I have completely revised the Withstand mechanic. Now, instead of completely cancelling damage beneath a certain threshold, it completely cancels a specific number of damaging attacks, regardless of the amount of damage that they inflict.
Withstand
The affected character takes no damage from the next damaging attack(s) he or she receives, regardless of the amount of damage that they inflict. The character must declare "Withstood" after preventing damage in this way. The effect ends after a specific number of attacks have been prevented, as indicated by the action's tagline (e.g., Withstand 3 allows you to prevent the next three damaging attacks).
Actions using the Withstand effect have been adjusted to coincide with the change. Savages can now acquire Enraged Stamina every four levels rather than every five, shamans can acquire Blade Turning every five rather than every six, and Dwarven Resilience now grants Withstand 2 rather than Withstand 1.
ACTUALLY, after looking at Dwarven warrior, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be completely insanely against this change. I'll have to see what happens with the monsters against it. As it stands right now, a 9th level Dwarven warrior will have deflect all, ignore 2 attacks, and guard 9's. They've just become a godly character. I think. LoL!
So you're saying savages get Withstand 3 at lvl 12? Done, Wreynn is no longer an assassin, as soon as withstand enchants go live, assassins are nearly worthless in PvP. They're going to be the new hot item, no questions asked. And dwarven warriors? Deflect, Guard 8, Withstand 2 at lvl 8? Seriously? And if they weren't hard enough to kill before..... from a game balance perspective... no like. Just as broken as thorns was.
Uordeq's are now as good as dwarven slaves.....
Notwithstanding the fact that a dwarven warrior logically should be about the hardest character to kill in the game, they're just as dead if you flank them. And as for the savage, yeah, he might not be the easiest thing to backstab in melee. However, if he isn't raging, he isn't withstanding anything. Catch him off guard and he's just as dead.
The first reaction to a new mechanic is always the same: A lot of excitement and blustering about it being (too) awesome. Give it a few games and it'll be old hat with provable ways to bypass it. Calm down and trust me; I've been doing this awhile.
While were armchair theorizing,if you flank a warrior that has withstand 2 on him, That should be more than enough time for the warrior to correct his error/relocate/switch targets. Withstand seems now to serve as a bit of idiotproofing for the warrior in question, meaning continuing combat has just gotten much harder now that his attention is focused on you and he has yet to take any damage.
Just for a point of clarifcation, is choosing to withstand an action an ability to be used at a players discretion?
As in does the player have the ability to choose which actions he withstands (rather than the first two regardless of the damage they do) ? If so, this seems exactly like what evade was in the old system except now it's given to dwarves and savages- and shamans rather than classes that had a specific need for sustainability in combat.
So I'm not really complaining :P but I do agree however, It will have to take a few events and feedback from monsters and plot members before any possible overpoweredness can be properly witnessed in action and fixed. Though at the moment it does seem utterly broken. Especially when given to a warrior who can already deflect at will, as one of the avenues for tooling them has just been made obsolete (attempting to hit a warrior with high burst damage when catching them unaware so that they cannot deflect the ability-which now is obsolete due to being able to evade the damage alltogther,)
It is the next two attacks after the withstand, period. Whether they are crappy 1 sharps or your best hit. That is the way I read it, and think it is supposed to be. It will be the hot topic of people who think it is broken until something new comes along that people will say is broken, and only time with it being implemented will tell how effective it is.
There seems to be some confusion, so I've clarified the first line of the effect: "The affected character takes no damage from the next damaging attack(s) he or she receives, regardless of the amount of damage that they inflict." The character has no control over what damage is prevented. After the effect is called, it prevents the next X damaging attacks, period. If you call it to someone's face, chances are excellent that they'll call base damage until they get past your Withstand to keep from wasting their big attacks.
Mark is correct, Alex. When you call Withstand 1,2, 3 or whateevr, you ignore the same amount of the immediate next 1,2, or 3 attacks. I agree that right now, it looks pretty broken, but we all had a long talk with Thad yesterday, and I do agree we won't have a clue how it will actually go until we see it in play.
I see people's concerns, but I actually think I like this idea A LOT. Being an assassin character myself, once you blow through your actions typically you're useless because all you're gonna have left is 1 sharps (usually). And since -most- things had Withstand 1 you'd have to run away to somewhere you can refresh to be able to do ANY damage ever. Now, given a bit of an extra challenge, I can actually stay in the midst of combat potentially longer before having to refresh my actions.
I for one welcome the new challenge. And frankly when you consider the class/race types that are receiving this ability, it seems just simply more realistic to me (armor and perhaps just general heightened toughness could produce these sorts of effects potenially in reality). Also, why complain when this can actually -help- us stay alive against monsters for longer? xD
Withstand was meant to make a character more difficult to kill. The way it worked in reality was that monsters came in, blew their strong actions, then died. A character with withstand 1,2,3 was no harder to kill and took no less total damage than a character without it. The level at which a character received these actions ensured that it was useless as well. At 8th level, absolutely nothing calls 1's.
Even with savages getting withstand 1 at level 4, they kept the advantage for 1 level until 5th level monsters came along that call 2 base... withstand = useless.
With this change, withstand is actually effective and can be used as a strategy to catch enemies off-gaurd, forcing them to revise their original plan (as a strategy should).
I think the trick would be to catch them entirely off guard, if they haven't activated the ability they should have to eat whatever damage hits them before they have the chance to activate it. Not being able to use it as a straight counter ability is the weakness. I'm kinda eager to see how this is gonna work.
like!