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I'm almost positive I've seen this mentioned somewhere, but I didn't see it offhand. Is there anything that can be done about Defensive Stance's ease of cancellation? It just sucks that it cancels as easily as rapid shot or expertise.

Edit: My thought would be to give DwD's a widget similar to the Barbarian Rage, that basically changes Defensive Stance to not cancel when moving or not fighting, then adding some sort of giant speed decrease to emulate not being able to move from that spot, at least not far.

What you're asking for isn't a bug, that's how the feat was made:

Quote:

Specifics: When he needs to, the defender can become a stalwart bastion of defense. In this defensive stance, a defender gains phenomenal strength and durability, but he cannot move from the spot he is defending. He gains the following benefits...

Sure though, I can see altering it since it's pretty dumb to have to just stand there to use it. However, it's got some pretty hefty bonuses too, something's gotta give I guess.

+2 STR
+4 CON
+2 Uni Saves
+4 DODGE AC

The movement suggestion isn't because I want to be able to move. The issue is the stance automatically cancels if whatever you're fighting steps out of your reach. Being able to move, albeit at a very slow rate, would keep that from happening. I can't think of another way to make that happen off the top of my head.

Yur, its always been broke. Glad you brought it up.

This was the last word on the subject for a fix: http://www.amiaworld.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=1292680#p1292680

I knew I'd seen it discussed before. It's even the same idea I just put forth. I'm so...unoriginal.

Glim wrote:

Dwarven Defender
Remove current Defensive Stance feat and replace with Defensive Stance toggle similar to Knight Commander Aura's.
+4 Dodge AC
X percent move speed decrease
Physical damage immunity 5 percent per damage reduction feat
+1 Save bonus per five DwD levels

I'm assuming this got put on the giant list of developer tasks and got buried by more important updates.

That's a weird set of features. There's no downside unless the move speed is like -50%. You mean I get +4 AC, bonus saves, and ridiculous physical immunity and all I do is walk slow? That's cray-cray.

+ what would happen if DwD would get Freedom of Movement?

Speed reduction should be like -90%. You shouldn't be able to go spawn to spawn. It's meant to be used while stationary. The problem today is that even if you DO NOT MOVE the feat switches off automatically when your target moves to attack someone else, dies without another target in weapons range, or does that "runaway" thing the AI does. It should last until you turn it off.

Which is preposterous when you have a set number of uses for the feat. Again, I don't want it changed to be able to move. At all. The only reason that's in there is to avoid the feat automatically cancelling. I fully believe that you shouldn't be able to move from your spot in stance. That's the point of it after all. And anyone caught abusing that should be punished heavily. It's just irritating that I can't count on the main feature of the class to function correctly.

Nalkanar wrote:

+ what would happen if DwD would get Freedom of Movement?

That's a good question, and would require a bit of testing. But I think there are movement decreases that ignore Freedom, maybe? I'm sure it can be scripted, and it's easy to test before implementation.

I agree on a hefty move speed decrease, the question just needed to be asked

75%-90% would make sense because I can see a DwD being able to make small alterations to their footing and such while maintaining their stance.

Would you then add a duration to Defensive Stance too? As it is now (unless I'm wrong, and I might be!), it has no duration, it just lasts until you move.

A duration really doesn't fit the theme of this feat. The point is you can become an immovable wall of dwarf. A wall made by a dwarf or a wall made of dwarf has a duration of infinity, practically speaking.

The practical problem with a duration is, if you have a crippling movement penalty and you've killed everything in range quickly you wouldn't be able to move until the timer ends. Unless you are suggesting it be active until toggled off or some maximum (lengthy) duration is reached?

There's really no exploitation I can conceive of since mobs are stationary and the PCs need to do the moving. A crippling movement penalty ensures that anytime it's used it will be ended as soon the current combat ceases because even walking into the next room would be intolerable.

As far as freedom, when you toggle stealth and detect you slow down regardless so I assume there's a way to ensure the movement penalty activates.

I was more thinking there should be a maximum duration, but be able to toggle it off anytime you want. Even with a slow speed, having all those benefits is a huge bonus, especially if it never "runs out". Sure, slow movement would be a detriment, but... I dunno, I always assumed you activate Defensive Stance, fight, when the fight is over, you move, cancelling it out. The proposed ideas would drastically change that.

