In-Combat Scaling

[...You Lost Me]

Maybe this topic has hit the board before, but I just thought of it and I was wondering what your opinions were:

So to incentivize the use of a tank or an HP-bag, which is a sacred cow I don't want to kill, one would need a class that could draw aggro early. I was thinking that this could come about through some sort of high-burst potential early in the game. For example, the warrior could have a shout that dealt high damage, encouraging the enemies to perhaps focus him so that he stops. Of course, the ability would have some sort of limiter, like "doesn't work if you got hit last turn" or something.

In a similar vein, the rogue/high dpr-mage would need to not be attacked, at least in the first couple of rounds, and I was thinking that could come from dealing only weak damage in the early rounds, which would then scale as the character studied/meditated/gained religious zeal/etc.

This way you have a warrior walking in and soaking up the hits early in the fight, but his abilities don't get stronger so he's features in rounds 1 or 2, and the rogue who goes unnoticed early in the fight, only to be the endgame nuke that finishes combats. It fits pretty well with the whole "death attack" or "ULTIMATE FINISHER" trope too.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Your tank idea is pretty much why 4E D&D put in those marking mechanics in the first place; or more specifically, why 4E D&D put in all of those kludges so that defenders can't combo off of each other.

[OgreBattle]

There was a 3e knight or something who could challenge people and, if they didnt attack him, he dealt extra damage

4e has two ways of doing this

marking- you get in one target's face and they are penalized to attack anyone else, you can counterattack them in different ways based on your class.

defender aura- like the above, but it just applies to any badguy within 5ft of you.

Pathfinder takes marking and makes it an 'X times per day' thing that you need level 12 to get its full features.

[BearsAreBrown]

Why not throw away the MMO threat mechanic and use a system that more heavily supports tactical placement? Aggro mechanics don't work well in tabletops because they support LONG battles and those are very hard to keep tactically interesting. Keep in mind that most 3.5e combats are over in a single digit amount of turns.

[Dean]

The idea of giving different classes different "ideal combats" is a totally valid and interesting one in my opinion. I think creating a warrior class who has totally amazing abilities if he can hit someone and then get no one to hit him for a couple rounds a totally reasonable option.

[John Magnum]

I wonder if it's possible to do "Iron Heroes but not really stupid". Where different classes have different token-generating and token-spending schticks, so you have dudes who wade in and start trading blows immediately and you have dudes who hang around at the outskirts of a battle waiting for the perfect opening. As far as I recall, one of IH's big problems was that some classes earned tokens in completely stupid ways, so if you remove those...?

[Kaelik]

There was a 3e knight or something who could challenge people and, if they didnt attack him, he dealt extra damage.

No there isn't. There is a 3e knight with Mind Control Challenges that force compliance to a weird set of rules.

As opposed to the Tome Knight, who was invented on this forum, which does extra damage.

I've accepted that half the posters here have never actually read the Tomes, but fuck, can you at least not make references to Tome material as if it came from some other source?

[BearsAreBrown]

to give Ogre credit, I doubt he was actually referencing Tome material. Knight's challenge SHOULD work the way Tome says but it's hardly the first or the only homebrew fix that does such.

[Neurosis]

I love Tome Knight.

[ModelCitizen]

This way you have a warrior walking in and soaking up the hits early in the fight, but his abilities don't get stronger so he's features in rounds 1 or 2, and the rogue who goes unnoticed early in the fight, only to be the endgame nuke that finishes combats. It fits pretty well with the whole "death attack" or "ULTIMATE FINISHER" trope too.

That's backwards in my opinion. The rogue should be awesome on round 1, fighters should be awesome in round 2 or 3. Rogues are supposed to blackjack guards and carry out assassinations, so they need frontloaded bursty damage. Tank types are supposed to hold the line and do well in standup fights, so they need even or backloaded damage.

Kind of a sidenote: The thing where the rogue doesn't act for the first two rounds is usually because the player isn't assertive enough to establish that he's in position for a sneak attack before the DM calls for initiative. If anything rogue mechanics should work against that, which is probably why tactical teleports are such a popular rogue option.

[K]

I'm not convinced that there is value in "aggro" mechanics.

I mean, at best you end up forcing some people to be the center of attention in a cooperative storytelling game, and at worse you end up over-specializing characters so they can't solo or duel anything while putting the burden of smart play on the tanks.

I've played a White Mage in Final Fantasy. It's boring as shit, and that's why 3e DnD specifically handed out more things for clerics to do like Domain spells. Otherwise, no one would play the healer or support character.

[...You Lost Me]

Hm, that's a fair bit of things to mull over, thank you guys.

I'm just interested in mechanically incentivizing the roles of HP bag and nuke, and I don't know many ways other than forcing aggro or giving some big burst damage.

What do?

[Username17]

You can either attempt to do rational aggro, or irrational aggro. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Rational Aggro is when you want to attack character A, so you do. Irrational Aggro is when you attack character A even though that's objectively stupid.

