Will the real martial artist please stand up...

Its responsible for multi-attacks being the sin-qua-non of optimization.

AbdulAlhazred said:

I think they didn't REALLY want most stuff to explicitly scale. They thought that everyone would trade up all their powers to the best they could and the only real low-level ones you'd still use would be at-wills (hence the scaling). As it turned out multi-attacks of any ilk whatsoever just far outstripped any level scaling or even increased potency of higher level powers.

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How is it designers get surprised by that every time? It's been painfully(npi) obvious that piling damage bonuses onto multiple attacks overwhelms D&D's abstract sack-of-hps injury-tracking system. Whether that's being outnumbered under 5e Bounded Accuracy, multi-attack powers in 4e, bag of rats in 3e, Weapon Specialization in 2e or TWFing in AD&D - or just rapidly-scaling low-level damage spells.

Tony Vargas said:

How is it designers get surprised by that every time? It's been painfully(npi) obvious that piling damage bonuses onto multiple attacks overwhelms D&D's abstract sack-of-hps injury-tracking system. Whether that's being outnumbered under 5e Bounded Accuracy, multi-attack powers in 4e, bag of rats in 3e, Weapon Specialization in 2e or TWFing in AD&D - or just rapidly-scaling low-level damage spells.

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Beats me. Me and my old buddy Mike figured out the primary math to these types of game engine back in about 1981 when we wrote our own space wargame that had AC, hit points, etc (probably pretty much a clone of the original naval wargame that Dave Arneson stole the idea from back at the dawn of D&D). It isn't rocket science. I admit, I'm a math guy, but its basically ADDITION, yet the same errors and miscalculations seem to recur in each generation of game engines. sigh...

Tony Vargas said:

How is it designers get surprised by that every time? It's been painfully(npi) obvious that piling damage bonuses onto multiple attacks overwhelms D&D's abstract sack-of-hps injury-tracking system. Whether that's being outnumbered under 5e Bounded Accuracy, multi-attack powers in 4e, bag of rats in 3e, Weapon Specialization in 2e or TWFing in AD&D - or just rapidly-scaling low-level damage spells.

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I think there are two basic problems:
Anyone good enough at both writing and math to make D&D work is either going to be the Mearls of R&D or not working at WotC. Because that's the only position that pays remotely near what tech will pay them. Like scary amounts more. And the person who is Mearls actually needs more marketing skills than math skills, so it is unlikely they get promoted to that position. i.e. being strong at math is not a plus for working on D&D.

R&D often uses elements as design space without considering that design space might get used by other people. Monsters need to die in roughly 4 hits regardless of level. They need to kill PCs in roughly 5 hits regardless of level(damage increases 1 hp per level of monster, standard PCs gain 5 hp per level) - PCs should hit monsters 65% of the time, Monsters should hit PCs about 55% of the time. Okay, so problem - there was a need to fill that +1 to +3 to hit missing. And the designers filled it with options that granted +stat to hit. Except no one initially wanted to play leaders and people kept finding combat grindy. So they they introduced Expertise. But then, leaders still had bonuses to hit to grant. That happens with damage and in particular with multi-attacking.

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It is a relatively simple fix - make additional damage per W, bonuses reasonably small and don't let bonuses from the same source stack. They just don't ever do that.

MwaO said:

PCs should hit monsters 65% of the time, Monsters should hit PCs about 55% of the time.

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i know the former comes from statistics wrt human beings and satisfaction yes 2 out of 3 ain't bad is more than a saying... I wonder if the latter is sense of threat related and has a basis also.

Garthanos said:

i know the former comes from statistics wrt human beings and satisfaction yes 2 out of 3 ain't bad is more than a saying... I wonder if the latter is sense of threat related and has a basis also.

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My feeling is it is relative and represents the player's feeling that they are outclassing the monsters in some sense.

A while back I saw an idea where effectively martial arts, were created as reframed and reflavored armor types and weapons... (I think it might have been on the old WOTC site before 4e was stripped)

For instance the defense arts were like armor but did not technically weigh anything but rather demanded freedom of movement and flexibility amounting to X unused carrying capacity and the heavier types exploited extensive use of core balance and low stances which generally demand slightly slower movement... etc.

They had them named and flavored fairly well, I am thinking I might use this integrated with Martial Practices like Sensei and Chi styled Grand Master Trainings to enable the Martial Artists of D&D to take on the flavor of both Qui Chang Kane and Wuxia (you know them they are called fighters, rangers, rogues and warlords).

Garthanos said:

A while back I saw an idea where effectively martial arts, were created as reframed and reflavored armor types and weapons... (I think it might have been on the old WOTC site before 4e was stripped)

For instance the defense arts were like armor but did not technically weigh anything but rather demanded freedom of movement and flexibility amounting to X unused carrying capacity and the heavier types exploited extensive use of core balance and low stances which generally demand slightly slower movement... etc.

They had them named and flavored fairly well, I am thinking I might use this integrated with Martial Practices like Sensei and Chi styled Grand Master Trainings to enable the Martial Artists of D&D to take on the flavor of both Qui Chang Kane and Wuxia (you know them they are called fighters, rangers, rogues and warlords).

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I recall a thread on the GD forum there circa 2008/9 in which we reflavored armor as various types of defensive techniques. They weren't especially flavored like Martial Arts, though that was also a pretty obvious option and might have been touched on. I think the genesis of it was someone wanting to run a pirate campaign where characters clad in heavy armor would be out of place, thematically, and trying to figure out what to do with the paladins and such.

I would note that calling these things MPs would have worked, as they were treated like GEAR in this case, so accessed at a fairly small one-time cost (obviously you could lose actual gear and need to repurchase it, but the GP costs for such are all but trivial in 4e once you hit 2nd or 3rd level). Obviously you'd have to give them a 'no combining with armor' rider, but that's not really a problem. GM training is of course a possible additional aspect, which could be used to provide the same types of 'enchantments' that various armors normally have, as well as any enhancement bonuses beyond the standard inherent bonus progression.

AbdulAlhazred said:

I recall a thread on the GD forum there circa 2008/9 in which we reflavored armor as various types of defensive techniques. They weren't especially flavored like Martial Arts, though that was also a pretty obvious option and might have been touched on. I think the genesis of it was someone wanting to run a pirate campaign where characters clad in heavy armor would be out of place, thematically, and trying to figure out what to do with the paladins and such.

I would note that calling these things MPs would have worked, as they were treated like GEAR in this case, so accessed at a fairly small one-time cost (obviously you could lose actual gear and need to repurchase it, but the GP costs for such are all but trivial in 4e once you hit 2nd or 3rd level). Obviously you'd have to give them a 'no combining with armor' rider, but that's not really a problem. GM training is of course a possible additional aspect, which could be used to provide the same types of 'enchantments' that various armors normally have, as well as any enhancement bonuses beyond the standard inherent bonus progression.

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And being a Sensei is analogous to someone able to create this ahem GEAR... it works fairly well, nobody will trust a known master of unarmed combat simply because they are unarmed ie not being able to remove the gear has social prices I suppose. Yes appropriately flavored GMT works for additional effects especiallly Chi ones.

You can even have a martial art which incorporates many items of gear in one ie like the enchantment that makes a single weapon able to adopt to different forms.

Arguably using a martial strike - means your empty hands count as both empty and weapon x.

Jeet Kun Do allows ones unarmed attacks count as any melee weapon you are trained in.

Picturing now someone using a fantasy martial art say the Art of the Panther... to emulate the use of reach weapon