Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Pathbreaker - musings of an amateur game designer
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Lord Mhoram" data-source="post: 8607437" data-attributes="member: 4789"><p>Today I will be discussing a class I call The Armsman. This ties into something I mentioned in passing upthread - I LOVE the <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/135308/Path-of-War" target="_blank">Path of War</a> System - although being been a hardcore immersionist I didn't really like it early on - same issues with Bo9S (with Path of War was a re-implementation of) and 4th edition D&D and the idea of encounter powers.</p><p></p><p>Be that as it may, I love the thing now. For those not away fighter types get per encounter combat maneuvers that are level ranked like spells. this gives martial classes nice things, and gives them more options in combat than "I full attack again". Much more vibrant, and helps the martial / caster imbalance. Now part of why I loved 3.PF is I love spellcasters so that issue (if it happened to actual be an issue at your table) I could live with.</p><p></p><p>The books have a problem (one shared by the akashic book too, but that is a post for another day) is that all of the classes have a very strong flavor. Too much flavor? How could that be? But it was missing something I wanted. A "generic" Initiator. It would be like having D&D/Pathfinder and you had Ranges, Paladins and Barbarians, even Monks, but no Fighter. There wasn't a choice for someone who just wanted to play a soldier/warrior type that just "fought good".</p><p></p><p>So I came up with the armsman. And fairly early on, I made a mistake. Being blinded by the way you could sort of make a generic talented class that covered monk, rogue or fighter I thought I could do that. Well as evidenced by the title of this thread, I am not that good a designer. It was, with the terminology from software development, feature creep. I was trying to make it that you could make a Mystic, a Warlord or a Stalker just with that class. Ooops.</p><p></p><p>When I was working on stuff this week (mostly organizing Mythic stuff the way I like it, and pulling in stuff from multiple books) I got tired of what I was working on and looked to do something else, and I pulled up the Armsman as it stood, and though "No this is way too much to deal with right now".</p><p></p><p>And I went to work on other things, but apparently my subconscious decided to fix it. I woke up this morning, stumbled to my desk and thought "Feature creep" and set to work with my digital knife - I excises about half of what I had from the class is a few swift strokes (the replicate original class stuff) and took all the abilities I'd borrowed/stole from them and trimmed them down.</p><p></p><p>I had also had previously pulled stuff from ranger, barbarian, fighter, monk, and a little stuff from bard and rogue. I started fine tuning that list. This class has maneuvers as the base identity, and variety and choice in the class, but I wanted a fairly generic frame you could build many character concepts on. I had already decided to use the Edge/Talent system and then decided what fits my concept and what does.</p><p></p><p>Now while I like the flavor of the fighter - a sort of generic fighter you can fill in background for - I hate it's mechanics, it is weak, and most importantly it is boring to play. The Unchained fighter helped a lot with some of that, and Legendary Games' <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/232143/Legendary-Fighters" target="_blank">Legendary Fighter</a> did too. But by the time I had those, I had discovered Path of War and fell in love with the system. So in a lot of ways the armsman killed the fighter and took his stuff for my games.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lord Mhoram, post: 8607437, member: 4789"] Today I will be discussing a class I call The Armsman. This ties into something I mentioned in passing upthread - I LOVE the [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/135308/Path-of-War']Path of War[/URL] System - although being been a hardcore immersionist I didn't really like it early on - same issues with Bo9S (with Path of War was a re-implementation of) and 4th edition D&D and the idea of encounter powers. Be that as it may, I love the thing now. For those not away fighter types get per encounter combat maneuvers that are level ranked like spells. this gives martial classes nice things, and gives them more options in combat than "I full attack again". Much more vibrant, and helps the martial / caster imbalance. Now part of why I loved 3.PF is I love spellcasters so that issue (if it happened to actual be an issue at your table) I could live with. The books have a problem (one shared by the akashic book too, but that is a post for another day) is that all of the classes have a very strong flavor. Too much flavor? How could that be? But it was missing something I wanted. A "generic" Initiator. It would be like having D&D/Pathfinder and you had Ranges, Paladins and Barbarians, even Monks, but no Fighter. There wasn't a choice for someone who just wanted to play a soldier/warrior type that just "fought good". So I came up with the armsman. And fairly early on, I made a mistake. Being blinded by the way you could sort of make a generic talented class that covered monk, rogue or fighter I thought I could do that. Well as evidenced by the title of this thread, I am not that good a designer. It was, with the terminology from software development, feature creep. I was trying to make it that you could make a Mystic, a Warlord or a Stalker just with that class. Ooops. When I was working on stuff this week (mostly organizing Mythic stuff the way I like it, and pulling in stuff from multiple books) I got tired of what I was working on and looked to do something else, and I pulled up the Armsman as it stood, and though "No this is way too much to deal with right now". And I went to work on other things, but apparently my subconscious decided to fix it. I woke up this morning, stumbled to my desk and thought "Feature creep" and set to work with my digital knife - I excises about half of what I had from the class is a few swift strokes (the replicate original class stuff) and took all the abilities I'd borrowed/stole from them and trimmed them down. I had also had previously pulled stuff from ranger, barbarian, fighter, monk, and a little stuff from bard and rogue. I started fine tuning that list. This class has maneuvers as the base identity, and variety and choice in the class, but I wanted a fairly generic frame you could build many character concepts on. I had already decided to use the Edge/Talent system and then decided what fits my concept and what does. Now while I like the flavor of the fighter - a sort of generic fighter you can fill in background for - I hate it's mechanics, it is weak, and most importantly it is boring to play. The Unchained fighter helped a lot with some of that, and Legendary Games' [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/232143/Legendary-Fighters']Legendary Fighter[/URL] did too. But by the time I had those, I had discovered Path of War and fell in love with the system. So in a lot of ways the armsman killed the fighter and took his stuff for my games. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Pathbreaker - musings of an amateur game designer
Top