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

[Majoru Oakheart]

Harder than spells? Clearly if someone expects a perfect game with perfect math and perfect balance, it's never going to happen.

Doesn't need to be perfect. Just not horrible. And one way to fix math is to not let people consider it. If I have to decide between 3d8 damage and 1d8 damage, I'll always take 3d8. If I am not allowed to do 3d8 damage except in a specific situation, then the two become valid choices. On the other hand, if that situation is creatable easily, they become comparable again: Do I spend a minor action to give myself combat advantage to get 3d8 damage or do I just do 1d8 damage? Well, I'd be an idiot not to triple my damage for so little cost.

And if a situation lasts long enough, the lesser option essentially doesn't exist. You get 3d8 damage while standing on the ground or 1d8 while in the air? Doing 1d8 is now actively a penalty.

As for harder than spells? In the Vancian system...no, spells are much harder. Which is why I dread it coming back. However, in a way spells don't need to be as balanced. If you have 3 3rd level spells and you have to decided which one to cast, once you cast it it's gone. So if you have a spell that works best against Stunned enemies, no matter how many times you stun the enemies, you still only get to use it once(or 3 times if you did nothing but prepare that spell)

On the other hand, if you give everyone a combat ability called "Knock out the stunned guy" and it does 5d8 damage only useable against stunned people...then every time someone gets stunned in the game ever, that move will be used by every Fighter. Then everyone else will start looking for ways to stun the enemy just so the move can be used more often.

But if you think that "I attack" is always the better option, then why not just nerfing such "I attack" option? Make it much more difficult to boost your damage output for instance, so that killing a monster takes on average many more than 2 successful strikes.

Doesn't matter what the damage scale is if there are maneuvers that do no damage at all. If it takes 10 hits to kill an enemy and you bull rush them 5 ft backwards so that an ally can get flanking, you've made the enemy take 11 hits to kill instead of 10. It's the same as healing them. Sure, if adding 2 to an ally's attack is enough to dramatically increase your allies chance to hit enough that it makes up for your lack of damage(hint, it isn't...in 99% of circumstances), then it's a good idea....otherwise, it only helps the enemy.

Personally I think the "I attack" option is vastly more popular not because it's so much more convenient, but because the vast majority of players don't have the brains or the guts try something different (or the curiosity to even read the combat chapther wholly if they're playing a fighter!).

In our games the only people who ever tried those maneuvers were:

1. People who had built their entire character around min-maxing one combat move(tripping master, grappling master, sundering master)...They used ONLY the one move they were specialized in and normally it was an experiment that was short lived when they realized they were doing less damage to the enemy than the people who hadn't specialized in a combat move and they'd ask to roll up a new character. The only exception was the tripping specialist. But only because of Improved Trip. Since it let you trip someone AND still attack.

2. New players who had no idea what the moves did. They'd say "You mean I can trip them? Awesome, I trip them." The DM would point out that basically they had a 5% chance of succeeding in tripping and if they succeeded they'd trade their 3 attacks per round for one AOO when the target stood up. The player would then change their mind.

3. People who were bad at math. They would blissfully spend their turns attempting these moves. I remember one guy who tried to grapple something for around 4 rounds in a row(failing every time, of course) while everyone else in his party hit it with weapons until it died. It was an Organized Play table(Living Greyhawk)...at lunch afterwards there was much talk about how we got saddled with the stupid player at our table.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Adding bad rules is in that sense actively harmful: you're not just making a rule nobody'll use, you're making a rule which implicitly deters improvisation achieving the same effect.

Bad rules cause huge issues. And I agree that a well improvised rule is better than no rule.

If bullrush didn't exist, I suspect most DMs would come up with a more effective ruling that would scale across levels; as it is, the existance of the rule bullrush means that not using it requires explanations.

Though, you have WAY more faith in the average DMs rulings.

Hussar's example above was stolen almost word for word from a post I made a while back, which could be an example of any number of rulings a number of our DMs made back in 2e.

