Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Crazy_DM 02-21-04, 10:12 AM	Hej folks, I wonder about the different new armor systems and maybe we get a little discussion about the advantages and disadvanteges. And which to combine. I think in the Star Wars d20 System they combine the "Defense Bonus", "Armor as Damage Reduction" and "Vitality and Wound Points". First, I appreciate the idea of a defense bonus together with the Vitality Points. It tells you that you become more versatile in combat. But I must admit that a critical hit from any source able to fight would kill even the best Barbarian. Guess he has CON 30 that gives him 22 wound points. Take an Iron Golem with 2d10 + 11. With a critical hit he would instantly kill the Barbarian. This gives me the feeling that from a certain level on every critical hit is instantly considered to be death. Second the Damage Conversion would be real funny because I well armored fighter would lay prone because of becoming unconsious. And that more often than any serious wounds. But the fight would last longer, as you have "double" hit points. You know what I mean. Third, Armor as Damage Reduction is fine because if tells you that your armor realy prevents you from damage (even if not so much as Damage Conversion). But I doubt that gaining little less damage is a greater Advantage than becoming hitten more often which is an obvious Disadvantage. What do you think and what do you think about mixing them up? Greetings, your Crazy_DM
Eagle Prince 02-21-04, 10:27 AM	One way to combine them would be like this. Lets say you are using a longsword (1d8/19-20 x2). On a critical hit, you would deal double damage PLUS 2 points of Con damage. Or if you were using a scythe (2d4/20 x4) on a crit you would do 4 times damage PLUS 4 points of Con damage. That would make crits more powerful than they are in standard rules but prevent one lucky hit from even kill a brusier.
bolobaby 02-21-04, 01:23 PM	I've been wrapping my brain around the different armor/damage systems that have been presented in Unearthed Arcana and have mixed feelings. Regarding Defense Bonuses I'm not so keen on something that automatically raises armor class without penalty. I think the system should work a bit more like Combat Expertise. Like Combat Expertise, every character should be able to decide how much of their combat skill they want to devote to offense and how much they want to devote to defense. Fighters (and their ilk) have greater combat skills which would be represented by higher BABs and potential defense bonuses. I haven't worked out the details yet, but I'm trying to come up with a give and take system along these lines. (Combat Expertise would still be a valid normal feat because it would *stack* with existing armor bonuses from wearing armor whereas my defense bonus would not.) Also, it may be interesting to apply a dex-based or reflex save-based limitation to defense scores. That may only be duplicating dex contributions to AC, though. Gotta give it more thought. Regarding Armor as DR The biggest heartburn I have with this system is how badly it screws the two-weapon fighters. DR already favors the greatsword wielding fighters... implementing it on every armored opponent makes TWF almost a silly choice. I recommend a feat that allows anyone using a 1-handed piercing weapon to bypass armor based DR. Or, a rule that simply says "anyone using a 1-handed piercing weapon may take a penalty to their attack roll equal to their opponent's armor's DR in order to bypass DR." (Two handed piercing weapons would be two unwieldy to pull off this technique.) Think of it as "sticking it where it counts"... in the chink in the armor. Maybe the feat could reduce these penalties. I *did* notice this - full plate's max dex bonus is +1, so AC would be +5 with DR. A chain shirt still has a max dex bonus of +4, so AC could be HIGHER with the chain shirt (+6). That makes sense to me. The guy wearing the chain shirt *should* be able to dodge blows more easily than the guy decked out in full plate. Also, the lower armor values make shields much, much more valuable - which I definitely like. As it stands now, shields are very much underused by the combat classes - they either go 2-handed weapon or TWF. Regarding Damage Conversion I like this system as it allows a party to heal up faster. Combat should still be a threat, though, so I'd probably implement a sytem where healing spells - when used in combat - don't heal both lethal and non-lethal damage. Otherwise every healing spell now works twice as well. A party would have to wait 10 minutes to gain the double-duty effect of healing spells in my campaign. Regarding Vitality and Wound Points Hrm. It's good, it's bad. It's good, it's bad. I keep flip-flopping! Pro: I like fact that two characters with a Con of 16 have the same number of wound points, regardless of class. That seems to make sense. Fighters aren't more healthy than wizards, per se. Con: All NPC classes take straight wound damage? Kinda throws off the CR for 20th level warriors, doesn't it? Pro: It adds a bit more realism to combat. A critical hit that would lop off a head cuts off your head at 1st level and 20th level. Con: It places waaaaaay to much emphasis on critical hits. In fact, it becomes a race to see who can crit first. Con: Bonuses to damage - like strength bonuses - gain an incredible amount of weight since every character has so few wound points. I dunno... with this system, I see a lot more dead characters strewn across the battlefield. I'd HIGHLY recommend implementing a HELMET system if you are going to use this system. Something likes this: Helmet (light) - +2 AC only against rolls to confirm criticals. -2 to spot and listen checks. Leather and chain skullcaps and coifs. Helmet (heavy) - +4 AC only against rolls to confirm criticals. -4 to spot and listen checks. Steel pots. (Maybe also -2 to diplomacy and other skills that are affected when your target can see your face.) OK... now to get to work on making an ablative armor system to go with DR. Hehe...
Masterful_Norg 02-21-04, 01:59 PM	If you combine VP/WP with the bell curve rolls you don't have to fear death by criticals to often what with only a 1 in 216 chance that you'll land or receive a critical hit.
