Sorry about that all. I had some issues pushing the blog live this morning. I was tinkering with it to try to figure out what went wrong, and ended up replacing some of Rodney's text with a paste from a previous blog. It should be fixed now though. If you see any other problems let me know! Also going to remove the comments about that mistake (but leaving it immortalized here in this post so you can all laugh at me!) just so we can get the conversation focused back on the Q&A topics.
Sorry about that all. I had some issues pushing the blog live this morning. I was tinkering with it to try to figure out what went wrong, and ended up replacing some of Rodney's text with a paste from a previous blog. It should be fixed now though. I
There was a question about the last bit. I believe Jimbro was asking about the difference between having an immunity in the monster category and having it as a trait. Here is my answer. I hope it is clarifying and useful.
To answer you Jimbro, it's the difference between inheritance and an interface in programming. In the past multiple creature types might have immunities that overlapped. For example oozes and elementals might both be immune to being knocked prone. Instead of burying all that in creature types, they are creating specific traits that mean things and assigning them to the monsters they apply to. So you learn the traits and don't worry about what family or category the monster is in.
I am actually quite pleased that OO design principles are coming into play in D&D. It will definitely help us to use the various modules and to houserule more effectively. This last question makes me far happier than it probably should but I can't help feeling really good about it.
There was a question about the last bit. I believe Jimbro was asking about the difference between having an immunity in the monster category and having it as a trait. Here is my answer. I hope it is clarifying and useful.To answer you Jimbro, it's
The main thing to keep in mind with swifter actions is the power/cost ratio. And since the action cost is 0, you need to add a different cost (daily spell slot for example) to avoid division by 0 errors.
+1 for lateral options. Dual weapon attack is a great example of how this is done right.
+1 for oozes being immune to prone, and saying so in the ooze block.
The main thing to keep in mind with swifter actions is the power/cost ratio. And since the action cost is 0, you need to add a different cost (daily spell slot for example) to avoid division by 0 errors.+1 for lateral options. Dual weapon attack is a
Well, now number 3 makes more sense. I do like this approach, since I agree that monster type shouldn't dictate a ton of things that result in the DM hunting around in the Monster Manual. IMO the DM should NEVER have to open the book to another page to find out what the monster abilities do.
Well, now number 3 makes more sense. I do like this approach, since I agree that monster type shouldn't dictate a ton of things that result in the DM hunting around in the Monster Manual. IMO the DM should NEVER have to open the book to another pag
Well, now number 3 makes more sense. I do like this approach, since I agree that monster type shouldn't dictate a ton of things that result in the DM hunting around in the Monster Manual. IMO the DM should NEVER have to open the book to another page to find out what the monster abilities do.
I can agree with that. I hated having to search the back of the MM to make sure of traits in 3e when the PCs faced certain monsters.
I can agree with that. I hated having to search the back of the MM to make sure of traits in 3e when the PCs faced certain monsters.
I like number 3 now but I fear how more complicated monsters will look. Or less complicated ones. The current zombie is only immune to frighten and charm. Will the finished one have has 5+ other traits for the other immunities.
I like number 3 now but I fear how more complicated monsters will look. Or less complicated ones. The current zombie is only immune to frighten and charm. Will the finished one have has 5+ other traits for the other immunities.
Action 'conomy and "when you take an action"? Just keep things movin.
Mitigation or prevention of power creep? Advantage and math.
What will be the deal with monster immunities? Big and obvious.
Haiku Time!:r1: Action 'conomyand "when you take an action"?Just keep things movin.:r2: Mitigation orprevention of power creep?Advantage and math.:r3: What will be the deal with monster immunities?Big and obvious.
I would like to see the combined actions allow for changing the action sequence whenever applicable.
I'm not really sure what you mean.
Well, "when you take an action..." implies your action must come first. What if I want to the "minor" action part BEFORE my action?
I'm not really sure what you mean.[/quote]Well, "when you take an action..." implies your action must come first. What if I want to the "minor" action part BEFORE my action?
I am not sure what is worse - creating a set of clear defined actions for each turn, or making an action so obscure no one is sure how to use it. Then it starts to get used more often as the only mechanism to grant more actions per turn. 5E is quick in regards to combat, almost too simple, I don't think it is going to hurt to split up combat into more actions like move, standard, minor, free. Oh well.
I am not sure what is worse - creating a set of clear defined actions for each turn, or making an action so obscure no one is sure how to use it. Then it starts to get used more often as the only mechanism to grant more actions per turn. 5E is quick
Well, now number 3 makes more sense. I do like this approach, since I agree that monster type shouldn't dictate a ton of things that result in the DM hunting around in the Monster Manual. IMO the DM should NEVER have to open the book to another page to find out what the monster abilities do.
I can agree with that. I hated having to search the back of the MM to make sure of traits in 3e when the PCs faced certain monsters.
Count me in for this as well. Having all the type immunities in the back of the MM was a pain in 3e, and forced you to include immunities that don't necessarily make sense for every single creature of a particular type. For example, I can certainly understand mindless undead being immune to mind-affecting spells, but was there a really compelling reason to apply that to vampires and liches?
I can agree with that. I hated having to search the back of the MM to make sure of traits in 3e when the PCs faced certain monsters.[/quote]Count me in for this as well. Having all the type immunities in the back of the MM was a pain in 3e, and forc
This week's D&D Next Q&A covers "When you take an action" actions, dealing with power creep, and monster immunities!
Good topics:
1) Seems like we're remaining consistent here. I've always thought this was one of 5e's better innovations.
2) Hmmmmm, power creep stems at least partly from deeper factors than stacking. I think replacing all stacking with advantage/disadvantage is a smart move, but just saying "options will only broaden your character, not make it better at one thing" isn't going to work of course. For one thing in a game where levels don't give bonuses clearly there are going to have to be a lot of options that DO add to your ability at one thing. Players want to make "the best axe fighter ever" and the rules are going to cater to that, and it is going to involve stacking several things. In any case as long as it is kept to the kind of scope it has in 4e power creep isn't a big deal.
3) All I can say here is "3e rogues and undead". IMHO it is wiser to eschew general bucket immunities and leave things to specific situations in most cases. This doesn't lead anywhere good. I'd point out that AD&D and 4e share a general lack of immunities (and AD&D in fact lacks any sort of mechanics for it at all, it is a special rule per creature that has it, and VERY few do).
Good topics:1) Seems like we're remaining consistent here. I've always thought this was one of 5e's better innovations.2) Hmmmmm, power creep stems at least partly from deeper factors than stacking. I think replacing all stacking with advantage/disad
2) Hmmmmm, power creep stems at least partly from deeper factors than stacking. I think replacing all stacking with advantage/disadvantage is a smart move, but just saying "options will only broaden your character, not make it better at one thing" isn't going to work of course. For one thing in a game where levels don't give bonuses clearly there are going to have to be a lot of options that DO add to your ability at one thing. Players want to make "the best axe fighter ever" and the rules are going to cater to that, and it is going to involve stacking several things. In any case as long as it is kept to the kind of scope it has in 4e power creep isn't a big deal.
I agree with you, although I am impressed with how generally successful they've been so far at making specialties interesting without having them enhance existing abilities in any significant way, though outliers like Survivor and Healer show that it isn't perfect.
I agree with you, although I am impressed with how generally successful they've been so far at making specialties interesting without having them enhance existing abilities in any significant way, though outliers like Survivor and Healer show that it
2) Hmmmmm, power creep stems at least partly from deeper factors than stacking. I think replacing all stacking with advantage/disadvantage is a smart move, but just saying "options will only broaden your character, not make it better at one thing" isn't going to work of course. For one thing in a game where levels don't give bonuses clearly there are going to have to be a lot of options that DO add to your ability at one thing. Players want to make "the best axe fighter ever" and the rules are going to cater to that, and it is going to involve stacking several things. In any case as long as it is kept to the kind of scope it has in 4e power creep isn't a big deal.
I agree with you, although I am impressed with how generally successful they've been so far at making specialties interesting without having them enhance existing abilities in any significant way, though outliers like Survivor and Healer show that it isn't perfect.
It will never be perfect of course. There's always some trade off between narrow powerful features and broader weaker more flexible ones. You'll always have some of each and thus power levels will always depend at least somewhat on the in-game situation. The whole concept of different areas of play (combat, exploration, interaction) practically guarantees you'll have this.
I agree with you, although I am impressed with how generally successful they've been so far at making specialties interesting without having them enhance existing abilities in any significant way, though outliers like Survivor and Healer show that it
I would like to see the combined actions allow for changing the action sequence whenever applicable.
I'm not really sure what you mean.
Well, "when you take an action..." implies your action must come first. What if I want to the "minor" action part BEFORE my action?
Actually 'when you take an action' implies it happens at the same time and thus I'd allow it to happen at any time during the action. Otherwise it would be 'after you take an action'
As a DM, I'd probably let you do it whenever you want during your action - but you'd have to commit to what the action was before doing it - at least in those cases where the Bonus action placed restrictions on what types of action qualified (e.g. Jab).
But the idea of being flexible about when things happen fits perfectly - in my mind - with 5N, just as we can now split move and attack.
Carl
I'm not really sure what you mean.[/quote]Well, "when you take an action..." implies your action must come first. What if I want to the "minor" action part BEFORE my action?[/quote]Actually 'when you take an action' implies it happens at the same tim
1. I like the way they are going with this. There are still some issues to work out, such as specifying if the side action is before, after, during or up to the player in relation to the main action. I'm hoping a lot of these little rule mechanic issues will be cleared up when we have more of the rules.
2. I like that they realize that spell casters are big problem here. I'm curious how they intend to do this though, particularly once more spells are added.
One thing they didn't mention that needs to be fixed relative to 4e is giving more care to underpowered options. What often happens is that a selection of new options are presented, and the handful that are the most powerful are quickly identified. When another set of new options are added, they are compared to the best options from the previous set, so the average of the new options has to match the power level of the best options from the previous set. A lot that problem can be fixed by taking steps to tweak up the power of weak options so that everything is closer to average.
3. They are on the right track, as long as they have a fairly compact notation for listing monsters. I know the monster formats in the older editions where often hard to read because they had so many special notations and keywords that where explained in other parts of the rules However, 4e had the opposite problem, where the monster formats where so bulky that even a trivial monster might fill an entire page. The game needs something balanced, where a monster has all of it's rules in it's description but they format is small enough that a typical monster fills a short space.
1. I like the way they are going with this. There are still some issues to work out, such as specifying if the side action is before, after, during or up to the player in relation to the main action. I'm hoping a lot of these little rule mechanic iss
3. They are on the right track, as long as they have a fairly compact notation for listing monsters. I know the monster formats in the older editions where often hard to read because they had so many special notations and keywords that where explained in other parts of the rules However, 4e had the opposite problem, where the monster formats where so bulky that even a trivial monster might fill an entire page. The game needs something balanced, where a monster has all of it's rules in it's description but they format is small enough that a typical monster fills a short space.
In my own notes I've taken to collapsing three to six lines of stat block down to: SDCIWR: 14/15/11/7/10/8.
Do you really need more than that for the ability scores?
(I use R for Charisma for the same reason many places uses R as an abreviation for Thursday... You could always go with SDCIWCh if you wanted).
Carl
In my own notes I've taken to collapsing three to six lines of stat block down to: SDCIWR: 14/15/11/7/10/8.Do you really need more than that for the ability scores? (I use R for Charisma for the same reason many places uses R as an abreviation for
3. They are on the right track, as long as they have a fairly compact notation for listing monsters. I know the monster formats in the older editions where often hard to read because they had so many special notations and keywords that where explained in other parts of the rules However, 4e had the opposite problem, where the monster formats where so bulky that even a trivial monster might fill an entire page. The game needs something balanced, where a monster has all of it's rules in it's description but they format is small enough that a typical monster fills a short space.
In my own notes I've taken to collapsing three to six lines of stat block down to: SDCIWR: 14/15/11/7/10/8.
Do you really need more than that for the ability scores?
(I use R for Charisma for the same reason many places uses R as an abreviation for Thursday... You could always go with SDCIWCh if you wanted).
Carl
Why even abbreviate the names of the scores, they always come in a standard order, surely we all remember STR, CON, DEX, INT, WIS, CHA. Even I can remember that and I've played all sorts of old editions where the order was quite different (I seem to recall OD&D was STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CON, CHA for instance).
