"Stunting" with Powers

[ashockney]

I think that I'd probably impose a penalty on failure instead of having an extra die roll. I like risk and having each roll mean something. So for the "Knock him down with my shield", aka drop him Prone with Tide of Iron, on a miss you might lose your shield bonus, lose your shield (on the ground at your feet), or end up prone yourself.

Yes!

I really like this idea LostSoul. If we could come up with a set of standard "penalties" that would/could apply to failed stunts, you could do this very much on the fly, with the "benefit" being the possible damage bump and cool condition/effect. I do the same thing with my skill challenges...make each roll count! The natural balance element of all this is that with encounter or spell powers there is no penalties for failure, because you know what you're doing!

I really like this idea. Given that, I would also be interested in requesting everyone's ideas for a any "standard consequences" a DM would ever need! I recognize that every situation can and should be different, however, it is tremendously helpful to "improv" from a place where you have a bunch of ideas to draw on.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Possible Drawbacks:
- Knocked prone
- grant combat advantage
- deal damage to an ally
- deal damage to yourself
- gain vulnerability 5/10/15 (magic tricks)
- enemy gets a free attack first (see Bravura Warlord for ideas)
- Enemies gain bonus to attack (stacking with combat advantage)
- Penalty to next attack
- Lose a power benefit you'd normally get on a failure (effect or miss line)
- Lose a healing surge
- Enemy can slide you a square

You might also allow "sacrifices" to gain a benefit - like automatically granting combat advantage (regardless of result).

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think this is complete nonsense.

Why's that? The rules trump the story on many occasions with the powers -- knocking oozes prone, immobilizing flying things, psychic damage to mindless undead, ad nauseum...it doesn't matter what makes sense in the story-fluff, it matters the rules effect the rules achieve.

The rules are very explicit about what happens, and to change this effect or add new things may result in dangerous treading on toes, especially if it happens reliably or frequently. The rules don't always mesh up with what the fluff implies, and the rules trump, by default.

Not that you shouldn't still do it. Just that you should be very aware of what you're doing when you do it. Checks aren't a bad balancing mechanism. Drawbacks are even better. It's still juggling potential flames, but by either not caring what gets burned, or having enough system knowledge that you know it won't un-balance things, the problems won't be problems for you. They're problems in general principle.

 

[RyvenCedrylle]

I think having a penalty to a failed check is problematic because you've only balanced the possibilities, not the actualities. That is, a character who is built correctly to make certain attacks is going to get the benefit far more often than the penalty and can spam 'better' powers by twinking. I'm not terribly dead-set on 4E's balance in the first place, and so I don't have much trouble with it. It's not in the spirit of the game, though, so here's a similar but related idea.

Steal a page from the new Dresden Files RPG (and yes, I know other systems do this as well) and introduce a modified Compel. In Dresden, a Compel requires the character to get him or herself into a bad situation in order to get another 'fate point' or whatever it's called. If you want the extra oomph, you have to put yourself in a place where you're going to need it. This can be anything from say, an Aunt May-type character (like the GURPS Dependent Disadvantage) to playing out your character's overconfidence. ("I want the extra bonus die for something later, so I'll charge these three mooks by myself like an idiot now to get it.")

Returning to 4E, you want to use Tide of Iron to knock the guy prone? Fine, you lose your shield bonus to AC until start of your next turn. It just happens. And then if you hit, you get to knock the guy down automatically. Again, it just happens. This way, the characters still have a reasonable incentive to 'stunt' so long as the drawbacks are slightly less severe than the advantages, but you shouldn't (I think) end up with characters twinked to spam out At-Wills that have the oomph of Encounter Powers

 

[Elda King]

It's nonsense to say that in 3E, you could make something the rules don't cover and in 4E you can't because the rules are clearer. If it makes sense and is fun, change the rules, as you would do in any other game.
I only think that any stunt, wether it uses or not a power, shouldn't be better than a power. Ok, sometimes you can reward a player and give an extra effect that is slightly better, or as good as a power that the player is using; but, if my player would knock a target prone with his shield, he would deal less damage (if any damage at all) or have to make a check.This way, it becomes more balanced, avoid player abuse and makes more sense - there are things the character is trained to do, he should be better at them.

 

[LostSoul]

Why's that?

First of all, it's an odd definition of story.

Second of all, it's not true.

Colour feeds into mechanics which produce colour which feeds into the mechanics again in a cycle.

(There's also a reward in there which changes the colour based on the mechanics; that is, you kill some monsters and your character changes, also changing the threats that he faces.)

Colour: A giant roiling ooze is coming to eat you!
Colour: I smash him hard!
Mechanics: I make an attack roll vs. his AC; on a hit, I deal 1[W] damage and knock him prone.
Colour: The ooze shudders and trembles and takes time to pick itself back up again before forming a psuedopod to slam you with.
Mechanics: Move action to stand up; attack vs AC.
etc.

