scaramouche
Explorer
With all the discussion around Maneuvers, and particularly the dearth of ranged options, I was inspired to look at the existing traditions to see how they might be tweaked to allow for a broader set of options. For a first pass, I'm not even thinking of new maneuvers, but rather looking at existing maneuvers that might work perfectly well with ranged weapons but are currently Melee only. Sanguine Knot seemed like a good place to start, since its focus on leadership and teamwork lends itself to being more weapon agnostic. And also because Sanguine Knot has some legitimately bad maneuvers.
RANK ONE
Doubleteam: Remove 'within your reach'. The maneuver already requires the ally be within 20' of you and that they make a melee attack. There's no need to further restrict you to being in melee distance, and the fiction is that you're 'fraying defenses' which can certainly be imagined to be done with any weapon, ranged or melee.
RANK TWO
Nothing here except to say that Double Tackle is just the absolute worst, requiring 3 exertion and a boatload of actions to basically use the Shove action (with an optional expensive sacrifice play that makes two PCs prone in order to guarantee one enemy prone). Maybe we just replace this with a (better) weapon agnostic maneuver?
RANK THREE
Follow-Up Topple: Remove 'within your reach'. Remove the 2nd instance of 'melee' so the line reads 'you can use your reaction to make a weapon attack against that creature'. Reaction attacks with ranged weapons are rare, but a single reaction shot (with a knock down rider) as a rank 3 maneuver feels fair. Your friend hits the enemy and you shoot them in the leg and down they go.
Look at Me!: Remove the first instance of 'melee' so the line reads 'when you make a weapon attack against a creature'. Change 'ally within reach' to 'ally within reach of the creature'. Nothing wrong with drawing enemy attention with ranged fire as well as melee.
RANK FOUR
Brotherhood Stance: Would be nice to change this to an ungendered 'Solidarity Stance' but that's just me. Remove 'melee'. Help is already range limited, so there's no need to double down on the melee restriction, and this change allows for more flexibility and fun Legolas style running around the battlefield shooting things up close to help your buddies.
RANK FIVE
United We Stand: Remove the first instance of 'melee' so it now reads 'Make a weapon attack against a creature'. Change 'ally within your reach' to 'within reach of the creature'. This is a 5th rank, capstone maneuver. Nothing gets broken by having the triggering attack happen at range. Your allies all need to be in melee anyway.
With these changes, Sanguine Knot suddenly has 5 quite decent options for ranged combatants, scattered across almost every rank (nothing in Rank 2 unless Double Tackle is taken to the shed and shot). And best of all, there's minimal effort here in terms of creating new maneuvers. Let me know what you think. And if you liked this, let me know what Tradition I should look at next.
RANK ONE
Doubleteam: Remove 'within your reach'. The maneuver already requires the ally be within 20' of you and that they make a melee attack. There's no need to further restrict you to being in melee distance, and the fiction is that you're 'fraying defenses' which can certainly be imagined to be done with any weapon, ranged or melee.
RANK TWO
Nothing here except to say that Double Tackle is just the absolute worst, requiring 3 exertion and a boatload of actions to basically use the Shove action (with an optional expensive sacrifice play that makes two PCs prone in order to guarantee one enemy prone). Maybe we just replace this with a (better) weapon agnostic maneuver?
RANK THREE
Follow-Up Topple: Remove 'within your reach'. Remove the 2nd instance of 'melee' so the line reads 'you can use your reaction to make a weapon attack against that creature'. Reaction attacks with ranged weapons are rare, but a single reaction shot (with a knock down rider) as a rank 3 maneuver feels fair. Your friend hits the enemy and you shoot them in the leg and down they go.
Look at Me!: Remove the first instance of 'melee' so the line reads 'when you make a weapon attack against a creature'. Change 'ally within reach' to 'ally within reach of the creature'. Nothing wrong with drawing enemy attention with ranged fire as well as melee.
RANK FOUR
Brotherhood Stance: Would be nice to change this to an ungendered 'Solidarity Stance' but that's just me. Remove 'melee'. Help is already range limited, so there's no need to double down on the melee restriction, and this change allows for more flexibility and fun Legolas style running around the battlefield shooting things up close to help your buddies.
RANK FIVE
United We Stand: Remove the first instance of 'melee' so it now reads 'Make a weapon attack against a creature'. Change 'ally within your reach' to 'within reach of the creature'. This is a 5th rank, capstone maneuver. Nothing gets broken by having the triggering attack happen at range. Your allies all need to be in melee anyway.
With these changes, Sanguine Knot suddenly has 5 quite decent options for ranged combatants, scattered across almost every rank (nothing in Rank 2 unless Double Tackle is taken to the shed and shot). And best of all, there's minimal effort here in terms of creating new maneuvers. Let me know what you think. And if you liked this, let me know what Tradition I should look at next.
