Quote from: cavalier973 on July 04, 2021, 02:42:56 PM
An explanation for martial dailies that I liked was they are narrative-based powers.

If you've ever watched Voltron, you know that when the big fight occurs, Voltron will spend some time shooting rockets and lasers, and wrestling around with the monster robot of the day, but that eventually Voltron is going to be pushed into a corner, so to speak, at which point he pulls out the big honkin' sword and slices the monster in half. Every single time.

The 4ighter has a similar situation. He only pulls off this amazing daily-use power when it makes sense narratively. Maybe that is at the first of the fight, to put the fear into the enemy. Maybe it is in the middle of the fight, to allow the team to back up and refresh. Maybe it is when the fighter is the last one standing. Maybe the team has had a curb stomp battle, and the fighter wants to perform an over-the-top maneuver to end the fight. The story is emergent, and all that jazz.

The fighter doesn't keep spamming brutal strike because he can't, but because the narrative dictates that this is his big trick, to wow the observer and cause the team to cheer. Something like that.

As much as I generally like 4E (it's by far my favorite edition of D&D) the "narrative" element was something I always hated. "Narrative" is the story you tell AFTER the adventure is over. Sometimes it's heroic, sometimes a comedy, sometimes a tragedy and sometimes it's a "day in the life" documentary.

Basically... Games are not stories, but stories can be told about games. Trying to force narrative-based abilities (unless you're running a genre-savy PC in a Discworld game) into a game doesn't actually make the resulting stories any better, it just forces you out of your character's head in terms of your choices and, in a sense, reinforces the bad writing tropes like saving your best weapon (that doesn't even have unlimited shots) until the end of a fight in order to produce drama (instead of "why didn't they just bring out the sword to begin with?").

Which was why in my "question everything"* approach to building a 4E spiritual successor the narrative aspect of power use was one of the first cows slaughtered. I'll take a "gas tank" approach to limited ability use any time; it's far easier to justify without meta-mechanics and so doesn't result in stepping out of character to use them.

* one thing that really struck me in reading about the development of 4E was their insistence that they "question everything" about D&D's mechanics and not be afraid to slaughter sacred cows if you could find a better way to do something.

I have no way of knowing how true it actually was or if it was just promotional rhetoric, but the sentiment was close enough to Thomas Jefferson's "Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear" that I made it my mantra in starting from 4E and asking whether every mechanic was the best it could be.

Some were. Many weren't. Others had approaches that were neither better nor worse just different and is why I ended up with a rather section on optional rules in my game.

I see 4E as a product that would've succeeded if:

(a) They had kept a more traditional presentation format
(b) The game did more to distinguish between different classes/power sources.

In terms of actual rules changes I think Essentials kind of tries to tackle (b) but I'm pretty fuzzy on all of 4E and by the time Essentials rolled out my attention had already waned.

It wouldn't be hard to make some meaningful differences between different power sources, like a Martial character could attempt to use an expended Daily power again at the cost of Healing Surge(s), recharge with other mechanics, or otherwise distinguish between a Fighter & Wizard.

Quote from: cavalier973 on July 04, 2021, 02:42:56 PM
An explanation for martial dailies that I liked was they are narrative-based powers.

If you've ever watched Voltron, you know that when the big fight occurs, Voltron will spend some time shooting rockets and lasers, and wrestling around with the monster robot of the day, but that eventually Voltron is going to be pushed into a corner, so to speak, at which point he pulls out the big honkin' sword and slices the monster in half. Every single time.

The 4ighter has a similar situation. He only pulls off this amazing daily-use power when it makes sense narratively. Maybe that is at the first of the fight, to put the fear into the enemy. Maybe it is in the middle of the fight, to allow the team to back up and refresh. Maybe it is when the fighter is the last one standing. Maybe the team has had a curb stomp battle, and the fighter wants to perform an over-the-top maneuver to end the fight. The story is emergent, and all that jazz.

The fighter doesn't keep spamming brutal strike because he can't, but because the narrative dictates that this is his big trick, to wow the observer and cause the team to cheer. Something like that.

It does make sense to me as a narrative thing

Quote from: cavalier973 on July 04, 2021, 02:42:56 PM
An explanation for martial dailies that I liked was they are narrative-based powers.

If you've ever watched Voltron, you know that when the big fight occurs, Voltron will spend some time shooting rockets and lasers, and wrestling around with the monster robot of the day, but that eventually Voltron is going to be pushed into a corner, so to speak, at which point he pulls out the big honkin' sword and slices the monster in half. Every single time.

The 4ighter has a similar situation. He only pulls off this amazing daily-use power when it makes sense narratively. Maybe that is at the first of the fight, to put the fear into the enemy. Maybe it is in the middle of the fight, to allow the team to back up and refresh. Maybe it is when the fighter is the last one standing. Maybe the team has had a curb stomp battle, and the fighter wants to perform an over-the-top maneuver to end the fight. The story is emergent, and all that jazz.

The fighter doesn't keep spamming brutal strike because he can't, but because the narrative dictates that this is his big trick, to wow the observer and cause the team to cheer. Something like that.

And it's become a joke where people ask why Voltron doesn't lead with the Sword attack.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on July 04, 2021, 05:39:17 PM

And it's become a joke where people ask why Voltron doesn't lead with the Sword attack.

And all kinds of RPGs in the 90s and aughts had mechanisms to emulate something like that, often a meter blatantly stolen from video games. Thrash is one example.

But while I know very little about 4e, that doesn't sound much like their encounter powers.

Quote"Narrative" is the story you tell AFTER the adventure is over.