Woas 02-21-04, 01:59 PM	Originally posted by Crazy_DM Second the Damage Conversion would be real funny because I well armored fighter would lay prone because of becoming unconsious. And that more often than any serious wounds. But the fight would last longer, as you have "double" hit points. You know what I mean. Are you sure about this? I have been trying to get some friends to test this with me because I really like the idea of it, but am afraid of any results it may yield that I did not forsee. I believe that in most cases that this variant might not do to much. I also think combat will either be shorter, or at most the same. Light armored or unarmored characters are probably going to drop in combat do to loss of hitpoints as it already is and I forsee little change in this area over all. Some one with leather or padded armor with a +2 AC bonus just isn't going to be able to convert 8, 10,15 points of damage into nonlethal. I guess this is balanced in the sense that most lightly armored characters are spell casters, archer/dex dependant characters and the such so they have that buffer zone… but its not like it is very hard to get to them. One well place Summon Monster, spell or charge. This buffer of being in the back ranks does not really add up. Medium and heavier armored characters and enemies are a little more like they discribe in the book. These characters have the higher AC bonuses and can convert a good amount of damage into non-lethal. This means that characters are going to go down in combat not because they have been reduce to negative hit points, but because they are so exhausted from being smashed with melee weapons. These characters who regularly enter melee combat and go down are not going to necessarily die. Again, there seems to be an inherint balance in this since the heavy and medium armored characters are going to be the fighters, barbarians (probably) and other "front line" characters. Combat as I forsee, will not go any longer. When you get hit, you still take the same about of damage over all. But instead of going down at -1, people will be going down at positive numbers. They just won't be dead or dying. If anything it will make combat move quicker. If I took 10 points of damage and had an AC bonus of 5 and 10 hit points, then I would be a 5 hitpoints and 5 non lethal damage and be exhuasted just like I would be at 0. However, it is not life threatening. What I am afraid of is that if the players who are good want to actually kill anything, unless it is totally unarmored, they will have to "murder them in their sleep" almost. Which sounds very evil. I also don't like the fact that heal spells will work on both non-lethal and lethal damage.
bolobaby 02-21-04, 02:15 PM	Originally posted by Masterful_Norg If you combine VP/WP with the bell curve rolls you don't have to fear death by criticals to often what with only a 1 in 216 chance that you'll land or receive a critical hit. It's 1 in 216 that you get an auto-hit, not critical. The new threat ranges for 3d6 threaten a critical at roughly the same rate as the old threat ranges. In some situations, however, you get MORE critical hits using the bell curve! Think about it - if the threat chance is roughly the same, that brings us to the confirmation roll. The bell curve system puts more weight at 10-11. If your attack bonuses would score a hit at 10-11, you are MORE likely to confirm the critical. Any character with high attack bonuses will likely be scoring hits at 10-11. For example, our party is 6th level. The fighter with an 18 strength and +1 greatsword is +11 to hit. That doesn't include when my bard is singing or when he is flanking or charging. Not many CR 6 monsters in the MM have an AC greater than 22. There are also thing like weapon focus and such that could bring his to-hit even higher.
Zaebos 02-22-04, 03:34 AM	Well, we just finished playing the first game since UA came out, and the alternate rules that I added initially were Action Points Class Defense Bonus Armor Damage Reduction Traits Everyone enjoyed it much more than before. It made more sense to me as a DM and to the players as characters that Armor should prevent damage and that your experiance should reflect how well you avoid a hit. Giving them at first level the Defense bonus increases their AC by about 2 points each on the average but decreasing their Flat Footed AC to about 10 - 12. 1st level characters are about AC 12 (wizard) to AC 18 (fighter). I find these acceptable. Everyone was happy to give up their armor bonus for damage reduction as well, though it took some getting used to initially to subtract their DR from the damage taken. My take is that it helps lower level PC's, but balances out at higher levels, which is perfectly acceptable to me. The action point system also is a god send (especially the stabalization method). It gives the DM a tool that doesn't feel like your coddling the PC's when they drop to -10 hit points. Who really feels like rolling up new characters every time they die. So, what happens is they get 5 chances at first level to do something, well, heroic or, as the case may be, save their little butts without the DM feeling like an butt crack for killing them due to their own player flaws and not necessarily their character flaws. Also, due to good roleplaying I thought it well and good that instead of giving out xp for roleplaying, I awarded 1 Action point to those I thought deserving of it, and tonite, I thought everyone was deserving. The traits system seems just a tad much, but, as with tonite, if the players role play their traits good, then by all means it is worth it. Though i did not allow my players to choose their traits, they did roll randomly for them, accepting them as a one shot roll. All in all we all had fun, and everyone was delighted with the results... I think we will keep these for a while.
