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My character is a party buffer with access to white raven tactics. Out of 3 allies one is a charger who kills about one serious enemy per turn, more if they foolishly clump together. My character is very protective of the group and logically speaking would prefer threats to be removed as quickly as possible. As a player I have a strong preference for tactically sound options in combat. But if I white raven tactics the charger every time, he not only does more damage than everyone else but gets at least one more round to do so. I understand that the dm can throw counters at the charger, but that's his prerogative; whenever he doesn't do that I have this dilemma. Thoughts?
WRT yields 1 extra round of actions for the charger per encounter at MOST*
His Initiative irrevocably changes to yours -1. And if you WRT him again nothing happens at all.
That said, it seems more like a power-gap between the charger and the other characters, which IMO is only a problem if those characters are also combat-oriented characters. So... what are they?
*That is, if his initiative beat yours, or you hold back your action until after his action, dropping both your initiative to charger-1 and charger-2
WRT yields 1 extra round of actions for the charger per encounter at MOST*
...
*That is, if his initiative beat yours, or you hold back your action until after his action, dropping both your initiative to charger-1 and charger-2
Next round you can delay your turn until after the charger's new initiative count, then WRT the charger again. Since, I believe, there are such things as negative initiative counts, you can do this indefinitely.
I really don't see this as a dilemma, just a matter of perspective. Our party has a bard who puts up dragonfire inspiration during most serious battles. When that goes off on my TWF character, I can end up clearing whole swathes of enemies from the board quite easily. I know better than to take credit for this myself however. We all give the Bard his due, and recognize him as doing the heavy damage-dealing when DI is up.
Do you think it would be a reasonable idea for him to put his DI up on just the wizard, cleric and the power-attack fighter and not use it on my character because that would make me too OP? My party is actually quite content to use tactics like this.
In your case, the use of the White Raven Tactics is the kind of thing a buffer does, and the extra kills the charger pulls off that he wouldn't get without the buffer should be recognized as also part of the buffer's contribution to the party.
__________________ “No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” ― Steven Brust
"In God we trust. All others we investigate." - United States Army Military Police Corps
I really don't see this as a dilemma, just a matter of perspective. Our party has a bard who puts up dragonfire inspiration during most serious battles. When that goes off on my TWF character, I can end up clearing whole swathes of enemies from the board quite easily. I know better than to take credit for this myself however. We all give the Bard his due, and recognize him as doing the heavy damage-dealing when DI is up.
Not quite. When I'm a bard, I love people with a disproportionate number of attacks just as much as I love bards when I'm the multi-attacker. Yes, the bard is awesome for giving out the damage, but you're just as awesome for having so many attacks that damage can ride on. It's pure synergy, and you should both get credit for the damage output.
So, in this case, WRT is putting more spotlight on both the initiator and the charger.
Next round you can delay your turn until after the charger's new initiative count, then WRT the charger again. Since, I believe, there are such things as negative initiative counts, you can do this indefinitely.
okay, I didn't think of delaying on part of the WRTactician...
Take my word when I say the charger really is the best option to WRT in almost every fight. The players are me (partybuffer), the charger, a dex-based meleer, and a sorcerer who seems more focused on not dying when it comes to combat. Since I don't want to WRT myself my second best option is the dex-based meleer - who is perfectly competent, btw, but just doesn't get charger levels of damage for obvious reasons.
Also, not to split hairs, but the charger isn't an ubercharger. He's a practically optimized character who does his thing and does it well. Combats end relatively quickly because he's specialized in damage. Just one WRT can comprise a large fraction of a fight.
While I understand that the buffer gets his share of the glory, that's me. I'm fine with my contributions. Unlike Dragonfire Inspiration (or other party-wide buffs), White Raven Tactics only affects one person; and beyond passive bonuses to attack/damage/whathaveyou, it gives that player more time in meat space to do his combat thing. I'm worried that I'm going to marginalize the other players and directly cause them to have less fun in combat. On the other hand, using WRT on someone else seems to go against my character's motivations and against sound tactics in general. Unless the "perspective" I'm missing is that I shouldn't care about the other players, I still see the dilemma.
Also, I don't think anyone brought it up yet, but talking to the players about this directly seems incredibly awkward. Talking to the DM about it just seems like an invitation for the charger to get countered, which is lame sauce on my part.
I havea a WRT user, and it generally gets used on our TWF swashbuckler, as he is the other melee-er, and the biggest meat grinder of the group. [edit: yes, I know this says a lot about our level of optimization:D ] No one has had a problem with it, though you know your group better.
So yeah, I don't see it as much of a problem, unless you're really sure that the group will feel slighted
Last edited by Susano-wo : 10-08-2012 at 12:15 AM.
The players are me (partybuffer), the charger, a dex-based meleer, and a sorcerer who seems more focused on not dying when it comes to combat.
I wonder if what you are referring to when you say the sorcerer seems more focused on not dying when it comes to combat is that they spend their first few rounds buffing and trying to find a good defensive position and by the time they are ready to unleash offensively the battle is over. I've run into players like this before - they had a hard time gauging the threat level of an opponent and tended to waste time casting defensive spells (shield, stoneskin, lesser globe of invulnerability, etc.) against opponents who would be dead by the time they were ready to cast their offensive spells.
