I'm planning to run a campaing that runs around a battle arena, players will normally battle other parties in the arena (controlled by me and maybe a special guest) and some other times plenty of captured beasts. Players will also have special options and bonuses according to their ability scores and will have skill challenges outside the arena.
I'm going to show you the rules but please keep in mind this:
To any troll that just wants to trash these rules, please read carefully: You don't have to suffer if you don't like this rules because you don't have to play with them, not ever, not even in your mind for a second. If you don't like the rules simply keep the comments to yourself, the party I'm going to play with DOES like this rules and other people like it too so I don't care if you don't. I'm not asking for your opinion.
What I'm asking (to non-troll people) is for help regarding if you can see a way to abuse this rules. I will also try to point what's the point behind the rules.
As a backgroun information, it will be my first time as a DM and I have less then 3 months playing D&D (2 play session in 3.5 and about 8 in 4th). I use to play Magic for a long time but quit because I couldn't stand the randomness anymore. D&D suffers less from randomness than Magic because the game is not a party vs the DM. But in a PvP battle arena, randomness affects the game a lot IN MY OWN OPINION, and I'm trying to find a solution for that with two alternatives (explained in the dieties).
* General:
- Only the following material is allowed in this campaign: PHB 1, PHB 2, PHB 3 (classes and items from this book are forbidden), DMG 1, MM 1, Martial 1, Divine, Primal, Arcane, Race: Dragonborn.
I don't like the classes from the third book and consider it a hassle and I hate the fact that so many feats and items are being introduced in other books and specially in the dragon magazines, if I allow that, I would have to deal with more problems that I want to. The dragonborn race book is allowed because dragonborns are special in this setting.
- You only have 1 minute to act in your turn. If the time runs out, your turn ends immediately.
No one in the party is a noob, they can play in a minute, but they usually drift about non-gaming stuff with our DM and he doesn't stop them and we can take 3 hours just to finnish 1 encounter because of that.
- All characters maximum HP and bloodied value is four times the standard value. Healing surge value is not four times though.
Battles will last longer and players can't gang up to take an enemy in one round. If your max HP is 50, it would be 200 in this setting, but the healing surge value is still 12.
- Stabilize the dying has a DC 20.
I want to make it harder to stabilize the dying for both sides. I don't want to see them getting up that easily.
- When a creature is prone and also has one of the following effects: Blinded, restrained, stunned; It's also considered helpless.
It makes sense to me that if you are on the floor AND you are also blinded, restrained or stunned, you can't defend yourself properly. CDG is not a problem here, your bloodied value is four times, remember? This rule is here because the players can run into a freaking wall with some of the feats introduced below, this is one way to work around that problem.
- You can either use 1 action point or 1 daily power from your power list during an encounter (not both). Also, you can only do it if no other player has used either during this round.
The idea is limit the amount of firepower that each player cand do during a whole round and during the whole encounter, otherwise people will die easily.
- No one rolls d20 to determine initiative, your initiative is 10 + your bonus. Turns alternate between teams, even if all the members of one team have more initiative than all the others.
Let's say that all your enemies have a bonus of at least 10 to initiative and none of you have at least 10. With these rules, your enemies won't act all before you, instead, one enemy acts, then one of your team, then another enemy acts, then another member of your team and so on.
- Dragonborns also have the racial trait "Raging Breath" (dragon breath always deals maximum damage) and can have one free feat related to their dragon breath. There can only be one dragonborn in the every party.
Did I already mention that dragonborns are special? To demostrate how special they are, they get a free custom feat described above and a free racial feat regarding their dragon breat. The dragon breath per se is not that powerful or mind blowing, but people love the fact that they have it. Only one team member will get to play a dragonborn. Players are ok with this, they don't complain or call it unfair or anything so don't bother telling me it's lame.
- When you grab an enemy, you and the target both loose their dexterity or intelligence bonus to AC and Reflex.
Again, this rule makes sense to me (kind of like grapple makes more sense than grab) and it's also neccesary to deal with walls.
* Dieties:
- Martemut: Unaligned. Called the Troll Dragon, Martemut is the god of tactical combat. Loves coordinated battle plans as a form of both science and art. He hates randomness and luck dependant strategies. His favored weapons are the rapier and the cutlass. He's pictured carrying an eye-patch and his two favored weapons. He commands his followers to:
--- Be confident in your capabilities and device clever strategies.
--- Complain about randomness and never depend on your luck in order to succeed.
--- Shove in other people's face that a true man makes his own luck.
Most people don't like to play chess, I'm one of those people, but I do consider chess to be one of the best strategy game ever. The Martemut feats will make playing D&D feel more like a chess game. And yes, once you discover you can hit someone you will hit that enemy until it dies, but hey, it has 4 times it's normal HP so it won't be that easy.
