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View Full Version : The War-Marked [3.52, Base Class] PEACH



Doc Roc
2009-09-11, 10:59 PM
http://h1.ripway.com/Pennies/PDred.png
The Penny Dreadfuls present:
The War-Marked, a key portion of the 3.52 fix set for D&D 3e.



The Class Chassis (http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYdLcxsM7Nx0ZGc2NzhibjNfNjRoZDJucWtocw&hl=en)
The Marks (http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Aclf_LtvhqMlZGhwbTc4OTlfNTYyNnh2dmM1&hl=en), as currently stand



The Theory:
In practice, fighter is often a single-target build. Laid around one concept, locked in completely, and possibly destroyed as an effective combatant by the troubles of poor feat selection and esoteric source support. Worse, even on a good day, fighters have core problems that cause them to compare unfavorably to the majority of other classes in the game. So rather than a traditional fighter replacement, we've opted to create a class that fills its design niche in a different way.

Our goal is to provide a comprehensive and very different option, reliant on packages of pre-picked passive buffs and abilities designed to offer something reliable, useful, and excellent for all comers. Ideally, our balance point is, unusually enough, the sorcerer rather than the warblade. We've tried to indirectly provide power boosts to all the melee classes, but right now, that's a secondary goal.

The Core concepts:
The core idea is the idea of a mark, a single set of synergistic and fundamental abilities, similar to what might have previously been referred to as a kit in other editions. Each mark is relatively powerful, but works best when used with other marks in a careful and tactical way. Right now, I'm too tired from swine flu to offer a better explanation. Hopefully, our extensive work speaks for itself.

Player-Versus-Player tests:
Olo Versus Juris (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6944100#post6944100)
Claudius vs. PhoenixRivers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125362)
Olo vs. PhoenixRivers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6968457)
Mushroom Versus Phoenix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6988639#post6988639)
Phoenix Versus 9mm (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6991883#post6991883)

Doc Roc
2009-09-11, 11:02 PM
Some notes:

While we bill them as fighter replacements, it'd be more accurate to suggest that they expand the core mechanics of the Tome of Battle and offer a broad spectrum of relatively accessible powers to a variety of comers.
Initiator Level is used due to the way it scales when you level outside the class, as well as the fact that it allows us to do integration with Tome of Battle classes and provides us a known framework for hanging our advancement on.
We will likely increase the degree of integration with Tome of Battle, and may change the IL stacking mechanism, which as it stands, encourages dipping a little more than we're really comfortable with. That said, some ability to dip in and out is a design goal.
We want your opinions. I don't care if you hate everything we've ever done. I want to hear it, but I want to know why in depth.
Right now, war-marked is largely stripped of any flavor elements. This is intentional. We, like most ramen companies, will be offering a variety of flavor packets down the road. Right now, though we're trying to get our noodle factory running.

Doc Roc
2009-09-12, 12:05 AM
Still working on making this play nice with swordsage and crusader.

Rockbird
2009-09-12, 02:39 AM
Do you intend to create marks from each type that could be fluffed as pure skill? If all War-Marked have to grow wings or tentacles or whatever the class can hardly be used to represent a skilled, mundane warrior, and is thus kinda lacking as a fighter fix, which is what i've understood this to be. Or do you think those kinds of warriors should use the warblade instead?

Doc Roc
2009-09-12, 02:43 AM
There will be a variety of more mundane marks, but we want to try to step on Warblade toes as little as possible. It's quite easy to argue that we already have a little too much overlap. If you check the stacking mechanic however, and take a look at the feats, it's possible to benefit nicely from marks without ever being war-marked or with a relatively short dip as a normal ToB class.

Still, you raise an excellent and painful point that we'll try to do something about.

Milskidasith
2009-09-12, 03:13 AM
One question: What happens if two people with Mark of the Elder Brain use abilities on each other? Does this just go into an infinite loop until one of them rolls a natural 1? What if they combine this with manuevers/items to make it impossible to roll a natural 1? What if all these actions break the limit on actions for both players? And more importantly, how do you fluff this? Both people thinking really hard at each other until one of them snaps and drools for a round?

Also, how would I get access to edit the document? I can't seem to find a way to add notes to it, though I'm sure that is intentional.

Doc Roc
2009-09-12, 03:24 AM
I.... Hum.

I guess it just... Huh.


:: snaps and drools for a round ::

Milskidasith
2009-09-12, 03:26 AM
Exactly...

EDIT: Actually, I realized they'd probably die of sheer mental exhaustion before they failed the save. For ToS purposes, that's 13d6/2 until one of them fails a save, which is unlikely.

Also, what happens if somebody is surrounded by people with Mark of the Craven? Who does he hit or not hit?

Doc Roc
2009-09-12, 03:31 AM
I'll cross the Club Craven bridge when we come to it. I'll think about it, though, because it is a relevant question. PM me with your e-mail address, and I'll grant edit rights.


I'll see what I can do about the looping effect. Got any slick solutions in that clever head of yours?

Milskidasith
2009-09-12, 03:37 AM
For the looping part:

"A successful save against this ability grants the target immunity to this ability until the start of your/their next round."

I'm not entirely sure of whether it should be your or their next round, because I'm not a balance expert, but I do know that *should* prevent looping (although it would weaken the ability against successive attacks, I admit). At best, it just means that each person (in a ToS situation) would take 13d6/2 any time anybody caused a will save.

EDIT: Better idea that also allows this to be used against successive spells:

This ability may be activated IL/2 times per round.

kamikasei
2009-09-12, 08:41 AM
What niche is this class intended to fill? If it's supposed to operate alongside the Warblade, then why does Fighter need replacing? It would seem to me that any objections to using Warblade as a substitute Fighter apply at least as much to the War-Marked (mechanical complexity, abilities insufficiently mundane, etc.).

Claudius Maximus
2009-09-12, 10:22 AM
A lot of these abilities have no business being (Ex). Especially the ones that mimic spells. The incorporeality one is particularly egregious.

The blink dog mark is pretty baffling. Especially since it can wield weapons. As a dog.

I agree that this doesn't seem like a fighter replacement. It's more like some kind of mix of a martial adept and a Totemist. It's still a fine class if you work out the kinks, but it just doesn't strike me as the typical warrior type, i.e. a class that gets by on his skill with weapons.

imperialspectre
2009-09-12, 11:00 AM
There are two reasons for introducing the Mark mechanic even if we take the fairly obvious balance step of using ToB instead of PHB melee classes.

First, from a fluff perspective, the warblade is fundamentally mundane. A warblade is capable of moving quickly, jumping up and ripping you to pieces, or smashing through rocks, but these are all simply extrapolations of abilities appropriate for the mundane tier (level 5 and below). There's a reason that not a single warblade maneuver is flagged as (Su).

That's not what the War-Marked is about, in terms of fluff. Our vision of the War-Marked was a character that approaches the idea of a martial tactician more than any other class - someone who will take the tricks and the tactics of the enemies he or she meets and use them even more effectively than the original enemies, while building up defenses against those tactics at the same time. Past about level 10, there are no more mundane enemies to rip off, nor is there much to further exploit about your own abilities, because past level 10 everyone in D&D is a superhero.

If you want to play a mundane, heroic warrior, you should play a warblade (or the slightly-buffed Barbarian that we'll be releasing shortly). Those guys do what you're envisioning. We think that the Marks still have something to offer you, though.

That's the second reason we wrote up the Marks. The intended balance point for the War-Marked is somewhere close to an all-books-open 3.5 sorcerer. The only combat builds that have ever approached that power level were intentionally exploitative, such as the Hulking Hurler, or gishes, like the Chrono-Legionnaire, or combat builds of full casters, like the Cleric Archer. Melee needs some help. It's common knowledge that Tome of Battle did not substantially increase melee power (a well-built 3.5 Barbarian beats a Warblade at all levels), only melee flexibility. We're trying to actually increase melee power.

As a result, there are a number of ways to access lower-tier Marks as a more mundane warrior. You can take feats, but more importantly, War-Marked IL stacks 1:1 with any one other initiator class. That means that if you want a mundane warrior who picks up a few tricks with hir weapon or opens hirself up to a particular truth of combat, you can take 4-8 levels of War-Marked, take the rest of your levels in a ToB class, and get the mechanical benefits of Marks while still preserving a lot of the mundane flavor and not losing the IL progression for your own maneuvers. Crusader 14/War-Marked 6 (taking the 14th level of Crusader late enough to get an 8th-level stance) is a particular favorite of mine, especially because it also helps avoid some of the general emptiness of later levels in ToB classes.

Claudius: The general tendency while writing the marks was to class everything (Ex) that we possibly could. A lot of those are going to have to change as we move on, although flight will generally remain (Ex) and a couple other things are (Ex) for a reason.

The blink dog mark has been the subject of a lot of internal debate. I think you're probably right regarding the use of weapons.

The comments about a fighter replacement are up above.

Rockbird
2009-09-12, 11:20 AM
Just to clarify: I have no problem with using the Warblade to represent "weapons dude". I had simply gotten the impression from other posts that this class was intended as the "fighter fix", and thus i felt i should point out that it doesn't really do that, thematically. At least as soon as you get to the magical beast marks. Still, it's a nice class :smallwink:.

imperialspectre
2009-09-12, 12:03 PM
I think it would be more accurate to say that we're accessing a different archetype of the "fighting person." Instead of focusing on beating on stuff with weapons, we're focusing on the ability to adapt and be effective in any combat by picking up another trick. The 3.x fighter was supposed to be able to do that - that's what the bonus feats were for. Unfortunately, feats don't actually do that, especially in the presence of long feat chains that give mediocre bonuses.

Incidentally, at least in my own tests, I felt that building a War-Marked was easier than building any other martial character except a Barbarian. You pick from a relatively small range of options given (aside from feats), and many of the options are passive, so you just have to write them down on your character sheet and use them. Even the active options are things that you mostly just choose to do reactively, and they don't generally "recover" aside from a set cooldown time. I found the War-Marked much easier to run as a DM than any of the ToB classes.

Doc Roc
2009-09-12, 12:14 PM
Incorporeality is now (su). Originally, the rest of that mark was very-very weak. I'd argue that it still kinda is. I'll see what I can do.

Rockbird
2009-09-12, 01:07 PM
I think it would be more accurate to say that we're accessing a different archetype of the "fighting person." Instead of focusing on beating on stuff with weapons, we're focusing on the ability to adapt and be effective in any combat by picking up another trick. The 3.x fighter was supposed to be able to do that - that's what the bonus feats were for. Unfortunately, feats don't actually do that, especially in the presence of long feat chains that give mediocre bonuses.

Incidentally, at least in my own tests, I felt that building a War-Marked was easier than building any other martial character except a Barbarian. You pick from a relatively small range of options given (aside from feats), and many of the options are passive, so you just have to write them down on your character sheet and use them. Even the active options are things that you mostly just choose to do reactively, and they don't generally "recover" aside from a set cooldown time. I found the War-Marked much easier to run as a DM than any of the ToB classes.

I see where you're coming from, and i applaud it. I do wonder if you have any example of warriors fighting, say, giant squid eventually growing tentacles? Examples from literature or mythology or somesuch, i mean. I can't come up with any myself, but maybe you know something i don't :smallsmile:.

(Note: This might be coming off as sarcasm, but that is not my intention.)

Because i can see a fighter getting to ignore Freedom of Movement, or treating enemies as smaller sized in a grapple. Warriors picking up tricks from their experience is classic stuff. And i firmly believe that high-level warriors should be doing stuff that's bordeline magical in effect, because that's what high-level characters do. But maybe some of the marks should be less... Blatantly supernatural. At least in their appearance, if not in their magnitude. Like a mark emulating, i dunno, giants? Punching REALLY hard and whatnot. Keep the tentacle-growing, but give the option of still being a guy who's just that strong/skilled/fast for those who want it.

ex cathedra
2009-09-12, 01:12 PM
But maybe some of the marks should be less... Blatantly supernatural. At least in their appearance, if not in their magnitude. Like a mark emulating, i dunno, giants? Punching REALLY hard and whatnot. Keep the tentacle-growing, but give the option of still being a guy who's just that strong/skilled/fast for those who want it.

Of course. But, you must understand, as we write the higher-level marks, those of outsiders, abberations, and so forth, there are less mundane-seeming abilities to replicate. Additionally, as is true with virtually any other aspect of roleplaying games, you can fluff the abilities to look like they're doing whatever you want.

