Expertise Dice Not Necessarily Fighter Exclusive

[I'm A Banana]

To this, I disagree. It cultivates the feel that, in melee, the Fighter is extremely capable of hurting you and surviving. He is no more adaptable than anyone else.

My play experience last night says otherwise. The fighter player was able to change his behavior on the fly by spending CS dice in ways that weren't available to other characters. The rogue certainly wasn't able to pull that off.

That psychological difference is valuable, and part of the reason different classes exist: for a different play experience.

There should be no class that, in its way, isn't proficient at spontaneous reaction to the ever-changing landscape of battle. If the character can't adapt in a fight, the character will DIE.

Tossing around CS dice is a much different feel than planning your prepared spells or hoarding your willpower. Much more spontaneous and flexible. That fits right in a fighter's niche.

You realize that Willpower, Favors, and Expertise Dice are really all variations on spell points: you have some resource that you spend a point of it to make something happen. So, we already have three classes using the vibe. The cat is out of the bag. Too late.

I'm sorry, was this a final release? Is WotC going under? Is it written in stone and forever unchangable? It ain't too late. In fact, it's the PERFECT time to talk about this kind of stuff. This being a playtest and all.

I'm not a fan of how similar Willpower and Favors are (and how similar both are to Vancian magic). I WANT Sorcerers to have unlimited magic and Warlocks to power their spells with souls. CS dice are vaguely similar on a very high level, but at the level of how they feel during play, they are quite different, since they recharge so fast and can be used for anything in the fighter's repertoire whenever they need it.

Which is ultimately the point: classes should feel unique. A Warlord that copies the Fighter mechanics "just a little different" is going to risk not feeling unique.

If the point is to have a unique play experience, then I need 17 different mechanics, and I need to know them in order to choose which play experience I want.

If the point is to play the archetype I want, then I don't need 17 different mechanics - having 17 mechanics is a barrier to entry, as every time I want to try a new archetype, I have to relearn my game! In addition, even if a given mechanic fits two different archetypes well, one of them will probably have to settle for a worse implementation, as I'm "not allowed" to reuse mechanics, even if they work!

You don't need to know much about them. Wizards are studious and careful. Sorcerers have plentiful magic but lack variety. Warlocks get gifts from their patrons. Clerics channel divine might. Fighters are masters at hitting things and getting hit in a thousand different ways. Rogues are sneaky and like to surprise. Barbarians fly into destructive rages that leave them vulnerable. Rangers flash a flurry of attacks and move around a lot. You have all the information you need baked into the archetype. Pick one and go.

Thus, you also don't need to worry about re-learning your game or having "lesser" mechanics. Each archetype (each class) is supported by unique mechanics that help define that class, and you know you want those mechanics if you want to play that archetype because those mechanics support that archetype. If you want to play someone sneaky and surprising, play a rogue. The mechanics of the rogue then encourage you to be sneaky and surprising, and make the player worry about being discovered, and otherwise support that archetype. If you don't want that, don't play that. Whatever else you play will have its own supporting mechanics.

And lets try and not put words in my mouth. I said it needs to be carefully considered, not that it's impermissible. I'm sure there may be circumstances that call for shared class mechanics. The key is to make sure that those mechanics really are the best ones for the job and not just the new hotness that has everyone all frothing at the mouth to make it the core mechanic of an entire edition. The two questions ("Why MUST this mechanic be used here? And then why can't the new class have its' own mechanic, or be part of the old class?") are there to discourage thoughtless mechanical laziness and to encourage honest assessments of suitability. If it is the best mechanic and the new class is incapable of using another mechanic and the new class must be a new class, it should be used. I don't believe this situation is very common, though I imagine it will crop up (Rituals come to mind as a place where a shared mechanic probably works fine).

I've got similar concerns about Advantage/Disadvantage replacing raw bonuses, for the record, even though it's not linked to class.

Given that we have to accept some of this, it makes sense to me to at least actively design where some of the optimal lines are, rather than have them be accidental, and build them so they're at least stylistically appropriate and interesting

Only, encouraging a character who never crosses the streams of magic and martial might because one doesn't give them caster levels and the other doesn't give them Expertise Dice is neither appropriate nor interesting.

That's what makes a mechanic embedded--having bad coupling in how the mechanic attaches to the thing (class in this case).

In my view, you need to have a tight link between a mechanic, the play experience, and the archetype.

If my "spontaneous natural spellcaster" uses Vancian magic that they must prepare from a spellbook each morning just because That Is The Magic Mechanic, that's not great (though it is what you were told to do up until 3e, and even in a lot of places IN 3e). If my rampaging barbarian needs to make fiddly round-to-round mechanics decisions about where to put some abstract points because That Is The Fighting Mechanic, that's also not great, for the same reason.

