D&D 4E 4E combat and powers: How to keep the baby and not the bathwater?

[Zustiur]

The 'all or nothing'/'Damage or effect' approach of 3E limits the usefulness of special attacks. The 'powers or nothing' approach of 4E provides similar problems. I want to see something that actually provides options, all of the time, but have those options balanced.

Let's start by considering which effects or conditions should a martial type character be able to inflict?

Blinded Difficult, it's either the sand in the eyes trick or direct damage to the eyes. Personally I think sand in the eyes is more of a -2 to attack type situation and specific damage to the body isn't the way DND Hit Points work.
Dazed/Stunned No, I see it as more of a hit points thing. I accept dazed/stunned from spells, but not from martial sources.
Deafened Umm, no, can't think of a sensible way for a martial type to inflict this.
Dominated No.
Immobilized 2 options, pinned to the ground somehow (arrow through foot), or held/grappled.
Marked Yep
Petrified No!
Prone YES, this is probably one of the most important ones to include.
Restrained Much like immobilized.
Slowed I don't really buy it. Use caltrops if you like.
Weakened Again, I don't buy it.
Disarmed Needs layers, and ways to stop it being used constantly.
Pushed/Pulled/Slid Like trip, these are highly important.
Deal extra damage Another important one. 1[W] 2[W] 3[W] was a better system than 3e's power attack for a flat +5 damage.
+X to ally's defense Sure no problem. Would last for 1 round.
-X to target's defense Sure no problem. Would last for 1 round.
Combat advantage Again, no problem, would last for 1 round.
Sunder Can be battle-winningly good, so it seriously needs to be limited. Perhaps only on criticals.

So, once we rule out the ridiculous ones, we're left looking for sensible ways of making those effects obtainable. I'll focus on Prone and Pushed here.


Prone Requirements:
* The creature must have 'legs' and be standing.
* A creature with more than X 'legs' cannot be knocked prone (centipede, I'm looking at you)

There are two options for knocking an opponent prone -
Unarmed Trip
Use your (base) attack bonus vs target's Reflex/Dexterity defense. If successful, you knock him prone and deal no damage.
Armed Trip
Use your weapon attack bonus -5 vs target's AC AND Reflex/Dexterity defense. If you exceed AC, you deal damage as normal. If you exceed Reflex, you knock the target prone. If you exceed both, apply both effects.

Feats can be purchased to reduces the attack penalty of Armed Trip. 1 feat per reduction, limited at -3 to attack.
Feats can be purchased to deal damage with an Unarmed Trip - this is not weapon damage. Monks get a bonus to this damage.
Additionally; terrain would have modifiers for Trip. Such as, "If target is in a square of difficult terrain, they have a -2 penalty to Reflex/Dexterity defense."

Pushed Requirements:
* There must be a valid space to move into. i.e. not a wall.

There are two options for pushing your opponent -
Unarmed Push
This is your bull rush option. Also your shield bash option. The objective is to move the target, not to do (significant) damage. Additional requirement; Target can only be 1 size larger (as usual).
Use your base attack bonus vs target's Fortitude/Strength defense. If you succeed, you push the target X squares. I'm not sure if X should be 1d4, or if it should be 1 square for every 2 points you beat the target's defense by. Either way, it shouldn't be further than you can move. Movement must be in a straight line, but the attacker chooses the direction (not backwards obviously).
Armed Push
This is your swashbuckling option. You make a given square too dangerous to stand in, so the opponent will move. Additional requirement; Cannot be done without holding a weapon, unless your opponent is also weaponless (or you're a monk).
Use your weapon attack bonus vs target's AC and (undecided) defense. If you exceed AC, you deal damage. If you exceed the other defense, you force the target to move 1 square (they choose the direction).

Alternatively; Use your weapon attack bonus vs target's AC. If successful, you deal half damage and you force the target to move 1 square (they choose the direction). The target has the choice of staying put, but will take double damage if he does so. (Most likely used when you're trying push him off a cliff)

I'm not sure which of those two I like more.

Feats can be purchased to Unarmed Push further.
Feats can be purchased to add (non weapon) damage to an Unarmed Push.
Feats can be purchased to make 2 or 3 squares unavailable, so that you can better control your target's movement.
Feats can be purchased to do 3/4 or triple damage with an Armed Push (second version).

