D&D 4E 4E combat and powers: How to keep the baby and not the bathwater?

[DMKastmaria]

Well you should definitely post them! I think a lot of people would like to see this sort of thing...

Ok. Trip, Disarm, Shield-Bash, frenzied attack, & defensive fighting are mine. The rest are from one version of the rules or another, though sometimes modified to my specs. I give all my players a copy of this.

For any saving throws mentioned below, I use whichever category starts out at 14. Most of those were made for play with Swords & Wizardry, which utilizes a single save. I then ported them over, for my AD&D game.

Some Combat Maneuvers

Charging: A creature who is more than 10’ away from their target, may Charge one time per Turn, moving at double their normal movement rate and attacking in the same Round. They receive a +2 bonus To Hit, but suffer a -1 penalty to their AC and lose any Dexterity Bonus to AC when Charging. If the defender has a weapon which is longer than that of the attacker’s, then the defender will attack first. Certain weapons (spears, lances, pikes, Javelins, Bill-guissarmes, Pole-axes and Halberds) may be “set” against a charge, and will inflict double Damage if a Hit is scored upon a charging attacker. A rider upon a Warhorse and wielding a lance, will do double Damage with the weapon, on a charge. A creature may not charge if they are at their maximum amount of Encumbrance, unless they are on a Warhorse which is not at its maximum Encumbrance.

Cleave: When a Fighter or Fighter sub-class is engaged in melee and brings an opponent to 0 HP or less, he may, in addition to any remaining attacks he may have, immediately make an extra attack against an adjacent enemy (who must be within 5’.) He may use this ability a number of times per Round, equal to his number of attacks per Round, plus one. If he is engaged in melee against multiple opponents, all of whom are 1 HD/Level or lower, he may use this ability a number of times per Round equal to his Level.

(the version of Cleave, above, is the one I use for 1 min melee rounds. It also replaces the RAW for Fighters attacking opponents of 1HD or lower in AD&D.

Close To Attack: Unless charging, a Character may Close to within melee range (10’) and then attack on the next Round.

Defensive Fighting: Any Character except an MU, may opt to fight defensively, bettering their AC by 2 but sacrificing a -3 To Hit. Attack rate is halved, when fighting defensively.

Disarm: A Fighter, Paladin, or Ranger may attempt to disarm an opponent, who is wielding a one-handed weapon. An attack roll is made at -2 To Hit, -3 if the defender is wielding a small-sized weapon. If a hit is made, the attacker must make a Saving Throw at -3. If he rolls a true 18 or 19 To Hit, then there is no penalty to the Save. A True 20 rolled To Hit, or on the attackers Saving Throw will automatically succeed with no further rolls being necessary in either case. Otherwise, if the Save is successful, the defender must then make a Saving Throw to hold onto his weapon.

Frenzied Attack: A Fighter, Ranger, Druid or Cleric, may launch an all-out attack during a Round, putting themselves in harm’s way in an attempt to damage their opponent. They will attack at +2 To Hit, but will suffer an AC penalty of 3. A Critical Hit or Miss, made during a Frenzied Attack, might be truly awesome or utterly disastrous.

Mounted Attack: A mounted Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Cleric or Druid, attacking enemies on foot, receives a +1 bonus to their To Hit rolls and to their AC. A Fighter or Fighter sub-class attacking while riding a trained Warhorse, or similar creature, receives bonuses of +2. If the enemies on foot are wielding Halberds, or Bill-guissarme's the bonus to AC will not apply. If the enemies are wielding Pikes, neither the To Hit nor the AC bonus will apply.

Retreat: If a creature is moving away at greater than half his normal movement rate, opponents will get a free attack at +2 To Hit and no AC Adjustment from Dexterity or a shield may be used by the defender. A character may perform a Fighting-retreat at one-third his movement rate, but his rate of attack will be halved. This may be combined with Defensive Fighting, with no further penalty to rate of attack.

