Once per day non-magical effects destroy suspension of disbelief

[Greg K]

Encounter Powers: Arm Lock, Read Naked Choke, Head Kick

These abilities take quite a bit of set-up, but are reasonably common- a ton of MMA matches are settled by these maneuvers. Once you execute them, though, the opponent will find repeated attempts to be much easier to defend against. The read naked choke, for example, tires your arms out enough that a second attempt to apply it will stand less of a chance of success.?

Except that if you watch MMA bouts, you will see that people do attempt these multiple times in a bout. And, people do get the naked choke after one or two failed attempts.

Daily Powers: Gogoplata, Omaplata, Kimura, Superman Punch, Spinning Reverse Punch

These are the maneuvers that you see only occasionally, because they require that the opponent is caught unawares in a very specific position at the same time that the attacker is aware that such a maneuver is executable. The MMA world talks about these for months afterwards if once of these ends a fight.

Really? I see kimura attempts fairly often watching the UFC and, often, multiple times in the same bout. I've also just saw a bout with 2 superman punches, and I have seen bouts with mulitple spinning reverse punches.

And, this is exactly why I hate per encounter and daily. For myself, the question is not how often these attacks succeed, but that per encounter and dailies limit how often you can attempt the maneuver. The failed attempts, imo, add just as much to the "narrative" as the successes.

 

[Greg K]

They both accomplish the same thing! But one is faster!

Faster doesn't necessarily mean better. And, in the grapple example, I think the faster way sucks. YMMV

 

[Henry]

And my point? That's it's a hell of a lot more than once and gives you the impression that he's actually done some work that's going to need a decent night's sleep to recover from. That's the difference. One actually gives you the impression of something, the other gives you squat.

The fact that he ran out of slots gives you that impression, but once per day or per encounter abilities don't? Even with the idea that he could still perform complex calcs just as well as before he shot off all his power, or could jog a mile if he did? If it does, that's fine, but I'm not seeing the big difference, myself. I've played around with alternatives that give a wizard more staying power, myself, and the 4e way isn't the best one I've seen, but it is pretty simple to follow.

the question is not how often these attacks succeed, but that per encounter and dailies limit how often you can attempt the maneuver. The failed attempts, imo, add just as much to the "narrative" as the successes.

It strikes me that one would have just as easy a time describing the failed attempts in the combat round just as easily as describing the successes. "I whirl around and attempt to catch him again with a Whirling Blade Maneuver, but he's just too quick to retrerat from it -- so I follow up with a Tide of Iron in the form of a single strong blow that knocks him seriously off balance." If the mechanics stink, that's one thing -- there are going to be a lot of people, myself included, playing 3e AND 4e on and off, and we pick the one that makes sense for each group. But all the arguments about lack of plausiblity seem to ignore all the implausibilities of any other D&D, in favor of trying to highlight this D&D as implausible. It used to be implausible to gamers in the 1980's to have those short-lived humans master multiclassing two careers at once, too, or for wizards to cast spells in armor, but we take it for granted ever since the year 2000.

 

[Umadin]

It seems I'm hearing 3 ways to approach this:


1. "Its a game, who gives a S***, its like barbarians rage. Once a day, deal with it."


2. (My favorite) Your character knows a certain few techniques that when the opportunity arises he/she can use this technique. The fun part, is that instead of the DM letting the player know when this opportunity is arising, the player decides when this opportunity arises, that opportunity is somewhat rare, we have to give some amount of time, so, a day:

"I use my Hunter’s Bear Trap power!"

DM flavor: "As the Orc is fighting you notice a somewhat unprotected area of his leg. Standing prone his leg stretches forward."
Then actual description: "A well-placed shot to the leg leaves him hobbled and bleeding."

Then again it still doesn't make much sense for ... say:
"Force the Battle: With the slightest flick of your weapon and minimal movement, you control the battle and turn your enemies’ thoughts from conquest to survival."

Whoever wrote some of these should be shot. Having a "You shout something scary" is better then that crap.


3. Each class has a powerful magic that grants them daily powers. For wizards its a rule of magic. For clerics, their god says "Nope, once a day." Warriors - You focus and channel a source of physical energy that will take a day to comfortably do again. Rogues - Uh... Rogues uh... hate when people think they are one trick ponies... so they are so self conscious about doing some things too often that they insist to only do it once a day?

 

[hong]

This explanation still leaves the mechanics fundamentally dissociated from the game world.

The problem with such mechanics, for me, is that they make roleplaying more difficult. When I'm roleplaying, I put myself in the shoes of my characters and try to make the same decisions they would make. The resolution of the course of action I decide upon will be done using mechanics my character has no awareness of -- but because there is a direct one-to-one mapping between those mechanics and the game world -- I don't become dissociated from my character.

If we choose to explain these mechanics in the way you suggest (and we pretty much have to, because (a) no explanation is given for them in the rulebooks and (b) no other explanation I've seen is even remotely viable), then you've suddenly introduced significant decision points for me -- as a player -- which have no relevance to the character at all. For the character, they're just taking advantage of an opportunity which has presented itself. But I, as a player, am deciding when that opportunity happens. My experience and the character's experience have been sundered.

