Strike! general: Shillanthropist edition

>Are "Opportunities" Basic Attacks? Or just non-attacks, deal damage?

Non attack, you just automatically deal damage.

>How's a Warlord Blaster work in regards to Support Tokens, and the "next ally to hit the target". If you hit 3 people with Morale-Boosting Punching Bag, can they each be hit once for a total of +6 HP?

Pretty much, yeah, but the other guy would also have to be a blaster, or have an AoE to do that.

>Does everybody have "Reach 1" by default? Say for MA/Blaster with no feats - Can they emulate a DnD4e Close Blast 3 equivalent? Or does it have to be like a Area Burst 1 Ranged 1?

I'm not sure I understand your question.

A MA/Blaster would be placing down a blast 1 area within their reach (with the additional benefit that they can use their movement between attacks to reach who would be out of their reach).

>Are Defender Marks like 4e Threatening Reach? If a dude shifts from 3 steps away to 4 steps away, can you Opportunity him? Or does "out of reach" here mean literal Reach?

>Exactly how far can a Martial Artist Defender make use of opportunities, assuming he has shuriken or a handgun or something? What about a Sniper Archer?
How's this interact with Distant Defender increases mark enforcement to 8, "by 3"? Should it be assumed it's 5 without it, then?

You can take advantage of marks for opportunities equal to the longest reaching power you have. Usually this is 5. Distant Defender ups this (and your defender role powers) by 3, even if your attacks are still at 5. An archer could defend at 10, although it could only mark at 5, since the "Mark" role power only has 5 range.

>Exactly how insane does a Sniper Archer [double range, off R10s] Defender get with Soft Control all over the map? More or less than a Necro?

Defender Skirmish Archers are more insane imo, since they can stand right up in your face and get an opportunity if you normal move (Gun Kata!). Still very good.

>How does a Bombardiers Burst attacks work with a Defender's Defense Boost? Can it trigger multiple times (multiple enemies hit), for multiple HPs?

Bombardiers don't actually have burst attacks. They have single target attacks that createzones, so you don1t get double triggers off of anything I think.

>How does a Blaster Summoner work, especially with its At-Wills? If I hit several enemies with a Burst 1 Scout, do I create several Scouts? Or just 1?

Yep, you create one for each.

I've been interested in this game for a while but couldn't find much info about It. Could You give me a quick rundown of the system?

>Pic
Huh. A level 3 Rogue/Necro Striker, I guess? Can the balance even handle combining powers like this? How was it done?

Reaping: Necro Class, their core class feature

Wraith Form, Shadow Step: Rogue Class Level 1 Encounter, Level 3 Encounter.

Hellfire Shotguns: core Striker Role Boost [Damage Boost] + one of their secondaries [Draw a Bead], but then it throws in a Rogue core Class feature in Backstabber+Called Shot.

Death Blossom: Striker Encounter, Necromancer At-Will, a Feat.

Other Powers: Strike Back (Striker Action Trigger), Three Rogue At-Wills, and then one of the Blaster's secondary Boosts

So we end up with
Necro Class: Core class feature, 1 At-Will. Missing: 1 At-Will, 1 pre-selected At-Will, 1 Encounter Power
Striker Role: Full Role, with core Boost and secondary Boost, Action Trigger, and 1x Encounter
Rogue Class: Full class, core class Feature, 3 At-Wills, 1x Level-1 Encounter, 1x Level-3 Encounter.
Blaster: Terrain power, from Minor Blaster feat.

"Normal" [loosely] Power gain is
Level 1: 3 At-wills, 1 Encounter from class, 1 At-Will & 1x Action Trigger from Role. 1 Feat.
Level 2: 1 Encounter from Role
Level 3: 1 Encounter from Class. 1 Feat.

Here we have: 2/1 class features, 4/3 At-Wills, 3/3 Encs (Levels 1-Evasion, 2-Strike&Shift, 3-BAMF), 1/1 Action Triggers
1 Feat was Minor Blaster, as noted under Death Blossom

A feat for "Multiclass (Necro)", as "Gain classes Core Feature and 1 At-Will"? Seems a lot, esp compared to "Minor "

The at-will is supposed to be gained as an encounter.

But I'm debating between that and having the ability to replace one of your own at-wills instead.

There's one in It's basically always just roll d6, sometimes with advantage/disadvantage, check table for result depending on what you did was a skill (and trained/untrained) or an in-combat attack power. Very rarely add bonuses/penalties, sometimes spend a point for a badass special action.

Everything else is optional (hell, technically the combat is optional).

>Warlord Blaster
Would he get 3 support tokens with 3 (up to) Basic Attacks triggered if he hit 3 dudes with Alley-Oop?

>Bombardiers don't actually have burst attacks.
Oh, true. The "Grenade" ability is only Ranged 10, with an Effect of creating a zone that does things. Those zones don't make attack rolls, so I dunno what I was thinking.

>>I'm not sure I understand your question.
Yeah, sorry. Poorly explained.
"If it is a melee attack, you may make it a Burst 1 targeting all creatures in the zone. You may move the center of the zone one square for each square of reach you have."

See the picture. Imagine you occupy the space "U", and you want to melee attack somebody adjacent to you.
Can you create both zones?
The green one is how i Interpret a burst 1 centered on the target (who in this case, is is occupying the space denoted with the green "C")
Then the orange zone (centered on the orange "C") is how I interpret you moving the center of the zone by 1 square, if you have Reach 1. In this case, the target is directly in between "U" and "C."
Can that be done, without any feats? I imagine you likely can, imagining you start with "Reach 1" (as it is 4e-based), BUT I have seen games do "Reach" differently. Savage Worlds, for example, has "Reach 1" meaning you can attack a target 1" away, rather than just adjacent (which is "Reach 0")

Appreciate the answers.

