Races of War

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fbmf
The Great Fence Builder
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Re: Races of War

Post by fbmf »

Excellent work, Frank and K. As always.

Game On,
fbmf
TavishArtair
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Re: Races of War

Post by TavishArtair »

Rage (Ex): When doing melee damage to a foe or being struck by a foe, a Barbarian may choose to enter a Rage as an immediate action. While Raging, a Barbarian gains a +2 morale bonus to hit and damage in melee combat and may apply any Rage Dice he has to his melee damage rolls. He also gains a +2 to saves, a -2 to AC, and he gains DR X\-- with “X” being equal to half his Barbarian level +2 (rounded down). For example, a 1st level Barbarian has DR 3\-- while Raging and a 10th level Barbarian has DR 7\-- while Raging.


Very nice. However, at 1st level a Barbarian would have DR 2/--, because 1*.5 (rounded down) is .5, which gets rounded down to 0.

Combat Movement: While Raging, a Barbarian moves faster in combat, and may add his Combat Movement to his speed when he takes a move action to move.


You know, because of this very strict definition, a Barbarian can't charge any further at 20th level than at 1st level, because it's not a move action, it's a full round action. That it doesn't affect running is not so much a bother, but what the hell? I figured half of the entire point of having improved movement as a barbarian was so that you could go "RAAAAAAAH!" from across the battlefield and cleave the cowardly archer who's shooting at you from 100' or so.
RandomCasualty
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Re: Races of War

Post by RandomCasualty »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1154936636[/unixtime]]
Barbarian
Fast Healing: Barbarians shrug off wounds that would cripple a lesser man, and have learned to draw upon deep reserves of energy and stamina. At 1st level, they gain Fast Healing 1. At 5th level this becomes Fast Healing 5, Fast Healing 10 at 10th level, Fast Healing 15 at 15th level, and Fast Healing 20 at 20th level. This healing only applies while he is not raging.

If a Barbarian ever multi-classes, he permanently loses this ability. A multiclass character does not gain this ability.



Ok. Why exactly do you have barbarians lose this ability if they ever multiclass?
Shokatsuryou
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Re: Races of War

Post by Shokatsuryou »

OMG. I can't believe this account actually still exists. It's been over three years since I posted anything about D&D (back on Nifty), but I had to step out of the lurking shadows to commend Frank and K on their hard work. :thumb:

Ok, it's been a while and my rules-fu is very rusty, but I do have some questions and comments.

Aasimar
• Darkvision


Here's a nit-picky one. Should probably list a range for Aasimar, Tiefling, Goblin, Hobgoblin, and Half-Orc races. I'm assuming it's 60 feet (but it might be neat if say, tieflings, had 90 feet or something).

Also, are the other races from the PHB unchanged? Even half-elves? Even dwarves?

Speak to Animals (Ex): <snip> ...In addition, there is no limit to how many tricks she can teach a creature, and her her Handle Animal checks are not penalized for attempting to get a creature to perform a trick it does not know.


Typo. one extra "her".


Samurai
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good


First glance, knee jerk reaction is the saves seem a little low. Unlike the other martial classes here, they have no class ability to improve saves or break crowd control on themselves...


Parry Magic (Su): At 8th level, a Samurai may use his Ancestral Weapon to parry magic targeted at him with Attacks of Opportunity provoked by the targeted effect. If he can make an attack roll against an AC equal to the spell or effect's DC with this Attack of Opportunity, the effect is automatically dispelled.


Umm, can you give an example of how this ability works?

Does it mean that if the samurai threatens a wizard and that wizard casts a spell at the samurai (provoking an AoO for doing so), the Samurai can then dispel that spell? Can't the wizard just 5-foot step or fly or something so as not to provoke an AoO at all?

If you are taking your race's favored class, you can take racial substitution levels, if you want.


Ok, I have been away for a while. What the heck is a racial substitution level??

If you have Martial Weapon Proficiency, it's really unreasonable for it to be that hard to learn how to use a new weapon, whether it's exotic or not.


Does this mean proficiency will ALL martial weapons (like the class feature), or ANY martial weapon (like an Elf's longsword or cleric with War domain)? If it's the latter, does this still apply if you know one or more Exotic weapons but no martial ones?

Exploits
Getting proficiency with a weapon isn't worth a feat.


What about getting armor? Is there a similar Exploit, or is armor now strictly a class feature?

Blind Fighting [Combat]
+1: While in darkness, you may move your normal speed without difficulty.


Emphasis mine. It may be better to change this to something about fighting "blind" or while "vision-impaired", so that it works in thick fog or while the character has his eyes closed or blindfloded.

Combat School [Combat]
You are a member of a completely arbitrary fighting school that has a number of recognizable signature fighting moves.
Benefits: First, name your fighting style (such as "Hammer and Anvil Technique" or "Crescent Moon Style", or "Way of the Lightning Mace"). This fighting style only works with a small list of melee weapons that you have to describe the connectedness to the DM in a half-way believable way. Now, whenever you are using that technique in melee combat, you gain a +2 bonus on attack rolls.


Silly question, but this can be applied to a Monk's natural Slam attack right? Slam can be on the "small list of melee weapons"?

