Basic Feat Design Rules

[Joy_Division]

But karmic strike doesn't make getting hit in combat a good thing, it makes it a less bad thing. You still take damage. If you can ignore that damage for some reason, then letting the opponent hit is a worthwhile tactic because you just don't care.

You're not rewarded for having a low AC. If you have a low AC and let people hit you without the HP/DR to back it up you'll end up dead. You're not benefiting from having a low AC, you're succeeding because you can take damage.

Tactics is all about making a bad thing good. A game with a good strategic element shouldn't have a bunch of situations that are always good. That's a dumb game. Look at it like this. In the same game if there is situations which are usually good but at worst neutral, there is no reason not to try to get into that situation. Your opponent if he knows the nature of the game know exactly what you're going to do, but even with this knowledge can't hurt you with it. That's bad game design. If at any time you know excactly what your opponent is going to do but it doesn't matter, then you're playing a stupid game.

[RandomCasualty]

1083169990[/unixtime]]
Just like your opponent chose to make a melee attack from within your reach when you had Karmic Strike.

The two are the same. If you have abilities which change which tactics are good against you, your opponent can end up making a choice which seems good but is in fact bad.

No they're not. The positive consequence is one that the opponent already knew about. He already knew he'd be pushing him out of melee range, and he accepted it.

When you attack someone you don't know they're going to get a free attack if you hit them, and that's totally different.

The entire positive consequence of bull rush is that the opponent is now out of range. You did that. You knew it was going to happen when you bull rushed him. Bottom line, you don't deserve any kind of rules sympathy when that turns out to be a bad move.

Karmic strike you have no idea you're gonna be granting your opponent a free attack by hitting him (unless you're attacking unarmed without IUS, but that's another story entirely).

But karmic strike doesn't make getting hit in combat a good thing, it makes it a less bad thing. You still take damage. If you can ignore that damage for some reason, then letting the opponent hit is a worthwhile tactic because you just don't care.

You're not rewarded for having a low AC. If you have a low AC and let people hit you without the HP/DR to back it up you'll end up dead. You're not benefiting from having a low AC, you're succeeding because you can take damage.

Sure you're getting rewarded, you're getting a bonus attack, which you can power attack to all hell, because your defenses suck ass. A super AC build would gain virtually nothing from karmic strike... that's dumb. You are actually being punished because your AC is better than the other guy.

As for getting hit in combat being a good thing, it lets you take 10 point power attacks and just wail your opponent with AoOs. It lets you not even worry about buying AC items because you're rewarded for sucking in terms of defenses.

If it's ok to grant a free attack when you're hit, it should be ok to grant a free attack whenever your attacked. Honestly... this would be fair, Karmic strike only granting a bonus attack when you decided to dump dexterity and heavy armor, is inevitably sided towards people who suck.

What next, a feat that rewards grants you a free attack whenever you fail a fortitude save agasint a creature's poison? A feat that grants you a bonus spell cast whenever you get hit by an arrow?

Stuff that rewards you for failure is inhernetly stupid. It has to either help you during the universal case or help you when you succeed. Otherwise you reward people for dumping dex, and punish people who didn't.

[Username17]

RC: Learn to format your messages.

You aren't making sense and aren't listening.

You accept Mimics getting a free attack when you hit them. You accept giant porcupines getting a free attack when you hit them. You accept Oozes getting a free attack when you hit them. Why the hell shouldn't a barbarian get a free attack when you hit him if that's what he invests in?

The only thing you have is a vague hand waving about how good things shouldn't be bad, but you've already accepted the case in which flight negates both damage and falling from a bullrush, thus transferring the effect:

1. You can't hit them anymore.
2. They can't hit you anymore.
3. They are trapped in the bottom of a pit.
4. They take a crap load of damage.

to:

1. You can't hit them anymore.

So you've already accepted a very simple and common case in which people are rewarded heavily for having an opponent's normal and intelligent move succeed against them.

There is nothing more to discuss here. Apparently, the only thing you have a problem with is non-magical player characters significantly modifying the situations they are in to the point where people have to change their tactics against them.

I cannot conceive of how that could in any way shape or form make for a better game. A 5th level barbarian is still a 5th level character - and should be able to change the array of viable tactics to the same degree as a 5th level Wizard - who I'll remind you has access to fly and alter self.