Crazy_DM 02-22-04, 11:08 AM	Thanks everybody for his / her reply. First I must admit that I like the vitality / wound point system very much. And I give you right that the boni (from any source: weapons, STR, magic...) breake the system. If we take an average CON Score from 10 to 14 someone could easily survive almost every weapon once if the weapon damage is without any additions. But as the additions become almost incredible at higher levels a critical hit is an instant kill. Take my example of the Iron Golem with a CR of 13. A dwarfen barbarian might have a CON Score of 24 ( while raging) at this level. But as the Golem does an average damage of 22 it would kill anybody else.... So wheter you make a critical hit happen not so often ( I think about the bell curve) or the weapon damge has to go down. Second the DR system. I did not think about the Two Weapon fighting. Our Ranger would kill me if I do this. Although I must say I like the idea. Armor protects you from damage so why not DR. Third the Defense Bonus System. I think the boni are to heavy and the AC would become incredible. But I think to combine them somehow. Why not take all of the AC bonus from an Armor as DR and for not getting hit you have the Defense Bonus. Or 3/4 of the AC bonus is DR and the rest for AC. But what about magic? I think as a magic AC bonus is a force effect is should count as DR but the rest should improve your AC. And so you could use the vitality / wound point system. Because in this way a fighter with - let's say - DR 7 could survive a blow even at higher levels with a high CON score. Greetings, your Crazy_DM.
TheMightyMcClaw 02-22-04, 02:49 PM	I like the idea of a defense bonus system to replace a hoarde of magic items which all add +1 or +2 to AC, but.... They mangled it, bad. By basing class defense bonus off of armor proficiency, they're are making clerics inherently better at fighting unarmored than monks, rangers, rogues..... that, and the starting bonuses are a wee bit rediculous..... I mean, +6!? Not only is it higher than any L1 character is likely to achieve through equipment, it's higher without any max dex bonus, armor check penalty, or any of the other drawbacks of armor.... I better stop ranting now....
bolobaby 02-22-04, 02:58 PM	Originally posted by TheMightyMcClaw I like the idea of a defense bonus system to replace a hoarde of magic items which all add +1 or +2 to AC, but.... They mangled it, bad. By basing class defense bonus off of armor proficiency, they're are making clerics inherently better at fighting unarmored than monks, rangers, rogues..... that, and the starting bonuses are a wee bit rediculous..... I mean, +6!? Not only is it higher than any L1 character is likely to achieve through equipment, it's higher without any max dex bonus, armor check penalty, or any of the other drawbacks of armor.... I better stop ranting now.... Well, +6 *isn't* bigger than what a normal 1st level character will have (think scale mail and shield), but that's irrelevant... You are mostly right about it being wrong to base it on armor proficiency, though. I believe it should be based on *combat prowess*. The same skills that give you a higher BAB would help you to avoid blows in combat. Personally, I like the idea, but hate the implementation presented in UA. I'm trying to come up with a reasonable solution that works within current game mechanics. We'll see...
BrutalMisery 02-22-04, 03:37 PM	I love this book. I like the damage reduction variant, and the class bonus variant, though I agree with bolobaby; good idea, not so great execution. The idea of a 7th level wizrd taking his 8th level in fighter, becuase his class defence goes from a a +4 (7th level wizard) to a +8 (because the 8th level fighter defence bonus is just that cool). That's the bonus for a chain shirt, only better because there is not armor check penalty. A 7th level wizard, upoun gaining his 8th level in wizard, is still at a +4. Maybe if it was done like Star Wars, you add the two defence bonuses together, and subtract a number (something more than 2, becasue that changes very little). Say, 3 or 4? But make it where you can't go below zero (so a 7th level fighter adding a level in wizard doesn't lose any class defence). Any how, them's my thoughts
Zaebos 02-22-04, 04:07 PM	I dont see the problem with the Class Defense system as written. No sir I don't see it at all. Consider this, their FLAT FOOTED AC is practically nill. The MONK is not getting shafted, since he still gets his wisdom bonus and Dex bonus to AC AND his AC bonus (which starts at 5th level). The ranger really doesn't take a hit since most rangers at first level can't really afford the chain shirt that gives the +4 bonus to ac AND at later levels (6th and up) he gets better AC bonus without having to spend valuable cash on magic armor. Granted the Max dex bonus and armor check penalties don't work well with this system, but such is not the requisite of the rule here. Here we are trying to say that based on the armor proficiency (which is based on the combat prowess of class (face it, it really is when scurtinized carefully you soon come to realize that it is. 'Wait a monk is...' I can hear that now, but I say that their wisdom bonus makes up for their training in their arts, and that class defense system helps due to their experiance in real world situations)) the characters gain in ability to avoid hits as they progress in experiance. The armor check/max dex system works best with the classs defense bonus system when you use Armor as Damage Reduction system in tandem. This allows for the players to have a modicum of DR which is a heavy boon at early levels, but not so at higher levels. Remeber that shields with Armor ad Damage Reduction grant their full bonus to AC. As for the Vitality and Wound Points system, it seems to me to be heavier book keeping than is really necessary in a game that already (well sort of) has this system in place if you play with the 0 to -9 rules. Infact, you can incorporate this system somewhat with the Vitality and Wound Points system saying that the original dying rules don't go to -9 but to 0 to -con score. This system seems a bit heavy on characters if they are just a little unlucky, and unforgiving in the crit damage tables. I like the system, but in the heat of the battle, 1 lucky crit can take out the party's tank. But then again, I take the stance that the DM is not 'AGAINST' the players, but FOR them, this means the DM tries to give the players the advantage when ever possible within the scope of the rules. Call me old fashoned, but this is my take on it.
aldymnor 02-22-04, 04:12 PM	I've always believed the best way to integrate guns in D&D is have them bypass some sort of Armor DR. The main reason I'd want to use Armor as DR rules in D&D is for guns to bypass such DR, or any DR on armor marked as "archaic" (from a D&D book.)
