Mark CMG
Creative Mountain Games
Well said, all around. I think most are right that this was a perfect storm of bad circumstances.
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The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
D&D 4E My first taste of 4e, and what it means for 5e.
- Thread starter B.T.
- Start date
Well said, all around. I think most are right that this was a perfect storm of bad circumstances.
MoonSong
Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
Oh yes, the very first time I played 4e was a drag, I had already read the PHB twice just to get things right and even then I made several critical mistakes on my character sheet. And what followed was a constant "is it fight time yet?" (I didn't helped that I built a fighter and didn't bothered with exploration skills, silly me)
On the flipside the time I introduced some of my friends to play my homebrewed 3.x it took little time to explain it to them, it took 5 minutes creating a custom character for them and another 5 to explain the basics (only one of them had played RPGs before), on the following 50 minutes of the session they met in a bar, took out a mission to find and retrieve a person, befriended a clinically depressed drunkard -that literaly was half the dwarf he used to be- in order to get information about the road, (getting very drunk in the process) and promsed to retrieve his lost family axe, got into a fight with a Paladin, went to prison, escaped from prison after turn shift, forgetting to retrieve thier gear, nearly fought another paladin, got exiled, magically contacted their dward friend to get some replacement gear (scaring the s
t out of him in the process), managed to get said gear behind the noses of another paladin(yeah paladins on my campaign are scary), got ambushed and captured by a party of thieves, convinced their leader to allow them to keep on their quest by promising him a generous share of the rewards being threated like captives on the road, mislead the band's leader into sending his men to the front causing most of the band to get slaughtered by a Diggester (that they had previously found out was goign to be there, in fact they delayed the band 's advancement in order to match with the monster's hunting hours), managed to kill the monster recovering their dwarf friends Axe (which the fighter decided to borrow for the time being), and finally decided to blackmail the thief's leader (which was agonizing) into working for them in exchange for the so needed healing (It was very funny how they got him to beg for his life).
I really hope NEXT lends itself to be taught quickly, in order to get moe of the later than the former.
On the flipside the time I introduced some of my friends to play my homebrewed 3.x it took little time to explain it to them, it took 5 minutes creating a custom character for them and another 5 to explain the basics (only one of them had played RPGs before), on the following 50 minutes of the session they met in a bar, took out a mission to find and retrieve a person, befriended a clinically depressed drunkard -that literaly was half the dwarf he used to be- in order to get information about the road, (getting very drunk in the process) and promsed to retrieve his lost family axe, got into a fight with a Paladin, went to prison, escaped from prison after turn shift, forgetting to retrieve thier gear, nearly fought another paladin, got exiled, magically contacted their dward friend to get some replacement gear (scaring the s
t out of him in the process), managed to get said gear behind the noses of another paladin(yeah paladins on my campaign are scary), got ambushed and captured by a party of thieves, convinced their leader to allow them to keep on their quest by promising him a generous share of the rewards being threated like captives on the road, mislead the band's leader into sending his men to the front causing most of the band to get slaughtered by a Diggester (that they had previously found out was goign to be there, in fact they delayed the band 's advancement in order to match with the monster's hunting hours), managed to kill the monster recovering their dwarf friends Axe (which the fighter decided to borrow for the time being), and finally decided to blackmail the thief's leader (which was agonizing) into working for them in exchange for the so needed healing (It was very funny how they got him to beg for his life).I really hope NEXT lends itself to be taught quickly, in order to get moe of the later than the former.
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ZombieRoboNinja
First Post
I think the problem with 4e isn't the number of starting abilities - a 3e wizard, for example, has way more than his 4e counterpart. The tricky part is that 4e has lots of minor actions and interrupts and little temporary effects to keep track of.
A 3e wizard or 5e character has one big decision to make each round: what his action will be. There are few reaction abilities (the Defender stuff) and fewer move-affecting abilities (only Tumble comes to mind), and they are without exception things you specifically choose.
So I would imagine the current playtest would be way easier for new players than 4e was at first level. The tradeoff, of course, is that the loss of complexity means a loss of tactical depth unless they're very clever in designing 5e.
A 3e wizard or 5e character has one big decision to make each round: what his action will be. There are few reaction abilities (the Defender stuff) and fewer move-affecting abilities (only Tumble comes to mind), and they are without exception things you specifically choose.