Elusive Target [Combat]
+11: Diverting Defense - As an immediate action, you may redirect an attack against you to any creature in your threatened range, friend or foe. You may not redirect an attack to the creature making the attack.
+16: As an immediate action, you may make an attack that would normally hit you miss instead.


+11 ability seems more powerful than +16 ability in many situations... (I could easily be wrong though)

Insightful Strike [Combat]
+1: Your attacks have The Edge against an opponent who has a Wisdom and Dexterity than your own Wisdom, regardless of relative BAB.


There's a missing word or words in there between "Dexterity" and "than". I am guessing that word is "less" or "smaller".

Weapon Finesse [Combat]
+1: Your special attacks are considered to have the Edge when you attack an opponent with a Dexterity modifier smaller than yours, even if your Base Attack Bonus is not larger.


The Weapon Finesse +1 bonus seems better than the Insightful Strike bonus (only checks one score instead of two). Is that intentional, and if so why?

Subtle Cut [Combat]
Benefits: Any time you damage an opponent, that damage is increased by 1.
+1: As a standard action, you can make a weapon attack that also reduces a creature's movement rate. For every 5 points of damage this attack does, reduce the creature's movement by 5'. This penalties lasts until the damage is healed.
+6: As a standard action, you may make a weapon attack that also does 2d4 points of Dexterity damage.
+11: Any weapon attack that you make at this level acts as if the weapon had the wounding property.
+16: As a standard action, you may make an attack that dazes your opponent. This effect lasts one round, and has a DC of 10 + half your level + your Intelligence bonus.


Ok lots of comments/questions on this one.

"Any time you damage an opponent, that damage is increased by 1": This wording is a little strange. Does this apply to ability "damage" too?

"weapon attack": must you actually use a "weapon" the use this feat? Does it include improvised weapons or natural weapons?

+1: This ability seems in all ways worse that the Monk style ability that reduces movement. (The monk's movement damage is even harder to heal.)

While I'm on the subject, what happens when movement is reduced to 0? Is it like staggering around with weight over her maximum load? Or is it more like a semi-paralysis, similar to when Dex is reduced to 0? At 0 movement, does the character lose Dex bonus to AC? Can they even take a 5-foot step?

+16: This seems in most ways worse than the +6 ability of Combat School. (It is nice that it can be used with ranged attacks though...)

Two Weapon Fighting [Combat]
When armed with two weapons, you fight with two weapons rather than picking and choosing and fighting with only one. Kind of obvious in retrospect.
Benefits: You suffer no penalty for doing things with your off-hand. When you make an attack or full-attack action, you may make a number of attacks with your off-hand weapon equal to the number of attacks you are afforded with your primary weapon.


Usable with natural weapons? Monk's Slam? Improvised weapons? Ranged weapons?

Coup de Grace
You may attempt to slay an opponent outright if they are helpless. As a full-round action, you may automatically hit a helpless opponent in melee range. This attack is automatically a critical hit. This action provokes an attack of opportunity.


Hmm. No Fort save vs. potentially crazy high DC to die instantly, huh? No redundant comment about sneak attack dice applying to the attack, huh? No wacky sentence about coup de grace against creatures with full concealment taking two rounds, huh? Heh, I like it.

Covering Fire


No problem here, I just really like this ability. Ranged combat special actions are a good idea.

Lift
Sometimes you want to put an opponent in your mouth or carry away a struggling princess. If you succeed, your opponent is hefted into the air.


Umm, should there be a provision about actually being capable of lifting the target? If so, do you need to be able to lift it over your head, or just lift it off the ground?

You may perform a coup de grace or swallow whole action on a character you have lifted, but doing so ends the lift whether it succeeds or fails.


Coup de grace? Really? The target does not need to be helpless first?

Generally though, I really like the new grappling rules.

Trip
As an attack action, you may attempt to knock an opponent prone. Make a touch attack, and if you succeed make a Strength + BAB check against a DC of 10 + your opponent's Strength + BAB or Balance modifier (whichever is greater).


Last one. This is a little ambiguous. Does it mean:

"DC 10 + Str + BAB or DC 10 + Balance mod"
or
"DC 10 + Str + BAB or DC 10 + Str + Balance mod"?

All in all, this is excellent work and I for one greatly appreciate your efforts.

This has been another insanely log post brought to you by:

-Sho

Edit - added question about two-weapon fighting and subtle cut.
squirrelloid
Master
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Re: Races of War

Post by squirrelloid »

Shokatsuryou at [unixtime wrote:1155260543[/unixtime]]

Samurai
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good


First glance, knee jerk reaction is the saves seem a little low. Unlike the other martial classes here, they have no class ability to improve saves or break crowd control on themselves...


They might be too high, because of...



Parry Magic (Su): At 8th level, a Samurai may use his Ancestral Weapon to parry magic targeted at him with Attacks of Opportunity provoked by the targeted effect. If he can make an attack roll against an AC equal to the spell or effect's DC with this Attack of Opportunity, the effect is automatically dispelled.


Umm, can you give an example of how this ability works?

Does it mean that if the samurai threatens a wizard and that wizard casts a spell at the samurai (provoking an AoO for doing so), the Samurai can then dispel that spell? Can't the wizard just 5-foot step or fly or something so as not to provoke an AoO at all?


