Fighter "Stunts": How will they work?

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Reading the Races and Classes book, I picked up a few tidbits about fighter "stunts." (This is the name for fighter per-encounter abilities, which were called "maneuvers" in the Book of Nine Swords.)

1. When they said Bo9S was a "significant preview" of 4e, they weren't kidding - the 4e maneuvers were specifically designed to playtest proposed 4e mechanics. At that point, the design team was toying with treating stunts as a hand of cards, complete with random-draw, discard and re-draw mechanics (as we saw in Bo9S). The three Bo9S classes were different experiments with that system.

2. HOWEVER, they decided that this game-within-a-game was too much, so they cut out most of those "hand"-management aspects for the 4e fighter.

3. The official justification for per-encounter "stunts" is that the enemy won't fall for the same stunt twice in the same encounter. The idea of fighters having an "inner reserve of energy" that gets exhausted is specifically denied. As the book states it (and I'm paraphrasing from memory), you get to use each of the stunts you know a maximum of once per encounter.

So these three points make me wonder: how many stunts does a fighter know at first level? At 30th? Is a player with a high-level fighter going to have to keep track of 15+ per-encounter abilities each combat? Will there be ANY "refresh" mechanic, like taking a special action in Bo9S?

Also, another tidbit worth mentioning: When WotC talks about fighters having "at will" abilities, they don't just mean regular weapon attacks (as I had personally assumed). Their example of a fighter's "at-will" ability is an attack that raises the fighter's AC versus that enemy if it connects.

 

[Rechan]

So these three points make me wonder: how many stunts does a fighter know at first level? At 30th? Is a player with a high-level fighter going to have to keep track of 15+ per-encounter abilities each combat? Will there be ANY "refresh" mechanic, like taking a special action in Bo9S?

1) I'm suspicious that this might be like what the Paladin smites appear to be: he can either swap out his current stunts for better ones when he levels up, or keep his old stunts, which probably scale with his level.

So in other words, a high level fighter may have 5-6 stunts at any one time.

2) I hope there is no refresh mechanic. I dislike that. When a 3rd level swordsage can do some 20 points of damage in one round, and then meditate and bam, he can do it all over again? Cheese.

 

[Amazing Triangle]

From what you said I would speculate that they gave each class a different number of abilities for this very reason. The warblade has 13, Crusader 14, and Swordsage 25. They must have learned something from all of these classes. Maybe a middle ground of like 18 by 20th level. I would assume that when all your cool moves are up for and encounter you are out of cool moves at least the per encounter ones. No way to refresh cause you should have spread them out a little bit more if it was going to be a long combat. I don't know just guessing

 

[RigaMortus2]

2) I hope there is no refresh mechanic. I dislike that. When a 3rd level swordsage can do some 20 points of damage in one round, and then meditate and bam, he can do it all over again? Cheese.

Which essentially comes out to 10 points a round... Not that scary for a 3rd level character. A 3rd level Barbarian has the potential to deal that much damage every round. Is the Power Attacking Barbarian cheesy too (as if there is any other way to build a Barbarian )?

 

[Kunimatyu]

1) I'm suspicious that this might be like what the Paladin smites appear to be: he can either swap out his current stunts for better ones when he levels up, or keep his old stunts, which probably scale with his level.

So in other words, a high level fighter may have 5-6 stunts at any one time.

2) I hope there is no refresh mechanic. I dislike that. When a 3rd level swordsage can do some 20 points of damage in one round, and then meditate and bam, he can do it all over again? Cheese.

Cheese != uneven damage output.

But, I do agree with you that refreshing isn't always the way to go. Burning action points to refresh, and feats/talents that can give you additional uses per encounter? That sort of thing I'm fine with, as long as you're expending finite resources (feat slots, action points) to do it.

 

[Rechan]

Cheese != uneven damage output.

But, I do agree with you that refreshing isn't always the way to go. Burning action points to refresh, and feats/talents that can give you additional uses per encounter? That sort of thing I'm fine with, as long as you're expending finite resources (feat slots, action points) to do it.

Well, I was going from personal experience, mind you. The Swordsage who was at our table for a session was just doing insane stuff, and then when I looked at the rules and it said "Oh and you can refresh by just taking a round to meditate", I agreed with the DM that that's just unnecessary.

 

[Scribble]

Well, I was going from personal experience, mind you. The Swordsage who was at our table for a session was just doing insane stuff, and then when I looked at the rules and it said "Oh and you can refresh by just taking a round to meditate", I agreed with the DM that that's just unnecessary.

You can refresh one power per round. (There is a feat that lets you swap out your powers for other, however.) So thats one round you're sitting out of combat to get one power back.

When you say "all kinds of crazy things" what exactly do you mean? I play a swordsage in a friend's campaign, and I'd say his damage output isn't any greater then other characters.

It's important to remember that most of the powers are standard actions (or longer) which means one of them per round, so you end up doing roughly the same damage as the other melee combatants who stand there and slug it out through multiple attacks...

Also important is remembering to pick your powers "fairly" if you build a character starting at a higher level... You have to remember there are only certain times that you can swap out your lower level powers, so you can't just fill up with high level powers...

 

[Rechan]

You can refresh one power per round. (There is a feat that lets you swap out your powers for other, however.) So thats one round you're sitting out of combat to get one power back.

Ooooh. I thought it was "I meditate one round and get all my powers back".

When you say "all kinds of crazy things" what exactly do you mean? I play a swordsage in a friend's campaign, and I'd say his damage output isn't any greater then other characters.

I don't want to derail the thread, but...

It's important to remember that most of the powers are standard actions (or longer) which means one of them per round, so you end up doing roughly the same damage as the other melee combatants who stand there and slug it out through multiple attacks...

There were several ones that were used as swift actions. A jumping power that let him make a 30ft leap without having to roll, an 'he hit me, so I swift-action fireblast him', and two powers that he activated at once - an attack coupled with a fire attack (which did the 20 points of damage).

 

[RigaMortus2]

Well, I was going from personal experience, mind you. The Swordsage who was at our table for a session was just doing insane stuff, and then when I looked at the rules and it said "Oh and you can refresh by just taking a round to meditate", I agreed with the DM that that's just unnecessary.

Well of course! He was playing a (pre)4E character along side 3E characters.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Ooooh. I thought it was "I meditate one round and get all my powers back".

It is, if he has Adaptive Style feat.

The Warblade can refresh all their abilities too w/o this feat, but it cost them either a Standard Action OR a Swift action if used during a normal melee attack routine. Meaning, 1 or more melee attacks, but no martial strikes.