D&D 4E Improvements and fixes

Tigris said:

General fixes for old classes:

In general the improvement happened by just releasing WAY more powers to choose from. the V shaped classes had (in my oppinion) not a problem per se, but only because there were not enough powers supporting them.


As an example the warlock had 75 Powers printed in the PHB out of the total 412 printed warlock powers.


A lot of powers were printed in the books "Martial Power", "Arcane Power", "Divine Power" etc., but also the Dragon magazine had lots of powers in them. Similar the essential books (especially the later ones) had some powers printed in them for classes.


Also for some subclasses more paragon paths were printed 8directly or also ones from races), to make them more varied potentially.

(Similar more feats were printed as well of course).


Essentials:


In general the essentials printed their own subclasses, often locked into powers. So there is some material to use (especially the utility powers), but several of the essential classes are just different (simplified) versions.


For the Warlock 2 Essential Versions were printed.


1. The Hexblade, which in my oppinion, is really cool. Its a melee warlock, with their own special weapon, and their own (depending on pact) powers. They were simplified (having fixed powers, and several of the same), but had good flavour and also good gameplay. (Even different from one another, like the Faewarlock wanting to get free opportunity attacks with invisibility)


2. The binder: This was a controller (instead of striker) role, and honestly it was just not done well. They removed striker features, but did not grant controller features, which makes normal warlocks just better. (Especially since without the curse, they had less ways to proc their utility power which can sometimes be used for control). The good thing is, they released for the binder several powers, which a normal warlock can also just take. It was in general considered the worst or one of the worst 4E classes, and several people tried to fix the binder. Myself included




For other Essential classes it was similar, some (Wizard) received even more spells, others (fighter) received only utility abilities, while getting 1 (or 2) new buildoptions, which are simplified A LOT, and often basic attack focused.


Some classes, especially in the later essential books, got some interesting new twists/options:


- The Berserker Barbarian is a defender, which can become a striker. He does not have too many non striker options, but it is a really cool option to start as a martial defender, and then can go "RAGE" into a primal striker.

- The Bard got a new optional class feature (for all bards) and fot the option to become basic attack focused (melee, but also range would work). With at will passive effects, which grant bonuses on basic attack hits. There was even some feat / some way to get these options as a normal bard. (In addition some cool melee powers were released), this was part of the simplified bard subclass. There they also had a really brilliant idea, to not just get completly new class powers on level 13, 17, 23 and 27, but instead upgraded ones of older abilities. So if you like an ability you dont have to replace it but it gets better instead


- The sorcerer Elementalist got a completly different, much simplified, striker built, which is elemental focused. You use only at wills, but have (several charges) of an encounter ability to empower them (granting also bigger area effects etc.)


- The Ranger got 2 new builds, again really simplified, so not with much options. However, I really like them. The melee striker ranger, has a class feature for multi attacking, which catches the essence of the original ranger (multi attack for the win!) while making him a lot simpler, and still granting some nice non combat features (primal) which makes him more flavourfull. The hunter on the other side was a ranged controller, which is simple but effectve, even though a bit weak on the area damage side (but high damage).


Math Fix:


This has nothing to do with the warlock per se, I just mention it since we talk about fixes.

- In PHB1 monsters were balanced against players in a way that their to hit and defenses scale more than the players.

- Players did not really like that and in PHB2 some "math fix" feats were introduced, which were scaling and would give players more defenses (+1 per tier) and attack (+1 per tier). These were kinda considered must have feats


- For this reason (and also because monsters were generally a bit too weak on damage), on higher levels, combats would drag on, since monsters would not deal as much damage (lower to hit compared to the defense of players before) and were in general weaker (higher player to hit on top of that), and a lot of GMs would just add monsters to encounters which made them drag even more.


- Then later Monster Manual 3 (and other products released afterwards like the Monster vault etc.) would change monsters to make them on higher levels (10+) have a bit less HP and do more damage (around the same percentage as they lost with the defense increase of players), this makes combat feel better again.

- The players were still not really happy about the must have feats, so in Essentials better "math fix" feats were introduced, which not only gave +1/+2/+3 to hit (per tier), but also would depending on weapon (or implement) grant an additional bonus, such that it feels less bad to take them.



I hope this helps!

Click to expand...

niklinna said:

Wow, that's a pretty comprehensive response! Many thanks.

Click to expand...

Tigris said:

Glad you liked the answer, but lets give a bit more detail on what was specifically gained for your case:

Feats:

4 Specific star pact feats were introduced later among them 3 potential general potential useful ones:

- Ulban's Flare: When you hit a creature with dire radiance and you have concealment or total concealment from that target, the target takes 2 extra damage and a -2 penalty to attack rolls until the end of your next turn. The extra damage increases to 4 at 11th level and to 6 at 21st level.

- Message of Doom Spurned: When you have a bonus from the Fate of the Void pact boon, you can apply it to all your defenses as an immediate interrupt when an enemy hits you. When you do, it lasts until the triggering attack is resolved, and then the bonus is spent.

- Veil of walking dreams: Whenever you deal Warlock's Curse damage to a target and do so with a warlock daily attack power, the target is dazed (save ends). If the power already subjects the target to a dazing effect that a save can end, the target is instead dazed and takes ongoing 5 psychic damage (save ends both).

1 multiclass feat with a divine class to deal radiant damage with eldritch blast and curse and

Paragon paths:

2 additional paragon paths were made for the specific star pact:

- Master of the Starry Night: No really clear theme, but quite useful and making better use of the apct boon

- Student of Caiphon: Focused on dealing radiant damage and supporting the group, but at a price

Of course also some more warlock and other paragon paths were also released


Powers:

There were binder powers released with a star pact rider, however, they require "Star Pact (Binder)", which is honestly a bit stupid, so you may also ignore that.

For each level of encounter powers (level 1, 3, 7 etc.) there were around 3 Powers with star pact rider released, 1 with the Arcane Power book and 2 in different dragon magazines. Some of these powers had charisma as main stat (Arcane power always, dragon magazine sometimes) and some had constitution as the main stat (dragon magazine), and all of them used int for a rider IF a secondary stat was used (but some are also useful without int).

Items

In adventure vault and adventure vault 2, there were also some implements (ok mainly 1 and 2 referencing the star pact) with specific uses for star pact warlocks introduced. in AV2 there was even a legendary set.



You can also find a bit more info in this guide where you can see how many "newer" powers etc. are mentioned for star pact: Walk With Me in Hell: The Warlock's Guide

Click to expand...

Voadam said:

One of the essentials things I liked was having defenders not mark individuals but do an area aura of defense thing so it was much less fiddly to track and was more intuitive at a glance looking at the playmat.

Click to expand...