Close Encounters of the Essential Kind! – Week 3

As promised, Tim was able to go to Encounters this week, and once again take over the Eladrin Mage, Berrian. I had made a Human Mage, Alaric, that I felt was superior to Berrian, but then it occurred to me; did the party really need two Controllers?

Well, technically, we already had two; the Ranger (Hunter) that Chuck was playing is billed as such. However, I haven’t really seen much Control out of the build (more on this shortly).

Anyways, if one Mage makes Encounters too short, then two might be too much! So, just in case, I quickly threw together a second character. I haven’t built a character this fast, well, ever! Even in my 1E/2E days, I carefully weighed every choice I had available. Most of my characters were Fighters, but once I allocated my stats, rolled for exceptional Strength (if I was so fortunate), decided on a race, selected weapon and non-weapon proficiencies, weapon specialization, Kit (the precursor to 4E’s class builds), armor and equipment, name, and other miscellaneous things like height, weight, alignment, religion, and so on…well, let’s just say I usually burned the better part of an hour!

I had the “essentials” of my Slayer decided in about five minutes. It took me a lot longer to fill everything out on my character sheet, let me tell you!

Really, the Slayer doesn’t have a lot of choices. Once you get race and stats out of the way, you pick two Stances, a Feat, buy gear, and you’re done, other than those little rp details!

Now, I didn’t take the most optimized race for a Slayer; they are designed with Strength and Dexterity in mind. Which is more than passing unusual, since they are given scale armor proficiency. Anyways, it basically comes down to this:

Heroic Slayer
Benefit: You gain a bonus to the damage rolls of weapon attacks. The bonus equals your Dexterity modifier.

Sounds pretty basic, doesn’t it? Every two points invested in Dexterity boosts your damage. Now granted, you need a fairly high Dexterity (18) to match the AC of scale armor when wearing much lighter hide, but that’s a pretty wise investment. I mean, consider this:

A Half-Orc Slayer could give themselves 18 Strength and Dexterity, and still have the points left over for a 13 Constitution. At this point, they can select a Greataxe, which gives them a +7 attack bonus (another Slayer class feature gives them +1 to hit with all weapons!) and 1d12 +8 damage!

Not shabby at all for a first level character. On top of this, they have their stances, which range from granting a humble (yet appreciated) +1 power bonus to hit, to as shocking as +4 to damage for -2 to hit. Or move your speed as a free action after you successfully attack. Or get bonuses to charge. And so on.

I, of course, had other plans. Warning! Long discussion ahead!
Not too long ago, my Avenger, Tony Jaa (and to a much lesser extent, my Sorcerer, Serge) was handed a severe blow. I’d over-invested in Dexterity for him, and to make that choice sting less, I took Melee Training. This is a good idea for most Avengers, but in his case, it gave him a melee basic attack fully +2 to hit and damage over his at-Will powers!

It was silly, but it kind of worked. Then Melee Training was changed to where the damage bonus was slashed in half. I’ve talked about this before, and I won’t continue to repeat myself, but basically, the reason for this change has a lot to do with the Slayer.

With Melee Training, a Slayer could entirely dump Strength, and get twice their Dexterity bonus to damage rolls! It sounds nasty, and, well, it is. But it occurred to me that even with this change, a Dex 20 Slayer with Melee Training could still get +7 to damage, only a point less than the 18 Str/Dex build!

At higher levels, the Str/Dex Slayer scales better, but it’s actually not as quickly as you might think. Observe:

Damage Bonus-

Str 18, Dexterity 18 (assuming bonus to Str/Dex at each opportunity)

Level 1: +8, Level 5: +10, Level 8: +12, Level 14: +14, Level 15: +17, Level 21: +21, Level 25: +24, Level 28: +26

-Further assuming Indomitable Champion +2 Str/Dex at level 21, including Mighty Slayer +2 damage, Paragon Slayer +3 damage (+5 total), and Epic Slayer +3 damage (+8 total).

vs.

Dexterity 20 (assuming bonus to Dex at each opportunity and Melee Training)

Level 1: +7, Level 5: +9, Level 8: +11, Level 14: +12, Level 15: +15, Level 21: +18, Level 25: +21, Level 28: +23

So, in effect, you lose +1 damage at each tier of play; that’s a trade-off I could definitely live with, since the points I don’t spend in Dexterity can instead be placed in Constitution, giving me, at level 28, a possible Con of 24 (as opposed to the 15 Con the ‘balanced’ Slayer ends up with).

I mean, it’s only 9 hit points (and 5 surges I really hope I won’t need), but it’s still quite viable. Now, granted, even with pre-Essentials Melee Training, the Dex build would only do 2 more points of damage than the “balanced” build, but really, even with the change, I think the damage is still a bit too close for comfort.

