21: Muscle memory 'circuits' You have programmed your body through constant effort to, at your behest, essentially auto-fire a particular maneuver. No two maneuvers use the same pathways through your nervous system. The more extreme ones burn out the pathways for a bit, sometimes even a whole day. Trying again when it's like that will either do nothing or kill you, so generally you don't bother till you can feel it working again.
101 roleplaying descriptions justifying martial dailies
- Thread starter Aberzanzorax
- Start date
tomBitonti
Hero
There are two parts to that statement: balanced, and playable.
Lets create a new power:
"Leap of the Heavens"
Encounter
You spring out in an astonishing leap. Shift yourself four squares in any direction. You may clear obstacles up to four squares (20') high, and may change your vertical position upwards or downwards by up to four squares.
What about that power means that it should be an encounter power?
I could live with this:
Keyword: Ki (although, that doesn't exist anymore!)
Explanation: You focus your Ki into a tremendous burst of energy.
This builds on an assumption that your Ki is a limited resource which generated on a timescale longer than a typical encounter.
(Although, with that explanation, I would prefer Ki powers to have the limitation: You may freely use your Ki encounter powers, however, if you attempt to use more Ki powers than your power limit -- the number of powers known -- you must make a Ki power check or be stunned for one round. A Ki power check is a level check against 10 + the Power Level, where the Power Level is either the first level at which the power is available, or your current level, for powers that scale with level.)
What I'm looking for is some consistent explanation for why the power works the way that it does. For Rage, the explanation is that you are too tired to rage again. For many skill tricks, these are only usable once per target per encounter, and the explanation is that the trick only works when the target is not guarding against the trick. For many abilities, such as fear effects, once you save against the fear effect, it won't work against you for a day, with an explanation that you have learned to see past the illusion that cowed you before.
Let's look at a different example:
Vampire's Gaze: Standard
Effect: One target
Result: On a successful attack vs will, your target is dazed for one round and their next action must be to move towards the vampire. If already adjacent to the vampire, the target may not move away from the vampire. The target may not attack the vampire until this power expires.
Vampire's Kiss: Standard, at will, target must be under the effect of Vampire's gaze.
Effect: One target adjacent to the vampire.
Result: The target loses a healing surge. If the target has no healing surges, they loose 1/4 of their hit points. See Unholy Puppeteer. A successful vampire's kiss recharges Vampire's Gaze.
Unholy Puppeteer: Standard, at will, target must be subject to Vampire's Embrace with no healing surges. Refresh: Move, Attack vs. will.
Effect: One target, for one round.
Result: The vampire takes control of the target creature, and may choose a single move and a single basic attack for that creature's next actions.
Explanations:
Vampire's Gaze is a magical effect that is continuous and inherent.
Vampire's kiss is innate to the vampire, but requires a receptive victim.
Vampire's kiss weakens the target, eventually leaving them helpless to the vampire's demands.
In this example, why chose the Vampire's Gaze to be at will? My presentation is that this is a balancing between how one would imagine such an effect would work, and what works as a mechanic. Both sides of the scale must resonate with the player and DM. If only the mechanics and balance were considered, one is left with a meaningless (but possibly interesting) game of abstractions. (Why does a horse move in an L shape?) On the other hand, it's not just enough to have a mechanic that seems to fit a particular creature, it has to still have an effective implementation. In the case of Vampire's gaze, the the effect (a visual domination) is iconic, and fits my sensibilities as a continuous ability ("My companion cried, 'For the love of all the saints, don't look into his eyes!").
Now let's turn this into a Player ability:
Gift of the Vampire: Bloodline: Encounter
Your ancestry asserts itself, granting you a measure of the power of a vampire. Your ability is weaker than that of a true vampire, while retaining a measure of potency.
Effect: You may use Vampire's Gaze once per encounter.
Why is that a once per-encounter ability?
1) True vampire's can use it at will, basically, once per round.
2) Your ability is weaker than that of a true vampire. You must conserve your power to achieve the effect of a true vampire, and you are quickly exhausted.
Then:
Blood Infusion: Bloodline: At will
Prerequisite: Gift of the Vampire
You have infused yourself repeatedly with the blood of a true vampire, and are now able to maintain the potency of your bloodline abilities.
Effect: You may now use Vampire's Gaze at will.
Explanation:
1) You are now more infused with blood powers. These regenerate quickly, in the manner of a true vampire, such that your Vampire's Gaze effect no longer exhausts your power.
That seems close to a usable power. So far, two issues have been covered: First, the power has a resonant explanation. Second, the power has an implementation.
