Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 slobo777a Dec 08, 2010 4:26:29	We are just starting a new campaign. My players have picked up on batterager fighter as a possible optimal build. Although the group and I really like THP as a mechanic, I can see that it can be easily optimised beyond a tipping point with THP-focussed builds that unbalance play. Rather than vet individual character builds (which brings me in as judge and jury), I would like to gently nerf the extremes of these kinds of build in a fair as way as possible. I am considering the following house-rule, declared in advance of character gen of course: For all At-Will powers and class features that grant temporary hit points based on a stat bonus, the applicable bonus is capped to a maximum of +3 at first level. The cap rises to +4 at 6th level, +5 at 11th level, +6 at 16 level, +7 at 21st level and +8 at 26th level. The intent is to keep the THP levels within bounds that I expect a good secondary stat should generate, which is what I believe was considered in designing the powers and features.  . . . any thoughts? Any classes or abilities that this really destroys?
#2 pluisjen Dec 08, 2010 4:31:09	Well... the Battlerager, for one. Have you seen any real trouble come up yet? It's often not a very good idea to pre-nerf abilities you've never seen in action. Just make sure you have the most up to date rules for the battlerager (it's been updated a few times) and it should be ok, I've not seen many complaints about it recently.
#3 slobo777a Dec 08, 2010 8:11:07	Thanks for feedback. My concern is based on an unoptimised Battlerager in play in a Delve I ran for my group as a fill in last summer, and on comments I have seen in the forums, including recent quotes effectively saying that the DM could not find a way to challenge the character (above 4th level). A Fighter Battlerager with 18 - 20 starting Con, and in heavy armour starts to be a problem IMO. It is optimised for survival over effectiveness in combat, but the payback in survivability is much higher than the losses elsewhere. It attracts players thinking they are getting something powerful, when in fact they are getting a character which plays quite badly in a team (less effective combatant for the team, but the threat level that challenges them personally is dangerous to other team members). My simpler version of the rule might be that Battlerager builds must have higher Str than Con, before I allow them in the game. I was wondering if a more generic rule about THP mechanics would be more acceptable . . . Is there anywhere I could get a summary of what has changed in the rules for Fighter/Battlerager since last Summer?
#4 slobo777a Dec 11, 2010 11:45:10	I checked my math (I have written a very basic combat simulator), using three different builds of 4th level Fighter: A Great Weapon Fighter, A "regular" Battle Rager (16 Con), and a 20 Con Goliath Battle Rager, optimised for surviving damage. I pitched them against the very simple Boneshard Skeleton (which I modified to do 1d10+10 damage, as per recent advice to increase damage by 25%), and ran a simple toe-to-toe fight ten thousand times. First the biggest difference to encounter survival was the utility "Boundless Endurance". When activated, this meant that the Con 20 Battle Rager fighter never came close to dropping (on average the fighter spends one healing surge at the end of that encounter). Of course this is a daily, so only one encounter per day could have this guaranteed survival. Anyway, for fairness, the following comparisons don't use that feat: Great Weapon build: Combat over in 5 rounds. Fighter wins 77%, Skeletons wins 23%*. Typical resource drain to fighter: 3 Healing Surges. Battle Rager with 16 Con using CB suggested build: Combat over in 8 rounds. Fighter wins 82%, Skeleton wins 18%. Typical resource drain to fighter: 2.5 Healing surges. Battle Rager with 20 Con: Combat over in 11 rounds. Fighter wins 91%, Skeleton wins 9%. Typical resource drain to fighter: 2 Healing surges. In practice of course what will happen is BR fighters will engage the enemy as defender, but take so long to deal with it, that it requires the rest of the team to finish off the bad guys. That means an even higher win rate for the team as a whole. However, in that context, a Battle Rager optimised with maximum Con is really a very boring "safe" option, someone who just hangs around in a fight not doing much. Kind of the opposite of how the class concept is described. Interestingly, if I over-level the encounter (using an L7 monster), the Great Weapon fighter does a lot better on his own. But the battle ragers still last a lot longer, meaning that with a backup team their survival rate is likely still the best. I could carry on with different enemies (quite interested to see effect of a fighter engaging two enemies, but not got time to code right now). But I think I've seen enough. I have convinced myself that although THP and regeneration are interesting and fun mechanics, they have a very narrow range of sweet spot values where they complement the game, and can easily get out of hand. In terms of how I'd like to deal with this, I usually prefer to come up with a generic rule that has been agreed, rather than subjectively vetting characters. Any other feedback on my original suggestion, or generalkly thoughts on THP and regeneration for player characters? -- * I note that the "Skeleton wins" if it can do four healing surges worth of damage. In practice, healing, buffs and other support from party comrades should make the fighter going down a much rarer occurrence.
