Entertainer Archive

Entertainers need a combat role. Something to spice up play when they don't feel like sitting around watching themselves dance, yet don't feel like picking up a gun. I have two solutions to offer, one for dancers and one for musicians:

Dancers: Add in a /distract ability. The dancer targets an enemy and starts dancing, which distracts the enemy and lowers their combat effectivness. Flourishes could have temporary increased effects, or even specialized effects.

Musicians: Add in a /battlesong ability. This increases the combat effectivness of the group, but in different ways than a squad leader. Things like increased secondary mind stats to speed up mind recovery and lessen mind useage per special, and perhaps a temporary slight attack speed boost, or even the ability to ignore pain (have the party take slightly less damage per hit).

These specials should have noticable effect, yet not be 'required' by the powergamer mindset. All specials should work off of flourishes, and mind should be consumed while performing them.

Ew. No.

I hope to goodness they do not make us like a bard class. I do NOT want to play a "battle dancer."

If a dancer's player wants to get into combat, it's easy enough. I do it all the time. Take up marksman or brawler. My dancer is now 1.5 boxes away from full master marksmanship (ranged support IV, .5 box, and carbine IV, 1 box). She's perfectly functional in battle.

There's absolutely no reason to make dancer skills themselves have any in-combat effect. I mean no offense but I whole-heartedly disagree with this idea. It is not a solution. It will just ruin the experience for players who want zero combat with their dancer, and will give the "If you want money don't ask for tips -- go run destroy missions like the rest of us" crowd even more ammo to use against us as excuses for not tipping.

C

These solutions are an add on to the class, not a replacement. Nothing in them would force an entertainer to change what they are doing now, it would only add new options to those bored with the current playstyle. Perhaps there would be fewer AFK entertainers? The ones in the cantina would be the ones who want to be there.

I still disagree.

The second my dancer skills give me combat ability, is the second the other professions say, "Oh, then go run destroy missions for money. Forget tips." So then if I don't want to run those missions (remember, I have marksman skills so I personally am not averse to it, this is an "editorial I"), I am hosed and will make even less money than I can make now from tips.

Also, how long is it before the other combat classes complain that we dancers shouldn't get combat abilities without actually being IN combat... Dancing in a cantina gets you the ability to make an opponent dizzy?? Hey! Riflemen had to get up 3 boxes and learn /DizzyShot2.5 to be able to do that! And they had to do it in battle, not sitting around a cantina...

See where this is going?

No. Sorry. I can't get on board with this idea at all. I hope the devs NEVER do this.

C

If you are worried about tips, just run delivery missions like starting artisans do. You can make 1k per trip with zero danger (city to city using shuttles). This requires zero skills and is probably much more than you would get from tips.

Relying on tips for money is a very poor design decision imo. Of course, that is a whole other thread.

OK, well, there is no point to continuing this. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

C

I agree, entertainers need something more to their class BUT, I wholeheartedly disagree on making "battle bards" out of them. If they want to do battle, they have only to take up marksman or brawling. The artisan, medic, and entertainer professions were meant to give alternatives to the shoot 'em up playstyle of so many other games which are already duplicated in the marksman/brawler trees.

Can we try to break the mold here and keep some gameplay alternatives to the overdone hack & slash and shoot 'em ups? Apparently, my "Game Master"/"Contest Organizer" ideas didn't float with anyone so, can anyone else offer some "out of the box" suggestions to make Entertainers more interesting?

<opinion>

We're not bards. The devs don't want us to be bards. End of story.

</opinion>

Its a nice thought, but how would it not distract or benefit the other party? I can see wheresome dancer could disrobe and dazzle the enemy or something, but wouldn't your own group be distracted by it too? Same with the battlesong, unless your group was wearing headphones plugged into the musician's portable amplifier then the other group will hear it too, thus reaping the same benefits.

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Meyekul wrote:
Its a nice thought, but how would it not distract or benefit the other party? I can see wheresome dancer could disrobe and dazzle the enemy or something, but wouldn't your own group be distracted by it too? Same with the battlesong, unless your group was wearing headphones plugged into the musician's portable amplifier then the other group will hear it too, thus reaping the same benefits.

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I wouldn't think the enemy would get much motivation from hearing songs about, "Crush the Rebellion. Preserve the right way of life!" when they're facing Imperials. That said, I’m not sure how effective music can be in combat. I know it was used in wars, so I cannot speak out against using music in battle.

The dancing suggestion is...well, there is no nice way to put this: Silly.

When a pirate base is being attacked, the pirates will not stop firing at the people trying to kill them when a twi’lek suddenly shows up and shakes her lekku at them. They just won’t. A dancer will not be able to persuade people who are fighting for their lives to suddenly just stop.

When the heroes were sneaking through the Death Star to reach the Millennium Falcon, they had to contend with Stormtroopers. The Stormtroopers were distracted--by a Jedi duel. And when Luke lost it and fired on the Stormtroopers, you can bet that a dancer would not persuade them to not fire back. Heck, they didn’t even stop to say, "Hey, Lord Vader, pretty nice how you took care of that Jedi, eh?" They kept firing.

While bright lights and smoke could be an interesting aspect of combat, I have to argue against the idea of a dancer distracting combatants with her dancing. The Kryat Dragon might be attracted by the motion and gobble her up. That’s one free action for the rest of the group, at least.

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Kuildeous wrote:

While bright lights and smoke could be an interesting aspect of combat, I have to argue against the idea of a dancer distracting combatants with her dancing. The Krayt Dragon might be attracted by the motion and gobble her up. That’s one free action for the rest of the group, at least.

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LOL!!

I disagree as well,.we don't need that kind of ability. I mean,.yeah,.ya wanna fight you have points left over for combat stuff.

I also like the idea of trying to have basically two distict 'areas' of play. People Have to goto a Cantina or Hospitol to do certain things most of the time,..unfortunately,.some people think that our half(social/healing/cantina stuff) Is Not poart of the game and just something annoying they need to do to get back to the Real game of comat.

The only missions I run are the ent ones,.between that and tips I have all the money I need and I never ever asked to be tipped. So far so good, knock on wood, if you are a good entertainer the right people will tip you and make your day worthwhile money-wise.

If you do take up arms on the side, yeah you'll need more money than tips provide for training/weaps/armor but hey,.thats what the destroy missions are for.

If they do anything they should add more game mechanics to the social/non-combat -city-life side. Even having it impact the GCW to some degree while not requiring us to pick up arms or dodge lasers. What that is, I don't know,.but I'm sure we all can think of somthing creative.

Of course,.if they give that stuff for free, sure,.I wont say no. As long as I dont need to spend points for it in some other proff like Combat techniques 4 in order to get Master Musician. Heh


my 2 cents,..back to rl work for now peace

The other thing I could see was if unflourished SW1 on the slitherhorn did mind damage to the enemy... i.e. drives them insane...

C