That's the degree to which a 5th level character should be altering the methodology of combat around them - regardless of whether they have the word "magic" somewhere in their description or not.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1083169990[/unixtime]]
Just like your opponent chose to make a melee attack from within your reach when you had Karmic Strike.

Ok, you're not getting it.

Find me somewhere in the attack action that says that successfully hitting someone has the consequence of granting someone an AoO, because I can find in the bull rush description that it has the consequence of moving your target.

Until you can say getting attacked as an AoO is an inherent consequence of successfully attacking someone, you are really comparing apples and oranges here. Karmic strike and this bull rush scenario have absolutely nothing in common.

The positive consequence of bull rush is the inherent one, which means you're just stupid for bull rushing there. You wouldn't be saying it's a positive consequence if said winged archer was bullrushed into a sphere of annihilation or right under a 10 ton falling block, now would you? You choose to move him, for good or ill you knew that was gonna happen. YOU WANTED that to happen. If keeping the guy in melee range was an important factor you shouldn't have tried to push him over a cliff.

The point is that he's not deriving a bonus from being bull rushed, he's deriving a bonus from his opponents misuse of bullrush. When he uses bullrush he better be sure he really wants to move you. If moving you is a bad idea, he chose the wrong action. You're gaining a benefit from your opponent's stupidity. Which is totally ok.

In the case of Karmic strike, there is no misuse of the attack action. I attacked and I hit, I may even score a critical. I did the absolute best I could with my attack action, and now I get screwed for it.

[Essence]

With karmic strike you're blindsided. You have no idea you're provoking an AoO by hitting the enemy. That's a huge difference.

Not really. You hit him, he takes an AoO. Maybe he hits you; maybe he doesn't. Either way, you measure by your opponent's level of success at his counterattack whether you can beat him by continuting to beat on him (and taking AoOs), or whether you need a new tactic.

If you need a new tactic, you use one. If you have no other tactics, you're already losing D&D. Everyone has options, except in the most contrived DM-fiatted situations I can think of...and even then, most players are more creative than most DMs give them credit for.

[RandomCasualty]

1083177274[/unixtime]]
If you need a new tactic, you use one. If you have no other tactics, you're already losing D&D. Everyone has options, except in the most contrived DM-fiatted situations I can think of...and even then, most players are more creative than most DMs give them credit for.

Your point of view sounds very Gygaxian, which is ok from a PoV of monster versus PC. But when the PCs have the ability, the monsters aren't necessarily going to be able to adapt. Monsters for one, don't necessarily have intelligence, meaning they can't necessarily adapt at all. They also don't always have a lot of options either. Most monsters are strictly limited to melee combat too, meaning ranged attacks aren't always possible either.

Basically with a Gygaxian theme: player creativity versus monster brute force, players don't have all that cool stuff that requires the monsters to adapt to them. The PCs are constantly adapting to new situations where nothing in the rules is truly a constant. Essentially the effectiveness of your attack action may be utterly taken away and could actually feed the monster and you're expected to adapt to it. Your fly spell may simply not work somewhere and you're expected to adapt to it.

Of course by Gygaxian standards as well, players were more or less at the mercy of the DM. They almost never had stuff that required monsters to adapt, it was always the other way around. The monsters had all the cool abilities and the players were basically just trying to find ways to beat them. The monsters didn't really adapt in Gygaxian style stuff.

It was essentially the epitome of the double standard, and really I don't see anything wrong with that from a design point of view, because I've already acknowldged above that monster qualities and attacks can differ from the feat rules, because they're not feats.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

1083178986[/unixtime]]Basically with a Gygaxian theme: player creativity versus monster brute force,

And here I was thinking that the Gygaxian DMing model was "If your players get creative, kill their characters. Hell, any time the PCs get any kind of advantage, kill the characters."

-K

[Username17]

An ooze is covered with acid. You hit them, and your weapon may be destroyed.

A Mimic is covered with glue. You hit them, and your weapon may be taken from you.

In either case, you still do damage to them. What is your frickin problem?

You say that Karmic Strike makes getting hit advantageous. You are wrong. You say that with a bonus attack from Karmic Strike that you might as well Power Attack - this is incomprehensible.

You die when your opponent hits you a certain number of times. You kill your opponent when you hit them a certain number of times. So if the ratio of you hitting them to them hitting you is favorable, you win. If the ratio is unfavorable - you die.

