Author Topic: Mastery of strategery  (Read 3342 times)

Offline rot42

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Mastery of strategery
« on: December 14, 2011, 11:12:34 AM »
I am looking to give a character a mechanical benefit from being able to study an encounter site before combat is joined. Something to enable a player who does not think ahead much to play a character who does. Right now I am leaning towards a floating +2 Circumstance bonus that each character present for the planning session can activate on any d20 roll they make during the encounter. Is there a class ability or something that models this better? Has anyone experimented with alternate implementations?
« Last Edit: December 16, 2011, 12:10:21 AM by rot42 »

Offline Hallack

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Re: Mastery of strategery
« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2011, 11:56:05 AM »
Off the top of my head the only things approaching something like this would be the Nightsong Infiltrator's (Complete Adventurer) Teamwork Infintration ability that lets you study a small area for a +2 bonus to various skills in that area for the next 24hours or perhaps the Terrain Mastery variant for Rangers.


Offline Zonugal

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Re: Mastery of strategery
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2011, 06:04:01 PM »
Knowledge Devotion represents this a bit, although you could probably home-brew a teamwork benefit akin to either the Nightsong Infiltrator's Teamwork Infintration as mentioned below or an Assassin's death attack model (analyze a battle for three-rounds than grant yourself an insight bonus to stuff).

Eh?

Offline X-Codes

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Re: Mastery of strategery
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2011, 08:51:59 PM »
Heroes of Battle and/or Minis HB might have mechanics for stuff like this, although not particularly designed for Party vs. Monster encounters.

Offline SolEiji

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Re: Mastery of strategery
« Reply #4 on: December 14, 2011, 11:06:31 PM »
If it helps, my Scoundrel class has something like this built in.

Quote
Analyze Surroundings (Ex): At 6th level, a scoundrel can turn the environment against their opponents. If a scoundrel studies her surroundings for 3 rounds and then engages in combat in this area within 10 minutes, she gains a +2 bonus on attack and AC as she uses the surrounding items for blockades, and knowing where she can kick up dirt to harass the opponent and give her the upper edge. It behooves her to ensure the battles occur at her time and choosing rather than simply random encounters. The area she can study is a radius of 100 ft. + 10 ft. per level. She can only have one studied area in her mind at once, studying a new place for 3 rounds removes the benefits of fighting in the original area and applies it to the new area.

At 12th level and every 6 levels beyond (18th, 24th, etc.) the bonus for fighting in their analyzed area increases by +1.
Mudada.

Offline Mixster

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Re: Mastery of strategery
« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2011, 03:25:21 PM »
Pathfinder has teamwork feats and ways to grant them to your allies that might be just what you are looking for.
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Offline JaronK

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Re: Mastery of strategery
« Reply #6 on: December 15, 2011, 03:30:55 PM »
The Archivist has a number of class abilities that do something like this (Dark Knowledge).  But I think adapting the Heroes of Battle rules for Strategy Advantage is your best bet.

JaronK

Offline rot42

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Re: Mastery of strategery
« Reply #7 on: December 16, 2011, 12:08:49 AM »
Nice suggestions all, thank you. I think I am going to look into scaling down the Heroes of Battle system. Should be fun.