#5 rampant Dec 11, 2010 12:11:20	Again don't nerf anything you don't have to. It might turn out that your player doesn't run his character the same way your simulator does. Players, especially those interested in playing something called a battle rager will probably burn off those thp easy.   I guess I'm not clear on the problem really. Ok so the battle rager gets essentially resist 3-4 on the next attack that hits him after he smacks someone. He's more likely to get hit, and generally is encouraged to use lower accuracy weapons.
#6 slobo777a Dec 11, 2010 12:32:44	Again don't nerf anything you don't have to. It might turn out that your player doesn't run his character the same way your simulator does. Players, especially those interested in playing something called a battle rager will probably burn off those thp easy.   I guess I'm not clear on the problem really. Ok so the battle rager gets essentially resist 3-4 on the next attack that hits him after he smacks someone. He's more likely to get hit, and generally is encouraged to use lower accuracy weapons.  Yes, the factors of weaker attacks accounted for in my simulation (the stats, and effects of powers came straight out of CB). In addition, an over-optimised Battle Rager isn't just getting 3 or 4 points as you suggest - he or she typically gets 11 when hitting with any of their powers, and still gets 6 when they miss. For classes that gain 3 or 4 on a hit (think Paladin's Bolstering Strike), the THP mechanic seems to work just fine and trade off nicely versus the other options the PC has. Battle Ragers with 14-15 starting Con (in Heroic) also seem to hit a reasonable trade-off, and the mechanic doesn't radically alter how encounters play.  I think that 16-17 Con doesn't change things too radically, it's just a bit different. I think that 18+ Con is where the game-affecting weirdness starts. Edit: I should also point out I am trying to target the nerf to just the builds, and just the specific part of the caharcetr builds, where I perceive a problem. Battle Ragers in general would be completely unaffected by my suggestion. Battle Ragers with 17+ Con at level 1 would be less powerful than RAW (intentionally), but not prevented from having a massive Con if they wanted it for other reasons (total HP + surges, or Endurance skill for example).
#7 rampant Dec 11, 2010 13:00:42	Neither invigorating nor battle rager grants thp on a miss.  Now the question in my mind is why nerf when you can strategize? Ok So the fighter could theoretically become some sort of indestructible monster, well then use conditions. Out of the hundreds of monsters there are a legion of ways to inflict conditions that will screw with your tank. Ongoing damage helps cancel out the thp, daze, blind, prone, slow, restrained, immobilized, and a few others make those precious melee attacks all but impossible. Still not satisfied? Well then, use monsters more intelligently. Engage the battle rager with soldiers, High defenses and accuracy to play on the battle rager's lower ac and attack rolls, then while he's mired with them, ranged attacks can be called down on him en masse instead of trying to alternate blows with a guy designed to alternate blows. What's the point of having different builds if they don't force the DM to respond differently.
#8 slobo777a Dec 11, 2010 13:55:40	Neither invigorating nor battle rager grants thp on a miss. Yes they do in combination. Read the definition of Battlerager Vigor.  It is also easy to construct a fighter build where all the major attck powers are Invigorating. Now the question in my mind is why nerf when you can strategize? Because constant strategies that target a PC weakness become tiresome very quickly. At least to me.  a few others make those precious melee attacks all but impossible. Preventing a melee character from actually attacking as a DM strategy would definitely count as fun-destroying weirdness in my games. Yes it might work as a gaming strategy, but it just ups the ante in the no-fun stakes, rather than solve the real problem as I see see (which I suppose could be summarised as "no risk = no fun"). Well then, use monsters more intelligently. Engage the battle rager with soldiers, High defenses and accuracy to play on the battle rager's lower ac and attack rolls, then while he's mired with them, ranged attacks can be called down on him en masse instead of trying to alternate blows with a guy designed to alternate blows. What's the point of having different builds if they don't force the DM to respond differently. All valid points (edit: I mean valid points that I cannot answer, your other points are of course valid too, but I think I have answers :-), which is why I am very interested to hear from DMs who have really dealt with Battlerager fighters, whether or not a variant of this works and makes the issue easy to handle. I'm not keen on meta-gaming the player entertainment to the point that I am pouring damage from the monsters onto the PCs in pre-planned ratios just to keep the resource drain even. My preference is that the players' tactics determine this (otherwise thay may as well not use battle tactics). The battlerager fighter on his own simply does not have enough control  to actually pull that much aggro, although a decent team-player ought to at least have the understanding that was a winning formula.
