New approach to Weapon Damage

[Demetrio]

Thinking about the 'doubles' thing...

Trodax is right, Str, PA and such additions should not double, they should just be added once the damage dice have 'settled'.

I was thinking that Sneak Attack and its cousin Master Fencer (and other damage dice adding feats) should possibly work thus:

Say you wield a 2d6 weapon and have sneak attack of +3d6.

Roll all 5 dice and count only the two highest or doubles/trebles/quadruples/quintiples. In the latter case count only the sum of two of the dice toward the running total but re-roll all the matching dice and proceed until none of the dice match.

Thus if I roll 1, 3, 3, 3, 6. I take the matching dice (3s) and count 3+3 toward the running total of damage. I then reroll the matching dice and score say 3, 5, 6. No dice match so I pick the two highest - 5+6 and add 11 to my previous 6.

I've scored 17+str+any other bonuses in damage.

Improved Crit can add an extra dice perhaps, being treated in the same manner.

That may be what Clovenhoof was advocating before, in which case I will sacrifice myself to the demon of his choice.

 

[treeplanter]

I was rereading the grappling rule earlier (it happen sometime in our game and we always lose time rereading the rule) and it make me think of this:

I was thinking a way to kind of balance 2-hand weapon without changing all the math might be as simple as: You don t get attack of opportunity against grappling or bull rushing or tripping or disarming or whatever manoever because of the slow reaction time of those weapon. Simple straithfoward and logical.

 

[Trodax]

I was thinking that Sneak Attack and its cousin Master Fencer (and other damage dice adding feats) should possibly work thus:

Say you wield a 2d6 weapon and have sneak attack of +3d6.

Roll all 5 dice and count only the two highest or doubles/trebles/quadruples/quintiples. In the latter case count only the sum of two of the dice toward the running total but re-roll all the matching dice and proceed until none of the dice match.

Thus if I roll 1, 3, 3, 3, 6. I take the matching dice (3s) and count 3+3 toward the running total of damage. I then reroll the matching dice and score say 3, 5, 6. No dice match so I pick the two highest - 5+6 and add 11 to my previous 6.

I personally think this is way too complicated. The probabilities of this system are extremely hard to get a "feeling" for, which I think is a bad thing for the players because it makes it very difficult for them to make informed choices about their characters.

For example, say that I already have 5d6 sneak attack. Would my character benefit a lot from an extra sneak attack die (I might, for example, be stuck with the choice between another level of thief or multiclassing into soldier)? 6d6 instead of 5d6 might improve my chances of doubling significantly, but then again it might not make that big of a difference and I might be much better off by taking Weapon Specialization or something else that just adds raw damage. It's actually quite hard to guess what's best without doing some heavy calculations (which I wouldn't want to force on my players :wink: ).

Also, what happens if I pick up a weapon that deals 2d8 and combine it with my 3d6 sneak attack? Am I better off or worse? Sure, I now have the chance of scoring 7's and 8's on my 2d8, which should improve my damage, but those 7's and 8's have zero chance of doubling up with the sneak attack dice... so maybe my average damage has actually gone down. It's just very hard to guess if adding stuff or changing stuff around in this system make the probabilities go up or down.

 

[Clovenhoof]

@Demetrio: don't worry, it's not the same as what I suggested, so your puny life gets spared once more

I would roll Sneak Attack separately and not have it explode on doubles.
Also, if you feel that SA is too powerful the way it is, simply reduce the dice by one step. So regular SA becomes d4 and SA style becomes d6; or maybe completely do away with Sneak Attack Styles altogether.

Again for comparison, the system I'd toy with goes as such:

All weapons have 2dX damage (by size). On a Critical Hit, you get an extra damage die. On every damage roll, you explode doubles (or triples).
I think that's pretty simple and straightforward. Fits in one line.
Implications: lighter weapons explode damage more often. Extending your threat range becomes much more useful, as Crits will cause exploding damage a lot more often. Again, smaller weapons benefit more than large ones.