If he is targetted by an effect, he gets an AoO. He takes his AoO against the effect itself. If he hits (as described above), its automatically dispelled.

So no matter how far away the caster is, he always gets his AoO. He's 'slashing at the magical energy'. This ability is so overpowered its not even funny. Because a Samurai is almost guaranteed to pull this off. Full BAB +str mod +enh modifier vs the DC of the spell? 10+stat mod+spell level? At 5th level the Samurai is likely looking at +5+3+1 for a +9 to hit (assuming nothing other than a 16 str), and the DC of a 3rd level spell is in the ballpark of 15-16. Better than 50% dispel. But it only gets better, because DCs go up at least half as fast. At 11th the Samurai has +11+5(likely better)+3 for a total of +19. Level 6 spell DCs at this point are on the order of 22, which is a 15% chance of the spell getting through.

By 20th level the samurai is looking at +20+11+5 for +36, which is higher than the DC of even a level 9 spell (DCs in the ballpark of 30-31).

This is just crazy-go-nuts good.

What it should actually do is let him make a dispel attempt using his BAB as his caster level, and possibly let him add his katana's enhancement to the check . As it is now, the Samurai is better at dispelling than spellcasters. And doesnt need his saving throw for virtually anything.
The_Matthew
Apprentice
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Re: Races of War

Post by The_Matthew »

The thing about the parry magic ability is that it uses up the samurai's attacks of opportunity, which he uses for cutting people in half before they get to go. So the ability makes you decide which is more important, 1) slicing a melee enemy into ribbons or 2) practically auto dispell against any targeted spell aimed at you.
User3
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Re: Races of War

Post by User3 »

There are a lot of changes in Races of War, and I've been having trouble wrapping my brain around all of them at once, so I've focused on digesting them in smaller chunks. So far, I've been studying the feats and the fighter.

I want to ask some questions about the fighter's abilities.

Problem Solver: I like the flavor and general effects of this ability, but in the past the mechanic has proved problematic when people did it using Andy's polymorph idiocy in the FAQ and humans, or the chameleon ability. I sort the problems into three categories. The first are interactions with one-time effects, like Open Minded. The second are PrC prerequisites: can this ability be used to pick up a feat you really don't care about to enter a PrC, which you then discard? (This depends where one stands on the "losing prerequisites costs you PrC abilities" issue; both stances have their problems.) The third are feats with lasting benefits that don't rely on the feats being present, like, e.g., certain metamagic and item creation feats. The first and last issues might be addressed by not ever having [Combat] feats that work like that, but I'm always leery of rules that require future material meet certain restrictions without making those restrictions explicit.

Active Assault: This ability, as written, means that nothing without reach can attack the fighter. Ever.

If you only have 5' reach and you need to move to the fighter to attack them, they can wait for you to finish moving, then trigger their immediate action and step out of reach. This works against 5' steps, normal moves, and charge attacks, and depending on terrain, Spring Attack-like abilities also. If the fighter can find a way to extend their 5' steps, they can up the amount of reach required to hit them to 15' or more in extreme circumstances. Meanwhile, if the fighter wields a reach weapon themselves, they can take an AoO at anything foolish enough to try to attack them without reach.

Is this intentional?

Improved Delay: I haven't found any examples of brokenness yet, but this ability feels awfully dangerous to me: D&D doesn't have any action stack resolution rules (though it's past time for it to acquire some), yet this ability adds yet another way to interrupt the normal order of actions. I can see this causing MtG-style problems, back in the days when that game had interrupts.

Foil Action: This ability has been taking lots of heat on WotC boards. I don't think it's as bad as many people think, but I'm still worried about it, for two reasons. The first is that parties in D&D usually start with an action advantage, since (in my experience) four against one is more common than sixteen against four, or whatever. In this circumstance, a one-for-one trade of actions is good for the party, since they still have three or seven (depending on how you're counting) actions left to hose their opponent with. Trading the fighter's swift/immediate action for a standard or full-round action is therefore awesome. The corollary to this is that a lot of monsters are designed around a schtick: some of these are passive abilities that foil action doesn't affect, but others require standard or full-round actions, allowing the fighter to stop them cold. Basically, if a fighter gets within 30' of a monster that uses special abilities or spells as its primary offense, it loses automatically unless it has extra actions, Quicken SLA, or Quicken Spell. Given how many D&D fights happen in dungeons, I'm suspicious this is too strong, since it's effectively a "you win" card against a large number of opponents.

Array of Stunts: Foil action, twice. This amplifies previous problems, but doesn't introduce any new ones on its own, as far as I can tell.

Greater Combat Focus: I assume you mean, "15th level," not "5th level." This ability puts a primacy on effects that make the fighter unconscious so they can't activate this ability. (It does make it so that dominating is worse than killing the fighter, from the party's perspective, but it also gives incentives for enemies to kill rather than disable the fighter, which may not be the best idea.)

Intense Focus: Again, foil action, only three times now. Of course, at these levels its easy for casters to pull off ridiculous action combos using Quicken, time stop, contingency, etc. How often, though, do DMs do that in practice? It sounds like a lot of work to ensure that the BBEG has five actions per turn so that when the fighter teleports within 60' of them and foils them three times, they still have two actions left to go off and own the party.