Story: The ooze wants to eat you. You want to kill it before it kills you.
Mechanics: Resolve the conflict.
Story: Resolution of the combat: resting, patching up wounds.
Mechanics: XP gain, short rest, spending healing surges.
etc.

 

[redwing]

In a previous post ashockney stated there were three effects that should not be modeled with "stunts." These were:

forced movement effects
tactical condition effects
continuous damage effects

What did you mean by tactical condition effects?

 

[I'm A Banana]

First of all, it's an odd definition of story.

Not really. It's narration. Fluff. Reasoning. The part that does not describe the rules effect as much as it describes the fairly arbitrary process by which that effect is achieved.

Colour feeds into mechanics which produce colour which feeds into the mechanics again in a cycle.

Ideally, IMO, yes. But in 4e, there is a clear line drawn between the two. That clear line is part and parcel of the balance in 4e. It doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense, in "color" to, say, knock an ooze prone -- that's what the rules say happens, that's what happens. That's one of the big ways that 4e dodges the "accidental suck" phenomenon that plagued 3e: you can sneak attack undead now, because it doesn't matter that they don't have beating hearts and lungs, and thus rogues are useful no matter what enemy you are facing. The rules trump the fluff. After the fact, you can apply logic to the rules to fluff them into making sense ("ah! even undead have weak points and structural problems that can be exploited!"), but that's just kind of rationalizing.

That's part of what "power stunting" threatens to disturb. 4e tends to say "This is the rules result you achieve. However you want to describe that is fine, but don't mess what the rules say you get, even if it doesn't make sense at first." That's consistency, that's portability, but that also doesn't accept rules-results innovations very comfortably. You're messing with what the rules say you get in the opposite direction: giving them MORE. This threatens to stomp on the toes of other powers and other roles and other classes, if it's not watched.

Colour: The ooze shudders and trembles and takes time to pick itself back up again before forming a psuedopod to slam you with.

See, that's a perfect example of the rationalizing I was talking about. No, it doesn't make sense that a mobile puddle has to "pick itself back up again," but if that's what the rules say happen, that's what happens. This means that your power is still effective against oozes, which is great from the perspective of consistency, but makes the whole "color" --> "mechanics" progression run in reverse for a minute. It becomes "mechanics" --> "color."

Stunting works in the opposite direction from that. They describe a story, you give a mechanic. Only with powers, there already ARE mechanics, and these mechanics are things that you shouldn't generally mess with (to the extent that they will reverse the progression if need be to preserve themselves). If you do mess with them, you're essentially breaking the structure of the powers system, which isn't inherently bad, but carries that "juggling fire" risk I mentioned.

 

[Rel]

I literally, just moments ago, got done typing up my "Core Concepts/House Rules" document for my campaign, including my Action Stunt rule.

My philosophy is that I want the players to be able to do this kind of thing, just not all the time. If it happens all the time then it starts to become a contest about which player can impress me with their cool creativity. I love cool creativity but that's a lot more work (constantly adjudicating) and more time (for the same reason) and can lead to irritated players (not everybody is equally creative). So I simply imposed the use of a finite resource for these stunts:

Action Stunt: Instead of taking an extra action when spending an Action Point, a PC may instead opt to also spend a Healing Surge and do something that fits the basic concept of the character but goes beyond their normal powers. Such Stunts will be adjudicated on a case by case basis but players are encouraged to come up with ideas in advance that could be used as defaults and benchmarks for when the PC tries such things.

Now I was thinking of stuff that goes outside the PC's normal powers altogether. If I was confining it to simply add a condition or feature to an existing stunt (as presented in the OP) then I might lower the cost. If I wanted to be conservative then I'd probably just make them spend the AP (and no Healing Surge). If I wanted these to come into play more often then I could just charge them the Healing Surge. My only hesitation about that latter move is that it could lead to something closer to the "15 minute adventuring day" where they burn through all their Healing Surges with Stunts. But there are ways to mitigate that.

 

[Storminator]

I run my 9yr old son in a solo game, and Stunting is pretty much all we do. He rarely wants to use Magic Missile or Thunderwave (he plays a wizard, obviously). I'd say 3 out of 4 attacks are done with Prestidigitation, Mage Hand or Light. Usually it's the equivalent of an At-will, tho sometimes I make him give me his Encounter powercard. Once, when he used Mage Hand to throw the Kobold's soup pot onto the leader and splash another, I made him use the Acid Arrow power. Hooray for ongoing Soup damage!

Last night he attacked a Specter with Light. I just made it do the Vulnerable: Radiant 5 damage. It's pretty danged easy.

PS