Sp they release more updates to the core books today.
IMHO, there are some big updates to the Players Guide. Maybe they seem more significant because some have come up in our game and we had ruled differently, or because they affect 3 out of 6 of the party's characters.
Here are the ones that will cause 'discussion' at our gaming table on Monday:
Hunter’s Quarry [Revision/Addition]
Player’s Handbook, page 104
In the first paragraph, replace “enemy nearest to you” with “nearest enemy to you that you can see.”
Replace the first sentence of the second paragraph with the following: “Once per round, when you hit your quarry with an attack, the attack deals extra damage based on your level.”
Add the following sentence at the end of the second paragraph: “If you have dealt Hunter’s Quarry damage since the start of your turn, you cannot deal it again until the start of your next turn.”
Sneak Attack [Revision]
Player’s Handbook, page 117
Replace the first sentence with the following: “Once per round, when you have combat advantage against an enemy and hit that enemy with an attack that uses a crossbow, a light blade, or a sling, the attack deals extra damage. If you have dealt Sneak Attack damage since the start of your turn, you cannot deal it again until the start of your next turn.”
Warlock’s Curse [Revision/Addition]
Player’s Handbook, page 131
Replace the third sentence of the first paragraph with the following: “If you hit a cursed enemy with an attack, you deal extra damage.”
Add the following clause to the end of the last sentence of the first paragraph: “so if you have dealt Warlock’s Curse damage since the start of your turn, you cannot deal it again until the start of your next turn.”
Prone [Addition]
Player’s Handbook, page 277
Add “You can’t move from your space, although you can teleport, crawl, or be forced to move by a pull, a push, or a slide.”
So the first three limit the Rogue, Ranger and Warlock from doing extra damage from their class abilities more than once per round. This doesn't come up a lot, but it has come up with regards to OA. Not sure if my players will be upset or not.
Prone was a big debate at our table. Standing up is a minor action, with no AO. This was laid out in the rules and we were ok with that. What it means is that a PC can't stand up (minor) and then shift (move) to move away from an enemy or to a more advantageous spot to attack.
When this came up, we had ruled (Due to lack of clarification) the PC could still shift from prone. So the PC would shift (crawl) 1 square (move), stand up (minor) and then attack from range (this usually always came up after a caster had been knocked prone.
I, personally, like this change. Makes knocking people Prone much better, especially the caster. They can still cast from prone, but that would now open them to a OA since they can't move.
I already thought all three strikers only got their extra damage 1/round, so that is no change for me. The change from prone makes sense, and I'm glad they clarified it. :)
Let the post-its and tableside rules arguments commence!
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I think some of these things were already clear or implied. Many of the 'changes' are just common sense and I think to myself, "Why do we need to clarify this?" But I am sure rules lawyers, munchkins, and other rules-exploiters with 12-year-old mentalities needed to be denied any chance of causing problems. Kinda sad, but that's the way it goes.
for example, I think what Cleave, Warlock's Curse and Hunter's Quarry did was well understood without a need for 'clarification." It just makes me shake my head to think of the munchkins out there taking advantage of something like that.
I do like the revision to Blade Cascade. I also like that they removed the language saying every character must participate in a skill challenge in initiative order. That did not seem very fair and may have put characters in the spot light that did not want to be there (that could easily contribute a failure). Further, I did not see a reason why a non-combat encounter needed initiative when people are using Diplomacy or Knowledge checks. Those are good changes.
On the flip side of Skill Challenges, however, I think the difficulty levels were fine where they were. Also, I thought the need for more successes was fine, too. Making all difficulty levels need only three successes seems way too easy. I am not sure I entirely agree that these things are easier.
Don (Greyson)
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for example, I think what Cleave, Warlock's Curse and Hunter's Quarry did was well understood without a need for 'clarification." It just makes me shake my head to think of the munchkins out there taking advantage of something like that.
Huh?
