Other GW variant ideas

[Zed-F]

I was thinking of running another GW variant once 7 Samurai is done (though that could be awhile yet!) Or maybe my attention will have turned to Civ4 by then. I had originally been planning to run a naked team, but that train has already left the station. Even though I'm not thinking of starting a team variant immediately, though, I thought it might be useful to someone to share ideas. Here's one to start the ball rolling:

The Half-wits
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They say that in order to survive the field of battle, you must always keep your full wits about you. But what happens when you've only got a half set to begin with? A group of raw recruits, the dregs of the barrel -- whether somnambulent, brain-damaged, air-headed, intoxicated, or perennially distracted -- ventures forth from the RB guild hall to find out.

Variant rules:
1 - You may never equip skills in more than half your skillbar (exceptions: res skill, pet res skill, capture signet.)
2 - You may never spend more than half your total attribute points.
3 - You may never have a rank in any attribute greater than half your character level. This includes bonuses from equipment.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Sounds interesting, but I don't have any character slots left, the Nudist took up my last slot. Maybe if they allow more characters when the next chapter comes out it'll be more doable.

[WarBlade]

A couple of days ago I was wandering around in the game, keeping half an eye on guild chatter concerning variant ideas when something occured to me concerning the way Superior Runes work . . .

THE GLASS CANNONS

Imagine playing a group of characters who wear a full set of pre-searing armour packed out with Superior Runes for a whopping -375 life deficit and an incredible amount of firepower at their disposal! 8) No Vigors permitted.

I see a fast and furious kill or be killed game in the making.

In light of the downside in the cost of those runes a lesser concept using Major Runes for -250 life would present itself as the realistic compromise.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Imagine playing a group of characters who wear a full set of pre-searing armour packed out with Superior Runes for a whopping -375 life deficit and an incredible amount of firepower at their disposal! 8) No Vigors permitted.

And you also have to either be a necro or take necro secondary and use Aura of the Lich to get yourself even lower. Combine that with the -50 focus and you've got yourself about 20 hp. That would really make things interesting... walking around with more energy than you have health.

[Zed-F]

This sort of thing is quite viable in areas without enchantment stripping, with the right build. With enchantment stripping... well things get interesting quickly.

Certain monk protective builds do this sort of thing deliberately as a matter of course. Less so these days since Protective Bond got nerfed, but it's still possible.

[Lurker Wyrm]

1 - You may never equip skills in more than half your skillbar (exceptions: res skill, pet res skill, capture signet.)
2 - You may never spend more than half your total attribute points.
3 - You may never have a rank in any attribute greater than half your character level. This includes bonuses from equipment.

If you really wanted a challenge, you could say that no attribute points are allowed at all, everyone has to run with 0 attributes. Or, if you wanted to be a bit lenient, say that people could use runes and the +1 headpiece. Now that would make things hard.

Oh yeah, while I'm thinking of it, when you say pet res, do you mean Revive Animal as the allowed one and Comfort would have to be used as a regular skill since it only moonlights as a pet res?

[Zed-F]

I thought about a 0 attributes variant. I'm just not certain there are enough skills that are useful at 0 to make it a worthwhile concept. Remember that even weapon-based characters require points invested in their weapon attribute to do any damage with a weapon.

As far as pet res goes, I'm deliberately being vague on that score.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Sever + Gash would still be a decent combo, you'd just have to wait for Gash to charge fully before implementing it. There are also a few other skills that are decent enough at 0 to stand a small chance, Backfire and Empathy being the ones that stick out in my mind right now. The non-attribute skills would become a lot more valuable, i.e. Grenth's Balance.