Plus, there’s a third path:

Dex 20/Str 16 (Melee Training)

Level 1: +8, Level 5: +10, Level 8: +12, Level 14: +14, Level 15: +17, Level 21: +21, Level 25: +24, Level 28: +26.

Wait, what?

Here’s the deal:

Melee Training
Benefit: Choose an ability other than Strength. When you make a melee basic attack using a weapon with which you have proficiency, you can use the chosen ability instead of Strength for the attack roll. In addition, you can use half of that ability modifier, instead of your Strength modifier, for damage.

A very important distinction. While you can use half of your Dexterity modifier, in this case, you can continue to use your Strength modifier if it is better! Now, really, done in this manner, you’re spending a Feat to get, effectively, +1 to hit, AC, Reflex, and Initiative over the “balanced” build, so it’s not all that (and you lose build points that you could spend on, say, Constitution), but it goes to show that the math is slightly more complicated than it would first appear.

Even if you play a race that only grants a bonus to Strength or Dexterity, you can still eventually do more damage by continuing to boost Strength as opposed to dumping it completely. If the race you want to play does neither, or you want build points to spend elsewhere, dumping Strength still gives you rather impressive damage.

Now, I’ve had a miniature of an “elvish” Samurai for years now, and I’ve never found much of a use for it. So rather than pick something more optimal, I created an Eladrin Slayer. I could have just as easily gone Elf, but I liked the idea of a master swordsman who could teleport (or maybe, he just moves so fast you think he teleports?).

I attempted to ‘Eladrin-ize’ a legitimate Japanese name; in this case, Minori Erizawan became Minaryn Erizan. Although, to my shame, I hadn’t quite decided on how to pronounce Minaryn when I was asked what his name was. Ah well.

Now, while a Slayer is made to melee, it occurred to me that such a high Dexterity would give me a fairly decent ranged basic attack. So I got to looking at my ranged options. Greatsword+Hide Armor+Longbow wouldn’t give me much money left for basic necessities like food, gear, or arrows, but I was pretty sure a thrown weapon wasn’t a great choice; I’d constantly have to retrieve the dang things!

I was going to downgrade to something like a sling when I took a second look at my Heroic Slayer class feature.

Heroic Slayer
Benefit: You gain a bonus to the damage rolls of weapon attacks. The bonus equals your Dexterity modifier.

Weapon attacks. Not melee weapon attacks! Weapon attacks!

I carefully searched Heroes of the Fallen Lands and my Rules Compendium, but it was true. When wielding a ranged weapon, I got to inflict damage equal to my Dexterity modfier…plus my Dexterity modifier!

I took the bow, and as many arrows as I could purchase (fifty-two, to be precise). 1D10+10 damage?! That was ridiculous!

Now, granted, some of my stances did spell out that I needed a melee attack, and so does my Encounter, Power Strike, but…that was still pretty amazing! I could begin each fight with a ranged weapon, and switch off to melee as needed, without losing any effectiveness!

Now granted, the pre-Essentials Ranger does this pretty well already, but this was far less complicated; the Slayer truly was a master of all weapons! Sadly, the Hunter build is not as remarkable when it comes to damage, although, to be granted, it’s billed as a Controller, with more interesting things to do each turn than “I attack, I hit, I do damage, done.”

But you have to admit, I may only be rolling a basic attack each turn, but it’s one darned impressive basic attack!

Before I discuss the Hunter, however, I suppose I should talk about the Encounter itself. Right out of the gates, Minaryn impressed me. 15+5 for initiative let me act before, well, anyone else, and I immediately took a pot shot at the biggest enemy I could see for 14 points.

Some things never change, and one of those things is how ridiculous the range of a bow shot is, compared to a standard encounter. A lot of things happened before my next action, however; our Warpriest was attacked by a Kobold Soldier, and our enemies moved in.

This turn proved to be a lot more dangerous; Chuck performed his “Mysterious Halfling Dance”, a strange maneuver where he actively tries to get enemies to take opportunity actions on him…so that Rob’s Knight can return the favor!

It’s actually a pretty sweet move; in addition to the +2 AC boost he gets for being a Halfling, and forcing a re-roll if he does get hit, he has an unusual stance that allows him to take half damage from all attacks…on his turn!

Designed to take the sting out of charging past enemies, or making ranged attacks up close, it’s a neat ability. Sadly, however, the DM was having none of it, and the kobolds ignored his maneuver.

Then, things got real. A small dragon entered the fray (seriously, a Dragon! At level 1, no less!), and unloaded with it’s elite breath weapon. It missed all but the Warpriest, who took 20 damage, and was slowed. Then it inflicted half damage on a miss to everyone else in the blast!

