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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bert1000" data-source="post: 5950173" data-attributes="member: 29013">Although I know the "that trick only works once on an enemy" rationale it was never the most compelling to me. As other have pointed out, there are too many ways that can break down. I am fine with martial encounter abilities, though. The rationale that works for me is that martial encounter abilities are a game mechanic that gives players some agency on the in-game fiction to dictate when the circumstances are "just right" to pull off (or attempt to pull off) a difficult combat move. Since combat is pretty abstract in D&D anyway this doesn't bother me. I see a combat turn like one of the older D&D editions described it -- a turn where a character makes a melee attack assumes a bunch of feinting, looking for openings, footwork, etc. So, the encounter power just gives the player some choice of when the circumstances are "just right" to pull off that maneuver. For encounter powers the circumstances can happen at an average frequency of once an encounter (for a wide variety of reasons). For a Daily Martial Power, the circumstances only align once a day. It's not because there is some physical limitation to pulling off that maneuver more than once a day or the character "forgets" how to do it, it's just that these are really hard (but powerful) moves that require a combination of high level of skill and certain circumstances (e.g., enemy mentality, terrain, luck) to align to pull off. You can assume that the character is trying to pull off the encounter maneuvers and daily maneuvers more than once per encounter and once per day but use of the power represents the moment that the character has a real chance of it working. Encounter and Daily are just ways to represent the average frequency that a combination of skill and circumstances align to allow a real chance of success. In my mind the powers/maneuvers are not in-world constructs. So, you don't learn "Steel serpent strike" down at the dojo. It is just a game construct that allows the player to dictate when her character can try to pull off some cool in-fiction move that represents a combination of skill and circumstance. This is certainly very different game mechanics than trying to model every martial ability as an in-fiction ability, but I think it opens up a lot of space to model cool martial moves that would be too powerful if they succeeded more frequently. Notice I did not say "used more frequently" since it is assumed that they are being attempted more frequently just not succeeding. Yes, this is definitely a gamist and abstract approach but no more so than many aspects of D&D -- HP, AC, etc. I am ok that some character abilities may represent in-game realities (spells?) and some may be tools to model more abstract concepts.</blockquote>

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