Hello all,
So I super enjoy this game, and I've been making my own characters for a while now, so I thought I'd post them all here, along with my design notes/thunken when I made them. I'm gonna do one for each base class in the game, including classes that haven't been released yet. Some of them will be based on characters that I've played in the tabletop game, and some of them will be characters that I've built because I thought that they bring something neat to the game. I'll be using the following format when posting my characters: I'll post their entire character first (including roles), then break down my thoughts based on each section of the character.
So with that outta the way, we'll turn our attention to the first character variant: the bard.
Kaldane Starlight (Human, Male, Bard)
Skill:
STR 1d6 []1 []2 []3
DEX 1d6 []1 []2
CON 1d6 []1 []2
INT 1d6 []1 []2 Knowledge +1
WIS 1d6 []1 []2
CHA 1d12 []1 []2 []3 []4 Arcane +2, Divine +2
Card: (Favored Card Type: Your Choice)
Weapon 2 []3 []4
Spell 3 []4 []5
Armor 1 []2
Item 3 []4 []5
Ally 3 []4 []5
Blessing 3 []4
Power: (Hand Size: 4 []5)
Light Armor [.] Weapons []
* You may recharge a card to reduce the difficulty of a monster by 1d4 []+1 []+2
* You may recharge a card to reroll an combat check, or discard a card to allow an ally to reroll a combat check.
Roles (all of the above, plus the following):
Role 1: Arcane Duelist
Hand Size []6
[] You may discard a card to fight a monster encountered by another character at your location. You are considered to have encountered it instead. You may not evade this creature.
[] At the start of your turn, you may recharge a card to draw a card.
[] You may discard ([]or recharge) a spell with the attack trait to add any other traits it has to your combat checks for a turn.
[] When you play a blessing that applies to a combat check with a weapon, you may recharge it instead of discarding it.
Role 2: Magician
Hand Size []6 []7
[] At the beginning of your turn, you may either exchange a weapon card in your hand for a spell in your discard pile, or a spell card in your hand for a weapon in your discard pile.
[] Add +2 []+4 to any rolls made on a spell. this includes rolls that are not part of checks, such as the 1d4+1 that is rolled for the cure spell.
[] When you play a blessing that applies to a spell, you may recharge it instead of discarding it.
now, my thoughts:
My overall goal for this character is to be as balanced as I can while still being exceptionally focused on being pretty. With that in mind, picking skills was fairly simple. I wanted to make him a bit more casting focused then the "all over the place" feel that Lem has for his skills.
Cards: Cards were picked along the same lines, with the options for ranged combat and melee combat being the same. Shooting for balance, I gave him reasonable access to every card type. He's not hyper focused in any one area skill wise, so I wanted him to have that same feel card wise.
Powers: I based this bard off of the Court Bard archetype from The Advanced Player's Guide. He's more about shutting down enemies then helping allies, and his initial powers reflect that. Neither ability is something that one of the current characters has (although my witch build uses a similar ability as one of it's hexes).
Roles: This character's greatest strength is it's versatility, and I wanted to build two very different roles to highlight that. The arcane duelist role makes him a much more "tank" focused character, being able to fight more combats and protect his allies from combats that would kill them. Recharging blessings on combat checks also means that he can beat the crap outta things, even if he isn't the strongest guy around.
Conversely, His magician role is geared towards being an awesome caster. He's got an ability that lets him get rid of weapons to get spells from his discard pile, he gets to recharge blessings on spells, making his casting potent, and he gets better heals.
I look forward to your comments, and I'll get started on posting my next thread, Which is going to be the monk!
The reroll ability seems quite powerful. It turns a 90% chance into a 99% chance (saving precautionary blessings in critical situations) or a 50% chance into a 75% chance. I think that would require discarding a card on your own check to be balanced. (I was thinking of a duelist that would discard [] recharge a finesse weapon to get a reroll as probably balanced.)
No same-location limit for helping others?
I was surprised to see the starting hand size so low for a non-tank, although that limits the use of his powers. The utility of his powers drops off a lot with more players.
It seems like two powers could be swapped between the roles for improved theme:
[] You may discard ([]or recharge) a spell with the attack trait to add any other traits it has to your combat checks for a turn.
[] At the beginning of your turn, you may either exchange a weapon card in your hand for a spell in your discard pile, or a spell card in your hand for a weapon in your discard pile.
I would say that the base stats seem too powerful. d12+2 for both DIVINE AND ARCANE? That basically makes him a Kyra/Ezren Hybrid with no drawbacks. Lem gets both spheres at 1d10+1. And then no d4 weakness? All d6 balanced non-primary attributes? Every base character has a weakness, save the monk... and that works because monk is all about being in balance.
