fighter kit: Deathbringer

[daan]

LoL, unaffected by healing potions/spells/regenerating Items

I hope you have immunity to all damaging spells and an extremely low AC m8

[Thorfinn]

That's my point, daan. There is no disadvantage to not being able to use things if you are not using them anyway. It is only a disadvantage if it actually has some effect on gameplay.

[Rataxes]

If the class was denied all sorts of healing effects besides natural regeneration, it would indeed be some disadvantage. Resting at fancy hotels or having a permanent CON of 20+ would then be your only means of ever regaining hitpoints.

[ 03-22-2003, 03:35 PM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

[daan]

Which is my point also .. only a dwarf would be stupid enough to be a deathbringer, which comes in handy, since he'll need the points that were obviously not spent on Int. in his con.
Making your main PC unable to heal himself, except for resting weeks at a time seems a bit too much ...
I agree with thorfinn on the fact that its easy to give a weapon downsides, if you give it downsides that dont really affect you anywayz .. but denying him acces to his life is a little harsh.
Assuming he doesnt regenerate naturally,.. that would mean a few hits in a battle take him out of action for a few weeks. You're effectively not allowing a fighter to go into a battle, since that would hurt.

I could see a situation where a mighty deathbringer witha cloack of fear surrounding him run away like a little baby because he got hit:
" I wanna go to beeeeed " [img]graemlins/crying.gif[/img]
That seems a bit of a contradiction to me, considering what a deathbringer is

[ 03-22-2003, 04:16 PM: Message edited by: daan ]

[Lord Smite]

Then again, all those class atributes are just something i coughed up out of my brain one morning. As Thorfinn stated, this kit would basically remove just about all challenge from the game. Does anyone else have any ideas for disadvantages for a Deathbringer that would make it playable?

[Imrahil]

Seems to me it'd need a PnP type "downside" - like "must kill a sentient humanoid at least once per day" or else lose abilities til he does. Too hard to implement in a computer game, though.

In that case, you'd need to tone him down a bit. Maybe immune to all Clerical spells (good & bad). Immune to Regeneration effects (so, Potions of Healing are OK, but not Ring of Regen, for instance).

Also, in keeping with the game environment, maybe make it so a Reputation greater than 6 negates all his abilities (at least simulating the need to kill the nearest living being). You gotta kill a lot of townsfolk to be a Deathbringer, but then the Paladins come lookin' for ya... [img]smile.gif[/img]

- Imrahil

[Thorfinn]

I agree that taking away all healing potions and regeneration would make him unplayable. But it is not hard to envision a character who has never had a healing spell cast upon him. I would venture a bet that at least three members of the current party I am playing with my friend have never rec'd a healing spell, and are in Underdark, so to them, not being affected by clerical spells would be no big deal. The game my employee and I are playing has no cleric and no druid, and probably won't, unless we decide to tolerate Anomen for the easy XP.

I don't know what the answer would be. Immunity to some of the most feared attacks in the game should carry with it some pretty hefty disadvantages. Considering that many in this crowd play the game solo, the deathbringer as written above would have no disadvantage to them, since they have no party, thus no cleric, thus no clerical spells.

The only thing I can think of to balance it would be some special combat vulnerabilities, but not only does that violate the spirit that the deathbringer is supposed to represent, it also would have to be very significant, since Stun alone is often a death sentence.

The only thing I can think of is dead is dead, i.e., no Raise Dead if he goes down for any reason at all. But there is always Reload to work around that one. I don't know. I can't come up with a way to balance it.

Interesting idea about the low reputation. Might work, if not for the Steal/Sell/Repeat trick that makes expensive goods a moot point.

[ 03-24-2003, 02:43 AM: Message edited by: Thorfinn ]

[Legolas]

I would think the best way to keep a class balanced is to reduce the amount of special rules it has in the first place. An aura of fear - basically a 'horror'-spell which improves with levels - is a good idea for the fighter kit. A special HLA is also nice. Nearly unbalancable kits begin as soon as you start giving immunities. Rather than that, why not give the character +1 to all saves every 4 or 5 levels? Of course, this would offer some protection from offensive magic too, but IMO is a much better way of keeping him from being completely unstoppable.
The deathbringer assault you can keep, of course.

Assuming we change the immunities to better saves, how can we balance this?
In other words, looking at the character, what should be it's weaknesses and what penalties should we add to that.
You want him to use doublehanded weapons, I assume, so a monk-like penalty like prohibiting use of the off hand is out of the question. You envision the deathbringer as one wearing heavy armour and a fullhelm, so restrictions there are also not possible.
Which means that item-wise, you have shields, cloaks, belts, boots, bracers, rings and amulets to disallow. We'll come back to that later.

How do we rate the advantages? The deathbringer assault should be the reason the character is picked over a plain fighter, and at a 1-5 (a 5% chance means one out of every 20 hits is a deathbringer assault, as common as rolling a critical. It should definately not me more than this.) percent chance we could provide it and the HLA for very little (the HLA would mean you can't pick another, so that's hardly a bonus as long as it is not too powerful). Disallowing the shield would be good for this, although with a greatsword you can't use it anyway.

The aura of fear is somewhat like the called shot, except that this is an area effect spell and therefore more effective. I would say disallow armour or heavy armor but that'd go against the kit. Instead, let's restrict the use of rings and amulets. Face it, a tough warrior has no need for such fancy trinkets

Finally, there's the extra save bonus. This is a major advantage and shouldn't be underestimated. Perhaps you can balance this somewhat by giving a penalty to wisdom, or maybe you should disallow the use of other items too. Of course, this'll only make a deathbringer/thief combination quite attractive and you do not want to encourage that. Perhaps the cool deathbringer has no desire to steal from anyone when he can just take it by force?
Ultimately, of course, it is up to you.
The evil alignment seems to be a good idea, as it would help the roleplaying along.

I would suggest giving thaco and damage bonusses to certain weapons instead, perhaps having them count as having a 5% chance of being +D6-1 enchanted with each attack.

So as an example, you'd have:
-Aura of fear: Horror spell with changes in allowed save/duration/# of casts per day, possibly becoming Symbol:fear-like later on
-Mental Shield: +1 to all saves for every full 4 levels
-Deathbringer Assault: 5% chance of inflicting a very nasty hit
-Rampage HLA: increased chance of inflicting a deathbringer assault
-Ability to use Deathbringer weapons

-Must be of Evil alignment
-Cannot use shield, rings or necklaces
- -2 to WIS

Looks like it still has a few too many benefits, but you can work on that [img]smile.gif[/img]
Just my [img]graemlins/twocents.gif[/img]

[Xanthul]

I would say:
Cant use 1 handed weapons
Cant use ranged weapons
(so basically he can only use 2 handed melee [img]tongue.gif[/img] )
Cant be dualed (like barbarians or monks)
When he is down to 10% of his HP, he has some rage-like effect that makes him more effective, but you cant control him (like Minsc)

Plus all Legolas said [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Xanthul]

Did i kill it ?