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Talanic
2007-05-13, 02:34 AM
Edit:
New to Thread? Check second post. Erk did a better job than I did.
Okay, easy to face it, shield use is severely underpowered in D&D, compared to other options (especially power attack with 2h weapon). So, how about this as a base ability (no feat required, just shield proficiency) with the shield...

Intercept
As a free action, once per round, a character with a shield can attempt to block an attack. After an attack has been rolled as a non-critical hit against the blocking character but before damage is rolled, the blocking character makes a touch attack against the enemy weapon. Success indicates that the damage is applied to the shield instead, filtered properly through the damage reduction of the shield's material. The character loses the armor benefits of the shield until the character's next turn (assuming the shield was not destroyed by the impact).

Erk
2007-05-13, 02:59 AM
Weak though. It is a bit of an iffy matter to hit at all, you lose the benefit of your shield afterwards (doesn't say whether you succeed or fail) and you could lose the shield altogether.

With some derivative feats to reduce those penalties it gets better. Here is my take (I have been looking for shield feats for my homebrew campaign too :)

Intercept [General]
You can use your shield to entirely absorb attacks against you.
Benefit: Once per round you can interpose your shield between yourself and an attack against yourself or anything within the area threatened by your shield. Roll 1d20, adding any attack bonuses you have to your shield, and adding double the Shield AC as well. If this is greater than the attack roll against you, you have successfully intercepted the attack. Your shield takes damage from the attack, and may be destroyed, and you lose your shield bonus to AC until your next turn. Subtract your shield's armour check penalty from attempts to protect anything not occupying the same space as you; such attempts provoke attacks of opportunity from anything threatening your space (not the protected target's space).

Intercepted Critical hits inflict critical damage to your shield. If your shield absorbs enough damage to shatter it entirely, 1/2 of any leftover damage is carried through to you.

Interceptions may be used against any spell with you as the target (including touch spells). In these cases, the caster may add his spell DC to the opposed attack roll (only for the purposes of determining if the intercept was successful); spells which do not normally require an attack roll, such as magic missile, still need one for the purposes of determining the interception; these spells get an extra +4 to their attack roll. If the spell has any option to inflict damage, that damage is inflicted on your shield. Any other effects are nullified (special effect spells which only inflict damage on a successful save use that damage). Spells with a particular effect against nonliving matter, such as disintegrate, use that effect on your shield (assuming your shield isn't alive).

Improved Intercept [General]
You're more skilled at using your shield to protect yourself, able to do so at far less risk to your person.
Prerequisites: Intercept
Benefit: You do not lose your shield bonus to AC after an intercept attempt. Additionally, you gain a +4 on all Intercept attempts. Intercepting to protect something nearby no longer provokes an attack of opportunity.

Deflecting Block [General]
Not only does your shield intercept damage against you, but it is nearly undamaged by such attempts.
Prerequisites: Improved Intercept, Improved Shield Bash
Benefit: Add your Base Attack Bonus to your shield's hardness rating when you make an Interception.

Skilled Interceptor
Every level of Skilled Interceptor improves your ability to intercept enemy attacks.
Prerequisites: Deflecting Block
Benefit: You gain +4 to intercept checks, and your shield's hardness rating increases by 2 when Intercepting. If you have Reverberating Block, the DC of saves against your reverberating block increases by 2. If you have Shattering Block, your shield gains a +2 on its sunder check when performing a shattering block.
Special: This feat may be taken multiple times. Its effects stack.

Reverberating Block
You can lash back hard, twisting your shield against a melee attack with your shield. Your opponent's weapon flies aside, putting him off-balance.
Prerequisites: Improved Intercept, Improved Disarm
Benefit: After you successfully make an Intercept against the attack, your opponent must make a Reflex or Balance save (opponent chooses which save to make; DC equal to his own attack roll against you) or be flatfooted until his next turn. If he fails his save by more than 10, your opponent is also Disarmed. Your shield takes normal damage from the enemy's attack, as with any Interception. Opponents with Improved Uncanny Dodge are immune to being rendered flatfooted by this technique, but can still be disarmed.

