Mongose: Quintessential Fighter

[jasamcarl]

The Abstraction reflects something quite real

I never took the intention of placing the OMCS in the QF to be the enhancement of fighters; its inclusion was strictly thematic, for it would be absurd to claim that warfare is strictly the province of conventional bruisers.

That having been said, i'm quite happy with the status magic has in the system. Consider the confusion that a fireball would have on a formation of soldiers in the phb rules, especially if the warriors were roleplayed with realistic assumptions about individual perception in what is an intrinsically chaotic situation. A fireball would play havoc with any notion of order, adding an element of risk and caution to any descisions a standing soldier makes. The same is true of magic missle; would it be rational to hold the line in an open field when your comrade was just struck down, and you are unable to directly intervene. These nuances are taken into account in the system, and thus magic, causing as it does an averse effect in the important game theory of large numbers of men, does proportionatly more damage in massed combat than in the core rules, where such things would be left to the dm. The system acknowledges this; take note of the mercenary listing; 50gp a month for a 1st level wizard.

DnD sets out certain roles for certain classes. Mages excel at bursts of widely spread, extreme damage; fighters at continuous, personal damage. The OMCS properly reflects this in an abeit, abstract manner. The fighter would do well to combat the leader of the enemy formation....

 

[bardolph]

...but why would a single magic missile inflict SEVERAL TIMES more chaos than a single heavy crossbow bolt? Per the core rules, the heavy crossbow bolt does more damage than a magic missile. Just because the magic missile is "magical," an arbitrary MULTIPLIER is added to the potential damage that is caused.

I know, I keep harping on one spell. To be honest, using the OMCS magic rules for area-effect spells like fireball makes sense to me. If The Quintessential Fighter had simply left out that phrase about "even if it affects only one target," what remains would make pretty good sense.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to "rule 0" it, and have the OMCS magic rule only apply to area-effect spells, while individually targetted spells simply affect individual targets, per the Player's Handbook. If a magic missile, for example, manages to slay two warriors, then I would apply two unit hit points worth of damage. This is every bit as simple as the abstract OMCS way of doing it, but it has the advantage of making sense.

And this is where my beef is. Why did the authors feel the need to go out of their way to include that "even if it affects only a single target" clause, when that very clause is what breaks it??

 

[jasamcarl]

The problem with creating such a clause is that many single damage spells would have the effect of disrupting packed fighters. Magic Missle is perhaps an exception, IF you assume a high magic environment where its effects would be expected, but spells such as phantasmal killer or several necromantic spells would presubaly be much more troublesome regardless. I can't fault Mongoose for making a general abstraction when its system conceivably covers most spells; including those from supps where exceptions could not be drawn.

 

[bardolph]

Which single damage spells would be a good example, then? I can't think of a single one, but I can think of a particularly horrid example: disintegrate. Check this out. A wizard casts disintegrate. If the spell succeeds, it removes one person from the unit, effectively doing one point of "unit damage" to the unit. However, if the spell fails (i.e. the target successfully saved), then 5d6 points of "unit damage" are inflicted!!!!!!

In every case with a single damage spell, the core rules will give a MUCH more reasonable result, without any added complexity. The abstraction of how much "disruption" would occur should be handled by DM judgement, not by wiping out giant chunks of the unit. I mean, come on! Isn't a heavy crossbow bolt "disruptive" too?

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This one gripe aside, I really do appreciate the OMCS. I think it is well-conceived, and should be very playable (I haven't put it to the test yet).

 

[mmu1]

I have to say, I find how positive the reports have been so far to be rather surprising... After browsing the book at the store, looking through the prestige classes and the styles section, I have to say I've very unimpressed.

First the whole system of basing how many levels of a style you can learn on wisdom seems ridiculous... Even if you're willing to accept the assumption that making a fighter diversify his stats is a Good Thing (a near impossibility if you play the game the way it's been designed and balanced - on 25 point characters), the solution used should still make some sense in terms of game mechanics. Are you seriosuly telling me the only way you're going to learn, for example, how to be the very best at brutal, vicious brawling (forget the name of the syle, but it's the one that allows coup de grace as a move-equivalent action) is if you're so damn wise and enlightened you should be getting ready to ascend for your chat with the Buddha any time now?

Second, some of the prestige classes... What's with the apparent fascination with giving away class features in prestige classes? The berserker (a completely unnecessary prestige class if there ever was one) and the brawler both get barbarian rage...
The bersker also gets damage reduction - potentially earlier than a straight barbarian, I think, and no effort is made to address how this might interact with barbarian DR either. Also, ignoring all damage from any one source? What does that mean exactly? Can you ignore the effect of a fireball? A critical hit? How is that even remotely balanced? The nearest core equivalent would be the rogue's defensive roll, which is weaker by several orders of magnitude.

