DMG II Preview and Mearls old work

[Truename]

How about more-capable characters tend to find better-grade chandeliers and rope/chain? The low-level heroic character is slicing a cheap twine rope to drop a rickety wooden chandelier in a fight in a sleazy dive...his paragon-tier counterpart is cutting a chain to drop a massive iron-and-precious-metal chandelier in the King's palace. And that epic demigod hero is splitting Gleipnir's equivalent to drop a contraption woven from solidified lightning and hellfire. Sure, it's just a rope/chain and chandelier either way, but the description really does matter here.

This.

 

[Walking Dad]

Normal actions aren't always reliable though. Furthermore, it's entirely possible that once a stunt has entered common usage, the players will be able to make it reliable. ie - "you need an incredibly high DC acrobatics roll to stand up from prone as a minor action" just encourages players to max out their acrobatics roll if they ever want to do it. Further to that, players with a low acrobatics roll will never attempt it if the penalty is steep. It effectively becomes an always-working power with the prerequisite of "must be really good at acrobatics".

And the point is... that someone who spend his ability points on good Dex, used one skill slot (or a feat) and the Skill Focus feat on Acrobatics has a reliable change to do stand up with a minor action and a cool description???
And that one without all this can try, but will likely fail???
Sounds just right to me. BTW, players doing a ggod skill check should be allowed everything in this new skill powers. Spend a utility power = reliable. Use p.42 roll a check.

The idea is that in order to encourage stunts, stunts must be more effective in some way than a regular power would be.

The problem is that if that is the case, why would players ever use their regular powers?

There are multiple ways to balance that: one is the large penalty for failure that you propose. Another is to merely make stunts very dependant on the surrounding area (ie - no acrobatics check to stand up as a minor action unless there's some sort of one-off circumstance that might help it). The final one is to manually limit their use. At which point it doesn't matter how good they are, you can only do so many before you're forced to use regular powers.

Bolded by me. Why is a need for regular powers being better? Doing something cool and with risking a penality or total failure should bring not more effect the say, a fighter missing wit his 'reliable' daily and trying again next round.

 

[DracoSuave]

'Better' is subjective.

What 'better' means for one group, another group scoffs at.

Swinging from a chandelere in Group A might not be better than an at-will, so Group A discourages it, becase 'better' to them means 'of greater tactical advantage.'

In group B, tho, it is better, and Group B encourages. It's the same chandelere, but Group B considers the Rule of Awesome to be more important than damage rolls.

In group C, it might be better or worse, because they value random wtf. The chandelere might accidentally fall and injure a party member, but the party values that sort of accident and shinanegan, so they welcome it because it is 'better'.

 

[Derren]

How about more-capable characters tend to find better-grade chandeliers and rope/chain? The low-level heroic character is slicing a cheap twine rope to drop a rickety wooden chandelier in a fight in a sleazy dive...his paragon-tier counterpart is cutting a chain to drop a massive iron-and-precious-metal chandelier in the King's palace. And that epic demigod hero is splitting Gleipnir's equivalent to drop a contraption woven from solidified lightning and hellfire. Sure, it's just a rope/chain and chandelier either way, but the description really does matter here.

Which of course assumes that all areas are level restricted.
And when you use "your mentor is in reality the BBEG" plots, don't forget that he has to replace all the chandeliers for the time the PC come back to kill him.

And god beware that a lower "level" NPC travels with the PC, or that there is a level difference between them.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Maybe I missed it up-thread, but did anyone actually confirm that 'level' refers to the attacker and not the chandelier?

 

[Mort_Q]

Doesn't the level of the chandelier vary proportionally with the level of the attacker?

 

[LostSoul]

Maybe I missed it up-thread, but did anyone actually confirm that 'level' refers to the attacker and not the chandelier?

That would make a lot of sense.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

Which of course assumes that all areas are level restricted.
And when you use "your mentor is in reality the BBEG" plots, don't forget that he has to replace all the chandeliers for the time the PC come back to kill him.

And god beware that a lower "level" NPC travels with the PC, or that there is a level difference between them.

Look, its obvious that the chandelier in the town tavern, regardless of which characters are present, is a heroic-level terrain feature.

And its also obvious that if, for whatever reason, a low level character finds himself in the palace of an archdevil, the chandelier there won't be made of simple wood and rope...

But, of course, we already knew that!

Please Derren, don't come to the 4E threads to troll, just as I don't do the same in the 3.x/Pathfinder ones

 

[Saeviomagy]

And the point is... that someone who spend his ability points on good Dex, used one skill slot (or a feat) and the Skill Focus feat on Acrobatics has a reliable change to do stand up with a minor action and a cool description???
And that one without all this can try, but will likely fail???
Sounds just right to me. BTW, players doing a ggod skill check should be allowed everything in this new skill powers. Spend a utility power = reliable. Use p.42 roll a check.

A skill slot and a feat is far less of an expenditure than, say, taking a utility power that works once per encounter. Not to mention that the skill slot and feat still do all their normal stuff.

Bolded by me. Why is a need for regular powers being better? Doing something cool and with risking a penality or total failure should bring not more effect the say, a fighter missing wit his 'reliable' daily and trying again next round.

I didn't say they had to be better. I just said that if they're never used, that's not a good thing for the system.

 

[Jack99]

Level-appropriate chandelier damage. Awesome. Don't be surprised to see t-shirts at next year's Gencon with "I killed Orcus with a chandelier!" written on them.

I ignore the rules forum for 4 months and when I come back, you are still trolling. Do you never get tired of it?

Honestly, probably not without incorporating some sort of costing mechanism. Otherwise, the search for the "Sweet spot" (more potent than just doing a basic attack, not so potent it replaces an Encounter or Daily power) really becomes a pain.

FATE uses fate points. FantasyCraft lets you spend Action Dice. I could see giving every player a "One stunt/encounter" rule, or "Expend an unused Daily power to perform a stunt equal to an Encounter power of that level or less from any class" or the like. I think if you provide a mechanical framework, even if it's basically Dumbo's Magic Feather, players will be a lot more likely to use it. They've got a Power Fixation? Print out a Power Card reading "Daring Stunt!" and let them play it.

There has been other threads suggesting that your stunting power card actually works very well in practice.