I also have Thrashing Dragon, Veiled Moon and Mithral Current
I'm also an unchained rogue with the proper archetype so I will only get to level 6 maneuvers, and I'm at the level where my every choice will stay with me up to level 20.
Thrashing Dragon is neat but Broken Blade is mostly just better. Mithral Current is neat if you can acquire the feat that lets you count your fists as Silver
Nice feat. My feats are 2WF, Mithral feats 1 and 2 (I can get away from melee when missed, but our mithral current stalker is making a better use of it due to higher AC)
Broken Blade brings a ton of really (insanely) high-damage maneuvers and solid counters. IIRC Veiled Moon (haven't actually used it) can give you a few good ones for teleporting around and such.
I have seen a counter that throws away enemies but... I don't know. I mean, I need counters to stay alive, I really need them, but they eat up my regular swift actions, included campaign-related boosts, mythic actions and recovering maneuvers with gambits.
If you're using maneuvers you probably don't need TWF, especially if you're going unarmed. It's likely more worth your while to just use a Strike that gives you a few attacks for a Standard Action and using your movement to dart in or out. Or I don't remember if the Rogue archetype has a move action to regain a maneuver
The important thing about a counter that throws an enemy away is that it interrupts a full attack
By default it's a -4 to attack for +2 AC, which sucks. But 3 ranks of Acrobatics moves that to +3 AC, and you may be able to pick up Crane Style to bump it down to -2 to Attack and an extra +1 on AC
Nah, AC is a solid first line of defense. It's never the best option to invest in, but it's the only defense which is always on and affects every attack roll
Investing all your cash and feats and such pumping it isn't a good idea, that is (killing things faster is usually a good idea), but it's best to not let it fall behind
-6 attack (-2 from most multiple attack maneuvers or TWF) feels bad on a guy who has a mid BAB. I also took weapon focus and mythic weapon focus despite them being poor feats but it never seems to high
my last expenses went on a +4 cloak of resistance but +4 belt of agility is due next
@MikeQ Especially against large enemies with mythic actions, I think I will settle on entering their square, then prevent them from shifting. Other enemies, I can debuff more properly.
@Delioth is it true that CMD grows faster than CMB? I've been avoiding combat maneuvers for that reason alone.
yes, it is good, even if it is less offensive. Anyway, stances are not a problem right now, I need to decide maneuvers. Maybe I will start listing all the ones I want to get, starting from level 6
Since survivability is an issue I'd put forth Quicksilver Wave as an option. That gives you the opportunity to Move Action away from enemies>Gambit (hoping you have the one that gives you maneuvers on a successful Trip)>Quicksilver Wave, drawing a weapon so that you get a ranged attack+Trip attempt all in one
And Quicksilver Wave gives an extra bonus on the Trip attempt.
Ok, so. Steel Axe Kick. Extra 10d6 damage on a single attack, and a low DC daze. Level 6. Then again, level 4 or something like that has -2 to hit, 3 strikes, +3d6 each. Since I usually sneak attack, 3 Attacks look like a lot better to me.
Yeah, I think Tail Slap is a 100% pick for you since you're having survival issues. It's not the optimal murder tool (Dazed doesn't actually lower defenses), but it does help. And you have the chance to have 1d4 rounds of free time on them
@BESW I'd say of the games that have either classes or character levels, more of them have classes/strong archetypes or something like that, and I cannot really think of one that has levels but no classes. But that's not what you mean, now that I think of it.
I think levels, coming from games with levels and classes, is "get a package of features all at the same time" - which ties really well with classes. I mean, in D&D 2e everyone leveled up with a different amount of XP and they were levels nonetheless.
To me, a game with levels is one where character change is mostly/exclusively gaining more features and higher numbers, rather than modifying or exchanging what they have.
Ideally, not having a class means that alla packets are thrown into a single container (and that would be D&D 3.x multiclassing) with no prereqs (packet trees)
@BESW I was talking about this earlier. Another common feature of leveled systems (or at least, those modeled to be similar to D&D) is that the nature of the game differs at low, medium, and high levels.
