Maneuvers, encounter powers, and other limiting mechanics

[TeeEl]

Sleep-deprived rambling brainstorm time. Warning: long and probably pointless.

So as a hobby I have been working on my own overhaul of 3.5e (plug (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86469)). Naturally one of the issues I will have to tackle if I want to make a robust fix for 3.5e is fixing the caster vs. non-caster disparity.

The stock answer for this issue in late 3.5e is Tome of Battle. It's not a comprehensive fix, of course, but it has a lot of fun stuff and helps patch things up a bit. But... I'm kind of lukewarm on the mechanics, actually. I appreciate that it fixes the problem of one-trick fighter builds that end up doing the same thing over and over again, but the maneuver/recharge mechanics just feel arbitrary. I have some other quibbles as well (I'm not really sold on the way maneuver levels are handled, for example, since it ends up with an awful lot of powers that read "Powerful Dragon Strike: Just like Slightly Less Powerful Dragon Strike, but with +2d6 damage"; I'd rather just see powers that scale), but the recharge is the main one for me.

4e takes this system further with the encounter power paradigm, which doesn't seem like a step forward to me. The binary simplicity of it streamlines bookkeeping, but that seems to be its sole virtue; it has no long term resource management aspect and its short term resource management seems to lend itself towards no-brainers. I suppose in its defense I may as well point out that it does do a good job of meshing with daily powers, so it is not entirely unsuited for its purpose. Still, unlike doorbells and sleigh bells these are not among my favorite things.

I'm going to have to do something here if I want to get around the fighter issue, though. Since the project at hand remodels the game to be very feat-centric, my instinct is to take a feat-centric route. Among the core feats there are a handful of proto-maneuvers: feats that in effect define their own alternate modes of attack. Things like Spring Attack, Manyshot, and Whirlwind Attack. As written these feats are very inaccessible and give very mediocre results outside of a few builds centered around them, and there's also a very limited selection of feats in this category, but all these things are fixable.

All this leads me, somewhat belatedly, to the point of this post. I'm all for letting fighter types pull off wicked badass stunts; I'm pretty sure those 8+ hit full attacks are probably stretching the laws of physics already (and you can get at least that many without needing magic, even in core), so we may as well let give them some more diverse and interesting ways to defy reality. But it would probably be a good idea to put in some form of limiting mechanic on these, both to help keep power levels in check (although not being a full caster already goes a long ways towards keeping power levels in check) and to keep combat from devolving back into spamming the same move over and over again. I had toyed with self-imposed status conditions as a limiting factor, but shooting yourself in the foot to use your cool trick can get old really quickly.

From there, I started thinking along the lines of a separate "condition", the sole purpose of which would be to make you wait a turn or so before you activate your big cool trick again. You have a state, let's call it "focus". When you have focus you can activate certain big cool tricks, spending your focus. If you go an entire turn without focus, you get your focus back. In essence you can only do one big cool trick every two turns, although there would probably be some exceptions. There would likely be some forms of limited recharge available, generally centered around certain triggers that you can't necessarily do at will (getting knocked down to low HP, dropping an enemy, etc.) and probably with some sort of "no repeats" rule (so you could theoretically string together two different big cool tricks in a row under certain circumstances, but not the same one twice). At higher levels maybe you could get to use the weakest big cool tricks at will, I don't know.

Anyhow, this train of thought led me to a really cool idea. I think it's a decent place to start with for a recharge mechanic on martial stunts... but then I got to thinking, what if the same was applied to spells, leaving you capped at one spell every two rounds? I think this has a lot of potential as a very simple, very straightforward limiting factor on spellcasters. It has a couple of nice benefits, but the biggest one is that it makes it harder for spellcasters to effectively break the action economy; even at high levels, they're generally going to be capped at 1 spell every two rounds even with quickened/swift casting spells (if there are any recharge abilities available, they're going to be much more available for non-magical feats than for spells). That right there nips a lot of abuse in the bud. Congratulations, you just dimension doored out of the dragon's grapple, now you can safely... shoot it with a crossbow? Hell, for that matter, that practically solved celerity without having to touch the spell itself. How cool is that?

Moreover, it makes it considerably harder to render the ability to whack things with swords obsolete, since even a full caster is going to be stuck at the whacking-things-with-swords level at least half the time. Granted there are still going to be issues with casters being able to buff themselves into melee machines too easily, although at least they can't cast three buffs and let loose a full attack by the second round of combat. It also avoids a common pitfall of many caster fixes, in that it restrains high level casters while leaving casters at the squishy levels largely unaffected (when you only have a few spells per day you probably won't necessarily want to blow them all one right after another).

