Okay, we were running through some mock combats to knock the cobwebs out of the players for our latest game, and the Maneuvers from the PHB had people stumped.
Basically the question was, if you're doing the same meneuver over and over again (and a low-level fighter type is pretty low on tricks up their sleeve), why doesn't the opponent get to learn eventually?
The crux of this came as we had a Paladin vs a Rogue: The Paladin could only be hit on a 18+; the Rogue could only be hit on a 16+ - so the Rogue was in trouble. But mostly, the Paladin used Trip repeatedly, and would win 75% of the time. The Rogue would then Tumble back up or out of range to fire their weapon. This went on quite awhile, and eventualy the audience got bored at the point that the Paladin's damage finally caught up to the Rogue's.
The idea was floated around: Why not make repeated uses of the same Maneuver against the same foe harder?
This would have the effect of making longer, more drawn out battles (assuming you survive the teleport ambush), and mean that if you open up with your ultimate, and fail, your ultimate is suddenly less effective... Losing five or ten percent of your effectiveness with each attempt.
In effect, making it hack and slash, instead of hack and hack.
-Crissa
Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best move f
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power_word_wedgie
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Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
This is already implied for combat. You aren't assumed to be making the same overhead chop each time you swing an axe, for example. Otherwise, your character would most definitely be telegraphing their punches.
Edit: And to expand a little bit on that, in some ways it has to be an implied function. It's like when sword duels were popular until someone figured out it was effective to cut the tendons of their opponents ankles (if I got my history correct). If D&D modelled this form of combat, then all D&D would be is an initiative match to the cutting of tendons. Thus, it's assumed that you're swinging around in some function that is appropriate to your BAB, AC, and other feats (Weapon Finesse, Power Attack, etc.).
Edit: And to expand a little bit on that, in some ways it has to be an implied function. It's like when sword duels were popular until someone figured out it was effective to cut the tendons of their opponents ankles (if I got my history correct). If D&D modelled this form of combat, then all D&D would be is an initiative match to the cutting of tendons. Thus, it's assumed that you're swinging around in some function that is appropriate to your BAB, AC, and other feats (Weapon Finesse, Power Attack, etc.).
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RandomCasualty
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Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
Yeah, I definitely think that some mechanic needs to be placed to enourage people to do new and interesting stuff every combat. Either by rewarding unique actions, or punishing repeated ones.
It'd actually be kind of neat in my opinion if you stretched things over an entire adventure. So the first time you disarm somebody, it might be at a bonus, the next time at no modifier, and subsequent times at an increasing penalty. To encourage people to use different manuevers and not constantly repeat the same gimmick endlessly.
It'd actually be kind of neat in my opinion if you stretched things over an entire adventure. So the first time you disarm somebody, it might be at a bonus, the next time at no modifier, and subsequent times at an increasing penalty. To encourage people to use different manuevers and not constantly repeat the same gimmick endlessly.
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power_word_wedgie
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Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
I undrstand what you are saying, but in some sense, it just starts to veer away from D&D and starts to become something like Rolemaster with its combat complexity and charts for various scenarios. Don't get me wrong; I like to game in many systems and wouldn't mind playing Rolemaster every once in a while. However, when I want to play D&D, I play D&D and when I want to play Rolemaster, i play Rolemaster. I don't try to morph the two into one game.
Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
If you make repeated tactics less effective, all you'll end up with is characters focusing on nova tactics (that is, I can only do it once so it better be spectacular), or no tactics at all (even if tripping only works once, I can slash all I want).
The advantage of knowing what your opponent is going to do in combat is that you know what your opponent is going to do.
The advantage of knowing what your opponent is going to do in combat is that you know what your opponent is going to do.
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Josh_Kablack
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Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
I think that if you want to do this and your players are cool with it, this is probably best handled by the DM imposing either ad-hoc -2 circumstance penalties for repeated use of the exact same manuever in a single encounter and/or ad-hoc +2 circumstance bonuses for use of an unexpected manuver in combat.
That's rather ambigious, but I don't see any advantage at all to making the mechanics any more complex than that.
