Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5948254" data-attributes="member: 42582">Interesting. I see it used all the time in my game.Your character can. It's just that the mechanics of the game dictate that it will fail - or, at least, won't produce any mechanical result different from just rolling your d20 for an attack (of course, if you successfully roll an attack there's nothing to stop you narrating it as having benefitted from more sand in the ogre's eyes).That's the nature of metagame mechanics. Complaining that encounter powers don't map to PC decisions in the gameworld is like complaining that turn-by-turn initiative doesn't map to the actual movement of the characters and monsters in the gameworld. As I posted upthread, both are metagame systems to ration player resources: turn-by-turn initiative establishes an action economy, and encouter powers establish an effect economy.Even classic D&D, which has semi-continous initiative, still has a type of action economy. Why can't I attack twice in a round at a penalty to hit? Why do I get only one chance per minute to get in a substantial blow - even against a giant slug? There is no explanation for this from within the gameworld.Now obviously not everyone likes metagame systems for rationing resources. But complaining that they're nonsensical because they're metagame strikes me as missing the point.There are pros and cons to freestyling it. I mean, you could freestyle the whole of combat, but most D&D players don't. (Call of Cthulhu, on the other hand, lends itself well to freestyle combat.)You can freestyle magic, too, but most D&D groups don't. They rely on a chess-like "strait-jacketing of targetting, intended us, scope and conditions" called memorisation rules and spell descriptions.Out of interest, how do you adjudicate this in AD&D? In 3E?In 4e it sounds to me like a STR attack vs Fortitude to daze until the start of the target's next turn. (That won't cause the loss of any actions, but will negate oppy attacks while I run away, and all my friends will get combat advantage while I run away.)The real issue in adjudicating this sort of thing is getting the balance right - because if it's strictly better than standard attacks, it's all anyone will ever do. It's with that balance in mind that I suggest above that the daze would be until the start of the target's next turn.I'm not sure what rules you're reading, but the 4e DMG has a section all about using powers to do thinks like attack hanging lanterns. Maybe you missed it.</blockquote>

Verification