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I think it is specifically a good thing for characters to have nothing to do with their move actions except move around. This really encourages them to move around a lot more. If a player can gain even a small attack advantage by not moving, he will likely feel compelled to stand still unless he can identify some very clear tactical reason to move. But if there is no advantage to be gained by standing still, then the player will feel free to drift around the battlefield to whatever position he fancies most. This encourages more movement - and the more movement, the better.
If the player chooses not to use the move action, it just goes unspent. No big deal. The character effectively decided to spend his move action staying right where he is, because that is where he decided he most wanted to be.
This is a sorta house rules thread, with the original post being about house rules and a lot of replies being about what you can do to mimic a full round action using 4e powers, usually encounter powers that you cannot use repeatedly.
However, if you are interested in house rules, then here is a rule borrowed from the war games Warmachine and Hordes:
Create a power called "Aim" or something that is a move action at will that gives you a + to hit on your next attack this turn. For example, +1 or 2.
Then your fighter or whatever who doesn't need or perhaps want to move can gain an advantage for not moving. In the war game, this applies only to ranged attacks, but it could easily apply to melee in DnD.
__________________ I will build a throne with the skulls of my foemen.
Last edited by Eldorian; 7th June 2009 at 09:04 AM..
I think it is specifically a good thing for characters to have nothing to do with their move actions except move around. This really encourages them to move around a lot more. If a player can gain even a small attack advantage by not moving, he will likely feel compelled to stand still unless he can identify some very clear tactical reason to move. But if there is no advantage to be gained by standing still, then the player will feel free to drift around the battlefield to whatever position he fancies most. This encourages more movement - and the more movement, the better.
If the player chooses not to use the move action, it just goes unspent. No big deal. The character effectively decided to spend his move action staying right where he is, because that is where he decided he most wanted to be.
Conversely, if a move action does nothing BUT move, then the players feel compelled to move when they have one, even if it's pointless. For example, in a game I'm playing, one of the players (who, incidentally, quit) was a fey pact warlock who insisted in teleporting every time his pact was triggered, no matter how pointless it was and how much time it took to make this move.
I think a balance between the desire to move and the desire to gain a benefit by not moving should be balanced. It gives more tactical options.
__________________ I will build a throne with the skulls of my foemen.
Full attacks are still pretty much in the game, as said. They're not as devastatingly more powerful, though. You need specific builds with specific powers, meaning you're missing out on other stuff. However, I accidentally cooked up a nasty barbarian recipe:
1 human barbarian
1 action surge feat
1 daily rage attack
1 spent action point
1 level 13 storm of blades for 5 freaking attacks
1 bloodclaw weapon that lets you take 4 damage every time you attack on your turn and add 12 to EACH damage roll
1 frenzy activation
1 swift charge activation
1 level 16 spur the cycle utility
1 rage strike
Which is 10x more powerful than any full attack ever hoped to become. The turn this took place on was clocked at 6.5 minutes.
Conversely, if a move action does nothing BUT move, then the players feel compelled to move when they have one, even if it's pointless. For example, in a game I'm playing, one of the players (who, incidentally, quit) was a fey pact warlock who insisted in teleporting every time his pact was triggered, no matter how pointless it was and how much time it took to make this move.
I think a balance between the desire to move and the desire to gain a benefit by not moving should be balanced. It gives more tactical options.
I'm sorry that the player quit and upset you, but I have a Fey Pact Warlock in my game who does pretty much the exact same thing (only not teleporting if it's actively going to get him into trouble), and he clearly enjoys it a great deal, and he's gotten himself into some tactically interesting situations doing so. Also, how could it possibly "take time" to resolve a teleport with a fixed range unless the player was completely mental? That's mind-boggling - it's pretty much the most simple move-type in 4E.
Anyway, I'm not really seeing any cogent argument in this thread that we should be giving mechanical benefits to people for not moving in all cases - by doing so you render "not moving" the default decision, and games WILL become more static - perhaps even more static than 3.XE. Who is going to shift into a tactically-superior position when they could get +2 to hit or whatever instead? Not many people.
Also, to people confusing Nova-type effects with Full Attacks, that's just weird. They're not remotely the same thing. Full Attacks are something you want to be doing every single round if possible - Novas can take a while (if the player is dawdling), but they typically occur once per fight (per player - but rarely will all the PCs do that), not every round.