Anyway, 'trivial monsters' stat blocks aren't even close to a page. They are barely a paragraph. I ran some worgs the other night, they have one trait and one power. The whole FULL stat block is about 10 lines. If I dropped all the misc stuff it would be probably 4 lines. OTOH printing the stat block on my laser printer on a page full of other stat blocks is not exactly onerous. For that matter I didn't even bother, I just linked to the monster's compendium entries from the xwiki page where the encounter was described. It listed the total XP of the encounter, the init roles, stealth roles, and perception roles to use for the worgs and the link to the stat block, which I just brought up in a tab on my netbook before we started play the other night. Saved a tree
In my own notes I've taken to collapsing three to six lines of stat block down to: SDCIWR: 14/15/11/7/10/8.Do you really need more than that for the ability scores? (I use R for Charisma for the same reason many places uses R as an abreviation for
Lastly, part of making sure that the game stays close to its intended power levels involves better playtesting, which we’ve started now and hope to continue far into the future.
Just doing some math on the various parts of the game would show 89% of all power creep with fresh eyes (CharOp board) showing the remaining 11%...
Just doing some math on the various parts of the game would show 89% of all power creep with fresh eyes (CharOp board) showing the remaining 11%...
That's one of the most interesting q and a I've read in a while.
1. I hope you design it well. It could be a bonus not having to abuse minor actions every round.
2. So far so good, I think we are all willing to help (see cry broken and raise our fists in protest )
3. Yay for immunities!! Oozes will rule the world... On a slightly more serious note, monster immunities are a great versatility weapon for dms. As with all weapons the everything in moderation rule applies. Dont be afraid to use it, but dont overuse it either. Check the parenthesis in 2 for a latter option.
That's one of the most interesting q and a I've read in a while.1. I hope you design it well. It could be a bonus not having to abuse minor actions every round.2. So far so good, I think we are all willing to help (see cry broken and raise our fists
1. Its a distinction without a difference. Instead of worrying about your minor action every turn, now you worry about your WYTAA action every turn. Way to pat yourself on the back for not doing anything.
2. Another statement of lack of understanding in design. Advantage sucks up a lot of bonuses, but now you need bonuses to stack with advantage. You already have the problem that multiple situations that grant advantage do nothing. All you're doing is making good tactics worthless. It doesnt matter how well you set up your fight, the best youre gonna get is "roll twice".
3. So you want 4e stat blocks...Just say that already.
1. Its a distinction without a difference. Instead of worrying about your minor action every turn, now you worry about your WYTAA action every turn. Way to pat yourself on the back for not doing anything.2. Another statement of lack of understanding
1. Its a distinction without a difference. Instead of worrying about your minor action every turn, now you worry about your WYTAA action every turn. Way to pat yourself on the back for not doing anything.
2. Another statement of lack of understanding in design. Advantage sucks up a lot of bonuses, but now you need bonuses to stack with advantage. You already have the problem that multiple situations that grant advantage do nothing. All you're doing is making good tactics worthless. It doesnt matter how well you set up your fight, the best youre gonna get is "roll twice".
3. So you want 4e stat blocks...Just say that already.
I gotta agree with number 2. Maybe they need any extra instances of advantage to grant a +2 or something with the inverse for disadvantage. That way there is actually an incentive to get advantage when you already have it...
I gotta agree with number 2. Maybe they need any extra instances of advantage to grant a +2 or something with the inverse for disadvantage. That way there is actually an incentive to get advantage when you already have it...
1. Its a distinction without a difference. Instead of worrying about your minor action every turn, now you worry about your WYTAA action every turn. Way to pat yourself on the back for not doing anything.
2. Another statement of lack of understanding in design. Advantage sucks up a lot of bonuses, but now you need bonuses to stack with advantage. You already have the problem that multiple situations that grant advantage do nothing. All you're doing is making good tactics worthless. It doesnt matter how well you set up your fight, the best youre gonna get is "roll twice".
3. So you want 4e stat blocks...Just say that already.
1) You underestimate the advantages of educating the DEVELOPERS of material for the game. There's no minor action, thus there's no big incentive to create things to constantly suck up the minor action and turn it into something. This kind of negative reinforcement of design goals is a very good idea.
2) Why does anyone need more than advantage? Honestly, once you've got your enemy on the ropes it doesn't make a real crapload of difference just how many different ways he's screwed. Basically he's going to be unable to counter whatever you're doing effectively, so he's going to grant advantage and that's it. If a situation arises where advantage doesn't adequately portray how hosed your opponent is, well that should be an automatic success or a CDG or something.
3) Amen! Lets have them
1) You underestimate the advantages of educating the DEVELOPERS of material for the game. There's no minor action, thus there's no big incentive to create things to constantly suck up the minor action and turn it into something. This kind of negative
1. Its a distinction without a difference. Instead of worrying about your minor action every turn, now you worry about your WYTAA action every turn. Way to pat yourself on the back for not doing anything.
2. Another statement of lack of understanding in design. Advantage sucks up a lot of bonuses, but now you need bonuses to stack with advantage. You already have the problem that multiple situations that grant advantage do nothing. All you're doing is making good tactics worthless. It doesnt matter how well you set up your fight, the best youre gonna get is "roll twice".
3. So you want 4e stat blocks...Just say that already.
1) You underestimate the advantages of educating the DEVELOPERS of material for the game. There's no minor action, thus there's no big incentive to create things to constantly suck up the minor action and turn it into something. This kind of negative reinforcement of design goals is a very good idea.
2) Why does anyone need more than advantage? Honestly, once you've got your enemy on the ropes it doesn't make a real crapload of difference just how many different ways he's screwed. Basically he's going to be unable to counter whatever you're doing effectively, so he's going to grant advantage and that's it. If a situation arises where advantage doesn't adequately portray how hosed your opponent is, well that should be an automatic success or a CDG or something.
3) Amen! Lets have them
2) Because you can have 7 disadvantages and 1 advantage and you roll normally. That doesn't make sense...
1) You underestimate the advantages of educating the DEVELOPERS of material for the game. There's no minor action, thus there's no big incentive to create things to constantly suck up the minor action and turn it into something. This kind of negative
..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />2) Because you can have 7 disadvantages and 1 advantage and you roll normally. That doesn't make sense...
..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />2) Because you can have 7 disadvantages and 1 advantage and you roll normally. That doesn't make sense...
Spherical Cow
Yeah I'm not really seeing how that applies. There is a significant difference between someone that is prone and someone that is prone, stunned, blinded, frightened, intoxicated, and restrained. Are you telling me you don't see a huge difference between the two lists there...?
Spherical Cow[/quote]Yeah I'm not really seeing how that applies. There is a significant difference between someone that is prone and someone that is prone, stunned, blinded, frightened, intoxicated, and restrained. Are you telling me you don't see a
1. Its a distinction without a difference. Instead of worrying about your minor action every turn, now you worry about your WYTAA action every turn. Way to pat yourself on the back for not doing anything.
2. Another statement of lack of understanding in design. Advantage sucks up a lot of bonuses, but now you need bonuses to stack with advantage. You already have the problem that multiple situations that grant advantage do nothing. All you're doing is making good tactics worthless. It doesnt matter how well you set up your fight, the best youre gonna get is "roll twice".
3. So you want 4e stat blocks...Just say that already.
1) You underestimate the advantages of educating the DEVELOPERS of material for the game. There's no minor action, thus there's no big incentive to create things to constantly suck up the minor action and turn it into something. This kind of negative reinforcement of design goals is a very good idea.
...and this doesnt accomplish that. You still have minor actions, you're just calling them WYTAA actions. Now your Devs, and your players, are looking for ways to use that action type. Just leave it as a minor action and use the accumulated knowledge of the previous two editions to not $#!@ it up.
2) Why does anyone need more than advantage? Honestly, once you've got your enemy on the ropes it doesn't make a real crapload of difference just how many different ways he's screwed. Basically he's going to be unable to counter whatever you're doing effectively, so he's going to grant advantage and that's it. If a situation arises where advantage doesn't adequately portray how hosed your opponent is, well that should be an automatic success or a CDG or something.
Because the Cleric might buff you, the Wiz might debuff the target and the Fighter might set up the Rogue for a big hit...but all that can do is grant advantage. Design Fail.
3) Amen! Lets have them
I dont see why the devs are SooOOoo scared of 4e.
1) You underestimate the advantages of educating the DEVELOPERS of material for the game. There's no minor action, thus there's no big incentive to create things to constantly suck up the minor action and turn it into something. This kind of negative
I'm curious about what sort of bizarre understanding of history would lead someone to believe that swift actions were intended to be something you did every round. They didn't even exist for the foundational years of the system they're a part of. They were patched into the system precisely because the developers made the exact same mistake that the developers of Next are gleefully marching into now.
I'm curious about what sort of bizarre understanding of history would lead someone to believe that swift actions were intended to be something you did every round. They didn't even exist for the foundational years of the system they're a part of. The
..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />2) Because you can have 7 disadvantages and 1 advantage and you roll normally. That doesn't make sense...
Spherical Cow
Yeah I'm not really seeing how that applies. There is a significant difference between someone that is prone and someone that is prone, stunned, blinded, frightened, intoxicated, and restrained. Are you telling me you don't see a huge difference between the two lists there...?
You are fixated on a corner case to the exclusion of paying attention to what actually works best overall. The advantage/disadvantage system IS a Spherical Cow, but what they don't tell you about those cows is that they work. They may be very simple but 99% of the time simple is exactly what you want.
The point is make a list of the number of times you've had a PC under more than 2-3 significant constraints. It will happen once or twice in a whole campaign. You're wanting to throw out a very good rule that has many positive features because once a year you don't find it convenient. It is just not smart game design.
Spherical Cow[/quote]Yeah I'm not really seeing how that applies. There is a significant difference between someone that is prone and someone that is prone, stunned, blinded, frightened, intoxicated, and restrained. Are you telling me you don't see a
1. Its a distinction without a difference. Instead of worrying about your minor action every turn, now you worry about your WYTAA action every turn. Way to pat yourself on the back for not doing anything.
2. Another statement of lack of understanding in design. Advantage sucks up a lot of bonuses, but now you need bonuses to stack with advantage. You already have the problem that multiple situations that grant advantage do nothing. All you're doing is making good tactics worthless. It doesnt matter how well you set up your fight, the best youre gonna get is "roll twice".
3. So you want 4e stat blocks...Just say that already.
1) You underestimate the advantages of educating the DEVELOPERS of material for the game. There's no minor action, thus there's no big incentive to create things to constantly suck up the minor action and turn it into something. This kind of negative reinforcement of design goals is a very good idea.
...and this doesnt accomplish that. You still have minor actions, you're just calling them WYTAA actions. Now your Devs, and your players, are looking for ways to use that action type. Just leave it as a minor action and use the accumulated knowledge of the previous two editions to not $#!@ it up.
2) Why does anyone need more than advantage? Honestly, once you've got your enemy on the ropes it doesn't make a real crapload of difference just how many different ways he's screwed. Basically he's going to be unable to counter whatever you're doing effectively, so he's going to grant advantage and that's it. If a situation arises where advantage doesn't adequately portray how hosed your opponent is, well that should be an automatic success or a CDG or something.
Because the Cleric might buff you, the Wiz might debuff the target and the Fighter might set up the Rogue for a big hit...but all that can do is grant advantage. Design Fail.
3) Amen! Lets have them
I dont see why the devs are SooOOoo scared of 4e.
I think eliminating minor actions DOES accomplish that. There is now no STANDARD way to have these actions, they're no longer expected to exist. Most classes will not have even one of them. This may in some sense be basically a matter of presentation, but presentation MATTERS. Trust me, eliminating minor actions WILL simplify the game.
Again, you're overstressing unusual situations that don't come up much. The whole IDEA is to streamline, so there's VERY rarely be a situation where there are multiple advantages and disadvantages. Again, realistically past a certain point it is just irrelevant anyway. Use different tactics.
And yeah, I'm getting real tired of the 4e phobia over at WotC. It gives me a real belly ache.
1) You underestimate the advantages of educating the DEVELOPERS of material for the game. There's no minor action, thus there's no big incentive to create things to constantly suck up the minor action and turn it into something. This kind of negative
..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />2) Because you can have 7 disadvantages and 1 advantage and you roll normally. That doesn't make sense...