I suspect that the average DM would come up with a ruling that either gave you a 5 percent chance of ever succeeding in your bullrush or gave you nearly a 100% chance. Knowing the DMs I played under, it would be something arcane like "Make an attack roll to hit at -4 because you are running headfirst at them in order to push them off, followed by an opposed strength check to push them off. If you miss the attack roll, you are unable to catch yourself and you go flying off the cliff. If you fail the opposed strength check, he pushes YOU off the cliff instead."

Our DMs liked to run things at the micro level, a roll for each small thing you do. And they really liked penalties for failure that were meaningful. "You don't succeed" was less satisfying for them than "You accidentally cut off your own head".

Best to stick to things in the rules where the penalty to failing was spelled out by sane people.

 

[PTHoorah]

I've never played 3e, so I never had to deal with trip specialists or grapple specialists, etc. When I played 2e and 4e, however, I usually played fighters, and fighters in 4e were more fun to play because of their powers, even if the encounter or daily limits didn't make sense.

Doesn't matter what the damage scale is if there are maneuvers that do no damage at all. If it takes 10 hits to kill an enemy and you bull rush them 5 ft backwards so that an ally can get flanking, you've made the enemy take 11 hits to kill instead of 10. It's the same as healing them. Sure, if adding 2 to an ally's attack is enough to dramatically increase your allies chance to hit enough that it makes up for your lack of damage(hint, it isn't...in 99% of circumstances), then it's a good idea....otherwise, it only helps the enemy.

How about a system that has maneuvers that always deal damage but if the attack roll beat AC by a certain amount, the maneuver triggers. On this thread it was pointed out that 4e martial at will hits can be broken down to roughly 1[w] plus some effect, so the idea of dealing damage and an effect isn't new. If a character wants to try to disarm an appointent, he makes a "disarm attack"; or to trip, a "trip attack"; or to push, a "push attack." He rolls. If he hits he deals 1[w] plus mod damage. If he beats the AC by an extra amount (TBD by people better at DnD math than me) then the disarm or trip or push also happens. This way trying cool maneuvers doesn't waste attacks, doesn't punish characters for trying them, but does make them special in that they'll happen less often. An always available option for everyone for when no maneuvers are desired or appropriate would be a "power attack," which would grant extra damage if the AC was beat by a certain amount. (So the question would be, do I want to do damage and try to do more damage, or do I want to do damage and try to trip; not, do I want to do damage and that's it, or do I want to do no damage and try to trip.) Fighters would be better at these maneuvers because they would have a higher attack bonus.

I think this makes sense in minute long combat round melee where it is assumed both sides are swinging and parrying and dodging. By making a disarm attack, the player is saying: "My character is looking for the opportunity to knock the sword from that orc. But of course if that option doesn't present itself, I'm still trying to cut his arm off."

This could be combined with another idea from this thread that gives fighters stances (this way fighters -- or other martial characters -- would still have their own special mechanic). When in a stance if the player rolls a high enough number, or beats AC by a certain amount, it triggers an ability. Again, it simulates that the fighter is in a stance/mindset and looking for an opportunity to do something special, but not going to give up a chance to do damage, because in the end, the goal is to kill.

It was also suggested earlier on this forum that after the roll, if the roll was high enough, the player could chose a bonus (like trip or push). I think the problem with this is the fighter is still saying, "I attack, I attack, I attack," and then waiting for the roll to see if he gets to do something cool. I'd rather be saying, "I attack and want to try to push him down the stairs." A small difference, but I'd rather be thinking about what I'm going to do and trying to roll for it, not roll and then trying to decide what I'm going to do. (That might slow play down too.)

