Quote from: Peregrin;546424Well, if you're a trained fighter, repeating certain maneuvers is usually to be avoided if you want to keep your opponent on their toes.

Yeah but that shouldn't translate into once an encounter or once a day (or twice a day). Stuff that is difficult to land should be more about opportunity or taking a penalty when the opportunity isn't present. I should at least be able to attempt it.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;546508Yeah but that shouldn't translate into once an encounter or once a day (or twice a day). Stuff that is difficult to land should be more about opportunity or taking a penalty when the opportunity isn't present. I should at least be able to attempt it.

Totally agree the awesome fighter should be able to do a move and hit you then when you know he is going to do it again cos you have seen it already he still hits you and then the thrid time when you have worked out what he is doing and how to counter it he still hits you....

Quote from: jibbajibba;546521Totally agree the awesome fighter should be able to do a move and hit you then when you know he is going to do it again cos you have seen it already he still hits you and then the thrid time when you have worked out what he is doing and how to counter it he still hits you....

This is why you impose a penalty if the target is presenting the condition for the power. I can only draw on my experience from martial arts (which I know isn't the same as a medieval sword fight), but to me it just doesn't make sense to limit an attack to once an encounter or once a day (and even if it did those limits dont line up well with the opponent wising up---why cant you use it on a different opponent in the same encounter?). And just because someone figures out a defense against something that doesn't mean you can't land it again. It may get harder but not impossible. A lot of the time the opponent never even figures out how to handle the attack (that is usually why it works in the firstplace---its a weak spot in is game and he isn't going to develop the skill there on the spot). If you want to simulate the learning curve, then give the target a bonus to his ac against the manuever after the first use or give the attacker a penalty. But limiting it to flat 1/encounter or day makes a bput as much sense as a boxer only being able to land a single overhand right in a boxing round or entire fight.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;546508Yeah but that shouldn't translate into once an encounter or once a day (or twice a day). Stuff that is difficult to land should be more about opportunity or taking a penalty when the opportunity isn't present. I should at least be able to attempt it.

(1) There's no reason Kobe Bryant can't attempt to dunk every time he goes to the basket.

(2) So why doesn't he?

(3) Because that isn't an ideal scoring method every time he gets the ball.

You can attempt to address that issue by adding an arbitrary and dissociated mechanic (he can only use his "dunk" ability once per game or once per period or it needs to recharge for 10 possessions before it can be used again).

Or you can attempt to better model the realities of a basketball game so that the mechanics actually distinguish between "dunk-appropriate" and "dunk-inappropriate" moments.

Or you can just leave the "dunk vs. any other 2-point shot" distinction as part of the abstraction.

Alternatively, it might be interesting to mess around with a mechanic similar to a critical hit. Maybe use margin of success: If Kobe Bryant gets an MoS of 10 or better on his "approaching the basket" check, then he can use his dunk ability.

Bringing us back to the realm of D&D, this would be another mechanical realm where you could give fighters unique abilities: By building the "this opportunity exists" into the model of the system (using critical hits or MoS or a separate die roll) instead of through dissociated mechanics.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;546665(1) There's no reason Kobe Bryant can't attempt to dunk every time he goes to the basket.

(2) So why doesn't he?

(3) Because that isn't an ideal scoring method every time he gets the ball.

You can attempt to address that issue by adding an arbitrary and dissociated mechanic (he can only use his "dunk" ability once per game or once per period or it needs to recharge for 10 possessions before it can be used again).

Or you can attempt to better model the realities of a basketball game so that the mechanics actually distinguish between "dunk-appropriate" and "dunk-inappropriate" moments.

Or you can just leave the "dunk vs. any other 2-point shot" distinction as part of the abstraction.

Alternatively, it might be interesting to mess around with a mechanic similar to a critical hit. Maybe use margin of success: If Kobe Bryant gets an MoS of 10 or better on his "approaching the basket" check, then he can use his dunk ability.

Bringing us back to the realm of D&D, this would be another mechanical realm where you could give fighters unique abilities: By building the "this opportunity exists" into the model of the system (using critical hits or MoS or a separate die roll) instead of through dissociated mechanics.

exactly. You make the point much more clearly than I did. But this is essentially what I am trying to say. It is very much about doing something at the ideal moment when conditions are favorable. Personally i still like to be able to try in unfavorable conditions with a penalty (think of an MMA fight when one of the fighter keeps throwing spinning back kicks even though he is in the worst possible spot to be doing it from (occassionally he still lands something).

Quote from: Justin Alexander;546665(he can only use his "dunk" ability once per game or once per period or it needs to recharge for 10 possessions before it can be used again).

I've been curious about the dissociative mechanics angle on the 'recharging' abilities.

When we had a brief exchange awhile back on the ToB classes, you concluded that while the Swordsage worked very well as 'magic warrior' type (I agree). The Warblade's recharge mechanic/powers would still not be acceptable as an abstraction of purely martial skill.

