Weapon Rule [Archive] - Wizards Community

Weapon Rule [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
ShinoAburame
09-27-07, 05:59 AM I wanted a way to up the fighter's power along with making a decent reason why there'd be swordsmen instead of mage guilds. Well.. I think I cameup with a decent reason.

Every weapon has a modifier toward your "death blow". For example, the club might have a +0 modifier, and sickle might have a +6 modifier. This modifier applies to your base attack bonus, and that is the amount a foe has to make on a fort save to avoid dieing.

For example, Say Jimmy the fighter uses a sickle on Timmy the sorcerer.

Besides the usual 1d6+str mod damage, (let's assume no critical) Timmy now has to make a fortitude saving throw of 7 or die.

What'cha think? Obviously the fighter's going to be really dangerous at later levels with his +20 base attack bonus. Maybe not as dangerous as a spellcaster, but ceartainly enough to warrant choosing a fighter and not feeling shafted..
runestar
09-27-07, 06:16 AM Too dangerous. TWFers will be forcing fort saves left and right, and even foes with high fort saves will eventually roll natural 1s, even if the damage they take is negligible...
1337Ninja
09-27-07, 06:32 AM It doesn't work. Save or dies that can be made many times per round and any number of times per day are inherently broken, no matter what the DC is. A two-weapon fighter can force so many saves that it isn't funny, and there are certain Book of Nine Swords things (Avalanche of Blades) that could theoretically kill practically anything. Just one use of Wraithstrike from, say, magic gauntlets and the Tarrasque goes down unless you roll a natural 1 before it does.
Ra-Tiel
09-28-07, 04:56 AM I agree with runestar and 1337Ninja. Also, always remember that anything the players can do, monsters can do just as well. What would, for example, be the save DC for a mature adult red dragon's claw and bite attacks? This rule would make monsters with strong natural attacks (dragons, hydras, trolls, etc) even more dangerous at their respective CR.

How about another idea: instead of making it a general rule, make it a high level feat tree or alternate class feature for fighters.

MASSIVE BLOW [FIGHTER]
Your hits have a chance to cripple your opponents for a short time.
Prerequisites: Fighter 14+, weapon focus, weapon specialization.
Benefit: If you roll a critical threat with a weapon for which you have weapon specialization, the target must make a successful Fort save DC 10 + damage dealt or become stunned for 1 round. Creatures immune to critical hits are immune to this effect.
Normal: Your attacks deal only normal damage.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Each time you take it, the duration of the stunned condition increases by 1 round.

CRITICAL BLOW [FIGHTER]
Your attacks are powerful enough to incapacitate even the strongest foes.
Prerequisites: Fighter 16+, massive blow, greater weapon focus, greater weapon specialization.
Benefit: If you roll a critical threat with a weapon for which you have greater weapon specialization, the target must make a Fort save DC 10 + damage dealt or become paralyzed for 1 round. Creatures immune to critical hits are immune to this effect.
Normal: Your attacks deal only normal damage.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Each time you take it, the duration of the paralyzed condition increases by 1 round.

DEVESTATING BLOW [FIGHTER]
Your strikes have a chance of instantly killing your opponents.
Prerequisites: Fighter 18+, critical blow, greater weapon focus, greater weapon specialization, improved critical.
Benefit: Once per encounter, if you roll a critical threat with a weapon for which you have greater weapon specialization and improved critical the target must make a Fort save DC 10 + damage dealt or drop to -1 instantly. Creatures immune to critical hits are immune to this effect.
Normal: Your attacks deal only normal damage.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Each time you take it, the target drops to one less HP (if you take the feat twice it drops to -2; if you take the feat trice, it drops to -3; and so on).
Rhialto
09-28-07, 10:26 AM There are already too many save or die effects. we need less of these, not more.
ShinoAburame
09-28-07, 03:08 PM It doesn't work. Save or dies that can be made many times per round and any number of times per day are inherently broken, no matter what the DC is. A two-weapon fighter can force so many saves that it isn't funny, and there are certain Book of Nine Swords things (Avalanche of Blades) that could theoretically kill practically anything. Just one use of Wraithstrike from, say, magic gauntlets and the Tarrasque goes down unless you roll a natural 1 before it does.
Well granteed i didn't expect the rule to apply to all creatures.