And as DM, you can just run the opponents as characters rather than as optimized tactical miniatures and not worry about applying circumstance modifiers.
That's rather ambigious, but I don't see any advantage at all to making the mechanics any more complex than that.
And as DM, you can just run the opponents as characters rather than as optimized tactical miniatures and not worry about applying circumstance modifiers.
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Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
So it'd be really hard to tack on a -1 for each time you repeat a maneuver, be it attack, all-out, defense, trip, bullrush, charge, tumble...?
-Crissa
-Crissa
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Username17
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Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1159847835[/unixtime]]So it'd be really hard to tack on a -1 for each time you repeat a maneuver, be it attack, all-out, defense, trip, bullrush, charge, tumble...?
-Crissa
Practically impossible and ultimately unrewarding.
The closest thing you're going to get is to have recharge times or charges on maneuvers.
Whether even that is ultimately desirable is something that is itself up for debate. But keeping track of separate penalty values for each combat option you have against each opponent you face is straight bullshit. That's not something that's going to fly outsie a computer game.
-Username17
Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
<i> Why you don't use your best move first </i>
I fail to see how penalizing subsequest uses of the tactic achieves this at all.
For the most part, having to keep track of more than about one modifier to anything becomes a big pain, and keeping track of a bunch of small bonuses each combat becomes intractable.
As someone said, if they keep using the same tactic, then you have some extra info to go off of. Unfortunately, in D&D there aren't particular actions you can take to deal with this increased knowledge. You can't use that knowledge to declare that you're defending against trip in any meaninful way (at least not normally).
Perhaps what you want are modifications to attacks that defend against particular attack types. Of course, this runs the risk of paper/rock/scissors.
Finally, I don't know what the rules say, but could terrain be used more effectively to encourage different tactics? I mean, if you are dealing with a charger, add terrain they can't charge over, and force the battle to take place on your own terms. That might not fix everything, but it might help.
Joshua
I fail to see how penalizing subsequest uses of the tactic achieves this at all.
For the most part, having to keep track of more than about one modifier to anything becomes a big pain, and keeping track of a bunch of small bonuses each combat becomes intractable.
As someone said, if they keep using the same tactic, then you have some extra info to go off of. Unfortunately, in D&D there aren't particular actions you can take to deal with this increased knowledge. You can't use that knowledge to declare that you're defending against trip in any meaninful way (at least not normally).
Perhaps what you want are modifications to attacks that defend against particular attack types. Of course, this runs the risk of paper/rock/scissors.
Finally, I don't know what the rules say, but could terrain be used more effectively to encourage different tactics? I mean, if you are dealing with a charger, add terrain they can't charge over, and force the battle to take place on your own terms. That might not fix everything, but it might help.
Joshua
Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
I am not left-handed either!
Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
I don't know if it'll help you any, but what I do is allow the AC bonus from Expertise/fighting defensively to apply to the opposed roll against those combat maneuvers (the original goal was to keep Zorro from being disarmed on a 5 when he's parrying attacks, but it works to represent being prepared for a trip or bullrush too), and to allow certain skills to be used in place of them (as Escape Artist can be used against grappling, I let Balance oppose Trip (or Ride if mounted, but that's already a rule)).
Another idea is to offer ways for non-dwarves to get that "stability" bonus-- maybe if they take some sort of action to nail their shoes in the ground, or are holding a staff jabbed into the floor or a whip lashed around the door, or something. I would also suggest lowering the monster size bonus on those Str checks to 2 (instead of 4) or maybe just getting rid of them-- bigger monsters already have high Str scores, so in effect they're getting paid twice for the same shift by having both the stat and the bonus increase (sort of like how weapon damage scales to ridiculous amounts based on size when size also makes you stronger, one of the many reasons Polymorph is Better Than You), which is probably not a good idea.
Josh's idea is solid and simple too, although if you don't want a global change like that (after all, we don't want the Juggernaut to eventually not be able to overrun people [assuming it worked >_>]), you might make some kind of roll opposed to their attack to get the bonus, maybe Sense Motive or Martial Lore or whatever, seasoned to whatever class you wanted to be good at that sort of thing.