So I would imagine the current playtest would be way easier for new players than 4e was at first level. The tradeoff, of course, is that the loss of complexity means a loss of tactical depth unless they're very clever in designing 5e.
In my own experience, the significance of a PC dropping is (i) the need to make death saves, and (ii) the loss of actions in the action economy.
In a situation in which the pressure on the PCs is not that great, these two things won't be felt, because (i) someone will get the fallen PC up before (m)any death saves are needed, and (ii) the loss of actions won't be noticed.
Yet another reason why, in my view, 4e on the whole supports "high stakes" encounters much better than "random", "pointless" or "filler" encounters.
I've never seen an Encounters PC sheet, but it seems - from the OP and the rest of the thread - that they are very poorly designed, reflecting the place of abilities in the build process (are they from class, or race, or whatever; are they at-will, or enc, or daily) rather than their place in the action resolution process.
Speed and precision of play in my game has improved since most of the players adopted a PC sheet format pioneered by the player of the sorcerer, which lists abilities primiarily by action type (with damage, keywords and effects noted in abbreviated but accurate format) and only secondarily by recharge rate and source (race, class, item etc).
The one exception to this is the controller, whose powers are complex enough that abbreviated descriptions don't work. But there is still a cheat-sheet on the front that groups powers by action type.
It should be noted that psionic characters are, by a fair margin, the most complicated characters in 4E. Under no circumstances should they be given to a new player to play if the DM can't spend time helping them.
Here's an example of a character sheet I gave to my D&D Encounter players:
Half-Orc Rogue 1 (Deep Delver, Deep Wastes)
Str 11 +0 Dex 20 +5 Wis 10 +0 Perception +5, low-light vision
Con 16 +3 Int 10 +0 Cha 8 -1 Passive Perception 15, Passive Insight 10
Initiative +5 Speed 6 (8 when charging)
AC 17, Fort 13, Ref 17, Will 10
HP: 28 bloodied 14, surge value 7, surges/day 9
Half-orc resilience: the first time you are bloodied in an encounter, gain 5 temporary hit points.
BASIC ATTACKS
M Shortsword +9 vs AC, 1d6+7 damage
R Shortbow +8 vs AC, 1d8+7 damage, range 15/30
MOVE ACTIONS
Ambush Trick: You may move up to your speed. Until the end of your turn, you gain combat advantage against enemies that are within 5 squares and have none of their allies adjacent to them
Tactical Trick: You may move up to your speed. You do not provoke opportunity attacks for leaving squares adjacent to your allies. Until the end of your turn, you gain combat advantage against enemies that have at least one of your allies adjacent to them.
TRIGGERED ACTIONS
Backstab (encounter; personal; no action; trigger: you make an attack roll using a basic attack against a creature within 5 squares granting combat advantage to you.)
Effect: You add +3 to the attack roll and deal 1d6 extra damage if it hits.
Furious Assault (encounter; personal; no action; trigger: you hit an enemy with an attack)
Effect: The triggering attack deals 1[W] extra damage or 1d8 if not a weapon attack.
Subterranean Survival (encounter; personal; free action; trigger: you make a Dungeoneering check and dislike it)
Effect: You reroll the Dungeoneering check.
ONGOING ABILITIES
First Strike – At the beginning of a combat, you have combat advantage against any foe that hasn’t yet acted.
Sneak Attack – the first time each turn you hit an opponent granting combat advantage to you, you deal 2d6 extra damage
SKILLS
Acrobatics +10, Athletics +5, Dungeoneering +9, Endurance +5, Intimidate +2, Perception +5, Stealth +10, Thievery +10
FEATS
Master at Arms (+1 to all weapon attacks; minor action to sheathe a weapon and draw a new weapon).
Here's an example of a character sheet I gave to my D&D Encounter players:
Half-Orc Rogue 1 (Deep Delver, Deep Wastes)
Str 11 +0 Dex 20 +5 Wis 10 +0 Perception +5, low-light vision
Con 16 +3 Int 10 +0 Cha 8 -1 Passive Perception 15, Passive Insight 10
Initiative +5 Speed 6 (8 when charging)
AC 17, Fort 13, Ref 17, Will 10
HP: 28 bloodied 14, surge value 7, surges/day 9
Half-orc resilience: the first time you are bloodied in an encounter, gain 5 temporary hit points.
