PDA

View Full Version : The home brewing is going. Let me check the recipe.



Ping_T._Squirrel
2007-01-08, 11:05 AM
Hello all. Currently, I am modding out the d20 system a bunch for a game I am looking to play eventually. So far, new races have been made. Weapon choices have been removed (Spiked chain for example), weapons tweaked (IE the crossbow extends the range of sneak attack and death attacks if you take a full round action and bonuses to hit if you take multiple rounds without moving) , new feats and my personal favourite, etc!
I have now come to the fighter section of what I am doing. Barbrians are nice as they are I think, and so are rangers as they focus on a few areas and you can be happy they are there in other circumstances. I have yet to do paladins, but I am sure I have an idea for them (Becoming a celestial being over time). Fighters are ment to be the lords of the fight and right now, they feel on par at best in a fight so I think I will make the following changes in addition to what is in the PHB2...

Weapon Specialization:
Requirements: Fighter level 4
Effect: Same except for bonus to damage. For every 2 levels of fighter, the bonus increases by +1.

Greater Weapon Specialization
Requirements: Fighter Level 12
Effect: When using a weapon you have specialization with and declare you are using a special attack such as a trip attack or a sunder attempt, you add +1 to hit for every two fighter levels you have. You also add +1 for evey two levels of fighter to an opposed roll if it is called for by the attack.

Also, I would like to give fighters 4 skill points per level with the same list to help them out there. And one other change would be that they get a good reflex save or there will be floating bonus save points that you can add to your saves to boost them up. Still working that out.

What do you guys think so far?

fangthane
2007-01-08, 02:49 PM
This really depends on the way you're balancing your stuff, but in terms of the way this balances with traditional D&D it's way overboard; the whole point behind big beasties with special attacks and opposed rolls is that they're usually horribly weak if you attack them the correct way or with the right preparation. That being the case, the half-level to opposed rolls which normally don't improve based on level (like trip) may be a trifle overpowered in such encounters and may require a little ad hoc tweaking. The damage doesn't seem like too much but it is, relative again to the stock rules (if yours is meant to be overpowered this isn't an issue of course). At level 4 it's 2 points as normal, no problem. At level 6, it becomes 3-6 (averaging closer to 4-ish) per round, at level 8 it's 4-8 (averaging 5-ish), and by the time the character reaches 12th level (and could ordinarily increase his Spec bonus from +2 to +4) it's already two points higher, without costing an additional feat to boot.

Effectively, one feat completely supersedes the effectiveness of two, and is more powerful than those two put together. If you're giving fighters that much of a boost, you'll need to keep in mind that other characters will need a similar boost to their own capabilities. Not a problem for most, but it can be exceedingly tough to balance classes like bards and healers properly. Better MMORPG developers than you (and I) have tried and failed.

Ping_T._Squirrel
2007-01-08, 08:59 PM
Well... I am trying to bring the melee into range of the casters.

Matthew
2007-01-10, 12:50 PM
Remember that every time you increase AB you create the potential for it to be transferred to DB via Power Attack. These seem like reasonable House Rules to increase the Damage Output of Fighters, given that this is what you are aiming for.

Alternatively, you could take a look at the Weapon Mastery (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31267) Feats I suggested. Expanding Mastery / Focus / Specialisation to include a 'family' of Weapons (i.e. Short Sword, Long Sword, Great Sword or Hand Axe, Battle Axe, Great Axe, etc...) is a common enough House Rule to increase the potential of Fighters. The variant Weapon Groups rules allow for some degree of that.

Yakk
2007-01-11, 11:29 AM
Do you want Melee to be in the range of casters, or non-casters in the range of casters?

They are different problems...

There are distinct challenges adventures throw at parties. Divided into combat and non-combat:
In combat:
1> Magical damage
2> Physical damage
3> Magical defences
4> Physical defences

Out of combat:
1> Diplomacy
2> Skillmonkey (traps, stealth, etc)
3> Lore/Puzzles
4> Logistics (travel etc)

The reason why casters are better than melee is, well, they are better than melee at nearly all of the above categories. Their only real limitation is spells/day -- but as they gain levels, their spells/day reaches "sufficient" and ceases to be a serious limitation.

On top of that, even at mid/low levels the DM is forced to enforce a fixed number of encounters/day in order to keep casters in check. And making plots that enforce encounters/day gets tiresom, especially when the game requires that it take multiple days to deal with more than a handful of combats.

One can gimp casters by enforcing 5 to 10 encounters/day at high levels, I suppose (give players deadlines), but that is a pretty fragile kind of balance.

If I was to redo D&D, I'd attempt to build classes in a way that responded to expected challenges. Each character should feel they have something to contribute within combat.

Start with 5 combat roles:

1> Physical offence
2> Physical defence
3> Magical offence
4> Magical defence
5> Combat flow control & support

Give each class two combat abilities.

So, a 10 class design:
Warrior: Physical Damage and Physical Defence
Ranger: Magical and Physical Damage
Rogue: Control and Physical Damage
Paladin: Magical and Physical Defence
Zealot: Magical Damage and Physical Defence
Bard: Control and Magical Defence
Druid: Physical Damage and Magical Defence
Wizard: Control and Magical Damage
Monk: Control and Physical Defence
Cleric: Magical Damage and Defence



PDam MDam PDef MDef Ctrl
PDam X RNG WAR DRU ROG
MDam X ZEA CLE WIZ
PDef X PAL MNK
MDef X BRD
Ctrl X


The next stage is to make sure each category is equally important, and that each class can compete with others in it's category.

Variants of the above classes can easily exist -- a Barbarian is simply a variant of a Fighter, and a Sorcerer a variant of a Wizard.

How each class does their job is important. Take the Control column: A Rogue, under the above system, would use poisons and bluffs for combat control. A monk might use mystical combat moves. A Bard would use illusions and enchantments. And a Wizard might use web spells.

By starting out from such a perspective, you will know that you want a L 20 Rogue to be able to control battle flow as well as a L 20 Wizard.

Creatures would be designed as challenges, in combat, to the above 5 categories. Some creatures would require magical defence, some physical defence to survive. Some creatures would be weak against physical damage, others to magical damage. Some creatures would be difficult to use combat control abilities on, others would be weak to combat control.

With only a bit of effort, every class feels distinct, and every class has something to contribute to every battle.

Then you lay on the crunchy fluff -- exactly how does a druid do physical damage and do magical defence? What non-core abilities does each class have?

Even though the Barbarian and the Fighter are "the same class", as far as group roles are considered, they can have a huge difference in how their abilities work.

The point I'm trying to make is, don't start with reems of abilities and try to make them balanced -- start with an intended balancing structure, then change/fit your reems of abilities to work in that balancing structure.