This way, the mechanic reinforces the archetype via psychology, rather than hiding on the other side of a wrought iron fence made of tigers and never crossing over because it needs to remain generic enough to apply to half the classes in the game. A mechanic must serve the gameplay experience, and to do that, it needs to be closely linked to the experience you want to achieve. I wouldn't use Sanity mechanics or a 3d6 bell curve in heroic high fantasy any more than I'd use a hammer to perform surgery. I am resistant to the idea of using Expertise dice to represent everything that's good at swinging around metal for the same reasons: I don't want a Barbarian experience that is like a Fighter experience and like a Ranger experience and like a Paladin experience and like a Rogue experience and like a Ninja experience. I want a different experience for each class, and for that different experience, I want a mechanic that is going to deliver it to me, not something adapted from some other class just because it happened to be laying around and looked kind of flexible.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

In my view, you need to have a tight link between a mechanic, the play experience, and the archetype.

If my "spontaneous natural spellcaster" uses Vancian magic that they must prepare from a spellbook each morning just because That Is The Magic Mechanic, that's not great (though it is what you were told to do up until 3e, and even in a lot of places IN 3e). If my rampaging barbarian needs to make fiddly round-to-round mechanics decisions about where to put some abstract points because That Is The Fighting Mechanic, that's also not great, for the same reason.

We do need some of that tight link, but to the extent we have it, it is about as far as one can get from "modular".

You can't finesse this issue. Either you have options or you don't. Either you have protected niches or you don't. Either class is the finest grain of main character option, or you have some tweaks at a finer level (e.g. specialties and backgrounds with meaning). You can make good decisions to have a good mix of all of them (what I would advocate), but it will be a mix.

Moreover, since the play experience and archetypes overlap, I would expect the mechanics to do so as well, even accounting for your view. That's an argument for reusing a mechanic carefully, not avoiding it altogether--which in fairness you said in your reply to Umbran. I begin to suspect that it is the inability to finesse what real modularity means that is the root of our disagreement. I'm not willing to settle for false choices in the name of flavor.

 

[Ahnehnois]

The problem with basic feats and basic static modifiers, is that the character is dull. Yes, it can be balanced. It can be even overpowering (a 2hander specialist in PF is close to OP in the pure damage aspect) But it's dull.

...

I understand (and even support), that AEDU might not be the best idea for Fighters. It's ok. Then you need a *different* approach. But you still need to give them some kind of resource management. Combat superioriy is a fair attempt. It gives some kind of resource to those of us who want the fighter having something cool to do besides "power attack". And those who doesn't want to mess their perfectly fine fighters with static bonuses, can just convert those CS dice into pure damage (which is a kind of static bonus).

That's part of what I'm talking about when I'm talking about design space. Giving the fighters the ability to make more actions in a combat round, or do more things with those actions, gives them more things to be good at. I guess you can call that resouce managements; I usually think of that term over longer time intervals than a combat round.

I also think it's important that many people are not interested in any type of resource management, and need an opt-out. The damage bonus, as you say, is a reasonable approach.

The more/better actions in a round doesn't require bookkeeping for longer than 1 round, and doesn't impose the plausibility and playstyle issues of the AEDU system. I think it's a rather nice concept, which is why I'd like to see it adopted and expanded for more classes. I think it's a rather nice compromise between tactical depth and simplicity.

 

[The Shadow]

I don't want a Barbarian experience that is like a Fighter experience and like a Ranger experience and like a Paladin experience and like a Rogue experience and like a Ninja experience. I want a different experience for each class, and for that different experience, I want a mechanic that is going to deliver it to me, not something adapted from some other class just because it happened to be laying around and looked kind of flexible.

I very much sympathize, but I suspect the different *uses* of Expertise could go a long way toward making classes distinct - in much the same way that different spell lists can make two classes with the same basic mechanic feel very distinct.

All fighters get Deadly Strike and Parry by default. If warlords, as suggested above, get Inspire and Directed Action by default, and perhaps never ever get Deadly Strike... they will feel very different at the table. (That said, if this is how the warlord does work, it could maybe work just as well as a Fighting Style.)

Likewise, perhaps rogues get martial Expertise, but can only use it if they get certain triggering events - advantage being the common one, though the Thug does get an alternate trigger. In exchange, they get a Sneak Attack use that does more damage, and other rogue-flavored things.

 

[triqui]

I also think it's important that many people are not interested in any type of resource management, and need an opt-out. The damage bonus, as you say, is a reasonable approach.