Spherical Cow
Yeah I'm not really seeing how that applies. There is a significant difference between someone that is prone and someone that is prone, stunned, blinded, frightened, intoxicated, and restrained. Are you telling me you don't see a huge difference between the two lists there...?
You are fixated on a corner case to the exclusion of paying attention to what actually works best overall. The advantage/disadvantage system IS a Spherical Cow, but what they don't tell you about those cows is that they work. They may be very simple but 99% of the time simple is exactly what you want.
The point is make a list of the number of times you've had a PC under more than 2-3 significant constraints. It will happen once or twice in a whole campaign. You're wanting to throw out a very good rule that has many positive features because once a year you don't find it convenient. It is just not smart game design.
Actually in the three play test sessions I've run so far I've ran into having advantage and disadvantage multiple times and the players didn't really like it when their 2+ advantages didn't stack and their one disadvantage negated their many advantages. Its a lot more common than you think.
Spherical Cow[/quote]Yeah I'm not really seeing how that applies. There is a significant difference between someone that is prone and someone that is prone, stunned, blinded, frightened, intoxicated, and restrained. Are you telling me you don't see a
Actually in the three play test sessions I've run so far I've ran into having advantage and disadvantage multiple times and the players didn't really like it when their 2+ advantages didn't stack and their one disadvantage negated their many advantages. Its a lot more common than you think.
I think a common houserule that might appear is to give advantage if your advantages exceed your disadvantages. Also disadvantage in the opposite situation. The key balance wise would be to never allow more than advantage or disadvantage. So it only stacks when comparing it against disadvantages. The result is never more than advantage or less than disadvantage.
I think a common houserule that might appear is to give advantage if your advantages exceed your disadvantages. Also disadvantage in the opposite situation. The key balance wise would be to never allow more than advantage or disadvantage. So it
Actually in the three play test sessions I've run so far I've ran into having advantage and disadvantage multiple times and the players didn't really like it when their 2+ advantages didn't stack and their one disadvantage negated their many advantages. Its a lot more common than you think.
I think a common houserule that might appear is to give advantage if your advantages exceed your disadvantages. Also disadvantage in the opposite situation. The key balance wise would be to never allow more than advantage or disadvantage. So it only stacks when comparing it against disadvantages. The result is never more than advantage or less than disadvantage.
Right, the whole point is to avoid stacking. This is why advantage/disadvantage is so brilliant. Instead of trying to continue the failed concepts of bonus types, which invariably failed to even slow down stacking problems, build the anti-stacking into the resolution rules themselves. Now it will NEVER be an issue. If the DM feels that a given situation is so terribly egregious he can always grant a bonus or a penalty on top of stacking.
Again, this is unlikely to come up in actual play. Having 2 advantages IMHO just isn't enough to matter. The cases where you have 3 advantages are very small in number, and beyond that happens almost never.
I think a common houserule that might appear is to give advantage if your advantages exceed your disadvantages. Also disadvantage in the opposite situation. The key balance wise would be to never allow more than advantage or disadvantage. So it
Right, the whole point is to avoid stacking. This is why advantage/disadvantage is so brilliant. Instead of trying to continue the failed concepts of bonus types, which invariably failed to even slow down stacking problems, build the anti-stacking into the resolution rules themselves. Now it will NEVER be an issue. If the DM feels that a given situation is so terribly egregious he can always grant a bonus or a penalty on top of stacking.
Again, this is unlikely to come up in actual play. Having 2 advantages IMHO just isn't enough to matter. The cases where you have 3 advantages are very small in number, and beyond that happens almost never.
So you agree with me? I'm not allowing stacking but I am suggesting 2 advantages and 1 disadvantage works out to advantage. The official rules would be it equates to nothing.
So you agree with me? I'm not allowing stacking but I am suggesting 2 advantages and 1 disadvantage works out to advantage. The official rules would be it equates to nothing.
Right, the whole point is to avoid stacking. This is why advantage/disadvantage is so brilliant. Instead of trying to continue the failed concepts of bonus types, which invariably failed to even slow down stacking problems, build the anti-stacking into the resolution rules themselves. Now it will NEVER be an issue. If the DM feels that a given situation is so terribly egregious he can always grant a bonus or a penalty on top of stacking.
Again, this is unlikely to come up in actual play. Having 2 advantages IMHO just isn't enough to matter. The cases where you have 3 advantages are very small in number, and beyond that happens almost never.
So you agree with me? I'm not allowing stacking but I am suggesting 2 advantages and 1 disadvantage works out to advantage. The official rules would be it equates to nothing.
Maybe. I think it could be like that, but I'd leave it up to the DM. I mean some things just probably don't sensibly cancel out. It also depends on exactly how and why you can get advantage and disadvantage.
So you agree with me? I'm not allowing stacking but I am suggesting 2 advantages and 1 disadvantage works out to advantage. The official rules would be it equates to nothing.[/quote]Maybe. I think it could be like that, but I'd leave it up to the DM
Actually in the three play test sessions I've run so far I've ran into having advantage and disadvantage multiple times and the players didn't really like it when their 2+ advantages didn't stack and their one disadvantage negated their many advantages. Its a lot more common than you think.
I think a common houserule that might appear is to give advantage if your advantages exceed your disadvantages. Also disadvantage in the opposite situation. The key balance wise would be to never allow more than advantage or disadvantage. So it only stacks when comparing it against disadvantages. The result is never more than advantage or less than disadvantage.
Yeah, that's how it should work, but instead you can have 6 disadvantages and 1 advantage and you roll normally... doesn't make sense...
I think a common houserule that might appear is to give advantage if your advantages exceed your disadvantages. Also disadvantage in the opposite situation. The key balance wise would be to never allow more than advantage or disadvantage. So it
Having just one game action mechanic that occasionally allows for more than one event to occur will reduce decision paralysis. If I'm a fighter and I do a normal attack, I'm not looking around for ways to use my minor action. Whereas if I'm a cleric and want to attack and heal in one turn, I just do that as my action because I have a special manuever that allows it.
The only danger here as I see it is if DMs are savvy enough to know that implied in the action is the idea of a minor action. If a fighter wants to charge across the room while drawing his sword you should allow it. In the past that would have required that extra minor action. But if you have a DM that understands this approach you are fine.
Just to agree with Abdul on one more thing....Having just one game action mechanic that occasionally allows for more than one event to occur will reduce decision paralysis. If I'm a fighter and I do a normal attack, I'm not looking around for ways t
Having just one game action mechanic that occasionally allows for more than one event to occur will reduce decision paralysis. If I'm a fighter and I do a normal attack, I'm not looking around for ways to use my minor action. Whereas if I'm a cleric and want to attack and heal in one turn, I just do that as my action because I have a special manuever that allows it.
The only danger here as I see it is if DMs are savvy enough to know that implied in the action is the idea of a minor action. If a fighter wants to charge across the room while drawing his sword you should allow it. In the past that would have required that extra minor action. But if you have a DM that understands this approach you are fine.
I suspect that's codified into "things that don't take an action".
I suspect that's codified into "things that don't take an action".
Having just one game action mechanic that occasionally allows for more than one event to occur will reduce decision paralysis. If I'm a fighter and I do a normal attack, I'm not looking around for ways to use my minor action. Whereas if I'm a cleric and want to attack and heal in one turn, I just do that as my action because I have a special manuever that allows it.
The only danger here as I see it is if DMs are savvy enough to know that implied in the action is the idea of a minor action. If a fighter wants to charge across the room while drawing his sword you should allow it. In the past that would have required that extra minor action. But if you have a DM that understands this approach you are fine.
I suspect that's codified into "things that don't take an action".
It is; but one of the reasons given in 4e for the minor action was because some DMs adjudicated extra actions too harshly. So I'm just saying be aware why the minor action arose and continue to point out what is appropriate to allow without requiring an action.
I suspect that's codified into "things that don't take an action".[/quote]It is; but one of the reasons given in 4e for the minor action was because some DMs adjudicated extra actions too harshly. So I'm just saying be aware why the minor action aro
Having just one game action mechanic that occasionally allows for more than one event to occur will reduce decision paralysis. If I'm a fighter and I do a normal attack, I'm not looking around for ways to use my minor action. Whereas if I'm a cleric and want to attack and heal in one turn, I just do that as my action because I have a special manuever that allows it.
The only danger here as I see it is if DMs are savvy enough to know that implied in the action is the idea of a minor action. If a fighter wants to charge across the room while drawing his sword you should allow it. In the past that would have required that extra minor action. But if you have a DM that understands this approach you are fine.
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...
Having just one game action mechanic that occasionally allows for more than one event to occur will reduce decision paralysis. If I'm a fighter and I do a normal attack, I'm not looking around for ways to use my minor action. Whereas if I'm a cleric and want to attack and heal in one turn, I just do that as my action because I have a special manuever that allows it.
The only danger here as I see it is if DMs are savvy enough to know that implied in the action is the idea of a minor action. If a fighter wants to charge across the room while drawing his sword you should allow it. In the past that would have required that extra minor action. But if you have a DM that understands this approach you are fine.
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...
I see no problem with this, and knowing it is possible may even hope he does it in order to clear an encounter.
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...[/quote]I see no problem with this, and knowing it is possible may even hope he does it in order to clear an encoun
Having just one game action mechanic that occasionally allows for more than one event to occur will reduce decision paralysis. If I'm a fighter and I do a normal attack, I'm not looking around for ways to use my minor action. Whereas if I'm a cleric and want to attack and heal in one turn, I just do that as my action because I have a special manuever that allows it.
The only danger here as I see it is if DMs are savvy enough to know that implied in the action is the idea of a minor action. If a fighter wants to charge across the room while drawing his sword you should allow it. In the past that would have required that extra minor action. But if you have a DM that understands this approach you are fine.
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...
I see no problem with this, and knowing it is possible may even hope he does it in order to clear an encounter.
So when the cleric can cast 4 spells per encounter (at level 10+) You would be fine with him casting 3 spiritual hammers and attacking with all 3 of them while casting cure light wounds on an ally? I'm not ok with that because for the rest of the battle the cleric is now better than the fighter...
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...[/quote]I see no problem with this, and knowing it is possible may even hope he does it in order to clear an encoun
Having just one game action mechanic that occasionally allows for more than one event to occur will reduce decision paralysis. If I'm a fighter and I do a normal attack, I'm not looking around for ways to use my minor action. Whereas if I'm a cleric and want to attack and heal in one turn, I just do that as my action because I have a special manuever that allows it.
The only danger here as I see it is if DMs are savvy enough to know that implied in the action is the idea of a minor action. If a fighter wants to charge across the room while drawing his sword you should allow it. In the past that would have required that extra minor action. But if you have a DM that understands this approach you are fine.
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...
I don't believe the rules as written allow for that. Typically they will have a power that allows them to do ONE extra thing along with their attack. A different power allows for a different thing. You couldn't combine them.
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...[/quote]I don't believe the rules as written allow for that. Typically they will have a power that allows them to
Having just one game action mechanic that occasionally allows for more than one event to occur will reduce decision paralysis. If I'm a fighter and I do a normal attack, I'm not looking around for ways to use my minor action. Whereas if I'm a cleric and want to attack and heal in one turn, I just do that as my action because I have a special manuever that allows it.
The only danger here as I see it is if DMs are savvy enough to know that implied in the action is the idea of a minor action. If a fighter wants to charge across the room while drawing his sword you should allow it. In the past that would have required that extra minor action. But if you have a DM that understands this approach you are fine.
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...
I see no problem with this, and knowing it is possible may even hope he does it in order to clear an encounter.
So when the cleric can cast 4 spells per encounter (at level 10+) You would be fine with him casting 3 spiritual hammers and attacking with all 3 of them while casting cure light wounds on an ally? I'm not ok with that because for the rest of the battle the cleric is now better than the fighter...
except by that time the fight is likely over like 2 or 3 rounds after that (assuming its a substantial fight) then the cleric is tapped for a good amount of his resources. Basically he paid for it so its not a really big deal. Also by the time he can do that the fighter is more acurate and can hand out more reliably hand out damage in larger amounts, yeah the cleric gets 4d8 but each of those has a chance to miss and the damage is unmodified by casting stat. The fighters on to a more reliable 1d12+1d8+STR mod damage hit. Yet again the cleric is tapped after that as well.
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...[/quote]I see no problem with this, and knowing it is possible may even hope he does it in order to clear an encoun
Having just one game action mechanic that occasionally allows for more than one event to occur will reduce decision paralysis. If I'm a fighter and I do a normal attack, I'm not looking around for ways to use my minor action. Whereas if I'm a cleric and want to attack and heal in one turn, I just do that as my action because I have a special manuever that allows it.
