New approach to Weapon Damage
- Thread starter Clovenhoof
- Start date
Clovenhoof
Mongoose
I don't have the spreadsheet on hand at this computer, but I guess it would just result in a unilateral advantage for 2HWs. But it would also depend on the general effects of the crit -- i.e. does it add max damage, or an extra damage die, or double strength bonus as well, etc.
A one-handed weapon can only cause MD (i.e. 20+) on a crit. So the MD rate has the crit rate as upper limit. Even if every crit forces MD, and your crit chance is 20%, then your MD chance is also 20%.
A 2HW may only have 10% crit chance, but may also be able to force MD on a regular hit - also the odds are still lower here except for very high Str scores.
It might actually work out if you don't let crits ignore DR, but nevertheless give them a good chance of causing MD. I'll fiddle with this when I get back to my own computer tonight or so.
A one-handed weapon can only cause MD (i.e. 20+) on a crit. So the MD rate has the crit rate as upper limit. Even if every crit forces MD, and your crit chance is 20%, then your MD chance is also 20%.
A 2HW may only have 10% crit chance, but may also be able to force MD on a regular hit - also the odds are still lower here except for very high Str scores.
It might actually work out if you don't let crits ignore DR, but nevertheless give them a good chance of causing MD. I'll fiddle with this when I get back to my own computer tonight or so.
I really think what you've discovers underlines what i suspect is the key factor: if MD is tied to a fixed number then whichever weapon can cause MD on a normal hit will always have an advantage. But I'll be interested to see if the above balances things in a satisfactory way whilst still allowing MD to be tied to damage.
Inspired a bit by a post in another thread.
Suppose we switch damage dice to the following:
light weapons (including perhaps some 2h simple weapons) 2d6 (2-12, average 7)
martial weapons 2d8 (2-16, average 9)
2h sword, bardiche 2d10 (2-20, average 11)
with perhaps giving specific weapons a specific 'flavour effect, like axes using the next higher damage dice for their size, the two handed sword allowing Improved Sunder attempts and such.
If we use 'exploding doubles' (ie if you roll the same number on both dice, you get to roll again) in place of the current critical hit system then
light weapons 'crit' 1 in every 6 hits, martial 1 in 8 and the brute weapons 1 in 10.
Say any crit requires a fortitude saving throw to avoid Massive Damage effects.
A light weapon will do an average of 14+str points on a crit but crits roughly 16% of the time.
A martial weapon weapon will do an average of 18+str (1.5str if used in two hands) points on a crit but crits 12.5% of the time.
A 2h sword or bardiche will do an average of 22+1.5str on a crit but crits 10% of the time.
With that the basic chance of a crit with a light weapon is more than 50% greater than the chance to crit with a 'brute' weapon and the crit damage is a little under 50% less (ignoring str). So that perhaps balances.
Problems:
1- damage is overall much higher than before. Instead of the generic foe doing d8+str on a hit he now does 2d8+str. Not quite twice as much but it might be necessary to say that characters get maximum hit points per hit dice to compensate for this (if you do that already of course then you're no better off).
2- Improved Critical feats become problematic. I'm not very sure about how to deal with them. I'll think.
To be clear, a critical hit in the above system is dependent on the damage dice roll, not the to hit roll. And the MD trigger is any critical hit, not a fixed number (20 or whatever).
Any thoughts? Comments? Criticism? Hoots of derision? Showers of peanuts from the gallery? All welcome.
Suppose we switch damage dice to the following:
light weapons (including perhaps some 2h simple weapons) 2d6 (2-12, average 7)
martial weapons 2d8 (2-16, average 9)
2h sword, bardiche 2d10 (2-20, average 11)
with perhaps giving specific weapons a specific 'flavour effect, like axes using the next higher damage dice for their size, the two handed sword allowing Improved Sunder attempts and such.
If we use 'exploding doubles' (ie if you roll the same number on both dice, you get to roll again) in place of the current critical hit system then
light weapons 'crit' 1 in every 6 hits, martial 1 in 8 and the brute weapons 1 in 10.
