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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5864404" data-attributes="member: 42582">As I understand him, Hussar's concern is precisely that the history of the game suggests that the modifiers won't be kept in check.I think that that is a plausible concern, given the history of proliferating bonuses in every edition of D&D. It's very much a bonus-focused system, from its magic weapons to its feats and specialisation rules to its treatment of situational advantages.I've played a different system - Rolemaster - using something like a cumulative penalty mechanic to moderate the use of an "encounter power" (for those who care, I'm talking about the rules from RCIV for sustaining adrenal moves). But Rolemaster is very different from D&D in it's approach to bonuses, to magic items, to PC building etc. It's also a much swingier system, with rules for open-ended rolls, crits, fumbles, etc.Hussar noted in the post to which your replied that he's coming to have a distaste for randomness in his RPGing. I don't have the same distaste - I like randomness as one technique for generating the unexpected - but I think different systems work with randomness differently.And on a somewhat related point - your example brings out for me a point that I'm pretty sure I made upthread (or perhaps I made it on a different thread), namely, that these "special moves" really occupy the same design space as "save or die/suck". They are end-runs around the hit point mechanic. And this is another thing that distinguishes a game like D&D from a more crit-based game like RM or even RQ, in which inflicting powerful status effects is part and parcel of the ordinary damage rules.This is one consideration, I think, that tells agains "rationing by randomness" in D&D - because combat in D&D is heavily non-random, in virtue of the hit point attrition mechanic. But however exactly access to status-inflicting attacks is regulated, it seems to me highly desirable that it not make fighters either ovewhelmingly better at them, or overwhelmingly weaker at them, then PCs who are gaining access to these sorts of abilities via other mechanical paths (eg spells). And this is, I think, a further rationale behind 4e's encounter/daily approach.</blockquote>

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