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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5928892" data-attributes="member: 22424">No, of course not.No, it's fair enough.In principle, these mechanics are working exactly as intended. The players are making a choice not to take these actions, weighing the risks against the benefit and deciding appropriately.However...There is a crucial issue at work here. "Yes you can, but with a penalty" should create a tough, and therefore interesting choice - Do I ignore the mark, take the damage, but take the Wizard out? Do I take the risk of the disarm, but potentially end the fight?It's therefore important that the penalty and the benefit are in proportion - if the risk is just too great or the reward too small, then it's not really a choice - do I do something stupid for little gain? Conversely, if the risk is too small and the reward too great, then it becomes a no-brainer.It's quite possible (actually, almost certain) that some instances of those mechanics just weren't balanced - that some marks made ignoring them too deadly to seriously consider; that some combat maneuvers just weren't worth the risk (trip being a good example).And this was one of the key things that irritated me about the 3e combat maneuvers. As you suggest, the risks were probably too great for the reward (although in principle that's maybe not too tough to fix). However, the presence of the feats made the risks seem that much greater - such that players would believe that using them without the feats was never worth it.But take the feats, and suddenly the choice was reversed - the maneuvers were always worth it. As I said, either way it wasn't a tough (and so interesting) choice.</blockquote>

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