Fighter Stalwart Defender Preview

[Angelus_dead]

I will sure post a thread.. I have before, but it has been awhile.. Intimidate is bad for the game. I think even the devs realize that hence the hate generation for both the two defensive prestige classes..

If it were up to me, Intimidate would function quite a lot differently, and be tied in to hate aggro instead of overriding it. Maybe something like this:

A successful Intimidate check would do two things: it would first give you hate as if you had inflicted damage, and secondly it would put a multiplier on that creature's hate for you equal to 120% + maybe 10% per point by which your result exceeded the DC. That multiplier decreases by 20% per second until back down to the basic 100%.

That means that if you've done 500 damage and a barb did 1000, then a successful Intimidate might raise you to 550 hate, and furthermore apply a multiplier of from 120% to 310% (or even more if your skill is ultra-high). Thus your effective hate would be from 660 to 1705, meaning you might not necessarily pull aggro from the barb, because his damage was so far beyond yours. The peak 1705 hate would gradually sink down to the "real" 550 hate number, although you'd probably have added some actual DPS hate during that time.

Obviously, that system would change Diplomacy in an equivalent way: a successful Dip check subtracts hate and then temporarily reduces your hate with a multiplier of 80% - 10% per point past DC. (Obvious problems could occur if the reduced hate wasn't limited to nonnegative results)

Note that without knowing the details of the hate system, the above-suggested numbers are probably wrong. They're just a demonstration of the sort of thing that could be done: taunt / de-taunt features that cooperate with hate, without overriding it.

[maddmatt70]

The way I read this is +7 to your ac while in stance irregardless of whether you use a shield. Dwarven ranger with monk splash or dwarven monk rocks out assuming they give this to all dwarves in Mod 10. I have a dwarven rogue with 1 level of monk who is an acrobot might be an interesting option to go into a defensive mode, although I will not get sneak damage with all that hate.

The shield options still suffers offensively. I mean +4 to strength is a serious meh. If you ahve a real arcane in the group why would you want one of these guys in your group anyway unless you want to solo alot of quests. I actually think the order of the purple dragon will be the best defensive prestige class when it comes out because it will also give the party buffs..

[Solmage]

I'm curios, if you do decide to open this up for all dwarves, how would they expend a fighter armor boost?

Also, would the defensive stances from paladin and dwarf stack? Lastly, would madstone (clicky and on-hit effect) and blood rage also be suppressed when in this defensive stance?

[Turial]

Today's preview is the Stalwart Defender, a prestige enhancement line that's very similar to the Defender of Siberys, yet does differ in some thematic ways. While they don't get the various holy abilities of the Defender of Siberys, they trade that for various other passive improvements.

Fighter Stalwart Defender I
Cost: 4 Action Points
Prereqs: Level 6 Fighter, Fighter Skill Intimidate 2, Fighter Armor Boost 1, Toughness, and any one of: Shield Mastery, Combat Expertise, Diehard, Dodge, or Least Dragonmark of Sentinel.
Benefit: While the flesh may be weak, you place your trust in the strength of steel. This prestige enhancement increases your armor class by 1, grants +2 to intimidate, increases your maximum dexterity bonus allowed by shields, and grants additional armor class and damage reduction when blocking with a shield. You may expend a use of Fighter action boost to to enter a defensive stance. When using a shield, you possess DR 2/-.

House Deneith runs the Defender's Guild. We thought it appropriate to let dragonmarked members of the house bypass some of the restrictions for the prestige enhancement line most closely associated with them.
...

If you actually want the dragon mark of house D to be an alternate way of getting this enhancement line I would suggest rethinking the pre-recs for those who take the dragonmark.

At tier 1 some one who wants to take the defender PrE will already have dodge and CE. Would it be too powerful to allow those that take the dragonmark to avoid the majority of the requirements....such as fighter Intimidate and allow a use of the dragonmark to sub in for the armor boost?

This would allow a dragonmarked defender to get more uses (least, lesser, greater = 6 additional uses) of his defensive stance because of the houses unique ties to this PrE while also allowing fighters to better use feats to qualify for the PrE and open up other action point choices.

