Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Alex319" data-source="post: 4943550" data-attributes="member: 45678">That seems like an idea that might get you a lot closer to what you're looking for (if I am understanding you correctly). But that could have its own problems. Take the example given, &quot;when your target is off-balance.&quot; In order for effects that have this trigger to be useful the players would have to have some way of forcing targets off-balance, and presumably monsters would have to have some way of getting back on balance. So what action is it to knock an enemy off balance? What kind of attack or skill check do you have to make? How long does it last? What countermeasures are available, in case an enemy tries to use that tactic on the PCs? All these are questions that you would have to figure out the answers to in order to be able to use these tactics. Expecting players to use &quot;common sense&quot; or &quot;logic&quot; in order to figure them out is dicey (no pun intended), because a lot of what people think of as &quot;common sense&quot; is just plain wrong (see <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/186860-realistic-combat.html" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/186860-realistic-combat.html</a>, or watch a few episodes of MythBusters), one player's &quot;common sense&quot; can differ markedly from another's, and there's a lot of elements of the game (like magic and certain monsters) that have no real-world counterparts.This reminds me of another, more general thought I had relating to this issue. I'm not sure how much it applies to your situation but it's worth mentioning. A lot of proposals for new combat systems center around the idea of replacing the current &quot;effects first, action second&quot; paradigm, where your combat options are defined by their effects (like the existing powers) and you describe whatever you want consistent with those effects, with an &quot;action first, effects second&quot; paradigm where the player describes what action they want to perform, and then the DM translates them (or the system has rules for translating them) into &quot;game mechanics&quot; language. The problem with this second paradigm, however, is that the reason why a particular action is useful is because of its mechanical effects. An action like &quot;I knock him off-balance&quot; or &quot;I try to slice off his armor&quot; isn't something a character in a life-and-death battle would do because it's &quot;cinematic&quot; or looks cool, it's something that they do because it has some particular effect (like making him an easier target for a follow-up attack) and achieving that effect is the best use of his actions or resources at this particular point in the battle. So if the player doesn't know what effects a particular action could have or what the mechanics are for setting up a particular tactic, then they have no basis for coming up with an effective strategy. And relying on &quot;common sense&quot; or real-world knowledge to fill in those gaps is problematic as described above.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Alex319, post: 4943550, member: 45678"] That seems like an idea that might get you a lot closer to what you're looking for (if I am understanding you correctly). But that could have its own problems. Take the example given, "when your target is off-balance." In order for effects that have this trigger to be useful the players would have to have some way of forcing targets off-balance, and presumably monsters would have to have some way of getting back on balance. So what action is it to knock an enemy off balance? What kind of attack or skill check do you have to make? How long does it last? What countermeasures are available, in case an enemy tries to use that tactic on the PCs? All these are questions that you would have to figure out the answers to in order to be able to use these tactics. Expecting players to use "common sense" or "logic" in order to figure them out is dicey (no pun intended), because a lot of what people think of as "common sense" is just plain wrong (see [url]http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/186860-realistic-combat.html[/url], or watch a few episodes of MythBusters), one player's "common sense" can differ markedly from another's, and there's a lot of elements of the game (like magic and certain monsters) that have no real-world counterparts. This reminds me of another, more general thought I had relating to this issue. I'm not sure how much it applies to your situation but it's worth mentioning. A lot of proposals for new combat systems center around the idea of replacing the current "effects first, action second" paradigm, where your combat options are defined by their effects (like the existing powers) and you describe whatever you want consistent with those effects, with an "action first, effects second" paradigm where the player describes what action they want to perform, and then the DM translates them (or the system has rules for translating them) into "game mechanics" language. The problem with this second paradigm, however, is that [B]the reason why a particular action is useful is because of its mechanical effects[/B][I].[/I] An action like "I knock him off-balance" or "I try to slice off his armor" isn't something a character in a life-and-death battle would do because it's "cinematic" or looks cool, it's something that they do because it has some particular effect (like making him an easier target for a follow-up attack) and achieving that effect is the best use of his actions or resources at this particular point in the battle. So if the player doesn't know what effects a particular action could have or what the mechanics are for setting up a particular tactic, then they have no basis for coming up with an effective strategy. And relying on "common sense" or real-world knowledge to fill in those gaps is problematic as described above. [/QUOTE]

Verification