Shield Bash: A Fighter, Paladin, Ranger or Cleric may forgo his normal attack and his shield bonus to AC to make a Shield Bash attack at +1 To Hit. If successful, he will do 1d4 points of Damage. Damage adjustments for Strength, a magical shield, etc., apply. He may attempt to Push the defender as well, making an opposed Strength Check against his opponent.
To make the Check, each combatant rolls 2d6. The Attacker adds the total Damage for the Bash attack. The Defender may add his Strength To Hit adjustment. If the Attacker wins, the defender must make a Saving Throw, to avoid being knocked back 11' - 14'. If the defender wins the Strength Check, then the attacker must Save, or be knocked back 11' - 14'. In either case, if the Save is failed by more than -4, it will result in being knocked Prone, instead.
Certain conditions, such as a defender who is the same size or smaller than the attacker and using neither shield, nor heavy weaponry (two-handed,) may prevent the defender from being able to Push back at his attacker. The defender may Check with Dexterity, instead of Strength, but cannot Push back when doing so. For Ogre sized creatures, the Strength Check will be made without adding in the Base 1d4 Damage rolled. Creatures larger than an Ogre may not normally be Pushed.

Trip: A Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Cleric or Druid may forgo his normal attack and attempt to trip his opponent, knocking him prone. The Attacker must make a Saving Throw, to set-up his opponent for the maneuver. Then, he must score a To Hit, which will do 1d4 points of potential Damage (no other modifiers apply.) The defender must then make a save, at a penalty equal to the Damage scored. If successful, the Defender remains standing and takes none of the Damage. Otherwise, he suffers the Damage and is knocked Prone, suffering all of the effects of that condition.

Two-weapon Fighting: A character, other than an MU, with a Dexterity of 13+ may fight using two One-Handed weapons. This does not grant an extra attack, due to the abstract nature of combat rolls in the game. Fighting with two weapons grants a +1 To Hit, or a -1 bonus to AC. The Player may choose which bonus he wishes and it will be assumed to go towards his attacking abilities, if he does not make his wishes known. The player may choose, which weapon scored Damage on a Hit.

 

[outsider]

The baby: More varied and tactically interesting combat, options for non-spellcasters.....

How to throw just the bathwater: Basic attacks can be upgraded with different options; extra damage, push, drop prone, etc, at the cost of a penalty to the attack roll.

The problem with using attack penalties for these things is that casters(cleric/druid/spellsword types) tend to be quite good at boosting their attack bonus. If you allow feats to offset the penalties, anybody can take them. Magic items are the same.

This is a workable solution, of course. You can set the penalties ridiculously high(probably somewhere between -5 and -10), and give martial characters class abilities that completely wipe out the penalty in one shot. That'll allow fighter types to be good at a few melee tricks. Anything they don't have the class ability for though, casters will probably be superior(or at least equal) at.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Whenever I see something like this (that you can do 'powers' without a power system), I always want to mention this:

Suppose you have a decent basic D&D game, but one where the GM says "no" when you make a suggestion about doing an attack that's not just a simple basic attack. Or even better, they say "no" where you make a suggestion that you do the same maneuver they're allowed more than once a session. Or take your power and make an arbitrary rule that makes it far less effective than just making a basic attack.

That's what D&D was like for many, many people before the power system. That was the entire point of the system: you can do interesting things that the GM agrees will work reliably without having to get their permission.

Imagine if I was playing an AD&D fighter and said "I just dropped a foe, so I'm going to take an extra blow as the attack cleaves into the adjacent foe." How many GMs would allow that? And how many would allow it every time, instead of eventually saying "you're just trying to get away with something, cut it out!"

That's perfectly valid.

It's worth pointing out, though, that the DM often has to say no. You're not trying to win a popularity contest, and players often ask for things they really shouldn't get. That said, a general "say yes" or "yes, but" DMing approach is often a good one. This is a topic for the DMG to deal with. Of course, the rules will never prevent some people from acting stupidly, on both sides of the screen.

And yet when you're using the 3X combat rules, you can do exactly that, all the time, with cleave. The 4E power system lets you choose between dozens of effects just like that. The GM approves the power, and you know it's going to actually be available and work for you. No negotiating, no "the circumstances don't work this time," no "you've done that too often, your foe counters it."

You shouldn't need to take a feat to cleave, power attack, trip, etc.; that's true enough. You shouldn't have to take a power either.

I don't understand how it's hard to see that idea as a bad thing. If you do see it as bad, what would you suggest if your players wanted to be as creative as you can be with the powers system on the fly, every combat? If you say "great! I'd love it!" then why would actually putting some rule mechanics behind it be a bad thing?

So here's the two big problems that I see, based on my experience.

