Kit Revisions (Fighters)

[Guest AndrewB]

I haven't read through all of this thread, so I don't know if this was suggested for the Wizard Slayer or not, but I'd suggest that this effect:

 

- For each successful hit (melee or ranged) on an opponent, 10% cumulative spell failure penalty is applied.

 

bypass Stoneskins/Ironskins, but not Protection from Normal/Magical Weapons, Mantle, etc. That, combined with Detect Illusions to take care of Reflected Images/Mirror Images, Blur, and various types of invisibility (you might consider allowing this to level up into Oracle or True Sight, to take care of Shadow Door/Pixie Dust/Mislead/Projected Image, but I doubt not having that would relegate the kit into uselessness), and the innate MR to dampen magical damage should be enough to make it an effective caster killer.

[yarpen]

Combat Manevrues

 

Parry

In order to make himself harder to hit, a character can parry--forfeit all actions for the round--he can't attack, move, or cast spells. This frees the character to concentrate solely on defense. At this point, all characters but warriors gain an AC bonus vs. melee weapons equal to half their level. A 6th-level wizard would have a +3 bonus to his AC (lowering his AC by 3). A warrior gets a bonus equal to half his level plus one. A 6th-level fighter would gain a +4 AC bonus.

 

Parrying lasts one round and can be used once per round.

 

Weapons: Long Swords, Bastard Swords, Short Swords, Daggers, Staves, Spears

 

Classes: all (Fighters get +1 bonus to AC when Parrying)

 

Rapid Shot

You can get one extra attack per round with a ranged weapon. Each attack you make in that round takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls.

 

Rapid Shot lasts one round and can be used once per round.

 

Weapons: Bows, Crossbows, Slings

 

Classes: Fighters, Wizard Slayers, Rangers, Archers

 

Charge

A character can also charge a foe. A charge increases the character's movement rate by 50% and enables the character to make an attack at the end of his movement. A charging character also gains a +2 bonus to his attack roll, mainly from momentum. Certain weapons (such as a lance) inflict double the rolled damage in a charge.

 

However, charging gives the opponents several advantages. First, they gain a -2 bonus to their attack speed rolls. Second, charging characters gain no Dexterity bonuses to Armor Class and they suffer an AC penalty of 1.

 

After using Charge, character is tired which reflects in applied penalties: -2 to Attack Rolls, Damage and AC for next 5 rounds. Also being fatigued disallow next use of Charge.

 

Charge lasts one round (or till the first successful attack) and can be used once per 6 rounds.

 

Weapons: Spears

 

Classes: Fighters, Berserkers, Barbarians, Paladins, Cavailers

 

All-around Attack

Fighter can select do sacrfice all of his attacks per round annd launch one massive blow that can be extended into a whirlwind physical attack that damages every enemy within reach. After using this ability warrior makes a single attack roll against any adjacent oponent. If the attack hits, the opponent suffers normal damage from the blow, but the hail of blows from the warrior automatically inflicts damage on every enemy within a 5-foot radius. If the initial attack misses, the all-around attack fails.

 

The damage inflicted on creatures within the 5-foot radius varies with the warrior's level as follows:

 

1-4 level: 1d4 damage

5-9 level: 2d4 damage

10-14 level: 3d4 damage

15-19 level: 4d4 damage

20+ level: 5d4 damage

 

Weapons: Swords, Axes, Halberds, Flails

More restricting suggestion: Halberds, Flails, Two-Handed Swords

 

Classes: Fighters, Berserkers, Barbarians

 

Shield-Punch

 

The shield-punch is a very basic maneuver. If you are using a buckler, small shield, or medium shield, you can use it to attack with as well as defend, by slamming it into your target's body.

 

A shield-punch does 1–3 damage. Once you have performed a shield-punch, you lose the AC bonus of the shield for the rest of the combat round.

 

This is a good maneuver to perform when you've dropped your weapon, as it will do somewhat more damage than a barehanded attack.

 

Shields: Bucklers, Light, Medium

Classes: Fighters, Berserkers, Paladins, Cavailers, Undead Hunters

 

Implementation

- Parrying in this version looks nice but without any possibility of attacking it's quite useless. There is another version of Parrying coming from Fighter's Handbook which allows to absorb attack at cost of attacks per round.

- Rapid Shot is 3rd editional nice ability which was already presented in few mods. I think it's quite balanced and fine: maybe it should have longer duration (2-4 rounds).

- Charge is for me the most interesting one. It makes Spears look very, very decent when compared to other weapons. It needs 'shells and secondary effects' or could be done by manually creating special version of every Spear which deals double damage and has only 1 charge. ^^ Personally, I'd even grant to character who's using it Berserk effect (with green circle under feets) to make him attack closest enemy, and to disallow using this ability for fast retreat or stuff).

- All Around Attack is slightly altered version of high-level warrior's ability. I've reduced it's damage output. Well, if we're going to tie those abilities to Items, we can bypass the problem of 'damage type'. I'm not sure about it being balanced, maybe some fatigue effect would be suitable.