And then I have to agree with mlvanbie that recharging a card to reroll and entire combat check is REALLY powerful. How about, recharge a card to allow you to re-roll 1 DIE of a combat roll. This limits it to a more reasonable power, but still lets you target that stupid 1 that you rolled. Or to possibly change a low d12 into a higher number? Presents a bit of strategy with the power itself!
I definitely like the variation of the bard... just think it's a tad bit powerful.
@mlvanbie: yes, the reroll ability is powerful, but I'm not sure how you're figuring your percentages. It would be entirely based on what the DC is; and, as you noted, his hand size is a limiting factor to what he can do; You're right about the same location limit, it's something I missed. I'll add it to the next posting. It is worth mentioning, however, that unlike Lem's ability to add dice to a check, Kaldane's power is only for combat checks, as opposed to Lem's being all checks.
Initially I had swapped those two powers you mention, but looking at them, the "use an attack spells traits" power is more in line with someone who attacks in melee, as opposed to someone who is more casting focused; the other power was me trying to throw an ability similar to Lem's, but more limited. I think I have a better ability that will fit with what I wanted to do, which you can see in my repost with changes, below.
@motrax: I see certain points of your post about skills, although you can't compare Kyra with an custom character, as she has 7 points of skills, and the most we can have is 5; it's also worth mentioning that every character who has a d12 has a d4, but also has at least one more d8. Actually, if you look at anyone's stats, they have at least an extra d8 in addition to their primary stat of choice. and even Sajan has an additional d8 in his stats; all I did was take his baseline stats, lowered the d8 to a d6, and raised the d10 to a d12.
As far as his reroll ability goes, as I mentioned above it only applies to combat checks, costs you a card regardless, and still might make you miss your reroll. When compared to Lem's ability, which grants you a d4 (with a scaling bonus up to +3!), means that his ability is more versatile and useful. Where Kaldane's reroll ability really shines is rolling one lower than what you need on a combat check that you statistically should succeed on. It does give you a shot at rerolling checks
Kaldane Starlight (Human, Male, Bard)
Skill:
STR 1d6 []1 []2 []3 Melee +1
DEX 1d6 []1 []2 Ranged +1
CON 1d6 []1 []2
INT 1d6 []1 []2 Knowledge +1
WIS 1d6 []1 []2
CHA 1d12 []1 []2 []3 []4 Arcane +1, Divine +1
Card: (Favored Card Type: Your Choice)
Weapon 2 []3 []4
Spell 3 []4 []5
Armor 1 []2
Item 3 []4 []5
Ally 3 []4 []5
Blessing 3 []4
Power: (Hand Size: 4)
Light Armor [.] Weapons []
* You may recharge a card to reduce the difficulty of a monster by 1d4 []+1 []+2
* You may discard ([] or recharge) a card to reroll an combat check, or discard a card to allow an ally at your location to reroll a combat check.
Roles (all of the above, plus the following):
Role 1: Arcane Duelist
Hand Size []5
[] You may discard a card to fight a monster encountered by another character at your location. You are considered to have encountered it instead. You may not evade this creature.
[] Increase your melee skill to +2.
[] Increase your ranged skill to +2.
[] At the start of your turn, you may recharge a card to draw a card.
[] You may discard ([]or recharge) a spell with the attack trait to add any other traits it has to your combat checks for a turn.
[] When you play a blessing that applies to a combat check with a weapon, you may recharge it instead of discarding it.
Role 2: Magician
Hand Size []5
[] Increase your Arcane bonus to +2.
[] Increase your Divine bonus to +2.
[] Add +1 []+2 to any rolls made on a spell. this includes rolls that are not part of checks, such as the 1d4+1 that is rolled for the cure spell.
[] You may discard a card to negate a "before the encounter" ([]or "after the encounter") ability of a monster that you are facing, even if that ability applies to all creatures at your location.
[] When you play a blessing that applies to a spell, you may recharge it instead of discarding it.
Changes in bold.
For probabilities, I'm just doing the math for abstract probabilities. If a character rolls a d10 to get 6+ (no weapon), then it is a 50% chance of success, same as rolling a d4 to get 3+. 50% of the time there will be a success, 50% of the time you will discard with a 50% chance of success the second time -- so 75% chance of success. In general, probability p of success (between 0 and 1) gives probability of 1-(1-p)^2 of success with probability 1-p of needing to discard.
Rerolling one die is interesting in that there are lots of dice rolled for important checks, making it almost always an improvement on the die roll.
Negating before/after encounter effects seems really strong against villains. It might even break a scenario.
It seems like this would be a really slow-moving character since he gets so few cards and needs to discard them. I guess that balances out the strong benefits; he will need to accompany characters that can do lots of explores, bailing them out of bad combat checks due to aggressive play, then do a single explore on his turn. He'll need to get Haste. His own combat checks are pretty weak if they don't use a spell.
but probabilities in this case should be based upon the DC of the check. If I need a 16 and am rolling 2d10+1d4+4, I'm much more likely to succeed then if I'm rolling 1d10+4 and need a 13, but have a reroll.
