Author Topic: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs  (Read 19339 times)

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #40 on: April 17, 2016, 05:52:20 PM »
Mechanus's Armory: What happens if the equipment already has an enhancement bonus?

Same deal as with Greater Magic Weapon, Magic Vestment, and any other case of multiple bonuses of the same type. They don't stack and only the highest one applies.

And what are your concerns with it?

As I said, I'm not sure about keeping the DR or not. It's probably fine with just the enhancement bonus part, but I wanted a second opinion.

In my unhelpful opinion I could see it going either way.

Offline Garryl

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #41 on: April 25, 2016, 01:45:59 AM »
Mechanus Hand:
Added Anchoring Strike, Continued Response, Hostile Cessation, Impenetrable Tower, Mage Slayer, Mechanus's Armory, Spellshatter, Unwavering, and Zelekhut Wings maneuvers.
Absolute Restraint is 1d4+1 rounds on a failed save (like Stunning Ray). Still 1 round on a successful save.
Axiomatic Might is removed.
Inevitable Pursuit now lets you use opponent's movement mode and movement speed instead of your own. Moved it to 6th level (was 5th).
Zelekhut Charge's damage bonus increased to +5d6 (was +2d6) and moved it to 5th level (was 4th).


And with that, Mechanus Hand just needs discipline weapons. There's one or two other maneuvers I'm thinking about writing up, but they're not necessary.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #42 on: April 25, 2016, 12:25:32 PM »
All the new maneuvers looks good, the anti-magic aspect was unexpected.

Offline Garryl

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #43 on: April 25, 2016, 04:21:18 PM »
Yeah, anti-magic kind of just came up. It wasn't something I was actively trying for, it just fit and I wound up making more maneuvers supporting it. It's also thematically appropriate, though. There's an inevitable in Fiend Folio, the Quarut, that is specifically opposed to powerful spellcasters and the use of high-level magic.

Anyways, just added the discipline weapons, so Mechanus Hand should be completely complete now. For the disciplines, that just leaves a few more Crushing Juggernaut stances. Got any ideas for a level 1 or level 8 stance? Here's what I'm planning for a level 3 stance.

(click to show/hide)

Now that the core of this, the maneuvers and martial disciplines, are essentially complete, it's about time to move back to the Clockwork Warrior class. I'd like to fill it out a little bit more (not too much, but there are a lot of pairs of dead levels), and Ordered Action needs a rewrite/replacement.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #44 on: April 25, 2016, 06:35:47 PM »
Offhand I don't have anything without stealing ideas from other homebrew.

Stance ideas in general for all disciplines because I don't want to figure out what is most appropriate for what:
  - something about bullrushing
  - (copied from a homebrew class ability) Whenever an enemy you threaten moves, you may take an immediate action to move up to your base land speed (or base swim speed underwater). However, you must end your movement in a square adjacent to them, or in the nearest square you can safely reach if you cannot move that far. If an enemy takes a 5-ft. step, it does not allow you to follow them with this ability.
  - a high level stance could let you use level 1/low level maneuvers as attacks of opportunity
  - (outright stolen from other homebrew) 
Death’s Chosen
Crimson Earth (Stance)
Initiation Action: 1 swift action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance

The longer one spends on a battlefield, the more at home one feels, to the point that their presence on the killing field is as integral and expected as the scavengers that pick the dead clean of their flesh. As long as you are in this stance, your weapons deal damage as if they were one size category larger than normal, and you gain a bonus to saving throws against negative energy, ability damage/drain, and death effects equal to ½ your IL, minimum 1.



Dungeon Crusher gaining unarmed strike bonuses is weird.

Offline Garryl

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #45 on: April 25, 2016, 06:58:02 PM »
Dungeon Crusher gaining unarmed strike bonuses is weird.

It needs something to be able to bypass DR and hurt incorporeal creatures, otherwise a few points of it can easily knock out the small, 2d6 points of damage. Ditto for the trample maneuvers (normal trample is based off of a creature's slam natural weapon, but these maneuvers aren't) and the overrun maneuvers. Tying it to whatever your unarmed strike can bypass seemed like the simplest and most logical choice. That being said, I'm thinking about possible wording that ties it directly to whatever method you used to do the knock prone/knock back, so if you trip with a weapon, it bypasses like the weapon, if you knock prone with a Born of Three Thunders spell, it's like that spell, etc.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #46 on: April 25, 2016, 08:46:53 PM »
What you're thinking about is how I would have expected it to work.

Offline Garryl

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #47 on: May 05, 2016, 09:51:16 PM »
I'm not quite sure about these stances, but they're the best I've managed to come up with for the last for Crushing Juggernaut's stance needs. What do you think?

