D&D 5E Fixing the Fighter

[JamesonCourage]

That's not "mother may I". If he says here is what I want to do, and the default answer is yes and there are clear guidelines on how to use this and a thousand and one At-Will and Encounter Powers for you to study so you have intimate knowledge of the payload of each tier of power...that works out as fiat at the table. If it is "mother may I", then its the most user-friendly and hard-coded "mother may I" possible.

What you've described, to me, is "mother may I". The player said what he wanted to do, and you, the DM, have to say yes, and then you have to say how it works mechanically. In your report, the PC only said "I'm near this boiling stewpot, hanging on the spit over the fire...I'm going to wrongfoot him into the fire with a level 7 limited use (level 7 encounter power equivalent)." After that, you said it was possible, you said what the effects were (damage, ongoing fire damage, etc.). He did not declare these things; you did. He stated what he wanted to do, and you took that, mechanically interpreted it, and then told him how it worked and what to roll.

Is it friendly "mother may I"? Yes. The guidelines are helpful to players, as it gives them some idea of what to expect. But, this is "the player wants to do something; he says what he wants to do, hopes the DM cooperates, and then the DM tells him how it's done mechanically." To me (again, this is to me), that's "mother may I". It's not as "mother may I" as other things, since there's guidelines both people are away of, but it's far from the "there is absolutely no "mother may I" involved" claim you made, in my mind.

Now, if someone asks "Can I attack 4 guys, fly across the street and have a sandwich in the blink of an eye, teleport back and knock them prone with my BAMF?"...well, I don't think saying no there says anything about whether or not level 42 is intrinsically "fiat" or "mother may I". We're basically just talking about adjudicating payload. There is a point in any game with an action economy and a payload-by-level expectation where NO is going to override the default answer of yes, as it should.

I basically agree. As always, play what you like

It wasn't intended to sidestep - what I'm saying is, I don't think the range of effects I find desirable can all happen at-will.

Sorry if "sidestep" sounds aggressive, too. That's not how I mean it. Anyways, you'd know better on your views, and what you said's probably true for most people (at-will Wish, as an extreme example, for things most people wouldn't want at-will).

I wish I could respond to the rest of your post, but that's the long and the short of it. Your own system sounds very interesting, and it's good to see some whammy effects in the mix.

Thanks! It's pretty gritty (chopped limbs, broken bones, infections, etc.), but it has some effects which are definitely more Meta in nature (Luck points for bonuses / rerolls, Fame points that you can spend on favors, gaining possessions, moving up Respect levels, etc.).

But yeah, the experienced players knew to the system are usually pretty surprised that warriors are far more deadly than magicians. But it's something I'm okay with, for the most part, so they've got to live with it As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

Did you have to give the okay for this abilities to work? If so, we're getting further from the "player fiat" that Obryn was talking about.

I had to adjudicate it, yes, and also set the stakes (psychic damage on a failed Religion check).

But that was not put forward as an instance of fiat. It was put forward in response to the suggestion that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s table is unusual, and that most 4e play involves players reviewing lists of powers. Though one way in which I differ from [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] is in treating contextual/environmental powers as additional to character abilities, rather than substitutional. (So, for instance, when the invoker was able to use a forced movement power to skewer the flying beholder on a stalactite for bonus damage plus immobilised, the power was just better in effect than it otherwise would have been.)

 

[Manbearcat]

2) If a Fighter was doing the deal here and the enemy had the stewpot right behind him (such that ToI would push him into it) it would be:

- Tide of Iron > Single Use Terrain Effect (Boiling Stewpot); Trigger: Target enters space occupied by Boiling Stewpot, Attack: of-level + 3 (+ 7 in this case) vs Reflex; Effect: 5 Ongoing Fire Damage (Save Ends) > Square becomes difficult terrain and any enemy that enters or starts its turn within the square (firepit and mangled spit/loose pot) take 5 fire damage.

I had to adjudicate it, yes, and also set the stakes (psychic damage on a failed Religion check).

But that was not put forward as an instance of fiat. It was put forward in response to the suggestion that @Manbearcat 's table is unusual, and that most 4e play involves players reviewing lists of powers. Though one way in which I differ from @Manbearcat is in treating contextual/environmental powers as additional to character abilities, rather than substitutional. (So, for instance, when the invoker was able to use a forced movement power to skewer the flying beholder on a stalactite for bonus damage plus immobilised, the power was just better in effect than it otherwise would have been.)

