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Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

oscar

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On the quest diversity front I've noticed there's often a lot of doubling up. Perhaps an algorithm that stops towns from having three delivery quests (2/3 of them to the same place for the same payment).

My swordmaster who I've used as a Zweihander is doing fantastically. Usually they have a short lifespan and either perform really well or poorly but this guy's consistently cutting down guys due to his very high melee skill. Excellent build (he's a little more at-risk than my dodge-based one-hander swordmaster but his much greater offensive potential more than compensates).

Now that I'm getting end-game armour I'm considering ditching the shields to improve both fatigue and damage output. On the advice of people in this thread I've tried out the Perfect Focus perk but it doesn't seem that great. Sure I get in 3 or 4 attacks but they're also useless for the next turn and tired for even longer. I guess I could strip down my archer and turn him into a machine gun for a turn but I like to have my archers ready for a melee if necessary. Going nuts with a dagger is also possible but would also require Quick Hands.

My last word on the female question is that a handful of extremely rare historical aberrations (that they're considered so noteworthy means it was unheard of and the exception that proves the rule instead of "well here's four examples across 600 years so you have no right to complain") scattered across the centuries do not mean that we should see female mercenaries, militia and landsknecht wearing plate armour and swinging flails. If your going to go that route you may as well go all out and add African, Asian, Indian and Native Americans as well. Or why not add Cloud Strife swinging around a buster sword twice his height? I'm sure there'll be fans on the Steam forum who'll just love that.

It may not seem like a huge deal to you but little things like this could really sink the realistic and low fantasy Holy Roman Empire-esque tone you have going.
 
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Ellef

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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
I've never dared to use Zweihander on a swordmaster, they're so rare (only seen 2 across many new saves). I only feel safe using a polearm 2 spaces away, plus it hits like a truck already.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
. On the advice of people in this thread I've tried out the Perfect Focus perk but it doesn't seem that great. Sure I get in 3 or 4 attacks but they're also useless for the next turn and tired for even longer. I guess I could strip down my archer and turn him into a machine gun for a turn but I like to have my archers ready for a melee if necessary. Going nuts with a dagger is also possible but would also require Quick Hands.

Actually, perfect focus synergizes very well with some other perks :
either the perk removing 33% fatigue when you kill someone (the problem is that the lower tier of the utility tree offers little synergy to an offensive build), or rally the troops (or whatever is called the perk that removes fatigue to everyone).
I usually do the following with my PF machinegun bowmen : use perfect focus, fire a few arrows until fatigue get to zero, wait.
Have the captain and standard bearer(well, he has no standard, but I like thinking of the second RTT guy as such) use rally the troops, unleash a second burst of arrows.

It is trickier on melee guys because as they are more heavily protected, they tend to play after the captain and standard bearer.
A variant for two hander would be to have the warrior start its turn 1 step away from a locked opponent, trigger perfect focus and then wait for "morale boost". Once they happen, have him advance 1 step, and he should be able to attack 3 times in a row without taking too much risk.
 
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Galdred

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
An interesting wall of text from the steam forum regarding which skill you should pick :
Offense
OFFENSE TREE.

Sundering Strikes.
Not much to say here - it's a nice, reasonably small bonus, which main function for now, as i see it, is to bring certain weapons (mostly low-mid tier ones) from that uncomfortable "less than 100% effectiveness against armor" state. In addition, there ain't much competition in the first tier (which is a reocurring issue), so, in most cases, if a character goes into the Offense tree at all, he will most likely take this. If there's one issue with that skill, it's that it certainly works, but it's effect is not immediately apparent - there's no distinctly new tactical possibility that it might open, it's just there, working. Of note, however, is, if my suspicion regarding how "weapon durability versus armor" works is correct, this skill might improve the chances of your equipment surviving an engagement with armored enemies. Or i might be completely wrong.

Crusher.
There's already a decently done number-crunching on official forums regarding various type of shield-splitting weapons versus various types of shields so I won't repeat it here, but what it all boils down to is: shields we have in the game now can be split (pun maybe not intended) in two categories - the ones that are perfectly breakable without that perk, and the ones that are so tough you'd better bypass them, rather than break them. Thing is, as far as action economy goes, you don't want to spend more than two attacks on breaking a shield, and ideally you spend one. Those may be spread among multiple characters. On paper, you can surround one enemy combatant with six of yours, so you'd have plenty of breathing space to take down his shield and have attacks left to spare to take down him. In practice, with how conscious AI is of positioning and how you yourself want, most of the times, to maintain a proper formation, you will only engage one enemy combatant with two, three tops, of yours, unless it's a "pile on the last dangerous enemy" situation. And in that case, you either make one of your characters use a weapon that can break that shield without that perk(Quick Hands Two Handed Ax From The Backpack Surprise Attack!), or make peace with the fact that you'll need two+ turns to get through that shield. In conclusion, Crusher is kinda bad, some numbers might need to be tweaked, or new items with wider range of "shield hp" and "shield damage" introduced, to make it worthwhile. Currently it only serves to give a teensy boost to hatchets, which will get replaced at first opportunity with more capable weapons, so it's a waste.

Bloody Harvest.
Kinda like with Sundering Strike - if a character is going into the Offense Tree and intends to use a weapon with an AoE attack, that character takes this. Otherwise he does not. A worryingly binary choice. There might be some borderline cases, where you'd make a character focused on using the primary attack of an aoe-capable weapon and don't bother with the secondary, but that's woefully suboptimal - why not use the Billhook instead? I am sure this will sort itself out when we see equipment roster expanded, and there will emerge a wider range of possible weapon specializations, so not an issue, I hope.

