Races of War

[cthulhu]

no, those are the first 3rd ed D&D computer games. However some of the class design was more than a bit tweaked - which might result in bard superpowers.

Bad dudes would often have absurd saves too which nerfed wizards.

[Cielingcat]

NWN Bards are better at fighting than anything but a Cleric or Druid, and they get good SoD spells too. Also their saves are OMGAWESOME.

[Koumei]

I remember playing a Bard in that. I had no idea why I was so awesome. I killed Tommy Undergallows permanently by Greasing the floor before he talked to me the first time. He kept slipping over and taking damage, and then died. Because he wasn't a cohort yet, he never came back (until the expansion).

And that pleased me.

I found that the Cursed song was awesome for when you're swarmed by enemies that don't let you move and just keep fishing for 20s and have poison/disease (the rooms in Neverwinter that are filled with bugs, for instance).

But I mainly played as a Druid/Whatever prestige class lets you turn into mind flayers and golems and shit. I didn't kill the mind flayers, instead striking a deal with them. That was pretty cool.

And Sigma, yes, they do have something better: the "Races of War" Knight. Rather cool, makes more sense, does a better job of "tanking".

[JonSetanta]

Yes it's probably the tweaks that made Bard good, cuz I played Bard years ago in the beginning of 3.0, and he died too many times at level 3. He sucked at EVERYTHING.
Lousy warrior, even worse as backup-spellcaster. The songs did absolute crap.

Don't recall any Curse song back then... Probably a NWN-only thing.

My girlfriend is a strange munchkin in that she played Druid/Shifter and did it damned well, but then runs around in a big gown, a dragon-wing helmet, a DR5/something buckler, and an enhanced slingshot.
Shockingly, she kicked ass. After a level of Sorcerer to use items and get "a cute dragon", she was constantly surrounded by cohorts, summons, and animal friends, yet the dragon did die a bit fast... like on the first round usually.. it was still good bait tho, took the focus off of her.
She just stood there casting buffs, then turned into something to lay the wuppin, usually manticore at mid levels (or mow-ticore as she puts it, for the noise cats make)

Since we have yet to play online together, I wonder how she'd fare against my battlefield control and almost-full Sorc...

Koumei: I'll check it out then. I usually skip the class section in RoW cuz the rest is more fun, but that looks promising. Still needs area attacks tho....

[JonSetanta]

Quick question, probably asked before: are the armors ever going to be finished?

[Bigode]

I've modified the barbarian a little - especially by taking Command out, as usual. Any input?

BERSERKER

Hit Die: d12.
Attack: Good.
Fortitude: Good.
Reflex: Good.
Will: Good.
Skill Points: 4.
Proficiencies: Simple and martial weapons, light and medium armor, common shields.

Class Skills: Balance, Climb, Craft, Intimidate, Jump, Listen, Profession, Spot, Survival, Swim.

Rage (Ex): When hitting an enemy with a melee attack, being struck by one, or being targeted by an effect to which the berserker would be immune during a rage, a berserker may choose to enter a rage as an immediate action. While raging, the berserker gains a +4 bonus to Strength, a +2 bonus to saving throws, a -2 penalty to AC, immunity to fatigue and exhaustion, and damage reduction 2/–. This damage reduction increases by 1 at level 2 and every 2 levels thereafter.
A raging berserker may not concentrate, activate equipment effects, or drop weaponry. A fit of rage lasts until the berserker has neither struck any enemies nor taken damage from them for three consecutive rounds. The berserker may voluntarily end a rage as a full-round action.

Devastating Blows (Ex): While raging, a 2nd-level berserker deals 1d6 extra damage per 2 class levels with their iterative melee attacks.

Fast Pace (Ex): While raging, a 2nd-level berserker adds 5 feet per 2 class levels to their base speeds.

Hard to Kill (Ex): While not raging, a 3rd-level berserker has fast healing equal to their class level.

Mad Harmony (Ex): While raging, a 5th-level berserker may make Fortitude saves instead of Reflex or Will saves, and is immune to charm, compulsion and fear.

Stunning Blows (Ex): While raging, a 7th-level berserker may stun enemies with their melee or thrown weapon attacks. Any enemy struck must make a Constitution-based Fortitude save or be stunned for one round. No enemy can be targeted by this ability more than once per round.

Healthy Mood (Ex): While raging, a 9th-level berserker is immune to nonlethal damage, death effects, stunning, critical hits, negative levels, and ability damage.

Imposing (Ex): While not raging, a 11th-level berserker has spell resistance 15 + their character level.

Blessed (Ex): A 13th-level berserker may reroll any given failed save once.