I agree with this. I have this kind of player in my game, he likes to play, he loves to chat with us, laugh a bit when a comical situation arise, have fun, eat pizza, and roleplays a bit when needed. He just don't like tactical games, and don't want to make complex decisions. He often don't even worry about flanking or receiving OA. And that's completelly a fair option, it's how he likes to play, and he *deserves* an option to do so. And that's exactly why I think Combat Superiority is such a neat design. This guy can just attack, and add dice to his damage, while I can Tumble around and Push people into Wizard dangerous Zone spells. Both of we are happy.

I'm sure the CS can be streamlined. Heck, it has been around for one week, and they haven't even received any report of it yet. But if they polish it well, it's going to be a damn good mechanic for they purpose: allow a fighter that both me, and my fellow mate, can enjoy.

 

[kerleth]

My 2cents st that the warlord should have his own mechanic AND the fighter should have a "commander" fighting style. That way you can play your preferred character with the system that feels best to you rather than being shoehorned into a certain class because it's the only way to pull it off. The key is to make each of the class subsystems simple and easy to use so that you can quickly make a character without needing to keep a bottle of tylenol next to the PHB.

 

[The Shadow]

My 2cents st that the warlord should have his own mechanic AND the fighter should have a "commander" fighting style.

Thing is, there's only so much pagecount in the PHB. I don't think it's practical to have both in the book, when you consider all the other options that could logically be multiplied (non-Vancian wizards, to name an example from another thread).

Now, when the Complete Commander's Splatbook comes out, then sure.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

What is the point?

If the point is to have a unique play experience, then I need 17 different mechanics, and I need to know them in order to choose which play experience I want.

If the point is to play the archetype I want, then I don't need 17 different mechanics - having 17 mechanics is a barrier to entry, as every time I want to try a new archetype, I have to relearn my game! In addition, even if a given mechanic fits two different archetypes well, one of them will probably have to settle for a worse implementation, as I'm "not allowed" to reuse mechanics, even if they work!

These two lines are rather antithetical to each other. And I'm sure there are folks for whom each is primary. My guess, then, is that you won't see a complete solution for either. There will be many unique mechanics, but not *everything* will be unique. Especially because, as I noted, there's design you can do with shared mechanics that doesn't work with unique mechanics.

I use 3e Sneak Attack as a polestar here. There were plenty of classes that could be used to make a "sneaky martial character" in 3e. Bards, rangers - heck, even monks. But none of them got Sneak Attack dice. If you wanted THAT benefit, you had to take levels of rogue. Why? Not because other classes wouldn't benefit from them, or even because it wouldn't fit the style of, say, the ranger. It was because Sneak Attack was part of what made the rogue special. Same for CS: other classes don't get it not because they don't want it or it wouldn't fit, but because it's what sets the fighter apart.

It's not like they can't come up with a way to make other melee classes effective without CS. In case people have forgotten, we've already also got rogues, war-domain clerics, and draconic sorcerers holding their own in melee, each with a completely different mechanic and zero access to CS. And while I won't claim that each of these classes is perfectly balanced or as cool in combat as the fighter, (a) they have their own advantages outside of combat, and (b) I would argue that it would be better to fix those other classes by adjusting the mechanics they do have rather than tacking on something from the fighter.

When it comes to other classes, I feel like CS would actually detract from the feel of those classes. The barbarian isn't about carefully calculated tactical management; he's about overwhelming power. I'd think the Pathfinder barbarian would be a good starting point: he's a martial character who uses a daily resource ("stamina" maybe) to fly into a deadly rage or perform other feats of might.

 

[jrowland]

Not just martial characters I could totally see spell casters getting a variation of these action dice. They could be spent to do things like change a close burst into a burst or a cone, or exclude allies from damaging spells or change a fire spell into lightning etc. Heck you could even call them metamagic dice.

In a sense, you could say "channel divinity uses" are already a form of CS dice.

Let # uses channel divinity = CD dice (ie CS dice)
Let CD dice be used to power channel divinity maneuvers (pre-req cast divine spells) or basic martial maneuvers or add to healing.
etc. etc.

Then a cleric could be built more battle cleric by using CD dice to power melee abilities like the fighter or more laser cleric by powering attack spells or more hreals with direct addition of healing.

 

[jrowland]

Plus, "unique mechanic" means "no clear mechanical synergy". If a couple of classes have shared mechanics, then it becomes more clear what you can do when multiclassing among those classes (if they choose to have multiclassing, which I very much expect they will).

This is the key to modularity as well. Yes, fighters use CS to tap into the expertise dice mechanic, sorcerers use WP to tap into their Sorcerous Heritage (in the playtest Draconic heritage). I could see Channel Divinity working in a similar vein.

Every class doesn't have to support expertise dice, but in so far as they do, customizing a class by swapping out expertise features is modularity on the player side of the screen.

At least for 5E, keeping a bit of firewall between martial and spellcasting PCs is fine.