BASIC ATTACKS
M Shortsword +9 vs AC, 1d6+7 damage
R Shortbow +8 vs AC, 1d8+7 damage, range 15/30
MOVE ACTIONS
Ambush Trick: You may move up to your speed. Until the end of your turn, you gain combat advantage against enemies that are within 5 squares and have none of their allies adjacent to them
Tactical Trick: You may move up to your speed. You do not provoke opportunity attacks for leaving squares adjacent to your allies. Until the end of your turn, you gain combat advantage against enemies that have at least one of your allies adjacent to them.
TRIGGERED ACTIONS
Backstab (encounter; personal; no action; trigger: you make an attack roll using a basic attack against a creature within 5 squares granting combat advantage to you.)
Effect: You add +3 to the attack roll and deal 1d6 extra damage if it hits.
Furious Assault (encounter; personal; no action; trigger: you hit an enemy with an attack)
Effect: The triggering attack deals 1[W] extra damage or 1d8 if not a weapon attack.
Subterranean Survival (encounter; personal; free action; trigger: you make a Dungeoneering check and dislike it)
Effect: You reroll the Dungeoneering check.
ONGOING ABILITIES
First Strike – At the beginning of a combat, you have combat advantage against any foe that hasn’t yet acted.
Sneak Attack – the first time each turn you hit an opponent granting combat advantage to you, you deal 2d6 extra damage
SKILLS
Acrobatics +10, Athletics +5, Dungeoneering +9, Endurance +5, Intimidate +2, Perception +5, Stealth +10, Thievery +10
FEATS
Master at Arms (+1 to all weapon attacks; minor action to sheathe a weapon and draw a new weapon).
One of the big tricks with running 4E is this: Don't run 7-8 players in a group. If you're doing that, you're doing it wrong. Personally, I prefer 3 players with 4e, due to the way encounters scale, but I play 5-6 much of the time.
As an Encounters DM, I am expected to know basically what the powers in the group do. With more experienced players, it's less important, but one of the lovely thing about the Essentials characters is that they generally boil down to a lot of "I attack" powers with simple effects. My players in my high-level campaigns surprise me with new powers all the time; I'm rarely surprised in an Encounters game, so I can help a lot more.
Teaching 7-8 brand new players is AWFUL in 4E, and pretty damn AWFUL in 3e as well. Doing it in AD&D is a lot easier, because most of the characters can attack and that's it.
Cheers!
As an Encounters DM, I am expected to know basically what the powers in the group do. With more experienced players, it's less important, but one of the lovely thing about the Essentials characters is that they generally boil down to a lot of "I attack" powers with simple effects. My players in my high-level campaigns surprise me with new powers all the time; I'm rarely surprised in an Encounters game, so I can help a lot more.
Teaching 7-8 brand new players is AWFUL in 4E, and pretty damn AWFUL in 3e as well. Doing it in AD&D is a lot easier, because most of the characters can attack and that's it.
Cheers!
Isn't it funny I introduced 4 players to D&D 4E today. A fifth had significant 4E experience, and 1 had small 4E experience (played a 1 shot back when 4E first came out, so like 4 years ago). 2 of them needed the basic mechanic of rolling a d20, adding a modifier, and seeing if you need a target number explained.
There was a Dwarf S&B Fighter, an Eldarin Wizard, a Dragonborn Battle Cleric, a CA Rogue, and an Archery Ranger. All level 3 (so 2 encounter powers, 2 at-wills, 1 daily, plus class features).
In addition, we were using the Roll 20 tabletop which, while simple, still had a learning curve. Since this was mostly a stress-test of the software, and a mechanic introduction, there was pretty much no roleplay. I had a short encounter with three zombie dogs early on (which they pretty much kimcheed), and then they opened the doors to the outside, and met the meet of the problem.
12 Zombie Rotters (With an added mechanic that they had a save if they were killed by a non-crit, 15 or higher to remain standing)
2 Zombie Warchiefs (could enable 4 rotters to attack on their turn, could slide someone 3 spaces with shadow claws and enable an attack, could slam for pretty terrible damage)
1 Necromancer (level 3 elite, two spells and a close burst 5 (yes, burst FIVE) that did heavy damage, recharge).
While the necromancer had corpses, he channeled a spell I made up to create corpses, 2d3-1 for 2 turns, 2d3-2 for 2 turns, then he ran out of corpses.
