wrote:if you were ot get an arbitrary bonus whenever you were attacking someone who had a lower BAB than you have, would you want it be called...
A Can of Woop Ass.
Then you could split the advantage into arbitrary amounts, like say 5 so if you had the advantage by 10 points you would get not 1 but 2 Cans of Whoop Ass.
It wouldn't need to have any additional mechanical benefit for the extra Cans of Whoop Ass but it would be fun to count them "I'm gonna open 3 Cans of Whoop Ass on you" etc...
In addition and not coincidentally to me reading what I just typed as I just typed it you could then call the maneuver where you use that advantage "Opening" a Can of Whoop Ass.
Edit: I just noticed I spelled "whoop" inconsistently, I'm leaving it that way for prosterity.
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What's a pit fiend going to do to you with Blasphemy, anyway? He gets it at caster level 18, which means that characters of 19 or greater HD are just plain impervious to it.
The pit fiend still has Mass Hold Person as a SLA, but that at least allows you a save.
Better feats for the first question. Dropping a feat for +1 damage is nonsense. Fighter specific kick ass feats would be cool.
For the second question, BaB should work like warhammer, where it scales depending on how much you own them at the current time. All the classes should gain functions based on whether they have full BaB, 3/4's or shitty.
Save_versus_Stupid at [unixtime wrote:1152199991[/unixtime]]Better feats for the first question. Dropping a feat for +1 damage is nonsense. Fighter specific kick ass feats would be cool.
I'm actually thinking we may want to build the +X attack and +X damage into automatic fighter class features, that way all fighters are by default numerically competent. It also lets people take fun and interesting abilities with their feats rather than burning them on keeping pace with their attack and damage.
Sounds good to me. Some actual class features besides "qualify for better classes" would be a move in the right direction regardless of where it comes from.
I see BaB as general competency in combat. If a world class fighter is in front of some mook who he laps 3 times over in the +bab department, things should start to get very ugly. But I also approve of the flat fighter bonuses for no reason.
To keep it in the realm of fighter only, you could say it only applies to classes with a full progression? Just a thought.
dbb at [unixtime wrote:1152195557[/unixtime]]Frank may have been thinking of the Balor (which also has Blasphemy at will as an SLA, but at caster level 20th).
Hilariously, the SRD presents Blasphemy as an example of a tactic the Balor uses if it doesn't feel seriously threatened. Yeah, um. Okay.
--d.
More embarassing than that. I just scrolled to the bottom of their spell-likes to see what their caster level is - and their caster level on their wish is 20th. Their caster level on all their other spells is only 18th for some reason. Yeah, the Balor can juggle you all night long. The Pit Fiend simply gives you two DC 27 Will saves in a row and if you fail either one, you're dead.
A well built fighter could probably kill a Pit Fiend, assuming he's two-weapon tanking and didn't waste a feat on something stupid like Skill Focus or Whirlwind Attack. The fighter's chances are much higher if he can fight it indoors on the Prime Material plane (and not in a hypothetical wide-open field scenario). This does, of course, assume the fighter is properly twinked and took Monkey Grip and is dual wielding dire picks (because axes are the suckage, and swords don't have that sweet payoff that only a x4 multiplier can get you). Oh, and a 34 STR is a must (although, in truth, a properly twinked fighter should probably suck it up, and throw away some of his levels for a Half (Outsider) template for an even 40 STR).
Mind you, a Frenzied Berzerker would still do the job with much more ease.
The real problem is with mind flayers. Plane Shift at will is the nastiest thing that any creature can have- a swift poke, and it's: "Welcome to Carcerai. Roll up a new character please".
First, I like "I have the Advantage," or "I have the Edge." The first sounds better, IMO, and the second has fewer syllables and is thus easier to say.