Can you elaborate on that at all? I would seem to me that being able to repeat the same kind of technique every other round would not be significantly dissociative. Whereas the 4e 'you can only dunk once' would be, and is.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;546665You can attempt to address that issue by adding an arbitrary and dissociated mechanic (he can only use his "dunk" ability once per game or once per period or it needs to recharge for 10 possessions before it can be used again).

Or you can attempt to better model the realities of a basketball game so that the mechanics actually distinguish between "dunk-appropriate" and "dunk-inappropriate" moments.

Or you can just leave the "dunk vs. any other 2-point shot" distinction as part of the abstraction.

Alternatively, it might be interesting to mess around with a mechanic similar to a critical hit. Maybe use margin of success: If Kobe Bryant gets an MoS of 10 or better on his "approaching the basket" check, then he can use his dunk ability.

Or you could use the margin of success to determine when he gets his 2-point shot in a flashy way vs. a more mundane way, such that an N-point margin of success means he got his basket with the pizzazz of a slam dunk or some other stylistic embellishment that the player might choose or which might be defined as the character's signature style.  (To clarify, the difference is that the roll here would be for actually taking the shot, not simply approaching the basket.)

Quote from: Justin Alexander;546665Bringing us back to the realm of D&D, this would be another mechanical realm where you could give fighters unique abilities: By building the "this opportunity exists" into the model of the system (using critical hits or MoS or a separate die roll) instead of through dissociated mechanics.

What I've been experimenting with for a Fudge variant is that a sufficient margin of success creates the opportunity to engage in more advanced attack options such that a higher marginal success creates the opportunity for maneuvers like a disarm, push-back, trip, knock out blow, etc. because it the high margin of success represents the attacker getting a superior position against their opponent.  Instead of choosing to go into the attack as a disarm or push-back or other unusual attack with a modifier and doing nothing else if it fails, this approach assumes characters are always applying their best attack and that can give them the opportunity to do other special things if they do really well, or just more damage if they prefer (Fudge ties margin of success to damage).

Quote from: Kord's Boon;546693The Warblade's recharge mechanic/powers would still not be acceptable as an abstraction of purely martial skill.

Can you elaborate on that at all?

What's the recharge modeling? It's been awhile since I looked at the Warblade, but IIRC the recharge isn't modeling anything at all.

The argument could be made that it's preventing "use it every round" and then randomly determining when the situation comes up again, but this doesn't hold up to close inspection: Once it recharges, it just sits there. So you have a situation where the situation doesn't come up for a random number of rounds, but then makes itself available every single round. (Which doesn't make much sense.)

Generally speaking, in order for the recharge mechanic to be associated it has to actually be modeling something that's recharging: Something is depleted that prevents you from immediately repeating the action, but once that charge is restored you can attempt it at any time.

EDIT: Went and checked the warblade. I was thinking of something else entirely. The warblade has to spend 5 minutes between battles reading their maneuvers and they can reset their readied maneuvers during battle by taking a swift action.

During those 5 minutes... what exactly are you readying? How does it preclude your ability to perform the other purely martial techniques you know? This is Robin Hood spending five minutes thinking about shooting a bow and then, three hours later, suddenly being unable to use his sword as effectively.

When the swordsage uses similar mechanics, he's explicitly readying mystic energy. This is occasionally a mismatch with the descriptions of the actual maneuvers, but it's a lot easier bridging that gap than going the other way.

There are a lot of interesting mechanics in Tome of Nine Swords, but associating them with the game world wasn't given a high priority. (Of course, the same can be said of 4E.)

Quote from: Justin Alexander;546743During those 5 minutes... what exactly are you readying? How does it preclude your ability to perform the other purely martial techniques you know? This is Robin Hood spending five minutes thinking about shooting a bow and then, three hours later, suddenly being unable to use his sword as effectively.

I can see that as being problematic. One might be able to argue that those 5 minutes include some kind of Kata review, but I would not think that you would forget the techniques you were using yesterday. It is possible given enough time to forget techniques however.
IIRC the Warblade is able to 'recharge' a maneuver he or she used by spending a standard action which can include a melee attack. So if I perform 'iron strike' and can do so again provided I set my opponent up with a normal attack. In contrast to the above this seems reasonable and to a certain extent comports with my (fairly limited) Kendo experience, which is not to say that practice matches are the same as heated combat.  You are expending a fair amount of physical and mental energy with each strike, and using a more basic/practiced technique to ward off your opponent while you think/recover could be modeled as these 6 second intervals between repeat attempts.

At the very least the back-and-forth applications of different strikes, feints, and maneuvering is replicated rather well, it's also possible to simply run out of tricks, which normally leads to you getting your ass kicked.

Given, many supposedly non-magical maneuvers are not in the realm of possibility, but others like the 'do +100 damage' maneuver (power-word kill on a stick) don't require any more suspension of disbelief then the abstraction of HP already provides. When the demigod hits you, you die, and he or she can do so –almost- on command.

