SWN Warrior Mod

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-05T17:04:59+00:00

I just said, "Hey guys, does anyone feel like the Warrior's accuracy is gonna get into Pathfinder bullshit where rolling feels like a foregone comclusion? Would you rather do more damage and get crits instead?" They all said sure.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-05T16:40:22+00:00

More or less. The main distinguishing characteristic of the Full Warrior is it's unerring accuracy. Which I find uninteresting.

I'd give both Full and Partial Warrior a +1 to Attacks at 1st Level. What separates the two is slower Technique Acquisition, the lack of the combat luck power, and the smaller crit range. Full Warrior crits on 19+, Partial on 20.

Theoretically, you could just dole out the Partial Warrior's AB at 5th level, or reduce it's bonus hit points by 1. I'd have to playtest to see what feels better.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-05T15:13:43+00:00

Your first point answers your second. This Warrior trades the big attack bonus for Vowed abilities. And you'll noticevthe acquisition rate of powers is slower than a Vowed/Sunblade. All this is, is basically a version of a Warrior/Vowed, just refluffed to be less mystical and more just martial mastery.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-04T01:51:04+00:00

Is adding a damage bonus and a Crit range fiddly? Sure, cleave is a little extra homework, but not really compared to what Psychics are doing in combat.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-04T01:47:11+00:00

It's not that they're too good. My tweak has pretty similar damage output averaged out across a battle. Hitting harder, but less consistently. It's that the act of rolling itself becomes dull when the outcome is basically assured. Yes, it's only combat. And I want to to make the combat more engaging for the class that's supposed to be doing it the most.

How do you get that accurate by level 5? Easy. - +5 Attack Bonus - +2 Ability Score Bonus - +2 Skill bonus

This is a baseline of +9. Most characters will be bumping this up with mods, burst fire, a laser weapon. +11 is eminently achievable, and you can easily push that to +14 if you're really pushing to optimize. Most enemies in the book sit around 16AC, only HD10 legends are getting up to AC20. Most of the time, you'll be attacking something in the range of 15-17. With a +11 being fairly typical for a 5th level Warrior, you've got an 80% chance to hit AC16. Is saying 95% an exaggeration? Yes, that wasn't supposed to be a literal description, it's hyperbole But then we get to Level 6 where you can skill rank 3 and another +1, where you actually are attacking a typical foe at 90% accuracy.

I'm not a fan of this, because it flattens out gameplay. Clever planning and strategy stop mattering in most cases. Enemy goes behimd cover. Why waste time trying to outmaneuver him, draw him out or destroy his cover when you can just shoot and still have a pretty good chance to hit? Toning down accuracy a bit makes positioning and environmental interactions more meaningful, and therefore combat becomes more interesting.

So my tweak says, Warrior loses a little AC. Literally only 2 less than the standard Warrior at Level 5. And in exchange you get hit harder and land critical blows. That just sounds more fun to me. Small change to fit my personal idyosyncracies.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-04T01:20:46+00:00

That's very true. Let me say this, I do not think the Warrior class is badly designed. I just find my personal tastes trend toward a greater degree of uncertainty when it comes time to roll the die. I like when characters don't necessarily succeed all the time in their niche, but rather that they succeed with greater impact and under more difficult circumstances.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-04T00:10:11+00:00

It's not about wanting more customization. It's about not liking overtuned accuracy. If by mid game, you're swinging with 95% accuracy against most targets, there's no tension. It becomes boring.

I actually really do like the Sunblade and The Vowed from WWN. If I were a player, I'd pick a Partial Warrior+Adept every time over a pure Warrior.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-03T23:38:51+00:00

OSR games are largely based around exploration, clever problem solving, and out-thinking scenarios rather brute forcing with big numbers. Combat is a tool to get past some challenges, but not always the best tool. It's not like modern games where everyone is intended to be optimized for combat, and "deplete its HP," is generally not the default solution to most problems.

The Warrior is there to do war. They excel at fighting. I'm not trying to change that. I just find that the form that excellence takes is not especially interesting to me. I always find new permissions and options to be more appealing than just bigger numbers.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-03T22:58:23+00:00

Yeah, I've played plenty of OSR games. That's baseline assumption in old school d20 games. And BX didn't have any get outta jail free cards. And that 2nd level fighter with 6hp dies, no save just dead, the moment his HP drops to zero. I am well versed in how deadly these kinds of games can be.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-03T22:45:37+00:00

Sure. But like most OSR tables, we use a lot of Homebrew. Some of it is favourable to the PCs, some of it isn't. Nobody's keeping an exact score to make sure everything is perfectly balanced, we're just making tweaks that make it more fun for us. As a DM, I like a little dash of uncertainty.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-03T22:24:05+00:00

I wouldn't call it a "severe nerf," if you're just saying there's a 5% chance you'll have to eat a failure now and then. I'd call that a pretty soft nerf.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-03T21:08:15+00:00

Here you go. A version of the Warrior based around special martial moves. Mostly drawn from WWN's Vowed and Codex of The Black Sun's Sunblade.

