swils

Okay, well tbose were part of the plan, but not the crux of it. Certainly not necessary to the plan, but helpful.

I'll be holding you to that... @CMP All will be revealed in good time!

It's not about influencing how much gold you get per mugging.

No, believe me, with the proper setup, a raider is the gold stealing king. I don't want to spoil my fun so you'll have to wait until Thormanil is back in town, but I plan to be very rich. Edit: For everyday fights, yes an Assassin is better. For getting gold though, I stand by the Raider.

Oh, my friend, you couldn't be more wrong.

OoC: Couldn't quite remember the precedent/standard myself. In that case, I'll swap the orders: Attack Echo with Thundering Totem from the front row, and then attack Cleric with Tailblade from the back row.

What, you mean the following would be too over the top? Quest #XX: Something New Every Day Fight One: Swarm of (6x) Innocuous Flies, Level 5 Free hits cause deadly poison. Fight Two: Trio of Colorful Frogs, Level 10 Special Damage: Shoots out its tongue and swallows the victim's weapon. Retrievable after frog is killed, or after battle (win or KO'ed). Fight Three: Pair of Gate Guardians, Level 20 Must be struck down within the same turn or the fallen will revive with HP equal to its brother.Solid Stone (Passive): Physical attacks against a Guardian have a 1/6 chance to cause reverberations in the attacker's arm, dealing damage to them and stunning them for the next round. Fight Four: 4x Arcane Sprites, Level 15 Take reduced damage from physical attacks.Attacks used against the sprite that require ether cost an additional ether. Fight Five: Big Bad Boss, Level 30 Just kidding, he's got no specials/hidden stuff! But I bet the players are sufficiently paranoid by this point! He's got a nasty knack for balancing those twists, he does.

Aaaand... the brainstorming has begun. Oh, this is going to be fun. Not sure if this question would be better suited to QML or R&D, but I'll try it here. How would you feel about an enemy whose special abilities weren't revealed, or weren't revealed in full, resulting in some surprises mid-battle? What if you had been given the opportunity to learn about it's specials preemptively, say, by having had the chance to sit down and listen to the horror stories some locals are sharing at the tavern?

Deadlier Poison? Oh, the possibilities are endless. "Not-quite-deadly-but-still-really-bad-for-you Poison" perhaps? Ooh, "Incurable Disease: Victim is weakened and loses 3 health per turn" Edit: "Incurable Disease: Victim is weakened and loses 3 health per turn. Not treatable with Remedies." Added the last bit because hey, why should heroes be able to use basic items to avoid stuff?

Deadly Burns.

Thormana prepares to assault the again, this time targeting the the Cleric with her Tailblade from the back row, and Echo with her Thundering Totem from the front row. "Keep the Archivist untargeted, he's a breeze long as he's just got that wimpy attack. And someone's gonna have to step up'n distract the Wraith, I don't wanna risk spreadin' that poison jus' yet. Maybe Ad-hoh can finish off that mage while Arasmyth tries his luck with the wraith?" Since the battle order hasn't had separate listings for hastened turns and only one seems to count for free hits, I'm not sure whether I should put the back row attack or the front row attack first in the order. My goal is to eat the free hit from the back row, though.

"Oh, give me a break, it never bloody ends! Would someone just chuck a bomb at 'em to mess with that mage's tricks?" Thormana applies a Deadly Poison to the Wyvern's Tailblade, wondering why she hadn't thought of it earlier. She then lunges at the Vengeance Wraith from the front row.

Should have bought one for myself!

Well, unless you expect your questies to have enough gold at some point to purchase them, then I'd probably tone down the effects to meet the price rather than scale the price up. I think the hp/ether and sp/ether armors are pretty reasonably priced. Make the Croise armor +2 power/+1 sp and I think it'd be fine between 90-110g, based on some of the artifacts in the Marketplace.

+4 power and +1 SP for 90g? Sign me up! Taking a WP:0 weapon and making it WP:4, that alone costs 100g (10+20+30+40), and I don't think there's too many cases of people upgrading from a WP:0 weapon. Granted, it takes up an artifact slot, but at a point in time when lots of people still don't have two artifacts, that's a literal steal. It could easily be resold when you no longer need it, recouping probably half or more of the original cost. A player fresh off their first quest, assuming they didn't get a stronger weapon along the way, would have to spend 220g(40+50+60+70) to match that bonus, so I'm sure any of them would jump at the chance to get +4 power at less than half the cost of upgrading their weapon. I don't mean to say change it, but if I were on the quest... yoink! Heck, I'd buy it just to resell it.

