Using Fighter's Expertise Dice - clarification

[slobo777]

I'm probably late to the party here.

As far as I can tell, a player decides when and whether to use an expertise die at the point that they could use it.

So, for instance, the player does not need to declare Deadly Strike when a fighter attacks. They can wait until there is a hit. Which means on a miss, unspent expertise dice are automatically available for defensive options.

(I missed this point so far in my combat sim code, the dwarves are not parrying yet . . . and they probably ought to after any miss - I expect that to add significantly to their survival rate!)

Has this been clarified (or just plain obvious to other playtesters)?

 

[slobo777]

Also, if you have two fighters, can one Protect the other, whilst the other uses Parry, effectively reducing a single attack by two rolls of ED?

It isn't obviously disallowed (or non-stackable), and would be a very useful front-row combination against a heavy-hitting opponent.

 

[Iosue]

Defensive use of unspent expertise dice after a miss was explicitly pointed out by Mearls in the Penny Arcade/PvP podcast.

I haven't heard anything for or against your latter question. Seems like that's the kind of thing they want the playtest to answer. Try it and see how it goes. If it feels a bit overpowered, let them know in the feedback. If works and is fun let them know that, too.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The Deadly Strike maneuver says:

"When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can spend expertise dice to add to the attack's damage against that creature."

So to me it says quite clearly that it's only after you've hit someone that you can choose to spend the die or not to add damage. You don't declare you're spending the die before making your attack roll.

As far as Parry and Protect stacking... I see nothing in the playtest that would say that they don't stack. So yes, I'd allow expertise dice to be spent by both the person receiving damage (via Parry) and the Protector next to him (via Protect).

 

[slobo777]

Also, are DM's out there requiring use of Parry and/or Protect before or after knowing the damage so far?

My reading is a generous after. Which makes stacking even more of an advantage (no need to waste ED on low damage hits, if you think something worse is coming before your next turn).

 

[slobo777]

Defensive use of unspent expertise dice after a miss was explicitly pointed out by Mearls in the Penny Arcade/PvP podcast.

I haven't heard anything for or against your latter question. Seems like that's the kind of thing they want the playtest to answer. Try it and see how it goes. If it feels a bit overpowered, let them know in the feedback. If works and is fun let them know that, too.

My three-dwarf fighting team is doing well out of it.

Mostly I want to know at the moment so I can code it. And it is much easier to code last-second decisions based on actual damage, than to try and pick best choice for a computer in advance.

As for play by humans, I much prefer last-second decision to use something than pre-declare. Myself, and my players will tend to forget we have the abilities otherwise, and enforcing pre-declares on my tired players makes me feel like a schoolteacher (not what I DM for!)

If last-second decision is too powerful, I'd rather keep it by design and reduce the numbers.

 

[the Jester]

Also, are DM's out there requiring use of Parry and/or Protect before or after knowing the damage so far?

Before, in my case, though it hasn't come up yet.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

As others have said, the current rules seem to be that you decide whether to apply Deadly Strike, and how many dice to use, after the attack roll succeeds but before the damage roll. Parry and Protect seem to come after the damage roll - but you have to decide how many total dice to parry/protect with before you roll.

If waiting to decide Deadly Strike dice bothers you ("the fighter should have to decide how hard he's swinging before he finds out whether he connects!") just make it so you have to determine how many dice to use before you roll, but you retain them if you miss (because as soon as your enemy blocks you deftly pull back and reconsider). That's almost exactly the same mechanically (except for weird cases where the success of an attack roll would affect how many dice you use - like say if you hit with a 10 and decide not to waste dice on a minion).

I'd say you definitely can stack Parry with Protect, and even multiple Protects from different fighters. If you had two clerics, they could both heal the same guy, right?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Also, are DM's out there requiring use of Parry and/or Protect before or after knowing the damage so far?

After.

My players and I have found that "wasting" dice or special abilities because you had to declare their use beforehand only to find out they didn't work or weren't usable after all, to be anti-climactic, annoying, and unnecessary.

 

[The Shadow]

Also, are DM's out there requiring use of Parry and/or Protect before or after knowing the damage so far?

My reading is a generous after. Which makes stacking even more of an advantage (no need to waste ED on low damage hits, if you think something worse is coming before your next turn'a).

That's my reading too. The fighter is such a badass that he can split-second decide whether turning the blow is worth it or not.

Basically, I see using the dice after the fact as representing that the fighter character knows much more about what's going on than the player does. Since the player both isn't there, and may well not have anything like the same combat experience, we model the character's greater knowledge by letting the player know things before he decides.