Accuracy as Lethality (3.5, Alternate Rule)

[Realms of Chaos]

Every once in a while, I get an idea for an alternate rule that seems relatively simple and this one is both simple but pretty far-reaching so I wanted to see what you people think of it.

The Rule: Basically, the idea of this alternate rule is that whenever you hit a target, its AC is subtracted from your attack roll and you add the remainder to your damage roll (minimum +0) instead of your Str modifier for melee or... nothing for ranged. This damage is multiplied with a successful critical hit. Presumably, how much extra damage is dealt is kept from players to prevent revealing the precise AC of their opponent.

Other Alterations Required:

To avoid mysteriously lethal fleas and ineffective giants, remove all size bonuses/penalties from the attack result before calculating the damage bonus.
Power Attack (and similar feats that exchange attack for damage on a 1:1 ratio) now add a bonus to damage equal to 1.5 x the penalty (minimum of +2 for a -1 penalty). Two-handed weaponry still gets x2 for power attack and effects that would alter power attack's exchange rates increase applicable ratios one step at a time.
When fighting with a two-handed melee weapon or using a one-handed melee weapon two-handed, you gain a bonus to your damage roll equal to half of your strength modifier.
True Strike is banned or its spell level is increased to 3rd (DM's discretion).


Implications of this Fix:

Ambushes and flanking are now far more effective for more than just rogues.
Small bonuses such as possessing the high ground are also more relevant.
Ranged weaponry no longer completely sucks.
Weapons with small damage dice like shuriken can be utilized with some degree of effectiveness.
Builds that emphasize damage from finesse and grace rather than from raw brute strength can actually make some degree of sense.
Wearing armor and using shields (or even seeking cover) actually help to protect one from damage as well as keeping hits from reaching them.
Touch attacks like the warlock's eldritch blast actually get some decent damage going against most foes.
Skill with weapon actually plays some part in how lethal one is with it outside of taking specialized feats while improvised weapons or those you lack proficiency with are less lethal in your hands.


Is there anything huge that I've missed here?

[desero clades]

So this would also apply to spells, like scorching ray?

[Realms of Chaos]

I am honestly on the fence about whether to only apply it to weapon attacks or not, even though I've listed eldritch blast above. Thoughts? :smallconfused:

[Raimun]

Why would you ban Truestrike? It's supposed to strike true.

Besides, a caster who uses one turn doing functionally nothing (or one use of Quicken) to do 20 more damage with a melee attack, could be doing something more worthwhile with those resources.

[Realms of Chaos]

Why ban true strike? Because it pretty much lets the wizard one-shot anything it faces at the first few levels (from range if using a crossbow) with pretty much guaranteed success.

For some groups, this might not be a concern and you are free to unban true strike in those groups. I wouldn't make open access to true strike the default, is all.

[desero clades]

Well the help it'd give warlocks is nice, but I think a wiz/soc would be fine without it. I mean most touch attack spells are like fire and electricity... while I think a head shot would definitely be more damage with said attacks, in fantasy they usually just shock or burn their foes with such attacks... I'd say only weapons honestly.

My other concern is that it gimps out strength a little. Dexterity fighters can deal more damage but they also get their dexterity to accuracy, reflex saves, several skills and AC. Strength is now only good for accuracy and some skills.

[Raimun]

Why ban true strike? Because it pretty much lets the wizard one-shot anything it faces at the first few levels (from range if using a crossbow) with pretty much guaranteed success.

For some groups, this might not be a concern and you are free to unban true strike in those groups. I wouldn't make open access to true strike the default, is all.

Oh... that's right.

I most often think things through in the grand scheme of things. No wonder I didn't see this. Perhaps rise the level of the spell to a minimum of 3?

[Amechra]

Why not just have True Strike give you a bonus to attack rolls equal to the higher of your caster level and your casting stat modifier? That would combine well with the houserule where your caster level equals your character level, regardless of what else you do.

[Realms of Chaos]

I'd make that change except that lowering the bonus in such a way would no longer rationalize having the spell as is so either the casting time or duration would also have to change and at that point I might as well just make a new spell to take the place of true strike. Instead, I am leaning towards the bumping up of the spell level, which has been made an option in the OP.

[OutsiderOpinion]

I agree with desero clades. It's a good idea, but as it is now it throws off the balancing of the game. Attack bonus becomes far more important that damage bonus because Attack bonus [I]includes[I] damage bonus. Also, at higher levels, won't the overall amount of damage dealt (especially by fighters and anyone else with max Bab) get a LOT higher? A 15th level fighter gets +15 to attack rolls just from his levels, he's also gonna have ability mods, feats, and a magic sword, so I'd be surprised if his total was less than +20. Then with a full attack he's also gonna have two more strikes. Since he's still getting some damage bonuses from other stuff as well (like weapon specializations) seems like he'd be doing way more damage.

[Yitzi]

I've been thinking of something similar for my rewrite. Some things I added:

1. The extra damage is precision damage. Rather than giving bonus dice, successful sneak attacks (and similar effects) double this damage.
2. This allows critical hits to be reworked; rather than a flat number, critical hits are achieved by getting a certain amount of precision damage.
3. I don't like the idea of removing size bonuses/penalties; instead, my idea was to include both armor/natural armor-as-DR and have a natural armor bonus based on the size difference between attacker and defender (this also gets rid of the cat vs. commoner issue), and if you'd do no damage without precision damage, you don't do any precision damage either. This also gives Power Attack a use again and gives damage bonus a use that attack bonus does not; it's good for hitting high-armor targets.

(And of course the rewrite does not include True Strike as is.)

So it's definitely a good idea, but it definitely would necessitate a lot of balancing of other things.

