101 roleplaying descriptions justifying martial dailies

[Aberzanzorax]

I was reading another thread and someone mentioned how it is hard to rationalize/depict/understand how or why a fighter can only do something once per day.

The crux of the issue seems to be that it is a player choice to do so, not an exploit of the environment that comes up rarely.


Hence this thread. I'm hoping others will put their collective heads together to give some fluff for how dailies could make sense for the fighter to only activate them once per day that stay true within the rules. (i.e. a poor example would be "the fighter is honed to take advantage of the "perfect situation" that situation happens to crop up when he uses the daily. Unless the fighter somehow creates that situation, and only can do so once per day, this is not what activating a daily is for a player.) When a player activates a daily, it is the player's choice to do so at any given moment, and the fluff needs to support that.



I'll start with a couple to show you what I mean (and thanks to anyone who puts forward ideas).

1. The fighter has a great warrior as an ancestor. The ancestor can only provide brief glimpses of clarity when they are most needed, so the fighter calls upon him for battle advice, and so activates a daily.

2. The fighter must actually dislocate several joints to pull off a particular dextrous daily. It is painful and causes swelling that prevents those joints from dislocating again until they have been rested adequately.

3. The fighter's fortitude and strength is sufficient to do the maneuver only once a day. Think of a strongman contest. Maybe they can lift a car once, but after that, they've given their all. They are NOT lifting that maximum weight again until a nap and some breakfast.

4. The fighter's adrenaline reaches a crescendo. Like a 100 pound mom lifting an I beam off of her child's leg to escape a burning building, the fighter is only able to do this when the poop really hits the fan, and they are so driven by biochemical moxie that they step into another mindset entirely.

 

[Scribble]

Hence this thread. I'm hoping others will put their collective heads together to give some fluff for how dailies could make sense for the fighter to only activate them once per day that stay true within the rules. (i.e. a poor example would be "the fighter is honed to take advantage of the "perfect situation" that situation happens to crop up when he uses the daily. Unless the fighter somehow creates that situation, and only can do so once per day, this is not what activating a daily is for a player.) When a player activates a daily, it is the player's choice to do so at any given moment, and the fluff needs to support that.

I'm not sure I understand why the example is a "poor" example. What's the difference?

I mean we rarely describe every single moment of a D&D fight. Do you describe with every turn where someone's enemy's blade is positioned? How his head is turned, how his legs are spread, which way his shield is slanted, if his eyes are momentarily distracted, if he's on slightly higher/lower ground, if he's off balance, and if so which way is he leaning if one foot is in the air, if he's in the process of taking a step, if he's hoping over a swing, if he's parrying the OTHER guy's swing, if he's just ducked to avoid an arrow wizzing by, if he's just had the glint of someone's armor flash in his eye momentarily blinding him, if sweat or blood has dripped into his eyes, if the pain from one of the last cuts he took momentarily makes his swing off balance, etc...

Let alone describing the same for each of YOUR character's own properties...

I mean I doubt anyone envisions the characters in the game world literally just sitting there facing each other roboticaly taking turns swinging at each other. There are TONS of things that happen in a real fight, that we just kind of gloss over with a standard D&D attack roll.

We kind of just take it for granted that the characters in the game world are moving around, actively parrying blows, turning around to defend better against each enemy, and that things are kind of all happening at the same time. Right? (And that sometimes those things in combination with eachother is what really makes you MISS or HIT...)

So to me saying the player activates his power is synonymous with saying the various pieces are in place for the effect to occur without the player having to know or detail each piece (or wait for the exact combination to ACTUALLY occur in some long drawn out die roll chart combo or something.)

 

[Pbartender]

The crux of the issue seems to be that it is a player choice to do so, not an exploit of the environment that comes up rarely.

Why can't it be both?

That is to say, the player is making the choice as to when the environment can be properly exploited to give the character the opportunity to use the power.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Well, it was rejected in the other thread as a poor example by some, that's the main reason.

But I do agree somewhat. The way the powers work is that the player activates them once per day. It is a player driven decision.

I suppose that it could be true that it just happens that the events are perfect at those times, but that does take away some of the agency of the player, don't you think?


Fundamentally, you are both right...it could be described as the "stars are right" and the foes are all in just the right place with just the right opening.

I guess I hadn't really thought it through. I still prefer the description to be player driven, but I think the other style is truly just as valid. (But if it were my pc, I'd rather describe it as "I'm cool" rather than "the enemy screwed up and I took advantage."

So, yeah, that other kind is good too, I guess.

 

[Akaiku]

Martial Dailies are either the player ooc throwing a "perfect situation" narrative control card in, or, alternately, using such a high level 'exploit' drains the fighter's 'martial' power too much to do it again. Just like every other power source.

*goes off to make a martial baised doomsday weapon to have the fighter behind all the worlds epic plots try to gather enough force of arms to power the destruction of all creation, as all power sources are equal*

 

[ryryguy]

I'm not sure I understand why the example is a "poor" example. What's the difference?

Why can't it be both?

That is to say, the player is making the choice as to when the environment can be properly exploited to give the character the opportunity to use the power.

For me and many others, it can be both, and the difference is not important.