Another idea is to offer ways for non-dwarves to get that "stability" bonus-- maybe if they take some sort of action to nail their shoes in the ground, or are holding a staff jabbed into the floor or a whip lashed around the door, or something. I would also suggest lowering the monster size bonus on those Str checks to 2 (instead of 4) or maybe just getting rid of them-- bigger monsters already have high Str scores, so in effect they're getting paid twice for the same shift by having both the stat and the bonus increase (sort of like how weapon damage scales to ridiculous amounts based on size when size also makes you stronger, one of the many reasons Polymorph is Better Than You), which is probably not a good idea.
Josh's idea is solid and simple too, although if you don't want a global change like that (after all, we don't want the Juggernaut to eventually not be able to overrun people [assuming it worked >_>]), you might make some kind of roll opposed to their attack to get the bonus, maybe Sense Motive or Martial Lore or whatever, seasoned to whatever class you wanted to be good at that sort of thing.
Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
Well, it wasn't my idea, but really, none of these arguments are very persuasive either way.
Most players don't use but one tactic - it's only been in Frank's games that I've ever seen anything other than rush'n'attack. And that usually seemed the gameplan there, too, everyone would rush to their nearest foe, and start attacking; or everyone would target the first one through the doorway.
No one ever uses all-out defense, or any other of the basic maneuvers aside from charge and all-out attack... and winning battles is a matter of who's willing to stand there and hope luck goes with them - or they die in the first round. There seems little inbetween.
Why don't we want Juggernaut to eventually not be able to overrun people? That's what basically happens in a battle in the comic, he charges, hits a few, it works a couple times, but then everyone dodges him and eventually he loses.
-Crissa
(Personally, this only came up because 'I was a weenie' for trying to use Improved Trip on every attack.)
Most players don't use but one tactic - it's only been in Frank's games that I've ever seen anything other than rush'n'attack. And that usually seemed the gameplan there, too, everyone would rush to their nearest foe, and start attacking; or everyone would target the first one through the doorway.
No one ever uses all-out defense, or any other of the basic maneuvers aside from charge and all-out attack... and winning battles is a matter of who's willing to stand there and hope luck goes with them - or they die in the first round. There seems little inbetween.
Why don't we want Juggernaut to eventually not be able to overrun people? That's what basically happens in a battle in the comic, he charges, hits a few, it works a couple times, but then everyone dodges him and eventually he loses.
-Crissa
(Personally, this only came up because 'I was a weenie' for trying to use Improved Trip on every attack.)
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Desdan_Mervolam
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Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
AlphaNerd at [unixtime wrote:1159899446[/unixtime]]
Perhaps what you want are modifications to attacks that defend against particular attack types. Of course, this runs the risk of paper/rock/scissors.
What's wrong with Rock/Paper/Scissors? I really do think that the duel between Inigo and the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride is the model we should be looking at for nonmagical combat. Wesley chooses an attack style based on the terrain he has to fight in. Inigo recognizes the attack style and shifts to a defensive style that cancels out Wesley's advantages, forcing Wesley to try and compensate, which allows Inigo to move to a more agressive style which works against what Wesley is using now, and so on.
Of course, they're both taking voluntary -2 penalties to their attack rolls for using their nondominant hands to do all this, but it's not really relevant to this discussion.
-Desdan
Don't bother trying to impress gamers. They're too busy trying to impress you to care.
Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1159849725[/unixtime]]But keeping track of separate penalty values for each combat option you have against each opponent you face is straight bullshit.
That's basically it.
Another way to expand on this is that if you really want to make the combat seem more realistic to capture this flavor, while you're having combatants keep track of combat styles:
1) Trend: What actually determines a trend? Two times in a row isn't really a trend. For example, for statistical process control, a trend is normally determined over 5 or 7 points in a pattern. So do we keep track of one's combating style over 5 or 7 rounds to determine that the trend has been obtained?
2) Intelligence: Depending on the monster, they may determine what constitutes a trend versus a less intelligent monster. So let's give modifiers for this as well.