Crazy_DM 02-24-04, 07:24 AM	Okay boys and girls, do we have now a common sense what do combine? Maybe we could take the first steps to 4th edition ;-) Greetings, your Crazy_DM
Crazy_DM 02-24-04, 09:18 AM	Hej folks, finally to sum up some opinions and ideas. And my idea how to do it. Even if we have to re-think about combat. To start I would use the vitality / wound point system. But in addition to have wound points equal to your CON Score you should add the full Hit Die of your class. (I think as a fighter your body is more versatile than a wizard's body is). Now the AC. I think your AC bonus granted by the armor should count fully as DR. As magical enhancements are used by Mage Armor which is a force effect it should stack with the DR. Including Natural Armor. Deflection bonus, luck bonus and alike should count to your AC. To avoid a hit you have your DEX Bonus plus your Defense Bonus but not higher than the max DEX bonus allowed by your armor. Either you are agile or well protected if you know what I mean. Now if you take a hit the damage absorbed by your armor should count against your vitality points. The rest directly goes to your wounds. And if your vitality points are gone you are exhausted. Then you have again half your vitality points. But if they are gone too you fall unconsious. But I get a headache to think that critical hit directly affect your wound points. As I have written before IMO it is an instant kill at higher levels. So I think a critical hit should give you some penalties. The more damage the more severe the penalty. This could be something simple like -1 to every attack, save or skill check for every 5 damage taken. I think this system makes clear who has to be a frontliner in combat and who has to stay behind.
N4M8- 02-24-04, 09:46 AM	The biggest heartburn I have with this system is how badly it screws the two-weapon fighters. DR already favors the greatsword wielding fighters... implementing it on every armored opponent makes TWF almost a silly choice. Have you done the math to see how much damage can be expected under Armor as Damage Reduction compared to standard? I think you may be forgetting that ACs are lower under AADR and so people get hit more often.
Crazy_DM 02-24-04, 10:19 AM	I did not the math in every detail but it came to my mind that you get hit more often. But on the other side a fighter with a real high DR from his armor would fall unconsious before his wound points reach zero. And therefor you get again half your vitality points. But as I have said before it states who has to be in the first line of combat and who not. And I get the feeling that combat becomes more dangerous. Maybe players become more creative how to avoid it and do not kill everything in their way. Greetings, your Crazy_DM.
DungeonlessMaster 02-24-04, 10:45 AM	Ok, I waited a very long time for this book to come out becuase I have been disapointed with hit points for a while. It is not that they are bad it is that they are not nearly as interesting as most other systems. Fundamentally I dislike that hitpoints have only a single affect on a character, tracking how long they have until being dead. On the other hand here is what I think of the alternate systems. VP/WP: Love the idea. I have wanted to put this into my d&d games since I played a session of the star wars rpg. However, before it always seemed relatively difficult. Now, although it is easy, I feel thourougly let down. First and foremost: NO SUBDUAL DAMAGE! My player's very correctly pointed out that their is no way to knock a person unconsous anymore. Also, people who are at 0 wound points are not dead! Fights appearntly continue until somebody gets reduced to zero and then everybody wonders around aimlessly trying not to perform an action that makes them go unconsioius. What 's more there is no way to kill a creature at 0 wound points. Consider VP/WP on an adult dragon. Its fortitude save is very high. It is likely going to pass A LOT of rounds of d15 fort. saves. So now dragons fight not until they have about 25% hp remaining and then fly off. They fight until they have lost all their vitality and con and then fly off. High level fighters are the same way. Cloaks of resistance +5 will be the most commonly sought after item in the universe. I was really looking forward to this system, and even printed out the online version. I had all my players sit down and read through it. Then right as the game began I got innudated with these situations. At first I tried valiently to defend this new system. However, the more I thought about it the more their arguments made sense. I don't think this variant is as useable as it seems. Injury System: This would be ok, and a plausable altnative if it didn't require such a tremdous failure to die. Again dragon slaying becomes even closer to impossible than before. More than that the "injuries" are pathetic. If the injuries impacted rolls other than the one for recieving more injuries this would be really cool. As for the armor systems: I don't mind the bonuses granted to the classes except that they eliminate the need for other sorts of protection interely. I agree that everybody ought to have what currently amounts to the combat expertise feat. Armor as damage reduction: I dislike that this system effetively creates only four types armor. Light, Medium, Heavy, and Platemail. I dislike how similar all the armors are in this system. Also plate mail should not, under any circumstances be a less effective total defense than plate mail. Remember that historical texts have shown that midevil Knights could JUMP ONTO THEIR HORSES WHILE WEARING FULL ARMOR. The platemail presented in dnd is like wearing football pads and shin guards over chianmail. Damage conversion: I like it, my players hate it. They have some good points. All this really does is mean that people go unconsious from subdual instead of from hit point loss, and afterward the players walk around the battlefield and coup de grace everybody. Although this is sort of like a medievel battlefield (there where people who that was thier job, kill all the wounded enemy left on the field of battle) it really changes little with the game. I really wanted this stuff to be cool, however, now that I have seen it I am very sad. It isn't easy to use and it doesn't really satisfy my players or this dm in our search for a more interesting combat.
