[House Rule] Weapon Specific Manoeuvres

[Matthew]

This whole fervour over 4e has got me thinking about Manoeuvres and how they might look in the next edition. Whilst I am not a big fan of Tome of Battle, I really like the idea of Weapon Specific Manoeuvres. A few months back somebody created a list of Monk 'Techniques', which I thought was pretty cool. They didn't have to pay for them via Feats or anything, they just learned them like Spells. I think that there was a limit on usage, but I don't really recall. Anyway, I thought it would be cool if the community could come up with some Weapon Specific Manoeuvres to 'power up' the Martial Classes.

I was thinking that they would require Swift or Immediate Actions to Activate and once used it would require a Swift Action to refresh them all.

Here's my first suggestion:


POMMEL STRIKE
Weapon Type: Long Sword
Requirement: Base Attack Bonus +1
Activation: Swift or Immediate Action
Benefit: You may make a Free Attack at your highest Attack Bonus -4 in addition to your normal Attacks. This Attack does Bludgeoning Damage and on an Attack Roll of 16-20 it forces the Target to make a Will Power Save or become Dazed. The Difficulty Class is equal to 10 + your Attack Bonus. This takes the place of any Critical Hit that would have otherwise have been triggered and any creature immune to Critical Hits is similarly immune to this effect. Furthermore, this will not effect creatures two steps or more larger than the Attacker.

[Edit] Added to First Post.


SWIFT ATTACK
Weapon Type: Long Sword
Requirement: Base Attack Bonus +1
Activation: Swift Action
Benefit: You may make an additional Attack with your Primary Weapon this Round if you use the Full Attack Action. All Attacks made during this Round have a -4 Attack Penalty.

[Edivad]

POMMEL STRIKE
Weapon Type: Long Sword
Requirement: Base Attack Bonus +1
Activation: Swift or Immediate Action
Benefit: You may make a Free Attack at your highest Attack Bonus -4 in addition to your normal Attacks. This Attack does Bludgeoning Damage and on an Attack Roll of 16-20 it forces the Target to make a Will Power Save or become Dazed. The Difficulty Class is equal to 10 + your Attack Bonus. This takes the place of any Critical Hit that would have otherwise have been triggered and any creature immune to Critical Hits is similarly immune to this effect. Furthermore, this will not effect creatures two steps or more larger than the Attacker.:
I do like the idea, but I have a few problems with it:
A)a free attack? Swift or immedite action? I suggest making it either an attack action or, if you want to be generous, a move one.
B)As a requirement, I would add that you have to be using the long sword with only one hand - this also reduces the damage. Also add a limitation about being able to strike your opponent on the head. While I understand the idea of using the pommel to strike...don't you think this could also be used with any bludgeoning weapon like a mace or club? It makes sense..
C)DC 10 + attack bonus might look ok at low-levels...but at higher levels, it produces really high DCs, and attack bonuses are usually higher than saves.
The DC should probably be based on the damage you did.
So I suggest DC = 10 + (damage caused/2). This should scale somewhat better, especially considering this can't be a critical hit and that it's a one-handed blow.
So, if your fighter has Strength 16, uses a +1 long sword and PA 3, ending up with a +7 bonus, the lowest save DC would be 14(if he rolled an 1 on his d8 sword damage), while the highest would be 17(if he rolled an 8). Both numbers look ok.
If the character had strength 20, used a +4 long sword and Power Attack 7,(total +16 damage bonus), the highest save DC he could get would be 22, which doesn't look too high. At these levels it would actually be somewhat low...

Oh, and what is going to happen in 4e, with fighters being able to do different things with different weapons sounds cool, I agree.

[Matthew]

Hey, thanks for commenting.

A) Yeah, it is supposed to be 'Power Up', essentially an Additional Attack once every two turns. You're probably right, though, it might be a bit powerful. Perhaps it should do no damage, preferably I want the Daze effect to have a chance of taking place before the Attack. Have to rethink it.
B) Similar Manoeuvres would be possible with other Weapons, I don't see why not, but they'd just be created for them. I wouldn't be inclined to force anybody to fight with an empty hand, though.
C) Yeah, you are probably right about that. I was thinking of Saga Saves, which progress much more uniformly. I suppose a DC of [10 + Character Level] or [10 + Strength Bonus] would be more appropriate.