As the DM, keeping track of every monsters and the players past combat and present combat an their current combat modifiers for combat knowledge will either be (a) overwhelming or (b) at least slow things down quite a bit. That's wh I just look at the BaB and say it's Prego: it's in there.
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Username17
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Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
Before there can even be concerns about whether you're being a cheesy ass by using the same move over and over again you have to first actually have more than one viable alternative. A warrior with Improved Trip does not. He trips people or he fights as if he had no class features at all. And that's unfortunate in the extreme.
Combat actions aren't created equal. Full Defense doesn't do anything, so the fact that you need class features sunk into it before it's even a noticable defense is just ass icing on an ass flavored cake.
It blows, but there it is. For people to change up their fighting, they'd have to have a variety of useful maneuvers to choose from and a solid reason to switch between them. Possible reasons include recharge times (you use a non-tripping attack this round because you can't trip this round) and conditional bonuses (you do a smash attack this round because it gets a big bonus if you tripped your opponent last round). Both of those are something extra to keep track of.
The Book of Nine Swords attempted to institute "ability decks" where you had abilities in your "hand" that were drawn from your "deck" and you could "play" those abilities until an arbitrary effect allowed you to put cards back into your hand. That's... perhaps overly complicated. But it would be sped up massively by having actual cards.
That might be something you're looking for. Perhaps have 4 different kinds of maneuvers you can use, a Club, a Spade, a Diamond, and a Heart. Then you can play those to use various kinds of special combat attacks that are variously superior to a normal attack. Draw a hand of 5 at the beginning of battle and refill your hand whenever you play a card. Or whatever. Put some randomness into peoples options (hopefully) without slowing the game down much.
-Username17
Combat actions aren't created equal. Full Defense doesn't do anything, so the fact that you need class features sunk into it before it's even a noticable defense is just ass icing on an ass flavored cake.
It blows, but there it is. For people to change up their fighting, they'd have to have a variety of useful maneuvers to choose from and a solid reason to switch between them. Possible reasons include recharge times (you use a non-tripping attack this round because you can't trip this round) and conditional bonuses (you do a smash attack this round because it gets a big bonus if you tripped your opponent last round). Both of those are something extra to keep track of.
The Book of Nine Swords attempted to institute "ability decks" where you had abilities in your "hand" that were drawn from your "deck" and you could "play" those abilities until an arbitrary effect allowed you to put cards back into your hand. That's... perhaps overly complicated. But it would be sped up massively by having actual cards.
That might be something you're looking for. Perhaps have 4 different kinds of maneuvers you can use, a Club, a Spade, a Diamond, and a Heart. Then you can play those to use various kinds of special combat attacks that are variously superior to a normal attack. Draw a hand of 5 at the beginning of battle and refill your hand whenever you play a card. Or whatever. Put some randomness into peoples options (hopefully) without slowing the game down much.
-Username17
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Hey_I_Can_Chan
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Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
No one ever uses all-out defense, or any other of the basic maneuvers aside from charge and all-out attack... and winning battles is a matter of who's willing to stand there and hope luck goes with them - or they die in the first round. There seems little inbetween.
Sadly, the game I'm in does.
I say sadly because our party of 3 is pretty wimpy (Clr6, Clr3/Wiz3 (aiming for mystic theurge), and Psi6 (who went telepath)--and the only non-Big-3-Books used is the XPH), so we've used total defense, aid another, withdraw, grapple, trip, and stabilize. I think the cleric might've even had to have donned hastily once.
But, really, it's for those parties that an alternate system like Bo9S needs to be in place. The game expects you to either A) whack, or B) cast, and if you can't do either you C) die.
At low levels, when a caster can run out of spells and his crossbow's not cutting it, it'd be nice to be able to put that Int 18 to some kind of use other than, "Well, I guess I might as well reload. Nothing else to do."
I've been there, and that blows.
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RandomCasualty
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Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
Desdan_Mervolam at [unixtime wrote:1159913827[/unixtime]]
What's wrong with Rock/Paper/Scissors? I really do think that the duel between Inigo and the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride is the model we should be looking at for nonmagical combat. Wesley chooses an attack style based on the terrain he has to fight in. Inigo recognizes the attack style and shifts to a defensive style that cancels out Wesley's advantages, forcing Wesley to try and compensate, which allows Inigo to move to a more agressive style which works against what Wesley is using now, and so on.