Executioner.
As it is now, this serves to fuel "on-kill" abilities of characters with multiple attacks, to make really really sure they'll trigger. Otherwise it's lackluster - if you're already damaging enemy HP, and not armor, there's almost no doubt he will go down quickly unless you're poking him with kitchen knives. To boot, if you're damaging enemy HP, but he has sufficient HP to survive multiple attacks, he will most likely fail a morale check and start fleeing, which in (absolute) most cases will allow you to kill him, with no AP cost, on his turn. If there's going to be an enemy with little armor, a gargantuan amount of hitpoints and some steely Resolve, it might be maybe perhaps worth it to spend a skill point to deal with that enemy in particular, because that sounds problematic. Maybe if, instead of a +20% bonus to damage, Executioner provided a +10% to hit and +10% to damage, for example, it would become more attractive and, in addition would reinforce the general skill tree dynamic (other first tier talents in Offense tree either provide a to-hit bonus somehow, or otherwise serve to give an edge to beginner characters).

Push The Advantage.
Headshots are a mixed blessing. On one hand, if you already dealt with enemy headgear, or he wasn't wearing one, it's almost guaranteed instakill. On the other hand, you might've already dealt with the enemy body armor, but he still has a helmet, and instead of dying he's now going to wreck you for ruining his shirt. Which is especially pronounced in the early game with Bandit Raiders, who have relatively weak body armor(maximum a basic chain shirt), but at the same time have one of, if not the toughest mid-range helmets in the game. So there's that. Otherwise, some interesting team-play synergies can be built with that skill, some mace wielders and/or masters of the Defense tree and some high damage weapons with bonuses to hit the head. Basically, that's what I like to see, a skill that has the capacity to change the way you arrange formation, choose equipment and plan complex synergies, both contained within a single build, and across multiple characters.

Fast Adaption.
This is the worst offender in the Offense tree first tier, competition-wise. Regardless of weapon of choice, or overall build, be it melee or ranged, two-handed or one-handed, a character going into the Offense tree will take this. That's not even an option – doing otherwise makes no sense. And by itself, that's not a bad thing – it's nice to have a reliable, constantly useful skill. The issue is in that no other skill in that tier provides a benefit of comparable magnitude or reliability.

First tier conclusion.
Almost no competition for skill points. There is a limited number of choices which strictly dictate which skills you'd take from that tier, which leads to kinda standardized, cookie-cutter picks. The only possible deviation from those is Push The Advantage, which requires either planning for very high-level, or a team-build – not bad by itself, but that's just one option. I do really hope for some tweaks that will allow for more varied offensive specialists and/or make those skills viable for the entire progression of a game, not just on low level.

Berserk.
I don't think the name is appropriate. Otherwise, this is good, and becomes better the higher level the character is(provided you level up Fatigue). 4 AP is two tiles of movement, or raising a Shield Wall, or making another attack(even with a two-hander, provided you didn't move) – wide range of both offensive and defensive applications, can serve both two-handed and one-handed builds, and even archers(to a lesser extent). Almost no reason not to pick it and, as I think I've already established, that is an issue.

Head Hunter.
Same things i’ve said about Push The Advantage apply here – headshots can either really really help you, or really really hinder you. The erratic nature of this skill's operation confounds the issue further – making this skill undesirable for any character that's not specifically built to be a head hunter. And that's great, actually. A proper, specialization-defining skill, in some circumstances(having the right weapon, applying the right status effects) can raise your to-hit-the-head-chance as high as 70-80% really fast. What kinda bothers me is – how does it function in combination with a two-handed ax basic attack, which, supposedly, hits both the head and the body? Say, it hits the head first(resetting any possible bonus you might've had from this skill), then it hits the body(giving you a bonus) - will the next attack, an AoE one, for example, have that bonus? Or am I reading all this completely wrong?

Full Force.
I have no issue with that one. Some numbers and bits: you can get up to +32 maximum damage from that skill, by wearing a Heraldic Mail and, if I am reading this right, that number will gradually deteriorate during combat, as the armor gets damaged and the skill states it takes only the current body protection into account. That's a tactical and strategic consideration to be made here – do you give this to a shield-bearer with a somewhat lighter armor, and enjoy a limited, but safe and reliable bonus to damage? Or do you stick it onto a two-handed juggernaut and send him wading in, hoping to score those high damage hits before his armor is stripped? Or you keep him In reserve behind a formation, waiting to unleash his full potential when the right moment comes? This is good.

Debilitate.
This is bad. The idea itself is nice, and I can see it being reincarnated in Utility tree(or Support tree, more on that later) as some form of order, like, “Men, TAKE DOWN THAT ONE!”. How it functions now, however, is just awful. On paper it seems attractive, but then you realize that it costs as much AP and fatigue as an attack, deals no damage, has a chance to miss, and that's just all over the place. To fix/improve that, the effect of this skill should be tied to the weapon the character is using, and be a honest, proper attack, with a penalty to hit and increased stamina cost, but dealing weapon damage and taking into account all of weapon qualities – “+% chance to hit the head”, increased reach, being ranged even, and so on. Basically, you aim for something vital and important and attempt to hit that. In addition, I think that so crippled target should become easier to hit(maybe a flat +10% or +15% increase to to-hit chance). That is, I propose breaking this skill into two skills. One, a battle order type of affair, would depend on Resolve of a character using it, have 5 tiles range(standard for resolve-dependent abilities, I believe) and give a considerable (like 30-40% of character's Resolve as bonus damage) benefit. The other, a specialized attack, should depend on Ranged or Melee Skill of the character using it, be in all aspects tied to the qualities of the weapon used to perform it, have a penalty to hit chance, and provide a (small) flat, but stackable, bonus to further damage and to-hit chance.
In addition, just as an aside – with current range of weapon damage and the size of characters(and monsters) HP pools, bonus damage is only good up to a point, and that point is not hard to reach, and after that you're just over killing. This, in itself, is good and gives combat a realistic feel, but that's something to be taken into account when picking up combat abilities.

Bullseye.
I think this should be a tier one skill. In the beginning, ranged-type characters are somewhat weak, miss often and are awkward to use and position. Placing this into tier one would introduce a trans-tree choice – you either take this and can now keep archers within formation with more safety, or you take Pathfinder to make it easier(but still risky) to position them for flanking attacks with no line of sight interference. Other than that, it's reliable, comes in use often and I, generally, don't believe in ranged characters not taking it(and that's both good and bad).

