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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SKyOdin" data-source="post: 5964361" data-attributes="member: 57939">And fighter shouldn't have any tools they can use creatively? This is a flat double standard with no logical basis other than a simple desire for spellcasters to be more powerful or fun than fighting classes.Have you ever played a fighting game, such as Street Fighter? Well, in those kinds of games, characters often have both weak attacks, which do little damage, and strong attacks, which do much more damage. Why would a character use the weak attack instead of the strong attack? Simple, a weak attack comes out faster and is easier to set-up an attack with, while using the strong attack   potentially leaves your character open to counterattack. Similarly, occasionally you find an opening and land a 15-hit combo that takes out a third of your opponent's health in one go.Real life combat is even more complicated than the degree of abstraction seen in a fighting game. The principle of the difference between weak jabs and strong knock-out blows still remains, however. Furthermore, fighters in real life have to worry about stamina, getting worn out, not performing their best when beaten up, and occasionally getting boosts to their morale and an adrenaline rush.Creating a game that simulates all of those things would be really complicated. It would take 20 minutes to arbitrate a single attack. So, a game abstracts things. The entire idea of combat powers is to abstract out the complexities of real combat into an easy to use system that gets the overall effect across while being fun to use in play. I think the 3E Tome of Battle maneuvers and 4E Fighter powers accomplish that very well.Then you are not actually playing D&D as written, and are not really in a position to tell people they should be happy with just making basic attacks. At least suggest a rule system that performs the way you run your game.The thing is, the kind of gameplay you suggest can be supported by rules. In fact, the upcoming 13th Age game apparently does build in the idea of narrative bonuses to attack rules into its mechanics.Alternatively, there are plenty of games out there that are designed from the ground up to support that kind of purely narrative/descriptive combat. D&D isn't one of them. It is fine if you think D&D should have more rules to support that kind of gameplay, but it is a poor rationale to make against fighter powers in a game that codifies spells so thoroughly.</blockquote>

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