Doc Roc
2009-09-12, 01:19 PM
Of course. But, you must understand, as we write the higher-level marks, those of outsiders, abberations, and so forth, there are less mundane-seeming abilities to replicate. Additionally, as is true with virtually any other aspect of roleplaying games, you can fluff the abilities to look like they're doing whatever you want.

Also, we're about half-way done on marks. We wanted to release as soon as we hit a launchable milestone, so that people could test it, and we could get valuable feedback.

It means a lot to me that the reception has been generally positive so far.

Rockbird
2009-09-12, 01:30 PM
Of course. But, you must understand, as we write the higher-level marks, those of outsiders, abberations, and so forth, there are less mundane-seeming abilities to replicate. Additionally, as is true with virtually any other aspect of roleplaying games, you can fluff the abilities to look like they're doing whatever you want.

True. I freely admit that i have a hard time conceptualizing what a level 20 warrior should be able to pull off myself, so i won't hold it against you that you went with a more supernatural approach :smalltongue:.
But my suggestion remains that should you be able to come up with abilities of approperiate power that seem less magic-y (Or more skill based, or whatever. I'm sure you get my point :smallwink:), that'd be a good thing to add. I'm sure you'd already thought of that, though :smallbiggrin:.

Bloody fighter types needing to limit themselves. From now on, all martial characters get to shoot tac-nukes from their mouths at level 20. :smallfurious::smallbiggrin:

Doc Roc
2009-09-12, 01:31 PM
Bloody fighter types needing to limit themselves. From now on, all martial characters get to shoot tac-nukes from their mouths at level 20. :smallfurious::smallbiggrin:

I guess you've seen some of my L20 full casters then? :)

Rockbird
2009-09-12, 01:50 PM
They wouldn't happen to involve anti-osmium? :smalltongue:

Doc Roc
2009-09-12, 01:56 PM
Why would I do something that's basically cheating when I can crack a planet in half using the RAW? :smallbiggrin:

ex cathedra
2009-09-12, 01:58 PM
True. I freely admit that i have a hard time conceptualizing what a level 20 warrior should be able to pull off myself, so i won't hold it against you that you went with a more supernatural approach :smalltongue:.
But my suggestion remains that should you be able to come up with abilities of approperiate power that seem less magic-y (Or more skill based, or whatever. I'm sure you get my point :smallwink:), that'd be a good thing to add. I'm sure you'd already thought of that, though :smallbiggrin:.

Bloody fighter types needing to limit themselves. From now on, all martial characters get to shoot tac-nukes from their mouths at level 20. :smallfurious::smallbiggrin:

20 isn't the best balance point, either, and (as you may have noticed) the class is currently focusing on the 4-13 level range (which is, imo, one of the most enjoyable). There's still another capstone ability that hasn't been entirely fleshed out. The War-Marked is a flavorful, fun martial class that (with any luck) doesn't have to over-optimize into gimmicky archetypes (That is, Ubercharger, lock-down tripper, Jack B. Quick, Dragoons, etc.) to keep up with the speed at which a full caster's power scales. Simultaneously, it isn't trying to replace too many classes (Warblade, especially), and so there are limiting factors that we try to adhere to.

Rockbird
2009-09-12, 02:05 PM
Why would I do something that's basically cheating when I can crack a planet in half using the RAW? :smallbiggrin:

And now i have an image in my head of a dude in a robe cracking planets like eggshells with a stick marked "raw".

Milskidasith
2009-09-12, 02:10 PM
You know what's even more crazy than the Mark of the Craven brigade? A Mark of Craven Brigade in an all out brawl with everybody considering everybody else their ally (for flanking; it's a brawl, so it's reasonable smashing a mace over the guys head lets the other guy you don't know cut his legs off) with everybody having Mark of the Eldar Brain.

Who KNOWS what the hell happens there. Everybody starts making masses of will save to not hit the X other flanking people, and then on any of the failed saves they have to make more failed saves because of the other flanking buddies, and on any of THOSE failed saves they have to make more... and with all the successful ones, somebody takes damage and has to make a will save, which can cause the first person to take damage and oh my god why just why!

Extra points if everybody has huge amounts of reach from spiked chains.

Doc Roc
2009-09-12, 02:15 PM
I'd... pay to play that scenario.

Milskidasith
2009-09-12, 02:17 PM
Quick, somebody right up an adventure module!

Fistbeard McBeardFist wanted an apprentice, so he started the worlds largest bar brawl. For some reason, only War-Marked Cravens of the Elder Brain showed up.

HEAVEN OR HELL!

LET'S ROCK!

Doc Roc
2009-09-12, 02:19 PM
Actually, a couple of Brawl modules would make a pretty good test for this thing. I wonder... Maybe I'll roll down to the local game shop sometime soon and run some one-shots.

Milskidasith
2009-09-12, 02:20 PM
Yeah, but this isn't your daddy's brawl. This is a brawl where a bunch of cowards are yelling "HIT HIM!" while also blowing up their enemies minds when trying to disobey.

Doc Roc
2009-09-12, 02:21 PM
Yeah, but this isn't your daddy's brawl. This is a brawl where a bunch of cowards are yelling "HIT HIM!" while also blowing up their enemies minds when trying to disobey.

I'm going to start laughing every time I consider this possibility.

Milskidasith
2009-09-12, 02:26 PM
Yes, it is quite hilarious. I'm honestly not sure if it's intentional or not, because it's certainly the most awesome way I can see of using those marks.

ex cathedra
2009-09-12, 02:28 PM
So, a nuclear mindsplosion has already been achieved, it seems.

Nice.

Milskidasith
2009-09-12, 02:29 PM
I still prefer Nuclear Catsplosions.

Wait... Giant cats (everything in Dwarf Fortress fits on one square, so it only makes sense that everything is the size of a dragon), on fire, with both marks. It's a thermonuclear cat mindsplosion!

Dwarf Fortress, is there any twisted act of cruelty y ou can't do!

Doc Roc
2009-09-12, 02:43 PM
I.... don't think there is something it cannot stoop to (http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/).

I'm still torn on how to fix this. I really love elderbrain and don't want to weaken it too much, given the strength of its competition.

sofawall
2009-09-12, 09:07 PM
Bolas are just... Gah.

My personal torture.

I will finish that bastard.

Milskidasith
2009-09-12, 09:12 PM
How do we add new marks? I was considering a mark of pain and a mark of cruelty, along with marks for all the alignments (although I'm not sure what the abilities should be.)

Alignment marks might be an interesting way of giving them an extra mark, just because (at the moment) they don't appear to get all that many options; while they do get a few marks, it seems like they will usually be locked into "synergize all the marks into one death attack."

Doc Roc
2009-09-12, 09:25 PM
sketch them out as comments or loose templates, and flag them as currently unavailable, and then we can talk about what they might do. We're going to probably only add 5-7 more ideal marks, so the competition is stiff.

ex cathedra
2009-09-13, 01:18 PM
At the moment, Aberration/Magical Beast and Weapon Marks are the closest to be complete, I think.

Though, the Pain/Cruelty marks might not be so bad, Sign. I'm certainly curious.

Several marks have been updated, also.

Godskook
2009-09-13, 02:12 PM
1.The layout could be cleaned up some, it is not very easy to chase down how some abilities work without reading things in several different places. For instance, I've yet to find when you gain the shape-feature of marks. Could mark abilities be renamed something along the line of least/intermediate/greater, or 1st/2nd/3rd, cause shape/name/essence lend me no aid in understanding the abilities, and they don't seem to be required as part of the fluff.

2.The fluff in general does not seem to be all that detailed. It'd help me get a feel for what the class is supposed to be if there was more fluff involved in it.

Oslecamo
2009-09-13, 03:22 PM
So what does this class has to have with war again? Because altough cool it seems more like a psionic-genetically-altered-marked. Heck does it really need UPD on it's skill list?

ex cathedra
2009-09-14, 01:17 AM
1.The layout could be cleaned up some, it is not very easy to chase down how some abilities work without reading things in several different places. For instance, I've yet to find when you gain the shape-feature of marks. Could mark abilities be renamed something along the line of least/intermediate/greater, or 1st/2nd/3rd, cause shape/name/essence lend me no aid in understanding the abilities, and they don't seem to be required as part of the fluff.

You raise an interesting point. Shape, the most basic set of abilities, don't require you to unlock them specifically. They're immediately granted. This is mentioned in both the 'Marks' and 'Unlockings' sections of the War-Marked document.



2.The fluff in general does not seem to be all that detailed. It'd help me get a feel for what the class is supposed to be if there was more fluff involved in it.

While fluff is always subjective, we feel it would be best to first make sure that the class is mechanically sound. However, you're probably right. You can definitely expect for the fluff to be expanded upon as the class is further developed.

Doc Roc
2009-09-14, 02:05 AM
You raise an interesting point. Shape, the most basic set of abilities, don't require you to unlock them specifically. They're immediately granted. This is mentioned in both the 'Marks' and 'Unlockings' sections of the War-Marked document.


Those :: twiddles his thumbs :: may have magically gotten added after I saw his post.

Os, it hits things until they stop moving. Isn't that war-shaped enough? Think Kratos rather than Leonidas.

ex cathedra
2009-09-14, 02:06 AM
Those :: twiddles his thumbs :: may have magically gotten added after I saw his post.

I fully expected as much, but you didn't have to admit it. :smallwink:

Godskook
2009-09-14, 04:26 AM
I fully expected as much, but you didn't have to admit it. :smallwink:

Yes, he did. Otherwise, I would've had to start rolling sanity checks.:smallbiggrin:

Oslecamo
2009-09-14, 10:59 AM
Os, it hits things until they stop moving. Isn't that war-shaped enough? Think Kratos rather than Leonidas.

I could say that from any class. Even the healer keeps hiting things to heal them untill they stop moving. And I despise Kratos(but Leonidas is awesome). Plus none of those explains the heavy psionic focus of the class.

Doc Roc
2009-09-14, 10:59 AM
Yes, he did. Otherwise, I would've had to start rolling sanity checks.:smallbiggrin:

It is generally accepted that I grant Vile Feats.


I could say that from any class. Even the healer keeps hiting things to heal them untill they stop moving. And I despise Kratos(but Leonidas is awesome). Plus none of those explains the heavy psionic focus of the class.

Basically, I always preferred the feel of psionics, particularly the way that powers get locked in for the vast majority of psionic classes. I really wish, in retrospect, that we'd done some sort of pool-of-points mechanic for the abilities. That's probably my big regret currently. So part of that was left over from early in development, and part of that was our desire to ensure that there was a sense of integration within the party. Basically UMD is generally too strong to just hand out, but as there are fewer psionic items, we could comfortably offer that as a way of further augmenting your spread of abilities.

Amphetryon
2009-09-14, 01:29 PM
It is generally accepted that I grant Vile Feats.



Basically, I always preferred the feel of psionics, particularly the way that powers get locked in for the vast majority of psionic classes. I really wish, in retrospect, that we'd done some sort of pool-of-points mechanic for the abilities. That's probably my big regret currently. So part of that was left over from early in development, and part of that was our desire to ensure that there was a sense of integration within the party. Basically UMD is generally too strong to just hand out, but as there are fewer psionic items, we could comfortably offer that as a way of further augmenting your spread of abilities.Assuming the DM isn't granting full transparency where UMD=UPD for all purposes, this is true.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-09-14, 01:41 PM
To be honest, I was expecting something more similar to an Incarnum-based Essence system, where your marks require essence invested into the marks for the benefits.

Oslecamo
2009-09-14, 01:55 PM
Basically, I always preferred the feel of psionics, particularly the way that powers get locked in for the vast majority of psionic classes. I really wish, in retrospect, that we'd done some sort of pool-of-points mechanic for the abilities. That's probably my big regret currently. So part of that was left over from early in development, and part of that was our desire to ensure that there was a sense of integration within the party. Basically UMD is generally too strong to just hand out, but as there are fewer psionic items, we could comfortably offer that as a way of further augmenting your spread of abilities.

Ah, so what you wanted to do here was to create a replacement for the psiblade, not the fighter. Who happens to grow natural weapons with the power of his mind.

Also I must point out that if the DM isn't using psionics transparency, then UPD becomes quite powerfull, because most stuff out there has spell resistance, not power resistance.

A final personal point is that I don't believe frontliners shouldn't have spot because, well, if every member of the party has good detection abilities(and mages and other rogues already have), then the rogue types aren't gonna to be able to hide from anything. Even the warblade and crusader don't have spot.

imperialspectre
2009-09-14, 02:06 PM
We tried to avoid making the marks directly psionic or incarnum-based because Sinfire is already doing some really cool work in melding those two systems with ToB. We don't want to step on his toes there.

