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Post by gwek on Dec 15, 2009 20:29:24 GMT -5
"Which Zannah" is actually a good question that we haven't addressed until now.
A few people have talked about a piece in the 40s. What is appropriate and accurate aside, I think there's a serious game balance problem with such a cheaply-priced piece having SSM or Sith Sorcery--both is outrageous. The current lowest-priced piece with any style Mastery is 51 (which I think is a good cut-off point). The lowest for Sith Sorcery is in the 60s. These are abilities that belong to the heavyweights.
If we want Zannah to have on or both, she should be a heavyweight. Otherwise, she can be more affordable, but should have appropriately weighted powers.
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Post by xpraider on Dec 16, 2009 1:20:53 GMT -5
I agree that Sorcery is a powerful ability, but I think you may be overstating it a bit. Let's not forget that we also have characters in the 20 point range with double/twin/greater mobile/evade, characters in the 40 point range that can do 120 points of damage after moving. If she was a powerhouse of damage I could see there being a need for that limitation, but as it stands I doubt she'd end up that way. More or less she'll end up being really good at interference and keeping enemies busy. She'll be really good at one thing and that will be about it.
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Post by gwek on Dec 16, 2009 2:21:45 GMT -5
WotC has limited it to powerful pieces. I think there's a reason for that.
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Post by xpraider on Dec 16, 2009 10:29:22 GMT -5
I'm not saying it's not a powerful ability, but there are a few basic aspects to Zannah that we need to keep.
1) Her defensive fighting style 2) Her mastery of Sith Sorcery 3) She's a Sith Lord trained by Bane 4) She's rather stealthy and sneaky
I agree it's a powerful ability, and I'd rather her be more than a Sorcery bomb, but it is part of her character and I don't think it's something we can drop.
That's one of the reasons why I kept her hit points low in my initial version of her. Granted we can not give her renewal and start her at 4-5 FPs, but if we're really trying to limit the number of times she can use Sorcery, holosidious will give her renewal anyway and she'll start out at 4-5 FPs, and we really can't only give her 1-2 FPs to start out unless we give her renewal.
The other thing we can do is give her other things to do with those FPs, rather than have her always use them for Sorcery, such as assault, rage, block.
I'd also be okay with dropping her HPs down a bit, and we could even drop her basic defense and give her duelist to help balance her out a bit.
SSM is somewhat appropriate for her character, but I don't like the idea of making more than 1 master of an ability and SSM and Sorcery together are quite nasty. Not that it can't happen, but we'd have to make her much weaker for it.
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Post by gwek on Dec 16, 2009 11:15:42 GMT -5
The other option is to price her higher and make her more powerful.
If people are serious about SSM and Sith Sorcery, that's a 60+ character, and should be statted as such.
Bane costs 82 points, so let's build around that. Clearly, she's going to cost more than 18 points, so let's build her as part of a 150-point dynamic duo, at 68 points.
That puts her in the same weight class as Ulic, Naga Sadow, Plaguis, and even Darth Sion (basically, the 2nd highest level of Sith Lords, as opposed to the 3rd/4th).
I think the capabilities we've been talking about really make her appropriate to that category.
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Post by saber1 on Dec 16, 2009 12:01:47 GMT -5
cough-resubmitting for your consideration-cough
Darth Zannah Cost: 40 Faction: Sith Hit Points: 90 Defense: 21 Attack: 11 Damage: 20
Special Abilities Unique, Melee Soresu Style (When hit by an attack from a nonadjacent enemy, this character takes no damage with a save of 11) Synergy (+4 Attack while within 6 squares of Darth Bane) Twin Attack (Whenever this character attacks, it makes 1 extra attack against the same target)
Force Powers Force 2, Force Renewal 1 Force Grip 2 (Force 2, replaces attacks: sight; 20 damage) Lightsaber Block (Force 1: Whenever this character is hit by a melee attack, this character takes no damage with a save of 11) Sith Sorcery (Force 2, usable only on this character's turn: Enemy characters within 6 squares are considered activated this round; save 11
This has all the basic elements that makes Zannah who she is by the end of the second Bane novel. Low damage, high sneak and trick abilities. Strong in the force. She is a solid support piece to a bigger beatstick and yet still acceptably balanced and playable.
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Post by darthgrievous on Dec 16, 2009 14:52:28 GMT -5
Here Here
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Post by bountyhunter9 on Dec 16, 2009 15:56:24 GMT -5
WotC has limited it to powerful pieces. I think there's a reason for that. I have to disagree here. Because we're talking about SITH Sorcery, it probably only fits on a Sith piece. WotC has pretty much forgotten/ignored the Sith (WotC has released a total of 36 Sith pieces as of GaW, including reprints), while the major (or "movie") factions have around or over 100 pieces. This means that they and their faction/character group-specific abilities are found on a wider variety of characters. There are three WotC minis with Sith Sorcery, two of which cost over 80 points, and the most recent one costing the lowest at 64. All three of these minis have many, many more reasons to be played than just Sith Sorcery. While I see where you're coming from in that it's only been seen on very high-costing minis, that would be akin to saying that Djem So Style Mastery only belongs on a piece that costs over 100 points, or that a character with Greater Mobile Attack and Melee Attack must be Unique. There simply aren't enough examples from WotC to call a "game balance problem" on something because the pieces from WotC only fit into certain parameters. If WotC had made six or seven 60+ characters with Sith Sorcery, you may have a point, but not with three, IMO. That said, I could see her as a high 50s/low 60s character. But if she has SSM and Sith Sorcery and not much else, I could see her strike in just under 50. It depends on what we want to do with her.
