In response to some of the ideas in this thread, I have never been a fan of AOO.


To allow Fighters to protect people, I prefer the following.


An Adjacent Fighter should provide some AC boost to the person he is protecting.

When an enemy ignores an adjacent fighter (does not attack the fighter, or attacks the protected ally)

The fighter should get a huge bonus to hit, and huge bonus to damage, the next time he attacks the enemy that ignored him.

Quote from: Telarus;570372I'll preface with: I totally respect your opinions there. The following are simply opinions also.



(Still holds true with ED3e) Sure, I said they were parallel concepts, not identical ones. I personally prefer the daily refresh time-frame (and the time-cost of a half-hour to perform the ritual) as Karma is an actual resource you have to manage over the course of an adventure.

I rewrote that response, but I left out that from an outsiders PoV 'refreshing on a daily timeframe' sounds like you get it all back everyday, when in ED it doesn't work that way.

Quote from: Telarus;570372I see CS dice as part of the same shift in focus as D&D3.x/4e's "Encounter basis" (moving away from managing strategic resources into purely short-term tactical play), even though "the Adventure" (or "the adventuring day") was supposed to be the focus of D&D Next.

D&D has always been based around short term tactical play, why spells are daily, why other abilities are mostly x/day(yes some are x/week).  

Quote from: Telarus;570372Let's just say that I don't agree with your second point, ED2e play was definitely different mechanically from ED1e (especially with a group of 8-9th Circle Adepts). Some of the ED3e changes were more radical (like the new Advancement system), but IMO that was a good evolution of the game system (it addressed the "cookie cutter Adept" syndrome).

Yes 2E was different, but the differences were minor compared to all of the changes 3E made.  It parallels what happened in D&D between 1,2,&3E.  I really didn't like that atmosphere coming from RB(more the 'fans' then RB, though they really didn't discourage it).  

Quote from: Telarus;570372Also, having spoken briefly with Lou Prosperi about the events of Barsaive At War/Barsaive in Chaos, I don't agree with how LRG handled the FASA notes for that portion of the timeline (and neither did my players, although at the time we didn't have anything else to compare it to, so were unsure why it didn't "feel quite right" when we played through both books).

[Note, this discussion happened on a dev forum and is probably covered under my NDA... although I fairly sure Lou has made similar comments in pulbic, so if I find an open discussion with the same points I'd be willing to discuss it further. ]

Thanks, tho!

It's always nice to hear that someone _likes_ playing Earthdawn (no matter which edition).

Never been a fan of modules, but I really like how LRG did Barsaive At War/Barsaive in Chaos.  Wish all modules were done like that.

Quote from: Opaopajr;570401I say this because I dig OgreBattle's ideas and think we could implement several of those maneuvers by ruling Called Shots this way and using other available maneuvers like Hold Action, Parry, Full Parry, etc in dynamic combinations.
....
All interesting ideas and I think doable without new mechanics if we cleaned up presentation of already available mechanics and figured new ways to combine them. It would be something I would find preferable to fiddling with new dice pools and Powers and POW meters and the like.

Yeah, I think that's the crux of it. A lot of the things I've listed have already been done before in older editions, it's just not explicitely stated or it's scattered about. If... if they could just organize it as neatly and succinctly as spell lists are done (but put it in different borders or something to make it visually look different and more fighty, like a diagram that radiates out, with 'poise' in the middle)

Quote from: Marleycat;570411I approve of OB's ideas but then again I find myself in agreement with a majority of his ideas concerning 3x. At least until he does what I did and just move on to Fantasy Craft. Because it's already done and proven to work.

Thanks!
I've moved in the opposte direction and am playing Adventurer Conquerer King right now. It's play by post so expedience in combat is preferable.

I've just read the rules for combat superiority in the new playtest packet and I'm disappointed.

First off I don't approve of classes being given abilities that should be possible for any class to attempt. IMO the actions and effects granted by the manoeuvres Knock Down, Push, Parry and Tumble should be available for all characters to attempt. The only difference should be that some classes might be better at it than others. If one of my players (playing a cleric, a rogue or even a wizard) states that as part of his melee attack he'd like to try to push his enemy back, move through his enemies space to get behind or knock his enemy down I will reply with, "yes you can try that and this is what you have do do ... " I will not reply with, "no, only fighters can do that." Nor will I tolerate the player of the fighter complaining that only he is allowed to do such things, because he's got words on his character sheet that say as much.

Secondly, I can't quite figure out why the expertise die mechanic even exists. Take cleave for instance (sorry, I don't think the terms of the playtest agreement allow me to post the text from cleave), it allows you to "spend" your expertise die to attack another enemy when you have dropped another. It could well be written like this:

Cleave                  Fighter Utility
At-Will * Martial, Combat Manoeuvre
Free Action              Personal
Trigger: You reduce a creature to 0 hit points or fewer.
Effect: You make a melee attack on a creature within your reach.

Spending the die is surpluss to requirements.

Deadly strike allows you to spend your dice to deal extra damage. It could well be written like this:

Deadly Strike                  Fighter Utility
At-Will * Martial, Combat Manoeuvre
Free Action              Personal
Trigger: You hit a creature with a succesful weapon attack.
Effect: You deal 1d6 extra damage.
  Level 3: 1d8 extra damage.
  Level 5: 2d8 extra damage.