EDIT:
A final personal point is that I don't believe frontliners shouldn't have spot because, well, if every member of the party has good detection abilities(and mages and other rogues already have), then the rogue types aren't gonna to be able to hide from anything. Even the warblade and crusader don't have spot.

That's mathematically improbable. It is far easier to boost stealth checks than it is to boost detection checks - far more races and templates offer substantial bonuses to the former, far more spells boost the former and/or take it entirely out of mundane detection, etc. However, detection skills are necessary to function competently against a great many monsters, so the option should at least be there.

Also, the fact is that rogues can be effectively neutralized by a great many spells and powers. Therefore, arbitrarily selecting beatsticks as a group of characters that simply don't get to detect things is bad for game balance.

Doc Roc
2009-09-14, 02:22 PM
While rogues don't need a complete rebuild, they are slated to receive a set of small but significant over-all buffs that will hopefully increase the breadth of their mechanical applicability. Spot and listen are simply way too important to not be accessible to at least one frontline character.

As for essentia, I am very fond of it, but it's not an easy mechanic to pick up. Originally, that was how a lot of the higher marks were going to work, but it just didn't playtest well, and it made building a good war-marked into a tremendous and really annoying hassle.

Oslecamo
2009-09-14, 04:44 PM
I believe that it's the rogue's job to flush out out good hiders (as Haley from Oots uses her pickpocket knowledge to stop other pickpockets), and the wizard/cleric covers up detecting the enemies hiding with magic.

Frontliners should be adept at finding other frontliners, except that they aren't really much into hiding.

Specially because of the basic hide rules the frontliner doesn't even need spot ranks to detect a sneack enemy whitout magic backup. You can't hide whitout cover, you can't hide while being observed, so just stand in a open well iluminated area, and combat reflexes allows you to attack while flatfooted.

So no, spot isn't that important for the frontliner. If he decides to enter a dark narrow alley full of hiding places, then the rogue deserves his moment of glory, because that's suposed to be his territorry.

imperialspectre
2009-09-14, 05:22 PM
Os: How many monsters above CR 10 or so have no stealth capability whatever? Check out the d20SRD monster filter. There aren't a whole lot of them. Next, think about how many PCs have stealth capabilities (a whole lot of classes, including virtually all casters). What you're proposing is functionally denying beatsticks the ability to engage in a vast range of encounters unless somebody else in the party makes it so they can participate. You'll note that this is NOT the case with rogues or casters - rogues can access everything they need from WBL, and casters have not ever needed a non-casting melee presence to survive in 3.x.

"Fighters can't have nice things" is the status quo. We don't like the status quo. Keeping fighters from having nice things in the name of preserving already-porous party roles isn't a good idea.

Amphetryon
2009-09-15, 10:09 AM
You know what's even more crazy than the Mark of the Craven brigade? A Mark of Craven Brigade in an all out brawl with everybody considering everybody else their ally (for flanking; it's a brawl, so it's reasonable smashing a mace over the guys head lets the other guy you don't know cut his legs off) with everybody having Mark of the Eldar Brain.

Who KNOWS what the hell happens there. Everybody starts making masses of will save to not hit the X other flanking people, and then on any of the failed saves they have to make more failed saves because of the other flanking buddies, and on any of THOSE failed saves they have to make more... and with all the successful ones, somebody takes damage and has to make a will save, which can cause the first person to take damage and oh my god why just why!

Extra points if everybody has huge amounts of reach from spiked chains.
I can say with certainty that Mark of the Craven was not designed with an entire party choosing it in mind. Neat trick.

Cieyrin
2009-09-16, 03:10 PM
Maybe it's just me but giving full Initiator levels to a class that doesn't grant maneuvers seems a tad off to me. The only mechanical use for them in the class is in determining the power of marks, which is generally handled by saying class level. The plus for the other ToB classes of gaining full IL instead of half IL for non-initiator classes is something that doesn't benefit the War-Marked class itself, really, and seems like a benefit that's generally reserved for PRCs.

As for the class's features themselves, the ones that jump out at me that I can recall from my perusal is that Blink Dog is Exalted Only (meaning what, exactly? 0_o left over notes, I assume), Dragon isn't exactly a magical beast, they're a dragon (semantics, I know, and ultimately not mattering; just an observation) Movanic War-Marked have a tricked out 3.0 version of Power Critical that makes Vorpal actually attractive and useful (yay, free insta-death on something once per encounter! :smallbiggrin:), Baatezu's Name ability makes me wonder what occurs if you don't have any natural attacks (i suppose that means you can only use weapon attacks, though would it also apply to your unarmed attacks as well?) and Lumi's Shape ability makes me cringe a little for the over-cap temp-HP built into the fast healing (free temp hp shouldn't be so free, methinks). Just my initial observations, which I may come back with more if I get around to it.

Them's my 2 coppers. Take as you will.

Doc Roc
2009-09-16, 04:26 PM
The movanic's ability is actually just the Surge of Fortune spell turned into a class ability. SoF is a 5th level spell in complete champion. Initial reactions to that mark have really varied overall.

Blink dog is currently Exalted Only, which means you must satisfy the requirements for Exalted as per BoED. This will probably change, as that has been generally poorly received by test audiences, and because the mark is now much weaker than it originally was.

As for the temp HP on mark of the lumi, most of the other outsider marks offer substantial defensive bonuses that increase your effective hp considerably. I definitely grok why it might provoke a negative reaction, and am open to suggestions for an alternative or an alternative mechanism. Lumi was part of the last big push to get the war-marked into a launchable state.

Full initiator levels is actually really important to our philosophy of integration and general friendliness to multiclassing, because it allows you to use any PrC or base class that offers initiator levels as a part of your build while still improving the overall effectiveness of your Marks.
So, in other words:[br]

War-marked 9 is a good break point.

So you break off there, and go Warblade 4, to finish out your character for now. Your marks will treat you like you are a 13th level initiator, but you won't have been able to get new ones. Instead, you've picked up goodies from being a warblade.

It also means that even if you don't really progress as an initiator, you will still gradually increase in power across the board, with a variety of interesting breakpoints and abilities dropping or improving at intervals through-out character development.

Doc Roc
2009-09-16, 11:32 PM
PvP matches and similar testing has begun. As reports and new PbP battles begin, I will be adding them as links. The first is up and has just started.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-09-17, 02:14 PM
Is there a reason M.Beast/Abberation/Outsider marks have shape, name, and essence as different levels? I mean, won't everyone who has a M.B/Aberration/Outsider mark already have unlocked Name and essence?

Doc Roc
2009-09-17, 03:32 PM
Consistency, and also for our own future ease of use. A few of them have differing minimum ILs for the abilities, but beyond that, it's more of a consistency thing and a way of holding the mark in your head more easily.

imperialspectre
2009-09-18, 03:30 PM
The IL thing is actually a fairly useful balancing tool, as we progress in testing. If an ability doesn't appear level-appropriate, we can delay its acquisition until it is.

Cieyrin
2009-09-18, 05:16 PM
I guess I can see the point of using IL, then, to avoid the folly of multiclass weakening. Carry on, then.

As for the free temp hit points thing, it's just feels like an affront to my gamer senses, as it's basically raising your normal HP limit and not exactly temporary any more, since they never go away from passage of time, just from getting hit. It's like a taking a ****ton of Improved Toughness (if they were stackable and you decided to spend all your feats on 'em). On the other hand, considering how many casters and manifesters seem to start their days with False Life and Vigor or the like, maybe it's not such a bad thing and it was just a case of "Melee can't have nice things" on my part, which I apologize for.

Doc Roc
2009-09-18, 05:47 PM
I guess I can see the point of using IL, then, to avoid the folly of multiclass weakening. Carry on, then.

As for the free temp hit points thing, it's just feels like an affront to my gamer senses, as it's basically raising your normal HP limit and not exactly temporary any more, since they never go away from passage of time, just from getting hit. It's like a taking a ****ton of Improved Toughness (if they were stackable and you decided to spend all your feats on 'em). On the other hand, considering how many casters and manifesters seem to start their days with False Life and Vigor or the like, maybe it's not such a bad thing and it was just a case of "Melee can't have nice things" on my part, which I apologize for.

No apology required. I initially went completely freaking berserk about it, and I did a good portion of the rest of that mark, so :: laughing :: it's not a difficult perspective to grasp.

Myou
2009-09-18, 06:47 PM
It looks less complete than the monk fix, obviously a work-in-progress, but it has a lot of promise. :smallsmile:

But god, so much to read. XD



As I'm not a ToB expert I'm not clear on the line "War-Marked offers full IL progression of its own, that can be stacked with a single other Martial Adept class. After that, normal IL rules apply.", does it mean that War-Marked progresses the IL of one other class of your choice (or vice-versa)?


What does Great Glyph actually do? I'm tired so I could have mised the explanation.


Gift of the chosen needs some cool fluff to justify it. :3


Foating feats look good, but also look open to abuse. Have you thought about just using the warblade ability (Adaptive style?)?


What do the various Ascents do?


Mark of the shooting star
The Shape is very powerful, but since archery is underpowered it ought to be ok, and should have never been left out of the game. But it really does need playtesting. The same goes for Essence.


Mark of the Anvil
The Name doesn't say what happens if you miss - is the use wasted?
It would make sense if the Essence just added its effect to the Anvil Strike, rather than activating seperately.


Mark of the Einhander
I'm not clear on what the benefit of the Shape is. If I'm right the other two features are based on charges, yes?



Sadly it's very late so I'll have to look at the other marks later, assuming that I'm of some help. ^^

imperialspectre
2009-09-18, 08:55 PM
It looks less complete than the monk fix, obviously a work-in-progress, but it has a lot of promise. :smallsmile:

But god, so much to read. XD

I'm glad it's interesting. It's obviously a much bigger project than a ten-level base class that might get expanded if we feel like it. :smallsmile:




As I'm not a ToB expert I'm not clear on the line "War-Marked offers full IL progression of its own, that can be stacked with a single other Martial Adept class. After that, normal IL rules apply.", does it mean that War-Marked progresses the IL of one other class of your choice (or vice-versa)?

Essentially, yes. If you start off with War-Marked and decide Crusaders are super-special-awesome, you can take Crusader levels and stack War-Marked 1:1 for determining IL, much as most of the ToB PrCs advance initiator level 1:1. However, unlike those PrCs, your War-Marked levels still count as the normal 1:2 for determining your Swordsage and Warblade IL (assuming this example; you obviously could have picked either of those instead).

The other way around works too. If you take Warblade levels and decide that a couple marks would really boost your power level (just one, and you might as well just snag the relevant feat - another thing we did to play nice with ToB), you can take a couple War-Marked levels and stack those levels together to determine the IL for marks.



What does Great Glyph actually do? I'm tired so I could have mised the explanation.

Great Glyphs are the final bit of badassery for the War-Marked. There will be four - Protean, Shiva, Titan, and another I can't remember. You pick one, and get really amazing things - after all, this is right when sorcerers get stuff like Maw of Chaos. If you're not cleaving through legions of the damned or splitting mountains in half at this level, you're doing it wrong.


Gift of the chosen needs some cool fluff to justify it. :3

If you feel like contributing some, feel free. We'll get to fluff once most of the mechanics are worked out. :smallsmile:

Foating feats look good, but also look open to abuse. Have you thought about just using the warblade ability (Adaptive style?)?

There's precedent for floating feats (Chameleon, for example). We haven't found any combinations there that are actually abusive, mostly because the ability is late enough in the class that casters just can't reasonably access it.

If someone can demonstrate abuse with the floating feats, we'll definitely consider changing them.


What do the various Ascents do?

They're points at which you get something new. The first couple are "you get your mark of the next-higher tier;" the Ascent of the Remade one is TBD.


Mark of the shooting star
The Shape is very powerful, but since archery is underpowered it ought to be ok, and should have never been left out of the game. But it really does need playtesting. The same goes for Essence.

It's being playtested right now. I have a ToS character who focuses on using archery for battlefield control; so far, the numbers are strong but hardly invincible. Ironically, people who can move in ways that don't provoke attacks of opportunity (such as swordsages with their dim door abilities) have a very strong advantage in that particular situation, while casters basically have to stay out of range or rely solely on swift-action spells. Fun times.