- Maro: Lawful good. Called the random master, Maro insists that randomness is a fundamental part of every universe and that without it life would be too simple, predictable and boring. He also makes lousy jokes that no one laughs at and loves Apple even thought they just copy other designer's ideas and claim it their own and brag about being better than others. His favored weapon is a wand with beads. He commands his followers to:
--- Make random things in order to succeed in life and thwart evil people's plans.
--- Prove that any looser can become a hero with a lot of luck.
--- Show the world that luck favors the bold (quote by Virgilio, hidden reference to the movie Alexander)
Mark Rosewater loves randomness so much that he insist that chess is a completely random game (he's gramma said that he's the worst aggresive player she has ever seen, you can look that up). For those that favor dice rolling, Maro has tons of feats that will make them jump with joy and often.
- You can't worship both Martemut and Maro (they can't stand each other).
Duh!
* Feats:
- Dice rolling is for gamblers: When you make an attack roll, a skill check or an ability check, don't roll a d20, instead take 10. If your result beats the opposing check by 5 points or more, it counts as a critical hit if it was an attack roll. If an effect let's you reroll and take the last one, instead you can take 12. If it let's you choose either, instead you can take a 13. You must worship Martemut in order to have this feat.
Talk about a sure shot, huh? While this might seen broken, the idea in this setting is to hit often so that's not a problem.
- Brutality: When rolling the weapon’s damage, power's damage or item's damage, any die that displays a value equal to 1 counts as half the maximum value that die can have. You must worship Martemut in order to have this feat.
If you hate it when you just get 1 on that greatsword of yours, this is the perfect solution.
- Third time's the charm: When you have to make a saving roll for the third time and fail, you immediately make another saving throw and take a 20. You must worship Martemut in order to have this feat.
Not being able to play because of failing a saving throw constantly is boring, this solves the problem.
- Maximum Armor: If you are wearing plate armor or you have a dexterity of 20 or a constitution of 20, you gain a +2 bonus to all your defenses. You must worship Martemut in order to have this feat.
This feat will enable walking walls, you will need to gang up or attack it's weakness in order to succeed.
- Twice the fortune: When you make an attack roll, a skill check or an ability check, you must roll two d20s at the same time, take the best score and reduce it by 3. You can score a critical hit on a natural 19 or 20.If an effect let's you reroll, you can roll both dice. You must worhsip Maro in order to have this feat.
I'm not sure if mathemtically this feat is better than taking a 10. This is where a handy mathematical help will be appreciated.
- Double the luck: When an enemy attacks you, he must roll two d20s, he must take the lowest and add 3 to the result. If there is a natural 20 he can take it unless there's also a natural 1. You must worship Maro in order to have this feat.
If you love to depend on your luck to dodge bullets, this is the feat for you. Also, I don't know if this is mathematically broken.
- Cascade of Fortune: When rolling the weapon’s damage, power's damage or item's damage, for every die that displays the maximum value of that die, you roll an additional die 1 size smaller (minimum 1d4) and add it to the damage result. This dice do not benefit from this feat. You must worship Maro in order to have this feat.
Can you prove mathematically that this feat is insane? if you roll two 6 with a maul, you get to add 2d4 to the result too, ouch!.
- Clash of the dice: When you roll a critical hit, roll 2 d20s, if any of those dice scores a critical hit, you can perform an additional attack as a free action with any unused power. If the damage of both attacks combined is equal to the bloodied value the target dies. You must worship Maro in order to have this feat.
For those power hungry gamers, this feat will make you drool.
I don't feel like working out the math, but a character with Double the Luck and decent AC is going to get hit less than 20% of the time. A character with Third time's the charm will never die, since he always succeeds his 3rd death saving throw. A character with Dice rolling is for gamblers is never going to hit any reasonably tough AC, which is very not fun for that player.
All that said, It seems that you used the rule of cool to come up with most of these instead of really thinking through their effect on the game. I can tell you that the combat system is going to completely break under so many radical rule changes. If your group just wants to have fun with some zany mechanics, just forget about balancing them and run with it. You may want to reserve the right to go back to standard mechanics after a few sessions though, as I can't guarantee that a full campaign under these rules will stay fun for all of your players =p
To be brutally honest, almost all of your feats are mathematically broken to some degree or another.
I don't feel like working out the math, but a character with Double the Luck and decent AC is going to get hit less than 20% of the time. A character with Third time's the charm will never die, since he always succeeds his 3rd death saving throw. A character with Dice rolling is for gamblers is never going to hit any reasonably tough AC, which is very not fun for that player.
All that said, It seems that you used the rule of cool to come up with most of these instead of really thinking through their effect on the game. I can tell you that the combat system is going to completely break under so many radical rule changes. If your group just wants to have fun with some zany mechanics, just forget about balancing them and run with it. You may want to reserve the right to go back to standard mechanics after a few sessions though, as I can't guarantee that a full campaign under these rules will stay fun for all of your players =p
You can die with Third time's the charm because your free saving comes AFTER you FAIL your third saving throw, by that time you are dead.