That is kind of what I was trying to say. The player whips out Brutal Strike because of game reasons. The *character* says, after the battle, that he used that technique at that time because he thought the wizard was about to bite it, or that he wanted to show the goblin chief what sort of threat he was facing, or whatever.

There are powers in 4e that change the story after the fact. The Staff of Defense feature for core wizards allows the player to tell the DM that the attack, as it turns out, didn't succeed. The wizard character's player can do this after the damage has been announced.

Quote from: cavalier973 on July 04, 2021, 08:18:36 PM
There are powers in 4e that change the story after the fact. The Staff of Defense feature for core wizards allows the player to tell the DM that the attack, as it turns out, didn't succeed. The wizard character's player can do this after the damage has been announced.

Man I used to hate those reverse time reactions in 4e

Quote from: Shasarak on July 04, 2021, 08:51:46 PM

Quote from: cavalier973 on July 04, 2021, 08:18:36 PM
There are powers in 4e that change the story after the fact. The Staff of Defense feature for core wizards allows the player to tell the DM that the attack, as it turns out, didn't succeed. The wizard character's player can do this after the damage has been announced.

Man I used to hate those reverse time reactions in 4e

Definitely a "Only players should have this" feature.

Quote from: Shasarak on July 04, 2021, 08:51:46 PM

Quote from: cavalier973 on July 04, 2021, 08:18:36 PM
There are powers in 4e that change the story after the fact. The Staff of Defense feature for core wizards allows the player to tell the DM that the attack, as it turns out, didn't succeed. The wizard character's player can do this after the damage has been announced.

Man I used to hate those reverse time reactions in 4e

Aren't all reactions timed?? A 5E's shield spell function AFTER being hit by an attack, so a when damage is rolled simultaneously with attack roll, it functions the same.

Or 3.5's Immediate Magic feature where the Conjurer can use Abrupt Jaunt, teleporting 10-ft away when attacked or the Abjurer's Urgent Shield (functions like the 5e shield spell).

These are issues too?

Quote from: Batman on July 04, 2021, 09:06:56 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on July 04, 2021, 08:51:46 PM

Quote from: cavalier973 on July 04, 2021, 08:18:36 PM
There are powers in 4e that change the story after the fact. The Staff of Defense feature for core wizards allows the player to tell the DM that the attack, as it turns out, didn't succeed. The wizard character's player can do this after the damage has been announced.

Man I used to hate those reverse time reactions in 4e

Aren't all reactions timed?? A 5E's shield spell function AFTER being hit by an attack, so a when damage is rolled simultaneously with attack roll, it functions the same.

Or 3.5's Immediate Magic feature where the Conjurer can use Abrupt Jaunt, teleporting 10-ft away when attacked or the Abjurer's Urgent Shield (functions like the 5e shield spell).

These are issues too?

Yeah but technically you don't roll damage at the same time. The order goes:

Roll attack -> determine roll total -> announce success/failure -> roll result occurs.

Shield happens in step 2 at some tables (open rolling), and at step 3 at some other tables (secret rolling).

Only after ALL that do you roll damage.

4E has a lot of conditional effects to the point where action #1 occurs, you trigger a reaction #2, the enemy has an effect that happens based on your reaction #3, your ally can interrupt the enemy #4, which triggers a mark #5...

All of a sudden you're 10 levels deep and you're waking up in a bathtub full of ice in Mexico wondering whose turn it is.

Quote from: Zelen on July 05, 2021, 01:10:49 AM
4E has a lot of conditional effects to the point where action #1 occurs, you trigger a reaction #2, the enemy has an effect that happens based on your reaction #3, your ally can interrupt the enemy #4, which triggers a mark #5...

All of a sudden you're 10 levels deep and you're waking up in a bathtub full of ice in Mexico wondering whose turn it is.

Yes, this.

It makes 5e Shield look like childs play.

Quote from: Batman on July 04, 2021, 10:12:48 AM"Why can't my Fighter action surge at-will? Because it would break the game." IS a viable reason why it's not something they can do all the time. It doesn't make RL sense, but then D&D isn't supposed to mirror or mimic real life. What my issue is, that people are fine to overlook the dozens of ways in which non-magic classes have daily/rest limitations on their abilities BUT weren't able to do that with 4E.

I couldn't get past the arbitrary limits on daily powers.  If something is what it is for gamist or narrative reasons, but there isn't any in-setting explanation for why it should be so, then the game just gets a "no" from me.

Quote from: Mishihari on July 05, 2021, 02:33:39 AM

Quote from: Batman on July 04, 2021, 10:12:48 AM"Why can't my Fighter action surge at-will? Because it would break the game." IS a viable reason why it's not something they can do all the time. It doesn't make RL sense, but then D&D isn't supposed to mirror or mimic real life. What my issue is, that people are fine to overlook the dozens of ways in which non-magic classes have daily/rest limitations on their abilities BUT weren't able to do that with 4E.

I couldn't get past the arbitrary limits on daily powers.  If something is what it is for gamist or narrative reasons, but there isn't any in-setting explanation for why it should be so, then the game just gets a "no" from me.

So, then all of WotC versions of D&D?

Quote from: Zelen on July 05, 2021, 01:10:49 AM
4E has a lot of conditional effects to the point where action #1 occurs, you trigger a reaction #2, the enemy has an effect that happens based on your reaction #3, your ally can interrupt the enemy #4, which triggers a mark #5...

All of a sudden you're 10 levels deep and you're waking up in a bathtub full of ice in Mexico wondering whose turn it is.

Eh, can it do that...sure, but I don't think it's very common in play. Not all monsters have loads of immediate reactions, and the ones that do are still pretty limited. But I do get the gist. In my games, I narrate things after the turn so when something is crazy like that it at least paints a pretty cool picture.