The only danger here as I see it is if DMs are savvy enough to know that implied in the action is the idea of a minor action. If a fighter wants to charge across the room while drawing his sword you should allow it. In the past that would have required that extra minor action. But if you have a DM that understands this approach you are fine.
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...
I see no problem with this, and knowing it is possible may even hope he does it in order to clear an encounter.
So when the cleric can cast 4 spells per encounter (at level 10+) You would be fine with him casting 3 spiritual hammers and attacking with all 3 of them while casting cure light wounds on an ally? I'm not ok with that because for the rest of the battle the cleric is now better than the fighter...
except by that time the fight is likely over like 2 or 3 rounds after that (assuming its a substantial fight) then the cleric is tapped for a good amount of his resources. Basically he paid for it so its not a really big deal. Also by the time he can do that the fighter is more acurate and can hand out more reliably hand out damage in larger amounts, yeah the cleric gets 4d8 but each of those has a chance to miss and the damage is unmodified by casting stat. The fighters on to a more reliable 1d12+1d8+STR mod damage hit. Yet again the cleric is tapped after that as well.
Actually they would be no more tapped than any other encounter because they can cast 3-4 spells per encounter (it helps to read my entire post). The problem is they are then able to deal up to 1d10 + 4d8 each round for the rest of the combat and possibly (10 round duration, an encounter is typically 4-5 rounds) into the next encounter. Remember all of those spells go off in the same round at the start of combat...
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...[/quote]I see no problem with this, and knowing it is possible may even hope he does it in order to clear an encoun
Having just one game action mechanic that occasionally allows for more than one event to occur will reduce decision paralysis. If I'm a fighter and I do a normal attack, I'm not looking around for ways to use my minor action. Whereas if I'm a cleric and want to attack and heal in one turn, I just do that as my action because I have a special manuever that allows it.
The only danger here as I see it is if DMs are savvy enough to know that implied in the action is the idea of a minor action. If a fighter wants to charge across the room while drawing his sword you should allow it. In the past that would have required that extra minor action. But if you have a DM that understands this approach you are fine.
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...
I see no problem with this, and knowing it is possible may even hope he does it in order to clear an encounter.
So when the cleric can cast 4 spells per encounter (at level 10+) You would be fine with him casting 3 spiritual hammers and attacking with all 3 of them while casting cure light wounds on an ally? I'm not ok with that because for the rest of the battle the cleric is now better than the fighter...
except by that time the fight is likely over like 2 or 3 rounds after that (assuming its a substantial fight) then the cleric is tapped for a good amount of his resources. Basically he paid for it so its not a really big deal. Also by the time he can do that the fighter is more acurate and can hand out more reliably hand out damage in larger amounts, yeah the cleric gets 4d8 but each of those has a chance to miss and the damage is unmodified by casting stat. The fighters on to a more reliable 1d12+1d8+STR mod damage hit. Yet again the cleric is tapped after that as well.
Actually they would be no more tapped than any other encounter because they can cast 3-4 spells per encounter (it helps to read my entire post). The problem is they are then able to deal up to 1d10 + 4d8 each round for the rest of the combat and possibly (10 round duration, an encounter is typically 4-5 rounds) into the next encounter. Remember all of those spells go off in the same round at the start of combat...
Yeah if they are able to get that to work in the next combat then it isn't the next combat its the same combat. The spell lasts 1 minute, 10 rounds (If I'm wrong on that I apologize I don't have time to check and am working off memory). The first one wearing off 3 rounds before the last one. Also if you are doing this every combat you are blowing higher level spell slots to keep doing it. Even better at level 10+ the fighter can be doing over 5d12+str mod(or 1d10+4d12+dex mod) damage every turn. That attack roll is more acurate than the clerics attack roll with each of the d8's he is swinging. Oh and should the fighter miss his 1, more acurate, attack roll then on the defensive side he is going to be blocking 4d12 (or more) damage. Even if the massive spell expenditure does put the cleric on something not even aproaching the same level of use as a fighter that is fine if it is what the cleric wants to do.
EDIT: this also taking absolutely none of the higher level CS usages in to account. 1 whirlwind or hail of arrows type attack and this discussion is basically over.
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...[/quote]I see no problem with this, and knowing it is possible may even hope he does it in order to clear an encoun
Having just one game action mechanic that occasionally allows for more than one event to occur will reduce decision paralysis. If I'm a fighter and I do a normal attack, I'm not looking around for ways to use my minor action. Whereas if I'm a cleric and want to attack and heal in one turn, I just do that as my action because I have a special manuever that allows it.
The only danger here as I see it is if DMs are savvy enough to know that implied in the action is the idea of a minor action. If a fighter wants to charge across the room while drawing his sword you should allow it. In the past that would have required that extra minor action. But if you have a DM that understands this approach you are fine.
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...
I see no problem with this, and knowing it is possible may even hope he does it in order to clear an encounter.
So when the cleric can cast 4 spells per encounter (at level 10+) You would be fine with him casting 3 spiritual hammers and attacking with all 3 of them while casting cure light wounds on an ally? I'm not ok with that because for the rest of the battle the cleric is now better than the fighter...
except by that time the fight is likely over like 2 or 3 rounds after that (assuming its a substantial fight) then the cleric is tapped for a good amount of his resources. Basically he paid for it so its not a really big deal. Also by the time he can do that the fighter is more acurate and can hand out more reliably hand out damage in larger amounts, yeah the cleric gets 4d8 but each of those has a chance to miss and the damage is unmodified by casting stat. The fighters on to a more reliable 1d12+1d8+STR mod damage hit. Yet again the cleric is tapped after that as well.
Actually they would be no more tapped than any other encounter because they can cast 3-4 spells per encounter (it helps to read my entire post). The problem is they are then able to deal up to 1d10 + 4d8 each round for the rest of the combat and possibly (10 round duration, an encounter is typically 4-5 rounds) into the next encounter. Remember all of those spells go off in the same round at the start of combat...
Yeah if they are able to get that to work in the next combat then it isn't the next combat its the same combat. The spell lasts 1 minute, 10 rounds (If I'm wrong on that I apologize I don't have time to check and am working off memory). The first one wearing off 3 rounds before the last one. Also if you are doing this every combat you are blowing higher level spell slots to keep doing it. Even better at level 10+ the fighter can be doing over 5d12+str mod(or 1d10+4d12+dex mod) damage every turn. That attack roll is more acurate than the clerics attack roll with each of the d8's he is swinging. Oh and should the fighter miss his 1, more acurate, attack roll then on the defensive side he is going to be blocking 4d12 (or more) damage. Even if the massive spell expenditure does put the cleric on something not even aproaching the same level of use as a fighter that is fine if it is what the cleric wants to do.
EDIT: this also taking absolutely none of the higher level CS usages in to account. 1 whirlwind or hail of arrows type attack and this discussion is basically over.
You are missing the point. They are casting all of those spells in the same round because they can cast them as part of another action. In other words 3-4 Spiritual Hammers + 1 Cure Wounds spell all in the same round because of how the spell is described.
The abuse comes in when the cleric gets 3 spells they can use 'with an action' and decide to use all three of them in the same round...[/quote]I see no problem with this, and knowing it is possible may even hope he does it in order to clear an encoun
You are missing the point. They are casting all of those spells in the same round because they can cast them as part of another action. In other words 3-4 Spiritual Hammers + 1 Cure Wounds spell all in the same round because of how the spell is described.
Spritual Hammer takes an action to cast.
Cure light wounds is pittiful past first level.
So the only way you can really "abuse" it is by casting 3 before combat starts. Then running in with hammers swining. Of course, you also waste 3 turns of your first one doing so...
Spritual Hammer takes an action to cast.Cure light wounds is pittiful past first level.So the only way you can really "abuse" it is by casting 3 before combat starts. Then running in with hammers swining. Of course, you also waste 3 turns of your f
I'm more concerned with how many non-actions it's reasonable to use in a round, rather than spell stacking.
"I run across the room sheathing my bow and opening the (unlocked) door while pulling a potion from my pack and drawing my hammer while striking with spiritual Hammer and using Healing word which also lets me make a melee attack before sheathing my sword and drawing my bow again."
Yes, that's unreasonable. But at what point in that sequence does it become unreasonable? And if we limit it to two or three things, are we not in effect giving multiple but still finite "minor" actions?
I'm not saying the system is bad or that eliminating minor actions is bad, just that a little more guidance and a few examples are needed.
I'm more concerned with how many non-actions it's reasonable to use in a round, rather than spell stacking."I run across the room sheathing my bow and opening the (unlocked) door while pulling a potion from my pack and drawing my hammer while strikin
Are oozes, slimes and blobs still immune to mental and psychic attacks? Are those monsters still considered as mindless?
What would be the proper ability stats for Oozes?
Are oozes, slimes and blobs still immune to mental and psychic attacks? Are those monsters still considered as mindless? What would be the proper ability stats for Oozes?
I think very few creatures should be considered truly mindless in dnd. Creatures that "hunt" for example could have a very simplistic logic but they should have one.
I'll agree with some people here. I dont find non definable swift/free actions bad. But at some point Im afraid we would all wish they would just make a minor/swift 1/round mechanic for sanity reasons if not for balance.
I think very few creatures should be considered truly mindless in dnd. Creatures that "hunt" for example could have a very simplistic logic but they should have one.I'll agree with some people here. I dont find non definable swift/free actions bad. B
I'm curious about what sort of bizarre understanding of history would lead someone to believe that swift actions were intended to be something you did every round. They didn't even exist for the foundational years of the system they're a part of. They were patched into the system precisely because the developers made the exact same mistake that the developers of Next are gleefully marching into now.
1000X this.
How can they not see that they are making the same mistake again?
Do they REALLY fear their own tendency to screw up so much that they are willing to dance into a known problem?
1000X this.How can they not see that they are making the same mistake again?Do they REALLY fear their own tendency to screw up so much that they are willing to dance into a known problem?
3-4 Spiritual Hammers + 1 Cure Wounds spell all in the same round
That conjures an awesome scene where the Cleric is commanding a bunch of floating hammers to attack around while healing his companions.
I'm curious if that is even allowed. Is casting Spritual hammer count as an "attack"?
That conjures an awesome scene where the Cleric is commanding a bunch of floating hammers to attack around while healing his companions. [/quote]I'm curious if that is even allowed.Is casting Spritual hammer count as an "attack"?
Yes it count as an attack since its a magical attack that can hit and its feasable because its a WYTAA. Spiritual Hammer says that once during each of your turns, when you take an action, you can also move the hammer up to 20 feet and repeat the attack against a creature within 5 feet of it, and there is currently no limitation to the number of hammer you can evoke at once.
Exemple:
Round 1: Cast Spiritual Hammer 1 Round 2: Cast Spiritual Hammer 2; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 to attack Round 3: Cast Spiritual Hammer 3; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 and 2 to attack Round 4: Cast Cure Light Wounds; Command Spiritual Hammer 1, 2 and 3 to attack
Yes it count as an attack since its a magical attack that can hit and its feasable because its a WYTAA. Spiritual Hammer says that once during each of your turns, when you take an action, you can also move the hammer up to 20 feet and repeat the atta
Yes it count as an attack since its a magical attack that can hit and its feasable because its a WYTAA. Spiritual Hammer says that once during each of your turns, when you take an action, you can also move the hammer up to 20 feet and repeat the attack against a creature within 5 feet of it, and there is currently no limitation to the number of hammer you can evoke at once.
Exemple:
Round 1: Cast Spiritual Hammer 1 Round 2: Cast Spiritual Hammer 2; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 to attack Round 3: Cast Spiritual Hammer 3; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 and 2 to attack Round 4: Cast Cure Light Wounds; Command Spiritual Hammer 1, 2 and 3 to attack
I've gotta support a system that allows this to happen because it is so massively awesome.
All the same, if a cleric kept doing it over and over again it'd get old, but I think that's really down to the people playing the game to determine.
What's fun and not fun is never really going to be decided anywhere but in play, though I understand the desire to have everything spelled out before we all sit down.
I dunno, why can't we take our hands away from the steering wheel here? Some things just don't need to be regulated.
