OK, R.C., your reasoning is
so bad I don't even know where to begin.
R.C. wrote:But when the PCs have the ability, the monsters aren't necessarily going to be able to adapt. Monsters for one, don't necessarily have intelligence, meaning they can't necessarily adapt at all.
Exactly. A melee-only monster that is so low-int that it can't adapt to Karmic Strike is also going to lose horribly to a 5th level Sorcerer with Fly, a 5th level Monk with shuriken and a faster land speed than the monster, or a 5th level Ranger with a longbow and the ability to climb a tree and get out of the monster's melee range. Low-int monsters
can't adapt, and adding Karmic Strike to the list of things they can't adapt to
doesn't change their situation at all. High-int monsters who *can* adapt to the aforementioned characters can
also, by definition, adapt to a Karmic Striking samurai, because they're smart enough to figure something out. Either way, the monster's fundamental situations haven't changed. Karmic Strike is irrelevant to either one of them in terms of their ability to deal with adventurers.
R.C. wrote:I fundamentally believe that PC abilities can't be equal to monster abilities for the following reason: All PCs can think and adapt, yet not every monster can.
I fundamentally believe that PCs abilites and monster abilities MUST be able to be equal, because low-Int monsters, definitionally, have the same ability to adapt as PCs of the same Int, and, moreover, every attribute is theoretically equal, meaning that a high enough Strength must, if the game is balanced correctly, be able to come to a standstill when pitted against a very high Int. Some creatures are simply so powerful that all of your well-laid plans and schemes come to naught -- and that's OK.
Notice that Karmic Strike falls perfectly into this schema. Your samurai, thinking "Ah, ha, now I'm going to take this blow, and hack the creature's head off while it's fangs are buried in my ribcage!" just up and
dies if that bite has enough force behind it. All that planning just went down the tubes, because the creature you're fighting is stronger than you. Que sera, sera.
R.C. wrote:It is however metagame for your characters not to flank someone with elusive target or to deliberately back off because you recognize the guy has karmic strike.
In what way is it metagaming to say "holy crap, the last two or three times I hit this guy, he hit me back at the same time! I'd better figure on beating his ass without my sword if I'm going to survive this one!"?
Just because your characters can't know the names of and mechanical effectives behind specific feats doesn't mean they're stupidly unobservant when it comes to the effects of their actions in-game. There's nothing "metagaming" about recognizing when your normal tactics aren't working like they usually do, and not using them.
Heck, once you've fought someone with Karmic Strike or Elusive Target, there's not anything metagaming about being prepared for another foe to use the same ability later.
R.C. wrote:If you're flanked and you roll a natural 20 and the DM tells you "you missed and struck your companion", you've either heard of elusive target, and instantly ID the effect as being from that feat, or you think you're being hosed in the worst way possible.
Wow...for my play style apparently being "Gygaxian", my players certainly have much greater DM trust than yours seem to. If my players roll a natural 20 against an enemy, and I say "you miss them and hit your friend on the other side of him instead", they say "Wow, that sucks. Obviously this guy has some tricks we haven't seen yet; be careful, OK? Oh, and try to figure out how to keep him from doing that again."
Of course, many of the enemies my players face are highly modified from their Monster Manual entries, or have custom PrCs with unique abilities that the PCs haven't ever heard of. My players *like* the feeling of the unknown, and the knowledge that they're going to have to be creative and think outside the box to be really successful in my games. They trust me to not hose them in the worst way possible -- and I don't. If a DMs players are ready to jump to the conclusion that he's hosing them in the worst way possible...they need a new DM.
R.C. wrote:You'd never think that the enemy derived a benefit from you flanking him. At best, you'd connect it to some kind of misdirection ability that he can direct one of your attacks at anyone else in range of him. And that means you'd avoid melee altogether or go one on one.
Only if you're an exceptionally uncreative PC. If any of my players had been in that situation, they would probably try a few other melee tactics before they decided this was a creature not meant to be meleed against. Then again, as I said, my PCs are used to seeing things they don't know the mechanics behind...and they trust me.
Essence