Martial characters and damage enhancing talents

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Gkeckley
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Martial characters and damage enhancing talents

Postby Gkeckley » Tue Feb 18, 2014 4:23 pm

Are all martial characters going to get a talent similar to Crushing Blow, Down Strike, or Flame Arrow. I am asking mainly about the Sword Master. At circles 1 thru 6 they are great but once the warrior got Crushing Blow and the Sky Raider got Down Strike a huge disparity in damage occurs. One could argue at 11th circle the Sword Master can take both Critical Hit and Shield Beater. But that is a lot of circles to wait and the Warrior has access to both talents and the Sky Raider has access to Shield Beater. So again the Sword Master is still far behind the other two big martial classes. I also think the issue was exacerbated in my group as the warrior was using a threaded two handed sword and the Sword Master was using two threaded broadswords a difference of. 6 steps between the two types of swords. With the change to how Forge Blade works that should help bridge the gap to only a 3 step difference in the weapons assuming the blades are forged the same. To put this in perspective at 8th circle the warrior was doing step 35 with two karma for an average of 43 while the 8th circle Sword Master was doing step 20 with one karma for an average of 24. If you allow a group thread to add to crushing below the Warrior is averaging step 48 double the Sword Master. At this circle armors started commonly reaching around the low 20s meaning a much higher percentage (almost all on average) of the Sword Master's damage was negated.

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Kasbak
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Re: Martial characters and damage enhancing talents

Postby Kasbak » Tue Feb 18, 2014 6:05 pm

I always figured the big place that Sword Masters pulled ahead on was Riposte. That and the easier potential to dual wield (especially if using two threaded swords) always seemed to shore up the gap in theory. I've never played one out, so I'm not sure on how it works in practice.

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Re: Martial characters and damage enhancing talents

Postby Utsukushi » Tue Feb 18, 2014 7:40 pm

Also... Swordmasters get a damage enhancing Talent at 1st Circle. Maneuver adds to both attack and damage. It has its disadvantages (functions over two rounds, and, of course, doesn't always work), but, well, it adds to both your attack <i>and</i> damage. And starts at First Circle.

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Re: Martial characters and damage enhancing talents

Postby Stormcrow » Tue Feb 18, 2014 8:17 pm

I'm afraid I also agree that the Swordsmaster isn't really about damage, he's about irritating and harassing the enemies. He's very effective at defending and is the only front line fighter effective against social attacks which can be absolutely crippling. Hence, I think it is right that he gets his bigger damage boosts a little later than the others (9th circle in this case).

That being said, I think I'd prefer to see Critical Hit as a Discipline Talent as it is both essential to his build and quite thematic. He should really be able to spend an extra karma on damage at this point.

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Re: Martial characters and damage enhancing talents

Postby Gkeckley » Tue Feb 18, 2014 8:58 pm

The problem is at high circles they can not keep up. Two weapon fighting becomes useless when all your damage is negated by armor. It all sounds great in theory but it falls apart at high levels. The Sword Master in the group had to switch to a two handed sword from the two weapon style to help make up for the lack of damage. Maneuver actually is counter to the style. You give up all your attacks in one round to maybe get a bonus the next round on just one attack. So you sacrifice your second weapon, second attack and possibly momentum attack (skill) to get one big attack and it may or may not work. At the high levels it just does not work. There is just a cumulation of several different factors that really work against the high circle Sword Master. Saying that the Sword Master is not about damage is one thing, but when their damage is a full half the Warrior Sky Raider they just can not keep up and there is a problem. Try playing the high circle Sword Master (8th plus) when some one else is playing the Warrior and you will feel severely out classed. Critical Hit and Shield Beater help them out but then the Warrior gets both as well then you still feel outclassed. My argument would be to make Critical hit a seventh circle damaging talent for them and not give the talent to the Warrior at higher circles.

Gkeckley
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Re: Martial characters and damage enhancing talents

Postby Gkeckley » Tue Feb 18, 2014 9:18 pm

As far as them being better against social. Yes they are a couple points better in Social defense and have Resist Taunt, but a warrior can be almost as good if they want to it just takes a little more effort. They can start with the same Charisma if they wanted, they can weave a group thread to SoD, they can can weave to a thread item to raise SoD if they need to, they can pick up Resist Taunt as a skill. So they fall behind a couple points on SoD as the Sword Master gets the bonuses from 2nd, 8th, and 10th and the Sword Master gets Resist Taunt as a Discipline talent. Thats all the difference. Also , making that argument does not hold much water when you take a look at the fact that at 9th circle the Warrior gets Earth Skin so their Spell Defense goes through the roof. So their PD is great, their SPD is great, and they can get their SoD to be good as well if they really want. You can go back and forth saying one is better at this the other is better at that, but it does not change the fact that the high circle Sword Master can not hang because they can only do enough damage when they armor penetrate or are fighting non armored to lightly armored opponents at the high levels. Like I said once the Sword Master got Critical Hit and Shield Beater it helped but the level gap is to huge. To get from 7th to 10th takes to long even if you advance at the rate of 1 circle every 5 adventures (extremely generous at those circles) then that is 15 adventures for the Sword Master to be outclassed.

