Movement Bonus to AC

[Isair]

In D&D, although combat is divided by turns, everything is happening simultaneously. So when the character A moves in his turn followed by the character B who tries to hit him with a ranged attack, it basically means the character B is trying to hit a moving target.
Having practiced archery for 5 years, I know all to well how hard it is to hit a stationary target, let alone a moving one, so I came up with an house-rule where moving in the battlefield provides bonuses to AC against ranged attacks. I'd like to know your opinion about it, for until now all the feedback from my players and friends has been mixed.
The rule is:

Movement AC bonus: Moving around provides bonuses to AC against ranged attacks, since it makes it more difficult to target. Moving up to its speed provides a character with a +2 AC bonus vs ranged attacks; moving twice its speed provides a +4 AC bonus while making a Run provides a +6 bonus (remember that Run negates Dexterity bonus to AC, unless the creature has the Run feat). These bonuses last for 1 round.

[Hanuman]

Perhaps -2 to attack rolls to hit characters who have ran or charged since their last action unless the character ends her turn in a square X' from target (like someone charging AT an archer)

[Veklim]

I'd be cautious about introducing anything which hampers ranged combat, it suffers enough as it is, even though I do agree with the point that a moving target is FAR harder to hit. Thing is, you have to draw a line under realism somewhere if you're gonna play the game at all.

[Temotei]

I'd be cautious about introducing anything which hampers ranged combat, it suffers enough as it is, even though I do agree with the point that a moving target is FAR harder to hit. Thing is, you have to draw a line under realism somewhere if you're gonna play the game at all.

Agreed.

In addition, you'd have to account for people running at the ranged attacker. It's certainly not harder to hit a closer target than a farther-away one. I'm not experienced in archery or anything, but I'd imagine it would be easier to hit a target coming closer (assuming even ground).

[Isair]

True, it does suffer. However I also have several feats that greatly improve ranged combat (Sharp-Shooting feat: prerequisites Precise Shot and BAB +3; Halves cover bonus to AC and concealment miss chance) and I've reduced the Improved Precise Shot prerequisite to Precise Shot, Dex 17 and BAB +8.

I've find that players with a high BAB agree to this house-rule as well as players with medium BAB but great focus on Ranged Combat feats don't really mind this rule; but then players with medium or low BAB and little to no focus on ranged combat don't. Arcane casters also complained, because of their very low attack bonus, but since they are still the most powerful of classes, I kinda consider this as an acceptable penalty for them.

But I have not had the chance to test this house-rule in low- and mid-levels, since my players were already at high-levels when I thought in this house-rule, so I'm not truly certain of how it would work at those levels..

Edit: I've forgotten about running towards the archer. It would, indeed, be easier to hit.

[Spiryt]

Agreed.

In addition, you'd have to account for people running at the ranged attacker. It's certainly not harder to hit a closer target than a farther-away one. I'm not experienced in archery or anything, but I'd imagine it would be easier to hit a target coming closer (assuming even ground).

Not at all, target is changing his distance, forcing shooter to adjust with his aim (mostly vertical angle, obviously) , and moving is still moving, confusing archer about where target can be next.

[Isair]

Not at all, target is changing his distance, forcing shooter to adjust with his aim (mostly vertical angle, obviously) , and moving is still moving, confusing archer about where target can be next.

Not if it was a direct charge against the archer. It would be done in a direct line against him, so he'd no longer need to adjust vertical angle or horizontal aim. Moving normally towards him, however, would still confuse the archer

[Mangles]

This makes it worse to have a higher move speed. If your move speed was 60 and your allies was 30 and you both moved 60 feet in a round than the one with the higher move speed is disadvantaged.

Also this is meant to already have been taken into account. Characters are considered constantly moving during combat rounds. That's why they don't have a front or back position, and are able to defend from all sides.

[Isair]

The reason I considered move actions instead of speed was because of the effect in game. Despite its speed, if a character only moves 1 move action in his turn, it means in the first 3 seconds he is moving but then in the last 3 seconds he no longer is, making it easier to aim against him.
But yes, there would be situations where having a lower speed would be better. For example, if the party was retreating little more than 50 ft. A monk would retreat that much in a single move action, while a fighter wearing a fullplate would need to make a Run.

[Ashtagon]

I'd make it a hit penalty based on distance moved (both absolute distance and angular distance), rather than relative to the moving character's movement rate.

Perhaps -2 per full 45° angle moved through, and -2 per full 60 ft moved.

Note that a move action is a game mechanic unit of time. Simply because you only spent one move action moving and not your standard action too, doesn't mean you moved, stopped, then attacked. It could also mean you were walking up to the enemy (instead of running) and only swung your axe in the last 1/10 second of that 6-second round.

