Alright already!!!

[HP Dreadnought]

Apparently some people don't understand how the new rules shape actions in combat, so I'm going to explain it to them. . .

I keep seeing the complaints about "the fighter is just going to use his -at will- power all the time once his per day/per enc abilities are gone."

Let's take a step back for a second and look at 3.5:

In 3.5 the fighter pretty much did one of two things EVERY round. Moved and attacked once, or whenever possible stood still to get a full attack sequence.

The next round, he would move and attack, or full attack.

The round after that he would move and attack or full attack.

After that, he might get daring. . . . . and move and attack, or full attack.

Sense a pattern here.

In 4E, he's actually going to have some options:

1. Per day special attacks
2. Per encounter special attacks
3. Sounds like traps/terrain could play a larger role in combat
4. Sounds like there will be rules for stunts. . . swinging from chandeliers etc.
5. The elimination of iterative attacks/full attack actions mean that he's going to be more free to move about the battlefield.

Alright. . . so what about the using the at-will power over and over again. . . .

Here's what people aren't understanding:

The -at will- power isn't a "power" it *IS* the fighter's normal attack. Its just like a 3E fighter's full attack sequence.

Its only written as a power to make for an easy, cohesive system of governing what actions the fighter can take in combat, and what he has to give up to do them. They could just as easily have written in a penalty to the attack of every special ability the fighter uses in lieu of his -at will- power.

But its much easier for everyone if they just describe his normal attack as an "At will power" that switches off when you try a special maneuver.

So, in short, the 4E fighter is going to have a lot more alternatives in combat than the 3.x fighter ever did, and the fighter's "at will" power is just the 4E version of a full attack action, so it will understandably see a fair amount of use. But that's better than the 3.x fighter which pretty much used ONLY full attack actions whenever he could.

 

[FireLance]

What amuses me more are the complaints that a 4e wizard spends every round casting Magic Missile once he is out of encounter and daily spells.

 

[Darkthorne]

What amuses me more are the complaints that a 4e wizard spends every round casting Magic Missile once he is out of encounter and daily spells.

<crying from laughing so hard> Yup, this one is very funny! You think people would be happy their mage of choice isn't pulling out a crossbow and hoping their god of choice was watching at that moment to let them roll a 20!

 

[Cadfan]

On top of that, he gets two at will powers at level 1, many of which accomplish something in addition to damage that makes the situationally more or less useful. This means that even a fighter using only at will powers should have a bit more variety than we're accustomed to seeing.

 

[Storminator]

To be fair, you could do a lot with the fighter.

With Trip, Disarm, Sunder, Bullrush and Grapple you had a lot of options even before we get to the Expertise, Power Attack, Fight Defensively series.

And then there was the Longsword & Spiked Buckler fighter that got to chose between Sword and Board, Two-handed, and TWF every round. And if you had Quickdraw, you could throw a dagger in any part of those attack sequences.

Granted I wrote an excel spreadsheet to calculate all the modifiers each round so that I could actually play a high level fighter...

PS

 

[Dragonbait]

To be fair, you could do a lot with the fighter.

With Trip, Disarm, Sunder, Bullrush and Grapple you had a lot of options even before we get to the Expertise, Power Attack, Fight Defensively series.
PS

In theory, absolutely true, but in practice? Not so much.

Grapple (without placing two to three feats in Grapple) goes out the window when you are fighting Large or larger creatures, since they stack high strength (+8 minimum) and size bonus (for bull rush or grapple). If you are a fighter or barbarian, you are isolating yourself to a single enemy. Great for boss-type fights if it's just the PCs versus a medium-sized caster, but not when you are fighting mobs unless there are other guys that can stand up to the enemies.

Would you be willing to sunder that magic shield that the enemy has? If you kill him, you can take it for your own. Decisions, decisions..

 

[SmilingPiePlate]

What I like about what I've seen is that the encounter/daily power mechanic has freed special combat options from the need to be difficult/disadvantageous to use in some way.

Trip had to have penalties or a risk associated with using it without feats, or else people would just trip all the time. Did you ever play NWN, with it's ridiculous "knockdown" feat? Hit someone and they're knocked prone and can't hit you back until they stand back up, at which point, of course, you knock them down again. It was much, much easier to do than tripping currently is in 3.5, and there was no risk of being tripped if you failed.

But, if they put a cooldown, to use an MMO term, on trip, they can make it easy to do because there's no risk of the fighter spamming trip at everything he encounters so the party can stab it to death while he uses his AoO every time it tries to stand up to trip it again.

Also, the trip Exploit for fighters definitely needs to be called "Swift Kick to the Shin".

 

[I'm A Banana]

The -at will- power isn't a "power" it *IS* the fighter's normal attack. Its just like a 3E fighter's full attack sequence.

Yes, but I think you miss the point:

Doing the same attack every round is boring.

If the fighter is going to use his at-will power over and over again every round, it's going to be boring.

The criticism is that if a fighter is just doing the same thing over and over again in every round, that's a bad thing. And if 4e suffers from this problem, it would be a bad thing.

I do think 4e is going to have enough options that people will at least be deciding between as many things as they were in 3e (Do I apply expertise? Power attack? Do I try to flank? Do I charged, or use my bow?), but the decisions will be different (Power X or Power Y?)

There's also a slight criticism that there should always be a place for a "normal attack," one that doesn't use any powers. 4e seems to have deliberately made the normal attack a pretty rare thing, so whatever happens with that, it's working as intended.

Once again: The sins of the previous edition don't excuse the sins of the next. If 4e does something to expand the fighter's options, it'll be doing a good thing.

 

[Wolfspider]

Once again: The sins of the previous edition don't excuse the sins of the next.

Thanks! Your little declaration here put into words perfectly the reason why I feel irritation whenever someone trops out v3.5 to defend some aspect of v4.0.

Do you mind if I sig you?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Do you mind if I sig you?

Not at all. Maybe it'll cut down on the number of times I'll have to repeat that little mantra in half the threads 'round here.