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Actually I agree with you. Warrior does't need anything to help it and that is why the current offerings are only on the ok side of things.

I do have to say that the current swap out skills are so underpowered/horribly written that it's almost like they were thrown in because Warrior "had to get something" with the expansion. One replaces sage buffs for a whopping one-time "2 crush" that takes a ton of time to bring into being in the first place, and Noble reputation actually is written to sound like you only get the bonus once, ever, right when you take it.

But really, use bow, shield usage, weapon focus? Those are hardly crap, as I have seen all three brought to devastating use on the field. Especially Use shield. Since the larger the player carrying a shield, the more like a literal "car door on a handle" it can be. Half the shields on the field I can't even legally pick up if I were to play Rhul, as the phys-rep is illegally large for me. Now imagine having to be on the other side of that.

On the note of Noble Reputation - you do only get the 25 Power/Cunning troops once - but they also get multiple bonuses that are in effect at all times (well as long as they have military troops which they get).

the main problem I have with warrior is how its skills have an individual theme to them, but don't all mesh well together and in most cases overwrite one another.

defensive matrix = no offense and slightly more defense, rage = no defense and slightly more offense.
hold ground = don't move, sure footed = keep moving

then we have the swap out skills

basic
1) use shield - the only real good one and a solid choice, even if you normally don't use a shield.
2) use bow - only useful to archers, and if your an archer a path suited less to front line fighting would be better (healer, sage)
3) last stand - because hold ground was not bad enough, no, just no.

advanced
1) crush - pretty horrid cost/benefit ratio, and not even effected by other warrior skills
2) battle tactics - had the induction been shorter, there been more options, and had this been a sage or wizard ability, it would have been pretty cool.

master
1) noble reputation - someone got there political skill all over my combat path.
2) single weapon spec - im so upset that this skill got implemented this might be a long read. first it restricts you to one weapon, the worst combat style in final haven. second it does not stack with any other weapon focus skills. third the idea of using it with rage puts you at such a disadvantage you might as well not even bother. and finally it screwed warrior, because like parry, now that warrior has the ability to do a base damage of 3, never mind the drawbacks and crippling downsides, its balanced against that fact and used as a counter to efforts to try and fix warrior.


in conclusion / TL;DR
warriors suffers from both multiple personalities (some think its a tank, others that its a damage dealer) the attempted implementation of both designs ends up clunky, and most of the skills counter and prevent the use of one another.

If it's a call that does not contain a number it surges.

I have never seen that in the rules, and was not in the skill as described.

That also means you cannot use parry to negate the calls effects. If it is a call that does not contain a number yet does not surge then it is an exception.

ahem...disarm can be parried and has no number, I have never seen any confusion around that during combat.

Rule designers have a hard time seeing what is complex because they came up with the idea.

Its not at all related to the fact I suggested it. It just doesn’t compare to other skills that ARE complex, like the charms that all do something different things and none of which use a verbal that is in any way synonymous or hints at the effect.

riposte makes more sense as a reload. (20 seconds sounds good.) You still take the damage or you spend 2 lp. that’s not so bad.

Are reload and cool down different?

I like maim. I would leave it as cool down. a fighter could just drink a potion to fix it so it's not powerful. it's interesting. I'd make it so you can't maim the same place twice because it would be too hard to keep track off.

I agree that it should be limited to one effect per area (at a minimum)...maybe even per PC at a time.

you could fix that by calling 1 vorpal maim or something like that. (you know the way they did hamstring.)

true, although vorpal can only be used with edged weapons...will have to ponder it.

I don't think warriors need much help.

While I mostly agree, i only made the post because i noticed the skill at advanced seems lame compared to other swap outs.

They are already combat gods when it comes to dishing out and giving punishment.

They have to have some weaknesses to offset raw damage potential and great soak.

I just do not see how anyone can say they dish out great damage since the ONLY skill the warrior path has that does extra damage is rage and its drawbacks make it 90% useless. anyone can swing 2 damage with a melee weapon and not be a warrior, so while warriors are great for being road blocks and taking a beating, they are NOT great a dealing damage.

The swap out skills might not be awesome for raw damage, and a good number of them are stupidly worded/horrible in effect, but the upside is that the normal ones are great for what they are.

well i have never been a fan of hold ground or defensive matrix, so id dump em if i could.

Warriors should not be able to reflect nearly everything (essentially) that is thrown at them on the field as a skill.

I completely agree, and riposte makes sure they cant, since its not a LP skill they can use at will like parry. Im even more inclined to make the warrior take the damage before making the return damage call, to keep parry king of the hill. This skill also does not work on "everything" as it would only work on melee attacks, and only those that can essentially be parried.

It should not take a druid using a 4th level path skill, a 5 minute "mimic" implementation, and 15 seconds of charge time per swing to circumnavigate a warrior's shield by swinging "5 crush", only to have the warrior spend 2LP to swing it right back at that druid as an advanced skill.

Well, it doesn’t. Since there are other disciplines that can do the crush as a level 3 skill. Druid has it at 4 because they can swap them out. AND that same crush can be countered by a 1st level potion, so i don’t see an advanced skill that cost LP EACH TIME (as opposed to entire combat VIA potion) as overpowered. Add the cool down/reload that is longer than the 15 second druid charge time and it seems like a non issue no?

the main problem I have with warrior is how its skills have an individual theme to them, but don't all mesh well together and in most cases overwrite one another.

Seems to make perfect sense the warrior would not be able to fight agressivly and defensively at the same time.

1) use shield - the only real good one

its good but HARDLY the only good one.

2) use bow - only useful to archers

Wrong, just wrong. In fact I would have picked it up for kaylan had I been able to find a good LARP crossbow that wasn’t 300.00. I would love for Kaylan to have a 2 vorpal prepared at the onset of combat. I would spend every coin I had to find a way to poison them.

