Trip is an Encounter Power now

[I'm A Banana]

Sure, you can knock those one-legged fat men down as quick as you like. That's because it's not an encounter. Your example is of the same order as demanding a Climb check for every step when ascending a flight of stairs. If there's no challenge involved, don't bother rolling.

That's slightly missing the point, but okay, let's make these one-legged blobs with inner-ear problems dangerous. They're now ax-wielding one-legged blobs with inner-ear problems

I still can only knock one down unless I run away, hide for five minutes, and knock the next one down.

Or I guess you could say that because there's no challenge involved in tripping them, they don't have to roll to trip them, but where is the line drawn as to the 'challenge of tripping something'?

At least others have admitted that it's arbitrary!

"I think it's easy to grok that stabbing an opponent through the heart is a challenging move. The PC's are heroes, though, and they should be able to do challenging moves. It's harder to grok that you can only do it once your opponent runs out of hit points. You're surrounded by one-legged fat men with inner ear problems, but, nope, you can only stab one through the heart once he runs out of hit points, and then you can stab another through the heart."

Again, this misses the point. It would be more accurate to rephrase my statement to say "It's harder to grok that you can only stab someone through the heart once every five minutes. You could be surrounded by tied-up hostages begging to be murdered, but nope, you can only stab one through the heart, and then five minutes later you can stab another through the heart."

And yeah, I'd still have a problem with that.

If Trip worked off of some sort of "balance point" system, maybe I could grok it, too, but I think that would probably be needlessly complex.

Right and neither does your 4th Ed Hero, he is still capable of tripping a guy (just not right now as the rules don't let), same with Jackie Chan he still could trip the guy, he just can't right now because it would be boring and repetitive, because any half decent fight choreographer won't let him, maybe in the next battle more likely in the next film.

If 4e gives me rules that allow me to do something like a trip even if I don't have the Trip card in my hand, I don't have much of an issue. If 4e says I can't do something like a trip if I don't have the Trip card in my hand, I have an issue.

If I don't loose the ability, no problem.

But having a per encounter power means that when I use the ability, I loose it for the rest of the encounter. I cannot. No matter how much it would make sense to be able to do it, no matter how much the tactics would favor it, no matter how clever and creative I am as a player, I am forbidden unless the DM cheats for me or something.

So per-encounter abilities is at the very least an exceedingly counter-intuitive way of reflecting an ability that you always can do.

Similarly in 4E the character CAN trip more than once, they just don't because the rules limit them for a variety of reasons (it's boring and unbalanced). There is no disconnect D&D is reflecting the genre, so it should reflect the fact using the same tactic isn't permitted because it's boring and would not occur in the genre.

Well, no, they CAN'T. The rules say they can't. You use per-encounter abilities once per encounter, tripping is a per-encounter ability, you can't use tripping more than once per encounter.

There is a disconnect because whether or not to excersize this option should be in the hands of the player, not the rules. They should have the ability, the rules should dictate that it's a niche ability.

Seems like a very accurate simulation of genre conventions to me.

In-character, Jackie Chan and Legolas make a choice to do it or not, and only choose to do it once. The reasons they make that choice are both in-character choices (suboptimal abilities they don't get much of a chance to use optmially) and more meta choices (boring, repetetive).

In character, my 4th level fighter doesn't get a choice. He can only do it once. The reason he can do it once is entirely a meta choice, and that's entirely backwards.

Not seeing a difference between the two myself.

Having the potential means it's my choice, even if it's not a choice that gets excersized, on a practical matter, more than once per encounter.

It's a player psychology thing, which is actually the most important thing.

But you can't do that, and still reflect the genre, 3rd Ed pretty much proved as much.
- If you make it good in a limited number of circumstances then it becomes a rule you have to look up on those rare occasions. BAD.
- Control of those circumstances is either in the hands of the player, which gets you Spiked Chain, Combat Reflex, Improved Trip builds to exploit. BAD.
- Or in the hands of the DM in which case the player resents the fact the DM hasn't given him an opportunity in the last three sessions. BAD.
- It might be possibly to some how have this circumstances complete random (I don't know how, without seeming arbitrary again), but then you'll get games where it randomly always comes up and your trip monkey walks every fight. BAD. Or it never comes up, and your trip monkey resent his character investment in tripping. BAD.

