Psionica: Might and Mindcraft (rewritten armory, new combat system, longer fights)

[Dark.Revenant]

Psionica

Psionica is a homebrew collection of updates and houserules that I am successfully using in my current campaigns. Psionica combines and improves upon:
Pathfinder RPG
Psionics Unleashed
Psionics Expanded
Todo: Ultimate Psionics
Tome of Battle
Complete Scoundrel
Book of Erotic Fantasy
... and more!

http://www.sc2mafia.com/junk/1372307847439.jpg
Source: one of the Skull and Shackles Adventure Path book covers


What's this about?
This system has a number of changes and additions meant to improve the acting variety of Dungeons and Dragons. Just a few of the features include:

Psionics: There's no magic. Instead, there is Psionics, a far more balanced system with many applications and opportunities unavailable to the traditional magic system. Included are a number of flavorful inclusions, expanding the options for casters and introducing the variety that other systems like Mage: The Ascension and Ars Magica provide, without breaking the game's balance. Combine and reshape your powers for new effects, or go beyond your limits by shooting off one last power even when your psi is dry, at the cost of painful mental feedback.
Character Progression: You increase your ability scores as you go; some classes are faster than others.
Weapons and Armor: The entire expanded Pathfinder armory has been overhauled, balancing and fleshing-out hundreds of weapons and adding over a dozen more historic weapons. Some weapons also have better attack modifiers than others (Improved Unarmed Strike has a whopping +4, helping fix one of the Monk's greatest weaknesses). Weapons are now split into defined groups, including an exotic group that replaces the useless EWP feat tax. The armor system has been completely rewritten, including an all-new armor list involving modularity and customization. Armor and natural armor now provide (hefty) weapon-typed damage reduction, increasing the need for battle choices in weapon selection and team tactics.
Combat Actions: Full attacks boring you? Try out Combat Actions, the best thing to happen to beatsticks since pounce. Block, parry, guard-break, go for the eyes, mix in some groin kicks, and much more!
Feat Improvements: A cornucopia of feats are added dealing with numerous systems such as Combat Actions. Combat Maneuver feats no longer require a feat tax and the Improved and Greater versions are also combined, allowing for much greater build flexibility. In addition, several common useless tax feats (such as Dodge and Mobility) are combined, Desert Wind and Stone Dragon get some much-needed improvements (such as switching damage type and losing the movement restrictions), and more.
Vitality Dice: Combat lasts longer than 2 rounds because of the inclusion of VD, a new resource comparable to HP in value. Each VD can be used to instantly heal 10% of your HP or boost a failed saving throw (multiple VD can heal more HP or further boost a failed save). VD scales inversely with the expected survivability of characters in D&D; the balance is shifted such that fights last roughly the same length at all party levels. Also, Save-or-Die no longer dominates casters' lists, but remains an effective option due to the effective loss of HP incurred by burning foes' VD.
Skill System: Taking the best of the 3.5 and 3.P systems, class skills are now important throughout a character's career, but cross-class ranks don't cost an arm and a leg. As an added bonus, Skill Tricks are re-introduced!
Much More: There are numerous patches and changes to many aspects of the game, from fixing Acrobatics DCs and redoing the social skills (Diplomacy->Persuade, Intimidate, and Bluff) to refining the crafting rules.


Due to its large size, I have put Psionica on a google doc (comments enabled):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z93IuVEPzQR84PJX0X8mbQ7DybiXmuBX4OrU0z9hFPI/edit?usp=sharing



Comments and Criticism are welcome, but I don't expect anyone to PEACH the entire thing. Feel free to focus on any particular session and I will explain my reasoning behind these changes. Thank you!

[Capitalier]

How do these funky arse combat actions work in practice? :smallamused: I am intrigued. They look solid rule-wise, but have you tested them in an actual campaign? Do they see enough use, and how much variety do they actually add to combat?

