An almost wrap-up of the hybrid

A few almost possibly sorta final impressions of the hybrid rules I've been "playtesting".

All in all, I'm really enjoying the hybrid rule. It's not quite up to snuff with the old 3.5 multi-classing in terms of flexibility, but it has some definite strengths.

For starters, it's greatly simplified everything. One of the things with 3.5 multi-classing that always gave me a headache was keeping track of the various level dependant things, such as caster level. My character might be 18th level overall, but her caster level might have been only 15. Throw in some ECL from being an oddball race and those waters became even muddier.

In 4E there's none of that. Yet.

I also have to admit that there's some value in restricting players to combining only two classes (with a third possible via those terribly weak "multi-class" feats). It was pretty easy to get carried away with the multi-classing in 3.5. Just a quick skimming of the posts in the WotC forums is proof of that. There are classes in there that I've never even heard of, strung together in a chain that resembles alphabet soup.

The 4E hybrid helps the player police himself. While I'm generally against anything that restricts creativity and imagination, trying on some handcuffs can be fun once in a while. (IMJH)

At the very least the hybrid rules have allowed me to play the character that I originally envisioned. A wizard who enjoys wading into the front line.

Without the hybrid rule, my Dragonborn was capable but he really felt like a fish out of water. He wasn't fulfilling his role and it showed in every way. So he ended up standing back with bastard sword in hand, ready to defend himself if someone came after him, but otherwise dropping Scorching Bursts and trying to look interested.

Now, with the hybrid fighter/wizard combo he's up front blasting hobgoblins off the backs of their wolf mounts with his Thunderwave, and then dealing out triple damage with a Brute Strike. Without the stifling presence of filling a certain role combat is fun again.

As far as balance goes I still haven't seen anything to suggest that he's out of whack compared to the rest of the party. He gets roughly the same bonuses to hit in melee as our comically inept paladin and our kill thief ranger, and is about as effective with his "spells" as the cleric.

That said, I still get the feeling that "spells" aren't as effective as melee attacks (either up close or ranged). They simply seem to miss more often than they should. It's like everything's Fort/Will/Reflex defense is one or two points too high. Hopefully, they're churning out some feats that can give casters a bonus to hit with certain types of powers.

I need to note that we recently caught a little bit of cheating that I'd been doing. Namely in my feats, as I clearly skipped the small print and assumed that my hybrid wizard would retain his ritual casting and spellbook. In my defense, those are pretty core to the class. I guess they had to cut something to make the hybrid a sacrifice, so I had to re-tool my feats to regain the Ritual Casting ability, among other things. Oddly enough, I haven't missed not having a spellbook and hadn't really given it any thought at all since initially generating the character. I'm sure there's some reason or benefit for having a spellbook, but it hasn't affected my playstyle.

Yet.

Can you read my mind?

The Psion.

I wasn't expecting much when I got a look at the preview article for this "new" PHB3 class. I've never liked psionics as they always felt like a tacked on re-branded magic. Points instead of spell slots? That's creative. /sarcasm

However, after the preview of the monk class I was actually pretty excited about seeing what they'd do with the psion.

Right off the bat, I really like the new format with the designer's comments. So I'm going to focus on that rather than the nitty gritty of the psion class.

One thing that struck me is how the text refers to "psionic magic" but much of the commentary suggests that the psionic power source is more of a mental discipline. Which is it WotC? Because if it's the former...

I do like the class features of the Psion. Discipline Focus provides a couple of cool little powers, at least I'm guessing they're "little". I just wish they had given us another example to look at next to Telepathy. Andy Collins does give a hint on what the powers gained through Telepathy Focus do, so that's a bonus.

On the surface of it, Psionic Augmentation is a grand idea. Take an At-will power and with a little extra effort you can boost or change the effects. Excellent. Should be just the thing to spice up the otherwise bland spamming of the At-Wills.

On the downside, much like Crwth I thought that the swapping of Encounter Powers for augmentation points was pretty lame. While I like the idea of Augmentation the way they're doing it seems like a needlessly complicated system, and one that directly opposes the whole 4E simplicity. Crwth offers a good suggestion here but I'd go one further and eliminate the unnecessary bookkeeping of a points system. Make the Psionic Augmentation feature into the classes Encounter Power, with the appropriate levels (Augmentation I, Aug II, Aug III etc...) When the character uses a psion At-Will power the player can then augment it as his/her encounter power. The effect would be up to the level of the highest augmentation the character has attained.

The table on how many points one gets at what level is just... well, it's bad. I had to read it a couple of times before figuring out what the hell they were trying to say. While I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree, I'm not exactly retarded either. Surely there was a plainer/clearer way for WotC to get that info across. It was actually the commentary from Stephen Schubert that finally cleared it up.

