Wardancer (3.5 base)

[Bozwevial]

While we're on the subject, if you're agreeable to letting me use TravelLog's Crimson Earth discipline, I may as well make it all nice and official.


Wardancer ACF: Sanguine Terpsichorean
Certain wardancers revel in the carnage their movements leave behind. To them, the spray of blood is part of the dance, every bit as important as their own footwork and as beautiful as a shower of rose petals. Their graceful ferocity and eagerness for blood tends to overrule their defensive instincts, but each droplet of precious lifeblood seems to quicken their steps and invigorate them.
Loses: Probably the same thing as Divine Troubador, maybe a little more.
Gains: Access to the Crimson Earth discipline, some sort of fast healing during a wardance?

Or something like that.

[sirpercival]

I put it in, but with some alterations.  Let me know what you think... your blades can count as claws.

[Bozwevial]

Hmm. Scarlet Rose was nice, but I suppose I can always pick up Martial Stance for the one I wanted. Losing Dancing Fox is going to hurt, though. I'll need to think about that one, although really I was in it for the mirror images. I can probably make this work.

[sirpercival]

Hmm. Scarlet Rose was nice, but I suppose I can always pick up Martial Stance for the one I wanted. Losing Dancing Fox is going to hurt, though. I'll need to think about that one, although really I was in it for the mirror images. I can probably make this work.

I was going back and forth between Dancing Fox & Desert Wind....

[Bozwevial]

Well, personally I would prefer to lose Desert Wind. It's also arguably the less thematic of the two for this ACF - Dancing Fox and Scarlet Earth both revolve around social skills; feinting and intimidating work pretty well together. Of course, my perspective is somewhat biased on the matter since I have a stake in this.

Also, no Scarlet Rose means no Dance of Thorns unless I Martial Stance into it. Not too big a loss, but still. Are you planning on maaaaaaybe doing feats for the ACF disciplines? Phaedrus and I can help come up with ideas if that would be less work.

[sirpercival]

Well, personally I would prefer to lose Desert Wind. It's also arguably the less thematic of the two for this ACF - Dancing Fox and Scarlet Earth both revolve around social skills; feinting and intimidating work pretty well together. Of course, my perspective is somewhat biased on the matter since I have a stake in this.

  Yeah.  I kinda agree... I picked Dancing Fox because I didn't want to change too much of your very nice flavor text.  I will go for thematic integrity instead of laziness.

Also, no Scarlet Rose means no Dance of Thorns unless I Martial Stance into it. Not too big a loss, but still. Are you planning on maaaaaaybe doing feats for the ACF disciplines? Phaedrus and I can help come up with ideas if that would be less work.

Martial Stance will definitely get you into Dance of Thorns.  I had considered doing feats for the ACF disciplines, but I'm not sure how much of a precedent is for things like that.  How many classes have feats which you have to take an ACF to take?

[Bozwevial]

Yeah.  I kinda agree... I picked Dancing Fox because I didn't want to change too much of your very nice flavor text.  I will go for thematic integrity instead of laziness.

Heh, thanks.

Martial Stance will definitely get you into Dance of Thorns.  I had considered doing feats for the ACF disciplines, but I'm not sure how much of a precedent is for things like that.  How many classes have feats which you have to take an ACF to take?

None come to mind, unless you're counting something like the wild shape ranger where the class feature exists elsewhere. If you want to stick with that precedent, I can wait until TravelLog does the discipline feat(s) and see if those are appealing.

[TravelLog]

I should have those, and the final 9th level maneuver, up some time tomorrow. If you're looking for something in particular, feel free to ask/suggest.

[GuyFawkes]

I think Breath of the Goddess is already good as is, or is the Perform 12 something you added?

Blistering Tempo is very reasonable I guess, since a lot of monsters are resistant to fire. For Dance of Thorns, sorry for being slow but what exactly are passive bonuses? Other than enchantments, what else would qualify for this?

[sirpercival]

I think Breath of the Goddess is already good as is, or is the Perform 12 something you added?

No, that was an original.

Blistering Tempo is very reasonable I guess, since a lot of monsters are resistant to fire. For Dance of Thorns, sorry for being slow but what exactly are passive bonuses? Other than enchantments, what else would qualify for this?