Say any crit requires a fortitude saving throw to avoid Massive Damage effects.
A light weapon will do an average of 14+str points on a crit but crits roughly 16% of the time.
A martial weapon weapon will do an average of 18+str (1.5str if used in two hands) points on a crit but crits 12.5% of the time.
A 2h sword or bardiche will do an average of 22+1.5str on a crit but crits 10% of the time.
With that the basic chance of a crit with a light weapon is more than 50% greater than the chance to crit with a 'brute' weapon and the crit damage is a little under 50% less (ignoring str). So that perhaps balances.
Problems:
1- damage is overall much higher than before. Instead of the generic foe doing d8+str on a hit he now does 2d8+str. Not quite twice as much but it might be necessary to say that characters get maximum hit points per hit dice to compensate for this (if you do that already of course then you're no better off).
2- Improved Critical feats become problematic. I'm not very sure about how to deal with them. I'll think.
To be clear, a critical hit in the above system is dependent on the damage dice roll, not the to hit roll. And the MD trigger is any critical hit, not a fixed number (20 or whatever).
Any thoughts? Comments? Criticism? Hoots of derision? Showers of peanuts from the gallery? All welcome.
Clovenhoof
Mongoose
The basic idea could be refined into something workable, so let's see how to tackle the problems:
ad 1:
maybe stage down the weapon dice one step further, so
Light -> 2d4 + Str, crit chance 25%
1H -> 2d6 + Str, crit chance 16,7%
2H -> 2d8 + 1,5xStr, crit chance 12,5%
Doubles are rerolled, and you also multiply your Str bonus by the number of die rolls. Keep the dice exploding. So with a light weapon you have a pretty good chance to roll two doubles in a row (6,25%) and add 3x your Str bonus, damage in this case ~16+3xStr.
ad 2:
Now this one's more tricky. But how about this:
A character who somehow gets doubled threat range simply rolls one additional die for each damage roll, dropping the lowest non-double result and exploding any doubles.
It sounds a bit complicated and I don't really now what impact this has on the odds, but my intuitive guess is Improved/Greater Crit will be a lot more effective than usual. Let's see if we can find out:
rolling 2d6 has a 1/6 chance to roll a double. Rolling 3d6 gives you:
5/6 chance die A and B do not roll a double
5/6 chance die A and C do not roll a double
5/6 chance die B and C do not roll a double
So your overall chance NOT to roll a double is (5/6)^3 = 58% -> coversely, 42% crit chance with a 2d6 weapon!
So, this approach would make threat extenders incredibly powerful. Probably too powerful as it is. But how about this:
Keep the threat ranges (like 19-20) and modifiers as usual, and allow one extra damage die only for attack rolls that scored a threat and confirm. Do not drop any die roll but keep exploding doubles.
That way, you always have the chance for exploding damage even on a regular hit, and a much better chance for exploding damage on a real Crit.
ad 1:
maybe stage down the weapon dice one step further, so
Light -> 2d4 + Str, crit chance 25%
1H -> 2d6 + Str, crit chance 16,7%
2H -> 2d8 + 1,5xStr, crit chance 12,5%
Doubles are rerolled, and you also multiply your Str bonus by the number of die rolls. Keep the dice exploding. So with a light weapon you have a pretty good chance to roll two doubles in a row (6,25%) and add 3x your Str bonus, damage in this case ~16+3xStr.
ad 2:
Now this one's more tricky. But how about this:
A character who somehow gets doubled threat range simply rolls one additional die for each damage roll, dropping the lowest non-double result and exploding any doubles.
It sounds a bit complicated and I don't really now what impact this has on the odds, but my intuitive guess is Improved/Greater Crit will be a lot more effective than usual. Let's see if we can find out:
rolling 2d6 has a 1/6 chance to roll a double. Rolling 3d6 gives you:
5/6 chance die A and B do not roll a double
5/6 chance die A and C do not roll a double
5/6 chance die B and C do not roll a double
So your overall chance NOT to roll a double is (5/6)^3 = 58% -> coversely, 42% crit chance with a 2d6 weapon!