Let's turn from the fighter to the feats. First off, I agree in principle with a lot of your criticisms: feats chains as currently implemented don't work, too many feats (and almost all of the feats in the PHB) are worthless and especially worthless compared to spells, and there's no rubric for how much power a feat should have. I like some of the ideas in your feats, too, like how Weapon Finesse makes a non-Str based maneuver fighter plausible. (Some of the feats---Blitz, for example---don't have abilities that I feel fit together: i.e., I can imagine taking Blitz for the +16 BAB ability at high levels while not ever desiring to use any of the other abilities. I haven't gone through the feats with a fine-toothed comb to find _all_ of the things I like and dislike yet, though.)

My major problem with them is incompatibility with the current system. The Tomes and the Dungeonicon worked within the current system, more or less. As it is, though, the feats make Races of War incompatible with everything. If you want to introduce a new WotC feat while using RoW feats, it will either have to be awesome compared to most WotC material or it will end up looking stupidly underpowered. Meanwhile, most of the prerequisite feats, for both WotC classes and feats, are just gone; and most of the feats that PrCs grant are also gone. (This is also true for things in the Tomes and Dungeonomicon; are you planning on rewriting those?) Effectively, this means a lot of rewriting everytime WotC publishes something you haven't already covered, that a player or DM wants to include in their game.

The other side of the incompatibility issue is monsters. You've said you don't want to rewrite all the monsters, and I don't blame you. Doesn't reworking feats implicitly require changes in the monsters, though? How did you intend for us to handle this? Make the old, sucky PHB feats into "monster-only" feats (since many monsters already have suboptimal feats in their stats)? What about monsters with class levels, used as opposition for the party? What about monsters with advanced HD? Monsters as cohorts or mounts or familiars? I've been (constructively, I hope) critical of some of the other rules, but for monster feats, I think I'm just confused.

That's most of the big stuff. Now I'm going to pick on some little issues I'm curious about.

Elf balance: I've never thought much of PHB elves as player characters; apparently, I'm in the minority about this. (Some of the elf subraces are quite strong for specialized purposes, because there's an elven subrace for everything. Your choice of stat mods and random abilities is quite nice. And WotC writes cooler PrCs and feats and racial substitution levels for elves than for almost any other race, so if you play with racial prereqs enabled, that helps too. But core elves aren't that exciting.) But since proficiencies are now more or less free, elves are even weaker; and since feats are stronger, humans seem like they should just own elves.

Max Dex Bonuses on Clothes: Is there some particular reason you want very high Dex characters to prance around nude?

Because this is so massive, I'll probably have more to say at some point, but right now I'm still digesting. (Notice, also, that I haven't read the Tomes in entirety: you've been moving from topics that I couldn't give a damn about, like D&D planar cosmology, to topics that care a great deal about, like fighter balance; so I will probably continue to know a fair amount about the Dungeonomicon and Races of War while not knowing much at all about some things in the Tome of Fiends.)
User3
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Re: Races of War

Post by User3 »

I posted this first on the WotC boards. Herein, I apply Frank's and K's Same Game test to Frank's and K's fighter.

A hallway filled with magical runes: The fighter has no spells, no Search, and no Disable Device . . . this still looks like a loss to me.

For the rest of this, we'll want an idea of the fighter's combat stats. Let's assume the fighter is human and has a 16 Str, 14 Dex, 14 Con, not-sucky Int, and 10 Wis, which are a little high for the lowest power stat-generation methods (25 point buy, elite array) and low for high power stat-generation methods (4d6 with lower limits, 32 point buy, etc.). Both stat pumps go to Str.

For equipment, we'll assume our fighter is using a spiked chain for the reach. I don't really know enough about K's armor to determine what this character would actually be using, but let's assume that between Dex and armor, the character gets 10 to AC, which is in the midrange. Assume an animated shield that grants 3 to AC before its magic bonuses. We also need a bow and some sort of flying magical mount, like a griffon; I'll budget 5k for the latter. At 10th-level, we have 49k to spend. Mithral heavy +1 armor in the current game costs 11kish. The +1 animated shield will cost 10kish, assuming the shield itself is only 1k. Putting the spiked chain and bow up to +1, with appropriate materials in their construction, will cost 3k or so each. All told, that's 32k: spend 4k on +2 enhancement items for Str, Con, and Dex and +2 cloak of resistance, and we'll call the 1k left over pocket change for miscellaneous expenses. (This fighter has probably invested too much in raw combat stuff, but there are lots of possible wondrous items out there, many of which are useless outside particular situations, and all of them are very pricey.)

Let's pick some feats, focusing on general utility and feats that prevent the fighter from being screwed over easily. Between the human bonus feat, level feats, and fighter feats, we get ten total. This fighter is a master of the Combat School of Flexible Pointy Things, which basically only applies to the spiked chain but that's ok because it's awesome. Other choices are Blind Fighting, Elusive Target, Giant Slayer, Hunter, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Mage Slayer, Mounted Combat, and Whirlwind. These provide bonuses against a variety of different opponents and situations, giving the fighter decent tactics against big things, groups, and important specialized opponents like mages.

