Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what a Martial Controller would look like?

[Kahuna Burger]

Okay, but the Crippling Flurry ability I just wrote up is based on the Wizard's slow spell in 3e. It's not meant to force the baddies into attacking the monk, it's meant to limit the baddies' options. When a Wizard casts slow, is he a defender? Or does it become a defender power when it's done at close range?

For those who are defining a controller in their own mind as "uses magic" of course anything a martial character can do will be dismissed on one excuse or another. Your ideas are good for actually thinking about how to do a martial controller, but that's not what everyone in this thread is after.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

It's a stretch, but that is one way to make a "martial controller".

Except of course he is dependent on a "Shadow" Power source, unless supreme physical traing lets you manipulate shadows.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

See, I thought the "defender" archetype had more to do with soaking up damage and focusing attacks on the defender himself.

This is basically the way I see it as well. Leader -> buff, Controller -> debuff (generally speaking, of course). And this doesn't preclude that other classes won't be able to do Controller things - they just won't be as efficient as a Controller.

A martial controller might also use minions to affect the battlefield. I'm thinking something like a Mastermind, who has a bunch of mooks to help him do his dirty work.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

I think it should be an Archer class. With cool Bo9S style abilities with names like Rain of Arrows where you can put so many arrows in the air it becomes an area effect attack akin to a fireball.

Plus all sorts of special manuevers and trick arrows. For example, a ranged grapple/pin attack by stapling the enemy to a tree or something. Arrows that can explode for various effects. At higher levels be able to give arrows a slaying effect and so on.

That's what I'd like to see.

(Hong's D&D page inspired me )

Heh, I'm glad I'm not the only one who immediately had to think of Green Arrow/Hawkeye when reading the thread title. Boxing Glove arrow anybody?

 

[FungiMuncher]

In my mind, a martial controller would be a combination archer, alchemist and trap making expert.

Imagine an alchemist who can take the off-the-shelf tanglefoot bag, adds some of his own special ingredients, and uses a modified crossbow-like device to fling the package into the mob of goblins coming across the cavern. His own abilities can improve the radius spread of the goo, or make it stronger. With high enough level, he can do both. There could be lots of effects he could experiment with, too. Sleep powders, bright flashes and smoke screens are the obvious ones which would still be consedered alchemy. And if some of the effects seem to approach what some think of magic, so what? He's an Alchemist, not a real world chemist!

Of course, this would require one to think outside of the '3E D&D alchemy' box. But that certainly sounds like the oportunity a new edition offers.

FM

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Controller is gonna be hard to pin down until the "wizards presents: races and classes" book comes out

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

In my mind, a martial controller would be a combination archer, alchemist and trap making expert.

Imagine an alchemist who can take the off-the-shelf tanglefoot bag, adds some of his own special ingredients, and uses a modified crossbow-like device to fling the package into the mob of goblins coming across the cavern. His own abilities can improve the radius spread of the goo, or make it stronger. With high enough level, he can do both. There could be lots of effects he could experiment with, too. Sleep powders, bright flashes and smoke screens are the obvious ones which would still be consedered alchemy. And if some of the effects seem to approach what some think of magic, so what? He's an Alchemist, not a real world chemist!

Of course, this would require one to think outside of the '3E D&D alchemy' box. But that certainly sounds like the oportunity a new edition offers.

FM

You read my mind.

I envision a martial controller as a combat engineer/grenadier-type. He can set traps and build mundane obstacles to control the battlefield, slow or canalize enemies, inflict area damage, etc. He could create acid flasks, alchemists fire, tanglefoot bags, smokesticks, etc that he would use in combat to create area controlling or damage effects. He can also breach the obstacles that other controllers put on the battlefield, so he might be able to bridge a wizard's webs, breach a wall of force or wall of fire, etc. He could also be a backup "skill monkey" guy with moderate fighting capabilities.

I bet we could find a work-around to turn many wizard spell/abilities into "mundane" alchemical or mechanical explanations.

Note that I don't see him primarily as an archer (even though he might be proficient with ranged weapons) because IMO the archer is a quintessential striker, not a controller. The controller has to affect multiple enemies simultaneously, and slow, stop, or canalize other opponents in addition to doing damage ("crowd control", in MMO parlance).

 

[Mostlyjoe]

Me talking about a Monk/Martial Controller

 

[Sadrik]

In my mind, a martial controller would be a combination archer, alchemist and trap making expert.

Imagine an alchemist who can take the off-the-shelf tanglefoot bag, adds some of his own special ingredients, and uses a modified crossbow-like device to fling the package into the mob of goblins coming across the cavern. His own abilities can improve the radius spread of the goo, or make it stronger. With high enough level, he can do both. There could be lots of effects he could experiment with, too. Sleep powders, bright flashes and smoke screens are the obvious ones which would still be consedered alchemy. And if some of the effects seem to approach what some think of magic, so what? He's an Alchemist, not a real world chemist!

Of course, this would require one to think outside of the '3E D&D alchemy' box. But that certainly sounds like the oportunity a new edition offers.

FM

Absolutely, this would be like a mechanist (or a guy who makes stuff that controls the battlefield). The idea of a grenadier someone who lobs bombs, sets traps and makes alchemical fire blow torches. Granted this would probably work in some worlds better than others. As long as you can sort of craft fantasy technology (clockwork, non-magical alchemy, pseudo science tech, steam powered stuff and explosives) in the fantasy world this class would work. You could even drop one or two of the fanstasy techs (steam and explosives) and still make it work.

Clockwork armor would be totally sweet... Crafted automatons that they command, wow.

All of the other ideas are strikers.

 

[Cadfan]

Let me put my objections this way-

I think that hindering one enemy is a roughly, minimally controll-ish type of thing to do. However, if the entirety of a character class's ability to engage in controller behavior consists of various ways to hinder one enemy who happens to be within melee reach, I think that class is NOT a controller. It may dabble lightly in controlling, but it had better not be a controller full time or its going to be hopelessly outclassed by any other class who can hinder multiple enemies at range.

Think about it. In this corner, competing for the title of Competent Controller of the Year, we have a martial artist who can trip, and maybe throw, like, one dude. In this other corner we have a wizard who can open chasms in the ground to impede enemy movement, debuff multiple foes at once, force enemies to scatter with the threat of area of effect evocations, and grant his allies the ability to see in the dark, fly, or otherwise bypass environmental hazards which afflict (or which he has inflicted upon) their foes.

See my objection?

Imagine that your party is being attacked by a wave or orcs, with spellcasters backing them up.

If you respond by stepping to the front lines and stopping the charge as if it were a wave crashing against rocks, you are behaving as a defender.

If you respond by slipping through, around, over, or firing past the wave of orcs in order to stab and/or shoot the wizard in the face, you are acting like a striker.

If you respond by exploding the wave of orcs in order to teach them a lesson about bunching up, or by walling off part of the battlefield with a cloud of lethal miasma so that the orcs cannot charge the party all at once, you are behaving as a controller.

If you decide which of the three things listed above are most important to the party's victory, and you selectively aid that thing in getting accomplished, you are behaving as a leader.

Most of the so-called martial controller abilities listed above actually help the most with stepping into the breach and stopping the charging line of orcs from reaching the party. The fact that you might do so by tripping them instead of by hitting them with attacks of opportunity isn't really relevant. Its not the power source you use, or the technique you use. Its what you're accomplishing with it. If you're defending, you are a defender, even if you do so by knocking people down and dodging their attack, instead of absorbing it with your armor.