So, this approach would make threat extenders incredibly powerful. Probably too powerful as it is. But how about this:
Keep the threat ranges (like 19-20) and modifiers as usual, and allow one extra damage die only for attack rolls that scored a threat and confirm. Do not drop any die roll but keep exploding doubles.
That way, you always have the chance for exploding damage even on a regular hit, and a much better chance for exploding damage on a real Crit.
Yes, that's much better I think.
I'm not so sure about the Improved Critical variant you suggest. I see the thinking but I think ideally we'd have something simpler. What would be wrong with simply allowing an additional damage dice (that does not explode) on a Crit? Akin to a Sneak Attack addition.
Clovenhoof
Mongoose
Then it would have to be a different type of die in order to tell it apart from the others. For instance a straight d10 for all weapon types. That would give smaller weapons a relatively greater effect than large weapons. However, it doesn't make Crits very different or special in effect, at least that's my gut feeling.
However, just adding one damage die of the same size on a crit and exploding anything that comes up, without dropping anything or so, isn't any more complicated either, while being more effective and desirable.
Clovenhoof
Mongoose
Different _coloured_ dice? No, that's not a good mechanism at all.
Anyway, now I gotta run.
Anyway, now I gotta run.
Really? We use different coloured dice all the time.
But given you need to roll the damage dice first (to see if there was a double) you can just roll the extra dice at the end (when there's no more doubles). No need for those nasty muticoloured polyhedral if their use puts your soul in mortal dread.
Currently Improved Crit adds how much damage on average I wonder?
Given it doubles the Crit range, if 50% of attacks hit on average then a normal 10% crit range means average damage on a successful hit from a d10 weapon is 6.6. With Improved Crit that becomes 7.7 so it adds 1.1 to average damage.
If we just add an extra damage dice whenever there's been 'exploding doubles' then a 2d6 weapon (the new d10) would go from scoring an average of about 8.5 per hit to 11. That makes Improved Crit much better then in its present form. I'm not certain that's a bad thing but we could just say that Imp Crit adds 2 to any critical damage if we wanted to keep it more in line with previously.
But given you need to roll the damage dice first (to see if there was a double) you can just roll the extra dice at the end (when there's no more doubles). No need for those nasty muticoloured polyhedral if their use puts your soul in mortal dread.
Currently Improved Crit adds how much damage on average I wonder?
Given it doubles the Crit range, if 50% of attacks hit on average then a normal 10% crit range means average damage on a successful hit from a d10 weapon is 6.6. With Improved Crit that becomes 7.7 so it adds 1.1 to average damage.
If we just add an extra damage dice whenever there's been 'exploding doubles' then a 2d6 weapon (the new d10) would go from scoring an average of about 8.5 per hit to 11. That makes Improved Crit much better then in its present form. I'm not certain that's a bad thing but we could just say that Imp Crit adds 2 to any critical damage if we wanted to keep it more in line with previously.
That's not quite right. If you hit 50% of the time, and have a weapon with a critical of 19-20/x2, then 1 in 10 hits will be a confirmed critical.Demetrio said:
Average damage will be (9+1*2)/10 = 1,1 times your weapon damage (that's an average damage of 1,1*5,5=6,05 for a d10 weapon if you don't have any Str bonus).
With Improved Critical, 2 in 10 hits will be confirmed criticals, so you get (8+2*2)/10 = 1,2 times weapon damage (1,2*5,5=6,6 for a d10 weapon).
With Greater Critical, 3 in 10 hits will be confirmed criticals, so you get (7+3*2)/10 = 1,3 times weapon damage (1,3*5,5=7,15 for a d10 weapon).
(Of course, you also get the exact same numbers for weapons that have a crit of 20/x3.)
Clovenhoof
Mongoose
What Trodax said.