If you don't get hit, the number of times you hit them per time they hit you is infinite. That is, however long it takes you to kill your enemies - you still do it without taking any damage in return.

If, on the other hand, they hit you once on their turn for every time you hit them once on your turn, it comes down to ratios of damage and hit points. If it is sufficiently favorable - you may still win (or you may lose).

If you have a higher amount of AC such that they hit you less, the ratio of times you hit them to times they hit you gets better - the chance you are going to win increases. If you have Karmic Strike, you get an additional attack when they hit you, the ratio of times you hit them to times they hit you also increases.

In the long run, gaining extra attacks when they hit you is exactly the same as simply having a higher AC - the ratio of your hits to their hits has gotten better. Are people somehow being cheated of their birth right every time you have an AC too high for their attack roll?

As for fighting it - Karmic Strike gives no special bonus for Power Attacking to the Karmic Striker, but it does give a bonus to Power Attacking for the other guy. When I have Karmic Strike, I get the same number of attacks whether you hit me for 36 points or 5 - but I get less bonus attacks if you don't hit me at all. So it is to your advantage to PA to the point where you hit me less often for more damage rather than the other way around. That's good. The existence of Karmic Strike encourages other people to think outside of the box and Power Attack up to levels which strict algebra state are normally unfavorable.

Mechanically - Karmic Strike is just like being sticky or acidic in implementation. It's just like having a better AC in net effect over the entire combat.

It's not that I don't understand you. I do understand you. You just haven't convinced me, because you are wrong.

As for the Gygaxian crap: right back at you. There are creatures with special abilities (flight, damage shields, whatever) which force players to change tactics. You haven't actually come out against them. You have come out against non-magical characters having those kinds of abilities. So the Gygaxian model where players have to adapt but monsters don't is your model - not mine. I favor both players and monsters having to adapt.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1083186442[/unixtime]]I favor both players and monsters having to adapt.

And I suppose this is where we inherently disagree and why we can't agree on this topic.

In your game, low intelligence monsters are basically crap, because to be competetive you must think like an adventurer.

I fundamentally believe that PC abilities can't be equal to monster abilities for the following reason: All PCs can think and adapt, yet not every monster can.

Since you don't agree with that fundamental concept which I basically designed these feat design rules behind, you can't possibly agree with the rules themselves. So I guess we can stop arguing here, because under the assumption that both forces fighting are intelligent enough to use metagame tactics, then you CAN have feats like karmic strike and have them be balanced.

I'm simply saying that that assumption is not always true in D&D.

[The_Hanged_Man]

I'd say it differently. Low-intelligence monsters can't adapt easily to their basic whup-ass not working. If their basic basharoni is working, low-intelligence monsters are great. Ever seen a party dissolve in a non-intelligence Gelatinous Cube nobody say? I

Intelligence is a survival feature no less than bashing, sharp teeth, and lots of natural armor.

[Username17]

What metagame tactics?

It's metagame to react to the fact that your enemy is coated with acid by either switching to ranged attacks or making every blow count?

What the hell is that supposed to mean? In what possible way is that a "metagame tactic"? Honestly, I don't think that word means what you think it means.

-Username17

[The_Hanged_Man]

"Metagaming" is the most misused word on the boards.

[RandomCasualty]

1083195182[/unixtime]]What metagame tactics?

It's metagame to react to the fact that your enemy is coated with acid by either switching to ranged attacks or making every blow count?

no. It is however metagame for your characters not to flank someone with elusive target or to deliberately back off because you recognize the guy has karmic strike.

If you're flanked and you roll a natural 20 and the DM tells you "you missed and struck your companion", you've either heard of elusive target, and instantly ID the effect as being from that feat, or you think you're being hosed in the worst way possible.

If you know the feat, then now you're effectively metagaming to counter it. You know it's a feat effect, and you know it only works when you're flanking, so you simply don't flank anymore. Your character on the other hand would have no way of actually knowing that, and neither would you, except that you read that in complete warrior. If you never ever opened CW and that effect was done to you, you'd think your DM just pulled some BS to screw you over. You'd never think that the enemy derived a benefit from you flanking him. At best, you'd connect it to some kind of misdirection ability that he can direct one of your attacks at anyone else in range of him. And that means you'd avoid melee altogether or go one on one.

The same can be said of Karmic strike.

[Essence]

OK, R.C., your reasoning is so bad I don't even know where to begin.

