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View Full Version : Dnd 3.5 new attack roll design. Opinions?



TheFurith
2013-06-02, 02:07 AM
So here's the idea I had for a system that made a little bit more sense to me. It might seem more complicated, but it's really just a matter of rolling one more die to add a bit more realism. A character of low Dex but very high Str might have a hard time hitting a target, but do a lot more when it did. A character of low Str but high Dex would have a good chance of hitting, but might have trouble getting through thick armor.

There would be two rolls to determine whether or not damage is dealt. One of Dex vs touch AC which would include the shield's bonus to AC + 1/2 Str. Another of Str vs armor, then damage reduced by the AC of worn armor. So there would be two rolls against lesser values.


Example: An attack by a 5th level fighter with 14 Str and 14 Dex armed with a longsword against a 5th level barbarian also with 14 Str and 14 Dex wearing a chain shirt.

The first roll would be against the touch AC of 10 + 2Dex. Would be the fighter's 2Dex + 5BAB for +7. Rolls a 10 for 17 and will hit.

The second roll would be to see if the hit actually goes through the armor that it impacted. The AC to beat would be 10+4 from the chain shirt so it had to beat 14. Roll of 16 + 2Str + 5BAB for a roll of 23 hits.

The damage roll of 5 + 2Str would be 7, but reduced by 4 because of the difficulty to penetrate the chain shirt for a total of 3 damage.


Shield Example: Attack by a 5th level barbarian with 14 Str and 14 Dex with a greataxe against a 5th level fighter wearing a chain shirt holding a buckler.

The first roll would be against the touch AC of 10 + 2Dex + 1 shield AC + 1Str. Would be the barbarian's 2Dex + 5BAB for +7. Rolls a 9 for 16 and will hit.

The second roll would be to see if the hit actually goes through the armor that it impacted. The AC to beat would be 10 + 4 from the chain shirt so it had to beat 14. Roll of 18 + 3Str + 5BAB for a roll of 26 hits.

The damage roll of 8 + 3Str would be 11, but reduced by 4 because of the difficulty to penetrate the chain shirt for a total of 7 damage.


Critical Example: Same fighter attacks same barbarian again. Rolls a 20 on the first attack roll. The attack will hit. The second roll looses all armor value. Second roll must beat a 10 using no modifiers to crit, otherwise does full damage regardless of roll not reduced by armor value. Like the attack had landed on an unarmored place.


Does anyone have any thoughts as to whether or not this might be viable? Or at the very least add a bit more flavor to combat?

Ashtagon
2013-06-02, 02:16 AM
Is melee overpowered in your games? Because this will certainly solve that particular problem.

Yitzi
2013-06-02, 06:19 AM
The basic goal is a good one, but:

1. As Ashtagon said, this weakens melee. (Not ranged, just melee.) Which isn't a problem per se, as it can be used together with something that helps martial characters...but make sure you're aware of the consequences.
2. It gets a bit complicated and roll-heavy; would it perhaps make more sense to use a single roll for both? (This would also reduce the amount that it nerfs melee to more manageable levels; it would still need to be compensated for, though.)
3. For that matter, it can made simpler while still having the same idea (and need to compensate by strengthening martial/nerfing magic in some other way) by just changing it to an armor-as-DR variant plus making DEX be used for all attack rolls.

gr8artist
2013-06-02, 07:46 AM
An option that I have considered is this: they roll against AC. If they pass, then they deal full damage.
If they fail, check their result against touch. If you beat touch AC, you deal minimum or half damage.
Look at the way white wolf does it... then run the other direction.

TheFurith
2013-06-03, 03:28 AM
This wasn't at all intended as a balance fix, more as a logic fix. AC being this one lump sum seems too arbitrary. Also in reality dexterity plays a huge roll in combat, yet somehow Dnd decided strength was the soul deciding stat.

I've actually run this for a while now and it seems functional, but far from perfect. Posted here to get some second opinions. Had an issue with a small size character with a short bow unable to hurt anything.... That needs fixing for sure.