Gkeckley
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Re: Martial characters and damage enhancing talents

Postby Gkeckley » Tue Feb 18, 2014 9:28 pm

Question, how is the Sword Master better at defending? Yes they get Parry as a discipline talent but the warrior can crank the PD with Acrobatic Strike and they get Anticipate Blow as a discipline talent. They also can take parry they just can not spend karma on it. The Sky Raider eventually gets Defense at 9th which makes him good defensively. The Sword Master has to wait until 12th to get Defense. Them being better defensively may be true at low circles as Parry was just that good, but At the high circles it at the very least evens out.

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Re: Martial characters and damage enhancing talents

Postby Stormcrow » Wed Feb 19, 2014 10:59 am

Woah, that's a lot to take in :)

I'm going to respond to each of your points but before I do, bear in mind I'm not really disagreeing with you. I do understand how things sometimes get out of whack in high circle play however the Swordsmaster in my group is also a Sky Raider so I haven't seen this particular issue. I don't deny it's existence though all I'm doing here is exploring the issue not necessarily arguing the case.

With that in mind...

1. I completely agree with you about Maneuver. I have found it to be a particularly bad Talent, especially at high circles. I hope that the developers have addressed this and from the previews it looks like they have at least made an attempt.

2. At higher circles, physical defences even out I agree but the swordsmaster has by far the best social defences. The other Disciplines can specialise to get an equivalent level but that would mean neglecting other areas. The swordsmaster is good at it naturally and can also specialise if he wanted to so I don't agree with this. I do think that the Swordsmaster should get Defence before or at least at the same time as the Sky Raider if possible though.

3. I don't still don't agree Swordsmasters needs to 'keep up' in terms of damage with the Warrior. The Warrior does not have any real options outside of combat so this is what he should excel at. He can't do anything interesting to his enemies other than hit them hard and repeatedly. Hence, the swordsmaster should not be as good at him at this. That's not necessarily what you are saying as you just want a smaller gap between the damage ( which I think is fair) but Warrior and Swordsmaster damage is not really a fair comparison.

4. The Sky Raider is another matter. He's got other things to do so it's a fairer comparison but he's all about strength and aggression. However, although he's pretty good at defending against physical attacks (eventually) he's not great against social or magical.

5. The swordsmaster has a high social defense and resist taunt as a discipline Talent which makes him very good at Social Defence. He has a good physcial defence and Parry and Riposte as discipline Talents making him good at defending. If he ties his group pattern to parry and get the second riposte knack then use defensive stance, he's almost unhittable. So he is very defensive naturally, not great against spells though.

6. The main thing that the swordsmaster gets instead of a damage increase is disarm as a discipline talent which is not to be sniffed at.

7. However my main point is the swordsmaster has a lot of utility outside of combat whereas the warrior and for the most part the Sky Raider does. This means that he really shouldn't be comparable in terms of damage output.

8. I do agree however that the circle gap is too much and that the damage difference is probably out of whack. My preference would be for him to get Crit Hit at 9th and defence at 10th. In that gap between the circles he should get definitely get some increases to damage, probably with improvements to Maneuver to make it usable at higher circles and some other damage Talent or ability which is more situational or provides a lower damage bonus or is good against armour.

So in short, I agree the swordsmaster needs addressing at higher circles. I'm just not sure that just giving him an equivalent level of damage output is either fair or an efficient way to fix the problems you highlighted.

bleeding
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Re: Martial characters and damage enhancing talents

Postby bleeding » Wed Feb 19, 2014 12:29 pm

Well, one thing that could fix that problem is that the melee weapons talent boosts the damage.

I think the melee weapons talent is the same as the skill, of course you can learn it faster, eventually boosts with karma point and rise it to rank 15 instead of 10. But it has no difference.

Avoid blow is an example of a big difference between skill and talent.

Gkeckley
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Re: Martial characters and damage enhancing talents

Postby Gkeckley » Wed Feb 19, 2014 5:40 pm

Stormcrow. It looks like we are on the same page. I am by no means suggesting the damage should be the same just that the gap is to big at high circles. If you beef the Sword Master up in other areas it would help as well. Improving Maneuver, improving taunt at the higher levels right now at most you can decrease someone by four steps at circle 8 this is not that much of an issue. If you base this off of success levels and the decrease can be more than 4 than that will help. I would give them crit hit at circle seven myself or give them shield beater at 7th. Also, reworking forge blade will help some as well.
I agree The SkyRaider's biggest weakness is Spd, the same is true for the Sword Master. As far as SoD I do not think either the Warrior or Sky Raider are that far behind. The Sky Raider in my group has a 16 charisma for Battle Shout so all he loses out on is the couple points the Sword Master gets due to level. He uses a karma charm so he can spend karma on the resist taunt skill so that is pretty even. He has just as much out of combat functionality as the Sword Master. He can navigate, air sailing, has lasting impression, and lets not forget Blood Share combined with vitality at 12th circle. He can heal everyone in the group when they are out of recovery test, due to having double digit recovery tests then heals himself with the help of the Nethermancer. This one just started seeing use and it is insane.
In all I am not saying they should do the same damage as the Warrior and Sky Raider that would be boring. Just the huge gap in damage either needs to be looked at or other areas of the discipline need to be looked at to balance it out. It just killed me when the Sword Master switched to a Two Handed Sword to try and catch up when his whole character concept is based on two weapon fighting, technically three weapons as he is a Tskrang.


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