It really didn't.

Point 1: If the rules are easy to remember and flow from the rest of the rules, you don't have to look them up. 3e's rules were 'special case scenarios' that were complex. You can simplify 3e's rules without arbitrarily limiting your potential abilities. BETTER!
Point 2: Choice should be in the hands of the player. We don't need to provide them with options that make it 'too good.' BETTER!
Point 3: Ditto with a DM.
Point 4: The randomness was to allude to the fact that the ability isn't 'used up,' while assuming that the 4e designers designed trip to be per-encounter for a very good reason. I'll see in June whether the reason was good enough, I guess.

You manage to suspend disbelief when Legolas uses a stops Spliting the Tree after Fellowship of the Ring, even though it would be really handy at Helms Deep. It's a convention of the genre that killer moves only occur once a fight (encounter) or film (daily). You manage to suspend disbelief in the movies.

I didn't choose Legolas's actions.

That's why movies aren't games.

 

[Moochava]

All this is true, but "Per Encounter" sucks as a place for the ability to knock someone over because it doesn't mesh with the reality of knocking someone over: namely, that it doesn't just happen once every 5 minutes.

Several martial artists here have already spoken to how they find the new rules more realistic than the old. Of course, Yes album covers are more relevant to D&D than realistic combat, so it's a moot point, but the "it's not realistic" canard isn't going to cut it.

And good for you, you don't need to rationalize this, enjoy it. I do need to rationalize this, I won't enjoy it if I can't, and I'm discussing it on a forum made for discussing the benefits and flaws of 4e.

Rationalize it like you rationalize hit points: "Doing it the other way sucks." We all went through the "I want my games to be gritty and realistic" phase, hacked our AD&D rules, and were bummed out when our 5th level fighter got wasted by a stray crossbow bolt; if we're still playing D&D it's because we don't find that style of play enjoyable.

Remember: you should be able to kill any unmagicked human opponent in one hit. You can't, though, because we don't think that's fun. If you can rationalize invincible narrative force-fields, you can rationalize this. Struggling to avoid rationalizing is going to reduce you that guy in 1995 yelling about how fighters can be stabbed 50 times and live or how wizards are so dumb they forget all their spells. You don't want to be that guy, do you?

 

[pemerton]

4e in general is moving away from "these specific conditions have to exist in order for. . ." to (as others have noted) giving the authorial or narrative power to the player.

<snip>

I know this is a bad word around here, but i am going to say it anyway: Let the players do cool things - but make it cool when they do.

Utterly agreed.

Nearly all the posts that I've read complaining about the new power system, the new skill challenge system, the new damage and healing system, etc, are just special cases of a general complaint: that the poster prefers purist-for-system/sandbox simulationism over player-driven narrativist play. It seems to me that the 4e designers agree with Ron Edwards that more people will enjoy roleplaying if the system empowers them to create the stories they want to create, than if the system subordinates those desires to the imperatives of the ingame causal relationships in the GM's imagined world.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Several martial artists here have already spoken to how they find the new rules more realistic than the old. Of course, Yes album covers are more relevant to D&D than realistic combat, so it's a moot point, but the "it's not realistic" canard isn't going to cut it.

I think as long as there isn't a polearm-expert speaking up on how realistic it is that he can trip folks with clubs and hayforks only once every 5 minutes, I'll take the word of unarmed-combat specialists on heavily-armed combatants wielding weapons meant to trip an inferior foe a lot of times doing so once per 5 minutes as being realistic with a spoon of salt, thank you.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Several martial artists here have already spoken to how they find the new rules more realistic than the old. Of course, Yes album covers are more relevant to D&D than realistic combat, so it's a moot point, but the "it's not realistic" canard isn't going to cut it.

...

My word choice is working against me.