It does to a degree weaken melee damage, however melee would be the ones wearing the armor. Also forgot to mention that the damage reduction part would apply to magic damage as well. That and ray and touch attacks would also be harder to land against shielded targets. Meaning casters would be at a setback as well.

Basically what this really does is buffs armor and makes which armor you're wearing actually mean something more than simply cumulative numbers. Makes characters low in dexterity and clumsy actually behave as if they are in combat.

That said I do know this needs more work. Hadn't really considered changing it to only one die because people I play with just roll them all at the same time(different color d20s), but it does seem like a good idea.

TuggyNE
2013-06-03, 03:56 AM
Condensing the attack rolls into one is pretty much essential for general use, since otherwise (table tedium aside) you have two 5% chances of missing each attack, which is almost 10% overall. On each attack. That's fairly straightforward, though.


This wasn't at all intended as a balance fix, more as a logic fix.

For what it's worth, it's generally best to avoid substantially worsening balance even if your goal isn't really to improve that. Just kind of good manners, you know?


Had an issue with a small size character with a short bow unable to hurt anything.... That needs fixing for sure.

I could be wrong, but it seems like this actually makes them even less capable of doing damage, since archery's (nearly) sole advantage is firing more shots with less chance of retaliation. More shots means more DR applying, and more DR means less damage, multiplicatively.


It does to a degree weaken melee damage, however melee would be the ones wearing the armor. Also forgot to mention that the damage reduction part would apply to magic damage as well.

Wait, what? How? DR never applies to spells normally, mostly because the quantities are weird and it doesn't make logical sense. (Also, it's really not difficult to get a full caster who wears armor; some base classes grant that at first level.)

Notably, the damage source affected least by this is blasting spells, even if you somehow apply DR to them, since all but quite high-op blasters make only one damage roll per target per round. A close second is THF, pounce-charging or otherwise, and then TWF and flurry, archery, and lastly natural weapons. PC's natural weapons, at least; monster natural weapons won't be too badly off. Coincidentally, that's roughly the order of effectiveness of those damage types, from high to low (assuming at least moderate op for blasting). Not really a great side effect.

Instead, I'd strongly suggest making armor grant varying amounts of temporary HP per round; this evens out the impact on damage that focuses on lots of attacks, and is more stable in general. It's also a slightly more plausible explanation (i.e., the armor dissipates a certain amount of energy per second, but has a finite capacity). If you like, use all of Seerow's suggestions for this.


That and ray and touch attacks would also be harder to land against shielded targets. Meaning casters would be at a setback as well.

Assuming the change mentioned is only because of the touch AC difference, that's fine, although touch attacks usually have some margin of reliability anyway.

DMMike
2013-06-03, 11:46 PM
So here's the idea I had for a system that made a little bit more sense to me. It might seem more complicated, but it's really just a matter of rolling one more die to add a bit more realism. A character of low Dex but very high Str might have a hard time hitting a target, but do a lot more when it did. A character of low Str but high Dex would have a good chance of hitting, but might have trouble getting through thick armor.

I believe this is accomplished by trading the STR bonus to attack with the DEX bonus.

My homebrew pits attack skills versus defense skills, and armor's job is just to reduce any damage that gets through. I guess the 3.5 version of this is Armor as Damage Reduction, and oh, add your Reflex bonus to AC.

Siosilvar
2013-06-03, 11:55 PM
a logic fix.

Dexterity not being a default stat for combat aside, how does making two rolls improve the logic of the mechanic? Armor makes dodging easier by making it so that you have to dodge less. It certainly doesn't randomly block attacks that you completely failed to dodge. Contrary to popular opinion, getting hit with a warhammer in the chest while wearing a suit of full plate gets you just as dead as not wearing the plate.

TuggyNE
2013-06-04, 12:05 AM
Dexterity not being a default stat for combat aside, how does making two rolls improve the logic of the mechanic? Armor makes dodging easier by making it so that you have to dodge less. It certainly doesn't randomly block attacks that you completely failed to dodge. Contrary to popular opinion, getting hit with a warhammer in the chest while wearing a suit of full plate gets you just as dead as not wearing the plate.

