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What do you think about Ballista?

Started by Charmyna, August 22, 2013, 12:46:25 AM

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BoomFrog

Your forgetting that the best counter to one for unavoidable damage is healing. If you have dispel, dissolve and a bunch of healing you will make them pay more to kill you then you pay to survive. Of course you have to leverage that survivability into victory, but highly defensive strategies do exist.

wolf88

What if the only change to balista was the range, from 1-2 to 2-2?

ringkichard

I can take the fun out of anything. It's true; here, look at this spreadsheet.

sIKE

Quote from: wolf88 on November 20, 2014, 07:36:01 AM
What if the only change to balista was the range, from 1-2 to 2-2?

It is a direct fire weapon how would that work, the bolt doesn't pass through zone 1?

BoomFrog

#49
You already can't shoot someone point blank. Let's say it's too easy to dodge at range 1.

The farther you are from a seige weapon the more distance it can adjust with the same change in angle.

I still think the fundamental issue remains with stacking instant attacking conjurations but it would help a lot. And it would make it much more of the siege season it is supposed to be. Designed to attack an entrenched but immobile defense.

ACG

Quote from: wolf88 on November 20, 2014, 07:36:01 AM
What if the only change to balista was the range, from 1-2 to 2-2?

I also like this idea. It definitely makes for a more interesting positioning game.

kailas

After playing with ballista we came up with few ideas:
1. Changing range 1-1 or 2-2
2. Lowering Piercing/dice
3. Starts with 0 tokens, soldiers as a full action can load a token
4. Lower survivability (hp/armor)
5. Increase cost and level
6. Unique, rule update - can only use one before/after conjuration per action.

Choose one  8)

DaveW

I guess another option (which is much like #6) would be to make them have a "crewed" trait (i.e. can only fire during a full Creature action, with the Creature in the same zone). That would naturally prevent multiple Ballistae from firing at the same time, so no real need to make them unique. This also raises the cost of the attack by actually using a Creature action when attacking.

ACG

Quote from: DaveW on November 27, 2014, 07:19:33 PM
I guess another option (which is much like #6) would be to make them have a "crewed" trait (i.e. can only fire during a full Creature action, with the Creature in the same zone). That would naturally prevent multiple Ballistae from firing at the same time, so no real need to make them unique. This also raises the cost of the attack by actually using a Creature action when attacking.

So you would change it to "once per round as a full action, a friendly (soldier?) creature in this zone may make the following attack"? I suppose you could keep the load token requirement, but that wouldn't seem to be necessary anymore with such a restriction.

I like that suggestion. It does depart from the precedent set by Akiro's Hammer, but that doesn't matter so much; it would certainly seem to fix a lot of the Ballista's problems, and it also makes Goblin Grunts a lot more useful (a good thing).

Probably best not to invent a new trait, though.

DaveW

#54
I guess the load token would keep it from being fired each round. If the occupying a soldier-type creature allows it to be used each round, then remove the load tokens altogether. If we keep the load tokens, then the wording would be changed slightly to include the two load token cost to fire as well.

DaveW

So... is Ballista out now? What are the final stats, if so? Any changes to the promo that I have?

Sailor Vulcan

Unique and warlord only


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SharkBait

Quote from: Sailor Vulcan on December 25, 2016, 11:35:55 AM
Unique and warlord only


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