I think the green one is the correct one. Basically, it's a melee burst (targeting your, and all squares around you), but you can move the center from you to within your reach (which is reach 1 for everyone).

Thank you!

Ah, of course. That makes sense.
"Melee" becomes "Burst 1", which means it originates from your square. Then as you have Reach 1 by default, you can shuffle that over 1 square, such that the green zone is valid.
To be the Orange square, you would likely need the "Long Reach" feat to get +1 Reach.

Weeping Willow for MA's also works. There might be other reach increases (Shapechanger has one I think?).

I'm kinda torn, but I might be overthinking the whole thing.

On one hand, Strike feats are "bigger" than 4e feats, so them doing a fair amount shouldn't be too ...unexpected.
On the other hand, the primary examples we have of power-granting feats (especially those taking from other sources...like the Minor Role Feats.) are very limited. Namely, to be once per encounter.

(Coincidentally, close to what most similar 4e feats do, I believe. 11th level Half-Elf excepting.)

The closest thing I could see is that both the Feature you take (here, the Mark), and the At-Will you take are 1/Encounter. My primary worry is, a class feature is such a huge deal in strike. It's not like classes are overflowing with them.

As well as that, some classes work oddly - how would you imagine a MC into Magician, with its encounter-selection-cycling mechanic to work? Or the difference between an Archer with their simpler feature, versus a Warlord that needs Support tokens to be flowing to work. Some would be crippled by "encounterified" at-wills, others would be fine so that's a potential problem.

I'd write/think more, but I have to leave now so I'll just post this as a half-baked opinion. I want to say multiclassing will have to be approached very carefully, to avoid feeling like you're poaching an entire class (more or less, given how big the "class feature" is).

Lookin' forward to any thoughts, though.

I think the minor role feats are kinda weak DESU, but I totally see your point.

The stipulations I'm considering right now are:
- you exchange your own at-will for a different one OR you gain the at-will as an encounter

- if your class has a passive you have to choose which one you are using this turn AND/OR you only get to sue it once/encounter

I think I prefer the concept of multiclass feats to a lot of the more direct upgrade feats to be honest, because it gives more options to the characters instead of straight powers. I find savage striker to be absurd, especially when combined with fast reactions

Yeah, it threatens the uniqueness of classes a bit, but it damn sure leads to more unique characters.

Are those system fusion ideas more done than "sure, why not"

Do you have experience with players taking the Minor Role feats? I don't, so can't comment. I thought they looked at least ok, but, meh. I dunno if he made them as he did as a mechanical balance thing, or as a way to keep niches.

>Stipulations
It'd be interesting to give those options to the player when they take the feat. Make them consider it, eh?

The second one also would match up with how Role Boosts are treated, where you Minor Role feats don't let you mix them. And also the fair amounts of other powers that prevent you from using Role Boosts (Alley-Oop, Lightning Blitzer, Snapshot Sentinel, Lead the Charge, Hit 'Em, etc)

Do you have any idea on what you'd change about the Archer? "like an operator" doesn't tell me much, unfortunately...that seems more like a fluff thing. More debuff/hard control, or what? Teamwork stuff?

bump

Strike! combat isn't very tactical imho. There exist too little actual mechanical incentives to generate advantageous situations as the dice limit the amount of boni you an accrue too much. It feels much more like the attempt at a rules-light system, but for that the rules are too obstructive.

>It'd be interesting to give those options to the player when they take the feat. Make them consider it, eh?

Right, yeah, it's an option. Each class will have a unique multiclass feat most likely, so it'll depend on that.

>Do you have any idea on what you'd change about the Archer? "like an operator" doesn't tell me much, unfortunately...that seems more like a fluff thing. More debuff/hard control, or what? Teamwork stuff?

Mostly make it so that he's more "suppressive fire/overwatch" sort of guy instead of just shitting out damage.Also maybe make use of marking/opportunity/cover mechanics more to make it fit better with the fluff.

so what you can do with strike better than lets say dnd 5e?

If I want to be facetious, I'd say "literally anything" since Strike! is a generic system and 5e is not. If I'm being less smug, it does for example Eberron, Spelljammer or Planescape style worlds better than 5e because of how flexible race and character creation is comparatively (there's a long running "Eberron in Strike!" series in the pitch I have not yet listened to, but if it lived for like 30 sessions it can't be bad, right?).

As long as whatever you want to play has combat as an important element, and you don't want to sweat the details/don't really mind having about 0% simulationism in your game, you can use Strike!.

I have used it to run an Armored Core game, and have an Overwatch game in the works. It handles most vidya based stuff (RPGs, MOBAs, fighting games) pretty well, in fact. Can also handle some of the more pulpy comics/anime, although it's a bit harder to justify some of the more crazy powers being limited to make tactical combat make sense, but you can usually tinker with it.

Strike! has a major issue in its metagame: alpha-striking is the dominant strategy, both for monsters and PCs.

The most brutal enemy party is nothing but Goon Strikers/Snipers spamming Snipe/Striking Strike for overwhelming amounts of damage, possibly with a Standard Crowd Control who can lay down a Flash.

The most optimal PC party by level 2 is composed of nothing but Blood Adept magician/strikers with The Excellent Prismatic Spray, Mudge's Localized Inferno, Lightning Strikes, and Fast Reactions. The party always goes first, opens up with a Potency-boosted Excellent Prismatic Spray, Lightning Strikes, and Mudge's Localized Inferno. They have just wiped out a considerable portion of the encounter before any enemy has acted. No rolls needed.