Close Combat Archer.
Completely worthless for multiple reasons. First one is Quick Hands, a tier one skill from another tree (that is to say, taking it will not preclude you from reaching mastery ability in the Offense tree). If there's an enemy within 2 tiles of your archer, there are two possibilities – he's either behind your shield wall, in which case you should switch to a billhook and hit him on the head without any penalties to hit resulting (even reduced by Bullseye) from interrupted line of sight; or there's no one around to cover your archer, in which case he should run away, not shoot. To boot, the damage of melee weapons is universally higher than ranged ones, and those +50% don't close the gap. If that skill gave increased to-hit or to-hit-the-head chance, or increased armor damage, or an ability to bypass shields, basically, something else, it might be worthwhile. As it is now, it's opportunity cost is too high for a rather pointless benefit it provides.

Second tier conclusion.
Again, almost no competition. Of the 6 skills, 2 are useful for all characters, one for melee and one for ranged. In the race for the mastery ability, that allows for a bit more variance than in the first tier(you can take 3 skills from first tier, but you only need 2 from the second tier to reach mastery), but still not enough.

Perfect Focus.
Let me quote something you wrote in your FAQ :). “Battle Brothers will always be common humans in a pseudo-medieval setting that sometimes have to go up against non-human and supernatural foes. It is for this reason also that we try to avoid skills for the player that feel clearly unrealistic and superpowery (e.g. shooting 3 arrows at once) to keep things grounded a bit.”
I think it's clear where i'm getting with this, but still – it seems you got carried away a bit. This skill, even by itself, when not supported by other abilities and characters, is borderline overpowered. You can shoot three(actually closer to five or six) arrows at once. You can swing ALL THE BILLHOOKS. You can reload and shoot two crossbows. Yes, you won't be doing much for the next two to three turns and that kinda balances it out. The issue is raised when that skill gets supported by Battle Flow(requiring 11 level character) or by Rally The Troops(requiring one 6 level character supported by one or two other 6 level characters). There's no combination of enemy units that can stand up to this currently. There are no enemies that can break or avoid that combo. It's an I Win button. Up until now I advocated buffing up lackluster abilities to be on par with the good ones, instead of nerfing the good ones(which, I believe, is the proper way to design and tune rule-sets, not the other way around), but this needs to be toned down. Yes, it requires considerable effort and preparation, it dictates how your formation functions, it loses some(not all) effectiveness if your horn-blowers get wasted, and it does provide a feel of well-oiled combat machine, a functioning formation. I actually like it, but I confess that I like it too much.

Killing Frenzy.
The main falling of that skill is in that it's nowhere near Perfect Focus. There are others, that make it less consistently useful – the AI is clever and tries to avoid frenzied characters, it provides yet another bonus to damage(+50%, compared to Perfect Focus' +300-500%) to individual attacks, which makes you overkill more. But overall, it's a solid ability, AoE-capable characters can get considerable use out of it and it would see more use, if only it weren't so completely overshadowed by it's neighbor.

Offense tree conclusion.
Characters going all-in into the Offense tree are going for Perfect Focus. That path is disappointingly straight-forward and allows for little variation, there's basically no pondering – “what should I take?”, “can I customize that merc to be characteristic and unique, but no less effective than that other one with the same weapon?”. There are AoE-dispensers, archers and an occasional billman and that's pretty much all. I feel that I kinda sound harsher than I mean to, justifications can be made to point out that, yes, knights, skirmishers and billmen were, in fact, the main “unit-types” of that period of warfare, for example. But in the game, I think we can do with more variety and CO shenanigans.


In general, one of the biggest problems with the skills as they are is that for a lot of the them it is obvious whether or not you would want to take them. If you don't want your merc to use an axe, not taking Crusher is already a no-brainer and if you are not using AoE, Bloody Harvest is a no-brainer, and so on. In essence, there are a lot more phantom choices than real choices here. Skills like Fast Adaptation that are applicable across a lot of character types is the best way to go.

Defense

DEFENSE TREE.

Colossus.
A situational skill, not suited for all backgrounds. However, in a pinch, it can allow a character with a proper background(Hedge Knights, Farmhands, Wildmen and the like) to survive more than two hits when their armor gets broken and that's priceless(well, not actually priceless, it's around 1100-1200 crowns plus going wages since recruitment plus the price of lost equipment, but you get it). For other types of characters, however, investing into the health pool seems a bit of a waste, so they pass it up. Maybe, just maybe, to make it more universally useful, it can provide some bonus resistances to being knocked back or stunned – early unlucky encounters with orc bands will become somewhat less immediately lethal.

Shield Expert.
This is good and nice. What i'd like to discuss here is the mechanics of the Shield Wall ability. Currently, the main benefit comes to the character who activated it, and it get boosted should other characters happen to use it too. But that's kinda silly, in a way, you can't be a “shield wall” alone. Perhaps, instead, activating a Shield Wall should give defensive bonuses to characters around the source, but not to the character who activated it. That is, a character would consciously dedicate himself to covering his allies. That way, should there be multiple adjacent characters activating Shield Wall together, the end result will be the same as it's now – they are ready to cover each other, and they're all well defended now. But in addition, it will allow for interesting formations and maneuvers, when, for example, two shield bearers would cover an advancing knight, or protect an archer, and so on. That's a big balance and mechanics change, and will require lots of tweaks across the board, so i'm not pushing it, but I think that's something to consider, should there be time.
One other thing is, and I will touch up on it later, the Weaponmaster skill(from the Utility tree) currently lowers the fatigue cost of all abilities, including Shield Wall, not just all attacks as it says it does. I'm thinking that's a bug, but while we're on it, I do think that Shield Expert should lower the fatigue costs of shield-related abilities(Shield Bash and Shield Wall for now), in addition to the benefit it already provides.
Yet another thing – especially with starting shields(bucklers and round ones), the flat passive benefit this skill provides to a single character is infinitesimal(about, maybe, 2 or 3 points in defences) and it only becomes useful in a semi-large formation of shield-bearers all having that skill and using Shield Wall, which, with low-level characters and without a horn-blower captain, gets drained of fatigue very fast. That is to say, in the early game, having and relying upon that skill might hurt you more than it helps you.