, and if your an archer a path suited less to front line fighting would be better (healer, sage)

The only path that’s better than a warrior archer, is a rogue archer to be better able to avoid incoming ranged attacks.

3) last stand - because hold ground was not bad enough, no, just no.

agreed

1) crush - pretty horrid cost/benefit ratio, and not even effected by other warrior skills

agreed

2) battle tactics - had the induction been shorter, there been more options, and had this been a sage or wizard ability, it would have been pretty cool.

Id have been more impressed had the one shot effect been parry(yes i know advanced skill providing master skill, but the parry would be one time only so not so crazy), or something more universally useful.

1) noble reputation - someone got there political skill all over my combat path.

cry if ya like but I love it and its helped in RP before too.

2) single weapon spec - im so upset that this skill got implemented this might be a long read. first it restricts you to one weapon, the worst combat style in final haven. second it does not stack with any other weapon focus skills. third the idea of using it with rage puts you at such a disadvantage you might as well not even bother. and finally it screwed warrior, because like parry, now that warrior has the ability to do a base damage of 3, never mind the drawbacks and crippling downsides, its balanced against that fact and used as a counter to efforts to try and fix warrior.

I would rather this have been a +2 damage for two handed weapons to give the warrior the option to be a pole arm terror.

like the charms that all do something different things and none of which use a verbal that is in any way synonymous or hints at the effect.

Actually I think the problem with Charms is that their names are ALL pretty much synonyms for the same effect, lol. Calm, Soothe, and Pacify are big culprits for confusion, though they are drastically different in effect.

Are reload and cool down different?

Yes. Goes like this:

Cooldown: You use a skill with a cooldown time (almost always spells), and during the cooldown time of that ability, you cannot use any other cooldown-inducing skills. But other skills can be used as normal.

Reload: You use the skill, and then before you use it again, you have to spend the reload time like a charged skill, and then it is ready to be used again. But the whole time a reload skill is "ready" it cannot be interrupted- it is always on-hand for that single use. Think of it as a single-shot firearm.

so the big difference between the two is one reload skill doesnt prevent the use of a different reload skill, but thats not the case with cool down skills.

As i understand it, essentially yes.

Re-loading a skill
closely follows the mechanics of a Charge-up skill. You must remain immobile for a set Duration, resting for the stated reload duration, and this must be done separately for each skill that must be re-loaded. If you perform any other action or are struck the Reload is disrupted, and you must begin again. You do not need to immediately Reload a skill after use, but may not use that specific skill again until the appropriate time has been spent to Reload it.

So you could have 8 reload skills, and use them all at different times, in which case each would have to be reloaded before using each particular skill again. It would just take a looong time if you let them all go and then wanted them all back readied at the same time as you would have to do their times one after another, and be immobile and undisrupted all that time, too.

Cooldown skills used to be godawful, as originally cooldown meant that you could use absolutely no skills for the whole time, and if disrupted, the time started all over. Imagine with the old way, using a cooldown skill with 30min cooldown at the start of a cave crawl...*shudder*. I used to joke about finding a book, but technically that's a skill too, lol.

Let me skip to the end result.

Nothing changes because warrior is fine. They just have bad swap out skills. That is their disadvantage to offset their other awesome abilities.

ah..well...cool then, glad to hear it. I guess we are all safe from change as long as the GM staff that can actually make such a final resolution agrees with you eh?

As I said- I know Rhul is a bad-ass in combat without a single swap-out skill. Literally the only think I could do to make him better would be to use a shield.

The main benefit of the warrior path is that synergizes extremely well (and easily) with nearly every discipline. Add exotic items into the mix and it's awesome.

Though honestly the warrior could remove several of the swap skills for more skills along the line of Noble Reputation. Simply because the basic rulebook skills are awesome as-is for combat.

id be cool with other non combat swap outs, and have a few I have come up with, since the initial post. that I am smoothing the corners on. I will post those soon ish.

I'd honestly love to see more skills that affect others, like the "2 crush" buff. I think the 10 minute time frame is a little long though.

Riposte is interesting and the more feasible of the two skills listed. While it is a reflect ability, the limited targeting provides an important measure of balance, as does doubling the cost of parrying the initial damage and restricting it to a melee attack. As a Heroes and Villains swap-out at the Master level it would be a relatively exclusive skill and have limited distribution in-game. I'd likely be willing to entertain a playtest.

As for Maim, while the mechanic itself is not excessively complex, it would be a powerful modifier in PVP. That said, a series of checks and balances would have to enter game to provide countermeasures to Maim, and given that its base mechanic is restrictive and potentially dis-empowering to players, I'd vote against its implementation.

Oh, while I'm thinking about it, I'm not opposed to the idea of marginally increased versatility within the paths. Additional swap-outs, if provided with equal attention for all paths, would not be a detriment to the current rule set. I will say this, however - while I'm happy to discuss new mechanics and proposals for large modifications to the rules, for the time being our focus will be on clarifying and presenting the rules as they stand for the new rule book project.

rules for surging.

pg 83

Understanding Special Damage Calls
Certain skills allow players to perform special actions. For example, the Barbarian can cause Fear, the Swashbuckler can Disarm opponents, etc. When you are hit with any attack that is not preceded by a number (i.e. “Fear” as opposed to “10 magic”) then you are affected by that attack if it hits any part of you, your weapon, or your shield. On the other hand, weapon attacks preceded by a number can be blocked by a weapon or a shield, and packet driven attacks preceded by a number can be blocked by a shield, if blocked by your weapon you still take the full effect of the attack. In addition, any secondary effects caused by the special call (i.e. Fear, Poison, Sleep, Disease, etc.) when preceded by a number will not take effect unless this damage hits your Life Points.