Fighter "Stunts": How will they work?

[Stalker0]

Indeed. Since actions are quite possibly the most precious resource of D&D, most of the time, you're better off using your second-best attack rather than getting your best one back.

However in a new edition where special manuevers only work once per encounter, and the numbers of rounds (and therefore actions) you get per combat goes up, actions aren't quite as precious as they once were.

I am fine with them losing the refresh mechanics. The big thing I noticed from my BO9S games was that people were using the same manuevers over and over again. They would always start the combat with their highest manuevers and then refresh if they needed them again. While it was definately a step up from regular fighters, it did get repetitive.

 

[Rechan]

I am fine with them losing the refresh mechanics. The big thing I noticed from my BO9S games was that people were using the same manuevers over and over again. They would always start the combat with their highest manuevers and then refresh if they needed them again. While it was definately a step up from regular fighters, it did get repetitive.

Aye. They should be treated like mages.

Namely, waste your highest level spells, you stick to your lower ones and SUCK IT UP.

 

[Gloombunny]

WotC employs good people, but defining "encounters" that well... is probably impossible.

What's wrong with "you have to rest for 1 minute to get your powers back"?

 

[Kraydak]

What's wrong with "you have to rest for 1 minute to get your powers back"?

That allows for in-encounter ability refreshes. I don't have much (it raises balance issues for long vs. short encounters, much like the 3e nova vs. long haul balancing issues, but that isn't too big a deal) against it, mind, but it isn't what is reported from R&C.

 

[Rechan]

That allows for in-encounter ability refreshes.

No. The 'one minute refresh' is specifically an out-of-encounter thing.

An Encounter ends when the DM says the encounter is over. And until the encounter is over, the Maneuvers cannot be refreshed.

 

[Stalker0]

Personally, I don't mind that standard swordsage manuever refresh. You spend 1 full-round action and gain 1 manuever back. IF they want to stand their every other round to do the same thing, no problem with me.

The problem comes in with adaptive style (the feat). It allows you to get all of your maneuvers back, so there is no conservation, you blow the good ones and get them back.

 

[IceFractal]

A "one minute rest time" refresh is implicity per encounter, without the awkward edge-cases that making it literally per encounter raises. And seriously, if someone is willing to stand there for ten rounds doing nothing, then let them have their manuevers back.

Secondly, I really hope they aren't going with "you can't fool people with the same trick twice" as an explanation for why stunts are per encounter, because that's the most crap reason ever. It raises tons of fourth-wall-breaking questions right off the bat:
* Someone was absent while you did your stunt, and then they enter the encounter from another room; why can't you use it on them as well?
* If the foes are mindless, they aren't ever going to get wise to your tricks.
* If you fight the same group of people later as a different encounter, why can you suddenly fool them again?

Now if the explanation was "a technique requires the right timing in the right place, which only occurs once during a given battle", that would be acceptable at least.

 

[Exen Trik]

I'm split on this actually, some things do work far better as stunts that can't be applied more than once in an encounter. But other things are less suited for it, and maybe some kind of "inner reserve power" is appropriate then. The first would be any kind of action to catch a target off guard, something like an automatic critical hit should be repeatable though.

 

[Gort]

Secondly, I really hope they aren't going with "you can't fool people with the same trick twice" as an explanation for why stunts are per encounter, because that's the most crap reason ever.

Agreed. I can't think of a better reason beyond the same reason they used in 3e for why you can't cast the same spell twice without "memorising it twice", though. Perhaps using a maneuver like that is so taxing physically and mentally that you simply don't have the stamina to do it twice?

Still a crap reason, I know, but I'd love to hear a good one beyond, "It keeps things varied", which is horribly metagaming.

 

[Gloombunny]

Agreed. I can't think of a better reason beyond the same reason they used in 3e for why you can't cast the same spell twice without "memorising it twice", though. Perhaps using a maneuver like that is so taxing physically and mentally that you simply don't have the stamina to do it twice?

That doesn't really work, because you could perform two taxing maneuvers in a row, but not either one of them twice.

This was about the only thing I didn't like about Bo9S, and I'm dismayed that they're carrying it forward into 4e.