- Shield Punch is simple one. Once per few rounds allow to deal little and non-lethal damage at the cost of AC bonus. I think it should have % chance for success (what about 5% + 5% per level, exactly as ThaC0 progress, but capped at 95% chance). Also it shouldn't bypass any magic defenses. I'd personally add Stun effect which lasts 1 round or even Knockback, to make it more usefull.

- I think that all of those abilities should be implemented through items. Items grants Special Abilities (with .eff to determine which class gets them). I think it gives a bit of edge especially for Fighters who needs something more than just A-Move. There are many other abilities (Called Shot, Pin, Sap, Disarm).

[Ardanis]

Charge

I've proposed to increase their range to 3, for more uniqueness.

As for implementation, duh. We can't really do it without looking ugly in half cases

 

Nothing against using it to retreat, since you if you can run towards an enemy then you surely can run away from them as well. Wing Buffet might be used here, but I recall Six saying it can't be relied upon. Character can also be immune to berserkering via Chaotic Commands of something.

 

All Around Attack

Is it wise to have lesser/greater versions of it? Whirlwind attack already requires a great lot of feats in 3rd Ed, so if it is left HLA-only then I see no significant immersion breaking.

 

Shield Bash

I think it was discussed before and was labeled as 'can't be done'.

[Demivrgvs]

Implementation

I think that those abilities should be tied to items (which resolves problem of All-around attack and weapon's damage type) ... thanks to .eff or Protection from Spell play.

I'll start with this aspect because it's quite crucial. First of all I'm not so sure we can do it as you're suggesting, second of all, even if it is doable, it would probably be a pain to code, and could cause serious compatibility issues imo.

 

What are you suggesting? To make weapons grant an innate ability while equipped? That would case quite a mess imo because every weapon equipped in any slot, not only the one really in use, would grant you those abilities. Furthermore such abilities would be granted to any class. I could only prevent them from being usable to some classes afterward vis Protection from Spell or make them work only for some classes via EFF, but both solutions are not perfect (it's kinda 4th wall breaking to have a weapon add an ability, and then have it not do something when you select it).

 

As for implementation, duh. We can't really do it without looking ugly in half cases

Eh, more or less this is the short version of what I was going to say for most of your suggestions.

 

 

Parry

Your suggestion is more or less the extreme version of the current Defensive Stance (PnP Weapon Expertise) I'm using (penalty to thac0 in exchange for AC bonus). This is probably the easiest one to implement as long as it's done "normally" and not via weapons.

 

 

Rapid Shot

This would be interesting indeed, but I'm not sure it's doable, because apr bonus would affect both melee and ranged attacks. Afaik it's impossible to make it work as intended.

 

 

Charge

This is partially doable (I granted a similar ability to SR's leopards), but I can't restrict apr to a single attack per round.

 

 

All-around Attack

Again, I cannot restrict it to 1 attack per round, and making it work via weapons would be a pain imo. I think my suggested solution, a spell-like whirlwind attack, is the only feasible one.

 

 

Shield Bash

I think it was discussed before and was labeled as 'can't be done'.

Yes it is, at least it's impossible to make it work in a "believable" way.

[yarpen]

For Charge and All-around Attack

Check Avenger's Death Attack of his Assassin. It's limited to only one successfull hit. :3

[Demivrgvs]

For Charge and All-around Attack

Check Avenger's Death Attack of his Assassin. It's limited to only one successfull hit. :3

That's quite a different thing though. It doesn't set apr to 1 for that round, it makes the next single attack trigger an additional effect. And even then, the 1apr thing is the least of our problems imo.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Shield Bash

I think it was discussed before and was labeled as 'can't be done'.

Surely it can, you just have to give the shield an ability button(in the equipment menu) and make it able to become an off hand weapon with a bash attack(small blunt damage & special bonus like a x% chance of effect y) with the cost of loosing the AC bonuses & other things.

[yarpen]

Surely it can, you just have to give the shield an ability button(in the equipment menu) and make it able to become an off hand weapon with a bash attack(small blunt damage & special bonus like a x% chance of effect y) with the cost of loosing the AC bonuses & other things.

Never thought about something like this but sounds awesome, much better than 'just' an ability' of dealing damage. Especially if there'd be possible to make something with animation (isn't there anything for fighter actually using shield like blocking attacks which could be triggered by this attack?).

[Demivrgvs]

Shield Bash

Surely it can, you just have to give the shield an ability button(in the equipment menu) and make it able to become an off hand weapon with a bash attack(small blunt damage & special bonus like a x% chance of effect y) with the cost of loosing the AC bonuses & other things.

Never thought about something like this but sounds awesome, much better than 'just' an ability' of dealing damage. Especially if there'd be possible to make something with animation (isn't there anything for fighter actually using shield like blocking attacks which could be triggered by this attack?).