As a variant of the above PC party, everyone can be Defenders instead, so that they can all lay down Marks on the same enemy and completely screw over said enemy. (Marks really, really should not stack in Strike! I repeatedly argued against the developer and told them as much, but they would not acknowledge my concerns.)

Even in a self-contained scenario of a single PC, a rogue (backstabber)/striker can open up with Called Shot for a humongous spike of 10 damage, which is ludicrous at level 1, and still absurd at level 2 when they pick up Lightning Strikes. I have played such a PC in two separate games, and trust me when I say that such a PC can dismantle quite a few encounters.

I would like to rectify this.

Here is a proposal for a house rule for less alpha-strike-focused combats:

Stamina and Tenacity: Goons, standard monsters, PCs, elites, and champion/titans all possess a resource known as Stamina Tokens. Goons start each encounter with 1 Stamina Token, standard monsters and PCs begin with 2, elites start with 3, and champions/titans begin with 6. When a creature with at least 1 Stamina Token ends its turn, if it had used its original Attack Action (not just an Attack Action converted into a Move Action or any additionally gained Attack Actions) of its own volition during that turn, it loses 1 Stamina Token.

When a creature with at least 1 Stamina Token (or such a creature's Buddy, Summons, or Turret) is reduced to 0 or less Hit Points or Taken Out, the creature can choose to instantly trade in any of its Stamina Tokens for an equal amount of Tenacity Tokens, remain at 1 Hit Point, and not be Taken Out.

A creature with at least 1 Tenacity Token (and such a creature's Buddy, Summons, or Turret) cannot be reduced to 0 or less Hit Points or be Taken Out except by Opportunities. When a creature with at least 1 Tenacity Token ends its turn, if it had started its turn adjacent to an enemy or if it had used its original Attack Action (not just an Attack Action converted into a Move Action or any additionally gained Attack Actions) of its own volition during that turn, it loses 1 Tenacity Token.

Due to the way Tenacity Tokens work, if one side tries to kite away from a Tenacity-fortified creature, the Tenacity-fortified creature can simply maintain said Tenacity. On the other hand, the Tenacity-fortified creature cannot just run away; characters can catch up to its to make it lose its Tenacity.

As a side effect, they also make Dazing, Stunning, Dominating, and other forms of raw action denial less effective.

What do you all make of this? What loopholes are possible through this?

For all Strike!'s combat flaws, I would go so far as to say that positioning is much, *much* more important in Strike! than in 4e.

In 4e, flanking is just combat advantage for a +2 bonus to attack rolls, and opportunity attacks can miss. 4e's cover mechanics are also very forgiving for people shooting through cover.

In Strike!, flanking provides Advantage, which significantly raises the chances of a hit and a critical hit. Opportunities automatically deal a large chunk of damage, making them more threatening. Strike!'s cover mechanics are much more refined, and a party who makes good use of them can completely screw over the ranged attacks of the enemy side.

I also prefer Strike!'s Defenders to the 4e role of the same name, because the former have no arbitrary NAD-based weak point and are almost guaranteed to be more durable than the rest of the party (as opposed to being outshone in the defense department by other roles on a regular basis).

>*much* more important in Strike! than in 4e
No shit, 4e is a horrible system.

I'm working on the d20 one right now. There's a long way to go.

The savage world one's concept is this:
Take Savage Worlds "stat as dice size" except make the stats more generic, then mush it into the Strike! combat system. It looks like this right now:

Finesse: Your ability to avoid and deliver blows; balance, flexibilty, hand-eye coordination, core muscles.

When you attack, you roll your finesse vs the target's defense.

Your defense is half your finesse dice (so if it's d6, it's 3)

Hitting the defense exactly nets you a graze. Raising nets you a crit. A 1, or missing by a degree of success, is a miss+Strike.

Power: Your ability to affect and resist being affected physically (Magneto would have a high power rating, despite being an old man... yes, I know he is usually drawn pretty buff)

When you do damage, you roll a number of Power dice equal to the damage of the attack (so, a basic attack you'd roll 2xPower, so for d6 Power, 2d6). Each dice that's above the target's toughness deals 1 wound (players have 5 wounds before starting to bleed out, enemies have a number of wounds depending on their rank on the stooge-elite scale).

Your toughness is half your Power.

Intelligence: Reasoning ability, knowledge, noticing things.
The number of powers you know is derived from your intelligence (based on class).

Spirit: willpower, ability to influence others through words and actions. Savage Strike! uses a power point system for/instead of Encounter abilities, your number of PPs is derived from Spirit.

Why stats?

Cause Savage Worlds uses stats, and it gives an easy way to tie the combat and skill side of the character into one more coherently.

Also, making combat stat (to hit/damage/dodge/toughness) variance higher between characters is something I'd like to experiment with.

What do you think is better, existing or not?
What do you believe qualifies as "tactical", anyways? It sounds like if it doesn't have +1s attached, you don't think it's a tactic - ignoring action/target management & positioning.

This doesn't seem a bit complicated to you? Two tokens, converting between them, conditional loss of tokens.

1) It seems like it'd make things a bit awkwardly long, as each of those tokens is another turn it can survive past its normal amount, more or less.
2) You'd "kill" an adjacent enemy, then they'd go into Tenacity Mode and you'd just have to sort of deal with them being more or less invulnerable for a turn.

If you run out of Tenacity, are you instantly Taken Out? Does the Tenacity Token loss for starting adjacent to an enemy occur immediately upon turn start?

So imagine this sequence, and correct it.

