D&D 4E The Intelligent Fighter , Thibault's Circle / La Destreza.

[Garthanos]

I think there is not much paradigm for allowing too much ritual or practice having super effect on combat but....

 

[Garthanos]

You want INT as a better combat ability? Maybe someone needs to just invent a ritual which grants an INT-based bonus to attacks or defenses. It would be somewhat expensive and work for one fight, but you'd have to cast it ahead of time (say it has a 4 hour casting time). This would provide a nice strategic thinker kind if option, and it would fit well with a fighter, warlord, etc. Make it somehow enhance a fighter's class features (like CC for example) and that would make it much more fighter-specific.
There are other things you can do once you have a good INT, like Wizard Apprentice Theme (a very nice one) etc. Not going to be the most stupid optimized thing ever, but your smart fighter is not gimpy.

Perhaps we need a thread on improving strategic options.... the engineering skill help create man and monster traps.... and ready made escape routes....
Or just add the concept into the martial practices thread. . Though it occurs to me there is a progression where things could go from being a skill challenge themselves to a component of one to a practice

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Reminds me of the hunters mind thing which I am making into a practice .... It was in a novel I read a while back where the character went into a trance state, which while it was going his perception was off grid no impairment due to foliage nothing, no range penalties nothing .... one duration limit is make a discipline check to hold the mind state... or spend a healing surge if that check fails.generally the check might be called for by you take damage or try to do something unrelated to the hunt.

Yeah, that could work too. Taking damage dispels the effect, or forces a save, or it just only lasts so long. The cost is really a way of imposing some limits on how much you use it, and the time factor just forces you to think strategically. Putting other limiters like taking damage dispels, and such would provide various dimensions to tweak. Still, I think mostly I'm considering combat here, but the same ideas work with more variations outside of that (but then they're not so purely tied to roles, etc.).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Perhaps we need a thread on improving strategic options.... the engineering skill help create man and monster traps.... and ready made escape routes....
Or just add the concept into the martial practices thread. . Though it occurs to me there is a progression where things could go from being a skill challenge themselves to a component of one to a practice

I admit, once I started down the "everything is either SC or Combat" it changes how you think about architecting the game. I haven't fully made the transition, it really does require handling things in a way that is not very common in D&D games.

 

[Garthanos]

Yeah, that could work too. Taking damage dispels the effect, or forces a save, or it just only lasts so long.

One advantage of the taking damage dispels unless you skill check / healing surge it. This is the least likely time you want to healing surge.
You can use it for huge durations with not problem but when things go south it forces really super hard choice.

The cost is really a way of imposing some limits on how much you use it, and the time factor just forces you to think strategically.

Yes I understood your intent on the strategic time for it. Its not syncing up with a martial flavored trance model. Ie the time factor is a bit strange for my trance concept ... Entering a trance feels pretty right with even a 1 to 10 minute time.

The having an fairly easy loses the mind state thing involved means it is only temporary without paying a cost.... you are using healing surges when they are most needed. I have something like it on Transcendental Meditation.

That 4 hours to create a Trap or an Easy Escape route or Environmental Power for the Party to exploit via Engineering skill now that works with the time to implement.

 

[Garthanos]

The having an fairly easy loses the mind state thing involved means it is only temporary without paying a cost.... you are using healing surges when they are most needed. I have something like it on Transcendental Meditation.

And by something like it I mean it's sort of the inverse - it takes great effort to snap yourself out of it. You are spending the surge not to maintain the state which while useful for gaining sleep benefits in short time has now become not so useful.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I admit, once I started down the "everything is either SC or Combat" it ...really does require handling things in a way that is not very common in D&D games.

There's one similarity: in the common way of handling things in D&D, there is also a dichotomy, just more between things were the rules resolve what happens (attacks that just do to damage, spells & magic items), and things decided by the DM (everything else).

 

[Garthanos]

I do think surgical strike which had the interesting flavor of requiring trained in healing.... kind of invokes a Sherlock Holmes

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There's one similarity: in the common way of handling things in D&D, there is also a dichotomy, just more between things were the rules resolve what happens (attacks that just do to damage, spells & magic items), and things decided by the DM (everything else).

Well... Except there isn't any "everything else" really. I mean, sure, the GM sets up the framing of scenes, which is to say what challenges are framed, but the players are really driving things. In any case, the SC system can handle almost any kind of situation, so ALL conflict is structured as that, or combat.

There are 'interludes', scenes which simply set things up or act as transition etc. Those would be entirely free-form, but you wouldn't normally use powers/rituals/etc. in them. Or if you did, you would just use it as an explanation of the narrative, there wouldn't be dice involved.

So, maybe I'm saying the same thing? I don't know, I worked in the backyard all day, and my brain is fried. lol.

 

[Garthanos]

I am thinking to make this style useable with a light spear as well as rapiers and such.