Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
I'n a little concerned...
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="SmilingPiePlate" data-source="post: 4114344" data-attributes="member: 13814"><p>The reason I'm okay with things like trip being encounter powers is that I thought 3e's philosophy regarding trip, disarm, and similar maneuvers made sense, but didn't work out very well in actual play.</p><p></p><p>Trip was balanced around the idea that it conferred an advantage (denying your enemy a full attack by forcing him to spend a move standing back up) over a normal attack and thus should be hard to do with specializing in it. It was so hard to do reliably without feats that people generally didn't bother with it, and with feats, it was effective and reliable enough that people spammed it if they had the specialization.</p><p></p><p>Neither of these is desirable from a gameplay standpoint. Making trip difficult to do and risky means that, if anything, it's -less- likely to be attempted if the situation is getting dire, because the risk of failure and being tripped in return will make a bad situation worse. And if you're good enough at it to do it reliably, you'll use it every round, more or less. And why shouldn't you? </p><p></p><p>From a "cool, exciting fantasy combat" perspective, attacks that knock people prone are supposed to happen more often than never, but they're also not supposed to happen continuously. How many protagonists in fantasy literature just spam the same move over and over? It makes for optimal gaming but poor storytelling and boring entertainment.</p><p></p><p>Trip as an encounter power will probably be quite reliable. You just can't use it every round. The game is, in fact, limiting your options in that way, because it's the best way to make trip simple, reliable, and effective without at the same time making it so good that fighters spend the majority of every combat kicking people in the shins to knock them down. It's a limitation in options with the intent of making DnD combat more like "cool, exciting fantasy combat" from books and movies, and less like a video game where you spam the move you've built your character around being the best at.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="SmilingPiePlate, post: 4114344, member: 13814"] The reason I'm okay with things like trip being encounter powers is that I thought 3e's philosophy regarding trip, disarm, and similar maneuvers made sense, but didn't work out very well in actual play. Trip was balanced around the idea that it conferred an advantage (denying your enemy a full attack by forcing him to spend a move standing back up) over a normal attack and thus should be hard to do with specializing in it. It was so hard to do reliably without feats that people generally didn't bother with it, and with feats, it was effective and reliable enough that people spammed it if they had the specialization. Neither of these is desirable from a gameplay standpoint. Making trip difficult to do and risky means that, if anything, it's -less- likely to be attempted if the situation is getting dire, because the risk of failure and being tripped in return will make a bad situation worse. And if you're good enough at it to do it reliably, you'll use it every round, more or less. And why shouldn't you? From a "cool, exciting fantasy combat" perspective, attacks that knock people prone are supposed to happen more often than never, but they're also not supposed to happen continuously. How many protagonists in fantasy literature just spam the same move over and over? It makes for optimal gaming but poor storytelling and boring entertainment. Trip as an encounter power will probably be quite reliable. You just can't use it every round. The game is, in fact, limiting your options in that way, because it's the best way to make trip simple, reliable, and effective without at the same time making it so good that fighters spend the majority of every combat kicking people in the shins to knock them down. It's a limitation in options with the intent of making DnD combat more like "cool, exciting fantasy combat" from books and movies, and less like a video game where you spam the move you've built your character around being the best at. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
I'n a little concerned...
Top