 

[Li Shenron]

Doesn't matter what the damage scale is if there are maneuvers that do no damage at all. If it takes 10 hits to kill an enemy and you bull rush them 5 ft backwards so that an ally can get flanking, you've made the enemy take 11 hits to kill instead of 10. It's the same as healing them. Sure, if adding 2 to an ally's attack is enough to dramatically increase your allies chance to hit enough that it makes up for your lack of damage(hint, it isn't...in 99% of circumstances), then it's a good idea....otherwise, it only helps the enemy.

...

I think you say reasonable things, but for me the problem is that these examples are more or less the result of having too much of a straightforward approach to the combat phase (I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about all of us gamers in general), where people only ever think in terms of damage because the only strategy they can think of is killing monsters and take their stuff.

I don't say that it's badwrongfun, I just say that if this is the only reference then of course everything else than "I attack" works only if you can evaluate in terms of equivalent damage (or like you say, in terms of how many rounds it takes to kill the monster if you use this other option), and then the possible outcomes are:

a- the alternative action is equivalent to more damage than "I attack" -> broken! the fighter with this option is using it all the time!
b- the alternative action is equivalent to less damage than "I attack" -> useless! the fighter is never using it!
c- the alternative action is equivalent to the same damage than "I attack" -> same as b OR it's used just for flavor

There seems to be no escape... but there is!

The point is that those alternative options should not be always a/b/c, but they should shift among the three cases depending on (1) circumstances, and (2) purposes.

Just the first example coming to my mind, since you mention bullrushing: I've never seen bullrushing used to get flanking or something other minor advantage, I've seen it used instead when it might really make a difference, for example to push someone off a bridge/cliff or into a very bad place (trap, lava, river...).

For circumstances, the DM is responsible to provide them and the players are responsible to think about them. I don't know however if the rules should really get wordy on this! Maybe it's best that the books provide guidelines and suggestions, and the actual handling of this is left to the intelligence of the gaming group.

For purposes, clearly the players are responsible, but the DM is too. I mean, picture a RL pub fight: if A trips B once, then B gets up and continues the fight, if A trips B twice or thrice, I think B gets the point and leaves the fight. If A grapples B, then B tries to break free or strike from grappled, but if A holds the grapple long enough, B realizes he hasn't much chance and gives up. Again, I'm not sure if I want the rules to get too specific here, because they can actually cause more problems than not, but if the players+DM do not want to ever play anything different than "fight to the death until one party kills the other" then I don't blame it on the system.

I understand that you want the system to provide tools to make something else than attack/damage more "efficient", but I think the problem is here: that "efficiency" is the only mantra everybody has in mind. But if that's the case, maybe we're just crafting our own design trap.

 

[SensoryThought]

I wouldn't mind simpler class based combat maneuvers for martial characters that give status effects (disarm, stun, daze, knock prone, push/pull/slide etc). Or to give multiple attacks (like a cleave or burst 1 axe sweep).

And perhaps link combat maneuvers to something like healing surges - you can draw on reserves to do the same thing many times. But it costs you something to add a rider to your basic attack.

And please don't just shout down the idea because 3.x people hate healing surges.

I like 4e powers in that they give fighters more than 'I swing my sword at the orc' but I do find they suppress creativity.

 

[Hassassin]

Doesn't matter what the damage scale is if there are maneuvers that do no damage at all. If it takes 10 hits to kill an enemy and you bull rush them 5 ft backwards so that an ally can get flanking, you've made the enemy take 11 hits to kill instead of 10. It's the same as healing them. Sure, if adding 2 to an ally's attack is enough to dramatically increase your allies chance to hit enough that it makes up for your lack of damage(hint, it isn't...in 99% of circumstances), then it's a good idea....otherwise, it only helps the enemy.

I don't see what the problem is. Bull rush has an opportunity cost (just try to deal damage) and benefits that might be just setting up a +2 flanking bonus*, but can also include pushing past a line of enemies defending a spellcaster (overrun might be a better choice), pushing an enemy back from *your* spellcaster, provoking attacks of opportunity against the enemy from adjacent allies, etc.

