Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Thelon Fairblade 07-22-04, 11:23 AM	Thinking last few nights about this one... STR: only provides a damage bonus, because the bonus to hit was used to represent penetrating Armor AC... Armor provides DR: makes STR to hit bonus unnecessary. More STR = more ability to penetrate armor DR. DEX: ideally, split into Agility and Dex. Dex provides accuracy bonus missile weapons and fine manipulation (i.e. Open Locks, Disable Device); Agility provides AC and body movements (Hide, Move silently, etc.). So in melee, the only thing that improves your chance to hit is your skill (BAB, feats). your STR penetrates DR, your Agility gives AC bonus....
Thelon Fairblade 07-26-04, 10:09 AM	:bump: No one has any comments on balance, feasability, or anything?
SirisC 07-26-04, 10:39 PM	interesting concept, but would the feat weapon finesse now mean that dex is used as a damage bonus?
Thelon Fairblade 07-27-04, 07:53 AM	I actually had considered exactly that question. the answer is "Yes, but". Weapon Finesse would allow the wielder to use his DEX bonus as a bonus to damage (instead of his STR bonus), but only for the purposes of bypassing the target's DR due to armor. For example, it doesn't help you strike down an unarmored peasant, but it does help you put the blade up under the chain shirt's bottom, or into a non-plate-armored armpit, or sideways under a dragon's scale. Power Attack handles itself... you make your attack less accurate in order to do more damage, and thus penetrate the target's DR. Likewise, Expertise becomes both more valuable and more costly, since BAB is your *only* source of accuracy, a 2 point increase to AC is a significant percentage decrease in your foe's ability to strike you... but also your ability to strike your foe.
Xeviat-DM 07-28-04, 08:59 PM	Not sure if I like that. Stronger people swing their weapons harder and faster; a strong swing is harder to parry and a fast swing is harder to dodge. Also, wouldn't that strengthen ranged combat by virtue of weakening melee combat? Then again, almost everyone having DR would weaken ranged combat quite a bit.
Thelon Fairblade 07-29-04, 10:18 AM	Two good points, Xeviat. Ranged combat is indeed weakened by everyone having DR -- this is inherent in the Armor as DR rules. Do you have a suggestion about that? Personally, I was thinking about giving bows and crossbows a penetration value, but allowing DEX bonus to add to "damage" to penetrate DR for missile weapons is probably sufficient for this, too. High STR batters through DR, high DEX aims for weaker impact sites (and thus "bypasses" DR). As for STR and the harder/faster comment... ever been in a martial arts class? It doesn't matter how hard the blow is if you aren't hit by itl it doesn't matter how fast the blow is if you are out of range. One of the nifty things they taught me: if someone punches towards your head, you don't need a massive body movement to avoid the blow! Most times simply leaning back (bringing your head backwards out of range of the arm) or tilting your head to the side will avoid the blow with a minimum of effort, and incidentally leave you in a perfect position to counter. This is represented by your DEX bonus to AC. The opponent being stronger didn't make him more accurate or harder to dodge (STR bonus to hit), and me being in armor didn't make his blow less accurate (i.e. higher AC).
Lord Splendor 07-30-04, 03:55 PM	You may also want to play with the class defense rule (pg 109). That allows a defense bonus to ac based on class/level. It represents a parry/dodge bonus. Combining the two allows you to show that people who wear armor may get hit more often but take less damage, while people who wear no armor get hit less often but take alot more damage.
Kickbutt_nancy 08-04-04, 07:21 PM	so what exactly makes a person more accurate other than skill? is it speed and power (str) hand eye coordination (dex) in their Technique or Cunning (Int) Determination or Intuition (wis) IMO you would be gimping str based characters if str was not used on in to hit rolls in some way
Thelon Fairblade 08-05-04, 12:43 PM	Yes, the STR-based character becomes less accurate, but with Armor As DR, only the STR-based character is actualy going to inflict damage (without feats) on a successful hit. I thought about pulling something from Ultima, where STR provides a bonus to hit on blunt weapons (maces, etc.) where DEX provides a bonus with edged weapons (swords, etc.). But it seemed to even further emphasize DEX as a prime stat, so I decided against it. I kinda *don't* want an attribute to apply to accuracy. OR, at best, an average of several attributes. I want skill/training (class) and special abilities (i.e. feats like Weapon Focus) to be the prime motivators. But by the same token, Ful plate is still AC 10 (maybe 14) to strike, so you don't need that much in the way of accuracy bonuses...
wheatley 08-09-04, 07:45 AM	You might want to consider varying the armour DR according to the type of weapon. Eg: Slashing (S) weapons do most damage, but armour is very effective at deflecting them. Piercing (P) weapons do less damage, but by applying it all to a small point, are very effective at getting through armour. Bludgeoning weapons are a bit trickier: 1) They could be in between S and P weapons. 2) They could be low damage, but intead of DR preventing the damage, it only converts it into subdual damage. (What about creatures with regeneration, or immune to subdual damage?) 3) They could be low damage, but allow you to make Sunder rolls against the armour, until it is so damaged that it no-longer has enough DR. *** Also, the standard rules use Hit Points to reflect parrying ability, amongst other things. So ifyou have a parrying bonus to AC, you might want to reduce their hit points. But they you'd probably better also reduce the damage output of spells, which of course can't be parried...
Thelon Fairblade 08-10-04, 11:09 AM	Well, ideally, HP would be universally lowered. As a second choice, the VP/WP system would be used, with armor's primary purpose being to reduce the WP damage suffered on penetrating blows. Interesting idea on the slashing/piercing/bludgeoning topic. I remember long ago that GURPS had a simliar setup. Like slashing did the most damage, but armor was full. Piercing did the least, but armor was halved and any damage getting through was increased. Or something like that...