So overall, it was 5 level 3 heroes, facing down 20+zombies, 2 warchiefs, and an elite mage. 3 people didn't know mechanics, 1 person had a shaky grasp, 1 had a firm grasp. You know what happened?
People only had 8-11 powers on their sheet. They were COLOR CODED. Green = At-Will. Red = Encounter. Grey = Daily.
Round 1 was interesting. Having beaten the zombie dogs, they figured they could slog through this. Then the necromancer (I put him dead last in the initiative order, DM perogative) summoned zombies, and they worked out what was happening.
Then it clicked. I heard them (we were on Skype). It started to gel. There was a goal here. A mission. The warchiefs needed to go down. They were enabling attacks and had dragged the ranger out of the inn into a pack of zombies. The necromancer needed to die. The shamblers were shamblers - finish em off, but focus on the warchiefs.
And then it began. The fighter rushed ahead, tanking the slow shamblers not just with Marks, but by virtue of leading the way. The rogue followed up, and using powers that let him get combat advantage while adjacent to allies (not just across) started setting up nasty combos. The cleric saw Turn Undead, went "Can I use this..." followed by "HELL YES I CAN" (zombies have terrible will! Close Burst 2 is that good!). The Ranger supported on the warchiefs while adding some help for the shamblers. The Wizard cleaned up shamblers with arc lightning and thunderwave.
As the horde started building up, I suggested the Wizard use Flaming Sphere. The one guy who had experience at the table went "HELL YES" and we explained a few questions he had about Flaming Sphere (it's not the simplest power in the book, but people like feeling cool). The save the zombies had was actually excellent at not trivializing the fight - over the next two turns, 3 zombies that should have died to the sphere remained standing, but it still cut a swath through them.
Finally the last of the corpses fell, and the bodies were exhausted. The wizard had been slinging spells at people for a round or two, but everyone was still up (Leader's surges and Cure Light Wounds depleted, Ranger had used Healing Step, Fighter used Minor Second Wind).
The cleric actually led the charge against the Necromancer. The Necromancer's strange glowing crown empowered him, but the PCs figured that enough damage would do the trick (spoiler: it would, but like 94 hp). The cleric missed, but enabled the rogue to get combat advantage. The fighter followed up with Comeback strike, marking and healing nicely, as well as doing massive damage. The wizard and ranger shot and cast spells. And despite a huge burst, the necromancer finally fell.
Total? 1 level 3 elite. 2 level 4 standards. ~20 level 3 minions. Brought down by 4 people with minimal 4E experience, and a 1 who had quite a bit.
I hate to say "maybe your DM sucked," but seriously, if you can't explain 4E to someone, maybe your DM sucked? Everything you need to know about a power is written on the card, and the Daily/Encounter/At-Will paradigm couldn't be easier.
I mean how would someone who can't grasp that play a 3E Druid? (Okay, BESIDES facerolling to victory).
There was a Dwarf S&B Fighter, an Eldarin Wizard, a Dragonborn Battle Cleric, a CA Rogue, and an Archery Ranger. All level 3 (so 2 encounter powers, 2 at-wills, 1 daily, plus class features).
In addition, we were using the Roll 20 tabletop which, while simple, still had a learning curve. Since this was mostly a stress-test of the software, and a mechanic introduction, there was pretty much no roleplay. I had a short encounter with three zombie dogs early on (which they pretty much kimcheed), and then they opened the doors to the outside, and met the meet of the problem.
12 Zombie Rotters (With an added mechanic that they had a save if they were killed by a non-crit, 15 or higher to remain standing)
2 Zombie Warchiefs (could enable 4 rotters to attack on their turn, could slide someone 3 spaces with shadow claws and enable an attack, could slam for pretty terrible damage)
1 Necromancer (level 3 elite, two spells and a close burst 5 (yes, burst FIVE) that did heavy damage, recharge).
While the necromancer had corpses, he channeled a spell I made up to create corpses, 2d3-1 for 2 turns, 2d3-2 for 2 turns, then he ran out of corpses.