Tarrasque obviously making a decent exception, as well as undead.
trapspringer
09-28-07, 09:48 PM I guess you'd better explain this more thoroughly, 'cause I agree with the above posters; there isn't an "F" in "Way."
ShinoAburame
09-30-07, 06:11 AM lol, well, I did consider a more leniant system.

It involves percentile dice roll, each weapon has it's own percentile chance of dealing a death-blow.

For example, the dagger has a 9% chance.

If the percentile is met, they have to make a fortitude saving throw of 15 or die.

I think that sounds more reasonable, as this allows me to not only balance weaponsout a bit more by granting percentiles. But makes non-casters a bit better cause they presumably have better profficietcies.

And don't presume this could grant save or die every hit, as the highest percentile so far i've given is to the composite longbow which is 36%
Ra-Tiel
09-30-07, 06:28 AM [...] If the percentile is met, they have to make a fortitude saving throw of 15 or die. [...]
Very inelegant. Make it "or drop to -1" and it's actually playable. For monsters and NPC it (usually) makes no difference as they are left to bleed to death or coup de grace'ed anyways, but it allows PCs to be saved without having to whip out 5k gp worth in diamonds.

No matter how small the chance, it just sucks to have your character killed by a random goblin or kobold or something because of a failed save. DnD already has way too many save-or-die effects, you don't need to aggravate that even more. ;)
trapspringer
10-01-07, 10:41 AM That and the weapons are already balanced. It's one of the few aspects of the game that is built with a very simple variable system that stays in the background, but trust me the system is there and it works.
ragoftag
10-03-07, 09:17 PM trapspringer's
That and the weapons are already balanced. It's one of the few aspects of the game that is built with a very simple variable system that stays in the background, but trust me the system is there and it works.Two words: Spiked Chain

All in all, I agree. Martial Weapons are not broken and have good flavor. And most Exotic Weapons are fairly sane and cause only minor brain hemorrhaging. Then again, Kukri can get nasty. Oooooo! Might I get truly obscene 'Kukri build'? Please? I've seen sweet SC builds, but I want a kukri build for Ranger and Fighter for nightmare games.
Meep326
10-04-07, 01:25 AM Just one use of Wraithstrike from, say, magic gauntlets and the Tarrasque goes down unless you roll a natural 1 before it does.
A normal PHB fighter (straight from the PHB, just core stuff) can kill a Tarrasque in a single hit. All it has to do is deal 50 points of damage with the first hit, and then the Tarrasque just rolls a natural 1 on his save and he dies, zomg, it's broken?
trapspringer
10-04-07, 11:12 AM trapspringer's
Two words: Spiked Chain

All in all, I agree. Martial Weapons are not broken and have good flavor. And most Exotic Weapons are fairly sane and cause only minor brain hemorrhaging. Then again, Kukri can get nasty. Oooooo! Might I get truly obscene 'Kukri build'? Please? I've seen sweet SC builds, but I want a kukri build for Ranger and Fighter for nightmare games.

Spike chain is fine. Compare it to a dagger and you'll see that it is not unusually powerful if viewed as an advancement of a simple weapon.
Werral
10-05-07, 06:43 PM Bascially Shino you want to make D&D much more deadly?

Why not just give all characters less HP? How much less? A lot less. Say a character gets a maxed out HP (+Con bonus) die at 1st, 5th, 10th and 20th level ONLY.

So a tenth level fighter with Con 14 would have 24hp.

So magic doesn't rule the day chcange it so spells deal 1die of damage MX per level:

So a fireball does 3d6 damage. A magic missile deals it's 1d4+1 and a high level wizard can launch more than one, BUT can only launch one missile per round - and casting another spell ends it.

Large monsters get HP every 3 levels/HD. Huge every 2, Gargantuan every 1.
Holy_Beholder
10-05-07, 07:13 PM What he wants to do is make fighters more powerful. And maybe if you changed it from instant death to dazed for 1d3 rounds, it would be fairer.(there would be a feat to get it up to 1d4 then 1d6, and feats to make it be blinded and deafened, and stunned)

Another really easy way to make fighters more powerful is to have them do subdual damage equal to the normal they do anyways. When knocked out by one of these attacks, they die slowly, as 1 subdual damage changes to 1 normal damage each round.
Rhialto
10-06-07, 04:10 AM Alternatively, just increase the base damage done by weapons. The radical approach woudl be to double the damage. A more subtle way woudl be to treat all weapons as if one size class larger. Either would favour fighters over casters.
strenoth
10-06-07, 01:17 PM or let BaB add to your damage with weapons

