D&D 5E And Lo, the Fighter Did Get a Shtick of his Own... COMBAT SUPERIORITY!

[Ahnehnois]

Plus, it's kind of funny that one of the main complaints of AEDU was "sameiness", so why you'd want a new mechanic available to everybody to use is beyond me.

The issue is different here.

With regards to sameness, a player might question why he, as an archer, can shoot a crossbow bolt that deals X damage once per encounter, while some mage elsewhere can shoot a bolt of flame that also deals X damage once per encounter. The issue is using the same mechanic to describe different things. Combat superiority is using the same mechanic to describe the same thing (how skilled you are at fighting).

One might also question why a player who wants to play a wizard (expecting to memorize a few spells a day), a warlock (expecting to spam invocations at will with no limits), and a rogue (expecting to sneak attack people when they're off-guard and stay out of the way otherwise) all fall under the same resource management system. This is different because it isn't the defining aspect of a character. A fighter might have two CS dice and a limited ability to stab people in the back, while a rogue might have one die and be great at backstabbing. They're using the same combat mechanics, but they don't get the same progression of class abilities.

Neither of these is an issue with this combat superiority business. The dice themselves are simply a reflection of martial skill, like an attack bonus or a fortitude save. Lots of people have martial skill. In this case, one player might choose to play a fighter and concentrate his career on swordplay, while another might choose to play a ranger and do swordplay but also gain some survival skills, an animal companion and a few spells. Clearly, the first character should be better at swordplay than the 2nd. But if both characters reach 10th level and the fighter has 4d6 dice of crazy maneuvers while the ranger has none, the latter player can and should complain that the rules have shortchanged him.

Adding these combat superiority dice is a good mechanic to represent combat skill. Like any such mechanic, the fighter should simply be a little better at it than anyone else. He should have, on aggregate, more hit points, better AC, better attack bonus and damage, better maneuvers, more feats, and now more combat superiority dice than other characters. Simple as that.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You have obviously never played 4e

Or 2e. Or post-UA 1e to be fair.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Huh.

That's actually how we use Action Points (or Action Dice, as we call them). An action die (d10) can be spent any which way an action point can, but you can also roll it for a bonus (to anything).

So yeah, I think I like it.

 

[VinylTap]

Anyone worried about the amount of damage this mechanic might end up spitting out? Sounds like a flexible 'sneak attack' option that doesn't require any sort of positional requirement. I can live with a fighter doing more damage than a rogue overall in an encounter (more fight-y, less positional requirements etc), , but on a 'per turn basis' should a fighter be kicking out more damage than a flanking rogue? I think a good basis for damage balance should sit between these two.

Hopefully they'll keep these dice to D4, It'll help keep the more qualitative options attractive, because if he ends up spitting out too much extra damage, this mechanic could get out of hand pretty quickly. You don't need to do a ton more damage to keep damage a tempting option. D6's seems like too much, but D6 are a little more attractive presentation wise. And I realize he won't be gaining a die per level, but even at 2d6 at level 5, that static damage increase over an entire encounter feels like a lot.

PS. On the point of sameness, and who should get to use this mechanic. There are a lot of "dice tricks" the designers can throw into the game. This is an attractive one because its simple, elegant and flexible. I'd much rather see other classes gaining a different yet equal mechanic on the same level of usefullness/balance/elegance than just spamming all the classes with this one just because it works. This is the sort of thing that helps define a class and give it a particular flair.

 

[FireLance]

Finally, after weeks of questionable content, I get something positive. Hopefully, next week's article won't cause my mood to darken.

 

[Kraydak]

The basic mechanism looks ok, and it can solve the major Fighter design problem of front-loading vs multi-classing. I am not particularly enthused by the options presented right now: the direct damage boost is weak, and DR is a balancing nightmare at low levels, usually kinda sad at high levels. There is also the precise question of refresh timing. I would greatly prefer refresh-at-end-of-turn to refresh-at-start-of-turn. You don't want to have Fighters *needing* to hoard dice to power defensive abilities (particularly anti-spell defensive abilities), but then the triggers not occurring and the dice being wasted. Refresh at end of turn neatly sidesteps the hoarding-wasting problem.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think this is kind of hilarious.

Functionally, the change seems to be this:

1. Take your fighter's bonus to damage.
2. Convert it into dice that you roll.
3. Give fighters some options to trade damage for other things.

Functionally, it's the same as something like an expanded Expertise. You trade one thing for another.

What's kind of hilarious is seeing how much that little change can alter someone's opinions.

Reinforces my idea that game design is 80% psychology.

It's smart, though. Rolling dice is always more fun than adding bonuses.

 

[VinylTap]

I think this is kind of hilarious.

Functionally, the change seems to be this:

1. Take your fighter's bonus to damage.
2. Convert it into dice that you roll.
3. Give fighters some options to trade damage for other things.

Functionally, it's the same as something like an expanded Expertise. You trade one thing for another.

What's kind of hilarious is seeing how much that little change can alter someone's opinions.

Reinforces my idea that game design is 80% psychology.

It's smart, though. Rolling dice is always more fun than adding bonuses.

The trick is finding and executing scalable yet mechanically simple solutions to these sorts of problems, but yes, you've managed to crack 'game design'...

 

[Neonchameleon]

With regards to sameness, a player might question why he, as an archer, can shoot a crossbow bolt that deals X damage once per encounter, while some mage elsewhere can shoot a bolt of flame that also deals X damage once per encounter.

Why? I don't even see what there is to question here.

One might also question why a player who wants to play a wizard (expecting to memorize a few spells a day), a warlock (expecting to spam invocations at will with no limits), and a rogue (expecting to sneak attack people when they're off-guard and stay out of the way otherwise) all fall under the same resource management system.

I don't see how "rate of spells you cast" is fundamental to the core concept of either a wizard or a warlock. At least unless you are definitions that are almost exclusive to 3.5 D&D; prior to 3.0 D&D, all spells were vancian as far as I know - and in 3.0 I can't think of a spellcasting class that wasn't on a daily recharge cycle. That was a feature of all D&D spellcasting. And you can quite happily have a rogue that sneak attacks under the same resource management patterns as a wizard - 4e demonstrates this very nicely.

 

[Kraydak]

I think this is kind of hilarious.

Functionally, the change seems to be this:

1. Take your fighter's bonus to damage.
2. Convert it into dice that you roll.
3. Give fighters some options to trade damage for other things.

Functionally, it's the same as something like an expanded Expertise. You trade one thing for another.

What's kind of hilarious is seeing how much that little change can alter someone's opinions.

Reinforces my idea that game design is 80% psychology.

It's smart, though. Rolling dice is always more fun than adding bonuses.

Sorta. There were basically two questions:
1) Daily/Encounter powers vs No Daily/Encounter powers?
2) What *are* the powers?

This answered point (1), and in the way I favor (yay!).
It say very little about (2). What it does suggest is solidly enh/hopefully-only-first-draft.

That said, I would not rely on the dice staying dice. I hope they don't. Action points as dice work because they are rarely used, so the extra time-cost is minimal. Extra damage dice really slow things down (you have to find them, you have to NOT roll off the edge of the table or bounce your dice awkwardly, and then you have to add up the results while not forgetting the static bonuses). If you start having multiple dice which get split up and spent at different times in a round, it'll slow things down a lot more than you expect. If the Fighter's player starts hemming and hawing about using 1d6 to soak a 3 point attack where some of the soak might get wasted or saving it for a bigger attack that might miss, or trying to figure out how many dice to convert to damage to drop one enemy without wasting any, well, ewww.