However, I don't know if that is a balanced power. (I suspect that it is a bit overpowered.) That leads to questions: How well does the implementation work? Is it too complicated? Too boring? Too under or overpowered? Does it break any game assumptions? (For example, save or die is forbidden; taking away control is frowned upon.) Those would have to be answered to put this into use.
The point of all of this is that both the issues of the game mechanic, and issues of the background flavor of the power, must be brought into the picture when adjusting the power. (I think that folks objections to 4E powers is that the game takes away too much of the discussions of the background flavor, leaving too much stale abstraction.)
Notice that this not just "fluff". There is a logic and sense of meaning in the background flavor that is being used to decide what makes sense for the power.
(As another example, consider the power:
Ten-thumbs: Weapon, Encounter, At-will
Effect: Strength vs Strength, or Dexterity vs. Dexterity.
Result: Your opponent must use a move action before using their weapon or implement.
I'm using that to abstract out a "disarm" ability.
Does it matter if I use "Disarm" as the power title, instead of "Ten-thumbs"? Which title is more satisfying? Are you satisfied with an ability presented as just the short three line description as was provided, or do you hunger for more that that?)
Thx!
TomB
That example is kind of silly in that you are not even giving the example fluff that would be in an official power, and then asking if we're satisfied with the non-existent fluff.
However, it does bring up an interesting point.
There have been tons of examples here of how to provide fluff to explain martial powers. I don't like most of them, but there are some that are at least acceptable.
So, what should I accept, since WotC did not explicitly tell me how I should flavor their entire resource system?
I think that the answer is strongly implied throughout the PHB and DMG. The answer is... whatever you want. They designed a game system that is intentionally fluff-lite, or more to the point, fluff-flexible.
The detractors appear to miss this, but yet this is one of the traits that many of the fans wholeheartedly embrace. However, it's a real paradigm shift from previous editions, and I think that's really a big part of the resistance.
Old editions designed the fluff and then tried to come up with rules to support the fluff. 4E tries to come up with core system with logical and balanced mechanics, and then comes up with fluff-lite powers within that framework.
Some people are made very uncomfortable with this. Admittedly, at first I was apprehensive too. What really won me over though was the realization that by making fluff less important, than it completely frees me to make whatever fluff I want!
That's the strength of 4E. If I want my martial powers to be without explanations, that's fine. If I want it to be about fate and luck, that's fine. If I want it to be about being guided about my ancient warrior ancestor that's fine too.
The beauty of this is that NONE of this is a houserule! The existing rules not only support reflavoring, but frequently encourage it.
Personally, I look at the major objection in this thread to be confusing. I don't understand why an official fluff justification is really preferrable to having the freedom to choose whatever fluff I want.
Just as another quick example to follow my previous post here...
I've seen several people post that they have more fun when they reskin the powers on the spot. If they are fighting in a manor, and they have a power that knocks their opponent back a square, then they will use that power, but reskin the fluff to say that they are pulling the rug their opponent is standing on so that he staggers back as he loses his balance.
The freedom to reskin and reflavor the system is really a bonus if you don't get hung up so much on the default fluff. When it comes to powers, the fluff for most of these things are just examples anyway (and presented as so).
I've seen several people post that they have more fun when they reskin the powers on the spot. If they are fighting in a manor, and they have a power that knocks their opponent back a square, then they will use that power, but reskin the fluff to say that they are pulling the rug their opponent is standing on so that he staggers back as he loses his balance.
The freedom to reskin and reflavor the system is really a bonus if you don't get hung up so much on the default fluff. When it comes to powers, the fluff for most of these things are just examples anyway (and presented as so).
I agree with this very much.
4e gives me the freedom to fit the rules into the fluff I want. Or I can look around this board and find the fluff I like. Plus it cuts my prep time at least in half and I can concentrate my preparation timewise on the story, especially with the use of DDI. This is quite liberating.
I also think that a lot of 3e players were not very interested in the fluff to begin with and did not use it when creating their characters. The 3e optimization board is a good example.
What really confuses me is that abilities like the Dread Pirate's "Motivate the Scum" or the Eye of Gruumsh's "Blinding Spittle" may be fluff-based but the fluff does not explain the fact that they are dailies.
Nobody talked about this, only with 4e have I heard or read of a discussion like this.
LostSoul
Adventurer
Here is an idea...
Demons bound to the PC that give them some power as part of their pact. (Though that one is magical, crap...)
If you want to play 4E and have the powers seem real (put the fluff first!), do it like this:
The player describes the character's action.
The DM resolves it using mechanics. (What power the PC is using, if any.)
I think that could be a fun game. (I think that might be an awesome game.*) Powers on your character sheet might be "personalized tricks" so maybe you'd get a bonus for using them all the time (because you use them all the time). Then again, maybe not.