Reckless Assault
Crushing Juggernaut (Stance)
Level: Clockwork Warrior 1
Initiation Action: 1 swift action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance
While you are in this stance, you gain a +2 bonus on all melee attack rolls. You also take a -2 penalty to AC, as your overly aggressive strikes leave you open to attack.



Imposing Presence
Crushing Juggernaut (Stance) [Fear]
Level: Clockwork Warrior 8
Prerequisite: Three Crushing Juggernaut maneuvers
Initiation Action: 1 swift action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance
While you are in this stance, fear effects you use are not considered mind-affecting. Protections that function specifically against fear effects are still effective. Further, you are immune to fear.

In addition, whenever you successfully demoralize an opponent with the Intimidate skill, they cower for 1 round.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #48 on: May 05, 2016, 11:00:11 PM »
Reckless Assault is kind of meh but probably in line with printed level one stances.

Imposing Presence is cool, but how many fear effects will it really affect?

Offline Garryl

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #49 on: May 06, 2016, 01:34:19 AM »
Reckless Assault is kind of meh but probably in line with printed level one stances.

That's about the size of it. It's literally Punishing Stance with +2 attack instead of +1d6 damage, which is roughly equal to your standard 2-handed Power Attack conversion ratio.

Quote
Imposing Presence is cool, but how many fear effects will it really affect?

Pretty much all of them. All printed fear spells are mind-affecting (at least in Core, there may be a few exceptions in splats), monsters' fear special attacks are called out as always being mind-affecting fear effects, etc.

Demoralization from Intimidate isn't a mind-affecting effect (although, interestingly, strictly speaking, it's not even a fear effect, it's just blocked by fear immunity and includes modifiers on saves against fear), but this gives you 1 round of cowering when you demoralize. There are a couple of low-level maneuvers in Crushing Juggernaut that can take good advantage of that.

As I said, I'm still on the fence about these stances. Imposing Presence fits with existing concepts and mechanics of the discipline, but it's a minor, secondary concept, which feels a little strange to boost seeing as it's the highest level stance in the discipline.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #50 on: May 06, 2016, 10:30:04 AM »
Sorry, I didn't specify.  Right now I'm viewing this project as self-contained.  So if I'm playing a Clockwork Warrior with the three disciplines in this thread, how many fear effects will Imposing Presence really affect?  Is the stance only useful if used with material outside of this project?  If so it should probably be replaced.  If not, and you think it needs a boost, grant a small bonus against enemies currently affected by one of your fear effects?

Offline Garryl

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #51 on: May 07, 2016, 02:37:15 AM »
I've started work on the metal soldiers. Note that they're working on a draft of the Clockwork Warrior that has 1 more more maneuver known and readied (but not granted) so that it's on a 5 round cycle instead of 4 rounds like the Crusader. I figure the ability to pick the exact order of your maneuvers being granted is a distinct advantage over getting them randomly, so the Clockwork Warrior will be getting a 1 round slower recovery cycle to balance it out.

Sorry, I didn't specify.  Right now I'm viewing this project as self-contained.  So if I'm playing a Clockwork Warrior with the three disciplines in this thread, how many fear effects will Imposing Presence really affect?  Is the stance only useful if used with material outside of this project?  If so it should probably be replaced.  If not, and you think it needs a boost, grant a small bonus against enemies currently affected by one of your fear effects?

I'm probably going to be replacing Imposing Presence. Preferably with something unrelated to fear stuff. I'm just frustrated that I can't think of anything that feels right.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #52 on: May 08, 2016, 12:01:41 AM »
That makes sense.  And comparing it to other homebrew that's stuck in my head right now it seems fine.

Hmm, the Awesome Blow feat as stance but on every attack made?

Offline Garryl

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #53 on: July 08, 2017, 12:01:44 AM »
Alrighty then. After a year and a quarter, plus however long earlier drafts were in the 1001 ideas thread, the core of this is complete. One base class, three martial disciplines, and a bunch of monsters (with more to come if I get back to this).

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #54 on: July 08, 2017, 02:08:23 AM »
Want me to start with the class?

Offline Garryl

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #55 on: July 08, 2017, 02:14:05 AM »
Whatever works for you.

The clockwork warrior is largely unchanged from the last version that was up before. I think I only wound up changing one or two class features to finish it up.

Edit: Forgot that I added a rather major class feature in daylight savings. I think that might be fine, but I'm still worried about the whole action economy issues it can bring.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2017, 03:03:57 AM by Garryl »

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #56 on: July 08, 2017, 12:05:24 PM »
I don't even remember what the class looked like before, it's been a long time.

Clockwork Warrior
I feel like it needs Jump as a class skill, it's got all the other class skills but Swim.  Swim feels like it can be left out for thematic reasons.