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Post by darthgrievous on Dec 16, 2009 18:05:51 GMT -5
Crap if we drop Sorcery that doesn't leave much for Force, so bring back Cloaked? Add block? Lightning?
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Post by xpraider on Dec 16, 2009 20:15:12 GMT -5
Here's a higher point cost version of her. I'm basing her stats and basic abilities off of Mara Jade, but kind of opposite and evil. a little less hesitant to give her SSM at this cost, but at this point I want to make sure that she'll have a choice of things to do other than Sith Sorcery every turn.
Darth Zannah Cost: 63 HP: 120 Def: 20 Atk: 13
Special Abilities: Unique, Melee, Double Attack, Opportunist, Soresu Style Mastery, Stealth
Force Powers: Force 2, Force Renewal 1 Sith Sorcery Lightsaber Assault Force Grip 2
So at this point she's got a few nasty tools to use. I gave her opportunist to represent her taking advantage of her opponents openings, and with Sith Sorcery she'll have a nasty attack. She can activate enemies within 6 and then double attack one of them (if adjacent). I thought about giving her twin, but I thought that might be a bit too much, and I don't want her getting double twin with Krayt.
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Post by darthgrievous on Dec 16, 2009 20:18:06 GMT -5
SSM is still too much, I believe that is why were thinking SS with Block instead. What about drop opportunist, keep double and give her ambush since she is used to jumping out of the shadows. If we keep her sith apprentice style, maybe make a new sorcery, A lesser version of it perhaps costing 1 force. Thoughts?
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Post by xpraider on Dec 17, 2009 0:18:24 GMT -5
True we were doing SS with block, but this is also a 60+ point version.
I'm not settled on opportunist, but I think it's at least appropriate for her style of fighting.
If we want to keep her under 60 points then I would be fine with most of those changes, though she didn't seem to be a jump out of the shadows type of fighter as much as she waited for an opportunity to open up and then struck.
It's just really hard to get away from giving her Sith Sorcery since it's a named ability that she is known to be a master of.
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Post by Roque Saber on Dec 17, 2009 0:42:35 GMT -5
WotC has limited it to powerful pieces. I think there's a reason for that. Ya, because the 3 pieces who have it can also deal massive amounts of damage and are strong in almost all aspects. Zannah does not deals massive amounts of damage and is not strong in all aspects. Like xpraider said, she's an interference piece. There's no way you'll be running her in the front lines, she just doesn't have the duralibility, even with SSM (I'm still thinking normal Soresu could work if needed). Her main points of interest are her defensive abilities (whatever they end up being) and Sorcery. Not damage, nothing big and deadly. If push comes to shove on this issue, we could always redo Sorcery. Sith Sorcery 1 (Force 1: replaces attack: (or just useable on this character's turn) range 6, target and all enemies adjacent (or maybe just 2) to the target are activated this round, save 11)
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Post by gwek on Dec 17, 2009 3:00:12 GMT -5
It's all well and good to say she doesn't dish out a lot of damage, but Double Attack with Opportunist is more than the vast majority of Jedi and Sith can dish out without commander effect assistance.
A little tangent that will hopefully lead somewhere interesting and useful:
As Rob has discussed on the WotC forums, when he creates a character, it is not usually assigned a specific price, but place into a certain power category. I think these are tiers of roughly 15 points each. You can see the different "tiers" in price clusters, sometimes. For example, if you look at the Jedi of the New Republic, most are clustered in one of two tiers (costing 20-31 or 38-49). KKJBM, at 54, is in the next "tier."
If you start studying the powers and combos, it becomes apparent that certain things are geared for certain "tiers." WotC's Sith Sorcery, I think, is one of those things (and any style mastery clearly is).
If we make a different Sith Sorcery, that might be okay, but if we're keeping WotC's, it shouldn't go on her unless she's 60+. The rest of her capabilities don't matter.
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Post by xpraider on Dec 17, 2009 6:37:31 GMT -5
It's all well and good to say she doesn't dish out a lot of damage, but Double Attack with Opportunist is more than the vast majority of Jedi and Sith can dish out without commander effect assistance. If we make a different Sith Sorcery, that might be okay, but if we're keeping WotC's, it shouldn't go on her unless she's 60+. The rest of her capabilities don't matter. The version I posted is a 60+ point piece. At which point it wouldn't be unreasonable to allow her Double with Opportunist.
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