Jarno, have you tested it before saying that we can SURELY do it? Afaik nothing like that can be done. We cannot give shields a melee header, nor we have any animation for something like that.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Shield Bash

Jarno, have you tested it before saying that we can SURELY do it? Afaik nothing like that can be done. We cannot give shields a melee header, nor we have any animation for something like that.

Whell no, for one because it requires an animation rework(copy paste the shield animation to a new slot, edit the bgmain.exe etc. or whatever), as you need to make the shield attack weapon that uses "regular shield" animation as the off hand weapon... with added bash effect to the effected creature, for example it could be the same fire animation that the fire arrow makes to the target if the attack hits, for one of the shields, but that effect is item based.

This actually should be made in the Item Revision mod...

Yes we were thinking the same thing, but I have the 'we can do this' attitude while you carry the 'no, we cannot do this!' one, ups.

[Ardanis]

Assuming that adding a melee header to a shield is possible and won't crash the game (I absolutely have no idea), what would be the result? Extra off-hand attack, weaker than a normal off-hand weapon. Finally, how'd you handle the AC bonus? It is equipped, not related to headers in any way. Yes, if we absolutely want, this probably is doable via ton of shells and auxillary files, but I think there's no need to explain that it borderlines the 'impossible'.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Assuming that adding a melee header to a shield is possible and won't crash the game (I absolutely have no idea), what would be the result? Extra off-hand attack, weaker than a normal off-hand weapon. Finally, how'd you handle the AC bonus? It is equipped, not related to headers in any way. Yes, if we absolutely want, this probably is doable via ton of shells and auxillary files, but I think there's no need to explain that it borderlines the 'impossible'.

You don't actually give it just a headed, you make the shield to become a weapon that has the proper equipment statistics(similar like the Crom F... via the backpack menu), yes it's off hand weapon that doesn't produce the two weapon thac0 penalties, if you don't like that, and are able to do that(which I think you should be able to do somewhat easily).

[aVENGER_(RR)]

Hey guys, been a while.

 

Thought you might be interested in this. Feel free to use anything from it that you like for KR.

 

Cheers!

[Demivrgvs]

Hey guys, been a while.

 

Thought you might be interested in this. Feel free to use anything from it that you like for KR.

 

Cheers!

Nice to see you back, even if it's only for a break!

 

Thanks, we generally have similar views when it comes to rebalancing kits, but in this case we differ more than usual. If you don't mind I'd like to ask a few things, to see what you think about certain features and/or how you implemented them.

 

 

Disrupt Magic

Don't you think that a non-stackable higher % spell failure (I proposed 50% with a save) would work better? Nice idea making it scale with lvls, but I think 10% spell failure isn't much useful (if you can hit a mage 2-3 times he's already dead), and later on 30% on each hit with no save can actually be OP considering only PfMW-like spells can prevent it.

 

 

Shatter Magic

We discussed this, and in theory I loved the concept of a "Breach on hit" effect, but PfMW-like spells block it. The spells against which you'd like to use it the most actually protect from it. It isn't even much appealing against Stoneskin, because any mage not immune to WS's Disrupt Magic (e.g. via PfMW) is doomed anyway with 1-2 hits. Am I wrong?

 

Speaking instead of its implementation...how did you managed to make it remove a single protection? Afaik opcode 221 doesn't allow that, all protections are removed at once.

[aVENGER_(RR)]

Nice to see you back, even if it's only for a break!

 

Hi Demi!

 

Don't you think that a non-stackable higher % spell failure (I proposed 50% with a save) would work better? Nice idea making it scale with lvls, but I think 10% spell failure isn't much useful (if you can hit a mage 2-3 times he's already dead), and later on 30% on each hit with no save can actually be OP considering only PfMW-like spells can prevent it.

 

Well, this is one of those things that's kind of hard to balance out withot practical tests. For starters, let me mention that the chance in the unmodded game is actually 25% with no save, lasting 15 rounds. The kit description is wrong in this case. Anyhow, I lowered the duration to 3 rounds and gave an incremental chance which improves with levels. It's been a few years since I tested this in-game, but I think it worked out pretty well in the end. One thing to note here, spell failure goes through Stoneskin, and normal weapons go through PfMW.

 

We discussed this, and in theory I loved the concept of a "Breach on hit" effect, but PfMW-like spells block it. The spells against which you'd like to use it the most actually protect from it.

 

I agree, but IMO, it just seems more fitting for the Wizard Slayer to have on-hit effect which does this rather than a spell-like ability. As noted above, there's always normal weapons for PfMW-ed enemies.

 

Speaking instead of its implementation...how did you managed to make it remove a single protection? Afaik opcode 221 doesn't allow that, all protections are removed at once.

 

Hmm, it's been a while since I made that, I've forgotten how I did it off hand. Let me check the files... *dusts off Near Infinity*... it seems that I used opcode #230 in order to achieve this.