Level 1 vanguard needs something.

[Sethorines]

I played my first session as a vanguard today and it felt weird to be generating EP with no way to spend it. I can get a +1 to ac for having a point, which is nice but I cant spend that on anything.

There's a lot of new stuff to pick at level 2, pushing 1 forward or even swapping something with aspect insight I think would give level 1 characters some way to spend their points if they wanted at level 1.

[Sparrowhawk_92]

Yeah, at first level you don't have any reason to go over 1 EP at a time, and you generate it pretty trivially by taking damage.

Having a way to burn those extra points early on could be fun and keep the class flavorful

[Dracomicron]

I've been suggesting that Vanguards be able to convert unused EP into Hit Points or Stamina healing at the end of combat equal to 1 HP or SP/level/point. Maybe have a high level feature where you can forego the healing once per day to gain 1 Resolve.

[Sethorines]

I like the idea of extra points not going to waste. I'm not sure if healing makes sense with the entropy thing though. All the damage mitigation is flavored as releasing entropy to lessen the blow. Even holding onto half EP at the end of a fight would be a solid solution as far as I'm concerned.

[Ascalaphus]

I'd really like it if all vanguards got one default offensive option baked in.. like a sort of "burning hands" acid blast that scales with level, fueled by entropy points. Sure, at level 1 that's only 1d6, but it's an answer to a hard to hit enemy or a swarm...

[Sethorines]

So I've spent my work day thinking about why they wouldn't want to give vanguard a way to spend points at level 1 and the only thing I can think of is it would make for a powerful 1 level dip.

With that in mind there are still things you can do, they just can't be too good. A spell that scales with vanguard could be a nice answer, or perhaps you can spend an EP to disengage without a move action. Holding onto half ep for future fights would mean less resolve points make their way into generating EP. There's a lot that can be done still to make the class feel less hollow at level 1.

[Dracomicron]

Sethorines wrote:

Holding onto half ep for future fights would mean less resolve points make their way into generating EP.

1 RP for 1 EP is a bad trade and I'm not sure anyone will make that calculation unless EP gets significantly better overall. I'm honestly not sure the rule should even stay in, because using a move action and a resolve at the start of a fight is exactly what most players DO NOT want to do.

[Sethorines]

Well that's definitely fair, it's awful in terms of move economy, if it weren't also a move action it may happen from time to time, but would still be rare since resolve points are rare and precious resources in this game.

[Sparrowhawk_92]

I think the Vanguard is going to see the most revisions from this playtest to the final version. The EP system is super cool, but it needs serious tweaking.