Not at the beginning of turn: Fighter Stances

I have this thing with effects that work at the beginning of an enemy's turn. It's not just that I think they are overpowered -they usually are- but rather, that were several options to express the same game function, and they chose the worst possible one. Consider, for example, the difference with something that triggers at the end of your own turn. Outside of some corner cases of you or your target being slid or pushed by third parties between your initiative turns, both wordings are equivalent. Why, then, do I think one of them is wrong?



Let's use Rain of Steel, arguably the best Fighter daily attack power in its level, as an example. Its wording may lead to false assumptions. By having the damage take place during the enemy's turns, a reader can, as a first impression, think that that enemy is somehow responsible of that damage. That he is taking it as a consecuence of previous actions, or that he could have done something to prevent it. In short, the power is punishing opponents for being next to the fighter. But that is not true.

Imagine that the same power was written in the following way:



There are a few very minor functional changes here, but essentially this works just like the previous version. However, now it should be more clear to the reader that the power's only purpose is to deal extra damage to whoever you move next to. And, by the way, it's very good at what it does.

However, I'm not writing today's article merely to complain about unfortunate templating, or to suggest cosmetic changes. See, even if my perception of Rain of Steel (as a power that punished enemies for their choice of movement) was a lie, it was a lie that I liked. Maybe the game designers just wanted a power that dished inconditional damage all along, but I'm convinced that it would play better if the enemy was given a chance to avoid the damage. Not only would it be more balanced, but it would have far more strategic depth, and be more fun to play, both for players and DMs.

So, how would I (supposedly) improve this Fighter Stance? Just a simple fix - change the effect to trigger at the end of enemies' turns. It may not seem like much, but it makes the power much more interactive. Although your opponents now have a choice to avoid the automatic damage,
the alternatives aren't pretty - since taking opportunity attacks from a fighter is usually a losing rproposition, shifting and getting hit with Combat Challenge becomes the lesser evil. Even if the stance is weakened overall, this new version is now without its advantages, as enemies who charge you or otherwise engage you in melee will be punished. The limited playtesting I have made so far (you don't use daily powers that often, after all) has been very promising, as almost every turn I had a chance to make opportunity attacks or combat challenge attacks.

This is what it would look like:


There are several, higher level Fighter powers using the same mechanic. The revised versions are shown below:









About the power of Rain of Steel

(Warning: this paragraph contains some math. Feel free to skip it if you're not interested in the numbers) To justify the my balancing issues with RoS, let me explain just how much damage this kind of power amounts to. A non-optimized level 5 fighter with Strenth 18, a +1 Bastard sword and weapon focus should deal 1d10+6 damage on a basic attack hit, for an average of 11.5. If he can hit an enemy 60% of the time, this amounts to 6,6 average damage per attack. A single trigger of Rain of Steel, which needs no roll to hit, would deal 7,5 average damage - that is slightly higher than a basic attack, but a bit lower than some at-will powers. As contrast, a simple, pure damage daily power, like Brute Strike would make 3d10+6 (average 22) damage on a hit, or 13.2 per attack. That is less than what you'd make in the first turn you used Rain of Steel (with a minor action) and, say, a basic attack (with the standard action) against the same opponent (about 14 on average). And we're not even counting that RoS lasts for the whole encounter, and can hit several enemies at once.

Granted, Brute Strike is a pretty bad daily, and this is a particular scenario. Switching to a 2-handed weapon, like a Mordenkrad(and assuming, for simplicity, that hit rate doesn't change) would increase it's damage to an average of 30*0.6=18, whereas the basic attack+RoS trigger would be 14*0.6+10=18.4. Increasing the hit rate would benefit Brute Strike, but higher damage bonuses (which are more frequent) would favor RoS. Anyway, the point is: RoS deals a LOT of damage, turn after turn, to many targets.