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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pale Jackal" data-source="post: 4753105" data-attributes="member: 58878">Bonuses?  Extra damage?  Why did the player playing a Dragonborn Sorcerer spend his Encounter power "Thunderslam" to try and knock over a column onto the Blackscale Bruiser?  Well, partially because he's clearly into using the environment, but also because it did lots of damage.  If I just said "Roll your Thunderslam damage now," then that wouldn't be much of an incentive.One does have to worry about stupid stuff like "the bag of rats" but if it's all environmentally dependent, then the DM has absolute control when the bonus can or cannot come into play.  If nothing else, treat it like Feng Shui, the cooler your description, the better your bonus.  If there's a cost to the action, make sure it pays off, and make sure that the payoff is favorable to the investment involved.An extra 5 or 10 damage (or more, as they level and depending on actions invested in setting up the move) is worth the cool factor in your game.  I suppose one thing to avoid is having the investment be too great, at which point success or failure can really swing the battle... which is also cool, in its own way, but may discourage investment, since such behavior is too risky.But investing a standard action to prepare and then a standard action to execute to get a 25% increase in damage (compared to the average of two round's attacks), that seems like a good deal!  If they keep re-using the tactic because the environment allows it (in some cases it won't), then have diminishing returns.  It's kind of the rationale behind some Encounter abilities, "Oh no, he's not falling for THAT again!"</blockquote>

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