Quote from: Marleycat;546250For the curious what would some of these be?

In my heartbreaker fighters get adotional combat options through mastering styles.
Those would be attacking with a shield edge, trips, pinning weapons, disarms, etc
Additional levels of skill in a style also increase your damage and number of attacks as well as meaning your shield can block more attacks you can use two weapons and a host of other options.
All of these can be used whenever you like obviously.
There are five ranks to each style and currently seven styles, but a toolkit exists that allows the gm to create new styles specific to their setting (the basics already have single weapon, two handed, bow, knife fighting,fencing, weapon and sheild, spear and polearm)
and through that method to build your own martial arts.
So you don't get reaping strike or furious vengeance or copyrighted combat move 6 but you to get more mundane stuff but it kind of fits.
Oh and the styles replace weapon proficiencies with an optional rule about prefered weapons for each style

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;546670exactly. You make the point much more clearly than I did. But this is essentially what I am trying to say. It is very much about doing something at the ideal moment when conditions are favorable. Personally i still like to be able to try in unfavorable conditions with a penalty (think of an MMA fight when one of the fighter keeps throwing spinning back kicks even though he is in the worst possible spot to be doing it from (occassionally he still lands something).

You can use combat chains like they do in en garde. Played with several versions of this myself and it starts to get pretty bulky pretty fast

Quote from: jibbajibba;546884In my heartbreaker fighters get adotional combat options through mastering styles.
Those would be attacking with a shield edge, trips, pinning weapons, disarms, etc
Additional levels of skill in a style also increase your damage and number of attacks as well as meaning your shield can block more attacks you can use two weapons and a host of other options.
All of these can be used whenever you like obviously.
There are five ranks to each style and currently seven styles, but a toolkit exists that allows the gm to create new styles specific to their setting (the basics already have single weapon, two handed, bow, knife fighting,fencing, weapon and sheild, spear and polearm)
and through that method to build your own martial arts.
So you don't get reaping strike or furious vengeance or copyrighted combat move 6 but you to get more mundane stuff but it kind of fits.
Oh and the styles replace weapon proficiencies with an optional rule about prefered weapons for each style

Interesting. I definitely like Jason's idea of taking a penalty to do some move instead do it once a day like a wizard. I also love the concept of stances or knacks/tricks. Enter a certain stance and these bonuses or whatever last until to leave it. No particular limit on when or if you use it. Tricks/knacks: Use this weapon and you gain this advantage and can do this particular effect all you want linked to a short feat tree of 3-5 max.
 
Yes anybody can speciallize in say at least one weapon maybe two but fighters can specialize in all or nearly all by the very highest levels.

Quote from: jibbajibba;546885You can use combat chains like they do in en garde. Played with several versions of this myself and it starts to get pretty bulky pretty fast

It should be kept simple in my opinion. Either conditions are ideal for the move or they aren't (if chains in this case means having multiple conditions that have to be met in sequence or something I would say avoid it). If you want to make the move when conditions aren't ideal you just do it at a penalty. so you might have a move that works well when you have the high ground for isntance. But outside that you take a penalty.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;545778I agree with this.  Give me a theme to work with, but don't give me rules for every little thing.  As you say, all too often what happens is people look to see if their character has a skill, and if not, they assume they can't do it, or won't bother trying to do it.

It's like a while ago when someone brought up, "My fighter doesn't have the highest diplomacy skill, the cleric does, so I feel left out during role-playing with NPCs because I can't contribute."  Who says you can't contribute?  Because you're scared you'll fail a roll when the cleric has the better chance?  Having lower diplomacy skills never stopped anyone from giving their $0.02 in real life, why should a game be any different.  Say what you want to say, and I as the DM will...gasp...roleplay it out.  If I'm on the fence, then I'll have you make a check.  But if you're reasonable, I'll go with it no check necessary.

Characters shouldn't know what is on their character sheet; they should know how good they are at something, relative to other people, but that's it.

Of course, that shouldn't stop the character contributing if it's something they would do... but the character shouldn't get a bonus simply because the player is good at something (Or, conversely, be penalised if the player isn't so good...). Players shouldn't be scared of their characters "failing" at things - if they cock it up, that's what happened!

Quote from: Justin Alexander;546665(1) There's no reason Kobe Bryant can't attempt to dunk every time he goes to the basket.

Um, sure there is.  He's not a dunker.

Quote(2) So why doesn't he?

He's not a dunker.

Quote(3) Because that isn't an ideal scoring method every time he gets the ball.

It's an incredibly efficient method of scoring - but only if you are good at it, are built for it, and you can get around the defense to do it.  This generally puts it in the realm of the Power Forward or Center position, not a guard.  Kobe isn't known for his dunking, and he's a guard who is not built well for dunking.  Bad analogy.  You might have wanted to use a good dunker in your example, like Blake Griffin perhaps?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fnngzh5D1o