This fighter will attack at +18/+13 (+5 Str +1 enhancement +10 BAB +2 CSFPT) with their spiked chain, dealing 2d4+10 (+7 Str +1 enhancement +2 CSFPT) damage per hit and dazing their opponent unless said opponent Fort saves vs. DC 20; with their bow, that's +14/+9 (+3 Dex +1 enhancement +10) and 1d8+6 (+5 Str +1 enhancement). They have +3 initiative, 27 AC (+11 armor+Dex +4 shield +2 Elusive Target), saves of +12/+15/+12, and 79.5 average hp.

A Fire Giant: Both giant and fighter have Spot but not Hide, so they see each other at some distance. In ranged combat, Mounted Combat will keep the fighter's griffon alive and Giant Slayer means the giant's rocks only hit on a natural 20; using their Combat Focus for Sniper, the fighter can negate the giant's cover and thus probably plink it to death, even though the rocks do a lot more damage than the arrows. In melee, both have equal reach. The fighter's AC against the giant is 31, giving hit chances of .45/.2/.2. The fighter's hit chances on the giant look like .75/.5. The fighter uses foil action to kill the fire giant's best attack each round, and the giant ends up dazed every third round or so as well. The giant does more damage and has more hp, but the fighter hits a lot more and doesn't do that much less damage. This looks like a probable win for the fighter.

A Young Blue Dragon: A young blue dragon doesn't have the stats to face the fighter in melee, so it has to fight at range. Both have Spot and they're in the middle of a freaking desert, so they see each other no problems. Thus, it's a contest between arrows and lightning breath. The griffon is toast after three breaths or so. The fighter, however, has evasion and can use Balance in place of a Reflex save from Lightning Reflexes, so is immune to the lightning breath, while their arrows can still hit the dragon. Thus, the dragon dismounts the fighter and flies away. This is a default win for the fighter.

A Bebilith: The bebilith has telepathy so knows the fighter is coming, but the fighter has Spot and blindsense so knows the bebilith is there. The fighter can use foil action to prevent themselves from getting webbed, so this devolves to a slugfest. Foil action takes out the bebilith's bite attack and the poison, and Combat Expertise for 3 pushes the bebilith's claws off the RNG. The bebilith usually saves against the dazing attack. The fighter isn't piercing DR 10/good, so they only do 7 expected damage per attack, and the bebilith's AC is good enough so they only hit on .65/.4, so it will take them about 20 rounds to wear the bebilith down. The battle probably happens in the dark, though, which reduces the fighter's hit chances to 75% of that, so in practice, 27 rounds. However, the bebilith only expects to deal 1 damage per round to the fighter, so its only hope is rolling the 1/400 chance to rend the fighter's armor; if this happens early enough, the fighter loses. It can try to plane shift away,but the fighter's Mage Slayer probably prevents that. This is a probable win for the fighter, with a small chance of horrible death.

A Vrock: Telepathy and Spot again ensure both parties see each other. If the vrock succeeds in gating in another vrock before the fighter gets within 30 ft., the fighter is probably dead, because it takes around 22 rounds to kill two vrocks, but a single vrock's spores alone will have done about 60 damage by then, and though with Combat Expertise for 4, the vrocks can't hit the fighter except on a natural 20, they have five attacks each round. If it tries to fly, the fighter can run it down with the griffon. If its summoning attempt fails, the fighter can neutralize any further uses of stunning screech or its spell-likes with foil action, then beat it to death: it fails to save against the dazing attack 30% of the time, it hits only on natural 20s, and it doesn't have enough hit points to outlast the fighter. The vrock can still try to teleport away, again if it can beat the fighter's Mage Slayer; this is a probable win for the fighter, with an approximately 35% chance of horrible death.

A tag team of Mind Flayers: Mind flayers live in the Underdark, where telepathy's advantages over Spot are considerable, and theirs has a longer reach than the fighter's blindsense. Thus, the flayers probably get the jump on the fighter. Still, the fighter's Will save of +12 means the mind blast only hits 25% of the time, and when it does hit Iron Will means it only dazes the fighter. Their only offensive ability that has a decent chance of working is plane shift with its DC 20, but it has to get through the fighter's SR 15 from Mage Slayer and is touch range. If the mind flayers don't manage to juggle the fighter or plane shift fails, both of which are likely to happen, then the fighter makes the mind flayers explode. Another probable win.

An Evil Necromancer: The necromancer has lots of minions useless for fighting but decent for blocking, but the fighter can fly . . . at least until the necromancer casts a save-or-die on the griffon. The necromancer's spells probably have a save DC in the low 20s, so the griffon likely loses, then the necromancer hits the fighter with enervation a couple of times to soften them up for a save or die. However, if the fighter manages to get next to the necromancer, the necromancer is screwed. Probable loss.

6 Trolls: With Whirlwind, the fighter can deliver 2d4+12 (using the Power Attack option) almost certain damage to each troll, enough to overcome troll regeneration. The trolls deal about 7.5 damage per round to the fighter. The fighter can easily drop them all, then pull out some alchemist's fire and finish them off. Definite win.

A horde of Shadows. The fighter can use Combat Focus to get Ghost Hunter to see the shadows, but that doesn't really help fighting them at this point. While Power Attacking for 5, the fighter expects to kill a shadow every time they hit, but meanwhile each shadow has a 50% chance of hitting their touch AC and draining 1d6 Str. Even five hits is about as much Str as the fighter has, and as their damage and attack bonus will go down with each hit, the fighter has no realistic chance. Definite loss.