Yeah, I'd really like to see some system like that, where you adapt to what your opponent is doing instead of just using your big gun tactic over and over.
Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
As Frank says, to be able to do that, you need more than one usable ability - and in D&D, at the moment, that is called 'being a primary spellcaster' because if you split up your abilities in being adequate at more than one thing rather than being great at just one thing, then as a melee-type, you tend to suck. 
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RandomCasualty
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Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
Fwib at [unixtime wrote:1160066465[/unixtime]]As Frank says, to be able to do that, you need more than one usable ability - and in D&D, at the moment, that is called 'being a primary spellcaster' because if you split up your abilities in being adequate at more than one thing rather than being great at just one thing, then as a melee-type, you tend to suck.
Yeah, Frank's right about that. Melee types in D&D, or at least non-ToB D&D are based around repeating the same tactic over and over again.
Having combat cards and a deck of combat effects could make combat a lot more dyamic. You could give everyone various cards that do certain things in addition to regular attacks. So like you couldn't do any kind of manuever without the appropriate card. So you couldn't disarm without a disarm card. You could also have various defensive cards too, that add a counter system to the game. All characters could get combat cards, but fighter types would have abilities that let them have more combat cards at a time, and possibly be able to play multiple cards in a turn.
We could then get rid of most feats like improved disarm and such and just make people wait for a disarm card.
Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
We could then get rid of most feats like improved disarm and such and just make people wait for a disarm card.
I'd ask what the fighters are supposed to spend their feats on, but I guess that would just mean that we wouldn't *need* a fighter class. Which wouldn't necessarily be so bad. Of course, one could also play a RoW fighter, which would spend its feats on other things.
What sort of manuvers would get cards?
Disarm
Charge
Overrun
Bullrush
Trip
Grapple
Sunder
Feint
Aid Another
Should some of these be combined, so there are fewer cards?
Also, doesn't this ruin some of the realism of the game (if it has any alredy)? Or could we just call this a "looking for holes in my opponent's defense", which makes it strange to start out with a hand, or to cap it.
What if a defender had several possible defense options which modified his ability to defend against several possible attacks?
For instance, against a trip-hungry barbarian, perhaps there would be an option that defended well against trip, but poorly against something else. If the barbarian continues to try to trip, he won't get as much of an advantage, but perhaps a different tactic would work better. (I think the ToB has some things that work this way, from the review).
In my mind, the trouble is that there is no (good) way to actively defend against certain attacks, even if you know it's coming. Which means there's no reason *not* to be a one-trick pony.
I'd ask what the fighters are supposed to spend their feats on, but I guess that would just mean that we wouldn't *need* a fighter class. Which wouldn't necessarily be so bad. Of course, one could also play a RoW fighter, which would spend its feats on other things.
What sort of manuvers would get cards?
Disarm
Charge
Overrun
Bullrush
Trip
Grapple
Sunder
Feint
Aid Another
Should some of these be combined, so there are fewer cards?
Also, doesn't this ruin some of the realism of the game (if it has any alredy)? Or could we just call this a "looking for holes in my opponent's defense", which makes it strange to start out with a hand, or to cap it.
What if a defender had several possible defense options which modified his ability to defend against several possible attacks?
For instance, against a trip-hungry barbarian, perhaps there would be an option that defended well against trip, but poorly against something else. If the barbarian continues to try to trip, he won't get as much of an advantage, but perhaps a different tactic would work better. (I think the ToB has some things that work this way, from the review).
In my mind, the trouble is that there is no (good) way to actively defend against certain attacks, even if you know it's coming. Which means there's no reason *not* to be a one-trick pony.
Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
Well, if there were just option cards, even if we had all the options on the table at once, wouldn't really be bad.
But I don't like the concept of making the Fighter random just because you want them to change things up! Ugh!
