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Aug 9, 2012 -- 5:04PM, GilbertMDH wrote:

Aug 9, 2012 -- 3:30PM, SleepsInTraffic wrote:

EDIT:side note as the fighter levels the cost of certain parts needs to fall.  like as the die gets bigger it needs to be able to buy more powers.  a d12 of CS should be able to buy more stuff than a d6 of CS.  you are giving up twice the possible damage.

 
I agree. This is one of the first things that came to mind for me when I read Mike's first article on CS. It will be interesting to see how different size CS are balanced. I suspect this is an area where they will need a lot of playtest feedback to get right.

oddly enough this actually causes a quadratic fighter problem.  Where their powers not only increase in power as they level but also in number.  I can do more things per round and they are increasingly more powerful.

in fact there are two way I can think of to do it and they are both kind of curved systems.

1.)
as you level you gain more dice, and those dice increase in size.  

So lets say every even level you get +1 die of CS, and every 4 levels the die increases in size.  Lets say we start with 1 d6 at level 1 at level 2 we get a second d6 at level for we get +1 die and we up the die size to d8 so we go from 2d6 to 3d8.  that would mean we went from 12 possible damage to 24 possible damage, in 1 level we doubled our potential damage with a +12 increase.  At 6th level 4d8.  At 8th level 5d10. We just went from from 32 possible damage at level 7, to 50 possible damage at 8th that is an increase of 18 we just increased our increase by 6 (1.5 times the increase).  At level 10 we go up to 6d10 and then at 12 we go up to 7d12.  that's 60 raised to 84 we just increased our increase by another 6.  I may be wrong here but that is a quadratic increase if I'm not mistaken.  That is the easy mode fighter not using any kind of attack options like forced movement, conditions, multiple attacks or anything.  The easy mode fighter is a quadratic character.  the damage increases were: 6, 12, 8, 18, 10, 24, 12.   

2.)
as you level you get more dice, and the dice you gain become larger in size.

so at level 1 we have 1d6. at level 2 we get a second die we now have 2d6.  At level 4 we get another CS die this time a d8.  making our current CS pool 2d6 and 1d8.  Level 6 we get a second d8.  We are now at 2d6 and 2d8 of combat superiority.  then along comes level 8 and we get a d10.  So now we have 2d6, 2d8, 1d10.  The potential damage increase wasn't perfectly linear but it was a lot more compressed than option 1.  The potential damage increases were 6, 8, 8, 10, 10, 12, 12.


Now considering which of those is more easy to comprehend and less difficult for the player to track (option 1) I'd say it's time to build the new fighters quote: "I'm the fighter and I'm going to kick your ass quadratically"

Please note the idea and model of the progression I describe is just for example.  They could go awesome and make it every level and the die size every 5 levels or something like that, but that would be crazy. D12s at 15 but you now have 15d12 of damage to throw out there/transform into crazy awesome powers.  Thats 15->180 damage per round to toss out, or freakin prevent (seriously every round the DM could need to do tons of damage to you before he can actually do damage to you).  That is freakin crazy, but awesome.

(Further side note the progression on the rogues sneak attack damage no longer seems crazy and I love every second of that)

Aug 9, 2012 -- 5:51PM, Rejnwyrd wrote:

Aug 9, 2012 -- 5:04PM, GilbertMDH wrote:

Aug 9, 2012 -- 3:30PM, SleepsInTraffic wrote:

EDIT:side note as the fighter levels the cost of certain parts needs to fall.  like as the die gets bigger it needs to be able to buy more powers.  a d12 of CS should be able to buy more stuff than a d6 of CS.  you are giving up twice the possible damage.

I agree. This is one of the first things that came to mind for me when I read Mike's first article on CS. It will be interesting to see how different size CS are balanced. I suspect this is an area where they will need a lot of playtest feedback to get right.

I think I don't agree. True, you sacrifice more damage to do the same thing - seems unfair. But, at higher levels damage has to be higher to be relevant.

As an example. Imagine that you can use d4 CS to either get more damage or a chance to trip enemy on hit.
At first level when fighting an orc, either is a valid choice. +d4 damage is significant and likely to kill the orc faster (or in one shot), but getting him prone can also be worth it.
At 10th level when fighting a giant +d4 is a much smaller difference, less likely to infulence battle, or get him significantly faster killed. However getting him prone is still very valuable.

What I'm trying to say that special uses like making them prone, pushed or wahtever automatically scale with levels and enemies. Getting a giant prone at level 10 is as useful as getting an orc prone at level 1. But hitting a giant with extra +d4 at level 10 is less significant than hitting an orc with +d4 at level 1.
Thus it does make sense that other uses of CS dice cost "more" damage, as they are worth more damage at later levels. If getting a giant prone would cost exactly same d4 hit points of damage as getting an orc prone then at higher levels using CS for damage would be a suckers choice.

if anything I would guess that it costs a part of a die but that 1 die can buy multiple things.  Like if all you do is knock it prone then it still costs 1 die, but you could also knock it prone and forcibly move it to a square adjacent to you for 1 die and then toast the second die into it for damage.

Aug 9, 2012 -- 11:23AM, Elemental_Elf wrote:

Why go back to the worse system for surprise? A surprise round is way too powerful and doesn't solve the problem he was having in the first place. His problem is "who is surprised" while his solution is "let's make a surprise round." The correct answer is that the ambushing Goblins are not surprised. Everyone else is. Simple and easy.

   Likely not so simple or easy.  We all know that the victims of an ambush can spot the ambush in time to act [and sometimes reverse the effect].  So that will not be "everybody else" is surprised.  In some cases, some or all party members will avoid surprise, and get the bonus too.
    

Aug 9, 2012 -- 11:23AM, Elemental_Elf wrote:

The only thing that needs to change is that the Surprisers need to gain a +20 bonus to their initiative, where as everyone else starts at their normal initiative.

    This can be too much or too little.  In many cases, that bonus to init merely means the monster gets to attack one extra time, and frequently not even that since a lot of monsters have very large init advantages anyway.  But in other cases, the advantage can be very large since the monsters get full round actions, rather than the 1 action of 4e.

    The 4e 1 action surprise is superior.

Aug 9, 2012 -- 5:04PM, GilbertMDH wrote:

I agree. This is one of the first things that came to mind for me when I read Mike's first article on CS. It will be interesting to see how different size CS are balanced. I suspect this is an area where they will need a lot of playtest feedback to get right.

I'll give WotC credit (again) for doing this Playtest.  CS could have been something that just appeared in the PHB and everyone would have been excited until they realized the mechanic didn't perform as advertised.  Then there would have been years of errata that only diminished the mechanic.  Skill Challenges could have used a Playtest.