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[Wicht] YBA Questions (And some new powers for looking over)

Yeah in a party, Steal Life is dealable, but all this results in is the Holy Warrior being the one to eat the Steal Life +5 attack. And since the Unholy Warrior goes last due to sufficient Ki for a DT, they have the planning advantage here too. They have a much better chance of KNOWING that Steal Life will work. Than a Holy Warrior does of knowing his ability to heal himself will work.
 

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Actually, I think making the drain powers a NPC only power would be a good idea. The powers could be saved for bosses so that the big monsters were even with characters at higher levels.

And I feel that Steal Life is balanced with Gain Life and Share Life because Share Life gains Holy Warriors a big advantage when in groups.
 

I'd agree with that but groups are rare, they take a lot to coordinate, the only Holy Warrior inclusive groups I've seen are NPCs and in chat occassionally, but with most of the PCs being Unholy Warriors, that doesn't leave a lot of viable groups for a Holy Warrior.

Also Chi Strike when used against a group is a suicide power. It blocks 1 opponents power and you then get chair shot or DT'd or shoved by number 2 or something similar.
 

graydoom said:
And I feel that Steal Life is balanced with Gain Life and Share Life because Share Life gains Holy Warriors a big advantage when in groups.

The only problem with this is nobody seems to travel in groups anymore.

Ironically, I originally thought of the game in terms of solo adventuring then when everybody seemed to want groups powers were added that worked better in a group and balanced accordingly - which means the powers should be balanced, ideally for both styles of play (if that is possible).
 

Wicht said:
The only problem with this is nobody seems to travel in groups anymore.

Ironically, I originally thought of the game in terms of solo adventuring then when everybody seemed to want groups powers were added that worked better in a group and balanced accordingly - which means the powers should be balanced, ideally for both styles of play (if that is possible).
Yeah... I know what you mean. In theory, it's balanced, but groups and Holy Warriors aren't as common as expected.
 

The Undead set of powers isn't perfectly balanced, but let me represent a few points here. (I'm taking everything below under the presumption that these are PCs), this is pretty long, so you can skip to the bottom if you like :)

Undead: +1 Hit, Gives you ability to be vulnerable to Holy Light, and the benefit of Unholy Light.

-Note that the Holy Light power is stronger than the Unholy Light power due to the fact that Holy Light leaves the undead player open to character death, and that since the unholy warrior is concentrating on the undead powers, he won't have access Unholy Light later to much later (3 levels of experience if not taking Energy Drain or Life Drain) Also note that with the availability of items and with the yen factor system that Yb is using (which I feel is a little too much and have downscaled in my dungeons myself when DMing), most players won't buy or even consider taking toughness IMO.

Energy Drain: -1 to damage on attacks that deal more than 1 damage.

-This would cancel out holy strike, although, as above, it would take another level for the unholy warrior to get unholy strike, perhaps if this is too powerful, make Holy Strike: +1 damage to Unholy Warriors and Undead, so PC undead without energy drain would receive 3 damage, or 2 damage with Energy Drain.

Life Drain: +1 damage to all attacks.

I agree that this ability is very powerful, although by the undead player gains this, the minimum level to gain it is level 6, and that's assuming you concentrate on nothing else, don't purchase a modifier, and gain 1 extra saved Exp to spend throughout the 5 levels, otherwise its level 6 without concentrating on anything else. At this time, a holy warrior has access to holy light and even more Ki or Holy Strike if they concentrated fully on the holy warrior/ki route. From this point onwards, the undead player is free to pick out whatever abilities, including unholy battery, but won't have access to Unholy Light for a long time...

Taking Holy Light to account: Holy Light is very powerful vs. the undead, especially multiple undead, look at last nights fight with Monderefal, he failed his first holy light but managed to use it again the next round. The reason why it's very powerful vs. multiple undead is that if just one of them gets a 'bad' move and the holy warrior gets a 'decent' move but not quite as good sounding as the other undead monster's moves, they all still take 3 or 4 hits of damage (depending if they have Energy Drain or not), this makes it hard to throw lower CR undead en masse at them (without them having plenty of dirty tricks and shoves), which are *usually* more common than running into a holy warrior or unholy warrior.

I agree Holy Warriors need some powers to balance it, Kalanyr has talked about a possible 'Angel' path, and I suggested one of the final abilities lower all their holy battery costs by -1 (minimum of 2, can't be having a billion shoves...), which might be a good epic power for holy warriors (Ki Mastery?), also add Chi Strike to Holy Battery (kinda makes sense), and perhaps lower the cost of Purity of Focus to 3 (though this makes it easier for holy warriors to use holy light...), but that's just my opinion.

Also, if Life Drain is too powerful overall, and would still be PC usable, maybe change it to a 1/fight power like, Life Drain deals +2 damage and the Undead player heals 2 hits if successful or something similar.
 

Even the fix suggested still leaves Life Drain much nicer than Assassin, which is kinda weird, since assassin has much crappier pre-reqs.

Suggest counter path

What do you think of the following:

Blessed Path (Note that these are all done as epic powers, to better reflect the sheer strength of them)

Blessed
Requirements:Holy Warrior
Cost:5.5 xp
Benefit: The fighter is blessed by the powers that be and can purchase Blessed powers and abilities. The fighter is unaffected by a single attack per adventure (i.e. thread) of the fighter's choosing. This power can be used in knock out fights but not in tournament fights.

Angel's Touch
Requirements: Blessed, Holy Strike
Cost: 7 xp
Benefit: All hits against Undead do 1 extra points of damage. This ability also negates Energy Drain.

Chi Mastery
Requirements:Angel's Touch, 8+ Chi (If its lower this is a liability not a power)
Cost: 7 xp
Benefit: All powers from Holy Battery cost 2 less Chi, to a minimum of 2 Chi.

(I original had 6 XP cost and 1 less Chi, but after some calculations, thats rarely an advantage, let alone an epic power.)
 
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I think Angel's Touch should be 2 extra damage but not stack with holy strike, that's simply punishing player undead a bit too much in my opinion, perhaps lower its cost to 6 exp. Also, on Chi Mastery, I agree with your original idea, 6 exp but -1 Ki to a minimum of 2 Ki, otherwise its almost impossible for a 'normal' monster to beat 2 holy warriors, they can share life every round for 1 Ki.
 

A power that does 1 extra hit, to a very specific group is worth 5 XP (Holy and Unholy Strike demonstrate this) which is why Angel's Touch wasn't done that way, it would be crappier than HS in terms of relative cost if it was 6 XP for +1 damage to Undead. (The essential effect if it was 6 XP and didn't stack with Holy Strike)

And with Chi Mastery, using the least costly power (share life) (to maximise the number of times it can be used and hence to get the greatest advantage from Chi Mastery), and having a Holy Battery of Twenty Chi, with the mimimum of 2 Chi cost (which I put in to avoid infinite shoves and heal lifes etc, there is no difference from the -1 with a minimum of 2 chi.

The real difference shows itself with Purity of Focus. Assuming a 20 Chi Battery as a 1 point reduction (3 Chi) you can get off 6 before you run out, a net gain of 6 XP (no advantage so a Waste of a power, could have just put the 6 XP into Chi for the same effect and not have to have bought it as an epic power.)

Increasing the cost to 7 xp and the reduction to 2 xp with a minimum of 2 (as I did), results in 10 Purity of Focuses (objectively only 4 more than before) or 20 saved Chi, actually better than the outlay. The original way requires an obscene amount of Chi to be of use.
 
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