Figuring Out Combat Superiority

[ZombieRoboNinja]

So this thread already has tons of discussion and reactions to the new "combat superiority" mechanic discussed in today's L&L column. I thought it might be worth making a new thread to unpack the mechanics of what's been revealed so far, just so everyone's on the same page.

The basics from the article:

1. EACH ROUND, at the beginning of his turn, the fighter gets a number of extra dice. (We'll call them CS dice.) You can "spend" these dice in a number of different ways, using what we'll call "CS powers."

2. You start with 1d4 CS die at level 1, and it scales up to 2d6 by level 5.

3. At first level, every fighter gets an "extra damage" CS power that adds those CS dice to weapon damage rolls.

4. You also get to choose 2 different CS powers at level 1, and one more at level 3, 5, 7, and 9.

5. Other CS powers mentioned (with crappy names from me):

• Protect Self: Roll CS dice to subtract from damage you would take.
• Protect Ally: Roll CS dice to subtract from damage your adjacent ally would take.
• Riposte: When an ally misses you in melee, use one CS die to immediately counterattack.
• Aid Ally's Defense: Somehow use CS dice to prevent an adjacent ally from being hit in melee. ("The player also has the option to turn a successful attack made against Bethany’s ally into a miss," whatever that mean mechanically.)

My questions and assumptions:
6. This seems likely to replace the playtest fighter's flat +2 damage bonus, but not the daily surges.

7. The CS dice probably scale up past d4 to d6, d8, and d10 before scaling back down to 2d6. But is there an elegant way to do this, or are we stuck consulting a weird chart?

8. Once you have more than one die of CS dice, you can split them up however you want, it seems.

9. Do all of the reactive CS powers count as "reactions," which are limited to one per round? On the one hand, this would really limit the utility of the non-damage options, but on the other, it might slow down the game a lot if you could "Riposte" 4 times a round when you have 4 CS dice.

10. Can you choose a static bonus in place of an extra CS power? Might be a good option for players who want to keep a simple character without just ignoring half their abilities. (For example, maybe you could advance 2 levels' worth of dice instead of getting a new power.)

Hacking the playtest fighter
In case anyone wants to playtest these changes, here's how you can hack the fighter from the first playtest to reflect what's in this article:

1. Get rid of the old specialization. This means subtract 2 from damage with all weapons, and don't add +1 more at level 3.

2. Add the following class ability:

Combat Superiority: At the beginning of each turn, you get combat superiority dice that can be used to increase your damage or have numerous other combat effects. All CS dice refresh at the beginning of each turn. You use abilities called Combat Techniques to make use of these dice.

Starting Combat Techniques:
Superior Damage: You may add one or more CS die to any weapon damage roll. You must decide how many dice to add before you roll any damage for that attack.

Defensive Crouch: When you take damage, you can roll CS dice to reduce the amount of damage taken by an amount equal to the dice total.

Riposte: When an enemy misses you in melee, you can spend 1 CD to make an instant melee counterattack as a reaction.

At level 3, add:
Shield Ally: When an adjacent ally would take damage, you can roll CS dice to reduce the damage they take.

 

[Ratskinner]

I, of course, have no more idea than anybody else, but anyway.

My questions and assumptions:
6. This seems likely to replace the playtest fighter's flat +2 damage bonus, but not the daily surges.

Presumably, perhaps even with its own "for a more old-school feel" caveat.

7. The CS dice probably scale up past d4 to d6, d8, and d10 before scaling back down to 2d6. But is there an elegant way to do this, or are we stuck consulting a weird chart?

I would guess...weird chart, but its probably just a column on the Fighter table. It makes a sort of sense that the average damage output of the CS dice steadily, except the levels where you get additional dice. However, that would make the chart look like:

Level CS dice   Average
1       1d4         +2.5
2       1d6         +3.5
3       1d8         +4.5
4       1d10        +5.5
5       2d6         +7
6       2d8         +9
7       2d10        +11
8       3d6         +10.5
9       3d8        +13.5
10      3d10       +16.5
11      4d6        +15

Note the big jump at level 5. You get an extra token to spend and a 1.5 point raise in average damage dealt. Compare that with level 8, where the average drops, but you get more options.

Of course, maybe that's worth it. I guess it depends on the levels at which different things happen.

8. Once you have more than one die of CS dice, you can split them up however you want, it seems.

Presumably....hopefully.

9. Do all of the reactive CS powers count as "reactions," which are limited to one per round? On the one hand, this would really limit the utility of the non-damage options, but on the other, it might slow down the game a lot if you could "Riposte" 4 times a round when you have 4 CS dice.

I seriously doubt it. My guess is that quite a few powers are "riders" that go along with your attack.

10. Can you choose a static bonus in place of an extra CS power? Might be a good option for players who want to keep a simple character without just ignoring half their abilities. (For example, maybe you could advance 2 levels' worth of dice instead of getting a new power.)

I would think it would be an option to use a static rather than random, but I think the idea is to balance the stunts and damage so that (as much as possible) the simple fighter is as generally effective as the fellow who chooses to use all the bells and whistles. Thus, 4e fighter guy can play at the same table as 2e fighter guy.

