DnD 4e Might vs Magic

[Ankhemotep]

Struggling across four different campaigns as sorcerer, bard, wizard and psion, I've come to the conclusion that warriors are simply better than mages.

Warriors in my games have consistently and significantly higher attack and damage roll modifiers, comparable communication skills, superior armour and fortitude, around triple the hitpoints with surges to match. They don't have as many push/pull moves, but they do have a few.

In fact, the only area the mages have been more helpful in is skill checks, though the warriors weren't far behind.

Short of intentionally creating enemies that warriors physically cannot harm (which I have begun doing), how on earth can I justify the ongoing use of magery when brawn is simply and utterly better?

[Mistborn]

Either stop playing 4e and start playing a game that doesn't suck, or get Lago to hook you up with some sick wizard build.

[OgreBattle]

Short of intentionally creating enemies that warriors physically cannot harm (which I have begun doing), how on earth can I justify the ongoing use of magery when brawn is simply and utterly better?

Martial characters tend to have few AoE attacks, just send big swarms at them.

[Mask_De_H]

Blaster Wizards do equal or better damage than warrior types, the psion sucks, the sorcerer gets double taps and burst damage, and I don't know about bards.

Hit up the WotC 4e Optimization threads, they'll help you out. I'm guessing telling you to just not play 4e isn't gonna work.

[Ankhemotep]

Given the sheer amount of money we've sunk into 4e, I'm disinclined to toss it in and go to another version.

Requiring precise optimization is less than appealing, but may be the only way to make magery less of a liability. Swarms could be the way to go. They haven't been my style so far, but I could stand to make enemies favour mages more, I suppose.

I just wish they didn't suck so hard, or that they had some better trade-offs.

[TiaC]

I kept reading the title of this thread as DnD 4e vs. Might and Magic. I am disappointed.

[erik]

Given the sheer amount of money we've sunk into 4e, I'm disinclined to toss it in and go to another version.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalation_of_commitment

Me too TiaC. Me too.

[Koumei]

Same. Safe to say that HoMaM characters (at least, going by HoMaM 2) have way more depth and versatility and power than 4E D&D characters. And if you accept their army-leading as being a part of those characters themselves (as in "a high level necromancer just has ninety dracoliches, this is not a campaign-specific thing that happened and can't be relied upon"), more power than D&D characters of any edition.

Requiring precise optimization is less than appealing

If that's the case, you're playing the wrong game. Sorry, but "Play 4E" and "Very specific high-end optimisation" are intrinsically linked. I mean, the game flat-out says players are supposed to figure out the best gear they need and present these as wishlists to the DM just to stop it from falling apart.

[pragma]

I think you're not comparing apples to apples here.

As a bard, you shouldn't necessarily be doing that much damage (though a daily can still splash some around). Their big advantage is that they can throw out stupid amounts of temp HP in addition to their *word heals. It's also pretty easy to be heavily armored (about the same as for a cleric), so bards can be tough, distracting nuts to crack that render the remainder of the party immune to death. If I were optimizing one, I'd stack AC and focus on the assorted "hit him for some temp HP" powers. I've GMed with one and she contributed pretty well and was never in any real danger of dying. (Though that campaign had way too many leaders: pulling six healing surges out of a party is really tough.)

As a sorceror, you should be worrying about damage. And melee dudes might out damage you in that case. My recollection of the one sorceror I played (for 2 hours, so I'm no expert) is that they can stand back at range and plink away with really high fixed damage bonuses. Specifically, dragon sorcerors with high strength could add very high fixed damage to the spells very early. They make solid snipers with some possible AC and mobility bonuses through utility powers. Of course, they have to fight with rangers for that niche, and I think bow rangers were the damage kings of the edition. That said, the one I played threw out a really solid damage output even to enemies in "fuck you" positions.

Wizards and psions don't necessarily have great turn-to-turn damage output. In fact, psions are just terrible. But wizards do have some really scary battlefield manipulations that can separate enemies out for easy slaughter, and they have some solid, sustain-minor, automatic damage dealers. I wouldn't leave home without flaming sphere or color spray. (wizards fury is also nice if the GM is using erratad magic missile and lets dragon magazine stuff in -- 20 damage wherever you want at level 1 is powerful). Visions of Avarice comes in at 5th level and it is broken as hell, easily one of the best control spells in the game. Worth keeping out to level 30. Once you have that you can say "I win" to about one fight per day, especially if there's an environmental hazard like a cliff or a fire. Decent summary in the first post here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread ... encounters

So, generally, look for wizard status effects that render enemies unable to do anything useful (immobilize, blind, daze, stun). They're easy to find and even if your wizard isn't killing anything, he's making the GM gnash his teeth in fury. Shutting down the bad guys isn't killing them, but it does effectively pull all the threat out of the encounter.