But when the PCs have the ability, the monsters aren't necessarily going to be able to adapt. Monsters for one, don't necessarily have intelligence, meaning they can't necessarily adapt at all.

Exactly. A melee-only monster that is so low-int that it can't adapt to Karmic Strike is also going to lose horribly to a 5th level Sorcerer with Fly, a 5th level Monk with shuriken and a faster land speed than the monster, or a 5th level Ranger with a longbow and the ability to climb a tree and get out of the monster's melee range. Low-int monsters can't adapt, and adding Karmic Strike to the list of things they can't adapt to doesn't change their situation at all. High-int monsters who *can* adapt to the aforementioned characters can also, by definition, adapt to a Karmic Striking samurai, because they're smart enough to figure something out. Either way, the monster's fundamental situations haven't changed. Karmic Strike is irrelevant to either one of them in terms of their ability to deal with adventurers.

I fundamentally believe that PC abilities can't be equal to monster abilities for the following reason: All PCs can think and adapt, yet not every monster can.

I fundamentally believe that PCs abilites and monster abilities MUST be able to be equal, because low-Int monsters, definitionally, have the same ability to adapt as PCs of the same Int, and, moreover, every attribute is theoretically equal, meaning that a high enough Strength must, if the game is balanced correctly, be able to come to a standstill when pitted against a very high Int. Some creatures are simply so powerful that all of your well-laid plans and schemes come to naught -- and that's OK.

Notice that Karmic Strike falls perfectly into this schema. Your samurai, thinking "Ah, ha, now I'm going to take this blow, and hack the creature's head off while it's fangs are buried in my ribcage!" just up and dies if that bite has enough force behind it. All that planning just went down the tubes, because the creature you're fighting is stronger than you. Que sera, sera.

It is however metagame for your characters not to flank someone with elusive target or to deliberately back off because you recognize the guy has karmic strike.

In what way is it metagaming to say "holy crap, the last two or three times I hit this guy, he hit me back at the same time! I'd better figure on beating his ass without my sword if I'm going to survive this one!"?

Just because your characters can't know the names of and mechanical effectives behind specific feats doesn't mean they're stupidly unobservant when it comes to the effects of their actions in-game. There's nothing "metagaming" about recognizing when your normal tactics aren't working like they usually do, and not using them.

Heck, once you've fought someone with Karmic Strike or Elusive Target, there's not anything metagaming about being prepared for another foe to use the same ability later.

If you're flanked and you roll a natural 20 and the DM tells you "you missed and struck your companion", you've either heard of elusive target, and instantly ID the effect as being from that feat, or you think you're being hosed in the worst way possible.

Wow...for my play style apparently being "Gygaxian", my players certainly have much greater DM trust than yours seem to. If my players roll a natural 20 against an enemy, and I say "you miss them and hit your friend on the other side of him instead", they say "Wow, that sucks. Obviously this guy has some tricks we haven't seen yet; be careful, OK? Oh, and try to figure out how to keep him from doing that again."

Of course, many of the enemies my players face are highly modified from their Monster Manual entries, or have custom PrCs with unique abilities that the PCs haven't ever heard of. My players *like* the feeling of the unknown, and the knowledge that they're going to have to be creative and think outside the box to be really successful in my games. They trust me to not hose them in the worst way possible -- and I don't. If a DMs players are ready to jump to the conclusion that he's hosing them in the worst way possible...they need a new DM.

You'd never think that the enemy derived a benefit from you flanking him. At best, you'd connect it to some kind of misdirection ability that he can direct one of your attacks at anyone else in range of him. And that means you'd avoid melee altogether or go one on one.

Only if you're an exceptionally uncreative PC. If any of my players had been in that situation, they would probably try a few other melee tactics before they decided this was a creature not meant to be meleed against. Then again, as I said, my PCs are used to seeing things they don't know the mechanics behind...and they trust me.


Essence

[RandomCasualty]

1083202080[/unixtime]]
Wow...for my play style apparently being "Gygaxian", my players certainly have much greater DM trust than yours seem to. If my players roll a natural 20 against an enemy, and I say "you miss them and hit your friend on the other side of him instead", they say "Wow, that sucks. Obviously this guy has some tricks we haven't seen yet; be careful, OK? Oh, and try to figure out how to keep him from doing that again."

Well, I believe rules breaking stuff should be used very sparingly, otherwise players really do feel like they're being hosed. Players have a conception of rules and advantages coming to the game, and everytime you break that conception by breaking the rules, you feel more and more like a player hosing DM.

