Request to D&D Players Interested In The ACME System...

[alexandraerin]

...that was outlined in this post, I have a specific feedback request. One of my goals for the system is to give players freedom to design their characters as normal with any of the available powers and options, and still have their abilities translate in a useful and meaningful way.

To do a bit of a reality check on this, I loaded up the Character Builder and picked some classes I don't normally play, then went through the power selections for the first 3 or 5 levels. I'm not really seeing any problems.

My question for 4E players and DMs is: can you think of any powers, abilities, or facets of combat that the rule translations I've outlined would not be able to handle? Note that I did not write anything down about conjurations, zones, or walls, so right away that's something that's not covered. It's not something I'm worried about covering... I've pretty firm ideas how they'll be dealt with, I just haven't articulated them in an organized fashion yet. But anything else? Buffs/debuffs work normally, forced movement is covered, bursts and blasts are covered... have I overlooked anything?

If you're interested in helping me out with this, you can take one of your characters, look at their power descriptions, and see if you can figure out from the rules I've written how that power would play out. That will not only help me figure out any gaping holes, it will also help me see if the rules as I've written them make sense to people who aren't me.

Comments

[reynai.livejournal.com]

One thing that springs to mind is a spell I saw, that I doubt is entirely unique -- the Cleric's Guardian of Faith. The way it would seem to work is that every enemy that ends up Adjacent to it would take damage -- but now, ending up adjacent to something is something you do intentionally, unless I'm misunderstanding something. Since moving said guardian requires the Cleric's move action, said move action would be spent on 'guarding' something, which would keep the Cleric from any actual movement.

Which makes me curious about whether it would be effective to add in another type of movement to ACME: harrying. Essentially, movement designed to keep your opponents from moving effectively. Something that an unhittable/invisible/doesn't-care-about-getting-attacked person could do. Would keep ranged attackers from attacking without Opportunity attacks, would require melee chargers to shift or take the long way around to get to the others -- basically a more aggressive sort of guarding. Obviously it would be targeted toward a couple of Nearby enemies.

One question that just arose while thinking about the mechanics of Adjacent, Nearby, and flanking, brought up while thinking about the Goblin's combat shifting as a reactive action -- in these new rules, just how much flanking can actually occur for one character? And can flanking now be for more than just one pair of attackers? If three goblins move adjacent to Korgash the Fighter, say -- one of them on its next turn shifts to flank, and then Korgash, going next, attacks a non-flanking goblin (because it's near dead, because it has something special that's a special threat, or just because it's the one that isn't marked yet), and misses, allowing the Goblin to shift... could it shift to flank as well, setting up a triangle flank (which isn't in the normal rules because, well, it's harder to describe in square-based combat).

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

Guardian of Faith is a conjuration, one of the things I didn't cover yet. If I'm understanding you right, you're saying that to use it for protection the Cleric would have to conjure it (Standard Action) and then move it to a guarding position (Move Action). But since the Guardian can be placed anywhere in 5 squares (close range, in ACME terms), there's no reason it couldn't be put "in the guarding position" when it's first cast.

Guarding isn't supposed to represent anything special that the character's doing, it's just an abstraction of the idea "placed between an ally and the enemies."

Otherwise when you first use Guardian or a similar conjuration, it would be treated like an Area Burst 1: you could drop it next to an enemy and then there'd be a chance that any other enemies in the cluster would be adjacent to it.

One thing you've made me think about is that conjurations that damage adjacent enemies, stick around, and can be moved would be slightly less effective because you'd rarely be able to point to a neat row of three enemies and say "I move next to them". Of course, in the tabletop game the window to do that is usually very limited, because even generous DMs will have the monsters scatter a little after you've got them once with that trick. Still, to make sure they're not totally nerfed I think that when you move such a damaging conjuration adjacent to an enemy that's in a cluster, it will threaten the others like it's a Burst 1 again.

I can see the use of a harrying mechanic, but unlike guarding, it would be more a new tactic than a translation of something that happens in the tabletop game. That's something I'd like to avoid. You can "harry" opponents using the move and attack options already present.

Same thing with triangle flanking and other more complex arrangements. Someone who has three opponents on them is already at a mechanical disadvantage insofar as they get attacked three times for every one time they hit back. I'd rather not exacerbate that much more.

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

Let's see- Visions of Avarice is an area effect that creates a zone, so I'm guessing that it falls under those rules more than the area ones. However, the zone functions largely by creating a burst 5 from a specific location, so it'd seem as if you could place it, then treat it as a creature (more or less) that can hit any enemies who are Close, and force them to move directly towards it.

Cleave would require a Fighter (or half-elf) wielding a greatsword to be adjacent to two creatures in order to gain the full benefits, so the most viable thing there would be to find a cluster of two opponents and then move to be adjacent to both, or find two opponents who are nearby one another and then move with a declaration of attempting to become adjacent to both.

However, if you were to try and move to be adjacent to two opponents where one is Guarding the other, you'd have to move around to avoid an attack of opportunity from the one doing the Guarding. They could then subsequently declare they're Flanking you, but because they're both still adjacent, you'd still have the ability to strike both of them with the power.

...Right?

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

Visions of Avarice is one of the easier zones to translate, since you're not worried about who wanders into it, you're making attacks against anyone in a fairly wide area.

Cleave would be useful in the situations you outline, but also another: when more than one opponent is fighting the Fighter. There would also be times when enemies would be explicitly adjacent to each other within their cluster, as some monsters gain phalanx or mob bonuses for being tightly clustered.