That term could work. And I'm comparing it to systems that have some degree of character progression, except the characters and challenges have most (if not all) of their core features right off the bat, and are not fundamentally different between early and late game.
In addition to increased numbers and an increased number of features, the 4e tiers gate access to certain categories of buffs and debuffs, travel to certain areas, and confronting certain foes.
Interestingly, 4e's classes start with most of their core features.
At paragon and epic you choose what are effectively secondary classes to complement the first (paragon path and epic destiny), with a new set of features unlocked over time which may or may not be at all related (thematically or mechanically) to your base class.
@MikeQ I'm pretty confident that that's what BESW meant, yeah. And then there's a third dimension of progression: characters growing a different personality or attitude.
@MikeQ In Fate, at the end of every session you can swap two skill ranks, or replace one of your aspects or stunts. That's lateral: you have all the same numbers and the same number of slots for features, but you've moved them around. At the end of every story arc you get a +1 to a skill, and every adventure gives you +1 to refresh. That's linear: you have more stuffs, not just different stuffs.
I like the way Awaken does this: the more you use a skill/ability/... the better you get in it. Used Acrobatics 5 times successfully? Time to get a rank up in Acrobatics.
@MikeQ Even 4e lets you do a lateral swap once per level.
It also does a good job at supporting what @Zachiel mentioned: it can be used to reflect how a character's adventures change them.
That's a big part of how Fate uses the lateral changes: it's less "I don't like this stunt anymore" and more "my character has changed their mind about something and I want their abilities to reflect that."
On the topic of Fate: I'm running Secrets of Cats for my cat-loving friends on Monday. Do I want to run it as written (skill pyramid), or are there good reasons to run it as Accelerated, Accelerated-with-Dresden-Approach-names, or Aspect-Only? It will likely be a one shot, and I won't pre-gen or half-pre-gen characters, because it's the kind of game where everyone wants to make their cat.
@trogdor (and therefore presumambly also @BESW and @doppelgreener), you did play SoC at some point, didn't you? I grew up without pets, so my genre-fu is weak. Any tips what's fun?
I'm increasingly fond of not-skills, just because the skills option usually feels like it's adding complexity out of proportion with improved play experience, but Secrets of Cats' magic system is already baked into skills and I'd be wary of the hacks I'd need to make for it to work with another modifier system.
I thought it was @trogdor mentioning a Cats character that was a dog that could eat anything to borrow their powers, so I had assumed that was in a game with you.
No, it wasn't eating people. It was based on a real dog that would just eat anything if their owners weren't looking. Probably a smaller breed? And for the game, they gave him a stunt that meant if he ate something belonging to another character, he'd be able to use some of the powers of that character.
@BESW they dream of being giant cats like lions, but hope that whatever magic ritual causes this to pass wouldn't also wind up making dogs into giant dogs like Clifford
@trogdor Heck, I might be misremembering that. Or it might not have been in chat (but then I don't know where, there's not really other places I frequent where this might be discussed.
@trogdor There isn't. [Modulo Misremembering:] One of the group decided that they would play that dog in a group of cats. It may even have been that they decided that dogs normally can't do magic, but this guy can when he eats a cat's toy or whatever.
WHERE ON EARTH did I read that story! It's like with my game of two doomed astronauts of different species on a space ship. I feel so sure that I'm remembering a thing, not making it up, with a lot of random details, but I can't find it again!
About a decade ago I wanted to do a cosplay as a Combine soldier from Half-Life. However, there is an issue: Combine soldiers are dressed for Russian autumn. Pop culture conventions in Australia tend to get held in early summer, and I would be pushing it to wear Combine soldier garb even in Australian winter.
a friend once explained it to me that when you remember something, you're not accessing the same memory you always had originally
you take it, it gets morphed in the context of your current thoughts, and you put back the altered version of it
which is part of how it winds up that our memories of those embarrassing moments from 10 years ago which we keep remember have such acute, intense sensations of embarrassment attached
@doppelgreener Yup, pretty much. It's a side effect of the fact that we can actually remember things by context/content, instead of having to go by some addressing-based access.