Shattering Block [General]
You can meet an attack with your shield with full force of your own.
Prerequisites: Improved Intercept, Improved Sunder
Benefit: When you use your shield to intercept an attack, you can make a simultaneous Sunder attempt with your shield against the opponent's weapon. If your shield is destroyed during a Shattering Block attempt, the carryover damage to you is full, not halved.

Hasty Defender [General]
Prerequisites: Intercept, Base Attack Bonus 6+
Benefit: You can intercept attacks with your shield a number of times equal to your number of iterative attacks per round. Each iterative intercept check is lower than the last, exactly as with iterative attacks. For example, a Fighter with Base Attack Bonus 12 could make one Intercept attempt at full bonus, another at 5 less than his normal intercept check, and a final at 10 less than his normal check.

Defensive Flanking
Benefit: Add a +2 flanking bonus to your Intercept checks for every ally within your shield's threatened space. The total bonus cannot exceed your Base Attack Bonus.

Spell Interception
You have worked out ways to use your shield to not just block spells, but interrupt spells used against it.
Prerequisites: Intercept, Arcane Intuition (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40013)
Benefit: When you successfully intercept a spell, that spell is completely nullified and does not damage your shield. You gain a +4 to attempts to intercept spells.

Spiryt
2007-05-13, 04:53 AM
Nice idea, Talanic i also think that shield need its own ability.
And nice feats Erk though i think that some of them are waste of feats ( but after all fighter can afford them).

Improved intercept + hard shield could be nice alternative.
But take 10 on shield intercept attempts is rather strange and is not helping so much. IN my opinion + 4 to opposed check ( just as improved trip or sunder) would be better.

Erk
2007-05-13, 04:56 AM
Good point Spiryt. Maybe I'll merge Defensive Lunge into Improved Intercept as well as adding a +4 and taking out the Take 10, since the utility of defensive lunge is going to be more limited.

The only two I think are wastes of feats (for a fighter wanting to do Sword and Board) are Defensive Flanking and Shattering Block (and Defensive Lunge if you aren't planning on protecting your allies). Defensive Flanking is mostly a "realism" thing rather than a powerful feat: having shield buddies makes a real shield more effective. I'm not all that sure about Shattering Block but I think the rest are fairly handy myself. Depends a bit on the campaign world I guess. In most of my campaigns Fighters get a bonus feat every level, and are needing the options if they want to focus on a particular style.

Spiryt
2007-05-13, 05:19 AM
There is feat in one of complete books, if I remember good, that allow you to add shield bonus to your touch AC. I think that it shouldn't be feat. It should be normal shield advantage.

Caewil
2007-05-13, 05:47 AM
I think it should be useable more than once per round - if you give up an attack to block. (But the first block is free)

So a fighter 20 could block twice with BAB 20, once with 15, once with 10 and once with 5. Incidentally, this would make Two-Weapon fighting useful as a counter to this tactic.

Spiryt
2007-05-13, 06:06 AM
I think it should be useable more than once per round - if you give up an attack to block. (But the first block is free)

So a fighter 20 could block twice with BAB 20, once with 15, once with 10 and once with 5. Incidentally, this would make Two-Weapon fighting useful as a counter to this tactic.

Very good idea. Less damage, but can defend yourself very well. And TWF ( usually less dam. than THF) - less damage too but better to overcome the shield blocks.

Caewil
2007-05-13, 06:10 AM
Yeah, but the blocks have to be used in order. No blocking with your worst attack and then hammering the enemy with the best one. Also it's less confusing for the DM.

Matthew
2007-05-13, 07:28 AM
This general idea comes up every so often. Here is a link to the last Thread proposing a similar system, which itself links to previous incarnations: D20 Parry (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38214&highlight=Parry)

Talanic
2007-05-13, 09:08 AM
Wow. Just woke up, and those are some sweet feats!