[Dark.Revenant]

How do these funky arse combat actions work in practice? :smallamused: I am intrigued. They look solid rule-wise, but have you tested them in an actual campaign? Do they see enough use, and how much variety do they actually add to combat?

Suppose a player is Just Another Fighter. Let's call him JAFfery, or Jaf for short.

Jaf is getting used to the rules and makes a level 1 character, picking one of the standard arrays and getting his equipment. For the first five levels, he doesn't have to worry much; combat is all standard attacks and movement with some combat maneuvers thrown in.

But once Jaf hits level 6, he has his second iterative attack! +6/+1 is his Base Attack Bonus, and now he can hit twice (or maybe even three times with a haste effect)... but he must use a full attack. Full attacks require you to stand still and pound away at the enemy, but Jaf likes being mobile. So we have a conundrum: what can Jaf do?

One thing he can do is take a look at Combat Actions. Combat Actions are fueled by iterative attacks; at levels 1-5 Jaf has 1 attack to spend, from 6-10 he has 2 attacks to spend, from 11-15 he has 3, and once he hits the high levels at 16+ he's got 4 attacks to spend doing Combat Actions. Right now, Jaf has 2 attacks to spend (regardless of having a haste effect or a second weapon), and grabs Battle Swiftness, a feat that adds the Move Combat Action. Move always swaps out the highest iteration (in this case, the +6) in a full attack but grants a move action during the full attack, which can be used for anything from drawing or sheathing a weapon to moving at his speed before or after the full attack.

Now, Jaf (if hasted) can either stand still and deal out three attacks or move around and dish out two attacks. But that's not all.

At level 11, Jaf is starting to get bored with full-attacking, so he looks at other options. He reviews the basic combat actions:
Break: Combine attacks into one, granting a higher attack bonus at the cost of losing iterative attacks.
Guard: Boost AC (especially effective if using a shield) by giving up iterative attacks, shield bashes, and the like.
Protect: Boost an ally's AC.
Parry: Use attacks to perform opposed rolls against incoming blows, making them much more likely to miss.
Riposte: Combine a parry with a counterattack; if the enemy's blow is parried, a riposte is made against him.

Jaf is a particular fan of the Break Combat Action, landing nearly guaranteed hits with his greataxe (which has a bonus to Break due to its 'powerful' property). So, he builds for Critical Strike, a feat that grants the Shatter Combat Action. Shatter works like Break except Jaf also has the option to give up iterative attacks to boost the critical threat range of his greataxe for one attack. At level 12, he's swinging at +22/+22 during a full attack (he can't replace the extra attack granted by haste effects), with a 14-20/x3 critical range on the first attack (this would be 16-20/x3 if he was using a greatsword or other weapon without the 'powerful' property). By giving up quantity, Jaf goes for quality.

Over time, Jaf gains more Combat Actions and expands his horizons, able to continue doing more varied things in combat and adapting to different strategies without any sort of vancianesque number tracking.

But I digress.

To answer your question, I have tested Combat Actions in two campaigns without incident. They are designed to be effectively nonexistent at the early levels (1-5) and ramp up from there, becoming more important over time until the point that the characters retire. By level 16, characters have many iterative attacks, causing unnecessary drudgery in combat involving lots of rolls but very little actual variety. Combat Actions are made primarily to keep things fresh throughout, and many of the Combat Action feats are designed to make otherwise unoptimized approaches (such as most of the combat maneuvers) far more viable, and to give the Fighter something worthwhile to spend feats on. This system does NOT work with E6; it's designed to keep combat interesting at the higher levels, which I feel 3.5 failed to adequately support.

In actual combat, the use of combat actions depends entirely upon the encounter. Against a creature with a very dangerous melee attack, the best option is to Guard or Parry to hold the creature off while an archer or caster takes it down from afar. Going for an all-out attack is risky because (due to other rules) the survivability of creatures is increased significantly; what would otherwise be a likely one-round kill might take two or three rounds to accomplish, leaving you open for counterattack. Two-weapon fighters, sword-and-board fighters, and one-handed duelists each have much greater freedom with combat actions than a two-handed fighter because the extra attacks granted by the TWF feats can be replaced in place of the main weapon attacks for Combat Actions. A level-11 fighter under haste while using three Counter actions only makes 1 attack normally, but a level-11 two-weapon fighter under the same conditions makes up to 4 normal attacks in addition to the three Counters.

