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Apr 27, 2012 -- 7:43PM, MechaPilot wrote:

Apr 27, 2012 -- 7:41PM, Master_Drow wrote:

Fighter and barbarian should get maneuvers. Like Tomb of Battle Book of Nine swords.

Actually every martial class should get maneuvers. 

I've never read either of those books.  Can you explain how a maneuver is different from an at-will or encounter power.  I'm assuming some skill roll is involved, but I'd like some clarification.

Just one book, 'The TomE of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords'.

Maneuvers are EXACTLY like 4e encounter powers, except you can refresh them during battle somehow; the exact technique depends on the class.

Every class needs to have some sort of limited-use nova feature.  Otherwise you have serious problems with encounters outside of a narrow difficulty range.  It doesn't necessarily have to be dailies per se (and in fact, I'd prefer some sort of milestone recharge mechanics), but it needs to be
A) more powerful than the normal at-will and encounter powers
B) not usable every encounter (otherwise, it's just the equivalent of an encounter power).

Even without giving every class dailies, there are ways to vary how these features work between classes.  Some classes could have their powers pooled, giving a choice of special effects from a menu but allowing you to use them in any combination up to the limit on uses.  Other classes could have Vancian preparation mechanics (with or without reserve effects).  And still others could just have plain old dailies.  Also, you can mix and match between pooled and non-pooled at the encounter and "daily" (or milestone) level.

So these are the pieces.  I'm assuming every class has some sort of at-will functionality, either at-will powers or special effects applied to basic attacks, because to do otherwise is a massive game design failure.

At the encounter level, you could have:
Unpooled encounter powers
Pooled encounter powers (Power Strike x/encounter, with choice of special effects)
Power points to augment at-wills, refreshing after a short rest
Vancian encounter powers
Encounter reserve effects for unexpended dailies

At the daily or milestone level, you could have:
Unpooled dailies
Pooled dailies
Action point features (which, if you have a large enough menu of features to choose from, is structurally a pooled milestone power mechanic)
Power points to augment at-wills or encounters, refreshing after an extended rest or milestone
Overchanneling at the cost of a daily resource
Vancian dailies

I believe every class or build should have a mix of encounter and daily/milestone power mechanics.  Otherwise, the system breaks down when you  go outside of a relatively narrow range of encounter difficulty, encounter length, and adventuring day length.  Classes with dailies but no encounters are overpowered on short days, and underpowered on long days.  Classes with encounters but no dailies are underpowered in hard (above-level) encounters.  Also, there should be ways to recharge encounter powers in long encounters, possibly at a cost in actions and/or daily resources (like healing surges).

So how do we distribute these various encounter and daily power subsystems among the classes?  Here's a way to do it:

Martial classes: pooled encounter powers, action point features
Psionic classes: encounter power points, overchanneling
Wizards:  Vancian dailies with encounter reserve effects
Sorcerers: pooled encounter powers, overchanneling
Clerics: pooled encounter healing powers (with choice of buffing effects), Vancian dailies with encounter reserve effects
Druids: Encounter wild shapes with at-will reserve effects, Vancian dailies with encounter reserve effects
 

usualy late products in a edition give hints to the next edition.
essentials was a late introduction in 4th edition.

I woulden't be suprised at all if the figter had power strike as a basic class feature.
slayer and knight where already mentioned to be in the list of themes.

in 5th a figter with the slayer theme might look almost identical in what in game powers he has as the essentials slayer class.

Remember essentials was also made to apeal to the players of older editions.
but many discarded essentials without realy looking into it becouse it was a suplement for 4th edition.
and they had made up their mind that nothing with the 4th edition label could be any good.

at certain points in essentials you could tell the designers might have wanted to take certain ideas further to get more of the old school feal.
But coulden't becouse they had promised essentials would remain 100% compatible with the 4th edition core books.

i think this is where the spark for 5th edition was lit, the designers saying ok what could essentials look like if it was not restrained by the 4th edition framework.