Alternative:
All weapons have 2dX damage (by size). On a Critical hit, add 1d10 to damage. On every damage roll, you explode doubles on the 2dX.
Implications: For smaller weapons, a Crit is a bigger difference than for large ones. However, since a Crit doesn't help the damage roll to explode, it is altogether less powerful. Thus extending your threat range is not as useful as with the above method.

Sneak attack and other extra damage sources would get rolled separately and not explode in either case. No changes.

And alright, don't multiply Str/PA or other bonuses on exploding dice. However, I think they should still multiply on a Critical Hit.

 

[Demetrio]

Also, if you feel that SA is too powerful the way it is, simply reduce the dice by one step. So regular SA becomes d4 and SA style becomes d6; or maybe completely do away with Sneak Attack Styles altogether.

That doesn't quite do it for me as I think Sneak Attack is way too powerful as things stand, not just a bit overpowered.

The reason I was tending to the 'multi dice and pick out the highest/doubles' approach was partly because it would make sneak attackers tend to use the smaller (2d4) dice dealing weapons, which is more in keeping I think. We play sneak attacks must be finesse attacks anyway and in this instance I'd just match the sneak dice to the weapon dice. Thus if attacking with a poniard the dice would be d4s, if with an arming sword d6s.

The main reason though was because it would dramatically curb SA damage while still allowing plenty of MD potential for SAs.

I know the maths makes precise calculation of the benefits a nightmare, but to be honest given that there will always be a benefit because you'll lose nothing by rolling more dice I'm not too fussed. I suppose there would be the odd instance where the damage dice came up 5 and 6 (for 11) and the sneak dice came up (say) 1 and 1. So you'd take the double for 4 and roll those two dice again and get say 3 and 2. Making 7 overall and worse than you're original 11. But the 7 would require a MD save and the 11 wouldn't. And one could always allow the player the choice of initially taking just the two highest dice, or risk chancing a low double.

All weapons have 2dX damage (by size). On a Critical Hit, you get an extra damage die. On every damage roll, you explode doubles (or triples).

That is quite nice. Would you still have a MD threshold? Or just say only crits do MD?

Hero points

I'm in two minds about these. I like the basic concept, though quite a lot depends on how they are earned. They do allow some nice player manipulation of the story and control how often and to what degree that can happen. And those are good things. But they are a trifle 'deus ex machina'. A characters attributes, feats and skills are things he has learned or are innate abilities or combinations of both. Hero points are rather nebulous. Like feats they exist mainly to provide a 'cool' game effect. Unlike feats they are not really part of the character, if you see what I mean. I'm not against them especially, I just don't see them as an entirely unmixed blessing.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Concerning Sneak Attack, I haven't decided if I find it too powerful. Why of course, +6d6 SA will force MD most of the time, but as a Thief you'd also have really crappy defense and be very squishy. To avoid that, you need to multiclass with something that gives you better defense. Which in turn reduces your SA progression.

BTW I also think that only Finesse attacks should be able to Sneak.

hat is quite nice. Would you still have a MD threshold? Or just say only crits do MD?

I think I'd stick to a MD threshold, no matter how it is achieved. It's the simplest way.

I don't think the possibility of very low damage rolls forcing MD saves would improve the game. Everyone would roll for MDS much more often, but every so often against very low DCs (if the DC is damage based. If the DC is fixed, your new SA is way more broken than the old one), but the Auto-fail rule would also strike more often. Remember, increasing the number of die rolls in game works against the players in the long run.

Taking that approach the extreme, you could do away with HP altogether and require a damage-based Fort save on each hit, taking wounds if you fail.

 

[Demetrio]

I think I'd stick to a MD threshold, no matter how it is achieved. It's the simplest way.

But the 2hw will always be the way to go. Because it's the smart way to maximise the chances of inflicting MD. Unless MD is triggered by a combination of critical hit and damage threshold. Say a critical hit that exceeds the target's Con.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Well, as proposed earlier, you can throw some love at L and 1H weps by allowing them a greater threat rate than 2Hs, so they'll score crits more often.

Of course more damage is always better, and it would be pretty weird if the biggest weapons didn't do the most damage (if possibly only by a relatively narrow margin). With a MD>Con a 2H would _still_ have the best chance to trigger. So there.

