasting can one shot any solo in the game by hitting once. But it would be far to harsh a nerf to zone damage to limit it one/round.
Rule: Any damage triggered by movement can only be triggered once per turn per effect.
This solve all zones, spark slippers, walls, and etc, and doesn't create issues with the fact that many, many zones have both "move into" and "start turn in" triggers. Both can still apply easily. The other way to cover this is clunky "Once per source per trigger per turn."
Nothing else even really comes close to this as an issue. Multi-attacking is the next largest issue and would require a complete system revamp to truly address so it didn't break any of the relative balance.
Unclear
Do feats that modify things that happen in powers become part of that power for rules purposes? For instance Mark of Storm slides 1 on a hit with a power. Does that slide come from the power, and therefore work with Polearm Momentum? Or does the slide come from the feat somehow? The community largely says MoS works with PM, but a simple rule like "If a feat has an effect based on a power's action, the effect is considered to come from the power." This addresses rather a lot of issues, actually.
When precisely is a power "used"? When you pick the power? It has timing issues, the new OA rule says when a ranged power is used. We don't know when that occurs.
Vulnerable All, Resist All, multiple Vulnerabilities, Combined Damage Types. Is "All" synonymous with having "Resist Fire, Poison, Thunder, etc" mechanically? Ditto Vulnerability. If a power does 5 Fire and Radiant damage is that "two types" or "one type" Does it double trigger Vuln if something is Vuln 5 Fire and Vuln 5 Radiant? If you add 2 cold damage does the Power now do "5 Fire+Radiant and 2 Cold damage"? These rules could really use a complete rewrite, they have never been clear.
Timing of non-triggered free actions. The recent podcast addressed this, but their answer means you literally cannot interrupt a person speaking (or walk) without a triggered power that allows you to do so. The RC rule for triggered free actions is very good and could be extended to include non-triggered free actions. "Non-triggered Free Actions can happen at any time, but cannot mechanically function as Interrupts, their effects resolve as reactions and cannot invalidate or change the outcome of an action."
The Free Action Attack change, while it killed Giggantor just fine, presents issues. The rule should be "One Free or No Action Attack Per Source Per turn." This prevents you from having to errata the couple dozen No Action attack sources and people don't need to worry if something is an "attack power" all the time or not.
Define "Off-hand" (saying you have to declare your off-hand is fine, but needs to address if you can have a shield in your MH and the weapon in the off-hand). "Wield" and "Hold." "Wield" if I may suggest "when you are proficient with a weapon and are holding it in the appropriate number of hands, you are wielding it."
Triggered Action Timing. The new Paladin DC triggers off of "targeting." Targeting is step 2 in the attack process, so if it resolves as a Reaction "immediately after its trigger" it should happen before the attack roll. This auto-kills minions. I am personally OK with it, but it has caused numerous arguments. The meaning of "immediately after its trigger" needs to clarified, as it is a completely new sentence in the RC vs the PHB.
Does movement of any type require a destination square? If no... things get odd. If yes, then Shifts can be invalidated by force moving a creature such that he cannot shift into his declared destination square. Which is perfectly fine, but a recent thread of the very finest rules lawyers couldn't come to a consensus that solved all cases. If movement "targets" a square, one square at a time, then all cases could be resolved easily with no other rules needed.
The RC introduced a very odd issue that is probably a personal peeve of mine more then anything. For a very long time I told people that extra damage does not add a damage roll to a power. The problem is that rule doesn't exist (there is one line justifying that interpretation in the PHB, and it is in the magic item section). "Extra damage is never considered a damage roll" it all it takes.
Similarly "extra damage is always part of the power, not its own roll" would settle the (very few) discussions about if extra damage adds keywords.
"What is a basic attack?" Specifically Power of Skill changes Divine Bolts to a "Basic Attack." There is a Staff that allows you to make DB as a melee attack. Is it now a "Basic Attack: Melee"? Short of errata'd Power of Skill to specifically say "RBA, MBA, RBA, MBA" something like "If a power is converted to a Basic Attack, the type is determined by the power's native range type."
Support
There are more Arcane then Martial classes (depending on if you count the Slayer/Thief etc as its own class). There are more Martial Powers then Arcane Powers. And Arcane is the best supported keyword after Martial. Divine and Primal are really getting the shaft. Stop all support of Martial classes for a while and focus on supporting Primal, Divine, and Arcane, hopefully the least supported classes in each case (Sorcerer, Seeker, Runepriest, etc). Sorcerer's inparticular do not have a lot of unique tricks outside of Dragon Sorcerers that really support their shtick of "blow things up a large area."
Dragon Shard provides item bonus sounds like a good idea :3
Elemental issues
Does adding "2 extra cold damage" give the entire power the cold keyword? (less confusion here these days. It does, except for Fritz who thinks it doesnt)
Speaking of which, the CS answer I recently got indicates it does not...