Mark of the Anvil
The Name doesn't say what happens if you miss - is the use wasted?
It would make sense if the Essence just added its effect to the Anvil Strike, rather than activating seperately.

You make good points here. We'll look at revising the mark.


Mark of the Einhander
I'm not clear on what the benefit of the Shape is. If I'm right the other two features are based on charges, yes?


Using a one-handed weapon sucks in 3.5 because you're not finessing with it (unless it's a rapier) and you can't generate damage properly with it, because Power Attack and STR bonuses are calculated at a much lower level. The mark lets you treat the one-handed weapon as a two-handed weapon whenever it helps, so you can do level-appropriate damage.

The Name feature increases mobility, which is just generally nice, and the Essence feature gives you lots of things. But yes, the easiest combo is being able to ready a charge with much more range.


Sadly it's very late so I'll have to look at the other marks later, assuming that I'm of some help. ^^

Thanks for the great feedback. :smallsmile:

Godskook
2009-09-18, 10:26 PM
Essentially, yes. If you start off with War-Marked and decide Crusaders are super-special-awesome, you can take Crusader levels and stack War-Marked 1:1 for determining IL, much as most of the ToB PrCs advance initiator level 1:1. However, unlike those PrCs, your War-Marked levels still count as the normal 1:2 for determining your Swordsage and Warblade IL (assuming this example; you obviously could have picked either of those instead).

This bothers me, like on a verisimilitude level. Actually, on a association level. Why does it only count that way as an in-game reasoning? I can't think of a way to make it work, and back to my earlier point, there's no fluff to help me on that.

To look at this way:

-Progression in a base initiator class boosts your initiator level 1:1 in only that class because each base class is unique, and their styles are different.

-Progression in a prestige class boosts your initiator level 1:1 in all base initiator classes because their contribution to initiator level is generic but fully useful.

-Progression in a prestige class could boost your initiator level 1:1 in only one base class because it is an 'upgrade' to that base class, and as such, is treated as levels in that base class for the purpose of determining all initiator levels.

Now, War-Marked is a base class which would lead me to believe it worked like the first, but it doesn't. It also doesn't work like the second, which would still make sense, since 'full generic' is easy to understand(This is part of my personal figher-fix that I'm working on). It works like the third, which is entirely a 'prestige' concept, in my opinion. I just can't reconcile that choice in any other terms except game balance, which leads me to ask, can't it be done another way?

imperialspectre
2009-09-18, 11:47 PM
Think about it this way. The War-Marked is, more than perhaps anything else, characterized by picking specific abilities and archetypes and pursuing those to their fullest extent (even if they can be switched out later as part of a class feature). It's possible to mix another approach (for example, one of the three major approaches to pure martial prowess, as found in ToB) with that drive, but once you commit so heavily that you're taking class levels in one of those classes, that's the focus you're pursuing.

You're still able to grab little bits and pieces of other approaches via feats, but that's it - much like spellcasters can generally only master two kinds of magic, or a kind of magic and psionics/some other system at once, because any more than that demands too much of a character that thrives on focused study or devotion.

Does that make a little more sense?

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-19, 12:58 AM
A lot of the warmarked abilities seem rather undescribed, especially at higher levels. It that intentional?

Godskook
2009-09-19, 01:28 AM
Does that make a little more sense?

No, it only reiterates to me the thoughts I already came up with to try to justify the choice you made. Really, the only way I can explain it any better is with analogies to college-level mathematics(calculus), and I don't think anyone wants that. You can't 'explain it to me', cause I already understand it, and don't like it. Its not a 'bad' choice, on the whole, and I understand, some choices probably need to be made to maintain some level of balance. This one just tastes more like a 4e kind of thing than a 3.5 kind of thing.

On the other hand, I fail to see the balancing concern behind the choice. Why can't War-Marked count as 'prestige' for all initiator classes, if it must to be balanced? What does opening it up to all 3 classes provoke that allowing only one wouldn't?

Doc Roc
2009-09-19, 01:59 AM
A lot of the warmarked abilities seem rather undescribed, especially at higher levels. It that intentional?

Yes and no. We couldn't finish everything by our launch date, so no. But for 15 and up, we want to see how it works so far before we add more powers and abilities to it. Basically, if we need to tear out huge chunks of it to get it to work elegantly, we don't want any more back-patching to deal with than we have to have.

Myou
2009-09-19, 04:42 AM
I'm glad it's interesting. It's obviously a much bigger project than a ten-level base class that might get expanded if we feel like it. :smallsmile:




Essentially, yes. If you start off with War-Marked and decide Crusaders are super-special-awesome, you can take Crusader levels and stack War-Marked 1:1 for determining IL, much as most of the ToB PrCs advance initiator level 1:1. However, unlike those PrCs, your War-Marked levels still count as the normal 1:2 for determining your Swordsage and Warblade IL (assuming this example; you obviously could have picked either of those instead).

The other way around works too. If you take Warblade levels and decide that a couple marks would really boost your power level (just one, and you might as well just snag the relevant feat - another thing we did to play nice with ToB), you can take a couple War-Marked levels and stack those levels together to determine the IL for marks.

It might be simpler and make more sense to make it progress any IL, but I can understand why it doesn't. ^^



Great Glyphs are the final bit of badassery for the War-Marked. There will be four - Protean, Shiva, Titan, and another I can't remember. You pick one, and get really amazing things - after all, this is right when sorcerers get stuff like Maw of Chaos. If you're not cleaving through legions of the damned or splitting mountains in half at this level, you're doing it wrong.

Ah, makes sense.


If you feel like contributing some, feel free. We'll get to fluff once most of the mechanics are worked out. :smallsmile:

I've got my own stuff to deal with. I'd love to but I just don't have the spare time. xD
Plus I'm not a great homebrewer. More of a nitpicker.



There's precedent for floating feats (Chameleon, for example). We haven't found any combinations there that are actually abusive, mostly because the ability is late enough in the class that casters just can't reasonably access it.

If someone can demonstrate abuse with the floating feats, we'll definitely consider changing them.

Fair enough!


They're points at which you get something new. The first couple are "you get your mark of the next-higher tier;" the Ascent of the Remade one is TBD.

So, they're not finished yet?


It's being playtested right now. I have a ToS character who focuses on using archery for battlefield control; so far, the numbers are strong but hardly invincible. Ironically, people who can move in ways that don't provoke attacks of opportunity (such as swordsages with their dim door abilities) have a very strong advantage in that particular situation, while casters basically have to stay out of range or rely solely on swift-action spells. Fun times.

Sounds fun indeed!


You make good points here. We'll look at revising the mark.

Thanks. ^^


Using a one-handed weapon sucks in 3.5 because you're not finessing with it (unless it's a rapier) and you can't generate damage properly with it, because Power Attack and STR bonuses are calculated at a much lower level. The mark lets you treat the one-handed weapon as a two-handed weapon whenever it helps, so you can do level-appropriate damage.

So, it just lets you two-hand it? xD


The Name feature increases mobility, which is just generally nice, and the Essence feature gives you lots of things. But yes, the easiest combo is being able to ready a charge with much more range.

Thanks for the great feedback. :smallsmile:

My pleasure! :smallsmile:

imperialspectre
2009-09-19, 10:56 AM
On the other hand, I fail to see the balancing concern behind the choice. Why can't War-Marked count as 'prestige' for all initiator classes, if it must to be balanced? What does opening it up to all 3 classes provoke that allowing only one wouldn't?

Well, it basically creates a situation where a mid-level War-Marked character can turn into a Master of Nine more or less at the drop of a hat. If you stack with all of the ToB classes at once, dipping a single level of each to grab high-level maneuvers (or two levels to grab high-level stances) gets you a huge amount of benefit for relatively small cost. Something like War-Marked 13/Swordsage 2/Master of 9 5 or War-Marked 13/Swordsage 2/Crusader 2/Warblade 2/Master of 9 1 gets you a massive range of high-level maneuvers and stances.

War-Marked is a stronger class than any of the ToB classes without 3.52 material. This is intentional, because ToB improves melee flexibility and enjoyment, not melee power. The problem is, we still like ToB's flavor and general utility, and we don't want the ToB classes and maneuvers reduced to dip material - we want them to increase in capability with the 3.52 changes. The easiest way to do that is to allow individual ToB classes to access marks at full IL while limiting War-Marked access to a huge range of ToB material.

Do you have suggestions for how that could work better?


So, it just lets you two-hand it? xD

You can already use a one-handed weapon in two hands. Now, we're saying that with the appropriate training, you can treat a one-handed weapon like it was in two hands, but while using it in only one hand. It's a gift to sword-and-board characters and swashbuckler types.

Godskook
2009-09-19, 11:46 AM
Do you have suggestions for how that could work better?

It sounds like, from your description, that the issue is that War-marked is so danged powerful that WM 13 > ToB 13 any day of the week. To me, that sounds bad, unless your goal is to get every class into the tier 1 or 2 range.

As far as adjusting it to make it work better, based on what your telling me, don't use 'initiator' level. Define your own. Such as:

Gizmo Level
Levels in War-Marked progress your gizmo level at the rate of 1:1.

Levels in these classes(martial enough to matter to being a gizmo) also progress your gizmo level 1:1 - Monk, Fighter, ToB classes.

Everything else progresses your gizmo level at 1:2.

Now, ToB classes can dip into war-marked fairly painlessly to grab nice things, but War-Marked can't dip back, which quite frankly, it seems you've wanted to avoid all along.

*Gizmo is a stand-in word, replace as necessary.


You can already use a one-handed weapon in two hands. Now, we're saying that with the appropriate training, you can treat a one-handed weapon like it was in two hands, but while using it in only one hand. It's a gift to sword-and-board characters and swashbuckler types.

So, after grabbing this, what's the benefit of actually 2-handing anymore? Homogenizing choices seems like a bad choice for a game, and this sounds like what you're doing here(correct me if I'm wrong). To me, it'd be better if not THFing did something distinctly different that's just as powerful as THF.

Doc Roc
2009-09-19, 01:07 PM
So, after grabbing this, what's the benefit of actually 2-handing anymore? Homogenizing choices seems like a bad choice for a game, and this sounds like what you're doing here(correct me if I'm wrong). To me, it'd be better if not THFing did something distinctly different that's just as powerful as THF.

It only works with swords, actually. So no one-handed lance for you. Mark of the zweihander's upper abilities are still very very strong. It's probably the mark that I'm most worried about in some ways. That said, einhander may get limited down a bit, but it's a really important fix. There should never have been such a torrential power difference in the first place. Flavor differences are fine, and those exist. There are plenty of things that require two-handed weapons. Again, though, Einhander is on the List of things that needs review.

Myou
2009-09-19, 01:49 PM
You can already use a one-handed weapon in two hands. Now, we're saying that with the appropriate training, you can treat a one-handed weapon like it was in two hands, but while using it in only one hand. It's a gift to sword-and-board characters and swashbuckler types.

Ahhhh. I think you better re-word the ability, because as written that's not what it does. :smalltongue:

imperialspectre
2009-09-19, 02:06 PM
It sounds like, from your description, that the issue is that War-marked is so danged powerful that WM 13 > ToB 13 any day of the week. To me, that sounds bad, unless your goal is to get every class into the tier 1 or 2 range.

Got it in one! :smallwink: T2, actually - our basic view on the subject is that "Fighters can't have nice things" remains true unless non-casters can perform at a T2 level,

Other than that, we'll definitely take your suggestion into account. Thanks for taking the time to rough out a proposal and explain it to us. :smallsmile:


Ahhhh. I think you better re-word the ability, because as written that's not what it does. :smalltongue:

Very true. Let's try this wording:

Shape: (Ex) While wielding a one-handed sword in one hand, you receive all benefits of wielding it in both hands. This benefit excludes benefits from other weapon marks.

I think this also takes into account the other issue of why you'd ever THF with a two-handed weapon. You get the Zweihander benefits while THFing with a two-handed weapon, and you can't get those while using Einhander. So if you're building for long-term hitting people in the face with an abnormally large Freudian weapon, you're not going to use a less Freudian weapon, especially since you lose out on other benefits. If you're building for sword-and-board or mobile OHFing, you don't care as much about the Freudian thing as much as you care about not being gimped on damage. Fair enough?

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-20, 01:58 PM
Here's a mark I've been tossing around in my head for a couple days, and finally fleshed out enough to put to paper.

