3E. The first time he hits someone over the head, he uses his Power Critical feat (Masters of the Wild) to declare the hit an automatic critical threat. The second time he hits someone over the head, he can't use his Power Critical feat, because it only works 1/day and he's run out of superpowers.
3E/3.5. The first time he hits someone over the head, the paladin uses Smite Evil to deal extra damage. The second time he hits someone over the head, he can't use Smite Evil, because it only works 1/day and he's run out of superpowers.
3.5. The first time he hits someone over the head, the samurai uses Kiai Smite to deal extra damage. The second time he hits someone over the head, he can't use Kiai Smite, because it only works 1/day and he's run out of superpowers.
3.5. The first time he hits someone over the head, the ravager uses Pain Touch to deal extra damage. The second time he hits someone over the head, he can't use Pain Touch, because it only works 1/day and he's run out of superpowers.
... is that the sort of thing?
-Hyp.
Since I have none of those "abilities" yet can continually do the same or more damage, not less after the initial hit.......too many splat books used, which is why you can do so many strange things with that edition.
The point still being that you shouldn't need all that crap from the powers system or something else to do something with common sense.
Yes common sense should play a part of games, otherwise why have rules at all.
Well, in 4e, I can make the hammer do more damage each time, if I choose my powers carefully and the fight lasts fewer rounds than I have powers.
Too many ifs for my taste.
Why would I do that? You asserted that the hammer should do more damage each time it hits the foe, and that 4E is faulty because this does not happen. As usual, my "fanboi defence" of 4E is: yeah, but that's just like the older editions.
And why the assumption that the bigger-damage power gets used first? In 4E you can just as easily increase the damage with each subsequent hit, by using a power that causes more damage.
At any point where there is a chance to do more damage once, and then less damage for the same thing there is a problem, when the chance of succeeding has gone up, not down and all other variables remain the same.
I hit you in the head with a hammer 3 times and it does the same damage each time. The fourth time I hit you it does more damage, then the 5th time it somehow does less that the fourth.
There is a problem with that progression, unless the fifth time there is nothing left to damage and all possible damage that could be done, has been done.
So whether me hitting you, or you hitting me...pick one as PC and the other as monster it doesn't matter....the same thing will hold true throughout and if it doesn't then something has broken within the system and the rules....the game physics have broken.
How about this:
The design of 4th edition is such that it divides up narrative control between the players and the DM in a way similar to some recent independent RPGs. Specifically, it allows the player to declare that circumstances are right for
This is something I strongly am against. Players only get to decide what they want to do, and with that have more narrative control over anything the DM has, as the DM only sets up chances. The players don't get to choose they are hungry so they must eat to use power Y that grants 10 HP when eating.
What if they are full and cannot eat? No amount of "narrative control" can solve this issue.
The players decide when they can do something by trying to do it and succeeding. This is a major flaw I see in the design of the powers system, and one I do not care for.
Players can try to do anything, but the DM and judge of the world should be the one deciding if conditions are right.
Why not just remove the DM completely if all they are is a dice checker to verify rolls vs a table of outcomes or probable chances of success.
Players can't have everything. This isn't Chutes and Ladders with small children to cry because they fell down a ladder.
I also don't need some power to tell me what I want to try to do. I don't need it to flavor my game for me, because I am intelligent enough to state tot he DM I was to jump over the table and impale my opponent with my javelin.
I don't need a named power to try, and see no reason a player of mine should need that limitation either. Because without that named power, then they are limited in what they can do, and how many times they can, otherwise until the javelin is lost/broken, and the run out of table, my players can jump over as many times as they want stabbing whoever they want.
I give them that extra narrative control where the powers hold the players back, and deny it from them with its arbitrary limits.
Except that these aren't house rules. The approach we're describing toward the narration of in-game events is the intended approach. It's not a workaround for a problem, it's the actual way they expected us to do it. You have a power that describes a mechanical effect, and it has some fluff text attached to it. They specifically point out that the fluff text is completely optional, and actually should be modified to fit the particulars of the situation, as you see fit. If a particular description doesn't work, for whatever reason, be it verisimilitude, logic, or personal taste, the job of the player is to narrate a better description.
I don't recall quoting this, but maybe it has to go with the section above, so use that for a response to this quote, unless I figure out what and edit later what I was going to say here.
No, it's not the GM's story. That's why the rules give (limited) narrative control to the players.
I don't like giving silly limits to players for no reason. Only one person never got firebuilding NWP. They just couldn't give me a reason why their character could build a fire. It actually turned into a great game device since it was built into their character that they couldn't figure out how to build a fire in ANY circumstances.
Once again like powers, some strange and silly limit on the number of things a player has a chance to do, that doesn't belong.