Believe me, I was very happy I wasn’t in melee for that! The Warpriest dropped, leaving us in a bind. Now, as it happens, the Fighter doesn’t have many useful skills. I have Acrobatics (thanks to being an Eladrin), Athletics, Endurance..and Heal.

One bizarre application of Heal goes as follows:

If a character is dying (at 0 or less hit points), you can make a DC 15 Heal check to stabilize them, so that they don’t need to keep making Death Saves. Ok, fine. But a DC 10 Heal check allows the character to use their Second Wind.

Ah, I know what you’re thinking “ok, so that’s a Standard Action, how can you use it while dying?” Well, as it happens, the rules are somewhat ambiguous on this point. The DC 10 check states that it allows another character to use their Second Wind without using an action at all, making it a ‘no action’ ability. Which would allow a dying character to use it.

It’s probably not Rules As Intended, and a DM can slap it down if they want to, but in this case, it was allowed. I was ready to do it myself, but Rob really wanted the achievement point for ‘Revive a Dying Character’.

Which was fine by me, since that let me spend my turn taking a shot at yon Dragon. The Dragon was being a real pest, and remaining airborne, which made me once again quite glad that I invested in a ranged attack. Ever since my encounter with a Beholder, in the Scales of War game, I’ve realized I never want to be without a ranged option.

I could shoot at it all day long, but we really needed to get it in range. I used my Action Point after missing the Soldier, which, I might add, was a really bad roll, since, thanks to one of my stances, I had +9 to hit.

Chuck showed off another one of his abilities, switching to his primary Controller ability. He attacks the target, and can do one of the following: slide them three squares, slow them, or knock them prone.

Now me, I’d have simply knocked the dragon prone; fliers don’t react well to such treatment! But instead he elected to move it away from the party and slow it (thanks to an Action Point-granted second attack).

It worked out rather well either way; the dragon had no real option to close in on us, so it elected to find some cover. Not that it helped. By the time it rolled around to my next turn, the dragon was badly hurt, and I shot him for a full 20 points.

Which got me my own achievement; 15 or more damage with a single attack!

The enemies defeated, I was able to snag a +4 weapon. I know, technically, this was the character’s first Encounter, but this was my third session, and I wanted some loot, dangnabit!

Chuck suggested a level 4 Bow that lets you make a ranged burst 1 attack once per day, but, well, I’m not a big fan of items that only have a Daily Power as their draw to begin with, and thinking about it, the adventure we’re currently on consists of five encounters, one played each week.
In other words, if you use a Daily Encounter early in a chapter, it could be a month or longer before you use it again! A once a moon ranged burst 1 just didn’t cut it. Unimpressed with the other ranged options, I opted to upgrade my melee weapon, and I found a pretty neat one!

Master’s Blade
Critical: +1d6
Property: While you’re using a stance power, you gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls on melee basic attacks and at-will attacks with this weapon.
Power (Daily): Minor. Until the end of the encounter, while you wield this weapon, you can have two stances active at the same time.

Now when this thing was made, most stance powers were daily. Only a few are encounter-level, and they have drawbacks or minor effects. I have a couple of at-will stances that I can pretty much live in, and I use nothing but basic attacks! So even though, yes, it comes with a Daily power, the property is pretty useful; my attack bonus at first-level can now rise as high as +12!

For someone who hates to miss as much as I do, that’s pretty darned nice.

The odd part was, there were two different groups on the same Encounter that night. Where we triumphed, with only the snag of the Warpriest falling, the other group failed, with all but two characters dying! Was it tactics? Luck? Better built characters? Experience?

I’m not sure, but it really shows that the encounters are a lot more lethal than they appear at first glance.

In closing, I’m not sure what the deal with the Hunter-build Ranger is. Granted, we’ve only gotten a glimpse at what they can do so far, but it does seem that their control is limited compared to the Wizard. Where a well-built Enchanter can deliver 5 damage to everything in a burst 5, and push them six spaces every turn (as an example), the Hunter can either damage everything in an area burst 1, or slide/stun/knock prone a single target.

Don’t get me wrong, area damage isn’t bad, but compared to the Wizard, the Hunter seems a bit lacking. That, and, what the heck does the class use Wisdom for, anyways?

With luck, we’ll be able to find out soon.

Related articles

• Close Encounters of the Essential Kind! – Week 2 (weebeegamers.com)
• Chaos Scar (Mis)Adventures: “Mud in the Water” (weebeegamers.com)
• Order of Combat and Spellcasting During the One-Minute Round – Take 2 from The Underdark Gazette (underdarkgazette.blogspot.com)
• Executioner Assassin Playtest from Points of Light (daegames.blogspot.com)