D&D 5E D&D podcast!

[Iosue]

Exactly. Why do I need a power to "Go for the eyes?" and why can it only be done once per day. Also, same with Knockout. I can throw sand in people's eyes all day long in real life. It might not land very often, and they might beat me up for doing so, but I am not physically prevented from even attempting it. And before anyone says page 42, why have powers at all if I can do whatever I want on top of the power system?

Convenience.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Convenience.

This is true, but it's even more convenient to have a flexible core mechanic that can be readily applied to such an action, and an effective set of conditions to apply.

Savage Worlds take a somewhat different tactic. Everyone has access to Tricks, which is a generic mechanic for a wide variety of actions, such as throwing dirt in their eyes, dropping a blanket on them, or telling them their shoes are untied. Success, regardless of the action, means they take a defense penalty for a round. It's a generic mechanic for a wide variety of creative uses.

 

[Garthanos]

This is true, but it's even more convenient to have a flexible core mechanic that can be readily applied to such an action, and an effective set of conditions to apply.

Savage Worlds take a somewhat different tactic. Everyone has access to Tricks, which is a generic mechanic for a wide variety of actions, such as throwing dirt in their eyes, dropping a blanket on them, or telling them their shoes are untied. Success, regardless of the action, means they take a defense penalty for a round. It's a generic mechanic for a wide variety of creative uses.

Allowing periodic unlikely events to occur when convenient for the player and narratively fun without resulting in "I hit it with my sword"/"I hit it on the toe"... phenomena is a tough row to hoe.
For one if you penalize too much it never gets used (too little and why not always do it) where as saying you can do it "reliably" this often ... and then use improvisational rules which may have much less certian or more situational and DM managed cases ... makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Good to know, Cyclops Redenbacher.

This made me lol. Tried to XP, etc.

Allowing periodic unlikely events to occur when convenient for the player and narratively fun without resulting in "I hit it with my sword"/"I hit it on the toe"... phenomena is a tough row to hoe.
For one if you penalize too much it never gets used (too little and why not always do it) where as saying you can do it "reliably" this often ... and then use improvisational rules which may have much less certian or more situational and DM managed cases ... makes a lot of sense to me.

Yeah, this is pretty much it. Any trick that works too well (or too often) will get abused, and any trick that doesn't work well enough (or has a low chance of success) will simply never be used in favour of a basic attack that is reliable.

See any number of 3.x "one trick pony" builds that rely on feat chains. The fact that the game had all these "kewl tricks" in its combat system is often touted as a lack in 4e, but unless you took the feats to make them actually usable, nobody ever used them, because they were awful choices to make, and the feats made some of them so good that you would never want to do anything else. I think making that kind of thing into powers works better, especially in a narrative sense (which is a whole other issue that I'm not addressing in this post).

I mean people complain that narrative mechanics break their immersion, but for me, having characters built around chains or trees of ridiculous combat feats, that kind of thing breaks MY immersion. Those kind of build resources are pretty much only there to "game the system" and don't well reflect the physical "realities" that the rules they exploit are trying to represent, IMO.

 

[bogmad]

the most recent Q&A speaks pretty directly to the warlord question. Are Warlord advocates happy with it?
http://community.wizards.com/dndnex...aling,_fighter_utility,_and_ranger_challenges

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

the most recent Q&A speaks pretty directly to the warlord question. Are Warlord advocates happy with it?
http://community.wizards.com/dndnex...aling,_fighter_utility,_and_ranger_challenges

Nope. The first answer was a really long-winded way of saying, "no scream-heals in Next."

On the plus side, it does sound like they do intend to work on both a warlordesque fighter AND an actual warlord. I'm not holding my breath (because it sounds like if they can't find a way to give it grog-appeal they'll just drop it), but it's a start.

 

[bogmad]

Nope. The first answer was a really long-winded way of saying, "no scream-heals in Next."

On the plus side, it does sound like they do intend to work on both a warlordesque fighter AND an actual warlord. I'm not holding my breath (because it sounds like if they can't find a way to give it grog-appeal they'll just drop it), but it's a start.

What's wrong with saying "no scream heals?" Do you want scream heals in next? [kidding] Or do you want more open mechanics and see this as backpedaling against your playstyle?
This bit is basically all I've been advocating for:

...it’s easier for a player to learn the rules if the game’s abstractions produce a narrative that they can visualize and understand. Any time a game makes players stop and say, “Wait, what just happened there?” or something similar, it creates confusion and interrupts the flow of play and makes the game harder to learn and intuit.

Where'd you get the idea they're working on an actual warlord? All I got a sense of was "warlordesque fighter" is something they're striving not leave out, and that it'll have some form of inspirational healing that doesn't require an advanced module.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

What's wrong with saying "no scream heals?" Do you want scream heals in next? [kidding] Or do you want more open mechanics and see this as backpedaling against your playstyle?

I want more open mechanics. I see this as a process-first approach, and I dislike that approach for various reasons (that have been stated many times before). I also get why some people want it this way, but I don't have to like it.

Where'd you get the idea they're working on an actual warlord? All I got a sense of was "warlordesque fighter" is something they're striving not leave out, and that it'll have some form of inspirational healing that doesn't require an advanced module.

From this part:

...we’ve been working on some new class features that we hope will round out the fighter more and that will play well with many different types of fighter—including the potential warlordesque fighter. These features are separate and intended to supplement the fighter, not fold in the warlord. These new feature might not make it into the next open playtest packet, because we want to iterate on the design a bit first.

Emphasis mine. If these fighter add-ons are only designed to supplement the fighter and not to fold warlords into fighters, it implies that a separate warlord is coming. I could be wrong, and they may change their minds, obviously.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

See any number of 3.x "one trick pony" builds that rely on feat chains. The fact that the game had all these "kewl tricks" in its combat system is often touted as a lack in 4e, but unless you took the feats to make them actually usable, nobody ever used them, because they were awful choices to make, and the feats made some of them so good that you would never want to do anything else. I think making that kind of thing into powers works better, especially in a narrative sense (which is a whole other issue that I'm not addressing in this post).

Making each into a power is an extreme response, though, when there is a simpler answer. As I mentioned above, Savage Worlds provides a single Trick mechanic to represent a wide variety of these types of maneuvers. This one mechanic can be balanced for effectiveness, while being functional for a wide variety of things the PCs attempt.

D&DN, to a large extent, already has this built in due to bounded accuracy and a list of conditions. The smaller bonuses applied to the full range of ability scores means that the chance of any trick succeeding is going to differ by enemy, often opening up different opportunities in each fight. A lack of feat chains makes these options available to anybody. Finally, the list of conditions makes it easy to apply the results of a trick.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Making each into a power is an extreme response, though, when there is a simpler answer. As I mentioned above, Savage Worlds provides a single Trick mechanic to represent a wide variety of these types of maneuvers. This one mechanic can be balanced for effectiveness, while being functional for a wide variety of things the PCs attempt.

D&DN, to a large extent, already has this built in due to bounded accuracy and a list of conditions. The smaller bonuses applied to the full range of ability scores means that the chance of any trick succeeding is going to differ by enemy, often opening up different opportunities in each fight. A lack of feat chains makes these options available to anybody. Finally, the list of conditions makes it easy to apply the results of a trick.

Be that as it may, I still prefer the powers + page 42 approach. Obviously not everyone agrees, and that's fine, that's why there are many different games out there.