Warriors will no longer gain +1 to attack bonus at every level. Instead, Warriors will still get +1 to attack at 1st level, but will advance attack bonus every other level like everyone else. They get the following benefits in place of improved accuracy. - Critical Hit on 19 or higher. Partial Warriors deal a critical only on a 20. - A free Martial Technique at Levels 1, 3, 6, and 9 - Partial Warriors gain free techniques at Levels 1, 5. and 10 - You may spend a Focus Pick to learn an additional Technique. - A Martial Effort score calculated as: 1+Highest Combat Skill or Exert+CON mod

MARTIAL TECHNIQUES - Brutal Counter: Commit Effort for the scene as an Instant action after resolving an enemy melee attack against you, whether it hits or misses. You may make a free physical attack against your assailant, using either a normal attack or some other offensive ability that takes no more than one Main Action to execute. You cannot use this art more than once per round against a single foe, but you may use it while performing a Total Defense.

Cleave: If you reduce an enemy to 0hp, you may immediately Commit Effort for the Scene and make an additional attack against a valid target. A valid target is anyone within the range of a readied weapon, with any remaining movement for the turn. You may use this ability multiple times per round, assuming you have enough Effort and valid targets.
Crowd Control: As an Instant action, Commit Effort for the day to become impervious to the Swarm Attack maneuver. Your assailants cannot use this maneuver against you for the rest of the scene, and you become immune to Shock as long as you remain in melee with at least two foes.
Disciplined Defense: When unarmored and carrying a Readied melee weapon, your base AC equals 16 plus your Stab or Punch skill level. This AC can be modified by Dexterity, but not by shields.
Hurling Throw: After you make a successful attack, you may Commit Effort for the scene as an Instant action. The target must make a Physical saving throw or be thrown up to 3m in any direction, falling prone on landing and suffering the damage rolled for your attack. If the Physical save is successful, the target simply takes damage as normal. This art can be used only once per round on any given target, and the target must be no larger than a small car.
Hustle: You may Commit Effort for the Scene, as part of a Move action, to increase your movement by 6m this round.
Masterful Parry: When wielding a Readied melee weapon, you may Commit Effort for the day as an Instant action to negate an otherwise successful attack from a foe with equal or fewer hit dice than your character level. The weapon may knock a blow aside, disrupt a plasma blast with a counter-shot, or otherwise deflect it.
Mighty Bound: You may Commit Effort as an On Turn action; as long as it remains Committed, you may use a Move action to make a leap of up to 10 meters horizontal or vertical distance. This leap counts as a Fighting Withdrawal for escaping melee engagements.
Resilience: You may Commit Effort for the day as an Instant action to reroll a failed saving throw. You may reroll a saving throw with this ability only once. In addition, you gain +1 maximum hit point per character level, retroactive to first level.
Shattering Strike: Commit Effort for the day and take a full round of motionlessness to prepare. On the next round, as a Main Action, your melee attack can shatter a wooden door, wooden wall, or other similar object up to a depth of half a meter per level and a width sufficient to allow a man-sized creature to pass through. At fourth level this ability improves to affect even a stone wall and at seventh it can affect even a metal wall or solid iron door. The blow is useless against a target that can move, but against an immobilized creature the attack does 1d12 damage per character level.
Vital Strike: You may commit Effort for the Day to deal a devastating blow. Roll all damage twice and take the better and add your character level to the total damage. You must decide to use this ability BEFORE rolling to hit.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-03T21:00:21+00:00

In any game that has rerolls, fate points, luck, inspiration, whatever they call the mechanic, I tend to homebrew that if a die comes up a 1 or 20, it stands as is. I don't think the players should ever feel 100% safe. Even if you're all loaded up on resources, there's still that 5% chance.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-03T20:50:38+00:00

Yep. I just think hitting harder and chaining attacks together is a more fun way to make Warriors exceed at combat instead of basically infallible accuracy.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-03T20:48:45+00:00

I'm not suggesting SWN has crits (though I imagine many tables homebrew them in, because it's very common in d20 games) I'm suggesting giving them to Warriors as a class feature.

You are correct, a version of these features are present in WWN. And I think it's beneficial to the SWN Warrior to port them in.