I think that the base Intercept should be just a combat action, rather than a feat, working fine as written by Erk there. Feats then modify the action, as with Trip or Feint.

Erk
2007-05-13, 04:51 PM
Another option rather than entirely modifying the core rules (though I have nothing against that) would be to give fighters, paladins, and any other classes you think need to know how to use a shield Intercept as a free feat at first level. The main difference is that it keeps the players aware of this new handy thing they can do, and limits it to combat-capable classes without forcing them to spend a feat slot on the basic power itself.

Talanic
2007-05-13, 06:12 PM
Well, the argument against that is that right now, it's not worth it to use a shield, period. If Intercept's a second feat rather than included with shield proficiency, then for non-combat classes it's two feats for an ability that starts quite weak, three or more before it actually starts to be something that you'd want to use in combat. I doubt it would be overpowering for Intercept to be included in shield proficiency, as anyone using a shield would want it, same as anyone using two handed weapons would want power attack.

Erk
2007-05-13, 08:28 PM
Modifications suggested by a friend:
-Intercept only provokes an attack of opportunity if you intercept someone outside of your space. Improved intercept does not increase the range of your intercept radius.
-Maybe add a feat that doubles intercept radius when used to protect something outside your space, removes attack of opportunity when you do it, and gives you a bonus
-Specify that the shield has to be wielded (no use of this with a floating shield and a 2handed weapon) and you can't be wielding anything in the shield hand (no use of this with two-weapon fighting and bucklers: it is strictly sword-and-shield)
-Deflecting Blow increases shield hardness, doesn't add DR. Don't really know what I was thinking anyway.
-maybe add a feat with Shield Ward as a prereq or whatever that "add shield AC to touch attacks" feat is that lets you Intercept spells against you? Not sure how that would work yet. Perhaps on any spell with you as the target you can replace a saving throw with an Intercept check, and if that intercept check succeeds the spell does nothing?

I don't think it's overpowering to include it with shield proficiency either, it's just not something I will do for my games. I guess it depends on if you see this as a basic thing to be able to do with shields, or a combat skill for fighters.

Maldraugedhen
2007-05-13, 08:50 PM
I would extend the benefits of Intercept to projectile-based and ray-based spells just straight up, since it works off of the same principles. Have it oppose the sum of the opponent's spell's level, their caster level, and their relevant caster attribute to simulate spell 'speed', which indicates how difficult the spell would be to block. Then, if you fail to Intercept, you must save vs. the spell, since it has arrived on target.

Erk
2007-05-13, 09:31 PM
I'm all for it allowing intercept to block spells from the start but why the complicated check calculation? Spell DC's already take into account all those things. Maybe just allow the caster to add his spell DC mods (IE. his spell DC -10) to his touch/ranged touch attack roll, once the intercept has been declared? Then having other bonuses to spell DC will help against interception. Also, do damage spells affect the shield, and does it get to save if so? I personally say that the shield just disperses the spell effect, to avoid complication (making the shield save, deciding what spells affect it, etc).

Erk
2007-05-14, 12:10 AM
Fun idea for more offensive use.

Reverberating Block
You can lash back hard, twisting your shield against a melee attack with your shield. Your opponent's weapon flies aside, putting him off-balance.
Prerequisites: Improved Intercept, Improved Disarm
Benefit: After you successfully make an Intercept against the attack, your opponent must make a Reflex save or be flatfooted until his next turn. If he fails his save by more than 10, your opponent is also Disarmed. Your shield takes normal damage from the enemy's attack, as with any Interception (Deflecting Block bonuses are not applied).

Opponents with Uncanny Dodge are immune to being rendered flatfooted by this technique, but can still be disarmed.



Edit: Okie, added that and some of my own take on spell interception. Cleaned up, simplified, or made more logical some of the existing feats as well.

Wolf_Boy
2007-05-14, 12:25 AM
I like the ideas, but I must say, I'm really looking for more offensive shield loving... Still by preventing opponents attacks, you give yourself more attacks than they get, which is kind of offensive in a round about kind of way.

