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*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Beyond Old and New School - "The Secret That Was Lost"
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6232015" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I think MHRP could deliver an excellent battle captain - obviously mechanically quite different from the 4e one (but what else would you expect?), but it would be a character built around giving assets to your friends in appropriate combat situations, and you'd probably have a SFX that let you add a die to your pool and keep a bonus effect die as an asset for your ally under the appropriate circumstances. (Same caveat as above - this mechanic has not been fully though through, but is an attempt to outline how something might reasonably be done.)</p><p></p><p>It sounds like you might have taken something I was presenting as a necessary condition <em>given certain constraints</em> to have been intended as a necessary condition per se.</p><p></p><p>I don't think you need fiddly (square based, inch based, whatever) movement to have a viable warlord, as the MHRP idea shows. (And again I assume FATE could handle this in some similar sort of form within the scope of its Fate point economy.) But <em>if you have such movement</em>, and the relationship between action economy and the passage of ingame time which goes with it - and all versions of D&D have this, except 13th Age - then I think it is hard to have a satisfying battle captain who does not somehow engage with those elements of the game. This is because the presence of those elements precludes, or at least gets in the way, of interpreting (say) a bonus to hit as helping someone move into a better position, because there is no actual movement by the beneficiary at least as movement is defined in the game rules.</p><p></p><p>I know some people use Fate-style aspects in D&D, and I don't know the details of how they do that, but I don't see how you can include aspects that - in Fate itself - would be seen as going to advantageous position, or greater speed, or anything like that, while still using the default D&D approach of treating time and distance in a roughly process-simulation fashion.</p><p></p><p>I can't remember if it was you or someone else - it might have been [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] - who complained that D&Dnext defines effects in terms of feet (eg ranges are in feet, Thunderwave pushes targets so many feet, etc) but then expects the group to use "theatre of the mind" - which means those distances really become simply cues for GM handwaving. I think it is something like this same feature of D&Dnext that is an impediment to improvising a satisfactory battle captain.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6232015, member: 42582"] I think MHRP could deliver an excellent battle captain - obviously mechanically quite different from the 4e one (but what else would you expect?), but it would be a character built around giving assets to your friends in appropriate combat situations, and you'd probably have a SFX that let you add a die to your pool and keep a bonus effect die as an asset for your ally under the appropriate circumstances. (Same caveat as above - this mechanic has not been fully though through, but is an attempt to outline how something might reasonably be done.) It sounds like you might have taken something I was presenting as a necessary condition [I]given certain constraints[/I] to have been intended as a necessary condition per se. I don't think you need fiddly (square based, inch based, whatever) movement to have a viable warlord, as the MHRP idea shows. (And again I assume FATE could handle this in some similar sort of form within the scope of its Fate point economy.) But [I]if you have such movement[/I], and the relationship between action economy and the passage of ingame time which goes with it - and all versions of D&D have this, except 13th Age - then I think it is hard to have a satisfying battle captain who does not somehow engage with those elements of the game. This is because the presence of those elements precludes, or at least gets in the way, of interpreting (say) a bonus to hit as helping someone move into a better position, because there is no actual movement by the beneficiary at least as movement is defined in the game rules. I know some people use Fate-style aspects in D&D, and I don't know the details of how they do that, but I don't see how you can include aspects that - in Fate itself - would be seen as going to advantageous position, or greater speed, or anything like that, while still using the default D&D approach of treating time and distance in a roughly process-simulation fashion. I can't remember if it was you or someone else - it might have been [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] - who complained that D&Dnext defines effects in terms of feet (eg ranges are in feet, Thunderwave pushes targets so many feet, etc) but then expects the group to use "theatre of the mind" - which means those distances really become simply cues for GM handwaving. I think it is something like this same feature of D&Dnext that is an impediment to improvising a satisfactory battle captain. [/QUOTE]
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