Hal said:
1. AP is a damage bonus when weapons are used as normal (opposed to finesse). AP damage is not multiplied on a critical.
This means that you get some benefit from AP even if you don't reach the DR threshold. I just found that someone with 7 AP having no advantage over someone with 1 AP against a DR of 8 a little too arbitrary. Also, this should make things simpler in play in that you don't need to compare AP and DR on each hit.
I don't understand your example here.
If DR is 8, both AP1 and AP7 may penetrate given a high enough STR bonus. Remember that you add STR bonus to AP in order to bypass DR of armor, so in the latter case, an AP7 weapon need only be in the hands of a STR +2 character for that 8DR to be ignored. If someone is using a mere AP1 weapon, they shouldn't expect to chop through armor in the same way, it's just that simple.
Further, if DR is bypassed, then no DR is deducted from the damage roll. Finesse weapons manage this by rolling high, whereas AP weapons manage it through brute force and do it better in the hands of stronger people.
Now, if you mean that you feel the AP values seem arbitrary and don't reflect the weapons themselves, that's something different. My recollection is that they all seemed accurate, but I'll give it another look or three.
Hal said:
2. Massive Damage saves are triggered on Criticals not at 20 HP damage.
I like MD saves but find the 20 HP a little arbitrary. Daggers can almost never cause MD saves even on a critical where big weapons can without a critical. Also 20 HP is different for someone with 10 HP than someone with 100 HP. By linking MD saves to criticals, it makes more sense to me.
Again, I find this simpler as it consolidates the idea of a critical and MD into 1 thing. It does make lighter weapons more deadly but makes larger weapons less deadly.
No, no, no. A dagger is a Finesse weapon and if the charcter rolls high enough, the stike will ignore Armor DR. This can be brutal. In the right hands (someone with a high DEX bonus) Daggers can be just as nasty as a battle axe.
The example of "20 HP is different for someone with 10 HP than someone with 100 HP", while true, is exactly the point of the MD rule. It means that if someone has 200hp and a DR of 8, if a single blow deals 28+ points of damage (20 points over the DR and therefore at the MD threshold) the individual suffering the blow must make a FORT save or be dying, regardless of all those remaining HP. Even if you
don't crit you can kill targets in one blow by having a high total damage. Because this is marginally progressive with Class Level (as Argo pointed out via feat augmentation of damage max) it increases the changes of delivering a MD blow as a character advances. However, the beauty of it is that you don't have to be high level to bring someone down in one shot. That's what Massive Damage is all about. If you link it to Crits, even Classes that don't excell in dishing out damage get the same chance as those who do.
I think you need to re-read it and try it from the book before you augment the rules. It sounds like you're still missing the danger level here.