[Legend] I want to be Horseman War

[Firechanter]

Hello Playground,

it looks like we're going to give Legend a shot soon; the DM already has some experience with it but the rest of us don't. Since a) I want to give the system a fair chance, and b) it frustrates me when my character turns out to be inefficient, which would spoil my fun with the game, I'd like to ask you for some build advice.

Generally, I prefer to play melee types that deal a lot of damage, but also have a variety of options other than "I hit it with a stick". Just so you know where I'm coming from, my favourite class in 3.5 is the Warblade, followed by combat-oriented clerics.
Also, my preferred race is Human, and while that choice is not written in stone and other races are an option, I do have a particular aversion against [Small] races.

So I'm pretty sure that I want to play a class with High BAB and preferrably 10HP. So that narrows the choice to Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger, unless I should go for a Racial track.

Basically, I'd like to hear about particularly worthwhile Feats and which Multiclass tracks are interesting with which Base Class.
So fire away. =)

Edit / Clarification: the character doesn't actually need to be Mounted; "Horseman War" is just supposed to mean "super awesome at fighting".

[Zaq]

Your tracks matter more than your class, though if your GM is enforcing class restrictions, that is something that I suppose you need to consider.

For primary melee offensive tracks, you're mostly looking at Rage, Dervish, Serpent, Assassin, Swashbuckler, Smiting, Iron Magi, Knight, Utter Brute, Wildborn, or Just Blade.

Rage makes you STR-based, and it, along with Dervish, provides about the biggest bonus to hit that you're likely to find from a track. It does provide a bonus to damage, but that bonus is smaller than most [Precision] tracks provide. Rage is fun because it's tanky while still providing good offense—it gives you a LOT of THP. Rage also makes you better at using combat maneuvers, but if you're using a combat maneuver with Rage, you're only making one attack, since they don't get any way of getting extra attacks after maneuvers. Rage spends a swift action to turn on the bonuses, but after that, it doesn't need any special actions.

Dervish is a little bit higher-damage than Rage, at least once C4 comes online (or even once C2 comes online, if you don't have a [Bonus attack] from somewhere else). Like Rage, its primary benefit is the big bonus to hit. It's got some defensive abilities (though whether they're more defensive than Rage's pile o' temps is a judgment call) and some movement tricks, and it provides the largest skill bonus of any track (you will never fail an Acrobatics check again). Dervish spends a swift action to turn on the bonuses, like Rage, but it doesn't necessarily need to spend any actions after that, though some of its features work better if you use move actions and partial move actions to use Acrobatics.

Serpent doesn't get any bonuses to hit, but it gets a decent bonus to damage—the lowest bonus of any [Precision] track, but still noticeable. Serpent is the track that you use if you want to tie your opponents in knots. It's the king of combat maneuvers, and it gets maneuvers that no other class gets. The fact that they get a natural weapon with way more properties than anyone else can get is fun, but the real meat of the track is all the fun debuffs you throw around just by attacking. Once C4 hits the field, they're the only track that lets you make multiple combat maneuvers a turn, so they can sling around way more debuffing mojo than anyone else. The damage isn't as high as some other tracks, but the debuffing is unmatched. Serpent doesn't require any special actions, which is nice.

Assassin is relatively straightforward—use a combat skill (Bluff or Acrobatics) to get someone [Flat-footed], then throw a pile of dice at them. After you hit C3, they become the most accurate [Precision]-users, which is handy (because after all, if you don't hit, you don't matter). Assassin is a good choice if you like using lots of dice, rather than big static bonuses. They eventually get some debuffs, but they come online rather late. Assassin requires that you spend a partial move action on basically every turn, since you need to get your opponent [Flat-footed] or similar.

