The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

[hong]

Double fail; He's obviously a heavily-armored archer who has a back-up weapon and a shield for when he runs out of arrows.

Triple fail. No true archer would run out of arrows.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Voadam is quite correct. I think it becomes as much a logical issue as it is an "Uncanny Valley" scenario. If you are to think about the various power sources, it is only really martial that we have a proper frame of reference for in our world.

I disagree here. I find it very awkward that a Paladin can say "My god allows me to smite evil only twice a day!" or a Cleric saying "My god grants me only 3 Flame Strikes per day".

It might be explainable, because "it is magic", but it never felt right to me. Forgetting spells is a very specific concept of magic, and not a typical idea. And why would every god give the same number of spells to equal level Clerics?

I prefer the idea used for martial heroes that such powers are difficult to use and require the correct circumstances. The encounter/daily denotion just represents the players right to narrate this circumstances.

Yes, it is less... how should I put... immersive then the previous way, since the rules don't tell us exactly what the character how a character comes to the conclusion he should use a power, or if he has expended them. But then, this character perspective allows you to describe it as you want, without risking to break any in-game world laws...

 

[Toras]

I will agree that having a limit to magic is something that is largely a specific concept, but I've always though it as magic having specific flow and pattern. To construct a spell requires energy, and your god will grant you all the power he/she feels that you are worthy of/or can handle. If you use that to prepare Flamestrikes that is left to your wisdom.

Admitted I would have preferred spell points, but I think that is straying from topic.

I understand that is what they are supposed to replicate, but this seems like I can only use the super move when it is dramatically appropriate. It requires genre awareness in a sense, and if they are simply circumstances why wouldn't I try to replicate those circumnstances were ever possible. Aka, if I have an unstoppable supermove, why do I not use it early and often? If it was simply a trick that would only work on 1 opponent or one group of opponents because once you saw it it wouldn't work on you anymore, I could see that but that's not how it works and it certainly doesn't explain dailies.


I as a player can understand the balance issues, but while the others have at least some semi-reasonable argument for running out of ...energy of a type, martial seems like the one that stretches things beyond the wierd into the absurd. And I play roleplaying games to be immersive, why is my fighter the only one who breaks the fourth wall for his powers?

Why didn't they just have a number of conditional powers for martial? If you are attacked, you can Dodge, Parry, or Block...That sort of thing I know they wanted to go universal on the mechanics, but sometimes you just can't.

 

[pemerton]

To construct a spell requires energy, and your god will grant you all the power he/she feels that you are worthy of/or can handle. If you use that to prepare Flamestrikes that is left to your wisdom.

Admitted I would have preferred spell points, but I think that is straying from topic.

<snip>

I as a player can understand the balance issues, but while the others have at least some semi-reasonable argument for running out of ...energy of a type, martial seems like the one that stretches things beyond the wierd into the absurd. And I play roleplaying games to be immersive, why is my fighter the only one who breaks the fourth wall for his powers?

Why didn't they just have a number of conditional powers for martial? If you are attacked, you can Dodge, Parry, or Block...That sort of thing I know they wanted to go universal on the mechanics, but sometimes you just can't.

For Spell Points, Dodge, Parry, Block and no martial dailies I suggest HARP or Rolemaster (both published by ICE).

Either will deliver quite a different play experience from any edition of D&D, however. Rolemaster, especially, has no 4th-wall breaking devices at all in action resolution (in particular, no plot-immunity hit points). HARP has Fate Points, but these are quite distinct from the otherwise simulationist action resolution mechanics.

 

[Toras]

Suggesting another system when five minutes and a decent explanation would have handled it does not help. (Besides, save for a few of the similationist touches I loath both Harp and Rolemaster, too many bloody tables thank you muchly). I was describing more the 3.5 psion, but again that's not here or there.

If the Dailies were simply something that put significant stress on either me or my weapon I suppose I could deal with that. I really think that martial Encounter/Dailies should be interchangable though given the logic behind them. (aka if they are a matter of fatigue or accumulated stress to weapon or body).

But to say that they are circumstancial while leaving out both the circumnstances and the repeatability is absurd.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But to say that they are circumstancial while leaving out both the circumnstances and the repeatability is absurd.

It is not absurd, it is just a matter of the degree of details.

3 and 4E combat basically assumes squares as smallest unit of space a creature can cover or affect. It also ignores facing. This means there is little in RAW that would allow you to describe the exact of circumstances that might allow you to make a Brutal Strike. The games just don't cover these specific details.

Maybe doing a Brutal Strike maneuver (let's pretend such a maneuver exists), you might need that your opponent is bending backwards, and trying to attack your left (or right, if left-handed), and requires you to be being in an upward movement. If you pull that off, you will probably hit the opponents torso and drop him to the ground, and he needs a lot of luck and effort to keep you from killing him (more damage). These kinds of details are not covered in the rules.