I don't think our tables differ actually (at least not in the way of handling standard, in-place, terrain features/hazards). I think I probably didn't convey everything particularly well in the upthread posts. I think the quote above shows how I handle a situation like you described; predetermined, in-place, hazards/terrain features. In the above scenario, it just made the use of ToI better (much better actually) when using it for it normal effect and then the effect of springing the terrain power or hazard due to the trigger conditions being met.

In the prior example that I was using, the player actually "narratively conjured" the potential hazard/terrain feature on the spot. I had initially regarded the hanging stewpot on the spit over the firepit as a relatively benign terrain feature; Primarily blocking terrain and color. However, that is not how this player saw it (which happens aplenty) within the fiction...nor is that what he wanted to use it for. He made the p42 proposition to me of sliding the enemy he was facing down into the stewpot/spit/firepit (he was 2 squares or 10 ft away) and the whole thing coming down on him and scalding him with boiling water and making a mess of the area. He wanted to spend his lvl 7 Encounter Power to create this effect. I thought that was awesome and deferred to his interpretation (as I almost universally do). It didn't provide any enormous tactical benefit but was dynamic, "swashbucklingly" thematic and certainly did provide very cool tactical effect/control. In these scenarios, I don't like to ad-hoc a hazard that I didn't convey as usable at the beginning of the encounter (or I would have been using it myself and other players may have!), so we just folded it into the attack and created the 1 square zone (difficult terrain, fire damage) after the resolution. All told, the player actually ended up with a damage upgrade over what he would have spent his encounter for but he didn't get the shift and stealth rider of his encounter power (which wouldn't have been thematic or tactically relevant to the fight). He ended up getting:

- Tactical positioning (slide 2 into a 1 square zone of difficult terrain with a fire damage)
- Fire damage that was about 75 % of his encounter power.
- Ongoing damage for one round that bumped it up to about 85 %
- Static fire damage from the ruined spit/stewpot/burning firepit that put it right near 95 %
- An OA (successful) when the enemy spent a move action to get out of the difficult terrain to avoid the fire aura on his next turn which put it at about 110 % of the damage of the original Encounter Power's mean damage.

I was just trying to illustrate a standard usage of p42 at my table. I then addressed what would happen (above quote of mine) if I put a hazard/terrain feature in play and the PCs wanted to use it. If I put a hazard/terrain feature that I expect to be interacted with in play, I narrate the looming nature of it/prominence and what it may portend. I make its place in the encounter quite clear at the metagame level. In those scenarios, it is just a straight augment to the initial attack (as in the ToI example above). I didn't include all of that in the initial post because I was mainly just dealing with the "improvised attacks don't happen" point rather than the "here is precisely how each of these compartmentalized rules systems (p42 improvised attacks, hazard system, single-use terrain power system) interface within the overarching combat system" as my prose tends to run long enough as is And I didn't want to obfuscate the initial point about p42 proliferation with extraneous rules handling...but I guess I did anyway!

 

[timASW]

Lets try this.

Fighters begin with a pool of "power points" (I don't care if they're called fate, stamina, badassdom, or mettle). The pool starts small (3-5 points) and grows with level. The points are spent on maneuvers. At first, he is limited to simple maneuvers, but as he gains level, he can choose more powers and more powerful ones. Each use drains one or more points from the pool. The points are restored during an extended rest, though perhaps with feats he could regain some with short rests.

Powers are arranged thus:
Stances (0): Cost no points. Doable at will. Things like Power attack or Combat expertise fall in here.
Simple (1): Powers like trip, slow, or pushing 1 square.
Intermediate (3): More complicated abilities like blind, deafen, or stun, along with adding an additional attack.
Complex (5): Difficult maneuvers that may add paralyzation, long distance pushes, multiple attacks, or multiple status ailments.
Heroic (7+): Very difficult maneuvers (death attacks, thowing melee weapons, or things that border on magical).

A PC can use a technique he doesn't know, but at double the cost in power points.

Most attacks are simply riders to an attack (save vs. Con or blinded) though some could be be trained techniques (Robliar's Gambit or Whirlwind attack).

Something like that work?

I like it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Not every day has fighting in it, but every day that DOES looks remarkably similar.

Only if you have utterly tedious fights with minimal tactics, no terrain worth speaking of, and extremely poor teamwork. If you combine that combination no wonder you dislike 4e.