Crazy_DM 02-24-04, 11:40 AM	I like your sorrows with the dragons. I think it is always the same with powerful beings. And thus I must admit that it would be very hard to kill a dragon by using my system described above. But hey guys...a dragon is a dragon. It is one of the most powerful beings. Also I think some monsters are not ment to be killed. Maybe the dragon is one of these kinds... But please give me more replays to my system. And please not why it won't work but some ideas how to improve it. Greetings, your Crazy_DM.
N4M8- 02-24-04, 12:11 PM	Well I did work out the numbers last week and worked out a spreadsheet comparing standard damage to AADR (http://home.ionet.net/~dbachman/AADR.xls). The spreadsheet does not factor in criticals or the impact of Str bonus, but those can be considered qualitatively. The presumed BAB is 0. As to what is on the spreadsheet itself, the only time AADR is lowering damage is when damage values are particularly low, in this case when the damage die is a d4. Under every other damage die type damage taken increases. A person using two weapons and the Two Weapon Fighting feat and using a light weapon in his offhand suffers a -2 penalty to both hands. A light weapon generally deals d4 or d6 damage and only gets half Str bonus if wielded in the off hand. 2-handed weapons get 1+1/2 times Str bonus. While many 2-handed weapons can be used to get an extra attack they suffer standard penalties for doing so and typically offer d10 or d12 damage. So how does a TWF compare to a 2-handed weapon wielder differently under AADR compared to standard? Let's presume equal BABs, that the TWF is wielding the most damaging combination of 1-handed and light weapons he can wield--long sword and short sword for d10 and d6 respectively. The 2-handed fighter is presumed to be using a great axe for a d12 damage. Under the standard system, facing a target at 15 AC, the TWF deals out an average of 1.8 damage per round (-2 penalty to both attacks). The 2-handed fighter averages out 1.95. Under AADR, assuming the 5 AC to be purely from armor, the two fighters would be going up against AC 13 with DR 2/-. The TWF fighter averages 2.46 damage per round. The 2-handed fighter averages 2.5 damage per round. Under both systems the 2-handed fighter averages more damage. However the amount of damage he wields in comparison is lessened under AADR--1.6% more as compared to 8.3%. Of course this presumed very low level fighters (BAB 0) and no Str modifiers and presumed a target with no shield. Under the standard system, the lower the target's AC the better the TWF fares compared to the 2-handed fighter, with breakeven being when the the 2-handed figthter needs to roll a 14 to hit. Under AADR the TWF is again favored at low armor values relative to BAB. A full consideration would require factoring in BAB and the impact of shields as well, but I do not see immediate ground for suspecting that TWF is hosed in comparison to 2-handed weapons to any greater extent under AADR than under standard.
N4M8- 02-24-04, 12:53 PM	Injury System: This would be ok, and a plausable altnative if it didn't require such a tremdous failure to die. Again dragon slaying becomes even closer to impossible than before. More than that the "injuries" are pathetic. If the injuries impacted rolls other than the one for recieving more injuries this would be really cool. In part I agree with you. In Mutants and Masterminds, which is where I first saw the system, the minuses applied to ALL dice rolls. Perhaps they were trying to retain the flavor of D&D that historically has a player/creature fighting as well at 1 hp as at full health. Still, are dragons that horrible under the Injury system? Under the standard system a dragon is already close to impossible. A mature red dragon has an AC 32, which means that short of having a +13 attack a character only has a 5% chance of hitting (on a 20). They then average 312 hps. Mongo the Stupid with an 18 Str and a Great Axe will average roughly 13 points of damage, so it will require on average 24 successful hits to down the the dragon. If you're only hitting once every 20 tries, that is roughly 480 swings. Allow me to suggest that Mongo is very stupid indeed. Under Injury, a dragon that has been hit 20 times has a cummulative -20 to its Fortitude saves. A mature dragon has a Fortitude Save bonus of 20, so 20 hits is sufficient to wipe this away. That means that when it makes the DC 15 + Damage/5 (round up) it has a chance of sliding right into disabled. Mind you, this presumes that it at no point previously failed sufficiently poorly to have slid in before the 20th hit was landed. I fail to see how you conclude that dragon slaying is much different than before. Moreover a critical hit under the Injury system makes the DC check harder and therefore the target more likely to slip into an unfavorable state. Under standard you do take away a bigger chunk of hps when you critical, but the creature continues to fight as well as it did before so long as its hp total remains positive and you have to pound it down to zero. Under Injury critical threatens to put the target into a negative state generally and when facing things as tough as dragons come into play sooner to help you out as one that has racked up sufficient negatives can be sent to Disabled sooner than later. Armor as damage reduction: I dislike that this system effetively creates only four types armor. Light, Medium, Heavy, and Platemail. It does? The progression is 1 AC with no damage reduction, 1 AC DR 1/-, 2 AC DR 1/-, 2 AC DR 2/-, 3 AC DR 2/-, 3 AC, DR 3/-, 4 AC DR 3/- and 4 AC DR 3/-. That looks like more than four types of armor. Toss in too that shields continue to add directlt to AC and the system seems more robust and varied to me. Of course YMMV.