In this model, a Light Weapon still will do piddly damage (around 5+Str) about 75% of the time, but a character could be optimized to dual-wield Short Swords and have a >12% chance per attack [Improved Crit and rolling a Double] to do ~15+2xStr, and with 6-8 possible attacks per round that's around 54-66% per round.

A 2H weapon could be balanced to do an average 10+1,5xStr on a normal hit, but only Crit 5% of the time, so Crits would essentially be just noise in the system. You get a 12,5% chance per hit to roll a Double and do >16+Str damage, but you won't get more than 3 or 4 attacks per round, so your total chances would actually be lower than with Dual Shortswords.
Of course it's all Crash & Burn when the almighty Power Attack and Cleave come into play again; for a few points of PA the 2Her won't have to hope for Doubles to exceed the MDT.

It's all not so easy. :?

 

[Ichabod]

My latest thought on PA might involve my observation that the whole feat tree could just be eliminated and so could 2h weapons (see new thread), but I could see it being a maneuver open to everyone with STR 13+ that has no 2h benefit and can't be used by a human wielding more than one weapon.

Yes, this is as absurdly complicated as pretty much every other attempt I see at fixing combat.

Another philosophy is to simply make everyone broken, which was kind of what I was getting at by giving everybody +N damage where N is their level. There's a high percentage chance that every attack leads to a dead foe, a dying PC, or to Diehard kicking in. It's not 100% chance, not even really 80% or 90% when you factor in that you have to hit, you still may not achieve MDS threshold, and people do make their MDSs some of the time, so combat still has some play. Initiative becomes god, but I can only hope it's no less dumb than how combat currently works.

 

[Demetrio]

I don't think your 'turn PA into a manoeuver etc' wheeze is that complicated. In fact it seems another pretty good idea.

Actually limiting 2hw to one attack per round regardless of player level/feats might be a good way of representing their slow swing (which is really a slow recovery from swinging) and curbing their wilder excesses.

 

[Clovenhoof]

I'd advise against deliberately making "everyone broken". Systems where every round of combat bears a high risk of death for the PCs, players will either avoid combat or keep themselves from getting attached to their characters. The former, I'm sure you agree, is un-Conanish. The latter is represented by systems such as WHFRPG and, personally, I also deem that unfitting for a Sword & Sorcery game. Conan or Fafhrd or Elric all didn't become famous because they died on their second adventure.

Rather keep trying to fix it, or switch to a totally different system, or as you say just try to live with it and bona fide abstain from exploiting the holes in the system, but having a system that takes care of killing off at least one character per session is just not gonna cut it.

As for turning PA into a maneuver... well, it's not unprecedented, but I don't quite see the point. Anyone whose character would draw benefit from PA will gladly spend a feat. Anyone who can't use PA anyway doesn't benefit from getting it for free.
So below the line, all you do is give the Muscle fighters an extra free feat.

I take it you also would remove Cleave and Great Cleave from the game? That's a pretty holy cow you're trying to slaughter there.

 

[Ichabod]

I don't see taking someone out being equivalent to killing them. I like things going down quick but not interested in things dying. My view is that a good combat is like 2-3 rounds for most characters, with characters being incapacitated or whatever.

 

[Demetrio]

Suppose BAB is added as damage on a critical hit?

Couple that with:

limiting 2hw to one attack per round (but still allow them AoO as normal) regardless of BAB/feats (including Cleave/Great Cleave/SuperduperCleave etc).

Power Attack simply adding 1 point to damage for every point deducted from the to hit chance for all applicable weapons and having a maximum possible addition equal to Str bonus.

Using exploding double dice for damage and weapons basically doing 2d4, 2d6 or 2d8 as base according to whether they are light, normal or 2h.

Allow all weapons a basic 19-20 crit range.


Thus a character with BAB +9 using a greatsword can attack only once. If he crits he does 2d8+1.5str+9 damage. His normal attack does 2d8+1.5str

The same chap with a broadsword can attack twice at +9 and +4. If the first attack crits he does 2d6+str+9, if the second attack crits he does 3d6+str+4. Normal attacks do 2d6+str

 

[Magister_Ordo_Lyrae]

One thing we did in our game to reduce the amount of power with big 2-handed weapons was to decrease their die type by one. Weapons that dealt 2d10 now deal 2d8 and weapons that dealt 2d8 now deal 2d6. Its not a huge difference but it does make some of the bigger weapons a little less crazy.

