Doesn't clarify to me whether you also get the crystal's damage benefits, but I've put a question up on the Rules forum. I'll be running it that way but it'll be interesting to see the official answer. It's also not clear to me whether you need weapon fusions for a crystal to actually modify an attack damage type, so I've posed that question too.
Here's another NPC Solarian ability maybe people can provide some guidance on.
I'm looking at throwing a "solarian" from an alien culture out in the Vast against my players, and making a Revelation for him. In this case it's graviton-based and requires full attunement to use, like Black Hole, but it allows the user to Jump on an opponent and execute the equivalent of the Crush special ability even if they're the same size (or potentially larger, but that won't come up in this instance). Call it Graviton Stomp or Gravitic Splash or something like that.
Now the question being: this is a CR3 adversary going up against 3rd-level heroes. Crush does 4d6+8 bludgeoning damage at the default setting. Do I need to scale that back?
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Sure, let's take a look!
When ending a flying or jumping movement, the creature can land on targetsthat are at least three size categories smaller than itself. Targets are automatically knocked prone, take the listed damage, and are pinned. Each crushed target can attempt to escape the pin normally on its turn, and the pin ends automatically if the crushing creature moves off the target’s square. A crushed target does not take damage from the crush more than once, unless the crushing creature moves fully off that creature and then back onto it.
So... The solarian can automatically deal 4d6+8 (average of 22 damage, roughly the stamina pool of a level 3 character) with no attack roll, there's no save to resist it, the target is knocked prone (again no check or save) and pinned as well. Pinned and prone is an effective -10 to AC and a -8 on attack rolls to escape the grapple, meaning the solarian has a decent chance to maintain the pin on his next turn if he so chooses.
And with how NPC Solarian attunement works, he can do that every 1-3 rounds.
That's ridiculously powerful for a CR 3 creature.
Based on the normal size limiter on Crush I'd say the designer expects the power to start showing up in the mid-late game. The only example I could find of Crush in the Archives was a CR 11 Huge blue dragon. Even at that level it can only crush small creatures, and 33 damage (its crush damage) is about 20% of the damage it can output in a full round.
I'd either A: Heavily scale down the damage (think ~1d6+3) and use it as a crowd control effect (and an infuriating one at that, being the target of this power would be humiliating) or B: Lower the damage somewhat (~2d8) and lose the prone/pinned conditions.
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Crush does 4d6+8 bludgeoning damage at the default setting. Do I need to scale that back?
Apologies for double-posting, but after rereading the Crush entry I just realized something. 4D6+8 isn't the default damage for Crush, "Format: Offensive Abilities crush (4d6+8 B)" is the default formatting for how to present Crush in a statblock. The guideline states that the Crush attack should deal the standard melee damage for the creature. So a CR 3 combatant's Crush attack would deal 1D6+3+strength modifier damage. That makes a lot more sense. :)
Ah! Thanks Kudaku, that does make a lot more sense. :)
I figure the attack should involve an Athletics roll, like any other complicated Jumping action for a humanoid. Sorry, forgot to mention that.
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Revised attempt at this:
Gravitic Crush (Su)
When fully attuned in Graviton Mode, [this dastardly villain] can execute a jump and use his control of gravity to augment his downward momentum, enabling him to land on and Crush targets his own size or smaller. He must roll an Acrobatics check opposed to the target's Reflex save roll, and if the target saves successfully they manage to evade. Whether or not he lands the attack, he is considered flat-footed until the beginning of his next turn.
Targets who fail their Reflex save are automatically knocked prone, take 1d6+7 damage, and are pinned until the beginning of [this dastardly villains]'s next turn, at which point the graviton augmentation fades and the crushed target can escape from the pinned condition normally.
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Great, I'm happy the feedback helped!
Revised attempt at this:
That's not bad at all, I think that's a reasonable version. :)
The only thing I'll note is that acrobatics* and saves scale very differently since acrobatics will improve at a minimum of +1 per level whereas saves roughly go up by 1/2 per level. This power will have a good chance of landing at low levels (level 3 PC will likely have a reflex save of +1 to +7, based on AA a level 3 combatant will have ~+8 to +13 in acrobatics) and be a near-auto success on higher levels. If that's intentional then you're all set to go. :)
If you want it to be more of a risk/reward instead of an auto-succeed I'd suggest maybe treating it like a combat maneuver by making it target KAC (potentially with a bonus to KAC since skills scale much faster than attack bonuses) instead of reflex saves. Something like Acrobatics vs KAC +4 maybe?
*You mentioned athletics earlier, did you mean that? Athletics deals with jumping so it might be a better fit than acrobatics for this power. :)
Great, I'm happy the feedback helped!
Revised attempt at this:That's not bad at all, I think that's a reasonable version. :)
The only thing I'll note is that acrobatics* and saves scale very differently since acrobatics will improve at a minimum of +1 per level whereas saves roughly go up by 1/2 per level. This power will have a good chance of landing at low levels (level 3 PC will likely have a reflex save of +1 to +7, based on AA a level 3 combatant will have ~+8 to +13 in acrobatics) and be a near-auto success on higher levels. If that's intentional then you're all set to go. :)
If you want it to be more of a risk/reward instead of an auto-succeed I'd suggest maybe treating it like a combat maneuver by making it target KAC (potentially with a bonus to KAC since skills scale much faster than attack bonuses) instead of reflex saves. Something like Acrobatics vs KAC +4 maybe?
*You mentioned athletics earlier, did you mean that? Athletics deals with jumping so it might be a better fit than acrobatics for this power. :)
Hmmm, good idea about maybe treating it as a combat maneuver. I think I may do that, thanks. :)
I'm kind of torn on which skill to use. For this particular villain I eventually went with Acrobatics to make it more of a kung fu-baddie wuxia thing. If I were to use it outside this NPC I agree Athletics makes more sense generally, though.
Thanks again for the feedback, much appreciated!
I am going to plug my homebrew I did with my party. If you haven't already made yours check it out. Solarian Homebrew