[moorewr]

If it were up to me, Intimidate would function quite a lot differently, and be tied in to hate aggro instead of overriding it...

To me that is still too different from the intent of th PnP skill. The classic use is to scare an NPC into revealing a secret, to not fight, etc. It has combat uses.. but not as an arrow magnet.. I rarely see PnP players think in terms of transferring aggro, except through tactics or feints. Maybe I'm not typical.

I'd have intimidate work like a non-magical debuff.. if a target fails their save they could be feared or cowed for a short time.. but if they make their save then you would generate lots of extra hate (or be ignored if your intimidate roll was too low).

I think we've ended up too close to generic MMO thinking with intimidate.. the above would have a lot more flavor.

EDIT: just tidied up an unintended effect with failed saves above

[xberto]

.

Stalwart Defender might prefer not to pull aggro, but he can't turn off 200% threat without also reducing his DPS by losing a strength bonus.

I am under the impression that the Defensive Stance is activated by expending a Fighter armor boost. Therefore the 200% threat is only active for 20 seconds. Perhaps we need some clarification here.

When you expend the Fighter Armor boost, do you get the benifit of the action boost as well as the Defender stance?

[Venar]

The Aggression generation...

Will it stack with Divine Righteousness?
(i have a Paladin 6 / fighter 10 charater)

[sephiroth1084]

I am under the impression that the Defensive Stance is activated by expending a Fighter armor boost. Therefore the 200% threat is only active for 20 seconds. Perhaps we need some clarification here.

When you expend the Fighter Armor boost, do you get the benifit of the action boost as well as the Defender stance?

Expending the armor boost puts you in the stance, which, according to posts from Eladrin regarding the Paladin version of this, will function like any other stance: once in the stance, you remain in the stance until you dismiss it or perform an action that would end it (don't recall whether there were any actions that would dismiss this or not). So, you do not gain the benefits of the action boost, but you can remain in the stance indefinitely, though doing so may be a hindrance to your party as a whole, since you will be moving more slowly.

[sephiroth1084]

To me that is still too different from the intent of th PnP skill. The classic use is to scare an NPC into revealing a secret, to not fight, etc. It has combat uses.. but not as an arrow magnet.. I rarely see PnP players think in terms of transferring aggro, except through tactics or feints. Maybe I'm not typical.

I'd have intimidate work like a non-magical debuff.. if a target fails their save they could be feared or cowed for a short time.. but if they make their save then you would generate lots of extra hate (or be ignored if your intimidate roll was too low).

I think we've ended up too close to generic MMO thinking with intimidate.. the above would have a lot more flavor.

EDIT: just tidied up an unintended effect with failed saves above

In PnP I've always found Intimidate difficult to adjudicate as a DM: on a successful check, does the target reveal whatever you would like them to tell you? Do they wet themselves? Etc...

Also, I was always frustrated by the lack of options for making oneself the target of an enemy's or group of enemies' ire. I have always liked playing paladins with a distinctly defensive bent (and have also tried playing a knight), but my high AC often went to waste because many monsters would just ignore me, since I wasn't hitting as hard as the barbarian or doing flashy stuff like the wizard. The knight's challenge (can't recall name at present) that works similarly to DDO's intimidate was exactly what I desired, but the restrictions on the ability, coupled with a mediocre save DC and nigh-worthless mid-level class features, made it less than stellar. The Goad feat is similarly poor.

Because of everything above, I'm fairly happy with DDO's intimidate. Sure, they probably could have named it something else, or made it an ability that had to be acquired via a feat or enhancement, but ultimately, it makes playing a defensive tank worthwhile. The only change I'd make to the current implementation would be to make the check against a single target, rather than a group. I think that is the only failing of the ability as it stands now, since it takes too much burden off of the higher DPS characters in a group (though this is, again, an enjoyable feature).

[Riggs]

Very nice overall, fighters , well most of them, will be happy.

A few points, as some have mentioned already;

DR really needs to stack, or be higher. At high levels even stoneskin is pretty much a waste of time when monsters are hitting for 60 damage on cleaves every second or two. Adding in 2/4/6/ dr will certianly not make it overpowered if it did stack, and if it doesnt - well 6 dr vs 60 might isnt really worth much by itself.