Summary:

1 definite win
1 default win
4 probable wins
1 probable loss
2 definite losses

If I had to estimate a percentage success rate, I'd notice that this is 6/9 wins/losses, but four of the wins are only probable and only one of the losses is, so I'd guess it's closer to 60% successes. This is pretty good. If one is generous with wizard cheese, they might be able to get this good, but I'm not sure. Depending on what one believes tricked-out wizards are capable of, and whether one believes tricked-out wizards are balanced, this fighter might be too strong. What does worry me is that I put this fighter together in under ten minutes; if there's more optimization potential there, to clinch those losses, that would probably mean the class was too strong.
User3
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Re: Races of War

Post by User3 »

One last question for now: you don't mention armor proficiencies anywhere. Can you spend feats for these, or are they something you only get from multiclassing?
User3
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Re: Races of War

Post by User3 »

Nicely done. The thing that jumps out at me is that the monsters get, at the very least, the new BAB constructions and combat maneuvers.

The only place that makes a big difference is the Fire Giant, who gets +5 to-hit on his third attack and makes all attacks with the edge because he has a BAB of +11. That means that the Giant fight goes into a pretty bad place for a Fighter solo.

Also,being dazed isn't a whole lot btter than being stunned from the Mindflayers. In eiher case you don't get to act - the difference is largely how much they get to bone you in the inerim (while stunned they can pretty much auto-kill you, while if you are merely dazed they are going to periodically smack you while giving you jolts of mental power to extend the daze indefinitely). If you hd friends it would be great, but in a cage match it's not much help.

So it looks pretty good to me.

--

samurais: Immunity to targetted effects is nice, but ultimately not that big of a deal. Remember that "area" and "effect" spells do not "target", so the Samurai is pretty weak to fireball or scorching ray.

---

Shiny Pants: Max Dex is supposed to go up in the same manner as Armor Stealth Penalty goes down. So only characters with a Dexterity massively higher than their BAB want to go around naked. Honestly, I'm not even worried about it.

When I get back to my computer, I'll try to remedy some of those typos.

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Re: Races of War

Post by User3 »

Frank wrote:The only place that makes a big difference is the Fire Giant, who gets +5 to-hit on his third attack and makes all attacks with the edge because he has a BAB of +11. That means that the Giant fight goes into a pretty bad place for a Fighter solo.


I accounted for the first. (The giant's final attacks are at +15/+15, so it has hit chances at .2/.2 because the fighter's AC is at 31 from Giant Slayer. The fighter could use the expertise option to push the giant's hits off the RNG, but with the giant spending one-third of its time dazed anyways, I figured that wasn't worth it.) All the other opponents are using natural weapons or couldn't give a damn what their attacks look like.

The second, I wasn't quite sure how to handle, because you never clarified what happens if opposing parties in a combat both have the Edge. (Note that the fighter has the Edge because of Giant Slayer, while the giant has the Edge because of its higher BAB.) The fighter is hard to trip (DC 36 vs. bonuses of +21) and impossible to disarm if they're using locked gauntlets like they should. The giant's best chances would be to grapple them, if it can do so without provoking an AoO. (Weirdness in Giant Slayer: the feat is explicit that improved grab provokes an AoO, but doesn't say if attemping a grapple without it does. Is the giant better off because it doesn't have improved grab?) If grappling is an option, the fighter would have to kite the giant from range.
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Re: Races of War

Post by User3 »

Also,being dazed isn't a whole lot btter than being stunned from the Mindflayers. In eiher case you don't get to act - the difference is largely how much they get to bone you in the inerim (while stunned they can pretty much auto-kill you, while if you are merely dazed they are going to periodically smack you while giving you jolts of mental power to extend the daze indefinitely). If you hd friends it would be great, but in a cage match it's not much help.


I was assuming that the dazing lasts just one round, as is typical for dazed conditions. If it lasts the full 3d4 rounds, you're right, Iron Will doesn't help much. Still, the fighter has better than even odds (.5625) of staying undazed even if the flayers get a double mindblast, assuming that SR doesn't affect mindblast. (It should, but I can't find a caster level for the effect listed in the MM. If it's 8 like their other spell-likes, the fighter survives a double mindblast with .70 odds.) If the fighter gets to act, they can probably close (since the mindflayers had to come within at least 60 ft. to use mindblast in the first place) and then shred them using Mage Slayer and Combat Focus to reroll if the flayers get lucky and manage to get off another spell-like. It's close either way, but I think the fighter has a slight advantage.

One last thing on the giant, which I forgot to mention before: there is a way for the fighter to own the giant in melee, Problem Solver to get Subtle Cut. The giant has an awesome 9 Dex, which means it expects to survive two rounds. I don't think even being able to grapple the fighter will save it from that.
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Re: Races of War

Post by DP »

I'm thinking about it and I would love for the foil action ability to have a recharge like dragons breath, maybe five rounds. To me that makes things more interesting, since the threat of interupting remains powerful, and it doesn't totally cripple certian enemies. I like the idea of the fighter saving the day by ruining the lich's timestop. I don't like the idea of the fighter saving the day by bothering the lich every six seconds so that it can only cast quickened spells.