However, I'm assuming this post was inspired by this thread, where the OP does feel that it's an important difference. He wants as little distinction between "player choice" and "character choice" as possible. A player-driven "narrative card" is not satisfying to him.

So I see this thread as a game where you accept that constraint and try to satisfy it. (Not argue over whether that constraint makes sense to you.)

I'll try to offer one:

The martial character's training allows him to release a targeted burst of adrenaline which can enable a brief feat of strength (for fighters) or speed (for rangers and rogues). He can control the timing of this technique, but it's too hard on his body to do over and over again.

(edit) Whoops, I see my offering is not that different from #4 in the OP. Oh well... I'll try another:

The martial character some special customization on his weapon that allows him to pull off a special technique. However, the technique undoes the customization so he can't do the technique again until he can "reset" it. (This would work better for encounter exploits, not so much for dailies... also I'm failing to come up with a good concrete example, so maybe it's not such a good one. )

 

[Derren]

So far everything posted in here doesn't work when you look at it logically.

"Pieces fall in place": When the fighter used his daily power he can't even use it on a paralyzed, sleeping or otherwise helpless enemy. And in such situation he has enough time to line up the strike however he wants. It makes no sense that he can't do his perfect move again.

1: Apart from giving every fighter an inherent spiritual element, why can't young fighter not learn the tricks of ancestor fighter so that he can use his tricks without guidance?

2+3: Then why can the fighter do other highly stressful daily moves? Why can he otherwise continue to fight normally?

4: Using dailies has nothing to do with the current situation and the HP of the fighter. One would assume that with 2 teammates down and the fighter bloodied he would have enough adrenalin in his system for this to happen. Too bad that he already used his daily in a much less dangerous situation before.

In the end there are imo just 2 options of how to deal with them. 1. Explain all fighter abilities with magic and 2. Don't think about it (not usable when you want to think while playing D&D though)

 

[Rechan]

I posted this in the other thread, but I feel it qualifies universally:

Why are we needing to bend over backwards to explain Fighter dailies, when there is so much that we just "accept" that doesn't cause narrative blockage?

Take critical hits. We just "accept" that because the die comes up 20, that whoever attacked gets buckets of damage (and for some people, even more special effects). We just handwave it as "a lucky hit/a great attack" and move on. But really, if a fighter could, every swing would be a crit; he'd do the same thing he did when he rolled the 20, so why is the crit different? Because we accept the gamist notion of a roll of 20.

Sneak attack damage is another. Why is it we just handwave the rogue's sneak attack damage as just "Well knows how to go for the kidneys" or "It was a lucky hit". But he would be trying to do that every round. So sneak attacks necessitate a circumstance occuring, we all accept that.

Not to mention the ranger's extra damage die just for hitting a guy he said "You're it" a round ago.

Why can't Fighter dailies just be "the crit of the day"?

 

[Scribble]

I guess I hadn't really thought it through. I still prefer the description to be player driven, but I think the other style is truly just as valid. (But if it were my pc, I'd rather describe it as "I'm cool" rather than "the enemy screwed up and I took advantage."

So, yeah, that other kind is good too, I guess.

Well, the "badassedry" in my opinion comes from the fact that your player can do it in the first place. He's good enough to know that a certain combination of events combined with his skill lets him do something nutso and pull it off.

Just because you're exploiting your enemies faults and taking advantage of the environment doesn't make you less of a powerful fighter.

So far everything posted in here doesn't work when you look at it logically.

"Pieces fall in place": When the fighter used his daily power he can't even use it on a paralyzed, sleeping or otherwise helpless enemy. And in such situation he has enough time to line up the strike however he wants. It makes no sense that he can't do his perfect move again.

Because it's pointless to do so.

Why would I sweep kick a sleeping enemy rather then just slit his throat?

And in effect he "can" through the stunt system on 42. It's just not the "perfect" opportunity the real power is.

In the end there are imo just 2 options of how to deal with them. 1. Explain all fighter abilities with magic and 2. Don't think about it (not usable when you want to think while playing D&D though)

Whatever floats your boat/ works for you man.

 

[Ktulu]

..Smart Stuff...

You must spread xp around before giving it to Rechan again

for critical thinking! That's how I see it; these are the cool stuff that a fighter pulls off in certain situations.

Comeback strike is my favorite example. It doesn't have to happen the same way, every time. In some cases, he picks himself up off the floor, wipes the blood from his mouth and says, "gimme some sugar".

In others, it's a wild strike that sends his enemy reeling back and the fighter hollars back to his allies, "It's not over, yet!"


Same with brute strike. Sometimes it's a heavy, crushing blow, while others it's a clean strike because the enemy left himself open.


I don't see any power working "exactly" the same way each time. Ideally, the fighter uses his same fighting stances, some strikes hit harder (brute strike), and some knock the guy down, where others seem to hit multiple people. It's all subjective.

You can even do the same wit a cleric or wizard. Magic missile doesn't have to be a "magic bolt of whatever". It's just a magical ranged strike. He can fling things telekenetically, launch magical globs of energy, or shoot lasers out of his eyes.

Lance of faith can be a blast of radiant energy in one strike, and a cacophonous holy word in another. So long as you don't change the mechanics, the fluff just has to fit with what your describing.