__________________ Hobo - "You're confusing you with someone else."
Ruin Explorer is officially pleased with 4E's DM advice (mostly), and thinks that it's RP-advice etc. is both present and pretty darn solid, and certainly better than all other editions.
Full attack finished off 3.5 as far as I was concerned, its incredibly boring to use, far more powerful than any other choice available. Every combat was the same, charge, full attack, full attack, full attack, full attack, full attack...........
Anything that could move out of the way made you redundant (at will teleports), anything that couldn't - 2 round combats.
Also, how could it possibly "take time" to resolve a teleport with a fixed range unless the player was completely mental? That's mind-boggling - it's pretty much the most simple move-type in 4E.
Normally it should take time to weigh the advantages of each possible position that can be moved to, if it doesn't, then the move is pretty darned pointless.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruin Explorer
Anyway, I'm not really seeing any cogent argument in this thread that we should be giving mechanical benefits to people for not moving in all cases - by doing so you render "not moving" the default decision, and games WILL become more static - perhaps even more static than 3.XE. Who is going to shift into a tactically-superior position when they could get +2 to hit or whatever instead? Not many people.
Um. The biggest reasons for moving are a) to be able to hit, b) to get a +2 to hit from flank, and c) avoid damage. This is no different than 3E.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruin Explorer
Full Attacks are something you want to be doing every single round if possible
Yes, my wizard full attacks every chance he gets. Very few character builds wanted to full attack, it pretty much was limited to classes with sneak attack since having more attacks greatly increased damage. Other classes could get by with power attack.
Full attacks in 3E are what you tried to avoid letting the monster do as a higher level monster doing a full attack could often kill a lot of characters.
If the OP hasn't gone and looked at the Monk class, (s)he should do so. A unique move action combined with a standard actions has a 'full attack' feel to it. If you're going to do an 'Aim', the result shouldn't be any more than +1 since Combat Advantage is +2. You could also apply a +1 damage or something.
The issue here is that whatever bonus you apply for incorporating the move action has to be highly situationally useful. In what circumstance is it not to your advantage to move or your move action is wasted? I can think of three - defending a choke point, being surrounded or fighting a Solo (usually); in other words if moving doesn't put you any closer to an opponent other than the one(s) you threaten now.
Something that might work here would be 'defensive' fighting; you stop granting CA or do not provoke opportunity attacks at the cost of your move action. That's about the only reasonable thing I can think of.
This is a sorta house rules thread, with the original post being about house rules and a lot of replies being about what you can do to mimic a full round action using 4e powers, usually encounter powers that you cannot use repeatedly.
However, if you are interested in house rules, then here is a rule borrowed from the war games Warmachine and Hordes:
Create a power called "Aim" or something that is a move action at will that gives you a + to hit on your next attack this turn. For example, +1 or 2.
Then your fighter or whatever who doesn't need or perhaps want to move can gain an advantage for not moving. In the war game, this applies only to ranged attacks, but it could easily apply to melee in DnD.
+2 is too much, IMO. No need to get CA by moving if you get the same bonus by not moving. +1 doesn't seem too bad. I may give that a try.
If I were to invent such an ability it would be defensive and usually inferior to moving. Something like:
FEAT: Hold the Line
You may spend a move action to gain +1 to defenses until the start of your next turn.
Or maybe
FEAT: Defensive Shot. You gain the At Will power, Defensive Shot
Defensive Shot: at will, martial, move action
The next ranged or area attack you make before the end of your turn does not trigger opportunity attacks.
There is a feat called "Steady Shooter" that gives a +3 damage bonus damage to crossbows when you don't move. It is available at paragon tier. While using this for reference, I would hesitate to give out anything greater than a +1 damage (not attack) bonus for a move action. Even then I would say it is a bad idea, because once you start handing out bonuses for not moving, requiring players to move becomes a penalty. OA's make moving dangerous as it is, and adding a opportunity cost on top of the danger is going to cause fights to become very static.
__________________ If "A" is broken, that isn't a valid reason for "B" to be so, even if they vary in degree.
Tactician style Gamer, or so I have been told.
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."-Albert Einstein
Played 3.5 yesterday, an 4-year ongoing campaign that has reached level 16.
OMG that was slow moving stuff!
I had to recalculate my character the whole time (Rightous Might, Quickened Divine Favour, Insight of Yarus, Divine Power, Ray of Enfeeblement), and I was doing 4 or 5 attacks the whole time.
One of the characters was a two-weapon fighting rogue that has 6 bloody attacks...
