tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3342640173817458901.post2298578079192863777..comments2023-09-21T10:30:10.699+02:00Comments on Square Fireballs: Reliably goodPericohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12414348870266960204noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3342640173817458901.post-21161728995765485562010-02-19T02:23:49.488+01:002010-02-19T02:23:49.488+01:00When it comes to reliable powers, in my opinion, n...When it comes to reliable powers, in my opinion, nothing works better than the Academy Master's encounter attack power. Stack with the Deva's -2 to hit for + Damage feat and Trusted Spellcasting, and BOOM! If you happen to be a Warlock (wait, didn't we just say you were a Deva? Oh well, maybe you're a Revenant), you can deal 4d10+Etc damage on a hit, but usually miss, and deal 2d10+Etc/2 damage despite it being a miss. Reliable powers dealing half damage on a miss just makes me smile is all.Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06501193079029723696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3342640173817458901.post-74803568061066141432009-06-19T08:12:40.397+02:002009-06-19T08:12:40.397+02:00Well, there is a clear advantage of designing effe...Well, there is a clear advantage of designing effects that trigger on a hit: with Reliable, you know that they are always going to work, and they are always going to work exactly once. This makes the new feats very easy to evaluate and balance.<br /><br />By contrast, a bonus on a miss could trigger any number of times, or never at all. On average, the number of triggers will be slightly lower than the effect on a hit (assuming a hit chance better than 50%, as is often the case). And here comes the real problem: in order for the feat to be as good as one who worked on a hit, you need to give a stronger bonus!<br /><br />There is a good reason why Reliable powers tend to do nothing on a miss: if missing is worth it, any character who wants can screw his hit chance to miss an arbitrarily high number of times. Just close your eyes (blinded, -5), drop to the ground (prone, -2), and use an improvised weapon (no proficiency bonus), and you are hitting at -10 without much effort.<br /><br />Consider one bonus I give in the feats above, like spending a healing surge. If you could spend a HS whenever you missed with Brute Strike, you'd often prefer to miss! This is a dangerous dynamic, that you definitely don't want to encourage.<br /><br />Not that I'm saying it's impossible to come up with appropiate effects, but they would be a lot harder to design - needing to be both stronger and harder to exploit.Pericohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12414348870266960204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3342640173817458901.post-71853487776783444952009-06-18T17:20:13.107+02:002009-06-18T17:20:13.107+02:00All of these feats give Reliable powers additional...All of these feats give Reliable powers additional punch when they finally connect, but until then the Fighter is left with nothing on a miss. What about feats that give the PC a bonus when a Reliable power misses and which expire when the power finally hits?<br /><br />That said, I like the feats you designed here. There's probably room for both kinds of feat.Nick Jonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04010964040171682720noreply@blogger.com