D&D 4E Conan vs the Swarms of Soldiers.

[Garthanos]

@Tony Vargas Here I go with an ironic comment....

Putting all the powers in common buckets has a risk of robbing class specific flavors that are enabled by and encouraged by distinctly described spells for Arcane Bards, Arcane Swordmages and Arcane Warlocks and Arcane Sorcerors since to me flavor is core to actual feel, bunching them will make them all feel ahem "homogenous"

 

[darkbard]

How about this

"Using one against the other"
An enemies weapon becomes your own if but for a moment as you attack one enemy and turn their disrupted flailing to your advantage.

At Will level 1
Attack: Dex vs AC
Requirement your off hand must be free.
Hit: 1[W] damage to target and you deliver damage to an adjacent enemy as though from from a basic attack by the original target.

If you have combat advantage against both you choose which 1 enemy your sneak attack damage applies to.

At level 21: hit becomes 2[W] and add DEX or CHA to the damage to adjacent enemy.

Yes, reviewing the other Rogue and Fighter At-Wills, I think this iteration makes sense and is balanced, especially as it has no effect on a miss, which, again, should be pretty infrequent for most Rogues.

 

[heretic888]

@Tony Vargas Here I go with an ironic comment....

Putting all the powers in common buckets has a risk of robbing class specific flavors that are enabled by and encouraged by distinctly described spells for Arcane Bards, Arcane Swordmages and Arcane Warlocks and Arcane Sorcerors since to me flavor is core to actual feel, bunching them will make them all feel ahem "homogenous"

When it comes to the "common pools of martial powers" approach, I quite like what was done with 3.5's Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords. There were nine schools of martial maneuvers --- analogous to schools of spells --- that 3 classes chose their powers from. However, not every class had access to each school so there was still a good deal of variability and thematic focus for each class. Each class also had a handful of class features that interacted with martial maneuvers in ways specific to them.

 

[heretic888]

So, to apply this to a 4E styled game, you could have thematic lists of martial powers --- say, a Twin Blade style, Great Weapon style, Shadow Assassin style, Commanding Presence style, whatever --- and each class would have variable access to different lists. From the examples I gave, the Fighter can choose powers from Twin Blade and Great Weapon, the Rogue from Twin Blade and Shadow Assassin, and the Warlord from Great Weapon and Commanding Presence. So, there would be some schools that overlap with classes but not every martial class would have access to every martial power (which, to me, just diminishes the color of each class --- might as well just have a classless game at that point). The classes could also have class features that modify or enhance their use of powers from specific schools they have access to (i.e., both the Rogue and Fighter have access to Twin Blade powers but their respective features make the former more striker-y and the latter more defender-y when they use them).

Anyways, just some food for thought.

 

[Garthanos]

When it comes to the "common pools of martial powers" approach, I quite like what was done with 3.5's Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords. There were nine schools of martial maneuvers --- analogous to schools of spells --- that 3 classes chose their powers from. However, not every class had access to each school so there was still a good deal of variability and thematic focus for each class. Each class also had a handful of class features that interacted with martial maneuvers in ways specific to them.

Tome of Battle did manage to drip with flavor.

 

[Garthanos]

Yes, reviewing the other Rogue and Fighter At-Wills, I think this iteration makes sense and is balanced, especially as it has no effect on a miss, which, again, should be pretty infrequent for most Rogues.

Wondering what changes would make it work for the fighter, as it stands my fighter is likely to pick Double Strike... and reflavor it for the duo marking ability alone.

 

[Garthanos]

Comparing Dual Strike and Cleave...

Dual strike only has 1 in 9 or so chance of doing a whiff. (marking both)
4 in 9 of hitting both, marking both
4 in 9 of hitting one and marking both.

Cleave has 1 in 3 chance of a whiff (which still marks 1)
2 in 3 of hitting both but only marking 1

Technically cleave may be better in the narrow case of minions only but 2 out of three times it does nothing the Dual strike still takes 1 down, let's call it a tie for that case.

