This seems like the chief reason. As a player, I'm glad that charges are limited in this way, as many monsters at paragon level can do all kinds of cheese with a minor action.
So... why exactly can you not take actions after a charge?
- Thread starter UltimaGabe
- Start date
UltimaGabe
First Post
Neither of those classes existed when 4e came out. Both were made with the knowledge that Charges end your turn.
So far, although I'm sure most of the reasons in this thread are accurate, I have yet to see compelling reason why this was a design choice from the get-go. It just seems so arbitrary.
I don't know if there is a "smoking gun" in regards to what the rule is trying to stop. I just think that charging is often an action that designers feel the need to "balance" in order to make moving or attacking without charging still compelling, and to do so, they often add restrictions to the charge action.
Based on the PHB2 FAQ (question 4), you can take free actions after a charge. It's unclear whether the free actions happen before or after the end of your turn (e.g. if you attempt saves first, or if your until-end-of-turn effects wear off), but it's apparently ok to take free actions that are triggered by a charge or its results.
Infiniti2000
First Post
Should there be no opportunity cost for gaining extra Move action? Do you think the restriction to a melee basic attack is sufficient?
Flipguarder
First Post
Here's what you do, allow actions after a charge, find out what happens. The bad things that occur (due to timing), are not the reason but the reason behind the reason.
Their reasoning was "we want X things to be possible. However actions after a charge make X things brokenly powerful. Solution: actions after a charge are not possible."
Entirely based on speculation, but I would be surprised if I was wrong.
They don't want everyone having the equivalent of a hit-and-run attack. That is all.
I think the broad design justification is something like: "We want to encourage players to move each turn. However, it should be easier to enter melee combat than to exit it."
The first principle leads to the whole setup of "move and standard action" each turn, and the second is a big part of why opportunity attacks exist.
This mostly works fine, but then you get the issue where if a melee combatant faces a ranged one, they can't close the distance without spending their standard for extra move, and thus lose their attack. So you put in a "charge" option to help out with that. But to avoid violating the basic principle "melee combat should be easier to enter than exit", we add the stipulation that move+charge is OK but charge+move is not.
Mechanically, it's implemented in 4e by just saying that a charge ends your turn. This has the weird effect of banning a few things that seem like they should be OK, but they probably figured this was a case of "better safe than sorry". Free actions are specifically called out as being subject to DM review anyway, so probably easier to just ban actions after a charge and let the DM greenlight specific cases (which are mostly free actions anyway).
The first principle leads to the whole setup of "move and standard action" each turn, and the second is a big part of why opportunity attacks exist.
This mostly works fine, but then you get the issue where if a melee combatant faces a ranged one, they can't close the distance without spending their standard for extra move, and thus lose their attack. So you put in a "charge" option to help out with that. But to avoid violating the basic principle "melee combat should be easier to enter than exit", we add the stipulation that move+charge is OK but charge+move is not.
Mechanically, it's implemented in 4e by just saying that a charge ends your turn. This has the weird effect of banning a few things that seem like they should be OK, but they probably figured this was a case of "better safe than sorry". Free actions are specifically called out as being subject to DM review anyway, so probably easier to just ban actions after a charge and let the DM greenlight specific cases (which are mostly free actions anyway).
I still don't see why they couldn't have worded it "After a Charge, you must end your turn in the same square that the Charge ends in."
Full stop.
Yes, that leaves us the possibility of Charge + Free + Minor + Minor ..
But that actually feels "right" to me, in most cases: a Warden, for example, can Charge, then do his Minor: close burst 1, mark power.
Full stop.
Yes, that leaves us the possibility of Charge + Free + Minor + Minor ..
But that actually feels "right" to me, in most cases: a Warden, for example, can Charge, then do his Minor: close burst 1, mark power.
Dictating future actions never works and is poor design. Say I have boots of adept charging, I fail to end my turn in the same square the charge ended in because the boots let me shift. What happens now? Am I free to move about? must I move back into the square I was charging to? What if I used Overwhelming Charge on that attack, and now the enemy is in that square. I have no way of ending my turn there. Or I kill the enemy I charged and my swift charge triggers, can I not charge? What if I promise I will walk back to the square I'm coming from, can I charge now? Oh oops, the enemy did a immediate reaction and I'm immobilized now, so I can't move back to my square. What now? Or the target I charged and killed was my curse target, can I not teleport now with my pact boon?
There are entirely too many problems with such spatial restrictions of future actions.