Well, sort of. Even a warhammer, designed to punch through armor as best it can, is not perfect at the job, and you're likely to have the force of the blow spread out by the armor and padding, so that instead of getting a nice 1" square hole right through your ribs and a couple of organs, you get a 1" square hole through your armor and a nasty gash on your ribs. (Give or take.)

And, of course, there are quite a few weapons that simply aren't capable of getting through given types of armor; full plate was generally proofed with crossbows or guns (or longbows, as the case may be) fired point-blank, to leave a nice little dent where they failed to get through.

A more thorough system might use some sort of DR or refreshing temporary HP to represent the amount of impact absorption a given suit of armor can provide, an armor roll to represent the difficulty of finding a weak spot in the armor, and a dodge roll to represent the chance of making the blow glance off or miss entirely. That would, however, be just a touch unwieldy.

Yitzi
2013-06-04, 06:48 AM
And, of course, there are quite a few weapons that simply aren't capable of getting through given types of armor; full plate was generally proofed with crossbows or guns (or longbows, as the case may be) fired point-blank, to leave a nice little dent where they failed to get through.

I think that was only certain extremely heavy types of armor, though, not your normal full-body armor.

Studoku
2013-06-04, 07:16 AM
Back to the original post- OP, what problems did you have with the Armor as DR variant rule? It seems like it would've been a much simpler fix.

Link: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm

Hanuman
2013-06-04, 07:23 AM
:smallsmile:

You're overlooking the fact that Weapon Finesse doesn't add to normal weapons.

Control over a weapon is based on strength unless it is of exceptional ease of use, that's why the feat exists.

Strength doesn't mean you swing it as hard as you can with as much butt clenching as possible, it means the relative weight is easy for you to move as if it weighed less and was easier to control.

That means that Strength is essentially the same thing as the concept of weapon dexterity without it representing the quickness of gross muscle memory in general for other things like mobility, flexibility and muscle deactivation control, thus it's good where it is.

In terms of hand-eye coordination or rather the concept of "mastery" (defined as the ability to manifest reality from what was imagination), is based on strength, dexterity, knowledge, wisdom and experience.
BAB is the system used to define this primarily, but DnD is a dungeon crawler RPG and isn't intended to realistically represent these things.

If you are able I highly suggest picking up these things in real life, if you need any advice on those matters feel free to ask questions.

If your intention is to add DR to armor then use or expand upon the armor as damage reduction houserule from unearthed arcana pg. 111


Feel free to hit me back on my paint-based initiator psitech hybrid:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15228375

TuggyNE
2013-06-04, 04:01 PM
I think that was only certain extremely heavy types of armor, though, not your normal full-body armor.

Actually, it was pretty much all types of full plate; it was a fairly standard method for proving armor quality (might have even extended to partial suits, not sure). Check over in Real-World Armor and Weapons.

Yitzi
2013-06-04, 11:55 PM
This (http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showthread.php?60780-Armor-piercing-capabilities-of-bows-and-crossbows) and this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=80153) seem to suggest that proofed armor was not normal armor.

TuggyNE
2013-06-05, 01:35 AM
This (http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showthread.php?60780-Armor-piercing-capabilities-of-bows-and-crossbows) and this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=80153) seem to suggest that proofed armor was not normal armor.

I'm not so sure about the crossbow-fanboi tendency of one of the posters in the first, but for whatever reason crossbows seem to have been much less efficient than would otherwise be expected. And the general consensus is that longbows had great trouble getting through (and that even crossbows weren't necessarily a sure thing). See also the FAQ (http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showthread.php?41041-Armour-FAQs&s=) linked by one of the moderators in that thread.

The second thread seems largely useless.

Here's a good recent post by Rhynn about armor-piercing in general, and Galloglaich (of Codex Martialis fame) has a summary of various prices of arms and armor, including the difference between proofed and non-proofed armor. There was another post somewhere suggesting that armor was often proofed, occasionally double-proofed, and also fairly often not proofed (for cheapness, presumably). Exactly what the ratios are I don't know, but proofed armor was at least reasonably common.