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Feb 13, 2013 -- 12:23PM, jonathan_sicari wrote:

Hey Carl,

I agree with what you said in that other thread.

To modify your example a bit (you specifically where looking for extra movement in yours) let's say our pretty boy elven hero shot someone and moved to the top of the stairs last round (not improbable). Now he wants to move down the stairs and use the volley power to cap a couple more orcs (not a big deal). Decides he wants some flair to his movement so he comes up with the shield surf. I say let him, rule of cool, he's not doing anything he couldn't do anyway.

That is where I tend to do my improvising in combat. 

Agreed.


The key difference is (and this gets back to a post esewhere):  Is the end result something the player could have done more prosaicly - or is the player trying to get away with something the system doesn't normally allow.


If the former - let them do it (kinda  - I'll get back to this one).  If the latter - they should have a downside, a risk to make it worth paying that price.   In another context -  it usually costs an action to get advantage (at least up till level 9).  You can pay that by spending an actual action (hide one round, attack the next) OR you can pay that by gambling your action (risk losing the action for a chance at getting advantage).


Now - back to the 'let them do it', 'rule of cool' issue.  I'm a bit conflicted and here it depends on your players.  Players like to roll dice.  Players like to succeed at challenging tasks.  Players like to see character creation choices validated.  Sometimes succeeding without challenge is boring.


For these reasons I actually think that if a character wants to do something 'cool' - it is actually more fun to roll the dice and hope you make it.   Granted, to some degree this depends on the player - some see their characters as 'grand heroes' and thus entitled to be super cool, all the time, and some see their characters as more 'run of the mill' - and thus expect them to struggle a bit more.

In either case - if the end result could have been reached through ordinary means there should be no real cost:  whether you succeed or fail the check, you end up in roughly the same place - the check is just to see with how much style you get there.  I'm just not convinced that automatically succeeding is always the most fun (as we saw with the rogue a few packets back).


To bring this back on target:  How might one allow 'stunts' with the Heal skill?  Is it reasonable to allow players to attempt to heal a character above and beyond what a healing kit allows - with the understanding that a quack doctor always has a chance of doing more harm than good?


Carl

Feb 13, 2013 -- 12:41PM, jonathan_sicari wrote:

I can see that, I guess. Part of it for me though is, while I like my hit probability high, I personally am not fond of rolling more dice (its the heart of my problem with the advantage/disadvantage mechanic).  If I have to roll something extra for something meaningless (going down the freaking stairs), I'm going to skip it in the interest of speeding up gameplay.

tangental combat rant Show

This is part of my problem with the speed of combat in DDN right now, the combats are so fast they don't feel meaningful. They feel like filler, there is no meat to them. Part of that is also in monster design so I really want Mike and co. to start prioritizing there.

 

You lost me.

1)  You don't want to roll dice in the interest of speeding up gameplay.

2)  Combats are so fast, they don't feel meaningful.

These seem contradictory.  I'll be the first to agree that #1 is a natural reaction to 4E (and to 3E with some mixes of characters - especially menageries).  But the simplistic response is:  Maybe you should start rolling some more dice in the interests of slowing down gameplay - and see if that helps with issue #2.

That said - I'm probably with you on the whole monster design issue.  But that gets even further off topic than we already are.....


Carl