---
I'm sure similar mechanics can be created for the other effects.
Pull would have 'lure' which would be an 'attack' against the opponents Int or Wis defense. Kind of like a bluff.
Immobilized/Restrained/Grabbed/Grappled would have a non damage option for heavily restraining the target, and a partially restrained, but you get to deal damage option.
Marked could stay pretty much as-is.
Buffs and Debuffs could also have a two option deal - if you deal damage to the target, you can apply a -2. If you forgo damage, you can apply a -5 or -6.
Combat advantage can be provided in a number of ways: flanking, 'staggering' (ala Armed Trip), and just plain 'menacing' (ala Armed Push). i.e. you can forgo the actual Trip or Push part to provide your allies with combat advantage against that target.
Disarm can also use the multiple options mechanic - deal no damage, completely disarm. Deal damage, force use of a minor action to regain hold of weapon. Also, Deal damage, but cause -2 to attack rolls.

As above, each of these things can have feats that increase the effectiveness, or reduce the penalty. Also, there may be feats that let you do two things at once - Trip AND Push, but no damage.
Sunder might actually be a feat of Disarm - gives you the option to potentially break the weapon rather than just making the target drop the weapon.


Everyone can use these abilities, all of the time, but martial characters (through having a strong attack rating) are always going to be better at them. Martial characters are also more likely to spend feats on these abilities than spell casters.
Naturally, the numbers presented above are a 'best guess' and would be subject to balancing.
The CMB mechanic of Pathfinder is a nice idea, but it presupposes that all effects are equally powerful. I expect each special attack to end up with its own level of difficulty, without straying too far from d20+-X vs Defense mechanic.

I only see two potential problems with my system:
1) It has to be carefully balanced so that performing 'damage + effect' attacks is useful without being something you do every turn. It also has to be balanced so that 'effect only' is always a valid option. i.e. 'damage + effect' is always less likely to work than 'effect only'. (See Li Shenron's post on page 11 for the reason why this is important!)
2) The combat chapter may end up being 400 pages long.



So how does this fit in with spells?
Spells in earlier editions tended to be 'effect only' or 'damage only'. In 4E they tend to be 'effect + damage'
I see a system where spell that provide similar effects are balanced out by:
A) Being vancian, and therefore daily, and also chosen at the start of the day as a guess of what spells you'll require that day.
B) Being 'guaranteed' or at least easier to pull off
C) Have longer lasting effects. e.g. "Prone for 3 turns minimum".
D) Having effects that martial characters cannot provide, BUT being short lasting. e.g. "Dominated for 1 turn"
E) Tying up spell slots with some non-combat spells too
F) Often target mental rather than physical defenses

 

[Hussar]

Just to point out, Pemerton is right. I'm talking about the opportunity cost of these maneuvers. The fact that you had this awesome scene is great. However, 99 other groups doing EXACTLY the same thing as you will not have this awesome scene.

That's the problem here. What's the point of only letting one group in a hundred have the awesome scene? I'd rather every group gets to have the awesome scene.

And, grappling a dragon? Really? But, the funny thing is, here's an example of the character being built for the tactic. It's not like another character tried it. Why not? Why didn't the non-grappling PC coat his hand in poison? The answer being, well, the non-grapple focused characters have zero chance of actually grappling the dragon and would would never try. (Or, close enough to zero that zero can be seen on a clear day)

That's been my point all the way along. Sure, you get character who will laser beam focus on one tactic and will then try to pull that off in every single fight. But, in 3e, if you don't do that, your chances of success are so low that it might as well not even be there.

I don't want to play 99 games just to get 1 awesome scene.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Just to point out, Pemerton is right. I'm talking about the opportunity cost of these maneuvers.

I listed a cost in all of those examples, I believe (poison, eyes, javelin/attack).

The fact that you had this awesome scene is great. However, 99 other groups doing EXACTLY the same thing as you will not have this awesome scene.

That's the problem here. What's the point of only letting one group in a hundred have the awesome scene? I'd rather every group gets to have the awesome scene.

If it happens in every group (or every similar fight), it'd be a lot less special. But, again, it's awesome that it happened passively. It could have been proactively achieved.

And, grappling a dragon? Really?

I have rules on climbing/attacking very large creatures. This is relatively easy to do with good Climb, Ride, or Grapple.

