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4 months ago ::
Feb 10, 2013 - 5:11AM
#41
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I agree with the OP. Loved MMD when first put up, meaningfull tactical decisions for the fighter to make. Hit harder? Defend more and outlast? Do something tricksy? I sem to remember that some were roll multiple and add, others were roll multiple and pick best (but could be confusing my wishfull thinking with reality). I liked that it gave fighters a resource to manage, and that it was a tactical rather than a strategic resource, so they had meaningfull decisions without being as "long game" as wizards.
I really do not like the mroe recent iterations as much, esp the "refresh on every tick" aspect, takes away from the management aspect.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 10, 2013 - 5:35AM
#42
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Date Joined:
Oct 17, 2007
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Don't thiink I can agree with this. Essentials provied versions of the fighter wihtout AEDU and it's not like it made people embrance 4e which were not playing it already.
I suspect that was a failure of marketing rather than a failure of the concept per se. People who didn't like 4E just didn't look at Essentials. And there was a whole lot of other weirdness going on - worries that Essentials would be "4.5", the huge format changes. So I'd be cautious about the lessons I draw from Essentials' performance.
True. Maybe it was all down to poor marketing and poeple would have actually liked Essentials if it had been presented in different way and at a different time.
Still 5e doesn't follow the route traced by Essentials, so it seems reasonable to assume WotC did their research and ruled it out as a successful approach moving forward.
Problem is the current iteration presents issues which both classic 4e and Essentials had resolved already. Specifically:
1) Requiring to trade-off damage for manouvers leads to marginalising the latter, thus flattening gameplay.
2) The lack of any rationing, constraints or conditionals on the manouvers diminishes their tactical value.
Issue 2) can be tackled as an advanced module, to avoid bearing on those who prefer a more stremlined version of the class.
Issue 1) resolution requires de-coupling damage and manouvers. In its most basic form it could be just allowing the fighter to perform one of its manouvers (or an improvised action) each turn (or round), on top of its normal attacks/reactions allocation.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 10, 2013 - 12:05PM
#43
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Date Joined:
Jun 15, 2008
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The thing that really cracks me up about MDD (or WDD if you would rather) is that you're effectively putting in a system that doesn't, on it's surface, look like 4e martial maneuvers, but in reality, does the exact same thing - it's just a bit more flexible and doesn't rely upon encounter powers or a recharge mechanic, per se.
In other words - you end up with 4E fighter powers without the part of the powers that people objected to.
Carl
Well, you end up with the worst, least interesting and least powerful powers.
But you CAN use them every round!
Yay?
Sounds like a winning design. If I came up with that idea I would push to scrap the current edition to implement it.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 10, 2013 - 2:45PM
#44
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In all honesty I think at-wills only is just too shallow. I understand if people don't want dailies for martial classes, but some sort of lower frequency resource is much needed to provide depth, at least as an advanced module option. That can be either encounter-based, (re)chargeable, conditional, or something else entirely.
Many of the maneuvers are already conditional in that you can only use them under certain circumstances - eg you can only Protect when adjacent to an ally taking melee damage. Expanding "soft" conditions like this, where it's the nature of the maneuver that makes its use rarer, could allow for more powerful and interesting maneuvers. Like, Stun is too powerful an effect for a normal at-will, but maybe a Stunning Riposte could only be use against an enemy whose attack you just Parried on your last reaction.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 10, 2013 - 3:06PM
#45
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Date Joined:
Oct 17, 2007
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Expanding "soft" conditions like this, where it's the nature of the maneuver that makes its use rarer, could allow for more powerful and interesting maneuvers. Like, Stun is too powerful an effect for a normal at-will, but maybe a Stunning Riposte could only be use against an enemy whose attack you just Parried on your last reaction.
Precisely. This is the kind of stuff I'd like to see explored along the playtest. At the moment manouvers are quite bland because of them being inexpensive and spammable. I'd like to see options for more dramatic outcomes, upon placing limitations and constraints on them.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 10, 2013 - 3:17PM
#46
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Expanding "soft" conditions like this, where it's the nature of the maneuver that makes its use rarer, could allow for more powerful and interesting maneuvers. Like, Stun is too powerful an effect for a normal at-will, but maybe a Stunning Riposte could only be use against an enemy whose attack you just Parried on your last reaction.
Precisely. This is the kind of stuff I'd like to see explored along the playtest. At the moment manouvers are quite bland because of them being inexpensive and spammable. I'd like to see options for more dramatic outcomes, upon placing limitations and constraints on them.
I don't mind the inexpensive bit, but the spammable part is certainly a concern. What I'd like to see is that each maneuver's "powered up" version is much more difficult to spam. Perhaps instead of Martial / Weapon Damage Dice being spammable, they take one hit die, a basic (unaltered) attack or a ten minute rest to recover, then all maneuvers would be keyed off the skill die (including a Deadly Strike variant I guess, maybe call it Power Attack or something?), with the option to spend MDD/WDD to make them more powerful. So Whirlwind Strike for instance would be like the 4E At-Will Cleave when you use *just* the skill die, but you can choose to spend your MDD/WDD to hit as many as 7 opponents with one blow. Perhaps your Power Attack adds your skill die in damage normally, but you can choose to spend your MDD/WDD to pile up on the damage.
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