I've gotta support a system that allows this to happen because it is so massively awesome.All the same, if a cleric kept doing it over and over again it'd get old, but I think that's really down to the people playing the game to determine.What's fun
I'm curious about what sort of bizarre understanding of history would lead someone to believe that swift actions were intended to be something you did every round. They didn't even exist for the foundational years of the system they're a part of. They were patched into the system precisely because the developers made the exact same mistake that the developers of Next are gleefully marching into now.
1000X this.
How can they not see that they are making the same mistake again?
Do they REALLY fear their own tendency to screw up so much that they are willing to dance into a known problem?
I wonder how long until they add the minor action afterwards, when they see all their tag-along actions stack up and slow play more than having a single minor action slot.
1000X this.How can they not see that they are making the same mistake again?Do they REALLY fear their own tendency to screw up so much that they are willing to dance into a known problem? [/quote]I wonder how long until they add the minor action
I'm curious about what sort of bizarre understanding of history would lead someone to believe that swift actions were intended to be something you did every round. They didn't even exist for the foundational years of the system they're a part of. They were patched into the system precisely because the developers made the exact same mistake that the developers of Next are gleefully marching into now.
1000X this.
How can they not see that they are making the same mistake again?
Do they REALLY fear their own tendency to screw up so much that they are willing to dance into a known problem?
I wonder how long until they add the minor action afterwards, when they see all their tag-along actions stack up and slow play more than having a single minor action slot.
Not as long as it did in 3.5.
I'd say a year at most from release... assuming that they stick with this stupidity.
1000X this.How can they not see that they are making the same mistake again?Do they REALLY fear their own tendency to screw up so much that they are willing to dance into a known problem? [/quote]I wonder how long until they add the minor action
I'm curious about what sort of bizarre understanding of history would lead someone to believe that swift actions were intended to be something you did every round. They didn't even exist for the foundational years of the system they're a part of. They were patched into the system precisely because the developers made the exact same mistake that the developers of Next are gleefully marching into now.
1000X this.
How can they not see that they are making the same mistake again?
Do they REALLY fear their own tendency to screw up so much that they are willing to dance into a known problem?
I wonder how long until they add the minor action afterwards, when they see all their tag-along actions stack up and slow play more than having a single minor action slot.
Not as long as it did in 3.5.
I'd say a year at most from release... assuming that they stick with this stupidity.
Hopefully they will see it in the play test and change it to no more than 1-2 per round...
1000X this.How can they not see that they are making the same mistake again?Do they REALLY fear their own tendency to screw up so much that they are willing to dance into a known problem? [/quote]I wonder how long until they add the minor action
Yes it count as an attack since its a magical attack that can hit and its feasable because its a WYTAA. Spiritual Hammer says that once during each of your turns, when you take an action, you can also move the hammer up to 20 feet and repeat the attack against a creature within 5 feet of it, and there is currently no limitation to the number of hammer you can evoke at once.
Exemple:
Round 1: Cast Spiritual Hammer 1 Round 2: Cast Spiritual Hammer 2; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 to attack Round 3: Cast Spiritual Hammer 3; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 and 2 to attack Round 4: Cast Cure Light Wounds; Command Spiritual Hammer 1, 2 and 3 to attack
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slots for the day). I say that is a fair trade off for the thing you just accomplished.
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slo
Yes it count as an attack since its a magical attack that can hit and its feasable because its a WYTAA. Spiritual Hammer says that once during each of your turns, when you take an action, you can also move the hammer up to 20 feet and repeat the attack against a creature within 5 feet of it, and there is currently no limitation to the number of hammer you can evoke at once.
Exemple:
Round 1: Cast Spiritual Hammer 1 Round 2: Cast Spiritual Hammer 2; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 to attack Round 3: Cast Spiritual Hammer 3; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 and 2 to attack Round 4: Cast Cure Light Wounds; Command Spiritual Hammer 1, 2 and 3 to attack
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slots for the day). I say that is a fair trade off for the thing you just accomplished.
Yeah, I doubt it would be a big problem. There could be some things that clerics can stack up this way, but I think the whole point is that WYTAA is not going to be super common where you have a whole lot you can do there.
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slo
Yes it count as an attack since its a magical attack that can hit and its feasable because its a WYTAA. Spiritual Hammer says that once during each of your turns, when you take an action, you can also move the hammer up to 20 feet and repeat the attack against a creature within 5 feet of it, and there is currently no limitation to the number of hammer you can evoke at once.
Exemple:
Round 1: Cast Spiritual Hammer 1 Round 2: Cast Spiritual Hammer 2; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 to attack Round 3: Cast Spiritual Hammer 3; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 and 2 to attack Round 4: Cast Cure Light Wounds; Command Spiritual Hammer 1, 2 and 3 to attack
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slots for the day). I say that is a fair trade off for the thing you just accomplished.
Yeah, I doubt it would be a big problem. There could be some things that clerics can stack up this way, but I think the whole point is that WYTAA is not going to be super common where you have a whole lot you can do there.
Yeah, they just blew all of their 1st level spells in one combat, then the next combat they do it again with 2nd level spells, and the third combat they do it again with all their 3rd level spells, and again during the 4 combat with their 4th level spells. In other words they do it every combat, its not just one cool attack where they dominated the combat, its dominating all combats, and we are back with CoDZilla...
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slo
If they are very careful with it, I think it can work, but things that operate outside of the normal action economy have traditionally been playing with fire. Heck, 4e screwed it up despite having minor actions by going one step beyond that and having a things that triggered on things and were a free action. Squeezing in extra stuff is historically generally pretty potent.
If they are very careful with it, I think it can work, but things that operate outside of the normal action economy have traditionally been playing with fire. Heck, 4e screwed it up despite having minor actions by going one step beyond that and havin
Yes it count as an attack since its a magical attack that can hit and its feasable because its a WYTAA. Spiritual Hammer says that once during each of your turns, when you take an action, you can also move the hammer up to 20 feet and repeat the attack against a creature within 5 feet of it, and there is currently no limitation to the number of hammer you can evoke at once.
Exemple:
Round 1: Cast Spiritual Hammer 1 Round 2: Cast Spiritual Hammer 2; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 to attack Round 3: Cast Spiritual Hammer 3; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 and 2 to attack Round 4: Cast Cure Light Wounds; Command Spiritual Hammer 1, 2 and 3 to attack
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slots for the day). I say that is a fair trade off for the thing you just accomplished.
Yeah, I doubt it would be a big problem. There could be some things that clerics can stack up this way, but I think the whole point is that WYTAA is not going to be super common where you have a whole lot you can do there.
Yeah, they just blew all of their 1st level spells in one combat, then the next combat they do it again with 2nd level spells, and the third combat they do it again with all their 3rd level spells, and again during the 4 combat with their 4th level spells. In other words they do it every combat, its not just one cool attack where they dominated the combat, its dominating all combats, and we are back with CoDZilla...
1 thats a terrible waste of all of their other spell slots 2 not every combat is going to work thus that they will even want to do that or be able to pull it off 3 Still not bothersome even if they do do it every combat. They aren't matching the fighter, and they are blowing entire spell levels on doing the trick. They get about 9 combats (at top levels) where they can pull this off. By that point this spell will likely not be the most usfull by the way(I'd guess that at top level flat d8s of damage won't be dropping people).
even with the 4 hammers I would in no way consider the cleric to be dominating a fight in which he does that. Considering how much you can do with a fighter I'd say the fighter is still likely ahead. His bonus to hit is higher and he deals more damage when he hits. Hell the fighter with jab or snap shot can be dealing more damage than the cleric with 4 hammers can as a WYTAA. A fighter could at any time with no prep, other than buying a potion, administer a potion (that they could have made on their own) and deal their CS dice in damage. So I'm still not seeing a problem with a three round build up time that wastes a bunch of limited resources.
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slo
I like the notion of reactions and actions per round. I don't care if spells might act on their own, as people have pointed out the investment in abusing it will burn the caster out long before it becomes a problem.
Also, if you've got 3rd or 4th level spells and you're still spamming spiritual hammers, you're missing the point entirely - or actually you do get it, 'cause it's funny as hell and also awesome even if it is totally useless.
But really the big limiting factor here is the time it takes to cast all those spells. One of the things that puts me off buff casters in general is they're spending all their time casting buffs and not actually attacking. The 3e cleric is a prime example of a class that could buff themselves into insanity but most of the time it simply wasn't worth their time. That's why things like Divine Metamagic and Persistent Spell were so valuable.
So yeah cool, by round 4 you've got your 3d8 extra damage + action. Or more accurately, you've got your 3 extra attacks that might deal 1d8 damage each plus your action. In the time it took you to build up to that, the fighter's potentially dealt weapon damage + expertise dice each round and the rogue's probably managed to get 2 sneak attacks in.
The fighter might not have topped your damage in that time but the rogue certainly has. If anything's left alive by around 4, it'll be something your magic attacks have a reasonable chance of missing that's also probably hit your party pretty hard. Some healing spells or a few crusader strikes in those 3 rounds would have been a lot more effective.
I like the notion of reactions and actions per round. I don't care if spells might act on their own, as people have pointed out the investment in abusing it will burn the caster out long before it becomes a problem.Also, if you've got 3rd or 4th leve
Yeah, I doubt it would be a big problem. There could be some things that clerics can stack up this way, but I think the whole point is that WYTAA is not going to be super common where you have a whole lot you can do there.
I'm not convinced that WYTAA won't be common. We have plenty of examples already in the playtest. Their stated purpose for not having the minor action is to make combat faster. Tracking those Hammers tacks on quite a bit of time for this alledged expediter. The question becomes when do these WYTAA start to work against the goal they are supposed to support?
I'm not convinced that WYTAA won't be common. We have plenty of examples already in the playtest.Their stated purpose for not having the minor action is to make combat faster.Tracking those Hammers tacks on quite a bit of time for this alledged exped
I suspect the disparity between the racial ability score boosts will accelerate power creep.
The Nonhuman races will inevitably get mechanical options that are better than the Human options, in order to “balance” these races better. But then the Human will use the better Nonhuman options as a baseline for new Human options. And up the armsraces soar.
It would be better if core races start off incontrovertably balanced.
I suspect the disparity between the racial ability score boosts will accelerate power creep. The Nonhuman races will inevitably get mechanical options that are better than the Human options, in order to “balance” these races better. But t
Yeah, I doubt it would be a big problem. There could be some things that clerics can stack up this way, but I think the whole point is that WYTAA is not going to be super common where you have a whole lot you can do there.
I'm not convinced that WYTAA won't be common. We have plenty of examples already in the playtest. Their stated purpose for not having the minor action is to make combat faster. Tracking those Hammers tacks on quite a bit of time for this alledged expediter. The question becomes when do these WYTAA start to work against the goal they are supposed to support?
Yeah, it seems obvious 5e will suffer a bloat of “when you take your turn” features that then clog the flow of the game.
Possibility + Time = Inevitability
Same with Advantage solving nothing. Because it comes with a vague definition of when to use it, it will inevitably be used for anything and everything. Previous confusions only serving as precedent for ever wider applications. At the same time, specific bonuses (+2, +3, +5, and so on) will ALSO apply to anything eventually.
As surely as the sun sets in the evening, vague rules will inevitably break the game.
If these anti-power-creep strategies are to work at all, they need to be crystal clear about when and when not to use them. And why.
When new designers arrive on the scene - in WotC but also in indy companies - they wont have the “feel” that the original designers have. They will use the vague precedents for creative purposes and create combinations that unintentionally break the game. As surely as the sun sets. These future designers need clear instructions about when and when not to use certain mechanics - and why.
I'm not convinced that WYTAA won't be common. We have plenty of examples already in the playtest.Their stated purpose for not having the minor action is to make combat faster.Tracking those Hammers tacks on quite a bit of time for this alledged exped
Yeah, I doubt it would be a big problem. There could be some things that clerics can stack up this way, but I think the whole point is that WYTAA is not going to be super common where you have a whole lot you can do there.
I'm not convinced that WYTAA won't be common. We have plenty of examples already in the playtest. Their stated purpose for not having the minor action is to make combat faster. Tracking those Hammers tacks on quite a bit of time for this alledged expediter. The question becomes when do these WYTAA start to work against the goal they are supposed to support?
