Ampersand: Sneak Attack

[MaelStorm]

ALL game mechanics have to be taken on "suspension of disbelief", just like most all movies or other entertainments. Why can't you hire a lawyer in monopoly to fight your arrest and going to jail? Why does rolling dice three times automatically spring you whether you succeed or not? Why couldn't Gandalf just call some of his eagle buddies and have Frodo drop the ring into Mount doom that same afternoon? Same idea -- you have to build justifications for why the "fun" route needs to be taken.

I totally agree with you. Particularly with the "suspension of disbelief".

I'm not unhappy with this. It's more fun to have tricks that you can bring out of the pocket in an encounter but only once in a while. Strategic options is always a big plus.

 

[Dalvyn]

I still can't put my head around the per encounter/per day powers. I don't see why torturous strike is a per encounter power, How the enemies seeing me doing it stop me from "twist the blade in the wound" a second time? or the first time they didn't know I wanted to hurt them?. I don't understand the rationale that make Crimson edge a per day encounter, it doesn't look something incredibly tiring or that need some kind of supernatural concentration like stunning fist. That you need to do it to balance them it is clear, but it is just not justification enough for me.

I agree that there is a problem there ... actually, I see 2 problems.

The first problem is whether or not it "makes sense" to have a once-per-encounter or once-per-day restriction on those powers. I, for one, do not like having such a restriction in the rule when the restriction does not exist in my "imaginary world". Others do not mind (as pointed out by Henry above), so I guess that part is subjective.

The second problem I see with setting rule restrictions that are not based on the "physics" of the imaginary world is that it forces players and DMs to memorize those unnatural restrictions. In this particular case, players and DMs will have to memorize that Crimson Edge is usable once per day, and that Torturous Strike is usable once per encounter. Those restrictions do not follow from what those powers are, and thus need to be memorized on their own.

Compare it with, for example, the restriction in 3.5 that you have to move at least 10 feet when you charge. That kind of restriction "makes sense": if you do not move, you just can't charge. Note that I'm not saying that 3.5 had no restrictions that needed to be memorized; I'm only pointing out that, based on that thief preview, there will be more memorizing to do in 4E. Either more memorizing (which is bad), or more looking in the book during the game (which is equally bad).

 

[Caliber]

I think a pretty good analogue here is the 3.5 Monk and his Stunning Fist ability. Its a completely non-magical ability (works in anti-magic fields!) but he only can do it X/day. If you can accept that, whats the problem with Rogues and their per-encounter/per-day abilities?

 

[Ahglock]

.

So, really you have one of two choices: Bow to the "realistic" or "logical" way of doing things and don't give fighters, rogues and similar characters any per encounter or per day abilities OR give them the abilities and not care that the justification is just as thin as the one for caster types.

If the second choice makes the game more fun the play then I say choose that one and gloss over the reasons.

There are more choices than that.

A 3rd choice would be to have martial powers be described in some way that the restrictions does make a degree of sense in the context of a fantasy world. Don't make a knife twist move a per encounter ability, make abilities that seem like they would take something out of you to perform per encounter abilities, and make the per day abilities be abilites that clearly push you beyond human limits so performing would normally be either impossible or down right damaging to yourself.

Knife twist at will.
adrenaline strike per encounter
Shadow Step, where you move so fast you can move anywhere within 6 squares as a free action per day.

 

[Ulthwithian]

[off-topic]
What the heck is with all this "katanae" and "ninjae" business? Did I miss the internet memo in which we were all instructed to append bogus latin pluralizations to Japanese nouns?

The English plural of katana is katanas. The Japanese plural of katana is katana.

If my Japanese knowledge doesn't fall me, the way to pluralize something (that, granted, is used very seldomly) is to append tachi (sometimes changing the the 't' to a voiced 'd') to the word in question. Thus, katanatachi. However, Japanese very rarely employs the plural where English does. 'Where are all the katanas?' probably would not use the plural in Japanese.

Anyway. Re: the sneak attack with various weapons issue, it's possible that there's a question of concealability as well as accuracy. I do think the argument that the added versatility of a crossbow as opposed to a bow has some merit, as well.