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ShinoAburame 09-27-07, 05:59 AM	I wanted a way to up the fighter's power along with making a decent reason why there'd be swordsmen instead of mage guilds. Well.. I think I cameup with a decent reason. Every weapon has a modifier toward your "death blow". For example, the club might have a +0 modifier, and sickle might have a +6 modifier. This modifier applies to your base attack bonus, and that is the amount a foe has to make on a fort save to avoid dieing. For example, Say Jimmy the fighter uses a sickle on Timmy the sorcerer. Besides the usual 1d6+str mod damage, (let's assume no critical) Timmy now has to make a fortitude saving throw of 7 or die. What'cha think? Obviously the fighter's going to be really dangerous at later levels with his +20 base attack bonus. Maybe not as dangerous as a spellcaster, but ceartainly enough to warrant choosing a fighter and not feeling shafted..
runestar 09-27-07, 06:16 AM	Too dangerous. TWFers will be forcing fort saves left and right, and even foes with high fort saves will eventually roll natural 1s, even if the damage they take is negligible...
1337Ninja 09-27-07, 06:32 AM	It doesn't work. Save or dies that can be made many times per round and any number of times per day are inherently broken, no matter what the DC is. A two-weapon fighter can force so many saves that it isn't funny, and there are certain Book of Nine Swords things (Avalanche of Blades) that could theoretically kill practically anything. Just one use of Wraithstrike from, say, magic gauntlets and the Tarrasque goes down unless you roll a natural 1 before it does.
Ra-Tiel 09-28-07, 04:56 AM	I agree with runestar and 1337Ninja. Also, always remember that anything the players can do, monsters can do just as well. What would, for example, be the save DC for a mature adult red dragon's claw and bite attacks? This rule would make monsters with strong natural attacks (dragons, hydras, trolls, etc) even more dangerous at their respective CR. How about another idea: instead of making it a general rule, make it a high level feat tree or alternate class feature for fighters. MASSIVE BLOW [FIGHTER] Your hits have a chance to cripple your opponents for a short time. Prerequisites: Fighter 14+, weapon focus, weapon specialization. Benefit: If you roll a critical threat with a weapon for which you have weapon specialization, the target must make a successful Fort save DC 10 + damage dealt or become stunned for 1 round. Creatures immune to critical hits are immune to this effect. Normal: Your attacks deal only normal damage. Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Each time you take it, the duration of the stunned condition increases by 1 round. CRITICAL BLOW [FIGHTER] Your attacks are powerful enough to incapacitate even the strongest foes. Prerequisites: Fighter 16+, massive blow, greater weapon focus, greater weapon specialization. Benefit: If you roll a critical threat with a weapon for which you have greater weapon specialization, the target must make a Fort save DC 10 + damage dealt or become paralyzed for 1 round. Creatures immune to critical hits are immune to this effect. Normal: Your attacks deal only normal damage. Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Each time you take it, the duration of the paralyzed condition increases by 1 round. DEVESTATING BLOW [FIGHTER] Your strikes have a chance of instantly killing your opponents. Prerequisites: Fighter 18+, critical blow, greater weapon focus, greater weapon specialization, improved critical. Benefit: Once per encounter, if you roll a critical threat with a weapon for which you have greater weapon specialization and improved critical the target must make a Fort save DC 10 + damage dealt or drop to -1 instantly. Creatures immune to critical hits are immune to this effect. Normal: Your attacks deal only normal damage. Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Each time you take it, the target drops to one less HP (if you take the feat twice it drops to -2; if you take the feat trice, it drops to -3; and so on).
Rhialto 09-28-07, 10:26 AM	There are already too many save or die effects. we need less of these, not more.
ShinoAburame 09-28-07, 03:08 PM	It doesn't work. Save or dies that can be made many times per round and any number of times per day are inherently broken, no matter what the DC is. A two-weapon fighter can force so many saves that it isn't funny, and there are certain Book of Nine Swords things (Avalanche of Blades) that could theoretically kill practically anything. Just one use of Wraithstrike from, say, magic gauntlets and the Tarrasque goes down unless you roll a natural 1 before it does. Well granteed i didn't expect the rule to apply to all creatures. Tarrasque obviously making a decent exception, as well as undead.