That's my problem with dissociated mechanics: They distance me from my characer. And since roleplaying is the #1 reason that I, personally, play roleplaying games, that's a huge problem for me.

More generally, I find the explanation doesn't hold up very well to any kind of meaningful analysis. For example, let's take a look at a talented fighter who knows a Nifty Exploit. All he's waiting for is for an enemy to leave his back open so that he can use his Nifty Exploit...

On Day 1, our talented fighter fights a whole bunch of opponents who are significantly less talented and less skilled than him. He fights his way through five such encounters, dispatching dozens of opponents. During all of these fights against all of these opponents he finds only one opportunity to use his Nifty Exploit.

On Day 2, our talented fighter faces off against a single opponent who is actually much more skilled than he is. He's just as likely to find one (and only one!) opportunity to use his Nifty Exploit against this much more talented opponent as he was to find one (and only one!) opportunity to use it against a legion of lesser opponents.

How does that make any sense? It doesn't.

So now we try to excuse this by saying something like, "Well, see, against those lesser opponents the talented fighter never really felt the need to use his Nifty Exploit, so he didn't."

Of course now you've not only handed me a dissociated mechanic (which I don't like), you've been forced to justify it by also taking control of my own character away from me.

Describing these as "Voltron mechanics" or narrative mechanics has a bit more mileage to it. I'm certainly willing to accept the inherent disadvantages dissociated mechanics if I'm trading those off against the advantages of gaining meaningful narrative control. But, personally, I don't consider "when does Voltron pull out his Win the Battle Sword?" to be meaningful narrative control.

Or, to put it another way: Usually when I'm playing an RPG it's because I enjoy pretending to be somebody else (i.e. roleplaying). Sometimes people come along and say, "Hey, for this game I'm going to interfere with your ability to roleplay. But, in exchange, you'll get to be a co-author of the story." And that can be pretty cool, too, so I'm more than willing to do that.

But if you offer me that deal and then say, "And by 'co-author the story' I mean 'decide when your characters gets to use an Awesome Combat Move(TM)'." Then that's pretty lame and I'm not interested. Besides, I was doing all kinds of Awesome Combat Moves in 3rd Edition without anybody mucking up my roleplaying.

You are thinking too hard about fantasy. Stop thinking.

 

[mmadsen]

My point? Same as the rest, every game has its abstractions for balance. 4e's happens to be to limit powerful abilities, magical or otherwise, to a certain number of times per day.

We can agree that every game has its abstractions, and while some people want more detail and less abstraction, other people want better abstractions -- equally simple rules that make more sense.

 

[BeauNiddle]

On Day 1, our talented fighter fights a whole bunch of opponents who are significantly less talented and less skilled than him. He fights his way through five such encounters, dispatching dozens of opponents. During all of these fights against all of these opponents he finds only one opportunity to use his Nifty Exploit.

On Day 2, our talented fighter faces off against a single opponent who is actually much more skilled than he is. He's just as likely to find one (and only one!) opportunity to use his Nifty Exploit against this much more talented opponent as he was to find one (and only one!) opportunity to use it against a legion of lesser opponents.

On Day 1 the fighter saw 3 possible opportunities to do Nifty Exploit but they didn't fit precisely so he let them slide by. Fortunately the fourth chance he saw was perfect so he showed off straining his muscles. The fifth chance he got was too soon afterwards and he thought risking his health to perform it again would be detrimental. The sixth chance wasn't quite right like the first 3 weren't so he let it slide as well.

Day 2 he saw but one chance and took it straight away realising the opponent was more skilled. It paid off.

 

[Obryn]

But all the arguments about lack of plausiblity seem to ignore all the implausibilities of any other D&D, in favor of trying to highlight this D&D as implausible.

Henry is a man of great learning and wisdom.

Learn from him, children.

-O

 

[Derren]

But all the arguments about lack of plausiblity seem to ignore all the implausibilities of any other D&D, in favor of trying to highlight this D&D as implausible.

No, some 4E supporters want to make it look like that is the case in order to discredit the others arguments but that is not the case.
4E is not as implausible as 3E, its even more implausible. And just because 3E has problems it doesn't mean that its ok for 4E to have even more problems. People expected for 4E to fix the shortcomings of 3E, but now some people realize that for them 4E made the shortcomings worse.

 

[mmadsen]

Think of it like the Grapple issue. You can roll an Opportunity Attack, Touch Attack, and two Opposed Strength Checks, or you can simply roll Fortitude versus Reflex. They both accomplish the same thing! But one is faster!

Like someone said before: those kinds of rules are fun to read but a pain to play.

I think you reiterate an excellent point, that complicated, detailed rules are fun to read but a pain to play. (I also think they're easy to write.)

But we can make rules that make more sense without being more complex. (I won't say it's always easy, but it is a worthwhile goal.)