DungeonlessMaster 02-24-04, 01:24 PM	Alright here are the things to consider for those tough monsters. Yes, the dragon could get an unfavorable die roll. On the other hand you are two generous in your calculation of what hurts the dragon. As I understand the system you you get a penalty to your further saving thows if you fail your save by 5 or less. PASSING means no harm no foul. Consider the dragon agian. It has a +20 fort save. That means that a character has to make the dc at least 23 before the dragon can fail on anyting but a 1. to add 8 points to the difficulty of the save would require that the character inflict 40+ points of damage! So unless Mongo the stupid has an axe of "unlease fireball when I hit you" his attacks have a 5% chance to do ANYTHING to the creature. This makes the dragon much more deadly. It also has a damage reduction lowering the value of the save neccessary. Basically Mongo the stupid goes from being able to slay the dragon with the aid of friends, to food with no chance of escape. Secondly characters with +13 to hit are not facing adult dragons. I will bet Mongo's attacks are at a lot closer to +18 - +25 to hit, under the conditions of a real encounter (i.e. party with a little balance fights dragon) Now +25 is way high for his first attack but it can be done by the time the dragon would be considered an "appropriate challange" on the other hand his damage is still far below +40 points. Again a warrior who at high levels inflicts about 25 points of damage (only a little more than half neccessary) is doing great! We will assume that Mongo's weapon defeats the dragons damage reduction. Still mongo is less than useless. So again tough monsters become harder to slay. Finally, recovery is a lot easier when fortitude saves are used instead of a 10% chance. The dragon is downed, the pc's say "Yea!" they begin getting treasure. One round later the dragon passes its save to stablize. The party is still dealing with the treasure. Third round the dragon is back, and now the characters are wearing his stuff. Dragons are not the only monsters to whom this applies. All critters with good fort saves become very very tough in this system. As do high level warriors.
Crazy_DM 02-24-04, 02:01 PM	Okay boys and girls, espacially N4M8-. Thanks for your math but I did not divide the armor into AC bonus and DR. As you can read above I'd take the full AC bonus as DR. I do not want to write it all again. Please check above. I will check it too via math. And thank you for your discussion of the Injury System. But could you give me a feedback about my System (above). Greetings, your Crazy_DM.
N4M8- 02-24-04, 03:00 PM	As I understand the system you you get a penalty to your further saving thows if you fail your save by 5 or less. PASSING means no harm no foul. Correct. Consider the dragon agian. It has a +20 fort save. That means that a character has to make the dc at least 23 before the dragon can fail on anyting but a 1. to add 8 points to the difficulty of the save would require that the character inflict 40+ points of damage! A mature red dragon has a CR of 18. Let's say you're using the dragon as an extra hard challenge to your party and you're only dealing with 15th level characters. The fighters all have +15/+10/+5 BABs. Most people playing fighters manage to swing Str bonuses, so probably you're looking at adding another 2-4 to the BAB and to damage. At 15th level a fighter will have recieved 14 feats minimally. While it can not be stated with any certainty that a particular player will choose a given feat for his character 14 is a large number and there are some obvious feats that a fighter is likely to take. Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Specialization and Improved Critical would only require 5 of 14 feats, leaving ample for completing a Whirlwind Attack or whatever other prerequisite heavy feat you might want to consider while granting +2 to attack, +4 to damage, and doubling the crit range of the fighter's weapon. That brings us to +19/+14/+9 to +21/+16/+11 with +6 to +8 on damage. I don't suppose that by 15th level your characters have acquired magic items. A stingy DM would probably have characters with +3 weapons in hand. So you're looking at +22/+17/+12 to +25/+20/+15 with +6 to +8 to damage and a double sized crit range, and lets face it, I'm being very conservative assuming so little. Taking the lower of those attack bonuses, the odds of hitting are as follows: No hits 33.25%, 1 hit 49.25%, 2 hits 16.75%, 3 hits 0.75%. The old standard for weapons in the game (because it was preferred on the treasure tables) is the long sword at 1 to 8 damage. With our feat selection that is 7-14 to 9-16 damage. Improved Critical means that one hit in every 5 has a chance to critical and thereby make damage 8-22 to 10-24. This translates into DC 17-18 to DC 17-19 saves normally with crits being DC 17-20 saves. So I'm inclined to agree with you vis-a-vis dragons and other things with incredibly high Fortitude saves. Finally, recovery is a lot easier when fortitude saves are used instead of a 10% chance. The dragon is downed, the pc's say "Yea!" they begin getting treasure. One round later the dragon passes its save to stablize. The party is still dealing with the treasure. Third round the dragon is back, and now the characters are wearing his stuff. Come now, if the dragon was down it should have been coup de grace'd. Dragons are not the only monsters to whom this applies. All critters with good fort saves become very very tough in this system. As do high level warriors. Fighters top out at +12 to their Fortitude save. Toss in an 18 Con and that is still less than the dragon, and I've never been in a campaign where the characters got past 13th level (so for the fighter that would be a +13 Fortitude bonuse). I do have to concede that dragons are. . .difficult for fighters to have much meaning against, which is kinda at odds with the genre.
bolobaby 02-24-04, 03:20 PM	Originally posted by N4M8- Have you done the math to see how much damage can be expected under Armor as Damage Reduction compared to standard? I think you may be forgetting that ACs are lower under AADR and so people get hit more often. Many TWF types tend to be finesse fighters. Considering that average ability bonus totals using the standard stat generation is about +6, you can safely assume that the +3 stat will probably go into dex. Let's say I'm a ranger TWFer with a +1 from strength. If I used shortswords in each hand (to take advantage of my Weapon Focus and Weapon Finesse), that means my damage is a mere 1d6+1 per sword - or 4.5 on average. If I hit a full plate opponent both times, I only do 1 point of damage on average. Now take the 2-hander who has his +3 in strength instead of dex. That puts him at +4 just from strength. The remaining 2d6 damage goes right through DR - average of 7. Ouch. With a little play experience, you can always see that DR favors the 2-handers. Like I said - all the "armor as DR" system needs is a way for the finesse fighters to bypass DR. Perhaps if they take a minus to hit equal to the DR they can avoid it all together. Stick that little blade where it counts!