Why do you think that using an action point to sneak attack a second time in your turn is munchkinism?Or can you explain where you see "munchkins" taking advantage of the rules befor the clarification?
for example, I think what Cleave, Warlock's Curse and Hunter's Quarry did was well understood without a need for 'clarification." It just makes me shake my head to think of the munchkins out there taking advantage of something like that.Huh?
Why do you think that using an action point to sneak attack a second time in your turn is munchkinism?
Or can you explain where you see "munchkins" taking advantage of the rules befor the clarification?
I agree...there are lots of examples where these situations would have come up that aren't necessarily the players trying to be 'munchkins'.
Action points are the most obvious. When the rogue in our group has managed to set himself up for a flank on a tough opponent, he would often drop an action point to gain another sneak attack.
Another example would be OA. Let's say the Rogue managed to set up a flank and attack the monster, hitting and dealing sneak attack damage. On the monster't turn, the monster (for whatever reason), decides to move away, setting off OA from the rogue and the other person flanking. I would have always assumed that the rogue would get sneak attack damage again.
I still do not see the reason why the "only once per turn" update was incorporated for those powers.
Using action points is a "cost" with which you "pay" your second sneak attack etc.
And clever positioning should be rewarded I thinks.
So why this update?
My reading of the original rules had already convinced me that this was how they all worked ... once per round, no more. I'd say the update is because that is how they always worked, and this was to clarify for those people who interpreted the text differently.
Or do you mean, is it a good idea to have these abilities limited to 1/round?
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Or do you mean, is it a good idea to have these abilities limited to 1/round?
I always thought it was possible to use an action point to sneak attack a second time in the same turn.
I also thought that flanking and OA allow sneak attacks, even if I already acted this turn or will act later and use sneak attack.I do not see the reason why this is not allowed (or was not allowed from the beginning).
Or do you mean, is it a good idea to have these abilities limited to 1/round?I always thought it was possible to use an action point to sneak attack a second time in the same turn.
I also thought that flanking and OA allow sneak attacks, even if I already acted this turn or will act later and use sneak attack.I do not see the reason why this is not allowed (or was not allowed from the beginning).
I don't have my books to offer you my reasoning here, but I took it as obvious that all three striker's extra damage abilities could only be applied 1/round.
As for sneaking with an OA, that is indeed possible, as long as you haven't yet gotten a sneak attack off since the start of your last round. Say, you ran up and flanked some critter, swung but missed! Crap! On the critter's turn, it moves away from the flank, drawing an OA from you ... which can be a sneak attack if you manage to hit. :)
On the flip side of Skill Challenges, however, I think the difficulty levels were fine where they were. Also, I thought the need for more successes was fine, too. Making all difficulty levels need only three successes seems way too easy. I am not sure I entirely agree that these things are easier.
I think the change was to make the number of failures a constant 3, while the number of successes needed varies depending on complexity. Not sure if that's what you meant, but typoed, so I thought I'd clarify.
O
I do not see the reason why this is not allowed (or was not allowed from the beginning).
There are a quite a few powers that allow for multiple strikes against the same target. I'm guessing either the devs didn't fully explore synergy between these powers and HQ/SA or (more likely) it dropped (or its absence not caught) during editing.
No, really it was always that you could only add the damage once per round. For rangers, it says on page 104 (emphasis mine), "Once per round, you deal extra damage to your quarry." For Rogues, it says "Once per round, when you have combat advantage against an enemy and are using a weapon from the light blade, the crossbow, or the sling weapon group, an attack you make against that enemy deals extra damage if the attack hits." Warlocks have similar text.
I think the errata just clarified the timing on when you could deal this extra damage. That is, it clarified that if you get an attack of opportunity, you can't deal extra damage if you've already done it in the main part of your turn.
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The big things I noted in the update were the "fix" to Blade Cascade ("Oops. Can it really auto-kill Orcus like that?") and the even bigger fix to the skill system ("Just ignore the text and see if this works.")
That a power could be so utterly broken was almost inevitable given some of the ridiculous things in 3.5.
That one of the systems they promoted as such a major improvement over 3.5 has been nearly scrapped is rather more significant.