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Albonor
2010-05-02, 08:06 AM
Hello all!

I am slowly starting to work on a future campaign set in my ever changing own campaign world. But since the last game ended with the characters at level 17 and a dragonball-like power level, we all wanted to dial down on the crazy.

A few suggestions were made. Since I stated that the technological level was closer to 1880 than anything else, White wolf was looked at, with the hunter rules as well as mage.

We also considered GURPS but it is a bit to much attribute oriented.

But DnD 3.5 remained: I loved the idea to use the Pathfinder srd as a base with E6 (to maintain a power "cap") and the traditionnal srd as a back-up source. I could homebrew a few feat chains to allow some PrC-like customisability and it would work fine!

Now, I really wanted two things: to ban vancian casting and alignments as well as switching to the alternate armor rules spliting the AC bonus between AC and DR/-.

The problem is that it makes Power Attack EVEN MORE advantageous in comparison with TWF or sword-and-board. I thought about imposing an equal penalty to AC to PA but...

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance

Flickerdart
2010-05-02, 08:13 AM
You could significantly increase the DR and then rule that it applies only once per turn. So PA for 200 and TWF for 100 and 100 would still do the same amount of damage.

If you want to open a can of worms, rule that bonus damage dice are multiplied on a critical hit. People will flock to TWF like flies.

thirsting
2010-05-02, 08:22 AM
Ban Power Attack?

Seriously. Tell them they are already trying to hit with full strength with their normal attacks.

Or make the bab penalty and damage bonus work at 2:1 ratio.



People seem to complain a lot about power attack here, and offer changing other things as a solution, when you could go for the problem itself and hammer the troublemaker Power Attack..

Runestar
2010-05-02, 08:24 AM
Trust me on this one - AC as Dr simply does not work. :smallyuk:

Riffington
2010-05-02, 08:32 AM
Well, what is it about armor-as-dr that appeals? Maybe there's something else that can accomplish the same thing?

Albonor
2010-05-02, 08:34 AM
More hit-points to the monsters can do this effectively, as well as some fast healing. But I like the idea of an armored combattant always fearful of a more likely crit...

But if it does not work then I shall just have to give toughness a few times...?

Any other solution (banning PA is being considered)

Mongoose87
2010-05-02, 09:22 AM
Use Armor as DR in conjunction with the class AC bonus variant, except allow the class bonus to be used in armor.

Riffington
2010-05-02, 09:36 AM
More hit-points to the monsters can do this effectively, as well as some fast healing. But I like the idea of an armored combattant always fearful of a more likely crit...


So you want armored combatants to be "safer" than unarmored ones, but to still be vulnerable to lucky hits?
Wouldn't armor-as-AC accomplish this?

jiriku
2010-05-02, 09:53 AM
Use Armor as DR in conjunction with the class AC bonus variant, except allow the class bonus to be used in armor.

This is probably the best suggestion. You want to disassociate Armor from AC so that its utility is purely for soaking damage. You may also want to restrict armor proficiencies slightly to discourage divine casters from maxing out the armor.

TWF is disadvantaged by DR, no matter how it's handled. This is the reason, historically, that styles that involves strikes with small light weapons were used chiefly against unarmored opponents, while styles that involved large, deadly weapons were used against heavily armored opponents. One tactic you can take as the DM is to make heavy armor rare in your world; most opponents the PCs face won't be wearing it.

Note that you may need to adjust the scaling class AC bonus slightly to reflect that in E6, there are only six levels.

BTW, have you considered how your variant will handle natural armor?

Eldan
2010-05-02, 10:12 AM
How about just doing both? Armour still gives it's normal bonus, and additionally, light armour gives DR 1/-, medium gives 2/- and heavy gives 3/-?

Tackyhillbillu
2010-05-02, 10:30 AM
Armor as DR - screws over TWF and anyone who relies on lots and lots of hits. They already are kind of done for, but you don't have to make it worse.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2010-05-02, 10:42 AM
I've house ruled Power Attack so that the penalty cannot exceed the lower of your base attack bonus or your strength bonus. It doesn't really have any effect on monsters, so all it really does is keep PCs from using Shock Trooper or Wraithstrike to one-shot opponents.

Ravens_cry
2010-05-02, 10:44 AM
Use Armor as DR in conjunction with the class AC bonus variant, except allow the class bonus to be used in armor.
Where can I find this? It would be great for a Stone Age campaign, where the armour doesn't go above hide.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2010-05-02, 10:46 AM
Where can I find this? It would be great for a Stone Age campaign, where the armour doesn't go above hide.

Defense Bonus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm), also found in UA.

