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View Full Version : New Stances (Spheres talents)



SangoProduction
2023-11-09, 06:51 PM
Preamble: I found it kinda disappointing how there were only like 1 or 2 stances per combat sphere. Turns out there are a lot of combat spheres. Regardless, there are only 1 or 2 each. I figured I'd do my part in helping to expand on that.
I do not claim that any, let alone all, are "Good". But I do hope that some are usably decent.
I did kind of want to make them a slightly higher power, on account of them not being passive, and each being mutually exclusive to other stances (save for literally one archetype... that's on a monk), so that it's not just like "why is this a stance and not a regular talent?" I'm no game designer. These are just what I thought of.

[Duelist] Dancing Edge: While in this stance you may make a 5-foot step before and after an attack action, so long as you are no further from the target(s) than you were at round start. You don't gain the benefit on any round where you make your normal 5-foot step. Alterations and restrictions to the 5-foot step apply to the movement granted by this stance. At 10 BAB, you may instead take both 5 foot steps before or after your attack action.

[Athletics] Momentum Mastery: While in this stance, if you have spent your move action moving in a straight line (including as part of a full round action), you may move again in the same direction at your full speed, and as free actions, you are able to overrun up to 2 creatures + 1 per 3 ranks in the associated skill. Any combat maneuver or skill checks made to continue moving (such as overrun or acrobatics) are made with a bonus equal to the number of creatures this talent lets you overrun.

[Berserker] Furious Reprisal: When you would take damage to your temporary hit points from a creature within reach, you may retaliate by spending an Attack of Opportunity. The creature takes damage equal to the temporary hit points you lost.

[Boxing] Pugilist's Poise: While in this stance, those hit by your counter punch have difficulty affecting you with conditions until the start of your next turn. Any non-damaging effects they impose on you end at the start of your turn.

[Boxing] Bounding Pounding: When readying a Counter Punch while in this stance, you may use your move action to make your normal movement. Any unused movement is stored. When your Counter Punch is triggered, you may expend this stored movement to get within range of the triggering target. If you could trigger multiple Counter Punches, you can split up the stored movement between them as you see fit. This movement provokes as normal.

[Beastmastery] Predator's Pounce: While in this stance, the first time each round your animal companion hits with a natural weapon, you are granted an Attack of Opportunity against the same target. This attack can be made even if you do not normally threaten the target with your weapon, such as with bow.

[Scout] Shadow Slink: If a creature targets you with an attack, you can move 5 feet without provoking an Attack of Opportunity, after they end their turn. Every 5 ranks in stealth, you may move an additional 5 feet.

[Alchemy] Volatile Mixture: You may enter this stance as an immediate action in response to being hit by an attack, if you immediately extend it using Martial Focus. While in this stance, if you are hit by an attack, as an Attack of Opportunity, you may cause an alchemical item you are carrying to burst. Its effects go off as though thrown in your square. (So you may get hit by its splash, but not count as the direct target.)


//Below are waiting for a re-imagining.
[Dual Wielding] Echoing Strike: While in this stance, the first time you would miss with either weapon during a Dual Attack, you may attempt to make another attack with the other weapon at the same penalty.

[Barrage] Quality Through Quantity: When you take a Barrage special attack action, while in this stance, your weapon is considered to have an additional +1 enhancement bonus per previous attack in the Barrage. This can exceed the normal enhancement bonus limits. (Effectively, the second attack has +1 to hit and damage, the third has +2, and so on. The weapon may also penetrate certain damage reduction due to higher enhancement bonus.)

Logalmier
2023-11-09, 10:47 PM
[Athletics] Momentum Mastery: While in this stance, if you have spent your move action moving in a straight line (including as part of a full round action), you may move again in the same direction at your full speed, and are able to overrun up to 2 creatures + 1 per 3 ranks in the associated skill. Any combat maneuver or skill checks made to continue moving (such as overrun or acrobatics) are made with a bonus equal to the number of creatures this talent lets you overrun.

I like this, but you should specify if the overrun attempts are free actions or not. The answer impacts whether you can apply Brute [manhandle] talents to them.


[Berserker] Furious Reprisal: When you would take damage to your temporary hit points from a creature within reach, you may retaliate by spending an Attack of Opportunity. The creature takes damage equal to the temporary hit points you lost. .)

I like this, seems like it could be quite funny with a build that stacks temp hp.



[Barroom] Grab-and-Smash: While in this stance, you can grab any improvised weapon within your reach as part of the same action used to attack with it. .)

You can already do this as part of the base Brutal Breaker ability with (standard) attack actions. The only thing this stance lets you do is draw improvised weapons on full attacks and attacks of opportunity. And you can already do that with the Fast Draw talent, without having to spend a swift action to activate a stance (you can't do it on AoOs with the Quick Draw feat however, which requires free actions, which generally can't be taken outside your turn, although off-turn free actions is an issue where the RAW begins to break down.)



[Alchemy] Volatile Mixture: While in this stance, if you are hit by an attack, as an Attack of Opportunity, you may cause an alchemical item you are carrying to burst. Its effects go off as though thrown in your square. (So you may get hit by its splash, but not count as the direct target.)