And we were fighting mobs with 4 arms and 2 attacks per arm and there were 8 of them... so... eh... 64 attacks per round for the DM.
There was plenty tension in the combat - we used 4xHeal in addition to temp hp from heroes feast and divine power, and damage reduction from Righouts might. But I like the way 4e does it better. Each round is a lot quicker so even though the combat lasts for 5 rounds instead of 2 rounds it feels much more engaging.
Conversely, if a move action does nothing BUT move, then the players feel compelled to move when they have one, even if it's pointless. For example, in a game I'm playing, one of the players (who, incidentally, quit) was a fey pact warlock who insisted in teleporting every time his pact was triggered, no matter how pointless it was and how much time it took to make this move.
I think a balance between the desire to move and the desire to gain a benefit by not moving should be balanced. It gives more tactical options.
If you don't like having characters spend time moving around the battlefield unless it is tactically vital to do so, then it makes sense to give them a reward for standing still, as in 3rd edition.
Personally, I like having the characters move around as much as possible. I have a fey warlock in my game, and I like it when they teleport around for no particular reason. I'd want to encourage that as much as possible, because it makes the tactical situation change all the time and reduces the repetitiveness of combat.
I doubt i want to see "Plant your ass full attacks" in a "chose what you do when your turn comes" cycling initiative system ever again. It favors "let yourself be attacked, so you can Full Attack" stupidity, opens the door to "Power up Charging to the breaking point since you are not full attacking" abilities and then it is only a matter of time before some munchkin combines both into a "Full attack combined with uberdamage charge" abilities
Normally it should take time to weigh the advantages of each possible position that can be moved to, if it doesn't, then the move is pretty darned pointless.
If you intend to teleport around every chance you get you should have a pretty good idea of where you want to go next.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Regicide
Um. The biggest reasons for moving are a) to be able to hit, b) to get a +2 to hit from flank, and c) avoid damage. This is no different than 3E.
there's a lot more movement in 4th ed because the tanks aren't stuck in 1 spot all the time, forced movement affects etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Regicide
Yes, my wizard full attacks every chance he gets. Very few character builds wanted to full attack, it pretty much was limited to classes with sneak attack since having more attacks greatly increased damage. Other classes could get by with power attack.
Rubbish.
Full attack was the basic approach for any character who was attacking with weapons rather than spells except for maybe a completely charge optimised character.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Regicide
Full attacks in 3E are what you tried to avoid letting the monster do as a higher level monster doing a full attack could often kill a lot of characters.
Really depended heavily on what the monster had by way of attacks. Mostly they didn't have the iterative attack so they didn't all get the same benefit from full attacks -> there were a lot of monsters that only had 1 attack...
If you intend to teleport around every chance you get you should have a pretty good idea of where you want to go next.
You're making the drastic assumption that a) the player is smart enough to actually start thinking of their turn before it comes around, and b) the battlefield is static enough that they can.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Hamish
Rubbish.
Full attack was the basic approach for any character who was attacking with weapons rather than spells except for maybe a completely charge optimised character.
Hardly. Full attack is completely pointless for nearly anyone below level 6 with the notable exception of the monk. So right there the majority of characters gain nothing from it.
Any BoNS melee will almost never do full attack.
The few other melee classes WILL charge optimize as it means... 1, maybe 2 feats they wouldn't already be guaranteed to take. Rhino's rush is so good for paladin they love charging assuming they're not mounted and doing spirited + ride by with a lance.
The main reason to want to do full attack is haste. If you're a pure melee and you're getting haste often, then build your character so you can stay in combat. Lord knows a spiked chain wielding fighter with permanency on an enlarge spell with improved trip is NOT lacking for chances to take full attack unless the opponent can teleport or cast walls every round or has a decent tumble. The 40 foot chunk of the battlefield that he commands is pretty effective.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Hamish
Really depended heavily on what the monster had by way of attacks. Mostly they didn't have the iterative attack so they didn't all get the same benefit from full attacks -> there were a lot of monsters that only had 1 attack...
My party has not met a single one that doesn't have multiple attacks in the last 3 to 5 modules, with most of them having 5 attacks a round using multi-attack feat so they have excellent to-hits. All the party deaths have been because they've ended their turn beside a monster with 3+ attacks and the power attack feat and often the improved critical feat.
Very few character builds wanted to full attack, it pretty much was limited to classes with sneak attack since having more attacks greatly increased damage. Other classes could get by with power attack.
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