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Vadskye
2012-08-08, 09:57 AM
After running a game that stretched into levels 15-20, I've decided that I am really, really tired of doing math. I want to zoom in on one frustration that I have in particular: situational or short-term modifiers to attack and damage rolls from spells.

Why I want to focus on that area in particular:
Players already have to keep track of multiple attack bonuses at once because of the multiple attack system. If those bonuses are relatively static, a player can get used to mentally adding the same +14 and +9 every time, which means rolling can go fairly quickly. But every time those numbers change, the player has to mentally readjust how to add, and they slow down - particularly later on in the game, when numbers start getting startlingly high. Because attack and damage rolls are rolled every round, multiple times per round, anything that slows those rolls down has a fairly significant impact on the game speed. Modifiers to saving throws, skill checks, and other attributes are less of an issue, since they are rolled far less frequently and the numbers don't get as high (usually).

The solution is simple, if not particularly easy to accomplish: reduce the number of temporary modifiers to attack and damage. I don't think I'll mess much with the base combat mechanics of the game - most players have already gotten used to the idea of a +2 flanking bonus and a +4 bonus to attack prone targets, and that's situational enough that it's not an issue. But spells, and the conditions that spells can impose, are a much easier target.

Here's my intended fix. Spells which would give bonuses to attack instead give temporary hit points. Spells which would give penalties to attack instead penalize armor class by the same amount.
Examples:
Bless grants 5 temporary hit points +1 per caster level (max 10).
Aid grants 10 temporary hit points +1 per caster level (max 20).
Heroism grants 10 temporary hit points +1 per caster level (max 20).
Greater Heroism grants 20 temporary hit points +1 per caster level (max 40).
The "shaken" and "sickened" conditions gives -2 armor class instead of -2 attack bonus.
Crushing Despair gives -2 armor class instead of -2 attack bonus.

What do you think?

DracoDei
2012-08-08, 11:10 AM
Going to weaken the fighting classes even more than they already are. Helps nerf the CoDzilla's though. The temporary hitpoints aren't going to do much at higher levels in the amounts you describe I don't think(but I could be wrong).

Some sort of electronic assistance may help (dice-rolling macro that lets you edit each type of bonus in a separate field and has a button for "attack" plus one for "full-attack") , or just say that such spells can't be cast in combat? MapTool is free, and you can find pre-made code for macros that you can build into what you need for it.

I don't know that playing around with AC is any better than playing around with to-hit, since they are two sides of the same coin.

Vadskye
2012-08-08, 11:38 AM
Going to weaken the fighting classes even more than they already are. Helps nerf the CoDzilla's though.
This is one part of an extensive rewrite; my intention is that the rest of the package should take care the martial/caster problem. Does it really hurt fighters, though? I mean, nobody really casts Bless or Aid, ever. The bonus is too small. But with this, if you Bless 4 allies and they take enough damage to use the temporary hit points, the cleric is giving out 24+ hit points with a single spell. That's pretty powerful.


The temporary hitpoints aren't going to do much at higher levels in the amounts you describe I don't think(but I could be wrong).
The low-level spells will become nearly irrelevant, definitely. But then, they did before, too. I'm more interested in whether the higher-level spells are good at high levels. Assuming a 4-person party, Heroes' Feast gives out 88 hp in addition to its other bonuses when it is first acquired, and it takes no actions in combat to use. Heal heals 120 - but it has to be to a single person, and it has to be cast during combat. That seems like a fairly reasonable tradeoff to me, considering that Heroes' Feast can hit up to one creature/level. Greater Heroism is much less good, though, I agree. Maybe it should be 20 + double caster level.


Some sort of electronic assistance may help (dice-rolling macro that lets you edit each type of bonus in a separate field and has a button for "attack" plus one for "full-attack") , or just say that such spells can't be cast in combat? MapTool is free, and you can find pre-made code for macros that you can build into what you need for it.
The last thing I want is a bunch of people sitting around the table with everyone using a computer, with nary a dice roll to be seen or heard. There's a definite attraction to watching someone roll dice - it makes the whole table feel more involved.


I don't know that playing around with AC is any better than playing around with to-hit, since they are two sides of the same coin.
Yes, but AC is a static value. It doesn't have to be added or subtracted from anything. Attack bonus and damage have to be mentally added to a roll, and that's what slows things down.

Temotei
2012-08-08, 05:09 PM
Bless becomes better than vigor by a good amount because it's in an area-of-effect, at least until later levels.

Deepbluediver
2012-08-14, 11:15 AM
Since D&D is so inter-connected, it's hard to judge any one change in a vacuum; if you could summarize what you are going to do to help martial classes in place of the various spells boosts in two or three sentences I'd be interested to hear it. Right now, these altered spells just seem kind of bland.
(I've got my own set of fixes in the works, and I never hesitate to steal borrow good ideas)
It's not just killing power that is under consideration; I'd love to see a lot of +Attack +Damage +Str bonuses changed for things that are more interesting (magic gauntlets that let you shoot fire or a ring that lets you fly, for example) but various checks and rolls are still at the heart of gameplay.

Personally, I always hated keeping track temporary hit points and when they would run out. If you don't like mental math, maybe just keep a small calculator on hand; when I gamed regularly that's what one of the other players did, and he and I used to race to see who could get the answer faster. Then our DM made the mistake of joking that he would award 1 exp every time to whichever one of us got it quicker and holy heck you never heard such an uproar from the rest of the table. :smallmad:

Vadskye
2012-08-14, 11:41 AM
In two or three sentences? That's quite the task! Here goes:
Every character can full attack as a standard action.
Every non-casting class now has some flavorful way to resist the negative influence of magic (Mettle for barbarians, good Will saves and a modified version of True Grit from this fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194834) for Fighters, Paladins already had Cha to saves and immunities, etc.).
Casting got weaker, using forced Sorcerer-style spontaneous casting for everyone with a more limited "generic" list of spells and making many spells only accessible through domains or specialization schools, while also delaying access to game-changing effects like flight and teleportation. In exchange, casers get a re-skinned Eldritch Blast and a single at-will ability (there is one for each school) to make them more consistently playable across all levels, and to mitigate the 5-minute adventuring day.
Finally, there were general improvements/fixes made all around: Barbarians gain temporary hit points instead of Con from rage and get DR earlier, fighters can change their feats more often and have a few actual class features (inspired by this analysis (https://sites.google.com/site/endhavenproject/gaming/d-d-3-5-fighter-analysis)), rangers get the good animal companion instead of druids, and so on.

I agree that keeping track of when things run out is annoying - but I think that's a problem found with all short-term buffs in a system that isn't based on the abstract idea of "encounters". At least you don't have to mentally keep track of your temporary hit points every round like an attack bonus. And if you lose the temporary hit points, you can forget about them immediately, which saves your mental attention for other things.

Yitzi
2012-08-14, 02:00 PM
It's way too big a change to be justified simply by avoiding bookkeeping.

What I would do is get a bunch of poker chips or similar (or even papers with numbers on them), and each person has one pile indicating their current total attack bonus, one for their AC (which also gets tricky if it keeps fluctuating), and one for their hit points. For spells being cast or removed, you just add or remove the appropriate amount from the pile, and then you only have a single number to add to each roll.

Alternatively (especially if you have access to an easily changeable record-keeping system such as a computer) have a table of "natural roll needed to hit with primary attack" for each player and each enemy, and then just change that table whenever there's a change to attack or AC. Then you can just compare the roll to the number on the table, reducing the frequency of math from "each roll" to "each time an attack or AC bonus changes".