Hey now, I acknowledged that it was a but that doesn't change the fact that with the multiplier as it was presented, a QM is forced to either make fights include as few enemies as possible, give all enemies ridiculously large amounts of health, or pray that the Slayer doesn't have very good rolls for the first few turns, if they want to prevent the fight from being over before it began. Minimizing enemies in an encounter reduces the tactics factor, as there's much fewer free hits or diverse enemies to go around. Large health pools would basically be balancing around the slayer, which leaves other classes in the party to pale in comparison, just so that the Slayer can't one- or two-shot everything. And praying for QM-favorable dice rolls... well, good luck Assuming a party of 3 to 5 players (pretty standard, I think), it's pretty reasonable to guess that fights will include at least 3 enemies. With just 3 enemies, a miss would result in a 3xWP hit. For a miss. That's not too shabby when you consider that WP10+ weapons aren't terribly uncommon at this point in time. And that's just with an even fight. If you look at the Unlimited Quest, the first fight had 6 enemies for 3 players. @WBD, What if, instead of being a frontloaded class, it was a class that gained momentum with each enemy killed, and could be an absolute powerhouse by the end of the fight? I think the flat multiplier there would work just fine, except it would be increased for every enemy that has fallen so far in battle. It would give the Slayer a very niche role, specializing in fights with lots of enemies (even moreso if there is one big bad boss with a bunch of minions, who would be a prime target for a Slayer who has built up its multiplier from all those minions). I know it's the opposite of the original design, but I think that'd be the best, simplest way to keep the multiplier in place (I really do like the idea of it), without trivializing fights against larger groups of enemies. I might also change the shield to a cleave (target + one above + one below) because Fragile really is such a strong debuff. Or maybe have the shield apply Fragile to all enemies for the current round and the one following, while also just dealing WP+Level to each (which would effectively be 2x(WP+Level), due to fragile being applied in that round). @CMP, I might reduce the cost of imbuing a weapon outside of battle (maybe to 2 or 3), since in most cases, you can't be quite sure of what you'll be up against, though you may have a decent idea. It seems like there will have to be lots of situational calls being made mid-battle (I want to imbue Darkness or Darkness/Wind). Where/how do they select an element for rolls of 1 and 4? Do they have to have the appropriate gem?

Mob of unarmed, mostly untrained and all likely malnourished folk? Talk about a Slayer's wet dream.

"Honestly, I'd rather ya saved yer potion for when I'm outta ether. Plus, that potion'll only heal me half as much as I can heal myself, long as I don't bugger up the ritual. Even if ya can't do real damage, denyin' them a free hit is what's important." "Of course, it seems I spoke without thinkin' it all through. Use yer potion on Arasmyth instead. Using my Wyvern's Tailblade, I'll heal myself, and the Wraith, from the back row."

Skulls, you say? Why not entire piles of dead bodies?

First impression, WBD, I like it but it seems too strong. Can you imagine that class with nostrums & smelling salts? Everything dies! And if it didn't die on round two (assuming you take round one to buff up), then it will die on round three, especially if you pull a shield roll somewhere in there. I know that's the point, but seriously, everything dies. Granted, it is a front-loaded class and will steadily lose power as the battle draws to a close, but it has the potential to melt hoards of enemies on those first few turns before it can really lose its power. I think the biggest issue is the multiplier. It's good, but needs tweaking. If there was a slayer in the current fight of Jeb's quest, they'd have started with an x10 multiplier. Having lots of enemies forces parties to make decisions, figure out how to divide the free hits, who to let deal those free hits, etc. It's a solid way of making the party think. Except if you have a slayer, then the QM is just inviting the slayer to 1-shot one of the enemies (if not a few at once). Maybe make the multiplier X/2 or X/4, with a minimum of x1 and using fractions (so 5 enemies would result in x2.5 or x1.25, depending on fraction choice)?

Oh, hey there Deadly Poison. I forgot all about you, sittin' there in Thormanil's pack, all lonely and stuff. Don't worry, you're gonna get to have some fun here real soon!

"Crunch time, no more foolin' around. These will be the last heals we see for awhile, so keep yer potions ready!" Thormanil heals Arasmyth and himself from the back row. "We've got 3 hits coming our way, so ya might as well brace yerselves, too. Elgar, I need you on that Wraith. He'll hit the rest of us for extra damage. Arasmyth, Ad-hoh, split your casts between Echo and that last mage. Elgar and Ad-hoh should take the lead this round, I'll follow them and then Arasmyth can bring up the rear. That'll help spread the damage out." Edit: **Channel heals through the Wyvern's Tailblade.

Can't we just have him take a regular free hit, but one of his magical neverending arrows is converted into an ether so that the other Hero actually can cast?

"He, too, is out of ether, Elgar!"

I feel like Docken would sooner clock someone with his shield to preemptively end an argument, before he actually engaged in one. Conflict leads to character development, can't be havin' any of that!