There are enough monsters that's shtick revolves around a single action a round these monsters shouldn't get a lose just because there is a ninth level fighter withen 30'.

One thing that I would love is a list of how the new feats replace out dated feats. Like cleave, power attack, expertise, improved trip... etc. It would make adjusting monsters and prestige classes easier.
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Re: Races of War

Post by Shokatsuryou »

squirrelloid at [unixtime wrote:1155273448[/unixtime]]
If he is targetted by an effect, he gets an AoO. He takes his AoO against the effect itself. If he hits (as described above), its automatically dispelled.


Oh ok. If that is how it works, then I withdraw my comment about Samurai saves. I think the wording of the ability can be made clearer, however.

Anyway, here are a few more random thoughts I had after reading through this book and the Dungeonomicon a few times:

Juggernaut [Combat]
You are an unstoppable Juggernaut.
Benefits: You may be considered one size category larger for the purposes of any size dependant roll you make (such as a Bull Rush, Overrun, or Lift action).
+1: You do not provoke an attack of opportunity for entering an opponent's square.
+6: You gain a +4 bonus to attack and damage rolls to destroy objects. You may shatter a Force Effect by inflicting 30 damage on it.
+11: When you successfully bullrush or overrun an opponent, you automatically Trample them, inflicting damage equal to a natural slam attack for a creature of your size.
+16: You gain the Rock Throwing ability of any standard Giant with a strength equal to or less than yourself.


I like the feats in RoW, but this one bothers me a little. I don't like the last ability, which lets you throw rocks. First, if you're already a giant, that ability does nothing, which is the suck (and I would think giants would love that feat otherwise). But more importantly, the ability doesn't really fit with the theme of the feat to that point. It was about pushing little people around and smashing through things.

Here are some suggestions:
(1) If you want Juggernaut to also be about throwing stuff, introduce an ability at an earlier level that lets you throw unusual or improvised things far. Like greatswords or chairs or something.
or
(2) Allow the +16 ability to allow the character to use anyone she lifts with the Lift action as a improvised projectile weapon with a decent range and damage (to both parties). I prefer this option. That would be cool. :uptosomething:
or
(3) Change the +16 ability to be more about trampling and running stuff over. Like treating your character as being even larger, or increasing Strength, or something like that.

Also:
In any event, I think the default benefit should also increase the character's carrying capacity by one size category.
And the +11 ability should also deal damage as a creature one size category larger than your size.

In other words, I think the feat should make you larger for all purposes except actual height and weight. (Yes, I want the feat to be even more powerful!!)

Next, a question:

* If you have a Base Attack Bonus high enough to warrant gaining additional attacks, you also get additional Attacks of Opportunity.
So a character with a BAB of +6 can make 2 AoOs each round. A character with a BAB of +11 can make 3, and a character with 16 can make 4.


Are subsequest AoOs after the first made at lower attack bonus? For example, if you have BAB +6, is the second AoO you make in a round at an attack bonus of +1?


Lastly, on a completely different note, I think certain abilities should have a line like this one:

Great Blows (Ex): <snip> ...No enemy can be targeted by this ability more than once a round, and the save DC for this ability is 10 + half the Barbarian’s HD + his Constitution modifier.


There are lots of abilities in the books that have similar effects, but no such restriction. They should probably all have a line like this, or none of them should.

Examples of abilities that might need such a line are:

Combat School: "+6: When you strike your opponent with the signature moves of your fighting school in melee, they must make a Fortitude Save (DC 10 + ½ your level + your Strength bonus) or become dazed for one round."
Monk Fighting Style: "your Fighting Style forces any opponent struck by your slam attack to make a Fortitude Save (DC 10 + ½ your character level + your Wisdom Modifier) or become stunned for one round."
Monk Master Fighting Style: "your Master Fighting Style forces any creature struck by your slam attack to make a Reflex Save (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wisdom Modifier) or be helpless for one round."

I think it is just inconsistent that the Barbarian ability has a 1/enemy/round restriction, but these other abilities do not.

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Re: Races of War

Post by fbmf »

Why, on the WotC thread, are parts of it blacked out? Copyright violation of some sort?

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Re: Races of War

Post by erik »

fbmf at [unixtime wrote:1155578058[/unixtime]]Why, on the WotC thread, are parts of it blacked out? Copyright violation of some sort?

Game On,
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I didn't see anything blacked out on the first page or the last (page 7 at time of posting). Where's the black-out?
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Re: Races of War

Post by Hey_I_Can_Chan »

Y'know, I just read all seven (so far) pages of that sh!t, having to actually go back and re-register on the Wizards boards to do so, and I cannot believe how much crap the foil action's received. I just went back and reread the class feature. It's not even available until Ftr9, by which even the 3/4 BAB classes get a second attack.

Oh, yeah, no blackness here.

How hard is it for the wizard to get past 30 ft. and cast a spell at fvcking Wiz9? Who are these people?

Anyway, I can't wait to see the whole expanse at once when these are all done. But one thing was brought up that I thought needed addressing: with the modifications in the base classes presented here, are the classes in the other Tomes still valid? This point was brought up regarding the thief-acrobat… looking at stuff like the unsettling choreography class feature, the T-A looks a little weak.
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Re: Races of War

Post by Oberoni »

Hey_I_Can_Chan at [unixtime wrote:1155596717[/unixtime]]Y'know, I just read all seven (so far) pages of that sh!t, having to actually go back and re-register on the Wizards boards to do so, and I cannot believe how much crap the foil action's received. I just went back and reread the class feature. It's not even available until Ftr9, by which even the 3/4 BAB classes get a second attack.

