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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KidSnide" data-source="post: 5902719" data-attributes="member: 54710">I agree with your analysis, but not with the result.  I never found that my 3.x games were made better by all these maneuvers.  Sure, it was nice to have a bull rush when there's interesting terrain where a target can be pushed, and it's good to have trip if an enemy is trying to escape.  But I never found that I wanted more of these in my basic combat.One of the advantages to the 4e approach is that you tend to see special effects (tripping, pushing, etc.) (1) moderately often and (2) in addition to damage.  If this abilities are worse than damage outside of special circumstances (the correct situation, IMO), then it doesn't solve your tank problem because folks will mostly just swing their swords.  But if these maneuvers are at-will and better-than-damage, then you will get ridiculous slapstick clown combat, where everyone is knocking each other down, but nobody takes any damage.Personally, I think that the 4e system was right, in the sense that melee combat is more tactical and more fun if there are a series of special maneuvers that are (1) strictly better than a typical attack and (2) not usable every turn.  Where the problem came in was that encounter and daily powers were never an especially good fit for martial characters.Here's my random thought of the day...I suspect that a better tactical combat option would come closer to the Iron Heroes approach.  Different classes/builds/options could have a variety of ways of building up maneuver points (advantage points?) against a given opponent (or group of opponents?), by fighting them, observing them or taking special actions to set them up.  With enough maneuver points, the martial characters can pull off the special exploit.  Many characters will want exploits that do extra damage, but more defender-like characters will have controller-like effects that limit the opponent's ability.  Likewise, defender-like characters can build up maneuver points, for example, when targets ignore their challenge or attack adjacent opponents.And, of course, defender zones (where enemies in the zone take are at a penalty to hit the defender's allies) are the less complicated alternative for folks who don't want to track building up maneuver points.-KS</blockquote>

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