So overall, it was 5 level 3 heroes, facing down 20+zombies, 2 warchiefs, and an elite mage. 3 people didn't know mechanics, 1 person had a shaky grasp, 1 had a firm grasp. You know what happened?
People only had 8-11 powers on their sheet. They were COLOR CODED. Green = At-Will. Red = Encounter. Grey = Daily.
Round 1 was interesting. Having beaten the zombie dogs, they figured they could slog through this. Then the necromancer (I put him dead last in the initiative order, DM perogative) summoned zombies, and they worked out what was happening.
Then it clicked. I heard them (we were on Skype). It started to gel. There was a goal here. A mission. The warchiefs needed to go down. They were enabling attacks and had dragged the ranger out of the inn into a pack of zombies. The necromancer needed to die. The shamblers were shamblers - finish em off, but focus on the warchiefs.
And then it began. The fighter rushed ahead, tanking the slow shamblers not just with Marks, but by virtue of leading the way. The rogue followed up, and using powers that let him get combat advantage while adjacent to allies (not just across) started setting up nasty combos. The cleric saw Turn Undead, went "Can I use this..." followed by "HELL YES I CAN" (zombies have terrible will! Close Burst 2 is that good!). The Ranger supported on the warchiefs while adding some help for the shamblers. The Wizard cleaned up shamblers with arc lightning and thunderwave.
As the horde started building up, I suggested the Wizard use Flaming Sphere. The one guy who had experience at the table went "HELL YES" and we explained a few questions he had about Flaming Sphere (it's not the simplest power in the book, but people like feeling cool). The save the zombies had was actually excellent at not trivializing the fight - over the next two turns, 3 zombies that should have died to the sphere remained standing, but it still cut a swath through them.
Finally the last of the corpses fell, and the bodies were exhausted. The wizard had been slinging spells at people for a round or two, but everyone was still up (Leader's surges and Cure Light Wounds depleted, Ranger had used Healing Step, Fighter used Minor Second Wind).
The cleric actually led the charge against the Necromancer. The Necromancer's strange glowing crown empowered him, but the PCs figured that enough damage would do the trick (spoiler: it would, but like 94 hp). The cleric missed, but enabled the rogue to get combat advantage. The fighter followed up with Comeback strike, marking and healing nicely, as well as doing massive damage. The wizard and ranger shot and cast spells. And despite a huge burst, the necromancer finally fell.
Total? 1 level 3 elite. 2 level 4 standards. ~20 level 3 minions. Brought down by 4 people with minimal 4E experience, and a 1 who had quite a bit.
I hate to say "maybe your DM sucked," but seriously, if you can't explain 4E to someone, maybe your DM sucked? Everything you need to know about a power is written on the card, and the Daily/Encounter/At-Will paradigm couldn't be easier.
I mean how would someone who can't grasp that play a 3E Druid? (Okay, BESIDES facerolling to victory).
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On various concerns that have been expressed:
1) I noted Minor Actions specifically before combat began. I asked everyone to find all the Minor and Move actions they had. 2 players had 2 minor actions, 2 more had 1. Most were healing or defense related. There was also dragon breath.
I told them that Minor Actions were utility actions taken during combat, and the exception was the Dragon Breath, because it was as simple as breathing for a Dragonborn. They got it. No one had any problems with the concept, and no one had any problems figuring out if they wanted to use them (I had called out the Minor Actions as "special" in their minds, and they tracked them as something different from a Standard Action).
2) I designed the classes for the playtest. What, did you think those were 5 of the most complex classes I could find? The optimal action for the Ranger, most of the time, was Twin Strike. Sometimes Twin Strike and Action Point for MORE Twin Strike. Yeah, it's that good. You EASE people into this, you don't pick the most complex class you can find and dump people in it (it's no surprise the experienced person got the CA Rogue which I told people was the most complex class). You let them see someone playing a complex class, and you show them simpler classes. People will split the difference.
3) This was WAY more complex than anything done in D&D encounters. This is for a reason. I wanted to show them what 4E enables for epic combat, and epic combat is not possible without risk. I told them a TPK was probably around 40%-60% likely. Seeing them play, they came awfully close sometimes. The rogue and ranger were both sub-10 HP at the same time at one point, and a Healing Word charge had already been used.
Speaking of which, something that was legit confusing. The Cleric said "I used healing word, I can't use it again." Had to explain Healing Word being a "special" encounter power. He read it, got it, and we were good, but the Red Coding tricked him (Oh look, that color coding is GENIUS).