Deflect.
Even with recent tweaks to AI to be aware if it has the Crusher perk, due to the issues with the Crusher perk itself and available equipment, the only shields it will even attempt to break are Round ones and bucklers, which you will only use for, maybe, first two to three weeks tops. The moment you equip your band with Heaters and Kites, the AI, being clever and reasonable, stops bothering – it maybe takes one Split Shield swing at you, calculates that, no, there's no point in trying with the current weapon, and abandons the idea. So either the AI must be made more aggressive in regards to stripping your shields, perhaps embed specially built shield-breaker units in AI armies who will hunt shields on purpose(while keeping in mind that this can put an additional strain on player finances strategically, as well as making tactical combat harder); or maybe some additional benefit needs to be added to make this skill worthwhile. Or just roll it into Shield Expert.

Battle Forged.
It's like Colossus, but it's for everyone. As far as I understand how it works, it pretty much lowers the “effectiveness against armor” of the enemy weapons when they hit you, for that one hit. So, even a character in a padded surcoat can benefit from it. Basically, unless you're building a character who plans to never, ever get hit, or even be on the frontline, but still goes into the Defense tree(looking at you, Herr Swordmaster), you will take that, not really an option.

Dodge.
It's a high risk, somewhat high reward, high investment cost skill. On one hand, with a high enough Initiative(perhaps, even invested in on level ups), you can get around 5-6, maybe even 7-8, extra defenses, which, while not overly impressive, is a solid bonus. On the other hand, if you get hit at least once, in the entire combat, that bonus is gone, you are now easier to hit and seeing that, the AI is liable to pile on. While it may be good as is, i'd look into ways to flatten the curve. For example, the process might be limited to a single combat round – you dodge, dodge, dodge, then you get hit, but the next round you regain your composure and can dodge again. So, overwhelming a dodging character still works and poses a danger, but you can't lose the benefit of an entire skill point for the entire combat due to extremely lucky shot from a peasant with a short bow from across the map. Or, let it work constantly, but only so long as the character having it is less than 50% fatigued. It makes sense as the skill is already kinda tied to fatigue – the more fatigued you are, the less initiative you have, the lesser are the benefits.

Hold Out.
It was good before, albeit only in the early game. After the recent buff it's excellent. The penalties from negative morale states are devastating and unless you're prone to constantly save-scum to never lose anyone, you're bound to encounter them, in the early game at the very least, as your men fall. Avoiding those is very convenient and can save you the day. And later, when you're capable of chopping heads left and right, the doubled bonuses from Confident morale ensure you keep chopping 'em. To put that in other words, that's a first tier skill that has the potential to give you +5 Resolve, +5 Melee and Ranged Skill, +5 to all defenses and +5 to Initiative – it hands down beats both Shield Expert and Dodge for most of the game by the benefits it can provide. One thing of note: the skill clearly states that it negates only “combat” penalties of negative morale states, that is to say – the Resolve stat is still penalized. However, at Confident, the Resolve bonus gets doubled along with everything else. I am not sure if this inconsistency is intended.

First tier conclusion.
Very tight distribution across a limited(but not as limited as the Offense tree first tier) builds. Overall, however, it mostly feels right and only (maybe) needs some tweaks.

Fortified Mind.
Not much to be said about that one for now. The only enemy that actively uses the attacks this skill protects from are Lost Souls, and even with recent tweaks to their behavior, you don't need a skill to deal with them, you need a billhook. Also, the difference between “fear” and “panic”, in game mechanics terms, is unclear as of yet.

Nine Lives.
It could be good, but it's bad. Due to how AI chooses targets and how turn order and morale system work, it can only actually save your character in the following complicated circumstance: it was either a lone enemy attacking your character who dealt the killing blow, or the very last enemy in a group surrounding him this round; it was his second(of the two most creatures usually have, it's three for werewolves) attack on his turn; there are no archers or other high-initiative enemies in reach to finish your character before he has the chance to move next turn; there is someone on your team, who is close and can Rotate your guy out or Shield Bash the enemy away(won't work on orc warriors). Thing is, being so close to dying, receiving all that damage, will break character's morale(which, unless he has Hold Out, comes with more penalties), so there's a chance you won't even be able to save him – he will suicide trying to flat out run away on his turn. All of that combined means that, aside from an extremely narrow and unlikely range of scenarios, the character having this skill will still die, but with this skill he will also unduly raise your hopes before shattering them. The way i'd appreciate this skill working is thus: the character goes down as usual and stays down for the duration of the combat, but unless he was downed by a decapitation(or other fatality) and you win the combat, he survives and stays with you. To be extra fair, however, i'm thinking this functionality should be available from outside the skill tree, as a feature of the difficulty level, for example.

Nimble.
Friend of Swordmasters everywhere. Might also be useful for other characters – skirmishing archers who try to pull off a “multi-class” build, for example, or horn-blower types, who spend their time, well, horn-blowing and just want to be protected from sudden enemy charges. While a very build-defining skill, and a characterful one, perhaps it can be tied to the weight of the armor, instead of having a free off-hand.

Anticipation.
At first, I thought little of ranged enemies – they're no more than an annoyance to be chased around the map after the real combat is done, I initially concluded. But then, as the day counter neared 80+ days, and I started to encounter veritable armies of bandits, accompanied by whole detachments of marksmen, I changed my mind. And that's bandits, the Skeleton Archers are very much distinguished from bandit marksmen – by being not ♥♥♥♥. Massed ranged enemies, even more so massed competent ranged enemies are a genuine threat, and a rather scary one. So this talent is very good, and it will become even better the more new enemy types capable of ranged attacks are introduced.

Steel Brow.
I am not sure how this works, actually. Say, a hit to the head does +50% damage – is this increased damage applied to helmet armor(and that's the reason why, for most of the game, helmets offer considerably more protection than body armor)? Or does it have to be an unprotected head, and we're talking strictly hitpoints? Depending on the answer, this skill is either extremely rarely(even more so than Colossus) useful but huge when it is, or just kinda nice to have, but can be passed up for competition.