But what people seem to want is for rational aggro to be focused on the toughest characters. That's... problematic. It is generally rational to attack whatever enemy is the most dangerous for how tough they are. If the toughest character is also the most dangerous pound for pound, then they are pretty much by definition dramatically more dangerous than the other player characters. Also tougher, just to add insult to injury.

In short: what people genuinely seem to want is for Fighters to be "better" than other characters. That's problematic, but you can see how 4e ended up the way it did.

Because if you have "strikers" at all, that is characters whose schtick is that they are relatively dangerous and relatively fragile, then they are obviously the biggest aggro soaks. Just from first principles, you want to attack the guy who is more dangerous and more fragile more than you want to attack anyone else.

Now there are things you can do about that. Here are some:

• Healing and Protection. If one character makes his allies dramatically less fragile, then the optimal strategy could be to attack them first even if they aren't personally very dangerous. If the healer makes the rest of the team tougher by more than his own toughness then he is target number one even if he doesn't do any damage at all himself.
• Area Control. If you allow controlling an area to really mean something, then any character can set themselves to be target number one just by moving to the most important area to control.
• Contingent Damage. If a character becomes more dangerous if they are left alone, then targeting them can be rational even if they are very tough.

From a class design standpoint, the Diablo Paladin or the Tome Knight can easily be the target of choice. From a game design standpoint, area control would have to be in general much more important than it has ever been in any edition of D&D to make playing a character who is tough and not especially dangerous to be a rewarded life choice.

-Username17

[RobG]

Anyone that your group wants to be the focus of attacks is going to be the guy no one wants to attack, and vice versa, assuming your enemy has a decent int score.

The only way I can think to avoid this is to have a category of Great-in- combat-but-otherwise-useless and another of Good-in-combat-and-very-useful. You'd probably want the useful guys safe in the back and your enemy would want to focus on the slightly more dangerous guys in front.

If Fighters were your most dangerous combatants and no harder to kill than anyone else this would work perfectly.

There would be 2 problems though:

1 Fighter mortality

2 Fighters bored outside combat

Which could be solved by:

Fighter NPCs

which sounds kind of familar now that I think about it..

[erik]

Rather than Aggro, I'd like a defender who actually protected his allies in a meaningful manner.

Something like a Devoted Defender but cranked up many notches. Able to parry attacks upon protected party members, able to halt enemy movement, give boosts to saves, grant temp HP, shield other, whatever. That is someone who could tank and actually draw ire of enemies.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Something like a Devoted Defender but cranked up many notches. Able to parry attacks upon protected party members, able to halt enemy movement, give boosts to saves, grant temp HP, shield other, whatever. That is someone who could tank and actually draw ire of enemies.

You mean like a cleric?

[erik]

Clerics can do most of that stuff, yes. Clerics can do nearly everything.

Are we talking 3e? It's my most familiar rpg language which is why I framed it in those terms. Mostly I'm just trying to provide a lot of combat abilities that a tank could have in a game. Clerics do make great tanks.

[OgreBattle]

In Final Fantasy IV, Cecil the Paladin has the ability 'Cover'. He jumps in and intercepts blows towards one of his companions.

Edge can create mirror images, he is difficult to hit
Kain Jumps, he completely negates being targetted.

So if you have Kain, Edge, Cecil, and Rosa in a part, Cecil only needs to cover Rosa, the other two guys have their own ways of mitigating damage.
So this isn't quite Aggro mechanics, but it fits together well.
*and then FFXI throws out everything they ever learned with FF and revert to Everquest 2.0.


'Interception' abilities seem more fun. I think of 4e's marking/aura as interception.


I don't like the idea of Tanks Only Tanking and Strikers Only Striking though. One of my least favorite things about MMO party setups is this very stiff gearing. A dark knight will splatter if hit, only the Paladin is allowed to take hits. There's nothing heroic about that, it's just a puzzle game with damage numbers.

I think it's better to make things like going on the offensive, marking someone, covering a specific thing, or skirmishing more turn-by-turn decisions than something your class sets in stone.

The burly shield fighter is more solid than the rogue, but maybe the rogue can step in to distract the troll when the fighter's in a pickle.

When I have the bones of this system laid out I'll add it to Its My Own Design.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Are we talking 3e? It's my most familiar rpg language which is why I framed it in those terms. Mostly I'm just trying to provide a lot of combat abilities that a tank could have in a game. Clerics do make great tanks.

I had the 4E Cleric in mind, in fact. A laser cleric pretty much fits all of your criteria. They're still (if you ignore Dragon #404, in which case they're tough as hell to boot) on the squishy side of average as far as durability goes. But then that just feeds into Frank's aforementioned problem of them being a character that does a bunch of things and is tough, to boot.

[Lago PARANOIA]

In response to a PM I got:

Building a Cleric 'tank' that fits most of those design goals is nowhere near as daunting as it sounds. The variant I am about to post doesn't funnel attacks towards them like the traditional tanks do, but as far as mitigating damage goes it's hard to top.