An alternative approach would be something like a "Combo"-power system.
First round, you deal slashing damage, second round, you make a bullrush, third round, you trip, and fourth round, your gain a +4 bonus to attack and deal triple damage.
This is similar to the 3E tactical feats. I think they were a nice idea, but they didn't play out so well in combat. Setting up the situations this way took a lot of effort and required to much specific circumstances.

Or something like Iron Heroes token system - it doesn't really tell us what you do when you collect your tokens, but if you have enough, you can fuel a special power. It's basically an abstraction of the combo-system.

The next step in abstraction is just guesstimate how often you can gather enough of these tokens per combat or day to get enough tokens for such an attack. And this leads us to a per encounter/per day mechanic.

I think one could try to move backwards along this line of abstractions and try to create a token-system for powers, and finally also a combo-system for them. But the highest playability value is probably still the last one, while the highest "immersion" value is the combo-system.

 

[pemerton]

Suggesting another system when five minutes and a decent explanation would have handled it does not help. (Besides, save for a few of the similationist touches I loath both Harp and Rolemaster, too many bloody tables thank you muchly). I was describing more the 3.5 psion, but again that's not here or there.

But the explanation has been given. Repeatedly. It's a mechancial device for facilitating the narrative. You yourself say that you can see the gameplay logic.

My suggestion was that, if you really don't like such devices (eg hit points) then D&D may not be the game for you. Conversely, if you can stomach hit points (which are a device for ensuring that basically no PC ever dies from the first blow, or from the first fall down a pit, or the first fall of a horse, or ...) then I don't see why you can't stomach per-encounters and dailies (which are a device for ensuring that only one gobling per encounter/per day opens itself up to the Manouevre of All Death).

If the Dailies were simply something that put significant stress on either me or my weapon I suppose I could deal with that. I really think that martial Encounter/Dailies should be interchangable though given the logic behind them. (aka if they are a matter of fatigue or accumulated stress to weapon or body).

Then you get a fatigue point system. That presumably has to interact with the hit point system (which seems linked to fatigue). And the movement mechanics. Rolemaster Companions are chock-full of this sort of thing, but they don't always make for a better game.

But to say that they are circumstancial while leaving out both the circumnstances and the repeatability is absurd.

Why? Many RPGs have Fate Points, which empower a player to declare that circumstances favour his or her character (OGL Conan is one example in the d20 line of games). These mechanics typically leave it up to the player to specify what exactly the relevant circumstances are. And by being a finite resource they put a limit on repeatability. But they are not absurd. Their metagame purpose is obvious.

Just think of dailies and per-encounters as a variant Fate Point mechanic for martial PCs. (Just like hit points are a variant Fate Point mechanic for all PCs.)

One implication of this treatment of martial dailies is that the PC does not know when his/her daily has been used (just as, in OGL Conan, a PC does not know how many Fate Points are left even though the player does). But a reasonable player should be able to find a way to bring this metagame knowledge into play at the ingame level - even if it only consists in the PC saying "I don't feel so lucky this time. Let's not press on just now."

 

[pemerton]

I think one could try to move backwards along this line of abstractions and try to create a token-system for powers, and finally also a combo-system for them. But the highest playability value is probably still the last one, while the highest "immersion" value is the combo-system.

At least in my experience the combo-system does not produce immersion. It produces statistics-heavy character building and optimisation of action resolution, in order to ensure that the combo works. This can be a fun way to play an RPG - but not terribly immersive, in my experience.

The token system has its own drawbacks. It is fiddly, and (unlike a spell point system) the tokens don't particularly correspond to anything in the gameworld - they are a host of itty-bitty Fate Points. Once one goes to a token system, I can see the attraction of going all the way to per-day/per-encounter.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The token system has its own drawbacks. It is fiddly, and (unlike a spell point system) the tokens don't particularly correspond to anything in the gameworld - they are a host of itty-bitty Fate Points. Once one goes to a token system, I can see the attraction of going all the way to per-day/per-encounter.

I wouldn't be surprised if Mike Mearls thought similar after Iron Heroes and talking the initial 4E designs...

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

If the manuevers were simply grouped and you could only do a certain number of the more difficult ones before you got to tired to do them that would be one thing. But 4th ed, in the effort to make fighters nifty and keen have robbed from it one of the truly grand things about a fighter. The fighter is scary no matter where and when he is, as is the rogue.

Perhaps you could remove all of the fighter's daily powers, and give a compensating bump to their per encounter and at will powers.

Their low powers won't be as low as the wizard, and their highs won't be as high, but they'll run at reliable effectiveness all the time.