Martial Arts

[Morgenstern]

There's a huge difference between 'overpowered' and 'broken'. Around the office we often called overpowered effects "running a little hot". They sort of invite the GM to play dirty . The Martial Arts feat has always been on the radar as a very good feat, but not one that has in the past generated undue headache based on a lot of feedback. The MA/Rage/Improved stabilty combo is new, and it does push the threshold a little higher than I'm comfortable with.

I know it may sound almost trivial, but my earlier house rule suggestion (Prerequisite: 13+ Dex) and the min-max reaction it caused pretty much fixes things perfectly to my satisfation: a +10 gradient from a 30 str/10 dex split without unbearable downsides is more than I like. A +7 gradient from 28 str/14 Dex at 20th level is pretty reasonable. *points at table 4.37* A feat that's only as good as a magic item isn't going to break anything - because the cost to hold an extra magic item is 1 feat (Packrat) . The house rule is also consistent with the general limitation on attribute swaps seen in Practice Makes Perfect: you have to have a 13+ in the stat you are replacing. The consequence for non-fighty characters is also pretty reasonable: go ahead an use that massive Int or Cha or whatever to power your Martial Arts, but you still have to have "adventurer's average" Dex to do so. It cuts down on the gradient for those builds too, and that is a good thing. The biggest argument against it is that attribute-based prerequisites were eliminated from those feats appearing in chapter 2 of Fantasycraft - an accomplishment that appeals to the general sense of simplicty FC strives for. Still, I think attribute swaps are probably an important enough class of effect to be worth flagging in this fashion, at least for my table.

[Njall]

However, if two players in my usual group want to play a sword fighter, and given the same resources and level, at one point one is just plain better at combat while being exactly as good as the other one in every other respect, all due to a single feat and a different stat distribution, what am I supposed to tell the player of the weaker PC?

"You had the same opportunity to build your character as the other player. If you chose not to use that feat in your build then that was your decision." That is what you say. The only way the statement does not get said is if the stronger one had more time with the book than the weaker one. Or you can disallow it in your game. ... Those are your two choices in this instance.

Yeah, but characters usually come with a concept. If "being a dexterous and strong guy that kicks ass" is part of his concept, telling him " then you'll always fall behind your strength based buddy in terms of fighting prowess, sry" bugs me.
The fact that I can display a certain amount of system mastery doesn't mean that I want to reward it in play

If it's broken, using it breaks the game.

For what it's worth, he's not calling it "broken". He's saying it's overpowered compared to other first tier feats. Maybe his definition of overpowered isn't synonymous with broken?

There's a huge difference between 'overpowered' and 'broken'. Around the office we often called overpowered effects "running a little hot". They sort of invite the GM to play dirty . The Martial Arts feat has always been on the radar as a very good feat, but not one that has in the past generated undue headache based on a lot of feedback. The MA/Rage/Improved stabilty combo is new, and it does push the threshold a little higher than I'm comfortable with.

This is pretty much it, yes. A feat that grants a +3 to something, for example, is not usually broken in the context of d20, if taken in a vacuum; however, if there's another feat around whose only benefit is a +1 to the same stat, then something's wrong, since both feats cost you the same slot. If all the feats in the game are close in power to the feat that gives a +1, then the feat that gives the +3 bonus is overpowered. It still won't break the game, but anyone looking for a numerical boost to the stat will take it instead of the feat that grants the meager +1. This, IMO, restricts choice.
 

I know it may sound almost trivial, but my earlier house rule suggestion (Prerequisite: 13+ Dex) and the min-max reaction it caused pretty much fixes things perfectly to my satisfation: a +10 gradient from a 30 str/10 dex split without unbearable downsides is more than I like. A +7 gradient from 28 str/14 Dex at 20th level is pretty reasonable. *points at table 4.37* A feat that's only as good as a magic item isn't going to break anything - because the cost to hold an extra magic item is 1 feat (Packrat) . The house rule is also consistent with the general limitation on attribute swaps seen in Practice Makes Perfect: you have to have a 13+ in the stat you are replacing. The consequence for non-fighty characters is also pretty reasonable: go ahead an use that massive Int or Cha or whatever to power your Martial Arts, but you still have to have "adventurer's average" Dex to do so. It cuts down on the gradient for those builds too, and that is a good thing. The biggest argument against it is that attribute-based prerequisites were eliminated from those feats appearing in chapter 2 of Fantasycraft - an accomplishment that appeals to the general sense of simplicty FC strives for. Still, I think attribute swaps are probably an important enough class of effect to be worth flagging in this fashion, at least for my table.

