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<blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 6276496" data-attributes="member: 20323">It's interesting seeing the convention turning back to what a fighter can do, particularly at higher levels to make them useful against the supremacy of magic.My read is that when people talk about &quot;narrative dissonance&quot; with the 4e martial classes (ranger, rogue, fighter, warlord) or Tome of Battle 3.5e classes, it's not that they're totally opposed to some way to incorporate more powerful/limited use abilities into martial classes...it's that the execution has left them unable to figure out a compelling logical explanation. *Why* can a fighter use Brute Strike to deal 3[W] + STR damage once per day, &quot;shattering armor and bone with a ringing blow&quot;? 4e answers this on PHB page 54, explaining daily powers as &quot;the most powerful effects you can produce, and using one takes a significant toll on your physical and mental resources. If you're a martial character, you're reaching into your deepest reserves of energy to pull off an amazing exploit...&quot;So narratively, it is supposed to represent some kind of a fatigue track that is independent of a character's sleep cycle or the solar/lunar cycle. But the mechanics don't map to that...they map to the description of an arcane daily power as &quot;reciting a spell of such complexity that your mind can only hold it in place for so long, and once it's recited, it's wiped from your memory.&quot; That makes sense for D&amp;D magic, but not for what they're trying to model for martial characters.If instead you had something like &quot;Brute Strike (take X levels of fatigue, or spend X healing surges, after using this power&quot;), *that* would map to the way we think of a martial character working.So when you're asking this question, you've got to ask what it is exactly that you're trying to model? For example, if you said Hollywood Movie Scene Pacing Logic, then a per encounter/scene power makes a lot of sense! If you said a gritty approximation of western martial arts, not so much. It depends on your goals.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Quickleaf, post: 6276496, member: 20323"] It's interesting seeing the convention turning back to what a fighter can do, particularly at higher levels to make them useful against the supremacy of magic. My read is that when people talk about "narrative dissonance" with the 4e martial classes (ranger, rogue, fighter, warlord) or Tome of Battle 3.5e classes, it's not that they're totally opposed to some way to incorporate more powerful/limited use abilities into martial classes...it's that the execution has left them unable to figure out a compelling logical explanation. *Why* can a fighter use Brute Strike to deal 3[W] + STR damage once per day, "shattering armor and bone with a ringing blow"? 4e answers this on PHB page 54, explaining daily powers as "the most powerful effects you can produce, and using one takes a significant toll on your physical and mental resources. If you're a martial character, you're reaching into your deepest reserves of energy to pull off an amazing exploit..." So narratively, it is supposed to represent some kind of a fatigue track that is independent of a character's sleep cycle or the solar/lunar cycle. But the mechanics don't map to that...they map to the description of an arcane daily power as "reciting a spell of such complexity that your mind can only hold it in place for so long, and once it's recited, it's wiped from your memory." That makes sense for D&D magic, but not for what they're trying to model for martial characters. If instead you had something like "Brute Strike (take X levels of fatigue, or spend X healing surges, after using this power"), *that* would map to the way we think of a martial character working. So when you're asking this question, you've got to ask what it is exactly that you're trying to model? For example, if you said Hollywood Movie Scene Pacing Logic, then a per encounter/scene power makes a lot of sense! If you said a gritty approximation of western martial arts, not so much. It depends on your goals. [/QUOTE]

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