General class direction
I think Marauders should focus on debuffs and buffs, creating advantageous situations for themselves and denying advantages to opponents. I also wish to see Marauders become a wide net for 'basic' warriors beyond the big-talking bar brawler: a brave peasant who reached for their farming tools when defending another, an old mercenary footsoldier who knows formation fighting like the back of their hand, a scholar of warfare knowledgeable in pitched battles who obsesses over old children's knight stories and swords, the list goes on. Pragmatism is the basis of all combat techniques, be they from a nervous press-ganged sailor who flinches at loud noises or an egotistic ritual gladiator mocking others to imaginary roars of the crowd: if it doesn't work or there's a better option, don't do it! Performing a triple backflip corkscrew spin and slicing someone into bloody mist with 1000 cuts is great, but why not just stab them with careful measure and move on? Basically, I don't want that philosophy of brutal effectiveness to be limited to warriors full of themselves like I've seen other suggestions push Marauders, but to be open to any flavor.
I suggest a voluntary ability to take away the stealing and maybe palming aspects of Artifice, kind of like a reverse Thief's Tricks. This should allow battlefield savants - be they of ill intent or saintly demeanour - to focus entirely on applying Artifice to combat and morphing the skill's purpose into "combat +". If someone wishes to play a Marauder with stealing and palming and maybe future mugging tricks reliant on stealing, they would not have to take this. As some ideas, takers could get some or all of the following in return:
- When any looting of dead riln-bearing NPCs is done by you or your group, there is a very minor chance to loot extra riln as if they were successfully stolen from. This follows the rules of normally stealing from NPCs, where if someone stole from them in recent time there will be no coin purse to steal from (and the coin purse will not refill, because they're, y'know, dead). Through a veteran's experience, rough shaking and listening, or perhaps a gold-sniffing nose, you can guess where combatants secret away valuables.
- A reroll when defending your possessions from thieves. Training Artifice already provides a bonus to sensing pickpockets through knowing how to steal yourself, maybe giving up training on how to steal would leave more time to practice defending your spoils of war. I think this shouldn't activate against any other sneaky-beaky activity in the area, only vs. stealing attempts on your stuff.
- A flat bonus to dirty trick rolls. Ten, fifteen, maybe twenty-five at most.
Tactics: Marauder
Beyond the versatile armor penalty reductions, I feel this ability is underwhelming with no cool factor. With their tactics, Marauders can utilize dirty tricks. They come separately. In comparison, Dreadnoughts get lowered defenses but damage reduction and may counterattack, Guardians get increased defenses with lowered offense and may intercept attacks on party members and and may counterattack, Nightblades hijack Risk into a class resource with reroll bonuses and penalties based on its management, Bersekers gain a Fury class resource which they can burn or save as the situation requires, and to a lesser coolness extent, Duelists get a bonus to armor-chink.
I propose packaging a small defensive trick that activates on parry/dodge/block, which would go a long way in clearing the "boring prerequisite feat" feeling and help Marauders get into their groove sooner than later. And a manageable resource. Did I say resource?
Conceptual class resource
I believe by introducing a class resource into Tactics: Marauder, which I will call Flow in this post, tricks can vary in power and have far more decision-making built into them instead of just always firing. Tricks turn on their lesser automatic effects when at or above a Flow threshold, and have a far more powerful "active" effect unlocked at the automatic threshold, used via command input which consumes Flow. Examples!
Class resource: "Flow"
- When any combat action is performed by you or targeted at you by an opponent, Flow generation begins or is maintained for five seconds, ticking up at one Flow point per second. Caps around 50. When Flow is not generating, it instead ticks down at one point per second.
- Abilities could consume Flow, add Flow, slow generation (for those powerful abilities/toggles), or even increase generation (Channel Flow) as balancing methods.
- Represents general confidence in ability as a fight progresses. This can encompass pretty much anything, from mentally referencing combat manuals, horrible anxiety resulting in more and more desperate attempts to end a fight, alcohol kicking in for a drunken pugilist, etc.
- Trade all positive Balance to Flow, or trade all Flow to Balance.
- Could be the trick packaged with Tactics: Marauder. You know, I'm second-guessing having a class resource instead of suggesting they be absolute Balance monsters, but I'd hope any ideas are welcome as stepping stones.
- 15 Flow automatic effect: Successful feints sap 12 Balance.
- 10 Flow consuming active effect: Combine a normal feint and weapon attack, only incurring the RT of your weapon attack. 10s cooldown.
- Thought about this when followup punch activated after a disarm. If someone takes away your weapon, are you going to back up to a respectable distance to engage in honorable duelling? Heck no! You're rushing forward in hopes to eliminate any reach they have while they're still getting back into position!