Rotation.
Is the best skill in the whole Defense tree, period. It is what makes a formation actually a formation – with interesting maneuvers, clever delay tactics and all the team-play, it saves lives and it provides for a very enjoyable, puzzle-like, approach to tactical combat. I think it's safe to say that the game actually needs more skills for movement, positioning and navigation, and it's shame we got only two(only one of which is consistently good, and that's this one).

Second tier conclusion.
You go here for Rotation, mostly, but the rest of the skills are solid, with the notable exception of Nine Lives, which needs work.

Indomitable.
The problem with this is that's the AI is too clever for it. Much like with Riposte and Spear Wall, if the enemy can, he will just attack another character(the one, perhaps, you tried to protect by activating this skill and moving forward), or just spend his turn walking around. It's not bad, naturally, to make an opponent waste his turn, but there's some nagging feeling of dissatisfaction – when I activate a stun immunity, I want the enemy to attempt to stun me and fail, so that I can laugh at his puny attempts. In some other cases(mostly pertaining to facing orc warriors), this can be very useful for when you absolutely need to keep holding that bit of elevated ground or that narrow passage, and don't want to hear about any of that Shield Bash and Push Through nonsense. But overall, I feel that this ability is redundant and something else must be in it's place. Being unpushable(and to some extent, ungrabable) is a matter of having a large enough shield, or armor weight, not a rather arbitrary skill. If those immunities were passives, instead of coming with a fatigue cost, AP cost and a time limit, that would be another matter altogether.

Return Favor.
First things first, this skill is broken. If the attack against the character using this skill missed, the attacker will get stunned unless completely immune, there's no 50% chance, there's a certainty. I've had a swordmaster with this skill in my warband for three and a half ingame months, so I'm thinking I have a proper sample size.
Beyond that, i'm a little disappointed with how it's represented(there's no animation, or a sound effect when this skill triggers on an enemy, only when you assume the stance) and with the fact that it does no damage. Somehow, this skill needs to be made more spectacular, perhaps pushing stunned enemies away, or dealing some of the damage of the equipped weapon, or applying a status effect associated with that weapon(bleeds for cleavers, stripping some armor for warhammers and so on).
As it is now, it can be central to constructing a complex team-wide synergy – a character with this runs far ahead, stuns everyone by his awesome magic, then a crowd with billhooks and flails pushes the advantage to decapitating effect. This will more or less make your warband a one-trick pony, considering how it requires a significant amount of characters be specced almost exclusively to utilize that synergy, but that's one interesting trick.

Defense tree conclusion.
Strangely, counter-intuitively perhaps, for now the best things in the tree are concentrated on the first two tiers, with both mastery abilities somewhat underwhelming or overspecialized. The issue is that, there are two types of skills here, ones that work and work well, and ones that are lackluster and don't work at all. There ain't much of the second type, but enough to make most every character going into Defense tree almost completely the same. On first tier, everyone takes Hold Out and Battle Forged, then there are hitpoint tanks, shieldbearers and swordmasters. On second tier, of the six skills only two are universally and consistently useful, one is, again, mostly for Swordmasters, one is so-so, and another is a trap. And mastery abilities are, ultimately, gimmicks.

Utility

UTILITY TREE.

Bags and Belts.
This one is very useful and very silly. Here goes Gunther, The Man With Five Billhooks. I don't terribly mind the silly, and I think that, without needlessly overcomplicating things(making one- and two-handed weapons take up different amount of inventory space, making quivers count for only half an item and so on) there is no way and no need to fix this skill. It allows for a very utilitarian approach to combat(which fits nicely with the overall theme of the game), you face a specific enemy, you procure a specfic to tool to deal with that enemy, you proceed to the next enemy; and it cuts down on inventory management outside of combat – when all(or most) of your men can freely carry a warhammer with them at all times, there's no need to go the routine of: 1. Check if there are orc warriors in the enemy group 2. Retreat 3. Equip warhammers 4. Attack again. That's just an example.

Taunt.
This does not work. Or I don't understand how it's supposed to work. What “enemy aggression” even means? The first time I picked that up on my bill-carrying captain, I thought that I could use that to troll the enemy from behind my own shieldwall, call them names and make them forgot to use their own Shield Walls, thus making them attack more often and batter themselves on my Ripostes, or even try to move through my zone of control to collect a ton of opportunity attacks. That did not work out, no matter how much Resolve I pumped into my captain. So, I thought, maybe it works only on directly adjacent enemies, so I built a Swordmaster, who would Taunt enemies into attacking him, while the rest of the formation rests and regains fatigue(if I can be sure that the enemy will attack the Swordmaster, the rest of the formation could forgo using a Shield Wall). That did not work out either. I thought, maybe it only works off of base Resolve, not modified by the presence of the captain, so I built an Adventurous Noble shieldbearer, My Face Is My Shield type of man, and, again, it turned out that if your merc is in a tactically vulnerable position, the enemy will attack him no matter what, Taunt or no Taunt. But if there are less protected and more vulnerable characters within his reach, he will attack them, again, Taunt or no Taunt. In conclusion, this skill is no match for how clever the AI is now, and is therefore completely useless.

Quick Hands.
This skill alone contributes more to early game survival than anything from the Defense tree. For the first few weeks – early encounters with bandits and, maybe, skeletons, the ability to not waste AP on switching between a spear and an ax is much, much more valuable than any one marginal boost to defenses that can't be capitalized upon yet. It solves the problem of greenhorn archers trying to shoot over your formation, by allowing them to not shoot through it. Just switch to the billhook and chime in. Also, (and i'd like to touch up on the issue in another topic, perhaps), it's the only tool for organizing your formation prior to combat we have currently available. Most of the times, you don't want you guys to be stretched into a long thin line, you want a relatively compact formation with two ranks, six and six, or maybe eight and four. You might want to pull off some Rotation shenanigans for fatigue conservation, or you want your melee specialists to hide in the back, protected behind shields, waiting for the moment to jump out and surprise-chop everyone, but you don't want to be vulnerable for the first one or two turns, while you painstakingly organize your formation and the enemy can close in and spoil everything. The solution is easy – give the men you want in the second rank some billhooks, or crossbows, and they will start there. And with Quick Hands they'll waste no(ot just less) time switching to equipment you actually intend them to use.