Erk
2007-05-14, 12:28 AM
Also, you can learn to make them flatfooted, disarm them, or sunder their weapon. Not all offense needs to be against the opponent directly.

Wolf_Boy
2007-05-14, 12:33 AM
I missed that part about disarming and making flat-footed, not bad.

Though I think it should still apply against uncanny dodge, and am not really a fan of the disarming so much.

What's the reflex DC?

Also, I'm a bit skeptical about shields actually breaking weapons.

Erk
2007-05-14, 01:00 AM
Why? In real life weapons broke/break all the time in melee combat. Hitting a hard object with your sword should be bad for it. Having that hard metal object in the hands of someone who knows where a sword's weak points lie should be really bad for it.

Admittedly, Sunder is not something PC's usually want to do, but I wanted to present the option.

As for the disarm, yeah, I am not sold on it either but I had the idea so I wrote it in for consideration. Reflex DC is currently equal to the Intercept check, which is:
1d20+attack bonus+shield AC+4 from Improved Interception
that comes to, for a 10th level fighter using a large shield, something like 1d20+20, for an average of around 30. Reflex save DC 30 at tenth level seems a bit high. Or maybe the reflex save DC should just be something other than the Intercept attempt. Hmm.

Which is cooler, I wonder: flatfooting or disarming. Reverberating block could let you make a disarm attempt just as Shattering block lets you make a sunder attempt. Or maybe it only lets you do a disarm attempt after they fail their reflex save miserably, but that becomes a lot of die rolling.

Talanic
2007-05-14, 01:08 AM
Not that unlikely, IMO. You're hitting something built to take hits, and if your opponent is good enough at hitting back at the same time...well, the shield's built to take hits, but your sword isn't.

Add in an adamantine shield (which gets a LOT better than it would be without Intercept factored in) and your odds of breaking your enemy's weapon gets better and better. A heavy shield (medium sized) without weapon enchantments deals only 1d4 + str bashing. A +1 greatsword has 12 points of hardness and 20 hit points. You're not going to break your enemy's weapon with just one Intercept, and, in fact, may not even deal any damage at all on a successful sunder (that's why you invest in an Adamantine shield, to bypass hardness of less than 20).

SRD link on sunder: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploration.htm#tableCommonArmorWeaponAndShieldHar dnessAndHitPoints
Make sure to note that each + on a weapon, piece of armor, or shield gives it +2 hardness and +10 hit points.

Wolf_Boy
2007-05-14, 01:13 AM
Actually despite popular believe, unless a weapon was already in REALLY poor condition (not too rare actually) or a hafted weapon, weapons rarely if ever broke in combat. At least swords anyway. Such was tested rather thoroughly in myth busters actually. People do not have the strength/speed to actually cleave another's sword in half, even an expert swordsman. Rapiers could be snapped however, they really are flimsy weapons.

Unless being cleaved by a giant or something, a sword in good condition should never really be sunderable... Same with any weapon that's primarily made of steal... Though that really has nothing to do with different weapons, and is more a complaint with sundering in general...

So as sundering is already unrealistic (except it IS fantasy and I guess such is common in fantasy) I guess it's fine.

Erk
2007-05-14, 01:15 AM
OK, changed Reverberating Block. DC is now equal to the enemy's attack roll, not yours. Makes sense since I think you are using their own attack against them; also it means they have to be either really clumsy or really unlucky to get disarmed. Also, it could be a balance check rather than a reflex save....

The Uncanny Dodge protection is because I really can't see someone who can remain on their toes at all times getting so easily thrown off balance. It could be upped to Improved Uncanny Dodge though, or removed altogether.

Regarding sundering: well first, we are dealing with a d&d world's rules for sundering. If their swords are too weak, that's their swords. Even in D&D though, hafted weapons still outnumber swords for the mostpart. At least the games I play. When I say "weapons broke all the time", I mean weapons, not just one class of them that may be pretty tough. But I don't claim to be an expert.