- 25 Flow automatic effect: If you are disarmed, immediately use the now free hand in a grapple/tussle attempt.
- 20 Flow consuming active effect: Attempt to grapple/tussle with the opponent with an added Artifice bonus. On success, might sheath held weapon and draw a designated dagger-class weapon if not already held. High success margins may force the opponent into a sitting position, prone on massive success margins.
- Learn to use Artifice in covering for your teammates. Requires Side by Side.
- 30 Flow automatic effect: When an opponent attacks a group member, pass an Artifice check to add a reroll to that group member's defensive roll. Caps at 1 added reroll even with multiple Marauders, follows the same RT rules for procs as Side by Side.
- 20 Flow consuming active effect: Prepare to strike alongside a group member, combining your damage with theirs on the hit location before damage reduction, if any. This uses the group member's damage type (eg. crush) for reduction calculations, even if your damage type (eg. pierce) would be different.
- 40 Flow automatic effect: Requires use of parry defenses. You constantly bat at your opponent's weapon, reducing the accuracy of incoming attacks. Roll an Artifice check when you are attacked in melee: the resulting margin of success creates that much of an aim penalty for the opponent's attack. If the incoming attack isn't aimed, you instead gain a chance to entirely ward off the attack, similar to and stacking with long-range melee weapons warding off attacks.
- 40 Flow consuming active effect: Smash your weapon into the opponent's. This may fracture their hand/hands, deal durability damage to their weapon, and disarm them on moderate and above success margins. The degree of success influences the fracture and durability damage, and if the opponent's weapon is held in two hands, the disarm difficulty increases. Might be an invisible parrying stance which, if an opponent fails to notice through an Artifice check, has your parry defense use full melee attack instead with all those above effects added.
On skill substitutions
Having tricks or general abilities able to substitute Artifice into combat skills would be great for lessening skill burdens. I always look at Dreanoughts and think, "Wow, they can do all their awesome stuff with only two main skills! Think of all the free points for professions." With Marauders, or at least how I play one, Melee is your highest skill between 600-700, you're going to have Shield Use as your main defensive tool at 600, high Artifice is required for dirty tricks to function in combat with 400-500, Armor Use is required to consistently avoid roll penalties at around 300-500 depending if you want heavier armor, and you'll try to fit in maybe 300-400 Dodge in for situations where you won't have a block or parry roll, probably from being disarmed out of 2h: medium armor is good but it has no damage reducing abilities attached. After factoring in necessities like 300-400 Perception, 200 Meditation, 100 Climbing, 100 Swim, and 100 Riding, there's not a lot of breathing room.
Yes, it can be argued you can skim down on combat skills and the latter for more profession and scholar skills, but then you're probably just a worse warrior than a Dreadnought with their two main skills, who still gets a bunch of free points for non-combat skills. I might not know what I'm talking about. I'd just like more free points to justify 100 Dancing.
Miscellaneous thoughts
My Marauder has Willpower as their primary attribute. I know it will always be vastly inferior on warriors (especially on Marauders) compared to the always applicable Strength, Agility, Constitution, and Intuition, but he rocks it anyway for story purposes. Right now Willpower only applies to one ability Marauders can gain (Adrenaline Rush), and because the attribute bonuses don't push the duration past maximum, Willpower is left unused in what feels like 98% of combat encounters. When balancing Willpower attribute bonuses on abilities for classes which rarely use or cannot use sanity-lowering abilities, have no occult channelling to reroll, and have base Meditation caps, I think having the attribute bonus be far higher would be awesome. Awareness falls into a similar category.
I've been painting them as adaptable generalists, and Marauders seem the type to carry multiple weapons, rapidly switching to what's best for the task at hand. When affinities are released, giving Marauders a small "general weaponry" affinity which applies to all weapons but is beaten by higher weapon specific affinities would be cool. Maybe abilities which sheath one weapon and automatically draw another to attack with some attached effect? On brutally effective ranged weapons, maybe briefly substituting Artifice for a ranged weapon strike from a hurled stone or crossbow shot? Ranged marauders briefly substituting Artifice for melee and ramming a crossbow stock or bow stave into someone's face?
I think they should be the undisputed champions of grappling. The imagery of an armored warrior dropping their weapon and wrestling another armored warrior to the ground, getting position over them, and attempting to shove a dagger into visor slits to poke their brain comes into mind. Another would be the constable forcing a lawbreaker into submission, or once again, the bar brawler slamming someone through a nearby table. You should never ever ever want a Marauder over you.
And that's about it for my thoughts on Marauders. Still figuring out how to indent properly as spaces don't seem to show up on the preview. I've never made a massive post like this before, so hopefully it's understandable. Thanks for reading