"Stunting" with Powers

[Glyfair]

My philosophy is that I want the players to be able to do this kind of thing, just not all the time.

I agree with this. I love the concept of "stunting" for doing a one-time "bending of the rules." It allows creativity and just adds to the game.

In practice, I find it rarely stays that way and it becomes a power boost for the ability somewhat often. Take the examples given earlier of giving a bonus for attacking opponents with lightning when they are in water. If it is in any way significant, then players often try to use that to their advantage. Every battle they try to find a way to get their opponents in water, or just wet. They might even go to great lengths to carry barrels of water with them to spray on their enemies to get the bonus. In my opinion, that corrupts the concept.

I used to allow players to burn an action point in my 3E Eberron game to use a "stunt." They could show such creativity, but it required a limited resource that was intangible in the campaign world. It worked great in the James Bond RPG.

However, in 3E an action point wasn't a powerful as it is now. For players to be willing to use an action point, the benefit only had to balance out with a 1d6 bonus to a d20 roll. In 4E it needs to balance out with an entire action. For a combat action, it would need to do the equivalent of allowing another basic attack for it to be tactically worthwhile. Not really what I want to do with "stunts."

 

[Cadfan]

I love stunting.

I hate "magical mcguyver" style games, where "creativity" is all bound up in accomplishing wacky, unintended effects with your spells.

Technically they're creative, but they're creative in the same sense that Calvinball is creative. And if you're going to play Calvinball, you're a fool if you choose a game system with as many rules as D&D. There are many, many game systems that will support your style of play better.

I'm glad that 4e supports stunting relatively well (there's damage by level tables to help the DM, and anyone can ad hoc an "immobilized" condition on a one time attack, the argument that you could do this in 3e but you can't in 4e because you don't know how to balance it is specious in the extreme because you didn't know how to balance it in 3e either). I'm also glad that it doesn't support Magical McGuyver very well, because Magical McGuyver tends to either lurk in the background while everyone pointedly ignores it, or it eats your game.

 

[Rel]

However, in 3E an action point wasn't a powerful as it is now. For players to be willing to use an action point, the benefit only had to balance out with a 1d6 bonus to a d20 roll. In 4E it needs to balance out with an entire action. For a combat action, it would need to do the equivalent of allowing another basic attack for it to be tactically worthwhile. Not really what I want to do with "stunts."

My view is that increased flexibility is often a good substitute for an extra action, particularly if you are limited in what you can do with that action. If my option is either to do some kind of stunt that I can't normally do or else unload two Daily powers back to back on the main bad guy, the latter might be the better option. Hitting them with that much raw power can really make a difference.

But if I'm down to just my At Will powers then it's a different scenario. At that point the Dwarven Cleric of Moradin using an Action Point (and a Healing Surge under my system) to cause the roof of the cavern to collapse and attack all foes in a certain area plus have them knocked prone (Save Ends) is not only cool but probably a lot more useful than doing Righteous Brand twice.

I've noticed that the theme that seems to run through the few house rules I'm making to 4e is to take the subsystems of the game and add on "options not restrictions" that the players can use or not based on their own choices. They can still use an Action Point in the normal manner if they want. I'm just letting them "think outside the box" once in a while if they choose to do so.

One thing I'll definitely do before we start the game is to have each player come up with a couple of examples of something they might do with a stunt like this. By agreeing on what is acceptable ahead of time they not only have a place to start from with their creativity but also we have some benchmarks in terms of what power level is acceptable. I'm shooting for something in the neighborhood of what a level appropriate Encounter power would do.

 

[Elda King]

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.