But at least feats for the Fighter could be like 'styles' which counter-acted each other - some requiring Int, some maneuvers requiring Int (so no raging!) or others being boosted by other abilities.
There's still tons of things to spend feats on, once the Fighter doesn't have to spend all their feats on getting a combat maneuver.
...What are the Frank & K combat maneuvers, anyhow? Do we have a chart?
-Crissa
But I don't like the concept of making the Fighter random just because you want them to change things up! Ugh!
But at least feats for the Fighter could be like 'styles' which counter-acted each other - some requiring Int, some maneuvers requiring Int (so no raging!) or others being boosted by other abilities.
There's still tons of things to spend feats on, once the Fighter doesn't have to spend all their feats on getting a combat maneuver.
...What are the Frank & K combat maneuvers, anyhow? Do we have a chart?
-Crissa
Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
Not to mention that not all attacks are made equal. If a bonus against tripping left you open to being overrun, you would always take that deal, because chances are you'll fight more tripmeisters than horsemen, and if you don't; you can at least see them coming more reliably.
Back in the heady days of 3rd Edition, when our group thought I was a genius for figuring out Polymorph Other let you turn into a Solar, and the only places on the Internets I went to were DDT Digest and the Pit of Voles, I added a generic "fighting style" rule for combat. It was basically a really primitive take on tactical feats-- you could basically choose one "tactic" each round, and you added 1/2 your level to it (like negating somebody's Expertise AC, opposing grapples, and so on), and the other guy could also oppose your opposition with it, and whoever had the higher number came out ahead on the difference.
Obviously, that didn't work; in addition to being nonstandard mechanics it eventually led to the guy playing the group's half-nymph sorceress beating an enemy Duelist by negating his Elaborate Parry with that maneuver and then... doing something else, I forgot, while his maneuver to raise his saves went unused.
Well, I never claimed to be a Frank or a Josh. *chuckles*
But there's maybe part of a good idea there. Maybe having some low-level [Tactical] feats that represent the kind of fighting D&D tries so hard to emulate but fails. Maybe a "Master Fencer" thing that gives you a bonus on damage by the amount your attack exceeds the target's AC (sort of like WoD "accuracy," and helping Feint not suck as much), along with a situational bonus to whatever you can choose each round (like maybe in one round you get a +5 to attacks from higher ground, when you jump on a table, and then next round when you jump off you get it to your acrobatic charge instead, or whatever), and then there's a sister feat that opposes all that stuff, and the Three Musketeers just take both of them and always win against the king's guards.
Or something. My mind is shot from working on the reams of houserules our group [which is always clamoring for the next level up] is needing....
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Crissa--
The less min-maxed the group is overall, the more the good players need to be able to help out with those combat rules. Basically, what Chan was saying. When one of my friends was running us through the Eberron modules (and I played a Hideous Blow warlock), I routinely had to do things like grapple the caster, trip the archers, Expertise + equip Tower Shield to block for our warmage, etc., because nobody but me had AC worth anything and nobody was a heavy hitter besides the mage. And all of us remember when I had to give the McGuffin back to the main villain thanks to a good Disarm check.
And honestly, I think that's what the designers are expecting (well, Overrun was worthless, but I think that's due to a series of mistakes they refuse to admit)-- the PCs aren't good enough to reliably take out enemies in a quick and safe amount of time, so those "disabling" options are actually worth the actions it takes to use them.
I don't really read comic books (and in the cartoon and movie he loses by getting his powers taken away, like someone grabbing his helmet and then Jean knocks him out or whatever it was), but good point, that was a bad example. Yeah, aside from Readied actions, which make you come out behind anyway, I can't really think of any other ideas than what we've already discussed.
Back in the heady days of 3rd Edition, when our group thought I was a genius for figuring out Polymorph Other let you turn into a Solar, and the only places on the Internets I went to were DDT Digest and the Pit of Voles, I added a generic "fighting style" rule for combat. It was basically a really primitive take on tactical feats-- you could basically choose one "tactic" each round, and you added 1/2 your level to it (like negating somebody's Expertise AC, opposing grapples, and so on), and the other guy could also oppose your opposition with it, and whoever had the higher number came out ahead on the difference.
