Old school stick jocky in need of advice

broadway

Newbie
So as the title suggests, I'm an old school LARPing stick jocky. Many moons ago I used to play Alliance's parent game system, eventually got out of LARPing and I'm coming back to it this fall. Looking to play a stick jocky again, but the alliance system is definitely a different beast than its parent system. Looking through the rules there are a good number of different fighter skill options, and I was hoping to get a feel for what other people playing fighters have found to be effective and what some of the common builds were. After all when I played, it was all about large number of profs so you could swing high damage all the time.
 
I look at 2.0/2.1 fighters in one of three ways

1. I do consistent damage consistently
2. I have a lot of tricks and consistent damage inconsistently
3. I am a defensive wall with bursts of offense

The first one is just buy profs till you hit 8, get a small smattering of skills for flavor, then buy critical attacks till you have 30-40. Mix with empowered warrior and enjoy

The second two utilize the same base build - 3 profs and 10-15 critical attacks (always swing 5, sometimes 10) but then either they load up on offensive skills and parries/riposting strikes, or every defensive skill available.

The utility varies game to game but base five works everywhere
 
Welcome back :) You'll find leveling up much much faster now than it was 25 years ago. I mean you'll be swinging 5s as a straight fighter pretty quick. I just helped a couple of friends come in game as new fighters. Game 1, 25 build, I would start off with sword and shield (I mean whatever weapons / style you choose) and a weapon proficiency. A level of smithing is good if you wear armor.

After game 1, if going one handed weapon, the first thing you buy is 2 more profs (3 total) to swing 5s. Get your parry. 2 hander is a bit different - you would do 2 profs to swing for 6, and then probably 2 more to swing for 9. Then I would worry about tricks. One of my friends got read magic and a first level celestial spell after swinging 5s. The other got another prof, an eviscerate (once a day attack for 500 body), another parry. But you don't have to worry about the long term for a few games. Get three profs and a parry - you'll be set up for any fighter direction you want. Also check out those races with resist spell - they make super good fighters.
 
Nowadays there are really two threshholds of damage for a Fighter. 5 and 10. 5 is pretty much as effective as 10, but 10 has scare power. It takes a while to get there, but the difference, to me, between the all-day pounder (Tony's #1) and a trick-fighter (Tony's #2) is 5 or 10 damage.

Parry is key.
Mettle is absolutely necessary, in any Fighter build.
Eviscerate is good.
 
Thanks for all the replies, gave me some real food for thought. But one question I am still pondering is how do people deal with disarming strike? It seems like that would be devastating to any fighter but a death knell to any single weapon fighters and I couldnt see anything that would be an effective defense, skill wise that is. Parry I assume works as its a weapon attack, and I guess mettle as its a non-instantaneous affect. However both or those are expensive options more build, and the 20body base activation cost for mettle, than disarming strike.

I didnt include the disarm spell, as I just assumed any fighter worried about it would persue a cloak or bane item verse eldritch force.
 
It's pretty darn bad for single weapon fighters, and yes, Parry is a common response.
 
Thanks for all the replies, gave me some real food for thought. But one question I am still pondering is how do people deal with disarming strike? It seems like that would be devastating to any fighter but a death knell to any single weapon fighters and I couldnt see anything that would be an effective defense, skill wise that is. Parry I assume works as its a weapon attack, and I guess mettle as its a non-instantaneous affect. However both or those are expensive options more build, and the 20body base activation cost for mettle, than disarming strike.

I didnt include the disarm spell, as I just assumed any fighter worried about it would persue a cloak or bane item verse eldritch force.
Parry would absolutely work, as would dropping the weapon and drawing a second one.

Cloak and bane are not available as rituals/items. You can purchase them with high magic.

There were some significant changes to our ritual system (which you would definitely recognize) made a few years ago. The biggest ones from a fighter standpoint are probably the removal of cloak, bane, expanded enchantment, and damage aura. Earth/chaos aura, elemental aura, and damage aura all (sort of) live on in earth/chaos imbuement, elemental imbuement, and magic imbuement. They each give that weapon the ability to swing a particular carrier for 10 minutes (similar to a blade spell), but without any increase in damage.
 
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