I disagree. The line between concept and mechanic is not clear, the rules are. Instead of one broad effect, they now give clear rules for it, and in a simple effect. Instead of saying "if you hit, the enemy moves up to 10 feet in your direction, by the quickest way; this movement does not provoke opportunity attacks", now the rules say "Hit: X[W] damage, pull the enemy 2 squares". You can improvise, make new rules, change the rules as much as you did in any other edition; most "stunts" weren't covered in the rules in any edition, after all.
About rationalizing: yes, that happens. And yes, one of the main proposals of the edition was "make it fun, not realistic". Healing Surges are something I came to accept, but only because it works fine, thought now I am able to explain what they mean by pure rationalization. But the rogue's Sneak Attack on undead? I'd not think it to be rationalization. If the target can't defend from him, you strike in the way will do the most damage, wether by hiting vital organs, aiming for a vulnerable spot in the armor, crippling him, or simply using the opportunity for a deep or broad strike. If you can deal a lot of damage to an undead with a good damage roll, what prevents you from doing so if he can't defend himself? And in certain cases, it's rationalizing within the concept, not to explain bad mechanics: you are trained to trip enemies, or pull them so they fall: if you faced an enemy such as an ooze, what would you do with it? This move that is the style of the character, how would the ooze react to it? It doesn't have to be "hmm, prone, what does this mean for an ooze?", it could be "you press the ooze in the same way you press a humanoid to make him fall prone; what does this make with the ooze? Can it be considered similar to falling prone?"

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. (...)
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.

"these mechanics are things that you shouldn't generally mess with"... Why? I don't really see any reason for that. They indeed tell you to do so in the DMG. They help you to do so, with a table for DCs and damage that won't unbalance the game. You have a DM, that still adjudicates any situation the rules don't cover. Just before he needs to use that power less often, because the PCs already have cool things they are trained to do, doesn't mean the DM can't use it anymore. He should, and he now have a simple structure to make things work - with the sympler power system.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

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.

The only reason why you cannot knock an ooze prone in 3E is because it is explicitly written in the rules. It has nothing to do with the players or the DM using common sense or wanting to maintain "color", it's all about the rules saying you cannot trip it.
On the other hand we have rules saying that all undead are mindless and immune to mind-affecting powers, even Vampires that definitely have a mind. Is there a "color" reason for being unable to control vampires or liches (especially since there are spells like Control Undead that work against them)?

The rules in 3E also don't tell us that you can use Bigbys Clenching Fist to manipulate a lever. You might allow that, but the description of the spell doesn't imply that you can use Bigbys Clenching Fist to do anything that a clenching fist could do.

And D&D 3E or 4E wouldn't be the only ones to do such things.
The rules in Shadowrun allow you to cast a Flamethrower spell. The spell doesn't describe how or if you could try to use this to lighten up a cigarette (and still be able to smoke it, and not it burning away). A generous DM might make a ruling and decide that it's okay to do that with that spell, even if it's usually a combat spell designed to kill enemies and burn stuff down.

 

[vagabundo]

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).

These, linked with a Skill or ability check and using the escalating condition track, would work.

Although an official expansion for Rule 42 using DDI and included in the DMG2 would be very welcome.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The line between concept and mechanic is not clear, the rules are

This doesn't make sense to me because the rules are mechanics, and yes, they are quite clear. The "concept"/"color"/"story"/"fluff" of 4e powers is clearly much more nebulous than the "mechanic"/"rule"/"crunch" is.

You can improvise, make new rules, change the rules as much as you did in any other edition; most "stunts" weren't covered in the rules in any edition, after all.

I'm pretty sure characters in every edition of the game swung from chandeliers and knocked over braziers and did other nifty things. 4e has a codified system for it in the context of combat (the stunt system), 3e had an underpinning of rules detail that could handle anything in context, 2e and previous editions pretty much left it up to nebulous "dm judgment," but it I'm reasonably confident it did happen.

4e's razor-balance on the powers, however, makes it a little bit wonkier if you hope to preserve that balance. If you allow powers a greater deal of flexibility with 'stunts,' then you risk throwing this balance out of whack because, say, your warlock with the creative player becomes a better controller than your more casual, laid-back wizard player, and the net effect is that your wizard player isn't having as much fun. Or with the "limited damage expressions," your fighter becomes a better striker than the rogue, leading to much the same effect. This particular pitfall is fairly new in 4e, or at least particularly virulent.

