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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7029385" data-attributes="member: 6787650">I guess that's the difference between us--I don't see "charge" as rules-mastery at all. That kind of tactical hesitation (because you didn't think through enemy countermeasures and need to re-assess when something happens) happens in real life too until you learn to overcome it. That's part of where OODA loops come from. In fact, it's so well-known that it's a military axiom: "surprise is an event that occurs in the mind of the commander."It's not an artifact of the game rules and it has nothing to do with "optimization". It's more closely tied to tactics and tactical skill, like learning to use recon, cover, stealth/camouflage, ranged weapons, and equipment. "Optimizers" probably won't do that effectively because they mostly optimize stupid things like DPR, but skilled players will do lots of things better, and acting more efficiently and effectively in combat is one of those things--depending of course on to what extent they are roleplaying combat veterans. (Some players deliberately do unwise things to stay in character, like casting spells they know won't work on the targets they're casting at, because the character couldn't know better. I wouldn't complain if a player did this, but I also don't expect them to do so. I leave the character/player knowledge gap in the hands of the players.)And by the way, it is in fact still a decision. "Charge" is not a dominant choice. Sometimes you'll want to charge, sometimes you'll want to just move and attack without committing to a charge, for example if you're worried about the enemy leading you down a primrose path. (Especially if it's a kobold.)Edit: BTW, I'm not opposed to giving new players a hand. If a new player says, "I want to move here [to a spot 20' away] so I can talk to the drow's prisoner", but she doesn't declare a Disengage so she's going to take several opportunity attacks from drow along the way--as a DM, that's one of the rare cases where I might either point out her mistake or else just treat it as an implicit Disengage without even asking her and say "You move there, carefully watching all the enemies all around you." Her intent is clear in that case: she wants to go there, she obviously doesn't want to get hit; that's what she's doing this round. If I consulted with her, it would probably be to ask whether she'd rather Dodge or Disengage--"are you paying more attention to not turning your back on anyone, or to dodging any blows from drow that you notice in front of you?"So, new players need a lot of help in numerous ways, and you ought to cut them some slack.Lanefan has advocated using smaller dice for initiative and not breaking ties. That's one route to the effect you're talking about here. Another route would be to just disallow conditionals completely and ask players to rely on Delay as a substitute (so if you want to allocate attacks most efficiently you are paying the price of always losing initiative). To a certain extent it depends on how you, as a DM, prefer to visualize the combat of combat and the effects of dropping an enemy to zero HP, and also on how devious your bad guys are.So I don't agree that "Therefore, to anyone with the requisite rules mastery, melee overkill never happens." If the Barbarian hits the mummy lord, and the mummy lord falls over, and the fighter hits him again two or three times, smashing those old bones up pretty good... that could be the right choice to make tactically! If the mummy lord has limited regeneration (e.g. pre-cast Regenerate spell), or an ally that could heal it from offscreen, or if the mummy lord was faking it (most mummy lords probably aren't that sneaky but other monsters can be and are), then you may be glad you got in a couple of auto-crits against it. (Or maybe you just auto-critted someone who is trying to surrender.)If on the other hand the fighter says, "I'm going to cleave my sword straight through the mummy lord's torso and on into the zombies," well, he's clearly attacking the mummy lord as a priority, but any remaining extra attacks after the mummy lord "goes down" go to the zombies, and everything is a straightforward melee attack with his sword. (Allowing for some poetic license here so the players get to declare fun actions--if there were any doubt I'd ask explicitly, but assume in this case that I know that this is how the player likes to declare his target priorities.) If the mummy lord isn't actually down for good he may live to regret not getting in some auto-crits.So again, it's not purely a question of system-mastery; it's also a question of "what do you really want to do this round?"</blockquote>

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