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Overall, I like it. I might change the names to something like Tactical Drills and Battle Strategies (in general, avoiding repetition of terms avoids confusion at the table), which better emphasizes the way in which the Warlord has practiced simpler maneuvers with their allies so much that...

I disagree on how basic these fighting maneuvers are. We already have a suite of maneuvers that anyone can attempt (Attack, Disengage, Dodge, Help, Hustle, Improvise), and we're going to get some more when we get the Tactical and Narrative Combat Modules. These Fighter Maneuvers go beyond this...

Because if the class concepts are distinct, maneuvers that mimic their concepts would also be distinct.

You know what would be elegant? Different mechanics and different maneuvers for different classes.

Certainly that makes more sense, although I think it's still problematical. A starting Fighter with Strength 17 is going to see this ability activate 20% of the time, but that drops to 15% by level 4; a starting Human Fighter with Strength 18 is going to see it activate 15%, dropping to 10% by...

1. Yes, they should be working extra hard - on new things. Work needs to be directed at making progress through all of the classes, and all the rules for combat, exploration, and interaction, etc. If instead you redesign the same class over and over again, you slow down the entire project. 2. I...

A couple things: 1. I think the current paradigm of 1 die for the first 4 levels gets us thinking in the wrong way about Combat Superiority - CS isn't about choosing between mutually exclusive abilities, but rather is about making combinations (i.e, not just damage or knockback but damage AND...

I would argue that the Wizard's uniqueness was diminished by the advent of other Arcane casters, certainly. Yet even so, the Wizard has Spellbooks, Vancian mechanics, and access to the broadest form of arcane magic (as well as implements in 4e) and they will get Traditions on top of that. Right...

So, the devs have given the Fighter a good mechanic to make them unique. Because the mechanic is good, it should go to everyone, but we'll give the Fighter another mechanic to make them unique. What happens if that mechanic is good? Won't we see more arguments that it shouldn't be pigeonholed...

Everyone can use weapon attacks, but not everyone has them as class mechanisms. Again, I ask, what is the purpose of creating a spendable resource for increasing or reducing damage from weapon attacks? Why should that connection exist, when other universal connections don't (not every class...

I'm not dodging the issue. What I'm saying is that, if a quality is shared by all classes, it doesn't make sense as a basis for a class mechanism shared by only "martial classes." If every class has ED, then the Fighter goes back to having nothing unique about them except more of what everyone...

Because it's not a commonality shared by martial classes. It's a commonality shared by all PC classes. I disagree. The War Priest is a spellcasting class, as is the Dragon Sorcerer. Both of them have melee-oriented abilities, but they aren't martial classes because those abilities are either...

I think we agree on this point. So, if we grant that mechanics shape our understanding of the world and the people in it, then it's good practice to choose mechanics that are suited to the world we're trying to roleplay in. If we're building a grim and gritty fantasy universe, you don't want...

Tony Vargas - What I was trying to say with "Mechanics are absolutely not arbitrary" is that mechanics shape how we understand the game and its world. If the magic system, for example, is similar to Call of Cthulhu or like the Conan RPG, where spells are hard to get, difficult/risky/painful to...

I think the question of evocativeness is absolutely one that has to be confronted - classes shouldn't have mechanics that don't suit their image and story, and their mechanics should enhance their image and story rather than being neutral. I think Sneak Attacks successfully evoke an important...

I was going to say, knowledge of thieves' cant is hugely useful for a bounty hunter - if you know the special words that thieves use to identify each other, then you can identify thieves just by listening to them. Which means you can now intimidate or bribe said thieves into telling where "Thog...

It's not just elegance, though. I think it also includes the criteria of appropriateness/evocativeness (i.e, is the mechanic serving the class' image as opposed to the other way around) and additional value (does this mechanic work better than alternative mechanics). Ok, but how would these...

See, I think this is a case where some interesting ideas are being shoehorned into a new mechanic, when I think they would work perfectly fine executed a different way. Firstly, all this is about how you gain dice, not how you use dice - which doesn't get rogues away from Sneak Attacking...

No, I think the Paladin's inability to parry, jab, etc. in such a preternaturally skilled fashion that the Fighter can do so (above and beyond the already abstracted manifestation of AC) while doing other things, while not on the Fighter's turn, etc. stem more from the fact that Paladins spend...

Yes...but from the beginning what distinguished Paladins from Fighters was that they were heavily armed and armored warriors who were magical. So I don't think there's that much distance the Paladin can go from its magical roots.