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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8990858" data-attributes="member: 6801228">You seem to have a lot of aggression for a point I was not making. To rehash the conversation, in case you have people who were part of it blocked, [USER=6689493]@Eubani[/USER] claimed that "If monsters were designed better and not just bags of hp, then Fighters (any class actually) could afford to surrender some damage for control when the situation suited." Further stating that, as they saw the game, that is currently a losing proposition because it just makes the fight take longer. [USER=3400]@billd91[/USER] and then myself pushed back, asking for examples of this "better monster design" and how giving the monsters better abilities would change the fact that dead is the best condition. I never stated it was the only condition that matters, there are other conditions that matter. Paralyzed is amazing. Poisoned can be very strong. This isn't about "the only way to impact the story is MURDER!!" it is a challenge tp this idea that the reason fighter's can't have interesting abilities is because of monster design.But beyond that... what do you mean there is a story on the battlefield? Are you trying to suggest that because I value winning a fight by making my enemies unable to continue fighting there are no narrative consequences to the fights? If there weren't consequences.... why would I care about winning? And what you wrote below makes no sense with this context. I would love to have fun while winning. But to do that... I need to win the fight. Losing the fight is generally not fun. Losing the fight consistently is bad. We want fighter's to control the battlefield? GREAT! But here's the thing, pushing and enemy 5 ft, while cool, is fairly meaningless in terms of "battlefield control". What does real battlefield control look like? Slowing every single enemy in a 40 ft diameter sphere. Creating zones that damage the enemy for entering them. Reshaping the battlefield. These are control effects, so if we want fighter's to have legitimate control options, they need these. Grappling? Before the One DnD changes grappling was utterly pointless. Because all it did was take a melee enemy and prevent them from moving, usually at hefty cost to you. Now there is some use in it, because it prevents the enemy from as easily hurting your allies, but you have to take some significant trade-offs for that effect. Enough trade-offs to make it a serious question of if it is worth it. Kicking an enemy off a cliff is always fun... but not every fight takes place on a cliffside. A fight in the town square, or in the common room of an inn doesn't give you any value for that. Not every fight has enemies running to get reinforcements, or even running in general. Slowing an enemy who isn't moving is pointless. You haven't accomplished anything. This is generally my problem with Slasher, it simply usually doesn't mean anything to slow a melee enemy who is next to you, because they aren't moving, they are attacking you. And this matters, much like it matters that you are adding "terrifying" to cleaves and DOAM, because you are now making this a matter of DM buy-in. You need the DM to give these character's weight and effect on the battlefield. And the moment you do, you actually have a problem. "Oh, the goblins are terrified you killed two of them in a single swing." two fights later "Oh, um, hmm, yeah Wizard I know you just roasted four goblins in a single action, but... yeah no, you are right, that would be terrifying." Once it becomes a matter of DM Fiat, then it is table specific and that causes a host of potential issues if you are relying on that to bolster mechanical design. And all this wraps back around. It has to be worth it. If you are so confident in a fight that you are willing to take a turn to embarrass my BBEG instead of fighting them, then I made a poor BBEG. They are supposed to be the most desperate fight, not the fight where you shove them in a locker and steal their lunch money first. Knocking them prone has to be worth the cost of taking the action. One way of doing this that I like is making the cost low. If knocking an enemy prone 1/turn is free, then we are talking about a cool ability. If it costs you your damage for the turn... it had better be worth it, perhaps because you have an all-melee party who doesn't have ranged attackers that prone will negatively impact. And if it costs your full action? Then it frankly isn't worth it for a melee character to do that. Because styling on the enemy but losing the fight is just stupid.</blockquote>

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