Aberration Mark:

Mark of the Phasm

Shape: Gain an insight bonus on all spellcraft, psicraft, martial lore, and other skill checks used to identify an action taken. This bonus is equal to your Warmark level. Spellcraft, Psicraft, Martial Lore, and any other skill used to identify actions taken become class skills for you.

Name: As an instantaneous action, gain resistance to any single type of energy equal to 3 per warmark level, or damage reduction to a single physical damage type (piercing, bludgeoning, slashing) equal to half the damage of the next strike you take. These effects last for 1 round, or until you use this ability again.

Essence: When you unlock the Essence mark for this ability, choose three spells with the polymorph subtype that specify a single form. Once per day for every Warmark level you possess, you may, as a spell-like ability, duplicate the effects of one of these spells. This effect has a duration of up to 1 hour, and can be dismissed as a standard action.

The Shape ability sets up the second ability, by making actions taken to identify the actions of others easier.

The second ability lets you be highly resistant to attack, provided you can determine what's coming. It can be thwarted (for example, a still+silent spell, which offers no identify attempt, or an energy admixture ability), but by and large, is very useful. It represents altering your body in response to the environment, such as a shapechanger/chameleon might, but more active.

The final ability actually unlocks alternate forms, but, in keeping with the 3.51 updates, limits them to a specific form. To compensate, it allows three seperate forms to be chosen between.

It has one permanent buff, one fast action (instantaneous/immediate/swift), and one normal action (standard/move).

It's designed primarily as a utility/defensive mark.

Thoughts? Does it need beefing up? Weakening down? Is the theme off in some way?

imperialspectre
2009-09-20, 03:17 PM
....Nice.

Insert stuff about testing, but that looks really good. I like how you give the ability to be highly resistant in a way that it can be active whenever you need it, but it's not actually always-on.

Did you intend to allow resistance to, say, force or positive energy damage? It's allowed by the current wording. I personally think that's good, I just wanted to check the intent.

Claudius Maximus
2009-09-20, 03:19 PM
I think it needs some restrictions. As written, you can use it to get Dragonshape and other such high level effects, and there's no limit on the use of the Name ability.

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-20, 04:31 PM
On the Name Ability: Well, I originally intended to include unusual energy types as well... Force/Positive/Negative, and the like. Perhaps a limit per encounter on the number of times it can actually reduce damage would be in order.

On the Essence Ability: Perhaps limit it by spell level? Tie it to warmarked level? That would allow the higher level polymorph effects when you're higher level, but would restrict the shapeshifting at lower levels.

I greatly like linking effect power to class level. It provides a benefit for staying in the class, and means that you're actually losing some Mark potential by going out of the class.

I don't want to weaken the Name ability too much, however. As is, there are few Warmarked abilities that simulate energy resistance and form alteration. Most comparable wizard effects are long term, and I do want to remove most restrictions around the time that casters get Energy Immunity, which is 24 hour duration. (CL 13)

Perhaps a limit on the effect actually reducing damage once per encounter per 2 warmarked levels? By level 12-14, that's 6-7 times, which is solid, but not too devastating.

Doc Roc
2009-09-20, 11:53 PM
I worry about the essence ability. We could probably pretty comfortably just pick three or four good forms to link it to, or lay out a list of 10-20 forms and let you pick three.

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-20, 11:55 PM
I worry about the essence ability. We could probably pretty comfortably just pick three or four good forms to link it to, or lay out a list of 10-20 forms and let you pick three.

I prefer the 10-20 forms. I'll get on prepping a rough list to start from.

Doc Roc
2009-09-21, 12:24 AM
I prefer the 10-20 forms. I'll get on prepping a rough list to start from.

You remain high in essential vitamins and nutrients, like Awesome7 and Celerity.

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-21, 12:40 AM
You remain high in essential vitamins and nutrients, like Awesome7 and Celerity.

Hey, I started the Mark, it's only right I get it fleshed out so that we can go from there. That's why it's submitted. Because we can make it better, faster, stronger.

Doc Roc
2009-09-21, 08:47 PM
Hey, I started the Mark, it's only right I get it fleshed out so that we can go from there. That's why it's submitted. Because we can make it better, faster, stronger.

I really appreciate this mind-set. Hopefully, soon we'll have more testing data.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-09-22, 12:47 AM
Having read over the documents, my two cents:

1) They have IL, but no maneuvers? Or are their marks considered to be their maneuvers? I don't think their IL should stack with another class's IL, since no other class lets them do this. That will greatly nerf the majority of the 'dipping' abuse.

2) They seem to be a psionic class, but has no PP nor powers? Do they have a PP pool at all, and does it relate in some way to their marks?

3) I like the floating feats. It allows a War-Marked to be truly flexible, given advance notice.

4) I notice they don't get many marks, all told. Granted, some of them have really nifty abilities, but some of them well and truly suck.

5) Psychic Reformation once per month? That's like a re-roll once a month? And once you use it to leave the class, that's it. I guess this can be good for tweaking a character, but do we really want to encourage that?

I foresee a War-Marked to invest heavily in marks from feats. In particular, once cheezy combo is to use a floating feat for obtaining whatever second Mark he needs at that time.

Potential Combos: Mark of Tempest + Mark of Tooth and Claw. I now have at least two weapons, probably more, and I am now eating your face off with tons of attacks. Who needs Flurry of Blows? Concealment also negates precision-based damage, such as Sneak Attacks. Because it isn't a magical effect, I don't think that True Sight is able to bypass this type of concealment. In fact, about the only thing I can think of off hand is Improved Precise Shot.

Mark of Valor + Mark of Fury + Mark of Zweihander. Not only is it the Shock Trooper Pounce combo, but it also starts stacking fear effects and doubles your damage output again.

Mark of the Lash + Mark of the Chain = Gatling Tripper 2.0

Mark of Shadow. Wow... that's just... wow. Improved Evasion, HiPS, Fast Healing, AND the ability to temporarily go incorporeal? At 12th level? Dip a level of Swordsage for Assassin's Stance, then grab a couple of weapons that add more precision-based damage, then go with Mark of Fury + Mark of Tempest and go to freekin' town. Even better, dump Str, grab Shadow Blade. Now let your Dex do all your work. And pick up a few 'no' maneuvers from Setting Sun while you are at it.

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-22, 01:23 AM
Having read over the documents, my two cents:

1) They have IL, but no maneuvers? Or are their marks considered to be their maneuvers? I don't think their IL should stack with another class's IL, since no other class lets them do this. That will greatly nerf the majority of the 'dipping' abuse. I do see a situation where Warmarked benefit greatly from a level or two of Initiator classes, but there's no benefit for actually blending past a dip. Lemme see for a sec...

"Select a single ToB Class. This class stacks with Warmarked classes for purposes of determining your warmarked level for marks you already have. This does not allow you to learn additional marks, nor does it automatically unlock additional levels of marks you have."

Now marks which refer to Warmarked level can benefit as well from more than a dip... While providing different benefits for not doing it. Two paths diverge in a forest, and all that. I see the Initiator level mechanic as being kinda like favored classes for XP penalties. The highest Initiator class you have can use that progression.


2) They seem to be a psionic class, but has no PP nor powers? Do they have a PP pool at all, and does it relate in some way to their marks?
Not that I see. It seems to be innate, though giving them a power point reserve, a la Wild Talent, might make it fit better thematically.


3) I like the floating feats. It allows a War-Marked to be truly flexible, given advance notice.
All that needs done is make sure there's no opportunity to abuse Embrace/Shun with it.


4) I notice they don't get many marks, all told. Granted, some of them have really nifty abilities, but some of them well and truly suck.
Feats can get more.


5) Psychic Reformation once per month? That's like a re-roll once a month? And once you use it to leave the class, that's it. I guess this can be good for tweaking a character, but do we really want to encourage that?
You can't reselect classes, just many of the choices those classes gave you. Maneuvers/Stances/Spells/Feats/Skill points. That sorta thing.


I foresee a War-Marked to invest heavily in marks from feats. In particular, once cheezy combo is to use a floating feat for obtaining whatever second Mark he needs at that time. How rapidly can floating feats be changed?


Potential Combos: Mark of Tempest + Mark of Tooth and Claw. I now have at least two weapons, probably more, and I am now eating your face off with tons of attacks. Who needs Flurry of Blows? Concealment also negates precision-based damage, such as Sneak Attacks. Because it isn't a magical effect, I don't think that True Sight is able to bypass this type of concealment. In fact, about the only thing I can think of off hand is Improved Precise Shot. Just as True Seeing doesn't negate Obscuring Mist. Some sight likely may, though, such as Blindsight.


Mark of Valor + Mark of Fury + Mark of Zweihander. Not only is it the Shock Trooper Pounce combo, but it also starts stacking fear effects and doubles your damage output again.

Mark of the Lash + Mark of the Chain = Gatling Tripper 2.0

Mark of Shadow. Wow... that's just... wow. Improved Evasion, HiPS, Fast Healing, AND the ability to temporarily go incorporeal? At 12th level? Dip a level of Swordsage for Assassin's Stance, then grab a couple of weapons that add more precision-based damage, then go with Mark of Fury + Mark of Tempest and go to freekin' town. Even better, dump Str, grab Shadow Blade. Now let your Dex do all your work. And pick up a few 'no' maneuvers from Setting Sun while you are at it.

Yes, a lot of these are powerful. That's the idea. Melee needs options comparable to casting. That said, we need those options to be able to scale, based on optimization. So there need to be combinations that are less optimal, as well. The best stuff needs to be complemented by existing material (feats/etc) so that the Warmarked scales in the way that most existing classes do for optimization.

Doc Roc
2009-09-22, 02:06 AM
4) I notice they don't get many marks, all told. Granted, some of them have really nifty abilities, but some of them well and truly suck.


I'm curious as to which marks you think suck?

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-22, 02:42 AM
Progressing on the list of essence choices for Mark of the Phasm. I'm taking a hybrid route here, in that forms I designate as utility are actual full on polymorphs, and forms I'm including for combat viability are partial transformations, a la lycanthrope hybrid forms or Aspect Druid.

This ensures that physical stats aren't trivialized by the mark, while not obviating weapon use in all the forms. Limiting the forms ensures that it doesn't step on the druid's toes too much, while allowing for forms that might offer certain abilities druids are hard pressed to gain via wildshape. I want this form to be flexible, so that you can take either an espionage/utility role with it, or a combat role with it, or a blend. Basically, Swordsage Warmarked may go for forms that allow misdirection, whereas Warblade style Warmarked may go for something a bit more physical to allow for head on confrontation.

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-22, 07:41 AM
Question:

Ascent of the Marked
Ascent of the Chosen

Are these simply indicative of gaining a new mark?

Also, in most class mechanics (Psion, Sorceror, Warlock, etc), when you gain a new power level, the feat that teaches you something new can be used to get anything under it. For example, Expanded Knowledge, the feat for learning an additional spell, the feat for learning an additional invocation, etc.

If you know 7th level powers/spells, you can learn one up to level 6. If you know a Dark Invocation, you can learn up to greater. And it's all one feat.

However, with marks, it's some time after you learn the higher marks before you can learn the mark level below them. For example: You learn an outsider mark at Level 12. You don't qualify for the feat that gives magical beast/aberration marks until IL 14.

Perhaps if the Limits on Marks known were hard wired into the marks, rather than the feat (like devotion feats do). Then replace all the Feats that teach a new mark with something that functions basically like existing methods of doing what this does:

"Gain a new mark. The new mark must be at least one grade weaker than your strongest type of mark."

Provided the intro text to marks included: "A character may have no more than 2 Weapon marks, 2 Ideal Marks, 1 Aberration Mark, 1 Magical Beast Mark, and 1 Outsider Mark."

The overall mechanical change would be as follows:
A second weapon mark Mark would be available at level 5 (rather than level 6)
A second ideal mark would be available at level 9 (rather than level 12)
The other Aberration/Magical Beast Mark would be available at level 12 (rather than level 14).
ToB initiators would be less able to get marks without investment in the Warmarked class.

Alternately, is there a specific reason for the delays on learning the lower grade marks via feat, after unlocking a higher tier mark?

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-09-22, 11:06 AM
I'm curious as to which marks you think suck?

Mark of the Anvil. Shape is good, fitting, and proper. The rest, however, are worthless due to this: This attack forces the enemy to make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 your initiator level + your Strength modifier) or be <whatevered>.

Really, I don't like saving throws for melee guys. It's too easy to stack saves, particularly Fort saves. He's not going to be able to affect anyone with this by the time he gets it. And there is no effect at all on a successful save, so it is all or nothing.