And, for what is worth, I find that your fix addresses the problem pretty nicely.
Still, I'll probably introduce another couple of stat substitution feats ( say, one that rewards a high-dexterity melee fighter and another one that rewards balanced builds ), just because I don't like cookie cutter builds in principle, and I'd preref that Str, Str/Dex and Dex builds were equally viable in my campaign .
However, while a feat that works along the lines of weapon finesse is easy to introduce ( even if it would need to have some kind of prerequisite so that whoever takes it cannot afford to dump str too much), I'm having some problems with a feat that rewards a balanced spread.
Does anyone want to help?
This is my original idea:

<Insert a cool name about being a kickass that's both strong and agile here>
Prerequisite: Str 13, Dex 13

You prefer a balanced approach to combat, blending strength and grace in a lethal fighting style.

Description: As long as your dexterity score is equal or higher than your strength score, you gain a +X( flat bonus or level scaling bonus?) to melee attack rolls, initiative and defense.
Temporary modifiers don't count for the purpose of this feat.

(rationale behind the feat:  MA ends up giving a bonus to Attack, Initiative, Damage and Defense. Dexterity, however, affects your Reflex Saves as well, so our strength monger and a guy with this feat should end up about equal, with the Str guy dealing more damage and the "balanced" guy being more versatile. Furthermore, since Str still affects attack and damage rolls, the character can't afford to dump it).

What do you think? What problems does it have, aside from being terribly inelegant, not having a name and sporting a lame flavor text? Should it provide a flat bonus or a scaling bonus? Is it exploitable? How many principles of basic game design does it violate?

[Edit: found a loophole. Anyone with both this feat and MA(anything else but dex and str)) can use it to bring his AB and defense through the roof, if the bonus is not tied to Str. What if the bonus was Str mod/2, (min +1)? Too complex?]

[Morgenstern]

The thing that immediately catches my eye is that it triggers with little or no investment, which means the resulting benefit can't be all that large. Its a normal feat with near-decorative limiting conditions. The Strength-monger had to really work at building up that differential - attribute bumps are fairly rare and precious. There were a lot of feats tied up in that aspect (which is why a number of people felt the build was by-and-large harmless due to intense specialization). This, you need a 13 Str and a 14 Dex. It's not calling on you to focus your effort and expend resources anymore that fulfilling the basic flavor statement: you are reaonsalbly strong and dexterous. Its a stat spread you can qualify for almost effortlessly.

The statement about temporary bonus is actually quite neccessary, but really a cludge. Geting zapped by somebody casting a Brawn I on you is hilarious. Instant 'muscle-bound" .

If you are curious about some "balanced character" bonuses, there are 2 that come to mind immediately. One is the various incarnations of poise, which grants either a +1 or +2 bump to your lowest attribute. Those really play into the hands of characters whose lowest stat is already a 12 or so. There are also some abilities associated with the Shadow Patriots that key to "lowest attribute modifer" that are pretty nifty. Likewise there are some L5R Scorpion-themed effects that force an opponent to use their lowest attribute modifer in place of the normal one for certain rolls.

The way to script something along the lines you are describing would be to make +X where X is the lower of your Strength or Dexterity modifiers. Since the investment in bringing X up is actually twice as dificult as raising just one attribute, the things you could aply +X to could be pretty exciting.