A melee PC vs a melee Standard.
1) PC runs up to the Standard, hits and Takes them Out. The Std drops 2 Stamina Token and gain 2 Tenacity Tokens to not die.
2) The Std hits the PC. It then loses 1 Tenacity Token.
3) PCs turn again. He can't do dick to the monster because it's in Tenacity mode, so he has 3 options: Stand there and do nothing, move and take an Opportunity, or Shift and do "???". We'll say he shifts and "???"s
4) Monsters turn again. He walks up to the PC and hits them again, and loses his last Tenacity Token. (Does he then die?)
5) If the monster is still alive, the PC attacks it.

You playtest it?

Have you considered using maybe action points and rally for enemies (possibly having a communal "pool" of points, and a limit of how many they can spend based on the type of enemy)?

This'd reduce the effectiveness of bursting, since it acts as a hard cap on how much HP can be burst in a single turn (equal to the HP of the target) with the "Rally HP" kept as a reserve.

Possibly having a turn 0 where everyone gets 1 action (either standard, role or move) could also work, since that usually stops you from using half of your "burst", and lets you reposition the team monster in ways that an actual game might happen.

Maybe a variation on Shadow of the Demon Lord quick/slow turns?

Have you seen Eldritch Worlds at all (attached pdf)? A 4e retroclone that incorporates stats in a similar manner, using d20, so more 4e than Strike is. Not 100% finished, I think.

I only bring it up because you're interested in seeing variance in combat stats (which I think could be cool). It might give you some ideas on modifying whatever.

Anyways, it has 3 basic offensive stats:
-Accuracy: A modifier to your attack roll.
-Power: Determines the amount of damage you do. Abilities might read "[Power] Damage" or 2[Power], or 1+Power, etc.
-Finesse: Modifies spell effects, like how much you Slide people, the amount of ATK penalty you inflict, how far you teleport, etc.

Then 3 Defense stats:
-Cunning
-Spirit
-Vigor
They're basically 4e Reflex|AC, Will, and Fort, but they have some side effects - Vigor modifies your HP, Spirit your Reserves (Surges), and Cunning is the "standard" defense.

Then it has 3 other Categories ("Discovery", "Social", "Physical") for non-combat abilities where each have Accur/Power/Fines.

All categories also get their own points to split among them. 6-Off, 4-Def, 8/6/4 rest

On Savage Strike: Intelligence determining your power selection seems a bit iffy. I don't think I'd incorporate that as a stat you select versus the other ones. The rest is interesting.
Incorporating such mechanics in Strike, you'll probably want to math stuff out a fair amount, so expected DPR & HP is the same (ie, balance the maths), assuming strike is good there.

My concern with this would be it provides buffs for enemies, but none for PCs.

So if you *aren't* being a hyper-optimizing alpha strike party like he described, you're going to have a much harder time, right? Even for them it'll be a bit harder, because you've just given enemies more HP.

You could give players "free to use" Rallies to even it out. It'd introduce more HP to the system, but Strike! damage is pretty high anyway so I'm not sure it's a problem.

Alternatively, have it use their encounter powers.

>Have you seen Eldritch Worlds at all (attached pdf)?

I remember hearing about it. Thanks for the link.

Maybe have Rally be an either-or power; if the enemy team rallies they can't use their encounter or something.

The problem with the Alpha Striking is based in the turn system, right? Because you can knock em down before they can even respond.
So we need to focus on ways that give them time or a method to respond, at least once.

One solution suggested before was "Death Triggers", which activate when a monster dies.

IIRC, 2hf said those were bad because every party would be affected by them, and turn-1 alpha strikers would be harmed the least because they could control it better and get some of them out of the way quicker.
I dunno how true that really is - if a death trigger causes you harm, you're going to get harmed regardless. But then, causing direct harm isn't necessarily the best trigger, and "the area around the enemy is on fire" is irrelevant when you're 10 squares away.

Another way: Simply declare things cannot be Taken Out turn 1, before they've acted - unless it's some form of a surprise round.
This eliminates any "murder them in the opening" problem, but subsequent turns allow for effective focus firing and bringing enemies down.
Frankly though the idea of focus firing enemies down to eliminate them in detail is exactly what actual military strategy uses, so it's not exactly surprising that's a good idea.
It doesn't solve monster Striker/Snipers being very strong (With their 2+2 damage powers). That one might be solved just by reducing their Effect line to work like a Striker's level 1 Damage Boost? Still potent. And a GM could just *not* spam them like it's an RTS.

Death triggers were tied to your encounter powers being unused. So "normal" parties wouldn't suffer from it as much.

Actually, combining it with the ideas at hand would work, simply by having some supposedly tanky/defender-y units have "death trigger: set HP to 1 and take no more damage until the beginning of your turn", for example.

>Incorporating such mechanics in Strike, you'll probably want to math stuff out a fair amount, so expected DPR & HP is the same (ie, balance the maths), assuming strike is good there.

It's okay. Right now it's on point as long as you assume d6 for everything, I don't know how crazy it gets with different sizes.

I think something like Group Trigger
>trigger: an ally dies and no one used GT this turn
>effect: pick 1:
- the closest ally to the triggering enemy makes a basic attack against it.
- push 1 all allies adjacent to the dead one

Or something like that. This can be used by players too, when an ally is knocked unconscious, by role even

I did this, for the hell of it.
Then I realized that maybe you want exploding dice and I decided I'll just post this because I don't feel like incorporating exploding dice, and want to just show what I got. Freakin' excel.

I also didn't account for crits or grazes. I dunno how you intend to do crits if you don't have exploding dice (unless you change a "raise" to like, 2 over or something). I'm not a big fan of exploding dice, really. Introduce too much randomness, imo.

