Why the Encounter Powers hate? (Maneuvers = Encounter)

[pemerton]

1) And in 4th Ed those are?

2) Why would you need a mechanic to woo?

1) The bulk of the warlord class. Significant chunks of the cleric class (those that allow the spending of healing surges). And also of the paladin, I would argue (although that's perhaps more open to interpretation).

2) If the woo-ing is not just background colour, but something significant at stake in the game, then I prefer it to be handled via action resolution mechanics. That way success or failure is not pre-ordained, and surprising things can occur in the course of resolution and adjudication that neither player nor GM foresaw. So much the same reasons as any other part of the game might be handled via mechanics rather than freeform or GM fiat.

 

[Steely_Dan]

1) The bulk of the warlord class. Significant chunks of the cleric class (those that allow the spending of healing surges). And also of the paladin, I would argue (although that's perhaps more open to interpretation).

2) If the woo-ing is not just background colour, but something significant at stake in the game, then I prefer it to be handled via action resolution mechanics. That way success or failure is not pre-ordained, and surprising things can occur in the course of resolution and adjudication that neither player nor GM foresaw. So much the same reasons as any other part of the game might be handled via mechanics rather than freeform or GM fiat.

1) Ah, I thought you meant warlord (hoping it will be an option in 5th Ed, but not necessarily a class), of course there would be no clerics or paladins in a LotR campaign; we implemented Healing/Herbalism skills to help with non-magical healing.

2) I prefer things like wooing/hobnobbing/carousing/schmoozing etc to be purely role-played, no mechanics; unless it's magical wooing (charming etc).

 

[pemerton]

1) Ah, I thought you meant warlord (hoping it will be an option in 5th Ed, but not necessarily a class), of course there would be no clerics or paladins in a LotR campaign; we implemented Healing/Herbalism skills to help with non-magical healing.

I think you could perhaps run Aragorn, or a similar noble warrior type, as a 4e paladin - not the PHB one (who is more overtly divine) but an Essentials one.

I don't think 4e has a good non-magical herbalism/healing option, but there may be something in the Essentials rangers (I don't know them very well).

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

Jumping into the thread very late but I thought I'd relate my experience as a 4th Edition Fighter.

As a simulationist, I found it difficult to get my head around how encounter powers worked for me. Strangely, I didn't have the same issue with daily powers because I treated them like magical abilities. This was fine, as I had a magical crossover in mind, but I do think I would have found dailies just as jarring for a strict soldier character. I enjoyed having different at-will powers (until whichever book gave me more options and made Tide of Iron less cool). When I multi-classed to Wizard, I also found it very frustrating that spells were basically alternatives to my other powers - I really wanted something more exotic from crossing over, but at great feat cost all I really did was have more unusual options. Oh, and I loved stances, but would have preferred to be able to switch them on/off for changes in my behaviour rather than use one for an encounter that day and be done with it.

The other thing I'll say is that my combat routine became very, very bland. Maybe this was playing a defender, or maybe it was the grind of the combats, but I would always start with getting into melee, then mark as many things as possible, then boost my defences. Those powers used I'd move on to lesser marking powers, lesser defensive powers, sometimes a tricky monster would trigger a rare utility. I rationed dailies but it never felt like it mattered which one I used in a given encounter, any boost was useful. By the end of epic I had a weird trick of casting the same daily power spell three times so it literally didn't matter.

I know that in earlier editions my combats would have potentially been even more bland - but I'm the sort of player that doesn't mind that if someone is making an interesting choice, and I would frequently advise spellcasters as the stalwart dwarf who was sucking up all the damage for them.

 

[Fifth Element]

2) I prefer things like wooing/hobnobbing/carousing/schmoozing etc to be purely role-played, no mechanics; unless it's magical wooing (charming etc).

How do you handle a character with 18 Charisma being roleplayed by a person with poor social skills? That's always my issue with doing social stuff purely by roleplaying with no mechanics: if my character is extremely smart or suave and I'm not, why should I have to suffer for it? Mikey over there is a weakling in real life but his character gets a +4 to hit in melee because it has an 18 Strength. What's the point of characters having mental/social ability scores if I we're really just going to use our own?

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

How do you handle a character with 18 Charisma being roleplayed by a person with poor social skills? That's always my issue with doing social stuff purely by roleplaying with no mechanics: if my character is extremely smart or suave and I'm not, why should I have to suffer for it? Mikey over there is a weakling in real life but his character gets a +4 to hit in melee because it has an 18 Strength. What's the point of characters having mental/social ability scores if I we're really just going to use our own?

I hate this. There's a section in the Call of Cthulhu rulebook that states characters do not have charisma scores because they want to encourage social interaction between players, and to mechanically define this would disrupt that intent. Of course when you start deciding how to spend your skill points there is Persuade and Fast Talk to determine how well your interactions with NPCs will go, completely undermining their initial claim.

 

[jadrax]

How do you handle a character with 18 Charisma being roleplayed by a person with poor social skills?

You just take the stat/skill/whatever into consideration as the GM. So if the player stammers or pauses or whatever you overlook it and make sure the NPCs look upon what they are saying in a generally favourable light.

If they have low Charisma, you just don't listen what they are saying.

It is not perfect by any means, but it has worked for us for years.

 

[Fifth Element]

You just take the stat/skill/whatever into consideration as the GM. So if the player stammers or pauses or whatever you overlook it and make sure the NPCs look upon what they are saying in a generally favourable light.

If they have low Charisma, you just don't listen what they are saying.

It is not perfect by any means, but it has worked for us for years.

Okay, but that's not purely roleplaying then. If you take the character's Charisma into consideration, then that's a game mechanic (ability score) entering into the resolution.

Which is a good thing, I think, otherwise the Charisma score is meaningless.

 

[Herschel]

Okay, but that's not purely roleplaying then. If you take the character's Charisma into consideration, then that's a game mechanic (ability score) entering into the resolution.

Which is a good thing, I think, otherwise the Charisma score is meaningless.

I went from 1E/2E where Charisma was just a 'useless' stat requirement for Paladins and Druids and a nod to balance because that "ate" one of their highest stats to where 3E went too far the other way with skill trees, etc. 4E's skill system actually hit a sweet spot for me and was one of the things that drew me back to "current" D&D (though the training bonus is a bit high at Heroic, but a 3, 4, 5 by tier skill increase would have been more fiddly).

 

[SKyOdin]

Jumping into the thread very late but I thought I'd relate my experience as a 4th Edition Fighter.

As a simulationist, I found it difficult to get my head around how encounter powers worked for me. Strangely, I didn't have the same issue with daily powers because I treated them like magical abilities. This was fine, as I had a magical crossover in mind, but I do think I would have found dailies just as jarring for a strict soldier character.

Here is my question, why do you accept daily powers as being okay for magical abilities as making sense? It is no less arbitrary of a thing than encounter powers.

If you are looking at things from a simulationist point of view, I for one can't make much sense of the daily spell limit traditionally used in D&D. You could say "it's magic, that's just how it works", but that is a very hollow argument. D&D magic is so undefined that you can't appeal to any specific function of how magic works in order to justify daily limits of spells. Furthermore, most magic systems from novels and other works I have encountered do not work well with Vancian magic.

In the end, daily limited spells and powers are just the result of arbitrary game design. There is no in-setting justification for them. On the other hand, I can at least understand and accept encounter powers as a narrative description of the flow of combat.