If on the other hand the fighter has a range of challenging combats in interesting environments, a team that understands tactics, and a player that understands how to use the fighter then I thik your experience would have been very different.

A 5th level fighter could start with Dance of Steel, Steel Serpent Strike, and then spam Tide of Iron and/or Cleave for the remainder of the fight. If he's starting to lose, he might kick in Boundless Endurance and use either Crack the Shell or Comeback Strike. Then the next fight he has the exact same options. And the next one. And the next one.

And in Chess you always have the same options at the start of the game. Ergo all chess games are the same.

If that 5th level fighter has any sort of interesting terrain, the best opening possible might very well be Tide of Iron - forced movement to push the monsters exactly where they don't want to go like down a pit or over a cliff or too near the furnace. If it's damaging terrain then you might want Steel Serpent Strike to keep monsters in the damaging terrain - it comes only after you've forced the monsters where you want them. Alternatively the right opening if you aren't going to use a daily is very often Cleave - killing a minion is very often worth much more than an extra 1[W] damage. In fact you'll often be cleaving until late in the fight with that collection of powers if the DM uses minions unless you've a wizard who makes minions irrelevant.

As for teamwork, there's the Combat Challenge. And a smart rogue (or other class) mooning the bad guy to allow the fighter a free swing. Provoking an opportunity attack to allow the fighter a free swing is often good play by a rogue. I'm sorry you didn't see that done.

I guess there is no rule saying a fighter HAS to open with his encounter powers.

Yup! And with that selection, a lot of the time I wouldn't. At least if the DM had enough sense to make the battlefield vaguely interesting rather than simply flat or to give me minions. My wizard took things further - his encounter powers were all situational. If they would take the enemy out of action he used them. If not, his mainline attack spell was the At Will Freezing Burst (often covering the melee as the entire melee line was cold resistant). Or holding off an entire column with Storm Pillar. It was rare that he used both his encounter powers and not unknown that he used neither. He was also the party MVP by a reasonable margin and retired for giving the DM too much of a headache.

But in my year of playing 4e, I never saw a fight that didn't go as discussed. Foe is slowed, foe is prone, push, push, cleave, push, push, push, dead.

No wonder you don't like it. That sounds like a sucky experience. And one that I'm not sure whether to blame on the DM for giving you no opportunities with terrain (there were apparently minions) or you for missing tactics. Or official modules like Keep on the Shadowfell for being crap. Or all of the above.

Actually, re-looking over the PHB powers, I'm shocked on how many are "Add your dex/con to hit/damage if using weapon X". I had to dig pretty deep in the PHB to find powers that DID something other than add extra [w] or adding an ability boost if using a certain weapon. Are you sure 4e fights were as dynamic and fiat-filled as you remember them?

Yup. The key to making 4e fights interesting is keep them wanting to move. If everyone lines up in a shield wall it'll get tedious. I've seen this happen. One of the true keys to keeping 4e interesting is to put even vaguely interesting terrain on the field. It doesn't have to be much. A flight of stairs to push people off or down will do - but once you have any terrain people want to either stay out of or go into then the forced movement comes into play, Tide of Iron often becomes more useful than Steel Serpent Strike, and the game gets dynamic and interesting. The other way to do it is when people go for flanking or deliberate provoking when they consider the odds in their favour.

The ingame fiction has to adjust to the use of the metagame. Otherwise, there is no way explain what happened from the character's perspective. From the in-character perspective, Bob the fighter knows that somehow during most fights, he can knock one foe prone. It happens nearly every fight. Just that one foe too, it never seems to work if he tries it on another foe in that battle. But the next battle, he manages to do it again, but just the once. Sometimes, it doesn't work, so he never bothers to try it again during that battle either. Just that one foe gets knocked over...

Bob the fighter knows he sometimes sees an opportunity to knock people over when they are off balance. It sometimes happens in a fight and sometimes he's wrong about the opportunity.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I had to adjudicate it, yes, and also set the stakes (psychic damage on a failed Religion check).

But that was not put forward as an instance of fiat. It was put forward in response to the suggestion that Manbearcat's table is unusual, and that most 4e play involves players reviewing lists of powers.

Whereas I'm talking in regards to player fiat and the thread. Obryn likes 4e for the player fiat enabled regularly; you and Manbearcat have listed strong regular use of something I consider the opposite of that. As always, play what you like

 

[Obryn]

Whereas I'm talking in regards to player fiat and the thread. Obryn likes 4e for the player fiat enabled regularly; you and Manbearcat have listed strong regular use of something I consider the opposite of that. As always, play what you like

No; I like it for having a healthy mixture of both - including robust guidelines for improvisation.