It's OK for some creatures to break the rules but they should do so with some kind of reason. Because the creature is a demigod, or it's some abomination from the far realm, or something similar. It's bad enough to tell a rogue he can't use his sneak attack dice, or that the guy can't be sneak attacked because of improved uncanny dodge, because you're taking away a big part of his arsenal, but to blatantly change around the rules so that his sneak attack dice convert to healing for the creature or to say that the flanking attack to which you rolled a natural 20 with true strike activated is actually a critical hit/sneak attack on your ally automatically... well that's just pouring a big drum of salt in the wound, and you better have a damn good reason for doing something so nasty. A single feat is quite simply not good enough of a reason for such a powerful and invasive change.

You're essentially taking away a possible battle winning attack and replacing it with a lethal attack on a companion without granting so much as a saving throw, and this occurs because the attacker is in a favorable flanking position. Now not only is this breaking one of my rules of feat design, it's also blatantly inventing new rules to the entire D&D ruleset, like a 100% automatic miss situation regardless of your attack bonus or countermeasures. Doens't matter if you've got true strike and a +2000 to hit, you still miss cause this feat says so!

A power that good should not be in the hands of a 5th level fighter.

It's ok for high level characters to encounter stuff that breaks the rules, but low level characters and monsters shouldn't be able to attain that kind of power. Even when they do, such monsters should be used sparingly, otherwise it feels as though you're playing in a game without rules at all. If every monster utilizes some weird backwards mechanic that makes every normally good tactic turn horribly against you, then really, why bother playing?

Players should be able to enter the game with some assumptions, like flanking is a good positioning and it's good to get sneak attacks and critical hits. When you stop wanting to do these things, the game just feels completely wrong... it doesn't even feel Gygaxian, it just feels completely off.

"Don't try to attack him from multiple sides, he's at his strongest when you've got him surrounded!"

"No sneak attacks! Don't try to stab him in a vital area, it only heals him! Stab for the arms... AND THE PINKY TOE!"

To me this stuff just doesnt' feel right. If you have a very rare monster that has one of these traits, then fine.. but it should have some basis for it... as I said before, a midlevel fighter shouldn't be able to bend the laws of reality in this fashion.

There are better ways of making someone a better swordfighter than giving them ways to totally break some of the basic commandments of reality.

[Username17]

I was sort of with you on the first post for some of it. Stupid stuff should not be encourages, and things which encourage stupid tactics are probably bad.

But as soon as you start including "switching to ranged weapons" and "attacking the enemy one at a time" and "power attacking for everything you are worth" as "stupid stuff" - you are so far out into Crazy Town that you are the Mayor now.

-Username17

[The_Hanged_Man]

1083220284[/unixtime]]I was sort of with you on the first post for some of it. Stupid stuff should not be encourages, and things which encourage stupid tactics are probably bad.

Just a minor disagreement. I looooove stupid stuff in combat. I try to have stupid things happen all the time. I love bad tactics, stupid decisions, mistakes, errors. Those are the truly memorable combats IMX.

[RandomCasualty]

1083220284[/unixtime]]
But as soon as you start including "switching to ranged weapons" and "attacking the enemy one at a time" and "power attacking for everything you are worth" as "stupid stuff" - you are so far out into Crazy Town that you are the Mayor now.

No, that more or less falls under the metagaming thing as opposed to the stupid tactics stuff.

Feats that encourage stupid tactics are stuff like cleaving off AoOs and having your rogue buddy flank you and declare an attack on you so he can sneak attack someone on the other side with a free sneak attack. Also releasing a big pack of rats across the floor to use the sidestep feat to gain additional movement.

Switching to ranged weapons or attacking one at a time is basically metagaming in some situations, especially attacking one at a time. There's no reason you should ever be attacking one at a time when you can totally surround a guy and gangbang him, the only reason you wouldn't be doing that is if you had metagame knoweldge.

[Maj]

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

I'm beginning to agree.

When you say that the only reason your characters would use one tactic when they could be using another is metagaming, I seriously question your usage of the word.

<Maj wanders off to begin a new thread>

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Lordylordy. Attacking a giant porcupine, a fire elemental, or a xenomporph alien with a ranged weapon is metagaming...

I guess everyone in the world is a bad gamer then.

