Should Evaluate be worth +2?

[philosophyguy]

The Evaluate maneuver seems underpowered in combat. Compare two options: take an Evaluate maneuver and then attack, versus attack and then attack again on your next turn.

You are more likely to get a hit by attacking twice than by evaluating and attacking if your effective skill is 6 or higher (and you might even get a second hit by attacking twice!) So, evaluating is only useful if your effective skill is 5 or less.

If Evaluate were worth +2, then you would be more likely to get at least one hit with Evaluate (as opposed to attacking twice) if your effective skill is 9 or less—a far more useful range of effective skills—and the bonus is somewhere between 4% and 8%, which doesn't seem overpowering.

The only possible problem I can see with making Evaluate +2 is if it were stacked multiple turns in a row, but limiting the bonus to +1 for each second after the first seems to mitigate that problem.

Are there other reasons why Evaluate should be limited to +1?

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by philosophyguy

The Evaluate maneuver seems underpowered in combat. Compare two options: take an Evaluate maneuver and then attack, versus attack and then attack again on your next turn.

You are more likely to get a hit by attacking twice than by evaluating and attacking if your effective skill is 6 or higher (and you might even get a second hit by attacking twice!) So, evaluating is only useful if your effective skill is 5 or less.

If Evaluate were worth +2, then you would be more likely to get at least one hit with Evaluate (as opposed to attacking twice) if your effective skill is 9 or less—a far more useful range of effective skills—and the bonus is somewhere between 4% and 8%, which doesn't seem overpowering.

The only possible problem I can see with making Evaluate +2 is if it were stacked multiple turns in a row, but limiting the bonus to +1 for each second after the first seems to mitigate that problem.

Are there other reasons why Evaluate should be limited to +1?

There was a flurry of discussion of Evaluate about a year ago, including a "Melee Academy" collection of posts. You might mine those for inspiration to start.

[Landwalker]

To echo a somewhat side-comment made by Douglas Cole in his own linked post, the answer (I have found) is The Last Gasp rules. These really take the edge off the "attack every second, non-stop, forever" approach and mentality—doing that is a good way to exhaust yourself and then get killed, and Evaluate becomes an extremely valuable and tactically important option.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Landwalker

The Last Gasp... Evaluate becomes an extremely valuable and tactically important option.

Because you're Evaluating, or because it becomes the "Rest" Maneuver?

[weby]

I have used evaluate to be +2/second with a +4 maximum for quite a long time with no found drawbacks.

It is still extremely rare for people to take it, but now it is maybe "twice in a blue moon" instead of the previous "once in a blue moon".

So for players to see a benefit in it it should likely be even more... But sticking with the +2 for now.

[evileeyore]

The only time I've seen Evaluate used was by invisible or nigh-invisible PCs setting up a melee ambush.

I've never seen it used in the heat. If a PC was missing due to low skill they either run away or find some other way to contribute to a fight.

[trooper6]

I was playing in an arena game that was pure combat...and Evaluate was used surprisingly often. Usually at the beginning of the fight as we were maneuvering to get into range. I'd say almost every fight started with Evaluate maneuvers. Evaluate would also come up within combat for attackers who had reach.

[Dustin]

I don't think it breaks anything to make it +2. I've been toying with a houserule to make it +1 on your next attack, but also +1 on your defenses against that opponent.

I believe Kromm is on record that Evaluate isn't intended to be competitive with other maneuvers in the middle of a fight, it's intended more for situations where you can't attack yet for some reason, so what do you do?

[trooper6]

Evaluate also helps against feints...which was useful in the arena game because feints were not uncommon.

[Dingle]

in the case of low point games with skill ~14, medium shields, and combat reflexes, retreating defenses are close to combat skill.
In this case, at least one of feint or evaluate is worth it as the chances of hitting without them are low.

Evaluate followed by feint has a good chance of turning the evaluate bonus into a defense penalty, which in turn leads to a decisive hit.