“New” Old Business
Giant’s Throw, Risi: Haven’t been there yet. As long as the critter is a monstrous humanoid, tops 7 feet or so, and has a torso on steroids and arms to match, it’s probably a decent fit. If the critter is giant-related, it’s an even better fit. While you are free to adapt to your home campaign, I would prefer this not be presented elsewhere as a one-race feat.
Tipping: To sort this one out, pretend the vehicle stuff doesn’t exist. That is a pure extension of the basic idea, more than a little Hulk-Hollywood, and it’s there to give the feat something to do if there’s not much cavalry in the campaign.
There was a slew of 3e feats that could be lumped together under the heading “Combat Stunts”. This feat comes from that tradition.
The key aspect of the feat is the anti-cavalry capability. It’s like the minotaur making
himself an “oversized weapon”. Strategically, you swap it in if you expect cavalry in an encounter; it’s not all that useful otherwise.
On Design Theory: Just a few words on the philosophy of design before moving on (or back) to “Old” old business.
First, I think that to reject new game mechanic ideas simply because “it’s never been done that way before” ultimately stifles creativity. I don’t see how “it’s never been done” can be a useful criticism. (Challenging a direct contradiction of an established procedure
is useful criticism, but I don’t see that being the case here.)
Second, in a superior game, pllay effect trumps design guidelines. For example, in 1e AD&D, the “design rule” for spells was that a spell's casting time was based on its spell level. Yet, we had the
featherfall spell, which took no time to cast, thus “breaking” the rule. The ability to avoid going splat couldn’t function under the general rule, so the rule went away for one spell. Function trumps form = good design where the concept warrants..
A clear negative example of form trumping function exists. You can see what the “form” decision to set each spell at one and only one spell level and lock spells into one unique school/sphere did to the druid class between the 1e and 2e AD&D PH books. It wasn’t pretty.
Third, design “system” consistency as a concept is most useful in the early release stages of a design. It gets designers on the same page and brings everyone up to a basic consistency threshold when writing new rules. After all, you have to have good fundamentals. Once you have them, you can start breaking rules, and the best designers know how and when to break them. The rest of us, absent actual design documentation from WotC, have to muddle along with what we can glean and what we have learned, (especially when we don’t actually have a sheet of “cardinal rules” to look at).
“Old” Old Business
So let’s return to a design analysis of the
Horn Slash feat. What does this configuration actually
do?
Horn Slash
Prerequisite: Minotaur.
Benefit: You can use a move action to slash with your horns as a primary attack. You gore an adjacent opponent for 1d6 + 2 + Strength modifier damage.
First, it forces a
choice. By converting a move action into an attack action, we create the following cases:
1. A moving Minotaur may attack with his weapon, or
2. A moving Minotaur may attack with his horns (as an offhand weapon), or
3. A stationary Minotaur may attack with his weapon and horns (re feat).
The tactical problem for the minotaur is he can’t get his best attack combination until he closes, but the best attack combination hinders him from closing.
However, the
capability for a powerful melee combination forces a choice on the opponent as well.
1. Stay in close and risk getting hit twice, or
2. Keep moving tactically and give up some attack opportunities.
Decision points, tactical interplay, the possibility of great success are the hallmark of good tactical game rules.
It is true that multiple attacks tend to break the game system and should always be looked at with suspicion. That’s been in D&D history ever since the 1.5e AD&D
Unearthed Arcana book gave fighters multiple blows per round. In 4e, it looks like the design team has been fairly draconian in enforcing a “one attack per creature per round” standard.
So the “old style” (since 1.5e, anyway) practice of adding additional attacks per round as a power upgrade is not going to find much traction in 4e design circles. So the feat as configured isn’t going to fly.
The concept of “stop-to-unload-a-bigger-hit” may not be usable here.
Tweak Concept 1, the Trigger:
Require the Horn Slash to be triggered by a successful weapon strike. This operates in the tradition of the old monster “rake” and “hug” special attacks. It is basically much like a critical hit: increased damage for a low percentage of actual combat hits. It varies mainly in degree/magnitude of damage dealt. Throw in an additional special condition (in this case “combat advantage”) and we have a revised version:
Horn Slash (Heroic)
Prerequisite: Minotaur.
Benefit: You have trained to use your horns more effectively in close combat. If you get a melee hit on an opponent against whom you have combat advantage, you deal +2 additional points of gore damage.