So any thoughts? I think I've stumbled onto what could be a very simple, elegant and solid cornerstone for a ground-up revamp of 3.5e. By itself it's not a perfect solution, but... oh, who am I kidding. It is perfect and I am awesome. Thus concludes tonight's insomnia-fueled design rant.

[arguskos]

As a note, I'm also working a 3.5 class revamp. I like the idea you have here, what with the:

leaving you capped at one spell every two rounds
It's a nice idea, on paper. However, thinking about it, it doesn't really solve anything, just slows stuff down some. Casters will STILL dominate the game with a single spell, which is a major issue. Note that I've yet to really figure out a way to solve that issue, but that's neither here nor there. >_<

My other issue is that what you're doing by capping casters at a spell/2 rounds is you are pushing everyone into gish mode. Abjurant Champion, Eldritch Knight, Duskblade, etc are suddenly the only way to stay alive (since anyone can tell you that casters-sans-casting=failure).

On a semi-related note, my current solution for the "how to keep wizards from pwning everything in sight" problem is to break up the core caster's spell lists, and divide them into many, more specialized classes. Sorcerer can be the blaster, bard can be the illusion/enchantment mage, wizard can be the "jack-of-all-trades, master of none" mage (with limits mind you), etc....

However, I need to stop typing, cause it's 4 AM. I'll return to discuss this later.

-argus

[kamikasei]

I suggest you take a look at the rules for psionic focus for inspiration. You make a concentration check to gain focus and must then expend it to use various abilities: certain psionic feats, metapsionics (limiting you to one per power), etc.

[TeeEl]

It's a nice idea, on paper. However, thinking about it, it doesn't really solve anything, just slows stuff down some. Casters will STILL dominate the game with a single spell, which is a major issue.

Not quite. They can still dominate the game with a single spell, but that's never been wholly guaranteed. If the enemy makes their save, or something unforeseen happens and it doesn't work as intended... then it's the fighters' turn while the casters take a pause. That's a dynamic I think I can get behind.


My other issue is that what you're doing by capping casters at a spell/2 rounds is you are pushing everyone into gish mode. Abjurant Champion, Eldritch Knight, Duskblade, etc are suddenly the only way to stay alive (since anyone can tell you that casters-sans-casting=failure).

True. On the other hand, if gishes no longer have to compete with wizards who can cast more spells than they can make attacks in a full attack, it's no longer necessary to give them quite so many perks, so they need not be quite so dominant.

There still remain a couple of issues, now that I am marginally better rested and have had more time to reflect on the concept. Enjoyability may decrease somewhat for casters if your sorcerer spends every other turn being a glorified commoner. Me, I like spellcasters; even if I have to twiddle my thumbs every other turn I'd still love being a wizard. For that matter, the tension created by such a limitation would do a lot to keep things interesting even with less to do. But I realize that not everyone would want to play a caster under such a system, without having anything to do. I'm thinking... reserve feats, maybe? They'd seem to be about the right power level for things to casters to do during "off" turns, anyhow.

Also, CoDzilla of course remains largely unfazed by this change, since even if they can't cast spells every turn they're still a giant bear (or a giant dwarf with a hammer, etc.) But those sorts of abilities are easy enough to tweak separately.

[HellFencer]

First off, gish? and CoDzilla?

Secondly, you have put a lot of thought into this, and I'm very happy to see that. I myself have wracked my brain trying to figure out how to balance the power gap between melee classes and spellcasters.

Let's face it, full-casters steal the show at medium to high levels. By the time they get epic spells, its impossible to compete with. Granted, I've heard some things about Tome of Battle, but they've been rather mixed. In my search for a better caster, I came across the Ultimate Classes wiki. The Ultimate Sorc and Wiz basically trade the top few levels of spells completely (as in no more 7th-9th level spells, ever) for some incantations.

Will add to the discussion more later...

[TeeEl]

First off, gish? and CoDzilla?

Are you asking for definitions of unfamiliar terms, or are you asking how the system is supposed to solve these two problems?

Assuming the former, a "gish" is a character build that combines fighting ability and spellcasting. Usually arcane spellcasting specifically, since most divine casters are already formidable melee tanks in their own right. This latter point, incidentally, is basically what CoDzilla is shorthand for: cleric and druid powers that quickly turn these two spellcasters into melee combatants that can easily outfight all but the most exceptional fighter builds.

If you're asking about the latter... well, strictly speaking, it doesn't. It takes away a lot of their quick buffing ability so it does even things out a bit. I don't view gish as being so much of a problem, though, and a large part of the CoDzilla problem revolves around a few key abilities and spells. Wildshape and Righteous Might are the big two; houseruling these abilities away or turning them into much weaker effects is a commonly proposed "fix" for CoDzillas, although even if you take them away clerics and druids are still left with formidable spellcasting powers (and are still decent fighters with their other buffs). But this system would cap that, too.