Try this on for size:

Wardancer
Your strength and grace make you seem almost untouchable.
Benefit: Your maximum vitality is increased by 5 x the lower of your Strength or Dexterity modifiers (minimum 0)

You need at least a 12 in each to gain any benefit – a feat that gives you 5 vitality and nothing else. No biggie.
If you have a 14 in each you got 10 vitality and have a pretty clear commitment to the hybrid Str/Dex lifestyle.
If you have 16 in each you’re getting 15 vitality. This takes a bit of effort but the payoff is excellent – your Str/Dex hybrid is effectively covering some possible Con weakness.
18 in each of 2 attribute is a hard core build that is rewarded with 20 vitality - a serious damage buffer. Without offering the slightest protection against critical hits or fortitude save effects. Dump Con at your (usual) peril.
20 in each is achievable at higher levels, but by then 5 more vitality is probably not influencing the outcome of most encounters, even the combat ones.

[Psion]

I know it may sound almost trivial, but my earlier house rule suggestion (Prerequisite: 13+ Dex) and the min-max reaction it caused pretty much fixes things perfectly to my satisfation: a +10 gradient from a 30 str/10 dex split without unbearable downsides is more than I like. A +7 gradient from 28 str/14 Dex at 20th level is pretty reasonable. *points at table 4.37* A feat that's only as good as a magic item isn't going to break anything - because the cost to hold an extra magic item is 1 feat (Packrat) . The house rule is also consistent with the general limitation on attribute swaps seen in Practice Makes Perfect: you have to have a 13+ in the stat you are replacing. The consequence for non-fighty characters is also pretty reasonable: go ahead an use that massive Int or Cha or whatever to power your Martial Arts, but you still have to have "adventurer's average" Dex to do so. It cuts down on the gradient for those builds too, and that is a good thing. The biggest argument against it is that attribute-based prerequisites were eliminated from those feats appearing in chapter 2 of Fantasycraft - an accomplishment that appeals to the general sense of simplicty FC strives for.

Hmm. I like that.

As for prereqs... I really sort of miss some for the sense of internal consistency they give in SC2.0, so I'm unafraid to welcome a few back. The skill rank based ones also made the "improved max ranks" type abilities more important (which are in no way absent from FC.)

[Desertpuma]

However, if two players in my usual group want to play a sword fighter, and given the same resources and level, at one point one is just plain better at combat while being exactly as good as the other one in every other respect, all due to a single feat and a different stat distribution, what am I supposed to tell the player of the weaker PC?

"You had the same opportunity to build your character as the other player. If you chose not to use that feat in your build then that was your decision." That is what you say. The only way the statement does not get said is if the stronger one had more time with the book than the weaker one. Or you can disallow it in your game. ... Those are your two choices in this instance.

Yeah, but characters usually come with a concept. If "being a dexterous and strong guy that kicks ass" is part of his concept, telling him " then you'll always fall behind your strength based buddy in terms of fighting prowess, sry" bugs me.
The fact that I can display a certain amount of system mastery doesn't mean that I want to reward it in play

You are missing my point. The Player must choose to use or not use the feat. If The
Player does not choose it then they have no one to blame but themselves for not doing so. It is not really the perogative of the GM to balance out the PCs if one fails to make a certain feat choice and feels overshadowed. Well, at least, not in my games. If both players have equal time with the book and one does not choose the feat in question, how is it your fault as a GM?

[Morgenstern]

You are missing my point. The Player must choose to use or not use the feat. If The
Player does not choose it then they have no one to blame but themselves for not doing so.

Hence the observation about a "feat tax" (a term I hadn't heard before, but with implications that seem wonderfully damming). The problem with out-of-scale options isn't just that they let characters that take them be "more right" about pursuing their goals. They also make all other builds with similar goals at least partially wrong.

