Shattered Kingdoms

I agree with Objectivist, as it currently stands there are only two practical stances for any caster. The aggressive stance offers only negatives for all practical purposes. And no, a whole new set of pro/cons for the stances aren't needed. All that is needed to balance it out is some kind of benefit for the aggresive stance.

Lei Kung

The benefit required stands out pretty clearly, imo: Reduce the concentration time by the same amount it's increased in stance defensive.

Yes, paladins, hellions, and shaman are going to like this reduced concentration time an awful lot in addition to their melee buffs, but the extra vulnerabilities offset it just fine as it is. Battle priests....well, I've never seen a battle priest effective front rank, unless all they were doing was adding melee damage while someone else tanked. The only advantage a battle priest has over, say, a cloth priest is that their armor will prevent bashing/tripping damage more often and they don't require the concentration hit for magical vestment.

All I can say is, look out for a mood aggressive hellion slinging 2 hellfires a round after his cleave. You'd be whining then as much as you are now.

The penalty to concentration time for stance defensive isn't that big. This is more of a common sense change than one that will be a real super buff to casters. If the same increment of time were taken off of casting for stance aggressive as is added for stance defensive, and your example is used, you'd see essentially the same number of hellfires per round as is normal with two sneaking in during one round every few. In terms of DnD attacks, it would be something like 1 1/3 casts per round.

mood aggressive should just give a slight bonus to art and mood defensive should give a slight bonus to your saves since you're concentrating on defending yourself.

I agree. Why not add some small benefit to an aggressive stance for casters, allowing greater tactical play?

Why the hell are all of you QQ'ing about spellcasters not getting anything spellcrafty out of mood aggressive?


ITS NOT FOR SPELLCASTERS NUMBSKULLS IT'S A CHANGE TARGETED PRIMARILY AT MELEE CLASSES DURRRRR.

If you want to get something out of mood aggressive, then get on the front row and engage in melee.

Spellcasters get to stay on mood neutral and spam spells like they always did.

If they are paranoid, they have the option of going mood defensive, which makes their craptacular ability to not dodge crap slightly better at the expense of of casting spells slower and those of them who think to equip a shield so they can die slower to arrows instead of an ethereal wand so they can die not at all to arrows can have the illusion of being safe, except for priests who this will actually help out.

So in essence, don't bother with mood defensive, use your defensive spells like you've ALWAYS done...or rather always -should- have done and you wouldn't have a problem to begin with.

The only spellcasting classes that need to bother with different stances are the meleecaster classes like shaman and hellions and paladins. And really, do some tests with the stances and you'll see what the options are for these classes. I've been testing the stances with my swashi and I can see a huge difference in each one. I can only imagine what it's like for mercs and barbs.

If you made spells cast faster on mood aggressive it would completely imbalance the game. Let me restate that in all caps.

IF YOU MADE SPELLS CAST FASTER ON MOOD AGGRESSIVE IT WOULD COMPLETELY IMABALANCE THE GAME AS SOMEONE WAS HINTING AT EARLIER WITH THE TWO HELLFIRES A ROUND HELLIONS.

I mean really, I'd like to sit back row with my warlock who is already invincible to anything you can toss at me and cast magma spray 3 times in two rounds...please...please allow me to do this.

Okay, I'm going to settle down now.

This was a great change for tactical purposes -as is-. There may need to be some slight tweakings to the bonuses from aggressive stance and from the negatives of defensive stance that only player testing over time will be able to sort out. From what I've tested myself though, it looks great.

EDIT: Damn Cannibal got to dissing you all faster than me.

And I completely disagree.
Both agressive and defensive stances for casters should have equal downsides for a caster. Only when in neutral stance would spells be cast at normal rate, as in any other stance you are focusing on melee forms of combat.

As I said Cannibal, reducing the casting time for mood aggressive by the same increment as it's increased for mood defensive will NOT be that much of a buff. It's just sensical. It's not a huge buff, and considering the penalties associated with mood aggressive, it's completely within balance.

I've done some testing of defensive stance vs. neutral stance casting times and it isn't a greatly increased casting time on mood defensive, just as it wouldn't be a greatly decreased casting time on mood aggressive.

You won't see three magma sprays a round. You won't see two hellfires a round consistently. It is a *slight* change to casting time. We aren't talking about a heal/magic missile/finger of death/etc taking twice as long to cast on mood defensive, we're talking about a spell taking about a quarter round or less longer to cast in the defensive stance. The same would be true of the opposite, if an aggressive stance would reduce casting time. It would be a quarter round or less concentration time reduction to casting.

Aggressive does have an equal, but differeing, downside to casters already. The difference? There's no upside to aggressive, since you're most likely not going to be in melee, and if you are in melee, the rediculously low bonus to the pathetic melee damage you'd normally deal is going to be negligible.

Nothing about stances says "these are for melee only." All it is is a stance dedicated to either aggressive behavior, defensive behavior, or balanced behavior. Since stance is a part of every class, it should have roughly equal advantages/disadvantages for every class and it almost approaches that point now. The only change that is needed to completely balance stances is to give some form of second/back rank caster bonus for mood aggressive.