Warrior talent knacks

[Enas]

Hello

Here are a couple of knacks I designed for the warrior adept. Thoughts in form of constructive criticism welcome!


The Elemental Stances – A series of knacks for the warrior´s Melee Weapons talent
Air Stance: Rank 7, Cost: 2.100 LP
Earth Stance: Rank 7, Cost: 2.100 LP
Fire Stance: Rank 9, Cost: 5.500 LP
Water Stance: Rank 9, Cost: 5.500 LP
Master´s Stance: Rank 11, Cost: 14.400 LP
The warrior adapts a close combat stance designed to channel the properties of one of the four elements. The warrior may enter any stance he knows during the “declare action” step of combat resolution. To enter an elemental stance, the warrior must spend one point of strain. He may not change his chosen stance until the next combat round. The five stances are mutually exclusive, i.e. he can only be considered in one stance at a time. Should the warrior become knocked down for any reason, the benefits of the stance are lost.

Air Stance
The unpredictable, forceful nature of storms is channeled in this stance. The Air Stance enables the warrior´s attacks to become an unpredictable flurry of movement. As a result, it is hard for a struck opponent to keep his footing. If an attack made by a warrior in this stance causes his opponent to check for knockdown, he must roll twice and take the worse result.

Earth Stance
The stoic, unmovable nature of earth is channeled in this stance. In the Earth Stance, a warrior lowers his point of balance. He orientates his movement towards the ground and thus becomes harder to knock down. If a warrior in this stance is forced to check for knock down, he may roll twice and keep the better result.

Fire Stance
The destructive nature of fire is channeled in this stance. The warrior´s attacks made from this stance are designed to focus on the weak spots of protective gear and hence penetrate armor easier. As a result, the difficulty level to achieve an armor defeating hit is reduced by 1/3 of the warrior´s melee weapons rank.

Water Stance
The fluid, evasive nature if water is channeled in this stance. The warrior adapts a superb defensive posture, taking the edge off of enemy attacks by appropriate movement. As a result, the difficulty level to achieve an armor defeating hit against the warrior is increased by 1/3 of his melee weapons rank. This benefit is not granted if the opponent´s attack received a “blindsided” bonus.

Master´s Stance
The warrior has mastered the stances of the four elements. As a result he may combine the benefits of two of the stances, i.e. adapt a Stance of Air & Earth, Stance of Air & Fire, Stance of Air & Water, Stance of Earth & Fire, Stance of Earth & Water or Stance of Fire & Water.



Warrior talent knacks

True Grit
Prerequisite: Life Check, Rank: 9
Cost: 8.900 LP
Effect: Upon reaching damage equal to his Unconsciousness Rating, the warrior may declare usage of this knack. He spends a point of Karma, which is not rolled, to bring his body into a temporary stasis. As a result, a warrior employing “True Grit” cannot fall unconscious or die for duration equal to Life Check rank´ rounds. During this time, he does not take damage, but instead notes any damage he takes separately. As soon as the stasis ends, all damage accumulated during the duration is applied. Furthermore, due to the stasis, healing has no effect on the warrior during the duration of “True Grit”. Consequently, as soon as the duration ends, the warrior collapses to the ground unconscious or dead respectively. The effects of healing magic, such as a death cheat blood, take effect after the end of the stasis.

Read opponent
Prerequisite: Anticipate Blow, Rank: 9
Cost: 5.500 LP
Effect: A warrior, who knows this knack and uses Anticipate Blow against an opponent, may try to read his enemies movement and thus gain a deeper understanding of his way to conduct combat. If an Anticipate Blow test yields an extraordinary result, the warrior may declare his use of the knack. In order to do so, he spends two points of strain. As a result he gains the benefits of Anticipate Blow against this opponent until the end of combat. I.e. he does not need to roll for the talent in following combat rounds and receives the defensive benefits of Anticipate Blow regardless of the respective initiative test results. In order to use the offensive benefits of Anticipate Blow, the warrior still needs to achieve a higher initiative test result than his opponent.