The first is that powers are a list of what you can't do. Particularly once books start piling up, there's no way for a character to take every power (or feat, item, etc.) that makes sense for that character. That means that you have a large, cogent, clarified set of things that any individual character cannot do. This tends to create frustration in the players. The DM doesn't have to say no, because the rules already have. Players complain all the time about not being able to use a certain feat they don't have; I can't imagine that proliferating that even more is a good idea. The added complexity is also a barrier for beginners or casual players who don't want to read through a list of powers and decide which are best without having the system mastery to do so competently.

The second is the AEDU part. There are a lot of problems associated with that. My experience with 3.X barbarian players is that they absolutely hate rage. Why? Because it's nonsensical. You rage, once per day, for maybe a minute, and then you're done. Unless you're 4th level, when you *magically* gain the ability to do it twice. Why can't you do it again, particularly if the circumstances are appropriately desperate or "enraging"? Is you character tired? Not really (there is a fatigue, but it goes away fast and rage doesn't become available when it's over). He is mechanically fine in most ways.

Daily resource management is also ineffective as a game balance tool, because there's no knowing how much a given group will do in a day, or what a given player will do. Many players conserve daily resources in an absolutely paranoid fashion; I see this even though I rarely have multiple battles in the same game day. Spellcasters have always dealt with it, but expanding the problem, tacking on an even more arbitrary "encounter" category (what's an encounter again), and making all the classes use the same basic mechanic, one that was so deeply flawed to begin with, is not a good idea. Again, the daily limitations aren't about what you can do, they're about what you can't do.

***

So what can be done mechanically?

First, dissociate combat mechanics from individual characters. Stunts, maneuvers, exploits, whatever you want to call them, should be out there, available to all.

Second, write open-ended mechanics; the PF combat maneuver system does a wonderful job of this. It gives you a nice list of set maneuvers, but encourages you to use your CMB for anything you can think of. Simply having a CMB encourages the DM to say yes.

Third, create a diverse set of basic combat statistics on the character sheet (the six saves are a good start). If a fighter can outpace a wizard on four or five out of six saves, as well as an active defense/damage reduction statistic, AC, hit points, initiative, attack bonus, and CMB, that makes him pretty effective.

Fourth, use the action economy. TB's combat reactions do a wonderful job of giving fighters an advantage and they're limited by round (the unit of time that actually matters in D&D).

Fifth, use the health system. The more complex and meaningful damage is, the more ways there are for a fighter/barbarian/ogre to have an advantage in that system. It also creates more design space for there to be nasty consequences for getting hit.

Sixth, fix magic.

 

[Halivar]

There are a lot of problems associated with that. My experience with 3.X barbarian players is that they absolutely hate rage. Why? Because it's nonsensical. You rage, once per day, for maybe a minute, and then you're done. Unless you're 4th level, when you *magically* gain the ability to do it twice. Why can't you do it again, particularly if the circumstances are appropriately desperate or "enraging"?

For my part, I can reconcile this in my own head pretty easily:
I can carry a 50 pound amp up two flights of stairs. But I can't do it twice. Not in one day.*

NOW.... if you wanted to replace AEDU with a robust recharge mechanic, I would consider that an improvement on both previous editions.

*EDIT: I hope it's safe to expose the truth of my physical puniness on a website dedicated to pretending we're rescuing fairy princesses from dragons. Otherwise there is nowhere left in the world for me to hide.

 

[Ahnehnois]

For my part, I can reconcile this in my own head pretty easily:
I can carry a 50 pound amp up two flights of stairs. But I can't do it twice. Not in one day.

You also can't carry anything else that weighs fifty pound up any other incline, because you're tired (in other words, you haven't expended some sort of daily resource that exists independently of your physical state). That said, I bet if you were in a life or death situation (like an adventurer usually is) you'd find a way.

NOW.... if you wanted to replace AEDU with a robust recharge mechanic, I would consider that an improvement on both previous editions.

I would be quite happy if there were a deeper and generalized statistical representation of fatigue. If combat made you incrementally tired, and resting made you incrementally less so, I think that would satisfy the plausibility aspect.

*EDIT: I hope it's safe to expose the truth of my physical puniness on a website dedicated to pretending we're rescuing fairy princesses from dragons. Otherwise there is nowhere left in the world for me to hide.

Fear not (says the 5' 7", 150 pound guy with severe chronic muscular pain).