[sblock=Why I think it would be awesome]* - One reason I think it would be awesome: I'm statting up some regular Fighter NPCs from a 1E module, and the question I face myself with is, "How does this guy fight? What's his style?" I love that.
If the DM resolved everything, then the most important thing is the "fluff text", or how the guy actually fights in the game world.
eg. I make a normal human who has natural reach. He fights from range, keeping people back. The PC moves in to attack him; the guy shifts back and swats at the PC's weapon (1). But when the PC is able to get inside that reach, and he uses his technique, shield bash to the chin & shove his sword to the side then stab him in the gut (2), he gets combat advantage against the reach fighter.
1: immediate interrupt, when an enemy moves within 1 square, shift one and the triggering enemy takes a -2 penalty to attack until the end of your next turn; this would be a power listed in the NPC's statblock
2: tide of iron
I think what you would see is some really creative stuff flowing from the players and the DM. The quality of the "fluff" would only have to satisfy the group, since they are the only audience, so only the really obsessive people would get worked up because it's not realistic enough.
Does depend on a good DM, though.[/sblock]
Demons bound to the PC that give them some power as part of their pact. (Though that one is magical, crap...)
If you want to play 4E and have the powers seem real (put the fluff first!), do it like this:
The player describes the character's action.
The DM resolves it using mechanics. (What power the PC is using, if any.)
I think that could be a fun game. (I think that might be an awesome game.*) Powers on your character sheet might be "personalized tricks" so maybe you'd get a bonus for using them all the time (because you use them all the time). Then again, maybe not.
[sblock=Why I think it would be awesome]* - One reason I think it would be awesome: I'm statting up some regular Fighter NPCs from a 1E module, and the question I face myself with is, "How does this guy fight? What's his style?" I love that.
If the DM resolved everything, then the most important thing is the "fluff text", or how the guy actually fights in the game world.
eg. I make a normal human who has natural reach. He fights from range, keeping people back. The PC moves in to attack him; the guy shifts back and swats at the PC's weapon (1). But when the PC is able to get inside that reach, and he uses his technique, shield bash to the chin & shove his sword to the side then stab him in the gut (2), he gets combat advantage against the reach fighter.
1: immediate interrupt, when an enemy moves within 1 square, shift one and the triggering enemy takes a -2 penalty to attack until the end of your next turn; this would be a power listed in the NPC's statblock
2: tide of iron
I think what you would see is some really creative stuff flowing from the players and the DM. The quality of the "fluff" would only have to satisfy the group, since they are the only audience, so only the really obsessive people would get worked up because it's not realistic enough.
Does depend on a good DM, though.[/sblock]
Just to play devil's advocate here...
This could have a problem. Do players know (and play as if they know) what powers their characters have?
If not, then you essentially have a scenario where the only way for a player to use a power is to effectively "guess" fluff that matches the mechanical description of a power. For example, in order for a player to use Lead the Attack (Warlord Daily 1), he would have to describe an attack that works in such a way as to make the opponent easier to hit (e.g. "I try to slice off his armor"). And he would have to do so without knowing that he has a power that is particularly effective at doing just that. (His friend who didn't have that power could describe the same thing, but it would end up being resolved as an at-will or a stunt, so it would be less effective, and he wouldn't know why.)
On the other hand, if players do know what powers their character has and use that information in describing their fluff, then it's not clear that you've actually changed much. Players are still choosing what powers they want to use first, then describing fluff based off of those powers in order to use those powers. In the above example, a player would decide he wants to use Lead the Attack, and then come up with a fluff description appropriate to the situation. So it's still "powers first" and not "fluff first," which isn't what you seem to want.
I think that this phenomenon quite possibly explains a lot of the resistance to some of the changes in combat from 3e to 4e - the changes make the former style of play a lot harder to do successfully. For example, the removal of the disarm maneuver was labeled as "unsimulationist," but after 4e came out, nobody said "wow, look at all the new combat options like Lead the Attack - 3e was much less simulationist because it didn't have all those options." Why is disarming considered more "simulationist" than any of the new 4e combat options? I highly doubt most of the people complaining had enough experience in actual real-life combat to judge which maneuvers are more realistic. Instead, I hypothesize that the reason is because "I try to knock the weapon out of his hands" is something that a player who didn't know the rules is likely to come up with on his own, while "I try to hit the enemy at the right angle to jar his armor loose and make him easier to hit" is not something a player would likely come up with on his own unless he was aiming for that particular power effect. Thus 3e can be better than 4e at supporting the "player comes up with fluff, then DM translates it into mechanics" because 3e mechanics are more geared towards the kind of fluff players are likely to independently come up with.