This one's great, very funny image and a really interesting potential tradeoff. I wonder if it should be an immediate action though. In some ways that would make it less clumsy to use (as a stance you have to sacrifice your swift action on the potential chance that an enemy attacks you) but it would also prevent you from double dipping other "retaliation" style effects, such as Bloody Counter. Making it immediate would also prevent you from triggering multiple alchemical items in response to multiple attacks however, which seems really funny, so that might be another argument for keeping it as a stance.


[Dual Wielding] Echoing Strike: While in this stance, the first time you would miss with either weapon during a Dual Attack, you may attempt to make another attack with the other weapon at the same penalty.

[Barrage] Quality Through Quantity: When you take a Barrage special attack action, while in this stance, your weapon is considered to have an additional +1 enhancement bonus per previous attack in the Barrage. This can exceed the normal enhancement bonus limits. (Effectively, the second attack has +1 to hit and damage, the third has +2, and so on. The weapon may also penetrate certain damage reduction due to higher enhancement bonus.)

These ones seem like just "do your same shtick but stronger" talents, which I'm generally not a fan of. Barrage in particular really doesn't need more number buffs.

SangoProduction
2023-11-10, 03:26 AM
I like this, but you should specify if the overrun attempts are free actions or not. The answer impacts whether you can apply Brute [manhandle] talents to them.



I like this, seems like it could be quite funny with a build that stacks temp hp.




You can already do this as part of the base Brutal Breaker ability with (standard) attack actions. The only thing this stance lets you do is draw improvised weapons on full attacks and attacks of opportunity. And you can already do that with the Fast Draw talent, without having to spend a swift action to activate a stance (you can't do it on AoOs with the Quick Draw feat however, which requires free actions, which generally can't be taken outside your turn, although off-turn free actions is an issue where the RAW begins to break down.)




This one's great, very funny image and a really interesting potential tradeoff. I wonder if it should be an immediate action though. In some ways that would make it less clumsy to use (as a stance you have to sacrifice your swift action on the potential chance that an enemy attacks you) but it would also prevent you from double dipping other "retaliation" style effects, such as Bloody Counter. Making it immediate would also prevent you from triggering multiple alchemical items in response to multiple attacks however, which seems really funny, so that might be another argument for keeping it as a stance.



These ones seem like just "do your same shtick but stronger" talents, which I'm generally not a fan of. Barrage in particular really doesn't need more number buffs.

OK. I've taken the feedback into consideration.
I absolutely knew there was *something* like Smash-and-Grab. But for some reason I simply couldn't find it, so I just gave a Quick Draw that worked through the environment. Which is definitely not as good as the rest, but if it didn't exist, may as well give it... Got to figure out something else.

You already can't generally trigger more than 1 attack of opportunity off of one action. And if this wasn't a post only about stances, I'd pretty much agree on making it an immediate action to activate.
Well...No other stance allows it, but exceptions can exist... Since it's a kiss & curse ability, it's probably fine.

As for the last two.. Fair enough. For Barrage, the primary intent was to help overcome damage reduction. But that seems very underwhelming for a talent, let alone a stance. I'll go back to the drawing board when I have some free time.

Logalmier
2023-11-10, 10:40 AM
You already can't generally trigger more than 1 attack of opportunity off of one action.

I don't think this is quite correct. Per the srd:


If you have the Combat Reflexes feat, you can add your Dexterity modifier to the number of attacks of opportunity you can make in a round. This feat does not let you make more than one attack for a given opportunity, but if the same opponent provokes two attacks of opportunity from you, you could make two separate attacks of opportunity (since each one represents a different opportunity). Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn’t count as more than one opportunity for that opponent. All these attacks are at your full normal attack bonus.

It's not "actions" that provoke attacks of opportunity, but "opportunities." You couldn't explode two alchemical items off of being hit by one attack, but you could explode two off of being hit by two separate attacks. It's the same thing with the Shield sphere - if a creature Full Attacks you, you can expend an AoO to activate Active Defense against each attack, despite them being the product of a single full round action. Of course, if you think this is too strong, you could just say "you may only trigger one alchemical item this way per round" or something to that effect - other talents include similar language. I think it's fine as it is though - you're already limited by the number of carried items and the danger of being in their epicenter.

SangoProduction
2023-11-10, 11:16 AM
Yeah, that was what I meant.

Miss Disaster
2023-11-15, 01:49 PM
I really like Shadow Eclipse! Excellent mechanical balancing - especially the scaling part. All that extra movement looks AMAZING, but it only comes after they deliver a potential butt-kicking that arrives during their turn.

Although the fancy-pants part of me wants to change the name to Evanescent Eclipse. :smallsmile:

All in all, these are very cool .... good crunch & fluff!

SangoProduction
2023-11-15, 03:26 PM
I really like Shadow Eclipse! Excellent mechanical balancing - especially the scaling part. All that extra movement looks AMAZING, but it only comes after they deliver a potential butt-kicking that arrives during their turn.

Although the fancy-pants part of me wants to change the name to Evanescent Eclipse. :smallsmile:

All in all, these are very cool .... good crunch & fluff!

I appreciate it. lol.