Comments on Riskbreaker Kit, Topic split by Sikret Options

[lroumen]

The Riskbreaker is extremely interesting, but he seems more like a chore to keep alive. I have some ideas on how to play with him (I started a quick game to try out some things), but he could use a fun upgradeable ring and/or amulet that provides some protection options to take him out of the continuous baby-sitting bin. Without such a bonus, I believe that the riskbreaker will not be played. People should have an incentive to play him. Have people find the item in the early game, then have them upgrade it in the mid-game.

Perhaps the item should provide "Shield" thrice a day for when blur runs out after the so-manieth time the opponents cast "True Sight". Further bonuses might be something like +2AC, +2 saving throw vs spells, 10% resistance to fire/cold/magic damage. Later improve it to +3 and +15% or something.... minor bonuses add up through an entire game.

[Sikret]

Thanks for the comments.

I think at this stage and before playing a whole game with a Riskbreaker in the party, it's very difficult for us to have a reliable assessment of the kit's capabilities. Riskbreakers gain some good abilities as they level up.

Improving the kit by giving them items is not an optimal solution. If the kit needs improvements, I will do it by applying changes directly to the kit.

In general, the kit has fortunately a long list of disadvantages, which opens the opportunity to add (at least) one more advantage to the kit (if needed).

We can discuss it further.

Cheers

PS: So far, I have omitted the kit's minimum Dexterity requirement for the next version. Unlike intelligence and charisma, dexterity is a prime and useful attribute for fighters and having a minimum requirement on dexterity won't be a disadvantage. Minimum intelligence requirement, on the other hand, is indeed a disadvantage and will remain.

[Shadan]

Imho riskbreaker should be able to use twohanded weapons at least. This would give an opportunity to hit from a bit farer, so lack of AC and defensive stuffs wouldnt be so big problem. In this case I would try it as a halberd/thsword user.

Not really related to riskbreaker, just a thought:
As far as I see most imporved fighter type enemies in IA (like golems, skeleton lords, warrior NPCs etc.) hit often with very good THACO and deal very very big damage. If I have a max. armored warrior with many prot ring, amulet, cloak etc., enemies are able to hit him quite often, so 2-3 hits and my warrior is down, if he doesn't have Stoneskin/Ironskin/Mirror Image etc. Maybe you could split some of these enemies to the 2 type:
1. 1st type who hit many times per round with a very good THACO, so they probably able to hit even the most armored warrior almost always, but they deal low damage. In this case warriors with damage reduction like barbarian could enjoy their advantages.
2. 2nd type with mediocre or lower THACO, only 1-2, max. 3 hit per rounds, but they deal huge damage. Like a very slow golem whose hit can be avoided easily, but if he hit you, you are dead... These would be THE enemies of armored tanks, since top AC could protect very well against these enemies.

[lroumen]

I haven't gone far enough for all risk decrement, but I've progressed quite fast to level 11 and the Improved haste that I can currently use is already quite powerful. I do have a question regarding the Improved Haste. Is it cast at character level or at a set level?

I think from the disadvantages, the dexterity minimum isn't necessary since you will most likely put it to 18 anyway. The biggest problem is protection from critical hits. The problems with defense are not as much as I thought it would, but I haven't gone up against the tough opponents. As I mentioned, blur gets dispelled very quickly, which is a pain. The armor spells that cannot be cast upon the risk breaker can be dispelled with remove magic and breach but at least they will hold up against true sight.

I don't know if I can buff him enough in the harder IA battles as I'm burning potions (mainly potions of defense and regeneration). I think that some form of the HLA Alchemy could be added as a bonus at level 15. I'm thinking a lesser version where you can only brew one of the following 4 potions each day: "Potion of Defense", "Potion of Extra Healing", "Potion of Regeneration", "Potion of Magic Shielding", which are only usable by the riskbreaker. The thieves version could be slightly buffed, where they can craft Potions of Resurgence instead of Potions of Regeneration for instance.

Finally Perhaps Risk decrement should be much gained earlier at level 16 or so, and then a maximum of 3 times. At this level it falls within the second and third toughness boundaries for the improved spellhold (if I'm correct).


Furthermore I like the idea of changing the golems a bit towards high damage+slow hit | low damage+many hits.

[Sikret]

I haven't gone far enough for all risk decrement, but I've progressed quite fast to level 11 and the Improved haste that I can currently use is already quite powerful. I do have a question regarding the Improved Haste. Is it cast at character level or at a set level?

At character level.

The biggest problem is protection from critical hits.

He can use Ioun stones.

Finally Perhaps Risk decrement should be much gained earlier at level 16 or so, and then a maximum of 3 times.

I took a note of this suggestion and saved it. I'll consider it.

