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7 months ago ::
Nov 15, 2012 - 2:00PM
#1
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It seems that Expertise is the new "go to" foundation for martial classes. I think this is a sad cop out and leads to the problems of blandness and class overlap. Not to mention the multiclassing issues. Fighter/Rogue? Rogue/Monk? 2d4 is better than 1d6. Fighter/Rogue/Monk gets you 3d4 which is better than 2d6, etc.
Lets take Monk off the ED train and exploit what monks are best at: Movement and Combos.
Lets give monks extra movement. Say 5' per level. Then make combo actions cost movement*.
Flurry of Blows Combo is now: Spend 20' of movement to make an extra attack.
Whirlwind Strike is now: Spend 20' of movement to turn your attack into an attack against all enemies in range.
Hurricane Strike is now: Spend 10' of movment to empower a hit to also knockdown/knockback an enemy.
Then it also naturally feeds into monk defenses.
Deflect Missiles: When a ranged weapon is used against you, you may "spend" 10' movement to gain +1 to AC against the attack. You may spend up to your max movement to increase your AC further up to a max of +X.**
Retaliate: When a melee attack misses a monk they may spend 20' of movement to deal half attack damage to the attacker.**
Disengage: Spend 25' of movement to double the distance you can travel while disengaging.
Add it directly to non-combat skills. Spend movement to jump higher/further. Spend movement to gain bonuses to balance or climb.
*Arbitrary numbers used here to show how the mechanic would work, exact numbers would require balance and testing.
**Movement spent in this way is deducted from your movement during your next turn.
The net effect is that monks become defined by their mystical unarmed strikes, flavorful discipline based defenses, and truly insane amounts of movement based combos.
Fighter/Monk now becomes a meaningful foundation for a dervish/"tempest".
Rogue/Monk is now a foundation for a cat burglar (skill focus) or ninja (assassination focus).
Obviously I haven't gone into depth as to the consequences of additional full actions in 5e. Perhaps extra attacks are made with disadvantage or some other penalty. The point is, ED is a scaling resource that has almost no monkly flavor. Movement, on the other hand, has Monk flavor in spades. It also meshes with playing a monk by allowing the PC to adapt to the flow of combat differently than a Fighter. A fighter is versatile in discreet increments of random intensity. The monk becomes versatile in variable increments of fixed intensity.
Additionally, you can then group "combos" into Monastic Traditions and create a monk theme or focus. All monks may share some benefits, but the whole thing about being a monk is spending your whole life mastering a single technique at a time. Do I need a buffet of "maneuvers" to chose from? Or does the monastery i've chosen naturally focus my efforts? Monk schools can then be modified like specialties.
Ready, set, flame!
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7 months ago ::
Nov 15, 2012 - 2:44PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2010
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I think this is a sad cop out
So, because something is awesome and works well, using it for more things is bad.
Uh...
D&D Next = D&D: Quantum Edition
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7 months ago ::
Nov 15, 2012 - 3:03PM
#3
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Date Joined:
May 19, 2011
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While I was annoed at first that the Fighter's unique feature is egtting passed out to other martial classes, Expertise Dice are actually one of the most interesting ideas they've introduced to D&DNext so far. If they can place it into other classes without trying to force it where it doens't belong, and we do get some non-XD mechanic for martial characters, I see no issue with it.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 15, 2012 - 3:12PM
#4
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I think having a third "Expertise" class is more of a reason for caution. The 4E Virtual Tabletop Beta and the Book of Vile Darkness movie, these were sad cop outs. I think 4E suffered from having too similar class progression. Everyone got new things in exactly the same way and same order. ANd depending on your role you got a healing, marking, or damage mechanic. That did lessen with Essentials and the Rise of Themes. But I still feel that right now, the Rogue and Fighter don't feel unique enough because they both use maneuvers. I haven't used the Monk yet, but per the last L&L its supposed to push how maneuvers are used. I
I think we need to hear from more people who are playing both rogues and fighters. If you're not you should be. Are people houseruling sneak attack, or giving Parry out for free? At my game I've had to do both of these things to make it feel right.
DMAIA: DMs Against Immediate Actions - Turning 6 seconds into 15 minutes since 2008.
Vampire Class/Specialty in 2013!
