New HLA's for Swashbucklers Options

[Sikret]

Swashbucklers will no longer have access to "Use Any Item" HLA. Instead, I decided to add other HLA's for them. So far, four HLA's are added:

They already had access to one warrior HLA; so, I decided to add three more (though the total numbers of these new HLA's they can pick are fewer than the numbers a warrior can pick):

- Hardiness
- Critical Strike
- Resist Magic

I also added one new HLA:

- Acrobatic Combat

Description:

By using this ability, a high level swashbuckler can improve his agility and fighting expertise (in both defense and attack) to an extraordinary level. Acrobatic Combat grants +6 bonus to AC and +3 bonus to THAC0 for 5 rounds.

Suggestions for more new HLA's are welcome.*

Thanks.

* Ideas for new HLA's should be original (not copied or taken from other mods).

This post has been edited by Sikret: Oct 21 2008, 10:06 AM

Reason for edit: Fixing typos

[LZJ]

In response to Kerkes' post: perhaps a HLA that grants the Swashbuckler 1 extra attack per round for 10 rounds? Too bad they don't have UAI anymore! The Scarlet Ninjato would have made a good off-hand weapon.

Hmm the Acrobatic Combat Feat looks rather interesting. I can already picture using it with Whirlwind attack to offset the THAC0 disadvantage, or using it with Greater Evasion for low AC.

[Sikret]

In response to Kerkes' post: perhaps a HLA that grants the Swashbuckler 1 extra attack per round for 10 rounds? Too bad they don't have UAI anymore! The Scarlet Ninjato would have made a good off-hand weapon.

I'm not a big fan of adding bonus to "number of attacks per round" to items and spells; it will lead to weird behavior in conjunction with WhirlWind attack and will eventually drop the number of attacks to a very low number. It's a known and unfixable bug of the vanilla game when calculating number of attacks. When the number of attacks are supposed to surpass 10, it becomes buggy.

As a related point, one of the main drawbacks of swashbucklers is probably their low HP. Their THAC0 is not their main problem in my opinion (they have THAC0 bonuses) and now with the new Acrobatic Combat HLA, the THAC0 doesn't really need any further boost. Perhaps, a new HLA which temporarily adds to their HP is not a bad idea; or alternatively, I can add a new item upgrade for the Improved Cutthroat combined with a few potions of Fortitude and some such things to forge a new weapon for swashbucklers which adds bonus to HP.

Or do you suggest that we postpone making the decision to after testing swashbucklers with their new HLAs in practice and see whether they really need any further bonuses?