Essentials' "Give Backs"

[RLBURNSIDE]

Martial Dailies

that are stances do seem similar to the at-will stances of Essentials, although if essentials stances on say, the Scout, amount to substantially more damage than SCS or SWS on a ranger (level 5 daily), /divided over the course of the day, I will be pretty p'od and be looking to re-build as a Scout.

A lot of people hate martial dailies (especially missing with them) but I think they can provide burst nova damage that is far more critical to defeating particularly tough monsters faster, than a marginally higher DPR over the course of the day. I could be wrong here, but how could an optimized nova bursting character be out-shined by someone who doesn't have multi-attack daily combos that benefit from PP action point features like Extra Damage Action of the PitFighter, for instance?

I think it's more important to kill that god or terrasque one round earlier than every other thing all day 1/2 a round earlier, due to a marginally higher DPR from using at-will stances or auras rather than burst damage. Although the two combined in the same character could be really powerful.

Can you take Eternal Seeker with an Essentials character that has no Dailies to swap out? If you didn't want dailies from other classes, but did want, say, an encounter from another class (e.g. Hurricane of Blades), I could see some Essentials builds giving regular builds a run for their money in the burst DPR department.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Let us not forget the (1e) ever popular weapon vs AC attack adjustment chart. Also that the chart didn't go below AC 2 so you had to "guess" what "armor type" a given opponent was wearing if their AC was below 2 (and sometimes you wanted to do that even if their AC was 2 or above).

The trick was to consider only armor, not dex or magic or other bonuses. I always used the weapon vs armor adjustments, but my players mostly hated them, so I gave them an out: magic weapons, I ruled, never took negative adjustments, magic armor never allowed positive adjustments. So, once everyone was magicked up, the adjustments were de-facto retired. It worked out, I got to use them some of the time, and they added a little interest to weapon choice and combat at lower levels.

A lot of people hate martial dailies (especially missing with them) but I think they can provide burst nova damage that is far more critical to defeating particularly tough monsters faster, than a marginally higher DPR over the course of the day.

Sure, they have their uses. I think most folks' objection to them is philosophical - they find it intollerable that a martial character have access to the same range of mechanics and options as casters. A caster isn't really a caster, in their eyes, if it has no clearly-inferior sword-swinging meat-shields to feel superior to. :shrug:

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Sure, they have their uses. I think most folks' objection to them is philosophical - they find it intollerable that a martial character have access to the same range of mechanics and options as casters. A caster isn't really a caster, in their eyes, if it has no clearly-inferior sword-swinging meat-shields to feel superior to. :shrug:

Well it may be philosophical, but its never been the one that you just put forth.

The usual objection seen is that it is intolerable that a martial character is limited to doing a particular maneuver 1/day: it feels extremely artificial. It's a position put forth by those who actually like playing martial PCs, too. To them, martial dalies are essentially nonsensical.

 

[AllisterH]

Well it may be philosophical, but its never been the one that you just put forth.

The usual objection seen is that it is intolerable that a martial character is limited to doing a particular maneuver 1/day: it feels extremely artificial. It's a position put forth by those who actually like playing martial PCs, too. To them, martial dalies are essentially nonsensical.

I love martial dailies and I hope to see more of them...

Mainly because for me they have always been that "did he REALLY pull off that move" that you see in the action genre (be it live action Western movies to Eastern animated movies).

I have never had a problem justifying to myself why a martial character could only do tha move once a day...

The problem I have with your reasoning is that it will INHERENTLY limit the martial characters as designers as you can't have a show-stopping manoeuver since it now has to be limited to being an at-will power...

You're not going to get that "Remember when you used that action point to chain together Serpent Dance's Strike and Devastation Wake and wiped out practically everyone?" memories...(this is an actual memory....)

Indeed, Ive seen this ALREADY with the Ranger...Twin-strike all the time means that I can't even remember one standout moment

 

[Jhaelen]

The usual objection seen is that it is intolerable that a martial character is limited to doing a particular maneuver 1/day: it feels extremely artificial. It's a position put forth by those who actually like playing martial PCs, too. To them, martial dalies are essentially nonsensical.

Well, if it's a reliable daily you can theoretically repeat the maneuver an unlimited number of times in a given day...

And that's basically how I've been rationalizing it: It's a very tricky maneuver that is difficult to pull off and thus 'usually' doesn't work more often than once a day.