Mage Slayer
Prerequisite: Melee Weapons, Rank: 9
Cost: 5.500 LP
Effect: A warrior specializes in disrupting enemy spellcasters. Whenever he attacks a spellcaster in close combat, he may declare usage of this knack before the attack roll is made. The warrior takes one point of strain to pay for this knack. If the attack hits, the spellcaster takes damage normally. In addition he must make a thread weaving test against the warrior´s damage test result in order to maintain any threads already woven. Furthermore, the weaving of new threads during this combat round is more difficult based on the result level of the attack test. A normal success increases the difficulty by 3, a good result by 6, an excellent result by 9 and an extraordinary success by 12.

Best regards
Enas

[ragbasti]

put them into the http://www.earthdawncompendium.com/disciplines
that way they won't get lost in the forums

My $0.02 after reading through once:
I would personally chose another talent than melee weapons. Main reaons for that are, that I would personally add a Strain cost to all of these and possibly a duration. Just declaring entering a stance without any cost is a little low cost for all the benefits you are getting from these. And simply adding "ends if knocked down" does not justify the strength of these yet.
Also you have introduced a few mechanics into your stances that don't quite fit the system imho:

Air Stance -> roll twice for knockdown... I'd personally choose a higher success level since that is more at home with the general mechanics of ED
Earth Stance -> Either add a flat step bonus to the knockdown test or lower the required success level
Fire & Water Stance -> so basically you are giving you a +-5 anti-deflection/deflection bonus at Melee Weapons 15.. I can live with that.

Master's Stance-> Sounds ok

Generally I must say that the whole Idea about the elements seems a little weird to me for a warrior, also having the Knacks tied Melee Weapons would also make them available to anyone with the Talent and that, imo, is too far spread. Again making it another talent and thus adding strain to it is a better choice for the general balance.

[arma]

[Gwynfiella]

Hello everyone!

As already discussed personally, here are some of my thoughts about your knacks, Enas:

The Elemental Stances:
I really like the idea of different stances, but for my taste, they need a little "restriction" to better fit my understanding of different fighting styles:
I have a small problem imagining a warrior (or a swordmaster, for that matter, as I think this knack would work for that discipline as well) going into, say, the "fire" stance and immediately shifting into the "water" stance in the next round. I always picture the four elements (that are used in this knack series, leaving "wood" deliberately out of the picture) as "adjacent" or "opposite" of each other. In the "classic" understanding, fire is opposed to water, earth is opposed to air. Because of that, it should be more difficult to go from "fire" to "water" than from "fire" to "earth". My suggestion would be, that while a character can declare to move from one adjacent stance to another, it should take a round of "reattuning" to go to the opposite one. Alternatively, the adept can shift from one stance to the adjacent one and then in the next round do this again, effectively also taking one round "inbetween" opposite stances.
This also means, that the Master's Stance should not allow the combination of two opposite stances, making the "fire/water" and the "earth/air" stances impossible.

True Grit; Read Opponent:
no comment (other than that I really like the name of the first one ).

Mage Slayer:
On second thought, this knack might be a little bit too powerful (? - other oppinions?), even for rank 9. Analog to the mechanics of certain other knacks, I would decrease (or perhaps even completely give up) the damage inflicted to the caster in favor of the disruptive effect to the woven threads and the increased casting difficulty.

Hope this is helpful!

Greetings,
Gwyn

[Penagain]

My only thought is this: Where's the Wood stance?

[ragbasti]

Yeah about the mage slayer:
Definately too powrful, specially since melee weapons can be boosted in so many ways unlike thread weaving

[The_Gun_Nut]

Yea, that is actually way too potent. There are spells that are higher Circle than the requirements for the knack that do that. And they don't make it more difficult to weave threads afterward.

I wouldn't put it under Melee Weapons. I would have something like it under the respective Discipline's Thread Weaving talents, but at a higher rank. And I'd have it so that if the Warrior wanted to maintain the disruption, that it cost strain each round he wanted to sustain it. I'd make the strain cost = 1X or 2X the number of threads to be disrupted.

[Dougansf]

I like the concept of the Elemental Stances. Right out of the Karma ritual.