Part of SC2.0 and Mastercraft's basic ruggedness in the metagame is that a lot of care has gone into balancing the individual components to offer pretty similar levels of cool/effectiveness. The character options aren't perfect or sacred, but they are generally workable. I welcome good CharOp analysis because I want the system working smoothly on that level so that it generally doesn't intrude into metagame considerations and force the GM to deal with one player as a more fiercely competitive participant than the others. A question was raised and as is ussually the case I asked the person to show me in a way that also addressed all the hidden checks and balances loaded into the system. Njall built a good case that the feat can be made to do someting that raises flags for me too. +7 at the end of a long combo looks like a good, focused build to me. You can pull similar stunts with skills and those are at least as important as defense. Packrat can do exactly the same thing at 20th level and thats not even touching on the feats that really make me nervous (*waves to Personal Lieutenant*). But he didn't get +7. He squeezed +10 out of a build that isn't abnormally flawed. +10 is running hot. Not game wrecking, but something worth addressing because it creates a notable gap in the haves and have nots in otherwise similar builds. I tend to hunt 'no-brainer' options with a pointy stick... We've had to prod that particular feat back into the pen in the past, there being versions that never saw print.

Let me just sum up with: Njall, thank you for looking into this.

(...and with: "Beginner's luck" my *&*%^  )

[Njall]

The thing that immediately catches my eye is that it triggers with little or no investment, which means the resulting benefit can't be all that large. Its a normal feat with near-decorative limiting conditions. The Strength-monger had to really work at building up that differential - attribute bumps are fairly rare and precious. There were a lot of feats tied up in that aspect (which is why a number of people felt the build was by-and-large harmless due to intense specialization). This, you need a 13 Str and a 14 Dex. It's not calling on you to focus your effort and expend resources anymore that fulfilling the basic flavor statement: you are reaonsalbly strong and dexterous. Its a stat spread you can qualify for almost effortlessly.

You're right. I tried upping the prereqisites to 15/15, but the feat still scaled poorly. Doesn't work, or at least doesn't fulfill its intended purpose.

The statement about temporary bonus is actually quite neccessary, but really a cludge. Geting zapped by somebody casting a Brawn I on you is hilarious. Instant 'muscle-bound" .

Eh, that's exactly what I was trying to prevent when I added the clause
It was more for balance than anything else: since the feat was meant to bring the guy on par with the Str focused martial artist and the martial artist gets a straight benefit from a brawn spell, the feat should not become a burden as soon as the same spell is cast on him.
A Brawn spells is a better investment for the MA guy than for anyone else ( since it ends up increasing his Atk, Dmg, Def and Initiative instead of just attack and damage ), so I didn't like the disparity that ensued when Brawn(str) or any other Str buff is brought into the equation.

If you are curious about some "balanced character" bonuses, there are 2 that come to mind immediately. One is the various incarnations of poise, which grants either a +1 or +2 bump to your lowest attribute. Those really play into the hands of characters whose lowest stat is already a 12 or so. There are also some abilities associated with the Shadow Patriots that key to "lowest attribute modifer" that are pretty nifty. Likewise there are some L5R Scorpion-themed effects that force an opponent to use their lowest attribute modifer in place of the normal one for certain rolls.

The way to script something along the lines you are describing would be to make +X where X is the lower of your Strength or Dexterity modifiers. Since the investment in bringing X up is actually twice as dificult as raising just one attribute, the things you could aply +X to could be pretty exciting.

Yeah, I had considered it; however, since I was looking for a straight attack/defense buff, the resulting bonus would have been too high, IMO.

Try this on for size:

Wardancer
Your strength and grace make you seem almost untouchable.
Benefit: Your maximum vitality is increased by 5 x the lower of your Strength or Dexterity modifiers (minimum 0)

You need at least a 12 in each to gain any benefit – a feat that gives you 5 vitality and nothing else. No biggie.
If you have a 14 in each you got 10 vitality and have a pretty clear commitment to the hybrid Str/Dex lifestyle.
If you have 16 in each you’re getting 15 vitality. This takes a bit of effort but the payoff is excellent – your Str/Dex hybrid is effectively covering some possible Con weakness.
18 in each of 2 attribute is a hard core build that is rewarded with 20 vitality - a serious damage buffer. Without offering the slightest protection against critical hits or fortitude save effects. Dump Con at your (usual) peril.
20 in each is achievable at higher levels, but by then 5 more vitality is probably not influencing the outcome of most encounters, even the combat ones.

