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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5996647" data-attributes="member: 87792">The biggest problem 4e had at the launch was that it was very badly explained in places. Skill challenges, martial encounter powers, etc. And they wrote the rulebooks as books to be used at the table rather than books where the game experience starts by reading the book.  This tells me a lot about your standard of immersion. "What else is there but attack"? Nothing at all - if you aren't picturing yourself as a warrior - or are in a ten foot room fighting an orc guarding a pie mano-a-mano, and the pie isn't even on a table. Or you are on a fencing piste and not allowed to step out of your five foot lane. Otherwise "standing toe to toe and slugging it out" is odd. First you should be circling, aiming for their weaker side (doubly so for sword and board fighters). Second if there's a table in the room, force the orc into it. Or make sure he doesn't you. Use any debris on the floor - he might slip. Better if there's something effective like potholes or puddles. You're a skilled warrior - use the environment to your advantage.  And then feint the orc out at times. Finally, slugging it out mano-a-mano implies that you don't have a party with you. Rather than you're trying to distract the enemy so the rogue can get his kidneys. Or set him up for the ranger to shoot him. Mano-a-mano is fundamentally solipsistic.  In short, if you are really slugging it out mano-a-mano most of the time then either you're in a really odd situation (a one on one fight in a sand covered arena) or you're in an incredibly boring session of D&D.  But the player should dictate what he is trying to do before rolling the dice. This is the mistake made by 13th Age and seriously leads to a disempowering experience. The dice do, after all, determine fate by the to hit roll. But the player must decide what and how they are trying to do.  You don't need to. Wizards and sorcerors have fundamentally big and simple effects. A fireball doesn't care which foot the target's weight is on, and spells take seconds to cast. It's only the non-casters (chiefly fighters and rogues) who care about this. And those two classes should be fundamentally the best at it. Edit: And I don't understand any way in which ten minute recharges are superior to five minute rests either.  They are far more arbitrary, far more book keeping, far less immersionist (take a breather to recover your fatigue), and inferior in just about every other way I can think of.</blockquote>

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