But, the funny thing is, here's an example of the character being built for the tactic. It's not like another character tried it. Why not?

Yeah, one guy was better at it than others. Just like the better melee/ranged characters coated their weapons/bolts, but the others didn't. Sometimes, people's skills shine in particular scenes. I'm okay with that (in fact, I prefer it). To me, it's no different than the more social PCs shining in social situations, or tactical PCs being able to lead an army (where other PCs wouldn't be good at it).

Why didn't the non-grappling PC coat his hand in poison?

Because he didn't want his hand bitten off, since he didn't passively regenerate it like the guy who did coat it.

The answer being, well, the non-grapple focused characters have zero chance of actually grappling the dragon and would would never try. (Or, close enough to zero that zero can be seen on a clear day)

He had full ranks in Climb. As did another melee focused character who coated his weapon. Both characters could have climbed the dragon with a small chance of failure if they wanted to.

In fact, one particular PC was large-sized (but treated as gargantuan-sized for grappling) at about 7'10", giving him a Hercules-like strength (a goal of his character). They coaxed the dragon into a fight with a well-aimed shot to surprise it, and then shot a bolt from a specialty-crossbow with chain attached into the dragon. The Hercules-like PC held onto the chain to keep the dragon from escaping (he had about a 50/50 shot of winning the check).

I know I may sound mean sometimes, but my PCs are capable of some truly great things.

That's been my point all the way along. Sure, you get character who will laser beam focus on one tactic and will then try to pull that off in every single fight. But, in 3e, if you don't do that, your chances of success are so low that it might as well not even be there.

How'd we wind up in 3e? I'm talking about taking a penalty to use an encounter power multiple times in 5e.

I don't want to play 99 games just to get 1 awesome scene.

You don't have to. Again, what's wrong with taking a penalty to an encounter power to use it again, if the results are the same in your mind? They're different to me, the same to you, and capable of producing effects we'd both like. Why not change? As always, play what you like

 

[Hussar]

If it happens in every group (or every similar fight), it'd be a lot less special. But, again, it's awesome that it happened passively. It could have been proactively achieved.

How is it less special if it happens for every group? Good grief, I want every group to be awesome and I want awesomeness as often as possible.

You don't have to. Again, what's wrong with taking a penalty to an encounter power to use it again, if the results are the same in your mind? They're different to me, the same to you, and capable of producing effects we'd both like. Why not change? As always, play what you like

Because it doesn't work. The penalty gets offset by bonuses and then it gets broken. We've seen this time and time again. And, note, it's the FIRST attack that's awesome, not the second one, so, what would be awesome about poisoning the dragon twice?

 

[pemerton]

The fact that you had this awesome scene is great. However, 99 other groups doing EXACTLY the same thing as you will not have this awesome scene.

That's the problem here. What's the point of only letting one group in a hundred have the awesome scene? I'd rather every group gets to have the awesome scene.

For me, this is pretty key. I want every session to have awesome things happening. They can be different awesome things - killing dragons, creating vortices of chaos, travelling back in time, being outwitted by doppelgangers, being forced by your own moral code to let your enemy live, meeting your nemesis at a dinnger party and goading him into making the first violent move - but I want them to happen. A session without awesome things happening is an opportunity wasted.

Awesome things aren't the only important part of the game. But they're one important part of it.

If it happens in every group (or every similar fight), it'd be a lot less special.

Any particular awesome thing is likely to happen only occasionally across games and groups, because it is a product of a particular group of PCs engaging a particular situation with a particular group of players and GMs. But in my view it becomes no less special because it's replicated in other places or on other occasions, or because similar things are happening at those places and times.

This is part of the appeal of adventure modules and convention scenarios - you get to compare your group getting swallowed by the sphere of annihilation to how other groups handled it.

I'm personally sceptical of the theory that, in real life, awesomeness needs to be diluted b boredom and suffering. And I've certainly seen no evidence that it's true of RPGing. It's a while since I played a lot of card games, but when I did it was a better experience to play with good players producing exciting plays, than to play with mediocre players producing boring plays. RPGing is the same, in my view. And when you're playing a gonzo fantasy RPG, "exciting" should mean over-the-top EXCITING!

 

[Zustiur]

How is it less special if it happens for every group? Good grief, I want every group to be awesome and I want awesomeness as often as possible.