[silphael]

You know, a composite bow (being long or short, in fact...) is still shooting "straight" at something like 250 feet... If someone is running at you, the vertical aim isn't an issue. It's only when you have to use bell curve to shoot that it become an issue, and no one will have the idea of shooting alone against someone running at him.

The idea will be to deal bonus damage on someone running toward you, because of the relative speed of the arrow.

[Spiryt]

You know, a composite bow (being long or short, in fact...) is still shooting "straight" at something like 250 feet... If someone is running at you, the vertical aim isn't an issue. It's only when you have to use bell curve to shoot that it become an issue, and no one will have the idea of shooting alone against someone running at him.

The idea will be to deal bonus damage on someone running toward you, because of the relative speed of the arrow.

Uh, unless it is shooting some really light arrow at really high velocity, at 250 feet arrow drop is in no way neligible enough to be "non issue"...

Slight miscalculation of distance between target and shooter and arrow can burry itself in the ground...

Or are you talking about 3.5 range increments interpretation?

[silphael]

Nope, I'm talking about archery. A bow with a power of 59 pounds ( time the length of the arm to know the force applied) shoots without true curve (there is one, yes, a very little one) arrows made of metal (ot not majoritarly aluminium...) at a distance of 90 meters. The bows used in middleage were far stronger than that, easily around 120 lbs.

[Mulletmanalive]

Either my bow sucks or I'm using heavier arrows; my 58 lb hunting bow has a drop that requires correction on a standard range.

Hey ho.

Thinking about it, probably heavier arrows but mine aren't much heavier than the hazel ones my recreator friends shoot with.

[Spiryt]

Nope, I'm talking about archery. A bow with a power of 59 pounds ( time the length of the arm to know the force applied) shoots without true curve (there is one, yes, a very little one) arrows made of metal (ot not majoritarly aluminium...) at a distance of 90 meters. The bows used in middleage were far stronger than that, easily around 120 lbs.

Even if you're talking about Target Archery like in Olympics, using very light arrows and very fast bows at distance of 90 m, then at ~ 90 m/s of initial velocity those arrows could achieve (doubtful), it's still at least 1.5 s to drop a bit, so there will be noticeable curve.

No matter what poundage the bow is, no one would be actually shooting such flimsy target arrows in martial application most of the time.

Not to mention that even the best Karpowicz Turkish composites with dacron string that are actually war not flight bows can't achieve even 85 m/s most of the time.

Increasing poundage won't help much, since above those ~ 60 - 80 pounds velocity won't raise, since limbs already cannot move faster anyway.

So not to create gigantic offtop, any sensible arrow shot at stuff will drop quite a bit at 250 feet, discarding possible wind etc.





Anyway, I agree that this homebrew hurts archers that are already pretty screwed in most games...

Granted, hitting stuff isn't nearly as difficult as actually doing damage, but still.

So this would be nice as a part of some broader archery homebrew, not only additional feats, to boost bows, crossbows and throwing weapons a bit.

[Isair]

Anyway, I agree that this homebrew hurts archers that are already pretty screwed in most games...

Granted, hitting stuff isn't nearly as difficult as actually doing damage, but still.

So this would be nice as a part of some broader archery homebrew, not only additional feats, to boost bows, crossbows and throwing weapons a bit.

Increasing damage by one step, perhaps? Along with the ability my bows have to send targets (of same size as archer) prone on a successful critical hit, or the ability to score instant kills more easily the crossbows of my home-rules have (DMG variant where obtaining a natural 20 on a Critical Confirmation Roll provides a third roll where one can kill the target on a success)... It would make an archer more deadly, but it would be harder for him to hit. Which is the same situation with the Power Attack feat.

[Spiryt]

Increasing damage by one step, perhaps? Along with the ability my bows have to send targets (of same size as archer) prone on a successful critical hit, or the ability to score instant kills more easily the crossbows of my home-rules have (DMG variant where obtaining a natural 20 on a Critical Confirmation Roll provides a third roll where one can kill the target on a success)... It would make an archer more deadly, but it would be harder for him to hit. Which is the same situation with the Power Attack feat.

Improving damage by one step (like, one dice according to weapon size chart, for example?) is nice, even though very small bonus, and somehow 'unbalancing' one - makes more instant kills possible at low levels, while doesn't really make much difference later... It's like 0.5-1 damage on average hit, most of the time.

Sending targets prone is interesting although somehow wonky, as no other weapons generally tend to have properties like that.

As far as crossbows go, I had an idea once, and not only I, it seems:

link

Basically, giving crossbows some strength rating, which is only logical.
More details are up to adjustment, I guess.

[silphael]

Readying some weapons against a charge is dealing far more damage, and that's basically the same thing... Maybe allowing the same with a bow?