Let's do it this way:

I don't loose the ability to trip someone for 5 minutes after I've tried to trip someone. Nowhere does that happen. Thus, for that to happen in the game, it violates my belivability in a way that fireball-shooting magi flying around the battlefield and teleporting lollipop faeries do not.

I'm not interested in realism, I'm interested in believability.

That's why I don't care what the martial artists say. It's not believable that I would be actually unable to trip anymore after trying to do it.

Rationalize it like you rationalize hit points: "Doing it the other way sucks." We all went through the "I want my games to be gritty and realistic" phase, hacked our AD&D rules, and were bummed out when our 5th level fighter got wasted by a stray crossbow bolt; if we're still playing D&D it's because we don't find that style of play enjoyable.

That's not really how I rationalize hitpoints, and I never went through a 'gritty and realistic' phase because I pretty much always wanted to be Achilles or Beowulf or Heracles. I've always wanted paladins astride T-rexes with lazers shooting out of their eyes.

I rationalize hit points by saying "Heroic people don't die easily."

I can't rationalize tripping in the same way. "Heroic people can only trip one time when they are in mortal combat!" No....no, it really doesn't work.

Remember: you should be able to kill any unmagicked human opponent in one hit.

I disagree.

You can't, though, because we don't think that's fun.

Well, in my games, you can't because mortal combat is too messy and chaotic for you to automatically kill anything. But still, you're heroic. Minion rules (1-hit-kills) are going to be great for this.

If you can rationalize invincible narrative force-fields, you can rationalize this.

It's not a narrative force-field to me.

Struggling to avoid rationalizing is going to reduce you that guy in 1995 yelling about how fighters can be stabbed 50 times and live or how wizards are so dumb they forget all their spells. You don't want to be that guy, do you?

Obviously my problem with this is different than my problem with HPs and Vancian spell memorization.

Hmmm....wonder why that could be?!

 

[Bagpuss]

In-character, Jackie Chan and Legolas make a choice to do it or not, and only choose to do it once. The reasons they make that choice are both in-character choices (suboptimal abilities they don't get much of a chance to use optmially) and more meta choices (boring, repetetive).

Well that's not really true since they are just following direction there is no in-character choice that isn't really controlled by a meta choice (the script and direction). Hence when you come to you next point why not do it backwards like in the genre it tries to simulate.

In character, my 4th level fighter doesn't get a choice. He can only do it once. The reason he can do it once is entirely a meta choice, and that's entirely backwards.

Come up with an In-character reason to explain the meta-reason. The game doesn't simulate every aspect of combat, perhaps you use your once an encounter trip at that point because, at that moment your opponent was off balance, after stumbling on loose ground. That was the only chance to use it optimally. The stumbling isn't covered by a rules mechanic it doesn't need to be it's still in character and the game effect is you get to use your trip power. Your opponent doesn't stumble again for the rest of the fight so you don't get you use the power.

It might be backwards but it's still in character.

 

[Moochava]

I don't loose the ability to trip someone for 5 minutes after I've tried to trip someone. Nowhere does that happen. Thus, for that to happen in the game, it violates my belivability in a way that fireball-shooting magi flying around the battlefield and teleporting lollipop faeries do not.

You don't whittle away at someone's "chance to suddenly take a mortal blow"; nowhere does that happen. Yet you accept hit points without them violating your believability.

I rationalize hit points by saying "Heroic people don't die easily."

I can't rationalize tripping in the same way. "Heroic people can only trip one time when they are in mortal combat!" No....no, it really doesn't work.

"Heroic people don't spam maneuvers like they're playing a first-generation arcade fighting game" works pretty well.

Really, the thing with hit points is that you're required to make a lot of case-by-case ad hoc rulings if a player has a believability complaint. (I think players with believability complaints in the middle of games should choke on a pretzel, but that's an argument for another thread.) In round 1, losing 10 hit points represents ducking a blow and getting a little winded from it; in round 2 (since the player got hit with a minor poison effect), losing 5 hit points represents a slight cut on the chin. In round 3, the character doesn't die from his 50-foot fall because he crashes through some tree branches, slowing his descent, before he hits the ground--the NPC who died from the same plunge fell ten feet to the left, of course, and there was nothing to break his fall. In previous editions of D&D--and probably in 4E too--the DM is engaged in round-by-round justifications for an abstract system that is primarily designed to facilitate entertaining game-play. 4E's per-encounter powers will occasionally require the same sort of round-by-rounding in order to sync the desire for a "realistic" experience with a mechanical contrivance designed for fun.