#9 rampant Dec 11, 2010 16:00:35	Ok I missed the part about invigorating powers. I'm not saying you should use pre-set ratios, or work overtime to completely lock down the guy. I'm saying keep his abilities and limitations in mind. He needs to make melee attacks, most long range monsters don't want to be anywhere near a guy with a big hammer anyway. Most elites or solos inflict nasty stuff with their attacks anyway, why shouldn't they spend some of their actions making sure the guy who wants to be in melee with them isn't at 100%? Tactics is a fluid game played by two plus forces. If either side stops playing then the game gets boring. You think an ogre cares about thp or numerical defenses? Verpak no, he just sees something that needs squishing, and if his buddies see the same thing then the squishing happens faster. Smarter monsters aren't any more aware of his fortitude defense, however they generally recognize that anything that wants to be in melee should be kept out of it and will therefore do their best to keep it away. You said the real issue doesn't start until they hit starting con of 18+.  Let's see a goliath can net a con of 20 if he's willing to walk into a fight with a primary attack stat (str) of 15, with the boost from racial. Ok that should solve itself. Now for the more problematic 18/18 So with a hit we're looking at 8 resist vs. the next attack that hits you, and 4 with a miss, so if you hit 50% of the time that translates roughly to 6 resist vs the first hit each round. You've accepted specialization in two stats feeding the same defense, meaning your will and ref defenses are pretty much crap, your not particularly mobile since you'll almost have to wear chain-mail just to get a mediocre ac, Your damage is ok, you don't have great mark punishment since you don't have enough ability points to boost dex or wis. Your powers are limited since you've chosen them for invigoration rather than damage or nasty effects. Maybe a character like that deserves the super durability since he's not much good at anything else.
#10 slobo777a Dec 11, 2010 16:31:01	Maybe a character like that deserves the super durability since he's not much good at anything else. Nail on the head I think. The character could even be considered "fair" by this analysis. I suppose my worry is for some players, the relative immortality of the character seems like a good trade for being rubbish at the active side of the role. I'd rather not have to spend time dealing with this character issue in the next campaign. I think the reaction to my proposal so far encourages me to find some other way to address this than a specific house rule . . . although I may have to explain the whole thing in detail to the players, which is a bit dull
#11 pluisjen Dec 11, 2010 16:54:26	You don't have to attack the Fighter, you know. If they optimise purely for staying power and their attacks and damage are really poor, then the monsters are just going to ignore them and swing at the Wizard instead. I mean, what's the Battlerager going to do? Apply a -2 penalty and make a crappy attack that will probably miss or deal minor damage? Like the monster would care.
#12 Kalnaur Dec 11, 2010 16:58:09	You don't have to attack the Fighter, you know. If they optimise purely for staying power and their attacks and damage are really poor, then the monsters are just going to ignore them and swing at the Wizard instead. I mean, what's the Battlerager going to do? Apply a -2 penalty and make a crappy attack that will probably miss or deal minor damage? Like the monster would care. Good points all around here.  Optimising can bring problems, but if the [insert Defender class] is a little better than your average PC in the AC department and has respectable attacks, then they will be a threat.  Their point is to leave the enemy with no good options.  So think logically, and if they leave the enemy with options, exploit them, then ask what they'd like to retrain or fix about their character (and then allow them to actually fix said character ;)).
#13 Samrin Dec 12, 2010 3:32:39	Well, to be honest, a 20con battlerager is far from optimized. They're severely limiting their primary attack stat (STR), making combat challenge and superiority less dangerous (especially the loss of WIS and STR), and sacrificing every NAD except for fort. Start attacking reflex and will and see what happens. Also, they lose wisdom, so they lose the benefit of  the awesome fighter stuff later on like Marked Scourge.