When would it ever be worse than minor action spam? The point is that people were always scrounging to try to get something into that minor action, they built around it, and they constantly fished for it and thought about it during play. Now it is relegated to special benefit of a few spells or whatnot which aren't especially better than other options. Its a big difference as I see it. The 4e minor action is pure gravy if you can attack with it, the DDN WYTAA is totally restrictable to only things that are basically a wash, like Spiritual Hammer. Sure, casting a whole crapload of Spiritual Hammer might make combat a bit slower, but are we seriously entertaining the notion that the cleric will be constantly burning their spell slots for that? Surely they want to heal, buff, debuff, cure, divine, etc? Is the cleric using Spiritual Hammer really slowing things down any more than the fighter player constantly thinking up new combinations of things to try with his CS dice? I doubt it. Both are mechanics that are going to be slower than other possible mechanics, now and then. I just don't see it as a problem. Things need to be interesting and you need a few different ways you can play your character. Simplicity is good, but it isn't the end-all. If it was we'd just go back to OD&D-like combat.
I'm not convinced that WYTAA won't be common. We have plenty of examples already in the playtest.Their stated purpose for not having the minor action is to make combat faster.Tracking those Hammers tacks on quite a bit of time for this alledged exped
I suspect the disparity between the racial ability score boosts will accelerate power creep.
The Nonhuman races will inevitably get mechanical options that are better than the Human options, in order to “balance” these races better. But then the Human will use the better Nonhuman options as a baseline for new Human options. And up the armsraces soar.
It would be better if core races start off incontrovertably balanced.
Out of curiosity, do you consider the non-human races as they currently stand to be incontrovertably balanced with each other (ignoring humans for the moment)? Because I don't think it would be hard to forward an argument that Halflings are underpowered and that Dwarves are significantly better than Elves.
Out of curiosity, do you consider the non-human races as they currently stand to be incontrovertably balanced with each other (ignoring humans for the moment)? Because I don't think it would be hard to forward an argument that Halflings are underpowe
When would it ever be worse than minor action spam? The point is that people were always scrounging to try to get something into that minor action, they built around it, and they constantly fished for it and thought about it during play. Now it is relegated to special benefit of a few spells or whatnot which aren't especially better than other options. Its a big difference as I see it. The 4e minor action is pure gravy if you can attack with it, the DDN WYTAA is totally restrictable to only things that are basically a wash, like Spiritual Hammer. Sure, casting a whole crapload of Spiritual Hammer might make combat a bit slower, but are we seriously entertaining the notion that the cleric will be constantly burning their spell slots for that? Surely they want to heal, buff, debuff, cure, divine, etc? Is the cleric using Spiritual Hammer really slowing things down any more than the fighter player constantly thinking up new combinations of things to try with his CS dice? I doubt it. Both are mechanics that are going to be slower than other possible mechanics, now and then. I just don't see it as a problem. Things need to be interesting and you need a few different ways you can play your character. Simplicity is good, but it isn't the end-all. If it was we'd just go back to OD&D-like combat.
The 4e minor action could have faced exactly the same restrictions - only make minor action powers that are "basically a wash". But of course the didn't do that and of course that won't happen this time.
The 4e minor action could have faced exactly the same restrictions - only make minor action powers that are "basically a wash". But of course the didn't do that and of course that won't happen this time.
Yes it count as an attack since its a magical attack that can hit and its feasable because its a WYTAA. Spiritual Hammer says that once during each of your turns, when you take an action, you can also move the hammer up to 20 feet and repeat the attack against a creature within 5 feet of it, and there is currently no limitation to the number of hammer you can evoke at once.
Exemple:
Round 1: Cast Spiritual Hammer 1 Round 2: Cast Spiritual Hammer 2; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 to attack Round 3: Cast Spiritual Hammer 3; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 and 2 to attack Round 4: Cast Cure Light Wounds; Command Spiritual Hammer 1, 2 and 3 to attack
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slots for the day). I say that is a fair trade off for the thing you just accomplished.
Yeah, I doubt it would be a big problem. There could be some things that clerics can stack up this way, but I think the whole point is that WYTAA is not going to be super common where you have a whole lot you can do there.
Yeah, they just blew all of their 1st level spells in one combat, then the next combat they do it again with 2nd level spells, and the third combat they do it again with all their 3rd level spells, and again during the 4 combat with their 4th level spells. In other words they do it every combat, its not just one cool attack where they dominated the combat, its dominating all combats, and we are back with CoDZilla...
1 thats a terrible waste of all of their other spell slots 2 not every combat is going to work thus that they will even want to do that or be able to pull it off 3 Still not bothersome even if they do do it every combat. They aren't matching the fighter, and they are blowing entire spell levels on doing the trick. They get about 9 combats (at top levels) where they can pull this off. By that point this spell will likely not be the most usfull by the way(I'd guess that at top level flat d8s of damage won't be dropping people).
even with the 4 hammers I would in no way consider the cleric to be dominating a fight in which he does that. Considering how much you can do with a fighter I'd say the fighter is still likely ahead. His bonus to hit is higher and he deals more damage when he hits. Hell the fighter with jab or snap shot can be dealing more damage than the cleric with 4 hammers can as a WYTAA. A fighter could at any time with no prep, other than buying a potion, administer a potion (that they could have made on their own) and deal their CS dice in damage. So I'm still not seeing a problem with a three round build up time that wastes a bunch of limited resources.
Well since an average adventuring day according to the play test packet is 4 encounters that leaves 5 encounters worth of spells left afterward. I'm telling you they can pull this off around levels 7-10, with 3-4 spells per combat. What if there are spells that aren't restricted to an action like spiritual hammer? what if there is a spell that can be cast at the same time as taking another action? Set aside the spell problem, what if there is a power or class feature that can do that? What if there are several so one character will be doing 5 things every round? I'd call that problematic...
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slo
They need to put a hard limit on them, something like "You can only take one WYTAA action per turn."
Agreed, but they couldn't just call it that. Maybe call it an "also" action.
Maybe they can name it like they did with hit dice. Call it some unrelated thing from previous editions to make it more palatable to those that hate 4E. Something like Swift actions...
Agreed, but they couldn't just call it that. Maybe call it an "also" action.[/quote]Maybe they can name it like they did with hit dice. Call it some unrelated thing from previous editions to make it more palatable to those that hate 4E. Something li
Yes it count as an attack since its a magical attack that can hit and its feasable because its a WYTAA. Spiritual Hammer says that once during each of your turns, when you take an action, you can also move the hammer up to 20 feet and repeat the attack against a creature within 5 feet of it, and there is currently no limitation to the number of hammer you can evoke at once.
Exemple:
Round 1: Cast Spiritual Hammer 1 Round 2: Cast Spiritual Hammer 2; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 to attack Round 3: Cast Spiritual Hammer 3; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 and 2 to attack Round 4: Cast Cure Light Wounds; Command Spiritual Hammer 1, 2 and 3 to attack
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slots for the day). I say that is a fair trade off for the thing you just accomplished.
Yeah, I doubt it would be a big problem. There could be some things that clerics can stack up this way, but I think the whole point is that WYTAA is not going to be super common where you have a whole lot you can do there.
Yeah, they just blew all of their 1st level spells in one combat, then the next combat they do it again with 2nd level spells, and the third combat they do it again with all their 3rd level spells, and again during the 4 combat with their 4th level spells. In other words they do it every combat, its not just one cool attack where they dominated the combat, its dominating all combats, and we are back with CoDZilla...
1 thats a terrible waste of all of their other spell slots 2 not every combat is going to work thus that they will even want to do that or be able to pull it off 3 Still not bothersome even if they do do it every combat. They aren't matching the fighter, and they are blowing entire spell levels on doing the trick. They get about 9 combats (at top levels) where they can pull this off. By that point this spell will likely not be the most usfull by the way(I'd guess that at top level flat d8s of damage won't be dropping people).
even with the 4 hammers I would in no way consider the cleric to be dominating a fight in which he does that. Considering how much you can do with a fighter I'd say the fighter is still likely ahead. His bonus to hit is higher and he deals more damage when he hits. Hell the fighter with jab or snap shot can be dealing more damage than the cleric with 4 hammers can as a WYTAA. A fighter could at any time with no prep, other than buying a potion, administer a potion (that they could have made on their own) and deal their CS dice in damage. So I'm still not seeing a problem with a three round build up time that wastes a bunch of limited resources.
Well since an average adventuring day according to the play test packet is 4 encounters that leaves 5 encounters worth of spells left afterward. I'm telling you they can pull this off around levels 7-10, with 3-4 spells per combat. What if there are spells that aren't restricted to an action like spiritual hammer? what if there is a spell that can be cast at the same time as taking another action? Set aside the spell problem, what if there is a power or class feature that can do that? What if there are several so one character will be doing 5 things every round? I'd call that problematic...
last I checked the playtest packet didn't really explicitly say this many encounters in a day it more said this much experience in a day. I can definately have a game that is more than 10 encounters in a day.
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slo
Yes it count as an attack since its a magical attack that can hit and its feasable because its a WYTAA. Spiritual Hammer says that once during each of your turns, when you take an action, you can also move the hammer up to 20 feet and repeat the attack against a creature within 5 feet of it, and there is currently no limitation to the number of hammer you can evoke at once.
Exemple:
Round 1: Cast Spiritual Hammer 1 Round 2: Cast Spiritual Hammer 2; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 to attack Round 3: Cast Spiritual Hammer 3; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 and 2 to attack Round 4: Cast Cure Light Wounds; Command Spiritual Hammer 1, 2 and 3 to attack
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slots for the day). I say that is a fair trade off for the thing you just accomplished.
Yeah, I doubt it would be a big problem. There could be some things that clerics can stack up this way, but I think the whole point is that WYTAA is not going to be super common where you have a whole lot you can do there.
Yeah, they just blew all of their 1st level spells in one combat, then the next combat they do it again with 2nd level spells, and the third combat they do it again with all their 3rd level spells, and again during the 4 combat with their 4th level spells. In other words they do it every combat, its not just one cool attack where they dominated the combat, its dominating all combats, and we are back with CoDZilla...
1 thats a terrible waste of all of their other spell slots 2 not every combat is going to work thus that they will even want to do that or be able to pull it off 3 Still not bothersome even if they do do it every combat. They aren't matching the fighter, and they are blowing entire spell levels on doing the trick. They get about 9 combats (at top levels) where they can pull this off. By that point this spell will likely not be the most usfull by the way(I'd guess that at top level flat d8s of damage won't be dropping people).
even with the 4 hammers I would in no way consider the cleric to be dominating a fight in which he does that. Considering how much you can do with a fighter I'd say the fighter is still likely ahead. His bonus to hit is higher and he deals more damage when he hits. Hell the fighter with jab or snap shot can be dealing more damage than the cleric with 4 hammers can as a WYTAA. A fighter could at any time with no prep, other than buying a potion, administer a potion (that they could have made on their own) and deal their CS dice in damage. So I'm still not seeing a problem with a three round build up time that wastes a bunch of limited resources.
Well since an average adventuring day according to the play test packet is 4 encounters that leaves 5 encounters worth of spells left afterward. I'm telling you they can pull this off around levels 7-10, with 3-4 spells per combat. What if there are spells that aren't restricted to an action like spiritual hammer? what if there is a spell that can be cast at the same time as taking another action? Set aside the spell problem, what if there is a power or class feature that can do that? What if there are several so one character will be doing 5 things every round? I'd call that problematic...
last I checked the playtest packet didn't really explicitly say this many encounters in a day it more said this much experience in a day. I can definately have a game that is more than 10 encounters in a day.
Check the DM document around the area where it talks about building encounters. It says:
"As a rule of thumb, you can figure that the characters will probably get through four average encounters, six or seven easy encounters, or two tough encounters before they have to take a long rest."
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slo
When would it ever be worse than minor action spam? The point is that people were always scrounging to try to get something into that minor action, they built around it, and they constantly fished for it and thought about it during play. Now it is relegated to special benefit of a few spells or whatnot which aren't especially better than other options. Its a big difference as I see it. The 4e minor action is pure gravy if you can attack with it, the DDN WYTAA is totally restrictable to only things that are basically a wash, like Spiritual Hammer. Sure, casting a whole crapload of Spiritual Hammer might make combat a bit slower, but are we seriously entertaining the notion that the cleric will be constantly burning their spell slots for that? Surely they want to heal, buff, debuff, cure, divine, etc? Is the cleric using Spiritual Hammer really slowing things down any more than the fighter player constantly thinking up new combinations of things to try with his CS dice? I doubt it. Both are mechanics that are going to be slower than other possible mechanics, now and then. I just don't see it as a problem. Things need to be interesting and you need a few different ways you can play your character. Simplicity is good, but it isn't the end-all. If it was we'd just go back to OD&D-like combat.