Ravens_cry
2010-05-02, 10:51 AM
Defense Bonus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm), also found in UA.
Thanks muchly.
*reads*
Well, it sounds reasonable enough, but does it work? Has anyone used it and found it a workable variant?
[edit]I' ll start my own thread on this.

Flavel
2010-05-02, 10:52 AM
Well there's always Runequest. That game system uses DR for armor.
No alignments, no classes, and a Runelord facing six combatants alone is going to be hurt.

Dienekes
2010-05-02, 10:57 AM
Defense Bonuses, much less HP for all characters, much less max damage for all characters.

If everyone has only 30 or so HP and everyone's doing about 5 or 6 damage in a turn it can work. But it essentially means people are stopping progression around level 4. Too balance out how it effects TWF they should have to cut down their feat requirements as well as given more tactical ability and a general increase in damage done by the light weapons.

Of course this means that weapon design will need to be changed to fit this, as well as basic combat design, feats, levels, all forms of magic, items, and so forth.

So you really wouldn't be playing DnD any more and could take a few years of fine tuning to make work correctly.

Well, hope you got a lot of time on your hands.

awa
2010-05-02, 11:10 AM
iron heroes a d20 varient had a armor as damage reduction system and a defense system that worked pretty well. (There armor granted variable dr).

If you took off the double damage for two handed weapons and removed shock trooper and leap attack then they would not be able to put out quite so ridiculous amounts of damage

Merk
2010-05-02, 11:50 AM
This is a form of DR I've used for my current campaign:

Instead of DR as "DR 5/-", damage reduction now has an additional condition called the increment. So in a stat block, it might look like this -- "DR 5:20/-"

What it means is that with every increment of damage, the damage that is reduced increases by a greater amount, so dealing ridiculous amounts of damage is self defeating.

With DR 5:20 (and no bypass) --

If the PC deals from 1 to 20 damage, 5 damage is reduced as normal. New range: 0 - 15.

If the PC deals from 21 to 40 damage, 15 damage is reduced (5 + 10). New range: 6 - 25.

If the PC deals from 41 to 60 damage, 30 damage is reduced (5 + 10 + 15). New range: 11 - 30.

If the PC deals from at least 61 damage, the PC instead automatically deals 30 damage.

Power attack loses a lot of its value here since "overkill" damage is simply ignored, whereas TWF becomes more viable since the damage is counted separately on each attack. If this was the effect you're going for, maybe you'll find a use for this.

Mongoose87
2010-05-02, 11:58 AM
Diminishing Marginal Returns on Damage? As an economist, I find it amusing, but it doesn't make sense for verisimilitude.

Redrat2k6
2010-05-02, 12:33 PM
Funny, I'm doing a campaign with Pathfinder SRD and my own E8 rules. I have armor they way it works normally but I have houseruled that Shields (except bucklers) give DR 3/melee and their AC is applies to touch attacks.

Pathfinder has nice Shield feats, so the DR and touch AC from shields gives just enough to make shields worth it.

Edit: Oh and by worth it I mean TWF + Imp. Shield Bash = Good damage and defense.

goken04
2010-05-02, 01:54 PM
Diminishing Marginal Returns on Damage? As an economist, I find it amusing, but it doesn't make sense for verisimilitude.

This +1. It's interesting, but doesn't make sense.

Lycar
2010-05-02, 03:14 PM
The problem with D&D is that it is so broken. Damage and DR need to scale on a meaningful basis, which they don't.

DR only really works if there is either

A) A hard cap on HP and damage, melee AND otherwise or

B) DR scales.

As far as DR for armour goes, how about something along:

DR = AC, but a hit still inflicts a minimum of 1 point of damage.

Power Attack is ALWAYS 1:1, so it doesn't matter if you do S&B, TWF or THF. Except that 2-handed weapons still have the edge in armour-piercing capabilities.

Everybody can power attack. Without the feat, the ratio is 2:1 though. And as far as flavour goes, people with finesse-able weapons are probably not thrusting harder but smarter. But the net effect is the same: Trade to-hit for damage. Sneak attackers obviously know how/where to find the chinks in the armours...

Yes, anything but two-handed weapons has difficulties going through plate (DR 8). As it should be! The trade-off has always been that tin can man is slowed down. So a less-heavily armoured opponent can simply run away. Or pick off tin can man with ranged weapons.

As to make stuff scale: Unless you go with something like E6, DR needs to go up every level. Or maybe every other level. How about adding BAB to DR. Maybe even in E6. Gives the fighting classes some much-needed boost. Alternatively (or maybe additionally), damaging spells are stuck with the damage they do on the level they become available. So fireball will always be 5d6 etc.

