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View Full Version : Defence Bonus variant [WiP needs PEACH]



DragGon7601
2013-08-22, 05:11 AM
The rules for Defence Bonus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm) don’t quite work for me. By putting on even leather armour your robbed of all skill, unless you're so good you don’t need it... Yeah that makes sense fluff wise. While the armour may restrict your ability to defend yourself by moving/dodging it wouldn’t completely nullify your skill (unless it made you into a statue, in which case you have other problems), and if it did becoming better without it than with wouldn’t translate to having the same AC in or out of the armour. Also taking 1 level in fighter can cause the 9th level wizard to have as much skill at defending himself in melee as the 10 level fighter... Oww yeah that is perfectly logical; NOT!

Your skill of defending yourself and attacking in melee are closely related, so it makes sense to base Defence bonus off BAB (Base Attack Bonus). Half your BAB gets us close to what the fighter had under the old system. The other +2 could be made up by feats, I’m thinking an “armour focus” type feat that only works while you wear the selected armour. Using this a single level in fighter would help boost the wizards AC, but won't make him as good as a full fighter. There should be feats for Unarmoured and/or Arcane (I.E Mage armour) users too. Armoured is a must, I know more than one person who likes the ability to have his character walk into battle with nothing but a weapon (or not even that for fist fighting types) and a loin cloth. The Medium/Heavy armour feats could have a Str requirement, Dex for Unarmoured, caster ability for Arcane and I don’t know for light. It would likely be Dex just to even things out.

As for how to have armour limit this I’m not too sure. I’ve come up with 3 ideas, but I don’t know which fits both fluff and balance wise:

1 - The dex limit of armour is somehow applied to it. I.E. Add base Defence bonus to Dex and then it can’t exceed the Dex limit of the armour. You still get full effect of the armour type feat, as its applied separately.

2 - You gain a fraction of your Defence bonus depending on the type of the armour. I.E. 2 / 3 for light, 1 / 2 for Medium and 1 / 3 for Heavy.

3 - The armour check penalty applies to your Defence bonus. So if you're dealing with full plate and its -6 armour check penalty you will need 14 BAB to gain +1 AC from your Defence bonus.

Freedom of movement and the PF Fighters Armour Training could affect the balance of ideas 1 and 2.

Having some of your armour Bonus apply while in armour will help ease the need for lame +X magic items.

With this in place, having a BAB increasing feat it is likely to be a good idea. I like +2 but not beyond HD. This makes Weapon focus underpowered, but I have seen calls it buff that feat and or combined with Weapon specialisation anyway.




What are your thoughts on the general Idea? How do you think armour should affect your bonus? If Armour Training/Freedom of Movement effect it should we do something to balance it and if so what? Should there be a BAB increasing feat, if so by how much and what should happen with weapon focus?

Hanuman
2013-08-22, 12:55 PM
There are a lot of ways to increase your AC, that's why there's no scaling way to do it.

Fighters vs Wizards is like arguing salary for economists vs tradesmen, wizards literally deal in the stock and trade of the universe where as the fighter has devoted his life to the niche arts of swinging around bits of metal, no one expects a fighter coming into a game to be super impacting on the macro of the campaign, they expect him to be very easy to relate to and very character driven.

Same as no one expects a carpenter to make as much as an executive employee at a mint.

I would however like to see more feats that raise AC directly, you can raise natural armor with feats so why not regular armor or shields?

Xerlith
2013-08-22, 11:10 PM
Your general idea seems fine so far. In my games we go with a straight 1/2 BAB as a dodge bonus to armor class and it's not unbalancing in any way. I tend not to give too much magic loot, though.

DragGon7601
2013-08-23, 05:19 AM
Please don't take this offensively, that is not my intent with this post. Its hard to put such things criticism and these types of reply's over the Internet without sounding mean...


There are a lot of ways to increase your AC, that's why there's no scaling way to do it.

Maybe there is no scaling way to do it in core but Unearthed Arcana gave these rules http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm. Thats why in my first post "Defence Bonus" was a link, it went to that page.



Fighters vs Wizards is like arguing salary for economists vs tradesmen, wizards literally deal in the stock and trade of the universe where as the fighter has devoted his life to the niche arts of swinging around bits of metal, no one expects a fighter coming into a game to be super impacting on the macro of the campaign, they expect him to be very easy to relate to and very character driven.

The fighter not only "devotes his life to niche arts of swinging around bits of metal" but devotes it to swinging around said bits of metal while bits of metal are swung at him!


Same as no one expects a carpenter to make as much as an executive employee at a mint.

No but I expect him to bet better at joinery! Its part of his job. I'm sure that executive employee has something the carpenter has no chance of under standing (just like the fighter cant understand spells) and maybe he does some joinery on the weekend but it wont be as good as the carpenters unless he has put allot of feats into it. He can buy tools (like the wizard can cast spells) but his base skill wont be as good.


I would however like to see more feats that raise AC directly, you can raise natural armor with feats so why not regular armor or shields?

Indeed. :smallcool: Since no one is suggesting values for the feats I may just have a stab at it later and see what people think.