If you can't hit an enemy's AC with a simple attack, you need to use powers that give +2 to attack, use combat advantage, use grab, use aid an ally, or simply target reflex, fortitude or will.
What I really need is a way to know if the "Maro feats" are broken and by how much. Does -3 and +3 work or does it need to be higher?
Dice Rolling is for Gamblers is insanely good for anyone who optimizes for accuracy. A level 1 skirmisher has AC 15; a level 1 human rogue with Dex 20, a dagger, Weapon Expertise, and DRifG will get an attack roll of 20 every round, automatically critting. When you consider how easy it is to get free attacks on a crit (e.g. the level 4 Rending Weapon), you should expect to see someone dealing infinite damage before level 5.
The Maro feats aren't nearly as broken. Some quick calculations at AnyDice show that the average roll is still around 10.5. If that same rogue had taken Twice the Fortune intead of DRifG, he would hit 87% of the time, (as opposed to 80% with nothing). All in all, the feats are equivalent to about +1 or 2 to d20 rolls.
Some more calculations reveal that Cascade of Fortune and Brutality aren't too bad either: they're worth about +0.5 and +0.3 per die, respectively.
Clash of the Dice comes into play on 9.75% of your crits if you crit on 20s, 19% on 19+, or 27.75% on 18+. That can add up to quite a lot for a crit-fisher, although the fact that it's a free action attack and thus only triggers once per round helps a lot. The "if you deal more than its bloodied value, it dies" clause would be ridiculous in a regular game, but since all creatures have 4x hp it's not likely to come into play quite as often. Against other PCs and their lower HP, however, it's very likely to be an instant gamewinner.
First of all, thanks man. This is what I wanted. This is what I needed. Let's cover each aspect, shall we?
Dice Rolling is for Gamblers is insanely good for anyone who optimizes for accuracy. A level 1 skirmisher has AC 15; a level 1 human rogue with Dex 20, a dagger, Weapon Expertise, and DRifG will get an attack roll of 20 every round, automatically critting. When you consider how easy it is to get free attacks on a crit (e.g. the level 4 Rending Weapon), you should expect to see someone dealing infinite damage before level 5.
Valid argument, except for the fact that my players won't be dealing with level 1 skirmisher but real PC played by me or someone else. The rending weapons doesn't concern me at all, it belongs in the AV book and that book is forbidden in this campaign. Maybe I will consider raising the condition from 5 to 7 in order to prevent so many critical hits. Does that sound good enough for you or is it still broken? Also, remember that this isn't a computer game, it's a PnP game with a DM (me), I can adjust things on the fly and make rules too if necessary.
The Maro feats aren't nearly as broken. Some quick calculations at AnyDice show that the average roll is still around 10.5. If that same rogue had taken Twice the Fortune intead of DRifG, he would hit 87% of the time, (as opposed to 80% with nothing). All in all, the feats are equivalent to about +1 or 2 to d20 rolls.
Doesn't the 19 or 20 condition for a critical affect this equation? I thought that was the broken part of this feat, considering you roll 2 d20.
Some more calculations reveal that Cascade of Fortune and Brutality aren't too bad either: they're worth about +0.5 and +0.3 per die, respectively.
So basically they look AWESOME and completely broken but aren't that good actually?
Clash of the Dice comes into play on 9.75% of your crits if you crit on 20s, 19% on 19+, or 27.75% on 18+. That can add up to quite a lot for a crit-fisher, although the fact that it's a free action attack and thus only triggers once per round helps a lot. The "if you deal more than its bloodied value, it dies" clause would be ridiculous in a regular game, but since all creatures have 4x hp it's not likely to come into play quite as often. Against other PCs and their lower HP, however, it's very likely to be an instant gamewinner.
This rule is meant to be played on this campaign only, where everyone has such a large HP and bloodied value.
MarteD, you're utterly crazy. But eh, whatever.
Can't argue there, I know I AM but eh, whatever
Which one do you prefer? Martemut style or Maro style? Parties are allowed to be mixed regarding this but no one can worship both at the same time.
Now yes, you said you wanted constructive feedback on how these rules and feats etc can be broken. While your rule I can't see as being broken by players, it does to me break the fun of the game. I think, and though I've never actually read anything official, WoTC has the game balanced with the expectation that a party will probably go through like 4 battles in a decent session I think. Honestly, that's never happened for our group. 2 I think is the most 3 if there's a quickie battle. And that's just playing with the rules, no pumped HP or anything.