* This potentially multiplies expected damage in the case of 3e rogues. There are many other situations where someone else is able to deal significantly more damage than you against a specific enemy in 3e, like DR-bypassing weapons and other monster weaknesses.

 

[Mattachine]

Simply put, maneuvers have to be weighed against that opportunity cost (doing damage). That could be an attack penalty for extremely good maneuvers (grapple, disarm), doing less damage but getting a rider (bullrush, overrun), or maybe both (trip).

If the special attack also inflicts some damage, that allows the cost to be compared and adjusted more easily. Instead of comparing full damage to bull rush, it would be comparing full damage to reduced damage and bull rush.

 

[Dornam]

Maneuvers seem a good idea. The problem with powers 4e style for me was not that they were vancian but they were often meaningless unless you used a battlemat.

 

[Janaxstrus]

I wouldn't mind simpler class based combat maneuvers for martial characters that give status effects (disarm, stun, daze, knock prone, push/pull/slide etc). Or to give multiple attacks (like a cleave or burst 1 axe sweep).

And perhaps link combat maneuvers to something like healing surges - you can draw on reserves to do the same thing many times. But it costs you something to add a rider to your basic attack.

And please don't just shout down the idea because 3.x people hate healing surges.

I like 4e powers in that they give fighters more than 'I swing my sword at the orc' but I do find they suppress creativity.

And I dislike 4e powers because they were "not-magic" magic. Everyone did the same thing with a different name.

Should fighters have more to do? Yes.
Cleaves, bullrushes, trips, whirlwinds etc etc, should all be things they can do without blowing all of their feats on them. However, if they make them daily, encounter, whatever powers, it will be a deal breaker for many people.

Not a huge fan of the Tome of Battle stuff either, as too much of it was giving fighters magic powers, but not calling it that. I like a strict break between what a fighter can do naturally and what a mage has to use magic for.

So yes, to more abilities to fighters. No, to magic-lite abilities for fighters

 

[Hussar]

I don't see what the problem is. Bull rush has an opportunity cost (just try to deal damage) and benefits that might be just setting up a +2 flanking bonus*, but can also include pushing past a line of enemies defending a spellcaster (overrun might be a better choice), pushing an enemy back from *your* spellcaster, provoking attacks of opportunity against the enemy from adjacent allies, etc.

* This potentially multiplies expected damage in the case of 3e rogues. There are many other situations where someone else is able to deal significantly more damage than you against a specific enemy in 3e, like DR-bypassing weapons and other monster weaknesses.

The problem is, at least with the examples you give, that there are pretty much always better choices than what you present. The fighter (and typically only the fighter will be strong enough) gives up his attacks to grant a +2 bonus to another character? That's not going to fly. Why would it?

Hrm, I have the best chance to hit this monster and I do the most damage (or if not the most then certainly second best), but, I'm going to forego that so that Bob over here gets an extra 10% chance to hit? Unless Bob has the only weapon that can hit the monster, then that's a bad choice. It's FAR better for me to take the poke, do some damage, than to gamble that Bob is only going to miss by 2 or less. It's a sucker bet.

DR is rarely an issue. Again, the odds favor that the fighter will have the right DR bypassing weapon before anyone else on the table. And, as far as pushing the baddie away from the wizard, well, 1. Why isn't the wizard just moving back? and 2. I'm giving up my attacks to move the bad guy back 5 feet - which he's just going to go around me again anyway even if I succeed. Since I have no real way to prevent his movement, my action was largely a waste of time.

Giving up attacks in 3e is almost never a better tactic. There's a reason the trip fighter build was so popular. You got to trip AND attack. Which is pretty much the basis for all 4e fighter powers. You get to do damage AND do something funky.

If I'm taking penalties to my attack, or giving up my attack entirely, then the rewards for doing so should at the very least, meet what I'm giving up. If I'm giving up an average of 20 points of damage (just picking a random number) then whatever effect I'm aiming for better be equivalent.

Is a +2 to hit worth 20 points of damage?