I have an idea to fix this:

Give Warmarked a PP roughly equal to the PsiWar. Make 'active' mark effects have a PP cost. This a) limits use per day, b) displays a more psionic feel which this class is trying to emulate, and c) can be used as a balancing factor rather than saving throws.

So, for example, Mark of Anvil's Name ability requires x pp instead of a Fort save. Give it a scaling PP cost. So the first time you use it on an opponent, it costs x. Next time you use it, it costs x*1.5, then x*2, etc. This helps keep them from stun-locking opponents. Or perhaps a scaling cost per encounter, so you can't just stun every opponent around.

I would make the abilities fueled by PP, but not (Ps) or (Su) abilities. They channel their psionic energy into themselves to deliver awesome blows. So while they do expend PP to perform actions, spell resistance and psionic resistance do not apply.

Also, this needs to be addressed: War-Marked offers full IL progression of its own, that can be stacked with a single other Martial Adept class. After that, normal IL rules apply.

Do you really want a one-level dip in Crusader getting access to effectively unlimited Tombstone Strikes?

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-22, 11:25 AM
Mark of the Anvil. Shape is good, fitting, and proper. The rest, however, are worthless due to this: This attack forces the enemy to make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 your initiator level + your Strength modifier) or be <whatevered>.

Really, I don't like saving throws for melee guys. It's too easy to stack saves, particularly Fort saves. He's not going to be able to affect anyone with this by the time he gets it. And there is no effect at all on a successful save, so it is all or nothing.
It's not much harder to stack strength. I mean really. Outside of a paladin with a +15 Charisma mod and a +12 Con mod, how high do you really see saves going?
Look at CR 14. Outsiders are traditionally pushing +14. Dragons are hitting +18.
The DC at ECL 14 is 17+ strength. Now, assume light optimization. An Orc with a +6 strength item, an 18 in strength, and 3 level boosts in strength. 31 Strength. So now we're pushing DC 27, and the best saves have about a 50/50.

Obviously, it'll start falling behind slowly. There's typically more ways to boost saves than there are ways to boost strength, right? Other abilities will take its place... And if you get anvil as a feat (like a floating feat, taken at level 8, and swapped out when it's no longer convenient after level 11), it's not a permanent choice.

I have an idea to fix this:

Give Warmarked a PP roughly equal to the PsiWar. Make 'active' mark effects have a PP cost. This a) limits use per day, b) displays a more psionic feel which this class is trying to emulate, and c) can be used as a balancing factor rather than saving throws.
So you propose:
1) A complete overhaul of the class from the ground up, killing most of the work done so far by requiring extensive modifications to comply with the new PP system.

2) Removal of an opponent's ability to resist, one of the hallmarks of the game? When this happens, what happens when the creatures start doing it to the PC's?

3) Many of a Warmark's abilities are (Ex) not (Sp) or (Su). Making them Psionic would get rid of that. More overhaul.

In other words, this is remaking the Fighter... Not Psiwar 2.0.


I would make the abilities fueled by PP, but not (Ps) or (Su) abilities. They channel their psionic energy into themselves to deliver awesome blows. So while they do expend PP to perform actions, spell resistance and psionic resistance do not apply.That would be (Su). Spell resistance doesn't apply. Or would they be able to channel Psionic Energy in an antimagic field, that supresses all psionic energy?


Also, this needs to be addressed: War-Marked offers full IL progression of its own, that can be stacked with a single other Martial Adept class. After that, normal IL rules apply.

Do you really want a one-level dip in Crusader getting access to effectively unlimited Tombstone Strikes?
It would have to follow the rules for Crusader's gain of abilities. It would also have to be taken at a sufficient level, and until then, ain't doing anything. Around level 17. By then? Well, that's when casters are "splitting mountains and beating armies singlehandedly".

Kinda puts MTS into perspective.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-09-22, 11:58 AM
It's not much harder to stack strength. I mean really. Outside of a paladin with a +15 Charisma mod and a +12 Con mod, how high do you really see saves going?
Look at CR 14. Outsiders are traditionally pushing +14. Dragons are hitting +18.
The DC at ECL 14 is 17+ strength. Now, assume light optimization. An Orc with a +6 strength item, an 18 in strength, and 3 level boosts in strength. 31 Strength. So now we're pushing DC 27, and the best saves have about a 50/50.It seems we disagree with what 'light optimization' is. Any character with over 30 in any given stat is more than lightly optimized, in my opinion.


Obviously, it'll start falling behind slowly. There's typically more ways to boost saves than there are ways to boost strength, right? Other abilities will take its place... And if you get anvil as a feat (like a floating feat, taken at level 8, and swapped out when it's no longer convenient after level 11), it's not a permanent choice. How about we allow any given weapon combination to be effective at any given level so we don't pigeonhole the characters into being 'forced' to play in a particular style or be ineffective?


So you propose:
1) A complete overhaul of the class from the ground up, killing most of the work done so far by requiring extensive modifications to comply with the new PP system. Not a complete overhall, and certainly not killing most of the work. Basically replacing most of the saves with costs so they can be done only a limited number of times per day. Shouldn't take me more than a half hour to hack out the entirety of the proposed changes, which will not impact every single mark.


2) Removal of an opponent's ability to resist, one of the hallmarks of the game? When this happens, what happens when the creatures start doing it to the PC's? There is a save, it's called AC. You have to hit with a maneuver for it to land. So the PC's use the same tactics they use whenever they really don't want to get hit by something. Slow, Ray of Enfeeblement + Ray of Exhaustion, boost AC with Magic Vestments or ProEvil... no different than running into something which level drains on touch.


3) Many of a Warmark's abilities are (Ex) not (Sp) or (Su). Making them Psionic would get rid of that. More overhaul. Oh no, there's two characters that need to be changed. The world is coming to an end.


In other words, this is remaking the Fighter... Not Psiwar 2.0.
That would be (Su). Spell resistance doesn't apply. Or would they be able to channel Psionic Energy in an antimagic field, that supresses all psionic energy? Can a Soulknife manifest his psiblade in an AMF? Yes. Same concept.


It would have to follow the rules for Crusader's gain of abilities. It would also have to be taken at a sufficient level, and until then, ain't doing anything. Around level 17. By then? Well, that's when casters are "splitting mountains and beating armies singlehandedly".

Kinda puts MTS into perspective.

Right. 1st level Crusader has all his maneuvers active, and recovers 2/turn. That means he can use it every turn. 2d6 Con damage. Plus whatever else he wants to do. Yes, that is pretty broken. But if you *REALLY* want to go there, a Warblade (who recovers his maneuvers by hitting you) dip with Time Stands Still to give you TWO rounds worth of attacking. Every turn.

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-22, 01:07 PM
It seems we disagree with what 'light optimization' is. Any character with over 30 in any given stat is more than lightly optimized, in my opinion.No, that's a Core only example of a character that focuses only on strength. Such builds are often barbarians. Orc is a favored choice for those. 18 in a stat isn't "high optimization". Level boosts in primary stat isn't "high optimization". And +stat items are the most sought after items in the game. So, it's three common paths, in core, and I left out rage for +4 more.


How about we allow any given weapon combination to be effective at any given level so we don't pigeonhole the characters into being 'forced' to play in a particular style or be ineffective?Because that's next to impossible. If every combination is equally good, then there's no point in building or optimizing. Like it or not, what you're suggesting has been standard practice in D&D since its inception. Just as its standard practice in real life.
Or do you see 3.5 sword and board as being equally as strong as two handed chargers?


Not a complete overhall, and certainly not killing most of the work. Basically replacing most of the saves with costs so they can be done only a limited number of times per day. Shouldn't take me more than a half hour to hack out the entirety of the proposed changes, which will not impact every single mark.A half hour, if you want to randomly assign numbers without careful consideration, sure. A month if you want to do it right.


There is a save, it's called AC. You have to hit with a maneuver for it to land. So the PC's use the same tactics they use whenever they really don't want to get hit by something. Slow, Ray of Enfeeblement + Ray of Exhaustion, boost AC with Magic Vestments or ProEvil... no different than running into something which level drains on touch.Except slow and level drains offer saving throws. So does disintegrate. So do many effects which require touch attack. Because the ability to boost attack far outstrips the ability to boost AC. What this results in? Mutually Assured Destruction.


Oh no, there's two characters that need to be changed. The world is coming to an end.Civility, please?
"Two characters" make a lot of difference to power scaling of abilities. A Su is far more valuable than a Sp. An Ex is more valuable than either.


Can a Soulknife manifest his psiblade in an AMF? Yes. Same concept.
Again, with a saving throw. And using the weakest psionic class's effects to demonstrate this doesn't argue your point. If the strongest effect game design allows in an AMF is a Soulknife mindblade, that says something. It says that people shouldn't be throwing <Su> Kamehameha beams in an AMF, just because they're channeling it internally. D&D Cornerstone. Psionic abilities are the same as magic.


Right. 1st level Crusader has all his maneuvers active, and recovers 2/turn. That means he can use it every turn. 2d6 Con damage. Plus whatever else he wants to do. Yes, that is pretty broken. But if you *REALLY* want to go there, a Warblade (who recovers his maneuvers by hitting you) dip with Time Stands Still to give you TWO rounds worth of attacking. Every turn.
You seem to be less than familiar with Warblade recovery methods, and Crusader maneuvers known versus readied. A first level crusader has 5 maneuvers. Of those, 2 are active. Gain 1 a round until 5 are, then start over. A warblade recovers maneuvers with a swift action + a standard action attack. So yeah, they get just over a full round attack every turn. Wizards at that level are throwing time stop like its candy, and Maw of Chaos.

You've yet to convince me.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-09-22, 01:54 PM
No, that's a Core only example of a character that focuses only on strength. Such builds are often barbarians. Orc is a favored choice for those. 18 in a stat isn't "high optimization". Level boosts in primary stat isn't "high optimization". And +stat items are the most sought after items in the game. So, it's three common paths, in core, and I left out rage for +4 more. AN 18 in a stat to start off with IS 'high optimization' in a 32 point build, and likely means the rest of your stats are crap. Like your Con score. That's over half your points spent on one stat. Min/Max FTL.

Rage is 1/day with a single level dip in Barbarian, unless you want to start blowing either more feats on extra rage or more levels into Barbarian. Meaning it works once. Per day. Not what I would consider reliable enough to base anything on.

Orcs are an unbalanced race, yes. That doesn't mean one should allow unbalanced races to influence balancing classes. Really, I'd like to limit and re-balance the playable races. That would go a LONG way to balancing out everything.


Because that's next to impossible. If every combination is equally good, then there's no point in building or optimizing. Like it or not, what you're suggesting has been standard practice in D&D since its inception. Just as its standard practice in real life.
Or do you see 3.5 sword and board as being equally as strong as two handed chargers? Just because it isn't now doesn't mean it shouldn't be a goal. Heck, isn't that why Fax is doing the D20r ruleset? To rebalance things? I just don't like to see "HA! You use an AXE! YOU SUCK, learn to make a REAL character next time" at the gaming table.


A half hour, if you want to randomly assign numbers without careful consideration, sure. A month if you want to do it right. Finding a simple formula shouldn't be too difficult to do.

Except slow and level drains offer saving throws. So does disintegrate. So do many effects which require touch attack. Because the ability to boost attack far outstrips the ability to boost AC. What this results in? Mutually Assured Destruction. Not really. Level drain offers saving throws... twenty-four hours later... otherwise it becomes permanent. Also, I would like to point out the difference between an attack and a touch attack. A Dragon has a Touch AC of crap. A regular attack, however, has to beat an insanely high AC for it's CR.

Slow doesn't need a touch attack, and Disintegrate is a Save or Die effect, which still does something even on a sucessful save, which none of the Warmarked abilities do. Enervation doesn't allow a save, neither does Ray of Enfeeblement or Ray of Exhaustion, or Shivering Touch or... well, long story short, the number of RTA's that also allow a save are smaller than the ones which don't, and even still, it's a touch attack rather than a regular attack that generally has a much higher AC number to hit.

You were the one wanting to boost melee power. You don't do that by going back and nerfing their abilities back down to useless levels.


"Two characters" make a lot of difference to power scaling of abilities. A Su is far more valuable than a Sp. An Ex is more valuable than either. The ONLY difference between an Ex and a Su is the ability to use it in an AMF.

