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Structural Flaw of the D&D Combat System
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<blockquote data-quote="GrahamWills" data-source="post: 8952424" data-attributes="member: 75787"><p>On adapting the Escalation dice from 13th Age to other D&D systems: The advice I've seen is that on the first round the players roll at -1, then each subsequent round their bonus goes up. For me, I'd prefer to see it a little more extreme and also -- I don't like penalizing players, even if it's mathematically the same as enhancing monsters. So my "anti-alpha-strike" suggestion would be:</p><p></p><p>First round: all monster defenses and saves are at +2</p><p>Second round, no modifiers</p><p>Third round, all player attack rolls and spell save DCs are +1, </p><p>4th round, all player attack rolls and spell save DCs are +2, </p><p>... up to a max of +4</p><p></p><p>I've run a lot of 4E campaigns and also played in them to know that alpha-striking really does take away the fun, even for the players. We abandoned one epic level game because we established an optimum strategy that rarely failed; Rogue with huge movement speed does path of the blade (4 attacks) with a couple of feats allowing him to shift monsters when hit, action points to recover the ability and does it again. Warlord takes their turn and gets him to do the same thing twice more for 16 total attacks with daggermaster crits. Whatever is left has been pushed 3-4 spaces around the field and is ready for a caster to area burst into death. </p><p></p><p>It was fun the first few times, but then it wasn't. The OPs concern is real -- you do need to find a way to make alpha strikes a good option rather than a no-brainer. If I had to path of the blade at -2 effectively, i might wait a bit and try something else first ...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="GrahamWills, post: 8952424, member: 75787"] On adapting the Escalation dice from 13th Age to other D&D systems: The advice I've seen is that on the first round the players roll at -1, then each subsequent round their bonus goes up. For me, I'd prefer to see it a little more extreme and also -- I don't like penalizing players, even if it's mathematically the same as enhancing monsters. So my "anti-alpha-strike" suggestion would be: First round: all monster defenses and saves are at +2 Second round, no modifiers Third round, all player attack rolls and spell save DCs are +1, 4th round, all player attack rolls and spell save DCs are +2, ... up to a max of +4 I've run a lot of 4E campaigns and also played in them to know that alpha-striking really does take away the fun, even for the players. We abandoned one epic level game because we established an optimum strategy that rarely failed; Rogue with huge movement speed does path of the blade (4 attacks) with a couple of feats allowing him to shift monsters when hit, action points to recover the ability and does it again. Warlord takes their turn and gets him to do the same thing twice more for 16 total attacks with daggermaster crits. Whatever is left has been pushed 3-4 spaces around the field and is ready for a caster to area burst into death. It was fun the first few times, but then it wasn't. The OPs concern is real -- you do need to find a way to make alpha strikes a good option rather than a no-brainer. If I had to path of the blade at -2 effectively, i might wait a bit and try something else first ... [/QUOTE]
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