Crazy_DM 02-24-04, 05:13 PM	Folks I want the complete AC bonus as DR. Greetings, your Crazy_DM.
Zaebos 02-24-04, 06:02 PM	The best way AADR works is with Class Defense Bonus, taking the best AC bonus from either source and applying it to your AC. First level Ranger using combined AADR/CD Ranger with dex 16 Wearing Chain Shirt Max Dex Bonus: +4 Armor Check Penalty: -2 Total AC Bonus: 3(dex)+3(Class Defense)+10= 16 Total Flat Footed AC: 2(armor)+10= 12 Total Touch Bonus: 3(dex)+3(Class Defense)+10= 16 Total Damage Reduction: 2/- First Level Ranger Normal Rules Ranger with dex 16 Wearing Chain Shirt Max Dex Bonus: +4 Armor Check Penalty: -2 Total AC Bonus: 3(dex)+4(Armor)+10= 17 Total Touch Bonus: 4(armor)+10= 14 Total Touch Bonus: 3(dex)+10= 13 Total Damage Reduction: Nil You get a -1 to your normal AC using combined alternate rules You get a -2 to your flat footed AC using combined alternate rules You get a +3 to your touch AC using combined alternate rules (here the numbers balance out) AND you get DR from combined alternate rules If you combine the rules, you help your players out early on. This is why I have adopted the combination of these 2 systems. If I were to add the Vitality Wound Point system, it would be adding a more leathal system of gaming and more randomness that typically never favors the players. The Injury system, were I to add it, seems to give an advantage to either end of the damage spectrum, but at the cost of slowing combat down. First, you need to divide each hit the character takes by 5 to get the damage value. If the character is taking multiple hits in a round, this can be tiresome. Then, the character needs to make a fortitude save DC15+damage value on each hit. Further, if you fail your save, you are now disabled, he can only take one action a round and moves at half speed. And one unlucky roll while dying will kill you out right. This system, though nice, gives again more randomness to combat, which doesn't benifit the players, and includes a save or die method as well. These Hit point systems are very well thought out, and probably nice to play with once in a while. But on the whole, they will slow down play, increase bookkeeping, and ultimately your players will become more 'accountants' than 'roleplayers'. If you want, a simple solution would be to combine small aspects of both Injury and Vitality/Wound points to your game. -A character has an amount of negative hitpoints equal to their constitution score. -When a character takes enough damage to put them under 3/4's of their total hitpoints, they divide that hits total by 5 to get a damage rating. Then, the player makes a fortitude save DC 15+damage rating. Failure means the character is fatigued until the character is healed to at least 1/2 his hitpoint total. Hits while a character is fatigued do not further hinder the character. Something quick, simple and combines elements from both systems, doesn't include a lot of die rolls and probably wont slow combat down as much as it should. I probably wont play with this system either, since combat moves slow enough already. The HP system in the PH isn't perfect, but it does do the job quickly, without massive bookkeeping problems.
N4M8- 02-24-04, 06:04 PM	I did notice a mistake in the spreadsheet I posted, and so have corrected it. Let's say I'm a ranger TWFer with a +1 from strength. If I used shortswords in each hand (to take advantage of my Weapon Focus and Weapon Finesse), that means my damage is a mere 1d6+1 per sword - or 4.5 on average. If I hit a full plate opponent both times, I only do 1 point of damage on average. Now take the 2-hander who has his +3 in strength instead of dex. That puts him at +4 just from strength. The remaining 2d6 damage goes right through DR - average of 7. Ouch. That is not a proper comparison because you'll have a more difficult time hitting full plate going TWF than you would, all other things being equal, as a 2-hander. You can not just assume the hit would have been had otherwise in the standard system. With a little play experience, you can always see that DR favors the 2-handers. It doesn't even take play experience to see that 2-handed weapons are already favored in the standard system.
N4M8- 02-24-04, 06:22 PM	I plan to take a look at my copy of Mutants and Masterminds tonight (as that is the first place I saw the Injury system in a d20 product) and see what the differences are between what it presents and what Unearthed Arcana presents. I suspect that in M&M the damage values being tossed around are higher than in D&D (at least for fighters). What leaps to mind as a possible solution to the high fortitude monster problem is simply changing the DC save to be base 20 instead of 15. A coupe of problems though: (1) Doing so only delays the problem. Mature dragons become easeir to tackle but ancient dragons remain very difficult. (2) It becomes easier for low level characters to be sent into the lands of disabled. On the other hand I'm not sure how inappropriate this is. A 1st level character with max hp (and Con bonus) is pretty much a two hit affair to put down. Under AADR half the time you'd expect him to be sent to disabled (where the character can actually still take actions) and that translates into two hits t put down. But definitely will have to thumb through M&M when I get home tonight.