Other DR really should start stacking too (unrelated but still), most DR is pretty much a waste except when your blocking, and even then if your not attacking (and not an intimitank), your still taking a lot of damage and not doing any in return, which doesnt help kill a monster if your standing there doing nothing but blocking - and still needing healing anyway, just a bit less than someone not blocking.

There is a lot of ac inflation in the game already, and it risks making monsters who get balanced to specialty splashes go way too high compared to other classes. I.e if person x can get 50 ac with a lot of work and effort, and person y can get 75 ac - once you go over the 20 point spread in a d20 system either someone is getting hosed all the time, or someone is basically immune to damage.

Since monsters have gotten balanced according to what players can achieve since day 1, it seems likely that if someone now makes some ftr/monk splash and hits 100 ac as someone said in a raid - it seems likely that someone at Turbine is going to look at it and say "Hmm, game repports show some players are walking through elite content with ease, lets make monsters have +85 to hit on elite now to make it challenging".

Consequence? everyone else gets hosed 100% of the time, and a 65 ac will be useless, making the game even more unbalanced.

Solution - start making currently untyped bonuses insight bonuses. Monk wisdom ac - make it insight. Fighter prestige class ac? Insight. It makes sence in a rationalization way as well - it is skill and 'wisdom' that is giving you the extra ac - skill/wisdom = 'insight'.

That will avoid the 100+ ac builds that could potentially be seen with adding up the new enhancements. As it is the inflation is crazy, and again, on a d20 system having some people with 60 points higher than some others is way out of whack.

Some people will scream bloody murder if they lose some kind of potential ac. What they dont see is the effect inflation is having, and going to continue to have on the game. Greensteel insight weapons maybe could be switched to a dodge bonus - so if you have crafted an ac item it will still be useful, since when mod 6 was out there was no real other insight ac bonuses you could get, and the intent seemed to be a bonus that stacked as it was more or less unique.

Long and short of it - extra ac for fighters is awesome, they have been pretty underpowered for a long time - but the game needs less untyped stacking ac bonuses for long term balance.

[Angelus_dead]

To me that is still too different from the intent of th PnP skill.

I was not attempting to change the intention of the effects, just the details. That suggestion left Intimidate = pull aggro and Diplomacy = shed aggro, just like they currently are in DDO.

[Do'Urden]

Hmmm....my original character is a sword & board 10 Paladin / 6 Fighter (Intimidate sped'ed) and planned for 14 Paladin levels. I'm thinking KoC II and Fighter SD I may be an interesting combination. Have to check the descriptions a bit closer.

[Angelus_dead]

I am under the impression that the Defensive Stance is activated by expending a Fighter armor boost. Therefore the 200% threat is only active for 20 seconds.

Absolutely not!

This has been explained in the Paladin thread:
You spend an AC boost, but you don't get the benefits of AC boost. Instead you switch into Defensive Stance, which lasts until you either turn it off, or die. (Maybe it also deactivates when resting). You can keep Defensive Stance on as long as you want, and the reason you wouldn't want it all the time is the run-speed penalty.

[xberto]

Expending the armor boost puts you in the stance, which, according to posts from Eladrin regarding the Paladin version of this, will function like any other stance: once in the stance, you remain in the stance until you dismiss it or perform an action that would end it (don't recall whether there were any actions that would dismiss this or not). So, you do not gain the benefits of the action boost, but you can remain in the stance indefinitely, though doing so may be a hindrance to your party as a whole, since you will be moving more slowly.

Thanks for clearing that up. I didnt read up on the pally version. I think I'll turn my Intimitank, turned tactical fighter, turned TWF, back into an Intimitank.

[tinyjf]

Very nice overall, fighters , well most of them, will be happy.

A few points, as some have mentioned already;

DR really needs to stack, or be higher. At high levels even stoneskin is pretty much a waste of time when monsters are hitting for 60 damage on cleaves every second or two. Adding in 2/4/6/ dr will certianly not make it overpowered if it did stack, and if it doesnt - well 6 dr vs 60 might isnt really worth much by itself.