Swashbuckler is a relatively accurate track. At most levels, they make roughly the same number of attacks as people who just attack normally (and who get a [BA] from somewhere), but the trick about Swashbuckler is that Once More! attacks are made at your full attack bonus, not a –5 for being an iterative. So their first attack is no more accurate than anyone else's, but all their secondary attacks are at an effective +5 relative to another character's. They're one of the only times you'll base bonus damage directly off your KDM instead of your KOM, though eventually the level component of that overshadows the K*M component. Swashbucklers need to spend their standard action making only one attack, so they have a tendency to make combat maneuvers. They don't get any bonuses to them, but they are likely to make combat maneuvers and still be able to get more attacks. (The other big strategy is to find something you can trade away your iteratives for, which basically means an Air Elemental's Gust ability, the feat Fancy Footwork, or the Rime Wand item.) You do need a way of moving multiple times after attacking, but you can do that by getting extra 5 ft steps, getting swift-action movement, or something else. Swashbuckler demands that you find a way of moving several times a [Round], so you'll probably be spending your move action on that, and maybe your swift, depending on how you set your character up.

Smiting is a very straightforward track. Pump your Charisma sky-high, then see how many times you can add it to your damage rolls. It has the highest damage potential of any fury-based track, though its bonuses to hit tend to be too little too late. Several of its abilities rely on hitting with consecutive attacks, so if you don't trust your dice, you might not be interested in Smiting, but it's really fun when it works. If you just want each attack to have a pile of damage tacked on and you don't want to spend a lot of effort making that happen, Smiting may be the track for you. (It can also make you more defensive than many other tracks if CHA is your KDM instead of your KOM, as is the case for default Pallies.) Smiting doesn't require any special actions.

Iron Magi is kind of a tricky track. It's one of the only primary melee tracks that isn't fury-based or [Precision]-based, which does mean that you can combine it with a lot of other tracks and get interesting results. It takes a little bit of effort to understand exactly how it works, but basically, it gives you two kinds of abilities: Chain Components and Chain Finishers. Whenever you hit with a melee attack, your Chain gains one link. When you attack, you can swap out a given number of attacks from your routine to use a Chain Component—each Component adds one link to your Chain, but it doesn't add any more than that, even if you hit with an attack as part of the Component. When your Chain has a certain number of links in it, you can spend a swift action to use a Finisher, which resets your Chain to zero. Finishers often, though not always, affect multiple enemies, which can be useful. The worst part about Iron Magi is that you have to ask your GM for a houserule regarding what kind of weapon you should use. See, a weapon can be either [Arcane] or not [Arcane]. If it's not [Arcane], then it adds its item bonus (and its [Brutal] bonus, if any) to normal attacks, but not to Su or SLA abilities. If it is [Arcane], it adds its item bonus (and [Brutal] bonus) to Su and SLA abilities, but not to normal attacks. Iron Magi encourages you to make normal attacks (to build up your Chain), but it also encourages you to use Su abilities (most Components and Finishers are Su), so you basically have to either pay for two weapons or you have to give up some accuracy on half your attacks. I think this is an oversight, and when I GM Legend, I houserule it away, but that's something that needs to be done. Iron Magi is still a cool track (it's got some good debuffs and some fun movement tricks), but do be aware of that. Iron Magi is very greedy with your swift actions, so don't pair it with anything that requires lots of swifts.

Knight is kind of like Serpent in that it wants you to make combat maneuvers every turn, though unlike Serpent (unless you combine it with Serpent), you'll only be making one a turn. It does have a bigger damage bonus than Serpent, though. Most Knights focus on the Charge maneuver, and eventually they get the ability to Charge twice in one turn. Knights tend to have some off-turn functionality—they're the only track who can make more than one AoO per [Round], and they have a very useful interrupt ability. Since they usually only make one attack per turn, they tend to have lower damage totals than other tracks, but you're mostly taking Knight for the fun off-turn abilities, not because it's a damage monster on your own turn. Knight often spends its move actions becoming [Steadied] (which is one reason why they tend to Charge—it lets them still move), and it can use its immediates on interrupts.

Utter Brute is mostly just a pile of numbers. It's primarily intended for NPCs, but there's no rule against PCs taking it. It's often better if you use Full Buy-In, because its bonus to hit is both fury and item (and therefore stacks with neither). It does give you a pretty big bonus to hit, but it doesn't do a whole lot for your damage. The most interesting thing about Utter Brute is that it gets more reach increases than any other track, so if for some reason you want to be able to make [Melee] attacks at a long range, Utter Brute may be your thing. Unless you're doing something specific like that, though, it's not great for PCs. Utter Brute doesn't demand any special actions.