[elliott20]

I like the idea but I'm not quite sure about the implementation here.

The thing with ToB that I think erks a lot of people is that you make the moves into some kind of expendable resource when it's clearly not. (since it felt too much like a "ZOMG special attack" thing)

What you did right here, is the opposite. Instead of just making it some kind of "sword magic" kind of thing, it's just a move that requires the character to sacrifice an action (albeit only a swift/immediate one) to use. By making it expend a move equivalent though, you would actually make this only useful during a full action, which in many ways still makes sense. But the thing is, fighters are already pretty scary when they get to do full actions. The trick with fighters is getting the opportunity to do so. so really, it's not THAT powerful.

saves: I'm all for the scaling DC myself. BAB actually would work for me. All you need to do is make sure it scales correctly. If we did something like say, 10 + BAB/number + ability mod, you could actually control the scaling by just changing up the number in place.

[Matthew]

Hey Elliot, thanks for commenting. I'm not that clear on the real benefits Fighter's derive from Full Attacks. As far as I am aware, most of their power comes from crazy Charge combinations like Leap Attack, Shock Trooper et al.

So, just to be clear, do you think the more powerful Manoeuvres should be Move Actions or are you making an argument for all Manoeuvres to be Move Actions or am I completely misunderstanding you?

Here's another Manoeuvre I basically stole from Saga:


SWIFT ATTACK
Weapon Type: Long Sword
Requirement: Base Attack Bonus +1
Activation: Swift Action
Benefit: You may make an additional Attack with your Primary Weapon this Round if you use the Full Attack Action. All Attacks made during this Round have a -4 Attack Penalty.


Yeah, I'm in favour of [10 (or 1D20) + Character Level + Attribute] for Saving Throws. It makes everything run a lot smoother.

[elliott20]

oh yeah, as of currently, the "best" fighter would still be the pounce 2-handed fighter but that is actually a product of the problems of the full attack option.

The full attack option potentially can do a lot more damage than a charging fighter but it is far less reliable (seeing as we have this system where iterative attacks have decreasing effectiveness) and it is far harder to set up.

as for maneuvers: I'm actually not really arguing for or against making maneuvers move-equivalent. What I am saying is that one of the main complaints I hear about ToB is that they treat maneuvers like they're special powers or ammunition that gets expended and gives it a whole "special power" feel to it. The intention of that, I believe, is to give the system some semblence of control and constraints on the number of times people use that maneuver. Thus, they can justify making the maneuvers more powerful than they normally would allow. (i.e. a maneuver might allow you perform TWO full attack options in a round but since you can only do it once per encounter it's okay.)

This is what makes maneuvers different from feats. Feats as long as you can recreate the situation to use them in, you can use them all day and all night long. But at the same time, they're not going to do anything as earth shattering.

And that's probably why sometimes it's hard for fighters to pick useful feats after say level 6. There're just aren't that many useful feats after a certain point. Maneuvers, depending on how they are purchased, might remedy that.

[Matthew]

oh yeah, as of currently, the "best" fighter would still be the pounce 2-handed fighter but that is actually a product of the problems of the full attack option.

The full attack option potentially can do a lot more damage than a charging fighter but it is far less reliable (seeing as we have this system where iterative attacks have decreasing effectiveness) and it is far harder to set up.

Right, yeah, I agree. Iterative Attacks are a poorly thought out mechanic, in my opinion. I will be glad to see the back of them.


as for maneuvers: I'm actually not really arguing for or against making maneuvers move-equivalent. What I am saying is that one of the main complaints I hear about ToB is that they treat maneuvers like they're special powers or ammunition that gets expended and gives it a whole "special power" feel to it. The intention of that, I believe, is to give the system some semblence of control and constraints on the number of times people use that maneuver. Thus, they can justify making the maneuvers more powerful than they normally would allow. (i.e. a maneuver might allow you perform TWO full attack options in a round but since you can only do it once per encounter it's okay.)

This is what makes maneuvers different from feats. Feats as long as you can recreate the situation to use them in, you can use them all day and all night long. But at the same time, they're not going to do anything as earth shattering.