However, rerolling is asking for delays, and is better supported by adding/subtracting Rank in Talent to Target Numbers, or manipulating the Result Level.

That being said, many of these stances are allowing Melee Weapons to replace other Talents (Shield Charge and Wound Balance on Air and Earth alone). Most of which are already available to Warriors.

[Enas]

Hi again,

some good observations and insight, thanks Following is my revised take on the knacks:

The Elemental Stances – A series of knacks for the warrior

Air Stance: Air Dance Rank 7, Cost: 2.100 LP
Earth Stance: Wound Balance Rank 7, Cost: 2.100 LP
Fire Stance: Crushing Blow Rank 8, Cost: 5.500 LP
Water Stance: Anticipate Blow Rank 9, Cost: 5.500 LP
Master´s Stance: Melee Weapons Rank 11, Cost: 14.400 LP

The warrior adapts a close combat stance designed to channel the properties of one of the four elements. The warrior may enter any stance he knows during the “declare action” step of combat resolution. To enter an elemental stance, the warrior must spend one point of strain. He may not change his chosen stance until the next combat round. Furthermore, he may not change into a stance associated with the opposing element. Opposites are Fire – Water and Air – Earth. The five stances are mutually exclusive, i.e. he can only be considered in one stance at a time. Should the warrior become knocked down for any reason, the benefits of the stance are lost.

Air Stance
The unpredictable, forceful nature of storms is channeled in this stance. The Air Stance enables the warrior´s attacks to become an unpredictable flurry of movement. As a result, it is hard for a struck opponent to keep his footing. If an attack made by a warrior in this stance causes his opponent to check for knockdown, he needs a good result to remain standing.

Earth Stance
The stoic, unmovable nature of earth is channeled in this stance. In the Earth Stance, a warrior lowers his point of balance. He orientates his movement towards the ground and thus becomes harder to knock down. Only dedicated attempts to knock the warrior down can be successful. For the first time in any given combat round a warrior in this stance is forced to check for knock down, he only needs a poor success to retain his footing.

Fire Stance
The destructive nature of fire is channeled in this stance. The warrior´s attacks made from this stance are designed to focus on the weak spots of protective gear and hence penetrate armor easier. As a result, the difficulty number to achieve an armor defeating hit is reduced by 1/3 of the warrior´s Crushing Blow rank.

Water Stance
The fluid, evasive nature if water is channeled in this stance. The warrior adapts a superb defensive posture, taking the edge off of enemy attacks by appropriate movement. As a result, the difficulty number to achieve an armor defeating hit against the warrior is increased by 1/3 of his Anticipate Blow rank. This benefit is not granted if the opponent´s attack received a “blindsided” bonus.

Master´s Stance
The warrior has mastered the stances of the four elements. As a result he may combine the benefits of two of the stances as long as they are not considered opposites, i.e. he may adapt a Stance of Air & Fire, Stance of Air & Water, Stance of Earth & Fire or Stance of Earth & Water.

Mage Slayer
Prerequisite: Melee Weapons, Rank: 9
Cost: 5.500 LP
Effect: A warrior specializes in disrupting enemy spellcasters. The attack is not designed to deliver damage primarily and is considered an attack to stun. Whenever he attacks a spellcaster in close combat, he may declare usage of this knack before the attack roll is made. The warrior takes one point of strain to pay for this knack. If the attack hits, the spellcaster takes stun damage, but any damage taken from the attack is reduced by ten (10). If the spellcaster is stunned as a result of the attack, he suffers an additional penalty. If he has currently any thread woven to one of his matrices, he must make a thread weaving test against the warrior´s (modified) damage test result in order to maintain any threads already woven. Otherwise (i.e. if the spellcaster currently does not have threads attuned to one of his matrices) , the weaving of new threads during this combat round is more difficult based on the result level of the attack test. A normal success increases the difficulty by 3, a good result by 6, an excellent result by 9 and an extraordinary success by 12.

Best regards
Enas

P.S.: Based on the critical nature of the internet and lack of comment, I assume you liked True Grit and Read Opponent?

[Enas]