For error-checking, the formula per-cell is:
(Finesse-Defense)/Finesse * (Power-Toughness)/Power*Attack_Damage

So with 6 Finesse 6 Power versus 6 Defense 6 Toughness, you get 0.5 * 0.5 * 2 -> 1 damage.
For simple sanity checking, this equates to 10% of an enemy's HP (if 5 wounds). Which is what a 2-damage At-will versus a 10-damage enemy in Strike will do (0.5 * 2 = 1) ... excepting of course a Graze can also cause damage, and a crit causes double. But they both have that, so.

>This doesn't seem a bit complicated to you? Two tokens, converting between them, conditional loss of tokens.
>1) It seems like it'd make things a bit awkwardly long, as each of those tokens is another turn it can survive past its normal amount, more or less.

In practice, all the tokens mean is that you have X turns where you can attempt to do something meaningful, before the safety net is removed. PCs and standard monsters, for example, can take two meaningful turns before they no longer enjoy such a safeguard.

>If you run out of Tenacity, are you instantly Taken Out?
No. You are still left at that 1 Hit Point. I have been considering changing this though.

>Does the Tenacity Token loss for starting adjacent to an enemy occur immediately upon turn start?
It occurs at the end of the turn.

>2) You'd "kill" an adjacent enemy, then they'd go into Tenacity Mode and you'd just have to sort of deal with them being more or less invulnerable for a turn.
This is intentional. It also happens only if you "kill" the enemy noticeably early into the battle.

>1) PC runs up to the Standard, hits and Takes them Out
>1) PC runs up to the Standard, hits and Takes them Out. The Std drops 2 Stamina Token and gain 2 Tenacity Tokens to not die.
If all of this is happening *before the standard monster has even taken its own turn*, then that means an extremely concentrated alpha strike has happened, which could very well include the insanity that is a rogue (backstabber)/striker.

>3) PCs turn again. He can't do dick to the monster because it's in Tenacity mode, so he has 3 options: Stand there and do nothing, move and take an Opportunity, or Shift and do "???". We'll say he shifts and "???"s
Given that all PCs in Strike! have viable charges and ranged basic attacks, and readying actions in Strike! is much more convenient than in any D&D edition (e.g. ready an action to make an attack after the tenacious enemy's turn ends), I do not see this as a problem.

As points out, I would rather have a more symmetrical solution so that neither side is susceptible to alpha-striking.

I am not a fan of handing out more Rallies, because that simply gives everyone more HP padding. I designed the Stamina and Tenacity house rule such that by the third round (the ideal minimum combat length for a "normal," non-alpha-striking party), few enemies should have any safety net left.

I had experimented with death triggers in a previous post ( archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/48976085/#49017910 ), but the problem with those was that the tradeoff with encounter powers would be difficult to balance. It would also marginalize encounter powers that already do something similar; the necromancer, martial artist, and warlord all have such encounter powers.

Ah shit, you know what I completely forgot about? You have Stamina tokens depleting in a way that isn't "Convert them to Tenacity."

That does solve a lot of the situation that I just described. Now it seems more reasonable. And, yeah, everybody does have a usable enough RBA and can ready an action like that. Fair enough.

>It would also marginalize encounter powers that already do something similar; the necromancer, martial artist, and warlord all have such encounter powers.

The players don't need the alpha striking safety net, because they already have access to rally. Death trigger would be a monster only mechanic.

I'm not afraid of team monster alpha striking, because you can just set up your monsters with less damage potential.

Also, what do you think about the Shadow of the Demon Lord quick/slow turn mechanic? It sounds pretty tactical to me, less random than rolling, and could alleviate the "come first" part of the strategy.

Another thing I'd sorta like to see is some sort of map creation guideline. A lot of the alpha striking relies on targets being in the clear; if all combat where the combatants don't get a drop on one another would start with "everyone gets a free move to cover", XCOM style, some of the AS methods would be way less reliable, provided there's an expected amount of cover.

Finally, you could limit alpha striking by limiting encounter power output. Limiting things to 1 encounter power a turn, or not allowing encounter powers until the second turn en bloc, or some sort of rising mana/stamina system like FFTA2 has would stop players from dumping all their powers at the beginning of combat.

>I dunno how you intend to do crits if you don't have exploding dice (unless you change a "raise" to like, 2 over or something).

When I originally thought of it, I was thinking with exploding dice (but 1 explosion max). Not sure how it should go desu.

>The players don't need the alpha striking safety net, because they already have access to rally.
Rally is a limited resource that demands Action Points. It can only do so much as well; you would be surprised how quickly an encounter full of Goon Sniper/Strikers (and possibly a Standard Crowd Control) can rip through a party's Hit Points.

>I'm not afraid of team monster alpha striking, because you can just set up your monsters with less damage potential.
This creates an asymmetrical metagame wherein monsters are hard-coded to survive alpha strikes, yet the players are still susceptible to such a thing and simply at the GM's mercy. Yes, yes, a GM can pit the players against multiple champions, or vastly overleveled monsters, but that breaks the encounter guidelines, rather than following the encounter guidelines to the letter and blowing away the party regardless.

>everyone gets a free move to cover
There really should be more formalized "deployment" rules in Strike! I could work on those as well.

>Limiting things to 1 encounter power a turn, or not allowing encounter powers until the second turn en bloc
I had been considering banning encounter powers until after the first round of combat, but that may be unnecessary under the Stamina and Tenacity rules.

Another worry with Savage Strike would be that the "math oddity" that SW has might come into play here, where probability gets slightly odd where the die type is equal to the TN. (eg d4 versus TN of 4 - see pic)

It might be a bit more "disruptive" than normal, considering how easy it could occur (Such as d4 Finesse attacking a guy with d8 finesse, aka 4 defense)

Please don't post edgy Koishi, thanks.