And: given that in Conan very few opponents are crit immune, and hitting them is pretty easy, and crits are really effective due to the MD rule, extending your threat range is _much_ more desirable than in D&D (where half the buggers are immune to crits and it doesn't do much anyway beside dropping the HP counter a bit faster).
And: given that in Conan very few opponents are crit immune, and hitting them is pretty easy, and crits are really effective due to the MD rule, extending your threat range is _much_ more desirable than in D&D (where half the buggers are immune to crits and it doesn't do much anyway beside dropping the HP counter a bit faster).
Do you all really find crits meaningful enough to care about?
From a PC perspective, I certainly don't.
The party was about 8th level at the time when it fought some giants. PKM (party killing machine) was still up, thief and coward had been Cleaved away, NPC barbarian who had stood fast for a while against multiple giants was down, scholar contributed with poison to reduce the threats down to one. Then, there was my borderer. In the last round of combat, I critted twice to finish off the last giant. ... finish off. That is, do about the last 30 HP of damage, with two attacks, with two crits, or about as much damage as the PKM did with every hit. The scholar player's comment after I rolled damage was "That's it?" We probably would have won anyway as the PKM could probably take another round of hits and do his "everything I attack dies" thing. But, it was a nice gooey ending.
To be more explicit in my point, either you build a good combat character or you don't. If you do, crits don't matter as everything you hit dies anyway (well, often enough that the exceptions are trivial, also, this is, btw, why I don't consider Explosive Power worth taking). If you don't, you don't suddenly become fearsome because you critted. You just do marginally more damage which often doesn't mean squat.
So, as long as critting is just more damage, I don't see being it a relevant concern to fixing combat problems.
I did have another idea, which I'm sure is very close to someone else's idea, for crits not being tied to damage. If you receive a crit, you make a Fort save. If you fail, you drop to -(0-9) HPs (d10-1). DC is equal to 10 + the level of the attacker. So, a first level PC doing or taking a crit forces a DC 11 save or be inconvenienced. A 9 HD monster forces a DC 19 save. Can continue with the silly x2, x3, 19-20, 18-20, whatever rules in addition or just drop them. I doubt this is any more balanced in that sometimes the DC is way too low, but it does mean that there's some chance that critting with a light weapon means something.
From a PC perspective, I certainly don't.
The party was about 8th level at the time when it fought some giants. PKM (party killing machine) was still up, thief and coward had been Cleaved away, NPC barbarian who had stood fast for a while against multiple giants was down, scholar contributed with poison to reduce the threats down to one. Then, there was my borderer. In the last round of combat, I critted twice to finish off the last giant. ... finish off. That is, do about the last 30 HP of damage, with two attacks, with two crits, or about as much damage as the PKM did with every hit. The scholar player's comment after I rolled damage was "That's it?" We probably would have won anyway as the PKM could probably take another round of hits and do his "everything I attack dies" thing. But, it was a nice gooey ending.
To be more explicit in my point, either you build a good combat character or you don't. If you do, crits don't matter as everything you hit dies anyway (well, often enough that the exceptions are trivial, also, this is, btw, why I don't consider Explosive Power worth taking). If you don't, you don't suddenly become fearsome because you critted. You just do marginally more damage which often doesn't mean squat.
So, as long as critting is just more damage, I don't see being it a relevant concern to fixing combat problems.
I did have another idea, which I'm sure is very close to someone else's idea, for crits not being tied to damage. If you receive a crit, you make a Fort save. If you fail, you drop to -(0-9) HPs (d10-1). DC is equal to 10 + the level of the attacker. So, a first level PC doing or taking a crit forces a DC 11 save or be inconvenienced. A 9 HD monster forces a DC 19 save. Can continue with the silly x2, x3, 19-20, 18-20, whatever rules in addition or just drop them. I doubt this is any more balanced in that sometimes the DC is way too low, but it does mean that there's some chance that critting with a light weapon means something.
Clovenhoof
Mongoose
Crits are meaningful if (and only if) you're forcing MDS on a crit and not doing so otherwise, or to put it a bit more strongly: if a crit is your only chance to cause MD. As is the case with one-handed weapons: even with PA you'll hardly ever MD without crit, but will quite reliably MD on a crit.