 

[Remathilis]

Might look something like this...

Dice Min Max
1d4 1 4
1d6 1 6
2d4 2 8
2d6 2 12
2d8 2 16
3d6 3 18

 

[keterys]

Be reasonable to let you have disparate dice:

For example, letting you have 1d10 & 1d6 at a level would be fine. No idea if that's something they want to consider, but means you can smooth the chart fairly arbitrarily.

I doubt they'd have your average damage decrease at any level point, even if you did gain another die there.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Level CS dice Average
1 1d4 +2.5
2 1d6 +3.5
3 1d8 +4.5
4 1d10 +5.5
5 2d6 +7
6 2d8 +9
7 2d10 +11
8 3d6 +10.5
9 3d8 +13.5
10 3d10 +16.5
11 4d6 +15

This seems possible to me. But the jump back at levels 8 and 11 seems weird.

I'm actually expecting one new die every 4 levels max, so you'd cap out with 5 dice at level 17. I wouldn't be surprised by:

Lv Dice  Average
1  1d4   2.5
3  1d6   3.5
5  2d6   7
7  2d8   9
9  3d8   13.5
11 3d10  16.5
13 4d10  22
15 4d12  26
17 5d12  32.5
19 ???

 

[Minigiant]

What if the dice size and dice number are independent of each other.

Level # of Dice Size
1 1 d4
2 1 d4
3 1 d4
4 2 d4
5 2 d6
6 2 d6
7 3 d6
8 3 d6

 

[Obryn]

Be reasonable to let you have disparate dice:

For example, letting you have 1d10 & 1d6 at a level would be fine. No idea if that's something they want to consider, but means you can smooth the chart fairly arbitrarily.

I doubt they'd have your average damage decrease at any level point, even if you did gain another die there.

The only hurdle would be the cost of "trading" dice for effects. You'd need a guideline for this.

It's not insurmountable to say, "always lose the top/bottom die", but it makes the progression a bit weird.

-O

 

[keterys]

Or just let people trade whatever die they want. So, if they have a d6 and d10, and they want to add one die to damage, and one die to reduce damage taken. Well, whichever they want.

 

[Stormonu]

This is a little unusual, but it would create a steady advance all the way to at least 20th:

Level    # Dice    Dice        Average
1    1    1d4        2.5
2    1    1d6        3.5
3    1    1d8        4.5
4    2    1d4 + 1d6    6
5    2    1d4 + 1d8    7
6    2    1d6 + 1d8    8
7    2    2d8        9
8    3    1d4 + 2d6    9.5
9    3    3d6        10.5
10    3    2d6 + 1d8    11.5
11    3    1d6 + 2d8    12.5
12    4    4d6        14
13    4    3d6 + 1d8    15        
14    4    2d6 + 2d8    16
15    4    1d6 + 3d8    17    
16    5    4d6 + 1d8    18.5
17    5    3d6 + 2d8    19.5
18    5    2d6 + 3d8    20.5
19    5    1d6 + 4d8    21.5
20    6    4d6 + 2d8    23

Not intuitive, to be sure, but it pretty much follows a pattern of slow upgrade.

 

[Stormonu]

5. Other CS powers mentioned (with crappy names from me):

• Protect Self: Roll CS dice to subtract from damage you would take.
• Protect Ally: Roll CS dice to subtract from damage your adjacent ally would take.
• Riposte: When an ally misses you in melee, use one CS die to immediately counterattack.
• Aid Ally's Defense: Somehow use CS dice to prevent an adjacent ally from being hit in melee. ("The player also has the option to turn a successful attack made against Bethany’s ally into a miss," whatever that mean mechanically.)

I wonder what else might you be able to do with these dice?

- Could you spend a dice for an extra attack in a round? Since CS dice are one use per round, you could switch between making many attacks vs. fewer attacks that hit harder. Though this may favor heavy weapon wielders - unless you made it you had to spend a die per hand of the weapon...

- Would you have to spend a die for special manuevers like Trip, Bull Rush, Disarm and the like? I don't really like this, but if spending the die let you perform the maneuver and still deal regular weapon damage as well (and other classes would just do the maneuver but no damage), that might be a better option.

- Could you spend a die to add to an attack roll or perhaps "gain advantage" with an attack roll? This would be really neat if you could spend it after you made the attack roll. Miss an opponent by 3? Spend a die and either gain a fixed bonus or roll the die and add to the total.

- Could you spend the die to do minimum damage on a miss? Instead of the above, this might replace the "Reaper" ability - an example of special use of CS granted by theme.

<EDIT> More thoughts....

I don't think Wizards or Clerics should gain an equivalent ability. This ability is about giving options to the Fighter, and the Wizard and Cleric already have options available to them in regard to their spell selection. That said, I think the rogue would benefit from a diluted version of CS. Where the fighter can use his CS at any time, the rogue's would be limited to times when he has Advantage, would have a narrower range of options (backstab, inflicting conditions) and would advance slower than the Fighter's acquisition of CS dice.