Spending the dice is pretty much surplus to requirements.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;570359sometimes I want comprehensive, but the longer I have been gaming the more I really just want some light rules and rough guidelines. Totally fine with different Gms amd groups implementing those rough guidelines in different ways. I just find it frees the game up to focus more on other things. I think there is room for both approaches though. I'd rather have a wide selection of rules heavy, rules light and medium games than have a single approach in terms of how these things are handled in all games.

In a game I was dming yesterday I experienced a great example of game mechanics getting in the way of the actual game.

I was using a battlemap (That was my first mistake, but the players like using the map)

The plot was a duel between two members of a tribe to determine who would be chief. Started out with great roleplay.

Then the game mechanics ganked the roleplay.

The player starts wracking his brain how to squeeze bonuses from the battlemap and lapsed into gamespeak about aoo, reach weapons, flanking, flatfootedness, etc...etc...etc...

Totally ruined the roleplay flow.

And that's why I prefer rules light systems.

A rules light system lets you keep playing without 'attack of the gamespeak'

Right after the duel was resolved, the game flowed back into excellent roleplay.




"Conan slashes with his broadsword, brutally cutting down his enemy"
VS
"Conan might use power attack, but that could make his secondary attack miss, so maybe Conan will take a 5 foot step back, or charge, but wait, might lose his full attack....etc...etc..."



While the game session was great fun, and roleplay heavy, the lapse into "game mechanics mode" added nothing to the fun factor.


Rules light for the win.

Quote from: Orpheo;571157First off I don't approve of classes being given abilities that should be possible for any class to attempt. IMO the actions and effects granted by the manoeuvres Knock Down, Push, Parry and Tumble should be available for all characters to attempt. The only difference should be that some classes might be better at it than others. If one of my players (playing a cleric, a rogue or even a wizard) states that as part of his melee attack he'd like to try to push his enemy back, move through his enemies space to get behind or knock his enemy down I will reply with, "yes you can try that and this is what you have do do ... " I will not reply with, "no, only fighters can do that." Nor will I tolerate the player of the fighter complaining that only he is allowed to do such things, because he's got words on his character sheet that say as much.

Couldn't agree more. Chapeau, mate.

:hatsoff:

Quote from: Orpheo;571157Deadly Strike                  Fighter Utility
At-Will * Martial, Combat Manoeuvre
Free Action              Personal
Trigger: You hit a creature with a succesful weapon attack.
Effect: You deal 1d6 extra damage.
  Level 3: 1d8 extra damage.
  Level 5: 2d8 extra damage.

Spending the dice is pretty much surplus to requirements.

My reading of the expertise dice is that you don't have to spend them all at once.  So say you're level 5 and have 2d8 expertise dice.  You could spend 1d8 on deadly strike to kill an opponent, and then the other d8 to activate cleave

Quote from: Sacrosanct;571237My reading of the expertise dice is that you don't have to spend them all at once.  So say you're level 5 and have 2d8 expertise dice.  You could spend 1d8 on deadly strike to kill an opponent, and then the other d8 to activate cleave

You are correct and I understood that before my post, but even that could be simply given as a number of uses per turn rather than a number of dice to spend. The dice are an unnecessary addition.

Quote from: Bill;571209A rules light system lets you keep playing without 'attack of the gamespeak'

Yarp. Without all the  jargon, players just actually relate what they are doing-what a concept!

I actually love detailed tactical combats when playing systems designed to handle them such as GURPS. Applying that level of crunch fixation on a combat system as abstract at its core as D&D is silly.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;571657Yarp. Without all the  jargon, players just actually relate what they are doing-what a concept!

I actually love detailed tactical combats when playing systems designed to handle them such as GURPS. Applying that level of crunch fixation on a combat system as abstract at its core as D&D is silly.

This is kind of how I feel about it. I prefer to have one or the other, not a mix of the two.

Quote from: Bill;571209"Conan might use power attack, but that could make his secondary attack miss, so maybe Conan will take a 5 foot step back, or charge, but wait, might lose his full attack....etc...etc..."

While the game session was great fun, and roleplay heavy, the lapse into "game mechanics mode" added nothing to the fun factor.

Rules light for the win.

Yeah. Magic users could really be improved if their world of warcraft toolbar (9 tiers of spells? HOW many spells per level? HOW many supplements?! fucking endless!) was just plain removed.
Like Shield, Blur, Mirror Image, Mage Armor, those are all basically "I am tougher to hit". Just give a generic boost and let the players flavor it as they want.
Or fireball and sleep. Both are spells that take people out. Do they really need to be different spells? No, it's just "game mechanics mode" that takes you from just roleplaying

What is the anti-fun of RPG's? Rules lawyers. How do you get rid of them? Take away their precious 'rules' and force them to 'role'.

Quote from: OgreBattle;571659Yeah. Magic users could really be improved if their world of warcraft toolbar (9 tiers of spells? HOW many spells per level? HOW many supplements?! fucking endless!) was just plain removed.
Like Shield, Blur, Mirror Image, Mage Armor, those are all basically "I am tougher to hit". Just give a generic boost and let the players flavor it as they want.
Or fireball and sleep. Both are spells that take people out. Do they really need to be different spells? No, it's just "game mechanics mode" that takes you from just roleplaying

What is the anti-fun of RPG's? Rules lawyers. How do you get rid of them? Take away their precious 'rules' and force them to 'role'.

I definitely can get behind this there are way too many spells that could be combined into one spell and if you want some granularity just use dice thresholds like Mage or other games. Shadowrun goes the right direction in that alot of the spells are multifunctional it's still too many but it is far better than any version of Dnd has ever done past 1e at best.