|
9 months ago ::
Sep 22, 2012 - 7:58AM
#51
|
|
|
Abilities that depleate a CS dice until a rest is actually good.
I can see a ton of ways to model stuff like barbarian rage with that kind of mechanic.
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 22, 2012 - 8:02AM
#52
|
Date Joined:
Jun 16, 2007
|
I don't think I'd want expertise maneuvers to resemble exploits from 4e, though. Baking in movement and multiple kinds of attacks into a single power. I'd rather that each expertise maneuver be a simple, distinct attack or trait.
My favourite notion is that in the world of D&D, the best thing that martial characters should learn to do is level the playing field against magic; so fighters could learn to stab the magic out of items, or to whack something hard enough that it coughs up a spell slot. These would be abilities that drained expertise dice for a while, but not a day.
A daily-type expertise maneuver should be, like... straight-up decapitating someone. It'd have an HP limit, which you could increase by throwing more of your dice into it. So you could tire yourself out for the rest of the day if you spend all your dice to cut off the troll's head in the first move.
I don't use emoticons, and I'm also pretty pleasant. So if I say something that's rude or insulting, it's probably a joke.
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 22, 2012 - 8:04AM
#53
|
Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
|
Note doing the big move has a built in encouragement to do it well later in the match? because the loss of the CS die affects you the remainder of the battle.
Another way to gain that might be if you have another move that requires you to be down on hit points so you tap in to desparation. Or maybe its effectiveness is porportionate to the amount of hit points you have lost?
Heros need to have "when the going gets tough" moves.
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 22, 2012 - 8:05AM
#54
|
Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
|
CS is just a starting point....
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 22, 2012 - 8:13AM
#55
|
Date Joined:
Aug 11, 2004
|
"We can't really think of a lot of interesting things for fighters to do." Uh...hello? You did THIS about 5, 6 years ago. It is exactly what the combatants in Next should look to for flavor and mechanics. 
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 22, 2012 - 8:26AM
#56
|
|
|
My favourite notion is that in the world of D&D, the best thing that martial characters should learn to do is level the playing field against magic; so fighters could learn to stab the magic out of items, or to whack something hard enough that it coughs up a spell slot. These would be abilities that drained expertise dice for a while, but not a day.
It's too bad that the basic layout of the system in D&D forces these things to be 'special abilities'.. other more fluid systems allows them right from the start.
One of my favourite roleplaying moments ever was when I DMed Eon and this dark dungeon like place where a really powerful NPC wizard was taking residence. The player had fought their way into the center of the place and the main antagonist was to make his first appearance, and I said "A man in dark rob..." I didn't get any further when the warrior guys player shouts "I throw myself on him! I just jump on him and hold him down!" We rolled some initiatives, the warrior won, smashed the physically weak mega powerful wizard to the ground. "I hold his mouth shut with one hand and bash his head to the ground until he lies still!"... well.. we rolled on by the rules and the poor guy fainted before he even uttered a word, much less cast a spell..
That event firmly established the fighter vs. wizard thing for our group and became like a mini meme. "Well, you remember when Yaidin smashed that.."
In more gritty systems, the question of fighter vs. wizard is not as much of a problem.
Bringing back full round casting might go a long way.
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 22, 2012 - 8:38AM
#57
|
Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
|
I have been presenting a price of power concept -- one ingredient was spending a round preparing to perform your move creating a set up condition ... this allows you to get the style of bonus that a rogue doing stealth in order to get in a sneak attack.
During the performance you may spend hit points for similar effect or increase number of targets or the like
Strain after performance may disable you in ways appropriate to the move ...
Replace various lines in the above call that set up performing meta magic ... have exotic forms of strain A sleep spell slows the caster because he dipped in to the sand-mans pool. A death spell might stun you. A lightning spell jangles your nerves throwing off your precision a fire spell has you burning till you put it out.(and covers the spending of hit points too).
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 22, 2012 - 8:46AM
#58
|
Date Joined:
Sep 19, 2006
|
Bringing back full round casting might go a long way.
I just can't see this being a good idea. For one it makes it ridicuously hard for spellcasters to get spells off in battle due to disruption rules. Then there is often the attempt to "balance" this problem by making spells extreamly powerful. There has to be a better way of making spells happen more in battle but not out-do everyone and everything on the board.
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 22, 2012 - 9:02AM
#59
|
Date Joined:
Apr 12, 2008
|
One of the more common houserules I saw during the 1E/2E days was the removal (or just ignoring) of spell components. I don't know if it was DMs just wanting to be nice, or if people saw removing them as a way of speeding things up, or what their motivations were. I always insisted on having spell components stay in the game. It was, at least marginally, a way to cut back some on the wizard's more powerful spells. If it takes a 10,000gp diamond to cast a specific spell, that wizard is going to be very cautious about when and where he lets it fly. Heck, entire adventures can be spent looking for expensive or rare components. If the wizard screwed up the spell that required the party to help look for a 10,000gp diamond, they probably won't be so gung-ho to do it again. After all, how many of those are just lying around for them to find in the first place? Spells that created other spell components were banned outright. It was a means of roping in some of the blatant overpower of wizards. Combine that with altering or removing most of the game-changing spells, and the wizard worked just fine. He still had a multitude of spells to choose from, but it kept him roped in enough that he didn't pass by the other PCs as soon or as dramatically.
In fond memory of Mark "Wrecan" Monack.
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 22, 2012 - 10:19AM
#60
|
Date Joined:
Aug 27, 2012
|
Personally, I feel every character (not every class) should have something good to contribute to each of the three pillars (combat, exploration, interaction). However, I am very ok with the notion that some characters will excel at one pillar or two while having only one (but decent) or few tricks to contribute to the other pillars.
So far, if you are making a Fighter, because of the concept of the class plus the very cemented expectation of the D&D community, you are already ok with having 5 stars in combat and 2 in the other pillars. So this is what I would expect:
-Combat: I would expect the fighter to be very useful in combat 80% of the time, while other classes sometimes have a spell that is just what was needed or land a great sneak attack, the fighter is realiably useful and has a lot of fun here. Combat Superiority seems like a great mechanic and I would like them to make it such that fighters have ways of handling what has classically been instant loses for them: flying monsters, ethereal monsters, disarming, etc. More combat maneuvers sounds like a good idea, specially those that would be pretty obvious when to use so option paralisis don't happen that often: boost of speed, bounce spell back (that's an awesome idea OP!), breaking enchantment, etc.
-Exploration: So far, the fighter gets a background that adds one trait that may be about exploration (such as Bounty Hunter) and three skills which may each be about exploration (e.g. survival) or interaction (e.g. intimidate). Their primary atributes are physical attributes, so I can see them providing a little bit to exploration via strenght or dexterity. However, I think that they are lacking here because they get very little and that little has to be divided with the interaction pillar.
And at some particular level I would allow fighters to choose a physical attribute to specialize, getting very few and very specific but also very powerful uses to said attribute. A strength fighter might get the ability to focus all of his concentration to lift something three times as heavy as a someone of his str would. A constitution fighter might learn to hold his breath 5 times longer. A dex fighter might learn to balance so that no rope is thin enought to demand a check.
-Interaction: See above. Fighters get the remains of their skills and background here. I am not sure I would add something else though. Maybe I would provide them with an additional background trait (like the rogue) but without the associated skills. That trait would be taken from the following list: bounty hunter, soldier, survivor, thug, knight.
|
|
|