__________________ “No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” ― Steven Brust
"In God we trust. All others we investigate." - United States Army Military Police Corps
Your first turn:
WRT him.
Take a move action.
Standard action to do nothing else in the round and recover maneuvers.
Your next turn:
WRT him.
Take a move action.
Standard action to do nothing else in the round and recover maneuvers.
Every subsequent turn:
WRT him.
Take a move action.
Standard action to do nothing else in the round and recover maneuvers.
The way it's worded, there's no reason you couldn't do it every turn if you do it first and then recharge.
From what I understand he isn't a martial adept, so he can't recover maneuvers. If he is a martial adept, then it depends on which one. I assume you think he's a Warblade? In that case he can't initiate and recover in the same round.
Last edited by Darius Kane : 10-08-2012 at 05:37 AM.
From what I understand he isn't a martial adept, so he can't recover maneuvers. If he is a martial adept, then it depends on which one. I assume you think he's a Warblade? In that case he can't initiate and recover in the same round.
Yes warblade and it says you can't initiate while you are recovering. It depends on how narrowly you interpret it. You could initiate before you start recovering. Then again it does depend on interpretation.
EDIT: Unless you mean from somewhere else in the book.
In any case, Warblade requires using a Swift action + Standard action (on an attack or waste it)
Since WRT requires a swift action, you cannot recover your maneuvers the round you use WRT.
You WRT as a swift action.
You take a move action.
You 'waste' a standard action to recharge maneuvers.
You absolutely can recover your maneuvers in the round you use WRT as long as you do it in exactly this order. You are not doing anything else in the round after recharging and you are not using a maneuver while recharging (you did it before recharging).
Warblade requires swift + standard or swift + melee attack.
Either way, you need a swift you don't have if you used WRT.
Aside from the fact that, NO, a warblade can't use a maneuver the round he recovers. Is there some ambiguity about whether immediate actions/AoOs out of turn count as part of the previous or upcoming turn? Sure!
Is there any ambiguity whether the stuff you do during your turn count as part of that round or not? HELL NO!
Your case fails by RAW at every possible juncture.
IIRC, it is how the or is parsed. I think gooddragon is reading it as (Swift+Melee Attack)or(Wasted Standard) rather than Swift+(Melee Attack or Wasted Standard).
I don't agree with the reading, I just think that is why he is making this assertion.
IIRC, it is how the or is parsed. I think gooddragon is reading it as (Swift+Melee Attack)or(Wasted Standard) rather than Swift+(Melee Attack or Wasted Standard).
I don't agree with the reading, I just think that is why he is making this assertion.
I did mention using narrow interpretation but yes this is what I mean.
EDIT: Looking at the text closely it seems poorly worded but I suspect it leans towards swift+standard due to the word 'using'.
I'm worried that I'm going to marginalize the other players and directly cause them to have less fun in combat. On the other hand, using WRT on someone else seems to go against my character's motivations and against sound tactics in general. Unless the "perspective" I'm missing is that I shouldn't care about the other players, I still see the dilemma.
As one of the other responses mentioned, you know your group better than we do. I know that if this was happening in my group, there wouldn't be a problem.
You obviously enjoy combat, and I'm guessing the player who made the charger does as well. What about the dex-fighter? Or the sorceror? Are they the type of players who focus a bit more heavily on the roleplay side of things? They might just not care as much as you're afraid they do (I certainly wouldn't).
Your other concern, about it making combat too simple, is strictly something for your DM to take care of (or choose not to take care of). There's nothing wrong with talking to your DM about it, bringing up the same points you brought up to us, including how you didn't want to, fearing he/she might counter the charger.
As for talking to the other players about it... I could see how that could be an awkward conversation. I think it may be less awkward if you found a reason for your character to talk to their characters about it. The fact that he has white raven tactics paints a picture of a tactician to me, and if he shares your thoughts about, say, the magic user buffing himself needlessly, he might do what any tactician would do and try to make things more effeciant.
In the end, it comes down to what I already mentioned: you know your group better than we do. Take our advice with a grain of salt.
I don't want to delve into build specifics for fear of derailment, but I should at least point out that my character initiates/refreshes White Raven Tactics as a Crusader.
The sorcerer player is kinda new, so I'm not sure about motivations there... but if I were to to put myself in the sorcerer's shoes I'd be casting those spells to avoid the rockets tagging me in combat. You can't RP while dead, and the charger has offense pretty much covered.
The dex-based meleer appears to enjoy combat very much. And like I said, he's competently built. I'm most worried about marginalizing him. I think I will talk to the DM about it next time we meet up.
I think you should WRT the one who is the best position, the Dex fighter is surrounded? WRT him, the charger got at opening for hig OMGcharge? WRT him. Stuff like that. Unless the charger is one-shooting everything there will be times where charging is not the best option and most PA multipliers only work in a charge.
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