File under further evidence that CS doesn't know how to open the Rules Compendium and look these things up.
Item bonus to damage: Staff of Ruin, Iron Armbands, Bracers of Archery, Radiant Weapon, Goblin Totem weapon, etc. are taking over item slots unnecessarily. At this point in the game, it would be simply better to assume characters will have +1 item bonus to damage per half tier. There are various solutions to accomplish this, make every arm slot item add an item bonus to damage, or make every weapon add an item bonus to damage, etc.
My personal suggestion there is a combination of a lot of things
Add a "hit it with a stick" dragonshard. (+1/3/5 to damage rolls from weapon attacks)
Turn all the shards into Item bonuses
Create a common weapon that's Radiant, minus the radiance. 3/8/... sounds about right fo the level
Go through and turn every popular item that gives bonus damage to an item bonus. Use 2/4/6 for those that are based off conditions the PCs can control, or 3/6/9 for those based off conditions the PCs can not. 1/3/5 for those that don't take a normal slot. For example, make the gauntlets of bonus-damgae-when-enemy-bloodied something like "You get a +1/3/5 item bonus to melee damage rolls. That bonus increases by two if the target is bloodied"
So then, you can use a weapon. Or a shard. Or Ice Gloves and your frost weapon. Or gauntlets, or Iron Armbands.
Agreed. Just item type most of the stuff, and you get options as well as reduce maximum power. Killing 2 stirges with one chaos bolt.
F-111 Interdictor Long (200+ squares) distance ally teleporter. With some warlord stuff. Broken in a plot way, not a power way. Thought Switch Higher level build that grants upto 14 attacks on turn 1. If your allies play along, it's broken. Elven Critters Crit op with crit generation. 5 of these will end anything. Broken. King Fisher Does an excellent job at keeping an enemy disabled in a few ways. Strong. Boominator Fun catch-22 booming blade build with either strong or completely broken damage depending on your reading. Very Distracting Warlock Lot's of dazing and major penalties to hit. Overpowered. Pocket Protector Pixie Stealth Knight. Maximizing the defender's aura by being in an ally's/enemy's square. Yakuza NinjIntimiAdin: Perma-stealth Striker that offers a little protection for ally's, and can intimidate bloodied enemies. Very Strong. Chargeburgler with cheese Ranged attacks at the end of a charge along with perma-stealth. Solid, could be overpowered if tweaked. Void Defender Defends giving a penalty to hit anyone but him, then removing himself from play. Can get somewhat broken in epic. Scry and Die Attacking from around corners, while staying hidden. Moderate to broken, depending on the situation. Skimisher Fly in, attack, and fly away. Also prevents enemies from coming close. Moderate to Broken depending on the enemy, but shouldn't make the game un-fun, as the rest of your team is at risk, and you have enough weaknesses. Indestructible Simply won't die, even if you sleep though combat. Sir Robin (Bravely Charge Away) He automatically slows and pushes an enemy (5 squares), while charging away. Hard to rate it's power level, since it's terrain dependent. Death's Gatekeeper A fun twist on a healic, making your party "unkillable". Overpowered to Broken, but shouldn't actually make the game un-fun, just TPK proof. Death's Gatekeeper mk2, (Stealth Edition) Make your party "unkillable", and you hidden, while doing solid damage. Stronger then the above, but also easier for a DM to shut down. Broken, until your DM get's enough of it. Domination and Death Dominate everything then kill them quickly. Only works @ 30, but is broken multiple ways. Battlemind Mc Prone-Daze Protecting your allies by keeping enemies away. Quite powerful. The Retaliator Getting hit deals more damage to the enemy then you receive yourself, and you can take plenty of hits. Heavy item dependency, Broken. Dead Kobold Transit Teleports 98 squares a turn, and can bring someone along for the ride. Not fully built, so i can't judge the power Psilent Guardian Protect your allies, while being invisible. Overpowered, possibly broken Unnamed Avenger|Runepriest/Hammer of Vengance Do lot's of damage while boosting your teams. Strong to slightly overpowered. Charedent BarrageA charging ardent. Fine in a normal team, overpowered if there are 2 together, and easily broken in teams of 5. Super Knight A tough, sticky, high damage knight. Strong. Super Duper Knight Basically the same as super knight, only far more broken. Mora, the unkillable avenger Solid damage, while being neigh indestuctable. Overpowered, but not broken. Swordburst Maximus At-Will Close Burst 3 that slide and prones. Protects allies with off actions. Strong, possibly over powered with the right party.
Steve, you already know some of the things I would like to see, but I'll outline them below.