"How come I can't use Decapitating Blow this round?"
"You already used your per-encounter power."
"But I wanna know WHY!"
(At this point, the player is ejected from my table for wasting everyone's time and being a tool, but if you must humor him...)
"You're too tired from using it last time, so you can't focus."
"What about this round? In my boundless arrogance and sense of entitlement, I demand that my illusion of verisimilitude be constantly maintained, though it distracts you from providing an entertaining game."
"Okay, this round you can't line up a clear strike at anyone's head because they've watched your maneuvers and they're keeping their shields raised."
"What about this round? My only joy is in pretending that D&D is an accurate simulation of reality."
"This round all the orcs near you have iron gorgets that you can't cut through with your old sword."
"Okay, what about this round? I won't be happy until I've outsmarted the DM by catching him in a setting-based contradiction."
"More gorgets. They're all the rage in Orclandia."
"Would they be 'all the rage' if I had my per-encounter power available?"
"You'll never know, since you don't have it available."

...Obviously my problem with this is different than my problem with HPs and Vancian spell memorization.

Hmmm....wonder why that could be?!

I have a dozen explanations, each less flattering than the last.

 

[robertliguori]

Let us sum up.

1: Tripping should always be a possibility in combat.

2: Tripping should rarely be the optimal combat action, on the order of once a combat barring specific circumstances.

OK, then. Not seeing a problem here. We design a set of rules akin to those of Third Edition, in which tripping is difficult (requiring both a successful attack and an opposed check) and leaves you open to retaliation of the painful kind. We can even throw in the possibility for the retaliation (the OA) to be focused on counter-tripping. All things totaled together, tripping is not a good idea in the general case.

Then, we can negate the opportunity attack in cases of combat advantage, and allow trained trippers bonuses. Finally, onto this framework, we can add a trip special attack, possibly akin to 3.X trip and attack. A focused tripper with the power can hurt someone trippable hard once a combat, and if he can get combat advantage, then he has a good chance of dropping others to the ground.

Bottom-line is that if I try to win a fight by repeatedly trying to trip an equally-trained opponent, I should lose, but I shouldn't be prevented from being able to try it.

You don't whittle away at someone's "chance to suddenly take a mortal blow"; nowhere does that happen. Yet you accept hit points without them violating your believability.

Well, yes, you do; a succession of nicks, forced sudden dodges, and the like do make it more likely for you to catch a heavy blow.

Next, in 3.5E, hp were only partially a measure of luck; at the end of the day, you could send a high-level martial character to the chopping block and have a decent chance at them laughing at you. Characters with massive amounts of HP really were that tough; absent attempts at precision and CdGs, you can generally chop wood more easily than you can high-level character flesh. This is often considered one of the more awesome points of hp: you can take a blow that would have, for anyone without your unmatchable ability to shrug off injuries, severed a limb or three, quote Monty Python, and mean it. Of course, you probably can't keep doing so forever, but hey, you can imagine trying to kill a wooly mammoth with a sword, and map it over.

It is not believable that a person made of ordinary flesh and blood is as hard to kill as a giant pachyderm. It does, however, provide a consistent explanation for the events of the world; you experience things that should kill you and don't, in numbers and regularity that make luck the less believable option than a radically-abnormal universe.

You know, I think that's another issue right there. The rules should be able to model ordinary people accurately, and it should be able to model the heroes. If the ordinary people do not resemble ordinary people as we understand them, this is a flaw. If the heroes are unable to do things the ordinary people can (or reasonably should) be able to do, this is also a flaw. Ordinary people can engage in boring-but-effective tactics; heroes should be able to do so as well; if this is not a desired outcome, then change the mechanics of the universe to support heroism (with Hero points from M&Mm, for instance).