The 4e minor action could have faced exactly the same restrictions - only make minor action powers that are "basically a wash". But of course the didn't do that and of course that won't happen this time.
I think there's always an argument for "eventually if an edition lasts long enough every bad idea will be tried" but I also think that when you create a Minor Action and give it to every PC every turn you are BEGGING for it to be put to use. It is an invitation to bad design. While NOW the DDN design is all in the hands of one small group of people it will quickly become like the 4e design where there are a bazillion freelancers and different editors etc working on different books, changing standards, etc. At least if you start off without that invitation to do wrong it will take a good while before someone foolishly adds "offhand slash" and other such crap. The devs can also issue a guideline, no WYTAA at all, don't even try it. That would be pretty hard to put in design guidelines for Minor Action (Yeah, we made up this resource for you to use, but we don't want you to use it).
It is a real meaningful difference.
The 4e minor action could have faced exactly the same restrictions - only make minor action powers that are "basically a wash". But of course the didn't do that and of course that won't happen this time.[/quote]I think there's always an argument for
It occurs to me when we are discussing WYTAA vs minor actions, we might be arguing over two separate questions.
1) Will eliminating the formal, every character gets one "minor action" speed up play? 2) Will unlimited "non-action actions" be unbalancing?
Those are two VERY different questions.
If someone can stack up as many NAAs as they want (4 spiritual hammers, yay!), then it may slow their play a little, but not as much as the planning and finagling over what to do with the minor did in 4E or the swift did in 3.5. Not having that budget reduces decision paralysis.
Will unlimited non-action actions be unbalancing? That, I do not know.
Just thought I'd point out the distinction.
It occurs to me when we are discussing WYTAA vs minor actions, we might be arguing over two separate questions.1) Will eliminating the formal, every character gets one "minor action" speed up play?2) Will unlimited "non-action actions" be unbalancing
Yes it count as an attack since its a magical attack that can hit and its feasable because its a WYTAA. Spiritual Hammer says that once during each of your turns, when you take an action, you can also move the hammer up to 20 feet and repeat the attack against a creature within 5 feet of it, and there is currently no limitation to the number of hammer you can evoke at once.
Exemple:
Round 1: Cast Spiritual Hammer 1 Round 2: Cast Spiritual Hammer 2; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 to attack Round 3: Cast Spiritual Hammer 3; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 and 2 to attack Round 4: Cast Cure Light Wounds; Command Spiritual Hammer 1, 2 and 3 to attack
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slots for the day). I say that is a fair trade off for the thing you just accomplished.
Yeah, I doubt it would be a big problem. There could be some things that clerics can stack up this way, but I think the whole point is that WYTAA is not going to be super common where you have a whole lot you can do there.
Yeah, they just blew all of their 1st level spells in one combat, then the next combat they do it again with 2nd level spells, and the third combat they do it again with all their 3rd level spells, and again during the 4 combat with their 4th level spells. In other words they do it every combat, its not just one cool attack where they dominated the combat, its dominating all combats, and we are back with CoDZilla...
1 thats a terrible waste of all of their other spell slots 2 not every combat is going to work thus that they will even want to do that or be able to pull it off 3 Still not bothersome even if they do do it every combat. They aren't matching the fighter, and they are blowing entire spell levels on doing the trick. They get about 9 combats (at top levels) where they can pull this off. By that point this spell will likely not be the most usfull by the way(I'd guess that at top level flat d8s of damage won't be dropping people).
even with the 4 hammers I would in no way consider the cleric to be dominating a fight in which he does that. Considering how much you can do with a fighter I'd say the fighter is still likely ahead. His bonus to hit is higher and he deals more damage when he hits. Hell the fighter with jab or snap shot can be dealing more damage than the cleric with 4 hammers can as a WYTAA. A fighter could at any time with no prep, other than buying a potion, administer a potion (that they could have made on their own) and deal their CS dice in damage. So I'm still not seeing a problem with a three round build up time that wastes a bunch of limited resources.
Well since an average adventuring day according to the play test packet is 4 encounters that leaves 5 encounters worth of spells left afterward. I'm telling you they can pull this off around levels 7-10, with 3-4 spells per combat. What if there are spells that aren't restricted to an action like spiritual hammer? what if there is a spell that can be cast at the same time as taking another action? Set aside the spell problem, what if there is a power or class feature that can do that? What if there are several so one character will be doing 5 things every round? I'd call that problematic...
last I checked the playtest packet didn't really explicitly say this many encounters in a day it more said this much experience in a day. I can definately have a game that is more than 10 encounters in a day.
Check the DM document around the area where it talks about building encounters. It says:
"As a rule of thumb, you can figure that the characters will probably get through four average encounters, six or seven easy encounters, or two tough encounters before they have to take a long rest."
Yeah that says to me that if they are lucky and/or spending massive amounts of resources to make themselves lucky I can hammer them with about 9 fights of varying dificulty in a day. Also remember that by level 10 they will be able to pull this off maybe like 3 to 4 times in a day. At level 20 they can pull it off 9 times a day give or take 1 or 2 times. These encounters also do not include exploration, social, or traps/hazards where those other magical resources will possibly be needed and or useful help.
Your argument also assumes that the cleric always gets a chance to use every spell in a day/would use every spell in a day. Most intelligent players I see are a bit more conservative than that. Saving spells for when they are needed rather than just dumping like 4 or 5 daily resources on a fight that they need not use it for.
Your argument assumes that the cleric will cast no other spells other than the hammer which I just don't see as a plausible argument considering there are far better spells they could use. Even if they do only cast hammers all day I can hardly complain. Frankly if you are using 5th level spell slots for a 1st level spell I will not complain in the slightest when you drop four 5th level spells in order to cast 4 first level spells. Especially when those hammers are no where near as useful as comparably leveled fighter's CS dice.
You are still neglecting the idea that the level 10 CS usages, and fighter features, may be thus that there is no comparison by that point. Like I said 1 whirlwind or hail of arrows type move and this discussion goes out the window because the fighter can every turn pull off something better than a cleric with 4 rounds of prep could. Heck with focused attacking (comparing a solo fighter vs a cleric swing all hammers on 1 guy) a level 10 fighter can already pull of more than a cleric can. A properly built fighter can get 2 rolls with a higher attack bonus than the cleric has with his hammers for more damage than the cleric could get by hitting with all of those hammers (and if he hits with both of those attacks the fighter does more damage than the cleric could do with his 4 hammers).
In short I don't think this particular edge case brings up any kind of plausible reason for there being any kind of hard cap on WYTAA type things. Think about this further lets suppose on some multi classing:
lets say I am cleric and fighter for my two classes. Fighter base cleric multi. I get some limited casting which includes spiritual hammer. So if I cast spiritual hammer in the first round has that just entirely locked my fighter out of using Jab and who knows how many other CS dice usages for the next 10 rounds.
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slo
I suspect the disparity between the racial ability score boosts will accelerate power creep.
The Nonhuman races will inevitably get mechanical options that are better than the Human options, in order to “balance” these races better. But then the Human will use the better Nonhuman options as a baseline for new Human options. And up the armsraces soar.
It would be better if core races start off incontrovertably balanced.
Out of curiosity, do you consider the non-human races as they currently stand to be incontrovertably balanced with each other (ignoring humans for the moment)? Because I don't think it would be hard to forward an argument that Halflings are underpowered and that Dwarves are significantly better than Elves.
No, neither do the Nonhuman races balance with eachother. Ranking the races from best to worst:
From Best to Worst • Human (way, way more powerful than other races, especially at the higher levels) • Dwarf or Wood Elf • High Elf • Halfling
Out of curiosity, do you consider the non-human races as they currently stand to be incontrovertably balanced with each other (ignoring humans for the moment)? Because I don't think it would be hard to forward an argument that Halflings are underpowe
Yes it count as an attack since its a magical attack that can hit and its feasable because its a WYTAA. Spiritual Hammer says that once during each of your turns, when you take an action, you can also move the hammer up to 20 feet and repeat the attack against a creature within 5 feet of it, and there is currently no limitation to the number of hammer you can evoke at once.
Exemple:
Round 1: Cast Spiritual Hammer 1 Round 2: Cast Spiritual Hammer 2; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 to attack Round 3: Cast Spiritual Hammer 3; Command Spiritual Hammer 1 and 2 to attack Round 4: Cast Cure Light Wounds; Command Spiritual Hammer 1, 2 and 3 to attack
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slots for the day). I say that is a fair trade off for the thing you just accomplished.
Yeah, I doubt it would be a big problem. There could be some things that clerics can stack up this way, but I think the whole point is that WYTAA is not going to be super common where you have a whole lot you can do there.
Yeah, they just blew all of their 1st level spells in one combat, then the next combat they do it again with 2nd level spells, and the third combat they do it again with all their 3rd level spells, and again during the 4 combat with their 4th level spells. In other words they do it every combat, its not just one cool attack where they dominated the combat, its dominating all combats, and we are back with CoDZilla...
1 thats a terrible waste of all of their other spell slots 2 not every combat is going to work thus that they will even want to do that or be able to pull it off 3 Still not bothersome even if they do do it every combat. They aren't matching the fighter, and they are blowing entire spell levels on doing the trick. They get about 9 combats (at top levels) where they can pull this off. By that point this spell will likely not be the most usfull by the way(I'd guess that at top level flat d8s of damage won't be dropping people).
even with the 4 hammers I would in no way consider the cleric to be dominating a fight in which he does that. Considering how much you can do with a fighter I'd say the fighter is still likely ahead. His bonus to hit is higher and he deals more damage when he hits. Hell the fighter with jab or snap shot can be dealing more damage than the cleric with 4 hammers can as a WYTAA. A fighter could at any time with no prep, other than buying a potion, administer a potion (that they could have made on their own) and deal their CS dice in damage. So I'm still not seeing a problem with a three round build up time that wastes a bunch of limited resources.
Well since an average adventuring day according to the play test packet is 4 encounters that leaves 5 encounters worth of spells left afterward. I'm telling you they can pull this off around levels 7-10, with 3-4 spells per combat. What if there are spells that aren't restricted to an action like spiritual hammer? what if there is a spell that can be cast at the same time as taking another action? Set aside the spell problem, what if there is a power or class feature that can do that? What if there are several so one character will be doing 5 things every round? I'd call that problematic...
last I checked the playtest packet didn't really explicitly say this many encounters in a day it more said this much experience in a day. I can definately have a game that is more than 10 encounters in a day.
Check the DM document around the area where it talks about building encounters. It says:
"As a rule of thumb, you can figure that the characters will probably get through four average encounters, six or seven easy encounters, or two tough encounters before they have to take a long rest."
Yeah that says to me that if they are lucky and/or spending massive amounts of resources to make themselves lucky I can hammer them with about 9 fights of varying dificulty in a day. Also remember that by level 10 they will be able to pull this off maybe like 3 to 4 times in a day. At level 20 they can pull it off 9 times a day give or take 1 or 2 times. These encounters also do not include exploration, social, or traps/hazards where those other magical resources will possibly be needed and or useful help.
The easy encounters won't require as many WAA spells like spiritual hammer so if you hit them with 9 easy encounters in a day then just 1 or 2 per encounter would be all they need. If you hit them with 2 hard encounters in a day then using 6 in each would have the same effect.
Your argument also assumes that the cleric always gets a chance to use every spell in a day/would use every spell in a day. Most intelligent players I see are a bit more conservative than that. Saving spells for when they are needed rather than just dumping like 4 or 5 daily resources on a fight that they need not use it for.
Since the Cleric can spontaneously cast their spells it entirely likely they will get to use all their spells in a day even if they miss a few, it'll likely be because they had more spell slots than rounds in a day (by level 10-12 they have about as many spell slots as combat rounds in a day 16-20 according to the play test document)
Your argument assumes that the cleric will cast no other spells other than the hammer which I just don't see as a plausible argument considering there are far better spells they could use. Even if they do only cast hammers all day I can hardly complain. Frankly if you are using 5th level spell slots for a 1st level spell I will not complain in the slightest when you drop four 5th level spells in order to cast 4 first level spells. Especially when those hammers are no where near as useful as comparably leveled fighter's CS dice.
I'm assuming that there will be similar spells for each spell level so that they can cast 3-4 1st level spells, then next encounter 3-4 2nd level spells, etc...etc...
