D&D 3.5 Variant Rule: Damage Derived from Attack roll

[scarmiglionne4]

What if you only rolled one die for attacks? You would make your d20 attack roll as normal. If you hit the target's AC, the amount exceeding the AC takes the place of what would normally be the weapon's die damage, hereafter referred to as base damage.

Weapons would have a maximum damage rating. For example, let's say you made an attack with a longsword. A longsword's max damage would be 8. You make an attack roll against an AC of 15 and roll a 24. You hit and deal 8 base damage (adding any other damage modifiers). You do not deal 9 damage because the weapon's maximum is 8. If you had rolled a 19, the base damage would have been 4.

This would allow for weapons that would have odd base damages such as 5 or 7. I would think damage-dealing capability would grow with the character to some extent. I would also hope since this cuts down on a roll of the dice that it may speed up combat. although I worry that the extra math may actually make it slower.

Any thoughts on how else this may effect the game?

[Eldan]

How would you handle critical hits? And Bonus damage, such as from sneak attack? What happens to power attack?

A good idea Overall, though. It saves some rolling, which is always nice.

[scarmiglionne4]

How would you handle critical hits? And Bonus damage, such as from sneak attack? What happens to power attack?

A good idea Overall, though. It saves some rolling, which is always nice.

With critical hits I was thinking that the base damage would derive from the confirmation roll and you would just multiply whatever you get there. Power Attack would grant bonus damage like normal, but at the risk of doing less base damage. I hadn't really thought of sneak attack. I am thinking I would make sneak attack grant a straight bonus to damage whenever a sneak attack would be successful. I am thinking for each d6 it would just be +3 to damage.

[OzymandiasX]

I'd be wary of it changing game balance, as it changes several aspects of a pretty major game mechanic.

• Now each + to attack increases average damage output.
• +1 AC, in addition to making a target 5% harder to hit, also often absorbs 1 point of damage.
• Damage from attacks that don't require a to-hit roll (ie. fireball) keep the same average damage, while the damage of to-hit attacks is changed.
• With multiple attacks, the iterative attacks will now do less damage in addition to being less likely to hit. This also weakens things like two-weapon fighting which adds extra attacks at the expense of +to hit...
• At high levels, characters first attacks are designed to almost always hit by a lot. This may increase damage output notably for physical-attack based chars.

I'm not saying it won't work... and lessening the number of dice per attack is a worthy cause. :) I'd do a good bit of playtesting with a variety of characters/monsters and builds to see how it changes balance.