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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ZombieRoboNinja" data-source="post: 6063081" data-attributes="member: 54843">Reading the latest playtest packet, it looks like they've made some changes to the way expertise dice (XD) work. Now, instead of them refreshing every ROUND at the end of your turn, they refresh every TURN. (At least I think? Mike Mearls and Trevor "clarified" it on Twitter, and after Mike said martial damage dice refresh "once per turn," Trevor said: "Yeah, your dice refresh at the beginning of your turn and you only get one reaction per round." So... huh?)EDIT: Trevor clarified on his twitter feed that they are definitely only intended to refresh once per round at the start of your turn, so the wording here could definitely use revision.ANYWAY, as the rules are currently written, you can use all your XD to stab a dude, then use your reaction to use all your XD to Protect or Parry or stab a dude again with an opportunity attack. Which makes Parry, Protect, and opportunity attacks VERY powerful for fighters. But it also means that they have a bit less tactical planning they need to do. There's no opportunity cost to using your XD on Parry or Protect, because those dice will refresh before your next turn. (In the previous packet, dice only refreshed at the end of your turn; in the packet before that, they refreshed at the BEGINNING of your turn, so if you blew all your dice on an attack you didn't have any left for defense.)I kind of miss the tactical planning; even though it'd be a hit for fighters in terms of raw power, I'd rather see them have XD refresh only on the beginning of their turn, once per round, so they had to plan out how offensively or defensively they wanted to play that round.Another note: this time around they had to remove most of the defensive maneuvers, like Lightning Reflexes and Great Fortitude, probably at least partly because XD refreshing every turn would make those basically huge flat bonuses to saves. Which puts us in a weird situation where rogues have access to class abilities that give them bonuses to Fort and Will saves but monks and fighters don't. Change the XD back to once per round and they can re-introduce more defensive and off-turn maneuvers.On another, seemingly unrelated note, martial classes also get a Martial Damage Bonus (MDB) at higher levels, which is basically expertise dice you don't have to roll that can't be used for maneuvers. I think the math necessitates it somehow. But here's a thought: make that extra damage a flat bonus to ALL weapon/unarmed attacks, EXCLUDING attacks where you can't add your modifier to damage. (So two-weapon fighters and other wierd cases don't get an unnecessary extra damage buff.) The benefits of this are twofold: first, it means you can do more of the math on your character sheet, so you don't have to assign MDB every round. (Dice are enough to keep track of.) And second, it buffs your opportunity attacks a bit without needing dice to refresh every turn. Obviously, the numbers for the MDB could be shifted around to make the math work for this.Kind of a wonky topic, but what do people think of this adaptation?TLDR: MDB should be a flat damage bonus to all attacks where you can add your ability mod to damage; XD should refresh only at the beginning of your turn. (Which, according to Trevor, may in fact be what's intended.)</blockquote>

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