Of course this means that you should probably stick with a humanoid-centric campaign, there is just too much junk in all those monster manuals what will throw any attempt at balancing damage right out of the window.

Lycar

Godskook
2010-05-02, 03:33 PM
I've house ruled Power Attack so that the penalty cannot exceed the lower of your base attack bonus or your strength bonus. It doesn't really have any effect on monsters, so all it really does is keep PCs from using Shock Trooper or Wraithstrike to one-shot opponents.

Because +20 strength mod is so hard to get??? This'll keep the low-power players from getting full use, but at high-power, even non-cheesy, this isn't a big setback for anyone, and isn't even noticed by the guys who thematically *SHOULD* take power attack(Conan laugh at silly restriction. Barbarians walk around with +7 modifier at 1st level).

Noodles2375
2010-05-02, 04:06 PM
This is a form of DR I've used for my current campaign:

Instead of DR as "DR 5/-", damage reduction now has an additional condition called the increment. So in a stat block, it might look like this -- "DR 5:20/-"

What it means is that with every increment of damage, the damage that is reduced increases by a greater amount, so dealing ridiculous amounts of damage is self defeating.

With DR 5:20 (and no bypass) --

If the PC deals from 1 to 20 damage, 5 damage is reduced as normal. New range: 0 - 15.

If the PC deals from 21 to 40 damage, 15 damage is reduced (5 + 10). New range: 6 - 25.

If the PC deals from 41 to 60 damage, 30 damage is reduced (5 + 10 + 15). New range: 11 - 30.

If the PC deals from at least 61 damage, the PC instead automatically deals 30 damage.

Power attack loses a lot of its value here since "overkill" damage is simply ignored, whereas TWF becomes more viable since the damage is counted separately on each attack. If this was the effect you're going for, maybe you'll find a use for this.

That is an intriguing system. On first glance it looked amazing, when I thought about it though I think that it might lead to really strange PC strategies where people are trying really hard to max out the damage in a range without going over. Do you find that happens, or do you find that players mostly just ignore that fact that there are discrete jumps?

tyckspoon
2010-05-02, 04:11 PM
Because +20 strength mod is so hard to get???

Yes, actually- that's a raw score of 50. The easy options will get you to about 36-40 (18 base + be an Orc + 6 item + 5 Inherent + 5 levels is 38.) After that it becomes much more expensive to raise Strength further, either in terms of LA sacrificed to be a stronger race, level choices locked down to acquire Strength-boosting abilities, or gold spent to get more exotic bonus types.

Just_Ice
2010-05-02, 04:15 PM
Make two-weapon fighting ignore DR.

It doesn't really make any sense, but whatever.

erikun
2010-05-02, 04:18 PM
The problem is that it makes Power Attack EVEN MORE advantageous in comparison with TWF or sword-and-board. I thought about imposing an equal penalty to AC to PA but...
Perhaps the problem isn't so much Power Attack, especially when you're limited to level 6 in the E6 system. If it's still a large problem, ban Shock Trooper (or even Leap Attack) so that they have to give up to-hit for damage.

jindra34
2010-05-02, 04:19 PM
Make two-weapon fighting ignore DR.

It doesn't really make any sense, but whatever.

If going this kind of route it would seem more sensible to multiply DR the same as the weapon does strength.

AstralFire
2010-05-02, 04:21 PM
The issues are less with DR and PA and more with a lack of interesting and useful mechanics where TWF should logically shine. Removing immunity to critical hits at all goes a long way. I'd suggest something as well like building improved crit range or damage into TWF.

Foryn Gilnith
2010-05-02, 04:35 PM
This is a form of DR I've used for my current campaign:
...

Why not just use a percentage?

Mongoose87
2010-05-02, 04:37 PM
The issues are less with DR and PA and more with a lack of interesting and useful mechanics where TWF should logically shine. Removing immunity to critical hits at all goes a long way. I'd suggest something as well like building improved crit range or damage into TWF.

Perhaps something like an increased threat range, when hitting with both weapons in one round?

Eldan
2010-05-02, 04:42 PM
Well, there is Two-weapon rend, for bonus damage when you hit more than once...
I guess I could add something like Improved Two-weapon rend to my fighter feat thread, which increases crit chance.
However, that only helps when people take the feat, which they perhaps shouldn't...

Evard
2010-05-02, 06:19 PM
The problem with D&D is that it is so broken. Damage and DR need to scale on a meaningful basis, which they don't.

DR only really works if there is either

A) A hard cap on HP and damage, melee AND otherwise or

B) DR scales.

As far as DR for armour goes, how about something along:

DR = AC, but a hit still inflicts a minimum of 1 point of damage.