Luddism (Ex): Upon raging, a 15th-level berserker may choose to radiate an effect similar to an antimagic field for the duration of the rage. This effect does not affect the berserker or their equipment.

Vandalism (Ex): While raging, a 17th-level berserker may take a full-round action to make a melee or thrown weapon attack. If it hits, the target struck must make a Constitution-based Will save or be affected as per mage's disjunction.

Cooldown (Ex): Upon ending a rage, a 19th-level berserker recovers up to 10 hit points per character level.

[Judging__Eagle]

Mad Harmony is either useless or making all three saves good is redundant.

I'd shy away from haivn Rage giving the character a bonus to Str, unless you want your barbs to go into a rage before climbing a mountain or jumping over a chasm. Both of which are pretty silly propositions.

The rule on when a Rage ends could be iffy as well. He might be hitting, but he might not be doing damage and thus might not know it and then his rage ends.

Which would really odd to have happen, since a furious barbarian that is hitting his enemy doesn't really care if he's killing his enemy so long as he's still landing a strike.

There's some other things, but that's what I saw right away.

[Bigode]

First, thanks for the input.

Mad harmony: it's supposed to let the berserker optimize the hell outta Con and, depending on wealth paradigm, single-save cheaper bonus items.

Str on rage: OK, I admit wanting to rage before jumping's silly, but the idea without a doubt was "he's so angry he'll jump/climb/burst anything to reach people"; and, once we're in crazy land, the RoW one could conceivably be seen doing the same for DR anyway.

On "dealing damage", I think that was an accident; consider it editted. Anything else?

[JonSetanta]

Wait wait... on Imposing it says while NOT raging... why?

[Judging__Eagle]

I want to add that the RoW barb already encourages pumping up your Fort saves to cover your will/reflex saves.

When your not raging you use your lower saves however.

[Bigode]

Well, I didn't really like "rage all but ceases to exist at some point", and the all-good saves was a decision to make every class without FX (magic/psionics/incarnum/blade magic) have perfect BAB and saves. You know, the classes "for dummies" (that's the actual design intention, but of course I mean "casual players" more than "retarded folks", since I'd just avoid those) would have no real weaknesses beyond lack of customizability (i.e. lack of optimization).

Imposing: it's meant to act as a passive defense against one-shotting and a reason to actually consider not raging. Call it "stored energy".

[JonSetanta]

Yep there should be classes with varying degrees of simplicity.
The Fighter, as sucky as it may be, remains a great pick for beginning players. No amount of "Clerics/Druids/Wizards PWN ALL!" arguing will ever change that, because if a new player's first experience with D&D is all "I cast ___ and win with no challenge", they won't find it very fun.

I'm thinking of finding a way to apply the Tome Barbarian to some kind of rage-caster, or at least some way to get Tome Barb. rage to amplify spell power without being broken.
You know, like multiclass Sorcerer/ Tome Barbarian, rage, get TB bonus to spell damage.

[Bigode]

Fighter is not good for beginners. Out of sucky PHB classes (for whatever reason you'd play them as written), hand out barbarians - a novice playing a fighter would have trouble keeping up with it.

On rage caster: interesting. You might wanna look at the wilder a little too.

[JonSetanta]

Fighter and Barbarian could be the same class. Gestalt both into one, and you're all set. What do you think of that idea?
(and yes, a friend tried it. held up OK in the 15-something range with my Psion and another friend's Ninja, but then again they aren't really superb choices either)

For short term 1-shot or maybe even 2-3 session D&D games, which is the average in my history of gaming, a low-mid level Fighter is fine. Perhaps it comes down to personal opinion, or whether or not a campaign is within E6 limitation.

Wilder sucks ass. I refuse to daze myself with a failed enervate.

[Bigode]

Dunno - I don't find the barbarian all that hot. Besides, anything that chooses 11 feats' complex by definition. On what I did to the fighter and what I feel it'd need not to suck: see here (and it isn't all that difficult to make resemble a barbarian, in the end; there's just lots of choices to make).

[angelfromanotherpin]

1191376671[/unixtime]]if a new player's first experience with D&D is all "I cast ___ and win with no challenge", they won't find it very fun.

I don't know about you, but I've introduced a lot of people to a lot of games, and one thing that works really well to get their interest is, in fact, winning without much difficulty. It's a positive experience, it gets their interest up, so they'll be back for more. Challenge is something people look for once they've found their confidence.

Spellcasters also have more choices (people love choices), and make people feel clever by beating the numbers game (look at that, that guy totally had more hit points than me, and I beat him silly; David and Goliath, right there).