Other DR really should start stacking too (unrelated but still), most DR is pretty much a waste except when your blocking, and even then if your not attacking (and not an intimitank), your still taking a lot of damage and not doing any in return, which doesnt help kill a monster if your standing there doing nothing but blocking - and still needing healing anyway, just a bit less than someone not blocking.

There is a lot of ac inflation in the game already, and it risks making monsters who get balanced to specialty splashes go way too high compared to other classes. I.e if person x can get 50 ac with a lot of work and effort, and person y can get 75 ac - once you go over the 20 point spread in a d20 system either someone is getting hosed all the time, or someone is basically immune to damage.

Since monsters have gotten balanced according to what players can achieve since day 1, it seems likely that if someone now makes some ftr/monk splash and hits 100 ac as someone said in a raid - it seems likely that someone at Turbine is going to look at it and say "Hmm, game repports show some players are walking through elite content with ease, lets make monsters have +85 to hit on elite now to make it challenging".

Consequence? everyone else gets hosed 100% of the time, and a 65 ac will be useless, making the game even more unbalanced.

Solution - start making currently untyped bonuses insight bonuses. Monk wisdom ac - make it insight. Fighter prestige class ac? Insight. It makes sence in a rationalization way as well - it is skill and 'wisdom' that is giving you the extra ac - skill/wisdom = 'insight'.

That will avoid the 100+ ac builds that could potentially be seen with adding up the new enhancements. As it is the inflation is crazy, and again, on a d20 system having some people with 60 points higher than some others is way out of whack.

Some people will scream bloody murder if they lose some kind of potential ac. What they dont see is the effect inflation is having, and going to continue to have on the game. Greensteel insight weapons maybe could be switched to a dodge bonus - so if you have crafted an ac item it will still be useful, since when mod 6 was out there was no real other insight ac bonuses you could get, and the intent seemed to be a bonus that stacked as it was more or less unique.

Long and short of it - extra ac for fighters is awesome, they have been pretty underpowered for a long time - but the game needs less untyped stacking ac bonuses for long term balance.

I play a 16 monk who will have over a 90 ac fully buffed once I get that dang ring and I would like to say that I think that you are right on track with your statements of untyped ac bonuses unbalancing the game. I would not complain if they "fixed" all the ac's by typing them. My monk would still have a very high ac compared to most of the other melee so it wouldn't really hurt my char. I think it would do alot for allowing the game to be more balanced though. Just my 2 coppers is all.

[drsmooth]

I can't remember if this was covered in the Pally PRE thread, but does spell casting take you out of your defensive stance?

[Borror0]

So do you like this?

Is it what you were looking for?

Depends what your question is.

Does this fix S&B?
No. All bonus can be gained by non-S&B characters.

Is this a nice Prestige Enhancement?
Seems like it. Not 100% sure, given the odd wording. Clarifications would be cool.

Is it perfect?
There could be several improvements. Many good suggestions have been made in this thread.

[Angelus_dead]

No. All bonus can be gained by non-S&B characters.

Not exactly.

The largest part of Stalwart Defender is the +7 AC while your Superior Defensive Stance is up, which is available to anyone with 18 fighter levels and some qualifying feats. But there's also increased max dex that is only usable by someone with Tower Shields and heavy armor (presumed to be a +2 net bonus).

So if you have a fig18/monk2, you'll gain +7 AC if you become a Stalwart Defender, while a fig18/pal2 with tower would gain +9. In addition, there's a further few AC gained when shield-blocking, but blocking AC is of little import.

So really it closes the gap by 2, which isn't enough to call S&B "fixed". (Reducing the gap to 0 wouldn't be enough...)

[RemoJr]

If dwarves are allowed into this like how elves are allowed into arcain archer, then could my dwarven fighter take both this and kensai? That would be badass.

[Angelus_dead]

If dwarves are allowed into this like how elves are allowed into arcain archer, then could my dwarven fighter take both this and kensai? That would be badass.

Considering that an Elf ranger can't take both Arcane Archer and Tempest, the answer is no.

In addition, repeating an announcement that some people may have missed:
You can't take Stalwart Defender if you're a non-fighter dwarf. That is a feature that is being strongly considered for the future, but it won't be in module 9.