Question: Why is the Valkyn'Vi racial 2 knockout a 5 second charge, and Sage Waylay 1 knockout 15 a second charge?
And before someone mentions it, I disagree that a sage having the one knockout (Even though can be augmented, so can every other kind of knockout) is overpowering enough that it needs to take three times as long for half the effect.
Basic Knockout is 10 seconds for a 3 knockout. I'm not sure what the math would be to bring it more in line with the "standard," assuming there even is one.
I can tell you Nelkie took sage and thought it the best in game. He is a mechanics power user that sits around cranking out optimal builds. He believes that sage is the most powerful discipline so I would need arguments from similiar type people who have the same mentality who try and tell me it is under power.
The 3 sage abilities are meant to be augmented and not to nessissarily be used unaugmented though can be, and have seen them used unaugmented several times successfully.
Lastly the races are balanced with the races, the disciplines with the disciplines and the paths with the paths. Combo's are also looked at, with the goal to not make everything perfect, but to bring the valleys up and the peaks down. I personally think sage as a whole is very kick butt, but will look at it again to make sure.
Chris
I be one of the gamemasters so e-mail me questions if you have them
You must balance rules at the high end/ worse case senerio. Aka balance to the power builds. If you don't, there will be breaks in the rules system which will cause problems in game play.
I don't necessarily think that it is horribly underpowered or kills sage, I just don't think the charge time on a 1 knockout needs to be 15 seconds. I think it would make more sense for it to be more in-line with the rest of the knockout abilities.
If the case is that it can be used while in heavy armour, ok, I can see it having a SLIGHT increase in charge-time because of this point (Not 15 seconds though) but so can the Valkyn'Vi knockout (Or at least it doesn't specify otherwise), which then makes a consistency issue, because the elf 3 magic is limited to light armour (Although I think people tend to forget that point). I'd prefer to see it get an armour penalty, since mimic requires you to follow the armour penalties, and you couldn't ADD waylay to any knockout abilities without following the armour penalties anyway. That being said, brawler knockout also has no armour penalty, neither does double Iron Fists, it seems ONLY rogue knockout has an armour penalty...hmmm...are there any other skills that work this way? I mean, where they have different armour penalties depending on who is using them?
I just find waylay slightly redundant due to it's effectiveness, lengthy charge time and the fact that you COULD just mimic basic knockout instead for a shorter charge, even though then you would have to be using medium armour or less.
I think a better question to ask than how useful sage is as a whole, how often does a sage actually USE waylay (Without augmenting it up), and how many times has it actually been effective.
My other suggestion is to bump it down to basic sage, so newbie sages at LEAST get one in-game skill.
Just my thoughts...it's not a game-breaker, it's just a weird lack of consistency...
Also, Zeira:
"Dobee doobee doo! 1 Knockout."
*pause* "No effect. DAH DAH DANAH!"
*Insert mass musical dance number here*
*me grins*
Mike: For the majority of you, choosing to use a packet instead of a weapon is a hindrance because your aims suck.