Wildborn (http://www.ruleofcool.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Wildborn.pdf) is not technically 1.1, so you might need GM permission to use it. It's fury-based, and it gets some passable bonuses to hit, but less than Rage or Dervish. It gets some good debuffs ([Slowed] on every hit is really nice) and some fun utility effects (you're not going to find a bigger bonus to initiative than Wildborn C5), but its bonuses to hit and damage are less intense than most other fury-based tracks. It's still useful, but you might want to combine it with another offensive track to bring out your full potential. Wildborn demands partial move actions to use on Perception every turn.

Just Blade won't make you much of a combat monster on your own, but it's designed to combine with other tracks. Basically, Just Blade is the Duskblade track—it's there for channeling magic (specifically SLAs) through melee attacks. You'll need to invest another track (or a whole hell of a lot of feats) into getting your SLAs, but then you can attack and cast at the same time, which is exactly as much fun as it sounds. It's not fury-based or [Precision]-based, so if you can spare the actions, you can combine it with a fury track or a [Precision] track for crazy offensive output, but then you've spent three whole tracks on offense and none on defense/support, so you're in kind of a precarious situation. It's got some forced movement, which is nice, though you're really there for the channeling. It's very greedy with your swift actions, and if you like the forced movement options, those can eat your move actions as well.

The beauty of Legend, of course, is that you have to try pretty hard to make a character who really sucks. Basically, if you watch your action requirements and you don't mix fury and [Precision], you'll probably end up with something pretty cool. There are other offensive tracks, of course, but these are the best ones for primary melee offense. Your tracks matter more than your class does, since you can always swap out to whatever tracks you want.

[stack]

Not much to add to the above, just though I would point out that rogue's esoterica radica C1 ability to take 10 is not to be underestimated when it comes to flat-footing enemies (or using other social skills in combat for various effects). I have a Esoterica radica/discipline of the serpent/fortune's friend/tactical insight character that auto-passes his knowledge checks to get bonuses from tactical insight (for the whole party) and auto-flat-foots most enemies. (KOM INT, KDM CHA)

[Firechanter]

Oh thanks a lot for the insight! That helps already, I guess.

From a first reading I got the idea to maybe combine Rage and Serpent, but that seems to be counterproductive as one is Fury and the other Precision.

BTW, would it be a good idea to swap a Spellcasting Track in? I'm just asking since, coming from a 3.5 background, I'm used to Casting >> *, but I haven't had the chance to look at Legend spellcasting in depth yet.

My preliminary character concept would be something akin to a Warblade concept I'd play if we went for 3.5 instead. Basically something Wuxia-like, one that dashes across the battlefield and stabs enemies to death with a spear (Qiang). But just because I said "Wuxia" it doesn't necessarily have to be a Monk. As I said, in 3.5 I would have used a Warblade with a mix of maneuvers from all disciplines.

--

A few more questions:
- are there any further consequences to picking [Fury] or [Precision] bonuses, other than that they don't stack?
- in the PDF, I find nary a word about armour and absolutely nothing about (nonmagical) shields. Am I overlooking something, or is there really absolutely no support for Sword&Board or any other consequence being a Light/Heavy Armour user?

[stack]

Equipment has a chapter. Non-magic armors: light is +1 ac, heavy is +2 ac -1 reflex save. Shields are covered by the guardian property on your weapon (+1 AC), which you can fluff as having a shield. There are magic shields as well.

[Firechanter]

So, I take it that there isn't any support for TWF, either? Everything that goes beyond the THF route is always just "you can fluff it to be XY"? That's quite disappointing, I must say. :/

[stack]

Correct, twf is fluff. I actually strongly prefer this method. No feat taxes, no imbalances between fighting styles. TWF is such a mess in 3.X that it is far better to remove the mechanical difference.

[Zaq]

You can combine fury and [Precision] (like you said, Rage + Serpent is a classic, if you care more about maneuvers succeeding than you do about damage), but you have to be very, very careful with it, and I really wouldn't recommend it as a starting character. It's better for NPCs who only have to be relevant once, rather than for PCs who have to be relevant in every encounter.