How much useful have you found his critical hit bonus?

[lroumen]

I am aware of the fact that they can use Ioun stones, but I'll have to find one first. I have not even found one with my other party that has progressed much further.


The increased critical hits is a nice bonus, but I'm uncertain how to categorise it. If I keep the riskbreaker hasted in fights, the increased amount of possible hits also trigger more critical hits and that helps to finish off some opponents like mages, undead and golems quite well. I am afraid that it will not be very helpful against helmet/ioun stone wearing opponents later on such as human fighters/beserkers. Those foes are very tough and require high damage to dispose of... this means that this bonus may be ineffective against certain important or tough foes.


I think the main weapons will have to be longswords and clubs. Those are safe to find early game and have a nice variety throughout the game. So far I've found the Root of the Problem and Namarra.
There are few other options, but I am considering to take dagger or short sword as a piercing weapon as well. Dagger of the Star may prove to be helpful, as well as the bonuses of Arbane (Haste) and Ilbratha (Mirror Image)... but for those bonuses I do not need to wield them, so that doesn't require specialisation of any sort.

[Shadan]

Long sword has a problem: no good +3 long sword in early game. But cause of JD sword, it is a best option at end.
Clubs are very at start, but no good high end club, so in high end game you won't have good blunt weapon. I would use clubs with non fighter warriors, since they can put only ** into weapon proficiencies, so you can max. out more weapons, and you won't feel your club skill as wasted points.
I would say to use long sword and flail if your protagonist is not ranger. Phosphorous and FoA+3 are good early weapons, FoA+4/FoA+5 and Phosphorous are good weapons even at end also. If you don't need to use blunt weapon, you can use 2 long swords (Daystar, The Truth, JD sword, Angruvadal etc.) in ToB.

[Sikret]

"Treefolk's Arm +4" and the "Rimed Club +4" are not too bad, eh?

[lroumen]

I like Treefolk Arm and there is an 'easy' +3 club available early on. You cannot go wrong with clubs. I was actually hoping to forge the improved Club of Detonation which packs quite a punch too. Flails are good for my secondary warrior.

Longsword seems the best early game choice, since there are some +1 and +2 variants to be found early on. I haven't come across any better slashing one-handed weapons so far, hence suggestions are welcome.
Katana and bastard sword would have been options if there were some good ones to be found early game.

[Shadan]

Yes, I fogrot Treefolk's Arm, and Rhymed Club, but I am talking about best weapons anyway, with +5 enchantment. But you are right, Phosphorous and FoA+4 is same class than these clubs, so clubs and flails are similarly good. Sadly FoA+5 makes you immune to haste, so I don't like it very much and I use it only when Free Action needed or Impr. Haste is dispeled. Anyway there is no club and no flail for Riskbreaker which is in pair with FoD&W, JD sword, Hammer of Thor, The Thruth, Dragons lord etc.
For early good slashing, axes are the best cause of Frostreaver and Stonefire.

[lroumen]

Ah yes axes... I had forgotten about those.

[Sikret]

What's your opinion about this new description for the kit:

RISKBREAKER: Riskbreakers are masters of simultaneos speed and accuracy. They have the ability to move and attack enemies in a way that only a blurred outline of their bodies can be seen. Riskbreakers have limited access to two mage spells as innate abilities. High level Riskbreakers gain unique abilities to break the risk involved in most difficult battles. The trainings required to become a riskbreaker are very demanding and require the riskbreaker to sacrifice a portion of his health and stamina during the process. Only Humans can be Riskbreakers.

Advantages:
- +2 Bonus to save vs. Breath Weapon.
- Makes critical hits at a roll of 17 or better (instead of the usual 20).
- Gains "Blur" every 5 levels.
- +2 bonus to Armor class for every 6 levels.
- Gains "Improved Haste" at levels 11 and 14.
- Once the Riskbreaker reaches level 15, each of his successful hits will have 15% chance to apply a random effect picked from the following pool: "Hard Hit" on target (applies 10D8 +8 additional damage), "Risk Increment" on target (applies -4 penalty to AC for 2 rounds), Healing the Riskbreaker for 20 hp.
- Gains the ability "Chain Breaker Stance" at levels 17 and 20.
- Gains the innate ability "Risk Decrement" at levels 18, 24 and 30.

Chain Breaker Stance:
This ability applies the following effects to the caster for 10 rounds:
- Improved Haste
- 25 strength
- Regenerating 12 hp per round

Risk Decrement:
When surrounded by lots of enemies and when most other warriors may fall or surrender in despair, a high level riskbreaker is more than capable to break the risk involved in the toughest situations.

Risk Decrement has the following effects:
- Heals the riskbreaker completely.
- Applies a massive attack to all enemies around the riskbreaker inflicting 8D10 crushing damage with no saving throw.
- Has a good chance to throw back all or some of the enemies.