At the risk of prolonging your argument...
Having something happen for every group definitely makes it less special. If you don't see that, you clearly want something different from the game than what I want. For me, the very definition of an awesome moment involves something unexpected. If you can ensure that it happens for every group, it's no longer unexpected, and therefore, not awesome. That in part, is why I do not like 4E powers. What's awesome about being able to trip someone, if there isn't an associated cost of NOT doing something else. I always felt 4E's at will powers take away all value from the basic attack.
While I agree that attack, attack, attack is boring; I don't want the opposite to be true where a simple every day attack never happens.

"All Cool, All the Time" just diminishes the value of cool.

Because it doesn't work. The penalty gets offset by bonuses and then it gets broken. We've seen this time and time again.

And a new edition is our opportunity to prevent that. As per my post at the top of this page, what if you can only ever reduce a -5 penalty down to -3 penalty? If you can't get enough bonuses to break the system, what is the problem?

 

[Hussar]

At the risk of prolonging your argument...
Having something happen for every group definitely makes it less special. If you don't see that, you clearly want something different from the game than what I want. For me, the very definition of an awesome moment involves something unexpected. If you can ensure that it happens for every group, it's no longer unexpected, and therefore, not awesome. That in part, is why I do not like 4E powers. What's awesome about being able to trip someone, if there isn't an associated cost of NOT doing something else. I always felt 4E's at will powers take away all value from the basic attack.
While I agree that attack, attack, attack is boring; I don't want the opposite to be true where a simple every day attack never happens.

"All Cool, All the Time" just diminishes the value of cool.

Whereas for me, unexpected doesn't need to come from randomly generated elements. A player deciding to smear poison on his hand and feed it to the dragon is more than awesome enough for me. I don't need to have a 1 in 100 chance that it actually happens to make it awesome.

Sure, that player decides to initiate that action, but, for the other six people at the table (or however many there are), it's pretty damn awesome.

And a new edition is our opportunity to prevent that. As per my post at the top of this page, what if you can only ever reduce a -5 penalty down to -3 penalty? If you can't get enough bonuses to break the system, what is the problem?

Let's be honest though, that's extremely unlikely to happen in a game that is spread over twenty or thirty levels. Might work in something like E6, where you don't have that much advancement. But, the odds that you will only ever be able to get a +2 attack bonus is pretty darn slim.

Look, the whole point of having the -5 penalty is to prevent the action from happening more than once in the same encounter. Why bother? What is gained? We've all agreed that we don't WANT the same thing happening twice per encounter. It doesn't fit with genre fiction, it doesn't make a lot of sense, and, let's not forget that we're not sure what the expected length of an encounter will be. In 3e, encounters were generally only about 5 rounds long. That means a character is doing the same thing half the time (well 40% to be exact). Not exactly special there is it?

The goal is to make specific actions special. Instead of futzing about trying to create a perfect wheel where we have to balance every new element against the idea of how many bonuses we're going to get, so we can avoid repetitive actions, why not just say, no repetitive actions?

Let me rephrase the question. How is a complicated mechanic that interacts with a number of other mechanics, requires constant tracking (did I trip this combat yet? - remember, no powers means you don't track those kinds of things), acts as a trap for people who aren't terribly good at calculating odds and doesn't actually achieve the goal of stopping people from spamming actions better than a single line that says, "Power, Encounter"?

 

[Zustiur]

Look, the whole point of having the -5 penalty is to prevent the action from happening more than once in the same encounter. Why bother? What is gained? We've all agreed that we don't WANT the same thing happening twice per encounter. It doesn't fit with genre fiction, it doesn't make a lot of sense, and, let's not forget that we're not sure what the expected length of an encounter will be. In 3e, encounters were generally only about 5 rounds long. That means a character is doing the same thing half the time (well 40% to be exact). Not exactly special there is it?

No, that's wrong. The whole point of having the -5 penalty is to enable the same action to be used more than once per encounter, whilst preventing it from being the best option all of the time. I don't agree that we want to limit things to once per encounter at all.

* Special moves should be better than standard attacks in certain situations.
* Those situations can come up more than once per encounter
* Why limit the number of times you can attempt it?

