Proposed Degree-of-Success Mechanic To Replace Full-Attack + Itteratives [P.E.A.C.H.]

[SkipSandwich]

Hey all,

I was doing some pondering recently about combat and how the number of dice required to resolve a round's actions keeps multiplying as level increases and thought up the following mechanic to streamline things.

Degree-of-Success

TL;DR
Attacks resolved as a single opposed d20 roll with degree of success determining # of hits.


Full Description

Under this rule set, when a character wants to attack another character, they roll a single d20 + BAB + usual modifiers which is opposed by the opponent's Dodge (d20 + BAB + Dex + Armor + misc bonuses) or Parry (d20 + BAB + Str + Shield + Armor + misc bonuses, vs. melee only w/o a worn shield or feat investment). If the attack succeeds, they score 1 'hit' which deals damage as normal, for every 5 points by which the attacker beats the defenders defense roll, they score 1 additional hit. To resolve the final damage, multiply the result of the first hit by the total number of hits. When you take a full-attack action you apply double your BAB to the attack roll, when you take the full-defense action you apply double your BAB to defense rolls until your next turn.

Critical Hits and Perfect Defense
When your d20 roll while attacking is equal to or greater then your weapon's critical range, you score bonus hits equal to the weapon's critical multiplier -1 (so a x2 multiplier scores 1 bonus hit on a critical, +2 hits for x3 and +3 hits for x4). When defending, the same result is called a Perfect Dodge or Parry and has the effect of reducing the opponent's # of hits by (critical multiplier -1), if this reduces the opponent's hits to zero the attack misses. Dodge defense uses the critical/multipliers of your unarmed strike unless otherwise noted, while parry defense uses the statistics of your equipped weapon or shield. Shields gain a bonus to critical threat and multiplier when used to parry, as shown below;

Buckler: 19-20/x2 on parry
Light Shield: 19-20/x3 on parry
Heavy Shield: 18-20/x3 on parry
Tower Shield: 18-20/x4 on parry

Changed Feats

Dodge

Benefit: Double your Perfect Dodge Rate (20 becomes 19-20, 19-20 becomes 17-20, 18-20 becomes 15-20), this stacks with effects that modify the critical threat range of your unarmed strikes.

Weapon Finesse

Benefit: As normal, plus the following; When wielding an appropriate weapon, light shield or buckler, you apply your dex modifier to parry defense instead of str.



This is still a work in progress, so feedback is appreciated!

[Composer99]

Paizo's done something similar (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/removing-iterative-attacks) in their Pathfinder Unchained sourcebook (which IIRC is a set of variant rules).

I don't know how applicable it is to 3.5; presumably that's the system your variant is set up for. But it's worth looking into.

At any rate you may want to double check your maths when adding a die roll for the defender - especially if the defender gets to add their BAB to the roll. At low levels that would also, so far as I can see, eliminate the time savings you hope to attain, not only because there are more die rolls rather than fewer, but because it would be (I suspect) harder to hit things.

[SkipSandwich]

I'm less concerned with low-level combat then I am with mid-high level combat involving multiple attacks and having to roll each attack + damage separately.

The opposed BAB roll is mostly because I tend to favor "Players Roll All the Dice" style variants. so in that spirit how about the following tweak?

Players Roll All The Dice
In this variant, only the PC's roll attack and defense for their characters, with npc's using a static DC for attack and defense based on how challenging the DM intends that creature to be.

"Mook" creatures are intended mostly to serve as a speed bump between them and more challenging targets. Mook NPC's are assumed to "Take 5" on all attack and defense rolls. Reduce the CR of a Mook creature by 1 point

"Challenging" creatures are intended to be of moderate challenge. Challenging NPC's are assumed to "Take 10" on all attack and defense rolls.

"Elite" creatures are intended to be a very challenging encounter. Elite NPC's are assumed to "Take 15" on all attack and defense rolls. Increase the CR of Elite creatures by 1, all Elite NPC's may use the Elite Array for stats without any further CR increase.

Critical Hits and NPCS
Since NPC's do not roll for attack or defense in this variant, it is impossible for them to achieve Critical Hits or Perfect Defense.

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I looked up the pathfinder variant mentioned, and it is very similar, except they put a cap on # of hits based on the number of itteratives you would normally get, and only allow multi-hits on full-attacks.

In my envisioning, you can multi-hit on ANY attack action, but are unlikely to score more then one hit on level-appropriate foes unless you are making a full attack, at which point your average number of hits is roughly equal to BAB/5.