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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6009380" data-attributes="member: 42582">Like AbdulAlhazred and PoE, I'm curious as to what your comparison class is.4e has a pretty robust system for handling improvised actions: the DC by level table and the exepcted-damage-by-level numbers. And it has a nice suite of conditions you can use to help set stakes (eg if a stunt succeeds, some advantage is gained; if it fails, the PC grants combat advantage).Recent improvisations I can think of include: the tiefling paladin, who - while surrounded by a hobgoblin phalanx (15th level Huge swarm) - was set on fire by being caught in an ally's fire attack, and took advantage of this to try and set the hobgoblins on fire (grant combat advantage to get bonus damage die); and the wizard, using a "remove from game and dominate" power - ie a power of bodily possession of a target - to try and read an NPC's mind for a password (the attack succeeded, I set a Hard Arcana DC for the mind reading, the check failed, so the PC didn't learn what he wanted to). 4e makes these sorts of things very easy to adjudicate, because of its clear and robust parameters for action resolution (DCs by level, damage by level, good condition list, etc).Yes yes yes to this. I think it is hard to overestimate how important the adjudication of failure is to RPG play. The single best way to produce turtling, unadventurous players is to adjudicate failures narrowly and harshly. (I actually posted about this yesterday on <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=6008577&postcount=71" target="_blank">another thread</a>.)I think the key here is to dispense with the risk. That's where the robust action resolution mechanics come in. Once the players are confident that the GM will apply those mechanics to let them do interesting stuff, the risk goes away. And often it can be built on top of powers, rather than strictly alternative to them. Like the time the dwarf fighter in my game used oil to enhance his Footwork Lure: the oil had been scavenged from a ruined wrestling ring, and stuck in the backpack in case it came in handy; a little while later the PCs were fighting some big, dangerous golems, and the dwarf needed to slide one of them 2 squares to knock it prone (Polearm Momentum, I think) but could slide it only 1 square using Footwork Lure, and so used a standard action to place the oil, and thus get extra forced movement (via slippiriness) and therefore got to knock the golem prone with an action point. With a Wall of Fire in play the oil itself caught alight to deal some extra damage, and the golem being prone in the wall of fire shifted momentum the PCs way in the damage vs actions trade off.For me, at least, opening up play in this way has been one of the strong features of 4e compared to other mainstream fantasy RPGs.</blockquote>

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