Wolf_Boy
2007-05-14, 01:29 AM
Maybe make it a balance check, or reflex save, whichever is higher with a + 2 bonus for uncanny dodge and +4 bonus for improved uncanny dodge.

Talanic
2007-05-14, 01:46 AM
And check the game mechanics behind Sunder, which I linked above. A successful Sunder hit does not even come close to breaking an average weapon in one hit unless you have an obscene load of strength, and/or an adamantine shield being used. If your strength is less than 40, you won't break a weapon in one hit with the shield, even ignoring hardness. And how many times will you actually manage to land a sunder attempt?

Erk
2007-05-14, 01:57 AM
well, if you have a magic adamantine shield with spikes and an enhancement bonus you have a good crack at sundering a mundane weapon... but then you should. Make me think, too, we should make some intercept-related magical effects for shields.

I altered Reverberating Block further; check description. I don't think Uncanny Dodges should add a bonus to avoiding it, since that also lowers the chances of disarming such an opponent, which isn't what I'm looking for. They are no harder to disarm, but they don't lose their balance the same.

Wolf_Boy
2007-05-14, 02:12 AM
Remember though that a lot of damage comes from surface area to speed strength ratio, it's why blades cut. Hitting a shield is no different than hitting a wall, and no matter how strong you or the wall is, chances are, you would wear yourself out long before you'd do any significant damage to your average sword.

By the way, the surface area favors the sword for the same reason pick axes are used for mining.

Erk
2007-05-14, 02:20 AM
Which, again, is still accounted for. Your shield is going to be taking more damage than the attacking weapon unless you have a very nice shield designed for the purpose, and they have a pretty poor weapon. But it does allow the GM to introduce a blackguard with a magic shield covered in hooks and ridges that glows with dark energy, a shield that chips and cracks the weapons that it smashes aside.

Honestly: PC's don't sunder, because PC's want loot. The people who would use a sundering shield feat are going to be the bad guys, in which case there can be situations written in that explain their smashy shields. But in a more realistic campaign, perhaps it's not a good idea. Remember, we're currently talking about a game where you can triple your attacks by carrying a second sword and strapping a disk to your arm and calling it a "buckler".

Matthew
2007-05-14, 08:40 AM
I see that the first idea has been abandoned in favour of opposed Attack Rolls. You need to make it clear as to when a Character can use his 'Intercept' . You also need to take into account whether this is going to be effective or not as is. The average score a Character is going to need to successfully block an incoming attack is [I]always going to be high, as that hit had to overcome the Character's Armour Class in the first place. Chances are it's going to be 16+. Unless the Character is a lot more skilled than his opponent he is going to need the same sort of score.

The analogue to this ability is the Mounted Combat Feat, which allows an Opposed mechanic to protect the Mount once per round, in addition to the normal benefits of the Feat.

Talanic
2007-05-14, 12:32 PM
It always was opposed attack rolls. My original writeup said a touch attack; that changed to an opposed attack modified by attack bonus and shield AC.

Erk
2007-05-14, 04:40 PM
I see that the first idea has been abandoned in favour of opposed Attack Rolls. You need to make it clear as to when a Character can use his 'Intercept' . You also need to take into account whether this is going to be effective or not as is. The average score a Character is going to need to successfully block an incoming attack is [I]always going to be high, as that hit had to overcome the Character's Armour Class in the first place. Chances are it's going to be 16+. Unless the Character is a lot more skilled than his opponent he is going to need the same sort of score.

The analogue to this ability is the Mounted Combat Feat, which allows an Opposed mechanic to protect the Mount once per round, in addition to the normal benefits of the Feat.
You will have to be on approximately the same level as your attacker, but keep in mind that you're getting more bonuses to your maneuvre: on top of your attack bonus, you also get the AC of your shield. If you've invested any feats into Interception, presumably you'll also have a shield with a half-decent AC. But this is a fancy combat maneuvre, more suited to a fighter holding off the BBEG or the BBEG batting the mage's spell aside than it is for a goblin to hold off the PCs.

