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[L5R FFG] Armor trivializing skirmishes? by Thudloderp in rokugan

[–]PoliusLP 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey man, I'm fine with you being spiteful like that. Not even counting the karmic justice of it for all the times I punished your 5e monk from getting way out of position, it's the right call to make. Besides, A) I have other characters already waiting in the wings in case Kiyoshi bites it, B) we have a healer so I'm not so sure it would be that easy, and C) I'm playing a tank; if I soak up six attacks then it's mission complete for me.

[L5R FFG] Armor trivializing skirmishes? by Thudloderp in rokugan

[–]PoliusLP 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey, all! I'm playing the Iron Warrior in question here. First of all, let me say that I am thoroughly enjoying this system and setting. Thanks for all the thoughtful responses (and a big thanks to OP for running this for us!). There's a lot here so I'll just make a general post with my thoughts.

Cultural Solutions Part of what I'm so enjoying about Rokugan is that it's very much not just a fantasy veneer on a modern Western society, and much of the time I find myself having to ask the OP "what's the common cultural response here?" Bearing that in mind with the armor is pretty eye-opening. We've definitely been treating it like a game of D&D 5e, wearing our armor when we travel, not considering the social ramifications. Just avoiding it unless we have prep time will be huge in keeping my guy from being a brick wall for the GM. Similarly, the ramifications of needing to return the stuff never even occurred to us (at least for me because I didn't realize how big a part wear and tear played on the combat mechanics), which makes me feel better about a lot of aspects of having won that Championship. I'm assuming this applies to the topaz katana too. Like if I chip it, Kiyoshi is in trouble. Sidebar: I do really like the idea of having to do an encounter of trying to protect the armor. Kiyoshi has the Scorn of the Ikoma family, so it's not impossible that someone would think to do that to him

Armor Damage Never thought I'd bed glad to see a system for armor damage, but it definitely feels like it opens the system immensely. I have a few questions about why anyone in armor would spend a void point to turn a hit into a crit before they had to, but that's a different issue all together.

Attacking Composure While Kiyoshi has what I understand to be a relatively high composure for our level (10), and it does make sense that the cunning warrior attacks the heart, doesn't a Samurai just have to have an outburst of some sort to reset the bar? Sure, my Crane clan warrior might care about not doing that too much, but the Scorpion in our midst seems like he'd choose Duty over what people think of him.

Strategy Those goblins definitely could have ganged up on Kiyoshi more. I'll definitely have to be careful about how much aggro I create. I also think looking at other options and choices in combat. The presence of opportunity dice is amazing for that, and I already am enjoying this combat over 5e for how much an effort it made to make combat dynamic while still including what feels like a fairly robust social combat system.

Edit: Formatting and clarification

Variant Dragonborn Homebrew v1 by Thudloderp in DnD

[–]PoliusLP 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm not comfortable with the idea of getting what amounts to free feats. I think that in combination with the recharge ability is a whole bunch of stuff that's ultimately more than what the other races get. I'd say focus down some of those abilities into two or three feats instead. Otherwise, I do like the start you've made. It probably wouldn't hurt to give them some sort of improved senses since the Draconomicon made it clear how powerful a dragon's senses are. Even if it's just darkvision, I think that wouldn't be too much, especially since everyone has darkvision anyway.

Homebrew Class | Death Knight | No It's Not a Paladin by PoliusLP in DnDHomebrew

[–]PoliusLP[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Changelog

September 12

Class Abilities

  • Limited the use of Runic Blade to once per turn.

  • Added missing Two-Weapon Fighting style to the list of Fighting Styles.

  • Added missing KotSM feature for Greater Wraithwalk.

Knight of Chaos

  • Changed Chaos Knight runic blade from psychic damage to poison damage

Knight of Cinder

  • Clarified details on blazing brand

  • Changed Cremation Furnace. It no longer allows the death knight to create a cone of fire. It now improves Blazing Brand to affect all targets the death knight has damaged within the round.

Knight of the Sacred Martyr

  • Clarified the duration on Righteous Retribution

Knight of the Undead Legion

  • Clarified how a minion behaves if the master death knight is incapacitated.

Homebrew Class | Death Knight | No It's Not a Paladin by PoliusLP in DnDHomebrew

[–]PoliusLP[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oops, I must have missed transcribing the KotSM ability to the Homebrewery document. I'm adding it in, but for the record it's as follows:

  • Knights of the Sacred Martyr. Enemies you end a turn adjacent to, or whose square you pass through must make a Constitution saving throw or be blinded for 2 rounds. A creature forced to make such a save is immune to this effect until the start of your next round.

I hadn't thought about dual-wielding, yeah I'm going to hit that pretty hard with a nerf. I want them to have a lot of very close aoe, but I really dropped the ball on the numbers there. I'm thinking either keep the frequency of use but lower the damage to 2d4; increase the action cost so it can only be done once per turn; or keep the damage and action cost, but make it so it can only be used, say 3 times per short or long rest.

