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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 5858288" data-attributes="member: 5143">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.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.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.</blockquote>

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