Stances and Focus and Flying!! Oh My

I like the concept of the stance (first introduced in Tome of Battle?)

Its one of the elements I do like in Essentials... this Idea is to have another element that works akin to a stance but is more generalized I am calling it focus it could apply to many different things from spells to exploits for feats to whatever you can normally only perform one thing requiring focus at a time. The idea was inspired by multiple things but most pointedly, it occured to me when considering various effects you might achieve through flying and which you would like a mobile fighter to be able to achieve at the point in the game when flying became definite thing (I mean sure in 4e mostly put personal flight off till late paragon but a flying mount is possible early and many of its tactical benefits are achievable by way of abilities one might employ as a martial combatant.

How can a Warrior Fly?

There is a tendency for people to under-estimate the potency of spells. a classic case is that of the fly spell.

In order for my mobile melee fighter to have something analogous to the caster he probably needs a healthy amount of the following
 

• Missile Deflection/Protection : Nigh immunity to ranged attacks perhaps because I can deflect them perfectly  or perhaps because the divine protects me - Paladins want to be mobile too  (like flying somewhat high makes me immune to melee attacks) Note  while using focus to gain better ranged defense you are a slightly better target than normal to attacks from adjacent enemies. Similarly its possible to fly in low and be no better target than someone on ground ... you dont have to engage in ranged focus constantly. (requires focus)
  OR
  
• Long Arm: Improved range for thrown/hurled objects and weapons, extends the range of thrown weapons (using str) to be more comparable to what is achievable with launched ones (and longer distance spells) - for some purposes having Long Arm implies a certain level of functioning at range yourself and is rather an alternative to missile deflection.
  AND
  
• Penetrate The Line : Able to move across the battlefield through adversary spaces safely. (requires focus), for some this is nimble movement for some it is smashing through its a matter of style
  
• Fast Climb : Climb or descend walls at near running speed Parkour style.
  
• Free Running : Unimpaired movement through types* of difficult terrain, but may take greater damage when its not navigated well (its possible to have difficult terrain in the air too just sufficiently less common that this is worth giving a bonus on additionally the implications for a flier are higher).  *The terrain types might be built up via learned martial practices.
  
• Greater Jumping : Enhanced jumping distances (remember to add in a 2x factor for pole vaulting with spear or staff).
  
• Perfected Balance : Enhanced tight rope walking used to navigate where jumping distance is still too short (because you know it will be) attaching a cord to a rope and firing it on an arrow across a chasm.
  
• Far Sight: Improved range of perception (like flying high straight up) - dependent on spending time achieving the effect this requires you to be stationary and is directional.
  
• Cat Fall : Always land on your feet useful for truly minimizing fall damage
  

Abilities which require focus are basically incompatible functions.

Getting successfully attacked causes you to lose focus possibly with implications (if it occurs while moving through enemy spaces the individual whose space you are moving through not only stops you but gains a free attack)

Some of these ideas are basically oriented for melee specialists who forego ranged capability... in theory giving up most of the capabilities that would make them deadly or properly capable of responding at range. (Though there is more to it - as ranged ability obbiously doesnt match the abilities of flight)

Examples of archetypes might  range from the Strongman who sometimes hurls miscellaneous pieces of scenery out of frustration but very much lacks the precision to exploit ranged weaponry to Honorable Knights and Paladins bound by oaths against use of ranged weaponry. From Battleraging Berserks / Barbarians who really aren't effective unless they smell the blood of enemies to Specialists who scoff at lack of elegance in the ranged attack forms.

It is obvious that the abilities can or should be broken up in to individual components just as levitation/feather fall and jump etc are available as distinct abilities for a spell caster.

More possibilities include Missile Reflection: you may not be really deadly at range and dont initiate ranged combat - but you can reflect ranged attacks back on those who attack you (yes this may include spells) sure Jedi/Swordmages might be on the list.

One of my motivations for this line of thought is that I would like certain game/genre parameters to be more flexible in 4e and its future descendants. What level flying becomes du jour is one of those. Frequent teleporting short distances ie blinking was made workable can the same be done for flight?

In 4e currently flight in combat is a mid paragon achievement appropriate for LOTR since Gandalf the white is very appropriate for early paragon eh. But in a fair number of story lines for instance in the Golden Compass or Harry Potter books flight is fairly early achieved capability.

How would people go about adjusting the games assumptions in this fashion? Can we give a paladin a Divine Providence protection DR to attacks which occur from beyond 10? Could we halve the level of flight magics (and those which transform you in to birds) ?