Again, with a saving throw. And using the weakest psionic class's effects to demonstrate this doesn't argue your point. If the strongest effect game design allows in an AMF is a Soulknife mindblade, that says something. It says that people shouldn't be throwing <Su> Kamehameha beams in an AMF, just because they're channeling it internally. D&D Cornerstone. Psionic abilities are the same as magic. I think using the weakest psionic class's effects is precisely my point. It has a precedent. And none of these maneuvers are 'throwing Kamehameha beams in an AMF'. I'm largely talking about the strikes which currently use saving throws to be replaced with this mechanic instead. Since, as you well admitted, it can't even begin to compare to the broken cracktasticness of a high-end caster, why is it suddenly so overpowerful that you can't possibly allow it?


You seem to be less than familiar with Warblade recovery methods, and Crusader maneuvers known versus readied. A first level crusader has 5 maneuvers. Of those, 2 are active. Gain 1 a round until 5 are, then start over. A warblade recovers maneuvers with a swift action + a standard action attack. So yeah, they get just over a full round attack every turn. Wizards at that level are throwing time stop like its candy, and Maw of Chaos.

You've yet to convince me. With Time Stands Still, I'm fairly certain that a Warblade is going to be able to hit with at least one blow, and still has a Swift action left to recover. So yes, two rounds worth of attacks per round. You're looking at hundreds of damage output fairly easily, per hit, depending on the precise build (I'm thinking Shock Trooper + Leap Attack + Power Attack, not even getting into FB nonsense), possibly thousands depending on the circumstances (Great Cleave + Spiked Chain with the above + lots of things to hit in the area). Sure, it's not an "I Win" button like the Wizards have, but I'm not particularly interested in win buttons, I'm more interested in making a game that is fun to play for everyone, regardless of their character creation decisions.

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-22, 03:50 PM
AN 18 in a stat to start off with IS 'high optimization' in a 32 point build, and likely means the rest of your stats are crap. Like your Con score. That's over half your points spent on one stat. Min/Max FTL.Min/Max does not = High optimization.

High optimization is things like incantatrix. Fully statted out Killer Gnomes. Font of Inspiration Factotums. Throwing an 18 into a stat isn't a high level of optimization. A first time player can do that, without much difficulty.


Rage is 1/day with a single level dip in Barbarian, unless you want to start blowing either more feats on extra rage or more levels into Barbarian. Meaning it works once. Per day. Not what I would consider reliable enough to base anything on.A single feat makes it 1/encounter. That's not a significant investment.

Orcs are an unbalanced race, yes. That doesn't mean one should allow unbalanced races to influence balancing classes. Really, I'd like to limit and re-balance the playable races. That would go a LONG way to balancing out everything.Orcs are no more unbalanced than dwarf. They may be a common optimizing race. So's human. Want an example of unbalanced race? Look at Illumian.

+4 to a physical stat, and -2 to three mental stats, with light sensitivity to boot? No, that's not unbalanced.

Warmarks getting "No save, just suck" as a class ability? THAT is unbalanced.


Just because it isn't now doesn't mean it shouldn't be a goal. Heck, isn't that why Fax is doing the D20r ruleset? To rebalance things? I just don't like to see "HA! You use an AXE! YOU SUCK, learn to make a REAL character next time" at the gaming table. Then play with courteous players.
The solution to making weak abilities stronger is not to remove saving throws. Trust me. That hurts players far more than it hurts DM's. It becomes an easily abusable resource, and that's another major thing we're trying to prevent.


Finding a simple formula shouldn't be too difficult to do.1+1=2
There's a simple formula. Finding the correct one is neither simple nor easy. If it was? The game would already be balanced.


Not really. Level drain offers saving throws... twenty-four hours later... otherwise it becomes permanent. Also, I would like to point out the difference between an attack and a touch attack. A Dragon has a Touch AC of crap. A regular attack, however, has to beat an insanely high AC for it's CR. Now make that dragon a warmarked. Suddenly it's +48 to hit mows through the party like melted butter, and nothing has a shot, because there's no effective way to resist.


Slow doesn't need a touch attack, and Disintegrate is a Save or Die effect, which still does something even on a sucessful save, which none of the Warmarked abilities do. Enervation doesn't allow a save, neither does Ray of Enfeeblement or Ray of Exhaustion, or Shivering Touch or... well, long story short, the number of RTA's that also allow a save are smaller than the ones which don't, and even still, it's a touch attack rather than a regular attack that generally has a much higher AC number to hit.A 6th level spell doing 5d6 is practically nothing. Further, it's not a save or die effect. It's high damage. Compare that to Mark of Lumi, which is up to 2d6/IL, no touch attack, and save for half. You save? You still take a lot of damage. Better than disintegrate in every single way. The only cost is HP, in an ability that gives Fast healing.


You were the one wanting to boost melee power. You don't do that by going back and nerfing their abilities back down to useless levels.
As I recall, these abilities are neither useless, nor nerfed. I've recommended boosting several abilities. I've recommended maximum caps and limits on others (such as mark of the lumi's 2d6 per initiator level cap, rather than open ended). I've made no such recommendations on Mark of the Anvil, so please don't attribute the comments and work of others to me.

Does Mark of the Anvil need a boost? Perhaps. Should that boost be reworking the entire class to turn it into a No-save class? No. It doesn't follow the basic principles of the game. No save effects aren't that common. Those that are, don't generally stun, daze, or otherwise render a character unable to act. Mark of the Anvil has such an effect.

You're not grasping something. One round is sufficient to end fights. A no save, just lose effect? That's overpowered.


The ONLY difference between an Ex and a Su is the ability to use it in an AMF.
I think using the weakest psionic class's effects is precisely my point. It has a precedent. And none of these maneuvers are 'throwing Kamehameha beams in an AMF'. I'm largely talking about the strikes which currently use saving throws to be replaced with this mechanic instead. Since, as you well admitted, it can't even begin to compare to the broken cracktasticness of a high-end caster, why is it suddenly so overpowerful that you can't possibly allow it?
You're comparing this to a proposed no save ability that renders a character unable to act. That's "beginning to compare".


With Time Stands Still, I'm fairly certain that a Warblade is going to be able to hit with at least one blow, and still has a Swift action left to recover. So yes, two rounds worth of attacks per round.
Warblade maneuver recovery does not work that way. It's not "hit an attack, get all your maneuvers back." It's "spend a swift action, then make an attack as a standard action, or do nothing as a standard action." Time stands still is "take 2 full attack actions".

Full attack actions are not standard actions. They cannot be used to recover maneuvers.


You're looking at hundreds of damage output fairly easily, per hit, depending on the precise build (I'm thinking Shock Trooper + Leap Attack + Power Attack, not even getting into FB nonsense), possibly thousands depending on the circumstances (Great Cleave + Spiked Chain with the above + lots of things to hit in the area). Sure, it's not an "I Win" button like the Wizards have, but I'm not particularly interested in win buttons, I'm more interested in making a game that is fun to play for everyone, regardless of their character creation decisions.
Warmarked can use shocktrooper + leap attack + etc.

For someone not interested in I win buttons, you're pushing a no save ability that removes someone's ability to act awfully hard. That would normally qualify as a Save or Lose, except that there's no save.

Godskook
2009-09-22, 04:13 PM
With Time Stands Still, I'm fairly certain that a Warblade is going to be able to hit with at least one blow, and still has a Swift action left to recover. So yes, two rounds worth of attacks per round.

Warblade's recovery explicitly states that you may not use maneuvers in the same round as you spend recovering, no matter what. Only 'already on' stance(s) are in effect, and you can't even double-move that round, since you're required to make the standard action as well.

Lord_Gareth
2009-09-22, 04:14 PM
I will review this, as promised, but given my limited timeframe - and issues with your links in my various public computers - can you post this information here, on these boards? Fax Celestis' homebrew guide has easy tables that you can use...

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-09-22, 04:17 PM
I think we're going to have to agree to disagree with this.

I feel that AC is, effectively, a save, and having abilities that have TWO saves (two that most critters generally have sky-high, mind you) that does NOTHING if either one is made, is not worth bothering with. I disagree with you, in every particular, that an effort should be made to keep abilities from becoming obsolete. I disagree with you that my proposal is too powerful because a) limited number of times per day (due to PP expenditure), b) still has to land a blow to work, and c) effects are generally not overpowering.

Against a full blown wizard? It doesn't matter what a Warmarked has, he's dead before he can act, and even if he could act, his action gets interrupted and he dies. That is a win button. There is no possible way a Warmarked can do anything other than die horridly.

Being able to lock down a single opponent, at significant cost to self? That's a single-encounter win. Assuming you hit. Assuming your opponent isn't immune. Assuming you are facing a single opponent. Assuming you can continue to hit him until he falls over. If you are facing multiple opponents, then it becomes less useful, as you can't lock them all down.

Personally, I'd like to see Tide's perspective on this debate. I think I've brought up an interesting mechanic that deserves a look. It would make the class actually look like a psionic class, which it currently does not. Without a PP pool, he can't even Focus.

Either stop trying to pretend it is a psionic class, or make it a psionic class. Pick one. Also, on that same vein, either it is an Initiator, in which case it should probably have some maneuvers and stances, otherwise it isn't, and it shouldn't stack with another class for purposes of determining IL.

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-22, 04:53 PM
I think we're going to have to agree to disagree with this.

I feel that AC is, effectively, a save, and having abilities that have TWO saves (two that most critters generally have sky-high, mind you) that does NOTHING if either one is made, is not worth bothering with. I disagree with you, in every particular, that an effort should be made to keep abilities from becoming obsolete. I disagree with you that my proposal is too powerful because a) limited number of times per day (due to PP expenditure), b) still has to land a blow to work, and c) effects are generally not overpowering.
AC is widely regarded as a dump stat for a reason. Because you have to spend a disproportionate amount of resources to achieve parity. I believe abilities should not be obsolete. I also believe that the ability should not render everything else obsolete. That's what's known as "balance".


Against a full blown wizard? It doesn't matter what a Warmarked has, he's dead before he can act, and even if he could act, his action gets interrupted and he dies. That is a win button. There is no possible way a Warmarked can do anything other than die horridly.Odd, I've seen warmark beat mages already. Perhaps you're exaggerating a bit.


Being able to lock down a single opponent, at significant cost to self? That's a single-encounter win. Assuming you hit. Assuming your opponent isn't immune. Assuming you are facing a single opponent. Assuming you can continue to hit him until he falls over. If you are facing multiple opponents, then it becomes less useful, as you can't lock them all down.
Lockdown isn't much of a problem when you can power attack for full with no loss of accuracy (warmarked ability). 2 rounds and pretty much anything is dead. Hit <No save daze>... Full attack. Dead. That's not significant cost to self. Hitting's not hard. The ability you propose is a fight ender.


Personally, I'd like to see Tide's perspective on this debate. I think I've brought up an interesting mechanic that deserves a look. It would make the class actually look like a psionic class, which it currently does not. Without a PP pool, he can't even Focus.It has a psionic feel, already.


Either stop trying to pretend it is a psionic class, or make it a psionic class. Pick one. Also, on that same vein, either it is an Initiator, in which case it should probably have some maneuvers and stances, otherwise it isn't, and it shouldn't stack with another class for purposes of determining IL.
Soulknife is a psionic class. I don't see it spending PP.

You criticize me for wanting to nerf the warmark to uselessness, and then propose mitigating their abilities out of the other side of your mouth. Your view seems rather confusing.

Doc Roc
2009-09-22, 05:03 PM
I cordially request that we agree to disagree. I personally think that IL is the best existing mechanic for what we need to do, and it's a near perfect fit mechanically.

I'll be blunt. I'm a systemswonk. Fluff is generally secondary to me until we have a really rock solid design. This means that while we may eventually move to some sort of point pool for war-marked, or offer it as an alternative, it's currently too big a project for too small a gain. I don't think there's a good and formulaic way to weight these abilities out, which means it'd be a step-wise process. I do find the idea really interesting, but I think it's a horizon-feature right now.

I'm not going to debate the two save\one save issue, except to say that I've seen a war-marked kill a extremely well-optimized psion in an incredibly brutal and extremely awesome match. Right now, we have to test before we make huge changes.

That doesn't mean I'm not listening to one of you, or that I'm intent on taking a side. My own views differ from both of yours immensely, though they have a stronger commonality with PRs. I am just three things: Patient, attentive, and determined. I'm not skilled. I need dissent, I need fervor, I need to know that people find the class interesting enough and useful enough to get upset about.