The rest of the commentary is irksome. They took the old spellcasting and made it total vanilla but they brought across the 3.5 psionic point system? Because, according to Mike Mearls they "wanted to hit on the same compelling features that made psionics popular before"? Seriously? Psionics was compelling and popular? Am I that out of touch?

It also felt like time to "push the game in a new direction". Okay, I like that idea. The aim is noble but isn't this "new direction" the same old direction of 3.5? Sure, the "new" system, as Andy points out, still gives the player At-Wills to use after the points are all spent but that's just going to feel like a let-down. After firing off augmented versions for first half of an encounter who's going to enjoy going back to the plain Jane vanilla version?

Although Crwth concluded his Psion post with a tongue in cheek barb at your's truly, I am seriously thinking of giving the Psion a playtest just to see if my fears are baseless.

The Hybrid Experience, part 2

Finally got our group together for some D&D on the weekend so my hybrid Fighter/Wizard got to see some action. One fight with some hobgoblins but... so far so good.

Can't really comment on any balance issues yet. Nothing that seemed overpowered or felt wrong popped up during that one combat. He certainly didn't feel like an unstoppable killing machine but he did finish off one hobbie, finishing tied for second place in kills. (The ranger notched two, but only because he cowers in the back and picks off the ones everyone else has already softened up. That's right Hune. You're a kill thief. We all know it.)

Anyways, as far as playability goes, he was certainly more fun than my vanilla wizard ever was. It could be just the novelty but the fighter powers are quite fun. In fact it was thanks to the Reaping Strike that gives STR damage even on a miss that finished off the last hobgoblin. Pretty cool doing damage even when I roll a 2.

At the same time, the wizard powers still came in handy. I used a pair of Thunderwaves, one of which successfully moved a pair of enemies out of the way. I also used Shield to negate a hit.

So I can safely say that the Hybrid rules are definitely a step in the right direction. They've given me some of the versatility and freedom that I love but sorely miss in 4E.

This might be a little premature, but I've yet to notice anything in terms of a trade off for being a Hybrid. In 3.5 multiclassing was all about weighing the gains against the losses. One had to plan far ahead and decide whether losing access to those upper level spell slots was worth a few levels of fighter and all those "free" feats. It was a dangerous balancing act of compromise but oh so satisfying when it worked. Of course the whole min/max issue is highly subjective. While I loved it, I'm sure others are glad to see it gone from 4E.

I will say that the sheer simplicity of the Hybrid is nice. Not having to total up levels from each class, apply a possible ECL penalty, and whatnot is a welcome relief for the math challenged. Even with a multiclass feat my character is level 4. Couldn't be simpler.

Now for the downside.

I was really struck by how the "combat classes" are much more fun to play than the "caster classes".

My Wizard would just stand a safe distance and blast away ad nauseum. The closest I came to having to think was counting "squares" to make sure he was within range. Otherwise it was a simple matter of "one target = Shock Sphere", "two or more up close = Thunderwave", "two or more far away = Scorching blast". Fairly blase and a far cry from the 3.5 spellcasting experience.

While the Fighter powers made combat a lot more satisfying I think that's more of a testament to just how badly WotC brutalized the spellcasting system.

Granted, I only played a pure Wizard through 3 levels. If I had stayed with it, it might have turned out to have a very interesting mix of powers at it's disposal. It's not like 3.5 edition Wizards and Sorcerers were a ton of fun before 4th level.

Still, it's somewhat damning that adding two fighter powers is enough to make the game (or, more accurately, the combat aspect) fun again.

As long as I don't end up using "Reaping Strike" round after round.

The Hybrid Experience, pt 1

This week I finally got around to re-creating my Dragonborn wizard as a Hybrid wizard/fighter.

Cliche, I know. I was tempted to go wizard/swordmage or even sorcerer/swordmage but I went the way I did for a couple of reasons.

First off, the wizard is still the only class that has powers that fit my storm theme. The sorcerer will have to wait for another day.

Secondly, as interesting as the swordmage is, I want to see if the Hybrid rules are capable of handling a less than optimal combination. I could have gone wizard/swordmage which is one of the combos suggested in the article, but power-gaming it won't prove anything.

Finally, the fighter and wizard are as vanilla as DnD classes get. They've been around since the beginning (more or less) and are icons for a reason. If they don't mix well, then there's something seriously wrong with the Hybrid rules.

Anyways, the character generation was pretty straight forward. The rules for creation are well written and clear. There was one spot where I was a little confused (sorry, can't recall the exact details) but after some flipping back and forth I eventually figured it out. Minor quibble there so overall the structure of the article/ruleset is good.