This feat is pretty interesting, and something I didn't consider. However, it does have some problems: for example, it doesn't scale very well, thus while at low levels it might be too strong ( +15 or +20 vitality ), at higher levels it's only as good as a talent's benefit (Barbarian), or a feat (Combat Vigor) for anyone that  doesn't try to exploit it.
In addition, I tend to prefer Defense to Vitality as far as defensive benefits go: this is mainly because every single point of Defense makes every point of Vitality more valuable in turn, so, depending on the opponent you're facing and the level you're at, say, +2 defense might be more or less valuable than 20 vitality.
This, and the fact that a high enough defense score effectively reduces your opponent's threat range, that can bypass your Vitality entirely, no matter how high ( as long as he can activate the threat, sure, but still...).
Anyway, I can be biased in this regard, since my main experiences with the Wounds/Vitality system are tied to a half a dozen high level SWRCR sessions I played some years ago, where critical hits where pretty brutal; however, armor is far less prominent in SW, so that might be part of the problem.

[/quote]

However, if two players in my usual group want to play a sword fighter, and given the same resources and level, at one point one is just plain better at combat while being exactly as good as the other one in every other respect, all due to a single feat and a different stat distribution, what am I supposed to tell the player of the weaker PC?

"You had the same opportunity to build your character as the other player. If you chose not to use that feat in your build then that was your decision." That is what you say. The only way the statement does not get said is if the stronger one had more time with the book than the weaker one. Or you can disallow it in your game. ... Those are your two choices in this instance.

Yeah, but characters usually come with a concept. If "being a dexterous and strong guy that kicks ass" is part of his concept, telling him " then you'll always fall behind your strength based buddy in terms of fighting prowess, sry" bugs me.
The fact that I can display a certain amount of system mastery doesn't mean that I want to reward it in play

You are missing my point. The Player must choose to use or not use the feat. If The
Player does not choose it then they have no one to blame but themselves for not doing so. It is not really the perogative of the GM to balance out the PCs if one fails to make a certain feat choice and feels overshadowed. Well, at least, not in my games. If both players have equal time with the book and one does not choose the feat in question, how is it your fault as a GM?

I think we're talking past each other, here  
Yeah, the player is responsible for his build. However, I'm the GM, and I believe helping my players create a balanced and fun character within the constraints of the system is part of my duties: so, if a player of mine asks me how he can create a strong and agile fighter that can hold his own in combat, I'd hate telling him that "sure, you can, but keep in mind that you'll be far weaker than the guy focusing on str". Why? Because he doesn't want to play a hulking brute, and he wants his stats to reflect that, and if he doesn't focus on his Str score and instead keeps a balanced spread, MA doesn't help him at all.
However, he's going to focus on combat as much as the Str based swordfighter, so it's not like he's going to shine in another area: he'll be as good as his friend (or worse, since focusing on str leaves enough points for a semi balanced spread, whereas pumping both your str and dex to 20 usually leaves you with far lower constitution and mental stats), as far as social challenges go, and be strictly behind in terms of combat ability and utility. What bugs me is that this doesn't happen because his concept isn't valid or it isn't a staple of fantasy literature and thus shouldn't be supported, it happens just because his friend found a shortcut in the rules that make his concept more viable.

You are missing my point. The Player must choose to use or not use the feat. If The
Player does not choose it then they have no one to blame but themselves for not doing so.

Hence the observation about a "feat tax" (a term I hadn't heard before, but with implications that seem wonderfully damming). The problem with out-of-scale options isn't just that they let characters that take them be "more right" about pursuing their goals. They also make all other builds with similar goals at least partially wrong.

Yeah, that's pretty much my point.

Let me just sum up with: Njall, thank you for looking into this.

(...and with: "Beginner's luck" my *&*%^  )

You're thanking me? Lol, you're the one that should be thanked for reading all of my ramblings and anwering calmly and politely  
It's been a nice chat, sir