Mighty Roar, Revisited

[the_gneech]

Per discussion in this thread, I have come around to the idea that Mighty Roar as initially presented is a tad broken, largely due to the fact that it was designed based on assumptions that got changed later but didn't get revised. (Initially, the lion writeup was going to have an AC penalty for size, and the Mighty Roar was intended to be a compensatory factor for that.)

So here's my proposed replacement:

Mighty Roar (Lion Racial Power)
Encounter, Minor Action, Aura 5, Sonic, Fear
Targets: All non-allied creatures in area of size large or smaller
Attack: Cha + 2 vs. Will
Hit: Target is dazed and takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls until the beginning of your next turn.
Miss: Target takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls until the beginning of your next turn.
Critical (Natural 20): You may take a healing surge as a free action.
Improvement: The attack becomes Cha + 4 at 11th level and lasts a number of turns up to the lion's Cha modifier (save ends; minimum 1).

My thinking: the idea behind the mighty roar is to create a fear-like effect that doesn't just send the foes running off to attack somebody else (since lions are natural-born tanks and probably want to keep the baddies' attention on themselves). Thus, the targets are dazed (frozen in their tracks, so to speak, and only able to take a single action) or simply rattled (with the -2 to attack rolls). The healing surge on a critical is pretty straightforward — cutting loose with a nice deep roar can just get the lion's blood racing again! I was trying to come up with something on par with the dragonborn's breath weapon, which is basically a free burning hands (or acid hands, freezing hands, whatever) once per encounter.

Thoughts? Ideas? Rotten fruit?

-The Gneech

Comments

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Looks interesting. I don't know what the official version of the skill is. I've passed it along to my GM for incorporation into our game, 'cause I have a tiger kitten that will be growing up with me.

-=TK

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Well, at the risk of being indelicate, tigers don't quite have a mighty roar.

A scary yowl, yes. But they don't rattle the windows.

-TG

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

My friend reports, the ones at Cat Tails Zoo and Rescue Park do. Well, they would have if her home had not been two miles away. As it was, they were loud enough to be heard clearly over the highway in between.

-=TK

[speaks.livejournal.com]

I know of no encounter power that has a miss effect. Thats usually reserved to daily powers.

The ADDITIONAL ability on a crit is also fairly unique for an encounter power.

Why do you get a bonus to hit with it, and not just Charisma v. Will?

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Miss effect: Okeydoke, scratch that. I'm still learning the patterns. :)

As for the bonus, I just sorta added that on randomly because it was on one of the powers I was using for comparison. It could easily go either way.

-TG

[speaks.livejournal.com]

Interesting! Which power?

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Alas, without the books handy, I can't say. Possibly the dragonborn breath weapon or some class "encounter power," but I don't remember which.

-TG

[hallan.livejournal.com]

I like it!

Hallan