D&D 5E "But Wizards Can Fly, Teleport and Turn People Into Frogs!"

[Ahnehnois]

A skilled operator will attempt the moves only when they are likely to work - but that will not be all the time.

And a skilled operator is skilled only once in any particular day, whenever it is most convenient for him, and becomes less skilled after that?

It models making timing and opportunity decisions, which is more than any other system we have so far does. It's not perfect, I'll agree - but at least it makes an actual attempt to model this aspect of skill.

It doesn't model them at all. Opportunity can be employed as a post hoc explanation for how and why such an ability worked, but there's nothing in the mechanic itself that is reflective of circumstances, and the time limitation of the ability has nothing to do with the timing of opportunities. A per-day (or per-encounter, or whatever) ability is usable only so many times, a number that is completely independent of whether such opportunities are occurring in the game world.

You could, but many seem to cry foul at the complexity of the action economy already.

Indeed. You can't generally get more tactical depth without adding mechanical complexity. I'm just saying that if you're going to add complexity (and powers are extremely intricate and complex), you should be getting some improvements in gameplay in exchange for doing so. And I think there are vastly better cost-benefit options in this paradigm than the Vancian model, especially for nonmagical abilities.

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[MENTION=6700092]JustinAlexander[/MENTION]
Yeah, I've been there.

 

[Umbran]

Folks,

With discussion among the moderators, it has been agreed that this thread has too much of a history of borderline edition warring and general personal snarking to be really constructive. It has had a good run, but it is time to let it rest. Thanks to all who kept it friendly.