[.11] Rogue and Fighter mid-level skill requirements

Aden Corso

Aden Corso

Novice
Utah had our first game day playtest last Saturday and it was a blast. Love the new calls, the ease of healing, and as a rogue I'm begrudgingly starting to get used to the Waylay replacements (grumble grumble mumbled rant), and as I go through my build for our second playtest next week, I'm starting to get a little annoyed with some of the requirements for my build. I should note: this has to do with Rogue and Fighter builds. Nothing against magic users, but I haven't ever built one before and don't want to open that can of worms just now.

Both rogues and fighters have those certain skills that can be taken once per every 30 build in their categories. Working around this has the unfortunate side-effect of forcing me to put huge amounts of points into skills that I neither want or need for the character I hope to make. While it's true that we want to avoid power creep, I would much rather have a restriction of 25 points rather than 30 for a Parry, Riposte, Dodge, or Slay than buy yet another huge chunk of Critical Attacks or Back Attacks, or Silence/Stun Blow or Weakness/Stun Blow with points I was wanting to spend on some more archetypal skills (rogues gotta rogue, and fighters gotta fight, ya know?). A great way to go about all of that would be to increase the points cost of those core skills, but decrease the Combat or Stealth requirements.

While we're at that, can I say that the Weapon Proficiency and -- especially -- Backstab perpetual requirement increase gets far too overwhelming far too quickly. It feels more like punishment the more you tack on. Why isn't there a cap on the number of additional Critical or Back Attacks you need before you can get another Backstab or Weapon Proficiency? Especially when concerning rogues, where we only do more damage when attacking from the back, whereas fighters and scouts can have at it from any and all directions, and especially when we no longer need more damage from behind because Waylay no longer exists and there is no further need to do more damage through armour to ensure it works!

That last bit got a bit screamy, but no worries: I still view the majority of the changes made in 2.0 to be positive. I just also believe there to be some room for improvement. Thoughts?
 
There's currently a hard cap of 13 Critical Attacks/Back Attacks per Weapon Proficiency/Backstab; I personally think 11 or 12 is more reasonable, as even for a Fighter or Rogue that's still over 3 levels of XP, nearly 4 if you include the Proficiency/Backstab cost.
 
Sage of Legaia said:
There's currently a hard cap of 13 Critical Attacks/Back Attacks per Weapon Proficiency/Backstab
Click to expand...

So where are the details for this? I’m looking to playtest a character the focuses entirely on back attacks/critical attacks and can’t find that in the latest rules update
 
Sage of Legaia said:
There's currently a hard cap of 13 Critical Attacks/Back Attacks per Weapon Proficiency/Backstab; I personally think 11 or 12 is more reasonable, as even for a Fighter or Rogue that's still over 3 levels of XP, nearly 4 if you include the Proficiency/Backstab cost.
Click to expand...

This got removed in the last Playtest Packet based on Symposium discussions with the Owners (it was part of the same discussion that caused the first Prof/BS to only take 2 prereqs instead of 4).
 
Oh. Guess my memory isn't as good as I thought it was. :/ Thanks Polare!
 
Bruvah M, currently there's no especially viable way to make a straight Weapon Proficiency/Backstab build, which is really a shame to be honest. I'm ok with there being restrictions on abilities and things like that... but someone who wants to go straight damage shouldn't be have to wait 4 levels to get another rank in it.
 
Aden Corso said:
Bruvah M, currently there's no especially viable way to make a straight Weapon Proficiency/Backstab build.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure how you can come to that conclusion. In my opinion, there are multiple ways to do so. Your weapon choice would be a major way to change your approach in combat, but still. Maybe an example would help?

Aden Corso said:
Someone who wants to go straight damage shouldn't be have to wait 4 levels to get another rank in it.
Click to expand...

Wait four levels to get one rank in it? As in spending 40+ experience to purchase the next Weapon Proficiency or Backstab? To get to that point, you would need to purchase 13 or so Critical Attacks/ Back Attacks. It would cost 300+ XP just to get there. And from there, that person is swing for an additional 13, 19, or 26 points of damage. Every. Attack.

A major reason for the redesign was to make it difficult for players to have that much damage and to encourage them to pursue other options instead.
 
Last edited:
I also think there is room for improvement, despite being largely impressed at the important strides made.

Archetypicality means different things to different folks. Personally I find inflicting control effects to be iconicly Rogue-ey.

Base damage at will, very efficient, and not very interesting which are some of the reasons the prereqs to increase that value, grow each time.