Second, I vote for fewer, better feats. A related question: what kinds of better feats do you have in mind? When WotC published the first tactical feats, what they essentially did was recognize that the packaging of feats was "too large" and so they had to work around it by combining multiple abilities into one feat. If the only way to improve feats in a "few, good feats system" is to create tactical-like feats, then it's probably better to go withthe "more, weak feats system" and let people choose their abilities ala carte. Creating feats with numerical bonuses large enough to matter and abilities that come up at least every other session, say, is what you really want out of a "few, good feats system."
A related observation is that the core prep casters get lots and lots of abilities, since a 10th-level wizard gets around 22 spells/day. There is of course the "/day" restriction, which depending on the rules (incantatrix, I'm looking at you) and the game's style (my games never, ever reach the 3-5 encounters per day prescribed in the DMG), can range from annoying to irrelevant. Is it possible to balance a system where everyone runs around with a few "big abilities," i.e., feats, only some people have more than others, and the people with fewer feats run around with lots of "little abilities," i.e. spells?
One of the good reasons for having a few big feats is that it helps prevent combat from bogging down. Flat numerical bonus feats are also nice for this purpose, provided of course the numerical boni are large enough to matter. (Digresion: IMO, Dodge is one of the worst-designed feats in the core because it violates all of these rules. First, the numerical bonus is so small that most of the time if you didn't know you had it, you wouldn't notice it. Second, as we all know, in D&D offense dominates defense. Yet, if you compare Dodge to Weapon Focus, one of the worst feats in the core, notice that not only does it have the fundamental disadvantage of defense (your enemy chooses which of your defenses are important, while you choose which of your offenses are), but it's actually more restricted than the offensive feat, since it only affects one enemy at a time. To add insult to injury, feats like Combat Expertise and Power Attack allow you to convert attack bonus to damage or AC, making Dodge's bonus all but strictly inferior if you have either of those abilities. Finally, Dodge tops all of this by requiring that the players and DM remember to announce it for each character that has it, both slowing down combat and burdening people's memory for a benefit that is all but nonexistent. Several other feats commit these sins individually, but only Dodge puts them all together like this.)
I've always viewed Dodge as 'the crappy Feat' that you have to bite the bullet for in order to get 'the good Feat'. While Mobility is next to useless on its own (because any build that frequently draws AoO will have Tumble, which has static DCs) Spring Attack can be a fairly useful feat when used correctly.
Well aside from the blasphemy cheese, beating a pit fiend isn't hard, mainly because you're expected to have immunities to stuff by that level.
His only real save or die is mass hold monster, which is beatable by protection from evil, a 1st level spell. The fear aura requires mind blank to be immune to, but at 20th level, even that's not unreasonable. After that... well the pit fiend is down to tossing quickened fireballs, and meteor swarm. So get any kind of fire resistnace and you're set.
Aside from blasphemy infinijuggle, I don't see what's the big deal with taking on a pit fiend.
I think feats work best as neat stuff to complement class abilities. Preferably simple mechanically. Unless the wizard gets rewritten we have a class with over 40 good abilities that already take plenty of screen time. Adding more dosen't sound good to me.
I also have to come down against most flat immunities. It lames it up if something is built around an SA that it can't use. It'd be better if defenses didn't completely negate attacks.
Also, the fighter should be able to say "fear, lol whatever, I've died twice already" rather than "fear, lucky my cockring of machosity lets me ignore that". It dosen't make much difference, especially if you use Frank's wealth system, but its much cooler.
I like the notion of tactical style feats that are actually useful, i.e. having it equate to being practically 3 spell equivalents per feat.
The abilities could still scale with level, and even weapon focus lovers could be assuaged by grouping weapon categories (bows and crossbows, blades, polearms, farm weapons, thrown weapons, bludgers. etc.) and have GMW plus 2 abilities from tables that fit the theme of a weapon group.
Normal feats like Power Attack etc. could be grouped with other abilities into these tactical-esque feats, as in this ideal world, old style feats aren't worth a feat.
