D&D 4E List of Potential New Martial Practices

[Garthanos]

Right, maybe as an extreme you can 'temporarily sacrifice' your capability, like your troupe is decimated and must regroup, but you get an automatic success as they put up a stubborn rear-guard action to allow the refugees to escape. Later you can accept some sort of cost to undo that, a treasure parcel, a personal debt, etc.

You could even, in the right situation, make it an 'ultimate sacrifice', the 300 are wiped out to a man, but the great evil army is turned back at the pass! They're gone, you won't get them back, but of course you've created the basis for a new legend.

I think you might be targeting more than 1 success on your skill challenge and actually that is possible to do ie to spend more.

The prices I am setting up are assuming a single SC success and flavor wise I assume most of the time there is a SANE call for a retreat and avoiding the slaughter thing (remember the word decimated meant lost 1 in 10) . In some sense it is a part of the deal of having the practice. I presume a somewhat nebulous membership you are in theory always loosing some and always inpiring new ones to take their place

Other actions in the skill challenge can also affect the in story impact on the troops, finding vulnerabilities of the enemy via application of skill and the like. Distractions and the like so the bad guy doesnt follow through on them. An over all failed skill challenge might affect them to the negative.

Your troops are a resource largely based on reputation and recovery so the "wont get them back" is analogous to you no longer have the practice anymore.

Perhaps with the price to recover based on the level you purchase it for good measure.

 

[Garthanos]

I am currently thinkig of actually writing this as a Warlord specific practice. Just as a Bard gets their specific rituals.

 

[Garthanos]

we could look at real world deaths by war but I am not sure they correlate too well no body in the civil war had anything like a cleric to turn wounded and dying or afflicted reliably into going home to their family instead of dying of disease after the fact ofcourse IRL the american civil war had 1 in 4 never making it home.

Of course that was on average with 85 percent or so being lost dead/wounded/missing when a battle goes very very badly. Captured is often lumped in with missing.

The civil war was considered a very vicious one where technology leaps had disrupted military practice. Ie there wasn't much military history to base responses to remington repeaters and the like on.

I think having random descriptions of results based on how much you HAVE to pay from the skill check might possibly allow you to spend more to improve the in story fiction.

 

[Garthanos]

I just looked at this again since skill challenges are fairly front and center for this practice

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5k1Bo0pV5ilWFQ2dVZhb0dUdUE/edit?pli=1

And I am not seeing anything much like protect a village from monsters or invading soldiers, unless I missed something.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, after thinking it through and doing some exercises with it, I think the basic 4e SC approach, with a few extrapolations, is still the best one. Something like the 'clock' approach of BitD isn't bad either, perhaps, but I like the flexibility of having both successes and failures both tallied. It gives the GM more room to work in interesting stuff.

 

[Garthanos]

A good alternative name for practices?

What might be a good alternative term for practices? So far arts are the only thing popping to mind. Changing the feat name to Martial Artistry and the Warlords class feature to Art of War. And given that access to Martial Techniques could be via The art of the Sensei and we have Library Arts in there. It looks like I have been moving that direction for a while.

 

[Garthanos]

What might be a good alternative term for practices? So far arts are the only thing popping to mind. Changing the feat name to Martial Artistry and the Warlords class feature to Art of War. And given that access to Martial Techniques could be via The art of the Sensei and we have Library Arts in there. It looks like I have been moving that direction for a while.

Practical Arts
as distinguished from Fine Arts or Magical/Mystical Arts

If I am going to generate an OGL compatible presentation might as well think about things like this.

 

[Garthanos]

Here is a cost chart I handwaved above

Marshal Troops

Flexible Cost Chart
Make a history check to determine the resolution of the troops activity

31 or more 1/50 the cost of a magic item at the level of the challenge you are facing
21 to 30 1/40th the cost of a magic item.
11 to 20 or more its 1/30 the cost of a magic item
10 or less cost is 1/20 the cost of a magic item

Optional : natural 1 and its a full 1/10th the price of a magic item at that level
natural 20 and its effectively free


One other thing I am thinking is we need to mention the various kinds of adventure / skill challenge things that Minion Troops can be typically leveraged for. such as forward observers, with an emphasis on these are not Hero Replacements.

 

[Garthanos]

Marshal Troops it occurs to me rather deals with the "Warlords should be able to interact with masses of troops" thought which I have heard expressed more than a couple of times.

 

[Garthanos]

I am thinking of giving classes favored practices...

Instead of making a few of them free on a given day like the Bard does with rituals (or what could be seen as practices made
into features with the Skald) giving a +2 on any use of the class favored ones.

I am already re-costing practices here so it seems more reasonable keep the skill check valuable and in place of class specific rituals/practices use this.