 

[Ahglock]

I think a pretty good analogue here is the 3.5 Monk and his Stunning Fist ability. Its a completely non-magical ability (works in anti-magic fields!) but he only can do it X/day. If you can accept that, whats the problem with Rogues and their per-encounter/per-day abilities?

Because the monk is just a martial artist he is a quasi-mystic unarmed combatant. He is using his chi, or chakra or whatever to preform certain moves, and they are described as such. You could probably have a move that has the same game mechanics of twist the blade in the game but call it pain strike and describe it as focusing negative chi so it flows through your blade and into the target and it works fine as a per encounter ability.

Basically they are professional writers they should spend the time to make the flavor text of an ability fit its at will, per encounter, or per day usage.

edit to catch the poor grammar I can catch.

 

[Just Another User]

I think a pretty good analogue here is the 3.5 Monk and his Stunning Fist ability. Its a completely non-magical ability (works in anti-magic fields!) but he only can do it X/day. If you can accept that, whats the problem with Rogues and their per-encounter/per-day abilities?

No, I had problem with that, too. Generally speaking I was never a fan of arbitrary (i.e. non explicitelly magical) per day abilities, they just make my Sospension of Disbelief itch like crazy, but a) I never cared for monks too much and b) while not magical it can be explained with some reference to Ki, or focus, or some other kind of mystic technobabble (just because it works in a antimagic field it doesn't mean it is not "magical", so I just ignored it but in 4E these things are everywhere one can't just ignore them.

 

[AllisterH]

Because the monk is just a martial artist he is a quasi-mystic unarmed combatant. He is using his chi, or chakra or whatever to preform certain moves, and they are described as such. You could probably have a move that has the same game mechanics of twist the blade in the game but call it pain strike and describe it as focusing negative chi so it flows through your blade and into the target and it works fine as a per encounter ability.

Basically they are professional writers they should spend the time to make the flavor text of an ability fit its at will, per encounter, or per day usage.

edit to catch the poor grammar I can catch.

Er, but as many people mention, they HATE the ki/anime/shonen/wuxia feel of the monk and even though I personally will describe it like that, I don't think WOTC should though.

 

[Just Another User]

There are more choices than that.

A 3rd choice would be to have martial powers be described in some way that the restrictions does make a degree of sense in the context of a fantasy world. Don't make a knife twist move a per encounter ability, make abilities that seem like they would take something out of you to perform per encounter abilities, and make the per day abilities be abilites that clearly push you beyond human limits so performing would normally be either impossible or down right damaging to yourself.

Knife twist at will.
adrenaline strike per encounter
Shadow Step, where you move so fast you can move anywhere within 6 squares as a free action per day.

Well, it could work, except when you are too tired to do a shadow step, but not too tired to do <insert name of another, equally exausting per day power>
I'm considering the idea to do something like, you can attempt to use the same encounter/day power twice (or more), but every time you try you add a cumulative malus to the check, of course I had to see the rules as a whole to see if it is viable.

so positioning strike first time dex vs will
second (dex -X) vs will
third (dex - 2X) vs will
etc
so you can attempt it more than once but it get harder and harder.
(Maybe add some details like X could be greater for higher level powers.)
I would have less problems with this approach.

 

[AllisterH]

Well, it could work, except when you are too tired to do a shadow step, but not too tired to do <insert name of another, equally exausting per day power>
I'm considering the idea to do something like, you can attempt to use the same encounter/day power twice (or more), but every time you try you add a cumulative malus to the check, of course I had to see the rules as a whole to see if it is viable.

so positioning strike first time dex vs will
second dex -X vs will
third dex - 2X vs will
etc
so you can attempt it more than once but it get harder and harder.
(Maybe add some details like X could be greater for higher level powers.)
I would have less problems with this approach.

Of course, we should keep in mind, we are only looking at a section of the class. Especially if Bo9S was any indication, there probably is either

a)feat that allows one to reuse an encounter power
b) simple rules in the encounter power section that says, "if you use no powers in a round, you "refresh" your encounter powers.
c) similar rules that allow one to use a daily power more than once.