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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zustiur" data-source="post: 5864481" data-attributes="member: 1544">Agreed. Then this is the point where you and I differ...This is the thing. To me, having a thing that is 'very likely going to happen' ceases to be awesome. I've been thinking about this. During the 3 years I've been playing 4E, there has been very few moments in combat that I would call truly awesome. Most of them involved rediculous setups. Example1: having high perception and rolling well to pin point (by sound alone) a LBEG in total darkness and kill him with a critical hit.Example2: Again in darkness, finding myself more or less surrounded and going to town with a new daily blast power, at point blank range, getting several OAs against me, and coming out completely undamaged.Neither of those situations was likely, let alone 'very likely'.In fact, most of the moments in battle that actually stick in my memory involve Crits. That is, 5% chances. Or less.And this is exactly the opposite of where I want to go.There are several reasons for this. 1) The character did not 'feed his hand to the dragon'. The dragon attacked the character. 2) [As I understand it] the character would have been able to poison the dragon with a normal attack.3) Poisoning the dragon through an attack would not have been awesome as that was what they were all trying to do. It was also established as being about they only way of killing it4) Killing a creature in the only way that you can kill it isn't awesome. 5) I gather this was some sort of boss creature that they'd built up to fighting. That renders the encounter 'cool' automatically. It would not have mattered how they killed it, the encounter still would have been cool.6) The dragon bit off the character's limb. Meh, that doesn't really fall one way or the other on it's own because that character can regenerate limbs.7) The fact it just happened to be the limb which was poisoned is what makes the event awesome. You see, for me to use the word awesome, the event must be quite extraordinary. Using a power that is near guaranteed offers no 'awesome' for me. It might please me, it might be cool, it might make me smile, but it won't have me saying 'Holy crap, that was awesome!'.Agreed on the goal, but this is where I seem to have been taken out of context. The system I proposed has far fewer penalties than base 3E. At this early design stage I'm already factoring in a limit to how many bonuses you can apply - thus preventing the overuse problem. Let me therefore repeat, in 4E terms:Unarmed TripAt WillStandard Action, MeleeTarget: One creatureAttack: Strength vs ReflexHit: You knock the target prone.The only 'penalty' to using this is giving up a basic attack.Armed TripAt WillStandard Action, Melee weaponTarget: One creatureAttack: Strength -5 vs Reflex and AC *SpecialHit: If you exceed AC, you deal [W] + Strength modifier damage. If you exceed Reflex, you knock the target prone. If you exceed both, apply both effects.The only penalty to using this is the -5. It is there simply because you are doing two things at once - damage and knocking the target prone.NOW I must point out, my system is built around the idea that a 'melee basic attack' is the default standard against which things are measured. I do not like the way at will powers are always better than MBA in 4E, that's my personal beef. Hence, my system is balanced in a way that no 'at will' effect should ever be a complete replacement for MBA. This is why the -5 penalty exists. This is also why the Unarmed Trip does no damage.In terms of actual chances to hit, this is no where near the 5% chance you seem to be worried about. If you're willing to give up damage for one round, you can make an attack with what should actually be better than average odds of succeeding (REF is usually lower than AC).If you're not willing to give up damage, you can take a penalty to the attack roll in the hope of dealing both effects. This is a -25% on your basic attack, yes, but it comes with the added bonus that you only have to beat the lower of AC and REF in order to have some effect.I want these special attacks to be balanced enough that they're valid tactics in any encounter. I do not want to see the same ones every encounter.* 3E penalties make the effects not turn up at all. * Powers make the same effects turn up every encounter.* I want something in the middle.Without the odds, what should have been amazing is merely expected. I find that plain Jane boring. Our tastes differ.</blockquote>

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