-O

 

[pemerton]

Only if you have utterly tedious fights with minimal tactics, no terrain worth speaking of, and extremely poor teamwork. If you combine that combination no wonder you dislike 4e.

<snip>

The key to making 4e fights interesting is keep them wanting to move.

<snip>

One of the true keys to keeping 4e interesting is to put even vaguely interesting terrain on the field.

Yes. The importance of movement and terrain to the play experience of 4e combat is fairly obvious from the power design (lots of forced movement), the fighter design (a range of effects triggered by movement, which woud be irrelevant if movement wasn't assumed to be important) and the action economy (move actions as a distinct component of the action economy). It is also stressed very much in the DMG discussion of combat encounter design.

From the first session of 4e that I GMed I have followed the advice of the books: the first combat encounter that I ran took place with the PCs on a boat in a river with a sandbar a modest swim/jump away.

The most recent two combats that I GMed took place in very different environments: one in a large cavern with a high ceiling, some of which had lava above a thin layer fo crystal, and a pool and stream on the floor; the other in a windy 15' wide tunnel with two smaller tunnels running into it. The first was all about the PCs splitting up, some flying, while avoiding being pushed into the lava roof. The second was about manouevring in tight spaces, and the sorcerer using the pillar of earth power from HotEC to create a 1square deep pillbox to hold the intersection of two tunnels.

As you say, even minimal attention to terrain makes a big difference.

 

[JamesonCourage]

No; I like it for having a healthy mixture of both - including robust guidelines for improvisation.

Right, me too. But guidelines for improvisation can still be completely player-fiat-based. Like I said, the player would be using the guidelines, and interpreting them, not the GM. He'd say "I want to kick him into the fire; I use the guidelines this way, as it says I can, to do this effect + this damage + this rider effect." The GM doesn't clear it; he doesn't have that power. He just tells the player to roll for it (or makes a save, etc.). As always, play what you like

 

[Manbearcat]

@JamesonCourage I understand your earnest, sincere effort in this exchange, but I think you aren't groking it because, to be honest, I don't think you're familiar enough with the ruleset to understand what happens at a mechanical level here. For a player to be 10 feet away from a hazard or terrain featuring fire damage (that isn't directly behind the enemy) and say "I want to force my enemy through blade flurries and footwork into that hazard/terrain feature", he's saying "I am using a Fire, Martial, Weapon Keyword, Standard Action, Melee Range, Dex vs Ref Attack, Slide 2 rider effect". When a player says "I want the boiling stewpot to burn him" he's saying "This attack will do ongoing fire damage". When a player says I want to use my 7th level encounter power to achieve this improve limited effect damage expression, he is saying "I want the Ongoing Fire Damage to be 5 (Save Ends) and it will be medium damage expression". Instead of having a pre-built shelving unit (a stock level 7 encounter power), its going to Ikea and buying all the pieces that precisely fit together, with instructions, and building the shelving unit yourself. Just because you build it yourself, using explicit instructions and tongue and groove or snap-lock or dowel/bolt and stock Allen's Wrench doesn't make it a different unit than if it was pre-built for you. If anything, perhaps it makes it more "yours"...more "fiat" as you're assembling it yourself through your imagination and explicit guidelines + deconstructed pieces and the tool that comes in the box.

The player was asking to do this precisely and there is no ambiguity involved:

Level 7 Limited Use (Encounter) Improv Exploit
Encounter - Fire, Martial, Weapon
Standard Action - Melee 1
Target: One adjacent enemy.
Attack: Dex vs Ref
Hit: 3d10 + 5 (+ 2d6 Sneak attack in this case as he had Combat Advantage) Fire Damage and slide the target 2 squares.
Effect: 5 Ongoing Fire Damage (Save Ends).

The target is also now in a hazard; a 1 square zone of difficult terrain. Any enemy that enters or starts its turn in the zone takes 5 Fire damage.

I don't know how this could possibly be "mother may I." Its codified. Its clear. Beyond the codification of improvised attacks, there are hundreds of level 7 encounter powers and limited use terrain effects for reference that if you studied their economy of power, you wouldn't even need improv rules. But, they don't expect you to have that level of a grasp of the economy of power of level 7 encounter powers and limited use effects so they provide you p42.