Forked Thread: Acrobatic Stunts - What Can You Do (DC?)

[knightofround]

Acrobatics gets so little love in 4E, and it can really spice up combat encounters. It's a shame most people are dead-set against it.

In certain situations, I think an Acrobatic stunt should be somewhere between an at-will power and a encounter power of the class executing the action. That's important from a meta-game perspective; you don't want fighters gaining access to striker-level damage just because they have trained acrobatics too. The situation is key, because you don't want to eliminate at-will powers.

Acrobatics is already weak as it is because you can't gain enhancement bonuses or add to the damage that you like you can with powers/feats/class features. All you need to do is use the DCs and damage expressions in the DMG and you're golden. If the PC want to try swinging across a rope and knock an enemy down a cliff, just use the good ole +/- 2 and adjust the damage expression downward to compensate for the extra stuff they want to do. Losing your both your actions (move and standard) is a bad enough penalty as it is, falling prone is even worse...especially when you could've just walked up to the thing and whacked it.

And if the PC is willing to give up, say, a utility encounter ability in exchange for an extra-cool stunt, why not? The skill power framework is already there to do just that, and I haven't seen a single skill power reach a point where it would be superior to other utility powers.

If you make stunts as bad or equal to at-will powers from a mechanical standpoint, the only thing its really good for is reducing falling damage. And that is just barely used more than balancing. In other words, its a broken skill.

 

[Saeviomagy]

In certain situations, I think an Acrobatic stunt should be somewhere between an at-will power and a encounter power of the class executing the action. That's important from a meta-game perspective; you don't want fighters gaining access to striker-level damage just because they have trained acrobatics too. The situation is key, because you don't want to eliminate at-will powers.

If you make stunts as bad or equal to at-will powers from a mechanical standpoint, the only thing its really good for is reducing falling damage. And that is just barely used more than balancing. In other words, its a broken skill.

The thing to remember is that while an individual acrobatic stunt considered in a vacuum might be weak, it's still possible for it to be very powerful in the right situation. If each stunt equals an at-will power, then every acrobatically capable character suddenly has an unlimited list of at-will powers, and ONE of them will be perfect for whatever is going on right now(and therefore more powerful than any other at-will power in the same situation).

It's that final power level (how good is it RIGHT NOW) that is what you need to balance on.

Personally I feel it's pretty hard to hit a sweet spot of balance where acrobatic stunts are good, but class powers still serve a purpose. Which is why my system pretty much goes for differentiating them by a different means. Acrobatic stunts are more risky than regular powers, but are more powerful in the right situation when they work.