This seems to be an area where adjusting the game is less straight forward than many.

Divine Juggernaut.

This magic makes you immune to ranged magic and missiles and causes difficult terrain to bend aside you can also press aside enemies to allow you to pass with relative safety through there location  as you charge through it and might sometimes (saving throws based) crumble walls (insert height limit for how long it takes for one you confront to crumble) before you. (the latter is a bit like the caster flying up a wall or flying the fighter up the wall and having him tie off a rope to enable others egress - it enables the rest of the party to get through... but doesnt ALWAYS work so it doesnt always enable this paladin to simply fly over AND the crumbled wall leaves big obvious route in plain view the which the rope wouldnt  and its lack of subtlety and team play element seems paladin like.

Any way Paladins implementation can be pretty magical obviously but ... I think something like this demonstrates more appropriate ability compared to just equipping them with flight (although maybe a Paladin with a summonable Pegasus or a Zephyr Mount might fit as well).

Garthanos wrote:

Divine Juggernaut.

This magic makes you immune to ranged magic and missiles and causes difficult terrain to bend aside you can also press aside enemies to allow you to pass with relative safety through there location  as you charge through it and might sometimes (saving throws based) crumble walls (insert height limit for how long it takes for one you confront to crumble) before you. (the latter is a bit like the caster flying up a wall or flying the fighter up the wall and having him tie off a rope to enable others egress - it enables the rest of the party to get through... but doesnt ALWAYS work so it doesnt always enable this paladin to simply fly over AND the crumbled wall leaves big obvious route in plain view the which the rope wouldnt  and its lack of subtlety and team play element seems paladin like.

Any way Paladins implementation can be pretty magical obviously but ... I think something like this demonstrates more appropriate ability compared to just equipping them with flight (although maybe a Paladin with a summonable Pegasus or a Zephyr Mount might fit as well).

Honestly, this seems a little overpowered to me...I really like the idea, however.

I always felt you could base combat styles aroud different stances, which would give you different bonuses to your base attack depending on the style and then give you additional combat manuvers "powers" that are based on their style. But I also felt this model should have been used for divine domains and schools of magic as well.

Love the list above for ideas of different combat manuvers and combat feat ideas.

CHIA wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

Divine Juggernaut.

This magic makes you immune to ranged magic and missiles and causes difficult terrain to bend aside you can also press aside enemies to allow you to pass with relative safety through there location  as you charge through it and might sometimes (saving throws based) crumble walls (insert height limit for how long it takes for one you confront to crumble) before you. (the latter is a bit like the caster flying up a wall or flying the fighter up the wall and having him tie off a rope to enable others egress - it enables the rest of the party to get through... but doesnt ALWAYS work so it doesnt always enable this paladin to simply fly over AND the crumbled wall leaves big obvious route in plain view the which the rope wouldnt  and its lack of subtlety and team play element seems paladin like.

Any way Paladins implementation can be pretty magical obviously but ... I think something like this demonstrates more appropriate ability compared to just equipping them with flight (although maybe a Paladin with a summonable Pegasus or a Zephyr Mount might fit as well).

Honestly, this seems a little overpowered to me...I really like the idea, however.

In some sense it was intended to show how powerful flight really is - In 4e that means it likely is at minimum a mid paragon or higher ability. (higher than 16)

The flight spell in 5e is back to being ridiculously low level 3 spell...(achievable at level 5).

thanson02 wrote:

I always felt you could base combat styles aroud different stances, which would give you different bonuses to your base attack depending on the style and then give you additional combat manuvers "powers" that are based on their style.  But I also felt this model should have been used for divine domains and schools of magic as well.

So you put 5 maneuver cards in each of 4 stance stacks when you enter a stance you use cards from the stack... heheheh.

thanson02 wrote:

Love the list above for ideas of different combat manuvers and combat feat ideas.  

Long Arm - is kind of in honor of Lugh Lamfada.

Hmmm I want to re-conjure some of this..

So Wonder If anyone with game savvy can help solidify some of these

Penetrate the line:
Being able to assume a stance that enable one to move through adversary spaces safely.

I recall a halfling specific ability (was it a feat? which enabled something of this sort)

I have also seen abilities that allowed one to shift ones speed.

Aside from the halfling ability there is also several at-will abilities that allow one to effectively shift to the other side.

