Stubbazubba's page

I am cautiously optimistic about the tier-ing of the Code, but in reading over it I think there is what lawyers call "an elephant hiding in a mouse hole" where the real substantive issue is hiding in a seemingly simple word: innocent.

It comes up a lot in the class description but is never defined, and it becomes very important in interpreting the Code. The second tenet talks about the protection of "innocents," and the example of the second tenet trumping the third (and, implicitly, the fourth) tenet relies on the language of "innocent lawbreakers." So there must be a difference between "innocence" for Paladin purposes and "breaking the law" for legal purposes.

My best guess is that "innocence" is defined by your deity, informed by the Edicts/Anathema, but that seems either under- or over-inclusive of what the Paladin archetype is usually about. If an "innocent" is someone fulfilling a deity's Edicts, that probably doesn't define too many random villagers or refugees that are the classic weak and vulnerable types that Paladins stereotypically defend. If it is merely someone who does not commit Anathema, that would include all kinds of people who have committed real crimes against legitimate authority (thus rendering the fourth tenet pretty toothless).

It's telling that the example chosen to demonstrate how the tenets' relative position works assumes that everyone agrees what behavior an "innocent lawbreaker" has engaged in; a heroic rebellion against a tyrant? A heretic in an oppressive theocracy? A Robin Hood? A member of a persecuted minority whose very existence is illegal? Some of those may or may not be "innocent" based on a deity's philosophy or the Paladin's Code itself. I am only guessing at where to even look to find the standard (deities on 288-289), and then guessing again at what the standard of each deity might be. Maybe the ambiguity here is intentional, though that way lies all the problems that the new tiered tenets was supposed to solve.

The point is that even without getting particularly modern about what counts as "legitimate authority" (the Dragonslayer/Fiendsbane/Shining Oaths imply that rule = legitimacy, which is a bit opposed to today's "supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses" but is much easier to put into practice), the old alignment debates that made you swear off Paladin in the first place are still here, they're just hidden in defining "innocent" out of nothing to see if the 2nd tenet ever applies. "Innocent" needs to either be defined or replaced, and that is going to require either a commitment to some moral norms for all Paladins, or a commitment to defining "innocence" for each potential deity.

The same could probably be said for "lawful authority of the legitimate ruler" and "murder," as well, though to a slightly lesser degree.

Also, the alignments the deities allow should really be on the Deities pages on 288-289 so that Paladins can just look at one reference to know all they need to know about their deity instead of two.

Thanks!

I support the broad strokes of the action economy revision, pending full implementation details.

But I do not understand the iterative attack penalties still hanging around. I understand it changes the marginal utility of additional attacks which might diversify actions, but going from "the thing I want to do most" to "the thing I want to do less" is not a satisfying way to diversify my actions. A better way to get that same end result would be if I had actions that were better than a regular attack that I could use once per round, or if there were actions that required a preparatory action that were actually worth investing in, or something. Or if being mobile actually, y'know, did something for me.

I agree that more mobile combats with more diverse actions for martials is a desirable end state. What I disagree with is using iterative attack penalties to achieve it. In many situations, it won't achieve it anyway, and when it does, it'll only be by a punishment unique to martial characters in a system that claims it is trying to get away from punishing martial characters. You want to get away from that? Take away iterative penalties, and give me better options instead of making my default option worse.

Plus, it's an extra re-calculation of my attack bonus every attack. If streamlining play is a goal, that's another reason to get rid of iterative attack penalties.

Whatever design goal iterative attack penalties are in theory achieving, there are better ways to achieve it that don't involve recalculating attack modifiers in the middle of your turn and saddling martial characters with the choice of less and less satisfactory options for each action on every turn of combat, where spellcasters are free of such burden. If attacking is cool, let it be cool. If you really want diversity of actions, give martials cooler stuff to do than attack. Don't just make their attacks worse and worse.

And P.S. if you want to make movement more important, you want to make it a defensive option, e.g. a reaction.

This also makes it easier for us to present monsters, giving us more space to include special abilities and actions that really make a monster unique. Take the fearsome tyrannosaurus, for example; if this terrifying dinosaur gets you in its jaws, it can take an action to fling you up to 20 feet through the air, dealing tremendous damage to you in the process!

What a cool idea...but why on earth is this a monster-specific ability? Shouldn't this be a natural result of the grapple rules available to anything strong enough?

Please do not go with an exception-based design, where so much of the game is an exception to the regular rules. That way lies (the bad parts of) D&D 4e. Make interesting stuff a part of the regular rules, and then have class and monster abilities simply add more options. Instead of the Tyrannosaurus being uniquely able to toss someone it has grappled, give it an action wherein they throttle their captured prey back and forth in its jaws and then throw them, causing additional damage and possibly inflicting a crippled condition or something.

Attacks of opportunity being Fighter-only is just as concerning, for the same reason. Do not make the regular rules barren and frustrating, requiring class and monster abilities to be interesting. Make the core rules that are available to every creature interesting and reasonable on their own, and then add in class and monster abilities that are truly unique to the skills or physiology of the class or monster, respectively. So everyone has the option of an attack of opportunity, but a Fighter's has a chance of stopping the target's movement entirely.