Student.
Most every game that has experience progression has this type of skill, and most of the times this skill is a trap. Say, you've reached the level cap somewhat quicker than a normal character would, and, being at cap, you can no longer do anything with your build. And then it turns out that, while yes, you're mighty 11 Level, you have one less effective skill point than a normal character has. In some borderline cases, when you need a certain high level ability(most likely a high level ability from the Utility tree itself) RIGHT NOW, it might seem to be worth it to pick this skill. But should that character survive a couple more levels and reach the level cap, you will regret picking this. Frankly, i'm thinking this should be ditched entirely. It serves well as a character trait or a feature of a background, but certainly not a skill – it's lazy and even disappointing, something more exciting could've been in it's place.

Shield Bash.
Just no. 10-25 damage with 50% effectiveness against armor translates into ~5-11 damage against, basically, everyone. If the enemy does not have armor, why are you pushing him away, instead of killing him(seeing how he's got no armor left)? Those damage numbers are so tiny they might've just as well not be there at all. The 10 Fatigue aspect seems tempting, until you remember that you're spending 25 Fatigue to deprive the enemy of 10 Fatigue, and basically most all enemies in the game seem to have more Fatigue than you do, or just plain undead. This skill needs to be changed or removed entirely.

Pathfinder.
This is good. Until more tile-sets and types of terrain are introduced, out of the three types of terrain available(dirty grassland with maybe some roads, forest, swamp), two have extra movement costs associated with them. To boot, taking and holding bits of elevated ground is a major aspect of tactical combat system, and in the early-to-mid game, might easily decide the outcome of the battle alone. So the compound benefit this skill provides is both defensive and offensive, and also serves to alleviate some of the tedium inherent to turn-based systems – you spend less turn to get where you're going, therefore you waste less time and less clicks. Excellent.

First tier conclusion.
First tier of the Utility tree looks like it has six skills, when in fact it only has three skills, and those three are so good that most characters(the exception being some very gimmicky builds) will pick them regardless of their role.

Brawny.
Without that skill, high-end armors are almost completely impractical, regardless of how much Fatigue you pump into the level-ups. You might build some character completely focused on Offense and Defense, and completely reliant on being Rallied every turn, but that's just tedious and, frankly, boring. For the most part, without that skill the best you can wear and still have operationally meaningful pool of fatigue(around 70 is a bare minimum you need, I think, 80 is more comfortable) is, maybe, a Lamelar Harness, but most likely a Scale Armor or full chainmail. With this, you can easily wear the harness, and eventually go up to Heavy Lamelar, Coat of Plates and all that heavy goodness. Why is this skill not in the Defense tree?

Battle Flow.
Fatigue management is as important, if not more important, than HP management(because if you've failed at Fatigue management, you will most likely fail at HP management next and there's little you can do about that), so anything that can keep troops fresh is important and welcome. Naturally, this particular skill functions best on offensively minded characters who are more likely to score whole kills, or low-initiative characters who are the ones most likely to be left to finish damaged enemies.

Footwork.
I was deceived by this skill. What it does is, for 4 AP and 30(!) Fatigue, allow you to move one tile while ignoring enemy zones of control. Unless completely surrounded(that is, surrounded by no more than 4 opponents) it can maybe save you a character. But unless there are some teammates nearby who can then cover him and occupy the enemies that are after him, he probably won't be able to get away. And if there are teammates nearby, it's better if they'd use Rotation, to not only get your vulnerable character out of trouble, but also to pin his pursuers by taking his place. And it can't even help with retreating from engagement(or from combat) – again, it costs 4 AP, so after using it, you can move two more tiles(bringing the total to three), unless there's some fairly unlikely combination of multiple levels of elevated grounds and difficult terrain, you have Pathfinder and the pursuers don't, they will catch up and engage that character again the very next turn. As I've said before, this game could really benefit from having more interesting positioning skills, they just need to be useful, and not this.

Captain.
Ultimately good. Resolve is important. However, this can produce some quirky situations. For example, let's say you've got two leader type characters. One has 60 Resolve and another has 59. When they're within 5 tiles of each other, the less resolute leader will suddenly become more resolute(bringing his Resolve to 71). I do hope there can be no chain-reaction of infinite resolve boosting resulting from that, but the thing is, when assembling a roster, it might pay to have two Captains, one with a slightly weaker Resolve, so that, in combat, his Resolve gets supercharged, and his Rally becomes stronger.

Weaponmaster.
As i've mentioned before, it lowers the Fatigue costs of all abilities, including those originating from other skills, not just attacks, and I am almost completely sure that's not intended behavior. Other than that, any character who consistently relies upon a less-than-durable weapon(spearmen and swordsmen) or uses multiple attacks to do his thing – will benefit from this. It offers strong competition with Battle Flow for a best talent for Perfect Focus user to keep him going.

Fearsome.
I'm not sure it works. And if it does, I am not sure how it works or how it's supposed to work. For example, if I use a warhammer(that always does 10 points of damage if it hits) does that mean i'd get no benefit from that skill, seeing how that was not an attack that “only damaged armor”? How morale checks upon receiving damage even work? After picking this skill on two experimental characters (a flail-wielding head hunter and a riposte-oriented sword master), I haven't noticed enemies turning tail more often or earlier.
As an aside: if my guess on how orc warriors behave is correct(and if it's correct I very much like the implied lore behind it), they have rather weak resolve, or a penalty to resolve checks upon damage, so that when their awesome armor breaks, they suddenly don't feel so safe and are very prone to run away from unfair warhammer-wielding humans who can't fight proper. However, neither my swordmaster nor the headhunter had any noticeable effect on the stability of orc ranks – no matter how many riposte attacks or flails to the head orc warriors eat, they are perfectly composed until their armor breaks.
Of note is that, I suspect, Fallen Heroes have this, and when they start hitting, it works for them, unless you have some proper Captaining going on.