Anyhow, I've had a bit more time to clear my thoughts on this, so here's a more formal proposal for how this would work out in play:

Focus, Stunts, Recoveries, and Chains

A stunt is an ability that represents a task demanding enough that it cannot be used repeatedly without a brief break. Certain feats give a character the ability to perform certain distinct actions in combat, with no hard limitations on the number of times they can be activated; these typically are stunts. Casting a 1st-level or higher spell, or using a spell trigger or spell completion item of a 1st-level or higher spell is also considered a stunt.

A character outside of combat or at the start of any new combat encounter is considered to be focused. In this state they are prepared enough to pull off any stunt in their repertoire, at which point they lose their focus. A character without focus cannot normally use any stunt abilities until they recover focus. A character that spends an entire turn without focus automatically regains focus at the end of their turn. In effect, after using a stunt a character must pause for one full turn between stunts, letting them use one stunt every two turns.

A character may get around this limitation through recoveries. A recovery ability is a feat which specifies certain conditions under which a character may regain their focus without waiting a full turn. Example: the Deadly Flourish feat lets a character who successfully drops a hostile enemy to 0 HP with a melee attack recover focus at the end of their current turn, instead of having to wait another full turn.

However, recoveries are not unlimited in their use. When a character triggers a recovery ability in this way, they start a stunt chain (or continue one, if they are already chaining). During a single stunt chain each stunt a character knows can be used only once, and each recovery they know can only be used once. Therefore it is possible that a character may run out of stunts or recoveries and be unable to continue the chain, at which point they must wait a full turn to regain focus. Once this happens the chain starts from scratch and they can start a new chain using all of their stunts and recoveries again.

Example in play: Bob has the Spring Attack and Whirlwind Attack stunts, and sample Deadly Flourish recovery feat.
Turn 1: Bob uses his Spring Attack stunt as a standard action, hitting a bugbear bodyguard but failing to kill it. In using the stunt he loses focus.
Turn 2: Bob no longer has focus and cannot use any stunts (neither Spring Attack nor Whirlwind Attack). He attacks the bugbear with a standard attack and drops it. Bob regains focus at the end of his turn.
Turn 3: Bob has focus again, so he uses Spring Attack again to run into the midst of a group of goblins, killing one as he passes. He loses focus again, but because he killed a target as part of the stunt this triggers his Deadly Flourish recovery. Bob regains focus at the end of his turn.
Turn 4: Bob now has focus and is in a stunt chain thanks to his recovery. He can't use Spring Attack again immediately, but he can use the Whirlwind Attack stunt instead, dropping several goblins. He can't recover focus again with Deadly Flourish since he already used it once in this stunt chain, so he loses focus again, breaking the previous stunt chain.
Turn 5: Bob has no focus, so he automatically regains it at the end of the turn.
Turn 6: Bob has focus and can use either Spring Attack or Whirlwind Attack again, since he's on a new stunt chain now. If he kills something as part of the stunt he can recover focus with Deadly Flourish and start a new chain.

Some assumptions:

Stunts and recoveries are individual feats now, therefore to make this system worthwhile feats must be given out as candy (I was planning to do this anyhow, so no worries).
Feat prerequisites on stunt feats need to be relaxed considerably compared to the examples in core; Spring Attack and Whirlwind Attack are generally pretty crappy except for niche builds, so there's little point in nerfing them further. Instead they will be much easier to pick up, with the stunt system being the limiting factor on them rather than the crazy harsh feat prerequisites they have now.
Obviously the stunt system would not be limited to the examples in core; new stunts would need to be created. The number of individual stunts would be relatively small, but there would be any number of feats that would improve existing stunts. For example: PHB II's Bounding Assault and Rapid Blitz feats would both upgrade your existing Spring Attack stunt rather than qualifying as new stunts in and of themselves. Thus characters have a tradeoff in choosing between picking up a wide variety of stunts and recoveries (letting them chain together lots of stunts in a row) or specializing in one heavily upgraded stunt (letting them pull off one really huge trick but leaving them without an effective followup).
Generally speaking all spells from a given spellcasting progression count as one stunt for the purposes of stunt chains, making it very difficult to chain spells together unless you are playing a character with multiple spellcasting progressions (which tend to be gimped next to pure-classed spellcasters anyhow). Even this may be problematic since many recovery abilities would be oriented towards physical attacks and would be difficult to trigger with spells. There may be some specific exceptions to this, but these would be highly specific and aimed at cases that are not particularly optimal to begin with (e.g. a feat that lets you chain instantaneous evocations, so you can still be a blaster mage if you're so inclined, or a feat that lets you chain conjuration (healing) spells freely).