About rationalizing: yes, that happens. And yes, one of the main proposals of the edition was "make it fun, not realistic".

Which is why it can be dangerous to ask 4e "Well, what can this conjured hand actually do?" The answer is right in the power: that's all that the hand can do, and it can do that fairly reliably. To give it other stuff it can do risks disturbing the careful balance that enables this "fun" (if it's not carefully watched).

If you want a system that's all about unrealistic fun and loves player creativity like stunts, take a look at Feng Shui. You can kill things and take their stuff just as easily there, but how you do it is basically by a more detailed version of 4e's stunt mechanic. That's a system where it isn't dangerous to ask that question, and answer with whatever your imagination desires.

"these mechanics are things that you shouldn't generally mess with"... Why? I don't really see any reason for that.

Because of how carefully the powers are balanced, it is riskier to the fun to allow a lot of elaborate stunting with them. Adding or subtracting damage or an effect on any kind of a consistent basis threatens 4e's roles, 4e's damage-by-level formula, the question of choice between powers at any given level, and it doesn't end there.

Your wildly creative player may end up contributing more to the game than your more casual or strategic buddy, which, generally, isn't much of a desired effect. The stunt system as it exists now is to help that creative player feel awesome when they are creative without giving them too much of an edge. Elaborating on it much threatens to shift game balance away from the Math and to the stunt system.

This isn't necessarily negative, but does involve juggling fire.

The only reason why you cannot knock an ooze prone in 3E is because it is explicitly written in the rules.

Actually, the reason you can't knock an ooze prone in 3e is the same reason you can't knock an ooze prone in any other edition before 4e: because puddles can't be knocked over. Because it doesn't make sense. The reason you can knock an ooze prone in 4e is because 4e values consistency much more highly than any edition before it, so it is very important to 4e's structure that your power be fairly equally effective against a broad selection of enemies. Rationalize that however you want. The rules, here, trump common sense.

On the other hand we have rules saying that all undead are mindless and immune to mind-affecting powers, even Vampires that definitely have a mind. Is there a "color" reason for being unable to control vampires or liches (especially since there are spells like Control Undead that work against them)?

Again, this is grounded in what makes sense (from the designers' persepective, anyway). Mindless creatures of all stripes are immune to mind-affecting powers because they don't have minds to be affected (seems pretty explicit, in the same way that things without legs cannot be tripped). Undead are immune to mind-affecting powers regardless of mindlessness because of their alien needs and desires when compared to mortals (and yet can still be compelled by those who work closely with undead). Heck, this was part of earlier editions' "exception-based design." "Undead can't be charmed EXCEPT with this specific ability."

Heck, take a look at the widespread immunity to poison amongst undead in 4e for a legacy of this. Vampires have functioning circulatory system in 4e according to Open Grave, but poison still doesn't work because it makes sense for poison to not work on things that are walking corpses.

4e is sometimes very schizophrenic in what it chooses to be realistic about.

This is why the fluff text isn't a reliable indicator of what a power "should" be able to do, in a rules sense. When the fluff becomes gospel in 4e, it threatens to be a bull in a china shop, wrecking the place up a bit if it gets off balance.

The rules in 3E also don't tell us that you can use Bigbys Clenching Fist to manipulate a lever. You might allow that, but the description of the spell doesn't imply that you can use Bigbys Clenching Fist to do anything that a clenching fist could do.

And D&D 3E or 4E wouldn't be the only ones to do such things.
The rules in Shadowrun allow you to cast a Flamethrower spell. The spell doesn't describe how or if you could try to use this to lighten up a cigarette (and still be able to smoke it, and not it burning away). A generous DM might make a ruling and decide that it's okay to do that with that spell, even if it's usually a combat spell designed to kill enemies and burn stuff down.