One thing that bugs me is in the proficiencies. The Hybrid character gets all the weapon proficiencies of each class. Fair enough. Simple, straight forward, makes sense. But, armor proficiency is the opposite. The Hybrid gets only those armor proficiencies that are common to both classes.

I've tried to think of the rationale for that, but so far I've drawn a blank. The best guess I have is that they wanted to give one or the other (armor or weapons) but not both, to avoid the Hybrid from being "overpowered". Considering characters are almost totally defined by their powers, the limit on armor proficiency is puzzling.

I ended up spending feats to get my character into his chainmail, so it wasn't a big deal. Like I said, it was just a little puzzling.

The selection of powers was a little more interesting with the Hybrid than my pure Wizard was. Having those few extra options was a noticable improvement. That said, there was only one instance where I waffled back and forth between a pair of fighter powers. Still, I'm all about options options options, so this facet of the Hybrid was nice.

In summary, I'm actually excited to see how he plays.

Playing Gnolls - Playtested?

Just finished the article on “Playing Gnolls” from Dragon #367, and it was a great read. (I'd provide a link and/or page numbers, but with WotC, it's almost pointless.)

The gnoll has always been one of my favorite monsters so I was glad to see it getting some special treatment. The article also reinforced a lot of what I love about 4e. Namely the way that monsters are given a flavor that becomes the basis of and is emphasized in their powers and tactics. It’s a wonderful touch and severely lacking in 3.5.

On the other hand, the feats at the end of the article are... disappointing.

Does anyone at WotC read these before they’re printed? Do they have any real editors? Are they playtested in any shape or form?

Case in point.

Swift Bite
Prerequisite: 11th level, gnoll
Benefit: When you bloody a foe, you can choose to deal an extra 1d6 + Strength modifier damage with a bite against the target.

Seems straight forward enough at first glance. But the benefit raised questions within seconds of reading it.

Does this extra bite automatically hit, doing the extra damage? Or is it a free attack, like a sudden interupt, that you have to roll to hit? I’m guessing it’s the former because there’s no mention of a Str vs AC or whatever.

My point is, I shouldn’t have to guess.

DMG - Updates

This isn't a chapter in the Dungeon Master's Guide, but a file that Wizards maintains and should be checked regularly.

Usually these update files correct small overlooked errors, such as the Warlord NPC getting martial ranged proficiency instead of simple ranged proficiency, or the [Healing] keyword being left off of The Invulnerable Coat of Arnd. Okay, no one is perfect, and these little errors being fixed ensure that they don't end up as stupid Ask Wizards questions. But this latest set of changes is more than that. It's much bigger than a missing word, or the wrong bonus type.

The DCs on actions and skill checks got completely changed. Now everything is easier to do, from 3 to 12 points easier. This is not a little change -- a change on one point here and there would represent a slight rebalancing at this level or this difficulty. But this is significant. This is ... I'm speechless.

Well, you wish. But really, this is almost absurd. If you have the Dungeon Master's Guide, follow along with me: turn to page 42. That chart at the bottom there, with all sorts of DCs for various difficulty types and various level ranges. See the DC10 for a level 1-3 Easy check? Change that to a 5. That's right, it's now "five easier" to do. That's not a fine-tuning, that's a complete rebalancing of the check system.

See the bottom of the chart, where it says "For skill checks: Increase DCs by 5"? That has been completely removed. So now that level 1-3 Easy skill check has gone from DC15 to DC5. In fact, if you go to page 61, where the skill check table is, you can see changes throughout that, too. Level 28-30 Easy check goes from DC30 to DC19. An eleven point drop. And diseases, also something that carries a DC, also got affected, usually by 6 or more.

The Player's Handbook also came out with some updates, that I haven't gone through yet (my PHB isn't at-hand), but paging through the update file doesn't spring any changes to the calculation of DC checks, so it's not like they've just lowered all of the values across the board -- you roll the same and add the same bonuses, and things have just become easier.


Now, I'm sure there are players rejoicing about this, and it could very well be that this is a required change -- we haven't done many checks in our campaign as of yet, having only dealt with conversation and combat so far. And if that's the case - if things were too hard - then I'm all for these changes. But how on earth did something like this not get caught in play-testing?

I could see a global lowering by 1 point as something that might slip out of play-testing, revealed once the masses got their hands on the rules. But five points? Ten? Twelve? I really wonder what happened here. They only playtested combat? They have really lucky dice? Perhaps they published some old pre-playtesting numbers?

Or maybe Wizards is really on the DM's side after all, and looking for a Total Party Kill.