 

[Minigiant]

Personally I think the first step is to categorize all the actions which one you can do at will and which ones aren't. Then place cost and restrictions to them.

Personally I'd do it this way for 5E.

Everyone gets these at will...
Bullrush: Opposed Str checks with -4 per step size bonus/penalty. Attacker gets -4 penalty unless they are a warrior class.

Charge: Move up to your speed when attacking. +2 to attack roll for -2 AC.

Cleave: Everyone can apple Cleave to their attack for a -4 attack penalty. Warriors don't have the penalty.

Disarm: Simple -10 penalty (-6 for warriors). -4 per step size bonus/penalty for the weapon. If you want to disarm every turn... fine.

Fighting Aggressively: Everyone gets -2 attack/+1 damage Power attack. All warriors get not normal Power Attack.

Fighting Defensively: Everyone gets -2 attack/+1 AC uncapped Combat Expertise. All warriors get not normal uncapped version.

Grapple: ???

Manyshot: Everyone get can shoot an extra arrow (max 4) at -6 (-2 for warrior classes) attack.

Shield Bash: Lose Shield's AC bonus to attack with the shield as an impoverished weapon. Warriors are treated as proficient.

Trip: See Disarm. -4 per step size bonus/penalty of the attacker.


Then there are attacks that tire the user.

Tiring attacks: People who aren't tired, fatigued, or exhausted can perform a tiring attack. Characters must take a -20 penalty to attack roll or are fatigued. Warriors can perform time for no penalty a number of times a day equal to their Con mod.

These are
Whirlwind Attacks
Rage (Barbarians only)
Maximum damage
Extra attacks
Whirlwind attack:

 

[outsider]

The first is that powers are a list of what you can't do.

In my experience powers are a list of what you can do without having to beg the DM.

 

[Ahnehnois]

In my experience powers are a list of what you can do without having to beg the DM.

A bit of an aside, but doesn't that just move the begging to a different time? If a player in my game tries to take Come and Get It (well, one of its 3e or other edition equivalents), the answer is no. There are a few other things that are commonly presented in rules to which the answer is no, as well as a large number of non-RAW things that players used to try (now that we're on the same page and I know the game and I trust them, this tends not to happen with my players). Regardless of the game system, the DM is still the DM.

Also, are you saying you never wanted to use and thought you should be able to use a power that was not on your character sheet?

 

[BobTheNob]

Second, write open-ended mechanics; the PF combat maneuver system does a wonderful job of this. It gives you a nice list of set maneuvers, but encourages you to use your CMB for anything you can think of. Simply having a CMB encourages the DM to say yes.

Thats right, PF did have that. Thanks for pointing out.

Its not perfect (wont get into a debate of its virtue) but it does show that there is thought out there what martial does can be modeled differently than a power structure. The thing I liked about it was that it said "this is how to use if you want to grapple" but if the player turned around and said something like "actually, I want to re-position him, not hold on to him"...so a sort of a maneavour where the player uses skill to momentarily twist and grapple to shift his opponents position. Using an improvised framework like this, they could.

This is where the power approach leaves me flat. Under the power approach, IF you have a power that shifts no worries, but if you dont? Bad Luck. That shifting your opponent was the better option at the time is irrelevant, the only thing that is relevant is that you have the power and have a "use" of it available. To me its kinda artificial.

Im just getting to a point with design where if I wanted I tight and well defined power structure with excellent mechanics, I would play Dragon Age on the PC. When it comes to P&P tabletop experience, I want players to be able to think on the fly during the game and for the game to support them in being able to switch tactics as needs define rather than as their last level up choices did.

 

[outsider]

Also, are you saying you never wanted to use and thought you should be able to use a power that was not on your character sheet?

No, I'm saying that I can reasonably expect to use any power on my character sheet. Anything that is not on my character sheet is subject to:

My ability to explain what I want to do.
DM favoritism.
DM knowledge of melee combat/athletics/physics/whatever compared to my knowledge of the same.
How good the DM is at game balance.
Whether the DM wants me to succeed or not.
How consistent the DM is in his rulings.
The DM telling me "Roll, and I'll tell you if you succeed".
What the DM thinks is cool vs what I think is cool.

Most DMs are bad at one or more of the above. In my experience, trying to do anything that is not codified in the rules is unreliable and inconsistent. I should only have to ask the DM for situational things. I want powers/rules for stuff that I'll be doing regularly.