Matthew
2007-05-14, 05:18 PM
It always was opposed attack rolls. My original writeup said a touch attack; that changed to an opposed attack modified by attack bonus and shield AC.
What you proposed was a Touch Attack against the opponent's weapon (which doesn't take into account the Skill of the Opponent with that weapon). That isn't the same thing as Opposed Attack Rolls as far as I am aware.

Erk: I would like to see some figures to see how this works out against opponents of appropriate CR and such things and what percentage chance this Feat on average presents for a Fighter [i.e. is this Feat Chain really worth taking?]. Unfortunately, calculating approximate probabilities is the best way of making sure that this Feat is balanced.

Various incranations of this idea have been discussed before (several Threads I linked to above), but I am yet to see any any actual 'hard proof', which I think this sort of thing really needs.

[Edit] This also doesn't appear to take into account the difference between a Spear and an Axe with regards to Damage (notice that Sunders can only be attempted with Slashing or Bludgeoning Weapons).

Erk
2007-05-14, 05:35 PM
/siiiigh, you seem to love to make things difficult ;) it's okay, I had been meaning to do exactly that at some point. I'm going to stick with examples from the core books, because they're what I use. Feel free to tweak to suit your own sourcebooks to get different stats

OK. Let's start with two nearly identical 10th level fighters.
Fighter A has Intercept, a heavy shield +2, STR 18.
Fighter B has a greatsword+2, STR 18, and weapon focuses for his sword.
For whatever reason, Fighter B decides not to use a Power Attack.
His attack roll is 1d20+BAB+enhancement+str+focuses = 1d20+10+2+4+2 = 1d20+18.
Fighter A's intercept roll is 1d20+BAB+str+shield AC = 1d20+10+4+4 = 1d20+18.
Fighter A has a 50% chance to intercept in this circumstance. Yes, I know Fighter B could be much more optimised to attack, but A could also be much more optimised to intercept. Ceteris parabus.

Now let's pit our same 10th level shield fighter against a Vrock (CR9)
Vrock claw attack is +15, while our fighter has a +18 to defend. He's going to successfully intercept about 65% of the time I think. If the Vrock uses a full attack, the fighter can only intercept one of the Vrock's powerful claw attacks; the rest of its attacks are still unintercepted. But then, this fighter hasn't taken any improvements. He's just using raw Intercept. If he had Hasty Defender, he could make a second intercept at +13, giving him a 50% chance to block one of the Vrock's +13 attacks or a 40% chance to block its other +15 claw attack.

I'd say that is a pretty reasonable power to be used once per round. Against something of your challenge level it offers, on average, around a 50/50 chance for a fighter to block. For a rogue or cleric it is going to get less useful without buffs, but this is pretty clearly a pure combat ability anyway. Want mroe stats? Taking Improved Intercept improves your chances by 20% in any given circumstance. Statstics on d20 are easy to run. Having one party member beside you increases your chance by 10% if you have Defensive Flanking. I will add some more about the special blocks and blocking magic soon; gotta go to work

Matthew
2007-05-14, 05:39 PM
Erk, you aren't taking into account the proportion of hits versus misses (or are you, I'm not clear). Fighter A only intercepts Hits that equal or exceed his AC, which can substantially reduces his probability, or am I reading you wrong? It's only 50/50 at AC 29 [Edit] Sorry 28, I think.

Shields are a difficult subject in D&D, that's why I make every effort to study potential solutions... :smallwink:

Erk
2007-05-14, 06:12 PM
OK, more stuff. a 10th level wizard tries to cast Baleful Polymorph on our friend the non-optimised fighter. Since he is the target of the spell, Fighter can intercept.

Normally the wizard would not have to roll an attack roll, but this time he does. He adds his BAB (+5), plus his spell DC - 10. Let's say he has Int18; that's a +4 from his int, plus 5 because it's a level 5 spell. Wizard makes his attack roll at +13, and the fighter's intercept is still +18, meaning he has a 75% chance to intercept the spell. Since polymorph only works against living targets, the shield dissipates it.

