NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hexmage-EN" data-source="post: 4778158" data-attributes="member: 79428">Let me see if I've got this straight:Pre-3E: Rounds took up a minute of in-game time. The options selected by the players were assumed to have occurred within that timeframe in some way. Combat mechanics were geared towards abstraction.3E: Rounds took up six seconds. Combat mechanics were geared towards simulation, and as such non-magical abilities were either always usable whenever certain conditions were met or caused the character using them to become fatigued.4E: Rounds take up six seconds. An opportunity to use a limited-use mundane power is assumed to only occur either once an encounter or once a day. The optimal opportunity to use that power is assumed to have occurred whenever the player chooses to use that power. Combat mechanics are more abstract than 3E and more simulationist than pre-3E.I hate to keep using this as an example for fear of offending you, Raven, but your Rogue's Living Shadows ability could be explained that last way. Instead of your Rogue saying "Okay, time to turn on my super sneak ability", the player is deciding that he's going to use a once daily allowance to assume that conditions are optimal for his Rogue to go unnoticed. I can't say I'm particularly a fan of this approach, but on further inspection I think I agree that the 4E designers intended for Martial powers to be instances of player narrative control. I wish they would have been more forthright with this concept if this is indeed the case. Perhaps they could have made mention that "Magic powers allow a character to influence the world; Martial powers allow a player to determine when unique opportunities for action occur for his character."I guess all Martial powers are intended to be like this. Encounter powers aren't usable only once because they're too tiring, but because they are allowances for a player to assume that the optimal chance to attack has arrived. Another example: the Ranger has a power that grants bonuses to skill checks that is described as a flash of insight. This implies that the Ranger doesn't actively try to think of something but that the player has a limited capacity for choosing when an idea pops into his character's head.I think another problem with this approach is that it leads to the false conclusion that characters can only do something if they have the power for it. The Rogue doesn't have to have the  "Sand in the Eyes" power to throw sand at an enemy's eyes. Any character can do that whenever they want; that power just grants the player the optimal opportunity for that course of action to succeed.</blockquote>

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