And everyone knows that the reason that you can't use Decapitating Blow is that it's impossible to decapitate people without special training that breaks the expected behavior of the universe akin to zapping your enemy with magical energy. You can't use it because you've used up your chi, or badass points, or whatever you use to bend the universe to let the unnatural happen.

Of course, if you get a player asking why it is that the universe requires badass points to trip multiple people in a five-minute window, that would be a different problem.

 

[Moochava]

Well, yes, you do; a succession of nicks, forced sudden dodges, and the like do make it more likely for you to catch a heavy blow.

Well obviously. But it doesn't work to the extent that it does in D&D, where you just can't kill some people with a knife-thrust, despite all real-world logic. Congratulations on spending a few paragraphs to rationalize it, but it's still the same sort of thing as per-encounter powers: an event converted from "mostly random" to "mostly controlled by the players" because the latter is more fun.

You know, I think that's another issue right there. The rules should be able to model ordinary people accurately, and it should be able to model the heroes. If the ordinary people do not resemble ordinary people as we understand them, this is a flaw.

To some extent I agree, but in D&D I don't really care how realistic a farmer's wife-vs.-housecat fight is, because those fights don't happen in my games and if they did I probably wouldn't waste the players' time by rolling it out. Nor do I care about footraces or arm-wrestling matches, because those don't come up in my games either. (Seriously, arm-wrestling matches? When does that happen. Don't answer--I'm sure dozens of people have dozens of thrilling arm-wrestling-themed campaigns.) I don't need D&D to accurately simulate a welterweight boxing match; in fact I'd consider page count dedicated to such a simulation a big fat waste of time. I have dozens of systems that can simulate "reality," but there are only a handful of systems that are both geared toward interesting tactical play and that aren't freakin' awful.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Well that's not really true since they are just following direction there is no in-character choice that isn't really controlled by a meta choice (the script and direction). Hence when you come to you next point why not do it backwards like in the genre it tries to simulate.

For me, I'm an actor. You decide something in-character first, the rest flows from that. The direction should be loose enough to let you discover a character's abilities and nuance.

So those ARE in-character descisions. They're also meta-descisions, but as long as they're in-character, the meta doesn't disrupt it.

Come up with an In-character reason to explain the meta-reason. The game doesn't simulate every aspect of combat, perhaps you use your once an encounter trip at that point because, at that moment your opponent was off balance, after stumbling on loose ground. That was the only chance to use it optimally. The stumbling isn't covered by a rules mechanic it doesn't need to be it's still in character and the game effect is you get to use your trip power. Your opponent doesn't stumble again for the rest of the fight so you don't get you use the power.

It might be backwards but it's still in character.

It's really unsatisfying for me to offer an excuse for the rules. The character I play should be determining the rules I use, not the other way around.

You don't whittle away at someone's "chance to suddenly take a mortal blow"; nowhere does that happen. Yet you accept hit points without them violating your believability.

Actually, the idea of wearing your opponent down through repeated assault is one of the most basic and most believable fighting strategies around.

Hit points seem to reflect that.

"Heroic people don't spam maneuvers like they're playing a first-generation arcade fighting game" works pretty well.

"You can only do it once per encounter" is perhaps the most ham-handed and unsatisfying way of enforcing that, though.

I'm all for making trip a rarer event, but I'd like to be believably made rarer, not arbitrarily made rarer.

Really, the thing with hit points is that you're required to make a lot of case-by-case ad hoc rulings if a player has a believability complaint.

For me, hp are believable enough as "You are this hard to kill. If someone tries harder than this, they might kill you."

Fits with the heroic action genre, and is basically believable.

4E's per-encounter powers will occasionally require the same sort of round-by-rounding in order to sync the desire for a "realistic" experience with a mechanical contrivance designed for fun.

I can buy a lot on this line. Tripping is something I can't really buy on the line. I don't understand why I loose the ability to trip after trying to trip someone. All the explanations have been very hollow and transparent so far.

And since it's not fun if it's not believable...4e fails at fun for me.

I have a dozen explanations, each less flattering than the last.

But nothing relevant?

All righty then.