Seems a bit easy to me. I think it is either going to have to be harder to intercept spells, or the types of spells you can intercept need to be limited.


Erk, you aren't taking into account the proportion of hits versus misses (or are you, I'm not clear). Fighter A only intercepts Hits that equal or exceed his AC, which can substantially reduces his probability, or am I reading you wrong? It's only 50/50 at AC 29 [Edit] Sorry 28, I think.

Shields are a difficult subject in D&D, that's why I make every effort to study potential solutions...I'm not sure what you mean. Fighter A's AC doesn't enter into it except that his shield AC is added to his intercept check. It's simply an opposed roll, and since their bonuses to the opposed rolls are equal, the chance of interception is 50/50.

What does need to be decided is if an intercept needs to be declared before or after the attack roll; I say after the attack roll but before the damage, partly because in my experience DM's rarely give time for players to say "I'll intercept it!" before rolling the attack and partly because with only 1 attempt per round you should get some option to decide where you use it.

Or... okay, I see what you mean. Assuming he knows the attack succeeded against him he's going to try to intercept. Okay, nevermind. Yeah, all right. Say that he's wearing Full Plate +1 with the dex bonus and, for a total of 10, plus 4 for his shield puts him at 24. Let's leave it at that. His opponent needs to roll 6 or higher to hit him. 70% of the enemy's attack rolls will hit without an intercept.

Since the attack roll is always 6 or higher, the intercept has to be 16 or higher. 25% chance. give or take barring math errors from me

So, without any feat investment, you have a 25% chance of intercepting attacks from an equal opponent. Varies depending on equipment and other factors of course.

Matthew
2007-05-14, 07:04 PM
Yeah, something like that. A lot depends on Wealth by Level and average AC of the Fighter. 24 is pretty low for a Level 10 Fighter, I think. We're taking 6,000 GP or something for that little lot, maybe 10,000 GP if we up things to Full Plate +2. He still has something like 4/5 of his Wealth by Level to spend, not to mention the various bonuses available from Feats.

Don't get me wrong, I am on board with the idea (hell, I have used pretty much this system in my own (A)D&D Houseruled Games for many years), I just feel that it needs to be implemented carefully. You certainly must decide when it is appropriate to declare an Intercept. In my experience, it's much easier to do it after the Attack Roll, but before the Damage Roll. That Criticals can bypass this Feat altogether is a serious weakness. He should at least get the opportunity to reply with a Natural 20, I think.

Erk
2007-05-14, 09:24 PM
Well... if he has a shield +2 and full plate +2 he has no weapon to attack with... and with no feats invested into his Interception then he doesn't appear to be an optimised shield-defender,so it makes little sense that 80% of his wealth is invested to his shield and armour while only 20% is on his sword.

You're right, now that the percents are working out you should be able to Intercept a crit - it just does critical damage to your shield. Changed that.

I could increase the bonus of shield AC to the Intercept roll; perhaps double it? For a Heavy Shield +5 that will give you a grand total of +14 to intercept; by the time you get a +5 shield that is not all that much of a difference (especially giving the strikes you will trying to be catching on it), but it makes shield AC more important (and doesn't change things too much at low levels so that this is not too uber of a power).

Matthew
2007-05-14, 09:33 PM
Heh, wrong way round Erk (I think). A level 10 Fighter has around 50,000 GP (According to my 3.0 DMG), so he has 40,000 GP extra to spend after Full Plate +2 and a Heavy Shield +2 (around 10,000 GP).

Yes, I use a Double Shield Bonus rule, so I can vouch for it in general (though not specifically with regard to 3.x).

Any decision regarding when the Intercept is declared?