Cleave has significant Feat Support

Deft Hurler (you may make a ranged basic attack in place of damaging adjacent enemy)
Cruel Cut Style (with no adjacent enemy do ongoing damage of wis mod)
untamed berserker (gain temp hit points if you prefer)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

For an actual game, it'd be a more elegant design, more concepts covered, more meaningful choices, less bloat.

It isn't as simple as it sounds. This was one of my original design goals with HoML, but its VERY VERY HARD to design good interesting powers which somehow 'become' strikerish, defenderish (the two easy ones actually), controllerish, or leaderish simply because of the character's role. I mean, you can kinda do it, but the result is nothing like as interesting as actual powers.

What I did was to construct a system where it is easy to borrow and reflavor things, and powers generally are attached to non-class-specific things. So you might NOT really get a vast use out of an ability designed for a striker, as a leader (say) but you COULD use it, and maybe your class feature will still make it work OK for you. Lots of times a power will be fine for anyone though, and just reflavoring it lets it cover a lot of ground.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So, to apply this to a 4E styled game, you could have thematic lists of martial powers --- say, a Twin Blade style, Great Weapon style, Shadow Assassin style, Commanding Presence style, whatever --- and each class would have variable access to different lists. From the examples I gave, the Fighter can choose powers from Twin Blade and Great Weapon, the Rogue from Twin Blade and Shadow Assassin, and the Warlord from Great Weapon and Commanding Presence. So, there would be some schools that overlap with classes but not every martial class would have access to every martial power (which, to me, just diminishes the color of each class --- might as well just have a classless game at that point). The classes could also have class features that modify or enhance their use of powers from specific schools they have access to (i.e., both the Rogue and Fighter have access to Twin Blade powers but their respective features make the former more striker-y and the latter more defender-y when they use them).

Anyways, just some food for thought.

Well, in essence, this is what HoML actually does. You pick 'boons', which usually have powers attached to them, as well as a fairly feat-like effect (usually, not always). I don't have a rule that says you CANNOT take a boon just because you are class X vs class Y. Its up to you to figure out the thematic elements of your character as you see fit! Classes do get features which help to depict the particular thing you want your character to be, but something like 'Multiclassing' is essentially foreign to HoML.

So, a fighter can easily learn to cast some spells for instance. Its just likely he doesn't know how to use an implement, and may not have a super high attack bonus with them. Still, you could create a 'gish' simply by giving your fighter a good secondary in INT and rack up some spells as boons! This is made a bit easier by the fact that there are no ABIs and the bonus range for ability scores is in any case more compressed. So even a regular plain "I'm no genius" fighter COULD pick up a magical trick or two, if it made sense.

The main thrust though is to simply not worry about what is 'mechanically good' and just work on the thematics of your character anyway.

 

[Garthanos]

Comparing Dual Strike and Cleave...

Dual strike only has 1 in 9 or so chance of doing a whiff. (marking both)
4 in 9 of hitting both, marking both
4 in 9 of hitting one and marking both.

Cleave has 1 in 3 chance of a whiff (which still marks 1)
2 in 3 of hitting both but only marking 1

Technically cleave may be better in the narrow case of minions only but 2 out of three times it does nothing the Dual strike still takes 1 down, let's call it a tie for that case.

Cleave has significant Feat Support

Deft Hurler (you may make a ranged basic attack in place of damaging adjacent enemy)
Cruel Cut Style (with no adjacent enemy do ongoing damage of wis mod)
untamed berserker (gain temp hit points if you prefer)

My son pointed out that it remains a a build element.

Dual Strike is something a Brawling Fighter can use or Two Fisted Fighter (could be battlerager or tempest) even a Weapon Master can hot swap to it.

And a sword and board and two handed weapon for the most part get the Cleave. Now I think cleave probably could mark the second target...