Yeah, I'm having trouble with this.  There's no actual rule for the distinction I'm trying to make, and there's no way to make a huge list of effects since I would have to add to it for every freekin homebrew class...

But the idea is this: pretend you accidentally smacked someone with your sword.  You wouldn't have tried to hit them, so you wouldn't put any strength or technique behind it, you wouldn't have used any special attacks or anything like that.  However, if your sword was on fire, they would burn from the fire.  If your sword was poisonous, that would matter.

Do you have any suggestions on how to word such a thing to actually be clear and concise?

[GuyFawkes]

Well, two rolls and choose for one attack per round at level 9 is not overpowered IMO. If it is, then you could maybe specify that it works for normal attacks only. But I think it's fine as it is.

For Dance of Thorns, hmm, maybe something like "includes any damage sources and effects that can be triggered upon contact (such as energy-type weapon enhancements that add damage, contact poisons, injury poisons if damage overcomes DR, etc.), but not damage sources and abilities that require an actual attack to be triggered (such as Power Attack, Strength to damage, damage bonus from Wardance, etc.)." Then maybe just put a spoilered explanation containing what you said on your previous post for clarification. Something like that.   

[sirpercival]

OK, I did so.  Hopefully that will clear things up

[GuyFawkes]

Right, I think that's good enough. Now, for that game to play this in...

[sirpercival]

Right, I think that's good enough. Now, for that game to play this in...

Lol.  I'm already running way too many... you could see if there's a spot in another HA team.   Lol!  You could play a Meowcenary on the Kittie team!

[GuyFawkes]

Lol that's badass! But nah, I'll stick to one team on HA. That'd get way too confusing fast.

[Garryl]

Blistering Tempo needs tweaking. If you already deal enough damage to exceed a creature's fire resistance, you don't actually deal any more damage until you have a check result of 10 + your damage. For example, if you deal 100 fire damage against an opponent with fire resistance 20, your damage doesn't increase above 80 until you convert more than 80 points into untyped damage (which occurs at a result of 10 + 20 + 80 = 110, or 10 + your damage). Functionally, this feat makes it so you deal your fire damage (reduced by resistances) or your Perform check -10 (reduced by resistances) to a maximum of your fire damage (ignoring resistances). This isn't necessarily a problem, it just feels very weird upon analysis.
   Also, the DC is kind of irrelevant since nothing about the check cares about success or failure, only the magnitude of success. Exactly meeting the "DC" gets you exactly nothing. This shouldn't be a check with a DC.

[phaedrusxy]

So you could actually take both the ACFs together, right? I might just do that...

[sirpercival]

Blistering Tempo needs tweaking. If you already deal enough damage to exceed a creature's fire resistance, you don't actually deal any more damage until you have a check result of 10 + your damage. For example, if you deal 100 fire damage against an opponent with fire resistance 20, your damage doesn't increase above 80 until you convert more than 80 points into untyped damage (which occurs at a result of 10 + 20 + 80 = 110, or 10 + your damage). Functionally, this feat makes it so you deal your fire damage (reduced by resistances) or your Perform check -10 (reduced by resistances) to a maximum of your fire damage (ignoring resistances). This isn't necessarily a problem, it just feels very weird upon analysis.
   Also, the DC is kind of irrelevant since nothing about the check cares about success or failure, only the magnitude of success. Exactly meeting the "DC" gets you exactly nothing. This shouldn't be a check with a DC.

Good call!  I'll fix that.


What do we think of a variant Song of the White Raven for this class?  Which discipline works best?  Maybe Dancing Goddess...

So you could actually take both the ACFs together, right? I might just do that...

Yes, you can.

[sirpercival]

How's that wording for Blistering Tempo?

[skydragonknight]

I never understood why the stance progressions of Crusader/Warblade usually take place the level before new stances became available (like the 4th level one in Warblade's case whose progression you are using). You practically are required to dip two levels in another class just to get things to work out right.

How about getting stances at 1/5/10/15/20? You get 1st and 3rd level stances on time, 5th level stance is only a level late, the choice of a 7th or 8th at level 15 (the only 6th level stance is just the Desert Wind one that adds 1d6 fire damage on attacks, that I don't think anyone would take anyhow) and an extra one of any maneuver level at level 20 for the dedicated. And it looks all orderly too.