Luckily with the reduction to 2 instead of 4 prereqs for the first increase makes it straight damage builds more viable, more quickly for young chapters / low levels like our own.

As a Rogue/Fighter if you find being behind someone to do extra damagedto them inconvenient, that's understandable, but it certainly feels "Rogue-ey" to me. There are skills that let you ignore that requirement a bit.

Out of curiosity do you feel that granting higher damage progression to Backstab (say +3 instead of +2) would change your perspective or do you feel that given the Waylay/Armor elements you mentioned, it would be redundant?
 
3 prof rogue is a strong build when you get to over 200 build. Maybe before then too.
 
Maule, if I decided, at level 12, with 130 build points, to go max fighter flat boring swings, the max I could swing with a longsword would be 9 normal. That's with One handed edged, 35 Critical attacks, and 7 Weapon proficiency. If I wanted to have 10 Weapon Proficiency, swinging for 12, I would need 230 build points. That is a huuuge jump.

Tantarus and Cedric, I'd never considered taking Weapon Prof before as a Rogue. I always looked at those points as prohibitively expensive, but now I'm seriously considering it. Unfortunately, a Rogue splitting between Combat and Stealth points makes the time cost of the 'juicy' skills that much longer. I might be looking at the game all wrong, I've only been playing a year, and I promise I'm not trying to powergame this. I just want to be useful more often than not, and I figure that at level 12 I should start to feel that way. Again, maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way.

Jaerc, one of my great joys in 1.0 was getting behind the lines and causing chaos. Sowing discord and confusion was my stock in trade as a knockout-focused rogue. I definitely would feel like a damage increase would make the appeal of taking backstab that much more appealing, and definitely worth the points cost. If I'm getting less utility/output for the same price as another class gets more, even though, as a rogue, I'm expected to be a back-stabby bastard, then something is a bit off. That extra damage would mean that rogues in the backfield were dangerous again, instead of just annoying, even if they were low-to-mid level.
 
It’s a lot easier to take care of those build sinks when you are respecing from higher build numbers for sure. I just whipped up this build, 4s from front, 10s from behind. Long/short dual wield. Trap globes some defenses and offensive skills. Build at your level still comes fast, and you already have your base damage setup unless you want to go to 5s/15s. Just fill in with assassinates, doom or Sleep/paralysis if you need offense. Or just add in all the dodge/evades. I also really like surprising strikes maxed out mostly for assasinate/doom strikes (with raging blow) on front lines to punch a hole in the line for me to run through to skirmish.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11tNJMD3nmBFs2-3lV2UGISCbZPADZz77MY_eroL_r5A/edit?usp=sharing

I think at your level of the game, with clever positioning, you'd be incredibly deadly. I apologize if that isn't the fighting style you use, I couldn't quite remember back from October.
 
Cedric said:
. I also really like surprising strikes maxed out mostly for assasinate/doom strikes (with raging blow) on front lines to punch a hole in the line for me to run through to skirmish.
Click to expand...

I like that combo a lot. :) I think Opportunistic Attack /Assassinate/Raging Blow is way under valued for how good it is.
 
Last edited:
Aden Corso said:
Bruvah M, currently there's no especially viable way to make a straight Weapon Proficiency/Backstab build, which is really a shame to be honest. I'm ok with there being restrictions on abilities and things like that... but someone who wants to go straight damage shouldn't be have to wait 4 levels to get another rank in it.
Click to expand...

Blame our uncapped level system for resulting in unsustainable static damage numbers.
 
Alkalin3 said:
I like that combo a lot. :) I think Surprising Strike/Assassinate/Raging Blow is way under valued for how good it is.
Click to expand...

It is three skills and a ritual. That’s pretty expensive but yeah I know what you mean. I still think raging blow is a bit undervalued myself. I saw a scroll of it and the diff is 3 and I think it can have 3 charges.
 
It's only 2 for rouges though. So it makes assassinate costs 1 more than a slay would (with the assumable higher damage). That trade off feel super good. The Raging Blow isn't needed but, if you want to avoid meditating the 2 things back then it's a great addition. I could take or leave the doom.
 
Do you all mean opportunistic attack instead of surprising strike?
 
Oops, totally right Evan. I get those two mixed up. Stranglely with the new database, doom has been sticking a lot lately. I like it.

Aden - I'm glad you like it. I know your game is a lower level game than Denver's, which is a lower level than Seattles. I went and played up there and 4/10s with some tricks/defenses was about on par with many people there. I think you'd still feel like that you are relevant, much more so than in 1.3 when their rogues might have been doing 20+ from the back.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top