[Realms of Chaos]

To address a few things:

1: Extra damage for spells: I can personally see an argument for letting this ability both in fluff (clutching an opponent's skull when using shocking grasp, for example) and crunch (most damaging rays don't really do that much damage) terms, though I'll wait and see what others say and I'll specify it only for weapons if that seems to be the consensus.

2: Str worthless: While it does change the balance of ability scores, I'm not sure how this change rips off Str classes as this change does nothing to actively weaken them. Ranged weapons still possess their own problems while melee Dex combatants still face a feat tax and are robbed of the stronger weapons (they can't use the two handed weaponry that gets an extra bonus from ability scores/power attack). While Dex may become more versatile than Str by comparison (and allow for Dex-based combatants that actually function), Str still seems to get the best damage output and none of its pre-existing builds are actually harmed.

3: Destroying balance altogether: This is a hard one for me to agree with OR disagree with completely, simply because this system is more fluid. If you barely hit a target with this system, you might actually deal less damage than normal, for example. If you're blinded, that's effectively a -4 damage penalty on top of everything else. If an orc wears scale mail or hides behind a boulder, it is effectively granting itself DR. If the lich wears the ring of protection in its horde, all damage against it is functionally reduced.

With that said, I most definitely agree that the gross effect of this change leans towards more damage. Arrows and shuriken and nonmagical weaponry in general is allowed to deal a lot more harm than normal and optimization is definitely possible.

At the end of the day, however, I still hesitate to say that this fix "breaks" the game. While it nudges a few numbers towards higher lethality and may adjust the expectation of 3.33 encounters per day (either up or down depending on whether monsters or players are more optimized), I'm not seeing how this trend would break much of anything.

Edit:

I've been thinking of something similar for my rewrite. Some things I added:

1. The extra damage is precision damage. Rather than giving bonus dice, successful sneak attacks (and similar effects) double this damage.
2. This allows critical hits to be reworked; rather than a flat number, critical hits are achieved by getting a certain amount of precision damage.
3. I don't like the idea of removing size bonuses/penalties; instead, my idea was to include both armor/natural armor-as-DR and have a natural armor bonus based on the size difference between attacker and defender (this also gets rid of the cat vs. commoner issue), and if you'd do no damage without precision damage, you don't do any precision damage either. This also gives Power Attack a use again and gives damage bonus a use that attack bonus does not; it's good for hitting high-armor targets.

(And of course the rewrite does not include True Strike as is.)

So it's definitely a good idea, but it definitely would necessitate a lot of balancing of other things.

I'm... not quite sure what you're saying here. All of that stuff certainly works (and I can certainly see why you've labeled the extra damage as precision) but I'm not sure how all of that naturally or necessarily follows from the change. :smallconfused:

I personally find the removal of a bonus or penalty specific to an individual creature easier than A) implementing armor-as-AC, B) giving a relative natural armor bonus that depends on the relationship between the size of two creatures, and C) taking away an entire source of damage if A operates on B to remove the rest of the damage.

Yours might fit better into a more total re-imagining of the system but I was trying to make a minimally invasive alteration more easily added to a system.

[Realms of Chaos]

Doublepost. Ignore

[Friv]

My big thought is that at low levels especially, damage is going to go up dramatically on average. If you have a 50% chance of hitting someone, you have a really good chance of doing an extra 5-10 damage instead of the more usual 2-4. It's only higher up that things will start to even out.

Criticals are going to be particularly lethal. Let's say I have a +5 to hit [BAB +2, Str +3], and I attack a guy with AC 16 with my longsword. I roll a 19 (total of 24), and confirm the crit.

I am now going to deal 2d8+16 damage.

Let's go all-absurd, though. Greataxe to the face. Nat 20 (total of 25), confirm the crit. My damage is now 3d12+27 at level 2, one time in twenty. Balancing that is going to be a monster and a half.

It also means that creating accurate, low-damage monsters is very difficult, if not outright impossible, since they're under the same stricture. If they can hit you half the time, they've got a 5% chance of doing +20 damage to you and most low- to mid-level adventurers are frankly not ready for that.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm going to chime in with the agreement that this is really dangerous at low levels. My suggestion? Limit the bonus damage from accuracy to your base attack bonus, or some variant thereof. That way this doesn't start really kicking in until later, and the influence of luck verses skill is reduced.

Also, for size modifiers, it's probably easier to just ignore size bonuses to attack completely. Either that or add the inverse to damage, to cancel out the attack bonus.

[Realms of Chaos]

Ah, there's the problem, then. I thought there must've been something I was missing (and this explains why critical hits would be treated differently). Nevermind, then. Just what I get for making a new mechanic in 10 minutes.

[Yitzi]

I'm... not quite sure what you're saying here. All of that stuff certainly works (and I can certainly see why you've labeled the extra damage as precision) but I'm not sure how all of that naturally or necessarily follows from the change. :smallconfused:

It doesn't necessarily follow, but they are things you might want to consider.


Yours might fit better into a more total re-imagining of the system but I was trying to make a minimally invasive alteration more easily added to a system.

Yeah...with any fix that isn't a complete rewrite, there's a need to balance "minimally invasive/easily added" and "works well together".


My big thought is that at low levels especially, damage is going to go up dramatically on average. If you have a 50% chance of hitting someone, you have a really good chance of doing an extra 5-10 damage instead of the more usual 2-4. It's only higher up that things will start to even out.

This is a concern (though with a 3d6 system it's mitigated substantially.)


Criticals are going to be particularly lethal. Let's say I have a +5 to hit [BAB +2, Str +3], and I attack a guy with AC 16 with my longsword. I roll a 19 (total of 24), and confirm the crit.

Perhaps the bonus damage can simply not be multiplied on a crit? Or the rule can replace crits entirely?