trapspringer 09-28-07, 09:48 PM	I guess you'd better explain this more thoroughly, 'cause I agree with the above posters; there isn't an "F" in "Way."
ShinoAburame 09-30-07, 06:11 AM	lol, well, I did consider a more leniant system. It involves percentile dice roll, each weapon has it's own percentile chance of dealing a death-blow. For example, the dagger has a 9% chance. If the percentile is met, they have to make a fortitude saving throw of 15 or die. I think that sounds more reasonable, as this allows me to not only balance weaponsout a bit more by granting percentiles. But makes non-casters a bit better cause they presumably have better profficietcies. And don't presume this could grant save or die every hit, as the highest percentile so far i've given is to the composite longbow which is 36%
Ra-Tiel 09-30-07, 06:28 AM	[...] If the percentile is met, they have to make a fortitude saving throw of 15 or die. [...] Very inelegant. Make it "or drop to -1" and it's actually playable. For monsters and NPC it (usually) makes no difference as they are left to bleed to death or coup de grace'ed anyways, but it allows PCs to be saved without having to whip out 5k gp worth in diamonds. No matter how small the chance, it just sucks to have your character killed by a random goblin or kobold or something because of a failed save. DnD already has way too many save-or-die effects, you don't need to aggravate that even more. ;)
trapspringer 10-01-07, 10:41 AM	That and the weapons are already balanced. It's one of the few aspects of the game that is built with a very simple variable system that stays in the background, but trust me the system is there and it works.
ragoftag 10-03-07, 09:17 PM	trapspringer's That and the weapons are already balanced. It's one of the few aspects of the game that is built with a very simple variable system that stays in the background, but trust me the system is there and it works.Two words: Spiked Chain All in all, I agree. Martial Weapons are not broken and have good flavor. And most Exotic Weapons are fairly sane and cause only minor brain hemorrhaging. Then again, Kukri can get nasty. Oooooo! Might I get truly obscene 'Kukri build'? Please? I've seen sweet SC builds, but I want a kukri build for Ranger and Fighter for nightmare games.
Meep326 10-04-07, 01:25 AM	Just one use of Wraithstrike from, say, magic gauntlets and the Tarrasque goes down unless you roll a natural 1 before it does. A normal PHB fighter (straight from the PHB, just core stuff) can kill a Tarrasque in a single hit. All it has to do is deal 50 points of damage with the first hit, and then the Tarrasque just rolls a natural 1 on his save and he dies, zomg, it's broken?
trapspringer 10-04-07, 11:12 AM	trapspringer's Two words: Spiked Chain All in all, I agree. Martial Weapons are not broken and have good flavor. And most Exotic Weapons are fairly sane and cause only minor brain hemorrhaging. Then again, Kukri can get nasty. Oooooo! Might I get truly obscene 'Kukri build'? Please? I've seen sweet SC builds, but I want a kukri build for Ranger and Fighter for nightmare games. Spike chain is fine. Compare it to a dagger and you'll see that it is not unusually powerful if viewed as an advancement of a simple weapon.
Werral 10-05-07, 06:43 PM	Bascially Shino you want to make D&D much more deadly? Why not just give all characters less HP? How much less? A lot less. Say a character gets a maxed out HP (+Con bonus) die at 1st, 5th, 10th and 20th level ONLY. So a tenth level fighter with Con 14 would have 24hp. So magic doesn't rule the day chcange it so spells deal 1die of damage MX per level: So a fireball does 3d6 damage. A magic missile deals it's 1d4+1 and a high level wizard can launch more than one, BUT can only launch one missile per round - and casting another spell ends it. Large monsters get HP every 3 levels/HD. Huge every 2, Gargantuan every 1.
Holy_Beholder 10-05-07, 07:13 PM	What he wants to do is make fighters more powerful. And maybe if you changed it from instant death to dazed for 1d3 rounds, it would be fairer.(there would be a feat to get it up to 1d4 then 1d6, and feats to make it be blinded and deafened, and stunned) Another really easy way to make fighters more powerful is to have them do subdual damage equal to the normal they do anyways. When knocked out by one of these attacks, they die slowly, as 1 subdual damage changes to 1 normal damage each round.
Rhialto 10-06-07, 04:10 AM	Alternatively, just increase the base damage done by weapons. The radical approach woudl be to double the damage. A more subtle way woudl be to treat all weapons as if one size class larger. Either would favour fighters over casters.
strenoth 10-06-07, 01:17 PM	or let BaB add to your damage with weapons