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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alex319" data-source="post: 4944165" data-attributes="member: 45678">I wasn't really trying to "toss FUD" or discourage you from trying new options, I was just trying to point out possible pitfalls before they happen. Of course some of the dynamics I've talked about may be what you want, in which case the new system would be good.But in fact, Garthanos' post gave (probably inadvertently) a good example of what I was talking about:And later...So here there's two different standards being applied. A "realistic" standard is being applied with respect to swordfighting multiple opponents, while that standard is not being applied with respect to the other things like weapon balance and wounding. So how is a player supposed to know, when choosing an action, what standard will be applied to judge the effects? And if he doesn't know, he'll have no way of knowing what actions are likely to yield the best effects.Perhaps now that I'm done talking about potential problems I could propose solutions:1. Set up clear standards for when certain abilities will work. For example in the "Spinning Sweep" example by LostSoul, you would need to tell the players "This power only works on off-balance targets with exactly two legs." This mitigates the problem described above.2. Allow players to ask the GM what the game effects of certain abilities would be before committing to them. For example if I say "I'm going to try to throw him to the ground," and I would have a hard time doing that because he's not off balance, then the DM should say that and give me a chance to choose a different action, not just silently give me a big penalty. This gets rid of the problem mentioned above, where players have to choose actions without having the relevant information.Actually this gave me another idea for doing the whole "fluff based triggering" thing in a more systematic way. Here's how it works:1. Set up a whole list of "conditions" - these work similarly to the existing conditions, and have ways of inflicting them and recovering from them. For example "off-balance" could beone of those conditions, and could be "-2 to attacks, and you can recover by spending a move action." Then you have your powers (which you could create via the BYOP system) trigger off of, and inflict, those conditions. You could design the BYOP system such that putting a requirement on a power is worth negative points. For example if "target has to be off-balance" is worth -1 point, then if you have PR 3, you can do a 4 point attack that requires the target be off-balance. You could also synergize the conditions and effects in a way that makes sense by, for instance, having in the description of off-balance "effects that knock this target prone cost 1 less PR", You could also add these effects to existing conditions. For example if being prone makes it easier to do a high damage shot in your example say under prone, "effects that do extra damage on melee attacks cost half as much PR" or something.2. This is the important part that makes all this more situational - give monsters defense bonuses (or penalties!) against particular conditions. For example a multiple legged monster could have a defense bonus "+4 vs. off-balance, +4 vs. prone" which means that he gets +4 defense against attacks that knock him off-balance or prone. Thus players have to tailor their attacks, combos, and tactics based on which conditions the monster is vulnerable to. You would also have to have a way of players figuring out which conditions the monster is vulnerable to, such as by just telling them off the bat, or with monster knowledge checks.</blockquote>

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