Second tier conclusion.
Of the six skills four are really good(some even build-defining) and two are so bad so as to not take them at all. Four skills do offer significant variation, considering that it's economical to only take 2, but wouldn't it be much better if there were actually six?

Rally The Troops.
To be fair, I don't think rallying has anything to do with becoming less tired. I'd understand if that tree had a skill designed to stop your people from fleeing(somewhere closer to the first tier, 'tho), but just restoring their Fatigue levels, I don't know. Smells of sorcery! Or maybe witchcraft. Beyond that, it's the skill that allows your warband with all their awesome skills to be relevant in late game, when you fight huge battles (with some militia, 30+ vs 50+ is not all that uncommon) or just solid groups of very tough opponents, who each individually requires much effort to take down (strongholds choke full of orc warriors and orc warriors only).

Inspiring Presence.
Lately, i've noticed this skill not always working with no indication as to why. I suspect that, maybe, it does not just start your band at Confident automatically, but rather subjects your men to a positive morale check which they can either pass or not. Or maybe it has a certain range, so that if your band is really big and spread thin at the outset of combat, it does not cover all of them. If I am wrong, then this has to be looked into.
That aside, by itself this skill is nice(notice how Rally is great, but this is only nice), and you are not actually obliged to take this on your Captain(s). In my longest run, i've had this on my Swordmaster, justifying that having such a legendary warrior in our midst inspires the men. Thing is, it's never by itself, because there's practically no reason to not stick Hold Out on most of your men. Then it becomes focal to your operation – your armored shield wall suddenly gets turns before enemy archers, your archers outpacing ghouls and werewolves and so on. Very convenient.

Utility tree conclusion.
Disclosure: in my warbands, I usually have three general types of characters. Killy characters have 6 in Offense and 4 in Utility. Beefy characters have 5 in Defense and 5 in Utility. Shouty characters have 6 in Utility and 4 in Defense. Every other combination is either sub par and therefore a hindrance, or very gimmicky and is done for kicks – it's not central to the survival and operation of the band. There's a pattern there to be noticed. And that is, with the current composition of the skill trees, the Utility tree provides comparable offense and defense(sometimes in a single package) to supposedly specialized trees, and sometimes more so. There's practically no reason to build Offense+Defense character(again, outside of gimmick combos) and, well, i'm thinking that might be intended.

Some thoughts.
As far as I understand, the character customization is feature introduced relatively recently in the development process and it's not, as of yet, too late to change some things. What I would propose, just an idea to play with, is this.
*Raise level cap to 13, so that two trees can be mastered by a single character.
*Break Utility tree in two new trees and fill the gaps accordingly.
*One would be proper Utility – with movement- and equipment-related skills, some battlefield trickery and cross-character maneuvers or build synergies, and maybe some individual fatigue management abilities.
*The other would be Support and properly concentrate on manipulating Resolve, morale, initiative, boosting or moving other characters, maintaining battle order, recovering fleeing characters and so on.
*Fix and improve what needs to be fixed and improved in the other trees.

This will keep the current dynamic of no character being able to do everything(what with four trees and only being able to master two), but will widen the range of potential builds and make character roles that emerge from skill combinations more defined and, well, characteristic.
 

Eyestabber

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This looks a little dated, as I found perfect focus to be rather underwhelming. Too high activation cost. I guess they nerfed it?
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
No, you just need to have ways to remove fatigue(rally the troops, battle flow), and a large pool :
assume the character has 70 stamina and zero fatigue :
use perfect focus 30 stamina left), use 15 stamina attack twice : 0 left, wait
captain and musician both rally the troops : get 50 stamina back :
When it it back to you to play :
3 more attacks
soe with a pool of 70 (which is quite high, I concur), you got 5 attacks through 2 rally the troops, and even more if you have battle flow (but you need to be level 11 for that).
If you are using a two hander, it gets pretty impressive.
Note that it is very hard to balance such a skill : if fatigue cost gets higher, it will get utterly useless.
 

Eyestabber

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Interesting. So people DID find out ways of breaking BB's system. I've stuck with killing frenzy on most of my guys due to the consistent nature of the perk.

Honestly? Perfect focus needs to go, then. It will never be balanced, so trying is pointless.

Also, I think some stuff on the utility tree should be on either defense or offense. Dunno.

Anyway, enough "balance" talk for today (for me at least). Game is fun and "balance-above-everything-else" is a shitty design philoshophy.

EDIT: better idea: keep perfect focus as a "ranged only" thing. That way archers have a "late game they no longer suck" thing going on for them.
 
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34scell

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Some of the perks feel like something from DnD. Like nimble; how would an empty hand double your melee defence? I'd prefer if they kept it semi realistic.
 

vonAchdorf

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Update 0.4.42

New weapons! No longer is the Billhook the only melee weapon with a range of two tiles, as there is now the Pike. Also, the Pickaxe and the Pitchfork are introduced as early game equivalents of the Warhammer and the Pike, respectively, to smooth out the progression a bit. Some backgrounds will have these as starting items and you may see militia using these as improvised weapons as well. Also, other stuff.

pitch1.jpg


CHANGELOG
  • Fixed compatibility issue with sound.
  • Fixed rare graphical glitch.
  • Fixed Return Favor perk not working as intended.
  • Changed Killing Frenzy effect to last for 2 turns (down from 3).
  • Changed fatigue cost of Footwork skill to 25 (down from 30).
  • Changed Captain perk to now grant half the difference in resolve between the captain and the non-captain as a bonus. Consequently, characters with low resolve of their own will profit the most from a leader nearby, while a potential exploit for characters with very high resolve is eliminated.
  • Changed Rally the Troops to have a range of 4 tiles (down from 5).
  • Changed the way Debilitate works. The skill is no longer an attack of its own but modifies the next attack done. Once used, the user gains a 'Debilitating Attack' status effect which has their next attack confer the 'Debilitated' debuff to their target. Missing the attack wastes the effect. This way, Debilitate can now be used with any weapon, including ranged weapons. A debilitated target has the damage it can inflict reduced by -50% for one turn (instead of receiving increased damage, as it was before).
  • Changed the way movement for the player works on the worldmap. Setting a destination close to the current position will have the group move directly to it as it worked before, but setting a destination further away will now make use of pathfinding to navigate between forests and on roads automatically. We'll probably add an indicator for the destination and path in one of the coming updates.
  • Added Pike, Pitchfork and Pickaxe weapons.
  • Added icon dropping on everyone affected by use of the Taunt skill to make it more appearent how the skill works.
  • Added hint to targeting tooltip if the selected skill affects the hitchance.
  • Added command line argument (also known as Game Launch Option) to potentially fix rare compatibility issue with some video cards. If you're getting pixelated sprites in the game, try to start Battle Brothers with the command line argument -t2. If this works for you, you can increase this to -t3, -t4 etc up to -t8 for better performance. You can read up on how to apply the command line argument with Steam here. If it doesn't work for you, please let us know so we can continue looking for a solution.
 