Reconstructed Biology says that you become immune to critical hits at 20th level, which technically means that you're not immune to precision damage as well.

Stopped Clock - "After activating this ability, you fall into a catatonic state up to 1 minute per level later (chosen when you activate the ability), unless you cancel with another full-round action. You can trigger the catatonia up to 1 minute early as an immediate action."  I honestly am having issues deciphering this duration text.

For daylight savings, just expect every Clockwork Warrior to have the best action they can have saved up at the beginning of each encounter (because they'll just save up every minute until they get into an encounter) and use that for your analysis.


You've got some dead levels: 6 and 14.

Offline Garryl

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #57 on: July 08, 2017, 12:41:58 PM »
I don't even remember what the class looked like before, it's been a long time.

Clockwork Warrior
I feel like it needs Jump as a class skill, it's got all the other class skills but Swim.  Swim feels like it can be left out for thematic reasons.

Reconstructed Biology says that you become immune to critical hits at 20th level, which technically means that you're not immune to precision damage as well.

I don't think anything has explicit immunity to precision damage. All sources of precision damage require that the target be subject to crits.

(I'm not even sure that precision damage is an actual term in the game rules. I think it's just a shorthand us players and homebrewers use. Rules Compendium might have codified it, though.)

Quote
Stopped Clock - "After activating this ability, you fall into a catatonic state up to 1 minute per level later (chosen when you activate the ability), unless you cancel with another full-round action. You can trigger the catatonia up to 1 minute early as an immediate action."  I honestly am having issues deciphering this duration text.

Is this a better wording?

Starting at 3rd level, as a full-round action, you can prepare to enter a catatonic state in which you appear to be dead. When you activate this ability, choose an amount of time no longer than 1 minute per level. At the end of this time, you become catatonic. You can preemptively cancel this ability at any time before you become catatonic as a full-round action. You can trigger the catatonia up to 1 minute early as an immediate action.

Quote
For daylight savings, just expect every Clockwork Warrior to have the best action they can have saved up at the beginning of each encounter (because they'll just save up every minute until they get into an encounter) and use that for your analysis.

Yeah, that was about the same way of evaluating it as I was thinking. I was hoping that by the levels you get standard (12th) and full-round (17th) actions, it wouldn't be as problematic, but I think I was deceiving myself. I'm probably going to have to replace the ability with something else. It might be alright just with a nerf to 1/day or something like that so it's not every single encounter that you get an extra turn.

Quote
You've got some dead levels: 6 and 14.

There are a few of them that I just couldn't think of class features for. I'm open to ideas, preferably some that don't directly relate to combat. That said, the class's existing features are probably strong enough already, so it's more an issue of individually uninteresting levels than of overall class power.

6th level is the numbers level, when your BAB and all of your base saves go up by 1. If you're single-classed, its also when you get a second attack from BAB.
10th level has an extra readied and granted maneuver.
14th level has an extra stance.
15th level really could use something. At best you're getting a new level of maneuvers, but that's not even guaranteed based on your multiclassing.
19th level is just before the capstone, so it's usually fine missing out.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #58 on: July 08, 2017, 08:08:19 PM »
Precision Damage is actually codified in either Complete Adventurer or Rules Compendium.

*digs*

Rules Compendium, although the phrase was used in books all over the places before that.  You're right though, it looks like Crit Immunity = Precision Damage Immunity.



Ohhhhh.  Yes, the second wording is much better.  Thank you.  Interesting, makes me think of the clockwork guy from Hellboy.



If you really like the Daylight Savings ability we could adjust it.  Make it a free action activation ability usable 1/encounter and have the actions be swift > move > standard so you never get a full-round action.  That might be enough of a nerf.



For the dead levels, I didn't notice that 14th gets an extra stance.  I count all levels that get a new maneuver/stance known/readied/granted as not dead levels.  That means that 6th is the only dead level in my opinion.  I don't know if anything needs to be done about it, I just feel the need to point it out.

Offline Garryl

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Re: Gears of War: Tome of Battle for Constructs
« Reply #59 on: July 08, 2017, 08:23:42 PM »
Ohhhhh.  Yes, the second wording is much better.  Thank you.  Interesting, makes me think of the clockwork guy from Hellboy.

Good. Karl Ruprecht Kroenen is the character that inspired the concept for the whole class.

Quote
If you really like the Daylight Savings ability we could adjust it.  Make it a free action activation ability usable 1/encounter and have the actions be swift > move > standard so you never get a full-round action.  That might be enough of a nerf.

It's not so much that I'm dead set on it as it is that I don't have any ideas to replace it, and it's all I managed to come up with after a long time.