DMG II Preview and Mearls old work

[Infiniti2000]

Just to qualify the Acrobatic Stunt I was trying, I laid down on a set of stairs to protect myself from snipers up in a balcony, and I wanted to stand up as a minor action so I could use two move actions to climb up the stairs.

I wouldn't allow your stunt because it's essentially not a stunt. You're not reacting in character at all. It's totally a gamist action. If you can't explain your stunt in real world terms (only), then it doesn't apply. Your stunt should be met with the cries of system abuser because that's what you were doing. You saw a restriction in the game system and tried to circumvent it with a gamist approach. This is not analogous to the chandelier at all. The rules and consequences should be left to the DM, not to the player. You might just as well suggest doing a stunt that gives you an automatic called shot to the nuts.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Is there a way to solve "Power Fixation" without saying "Ignore all the rules for your powers and go with the fluff, letting the DM decide how to resolve each action" while maintaining the amazing amount of tactical choices players can make?

Even doing that, your players will tend to find stuff that works, and just do that over and over again.

The alternative to statting everything out is to go with a "points for coolness" system. You mechanically reward someone for doing something cool, with the definition of cool excluding the use of anything conventional, or repeating something someone else already did.

I suppose if you really, really want to boost the use of stunts, you could make getting your action point on a milestone contingent upon having done something cool since the last milestone. That puts you at 1 stunt per player per 2 combats.

Oh, actually there is another way: make stunts far, far more effective than anything else. I'm not sure that's a good blanket idea though.

 

[Lizard]

Just wanted to say, one problem I see with "terrain powers" or whatever they're called is that they can lead to pixelbitching -- in effect, the players will "mouse over" every object in the fight to see if it is "active". Remember Zork?

"You are in a magnificent cavern. Stalactites hang from the ceiling, and there is a pile of rocks in the corners. Small puddles of water lie scattered on the floor. There are the smoldering remains of a campfire in the center, and some abandoned gear beside it. There are also some hungry Giant Wombats.
You see:
A loose stalactite
A rotting backback
3 Giant Wombats."

Any experienced Text Adventure player knows it's probably not worth trying to mess with the rocks or the campfire, and that he ought to get out his piercing loud whistle to cause the loose stalactite to fall on the giant wombats. If there's a card for "The Dangling Chandelier" but not for "the large oak table" or the "flaming wall sconce", players will ignore those.

 

[Engilbrand]

I give my players 5 Spiffy Points per session. They let them do those extra things that page 42 advocates. I had a player slash down a curtain to trip someone up, hook a guy's head after an attack and drop him prone, and use Lightning Lure to pull a character onto a Soarsled.
In my game, Spiffy Points are used to do something that is extra and cool. They can also be used to use the effect of a power without the damage. Basically, use a power in a unique way.
Allowing interesting stuff to be done as an extra part of an action allows stunting, while the resource management part keeps it from getting out of hand.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't know what the big deal is. Things like this chandelier are just DM conveniences for when the players decide to pull something. Sure, you can stat out a specific chandelier, but you always could do that. All DMG2 is doing is the same thing DMG1 did for traps, giving you a generic template you can quickly refer to. You could obviously use page 42 before, but now you get to save a whole bunch of time by having a ready made ruling which is probably pretty similar to what you would sit there and spend 2 minutes thinking about without it.

I think part of the problem with DMs finding their players reluctant to do stunts or anything else unusual is related to being too focused on mechanics. Try to make your game more narrative and avoid putting emphasis on the mechanics. When people use powers emphasize to them that a power is a narrative token they get to use to change the course of events and that they understand they can describe them in any fashion they want to.

This will tend to reduce the difference in their minds between using powers, skills, and stunts. Often you'll find you don't really have to deal with stunting because they will employ their powers in unusual ways instead. This is fine. The players in my game certainly don't always think out of the box, and once in a while I have to remind them, but they do a pretty good job of looking for chances to do unusual things.

Another thing you want to make sure you do is describe the whole scene adequately. Often players ignore things that they aren't quite sure they understand. If you just toss a symbol onto a map labeled "Chandelier" they are probably not going to interact with it. If you describe the big heavy wooden chandelier with the rope tied off to the side of the room, well, that's sure to go a lot further in getting their creative juices flowing.

As for stunting and its relation to power use. Yeah, there's a bit of narrow ground there, but remember one thing. Every stunt requires a check against a DC and thus has a possibility of failure. Even in the case of the guy wanting to use acrobatics to stand up as a minor action, he could fail. Its not the best example, but if the DM allowed him to do it, then he's got to roll and if he misses the roll then he's not only wasted his minor action, but depending on the situation he might also suffer some other consequence like granting CA or whatever. Normal actions are reliable, stunts are not. That alone usually provides enough distinction to matter.

I suppose some sort of "hero points" or whatnot would be fine. OTOH I don't see where there is a major problem to be solved that needs them. If you can't get your players to stunt then making stunts cost a precious resource isn't going to encourage it.

 

[Saeviomagy]

As for stunting and its relation to power use. Yeah, there's a bit of narrow ground there, but remember one thing. Every stunt requires a check against a DC and thus has a possibility of failure. Even in the case of the guy wanting to use acrobatics to stand up as a minor action, he could fail. Its not the best example, but if the DM allowed him to do it, then he's got to roll and if he misses the roll then he's not only wasted his minor action, but depending on the situation he might also suffer some other consequence like granting CA or whatever. Normal actions are reliable, stunts are not. That alone usually provides enough distinction to matter.

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".

I suppose some sort of "hero points" or whatnot would be fine. OTOH I don't see where there is a major problem to be solved that needs them. If you can't get your players to stunt then making stunts cost a precious resource isn't going to encourage it.

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.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

Some people are not so great at improvising. Sometimes you want to have a way to "suggest" stunts. I think this is a neat approach.

Consider it something like the MM equivalent for stunts - the guideliens for creating monsters are in the DMG, but still people like to see a WotC made stat block for Demogorgon and Admantine Dragons.

Agreed.

You can think of these "one-time terrain" as "Prepackaged page 42 stunts"

edit:

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?

Maybe allowing stunts to be more powerful than a regular at-will attack, but limiting them to "one per encounter, do not repeat the same stunt for the rest of the adventure" would be good enough?

I could even make a red card with "suggest a one-time stunt" on it.

 

[Infiniti2000]

How about "no stunts where the player decides or even suggests the game mechanic or the effect." That immediately eliminates a lot of cheese. So, no "I do a kip up to stand up as a minor action instead of a move action." No, "I cut down the chandelier to do 84d10+20 damage in a burst 3." Wtf? Who's DMing this anyway?

 

[Derren]

So now chandeliers and its ropes get better defences the better trained the attacker is.
That or demigods are universally bad at cutting ropes.
When does the silliness end...

 

[JasonZZ]

So now chandeliers and its ropes get better defences the better trained the attacker is.
That or demigods are universally bad at cutting ropes.
When does the silliness end...

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.