Here is an updated version of my Stamina and Tenacity rules for Strike!, to close off abuses and to clarify how it actually works:

Stamina and Tenacity: Goons, standard monsters, PCs, elites, and champion/titans all possess a resource known as Stamina Tokens. Goons start each encounter with 1 Stamina Token, standard monsters and PCs begin with 2, elites start with 3, and champions/titans begin with 6. Immediately before a creature with at least 1 Stamina Token ends its turn, it loses 1 (and never more than 1 at a time) Stamina Token if it had fulfilled either of the following:
• The creature willingly used an Attack Action power since the end of its previous turn.
• The creature willingly prepared an Attack Action since the end of its previous turn.

When a creature with any Stamina Tokens (or such a creature's Buddy, Summons, or Turret) is reduced to 0 or less Hit Points or Taken Out, the creature can choose to instantly trade in all of its Stamina Tokens for an equal amount of Tenacity Tokens, remain at 1 Hit Point, and not be Taken Out.

A creature with any Tenacity Tokens (and such a creature's Buddy, Summons, or Turret) cannot be reduced to 0 or less Hit Points or be Taken Out except by Opportunities. Immediately before a creature with any Tenacity Tokens ends its turn, it loses 1 (and never more than 1 at a time) Tenacity Token if it had fulfilled any of the following:
• The creature started its current turn adjacent to an enemy or within an enemy's space.
• The creature willingly used an Attack Action power since the end of its previous turn.
• The creature willingly prepared an Attack Action since the end of its previous turn.

A creature's Hit Points do not change from dropping to 0 Tenacity Tokens alone.

The math oddity can be fixed if the explosion is limited to 1 max and the second roll gets a -1, IIRC.

>limited rally

Sure, point is it already exists.

>asymmetric metagame
Monsters are already limited in the alpha striking potential. They don't have double turns with Striker level 2 encounter, they don't have access to lightning reflexes feat to guarantee going first, they don't even have guaranteed hit powers. They can employ a lot less alpha-focused tactics than the players.

Besides that, asymmetric metagame is nothing new (although I wouldn't mind Strike! getting rid of it).

>deployment

Sounds good!

>encounters

Banning first round encounter powers feels a bit heavy handed, but what about 1 encounter / round?

>Sure, point is it already exists.
As something to pad out Hit Points. Padding out Hit Points on *both* sides simply prolongs a battle, and alpha striking is still the ideal tactic.

>Monsters are already limited in the alpha striking potential.
Yet some monsters are designed in such bizarrely-heavy-damage fashions. Really, these monsters should trade in their extra damage for something else.

>Banning first round encounter powers feels a bit heavy handed, but what about 1 encounter / round?
I do not see the issue with barring off first-round encounter powers; it helps PCs and monsters alike test the metaphorical waters initially.

>As something to pad out Hit Points. Padding out Hit Points on *both* sides simply prolongs a battle, and alpha striking is still the ideal tactic.

It's not "just" a pad. It's a limit on how much job alpha striking can do. It doesn't matter if your alpha setup can do 2000 damage to a target when the target then stands up with 5 HP.

It's almost like a burst mechanic from fighting games.

Also, I was saying that the _player_ side doesn't need more anti-alpha mechanics because the _player_ side has rally.

Prolonging the battle is exactly what you want to do to counter alpha striking.

Alpha striking is bad because it ends battles before people can take advantage of you dumping all your resources at once and being left defenseless, leading to degenerate strategies. If you can't guarantee that your opponent doesn1t even get a move (because he stands up using a rally, for example) it becomes a lot less viable strategy. Meanwhile "balanced" strategies also have defense covered so prolonging the fights doesn't hurt them as much.

> Really, these monsters should trade in their extra damage for something else.

Yepp.

>I do not see the issue with barring off first-round encounter powers; it helps PCs and monsters alike test the metaphorical waters initially.

It's hard to justify in a narrative sense for most genres (Kamen Rider and magical girl stuff excluded), which makes it feel like an artificial restriction.

While you already concede to some of that with encounter powers being a mechanic in the first place, I find them easier to work around.

>It doesn't matter if your alpha setup can do 2000 damage to a target when the target then stands up with 5 HP.
Yes, it does. That target is going to stand up with 4 HP (not 5) at some point in the battle anyway. You might as well force it to do so earlier into the battle, so that you can then take it out. Forcing an enemy to use Rally early also wastes the encounter power recovery.

>Also, I was saying that the _player_ side doesn't need more anti-alpha mechanics because the _player_ side has rally.
Action Points are a limited resource, and enemies who can force players to expend an Action Point (and a recovered power) just to survive with a Rally are quite mean indeed.

>Prolonging the battle is exactly what you want to do to counter alpha striking.
The difference between your method (Rally) and my method (Stamina and Tenacity) is that your method will always make a battle longer than it would otherwise have been. My method prolongs a battle that would have been over in one or two rounds, but does not prolong a combat that would have lasted 3+ rounds otherwise.

>It's hard to justify in a narrative sense for most genres
"Saving your best attacks for later" is not exactly a foreign gimmick, or even an uncommon one.

Okay, theory time:

Alpha striking is supposed to be an all in strategy. If you don't win with alpha striking on the turn you do it, your chances of success drop significantly.

If you make a rule that gives +1 turn to all compositions (such as "enemies can rally"), the alpha-comp will be a lot more affected by it than the "normal" one, because the alpha-comp is set up with the assumption of surviving 0-1 turn of combat, while the normal ones are around 3-4.