There's no specific advantage or disadvantage to using fury or using [Precision] (there's nothing immune to either, for example)—they're just limiting keywords that prevent stacking. Of course, you can go fury-fury or [Precision]-[Precision], if you're going to be getting bonuses to different things or in different situations—for example, Rage-Smiting can use Rage's relatively big bonus to hit and Smiting's relatively big bonus to damage, and Serpent-Knight can use Knight's bigger bonus when an opponent fails a save against your combat maneuver and Serpent's smaller bonus as a backup when they succeed on their saves. But unless you've got a specific trick up your sleeve, it's probably best to pick one and be done.

Spells are useful (darn near everything in Legend is useful, in its own way), but they're no longer a ticket to godhood. If you want to use spells while attacking people, you can pick up a Spellstoring weapon (it's a Greater item), which does exactly what you think it does (eating your swift actions in the process). You could also load up on [Scene]-length buffs (Shaman spells have more of those than Tactician spells do, but they both have some options), casting all of your spells ahead of time rather than mixing them into your combat actions. But a spellcasting warrior is no longer automatically better than one without spells, so you should do that only if you specifically want certain spell effects, not if you just want it because you think it'll make you stronger.

If you're looking to emulate a Warblade, my recommendation is either Serpent or Iron Magi (or, I suppose, both, if you want to spend two tracks on offense), since those have the biggest number of different options on a turn-by-turn basis. Serpent makes combat maneuvers useful across all levels (so they'll very rarely be making an attack that doesn't have some weird effect tacked onto it), and they get some cool maneuvers that other characters can't do. Iron Magi has a good selection of different tricks, and you'll use different ones at different times (it's not the case that you'll always use the highest-level one that's available to you). No one in Legend is going to be as dull as a full-attacking Fighter (if nothing else, even if your attacks are all the same, you should have a utility track or two giving you other tricks outside your standard action), but if you want the variety that comes with a stack of Warblade maneuvers, Serpent or Iron Magi are going to be your best bets. They don't conflict in terms of keywords or in terms of action economy, so if you want to spend two tracks on offense, they do combine relatively nicely, but be aware of what you're giving up by spending two tracks on offense. (It's not an automatically bad idea to do that, but you want to weigh your options very carefully.)

Another option might be Combat Alchemist. Poisons are pretty useful for debuffing and doing bad things to enemies (so your attack does something more interesting than just hit-and-damage), and they've got the feel of a character with magic up their sleeve (though their Brews are all actually Ex). Combat Alchemist is the only Legend track that has to prepare an entire [Scene] worth of stuff, like a Wizard—spells, for example, are all spontaneous, but Brews are prepared. They're pretty useful overall. Combat Alchemist eats your move actions, so be aware of that limitation.

Just Blade with a good SLA track also has a magical feel and has a fair number of different tricks to use, but that doesn't feel very Warblade-y to me. But if you're looking to fight in melee and get weird effects on the battlefield every turn, it's an option. (For the SLA track, Arcane Secrets probably has the best variety of options, but Necromancer might also be up your alley.)

Even Skeleton Champion might be interesting to you (no, you don't have to be undead to take it, though you certainly can be if you want to be), because it makes the best use of the Focus Point mechanic, which you could expand with several feats.

Of course, don't forget your non-offensive tracks. Every track has at least something interesting it can do, and all of them have some combat usefulness (a few also have use out-of-combat, but much like 4e, Legend doesn't really let you screw yourself out of combat effectiveness very easily, in that you're forced to take a certain number of options that have use in combat). Your description of "charging across the battlefield" makes me think of a very mobile character, so Crane might be an interesting choice for you, but it's not the only option.

