Feat for missed actions

Rules Discussion House Rules
1

I’ve been thinking recently about this discussion:

There was a suggestion made by “jonathanpotter8” to give users advantage 1 on a subsequent roll after a missed one. This provides a sense of momentum in a battle. I commented that I loved this idea, but then after thinking about it for a while, I think it’s a bit overpowered.

So instead, I was thinking of a new feat. This is my first attempt at creating a feat in this system, so curious to hear people’s thoughts!

BATTLEFIELD STRATEGIST (I, II, III)

Cost: 3 points

Prerequisites
(Need to figure these out - maybe perception, learning, or logic?)

Description
You are constantly probing your enemies for weaknesses, learning from your mistakes on the battlefield.

Effect
Tier 1:
During combat, after a missed action against a target the next time you make the same action against the same target during the same encounter, you get advantage 1 on that roll. The advantage 1 doesn’t stack, but it does persist until you hit the target (with that action or a different one).

For example, you fire an arrow at your target and miss during turn 1. On turn 2, you would gain advantage 1 to attempt to fire an arrow at the same target. If on turn 2, you attempt a blinded bane instead, you do not gain advantage 1on that action. If you missed your blinded bane, on turn 3 you could get advantage 1 to either fire an arrow or blind the target. As soon as you hit the target (with any action) this advantage is removed (until you miss again).

Tier 2:
You get advantage 1 on your next action against the same target, but it doesn’t have the be the same action that you missed. For example, if you fire an arrow at the target and miss, you can get advantage 1 on an attempt to blind the target.

Tier 3:
Your advantage stacks upon each subsequent miss against the target, until you hit. For example, you fire an arrow at your target and miss. You get advantage 1 on a subsequent attempt to blind the target (using blinded bane). If that misses, you get advantage 2 on your attempt to fire another arrow at the target.

Notes:

  • Any hit against the target removes/resets all advantage you gained from this feat.
  • Advantage gained against the target only last for the current combat encounter.
  • The subsequent action against the target does not need to be on the next turn, but it does need to be your next action against that particular target. For example, if you miss an arrow against the target on turn 1, then on turn 2 you heal yourself, you can get advantage 1 when you attempt to fire an arrow against the target in turn 3.
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2

This can be simplified to be much easier to express.

But to note, I am the person that originally posted that other feat long long ago. In this system, whereas you do miss from time to time, it isn’t all that common, so the original feeling of wanting/needing this isn’t as much there anymore.

It could still be a cool feat for some settings, so I’ll give my advise on tightening up what you put out there.

Battlefield Strategist (I-III) [not hype on the name, but for now]

Cost: 3 points

Prerequistes
Any Attribute 5

Description
You are constantly probing your enemies for weaknesses and learning from your mistakes on the battlefield.

Effect
Tier 1:
Pick an Attribute, whenever you fail an attack roll vs a target using that Attribute, you gain Advantage 1 for your next attack roll, of the same type that you failed, vs that target. This Advantage 1 goes away after you make your next attack.

Tier 2:
The Advantage 1 you gain may be applied to any attack roll vs the same target.

Tier 3:
You only lose your Advantage if you make a successful attack roll, and the Advantage may now stack up to half your level rounded up.

Special:
You may take this feat more than once, each time pick a new Attribute.

This takes away the need for any of the notes, and a lot of extra wording. The turn does really matter, so don’t need to mention.

3

Alternatively, from another perspective, since you are study your opponent, why should the advantage only apply to the same attack at the start, especially if you just gain it at Tier 2. It would probably be better represented as such:

Battlefield Strategist (I-III) [not hype on the name, but for now]

Cost: 3 points

Prerequistes
Any Attribute 5

Description
You are constantly probing your enemies for weaknesses and learning from your mistakes on the battlefield.

Effect
Tier 1:
Pick an Attribute, whenever you fail an attack roll vs a target using that Attribute, you gain Advantage 1 for your next attack roll using the same Attribute vs that target. This Advantage 1 goes away after you make your next attack, whether you are successful or not.

Tier 2:
Your Advantage only goes away if you make a successful attack roll. You may gain a maximum of Advantage 2 for repeated failed attack rolls.

Tier 3:
Your Advantage may now stack up to half your level rounded up.

Special:
You may take this feat more than once, each time pick a new Attribute.

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4

Overall, I’m not really sure this feat would be worth having more than Tier 1 in honestly, especially the cost of 3 points.

Perhaps if the cost was dropped to 2 points.

I think in both cases, just having 1 Tier would be fine actually, and then dropping the cost down to maybe 2 feat points.

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5

This is great - I didn’t think about tying it to an attribute, but that is definitely more in line with the “OL way”. I think you’re right - the cost should be reduced to 2. I also like that you moved persistence to tier 2, which I think gives an incentive to gain a tier.

As a bit of background, I’m a GM working on converting my group and homebrew campaign over from Fantasy AGE to OL, and one thing that really bothers me about FAGE is how hard it is to hit things (especially in lower levels). So hearing that this isn’t as common in OL is great.

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6

You might also check this out:

http://www.openlegendrpg.com/core-rules/07-combat#the-core-mechanic-in-combat

If it doesn’t auto bring you to the correct part of the page, go down to “The Core Mechanics in Combat”, which is the last section of that chapter.

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7

Yes - the “core mechanic” is exactly what the trello link in my original post was discussing.

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8

Right, it has changed some since that was posted (trello board not really used much anymore these days with discord and this community site, and now that there are moderators for Brian).

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9

Got it - I just reread it. I think in the end I may be solving for an issue that may not be an issue in OL. So I’ll run a few games and see. Thanks for your feedback!

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10

Succeeding with a twist in combat is one of the best parts of OL, in my opinion. I like it so much, that I created a set of amulets for my 5e players that rips off this mechanic.

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