A normal comp will have heals, buffs, and debuffs available to deal with enemies being alive, while the alpha comp doesn't.

--------------------------------

What I'm trying to say is, extending the battle is not a problem for normal groups. A reason to do it with rallies instead of just HP, is because the Rally guarantees the "one more turn" in a way that just giving +4 HP does not, because your normal HP is "spongy" and the 4 HP in the rally is protected and can't be hit before the rally is used. If you are afraid of this extending battles too much, I think it'd be fine simply nerfing the base HP of enemies by 2, because of this property.

> You might as well force it to do so earlier into the battle, so that you can then take it out.

Yeah, sure. This is about countering alpha-turns, not focus firing. It also makes focus firing less good, but you can't entirely eliminate it anyway (nor should you, as it's the expected, natural result for being in a position where you can be focus fired).

>Forcing an enemy to use Rally early also wastes the encounter power recovery.

My initial thought was "okay, so make enemy rally use up their encounter instead of having action points", but I'm thinking it's actually okay to have some benefits left if you try to go for a risky, front loaded strategy.

>"Saving your best attacks for later" is not exactly a foreign gimmick, or even an uncommon one.

Encouraging it is fine (miss tokens sorta do this), enforcing it is hamfisted.

What's the recommended way to learn Strike from nothing? The rulebook is so fucking bad I can't get through it, but the system concepts interest me

Also, I'd like to note that your method absolutely works, I'd just massively prefer a method that makes "alpha-striking isn't always the best idea" an emergent quality of the game instead of a strictly enforced one, like your Stamina/Tenacity.

Some combination of deployment rules, restricting encounter powers (to 1/round, for example) and tweaking existing powers (for both monsters and PCs) is a lot more organic solution with less complexity, and so it is what I'd go with.

I didn't have anyone help me with it, so I'm not entirely sure if this helps but:

On the GM side, reading PbtA GM guides help a lot. On the player side, just ignore/cut out everything that isn't character creation.

I tend to ignore Kits as they are, because they feel like a an idea that needs a lot more work to balance out and really get right (even moreso than the rest of the book).

Alpha-striking compositions are not *that* frail. They can survive, say, one round of enemy retaliation. Done properly, the enemy will receive, at most, one turn.

Rallying gives the enemy one essentially guaranteed turn. That is not enough for me. I want to ensure two turns.

Giving enemies two Rallies would unduly lengthen combat, short of significantly reducing enemy hit points, which would in turn create a bizarre situation wherein enemies have *three* life bars of sorts and plenty of damage from natural 6s is being wasted. Never mind that those enemies will often be spending their move actions simply rising from prone.

does team monster get miss tokens?
if so, are they per-monster, or for the entire side?

The only "attack roll" rule is in the Tactical Combat section, but it sounds like it's being written for the players, not the GM.

They don't get miss tokens, as far as I'm aware.

It'd be a bitch keeping track of it per monster.

My homebrew skirmish wargame uses the cover system Strike! uses. Anyone know a way of explaining it that doesn't rely on diagrams?

I've tried to wrap my head around the system a couple of times but given up

Anything specific?

The core mechanic of "roll d6, check table" is pretty simple.

Derp, meant for For that question, I feel like the explanations are pretty good. It helps if you have a map to explain, but I'll try.

Basically:

- you got a square with a piece of cover
- if you stand next to it you got intervening cover from the field that is defined by the edge (extended to infinity on both sides) on the side opposite to your character on the cover (if you are standing on a corner, then the two edges that intersect on that corner)
- if the cover is considered high cover (thick pillar, tree, piece of demolished wall), it blocks line of sight (and hence, most of the time, line of effect) for enemies standing on the same line of squares as you and the cover.
- repeat for all squares adjacent that have cover granting stuff in them
+ if you got continuous high cover (such as a two square wide wall) it also blocks line of sight between the two lines that are normally blocked.

Are the kits really that bad?
I was going to rely on them being an interesting way to create abilities/powers for outside of combat, that aren't just "roll a skill." (or 'tricks', which I'm kind of eh on)

Yknow, like 4e utility powers are "supposed" to be, or whatever.

The other alternative would be stealing all of those Themes+Traits from Tavern Tales, which I kinda like more, really.
They're just also not intended for Strike's rules, so it'd be work to convert, plus he's rewriting them all.

Oh, you can totally use them, I just felt it makes the characters a bit too complex for my taste, since you already begin with tricks and complications.

Introducing them later or merely using them as a basis for out of combat abilities should be totally fine.

late night bump

The Kits have some major balance issues to them. Some Kit advances are utterly trivial on the level of "never take Disadvantage for lacking a map or a compass" (Wayfarer's Perfect Direction), while others have the magnitude of "always know useful information about any place you visit, potentially even on a low roll" (the Wayfarer Kit's base).

seems like nothin' just works, huh

Anybody have any actual experience with the Psion?
It looks...interesting.

Yep.

>5e/Legend
I always thought Legend could use some more granularity, pls do

If there was a quickstart handbook, I feel like I could understand what you all talk about.

There's a few one page aids on the site

strikerpg.com/uploads/4/5/5/4/45540963/strike__player_reference.pdf
strikerpg.com/uploads/4/5/5/4/45540963/strike__combat_reference.pdf
strikerpg.com/uploads/4/5/5/4/45540963/strike__gm_reference.pdf

and a quick rundown in Anything else you wish to know I'd be happy to oblige.

bump

>You can take advantage of marks for opportunities equal to the longest reaching power you have... [cont]

How sure of this are you with regards to a marked enemy shifting? Say, Marked enemy shifting from 4 squares away to 5 squares away - can the Defender Opp them? Shifting 4 to 3 spaces away?