Imho, the objection you cite would also have to cover encounter powers: If it's unreasonable that a power can only work once a day, why is it not unreasonable that it can only work once in an encounter?

The one restriction of that kind that bothers me is that you can only use a single action point in an encounter. With that restriction in place they don't really work as an incentive to adventure on to reach the next milestone.

What I've been wondering is why they didn't use the way monster powers work for pcs:
Instead of encounter powers, make them powers that recharge on a 1 in 6. That would also solve any grind issues quite nicely.

Similarly, I could imagine a mechanism that would allow you to repeat a daily power under certain rare circumstances. That would have avoided the arbitrary artificiality (is that a word?!) of a daily.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The problem I have with your reasoning is that it will INHERENTLY limit the martial characters as designers as you can't have a show-stopping manoeuver since it now has to be limited to being an at-will power...

And

Imho, the objection you cite would also have to cover encounter powers: If it's unreasonable that a power can only work once a day, why is it not unreasonable that it can only work once in an encounter?

Actually, encounter powers still make sense.

The logic is that the maneuver is difficult enough to pull off that, once attempted (successful or not), the target and foes able to witness it are now on guard against the sequence that sets it up.

Give the martial classes extra Encounter powers and tructure them in such a way that rewards chaining & sequencing. For example, a power does X damage, but if used after another power (of a certain kind), it does additional damage, or perhaps imposes a condition on the target, or it resets the previous encounter power for reuse in this encounter.

The logic: it's a maneuver difficult to complete, and foes are on guard for it afterwards, just as above...but the second maneuver incorporates a feint that looks a lot like what the foe was expecting, which opens him up for a more devastating strike or confuses his reading of the martial maneuvering of his foe so he doesn't know what to expect.

The daily powers, though, are still nonsense to me (and others). Personally, I can't think of a single RW physical act that a trained athlete or warrior can only do/attempt once per day.

To me, martial dailies are a classic example of forcing something into a design scheme it doesn't really fit, resulting in a mechanic that interferes with the willing suspension of disbelief.

You're not going to get that "Remember when you used that action point to chain together Serpent Dance's Strike and Devastation Wake and wiped out practically everyone?" memories...(this is an actual memory....)

That sounds like a personal problem to me: I still remember the final sequence of events from my first D&D game back in 1977 as well as many noteworthy single strikes with weapons between then and now, all without any special game mechanics for martial maneuvers (with KEWL NAMEZORZ!!!) beyond spamming weapon attacks.

And I have similar recollections from other RPGs as well.

 

[AllisterH]

That sounds like a personal problem to me: I still remember the final sequence of events from my first D&D game back in 1977 as well as many noteworthy single strikes with weapons between then and now, all without any special game mechanics for martial maneuvers (with KEWL NAMEZORZ!!!) beyond spamming weapon attacks.

And I have similar recollections from other RPGs as well.

You DO realize that most Western forms of fighting had the "KEWL NAMEZORZ" as well, right?

Where did this silly belief come from that Western swordfighting didn't have names as well for manoeuvers?

As to the former, I certainly don't remember game changing martial attacks (unless you count rolling massively lucky and getting a critical on a creature you probably could only hit on a critical....)

Certainly not to the extent of "Remember when you used your last spell of the day to save us from that bulette et al"

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You DO realize that most Western forms of fighting had the "KEWL NAMEZORZ" as well, right?

Yes I do, actually. I just don't find them crucial to my game enjoyment calculus.

To clarify: I'd prefer generic and descriptive names for the combat maneuvers- tied not to Eastern nor Western nor fantasy stylistic conventions- letting the players come up with their own names.

(But then again, while I've played more D&D than anything else over the past 33 years, HERO is my preferred system.)

 

[Jhaelen]

The logic is that the maneuver is difficult enough to pull off that, once attempted (successful or not), the target and foes able to witness it are now on guard against the sequence that sets it up.

As I mentioned above, almost the same logic works for dailys. The only difference is that it doesn't matter if it has already been observed by anyone or not.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As I mentioned above, almost the same logic works for dailys. The only difference is that it doesn't matter if it has already been observed by anyone or not.

Which is why I don't agree that it works for dailies at all.

I can't think of a physical action so strenuous someone could do it only once per day that wouldn't hospitalize them; there's no sequence of maneuvers so complex that you could do it only once per day without it's limit being dependent on being witnessed by all potential targets...

...so a martial daily simply seems like nonsense to me.