Right, but none of that really qualifies as "stunting" like this thread is talking about, in terms of accomplishing some direct combat effect (a push or pull, a prone, cover, damage, whatever). I'm just mentioning that in 4e, the careful balance means that you need to be careful when adding effects to powers in a way that is fairly new, and that "it makes sense because of the color" isn't a comfortable underpinning in 4e, since there's a lot of situations where things that make sense because of the color are trumped by things that have to happen because of the rules.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

4e's razor-balance on the powers, however, makes it a little bit wonkier if you hope to preserve that balance. If you allow powers a greater deal of flexibility with 'stunts,' then you risk throwing this balance out of whack because, say, your warlock with the creative player becomes a better controller than your more casual, laid-back wizard player, and the net effect is that your wizard player isn't having as much fun. Or with the "limited damage expressions," your fighter becomes a better striker than the rogue, leading to much the same effect. This particular pitfall is fairly new in 4e, or at least particularly virulent.


Right, but none of that really qualifies as "stunting" like this thread is talking about, in terms of accomplishing some direct combat effect (a push or pull, a prone, cover, damage, whatever). I'm just mentioning that in 4e, the careful balance means that you need to be careful when adding effects to powers in a way that is fairly new, and that "it makes sense because of the color" isn't a comfortable underpinning in 4e, since there's a lot of situations where things that make sense because of the color are trumped by things that have to happen because of the rules.

And you know the dirty secret, Kamikaze Midget? Stunting with "powers" in 3E could also lead to imbalances. Of course, once you could cast spell, you were already unbalanced, but using one of the "clever exploits" with spells was very often broken, too. Now, using a Bigbys Clenched Fist to operate a lever was probably not broken, but the "clever spell uses" that some people like to cite typically took a low level spell and gave it more power then it had.

But - 4E is actually not that bad in that regard. The stunt rules tell the DM it's okay to use these stunts. You still won't break the game balance all too much. The damage effects listed are not based on stuff like "It would make sense that using a Pyrotechnics to create an avalanche would deal 10d6 points of damage inflicted by the falling earth and stones". It tells us at 1st level this might be worth something like 3d6+1 damage (I don't have the actual number). If you pick that damage value, your game is gonna be okay. You don't achieve an auto-win, you get a small advantage. You could get similar advantages if you ensure that you have Combat Advantage all the time, that you immobilized a melee foe and kept out of his reach for a round, or if your Leader had given you a +5 bonus to your attack with the encounter power so you had hit.

If the Fighter player finds a way to pull of a limited damage expression stunt every encounter and the Rogue player never figures this out, this is the same as a Fighter player finding ways to act tactically "smart" - using his Close Burst powers when he is surrounded, waiting for the Warlords Forious Smash to hit before using a daily or encounter power, while the Rogue player misses such tactical opportunities.

The best way to avoid "imbalances" here might be for the players to talk with each other and point opportunities out - both for basic tactics and stunts.

The real imbalance you create is that it gets easier against monsters. But so what? Better tactics also make you fare better against monsters. That's what we want.

 

[Mallus]

In addition to more free-form stunting, you could take a page from M&M --sort of-- and allow characters to spend an Action Point to gain a one-time use of another class's power of equal or lower level (in the case of Encounter/Daily/Utility powers one of the characters own powers would be expended).

Hmmm, you also need to drive the swapped power off of one of the character's high stats, or it won't be much use.

For example, a fighter could use an AP to emulate Scorching Burst to attack a swarm. The Burst would be STR-based, and described as 'lighting a torch and savagely flailing around with it'.

 

[Quartz]

For example, a lvl 6 rogue (brutal scoundrel) sneaks up on a "guard" and wants to knock him out in one shot with a blow to the back of the head... Now, the guard is a standard Level 5 soldier, AC 23 and 65 hp

Much easier is to make the guard a Minion with regards to non-lethal damage. Successful stealth check + successful hit = unconscious guard.