Disadvantages:
- Cannot wear any armor.
- Cannot wear any helmet (other than Ioun stones).
- Cannot use gauntlets and shields.
- Cannot use ranged weapons.
- Cannot specialize in two handed weapons.
- Cannot be proficient in single weapon and Two handed weapon styles.
- Receives a -2 Penalty to constitution.
- Is immune to "Spirit Armor" and "Barkskin" spells.
- Requires 12 Intelligence.
- Cannot dual class.

Please compare this with the current description (attached to the mod's readme) and send me your feedback.

[Nexiam]

now it looks very interesting, thou a bit strong in advantages

[lroumen]

The Riskbreaker is designed to go with 2-weapon style and use his own improved haste abilities to fight opponents. He has little defense except for Blur and a decent AC bonus every few levels.

Some quick math:
Considering this, his amount of attacks per round will probably be around 6 on average.
It depends on proficiencies and on the fact that his improved haste is not always up.
I'm guessing that he has a good enough THAC0 to hit tough monsters for about 3-4 times per round.
15% chance to gain a bonus would then be around once every two rounds, hence quite often.
Against bad AC foes, the occurrence is higher since you hit more often each round (5-6 times).
That is slightly worrying.
The AC decrease is fine, the 20HP heal is fine, but I'm concerned that if Hard Hit triggers too often, the bonus damage becomes unrealistic.

There are some possibilities to make it seemingly more balanced.
1. Lower the conditional damage so that it becomes 10d4+4 or make it 5d8+8. To me, that is already an astonishing amount of bonus damage.
2. Lower the chance to 10%.

The rest of the abilities look fine. Chain Breaker Stance may seem too powerful to people, but considering that you gain less improved haste abilities throughout your leveling than that of the previous riskbreaker version, that particular bonus of Chain Breaker Stance is fine.

[Raven]

There are some possibilities to make it seemingly more balanced.
1. Lower the conditional damage so that it becomes 10d4+4 or make it 5d8+8. To me, that is already an astonishing amount of bonus damage.
2. Lower the chance to 10%.

I agree. I think the combination of GWW with 'Hard Hit' and a nasty melee weapon would be too powerful with 10d8+8 bonus damage happening 15% of the time.

Btw what kind of damage is the 'Hard Hit'?

Also does the Regeneration of 12 hp per round from the Chain Breaker Stance include the doubling from the Improved Haste? Or will it work out to be 24 hp per round?

[rbeverjr]

Personally, I would have rather seen him be able to brew his own potions of AC0. It still seems to me that he is squishy early on.

[hankiwi]

I would add disadventages like -2 strenght and a 14 intelligence requirement otherwise riskbreaker too strong : you are giving him powerful abilities (the 15% thing) usually only available through the use of mighty weapons introduced by IA...
I like the brewing potions ability. It would then justify the high intelligence score.

Moreover i really don't like this 20 points healed on hit thing. Is he a vampire or smthg?
Additionnal damages should be lowered like Iroumen said and I'd decrease the trigger chance of 15% to 5%.


This post has been edited by hankiwi: Mar 6 2008, 08:53 AM

[Nexiam]

What's your opinion about this new description for the kit:

RISKBREAKER: Riskbreakers are masters of simultaneos speed and accuracy. They have the ability to move and attack enemies in a way that only a blurred outline of their bodies can be seen. Riskbreakers have limited access to two mage spells as innate abilities. High level Riskbreakers gain unique abilities to break the risk involved in most difficult battles. The trainings required to become a riskbreaker are very demanding and require the riskbreaker to sacrifice a portion of his health and stamina during the process. Only Humans can be Riskbreakers.

Advantages:
- +2 Bonus to save vs. Breath Weapon.
- Makes critical hits at a roll of 17 or better (instead of the usual 20).
- Gains "Blur" every 5 levels.
- +2 bonus to Armor class for every 6 levels.
- Gains "Improved Haste" at levels 11 and 14.
- Once the Riskbreaker reaches level 15, each of his successful hits will have 15% chance to apply a random effect picked from the following pool: "Hard Hit" on target (applies 10D8 +8 additional damage), "Risk Increment" on target (applies -4 penalty to AC for 2 rounds), Healing the Riskbreaker for 20 hp.
- Gains the ability "Chain Breaker Stance" at levels 17 and 20.
- Gains the innate ability "Risk Decrement" at levels 18, 24 and 30.

Chain Breaker Stance:
This ability applies the following effects to the caster for 10 rounds:
- Improved Haste
- 25 strength
- Regenerating 12 hp per round

Risk Decrement:
When surrounded by lots of enemies and when most other warriors may fall or surrender in despair, a high level riskbreaker is more than capable to break the risk involved in the toughest situations.