As for your other idea, it may be worth trying, but the DC calculation would probably have to be adjusted; 11-30 seems too great a variance if you ask me.
As for your other idea, it may be worth trying, but the DC calculation would probably have to be adjusted; 11-30 seems too great a variance if you ask me.
Trodax - you're quite right. Thanks.
I agree. Except if we instituted a 'MD occurs when damage dice are doubles' rule then the above is less relevant because weapon crit range will have been removed from the to hit dice and replaced with a mechanic tied to damage dice.
I quite like Ichabod's idea, though I'd incline to adding BAB rather than level as a modifier and I suspect Improved Crit would become a much more attractive/powerful feat in his system
I agree. Except if we instituted a 'MD occurs when damage dice are doubles' rule then the above is less relevant because weapon crit range will have been removed from the to hit dice and replaced with a mechanic tied to damage dice.
I quite like Ichabod's idea, though I'd incline to adding BAB rather than level as a modifier and I suspect Improved Crit would become a much more attractive/powerful feat in his system
This is true, sadly enough. To be honest I have grown more and more disillusioned with how combat works in Conan; what weapon you wield has an enormous impact, the massive damage rules haven't turned out to be as great as I once thought they were, attack and defense scale weirdly, making it way to easy to hit at higher levels... there are a number of things that have actually made me start to consider using a different system the next time I run a Conan game.Ichabod said:
That being said, it's always fun to discuss mechanics, and here is something I thought about regarding the exploding die criticals that was proposed:
I'm not sure having Str multiply when you roll double is a good idea. Haven't run the numbers, but I think what you will end up with is that if you have a character with high enough Str (maybe a bonus of +4 or +5?), then he will actually be doing higher damage on average if armed with a light weapon than with a one-handed one (because his high Str bonus will be multiplied more often). I'm all for making light weapons more powerful, but if high-Str characters start running around with dagger+shield instead of broadsword+shield, then something is a bit off methinks.Clovenhoof said:
Oh, I also wanted to offer up another variant way of handling critical hits which I saw in the Barbarians of Lemuria game, and thought was quite nice. It is much more driven by the ability of the players to have some sort of points (Hero points in Barbarians of Lemuria) that they can spend on a regular basis (I really think the Conan game would benefit with something like this anyway, instead of those permanently spent Fate points that you really need to save to avoid getting killed). This puts more choice in the hands of the players, so you'll probably get more cool situations where criticals are scored at the "right" time in the story.
Barbarians of Lemuria uses 2d6 as its resolutions system, and has damage on a different scale, but here's how I would adapt the system to d20:
* If you roll a natural 20, you have scored a critical hit (if you wanted to make it dependent on skill, you could instead say that 19-20 threatens a critical with the need for a confirm roll). The important thing is that all weapons have the same chance of scoring a critical, or you will end up with some strange things, as you will soon see.
* On a critical hit, you deal an extra 1d10 damage (or some other number that strikes your fancy). I really like that the bonus damage is not dependent on the weapon you wield.
* A player can spend a Hero point to convert a normal hit into a critical hit at any time (so players can choose to be awesome).
* A player can also spend a Hero point to convert a critical hit into a legendary critical hit, which deals 2d10 extra damage. You cannot, however, spend two Hero points to convert a regular hit into a legendary critical (so players have to choose and be lucky to be incredible awesome).
If and how this system should interact with the massive damage rules and all that in some intricate way, I don't know, but I think it makes for a quite nice solid foundation for handling critical hits.
Barbarians of Lemuria uses 2d6 as its resolutions system, and has damage on a different scale, but here's how I would adapt the system to d20:
* If you roll a natural 20, you have scored a critical hit (if you wanted to make it dependent on skill, you could instead say that 19-20 threatens a critical with the need for a confirm roll). The important thing is that all weapons have the same chance of scoring a critical, or you will end up with some strange things, as you will soon see.
