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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ainamacar" data-source="post: 6005620" data-attributes="member: 70709">I was unclear.  It is an important question that should be confronted, but at the moment I just don't have the time (or inclination) to confront it in the depth it would require. (bold mine)There are connections in class concepts!  They are all adventuring types (or adventure capable anyway), all principally focused on physical weapons and attacks, etc.  Do you not consider these part of "class concepts" because they share these things in common?  That's a mistake, in my view, because how classes are the same is at least as important as how they are different.  Their mechanics should also reflect their similarities.  This is both/and, not either/or.The bolded part is where we especially diverge, because it presumes what ED mean in a conversation in good part about what ED could mean!  For the fighter that is exactly what ED might represent.  For everyone else, it can represent other contributions, that work in different ways but have a common means of interaction.  My preference is that ED represent the common language of martial interactions, just as hit points represent a common language for creature resilience.  Within that framework I want a diversity of mechanics.Your paladin example is particularly specious, as though using ED necessarily means that mechanic has the same power impact for all characters (thus overpowering paladins who can also do other stuff).  Not only is that not necessarily true in general, in D&D it has essentially vanishing likelihood: there are just too many parameters to play with.  A Paladin might have fewer uses, fewer dice, harder conditions with which to gain ED, etc.  Those are possible trade-offs one could make while using an ED system and giving the Paladin separate touched-by-the-divine mechanics as well.I could define resolution mechanics that use dice, cards, bidding,  Jenga, throwing spaghetti at the wall, counting the number of sunspots  in a randomly determined year, or whose mother's first name has the  least Damerau-Levenshtein distance to a random word in the rule book.   That these evoke (or not!) different things is irrelevant to the  mechanic itself, because the mechanic doesn't mean anything by itself.   Only in connection with game concepts (and through that other mechanics  as well) does it acquire evocativeness.  And evocativeness itself is  probably not free of arbitrariness, since it is a subjective quality.   When we agree that a mechanic is evocative, likewise, I doubt we have determined a property of the mechanic, but rather a property we  happen to share in our relationship with the mechanic-game  relationship. In either case, by that point I think we've ceased to talk about  mechanics unto themselves and have started to talk about aesthetics -- a field in which whether objects-unto-themselves have these kinds of properties is a classical concern.There are  also trivial forms of arbitrariness which essentially always apply.  In  D&D if one doubles the damage (and any similar hp calculations) of  every effect and doubles the hit points of every creature/object one  will recover a game with different mechanics but identical outcomes.   This shows that the game's mechanics always include an arbitrary positive  integer scale factor.I value similarity and distinctiveness, because each has beneficial effects.  I guess maybe we're just trying to achieve different "design goal"s in general, because in my book if you can have a mechanic that does at least as much as a different mechanic then one should strongly consider exploring it.  That's all I want, an honest exploration of the idea.  The multiclass implications alone convince me it is worth examining, but let me try and think of ways that a rogue by itself could use ED in a way distinct from sneak attack:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Any effect the rogue performs not on its turn, since typically all sneak attack resources must be used when making that attack, even if the effects occur later.  This is particularly true if the rogue can use ED in initiative checks or contests, which may occur before anyone has acted. And even if an ambush feat let one "keep" damage dice from a sneak attack to spend later, the initial conditions for generating those dice (i.e. requiring a sneak attack) may not be the same as the generating condition for the ED.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">To reiterate, the generating conditions themselves may be very different and support different styles of rogue.  The sneak attack rogue gets a bonus when making a sneak attack, an ED rogue might gain ED in order to put itself in a better tactical position in the first place, not as a reward for doing so.  Different resource recovery incentivizes different playstyles.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Using ED to escape combat, perform acrobatic stunts, set up elaborate multi-round feints, etc. rather than engage (something sneak attack absolutely requires).</li> </ul>    Maybe none of those things seem like they would address your concerns, but I think that makes you the perfect person to playtest them.  I disliked the idea of AEDU, and after giving it a fair shake my dislike stuck with me.  The same might happen for you here, but only if you're willing to play it on its own terms first.  On the other hand, I can name several cases where my initial distaste for a mechanic turned to appreciation (and vice versa), but only after playing it.  I hope a universal ED interface makes it into a future playtest, so the entire community can move from an interesting discussion on game theory to seeing whether it stands or falls in play.  I have no doubt that even after such a test, YMMV, but that is more knowledge than we have now.---I could really dig something along these lines.  It might not fit "peace and meditation" monks, but for styles that emphasize fluidity (a la Bruce Lee) or unpredictable attacks (drunken fist!) it could be very interesting.  On a critical hit one might even lower the barrier for additional dice (make it a 5 or above) so that on a natural 20 monks are likely to string together something really astonishing.</blockquote>

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