And that's probably why sometimes it's hard for fighters to pick useful feats after say level 6. There're just aren't that many useful feats after a certain point. Maneuvers, depending on how they are purchased, might remedy that.
Hmmn. The thing is War Blades can actually refresh all their feats during an Encounter as a Swift Action, so long as they are Attacking, so it's less 'per Encounter' than one might think. For non Martial Adept Classes, it is 'per Encounter', though.

Yeah, that's one of the things I like mechanically about Manoeuvres, you can't just bash the same button over and over again until you win, you are encouraged to attempt combinations, which is one of things I would like to have a go at Home Brewing here. I think a Fighter with a string of Manoeuvres would be quite mechanically interesting to play.

[elliott20]

Well, I like the idea of maneuvers being not so much an insta-win button but rather a "picking the right tool for the right job" sort of thing so that people using it aren't going to be using the same one over and over again.

[IonizedChicken]

If you like the concept of weapon-specific maneuvers you can always scrap the discipline system and change it to a weapon-specific system$. This will require carefully revising every maneuver rather than simply saying "Stone Dragon = bludgeoning weapons", though. For example, you could claim that the Dancing Blade Form (5th level stance) only provides a +5 ft. Reach bonus to very large weapons** (such as the Greatsword, which would make sense), that X Mountain Hammer maneuvers only work with various hammers** (naturally), and so forth.

Some maneuvers will be less prone to this change, such as many Desert Wind maneuvers (which are inherently supernatural). You can simply scrap those/possibly change them for new, homebrewed ones.

$ this is assuming that the supernatural theme is what bothers you.

** I'd like to note here that creating seperate lists of maneuvers for every single weapon in the game seems to me like an unreasonable concept -- it's better for maneuvers to belong to weapon types or weapon groups, such as two-handed slashing weapons, two-handed bludgeoning weapons, and so forth.

[elliott20]

I'd like to note here that creating seperate lists of maneuvers for every single weapon in the game seems to me like an unreasonable concept -- it's better for maneuvers to belong to weapon types or weapon groups, such as two-handed slashing weapons, two-handed bludgeoning weapons, and so forth.

that's a fair criticism, I think. seeing as there are probably a bunch of new weapons out there, trying to write maneuvers for each one would be far too much work and very redundant. (I mean, it's not like you can't do the pommel hit with a claymore or an axe even.)

I personally just think the idea of weapon specific maneuvers to be a pretty interesting concept.

For the most part though, if they are going to do things this way, I can understand wanting to categorize things.

The only time when you REALLY need to write a maneuver specific to a single weapon is when the weapon has such a unique design that it really cannot fall under any other type. i.e. what IF someone were to come up with swordchucks?

[AjaxTorbin]

I personally just think the idea of weapon specific maneuvers to be a pretty interesting concept.

For the most part though, if they are going to do things this way, I can understand wanting to categorize things.

The only time when you REALLY need to write a maneuver specific to a single weapon is when the weapon has such a unique design that it really cannot fall under any other type. i.e. what IF someone were to come up with swordchucks?

like this?



Dar'Rouk, Elvish Spin Blade

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/5466/darroukspinbladejw8.jpg

Allways wielded in a pair.
850 GP (for one)
light weapon
Slashing
1D4
Critical 17-20 x2(beacause of the adamantine edge)

When you take the feat Proficantcy [Spin Blade] the true power of these weapons comes to light.

On any round where the user takes a defencive or full defencive action, double the bonus you recive to Armor Class.

The user of these weapons recives the benefit of the two weapon defence feat for free whe useing these weapons. if they have this feat already, increase the bonus by one.

IF THE USER HAS SPRING ATTACK IT UNLOCKS THE FOLLOWING ALSO:
Chaotic Defence:Due to the strange dance like movements needed to use these these weapons your oppenints dont quite know how to respond; they take a -2 to hit a user of these weapons.

MAY ONLY BE USED IF THE USER HAS THE COMBAT REFLEXES FEAT:
Fast Responder: a user of these weapons can not be flanked as she can respond to oppenents on any side as easly as she can to one in front of her.
if the user chooses to not be flanked, she gets no attacks of oppertunity that round.