[Lonely Tylenol]

Under this current system, the Scout (whose only combat shtick is moving around frequently in battle) suffers the greatest.

I would consider revising this into a bonus "per 10 feet of movement" or something to that extent. That way, mobile fighters like the Barbarian and the Scout (with Fast Movement) and mobile creatures (like anything with Run or Pounce) get greater bonuses for being more mobile, and everything is fairly consistent (for example, a creature that moves 30 feet gets a +3 movement bonus to AC whether that's its maximum movement or not).

[Isair]

Improving damage by one step (like, one dice according to weapon size chart, for example?) is nice, even though very small bonus, and somehow 'unbalancing' one - makes more instant kills possible at low levels, while doesn't really make much difference later... It's like 0.5-1 damage on average hit, most of the time.

Sending targets prone is interesting although somehow wonky, as no other weapons generally tend to have properties like that.

As far as crossbows go, I had an idea once, and not only I, it seems:

link

Basically, giving crossbows some strength rating, which is only logical.
More details are up to adjustment, I guess.

But at lower levels characters are more likely to spend at least one move action per turn moving around, with exception of melee characters. Thus they would usually gain at least a +2 bonus, which is significant at lowers levels, I think. As I said, I didn't have the chance to test this house-rule at lower levels.

As for crossbows, it may seem logical in game terms, to make them somewhat similar to bows, but as for realism it is not. The strength of a crossbow is in the weapon itself, not on the one who readies it to fire. You could have the strongest man and the weakest child firing the same crossbow, for as long as the weapon is already armed, both shots are likely to have the same punch. Which, without using the mechanisms of a composite bow, is greater than that of a normal bow.

Under this current system, the Scout (whose only combat shtick is moving around frequently in battle) suffers the greatest.

I would consider revising this into a bonus "per 10 feet of movement" or something to that extent. That way, mobile fighters like the Barbarian and the Scout (with Fast Movement) and mobile creatures (like anything with Run or Pounce) get greater bonuses for being more mobile, and everything is fairly consistent (for example, a creature that moves 30 feet gets a +3 movement bonus to AC whether that's its maximum movement or not).

The Scout wouldn't suffer unless his targets were moving. In fact, with this rule the Scout would benefit from a +2 bonus to AC against ranged attacks in addition to the bonus provided by his skirmish ability.

Changing it to feet increment, instead of move action, would indeed be better for characters with higher speed and wouldn't benefit the slow characters (which are usually armored). However, providing a +1 bonus for each 10 ft moved would result on a extremely large bonus for certain characters (monk and scout), and an insane bonus whenever those characters made a Run.
If it were by feet increment, then at the very least in 20 feet increments (rounded down). The following tables show the bonuses gained, depending on speed, and depending on the action used to move. Increments lower than 20 ft would provide bonuses far too huge and hurtful, while 20 ft increments provide bonuses lower than the ones I initially presented for most characters (those with 30 ft speed or less), and higher bonuses for those with higher speeds.

[SowZ]

I'm reading about trajectory and angles and move speeds and variable modifiers based on amount moved, etc. etc. Even disregarding issues of game balance, I don't think this should be done the way you are doing it. If you want something, I would say -2 to hit if someone used a move action. An additional -2 if they did a Run. If you really want, you could make it a -4 per every thirty feet their standard movement is, (how often are move speeds at 60+, anyway?) Then be done with it. Even then, there may be a couple problems and I am not actually recommending it.

Do you really want more modifiers to calculate? How about each ranged weapon does less or more damage per 10ft. increment? That would be realistic, too. But it would slow everything down. I'm all for gaming tweaks but if it adds more dice rolling or number calculating I am very slow to implement it, if at all.

D&D isn't, and never will be, realistic. It is a fantasy game meant to simulate fantasy adventures. You have to go into it suspending your disbelief or there will be problems. Making archery mroe realistic will do little to help the overall realism. Faster paced combat usually gets people into the fantasy mindset, anyway. Various modifiers and such, while intended to add more depth, can bog a game down.

Some games are made to be realistic and should naturally build these modifiers into the rules. In something like D&D it is all too easy to overcomplicate things. That is my warning and opinion. Take it or leave it.

[Isair]

I'm reading about trajectory and angles and move speeds and variable modifiers based on amount moved, etc. etc. Even disregarding issues of game balance, I don't think this should be done the way you are doing it. If you want something, I would say -2 to hit if someone used a move action. An additional -2 if they did a Run. If you really want, you could make it a -4 per every thirty feet their standard movement is, (how often are move speeds at 60+, anyway?) Then be done with it. Even then, there may be a couple problems and I am not actually recommending it.

