#FighterWeek Signature Weapon

#FighterWeek Signature Weapon

#FighterWeek Signature Weapon

I think this move is weak. You compare the Fighter to the Paladin and you wonder why one guy has so much more stuff, and it feels like if you don’t want to break things, there’s no real point, because your weapon is supposed to be special but all it does is +1 damage.

But what if instead of 2 enhancements, you get 1 enhancement… and one of these?

·Bane: Kills one specific type of monster (your choice) with but a single wound.

·Blessed by the Gods: This weapon is divine.

·Boomerang: It always returns to your hand.

·Flaming: +1d4 damage when on fire.

·Protector: Two-handed, gives you +1 armour while you wield it in melee.

·Sentient: This weapon is intelligent and can communicate.

·Stonecutter: Cuts through stone like butter.

·Vorpal blade: Ignores armour.

·Choose two more enhancements instead of a special power.

And then I can play Thor if I want to.

27 thoughts on “#FighterWeek Signature Weapon”

  3. – Shocking: It deals Shock damage if you want to 

    – Massive oomph: you can deal area damage with your weapon(not sure if this works but you could deal your damage dice to everyone in close range instead of splitting up the damage)

    ?

  5. Another way to go that I also like but is very different would be to just pick a few tags for the weapon — tags that you make up, no list. What do they do? They do whatever you and your GM can agree on!

    Hmm. Or maybe I could add “It has a tag of your own invention” to the list…

  6. I’ve seen lots of complaints. I don’t think it’s bad or broken or anything, but it’s probably the class with the most negative feedback.

    (I consider “X is too powerful” less negative, since that comes up with Druids all the time. It’s kind of a running joke that druids are “broken” now.)

  7. Johnstone Metzger fair enough. I guess it is the most basic of the classes, but that’s why I like it; it has the most opportunity to shape the world. However, this does have the potential to do the same thing while “powering up” the fighter

  9. Johnstone Metzger I am thinking of doing something like that with a Sorcerer class I’m working on, but with spells; you choose a range for each spell you cast, then make up an effect for it.

  10. I think if you play a game actually focused on the PCs (as opposed to one that is focused more on encounters or just using “character sheet things”) there’s nothing broken. Both fighter and druid are fine.

    I just want the Fighter to pop out a little more, especially in a way that still lets you be “the guy who has a sword and rushes into danger” and not worry about special moves and crap.

  11. On my table, the fighter character has inherited of Yeenoghu’s flail, and he’s unaware of this. Well, just the upper part with strange creepy carved flail balls. And there are souls, trapped in each ball that are trying to lead the poor fighter to the handle. Of course, if the two parts are reunited, the worst will occur. On the other part, the more he will learn about his weapon, the more powers he will gain… 

  12. I like your move for signature weapon now we just need a new playbooks, no need for a whole new book. How about a grim portents article with the nice graphic design from the original?

  13. I could probably do up a new character sheet with this list on it, although if I did I would include a few other changes, like the alternate armour bonus moves Alex Norris wrote for his Peerless Fighter version.

  14. Funnily enough, I wrote those specifically so Iron Hide and its upgrade would combo with Armor Mastery, because in the stock Fighter they don’t. 

    Also: credit to Jacob Randolph again, but this was his solution to Signature Weapon not really being interesting enough to be the signature Fighter move:

    Wall of Steel

    When you engage an enemy in mêlée combat, they are forced to acknowledge you. When an enemy you are engaged with makes a move against anyone other than you, you may attempt to stop them. If you do so, roll+Str. On a 10+, the move is cancelled – their attack is blocked, their escape route cut off, their spell interrupted, etc. On a 7-9, you intercept their move – rather than who they were originally aiming for, they hit you instead.

    This lets the Fighter be way more aggressive in the way they shutdown enemies and try to protect the party, and provides something truly special that only they can do as a starting move.

  15. Yeah, how it combos with Armor Mastery is great (I don’t like it negating weight, but then again I did just write an adventure with some magical gear whose downside is that it is very heavy).

    There’s something about Wall of Steel I don’t like but I’m not sure what it is.

  16. Johnstone Metzger: I like it negating weight, because:

    a) the Fighter has a high Load anyway, so it’s not like the weight removal breaks things;

    b) the Fighter should totally be able to swim across an ocean in full armour or whatever if he’s treating the armour as second skin.

    Wall of Steel is kind of weird in that it is a very mechanically-focused move – it kinds of feels like a 4E power – but the fiction is good enough that it works, for me.

    The general thing for the Peerless Fighter for me was to move the Fighter away from “big strong guy” and towards “master of weapons and armour” – hence swapping Armor Mastery/BBLG around and the changes I made to Iron Hide. Wall of Steel doesn’t actually fit into this, but it does serve to give the Fighter something unique and cool they can do.

  17. Oh for sure, I get why you had it ignore weight, I just wrote some gear that adds up to like 8 weight if you wear it all, and if you could ignore that it’s no longer a difficult choice. There’s other weird stuff about it, though so it’s possible it doesn’t really matter much (and I would let the Fighter swim across an ocean in plate anyway).

    I keep thinking maybe Wall of Steel would be better without the roll, but then it couldn’t be a block, it’d have to be a counterstrike or something. And then I think maybe it would be better off saying “if someone you are fighting makes a move against someone else, you can defend against it using STR instead of CON,” but that’s also maybe not right either. You could get the counterattack thing as well, but it’s less adamant that you can always block a move, which is the real selling point.

  20. Johnstone Metzger: “When an enemy you are engaged in melee with makes a move against anyone other than you, you may attempt to stop them. If you do so, you intercept their move – rather than whoever they were originally aiming for, they hit you.”

    I don’t know; I feel that’s possibly too disruptive, whereas if there’s a roll, that’s at least a possibility for the Fighter to screw up and get a hard move made against them. Also, it kind of takes away from the whole “one unique move” thing.

  23. I’ve not distributed the Peerless Fighter much since it’s gotten zero playtesting and I have no idea how badly the changes I made to it are going to break things, but even if it does get some testing, I’ll never sell it – it’s like, 90% Sage/Adam’s work, 9.5% Jacob Randolph’s work and 0.5% my own.

    Tim Franzke: sort of, since you don’t need to be actively defending someone, so it doesn’t lapse if you stop paying attention or move away. Keep in mind that the Peerless Fighter can negate all damage from an attack by spending a point of armour right from level 1 (although I guess that’s a fair cost if you want to do it).

  24. I think I really like that version of the move. The more I think about it, the more I like it. Without the roll+STR part, it works good for the Elven Fighter, which is also a bonus.

  25. Johnstone Metzger: yeah – the Duellist background is specifically there for that in the original. I’ll have to give it some more thought, as I don’t really want to have the extra Fighter starting move be a “half-move” that modifies an existing one.

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