Power Attack is ALWAYS 1:1, so it doesn't matter if you do S&B, TWF or THF. Except that 2-handed weapons still have the edge in armour-piercing capabilities.

Everybody can power attack. Without the feat, the ratio is 2:1 though. And as far as flavour goes, people with finesse-able weapons are probably not thrusting harder but smarter. But the net effect is the same: Trade to-hit for damage. Sneak attackers obviously know how/where to find the chinks in the armours...

Yes, anything but two-handed weapons has difficulties going through plate (DR 8). As it should be! The trade-off has always been that tin can man is slowed down. So a less-heavily armoured opponent can simply run away. Or pick off tin can man with ranged weapons.

As to make stuff scale: Unless you go with something like E6, DR needs to go up every level. Or maybe every other level. How about adding BAB to DR. Maybe even in E6. Gives the fighting classes some much-needed boost. Alternatively (or maybe additionally), damaging spells are stuck with the damage they do on the level they become available. So fireball will always be 5d6 etc.

Of course this means that you should probably stick with a humanoid-centric campaign, there is just too much junk in all those monster manuals what will throw any attempt at balancing damage right out of the window.

Lycar

Make sure you subtract 10 from the AC to make your DR. In DnD they give you a free 10 in AC, I believe its the average of d20 (even though on a d20 i think 10 is not the average roll).

Divide by Zero
2010-05-02, 07:10 PM
Make sure you subtract 10 from the AC to make your DR. In DnD they give you a free 10 in AC, I believe its the average of d20 (even though on a d20 i think 10 is not the average roll).

The idea is that you'll beat a 10 50% of the time if you don't have any modifiers on the roll.

Edit: wait, never mind, that's wrong. I don't know what they were thinking.

Sophismata
2010-05-03, 04:27 AM
The idea is that you'll beat a 10 50% of the time if you don't have any modifiers on the roll.

Edit: wait, never mind, that's wrong. I don't know what they were thinking.

No, that's essentially it.

Eldan
2010-05-03, 05:15 AM
No, actually, rolling a 10 or more is a 55% chance. 11+ would be 50%, but I guess they went with 10 because it's easier to calculate.

Merk
2010-05-03, 07:11 AM
Diminishing Marginal Returns on Damage? As an economist, I find it amusing, but it doesn't make sense for verisimilitude.
This +1. It's interesting, but doesn't make sense.

I can see why it might break verisimilitude. Here's my defense of it: this version of DR is not just a static, passive ability you have; it's an energy that you are able to direct automatically when you are hit by things. Now, as the creature being hit, you are going to put more effort into blocking damage from the charging greataxe orc barbarian than the sword and board fighter. You can only direct so much protection at a time, so you'll almost entirely block the heavy attack while leaving yourself more vulnerable to the light attack.


That is an intriguing system. On first glance it looked amazing, when I thought about it though I think that it might lead to really strange PC strategies where people are trying really hard to max out the damage in a range without going over. Do you find that happens, or do you find that players mostly just ignore that fact that there are discrete jumps?

So far I've only implemented it for 1 session, and I don't think anybody tried to take advantage of it. Most of the members of the party hit in the low-middle damage ranges while one hits typically near the damage cap (amusingly, a monk). Also plenty of them have the ability to do types of damage that bypass DR (energy, etc.)

If that's a concern, one solution may be to set a damage minimum in each range above the first range; so in the previous example, a player that deals 21 to 40 damage has 15 damage reduced. Make it so that the minimum damage in this range is 16 (one point higher than the end of the previous range). This way it remains a strictly better thing to do more damage, and they won't worry about jumping ranges and lowering damage.


Why not just use a percentage?

I don't want to deal with non-integers at the table or need to calculate something like 70% of 37 off the top of my head.

Eldan
2010-05-03, 07:14 AM
You could do it only in a few steps:
You can have DR 10%, 25% or 50%.

I'm still not really a fan of that idea. It's similar to what AD&D had, no idea how well it worked there.

RagnaroksChosen
2010-05-03, 08:52 AM
Ok as far as e6 goes with armour as DR.

I'm a huge fan of d6 so more power to you.

The armour as dr thing though. Currently got an e6 campain about to end that was using the dr rules. (not pathfinder though) We have tweeked the DR system a few times. The rules in UA are to low in my opinion. We tried a bunch of different things.

What i found to work well is increasing the DR's listed by 1 or two depending. Just because the loss of AC is not equal to the DR being given.

Also if any monsters have nat armour. Calculate ahead of time. its annoying to do on the fly.

true_shinken
2010-05-03, 09:00 AM
Use the defense bonus rules as well. That should do it.