Talk:Buzzing Fly (3.5e Maneuver)

Unfriendly Fire

"All (including allies) who attempt to cast a spell, manifest a power, or do anything else that requires concentration anywhere within 50 feet of you or a space that you pass through during this round are heavily disturbed by the inane sounds that you make while running about. Therefore, they must succeed on a Concentration check (DC = 15 + your initiator level + your Int modifier + the spell level of the spell being cast or power being manifested (if applicable) + ½ the total number of spaces you have moved during this maneuver + the total number of attacks of opportunity attempted on you during this maneuver). Failing on this Concentration check causes the action to fail and be wasted - the spell or power is lost." Can't say I'm exactly a fan of maneuvers that encourage other players to hurt you IRL.Fluffykittens (talk) 22:25, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Considering how the maneuver works (you make a lot of inane noises), there's really no way to exclude allies from the effect. --Luigifan18 (talk) 00:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

No, I think he's complaining that it gets harder to make the concentration checks if you suffer AoOs. Which you can do by walking past your friends and provoking from them, thus encouraging them to hurt you. It's also a bunch of really fiddly little bits that don't really boost the DC that much. You could remove the last two modifiers and boost the base DC slightly without changing things much (and getting points for simplicity and ease of use). - Tarkisflux ^Talk 00:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

...You never provoke attacks of opportunity from allies. Do I really have to say that? I thought it was implied via the overarching rules of the game. (And I thought he was saying that he doesn't like abilities that encourage your fellow players to hurt you instead of your character.) --Luigifan18 (talk) 02:15, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Unless I'm grievously mistaken, nothing in the rules puts any restriction on who you consider an ally and who you consider an enemy, Luigifan18. --Foxwarrior (talk) 02:57, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

(And I thought he was saying that he doesn't like abilities that encourage your fellow players to hurt you instead of your character.) That's what I was saying. In, silly, lighthearted games where balance doesn't matter, friendly fire is an amusement of sorts, and not actively destructive to the game. In a more serious game, the huge areas of spellcasting disruption make this maneuver not very team friendly, especially since you're a martial class, forcing the spellcasters to stay away from your character. This is bad for the same reasons Give One to the Team (3.5e Feat) is.Fluffykittens (talk) 03:09, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I had a reading fail with Fluffykittens' comments it seems, sorry about that. The point about provoking stands though; allies normally just don't take them. But there's nothing stopping them from making unarmed attacks at you with their feet (which would miss) when you provoke them while using this ability, and they are encouraged to do so if they have AoOs to spare. Potential friendly DC stacking abuse aside, I don't think the DC boosted based on distance and AoOs triggered is worth the extra calculation steps. Just raise the base DC by 10 (3 per 30 base move, times 3, plus 1 for an AoO) or more and lose a paragraph or two. If you want to keep the "go provoke" aspect of the maneuver, you could drop the radius and have the penalty only apply to those targets that you provoke AoOs from. Then you still have large moves and you still want to go make people swing at you while you're using this, but you don't make your friends hate you and you don't have extra (and largely meaningless) calculation steps. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 05:51, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Meaningless calculation steps? Uh... It's those two steps that make Concentration DCs from this maneuver so huge, especially the movement-related DC increase. It's really not that hard. The base DC is 10 + 5 (5th-level maneuver) + your initiator level + your Int modifier. Then you increase the DC by 1 for every 10 feet you move, and after that, you increase the DC by 1 for every attack of opportunity that was made against you. I really don't see how that's supposed to be hard to deal with... well, okay, it's hard to deal with if you're the one stuck making the Concentration checks, but that's the entire point. And about the movement speed boost? This maneuver multiplies your movement speed by a factor of 1 less than running does, for the same action cost. Think of it that way, and it's much easier to remember. (I don't think I can get away with putting it that simply in the maneuver description, but that's really all there is to it as far as your movement speed goes.) --Luigifan18 (talk) 06:26, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

And like I said earlier, if you're running around making inane noises, it's going to bother your friends as much as it bothers your enemies. There's really nothing you can do about that except give all of your friends earmuffs beforehand. --Luigifan18 (talk) 06:30, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

It's meaningless because it is extra work for little difference. You could pick the average number of AoOs you expect to provoke and just set it at that value. My play experience leads me to seriously doubt that you're going to provoke more than 3 +/-2 on any given round, and that's not worth worrying about. The fact that the movement required is fixed also means that the only time calculation matters is when your base speed is different from 30 (common if you're small I guess) or you have a rather crappy feat. So it looks to me like a lot of things that are going to boil down to the same number +/- 2 per round, which is a small enough variation in something that you're pitting a skill against for me to not want to do it. Extra work, little functional difference = meaningless in my book.

And I think it entirely reasonable to only apply this penalty to the people who's face you get into. It's putting more weight on the "in your face, be back soon" part than the "running around like an idiot" part. If you don't like that fluff as much, that's fine, but I think it entirely workable (and mechanically preferable). - Tarkisflux ^Talk 06:41, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I don't think it's bad in it's current form. I just see room for improvement by cutting down on things that don't have a strong impact on the outcome or are likely to cause players to pass on it. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 06:43, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

(Indent reset) Hmmm... I still don't agree with you on the "extra work for little difference" part, but I do agree that it fits the fluff better to force a Concentration check from those who you provoke attacks of opportunity from. May change that once I figure out the best way to do it. --Luigifan18 (talk) 06:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

As a side note - the reason that Attacks of Opportunity add to the Concentration DC is that all the swinging of swords and clanging against armor and slamming into the ground makes an even bigger racket than you could make all by yourself. --Luigifan18 (talk) 22:57, 15 November 2012 (UTC)