* On a critical hit, you deal an extra 1d10 damage (or some other number that strikes your fancy). I really like that the bonus damage is not dependent on the weapon you wield.
* A player can spend a Hero point to convert a normal hit into a critical hit at any time (so players can choose to be awesome).
* A player can also spend a Hero point to convert a critical hit into a legendary critical hit, which deals 2d10 extra damage. You cannot, however, spend two Hero points to convert a regular hit into a legendary critical (so players have to choose and be lucky to be incredible awesome).
If and how this system should interact with the massive damage rules and all that in some intricate way, I don't know, but I think it makes for a quite nice solid foundation for handling critical hits.
I like the idea. 
Maybe Fate Points could be used in two different ways, as in the Warhammer RPG. They can be spent permanently (Fate Points. To avoid death for instance) or spent daily (Fortune Points. To reroll an action). Using this kind of system with Trodax criticals might do the trick.
Of course, as Trodax stated, there is need to crunch numbers a bit to see of these rules could fit in the actual mechanics, especially MD.
Maybe Fate Points could be used in two different ways, as in the Warhammer RPG. They can be spent permanently (Fate Points. To avoid death for instance) or spent daily (Fortune Points. To reroll an action). Using this kind of system with Trodax criticals might do the trick.
Of course, as Trodax stated, there is need to crunch numbers a bit to see of these rules could fit in the actual mechanics, especially MD.
I should mention that the "normal" use for Hero points in the system I described above is to reroll a failed roll (skill, attack, or whatever). That means that every time you make an attack you always have the choice of spending a Hero point to improve your result:
- If you fail the attack roll, you can spend a Hero point to reroll it and hope for a success (or even a critical).
- If you succeed with your attack, you can spend a Hero point to turn it into a critical.
- If you get lucky and get a critical on your attack roll, you can spend a Hero point to turn it into a legendary critical.
I don't know, this setup just appeals to me.
The reason for this is that my experience with Warhammer Fantasy RPG is that characters who end up getting killed a lot (the groups fighter-types, mostly) spend more Fate points, which means they end up with less Fortune points, which means they have less rerolls for those critical parry/dodge rolls, which means they get killed again... and end up with even less Fortune points... and so on. So in the end you can often have some characters that are down to one reroll/day, and other characters that may have something like five rerolls/day. While this certainly has its charm in Warhammer, I think it would feel a bit odd for Conan. That's just a personal preference, though.
- If you fail the attack roll, you can spend a Hero point to reroll it and hope for a success (or even a critical).
- If you succeed with your attack, you can spend a Hero point to turn it into a critical.
- If you get lucky and get a critical on your attack roll, you can spend a Hero point to turn it into a legendary critical.
I don't know, this setup just appeals to me.
Absolutely. I would probably make them two separate, non-connected kinds of points, though; you have Hero points (or Fortune points, or whatever) that you spend regularly and that get refreshed every game session (or every in-game day, or every new adventure), and then you have one or two Fate points that you can permanently spend to avoid death.Hervé said:
The reason for this is that my experience with Warhammer Fantasy RPG is that characters who end up getting killed a lot (the groups fighter-types, mostly) spend more Fate points, which means they end up with less Fortune points, which means they have less rerolls for those critical parry/dodge rolls, which means they get killed again... and end up with even less Fortune points... and so on. So in the end you can often have some characters that are down to one reroll/day, and other characters that may have something like five rerolls/day. While this certainly has its charm in Warhammer, I think it would feel a bit odd for Conan. That's just a personal preference, though.
treeplanter
Mongoose
I don't see the attack/defese scale as a problem actually.
If attack and defense are scaling evenly then lower level character will always misses high level character. And High level character will misses more often against opponent with more hit point resulting in much longer combat.
So I think the Attack/Defense scaling is just fine
If attack and defense are scaling evenly then lower level character will always misses high level character. And High level character will misses more often against opponent with more hit point resulting in much longer combat.
So I think the Attack/Defense scaling is just fine