Oh, yeah, no blackness here.

How hard is it for the wizard to get past 30 ft. and cast a spell at fvcking Wiz9? Who are these people?


Well, keep in mind that the foil action ability is pretty novel in a lot of ways, and seems to be really overpowered at first blush. I'm not shocked that some people are up in arms about it.

Some of the reactions have been extreme, though - I think one guy suggested the target gets to use their best saving throw to avoid it.

That would not be good.
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Re: Races of War

Post by fbmf »

The blacked out part is in the Combat Ready Feats Section, right after Command.

It's still there for me, but I'm using Firefox.

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Re: Races of War

Post by Draco_Argentum »

Oberoni at [unixtime wrote:1155597398[/unixtime]]
Well, keep in mind that the foil action ability is pretty novel in a lot of ways, and seems to be really overpowered at first blush. I'm not shocked that some people are up in arms about it.


Yeah. Although the signal to noise is way better than I'd expect at WotC. Aside from some unsupported rants and that guy who said it was fine cause Frank n K wrote it people are at least thinking about stuff.

I would like to see some response to AT's archer fighter. That seems kinda lame.
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Re: Races of War

Post by Crissa »

Personally, I don't see what's so terribly unbalanced about foil action. You're using more of your actions to negate less of theirs.

It's like counterspell.

It's like the slap-your-hand-quickly thing that monks and annoyingly macho guys do.

It seems like usually a bad idea - Fighter 9 is all about dropping people as a way of cancelling their actions.

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Re: Races of War

Post by Crissa »

Uhh, where's the link the the Wizards' board version? I can't find it on this thread anymore.

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Re: Races of War

Post by Username17 »

Crissa wrote: Literation error: You are so tough.


Not an error.

Spelling error: fundamentallack


Fix.


Now there'a waaay to many armors. How the heck do I choose?


Heh. That's less than the number of armors that D&D currently recognizes. This was a simplification. Right now, you choose pretty much by whatever looks nice, though if you happen to be a Rogue you should endeavor to wear armor that twigs off of skills rather than BAB. That means that Rogues like Force Shields and Shadow Armor... are you surprised?

BTW, the chart is more fleshed out.

With the ranged weapon feats they often say if the crit is 19-20 big it up. I imagine thats because auto threat abilities on those are worth less than on x3 ones. What about the poor old 20/x2 weapons?


The 19-20 weapons and the x3 weapons are paying (either through slowness or martiality) for being awesome - to do an extra of 5% average damage per hit. The x2 weapons are not supposed to do well in a critical situation.

Aasimar/Tieflings. IMO the aasimar are just better. +2 to a skill just isn't as good as -2 to a stat.


In absolute terms? Yeah, Aasimar are better. But Tieflings make awesome Rogues and Wizards, so I don't feel bad for them at all.

Dangling preposition, -1 point.


Uh no... The construction "You are very hard to hit when you want to be." is correct. It's equivalent to "You are very hard to hit when you want to be hard to hit." but the repeated text gets dropped as redundant in well-formed English sentences.

Insert "While fighting with two weapons"?


Sure.

Should be 3rd


It sure should.

For example death king requires power attack and expertise which are no longer feats.


Indeed. Everyone meets Power Attack and Expertise requirements. Happy birthday!

Just noticed in the Elemental Knight "atune form" should be "attune form".
Fixed.

Very nice. However, at 1st level a Barbarian would have DR 2/--, because 1*.5 (rounded down) is .5, which gets rounded down to 0.


Yep.

Here's a nit-picky one. Should probably list a range for Aasimar, Tiefling, Goblin, Hobgoblin, and Half-Orc races. I'm assuming it's 60 feet (but it might be neat if say, tieflings, had 90 feet or something).


Darkvision does indeed default to 60 feet.

Typo. one extra "her".


Fix


Umm, can you give an example of how this ability works?


I can reword it slightly to be more explicit.

It may be better to change this to something about fighting "blind" or while "vision-impaired", so that it works in thick fog or while the character has his eyes closed or blindfloded.


Sure. I'll go with "vision impaired"

There's a missing word or words in there between "Dexterity" and "than". I am guessing that word is "less" or "smaller".


I'm thinking "Lower" actually.

Umm, should there be a provision about actually being capable of lifting the target?
It totally does already. "their weight counts against your limits of course"


Coup de grace? Really? The target does not need to be helpless first?


Nope. Coup de Grace doesn't really bother me now that it has been divorced from a totallyy arbitrary Fort Save noone will ever pass.
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Re: Races of War

Post by Username17 »

A link to the WotC copy of Races of War is contained in this message.

AT pissed the hell out of me back when I was allowed to post at WotC, and he still does. He won't let Fighters or Wizards have nice things. I honestly don't even know what game he's playing. Maybe he runs for 8 person parties?

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Re: Races of War

Post by fbmf »

AT = Archtyrant Terevoth?

Sorry, but it's ben a while since I posted at WotC?

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