N4M8- 02-25-04, 01:46 AM	Okay, made it home and checked M&M. It breaks down as: Saving Stun Lethal Throw (Nonlethal) Attack Succeeds No Effect No Effect Fails Bruised (Hit) Injured (Hit) Fails by more than 5 Stunned Stunned Fails by more than 10 Unconscious Disabled Bruised (Stun Hit) - A stun hit means the character has been battered and bruised and is in less than top condition. Every stun hit a character has imposes a cumulative -1 modifier on the character's Damage saves against further stun damage. So the more stun hits you have, the more difficult it becomes to resist stun damage and the more likely the character is to be seriously affected by it (stunned or knocked out). Stun hits do not affect Damage saves versus lethal damage. Injured (Lethal Hit) - A lethal hit means the character has suffered some minor injury. Every lethal hit imposes a cummulative -1 modifier to the characteer's Damage saves against all forms of damage--both stun and lethal--since it represents a more serious weakening of the character's resistance. This penalty is cummulative with the penalty for stun hits with regard to stun damage. So a character with 4 stun hits and 3 lethal hits suffers a -7 penalty to Damage saves against stun damage and a -3 penalty to Damage saves against lethal damage. Stunned - A stunned result on the Damage save causes the target to take 1 hit and become stunned for 1 round. The character cannot take any actions (including free actions such as sustaining powers) and loses any dodge bonus to Defesne. Attackers get a +2 bonus to hit stunned characters. Unconscious - An unconscious character is knocked out and helpless. Further stun attacks against an unconscious character are treated as lethal attacks. Disabled - A disabled character is conscious and able to act, but terribly injured. He can take only a half action each round, and if he performs any strenuous actions, his condition changes to dying after completing the action. Strenuous actions include running, attacking, or using any ability that requires physical exertion or mental concentration (including most powers). Unearthed Arcana seems to merge Hit and Stunned into one result without the effects of Stunned--you suffer a hit. Damage in M&M is different than D&D in that each particular power is purchased to a power level and that power level is what is added to 15 to determine a save. So Blast bought at power level 5 imposes the same check as Telekinesis bought at power level 5. Consider that obstacle in converting M&M's injury system (which works nicely in M&M) to use in D&D. Damage doesn't come in power levels. What they did was create power levels via dividing damage results by 5 and rounding up. What this doesn't handle well is that in M&M the pseudo-Superman character only has a Fortitude save of +4. In D&D we can expect our fighters to be at that value while still relatively low level (assuming they don't start with that much). They could have done away with weapon damage as we know it and instead assigned power level, but at that point you're really leaving D&D behind and what was a simple rule becomes very complex. Clearly you want to only adopt the state change nature of the Injury system to D&D and leave things like hps, AC, and damage dice alone. What we are left to work with are two values--the base DC value and the way we calculate the damage bonus that adds to the base DC value. The option presented in UA is to divide damage rolled by 5 and round up. As noted this make dragons extremely hard to bring down due to their incredibly high Fortitudes. Previously I had suggested modifying the base DC value and noted the problems with doing so. The route left unexplored was to calculate the bonus. Instead of dividing by 5 and rounding up another value could be chosen for division--3 or 2 or even no division. Consider making the bonus to the DC save damage divided by 2 rounded up. How does this impact low level characters, high level characters and high fortitude monsters? At low levels a character can be killed (in the case of mages) or at least incapcitated in one shot. An 18 Str attacker wielding a long sword who rolls max damage will deal out 14 damage--sufficient to outright kill a mage with no Con bonus and send even a fighter with a +4 Con bonus to zero. If we divide 14 by 2 to get a +7 bonus we'd be looking at Fortitude saves at DC 22. For a +0 Fortitude save mage with no Con bonus, 40% of the time he'd take a hit and 60% of the time he'd be sent to disabled. This is a kinder result than outright death (though if you wanted to be a bit more harsh you could say that failure by 20 or more results in death). A fighter with a +4 bonus from 18 con and another +2 from being a fighter would be looking at a 30% chance of being disabled in a blow and a 50% chance of taking a hit, and a 20% of making his save and being fine. Not so bad as most times in play he'll take a few hits before a significant failure is experienced. At 10th level a fighter has a base Fortitude save modifier of +7. Supposing an extra +3 from Con and he's at +10 total. This means it takes at least 13 points of damage being scored on him for him to risk a 5% chance of being disabled by the blow, and otherwise he stands a 50% chance of taking a hit and a 45% of being fine with 12 points being scored on him. An Ogre's average damage on a successful hit with a great club is 15 damage--which would be a 20% chance of being disabled, 50% chance of taking a hit, and 30% of having no problems. That doesn't seem bad to me for a CR 3 monster which in theory the characters should clean up on. A purple worm will average a DC 26 check, meaning 25% chance of being disabled, 50% of taking a hit, and 25% of being okay. This doesn't seem so bad either. Dragons? Seemingly a mature dragon remains out of reach of a 15th level fighter to be generally useful against. Hmmm. . .I'm inclined to change the dragon at this point. :) [EDIT] Of course a mage tossing Bull Strength out and possibly an item of Str would put the dragon in the range of a 25% chance of taking a hit. . .maybe I'm getting close with this.