The Gaming Den

Well by level 3, the siphon has an SoD, super crazy crowd control effects (bullrush/entangle/trip), significant if not supreme damage, an immediate action +3 to AC, DR, saves, or speed, and can prepare for combats with AC bonuses or energy resistance.

He does some things better than the rest of the party, and does everything else almost as well as the rest of the party... but this is just be considering the abilities, though. Am I missing something?

...You Lost Me wrote:Well by level 3, the siphon has an SoD, super crazy crowd control effects (bullrush/entangle/trip), significant if not supreme damage, an immediate action +3 to AC, DR, saves, or speed, and can prepare for combats with AC bonuses or energy resistance.

He does some things better than the rest of the party, and does everything else almost as well as the rest of the party... but this is just be considering the abilities, though. Am I missing something?

Yes and no, at level 3, the Elemental Siphon possesses the ability to Crowd Control a single target, where the Rogue/Assassin/Knight could instead kill that single target. He doesn't get a save or die, he gets a Save or lose two round of standard actions. That is, quite admittedly almost but not quite twice as good as the cantrip Daze, but really better because it leaves them sickened. But that's not a save or die... unless you are in a party with a Rogue/Assassin/Knight who can then do the hard work of actually killing them. If you are a lone Elemental Siphon, that doesn't kill anything.

And yes, he gets some ER, but then, so does the knight with way more HP and better AC, so who cares? He's more survivable than the Assassin/Rogue, unless it's specifically something that triggers evasion, and less so than the Knight. He does way less damage, and he basically only works well in combo with classes that do the real damage.

Really, I'm not seeing how it's overpowered compared to Optimized Rogue/Assassin/Knight. It's probably significantly underpowered compared to Knight at that level, equal to the Rogue, and slightly better than the Assassin.

Koumei wrote:
Mostly it's not "At Will" so that people who cry about "at will" will shut up and decide everything is okay. After all, sometimes (usually out of combat) you have to spend a full round action charging up.

However it does also mean that he won't be using the same power each round: he either has to switch his powers up (and act in basically every turn unless something weird is going on) or alternate using his favourite power and focusing.

That works and it works well. It's not mana like FF, but it's fine.

As for at-will haters calling the supporters 4rrys, fuck em. They need to get with the times.

FrankTrollman wrote:Depends on what you're fighting. When you get it, each hit is a d6+4, so a werewolf (DR 10/Silver) would simply bounce each needle and lose nothing. You can't even crit with it. But yes, a monster without relevant DR would likely get turned into blood jelly by the thing. Remember also that it's a line but it makes ranged attacks, which means that if you get more than one target you probably have to deal with Cover bonuses on the second target.

...If you had precision-based damage like Sneak Attack or Weapon Specialization, it would only go off once. If you had weapon modification like weapon of the deity or something to turn your weapon flaming, then you'd hit people with it like 3 times.

I apologize to bring up an old thread, but I felt to comment on this bit, as I had noticed the seemingly awesomeness of the Chain Gun (plus, Miniguns are awesome).

Wouldn't [Tome] Point Blank Shot add +12 to it? Or does that feat ability only apply to the first attack roll? Also, with Weapon of Righteous Destruction feat, Flaming does say it applies on any successful "Hit" thusly I'd think it would apply the +1d6 fire as well (whereas Holy isn't as clear on that note). Dealing 2d6+16 for 23 damage per hit, while doesn't annihilate everything in one attack as I previously thought, true that con damage and iterative attacks (if applicable) will finish the job.

Why would something like a Feat bonus to damage rolls only apply once, and Flaming 3 times? (guessing random guessing how many times attack would probably hit, though average "hits" on chaingun seem to be 7-11). Seems like some type of Damage roll to attack roll clause bit I'm missing I guess, otherwise would think every "hit" to count as a damage roll, and thus Weapon Specialization would apply every time for example.

Lastly, is there a reliable way to measure if given class is in a certain realm of balance (Rogue-level or higher/lower)? I know the D&D wiki exists, but it doesn't have all the stuff Gaming Den has made over the years, like this class, and gets me wondering at some points.