Going back to the Jacki Chan Drunken Master video - how many times does he try to trip his opponent? A lot more than one. Yes he tries it in different ways, but DND combat is too abstract to differentiate on that level. If I kick my opponent, I don't specify if it's a high kick or a low kick.
[on a related note] Genre fiction only takes you so far. Books and movies have to hold your attention. In order to do that they cannot be repetitious. Games have other means with which to hold your attention, and repetition in these areas is less disastrous. If repetition were such a problem, original DND would never have got off the ground with such basic attacks in the first place. With gaming, a huge amount of variety comes through other means.

Let's be honest though, that's extremely unlikely to happen in a game that is spread over twenty or thirty levels. Might work in something like E6, where you don't have that much advancement. But, the odds that you will only ever be able to get a +2 attack bonus is pretty darn slim.

There's a difference between an attack bonus, and being able to apply enough bonuses to a special move that the penalty for using it is rendered obsolete.
The difference between your standard 'do damage' attack bonus and your 'apply affect' attack bonus is what counts. That's where the penalty lies. It doesn't matter if your base attack has gone up to +20 because you're fighting tougher opponents whose defenses have gone up to a similar value.
It's the fact you have to take a -25% or -15% chance of succeeding that makes it a valid choice.

The goal is to make specific actions special.

Since when?
The goal of this thread is how to keep the benefits of 4E combat, without keeping (what I and many others see as) the detriments of 4E combat.
To rephrase; The goal of this thread is to keep the interesting elements (effects and movement) while removing the uninteresting elements (powers and AEDU samey-ness).

The goal is to ensure that a variety of options are available to the players. Powers increase the frequency at which those varied options are used. Powers do not increase the availability of those varied options.
That is; if I have an encounter power that lets me trip an opponent, it is in my best interest to use that power every encounter. Therefore you see 'trip attacks' happening with a great deal of frequency throughout a campaign.
Instead, I want a system where trip attacks are always available, but I get to use my discretion about when they're appropriate. The thing that stops me doing it all of the time is the trade off, or penalty of trying to use it.

If you can't ever get enough feats or magic bonuses to bypass the penalty, it remains a trade off. Something you do when you think it will pay off the most, rather than something you do because you've got encounter powers to burn up.

Let me rephrase the question. How is a complicated mechanic that interacts with a number of other mechanics, requires constant tracking (did I trip this combat yet? - remember, no powers means you don't track those kinds of things), acts as a trap for people who aren't terribly good at calculating odds and doesn't actually achieve the goal of stopping people from spamming actions better than a single line that says, "Power, Encounter"?

The system I presented above does not require any tracking. It sets out a standard list of tricks that any character can use, at any time. Using them always has a trade off (penalty of some sort, regardless of whether it's not doing damage, or taking a penalty to your attack roll).

How is that worse than having powers, which incidentally, you do have to track?

Yes, in 4E you can point to page 42 and allow players to try a trip after they've used up all their trip powers. BUT most players won't think of that, because most players don't have the DMG, and have never read a forum about DND, and haven't been told about it by their DM. (And it brings forth the verisimilitude argument about 'why can't I just use the power twice?')
Resources like page 42 only work if the players know that they exist.

In my opinion basic attack actions should be the standard that you use for most of your attacks when the objective is to kill your opponent. Special actions should be what you use when the situation makes it worth attempting. The situation being appropriate is up to the individual player to decide. Not the rules.

I want to see:

"Is it worth trading in damage to knock my opponent over?"
"No, it wouldn't provide any real benefit right now."
"Okay, I roll a standard attack"

or

"Is it worth trading in damage to knock my opponent over?"
"Yes, because it will disable him long enough and I can't kill him this round."

or

"Is it worth trading in damage to knock my opponent over?"
"Yes, because I don't need to kill him."

Not

"Hmm the battle's nearly over and I've still got that trip opponent power." "May as well use it."

 

[SkidAce]

No penalty to attack rolls, but if the special maneuver misses, the opponent gets an opportunity attack.

 

[Siberys]

I don't think penalties to an action to prevent its use more often really works, honestly. For the person optimized for that action, it's not actually a hurdle at all, and for the person who wants to try it out because it makes sense given the narrative, it's just giving them an arbitrarily larger chance of failing, so they end up doing the 'better', normal option. This happened in my 3.x games with grapple all the time - somebody would ask about grappling something because it made sense and sounded cool, I'd pull out the rules and describe how they'd work, and then the player would change their mind because the rules were not conducive to the desired result.