Do you really want more modifiers to calculate? How about each ranged weapon does less or more damage per 10ft. increment? That would be realistic, too. But it would slow everything down. I'm all for gaming tweaks but if it adds more dice rolling or number calculating I am very slow to implement it, if at all.

D&D isn't, and never will be, realistic. It is a fantasy game meant to simulate fantasy adventures. You have to go into it suspending your disbelief or there will be problems. Making archery mroe realistic will do little to help the overall realism. Faster paced combat usually gets people into the fantasy mindset, anyway. Various modifiers and such, while intended to add more depth, can bog a game down.

Some games are made to be realistic and should naturally build these modifiers into the rules. In something like D&D it is all too easy to overcomplicate things. That is my warning and opinion. Take it or leave it.

I only stated what the rule would turn into if it were used as feet increments. I fully understand that adding additional calculations, even if for realism sake, slows the game. And D&D isn't meant to be realistic, true. Still, if you want and like, you can try to make some changes (like the one I presented) to get a bit closer to reality ;)

As for your alternative, isn't providing a penalty just to attack just about the same as providing a bonus to AC to the target? The penalties you mentioned are exactly the bonuses I mentioned: +2 per move action moved, extra +2 for Run.

[silphael]

About penalties/bonusses, technically it should be bonusses to AC: you are harder to aim, they aren't disturbed in their aim.

[Yitzi]

Thinking about it, I'm not so sure that the justification for the rule is that valid.

Yes, it is definitely harder to hit a moving target. But even someone who doesn't move on the battle map is still moving around, just not by a lot and not in any particular direction. But that shouldn't affect how hard they are to hit, so long as they're moving.

[Just to Browse]

+2 per move action used is a good idea. I already houserule that all bows deal StrMod damage, so there's a bit of balancing, and this ruling gives incentive in lower-level play (where AC actually matters) for mobility.

Perhaps give the bonus so long as the target doesn't move in a straight line for their turn, that way when enemies sprint away, they can still get hilariously picked off, and charge attempts don't actually end up granting an AC bonus.

[Isair]

Thinking about it, I'm not so sure that the justification for the rule is that valid.

Yes, it is definitely harder to hit a moving target. But even someone who doesn't move on the battle map is still moving around, just not by a lot and not in any particular direction. But that shouldn't affect how hard they are to hit, so long as they're moving.

Moving around while staying in in the same place is what the Dexterity bonus to AC represents.
Moving around the battlefield forces an archer to alter his aim, both horizontally and vertically, and that makes it much harder to hit the target. That's why, in terms of realism, makes sense.

[Yitzi]

Moving around the battlefield forces an archer to alter his aim, both horizontally and vertically.

So large alterations make it harder to hit than small alterations do? I haven't done any serious archery, so if you have and you say it does, I presume you know what you're talking about. I'm not sure why, though; unless facing becomes an issue, the alteration should still be pretty small, so the major concern is just getting it right (which shouldn't be different between large and small alterations).

[Isair]

Do you play First Person Shooters, or play paintball/airsoft? There you can already see it is harder to hit a moving target than one standing in place. That’s because you have to lead your shot, moving your weapon along the path of the target’s movement. Now although this causes some “arc” effect with every shot (both horizontally and vertically), because modern weapons fire at extremely large speeds that effect is minimum at close to mid distances: your shot is likely to hit an area very close to where you were pointing. If your brain calculated the target’s movement correctly, you end up with a good probability of hitting him. This is the only real calculation you need to make, and you do it almost unconsciously and immediately. There is no need to even consider your projectile’s speed and elevation angle.

Bows, crossbows and thrown weapons, especially older ones, are a completely different story. While your brain can easily calculate the target’s movement speed and tell you how much you should lead your sights, with older bows you must also take in consideration the relatively slow-moving arrow, so you must lead your shot a LOT more. And because your shot is slower than a bullet, it will arc a lot more, both horizontally and vertically, and so you must also consider that effect when aiming WHILE moving your body to follow your target. And you also need to be much more stable and the moment of the shot you must be as steady as possible, forcing you to fight the momentum created by moving your arms and body to follow the target’s movement, otherwise the shot will arc too much and you will fail to hit your target. In addition to all this, you also have stability problems caused by firing several arrows while turning around. Also, you don’t have the sights that nowadays bows possess, making things even more difficult. Etc.

Long story short, there are so many factors that make shooting a moving target much more difficult than shooting, say, a target dancing in the same 5-ft square, even in the current days with the current technology. Making one with technology from the Middle Ages was even more difficult.

[Hanuman]

I should point out characters not denied their dex AC are considered moving.

[Isair]

But of course, because unless you make a Run you are rarely moving the exact same way. Those who make a Run, however, do it in a straight-line, moving in the exact same way, and thus are denied their Dexterity bonus to AC.