I dunno about breaking scenarios, but taking damage to negate an effect is a mechanic that should be at least examined and, I'd argue, no more scenario breaking then, say, moving at the end of your turn as a class power to let you get out of start of turn effects.
I'll grant that he's a slow character, but I'm fine with that. He's also a versatile character, which is good as well =)
In the first case, you take a 68% chance to an 89% chance of success due to the reroll (1-.32^2).
In the second case, a reroll turns a 20% chance to a 36% chance (1-.8^2).
The skill's power is based on how hard it is to succeed on the check, not the printed difficulty of the check. It does have the limitation that it can't cause you to succeed at checks that were otherwise impossible (unlike adding a die or even a +1). It just replaces '50% of checks are below average' with '25% of checks are below average'.
Graph of second-chance versus baseline probability.
I'm concerned about a villain with the text 'After your encounter, add a Clone Villain to a random open location'. Something fundamental to the scenario that you can circumvent by discarding a card. In AP4, it guts 4 unique henchmen, all the villains and both types of Harpy cards.
Based on errata, you probably meant 'characters', not 'creatures'.
Keep in mind that all weapons that allow you to reroll a check require a discard. That's one and done, and then you have to get that weapon back, and you have to do it at the cost of an additional die that any other weapon would give you for discarding it. Post-roll modifications are very expensive. You have to bury a luck stone to increase a failed check by 1 or 2 points.
Compared to that, recharging a card for a 100% do-over? And you can give it to allies? Even requiring a discarded card, that'd be one of the most powerful abilities in the game.
And as mlvanbie says, negating pre-encounter powers would completely neuter a ton of enemies. Discarding a card is a gambit most people would take against enemies like Black Fang, especially if the damage affects every character at a location. How about the villain in AP4 that makes you bury a ton of cards with a failed check? That's a huge buff for just one lost card. AP4 made us plan around harpies, not just the henchmen but the normal monsters too. Which Merisiel's crappy wisdom we sometimes had to burn blessings just to ensure she wouldn't fail the check, so she could actually kill the thing instead of wasting a turn evading it (at one point, a weapons-and-blessings-free Merisiel encountered the same evaded harpy three times in a row).
@mlvanbie: the printed difficulty IS how hard it is to succeed, for the most part. and you're right, I should put characters, not creatures (I do that sometimes).
@Dave Riley: yes, recharging a card for a reroll is powerful; and yes, I'll grant that weapons do it for a higher cost.....sort of. you still have to spend two power feats on it, which means you're not taking hand size increases, or recharging blessings used on spells, or increasing one of your two casting skills by one.
After both of your comments, I think I'm gonna change the ability deal with pre/post encounter powers by making it bury ([]discard). that way you can still deal with them (which is a goal), but it makes the cost higher.
Kaldane Starlight (Human, Male, Bard)
Skill:
STR 1d6 []1 []2 []3 Melee +1
DEX 1d6 []1 []2 Ranged +1
CON 1d6 []1 []2
INT 1d6 []1 []2 Knowledge +1
WIS 1d6 []1 []2
CHA 1d12 []1 []2 []3 []4 Arcane +1, Divine +1
Card: (Favored Card Type: Your Choice)
Weapon 2 []3 []4
Spell 3 []4 []5
Armor 1 []2
Item 3 []4 []5
Ally 3 []4 []5
Blessing 3 []4
Power: (Hand Size: 4)
Light Armor [.] Weapons []
* You may recharge a card to reduce the difficulty of a monster by 1d4 []+1 []+2
* You may discard ([] or recharge) a card to reroll an combat check, or discard a card to allow an ally at your location to reroll a combat check.
Roles (all of the above, plus the following):
Role 1: Arcane Duelist
Hand Size []5
[] You may discard a card to fight a monster encountered by another character at your location. You are considered to have encountered it instead. You may not evade this creature.
[] Increase your melee skill to +2.
[] Increase your ranged skill to +2.
[] At the start of your turn, you may recharge a card to draw a card.
[] You may discard ([]or recharge) a spell with the attack trait to add any other traits it has to your combat checks for a turn.
[] When you play a blessing that applies to a combat check with a weapon, you may recharge it instead of discarding it.
Role 2: Magician
Hand Size []5
[] Increase your Arcane bonus to +2.
[] Increase your Divine bonus to +2.
[] Add +1 []+2 to any rolls made on a spell. this includes rolls that are not part of checks, such as the 1d4+1 that is rolled for the cure spell.
[] You may bury([]discard) a card to negate a "before the encounter" ([]or "after the encounter") ability of a monster that you are facing, even if that ability applies to all characters at your location.
[] When you play a blessing that applies to a spell, you may recharge it instead of discarding it.
Changes in bold.