Y'know, a wise man once said that a madman is someone who tries the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. There's no reason why there should be one perfect strategy that works in every situation. In fact, if there ever becomes one perfect strategy, I think the game will be ruined.

-Desdan

[Essence]

There's no reason you should ever be attacking one at a time when you can totally surround a guy and gangbang him, the only reason you wouldn't be doing that is if you had metagame knoweldge.

What if a group surrounds the guy, and he manages to use their positions to divert their attacks at one another while laughing at them and still getting his own attacks off?

What if that group then backs off, regroups, and attacks in a different formation; one that only allows him to deflect some of their attacks at each other?

What if the group figures out what formation he is least effective against? What if they continue to fight that way for the rest of the battle?


What if, the next time they fight someone who starts laughing when they surround him, they immediately move into the formation that was most effective in the last battle, and slaughter the guy?


There's no reason why knowledge of how to overcome a feat's mechanical benefit has to be metagame knowledge. Assuming that is must be is entirely fallacious.

[RandomCasualty]

1083298620[/unixtime]]
What if a group surrounds the guy, and he manages to use their positions to divert their attacks at one another while laughing at them and still getting his own attacks off?

This should only happen if they fail to hit him. The fact that being flanked grants your opponents an automatic miss is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. It shouldn't exist. Even a spell that grants an automatic miss shouldn't exist. Thor attacks you with true strike on and still manages to miss when you've got 10 AC. Bullshit I say.

What if that group then backs off, regroups, and attacks in a different formation; one that only allows him to deflect some of their attacks at each other?

He shouldn't be gaining an automatic miss in the first place. And once your character's acknowledge that it's an automatic miss, you're basicalyl into metagame land, beacuse to your character, there's no reason he shouldn't be able to land a blow there. He'd just think he has super high AC or something.

What if the group figures out what formation he is least effective against? What if they continue to fight that way for the rest of the battle?

But the formation he's least effective against happens to be one on one, which is also where your group is least effective. In fact you might as well not be a group at all, since you're now fighting single file.

There's no reason why knowledge of how to overcome a feat's mechanical benefit has to be metagame knowledge. Assuming that is must be is entirely fallacious.

It is metagame knowledge when your character assumes its going to be an automatic miss. Automatic misses don't exist as far as he's concerned, and the rules shouldn't support them either. There is no other ability I can think of that grants an automatic miss.

[Sir Neil]

What if a group surrounds the guy, and he manages to use their positions to divert their attacks at one another while laughing at them and still getting his own attacks off?

This should only happen if they fail to hit him. The fact that being flanked grants your opponents an automatic miss is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. It shouldn't exist.

I was watching a TV show at Sioned's house the other night. Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury were fighting back-to-back against two clay monsters. The clay monsters surrounded them and then charged. Moon went left, Mercury went right, and the two clay monsters ran into each other. The Sailor Senshi were just too fast for the monsters to beat like that, so the clay critters had to try another tactic.

It seemed relevant to this discussion for some reason.

[Username17]

Even a spell that grants an automatic miss shouldn't exist.

So when you create an illusion of yourself some 20 feet away from you and simultaneously turn yourself invisible as is the case when you cast mislead - and then some guy declares an attack on where he thinks you are - you are saying he should still have a chance of hitting you?

He's swinging a sword which might generously be 6 feet long and you are twenty feet away from where he's swinging it!

This feat is not over powered if you compare it as a level's worth of class features against the spell power gained by an Illusionist. It is overpowered if you compare it to Power Attack. So either you have to drop the feat and give people a lot more feats, or you have to condense the vast majority of feats and bring them up to speed with elusive target.

The current Fighter would not be unbalanced if he got four feets per level, so long as feets are supposed to be balanced with weapon focus and power attack.

I was watching a TV show at Sioned's house the other night. Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury were fighting back-to-back against two clay monsters. The clay monsters surrounded them and then charged. Moon went left, Mercury went right, and the two clay monsters ran into each other. The Sailor Senshi were just too fast for the monsters to beat like that, so the clay critters had to try another tactic.

Yeah, that episode is hillarious.

-Username17

[Desdan_Mervolam]

RC: I'm guessing that you don't watch alot of swashbuckler films, kung-fu movies, or shoot-em-up action flicks? The protagonist killing mooks by ducking at the appropriate time or parrying a blow in a specific way so that they hit an ally instead happens all the time.

-Desdan