Blade Cascade

In my post on 4E I talked about Blade Cascade’s game-breaking ability.

The claim put forth was that a lone 30th level ranger using Blade Cascade could walk up and 1-shot Orcus before Orcus ever got to take a turn. This is true. A 15th level ranger could do so. The problem with actually performing this is hitting enough to deal the required damage.

Today I did some quick probability figuring. I statted and equipped a 30th level ranger. I did my best to tweak the guy to max the attack bonus while maintaining high damage.

His chance of 1-shotting Orcus? Around 1 in a 1,000,000. Actually, that might be being generous.

Now, take the same guy and give him some backup. Enough backup to make sure that he’ll only miss on a 1. His chances are still only around 20%. Disturbingly high, but not nearly game-breaking. That is assuming all his backup doesn’t mess up or take too long.

Regardless of how people feel, the chances of someone pulling off an insane stunt with Blade Cascade is extremely low. And if they manage it without breaking the rules, kudos to them.

Now, this only stands for now. Once a few supplements get out, who knows what will be possible.

My Car

Of all the things that have happened since Zippy got junked, the most annoying to me, personally, is that my car is no longer my car.

It’s still mine, y’know.  It belongs to me and what not.

It’s that it’s always been that I’m the one burning the gas.  I’m the one dirtying the oil.  I’m the one wearing down the brakes, tires, shocks, and engine.  The wear and maintainence was mine.

Now, due to car shuffling, it is not.

This would happen every once in a while before, but it was an exception then.  Now it happens a lot.

And now silly whining is over.

4E

Threw in a few phone calls to some of the nearby plumbers on the list I got from ABC.  The Sussex guy said he barely had enough work for his current folk.  One Pewaukee guy’s number was dead and the other Pewaukee guy was not at the phone so I left a message.

Anyway, I got to play 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons on Monday.

First things, the system is interesting.  They did a lot of good things.  That’s not to say I like everything.  I think the bashing it’s taking is mostly undeserved.

As for the game that was played.  That was great.  The role-playing experience is determined more by the players than the system, and the players were great.  More specifically, no Brian, TJ, or Vaughn. The world was interesting.  My GM knew how to keep things moving while letting the players play.  And the gimmick was a good one.

One thing about the rules as presented in the Player’s Handbook confused me.  Those special types of armor listed.  How does one acquire warplate and godplate armor?  Well according to an FAQ from Wizard’s, if it is +4 or +5 plate armor, it is automatically warplate.  If it is +6, it is automatically godplate.

To quote:

For example, if your hide armor is +4 or +5, it is Darkhide armor.  You would then use the base stats for Darkhide armor.  If the bonus was +6 or greater, it would be Elderhide armor.

Now, the base AC of Darkhide is still 3 greater than hide.  So when you go from +3 hide to +4 Darkhide, you get a +4 jump in your AC.  All godplate gives a 20 bonus to AC.  As witnessed by the comment in the Player’s:

+5 black iron [Wyrmscale] adds a total of 15 to the wearer’s Armor Class (10 from the scale armor and 5 from the enhancement bonus).

Another thing I found while wandering about is how two specific powers are hideously broken.  Blade Cascade (Ranger 15, Daily) and Seal of Binding (Cleric 25, Daily).

First we’ll start with Blade Cascade.  Blade Cascade allows for a player to potentially make unlimited attacks.  The player keeps attacking until they miss. The problem here lies in they have to keep hitting.  It’s not entirely unlikely for a ranger to make quite a few hits in a row, but it is very, very unlikely for them to just keep going indefinitely.  Folk must still be thinking in 3rd Edition where attacks outpaced AC at an obscene rate.  In 4th there won’t be nearly the disparity.

For example, a 30th level character could hit an AC of 53 without even trying.

A 30th level ranger with a heavy STR focus could manage an attack bonus for Blade Cascade of +34 off the top of my head.  A few more bonuses and stuff could easily pile up several more, and some AC dropping powers could be thrown in for good measure, but it’s not going to turn into a 1-shot deal without some extreme luck and very good teamwork, in which case maybe the PCs deserve it.

Seal of Binding is more feasible under very strict circumstances.  A 30th cleric will have 162+CON amount of hit points.  Low level bosses out do that by leaps and bounds.  Even heroic tier dragons have twice that.  Given that when Seal of Binding is up no one can make any attacks on the monster and the cleric and monster take equal damage, there’s no way this spell can be used to take down bosses.

Note: I did mention this was possible with very specific circumstances.

First, the cleric needs regen.  And lots of it.  A beefy, 30th cleric would be able to take about 600 HP before the spell failed in the best of circumstances without regen.  With regen it would depend.

Second, the boss would need to have no minions.  Either none at all or none remaining.  That would mean either an incompetent GM or what had already been a hard fight.  In case one, you have bigger problems.  In case two, go ahead.

Both abilities have the potential to be game breakers if something has already gone horribly wrong.  They can also finish things off quickly with a lot of luck or a lot of luck combined with good teamwork.  In which case it’s not a problem so much as a reward.

I don’t see the problem with either.

I also got to watch some American Gladiators before the game started.  That was fun and Crush was extremely attractive.