Wizard: I cast Burning Hands.
Rogue: I grab a torch and a can of hairspray.
I prefer Next because 4E players and CharOpers can't find their ass without a grid and a power called "Find Ass."
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7 months ago ::
Nov 15, 2012 - 3:13PM
#5
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I think this is a sad cop out
So, because something is awesome and works well, using it for more things is bad.
Uh...
Good edit. The email notice of response had you asking for my suggestion as if the entire body of my post wasn't one. I was so confused!
I love expertise dice. I don't think using them outside of Fighter is bad. However, do you think using them as the class-defining combat mechanic of every martial class is good?
1) Homogeneity of mechanics doesn't make sense. Clerics don't use the Arcane Spellcasting mechanics because their power doesn't come from studying the underlying magic of the universe, it comes from devotion to a particular god who has a domain. Rogue abilities are supposedly based on talent and techniques, not discipline or study, so spellbooks and domains don't make sense for them.
2) Monks aren't unarmed Fighters. Rogues aren't skill-checking Fighters. Monks and Rogues, conceptually, have plenty to differentiate them from Fighters. 4E had the obnoxious habit of having a bajillion powers that did the same thing, and the Sneak Attack + Deadly Strike dilemma is already showing that Expertise Dice will produce the same results.
3) Lets fulfill the hyperbolic slippery slope fallacy. If it works so well, why not use it for everything? Spend an expertise dice to cast a prepared spell. Roll expertise dice to add damage or healing to an at-will spell. Just because it "could" work everywhere doesn't mean it belongs everywhere.
All I'm saying is Expertise dice are now the defining combat mechanic of 3/5 "core" classes (as of this playtest). And it's starting to make my spidey-senses tingle. What's that age old wisdom? If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail?
There's plenty of room for innovative game mechanics that preserve uniqueness between core classes without recycling mechanics (even if the mechanic in question is quite good).
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7 months ago ::
Nov 15, 2012 - 3:20PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Oct 16, 2008
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Using movement for combos actually would give you the opposite of what you wanted, and allow for some rather strange things to happen.
First of all, instead of making a more mobile class, spending movement would make them less likely to move as standing still they can attack and defend better. Also using the 5ft per level (which I understand is an arbitrary number, but it is also the smallest possible increment to use when dealing 5 ft squares) gives a level 10 monk an additional 50 feet of movement, for a total of 75 to 80 feet of movement. Divide by 5, 16 squares in one move, 32 if they double move. I believe this would be the largest movement speed ever seen in DnD and is only 1/2 of the final total by level 20. It might not break the game, but it would make it child's play for the monk to get wherever he needed to be, and then he would simply stand there and use his massive movement number to power-up offence and defence.
Exerpertise dice work perfectly fine for the monk, who also has ki, in fact my only class expertise situation to complain about is the rogue. I works for monks and fighter's and will probably work well for paladins and ranger's too
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7 months ago ::
Nov 15, 2012 - 4:38PM
#7
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Using movement for combos actually would give you the opposite of what you wanted, and allow for some rather strange things to happen.
First of all, instead of making a more mobile class, spending movement would make them less likely to move as standing still they can attack and defend better. Also using the 5ft per level (which I understand is an arbitrary number, but it is also the smallest possible increment to use when dealing 5 ft squares) gives a level 10 monk an additional 50 feet of movement, for a total of 75 to 80 feet of movement. Divide by 5, 16 squares in one move, 32 if they double move. I believe this would be the largest movement speed ever seen in DnD and is only 1/2 of the final total by level 20. It might not break the game, but it would make it child's play for the monk to get wherever he needed to be, and then he would simply stand there and use his massive movement number to power-up offence and defence.
Exerpertise dice work perfectly fine for the monk, who also has ki, in fact my only class expertise situation to complain about is the rogue. I works for monks and fighter's and will probably work well for paladins and ranger's too
Thanks! That's the kinda feedback I was looking for.
The double move thing does get rediculous. 
Back to the drawing board!
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7 months ago ::
Nov 15, 2012 - 5:42PM
#8
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Date Joined:
Nov 13, 2001
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I really think wizards should be the only class that gets spells. That should be their thing!! Silly right!!
