this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2023
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Gaming
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I have and do regularly struggle with how to make non-attack builds viable. I have a game that does a good job of it, but it's not really setup for being a D&D replacement since it's a very narrative game that takes inspiration from Technoir, Fate, and to a limited extent Blades in the Dark.
I like playing things that aren't typical or really useful in some ways. I just want the experience to be unique and fun. What are some of the non-attack builds that you have thought about and/or tried that really stuck out for you?
I'm a huge fan of flavor>>>>>usefulness. My current character has a self imposed fault that causes me to roll wisdom saves when I use fire spells from my top two spell slots. If I fail, I get disadvantage on all mental stats and advantage on all physical. It hasn't happened much yet. Mainly when a friend is being dangerously hurt. Then my guy gets a little heated and burns spells at high level and faces the consequences, but it is worth it at the time.
One we tried to do recently is an MMO style tank. We were playing FF14 and wanted to do something similar. Aggro is kind of complicated and 5e (for instance) hamstrings you with limited reactions if you can't find a door to block.
Our solution was that Aggro is a condition, similar to Fear but reversed. You can inflict it on someone instead of attacking. It's automatic with a removal DC equal to 8+Con+Prof (using 5e math, we use Knave so it's just Con defense.) On turn or whenever someone deals damage they can Wis save to remove Aggro.
That is a really cool idea. Sounds like it could have been a lot of fun and really scary at the same time in some situations.
It worked fairly well. We went through a number of designs and that was the simplest we thought would work. There's still a fair amount of difficulty establishing Aggro against groups but that's basically a feature.