Blade Expansion

[Merc]

Edits made based on discussion on channel and some other ideas. Still not perfect, but probably better. Haven't touched the spell section.

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Blade Proficiencies: A blade can choose to spend his weapon/non-weapon proficiencies on the following class specific blade proficiencies - Combat Panache, Combat Instincts, Master Thrower, and Flashing Steel. A proficiency in any of these gives access to certain blade techniques.

A blade cannot spend more than four proficiency slots on any one blade proficiency.


Combat Panache[/u]
To a blade, style is everything. They are the most dangerous opponent on the field. They are tricky, they are powerful, they are skilled...and they know it. And they'll  make sure the enemy knows it too.

Bedeviling Look
On the turn after inflicting at least 1 point of damage to an opponent, a blade can attempt to intimidate his opponent as a free action, causing them to make mistakes as they fight.

Make a Charisma check to intimidate, with a +1 bonus for each level of Combat Panache. If passed, the opponent takes a penalty on his attack rolls equal to the blade's levels of Combat Panache. After one round, the opponent can attempt to make a Save vs Paralyzation each round to snap out of it.

A blade can only intimidate one opponent at a time. The opponent must also have Int 3 or higher and cannot controlled/possessed/berserk or under a similar effect. This is because the opponent must be able to comprehend intimidation, and secondly, have the free will to be intimidated.

An opponent who has snapped out of his intimidated state cannot be intimidated again during the same encounter.

False Opening
Being the showman that he is, a blade can, upon being dealt injury, act distracted from the injury and present a false opening to his enemy. On making the bluff, there is a strong chance of the enemy falling for the trap on their next turn.

On the blade's next turn following his being struck, as part of their action they can attempt to make a bluff by making a Charisma check, with a +1 bonus for each level of Combat Panache. If passed, should the opponent attack you on their following turn, for each level of Combat Panache, they take a -1 penalty to their attack roll.

The opponent must have Int 3 or higher to be able to understand the 'opportunity' the blade is presenting them.

An opponent who has fallen for this technique will not fall for it again during the same encounter.  

Vengeful Pride
Upon engaging an enemy in a combat situation, that enemy cannot disengage combat with the blade to join another fight, except as a consequence of a blade's Offensive Spin, which has rightly driven them away in fear of the blade's might.

Abandoning the fight to join another is a griveous insult to the blade, insinuating that they are not the most dangerous opponent in the field. A blade will act quickly to correct this insult.

Should an engaged enemy attempt to join another fight, the blade will immediately zero in on whatever small openings they present in turning away from you. On his next turn, the blade can act on those openings and, for each level of Combat Panache, add a +1 bonus to all melee attacks and damage against that opponent.

Combat Instincts[/u]
A blade that has seen much combat has also learned many things. Amongst them is to trust their instincts.

Evasion
A blade is not an easy target to take by surprise, and he certainly will work hard to make you aware of this.

On any surprise attacks, the blade can attempt to reflexively minimize the effect of the attack, by making a Dexterity check. On passing the check, the attacker does not gain any bonus for making a surprise attack, and for each level of Combat Instincts the blade has, he shaves off -1 from the damage he takes if the attack hits.

If the blade has 3 or more points of Combat Instincts, they can also make a single counterattack immediately after the surprise attack is made.

Thousand Eyes
Flanking is no easy proposition against a blade. Why it's almost like he has eyes in the back of his head!

For each level of Combat Instincts, a blade can make an Intelligence check. For each check passed, he can designate a flanker to lose their flanking bonus.

Lightning Strikes
A blade who has been in many battles instinctively knows what he will do with any weapon he is proficient with.

For each level of Combat Instincts, a blade reduces the speed of weapons he is proficient with by 1.

Master Thrower[/u]
Some blades focus less on the art of wielding a sword, and more on the art of aiming at their targets.

Pin Shot
Make a called shot to attempt to trip or pin an opponent to the ground, a tree, or a nearby surrounding. On a successful attack, the opponent makes a Strength check, with a -1 penalty per level of Master Thrower, to attempt to immediately pull loose.

Deadeye Shot
Use an ally's attack to pinpoint weak points in an opponent. Hold your ranged attack until an ally makes his attack, and then strike.

Your opponent makes a Dexterity check, with a -1 penalty per level of Master Thrower, to attempt to not present any weak points. If he fails, when you make your attack, ignore the target's Dex bonus to AC.

Penetrating Shot
Make one mighty ranged strike against lined up opponents.