Let martial classes have expertise just as said above make sure the classes still have other stuff too. The monk seems a good example of mixing the two at the moment
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7 months ago ::
Nov 15, 2012 - 8:10PM
#9
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Date Joined:
May 26, 2012
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Actually the expertise dice work very well for the monk. Even better then the rogue.
Personally I think that it should be common for all of the 'martial' classes. The fighter should however get larger dice than the other classes.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 15, 2012 - 8:46PM
#10
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Date Joined:
Oct 16, 2008
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Good edit. The email notice of response had you asking for my suggestion as if the entire body of my post wasn't one. I was so confused!
I love expertise dice. I don't think using them outside of Fighter is bad. However, do you think using them as the class-defining combat mechanic of every martial class is good?
1) Homogeneity of mechanics doesn't make sense. Clerics don't use the Arcane Spellcasting mechanics because their power doesn't come from studying the underlying magic of the universe, it comes from devotion to a particular god who has a domain. Rogue abilities are supposedly based on talent and techniques, not discipline or study, so spellbooks and domains don't make sense for them.
2) Monks aren't unarmed Fighters. Rogues aren't skill-checking Fighters. Monks and Rogues, conceptually, have plenty to differentiate them from Fighters. 4E had the obnoxious habit of having a bajillion powers that did the same thing, and the Sneak Attack + Deadly Strike dilemma is already showing that Expertise Dice will produce the same results.
3) Lets fulfill the hyperbolic slippery slope fallacy. If it works so well, why not use it for everything? Spend an expertise dice to cast a prepared spell. Roll expertise dice to add damage or healing to an at-will spell. Just because it "could" work everywhere doesn't mean it belongs everywhere.
All I'm saying is Expertise dice are now the defining combat mechanic of 3/5 "core" classes (as of this playtest). And it's starting to make my spidey-senses tingle. What's that age old wisdom? If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail?
There's plenty of room for innovative game mechanics that preserve uniqueness between core classes without recycling mechanics (even if the mechanic in question is quite good).
1) I have to apoligize for giggling a little here. Clerics do use the arcane spellcasting system with only minor tweaks. Don't believe me? Look at the wizard's spells per day list and the cleric's. There are no differences on those tables. Other than replacing "studying" with "praying" (and being a college student I don't see the difference here at all  ) their spell preparation is nearly identical. In fact, other than three things their magic systems are identical. The first and most obvious is that spells are not lost when a cleric casts, only the slot is used up. Second, clerics do not lose concentration when taking damage. Finally, wizards cannot cast in armor. What makes the biggest difference is not the mechanics of the sytem used, but the abilities within the system. Now, sorcerers and warlocks seem like they might use completely different systems, but clerics and wizards are fighting from the same set of rules.
2) I agree that deadly strike and sneak attack are bad as they stand. Way too similiar. However, the monk renews my hope in the manuver system with some very unique capabilities. Hurrican Strike and Iron Root Defense are unlike most other manuvers. As long as the system offers each class solid and unique choices then there won't be any issues. If they don't I won't blame the system, I'll blame poor design of abilities. If we can have enitre books of unique spells I'm sure we can come up with 30 or 40 unique manuevers, heck the community has already written seven different sneak attacks to replace the one we have.
3)You are right, just because it can be used for every single class doesn't mean it should be. However, if all magical classes are using the same basic framework for their abilities why shouldn't martial classes use the same basic framework for some of their abilities. Give all martial classes a manuever system and all magic classes a spellcasting system. And before people start railing about the homogenization of the classes hear me out. All martial classes should logically be able to do some similiar things. After all if we somehow took a Marine, a Seal, a KGB officer, a SS soldier, a Spartan, and a Knight and compared them, there would be some basic things they could all do in a very similiar manner. If all martial classes get a manuever system and something else then they all feel like they are better fighters than the spellcasters and they also (if the "something else" is done properly) will feel different from each other. This could work out very very well... or die in a horrible firey crash, but I'm a bit of an optimist.
I don't see this as a recycling of a mechanic, I see this as something completely new that helps a long-standing problem in DnD. How do we make the martial characters feel as awesome and complex as the spellcasting characters. Manuevers might revolutionize DnD, but let's stay cautiously optimistic... just in case they mess it up
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