Erk
2007-05-14, 09:43 PM
Ah, fair 'nuff, I never use WBL. Can't stand it as a rule. It doesn't really matter either way though, now: if you increase both shield and armour enhancement by 1 the character's AC goes up by 2, but so does his Intercept bonus - it should scale linearly. And all the chances to intercept will be a little higher because his intercept score is now higher relative to his enemy's attack. Other things being equal (no armour), he has a 70% chance to intercept in our previous example as his Intercept bonus is now 22. With his armour figured in, that drops to him having to roll 12 or higher; 45% chance of success. Increase both his armour bonus and his shield bonus by 1 and he still has to roll 12 or higher - the baddy just has to roll higher to surpass his AC in the first place.

With spells, I changed the spell attack bonus to make intercepting spells more difficult. The intercept is now vs. 1d20+spell DC, so a level 5 spell cast by a wizard with 20 int has something like 1d20+25. +4 if it doesn't normally have an attack roll (forgot to figure that in before), to +29.

I think Intercept should be declared after the attack roll, personally. It seems the most logical place for it.

Finally, though I might take it out, I added one more top-level feat with stacking bonuses that keeps increasing your Intercept score. Clearly the feat cost for that is only really worthwile for fighters.

Matthew
2007-05-14, 09:54 PM
Ah, that's because you are thinking in terms of Armour and Shields. Much more likely is that the Fighter will invest in various other 'Items of Protection' +X, as the net cost is lower. I know what you mean, I hate WBL and a number of other aspects of the RAW, but there has to be a standard against which to judge Game Balance and this is the one we are currently stuck with.

The problem I find is that as Opponents become more powerful and gain either additional Iterative, Off Hand or Natural Attacks the Player Character's primary solution is to boost AC in a never ending arms Race. The higher the point difference between the Opponent's AB and the Character's AC (in favour of the Character), the less useful this Feat Chain becomes. It's very hard to gauge exactly what kind of effect this sort of rule will have.

Overall, I am in favour of this sort of rule and I think this is a potentially useful line of thought, but the sheer volume of Feats involved worries me, as even Fighters only get so many!

The gold standard test for me is always "is this more appealing than Two Handed Fighting?"

Erk
2007-05-14, 10:15 PM
regarding sheer volume of feats, that is mostly my personal taste; I double the number of feats available to fighters (one every level) in my latest games, and add craploads of feats like these that are of decent use on their own but truly shine when a tree is pursued to some level - 3-4 feats usually.

If one considers Intercept either a free feat for certain classes, or a basic mechanic (either one is recommended I think), then to get good at this requires 1 feat (improved Intercept). To be expert at it requires 1-2 more, I think: Deflecting Block and/or Hasty Defender. The rest are just special moves, only really important if you plan to use Intercept as a counterattack as much as as a defensive maneuvre. They don't increase its efficiency, just what you can do with it. An expenditure of 3 feats to gain a potent ability usable multiple times per round and not have it damage your shield significantly is pretty worthwile I think. Not sure yet how it compares to 2wf.

If you still want to shave down the number of feats, you could combine any two of Improved Intercept, Hasty Defender, and Deflecting Block and just raise the requirement. I suggest merging Hasty Defender and Deflecting Block, calling it Greater Improved Intercept (rolls right off the tongue), and maybe adding in another +4 to intercept checks to it as well... but give it a BAB requirement of at least 10. If you do that, then you only need 2 feats to be able to intercept a significant number of attacks per round, and gain a total of +8 on top of other intercept bonuses as well. Keeps it scaling to high levels.

Matthew
2007-05-20, 02:47 PM
Yes indeed. I think this would work better as a Basic Rules Modification with an associated Feat Tree, but that's bringing it very close in line with what has already been proposed with the D20 Parry and other Homebrew Active Defence Rules. However, that this is only possible with a Shield and doesn't consume Attacks of Opportunity or occur as part of a Full Round Attack keeps it distinct for the moment.

Granting limited Feats by level is in general a bit of a dead end, so I'm not surprised to hear you have upped the quota. It's either that or get on board with Sub Feats (i.e. Maneouvres)...