Obviously, that didn't work; in addition to being nonstandard mechanics it eventually led to the guy playing the group's half-nymph sorceress beating an enemy Duelist by negating his Elaborate Parry with that maneuver and then... doing something else, I forgot, while his maneuver to raise his saves went unused.
Well, I never claimed to be a Frank or a Josh. *chuckles*
But there's maybe part of a good idea there. Maybe having some low-level [Tactical] feats that represent the kind of fighting D&D tries so hard to emulate but fails. Maybe a "Master Fencer" thing that gives you a bonus on damage by the amount your attack exceeds the target's AC (sort of like WoD "accuracy," and helping Feint not suck as much), along with a situational bonus to whatever you can choose each round (like maybe in one round you get a +5 to attacks from higher ground, when you jump on a table, and then next round when you jump off you get it to your acrobatic charge instead, or whatever), and then there's a sister feat that opposes all that stuff, and the Three Musketeers just take both of them and always win against the king's guards.
Or something. My mind is shot from working on the reams of houserules our group [which is always clamoring for the next level up] is needing....
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Crissa--
No one ever uses all-out defense, or any other of the basic maneuvers aside from charge and all-out attack...
The less min-maxed the group is overall, the more the good players need to be able to help out with those combat rules. Basically, what Chan was saying. When one of my friends was running us through the Eberron modules (and I played a Hideous Blow warlock), I routinely had to do things like grapple the caster, trip the archers, Expertise + equip Tower Shield to block for our warmage, etc., because nobody but me had AC worth anything and nobody was a heavy hitter besides the mage. And all of us remember when I had to give the McGuffin back to the main villain thanks to a good Disarm check.
And honestly, I think that's what the designers are expecting (well, Overrun was worthless, but I think that's due to a series of mistakes they refuse to admit)-- the PCs aren't good enough to reliably take out enemies in a quick and safe amount of time, so those "disabling" options are actually worth the actions it takes to use them.
Why don't we want Juggernaut to eventually not be able to overrun people? That's what basically happens in a battle in the comic, he charges, hits a few, it works a couple times, but then everyone dodges him and eventually he loses.
I don't really read comic books (and in the cartoon and movie he loses by getting his powers taken away, like someone grabbing his helmet and then Jean knocks him out or whatever it was), but good point, that was a bad example. Yeah, aside from Readied actions, which make you come out behind anyway, I can't really think of any other ideas than what we've already discussed.
Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
What about the way psionic combat used to work, only not sucky?
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RandomCasualty
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Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
AlphaNerd at [unixtime wrote:1160080315[/unixtime]]
I'd ask what the fighters are supposed to spend their feats on, but I guess that would just mean that we wouldn't *need* a fighter class. Which wouldn't necessarily be so bad. Of course, one could also play a RoW fighter, which would spend its feats on other things.
Well fighters wouldn't be based on feats as class abilities they'd get class abilities like.
Extroadinary Combat training: Once per day as a swift action, you can choose a card from the combat deck. This card automatically transfers to your hand.
Extra manuevers: A fighter begns combat with 3 cards in his hand instead of 2.
Fighter's choice: Whenever you draw a card, you may draw two cards and choose the one you like.
You could also have specail attacks that you can buy with class abilities or feats and then have a card that triggers them. Something like "Alpha class ability" card, that lets you execute any one of several alpha abilities you may have. There's certainly enough abilities we can hand fighters that can still make them masters of manuevers but in a different way.
What sort of manuvers would get cards?
I'd say probably all the default manuevers except for trip would be basic stuff you could do. For instance default charge would be okay, but spirited charge and so on would be a card. Cards would be used for improved versions, like disarming without an AoO or a chance to be counter disarmed and so on. Also big melee abilities like pounce and such would be cards. Probably we could leave power attack and expertise as feats, or just make them integral options to the system.
The concept is that your default manuevers suck, and you can try them if you want at any time, but they probably won't work unless you're much better than the thing you're attacking. If you wait for a card then you've got a good chance of pulling off your manuever.