[brized]

Going by general combat encounter design, try using packs of minions that:

• * Have long-ranged attacks and use terrain intelligently, such that melee characters can't reach them in one round without some serious resources invested in mobility. These work well as a pack spread just far enough apart to make it easy for a mage type to wipe them out quickly, but hard for a warrior type. Use horizontal and vertical distance: put them in trees, up on a cliff, behind a river, on a roof, etc.
  
  * Inflict conditions or other penalties just by being nearby, like an aura.
  
  * Cause some problem on death, like AoE exploding, giving the miniboss/boss temporary HP, creating an AoE zone that slows, etc.
  
  * Are hard to hit and can hit the PCs, and use flanking and similar tactics intelligently. If there are different enemy archetypes, see if there's one that has higher defenses and/or attack rolls than the rest. If you have to use higher level minions to achieve this, that's fine; doing so can also mislead the PCs into thinking the minions are actually normal enemies and vice versa, which is good when the party needs more of a challenge.

To further conceal which enemies are minions and which are not, don't always use homogenous packs of 4. Instead of a pack of 4 archers, it could be 2 archers, an aura type, and an AoE exploder. And you can mix minion types with normal enemy types, too. Like you can have 1 aura type minion, a non-minion of the exact same type, and then 3 minions of whatever type suits you, plus whatever else you need to add to the encounter to make it level-appropriate.

[Kaelik]

Given the sheer amount of money we've sunk into 4e, I'm disinclined to toss it in and go to another version.

This is known as the sunk cost fallacy.

You could be playing a much much much better game right now for free.

[Lago PARANOIA]

@Ankhemotep: What level are you starting at and what sources are you using? It's true that martial-sourced characters will beat out any other character in a DPR race unless you're playing a B-3 Bomber (Brutal Barrage Battlemind) or a mid to high-level blaster-summoner wizard.

If however you're starting at around level 11 or so and you have full access to the character builder, you can make a wizard who can dominate 99% of even martial builds in DPR. It involves making an INT-primary wizard/warlock hybrid that uses Hellish Rebuke and one of the various ways of forcing damage (like Shadowrift daggers) to get At-Will damage comparable to or even better than Twin Strike. You then pick up a bunch of off-action encounter attack powers and summons with intrinsic effects which you then carefully shepherd to manage the backlash. The build is really glass-cannony but does bring the pain. You also have the option of toning down the DPR and hybriding with control via various stupid warlock curse options and various stupid expansion options like Polearm Momentum.

Tell the errata'd Magic Missile to go fuck itself. It's okay at low levels but the vast majority of extra damage in this game only applies to damage rolls. So even if you factor in the auto-hit property it really starts to fall behind at paragon tier. Accuracy was a big deal when 4E D&D first came out, but there are so many stupid accuracy boosters by now that it's just not worth it.

[Ankhemotep]

I think you're not comparing apples to apples here.

They, of course, are not aimed at the same role, I know.

From a bard, we only get one or two heals per encounter, and those heals are based, largely, on the surge value of the wounded. They become less powerful when used on someone who doesn't already have a huge chunk of health. With good bluff-centric skills, he can create some chaos, and retains some usefulness in skill checks.

I'd rather have an additional fighter/barbarian, to spread out the tank capacity a bit more. They can deal and take way more damage per encounter. Unless I deliberately stop the fighters from physically being able to intervene, they can deal and take waaaay more damage than a bard can heal.

It feels weird to deliberately make enemies just for the sake of mages, but there's no alternative.

[Ankhemotep]

@Ankhemotep: What level are you starting at and what sources are you using?

We started at level one and are now level eight in my primary campaign. We're using the Character Creator on DnDinsider, and I'm using the Compendium. Anything in those is fine for our game.

I'm not judging it purely by DPR, but health, accuracy, healing capacity, defences and skill checks. Warriors lose at some checks and some utility. That's about it.

[Aryxbez]

Monsters that have ranged Attacks to kite them, especially ones that immobilize or prone in some manner is like a stunlock. The Frost zombies who's aura stack together when close together has powerful synergy to rip em apart (I've gotten a 10th Paladin to Bloodied, who was all based on Temporary HP, even w/Devoted healer on staff).

Have you tried the Monster Vault (Essentials MM's) yet? Those have some pretty sweet monsters that run warrior types for their money. Black puddings have melee immobilizing/slowed?, and split apart & I think their minions do that too? Also Flesh Golem is kinda fun if ye use some Hob-Gob minions or something that have Electricity (if he's gonna die, he'll do it by swingin probability).

That said,I thought this thread was a satire when I read through the post. Otherwise I think it's awesome that the warrior types is the NEW image, and one people taking more like to, screw those mages! So long of course, everyone has awesome toys, and not just brought down to primitive levels (4th did sure, but ye get the idea).