Make a called shot on the closest opponent, while indicating that this is a penetrating shot. If it hits, make an attack roll for each enemy behind it until you hit them all or fail a number of attack rolls equal to levels of Master Thrower.

Roll damage for each enemy hit, including any strenght bonus only for the first target.

Flashing Steel[/u]
Of course, then there are some blades that prefer to delve more into the mystical side of their training, and have come up with techniques that make use of it.

Arcane Infusion
Can sacrifice a spell as a free action to raise attack/damage on an attack. The attack/damage raised is equal to the level of the spell (ie, a 3rd level spell adds +3 to attack/damage). Only one spell can be sacrificed per attack, though multiple spells can be sacrificed in a round.

The highest level spell that can be sacrificed is the level of Flashing Steel+2 (ie, a blade with two levels of Flashing Steelcan sacrifice up to level 4 spells).

Steal Spell
Once per week, per level of Flashing Steel, a blade can choose to forego damage when striking a caster, and instead randomly steal a prepared spell.

The level of the spell taken cannot be higher than the level of Flashing Steel+2 (ie, a blade with two levels of Flashing Steel can only steal spells of levels 1-4). If the spell the blade attempts to randomly steal is of a higher level, the attack fails altogether. The attack also fails if the blade attempts to steal from an empty slot in the caster's set of prepared spells.

Weakening Slash
For a blade that has multiple attacks in a round, he can sacrifice his additional attacks to focus magical power through his first attack.

The single attack deals damage as normal, but in addition to that will cause the target to take -1 Strength damage per level of Flashing Steel the blade has.

This weakening effect lasts 1 minute per blade level (ie, an attack from a level 9 blade with two levels of Flashing Steel will cause -2 Strenght for nine minutes).

Can only be used once per combat encounter.

***

Blade Specific Spells: No idea on levels for these, but some ideas.
Spellblade - Can cast a touch spell onto a weapon and it'll act as a magic weapon+1, until spell is released. While attacking with a weapon holding a touch spell, can deliver the spell as part of an attack, with a command of "Release!"
Spellblade cannot be used on a weapon that is already magical.

Invisible Sword - Spell creates an invisible blade of their choosing. Because it is an invisible blade, a target cannot apply any bonus outside of armor or magic (dex or shields, for example) to their AC. Intelligent enemies can to some degree tell how the blade would hit, however, and can roll an intelligence check to keep all their bonuses.

True Strike - Adds +20 to next attack roll.

Cloak of Daggers - For a number of rounds equal to the blade's level, a blade will be able to pull out as many shadowy daggers from his cloak as he needs, and attack with them as with normal daggers. After the spell runs out, all shadow daggers disappear, leaving only empty holes where they struck.

Dancing Daggers - One dagger per blade level appears (up to a maximum of 10), dancing around the blade, and automatically slashes at anything that approaches the blade (be it friend or foe) until dispelled.

[Dracos]

Proficiency limit is unnecessary really.  The limit is already existant based on the fact that proficiencies themselves are rare and hard to come by.  A level 20 warrior will have only gotten about 6 new proficiencies.  

I'll give more when I have time to reread.

[Carthrat]

I like the style behind these abilities. I feel that tying several minor skills into large packages is an awesome way to give a blade an edge and some panache without being lame about it.

I'll comment on the magic-oriented abilities, because they matter to me. :D

Arcane Infusion and Weakening Strike are pretty cool. I do think it's a little weird how sacrificing attacks gives you a 'magical' edge- wouldn't sacrificng spell slots be a better idea? Perhaps -1 strength per 2 spell levels instead on a single attack instead.

Spell Steal, though, I take issue with. It's a sad life for a mage in a melee, but this adds insult to injury. Even if the mage *does* get out, he's kind of screwed because he won't have any spells left (remember, you've been disrupting them all as well as stealing them?) We get shafted enough when you're beating on us, no need to *gain* power while you're ruining our day. (Yes I use 'me' lots, but I genuinely feel this ruins the already-slim chances of a mage in physical combat.)


As for the spells themselves...


True Strike = 1st level. 3e was onto a good thing, here. I want this, too. >_>

Spellblade = It reminds me of spectral hand, somewhat. 1st or 2nd level spell, proably - the biggest drawback here is the fact that you need to cast it in advance.

Invisible Blade = 1st or 2nd level again. I thought it was higher at first, but then I realised that dex bonuses aren't a huge thing, at least compared to armour or magic.