You could also have truly unique manuevers and things with conditions, much like tactical feats. You'd also throw in defensive manuevers like "ignore the next charge that hits you" or "+5 on a will save", and so forth.
If you wanted to get into metamanuevers you could have manuevers similar to disarm decks in MtG where you look through your opponent's hand and force your opponent to discard a manuever card of your choice.
Should some of these be combined, so there are fewer cards?
Yeah real limited manuevers might be combinable.
Also, doesn't this ruin some of the realism of the game (if it has any alredy)? Or could we just call this a "looking for holes in my opponent's defense", which makes it strange to start out with a hand, or to cap it.
Combat is about openings and adaption. Inherently it's unrealistic that a guy would keep repeating the exact same manuever over and over again. If you keep disarming someone, eventually they're going to get a better grip on your weapon. If you trip them, they're probably going to be ready for that next time. It makes more sense to me that manuevers you can use are inherently random. The guy's left leg happens to be undefended this time, and you can take advantage of it. Next combat, that may not be true.
For instance, against a trip-hungry barbarian, perhaps there would be an option that defended well against trip, but poorly against something else. If the barbarian continues to try to trip, he won't get as much of an advantage, but perhaps a different tactic would work better. (I think the ToB has some things that work this way, from the review).
Well, the main problem here is that it's very complex and requires a lot of bookkeeping. I thought about having lots of different stances that people can be in. Of course, now the DM has to worry about what stance every monster is in, and we have to worry about DMs and PCs metagaming stances based on OOC knowledge. And at best this means you just end up taking two manuevers and alternating. So if you had a stance : +4 versus trip, -4 versus disarm, you'd end up with trip/disarm based characters. Combat still wouldn't be dynamic, you'd just dodge whatever stance the other guy was in.
WIth cards you could have the DM's monsters have one pool of cards they can use for all monsters, and that way they beneift somewhat from manuevers without forcing the DM to record lots of separate stats for every monster.
In my mind, the trouble is that there is no (good) way to actively defend against certain attacks, even if you know it's coming. Which means there's no reason *not* to be a one-trick pony.
Counters would be very practical, fun and strategic if it were a game of PC versus PC in arena duels. But unfortunately you've got a DM controlling lots of expendable monsters, and so counters don't work out all that well. Unfortunately DMs really don't want the added bookkeeping of recording all kinds of counter stances and such for monsters. Further, monsters tend to be such one trick ponies ability wise that if you can beat the monster's primary schtick, you can beat the monster. Consider the ray deflection spell versus a beholder for a prime example of this.
A combat card system is relatively easy to manage for all sides, a counter system puts enormous extra pressure on the DM, who is already quite bogged down in lots of preparation work as it is.
The best way of preventing one trick ponies is to not let someone overuse the same manuever. So sure, your ubercharge may be freaking incredible out of this world powerful, but you're only going to see that ubercharge card one out of ever 4 battles or so, and even then probably not in the opening round.
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Hey_I_Can_Chan
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Re: Learning your Opponent or Why you don't use your best mo
The perfect solution, really, is a Lost Worlds-type system wherein everyone has his own unique combat card and booklet.
I toyed with such a system, but it was clunky… it would need a pretty huge amount of support to be effective or only offer a smattering of maneuvers or be endlessly customizable.
You could, however, have Lost Worlds-style books called Horde of Orcs or Horde of Vampire Spawn or whatever, but I can easily picture this being even more DM time-intensive than the current system.
Not that it probably wouldn't also be more rewarding than the current system, but you're probably not really playing D&D anymore (or, at least, d20--since Lost Worlds is diceless).
I toyed with such a system, but it was clunky… it would need a pretty huge amount of support to be effective or only offer a smattering of maneuvers or be endlessly customizable.
You could, however, have Lost Worlds-style books called Horde of Orcs or Horde of Vampire Spawn or whatever, but I can easily picture this being even more DM time-intensive than the current system.
Not that it probably wouldn't also be more rewarding than the current system, but you're probably not really playing D&D anymore (or, at least, d20--since Lost Worlds is diceless).