Those at wills largely require you make a melee attack as a part of maneuvering past the enemy and begin adjacent to them so the visualizations of running towards and enemy and sliding under or doing a pole vault with your spear over them isnt there ... although perhaps smashing through is pictured ok but no moving after words if you moved up to them.

I will need to read through this thread again in more detail. But the thing that springs to mind for me are the various Rogue's Tricks that the Rogue (Thief) gets. They are typically move action, at-will utilities that allow the Thief to do something along with their move that will provide them a benefit (either immediately or on their next attack). I see them as analogous to the Fighter Stances and since I have a Thief in my current campaign, I have seen that they can be very cool when implemented.

It seems like some of the things you'd like to accomplish would possibly work as a utility like this. Here's a cut and paste of a couple that I like:

Acrobat's Trick
Rogue Utility
For a brief moment, you move along a wall. The momentum you build translates into a more powerful attack.
At-Will        Martial
Move Action      Personal
Effect: You move up to your speed -2. During this move, you have a climb speed equal to your speed -2. You also gain a +2 power bonus to your next damage roll with a basic attack during this turn.
Level 11: +4 power bonus.
Level 21: +6 power bonus.

Tactical Trick
Rogue Utility
Your quick assessment of the battlefield shows you both where to step and which enemies are too distracted to defend themselves properly.
At-Will        Martial
Move Action      Personal
Effect: You move up to your speed, and you do not provoke opportunity attacks when leaving squares adjacent to your allies. Until the end of your turn, you have combat advantage against enemies that have at least one of your allies adjacent to them.

This is the halfling feat

http://dnd4.wikia.com/wiki/Underfoot

Underfoot is a paragon tier feat available to halflings trained in Acrobatics and level 11 or above.

Normally, a character can move through a space occupied by an enemy, but the enemy must be either helpless or at least two size categories smaller or larger than the character. The character provokes an opportunity attack from the enemy if the enemy isn't helpless, because the character leaves a threatened square to enter the enemy's space.

A character with the Underfoot feat can move through spaces occupied by an enemy without provoking an opportunity attack from that enemy, if the enemy is at least two size categories larger than the character. Specifically, leaving a threatened square to enter the enemy's space, moving between spaces occupied by the enemy, and leaving the enemy's space into an adjacent space, no longer provoke opportunity attacks from that enemy.

Characters with the Underfoot feat can still provoke opportunity attacks from enemies other than the one whose space they are moving through. They still can't end moves in another creature's space.

After some examination it looks like halflings with their tricksy feat arent very close with size limits make lit very limited.

At the moment there seems to be absolutely no parity for martial effects wrt penetrate the line we have teleporting and eventually flight both achieving this....

I guess perfect parity wasn't the goal... but come on... its pretty easy to imagine a martial acrobatic maneuver that accomplishes this or a juggernaut style knight smashing through etc

ok we have a Daily martial ability ...

Compare to level 6 Dimension Door Utility Magic...  



both acccomplish much the same thing... and yet

The mages movement is approaching double the distance and is much lower level.

The Eladrin has a racial teleport that is almost better than the fighters high level utility
... unless i am missing something this utility sucks beans.

The ultimate comparision...  is the fly spell...



Based on my reading as a daily one shot giant stride is only worth being a level 6 power as an encounter power it could be worth a level 16.

Rangers also have a very sub par ability at level 22 ... smh

sigh

OK.... from the barbarian

It includes an attack action and doesnt use up your move so you can move after allows one to penetrate at least one row of the enemy (it would  be significantly better I think just  by increasing the shift distance by 1)

It looks like the Barbarian is a Mobile Warrior in a class i probably should have realized this was the case. (is the Wizard the Mobile Caster or just bloody super versatile).

Path of the Predator is a level 16 daily utility move which allows a barbarian to shift twice their speed (with athletic checks even climbing and swimming or with a jump included) with CA against an adjacent enemy at the end....

Enemy at top of cliff laughs at you with plans to drop rocks on your head... you rage into action and climb as fast as most people run up a 60 foot cliff right into his face shocking the shit out of him... this could be followed by an at-will move that lets you shift right past him and attack the actual dangerous enemy or just dish out some barbarian badass attack.

I will be making a Divine Juggernaut as a formal power

So how could one implement "flight level" as a flexible thing? For one given the diversity of powers that influence battle field mobility it hardly seems pragmatic. It seems one might need to have certain mobility moves and range specific defense moves like the arrow deflection for example to be expressed as (flight level + mod)