In regards to the “Add 10 to rolls under 10″ mechanic, a second downside I’ve thought of is that this works mechanically if everyone needs 10 or higher to hit. But if some attacks for participants in the battle need less than 10 to hit, not impossible by any means, that means their attacks are worth ‘less’.
For example if Bob needs an 12 or better to hit the bad Orc, that means he hits 45% of the time. Let’s say Steve for whatever reason needs a 5 or better. He hits 80% of the time. And Joe hits on a 9 or better 50% of the time.
Now lets say that we add 10 to any roll under ten. Bob now misses 15% of the time (rolls a 1, 10, 11) of the time and Steve misses 5% of the time (rolls a natural 1). Joe though also now only misses 5% of the time, only on a natural 1.
So Steve went from being 30% better than Joe to now being equal to Joe in terms of hit ratios.
Just something to think about.
And another followup on the Sleep thing. Rules as Written and CSR confirmed, Sleep is really a Save or Die spell and 20% of your time this will render your BBEG pointless.
How you ask?
Party of five including Wizard with Sleep fight their way to the BBEG. They’ve saved their Dailies till now and probably taken a break so they have all their Encounter powers.
Four of the players elect go after the Wizard in initative.
Wizard casts Sleep. BBEG fails his save 20% of the time. We assume he failed.
Wizard spends Action point to Coup De Grace BBEG. That’s a +7 to hit on top of normal +’s and gets Combat Advantage if he has anything takes advantage of it. Automatic Critical hit on a Coup De Grace.
The other members of the party now in order, burn a daily in a CDG and get critical aka max damage and an Action Point and get another round of max damage criticals with combat advantage.
That’s 9 hits at maximum damage the BBEG takes before he gets a chance to save again.
The gods forbid he fails his save a second time because that’s another 5 critical hits.
Now this does take the extreme and assume every hit hits but on average they’re all, not counting any buffs going to be at around +13 to hit at first level in this situation.
As a Player my wife, after I brough this up wants Sleep house ruled so that damage breaks the effect which puts the power back as a Controller power designed to control a group of creatures rather than a Save or Die spell saved against the BBEG.
Her reasoning? She doesn’t want it used on her by a BBEG.