Interestingly, probably the best systems to support the "fluff first, then mechanics" are pure generic, effect-based systems like FATE. In FATE, there's a set of very generic rules (basically boiling down to "everyone makes one roll each turn, adding appropriate modifiers, and whoever rolls higher than their opponent deals damage to them based on how much they beat his roll by, and other effects can be substituted for damage at the DM's discretion"). Thus players can describe whatever attack they want, and the system will handle it, and the only DM judgement required is how many "damage points" a particular effect is worth. The advantage of this kind of system is its simplicity and universality. The disadvantage is that it doesn't allow for a lot of meaningful tactical flexibility out of the box - "me and my friend rush at the guy swinging wildly" has the same chance of hitting as "I distract him while my friend runs up around behind him using the shadows for cover..." Of course the DM can always put that flexibility back in ("you get +1 for coming up with that tactic") but that puts it back in the realm of DM judgement. Of course, since no system can possibly handle all possible fluff that a player could come up with, any system in which fluff affects gameplay would require DM judgement to some extent.
Wizards have to set shields in their mind to protect them from the devistating effects of the spells they cast. Without the shields their minds would turn into oatmeal. Ever notice the old crazy gnome wizards? Yeah those are the ones that cast a daily without their mental shields up. The shields take time and energy to reset. So when they take a long rest they have sufficient time to do it again.
As far as why the melee people can do it. Well, I think of it like this. I can run very very fast all at once. I can then also do a bunch of push ups and a bunch of situps. It's all different physical activities. If I do them all at the same time i will be very very tired and require a long rest before I am able to do them again as well as I did before. The martial dailies I imagine them to be just as strenuous on the body. Requiring a long period of rest before I can do them again.
Another way to think about it is the proffesional weight lifters. They will probably only lift their maximum weight once before requiring a long rest period. If they try again they will either flat out not do it or hurt themselves in the proccess.
As far as why the melee people can do it. Well, I think of it like this. I can run very very fast all at once. I can then also do a bunch of push ups and a bunch of situps. It's all different physical activities. If I do them all at the same time i will be very very tired and require a long rest before I am able to do them again as well as I did before. The martial dailies I imagine them to be just as strenuous on the body. Requiring a long period of rest before I can do them again.
Another way to think about it is the proffesional weight lifters. They will probably only lift their maximum weight once before requiring a long rest period. If they try again they will either flat out not do it or hurt themselves in the proccess.
Alex,319,
Have you seen Malhavoc's Book of Iron Might for 3e. It works very well as it gives a system for building maneuvers, sample maneuvers, and a cheat sheet for maneuver construction.
Have you seen Malhavoc's Book of Iron Might for 3e. It works very well as it gives a system for building maneuvers, sample maneuvers, and a cheat sheet for maneuver construction.
Substitute "crunch" for "fluff" throughout this post and you might understand the objection better. I mean, wouldn't you prefer the rules to be "whatever you want" instead of being all spelled out for you? Why do you need to be constrained by a set of rules for determining your character's hit points? Make up your own!
Of course, at that point, why are you bothering to buy an RPG in the first place?
To me, an RPG ruleset with crunch but no fluff (or minimal fluff) is only half finished. My group and I can and do reflavor and house-rule whatever we like; we'd house-rule chess if we played it enough. But we would be very unhappy with a game where half the rules were missing and the designers told us to just make something up.
Same thing with "fluff" or "flavor text" (I really hate those terms, incidentally, but that's a rant for another thread). Sure, I can make up whatever I want. But I don't want to have to make up everything. I want a complete set of rules, crunch and fluff, and then I'll tweak as necessary to fit my needs.
And I really don't want to have to take a game that was designed mechanics-first and try to puzzle out fluff that can mesh with the mechanics.
Now, 4E actually has a fair bit of flavor text, and most of it is pretty reasonable. On the other hand, there are some powers that just make no sense. Curiously, I find the caster classes are the worst offenders in this area - probably because the designers felt constrained to be more or less plausible with martial powers, but figured they could get away with having magic do whatever they wanted.
So you get the situation where my multi-classed druid/shaman is moving his spirit companion around, trying to trick monsters into moving past her, so the companion can get an opportunity attack to heal an injured PC... because she can only make opportunity attacks, not normal ones. Wha?
Daily powers... I don't like 'em, never have (I hated 'em in 3E and 2E and 1E, too), but I can live with them. They only hurt my suspension of disbelief if I think about them too hard. It's the aforementioned nonsensical caster powers that jump up and smack me in the face and say, "LOOK AT ME! I MAKE NO SENSE!"
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