#14 slobo777a Dec 12, 2010 4:29:07	Well, to be honest, a 20con battlerager is far from optimized. They're severely limiting their primary attack stat (STR), making combat challenge and superiority less dangerous (especially the loss of WIS and STR), and sacrificing every NAD except for fort. Start attacking reflex and will and see what happens. Also, they lose wisdom, so they lose the benefit of  the awesome fighter stuff later on like Marked Scourge. The limits to Strength are not that bad if you pick e.g. Goliath. By starting with 17 Str, 19 Con, I built the following 4th Level Goliath Fighter as an example of the over-optimisation toward THP: Kavaki, level 4 Goliath, Fighter Build: Battlerager Fighter Fighter: Combat Agility Fighter Talents: Battlerager Vigor FINAL ABILITY SCORES Str 18, Con 20, Dex 10, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 8. STARTING ABILITY SCORES Str 15, Con 17, Dex 10, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 8. AC: 22 Fort: 19 Reflex: 14 Will: 14 HP: 53 Surges: 14 Surge Value: 13 TRAINED SKILLS Heal +8, Endurance +10, Athletics +11 UNTRAINED SKILLS Acrobatics, Arcana +2, Bluff +1, Diplomacy +1, Dungeoneering +3, History +2, Insight +3, Intimidate +1, Nature +5, Perception +3, Religion +2, Stealth, Streetwise +1, Thievery FEATS Level 1: Improved Vigor Level 2: Weapon Expertise (Heavy Blade) Level 4: Battle-Scarred Veteran POWERS Fighter at-will 1: Brash Strike Fighter at-will 1: Crushing Surge Fighter encounter 1: Hack and Hew Fighter daily 1: Driving Attack Fighter utility 2: Boundless Endurance Fighter encounter 3: Bull Charge The build has one bad feature - a typical attack is only +11 / Xd8+4 (when THP are 0, it gets +12). However, over time this could be improved upon without compromising the THP-fishing that was set up at lower levels. . . . I agree that theis fighter I built to investigate the problem is not something I'd ever want to play myself. The trouble is, I think many players would see an uber-THP build as valid. After all it has taken some time investigating and discussing the issue here. And the issue isn't that the optimisation doesn't work, or that the character is unplayable, it's that they are a bad fit to the role, at least at low levels.
#15 Scrow Dec 12, 2010 4:52:46	It seems pretty well stated thus far; if he is so great at staying power, he's not too good at anything else. Show I once played a Con-maxed Earthstrength Goliath Warden, level 2. He had 20 AC in hide armor, twice per encounter was nigh invincible (resist all 5 from racial power, second wind gave +5 AC and resist all 2 from Earthstrength Resilience). He had a Defensive Longsword and a Heavy Shield of Protection.  He never attacked. He just sat there, marking everything around (moving if needed). He took Total Defense actions every turn, gaining +3 AC (thanks to Defensive Longsword).
#16 slobo777a Dec 14, 2010 6:19:10	It seems pretty well stated thus far; if he is so great at staying power, he's not too good at anything else. So, to sum it up, level 2 Warden had: 49 HP (toughness) 23 AC / 17 Fort / 11 Ref / 13 Will Resist all 5 once per encounter (racial) Resist all 2 and +5 AC once per encounter (class feature and feat) Resist all 10 once per day (shield) I could mark everything adjacent to me, and almost nothing hurt me. If things were able to hit me, I could gain resist all damage at least twice. I couldn't hit anything, but that's what strikers are for. I had my strikers take out anything that targeted Non-AC defenses first, while I soaked up hits that wouldn't even land. The trade? You guessed it: I couldn't do anything else. I had Endurance stacked up, but that's it. No non-combat abilities, no damage, couldn't do anything other than let hits glance off me.  You win some, you lose some. If he wants to play a tank like that, let him. It's easy enough to deal with. EDIT: Ninja'd on the warden, though mine isn't THP spec, mine is just can't die spec.   I suspect this Warden was more fun to play for you and your group. The Warden did not compromise the ability to mark, could still control marked foes (Wardens Grasp), and you had to carefully judge and ration your use of the defensive powers. I don't think there is anything wrong with a highly defensive tank. But I do think that a battlerager fighter build is not intended to be taken in that direction - the super-Con build appears to be a cool option, but it looks like it will play "weird". I'm still interested to hear from DMs who have significant experience of the Battlerager?