The knight of something or other gets to ignore fear effects... again, isn't this supposed to be the province of a Paladin? What's it doing in a fighter handbook? Yet another class gets sneak attack damage, 2d6 of it, while retaining a fighter hit die and BAB progression... Another gets to use its lowest iterative attack to deny an enemy one of his attacks (also at his lowest to hit bonus, but what if you're fighting, say, an elemental with two slams at the same value, or some other creature with natural weapons? There is no attempt to clarify this at all.), and then, at a later level, gets an extra attack at his lowest to hit value... effectively being able to automatically have one more attack than anyone he fights not of the same prestige class.

A style makes coup de grace a move-equivalent action, another gives a free extra shield bash at highest BAB with no penalties - I'm sorry, but again, where is there even a semblance of balance here? Some of these abilities are stronger than those given by any feat, and as it that wasn't enough you get them for free. (yes, I said for free... rule #1 of class design, don't balance out mechanical advantages with role-playing related disadvantages that can be dealt with in an arbitrary fashion or gotten around in some way- if anything, it places too much of a burden on the DM - the whole point of making a Quintessential anything book is to save the DM some work, no?)

This complete lack of balance and sloppy design seems to pervade those two sections - I can't speak for the rest of it, but as they seem to form the core of the book, it doesn't get my hopes up about the rest of it.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I posted a more specific rundown of complaints in the latest Q.F. thread in the general forum, but suffice to say I'll be returning it. The best thing I can say about it at this point is that it gives me an excuse to make another trip to the game store.

Someone in that thread posted a link to an unfavorable review on another site. I have the feeling that as people get more familiar with the d20 nuts and bolts of this product, opinion is going to rapidly shift against it.

Frankly I suspect that the "real" playtesting is only now being done.

Overall I found the book lazy and rushed. I said it in the general thread but I will repeat it here--

Mongoose's aggressive release schedule looks to be more and more at the expense of quality.

Wulf

 

[Pale]

I have a question, and it's not about the rules presented in TQF, but about the language used.

I noticed throughout the book that the word 'whilst' is used instead of the word 'while'.

I'm not up on my UK standard speech, so I don't know if the use of the word 'whilst' is common in the UK. If it isn't, then its use in the book seems very out of place without other archaic english words also being used (dost, thou, thy, thine, etc.)

Either way, I would like to know about the usage of the word 'whilst'.

Thanks.

 

[Crothian]

I noticed that, too. It does seem out of place, but at the same time I thought it added a little extra flavour. There aren't that many in the book, that I notced.

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

"Whilst" is still very much in use in Ol' Blighty. Beats me as to why. It just is.

I just bought TQF and while there are some minor tweaks to be made, I am very happy with it. It was everything that S&F should have been. Both were rushed and sloppily edited/not playtested enough, but TQF has way more useful stuff in it than S&F.

TQF has better feats, PrCs, weapons and stronghold building rules. Plus, the OMCS is clearly a nice addition for those of us who want to run large scale epic battles from time to time in a regular campaign.

I like the character concepts (kits). As long as they are balanced (and some are clearly NOT), they really help flesh out a new PC or NPC's background. That is a good thing!!!

The fighting styles may be a bit too much and I don't like the WIS requirement (hardly anyone will qualify for the higher levels). I think removing the ability requirements (beyond a basic one to access the style at all, such as BAB +5/DEX 15 for a swashbuckler style) might be a good fix, if we also charge the fighter an XP amount per level in the style. This would make learning a style equivalent to a spellcaster making a magic item. Then fighters would have something to spend their "excess" XP on.

Just off the top of my head, I came up with this... Admittedly, I was not consulting TQF at the time I wrote it, so forgive any glaring errors...

FIGHTING STYLE GOLD/XP COSTS:
Level 1: 1000 gp, 500 XP, Style Primary Ability Score of 15, BAB +4

Level 2: 2000 gp, 1000 XP, Style Primary Ability Score of 16, BAB +6

Level 3: 3000 gp, 1500 XP, Style Primary Ability Score of 17, BAB +8

Level 4: 6000 gp, 2000 XP, Style Primary Ability Score of 18, BAB +10

Level 5: 8,000 gp, 2500 XP, Style Primary Ability Score of 19, BAB +12

[EDIT] Raised/Lowered Primary Ability score and BAB for Style levels. I don't agree that they should be ridiculously high, or no one could take them. Nor should they be too low. A score of 15 is way above average according to human norms (but not for heroic PCs and NPCs). Therefore, it seems like a reasonable requirement for the "cream of the crop" elite fighters. Lesser fighters would be unable to properly learn or employ the style's techniques. Only those with money and talent could thus benefit from the styles.

 

[Pale]

I would make the ability scores for levels 3-5 17, 18, 19 instead of 17, 19, 21.

But I'm running a heroic campaign, the more stringent requirements would work well for those that are not.