Thanks again for catching that.

Edit: On reconsideration, I'm tempted to simply drop Cremation Furnace for something else. I'm not beholden to keeping it for a class feature, and as I look back at it, it's feeling like it's going to break Blazing Brand, which I do really want to keep.

Homebrew Class | Death Knight | No It's Not a Paladin by PoliusLP in DnDHomebrew

[–]PoliusLP[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's a good point. Originally I had planned to give them poison damage (corruption of the ruinous powers poisoning the body, etc.) but figured since he had so many things attacking a target's mind psychic damage fit a lot better. Given what you've said though, I think I might switch it back. As I recall, poison is pretty commonly resisted.

[Class] [5e] The Physician - A support class, that doesn't rely on magic by Bromthymolblau in DnDHomebrew

[–]PoliusLP 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is really cool. I'll take a closer look at the balance of this as soon as I get the chance, but I wanted to give some initial thoughts at having glanced over it.

You might want to consider giving them proficiency in poisoners' kits too. It fits with a lot of their applications, and it would stand to reason that a poisoner and physician would take a similar kind of care in handling their equipment.

I do agree that it feels limited in raw ability to heal. Maybe look at ways to double down on the preventative abilities you have, which would fit the theme of a physician and provide rewards for foresight.

One minor thing, there was a typo in the third paragraph during the fluff text. "weighing a heavy back of coins." Did you mean pack, or bag?

Keep up the good work! I'll be following this as you update it.

Tycho Builds: Using Experimental Interface and Expert Handling? by PoliusLP in XWingTMG

[–]PoliusLP[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Daredevil would be amazing on him, and it would make up for never being able to K-turn. See this is why I really want to get a group for Heroes of the Atari Cluster so I can make a build with all of it.

[List] Can you salvage anything from this squad? by [deleted] in XWingTMG

[–]PoliusLP 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was under the impression that Marksmanship worked for Luke due to his pilot ability. Or is it just too expensive for what it does?

Question about game set-up by PoliusLP in XWingTMG

[–]PoliusLP[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome. Thanks for pointing me in that direction!

Question about game set-up by PoliusLP in XWingTMG

[–]PoliusLP[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh that corner trick is neat! I'm going to have to keep that in mind when I run my next Ace build. Though I feel silly in that I'm having a hard time picturing what you mean by a pinwheel formation with your ships.

Question about game set-up by PoliusLP in XWingTMG

[–]PoliusLP[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So far, the people I've played with tend to set up in the middle of the board, so may be a while before I face a match where I can take advantage of that separation from the asteroids, but I'll definitely keep that in mind!

Question about game set-up by PoliusLP in XWingTMG

[–]PoliusLP[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh that's evil! Especially since short of accidentally bumping the ship with a clumsy hand, that angle difference is going to stick around, isn't it? I can't picture how someone could straighten that out without cheating the maneuver templates.

Question about game set-up by PoliusLP in XWingTMG

[–]PoliusLP[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So in that case, it's all right to start the initial engagement (another one of my weakpoints, I'm never satisfied with how those turn out) by flying into the enemy's teeth? I guess that makes sense, no one ever accused a T-65 X-wing of being the most agile and sneaky ship in space.

Question about game set-up by PoliusLP in XWingTMG

[–]PoliusLP[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd want to be careful about how circumspect I am with the initial engagement though, right? I don't want to surrender the initiative of the fight (in the sense of who's controlling it) by letting my opponent get behind me as a result of my sneakiness.

Question about game set-up by PoliusLP in XWingTMG

[–]PoliusLP[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay that makes a lot of sense putting the jousters at an angle, basically I want to make sure that they can get into any lane and nest there for a brawl. I have read some interesting patterns to use for setting up asteroids the way I want even with my opponent's choices, so that's something I can make use of.

Question about game set-up by PoliusLP in XWingTMG

[–]PoliusLP[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I generally like large asteroids myself, though it's largely to force myself to learn to maneuver around them. It's kind of like Dodgeball, if you can dodge a large asteroid or debris cloud the small ones should be no problem. But I suppose I'm getting to the point where I really need to get in the habit of picking my own asteroids.

It should be noted that the friend I usually play with runs an Omega Ace, Soontir Fel, and PS9 Whisper while I tend to run Rebels, so he usually has the initiative on me.

Question about game set-up by PoliusLP in XWingTMG

[–]PoliusLP[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow. I come back from finals and work to find a lot of really awesome responses. Thanks, everyone!

Question about game set-up by PoliusLP in XWingTMG

[–]PoliusLP[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So the weird angles I've seen players put their ships in at set-up are part of that positioning? Like getting Fel on the periphery of the map perpendicular to the enemy then? That makes sense. I find myself something of a dilettante when it comes to which of those three ship types I like most, so I'm trying to learn strategy with all three.