Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7024360" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Our goals are very similar. I don't suppose it would help to point out that I haven't seen anyone attempting complicated conditions in practice, and that combat is NOT chess-like?The reason &quot;charge&quot; sounds reasonable to me is that it maps very intuitively to something someone would actually do. I would be quite surprised if newbie roleplayers weren't about as likely as rule-hungry optimizers to declare a &quot;charge&quot;-type action. There are others on the thread who have mentioned that they'd handle this by having the DM offer to change the rule declaration on the fly, &quot;He's out of reach, do you want to keep running?&quot; I wouldn't do that, again because of my fencing experience, any more than I would suggest to players that they choose a more effective spell. But I view this as a minor detail that hasn't come up often in practice, and which DMs can easily tweak to their own taste.I would also say that rewarding forethought and mechanical precision is bad only to the extent that it's being rewarded in an unrealistic way which doesn't map to the game world. If you reward forethought in a way which maps to in-game forethought (Shadow Monk scouting ahead so the party can turn the upcoming ambush by three trolls, by exposing the Dex-y Rogue and Shadow Monk who both have Evasion so that the hidden wizard can pop out and Fireball the trolls by surprise once they've clumped up and the hidden fighter can Action Surge with his longbow and put down one of the trolls on the first round) then the game is both challenging and fun. Cyclic initiative requires the wrong kind of forethought; but I don't think letting the Barbarian keep running if his target moves (&quot;charge&quot;) requires the wrong kind of forethought. I think that forethought can happen in-character.It seems a bit complicated for my taste. I would just not allow complex conditions for ranged attacks like &quot;if he's dead I'll shoot at someone else&quot; the way I would for melee attacks. I wouldn't try to invent friendly fire rules like you are here. My intuition says you're going to pay more cost in complexity than the benefit you get in fun.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 7024360, member: 6787650"] Our goals are very similar. I don't suppose it would help to point out that I haven't seen anyone attempting complicated conditions in practice, and that combat is NOT chess-like? The reason "charge" sounds reasonable to me is that it maps very intuitively to something someone would actually do. I would be quite surprised if newbie roleplayers weren't about as likely as rule-hungry optimizers to declare a "charge"-type action. There are others on the thread who have mentioned that they'd handle this by having the DM offer to change the rule declaration on the fly, "He's out of reach, do you want to keep running?" I wouldn't do that, again because of my fencing experience, any more than I would suggest to players that they choose a more effective spell. But I view this as a minor detail that hasn't come up often in practice, and which DMs can easily tweak to their own taste. I would also say that rewarding forethought and mechanical precision is bad only to the extent that it's being rewarded in an unrealistic way which doesn't map to the game world. If you reward forethought in a way which maps to in-game forethought (Shadow Monk scouting ahead so the party can turn the upcoming ambush by three trolls, by exposing the Dex-y Rogue and Shadow Monk who both have Evasion so that the hidden wizard can pop out and Fireball the trolls by surprise once they've clumped up and the hidden fighter can Action Surge with his longbow and put down one of the trolls on the first round) then the game is both challenging and fun. Cyclic initiative requires the wrong kind of forethought; but I don't think letting the Barbarian keep running if his target moves ("charge") requires the wrong kind of forethought. I think that forethought can happen in-character. It seems a bit complicated for my taste. I would just not allow complex conditions for ranged attacks like "if he's dead I'll shoot at someone else" the way I would for melee attacks. I wouldn't try to invent friendly fire rules like you are here. My intuition says you're going to pay more cost in complexity than the benefit you get in fun. [/QUOTE]

Verification