Topic: Instinctive defense

[Right Wing Wacko]

Should this only be accessible by those who don't wear armor?

Otherwise, all my players want this...

Comments?

[choc]

less armor - more survival instincts.   

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

The original intention was that it be more for unarmored characters than for armored characters.

[Matthias]

I am seeing this become an issue too. I only have one player with it so far (and he has had it since character creation), but he is a fighter/rogue and often next to impossible to hit in combat. Turning up the monsters to be a decent match against him makes it a nightmare for my other five players...so much that a few of them are now talking about taking the talent.

I'd have a hard time peeling back this talent after 4 levels to unarmored characters.

[kreider204]

Ya, +20 to DB seems extreme.  I'd institute a house rule that it only works if unarmored, or knock it back to +10.  Or, have all your players buy the talent, and add 20 to the OB of all your monsters.  :-)

[Arioch]

But Instinctive Defense isn't actually cheap... 30DPs are almost a whole level worth of DPs (at least from my experience)!

[Erik Sharma]

You beat me to it Arioch, 30 DP is very expensive and not out of order for that Talent.

Currently only one of my players have it but he is playing an Armor-less Warrior Mage and took that Talent for base defense. He just wanted to try if is possible to survive as a warrior without armor (and in his case it also keeps casting costs down). So far it has worked really well and he is the one whacking most peeps, but his 2H-Sword improved by many of the Warrior Mage-spells is really nasty. But if the doesn't get the enemy out of balance (stunning them for example) on his first strike he is in trouble.

[Ecthelion]

Instinctive Defense is as much a "must have" for melee fighters as Eloquence is for magic users. And both are relatively expensive. IMHO if you restrict Instinctive Defense for lightly or non-armored combatants, then there should also be some kind of restriction for the use of Eloquence. Furthermore there is the Swashbuckler Talent from Martial Law which explicitly can only be used when light armor is worn and only a one-handed weapon without a shield. That Talent IMO has some kind of usage restriction. For Instinctive Defense I have never seen a restriction in the rules and therefore never used one.

[Pat]

Also, what happens with Instinctive Defence for characters that can cast spells such as Mage Armour? Do you say Instinctive Defence no longer works when Mage Armour (say plate) is cast or does it work with spells such as this?

I believe that if a GM rules that Instinctive Defence stacks with Mage Armour then Instinctive Defence works with armour (any armour). If a GM rules that Instinctive Defence doesn't stack with Mage Armour then it shouldn't stack with regular armour.

[choc]

IMHO it is a must have for adventurers especially for non daisy roleplaying adventures.
Prolly not for high society or espionage social adventures.
Most advantage of Instinctive Defense is the +10DB surprised || ambushed || sniped.

AFAIK all NPC (foes) Fighters (past lvl 5) have it, animals have tough hide and/or survival instinct.

@Matthias: Instinctive Defense is an instinctive evasion and can be learned (ie by pain, training, divine etcpp).

@Ecthelion: Swashbuckler says "1 handed Weapon AND a shield not larger than a buckler" - for me weapon and buckler or weapon and main gauche || sai.

@kreider204: Shield Training costs one third of Instinctive Defense and with a wall shield lots more worth than +20DB (+10 DB surprised). Or take an armor spell (mage armor, enhance armor) as a blood talent?

@Matthias again: Nonetheless most armor limits the wearer. Apart from surprised attacks armor doesn't give you much edge over a non armor wearer.
Take a standard character with stats 75 each and standard armor. This give a standard DB of 10. With soft leather 30DB. With rigid leather 35DB. With chain 40DB. Armor above'll stage by 10.
Thus a full plate wearer has 30DB more than a soft leather wearer. With instinctive defense (and no higher stats in QU and racial bonus for the soft leather wearer) there's a difference of 50 (but normally less armor = more QU => +10 or more additional DB). I don't see a problem to clear the 50 with a good roll. And don'T forget, the one in full plate has 20OB less to parry.

Finally i'm for Instinctive Defense for all who hit the road of adventure.

edit: 30 dev pts could be spend to acrobatics to achieve a lot more DB by a good dodge.

[Erik Sharma]

 Well I do allow it for anyone, but so far it has mostly been taken by unarmored or lightly armored characters that wants to boost their DB in some other way than using armors. 
 It hasn't disrupted my game yet, after all as a fighters (with armor) have plenty of cheaper ways to boost DB. And if they still need something on top of that I don't see it as a problem for them to spend their hard earned DPs on this, after all it is a bonus even when you are suprised/ambushed.

[Right Wing Wacko]

Thanks for all the input guys!
I have decided to allow it for any who spend the DP's.

[Uncle_Joe]

Late to the conversation, but fwiw, we play Instinctive Defense as a 'Parry bonus', meaning it can only go to one opponent at a time. This makes it extremely useful, but not game-breaking since a swarm of critters still can easily get through it. In turn, this makes it LESS appealing and thus not as wide-spread.

As far as Eloquence, I've reduced the cost and made it apply only to spell-casting maneuvers -- it does not apply to attack spells or elemental attack spells. Without that change, every magic-based character buys it out of hand and is simply extremely shallow when it comes to skills. That talent is WAY out of whack as written IMO and is such a 'must have' that it might as well be stock with magic-based characters and just give them less DPs at start.