Another thing I was thinking about was limiting MD with weapons to Critical hits and sneak attacks that deal 20 or more damage. Regular blows no longer deal MD. I like this for a number of reasons: first it feels right; critical hits and sneak attacks are supposed to represent attacks that hit particularly vital areas (heart, head, neck, etc.) that would cause MD death. Secondly it prevents people from creating characters that cause MD on every blow. What do you guys think?

 

[Clovenhoof]

That would simply shift the focus to another combat style. If you say only Crits can do MD, everyone (who cares about optimizing) would suddenly wield Scimitars and Tulwars and go for Improved and Greater Crit. If you say only SA forces MD, everyone would take a few Thief levels and the Zingaran race would get (even) more popular. And Improved Feint would be the new Power Attack.
If you allow both Crits and SA to trigger MD, but not regular attacks, that would favour Zingarans, Pirates, Thieves and maybe Soldiers, while severely shafting Barbarians because they are the only class that gets no Sneak Attack and can improve their Crit rate only _very_ late in the game.

So in short, I advise against that.
Reducing 2H damage codes is fine, we also do that, and in conjunction with removing the 2H bonus for Power Attack, that already helps nerfing 2HF somewhat. According to the motto: every little bit helps.

 

[treeplanter]

What is the problem exactly with just removing MD then?

For the info this week-end I allowed consecutive attack doing more than 20 to damage armor wich worked pretty well.

If MD is such a problem then just play without it. power attack and sneak atttack will still be good ability but will have lot less impact

 

[Clovenhoof]

Well, some people do prefer to play without MD. This makes combat more predicable, but also more tedious.
Personally I like how you can cut combat short by taking out an enemy who'd normally have 50HP left. It's also more believable that way, and is a good way to end fights before they get boring.
And I like that certain danger that any mook can potentially drop even a high level fighter with a lucky hit.

 

[kintire]

Well, some people do prefer to play without MD. This makes combat more predicable, but also more tedious.

I play without MD and without doubling the benefit of power attack for two handed weapons. It works fine.

I haven't found combats tedious. Most of them are over in three rounds.

By the way, if you are interested in shortening combats, introduce a hint of realism: most opponents will not fight to the death if it is obvious they are losing. The vast majority of combats are decided by round three (of actual heavy fighting... there may be skirmishing and maneuvering first). They may not be over, but the outcome has become obvious. At that point, the losing side should usually flee or surrender.

 

[treeplanter]

Me aggre with Kintire.

I also end combat as soon as I feel it is getting boring. Like if PC have the upper hand so they are not threatened i'll just narrate that the opponent either surrender or bucthered to dead.

On the other end as soon as it become clear that PC are not winning the battle I'll just suggest them to flee or surrender. if they refuse then I'll decide the outcome (mostly they loose a fate point and will be in a bad situation)

 

[Hervé]

Clovenhoof wrote:

Reducing 2H damage codes is fine, we also do that, and in conjunction with removing the 2H bonus for Power Attack, that already helps nerfing 2HF somewhat. According to the motto: every little bit helps.

That's probably the best way so far to nerf 2hd weapons without making them useless.

I like MD as a concept but I agree it can be awkward with the cuurent state of the rules. I just hate that every 2hd weapon strike triggers MD while other fighter types have a hard time reaching it.

By the way, doesn't anybody has problem with DR? I mean, armor is pretty useless against a powerful greatsword strike, due to PA and the tremendeous amount of damage dealt (partially thanks to Power Attack), but on the other hand, a heavily armoured fighter is virtually unkillable by low strength attackers.

A good fighter with heavy armor could deal with an entire army of Str 13 soldiers without suffering a single wound. I know this is Sword and Sorcery, but isn't it a bit too much, even in a Conan game? Even if Conan himself could deal with a score of goons, he woudn't have stood against an entire army.