In Defender role we have:

"Marking simply gives the Defender more chances to hurt the monster in question. If they make an attack that does not include you as a target, or if they shift out of a square within your reach, then they grant you an Opportunity. You don’t need to be up close to keep monsters Marked either. You can deal Opportunity damage at range, provided that your character has some in-fiction method of delivering that ranged damage even if they are primarily a melee character. (See Fiction Takes Precedence on page 91.)"

This supports what you're saying, BUT the glossary entry for "Marked by X" says
"If you shift out of a square within X’s reach (usually any adjacent square), you grant X an Opportunity unless your shift moved you closer to X. "

He notes "usually any adjacent square" but when most have an R5 attack, NPC Defenders included (Watcher at-will: Marks, 2 damage, R5/Melee), seems odd.

Also "Shift out of a square within your reach" versus "moved you closer to X." Which one do PCs use?

Was the game playtested with Archer/Magician (or anybody, really) Defenders easily smacking people all over the board with 4e-Threatening Reach, and it was found ok?

I'm not sure I understand your question correctly, but here goes:

You have a Reach (which is usually 1) and you have a Range (which is your longest reaching ranged attacks' range).

To punish a Marked target Shifting, he has to be in your Reach.
To punish a Marked target Attacking someone else, he only has to be within Range.

Basically, the Defender's Mark is a fusion of the Fighter and the Paladin marks from 4e (though technically Paladin marks in 4e have infinite range).

>Also "Shift out of a square within your reach" versus "moved you closer to X." Which one do PCs use?

Oh, and I never caught that. Huh. I have no idea which one you are supposed to use, to be honest.

Yeah, what I was/am confused+surprised by is the amount of control Defender can do if what you can do is
>Mark 1-3 targets within 5-8 squares
>if they do basically literally anything (include shifting towards or away from you), you will Opportunity them

in Defender, we have
"If they make an attack that does not include you as a target"
Standard. They attack somebody not you, you Opp.

"if they shift out of a square within your reach, then they grant you an Opp"
This is where I get/got confused. Does "Reach" mean the mechanical term "Reach" ("Reach N", pg 97. Should it be capitalized?), or does it just mean "as far as your longest power goes."

"You can deal [Opp] damage at range, [provided fictional reasoning]"
This makes me think that maybe "within your reach" actually means "longest range power" (if you can even vaguely justify it - eg daggers, javelins, pistols, kicking rocks...).

Does "out of a square within your reach" mean "if they leave your reach-range", or just "any movement in the range"? What's the intent? RAW I'd want to say it's any movement in the range, but that leads to a lot of insanity if "reach" means "longest ranged power here."
It means Archers, Magicians, etc can smack people for doing much of anything, at 10 (or 20!) squares away. Still R5 (R8 with Distant Defender) Mark power, though.

I'm being a bit "spoonfeed me", but it's a very potent powerset and I want it to be understood right.
Can't rely on too many 4e definitions.

>This is where I get/got confused. Does "Reach" mean the mechanical term "Reach" ("Reach N", pg 97. Should it be capitalized?), or does it just mean "as far as your longest power goes."

Yes it does and yes it should be capitalized for clarity. Honestly with a mechanics-heavy game like Strike! I'd have gone beyond caps and but any game terminology in [Brackets] just to make absolutely clear to the reader that you're using a technical word with a rigidly-defined meaning.

Let me try to unfuck that line grammatically
> If they make an attack that does not include you as a target
this is speaking in generic. Anywhere they are, they make an attack, you get them.
> or if they shift out of a square within your reach
punishing shifting ONLY happens within your reach

> You don’t need to be up close to keep monsters Marked either.
fucking mixing conversational language into rules descriptions, I swear I'm going to cut you McGarva
This only means they don't have to be adjacent for punish, probably a clarification because for the majority of "attack" type marking/defending mechanics you _did_ have to be adjacent for.

You still have to satisfy one of the original triggers for the punishment to happen i.e. either:
- attack an ally
- shift within the defender's reach

And on top of those you have:
- be able to justify the punishment in some way in universe

Fucking this. Legend nailed that.

Alright, cool. I got it now.
It's not as mindblowingly "if you even breathe I will Opportunity you, I swear to god" as I was thinking it might be, but it can still do fun stuff.

Thanks.

Ok OP I decided to read the core rule book and this is pretty much my dream 4e successor.

But it does seem to have some issues with progression. Does the game suffer from this? I mean there isn't that many new powers to get.

Also how's the competitive DM thing? Have you tried that way of playing the game yet?

>But it does seem to have some issues with progression. Does the game suffer from this? I mean there isn't that many new powers to get.

Keep in mind that feats are much more likely to give you stuff that's effectively a new power than numerical upgrades (like in 4e) which means you basically get close to the 1 new thing/level thing 4e did. You may sometimes get to use your skills in combat as well, and you get new ones of those as well, so that may be considered a new "thing" too.

That said, it could maybe use an extra power or two occasionally. If that happens and your players agree, just hand out a free feat for everyone.

Admittedly, advancement is tied to the out of combat part of the game, which means it could use a bit of polish in general (I really dislike the "learn a new skill on a 6" thing, for example).

>Also how's the competitive DM thing? Have you tried that way of playing the game yet?

It looks fun, but all the people I play with are into more light stuff. I may run it at a con/bi-weekly oneshot gathering at the LFGS.

>It's not as mindblowingly "if you even breathe I will Opportunity you, I swear to god" as I was thinking it might be

You want to be a Duelist for that one.

They are honestly kinda disgusting.