For me, I think we should table this until next monday, when we have a LOT more testing data from the ToS and also from some PvE trials. If you'd be interested in helping us with PvE trials, I'd find that to be basically Omega-Rad.

Cordially,
Jake

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-22, 05:06 PM
For me, I think we should table this until next monday, when we have a LOT more testing data from the ToS and also from some PvE trials. If you'd be interested in helping us with PvE trials, I'd find that to be basically Omega-Rad.

Done, Done, and interested.

Doc Roc
2009-09-22, 05:43 PM
I will review this, as promised, but given my limited timeframe - and issues with your links in my various public computers - can you post this information here, on these boards? Fax Celestis' homebrew guide has easy tables that you can use...

That... might be hard. There's 21 pages of material there, though it's really closer to 19.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-09-22, 05:57 PM
Done, Done, and interested.

Seconded and also interested.

Lord_Gareth
2009-09-22, 06:55 PM
That... might be hard. There's 21 pages of material there, though it's really closer to 19.

Most of it's the Marks, right? It's not as hard as you might think. There's no character limits on these posts, which means that you can do just about anything with proper uses of spoiler blocks. That's how we got all the current information on my Ritualist into its (now dead) thread.

Claudius Maximus
2009-09-22, 07:12 PM
Tide, are you going to keep collecting links to the matches in the first post of this thread? You missed my match with Phoenix. Here:

Claudius vs. PhoenixRivers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125362)

When I have the time, I'll polish up my character and do another exhibition. I think I'll change my Warmarked every few battles to try to test out as many marks and builds as possible. Is there anything in particular you want to see in action?

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-22, 11:23 PM
Tide, are you going to keep collecting links to the matches in the first post of this thread? You missed my match with Phoenix. Here:

Claudius vs. PhoenixRivers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125362)

When I have the time, I'll polish up my character and do another exhibition. I think I'll change my Warmarked every few battles to try to test out as many marks and builds as possible. Is there anything in particular you want to see in action?

Well, I'm testing for interaction between tempest and chain for weapon marks, as well, as checking the overall power of one of the outsider marks I haven't seen in action yet. Here's hoping.

Doc Roc
2009-09-23, 12:00 AM
Tide, are you going to keep collecting links to the matches in the first post of this thread? You missed my match with Phoenix. Here:

Claudius vs. PhoenixRivers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125362)

When I have the time, I'll polish up my character and do another exhibition. I think I'll change my Warmarked every few battles to try to test out as many marks and builds as possible. Is there anything in particular you want to see in action?

I'd love to know if mark of the anvil is good.

Claudius Maximus
2009-09-23, 07:40 PM
I really can't think of a way to make it the focus of my character; either I get seriously high strength and attack bonus, and kill my enemy in one hit, or I get a large number of attacks and stack effects on them, in which case it gets seriously overshadowed by other marks that apply to every attack. Also, if I can hit my opponent they're probably dead anyway without the Mark of the Anvil. I'll still try it out; maybe it's better than it looks.

Also:

Olo vs. PhoenixRivers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6968457)

Doc Roc
2009-09-23, 07:41 PM
I really can't think of a way to make it the focus of my character; either I get seriously high strength and attack bonus, and kill my enemy in one hit, or I get a large number of attacks and stack effects on them, in which case it gets seriously overshadowed by other marks that apply to every attack. Also, if I can hit my opponent they're probably dead anyway without the Mark of the Anvil. I'll still try it out; maybe it's better than it looks.

Also:

Olo vs. PhoenixRivers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6968457)

I was lil reluctant to list that one, but :: laughs :: let's put it in.

Oslecamo
2009-09-23, 08:03 PM
I'm not going to debate the two save\one save issue, except to say that I've seen a war-marked kill a extremely well-optimized psion in an incredibly brutal and extremely awesome match. Right now, we have to test before we make huge changes.

Kinda irrelevant, because what you call extremely well-optimized any people familiar with psionics would call the basic psion package, while the war-marked player jumped with a truly extremely well optimized build that abused poorly worded maneuvers(WRT on itself) and also had the advantage of knowing what his oponent was able to do once he understood he was fighting a psionic dude, while the other player knew little of the war-marked class.

Metagaming goes a long way on D&D pvp. Of course a manifester won't prepare itself against trick that isn't suposed to exist.

Doc Roc
2009-09-23, 08:15 PM
Kinda irrelevant, because what you call extremely well-optimized any people familiar with psionics would call the basic psion package, while the war-marked player jumped with a truly extremely well optimized build that abused poorly worded maneuvers(WRT on itself) and also had the advantage of knowing what his oponent was able to do once he understood he was fighting a psionic dude, while the other player knew little of the war-marked class.

Metagaming goes a long way on D&D pvp. Of course a manifester won't prepare itself against trick that isn't suposed to exist.

Even most of the TO guys I know ban AnStrike, Os. What would it take to satisfy you as a test or example, or what kind of ability load out would you need?

Claudius Maximus
2009-09-23, 08:22 PM
I did also have a Belt of Battle, so White Raven Tactics didn't necessarily win that fight.

My build could have been a great deal better in retrospect, and I had no idea Anticipatory Strike existed until Phoenix used it (I don't use Psionics in my games, so I hadn't gone over the psionics system in detail until I started checking sheets).

I've been trying to keep the metagaming to a minimum, as you can see from my use of spoilers, and whatever measure of matagaming I did Phoenix could easily have done himself, since he was aware that he was fighting a Warmarked from the start and knew where to find the information about their abilities.

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-23, 11:44 PM
I did also have a Belt of Battle, so White Raven Tactics didn't necessarily win that fight.

My build could have been a great deal better in retrospect, and I had no idea Anticipatory Strike existed until Phoenix used it (I don't use Psionics in my games, so I hadn't gone over the psionics system in detail until I started checking sheets).

I've been trying to keep the metagaming to a minimum, as you can see from my use of spoilers, and whatever measure of matagaming I did Phoenix could easily have done himself, since he was aware that he was fighting a Warmarked from the start and knew where to find the information about their abilities.

In Fairness, by the time the fight ended, I knew most of his marks, for just that reason.

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-24, 04:05 PM
Test run involving Mark of the Anvil:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6992450#post6992450

Touchsight + An ability which keys its DC off of an accuracy boosted stat + multiple per round saves on a single attack from a single ability.

If that ability is "too weak", then I'm the prettiest princess in the faerie kingdom.

That druid has a 34 touch AC and solid saves, and it got rickrolled in 1 round.

Godskook
2009-09-24, 04:32 PM
I read the thread, PR, were you two testing a death ray or something?

Claudius Maximus
2009-09-24, 04:34 PM
Touchsight is from an item, so it shouldn't factor into our analysis.

Mark of the Anvil is more powerful than I thought. I didn't realize how easy it was to give it a DC of 30+.

Also, keep in mind that I would have been able to hit him if I were not a Warmarked at all. I could easily build a Fighter that attacked at +40 and did as much or more damage. The Marks just added the conditions.

One thing about these on-hit abilities is that if I as a martial character can hit my opponent, I am probably already able to kill him. They don't really add too much to lethality when I can routinely deal 50 damage before power attack and only miss on a natural 1.

Also, I think the mark of the Unraveler's ability is a bit much. I was going to make 20 attacks in that round, and all of them would have forced a DC 26 will save or he'd turn to goo. Although I admit he would have been long dead before it mattered.

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-24, 05:50 PM
Touchsight is from an item, so it shouldn't factor into our analysis.


It factors in, in respect to negating miss chances and hide. Otherwise you'd have never seen the druid, much less hit him.

Warmarked makes effective use of touchsight, moreso than other melee classes. It provides the accuracy needed to hit with those save abilities.

Doc Roc
2009-09-24, 06:04 PM
Unraveler needs at least a bit of a nerf. It hits a lot harder than expected. I'm going to take a whack at it later tonight, then a bit more monday if it's not doable.

Doc Roc
2009-09-24, 10:58 PM
Moar battles are up.


I read the thread, PR, were you two testing a death ray or something?

That's an apt description of mark of the unraveler, honestly.

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-24, 11:27 PM
In Fairness, if I'd have gone first, he'd have fared just as badly, lol.

Godskook
2009-09-24, 11:37 PM
That's an apt description of mark of the unraveler, honestly.

Seriously, reading that thread was like watching the scene from District 9 where they're testing gun's on the one dude's arm, firing them at the prawns. Except poor PR was the 'prawn' in this case.

Doc Roc
2009-09-24, 11:47 PM
Seriously, reading that thread was like watching the scene from District 9 where they're testing gun's on the one dude's arm, firing them at the prawns. Except poor PR was the 'prawn' in this case.

Then we may have done it right, in a lot of respects, because that sounds like a description of your average mage duel.

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-25, 12:24 AM
Seriously, reading that thread was like watching the scene from District 9 where they're testing gun's on the one dude's arm, firing them at the prawns. Except poor PR was the 'prawn' in this case.

Oh, don't call me poor. I had a pretty similar plan for him. It was pretty much whoever was quicker on the draw.

Doc Roc
2009-09-25, 03:37 AM
Mark of the Unraveller has been removed from the list for the time being and now lives in the Dead Marks section.

Claudius Maximus
2009-09-25, 09:52 AM
Oh, don't call me poor. I had a pretty similar plan for him. It was pretty much whoever was quicker on the draw.

Are we talking about the match against your Druid? You did go first in that one.

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-25, 07:16 PM
Are we talking about the match against your Druid? You did go first in that one.

Oh, I was thinking it was my warmarked. Doh! Serves me right for posting while sleepy.

imperialspectre
2009-09-27, 03:04 PM
Moar testers, please?

Doc Roc
2009-09-27, 03:07 PM
We're considering adding a new schema for the on hit effects, called Triggered, so that it is harder to stack multiple saves on a hit, but still worthwhile to take the abilities.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-09-28, 09:38 AM
Perhaps a way to reduce the "Rocket Tag" aspect from the game? If the game boils down to "Whomever wins Initiative wins the match", then rather than loading them up with powerful goodies, you should perhaps incorporate more "No" buttons. Since, yanno, this is supposed to be the Tank, whose job it is to eat just about anything that gets thrown at the party and at least survive long enough for the party to fix what went wrong.

I am particularly enamored with the Crusader's Delay Damage ability. If such a method to delay being affected by something for a few rounds, or even a single round, were possible for things other than damage... that would be invaluable.

Consider:

NPC Wizard: Dominate Person! DC OMGWTFBBQ!
War-Marked: Delay it for a round, and close to threaten
Party Cleric: Break Enchantment so it won't affect him next round either.

This gets rid of the "Save or dead" and "No save, you're just dead" aspects, particularly in a party setting.

Having said that, I believe that care needs to be taken to keep the class from being too overpowering. Perhaps it takes a Move action and a Concentration Check to delay the effects, as you hold off the onsetting status effect through sheer effort of will?

PhoenixRivers
2009-09-28, 10:35 AM
Perhaps a way to reduce the "Rocket Tag" aspect from the game? If the game boils down to "Whomever wins Initiative wins the match", then rather than loading them up with powerful goodies, you should perhaps incorporate more "No" buttons. Since, yanno, this is supposed to be the Tank, whose job it is to eat just about anything that gets thrown at the party and at least survive long enough for the party to fix what went wrong.

I am particularly enamored with the Crusader's Delay Damage ability. If such a method to delay being affected by something for a few rounds, or even a single round, were possible for things other than damage... that would be invaluable.

Consider:

NPC Wizard: Dominate Person! DC OMGWTFBBQ!
War-Marked: Delay it for a round, and close to threaten
Party Cleric: Break Enchantment so it won't affect him next round either.

This gets rid of the "Save or dead" and "No save, you're just dead" aspects, particularly in a party setting.

Having said that, I believe that care needs to be taken to keep the class from being too overpowering. Perhaps it takes a Move action and a Concentration Check to delay the effects, as you hold off the onsetting status effect through sheer effort of will?

Can't be a move action... Or at least, careful wording would be needed to make it your next move action. Most of the time, when you're hit, you don't have a move action. It's not your turn.

I do like the cost for the no, and the concept of the greater amount of No.

Doc Roc
2009-09-30, 03:16 PM
Same game testing has formally started now.

Cieyrin
2009-10-02, 01:32 PM
There's some confusion in the Blink Dog Mark's Shape ability, as it talks about activating 1/3 IL/day as a move action and as a instantaneous action 1/day. Do they get both types or just one?

Doc Roc
2009-10-02, 02:58 PM
it is intended to be both.