Special: At 11th level you deal +4 points of gore damage, at 21st level you deal +6 points of gore damage.
(The damage breakdown is +2 damage (horn proficiency), times the Tier.)
Side Note: Gore Proficiency and Gore Focus Feats
Both descriptions ignore the possibility that the minotaur can make other types of unarmed attacks (such as a fist, kick, grab). Maybe gore should specify a horn attack.
To Investigate: Has WotC assigned a default proficiency of +1 to “natural” attacks in the MM? Minotaur suggests so…are there others? (Must check…)
Tweak Concept 2, the Attack Penalty:
As an offhand/secondary/etc. attack, should we apply an attack penalty as a balancer? Over 20 years of play suggest that simple attack penalties alone can’t compensate for the damage increase dealt by a second attack. Specifically, a simple penalty that is balanced at low level breaks at high level. So by itself, a simple attack penalty won’t solve the problem, and maybe should not even be considered as a useful balancing tool anymore. Simple, accurate, balanced – we can have any two, it seems.
Tweak Concept 3, the Stunt:
In 3e, a common source of feats was the “stunt” combat move. I am not certain to what degree 4e embraces or rejects this approach to feats, but I think the fan creative urge to write stunt-feats makes rejection of this approach (as a “cardinal rule” of 4e design?) a somewhat risky decision at best (and I've seen no evidence yet that WotC has rejected the approach). I’m still looking the rules over on this one (*makes gleaning noises*).
Are there other tweaks? Undoubtedly. And that’s what forums are for.
It is in the exploration of options, and not in a brief “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” reaction that forums are at their most effective.
Rampaging Bull: This is another feat idea driven by concept. It puts the minotaur in
“no heal self” mode as long as he decides to keep his attack bonuses. The player must make a critical calculation about how far he can go without getting clobbered. As the party starts to realize how this feat works, the healers (hopefully) should start feeding the minotaur support heals as he pushes forward. The feat concept specifically rewards party teamwork and aggressive play. (Would changing the name to remove the berserker image make a difference?)
Side Note: Want a
rage/berserking ability? A core mechanic is in the MM Human berserker description (p163). I expect this to turn up in an official barbarian write-up. Maybe not exactly, but consistent in broad form.
“When you hit an enemy with your Gore weapon, an enemy adjacent to you takes damage equal to your STR modifier.”
I don’t understand where this comment is going. Do you mean if you hit someone with a gore (say as an offhand weapon attack), someone
else takes damage as well? From what? The wording here seems a little vague.
That said, this is a static bonus that doesn’t seem to scale well. It may be overpowered at low levels, where a Str 20 deals 14% of a Kobold's (Dragonshield) hit points (36) on one hit, but it fades at 25th, where a Str 27 (max Str push) deals just a little more than 03% of a Swordwing’s hit points (234). Perhaps more refinement of this configuration may be in order.
(A complete analysis would look at attack chances as well, maybe work out the average damage points per round, and so forth, but it's late. Maybe later.)
Relentless Pursuit: The concept for this feat has the minotaur closing with the enemy in
their turn. Its 4e function is specific: It facilitates penetration to the opposing strikers and controllers – and to a certain extent counters the ability of enemy Leaders to shift vulnerable allies out of harm’s way.
The other intended tactical twidge is that a party with push powers that move the enemy can, by so doing, advance their minotaur ally. Leveraged combinations appear core in 4e. The flipside is that this feat makes it easier for the minotaur to advance too far and end up as hamburger. Estimation, judgment, decision – elements of a good tactical game.
In this particular case, I’m not sure how the feat draft currently integrates with the Epic Tier powers of other classes, I haven’t been able to spend as much time with the Epic sections as I would like. I’m not certain this might not be better configured as a power. But good design is mutable. Let’s see where it goes.
That’s it for now.
Hold the Presses! Dept.
Note on the
natural cunning idea: Stupid writer (moi) didn’t review Racial Traits (Skills) in your draft again before posting. My comment unnecessary and distracting.
(It does spark a thought that maybe an Athletics/Nature skill divide might spin off an alternative minotaur configuration – perhaps that Fey minotaur variant...)
Also, in several sections (notably “Re: Question List”) I used the word “power” when I should have used “feat”. Sorry about any confusion this caused.
Done…really.