Let's assume that you are using Dragon #404, as well. Also, please note that Divine Power explicitly allows you to worship multiple gods as long as they fit some kind of theme. This is the STR/WIS variant for being a 'tank'.

Race: Human
Human Variant: Third At-Will.
Class: Cleric | Runepriest Hybrid
Class Variant: Cleric: Battle Cleric (Dragon #404)
Class Variant: Runepriest: That WIS-Blade variant
Paragon Path: Morninglord or that Runepriest Paragon path that boosts your AC if you do certain things. Morninglord if you want to do a lot of extra damage, that Runepriest Paragon path if you can get an Armor of Shared Valor and feel like blowing the game open. If you want to be a traditional tank you can go Warpriest and it'd normally be an extremely solid choice otherwise. But it's running up against Morninglord and that Runepriest paragon path. Get that as a backup.
Channel Divinity: Healer's Mercy, that reroll-granting one (Dragon #404)
Theme: Elemental Guardian or Sohei, depending on whether you take Mark of Warding or not. If so, Elemental Guardian.
Initial Stat Array: STR: 18 WIS: 16 INT: 13 CON: 11 DEX/CHA: 10 and 8. Put all level-ups into strength and wisdom.
Your ass uses a glaive from now on.

Feats
1: Hybrid Talent: Rune Focus / Channel Divinity depending on your pleasure.
1H: Swordmage Multiclass feat so you can use heavy blades, or rather glaives as an implement.
2: Heavy Blade Expertise (so you can actually hit shit)
4: Mark of Warding / Healing (depending on whether you need to grant saving throws more or static defense bonuses)
6: Power of Skill (lets you use RB as a MBA)
8: Power of Moon (RB inflicts a -2 penalty to defense for one round)
10: Weapon Focus: Heavy Blade. If your DM will let you pick up TWO Dragonmarks, pick up the Mark you didn't originally select.
11: Polearm Gamble (use RB against anyone who moves adjacent in melee to you)
12: Improved Defenses (you need it), Retrain into Reserve Maneuver at level 13. Reserve Maneuver will replace your crappy PP power.
14: Improved Defenses, again.
16: Whatever.

Power Overview:
At first level, you take Righteous Brand, Sacred Flame, and that Runepriest power that adds a +WIS bonus if you hit an enemy. Sacred Flame is your ranged backup and also your saving throw granter. Righteous Brand is your money-maker.

For your encounter power, take healing strike.

Daily power, no contest. Moment of Glory.

2nd Level: Take bless for right now. You'll want to switch to Armor of Faith if/when you pick up Mark of Warding however.

3rd Level: Pick up Rune of the Blinding Shield. Blindness is a boss status effect and this power is off-action to boot.

5th Level: This is the only real downside of hybriding cleric and runepriest. Runepriests have no good level 1 or 5 powers. They have an okay one that gives a middling amount of damage reduction and defense in a small area, you might want to look into that.

6th Level: I forgot the name of the power, but they printed a Runepriest power that lets you create scripts ahead of time that a party member can use as a minor action to regain a healing surge. Extremely kickass power, never worry about healing again except for really long workdays.

7th Level: Cause Fear if you have a melee-heavy group, which you probably will, because non-wizard/ranger/cleric ranged characters suck. If you have a hard time using this in melee, just ready it to go off during the opponent's turn so they can't OA you. If you don't have a melee-heavy group, I dunno, grab another off-action power or something.

9th level: Divine Power if you have Mark of Warding, Consecrated Ground if you don't and fight in confined spaces, or Blade Barrier for Murder Pinball.

10th Level: Rune of the Astral Winds. Extremely boss power, ESPECIALLY if one or more people pick up the Agile Opportunist feat from the PHB2 next level. Then it's flat-out overpowered instead of just really good. Best tank utility that they will never get.

13th level: Get that Luring Ward power or whatever if you have a melee-heavy group, otherwise that double-hitting thunder power. I think Runepriest has a similar power (forces an enemy to flee) at this level, I can't remember. The power you replaced for this 13th level power? Put it in Reserve Maneuver.

By the way, at this point in the game you should be angling for an Armor of Shared Valor ASAP. Best armor ever, totally overpowered.

15th level: I dunno, man, nothing comes to mind. There's gotta be something good.

16th level: You're spoiled for choices on this level. I prefer Cloak of Courage, though if you have Mark of Warding Astral Shield is extremely strong competition.

17th level: Rune of the Phalanx. Awesome power.



So anyway, yeah. That's the build. It's good but not remarkable at low levels (like every decent 4E character except ones that get grossly overpowered and just start off good) and really starts to take off on its own at paragon path level. There's no fancy funneling tricks, you just make the party nigh-indestructible while having better-than-standard-tank-level defenses yourself (at level 11, you gain 9 temp hp a round, wear scale, and have +2 to AC on top of that without dipping into powers or features) with a side order of decent attack bonus granting.