Dancing Daggers = See Blade Barrier. This thing is kind of powerful- 10d4 potential damage to enemies close by each turn? And it moves with you, to boot? I don't think it should be permenant. But I do think you could create some sort of mini-area damage thing with it, striking everything around you in a radius- whipping around your cloak to let out a fan of knives? That'd be a 3rd level spell. The original version would be a 6th level one, I believe. Also, can you save or defend against these daggers? If they actually make *attacks* then I'd hope this spell isn't allowed, because it'll wonderfully extend the time each round takes even more. >_>

[Dracos]

Pre-statment Acknowledgement: I'm half asleep when writing this and intrinsically biased as I'm playing an AC tank and no one dislikes true strike more  than ac tanks.

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Personally, I'm not really rooting for True Strike.  It always played as a kind of retarded 'I give magic missile efficiency to anything!' type move that was virtually free on the mage's side.  I'm not hard against it or anything, but I'm not a big fan of the whole 'ha ha, there goes the point to any defense but massive tons of hp'ness it tends to encourage when actually used with warriors.

Random sleepiness: I'm pretty sure with invisible attacks, shields get counted as part of ac as well.  I'm also pretty sure that any first level spell, the effect vanishes on the first hit, whether or not the blade is invisible.  Because otherwise, it's Improved invisibility sans the defensive benefits.

Dracos

[Carthrat]

True strike- Exceeeeeept it's a spell and you only have so many of them. It's not like you can afford to spend each other round casting it. How much damage is one hit, anyway?

One caveat I DO think should apply is that True Strike doesn't work with called shots. It IS lame to auto-blind someone or whatever.

Attacks by Invisible people also give a +4 to hit because they're suprise attacks- which the invisible blade wouldn't get. Given that's it's a circumstance-based bonus that is only effective against enemies that are fast, I don't think it's borked as 1st.

And no, shields don't count versus invisible attacks. You can't interpose it between you and the strike if you can't see the strike. >_>

[Anastasia]

Re: True Strike

That's pretty damn good for a 1st or even 2nd level spell. Um, lemme work on all these with El-chan when we have some time. I like a lot of the seed ideas here, but some adaptation from 3rd to 2nd is needed.

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Re: Combat Panache.

I still like this one the most offhand, is this whaty ou wanna go with, El-chan?

[Dracos]

Okay, time two!

let's see.

Combat Paunche is awesome.  That's a really cool and at the same time very reasonable for a WP set.  I think Vengenful pride needs a makeover in the narrative sense (it reads kind of dumb for what it is) but the mechanics seem neat.

My suggestion for Vengeful pride?  Something along the lines of "Swift Reaction: Turning one's back on a blade is a dangerous move, even so much as offering a side can be deadly.  For an opponent that disengages from combat with a blade, the blade can attack next turn with ..." etc. =)

Evasion is neat, though you kept the complexity that seems pointless in the fact that 3 wp in an area takes so long. =) No reason to complain though.

Combat instincts as a whole?  *thumbs up*

mmm

Deadeye Shot
Use an ally's attack to pinpoint weak points in an opponent. Hold your ranged attack until an ally makes his attack, and then strike.

Your opponent makes a Dexterity check, with a -1 penalty per level of Master Thrower, to attempt to not present any weak points. If he fails, when you make your attack, ignore the target's Dex bonus to AC.

This would be much better with just a -X level to AC and  only one attack that round (It's a precision thing).  That way instead of it being a few rolls and totally irrelevant against characters who have low dex.  As it is now, it's solely useful for obliterating high dex characters, while it's totally useless against the slow orc decked out in heavy mail.  which doesn't seem to go much with the description (It should be easier to find a weak spot because they don't move so fast and it should be as effective).  A solid + to hit on it would work that well.  Maybe even more appropriately a x2 plus to hit, since that would make it worthwhile at all levels.  1 level would give +2 to the attempt, 3 +6 and thus better to deal with the harder to hit high level enemies while acknowledging a cost.

Penetrating shot is neat.

Master thrower?  Thumbs up with the notion that I think deadeye shot should be revised to be more relevant on the blade's skill and less a denial of the opponents.

Steal spell needs more mechanics desc.  How is it randomly determined?  What is being rolled?  A d9?  a d6?  (I think a d6 is reasonable)  Needs that little extra flesh to be complete.

Flashing steel otherwise looks similarly cool.  Nice revisions!

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On spells, I'm with rat on the blade one.  I wince at the thought of 10 attack rolls added per turn.

I've said my piece on true strike.  I think it goes kind of brutally with a mage warrior using the mage spell sheet and not a special blade one.

I think I'll just butt on on these.  There are other players who can give better input. =)

Dracos