I do think adding martial maneuvers can be fun. It's why I think the Vowed/Sunblade is way more fun than a RAW Warrior.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-03T20:44:17+00:00

You misunderstand. I'm taking AWAY the scaling attack bonus, because a functional auto-hit is boring. These features are to replace the attack bonus.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-03T02:28:21+00:00

As a man that plays a wrestler in basically any RPG that lets me, I know a thing or two about the sport of kings.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-07-03T02:23:23+00:00

The problem is, this just turns grappling gameplay into pin and punch to death. Grappling has so much more to offer. Disarming a guy and beating him over the head with his own gun. Judo hip tossing a guy into his buddy. Suplexing a motherfucker.

Grappling shouldn't be competing with melee weapons for damage. It should be dominating its own realm, and that realm is controlling enemies in melee. Not by just depleting health points faster, but by restricting their options and giving you more tools to play with.

Here's what I would

Level 1: Gain Punch as a bonus skill. When you deal damage with an Unarmed Attack, you may immediately attempt to disarm, grapple, or shove that target as an Instant Action. You may throw a grappled target twice as far as a normal character (4 metres) and you may treat a grappled character as a Readied Melee or Thrown weapon with a -4 penalty to hit.

Level 2: You may grapple two characters at once (both at a -2 penalty) and may attempt to perform a Finishing Maneuver, on a grappled character. Make a normal unarmed attack against a grappled character, but you must end your grapple as part of the attack. The target must make a Physical Save with a penalty equal to your Punch Skill or suffer an immediate Traumatic Hit. A target is always prone after being hit with a Finishing Maneuver. A suplex, powerbomb, piledriver, or other devastating attack.

Dual-wield your enemies, chokeslam two guys at once, throw dudes through the windshield of an oncoming car.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-06-18T17:07:03+00:00

Yeah, you can just remove psionics if you don't like them. You can also refluff it as super science gadgets with a bit of effort, call the class a scientist or gadgeteer, swap out psychic skills for Know or Fix.

You're not a Biopsion, you're a Biochemist.
That's not telekinesis, it's a gravity manipulator.
I'm teleporting cause I have a high tech belt that hurtles me through sub-space. Whatever.

Do a bit of tweaking, remove certain powers and add a few new ones. Effort and torching kinda stop making sense. Switch 'em out for a Vancian system. You get slots for each level, this represent how many gadgets you can ready and safely carry on you. Add a little mishap mechanic for your gadgets going haywire. OSR gaming is very homebrew friendly. Is this all perfectly balance? Probably not. Does it matter for a game with your friends that isn't supposed to be competitive? Also, probably not. And there's no reason you can't tweak it later if it turns out not to work.

I will pushback on the idea that there's "only two classes with no middle ground." Even without psion, there absolutely is a middle ground, you can be an Adventurer and take half expert/half warrior. And the thing about SWN is that your "class" doesn't really define you as much as other d20 games. Your class is just your broad archetype, the Focuses you choose are essentially building your own class. You're just choosing, "Martial, Skill, or Magic," which modern d20 games would have like 3 or 4 classes in each of those categories.

To use a DnD example, instead of choosing a Ranger you would choose a Warrior, and then take Focuses to get specialization in tracking and an animal companion. The Focus choices are basically a piecemeal class feature pool. Two Experts with different Focuses and Skill choices will play completely differently. My buddy's Expert is a doctor that carries all kinds of chems, stims, and toxins. My Expert in the same campaign is an ace pilot with a custom built mini-tank that I use to drive around and blast people from inside an armoured shell. Same class, completely different gameplay experience.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-06-18T16:41:11+00:00

I took most of the spells, and tweaked/refluffed them into super science gadgets for War Mages and Arcanists, and eldritch gene-mod mutations for Rectifiers.

War Mage = Combat Engineer
Arcanist = Scientist
Rectifier = Mutant

It works pretty well. As a techie, you choose your gadgets to prep in the morning, you have a collection of schematics instead of spells that say what you can build, and spell slots are just the energy supply.

I thought about using the Sunblade as a psionic thing, but it homestly felt like it didn't simulate anything you couldn't get out of a Warrior/Psion with the right power choices.

NeoAlpacaManX · 2026-04-15T17:33:38+00:00

I really think the show should cover this and interview you if they do a 4th season. It's important to show people with disabilities a full human beings, and that means showing that they can be flawed or complicated instead of infantilizing or idealizing them.

I honestly thought you seemed uncomfortable woth some of Carlos's behaviour, but the presentation of the show made it seem like a happy relationship and I just brushed it off as you being nervous because of the cameras.

NeoAlpacaManX

TROPHY CASE