Report 1491

Report #1491
Skillset: Cavalier Skill: Rend
 Org: Ebonguard Status: Completed Dec 2016
Furies' Decision:
Solution 1.
Problem: Under the old warrior system, Rend worked like this: Required target be
impaled. Can be used off-balance. Does not consume additional balance.
Removes Impaled affliction, adds minimal wounding, adds bleeding, applies
poison. Under the new system, rend now applies 1 wound (versus the 5 of a 1h
attack or 12 of a 2h attack) BUT consumes almost the same balance as a full
attack. It also does this as regular balance, not arm balance, so if you rend
immediately after impaling your target it doesn't hinder you at all... but if
you wait to rend at all, it does slow you down. It seems as if the balance cost
for rending was added by accident during the conversion.
[A:15 R: 0] Solution #1: Remove the balance cost for rending-- this will allow
 the user to use it as they will, instead of
 insta-rending to maximize their efforts.
[A: 0 R: 1] Solution #2:
[A: 2 R: 5] Solution #3: Make Rend consume arm-balance instead of regular
 balance. Have it apply the full wounding of a new
 attack and bleed, but *not* the damage (so instead of
 damage + wounds + poison from a regular attack it is
 bleeding + wounds + poison). But you will be
 off-balance for a longer amount of time, as it stacks
 with the off-bal from the initial attack itself.
Player Comments:
---[Xenthos on 12/4 @ 22:51 writes]:
Based on discussion with envoys, it seems like the balance cost was added
because pre-wounding-increase, every time someone rended it added a wound. This
allowed warriors to impale, rend, impale, rend, etc. forever as the balance-free
rend did significant wounding under that system. This is no longer the case (1
wounding per hit is much less of a deal when a regular attack does 12 wounding
than when a regular attack does 2 wounding). So just taking the balance cost
back out again should be fine. However, I am open to other ideas / options.
Bleed itself doesn't really contribute to a Cavalier's kill condition at all, so
this isn't critical, but it would be nice to be able to use one of our skills
without it feeling like it is considerably setting us back-- either must use it
right away, OR use it and essentially waste 2 balances (the initial attack, with
a modifier, that does no wounding and the rend itself that does 1 wounding, for
a total of 1 wounding vs. the 24 from just doing two unmodified attacks).
---[Wobou on 12/10 @ 20:40 writes]:
I support solution 1, solution 3 makes the already fairly punishing impale a
ticket to additional unparryable wounds.
---[Shedrin on 12/16 @ 04:26 writes]:
Solution 1 is fine.
---[Tremula on 12/18 @ 15:13 writes]:
Solution 1.