Dr Skeleton

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Some new dungeon inhabitants after the patch, I think.

97h47T8.jpg


Pitchforks are nice for the super early game, but pikes are just worse billhooks. Same damage, worse vs armor and can push enemies instead of pulling. Meh.
Shepherds got +5 fatigue too, but it's in red like a debuff for some reason.
 

Agesilaus

Antiquity Studio
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Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Hey, they got the weiderganger noble in now! Good spot, that was the last enemy to be found from the old demo lineup.

I agree that Pike is like a crummy billhook. I guess it's nice to be able to push people from a greater distance, but whatever.
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

Kamelåså!
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I guess it'll be handy for stopping swordsmen riposte at no risk to yourself and getting shit off your spearwall.
 

Lucky

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Pushing is way better than pulling, though. You can only really use pulling to neutralise something like a spearwall. Pushing is way more versatile (open up space for spearwall, neutralise enemy elevation bonus, break engagement to retreat wounded bro, etc) and can actually be used from the second battle line. I almost never use Billhooks to pull, while I've already found plenty of uses for the pike poke. It's basically a different kind of shield bash, with more range but less defence.

My last word on the female question is that a handful of extremely rare historical aberrations (that they're considered so noteworthy means it was unheard of and the exception that proves the rule instead of "well here's four examples across 600 years so you have no right to complain") scattered across the century do not mean that we should see female mercenaries, militia and landsknecht wearing plate armour and swinging flails. If your going to go that route you may as well go all out and add African, Asian, Indian and Native Americans as well. Or why not add Cloud Strife swinging around a buster sword twice his height? I'm sure there'll be fans on the Steam forum who'll just love that.

It may not seem like a huge deal to you but little things like this could really sink the realistic and low fantasy Holy Roman Empire-esque tone you have going.

I totally agree on the importance of tone and how crucial those little details are in maintaining it. For some reason, a lot of people on steam want to turn this game into yet another D&D clone. They see that the game has its own flavour, but can't seem to wrap their heads around how adding Orc and wizard party members would dilute it. I'm honestly rather glad now that the devs did not kickstart the game, because then you'd have the same but with a ton of people demanding their terrible ideas get implemented because they pledged.
Regarding the battle sisters though, I'm curious to see how it turns out because it's something the devs themselves planned to add for a while now, rather than a recent development because of steam complaints. They've had time to give it thought and decide on how they want to implement it. They've also done a great job so far and I see something like battle sisters potentially working without ruining the tone, though also being jarring if done wrong. Most importantly though, I trust that they'll abandon the attempt if it turns out that they can't make it work.
 

Ellef

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They wanted to add Battle Sisters with no external pressure so it's a non issue to me, just like it would be if they decided to never implement them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

Yoshiyyahu

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The game is pretty fun apart from the mass Lost Soul bullshit (and archers that run forever at the end of combat, delaying it by another 5-6 turns.)

Are there any 'events' or such that happen later in the game? I've got a fully-decked out squad of 12 dudes (5 tanks, 3 pikemen, 1 ranger and 3 axemen) that butcher pretty much every encounter. I have to say that billhooks are obscene; I picked one up at the very start and put it on one of my original brothers. His damage was so monstrous and he stayed safe the entire time. I am trying to level up my ranger as I neglected bow guys because they were shit at the start. Seems their chief use is shooting those Lost Soul fucks.
 
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Lucky

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You want to have at least one guy with a spear and Fortified Mind to deal with those Lost Souls. Or a Perfect Focus archer who can machine-gun them. I expect Lost Souls to actually be fairly tame compared to some of the stuff that is going to get introduced. Notice how Fortified Mind also protects the user against mind control...

Not yet, the game is very much still a sandbox at this stage of development. However, a more robust end-game is definitely in the works. There is apparently also a way to beat the game right now, but I haven't tried to find it yet.
 

Eyestabber

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They REALLY need to take another look at the disengagement system. Provoking an attack of oportunity from every direction AND having your movement cancelled if ANY of those attacks hit? That's a little extreme, don't you think?
 

Agesilaus

Antiquity Studio
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Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I agree with Jack, the disengagement system is great and I use it to my advantage all the time. If you want to disengage, use the bash, rotate, or poke abilities. The importance of the zone of control is an important part of what makes combat so great right now.
 

Eyeball

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I like it as well. You wanna disengage, get the disengagement ability. As it is, disengagement being really dangerous basically means that being broken in combat is guaranteed to hurt, just like it was on real-life battlefields. Turning your back on your enemy was never the wisest course of action.
 

34scell

Augur
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384
Maybe in a formation with dozens of other soldiers, otherwise engagement is pretty unrealistic. I think infinite free attacks against disengaging enemies, until you miss, is a bit much.
 

ColCol

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Hey, a party that has won several battles without a loss and.....oh werewolves


bitcoin-gone.jpg
 

Eyestabber

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How about this: attack of opportunity from every direction, resolve check if anything hits. Check is harder the more damage the unit took. If it passes, it moves (despite taking damage). If it fails, it stays put.
 

sser

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Tools for disengagement: knock them back with your shield or weapon. Pull them away with a billhook. Taunt them. Use the rotation perk. Use the disengagement perk. Put up a shield wall and roll for better odds.
 

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