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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DogBackward" data-source="post: 5928799" data-attributes="member: 50642">Two things to point out to your players.To the Rogue: Rogues are not strikers anymore. They're not meant to be damage dealers, and their Sneak Attack is meant to be an occasional, situational bonus. Rogues have gone back to being the skill-monkeys of the group. They've got six to seven skills, and have a very hard time failing most skill checks. They've got a lot of nifty things to make them better at the exploration parts; in combat, they're meant to be backup, not the main damage dealers. That's the Fighter's role, now.To the Fighter: one of the main features of Next is that you don't have to have a special ability to do something. Part of that is up to you as DM, and part of it is up to the Fighter's player. You don't have to look up any special ability to perform a maneuver. If the Fighter wants to trip a goblin, or shove it somewhere, or stop it from moving... you simply tell him what to roll (I use Strength vs. the target's Strength or Dexterity, whichever is higher).The way they're using ability scores is specifically designed to remove the need for all these little bits and pieces of rules. You don't need ten different "maneuvers" to perform a simple trick in combat, you just need to know which ability score to roll, and the DM can hammer out exactly what happens. This allows for an endless supply of possible combat maneuvers; not just the usual trip, disarm, grapple and so on, but also tipping things over onto enemies, throwing large objects into groups of enemies, swinging from chandeliers, that sort of thing. Admittedly, it might help to have some suggested outcomes for some of these stunts... but this is the early playtest, after all, and there's no reason you can't just rule it on the fly.I've found that the best way to handle it is to imagine that the battle is taking place in a hollywood action flick, like Conan or Lord of the Rings. The player tells you what he'd trying, and you imagine what that would look like in a badass action movie; if his check succeeds, that's what happens.(Note that this also gives a lot of good options for Rogues who can't find a good place to hide right away, as well. A good stunt at the right time can turn the tide of an entire battle.)</blockquote>

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