When players grow accustomed to Combat Actions, I find that they are used quite a lot and add quite a deal of variety to the standard formula.

[Amechra]

I am watching with interest.

Indeed I am...

[erikun]

Two things immediately come to mind.

First, feats aren't necessarily all that common. I don't mind the idea of giving fighters what are effectively "Metacombat" feats, but most characters only get 7 feats and the core D&D fighter gets 18. I'm a bit wary about requiring a handful of feats, unless they cover what you'd likely want to do in combat.

Second, I've found that iterative attacks frequently have trouble connecting. The second at -5 frequently feels like an afterthought for most people, and the -10 and lower attacks are commonly just hail-mary swings. I bring this up because the Move Combat Action that was mentioned seems pretty pointless without Haste in effect; the option to move and full attack with your least-likely to hit bonuses doesn't sound like a good idea compared to just moving and swinging once at full BAB.

I also notice you mentioned Haste a lot. I'm not that inclined to spend several feats on a character that require them being Hasted to be that practical, especially when I cannot cast the spell myself.

This does sound like an interesting system, though. Just pointing out a few things that stand out to me with a brief look-through.

[Dark.Revenant]

Two things immediately come to mind.

First, feats aren't necessarily all that common. I don't mind the idea of giving fighters what are effectively "Metacombat" feats, but most characters only get 7 feats and the core D&D fighter gets 18. I'm a bit wary about requiring a handful of feats, unless they cover what you'd likely want to do in combat.

Second, I've found that iterative attacks frequently have trouble connecting. The second at -5 frequently feels like an afterthought for most people, and the -10 and lower attacks are commonly just hail-mary swings. I bring this up because the Move Combat Action that was mentioned seems pretty pointless without Haste in effect; the option to move and full attack with your least-likely to hit bonuses doesn't sound like a good idea compared to just moving and swinging once at full BAB.

I also notice you mentioned Haste a lot. I'm not that inclined to spend several feats on a character that require them being Hasted to be that practical, especially when I cannot cast the spell myself.

Thanks for reading! I have thought about the points you have brought up while I was developing this system:

In Pathfinder, characters get 10 feats by level 20 (with 21 for core Fighters). My rules add another one on top of this for a grand total of 11 and 22 feats, respectively. Combined with the multitude of feat consolidations, this ends up cancelling out the need for these combat action feats. I have found that this strikes a good balance; you can get what you want and more but you can't have everything.

The Move combat action is similar to what the Mobile Fighter archetype gets, but is better in most cases because it grants a move action rather than being movement-only. It also ends up being better than the Hustle power in many situations. Plus, the choice between doing one attack at full BAB or several at lower BAB depends entirely on what kind of AC your opponent is toting. If he's got low AC, going with the iteratives boosts damage, but a high AC target should be charged instead. It simply opens up options. However, it's designed in particular for people who have lots of attacks (like a Rogue or Monk); they only give up one of four/six/eight attacks instead of one of two/three/four, offsetting the large feat or class investment (and likely reduced damage) with increased flexibility and mobility.

Weaker iteratives are also useful for all those combat actions that require 2 attacks; give up your first attack and your fourth attack; you give up an iterative that would probably not hit anyway to enhance a much better attack that probably will hit.

Yes, most of the feats are situational, but remain powerful and useful in my experience. You more often run into an opponent with a small number of dangerous attacks suitable for using Counter on than something like the Landing Roll feat, which only works on tripper opponents with a 5-foot reach.

Also, Haste is by far the most common buff, so I include it in the math. Combat Actions are still perfectly viable without it.

[Allnightmask]

Sounds fun. I'll have to give it a skim or two later.