An action for +X to anything - can this be balanced?


Homebrew and House Rules


I'm considering putting together a performance combat campaign (yeah I know Ruby Phoenix is basically this, I have my reasons) and got this grand idea of appealing to specific factions of spectators with performance combat checks... which requires me to figure out how that'd work. I decided right off that I didn't want them to be Performance skill checks so it wouldn't hard-lock all players into being charisma characters. I also want it to be an action you have to declare, which means that it should be something that doesn't suck to use an action on just for reputation points. So this is my first draft:

FLOURISH (A)
You add a flourish to appeal to the crowd. If your next action is to make an attack roll or cast a spell with a DC, you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to the attack roll or to your spell DC. If your next action is to make a skill check, this is instead a +2 bonus. On a success you gain reputation with a faction appropriate to the action.

I figured giving everyone easy access to +2 on their preferred strike was way too much, and I wanted to incentivize using Flourish on things like panache builders and grapples anyways. Does this seem fair?


Probably fine. A single +1 doesn't change much but is nice to have. For skills, there already exist a number of ways to gain circumstance bonuses. It'll probably be hard on characters who are action-starved and easy on those who don't have good 3rd actions. "On a success you gain reputation with a faction appropriate to the action" I assume means the enemy has to fail the save for spell DCs. Also, if the check you're attempting is a static check (like battle medicine) then it'll probably be way easier gaining reputation compared to any check where you're targeting a level-appropriate DC.

Book 5 of Age of Ashes also has a pander-to-the-crowd-in-an-arena mechanic (unless my GM was making things up. I was a player in book 5). I haven't looked at Ruby Phoenix, but I assume that one does too. Just a heads up.


The intent was for the action to always be something you have to do to an enemy, I hadn't considered the possibility of using it on things like Battle Medicine. Being rough on action starved characters is also an issue worth pointing out - might be more comfortable if you could choose to spend a reaction instead, but I guess that doesn't help swashbucklers or champions much.


Unless this performance combat is something that your players are going to be doing extremely often, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Even if it chokes action-starved characters, a battle or two or three that has special mechanics should feel refreshing and interesting. It seems like the main benefit is gaining reputation, so you could also re-balance it by lowering the threshold of reputation points you need if you think it's too hard on those characters.

Edit: it might be worth clarifying what constitutes success for spells / actions with multiple targets.
Edit 2: also consider players who want to farm reputation by intentionally keeping an enemy alive to keep flourishing.

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