Make it kinda like the old PDK shield?
Increase the number of uses by a factor of 10, change it to 2 rounds per use. Allows you to keep using it if you need to be all defensive AND doesn't make you stand in place for X years after enemies are dead.

That Guy wrote:

I was more thinking there should be a maximum duration, but be able to toggle it off anytime you want. Even with a slow speed, having all those benefits is a huge bonus, especially if it never "runs out". Sure, slow movement would be a detriment, but... I dunno, I always assumed you activate Defensive Stance, fight, when the fight is over, you move, cancelling it out. The proposed ideas would drastically change that.

If we were talking about a flat improvement to the feat itself, I'd agree that duration would be very necessary. But all we really want is for the feat to function without bugging out. Penalizing the feat in order to fix it seems odd. That being said, if it had to be added, I wouldn't argue.

That much movement speed decrease isn't just a detriment though. It forces the PC to cancel the stance to really do anything. Which is the spirit of the feat in the first place. So I don't think adding a duration to it is necessary.

Putting the movement decrease on it and if they had freedom would cause a lot of conflicts and the scripting for it would be really annoying to write up and I don't know many Devs that would want to spend that kind of time doing it, I would try it, but I feel like the outcome wouldn't be as awesome as you hope. That said there could be a way to do an aura that activates when using the defensive stance that could work and possibly set it up so that your character can't move at all unless you de-activate it, kinda like what that slime does to you in the sewer quest, you can't move but can still swing your sword etc. That I could put in with some work that way you won't move so it shouldn't de-activate you get the same bonuses it has now but you will need to turn it off in order to move again that would be the only drawback but in theory would make it so you don't have to worry it will cancel in a fight.

I would be more than happy to have this as a toggle-able ability. The problem is that it gets too close to expertise and sadly I don't have a suggestion for the ages. Movement speed would be terrible in this and so would the ability scores.

I think the defensive wall would be similar to expertise, lose offence for defence. Possibly a bonus to DR/Damage Resistance/Saves/Maybe even SR for a loss of AB/Damage.

The bonuses given don't necessarily need to change. I understand the Strength bonus is largely wasted unless you meticulously plan your kit. I'm in the camp of "fix what's broken" which is the automatic ending of stance with target removal. The big movement speed reduction suggestion was just an idea to build around to make it a widget while still keeping the pc immobile. If anyone can make it a toggle on toggle off mode that keeps you fixed in one spot I'm for it.

No promises but I can see about making a token item linked to the defensive stance ability so that when you activate it you won't move and it won't turn off unless you turn it off yourself. Again no promises as it is harder then it seems when you play around with feats, but I will give it a try in my free time and see give it to the rest of the Dev team for discussion.

Hey man, we're not expecting miracles. Just the fact that you're willing to give it a shot is fantastic.

*crosses fingers*

has there been any development in this, dwarven defender could use some love and some more niche stuff as the awesome pve class it is!

and, it has been sidelined when all the other prestige classes got some flair..

Changing classes requires hak level changes and is unlikely to occur anytime in the near or even moderate future, sorry.

TormakSaber wrote:

Changing classes requires hak level changes and is unlikely to occur anytime in the near or even moderate future, sorry.

im sorry to hear that.. we have been waiting for some time in brogdenstein, but atleast dwd isnt useless in combat, just.. not that interesting, it has been over a year now since glim said it was just waiting on next class/feat hak update, im sorry if it seems like im impatient or want to jump infront of the line for the sake of my own chars class, but I was looking forward to this even back then, espeecially since almost all classes except dwd got changes to thier mechanics, especially the prestige classes

Yeah, I feel you there. Unfortunately when Glim left, he left a lot of projects sort of half finished with no way to fix them. That's not an insult to the guy, that's just fact and simple truth we're stuck with. With the manpower we have, that means fixing what we can and finishing what we can, and we currently have few people able to work on hak-level changes.

TormakSaber wrote:

Yeah, I feel you there. Unfortunately when Glim left, he left a lot of projects sort of half finished with no way to fix them. That's not an insult to the guy, that's just fact and simple truth we're stuck with. With the manpower we have, that means fixing what we can and finishing what we can, and we currently have few people able to work on hak-level changes.

well as long as I know we arnt forgotten that will have to do, thank you though, though..couldnt we make a temp solution like a use per day item?..I mean the ability we have is rather useless, perhaps a temp solution could be somethin we could request or something from dm's?

Defensive Stance

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