As far as shields go, there's no such thing as a mundane shield with rules of its own. This is basically because the description of mundane weapons is entirely up to the user—your weapon might take one hand, or no hands, or five hands, but that doesn't change anything except the description. If you want to fluff your weapon as a sword and shield, nothing's stopping you, and the [Guardian] property can be used to get a mechanical AC bonus that, say, something you fluff as a two-handed sword might not get. (Of course, you can still have the [Guardian] property on something you fluff as a two-handed sword, but that could just mean that it's well-balanced and easy to block with it, or something. The point is that the fluff is entirely in your hands.) If you want to get a bigger bonus out of your shield, you can spend an item on a magic shield (check out Custom Magic Items, starting on pg. 317), which will give you a deflection bonus to AC based on its tier, and it'll have at least one more magical property of your choice. But it doesn't take a certain number of hands to hold it, it doesn't make using other weapons easier or harder, and it doesn't even have to actually be a shield—it just means that your character has certain mechanical bonuses. (I almost never picture my Legend characters as toting around physical shields, but that doesn't stop me from using the magic shield rules to get a deflection bonus to AC when I need one.)

Mundane armor, on the other hand, does have some rules, but they're pretty thin, because mundane armor isn't that big a deal. They're on pg. 298. Basically, you can wear heavy armor, or you can wear light armor. Light armor gives you a +1 item bonus to AC, and it has absolutely no downside whatsoever. Heavy armor gives you a +2 item bonus to AC, but it imposes a –1 penalty to Reflex saves. That's 100% it. Once you get magic armor (which uses rules very similar to the rules for magic shields), it provides an item bonus to AC based on its tier (2 for Lesser, 3 for Greater, etc.), has no penalty to Reflex, and has one or more magical properties of your choice. Magic armor is considered neither heavy nor light, so the heavy-vs.-light distinction matters only for mundane gear. So when you upgrade from mundane armor to magic armor, you gain a magical property (or more than one, if it's higher-tier), and you either gain a bonus to AC relative to mundane armor (light armor has +1 AC vs. Lesser magic armor's +2 AC), lose a penalty that mundane armor gave you (heavy armor has +2 AC –1 Ref vs. Lesser magic armor's +2 AC –0 Ref), or (if it's higher-tier armor) both. But armor doesn't interfere with move speeds or anything, there's no restrictions on what kinds of characters can wear what kinds of armor, and like everything else in Legend, there's nothing saying that it has to be physical armor at all. It's just a bonus of a certain type that appears in certain ways.

The distinction between different kinds of weapons (TWF vs. THF vs. blah) is handled entirely through the weapon property system. Just pick the properties that give you the effects that best fit your vision of the character, then describe the weapon however you want to. Remember, nothing says that all Legend characters are even humanoid at all, so removing the limits on handedness and weapon size and everything is actually incredibly freeing. But if you want an effect that you associate with TWF or THF or whatever, you'll usually get that through your tracks, not through your items. (For example, Dervish lends itself to imagery of TWF, what with its no-questions-asked [Bonus attack] and easy-mode [Bleeding], but there's no rule mandating it or forbidding it.)

[stack]

For example, I once fluffed heavy armor for a caster character as the defensive wards he always maintained.

[Firechanter]

Thanks again for all the info. So, keep in mind you are talking to a total newbie here, I'd like to double-check if I got the basics right:

Each class has three tracks; typically you get one offensive, one defensive, and one utility/special. Some classes offer choices within single tracks, such as Rage or Dervish as Barbarian Offensive tracks.

And I can pick a class either as is, or swap out one single track for any other track from any other class for free. Only a small handful of tracks is "protected" and can't be taken by a different class.

Correct so far?

I also have a question about the Paladin in particular.
In the table, the tracks are labeled Judgment, Dedication, Oath. But in the flow text, the tracks are named Judgment, Bastion, Heroica, Smiting, Virtue. What gives?

[stack]

Sounds about right for simple multiclassing. Gets more complicated with racial tracks and the guild initiation feat, but you have the basics..

Dedication and Oath are just names for the slots, you can plug any of the non-judgement tracks in either.

[Zaq]

Yeah, the Paladin naming scheme is weird, but it's basically saying "Judgment is your fast track. Pick one other Paladin track for your medium track and one other Paladin track for your slow track, but you can put any of them in those two slots." That's different from, for example, Rogues, who always have their offensive track as their medium track and their defensive track as their slow track. (A default Rogue cannot put their defensive track as their medium track and their offensive track as their slow track, for instance.)