The problem is that while not every cleric will use spells like this, some will and for those players an unlimited number of WYA (With Your Action) spells will be unbalanced. I mean maybe they save them up for the BBEG but then pop 7+ spiritual hammers and kill the thing in 1-2 rounds. We see the same problem with the Wizard and Flaming Sphere. The problem is there is an easy way to fix this. Simply say it takes concentration to maintain and that casters can only concentrate on one spell at a time, but that still leaves non-spell like features open to abuse.
You are still neglecting the idea that the level 10 CS usages, and fighter features, may be thus that there is no comparison by that point. Like I said 1 whirlwind or hail of arrows type move and this discussion goes out the window because the fighter can every turn pull off something better than a cleric with 4 rounds of prep could. Heck with focused attacking (comparing a solo fighter vs a cleric swing all hammers on 1 guy) a level 10 fighter can already pull of more than a cleric can. A properly built fighter can get 2 rolls with a higher attack bonus than the cleric has with his hammers for more damage than the cleric could get by hitting with all of those hammers (and if he hits with both of those attacks the fighter does more damage than the cleric could do with his 4 hammers).
Once again I'm not assuming that the Cleric will be limited to one spell they can abuse in this way. I'm assuming that at nearly every spell level they will get at least one spell that can be abused in this way which means it will compare with the same level Fighter features.
In short I don't think this particular edge case brings up any kind of plausible reason for there being any kind of hard cap on WYTAA type things. Think about this further lets suppose on some multi classing:
lets say I am cleric and fighter for my two classes. Fighter base cleric multi. I get some limited casting which includes spiritual hammer. So if I cast spiritual hammer in the first round has that just entirely locked my fighter out of using Jab and who knows how many other CS dice usages for the next 10 rounds.
It would, but only the one or two fighter options that use a WYA (With Your Attack) method. So each round the Cleric would have to choose whether they backhanded while administering a potion or whether they attack with their 10 round duration spiritual hammer. I have no problem with that and it would even enforce balance...
I am totally cool with the situation presented in your example. Especially because in my speculation you just blew all of your level 1 spell slots for the day or darn near it (throw in maybe one more hammer and you should totally be out of lvl 1 slo
Yeah, I doubt it would be a big problem. There could be some things that clerics can stack up this way, but I think the whole point is that WYTAA is not going to be super common where you have a whole lot you can do there.
I'm not convinced that WYTAA won't be common. We have plenty of examples already in the playtest. Their stated purpose for not having the minor action is to make combat faster. Tracking those Hammers tacks on quite a bit of time for this alledged expediter. The question becomes when do these WYTAA start to work against the goal they are supposed to support?
When would it ever be worse than minor action spam? The point is that people were always scrounging to try to get something into that minor action, they built around it, and they constantly fished for it and thought about it during play. Now it is relegated to special benefit of a few spells or whatnot which aren't especially better than other options. Its a big difference as I see it. The 4e minor action is pure gravy if you can attack with it, the DDN WYTAA is totally restrictable to only things that are basically a wash, like Spiritual Hammer. Sure, casting a whole crapload of Spiritual Hammer might make combat a bit slower, but are we seriously entertaining the notion that the cleric will be constantly burning their spell slots for that? Surely they want to heal, buff, debuff, cure, divine, etc? Is the cleric using Spiritual Hammer really slowing things down any more than the fighter player constantly thinking up new combinations of things to try with his CS dice? I doubt it. Both are mechanics that are going to be slower than other possible mechanics, now and then. I just don't see it as a problem. Things need to be interesting and you need a few different ways you can play your character. Simplicity is good, but it isn't the end-all. If it was we'd just go back to OD&D-like combat.
When will it be worse? In the context of combat slow down, it becomes worse as soon as someone takes their 2nd WYTAA in a turn. If they limit also actions to 1/round or the like, it won't be as odious, but that limitation does not exist at this time.
Your Doubts, say hello to My Gaming Table. I understand that the two of you disagree on how much lag WYTAAs create, however, we can still be civil.
My own playtesting periods have featured plenty of WYTAA events. I'm sorely tempted to implement the 30s decision window for this game as well. Just as I have in every previous edition. Considering them a wash is... interesting. I'm certain your own playtests didn't have any event hinge on a quick heal or extra piko-piko smack, but some of mine have. It may just be how the dice fell.
Decision Paralysis is going to happen regardless. The only way to prevent it is to take away decisions. At my table we have a 30s timer until your character is on hold. We've had it since AD&D. The actual question is combat slowdown, which is not just decision paralysis, but also how long it takes to actually roll out/arbitrate all the effects going on in a given round. Stacking WYTAAs will stack the amount of time required to arbitrate. Having them open ended will lead to that horrible Spectre, Decision Paralysis as players now look for how many WYTAAs they can stack at any given event... just as sure as they looked for Minor Actions to take.
I'm not convinced that WYTAA won't be common. We have plenty of examples already in the playtest.Their stated purpose for not having the minor action is to make combat faster.Tracking those Hammers tacks on quite a bit of time for this alledged exped
When will it be worse? In the context of combat slow down, it becomes worse as soon as someone takes their 2nd WYTAA in a turn. If they limit also actions to 1/round or the like, it won't be as odious, but that limitation does not exist at this time.
Your Doubts, say hello to My Gaming Table. I understand that the two of you disagree on how much lag WYTAAs create, however, we can still be civil.
My own playtesting periods have featured plenty of WYTAA events. I'm sorely tempted to implement the 30s decision window for this game as well. Just as I have in every previous edition. Considering them a wash is... interesting. I'm certain your own playtests didn't have any event hinge on a quick heal or extra piko-piko smack, but some of mine have. It may just be how the dice fell.
Decision Paralysis is going to happen regardless. The only way to prevent it is to take away decisions. At my table we have a 30s timer until your character is on hold. We've had it since AD&D. The actual question is combat slowdown, which is not just decision paralysis, but also how long it takes to actually roll out/arbitrate all the effects going on in a given round. Stacking WYTAAs will stack the amount of time required to arbitrate. Having them open ended will lead to that horrible Spectre, Decision Paralysis as players now look for how many WYTAAs they can stack at any given event... just as sure as they looked for Minor Actions to take.
This is a good point. I'm not particularly concerned that spiritual hammer spam is unbalancing, but it's going to slow combat down a fair bit.
From my perspective, everyone having Minor Actions didn't contribute to decision paralysis until we had a large number of minor action powers. With the original round of 4e books, most characters had very few options for minor action powers (ignoring wizard sustains, which are just a concentration mechanic), so it was easy to remember if you had a useful one or not. If your Fighter's only minor action power is Boundless Endurance, a daily utility power, he's not going to spend a huge amount of time in combat trying to use his minor action because he doesn't expect to use it every round; only when he wants to activate his stance or do an incidental action like draw his weapon or drink a potion. Decision paralysis only set in when additional books added enough minor action powers and your characters were high enough level (even late in 4e's run, nobody I played with expected a 1st level character to use their minor action every round) that it became plausible to use your minor action activating a significant power more often than not, and you had enough of those that it was plausible you could forget some if you weren't careful.
We're essentially in the same place now with the playtest as we were with 4e at the outset: WYTAAs are a thing and everyone knows it, but they're rare enough that you know if you have one you can pull out on any given round without having to check your character sheet. What will keep them from slowing down combat or being unbalancing is not whether or not WYTAA is codified as an action type in the rules, but how well the designers can resist the urge to litter the rules with additional WYTAAs.
This is a good point. I'm not particularly concerned that spiritual hammer spam is unbalancing, but it's going to slow combat down a fair bit.From my perspective, everyone having Minor Actions didn't contribute to decision paralysis until we had a la
From my perspective, everyone having Minor Actions didn't contribute to decision paralysis until we had a large number of minor action powers. With the original round of 4e books, most characters had very few options for minor action powers (ignoring wizard sustains, which are just a concentration mechanic), so it was easy to remember if you had a useful one or not. If your Fighter's only minor action power is Boundless Endurance, a daily utility power, he's not going to spend a huge amount of time in combat trying to use his minor action because he doesn't expect to use it every round; only when he wants to activate his stance or do an incidental action like draw his weapon or drink a potion. Decision paralysis only set in when additional books added enough minor action powers and your characters were high enough level (even late in 4e's run, nobody I played with expected a 1st level character to use their minor action every round) that it became plausible to use your minor action activating a significant power more often than not, and you had enough of those that it was plausible you could forget some if you weren't careful.
This is incorrect. There were plenty of things which cost minor actions right from the get-go. In addition to utility powers, there were stances, racial powers, drawing/sheathing items, activating items, opening doors... The extent to which all these uses for minor actions led to decision paralysis varied from encounter to encounter and character to character, but the potential was always there, even with just PHB1 content.
However, in my experience, minor actions were not the main source of decision paralysis. It was two other things: triggered actions, and a lack of transparency coming from the DM.
Interrupts slowed down the game because if an interrupt disrupted a player's action, it could derail his whole turn. Also, in some cases, the timing of triggered actions was unclear (is this free action an interrupt or a reaction? How much of the triggering action happened before the triggered action?) which had everyone at the table confused about what was actually going on. This is an area where I think DDN can make real progress; if they clean up and clarify the timing of triggered actions (like reactions and opportunity attacks), that would be a big improvement.
The main thing which slowed down the game, though, was lack of transparency. This was not a problem with the system as written, but with the style of some DMs. If the DM does not make it clear what the effects of the PCs' action are, then the players will waste a lot of time deliberating on what to do. What happens when a PC steps on a particular type of terrain? What are the countermeasures for that trap? What are the monsters' defenses? If the players know these things ahead of time, encounters go much smoother. Having some mystery can make things more exciting, but too much bogs down the game.
We're essentially in the same place now with the playtest as we were with 4e at the outset: WYTAAs are a thing and everyone knows it, but they're rare enough that you know if you have one you can pull out on any given round without having to check your character sheet. What will keep them from slowing down combat or being unbalancing is not whether or not WYTAA is codified as an action type in the rules, but how well the designers can resist the urge to litter the rules with additional WYTAAs.
My guess is, the rot will set in very quickly.
This is incorrect. There were plenty of things which cost minor actions right from the get-go. In addition to utility powers, there were stances, racial powers, drawing/sheathing items, activating items, opening doors... The extent to which all th
This is incorrect. There were plenty of things which cost minor actions right from the get-go. In addition to utility powers, there were stances, racial powers, drawing/sheathing items, activating items, opening doors... The extent to which all these uses for minor actions led to decision paralysis varied from encounter to encounter and character to character, but the potential was always there, even with just PHB1 content.
Fair enough, there were many actions that cost a minor action in the initial rules set. I would argue, though, that these were not the sort of actions that a player would expect to use on a round-by-round basis. And pretty much all of those minor actions have become Incidental Actions--essentially WYTAAs--in Next.
Fair enough, there were many actions that cost a minor action in the initial rules set. I would argue, though, that these were not the sort of actions that a player would expect to use on a round-by-round basis. And pretty much all of those minor act
This is incorrect. There were plenty of things which cost minor actions right from the get-go. In addition to utility powers, there were stances, racial powers, drawing/sheathing items, activating items, opening doors... The extent to which all these uses for minor actions led to decision paralysis varied from encounter to encounter and character to character, but the potential was always there, even with just PHB1 content.
Fair enough, there were many actions that cost a minor action in the initial rules set. I would argue, though, that these were not the sort of actions that a player would expect to use on a round-by-round basis. And pretty much all of those minor actions have become Incidental Actions--essentially WYTAAs--in Next.
There may be rounds where some characters will not use their minor actions, but for most characters in most fights, there will be plenty of things which take minor actions.
I suspect that the whole Incidental Action mechanic will prove to be very messy. How many Incidental Actions can you stack onto one action? Which Incidental Action features work with which types of actions? Much simpler to have one minor action a round. As I noted above, minor actions are not the main source of decision paralysis and bogged-down encounters; lack of transparency is the number-one cause of decision paralysis, and triggered actions are a bigger slowdown than minor actions.
Now, if they clean up triggered free actions (and no-actions), I'll be a happy camper.
Fair enough, there were many actions that cost a minor action in the initial rules set. I would argue, though, that these were not the sort of actions that a player would expect to use on a round-by-round basis. And pretty much all of those minor act
Action 'conomy
Mitigation or
What will be the deal 
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