[Right Wing Wacko]

Late to the conversation, but fwiw, we play Instinctive Defense as a 'Parry bonus', meaning it can only go to one opponent at a time. This makes it extremely useful, but not game-breaking since a swarm of critters still can easily get through it. In turn, this makes it LESS appealing and thus not as wide-spread.

As far as Eloquence, I've reduced the cost and made it apply only to spell-casting maneuvers -- it does not apply to attack spells or elemental attack spells. Without that change, every magic-based character buys it out of hand and is simply extremely shallow when it comes to skills. That talent is WAY out of whack as written IMO and is such a 'must have' that it might as well be stock with magic-based characters and just give them less DPs at start.

I like both of these ideas and I intend to steal them!



And have an idea point...

[kreider204]

I was going to steal those ideas, but you stole them first!!!

 

[Mormegil]

As far as Eloquence, I've reduced the cost and made it apply only to spell-casting maneuvers -- it does not apply to attack spells or elemental attack spells. Without that change, every magic-based character buys it out of hand and is simply extremely shallow when it comes to skills. That talent is WAY out of whack as written IMO and is such a 'must have' that it might as well be stock with magic-based characters and just give them less DPs at start.

Doesn't that make life a lot harder for players?

I know we'd be dead in one combat without instinctively defending fighters and eloquent mages.

[Right Wing Wacko]

Doesn't that make life a lot harder for players?

I know we'd be dead in one combat without instinctively defending fighters and eloquent mages.

Maybe, but if the talents are that good (as some of us think) then why not start Fighters with Instinctive Defense and start Mages with Eloquence?
It has been pointed out that the high DP costs act as offsets to the abilities gained from the talents, but we disagree. We believe these talents are simply so good that any reasonable person would select them every time. Like others have noticed, these talents turn into "must-haves" without mitigating them somehow. We do not like "must-have" talents.
We believe Uncle_Joe's method to be best for us...

[choc]

IMHO Instinctive Defense is a 'must-have' for all players in a combat-orientated adventure. And Eloquence... well only spell-casting mages have a need for Eloquence. Rune- or ritual-using mages have less need for it. Or if you use a lot of utility spells why buy Eloquence?

Why cripple some talents?
There are some 'must-have' skills too.
As written in CB p32 there are:
Perception, Endourance, Resistance, Weapon Skills, Power Point Development,
Climbing, Jumping, Swimming, Herbcraft, Healing, Stalk & Hide, Armor, Attunement
the most important skills. Is it really useful to restrict some of them to specific classes? Ie RR Stamina only for fighters?

[Right Wing Wacko]

IMHO Instinctive Defense is a 'must-have' for all players in a combat-orientated adventure. And Eloquence... well only spell-casting mages have a need for Eloquence. Rune- or ritual-using mages have less need for it. Or if you use a lot of utility spells why buy Eloquence?

Why cripple some talents?
There are some 'must-have' skills too.
As written in CB p32 there are:
Perception, Endourance, Resistance, Weapon Skills, Power Point Development,
Climbing, Jumping, Swimming, Herbcraft, Healing, Stalk & Hide, Armor, Attunement
the most important skills. Is it really useful to restrict some of them to specific classes? Ie RR Stamina only for fighters?

I don't think Uncle_Joe's method "cripples" the talents... I think his method makes them more "balanced", or at least makes them not over-powered...

But then again, we already think the talents too good. If you like them as written, then have at it!

[Marc R]

Purely in an economic modeling sense, if everyone buys something, it's probably too cheap. . . .Then again, it's more expensive than ranks in Chi Defense which it most resembles. . .way more expensive. . .of course, it also avoids all the limits on chi defense too.

shrug. . .I've always felt that skills in a general sense are freely available for purchase, with a few exceptions that require a teacher, while a talent actually requires an explaination sufficiant for the GM to allow it.

Most PCs, when they hand in a character background for a 1st level character. . .it reads like the background of a 10th level character. . .everyone wants to be a jedi, nobody wants to be a marginally competent padawan. . .

Odds are, for most backgrounds, the character wasn't raised in a level of constant threat equivalent to the childhood of a wild animal and they're not experienced, instinctive combatants (if they were, they wouldn't be 1st level).

Could perhaps the problem here be that the GM wants the characters to follow a "reasonable and likely" background to character sheet association, but doesn't enforce it with a simple "Justify this talent based on your background" combined with a "This is you at 5th or 10th level, give me the background of you at 1st level".

Based on my own experience, I'm fairly confident that if you were to go back and read the backgrounds of the last 10 PCs submitted to you as a GM (or that you handed in as a PC if you don't GM) and asked yourself the question "What level would this character be, based soly on this background, if I were creating them as an NPC?" . . . .I bet you the answer there would generally not be 1st level.

If you were to force the players to adjust down their backgrounds to match 1st level, it gets a lot harder to justify a lot of things that seem to become acceptable with the inflated "sounds like a 5th or 10th level character" backgrounds.