More support for Runepriest/Seeker/O-Assassin - This has been touched on, quite a lot. But I feel like putting my two cents in would just serve to reinforce it. The runepriest is one of my favorite classes flavor-wise, but it has some flaws. Not-necessarily design flaws, but issues nonetheless. I think simplifying them or (as suggested before) an Unearthed Arcana article explaining them would go a long way. I know you think that supporting the runepriest is throwing good money after bad, but I still believe that a third (hopefully Int-based) build would be appropriate. To give more options to all builds, introduce some swappable things, like getting Ritual Caster or Channel Divinity by sacrificing something. They could also use new at-wills, to give the semblance of choice; there are two Con and two Wis and you're pretty much locked into those based on the build. A generic one, and two more at least if there's antoher build would be nice. Seekers have never really been good. They're cool, but like some other classes have design issues. First off, they just about have to have an 18 in their secondary stat, because all they have is leather armor and they can't hold up in the AC department without the +4. They're also piss-poor controllers. That wouldn't be easy to fix, but adding better powers (ones not just based on hitting one person, ones that do more hard control, and ones that don't just give enemies a tiny debuff or damage threatened). O-assassins are just sub-par strikers. As Mike Mearls discussed, their striking ability is limited because of assassin's shroud's limits, but I don't think that needs to be changed too greatly. They work well as mobile, stealthy, controlling strikers, just not alpha-strikers.But they would do all jobs better if they got more power or build support, as opposed to just rhowing a boatload of feats at the class.
Essentials - Please, don't just gloss over this thinking I'm an Essentials-hater. I'm somewhere in-between to be honest, but that is neither here nor there. I think it would be nice to see more options for going between Olde and Essentials classes; I was thinking at one point of playing a Sentinel, multiclassed into Shaman, and he'd be really cool. But the classes don't mesh or interact: you can't power-swap, he chose most of his powers from his original parent class, and I nearly pulled out my hair over the lack of options because of the build I chose. I get that Essentials is to simplify stuff; that's cool. But allow people to use it as an addition to the Olde classes, where they can, in theory, work as well, as fun and as creatively. Another example is that my first 4e character ever was a Star-Pact gnome warlock. When I saw the binder class, I wanted to remake him, but the fact that I neither got to choose my at-wills (admittedly, this is a warlock issue in general) OR encounter powers (which are a controller's bread-and-butter) bother me greatly. I also think that cool Essentials classe sliek the Vampire (I con't believe I just said that) should be given full-class support. Choosing encoutner powers, choosing dailies, choosing builds should all be a part of a flavorful, full class that isn't just a subset of another one. I don't mind the pre-chosen at-wills, but more flexibility would be nice. In addition, there's only that shiny new Essentials support for Essentials classes: there's no Dagger Expertise for sorcerers or Totem Expertise for shaman. Just saying.
Hybrids - as others have said before, there are issues here. Here are proposed suggestions:
Hybrid Druid - Give another at-will at 1st level; it must be another druid one, and one must be beat-form and the other normal.
Hybrid Seeker - Give the Str bonus to AC for Spiritbond seekers; it allows it to mesh much better with other classes, and, as evidenced by the sorcerer, isn't exactly broken.
Hybrid Warlord - While you don't want people running around as powerful as normal warlords when they're hybrids, make the Hybrid Talents a little more enticing. They kind of suck as they stand.
Secret Math Fixes - First off, I used that term because it sounds hilarious. Second, I firmly believe these should be remedied somehow. The new feats, like Superior Will and Staff expertise provide good alternatives to the math fixes; on their own they are solid feats, that also happen to be part of the math fix. Just remove their bonus part, and put the bonuses in as part of the game.
Controlling - Certain effects are not as good as you think they are. Slow is a prime example. After 1 round of combat, anything you want to slow is in melee, and there's no point in doing it to ranged attackers. Now, when you tie to damage-threats for not moving,t hat's more interesting. Other effects, as addressed, like stun are almost too good. In addition, (save ends) is terrible; most things you apply it to have a +2 or +5 to saves, and you can at most, without being an Imposer or using silly amounts of stacking penalties, have something down for 1-3 rounds. That's pitiful. I get that you don't want bosses dazed/stunned/unconscious the whole fight, but there needs to be a fix for this.
Additions -
Generic themes - I know you want to put these in, and I think we all want it too. Enough said.
Human options for ability scores - maybe lose the NAD bonuses and skill, get another +2 to something else?
Monster races added - I am variably in favor of this; I like to see more support for races, but too many and it becomes just silly. And some monsters should stay monsters.
More at-wills, or varied at-wills for some classes - Artificer, swordmage, runepriest-all suffer from a lack of decentat-wills, or at-will options for each build. Other classes, like psion and wizard, have clear amazing winners that just about anyone will have. I don't know how to fix the last one, because adding new things to compete with them is power-creep.