The use of Flaming Sphere wasn't immediately obvious to the Wizard. Once things started burning, he got it pretty quick. The Action tradeoff was super-intuitive (use a move to make a move with the sphere).
If you have someone new to the game in general, give them a Bow Ranger. They'll feel effective (mostly because they ARE effective) and their action tree is super easy. "Doing something? No? Twin Strike." That being said, the guy playing him actually grasped Hunter's Quarry nearly immediately (he was the one with some experience) and started using it effectively.
The Fighter legit loved playing the class. As I said, he mostly tanked by being near the slow moving zombies, although Cleave was super effective at cutting them apart, and the Zombies mostly attacked the nearest thing, which helped him (they're ZOMBIES! What, complex tactics? Nah).
It did drag some, but they were having a good deal of fun, and by the end even other new players were conspiring with each other to figure out what they could do. It helped everyone had everyone elses character sheets, and were collectively reading them. It slowed the play down, but it also made it 10x easier, and helped THEM to learn how to read the sheet (as opposed to them asking me to read their sheet).
Oh yeah, and as I said encounter complexity makes encounters look like cheese, no offense
1) I noted Minor Actions specifically before combat began. I asked everyone to find all the Minor and Move actions they had. 2 players had 2 minor actions, 2 more had 1. Most were healing or defense related. There was also dragon breath.
I told them that Minor Actions were utility actions taken during combat, and the exception was the Dragon Breath, because it was as simple as breathing for a Dragonborn. They got it. No one had any problems with the concept, and no one had any problems figuring out if they wanted to use them (I had called out the Minor Actions as "special" in their minds, and they tracked them as something different from a Standard Action).
2) I designed the classes for the playtest. What, did you think those were 5 of the most complex classes I could find? The optimal action for the Ranger, most of the time, was Twin Strike. Sometimes Twin Strike and Action Point for MORE Twin Strike. Yeah, it's that good. You EASE people into this, you don't pick the most complex class you can find and dump people in it (it's no surprise the experienced person got the CA Rogue which I told people was the most complex class). You let them see someone playing a complex class, and you show them simpler classes. People will split the difference.
3) This was WAY more complex than anything done in D&D encounters. This is for a reason. I wanted to show them what 4E enables for epic combat, and epic combat is not possible without risk. I told them a TPK was probably around 40%-60% likely. Seeing them play, they came awfully close sometimes. The rogue and ranger were both sub-10 HP at the same time at one point, and a Healing Word charge had already been used.
Speaking of which, something that was legit confusing. The Cleric said "I used healing word, I can't use it again." Had to explain Healing Word being a "special" encounter power. He read it, got it, and we were good, but the Red Coding tricked him (Oh look, that color coding is GENIUS).
The use of Flaming Sphere wasn't immediately obvious to the Wizard. Once things started burning, he got it pretty quick. The Action tradeoff was super-intuitive (use a move to make a move with the sphere).
If you have someone new to the game in general, give them a Bow Ranger. They'll feel effective (mostly because they ARE effective) and their action tree is super easy. "Doing something? No? Twin Strike." That being said, the guy playing him actually grasped Hunter's Quarry nearly immediately (he was the one with some experience) and started using it effectively.
The Fighter legit loved playing the class. As I said, he mostly tanked by being near the slow moving zombies, although Cleave was super effective at cutting them apart, and the Zombies mostly attacked the nearest thing, which helped him (they're ZOMBIES! What, complex tactics? Nah).
It did drag some, but they were having a good deal of fun, and by the end even other new players were conspiring with each other to figure out what they could do. It helped everyone had everyone elses character sheets, and were collectively reading them. It slowed the play down, but it also made it 10x easier, and helped THEM to learn how to read the sheet (as opposed to them asking me to read their sheet).
Oh yeah, and as I said encounter complexity makes encounters look like cheese, no offense
Victim
First Post
Okay. Brash Strike is really good; the +2 attack and +Con to damage are a pretty significant offensive boost. Granting combat advantage to enemy encourages them to attack the fighter, supporting their defender role.
A power that grants the enemy a free attack does not support that role, and would be best used with another defender marking the target so they couldn't take the free attack without suffering punishment.