In fact, Clerics and Druids are probably the best characters for starting players, since they're so forgiving of mistakes. Druids especially, with their Animal Companion backup built-in.

[JonSetanta]

Maybe my friends and I are all crazy to actually desire a challenge. -_-;

[Koumei]

I'm not that big on challenges, to tell the truth. While I enjoy the thrill of "That was close, and I still won!", I don't like the bit that comes before it, the "Shit, I think I'm going to lose this", and dying really sucks. I prefer combat as a way of showing how awesome the PCs are, and letting them use the varieties of cool abilities they recently acquired.

Which explains my approach to computer RPGs. For the Final Fantasy style ones, "stormtroopering". The art of walking in circles and beating up weak monsters until you're 5-10 levels higher than the game expects. In NWN, making a custom map where speaking to an NPC gives you enough XP to hit level 40, then exporting the character and starting the regular campaign with them. It even tries to compensate for this, by giving you lots of weaker guys to fight (so instead of 1 CR 2, you get 10 CR 2 foes).

If my character had died in the first system-based game I played, I probably would have learned "This is basically what happens." and not bothered continuing to play. Or learned "This will always happen if you don't master the art of optimising to crazy good levels".

[Judging__Eagle]

1191375771[/unixtime]]...... would have no real weaknesses beyond lack of customizability (i.e. lack of optimization).

Not so.

I've made lvl 4-5 Barbs that can out damage barbs that are in the Wish economy and are 2 lvls higher. RoW barbs in both cases.

I basically just pumped con on that guy since I needed HP over more damage-potential. If/when I got actual Adamantine armour for a pile of extra DR, I would then be abusing Blitz even more than I did before.

Mostly b/c I was willing to go utterly reckless and dealt so much damage that in combat-healing became not a waste of a round but instead the action every spell caster must perform.

Then again, he was able to solo tank and kill an [counturl=112]Ettin[/counturl] in 6 seconds (1 round) at lvl 5; the cleric who wanted the skeleton just had to drop healing on me in his round.

If/when the DM placed appropriate Dragons (and even when he didn't) my char would attract a lot of attention to himself.

Yeah, dealing about 65+ damage per round is hawt. Especially at lvl 5.

The lvl 6 barbs with up to +7 to all of their stats (+5 Inherent + 2 item) in my Planar Raiders game top out around...30-40 per round. I'm sure if they opted they could deal as much as 80-90.



Say it with me now:

"when the melee-tank/damage-brute has turned in-combat healing important you know the dynamic has changed."

[JonSetanta]

In video games I die frequently, but dust myself off and get back to battle. Struggle, cursing, then relief, and I never willingly do that specific task or quest or boss battle again.
If I am forced to, it usually ends up being a smash victory with little to no effort, since I've bested the damn roadblock before.

While it might look like madness, the joy is in that one victory out of 20 or so losses.
I got to smear it in the villain's face and move on to better things. And indeed, the rewards are greater.
That, and 'level grinding' puts me to sleep. Literally. Makes my eyes droop and I yawn. I've used level grinding on the Korean import MMO Flyff for 2 years to get tired enough to sleep, and it's worked, but now the designers fucked it all up and I recently beat Legacy of Kain: Defiance (don't play it. shit sucks.) so I'll have to find something new.

Is there a job in "real life" where I can do this kind of boss-battle-pwning to real people? Say, against obnoxious middle management?

[Koumei]

I don't like stormtroopering either. That's why I don't play many video games.

[Judging__Eagle]

Try Shadow of the Collossus guys.

You only have to fight bosses. Fighting non-bosses is in the hidden area.

[JonSetanta]

Blaaaaaa my 21y.o. brother plays that. All. The. Time.

I mostly enjoy games like the Legacy of Kain series, and Battlefront which could be considered the PS2 version of Halo, very well done.

In LoK: Defiance I had plenty fun sucking blood of foes into Kain's mouth telekinetically.
Must have that in D&D somewhere... but where...

[Bigode]

[pretty much everything]

What? I'm not saying the berserker/barbarian's weaker (the idea's that it isn't); I just meant the one downside it has is the relative lack of building choices (compare to a spellcaster or martial adept), which ends up narrowing optimization possibilities. The good news is it being straightforward and reliable, of course.

But it's fun:

"When the melee-tank/damage-brute has turned in-combat healing important you know the dynamic has changed!"

[Judging__Eagle]

Oh, and btw, I'm actually using a lot of stuff from this web article for a personal essay that I'm writing for a writing class.

I can justify it by saying that I'm in the 3D animation program and I want to get into gaming. [/ohyeah]