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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jackelope King" data-source="post: 3792743" data-attributes="member: 31454">Consider this one from Iron Heroes, then.An Archer has the ability to attack his foes in numerous ways beyond simply shooting. If he takes careful aim, he can deal additional damage ("Deadly Shot"), or inflict his foe with a penalty to attacks ("Disrupting Shot"), or even rain arrows down upon a small area of the battlefield (peppering everyone with attacks; "Storm of Arrows"). He's limited in the use of these abilities (and the strength of these abilities) to the number of tokens he has in his aim pool. He can always spend actions to take aim and build up his aim pool too.So let's say the archer finds himself and his friends fighting a band of brigands and their hard-bitten captain. The archer must focus his attention on one enemy at a time, building up an aim pool. Right away, he's faced with decisions: should he focus on trying to take out the captain, or is his action better spent trying to build up an aim pool against one of the other bandits?After spending a round building up aim tokens against one enemy (say the captain, 4 tokens for taking a full round to aim), he's presented with a new choice: should he spend some or all of his tokens, and which ability should he use? If he decides to use the Storm of Arrows he can strike the captain and the two bandits fighting shoulder to shoulder with him, but his damage against the captain will be limited. Or he can spend two of his tokens and deal additional damage to the captain this round while conserving some tokens to use to do the same thing next round with Deadly Shot, though the other bandits won't be affected, and the higher damage is a wash if he misses. Or he could spend all of his tokens on a Disrupting Shot to prevent the captain from hurting his allies as easily with that big flail he's carrying. Or he can spend more time aiming so that next round, his shot can be even more effective.Fast forward a few rounds. Now three of the bandits are dead, and only the captain and his two lieutenants are left, and they're being pushed back across the bridge, trying to escape. Now, since he's on the defensive and less of a threat, the choice is more obvious: take him down as fast as possible before he gets away. Keep firing off Deadly Shots and hope one drops him before he gets away.There is no real "strongest ability" here. Since it takes fewer rounds to build up, sometimes it's simply better to use a weaker ability. In other situations, it's better to take your time and line up the shot before you fire so as to inflict the most damage possible. And still other times it's prudent to just give up your aim pool against one opponent and focus on a new one (as your current target might be about to be on the recieving end of the now-enraged berserker's very large, very sharp axe).After the encounter ends, the archer hasn't "run out" of his ability to use any of these options. Indeed, if twenty more encounters happened, he'd be able to use these abilities in each and every one. But within the context of each of those encounters, he's presented with different scenarios and different foes, and needs to consider how best to use his limited pool of aim tokens within that encounter. Maybe in a later encounter, he's faced with a harrier (among other opponents). The archer would do well to focus on someone other than the harrier, since the archer can aim more effectively against oppoents standing still than he can against someone like the harrier, who gains his abilities from moving quickly around the battlefield. The archer is faced with interesting choices of how to marshal his resources during an encounter, both in how to build them up (spending actions aiming) and then in how to unleash them.</blockquote>

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