Risk Decrement has the following effects:
- Heals the riskbreaker completely.
- Applies a massive attack to all enemies around the riskbreaker inflicting 8D10 crushing damage with no saving throw.
- Has a good chance to throw back all or some of the enemies.

Disadvantages:
- Cannot wear any armor.
- Cannot wear any helmet (other than Ioun stones).
- Cannot use gauntlets and shields.
- Cannot use ranged weapons.
- Cannot specialize in two handed weapons.
- Cannot be proficient in single weapon and Two handed weapon styles.
- Receives a -2 Penalty to constitution.
- Is immune to "Spirit Armor" and "Barkskin" spells.
- Requires 12 Intelligence.
- Cannot dual class.

Please compare this with the current description (attached to the mod's readme) and send me your feedback.

imo go for 10% or lower the values from the random abilities

remove imp from chainbreaker, 25 str is nice, lower regen rate

gain 1st decrement at a bit higher lvl imo

no need to raise int req for his 2 spells he casts lol

[Sikret]

I agree. I think the combination of GWW with 'Hard Hit' and a nasty melee weapon would be too powerful with 10d8+8 bonus damage happening 15% of the time.

I'm not sure if I have conveyed what I had in mind properly in the description. The 15% is the total probability of those three effects. Each of them has only 5% chance to happen and never more than one of them will happen. In other words, with each successful hit there is 15% chance for something to happen; if something is to happen, then each of those three effects have 33% chance to tbe the picked effect.

I agree that deciding over a optimal amount of additional damage the Hard Hit effect applies is really difficult. It shouldn't be too high to kill humans with a single shot but on the other hand, it should be high enough to be meaningful against golems. The average of 10d8+8 is 53. multiplying it by 5% (its chance to happen per hit) results in 2 and half damage average, which is still much lower than a Kensai's damage bonus at the same level.

With these explanations, do you still think that it is too much? Comments will be appreciated.

Btw what kind of damage is the 'Hard Hit'?

Crushing.

Also does the Regeneration of 12 hp per round from the Chain Breaker Stance include the doubling from the Improved Haste? Or will it work out to be 24 hp per round?

No, it's actually 6hp per round. It becomes effectively 12hp because of the Imp. Haste. However, as an afterthought, I think it's better to disconnect "Chain Breaker Stance" from Imp. Haste and replace its Imp. Haste with 25% resistance to physical damage and reduce its duration to 5 rounds.

The new revised list of advantages I am thinking about is something like this:

Advantages:
- +2 Bonus to save vs. Breath Weapon.
- Makes critical hits at a roll of 17 or better (instead of the usual 20).
- Gains "Blur" every 5 levels.
- +2 bonus to Armor class for every 6 levels.
- Gains "Improved Haste" at levels 11, 16 and 21.
- Once the Riskbreaker reaches level 15, each of his successful hits will have 15% chance to apply a random effect picked from the following pool: "Hard Hit" on target (applies 10D8 +8 additional damage), "Risk Increment" on target (applies -4 penalty to AC for 2 rounds), Healing the Riskbreaker for 20 hp.
- Gains the ability "Chain Breaker Stance" at levels 17 and 23.
- Gains the innate ability "Risk Decrement" at levels 18, 24 and 30.

Chain Breaker Stance:
This ability applies the following effects to the caster for 5 rounds:
- 25% resistance to physical damage
- 25 strength
- Regenerating 12 hp per round

Keep criticizing and sending your comments and suggestions please. It's not easy to balance this complex kit unless more people cooperate.

Also, do others agree with hankiwi that the 20 hp healing effect is not appropriate? If yes, do you suggest to omit it or to replace it with a new effect?

[lroumen]

I'm not sure if I have conveyed what I had in mind properly in the description. The 15% is the total probability of those three effects. Each of them has only 5% chance to happen and never more than one of them will happen. In other words, with each successful hit there is 15% chance for something to happen; if something is to happen, then each of those three effects have 33% chance to tbe the picked effect.

I agree that deciding over a optimal amount of additional damage the Hard Hit effect applies is really difficult. It shouldn't be too high to kill humans with a single shot but on the other hand, it should be high enough to be meaningful against golems. The average of 10d8+8 is 53. multiplying it by 5% (its chance to happen per hit) results in 2 and half damage average, which is still much lower than a Kensai's damage bonus at the same level.

With these explanations, do you still think that it is too much? Comments will be appreciated.

5% each and only one of the three when it triggers.
I understood that, but having played a bit with the riskbreaker I do think that it's still too much. I did some math as well and I don't think this is about damage over time, but about burst damage, and that is simply too much.