Now if you've already discussed this with your group and they're okay with it, fine go ahead. I just wanted to say that with x4 HP combat is going to become tedious. Especially then since on top of that you limit the players to either using an action point or daily power in a round. And only one player out of the group can do that per round. You say you want to keep players from ganging up and dishing out massive damage on enemies but this is going to just drag combat even more than just the 4x HP alone.
Mind you again, this will certainly accomplish what you want, which is to drag on combat longer than usual. Fine, if the group is cool but personally speaking from experience a combat isn't fun if the group is just pecking away at an enemy because they've exhausted their powers, and just had at wills left. This also brings up the possible problem if you intend to do more than 1 combat per "day" in game time. If you pit the group against monsters, they exhaust everything, then you maybe give them a short rest to get encounters back they're going to be screwed if thrown into another combat.
As for more constructive, a simpler way to extend combat would be instead of limiting players' power uses work on using monsters with tricks or abilities that can make them effective even against damage dishers. Also, bump up the defenses by 1 or 2 or something so the players might hit less. I'll be honest from just recent experience, the monster builder when used to create monsters I think is skewed because the monsters I made, just leaving at the ones that populated, were way too easy for the players to hit and they didn't even have much in the way of bonuses(6th level). So you might want to consider just modifying monsters to be a little tougher to hit. That way a player may miss with their daily, or action point attack, etc.
Well, I think I'll just keep to one thing. Quadrupling HP. I can understand wanting to extend combat, but to be honest a combat that just keeps going on and on and on because the players are having to whittle away enemy HP with their at wills because they've already used up everything else personally would just piss me off.
Now yes, you said you wanted constructive feedback on how these rules and feats etc can be broken. While your rule I can't see as being broken by players, it does to me break the fun of the game. I think, and though I've never actually read anything official, WoTC has the game balanced with the expectation that a party will probably go through like 4 battles in a decent session I think. Honestly, that's never happened for our group. 2 I think is the most 3 if there's a quickie battle. And that's just playing with the rules, no pumped HP or anything.
Now if you've already discussed this with your group and they're okay with it, fine go ahead. I just wanted to say that with x4 HP combat is going to become tedious. Especially then since on top of that you limit the players to either using an action point or daily power in a round. And only one player out of the group can do that per round. You say you want to keep players from ganging up and dishing out massive damage on enemies but this is going to just drag combat even more than just the 4x HP alone.
Mind you again, this will certainly accomplish what you want, which is to drag on combat longer than usual. Fine, if the group is cool but personally speaking from experience a combat isn't fun if the group is just pecking away at an enemy because they've exhausted their powers, and just had at wills left. This also brings up the possible problem if you intend to do more than 1 combat per "day" in game time. If you pit the group against monsters, they exhaust everything, then you maybe give them a short rest to get encounters back they're going to be screwed if thrown into another combat.
As for more constructive, a simpler way to extend combat would be instead of limiting players' power uses work on using monsters with tricks or abilities that can make them effective even against damage dishers. Also, bump up the defenses by 1 or 2 or something so the players might hit less. I'll be honest from just recent experience, the monster builder when used to create monsters I think is skewed because the monsters I made, just leaving at the ones that populated, were way too easy for the players to hit and they didn't even have much in the way of bonuses(6th level). So you might want to consider just modifying monsters to be a little tougher to hit. That way a player may miss with their daily, or action point attack, etc.
Thanks for the advice. Since you made your comments based on recent experience. I will also do the same.
About 2 weeks ago we played the beta testing of the battle arena setting that a store owner invented and the following thing happened: On the first round, it was the barbarian turn (a level 1 barbarian mind you) and he decided to move and then charge an enemy, none other than a warden which had 19 defense and 41 hp. I think the barbarien used an encounter with that charge because he did a lot of damage, followed by using his action point to make his daily (the rage). He instantly killed the warden, not unconscious, KILLED him, right away, on the spot. Now, this might seen really fun for the barbarian (kudos!) but what about the warden? HE DIDN'T EVEN GOT TO PLAY ON THE GAME! You might say that that's how the game is, or that he was just lucky or that the game is not intended for PvP. But I don't care about any of those 3 lame excuses. As a DM, I get to say what I would like to see in my games and what I want to avoid. It's up to the party if they like it or if they want to find another DM (there are plenty in the city, about 3)
Now, on the real event it was WAY worse. The characters again were made by the store owner and he had the following rule: your party has to be all divine, all arcane, etc... So we played an arcane vs primal.
When they rolled an initiative check, someone scored 32 and the person got to apply that to every party member and guess what happened. They all went first. Not only that, but 3 of them were strikers and they could do range attacks of course. Can you already guess what happened or do I have to draw you a picture? On top of that, we only had one striker on my team, the other guys were just there to do nothing apparently but staying alive because that's what they tried to do. My barbarian never EVER hit once, not even when I used my action point, I just kept missing.
From this experience I learned something very simple yet very important: Making stuff happen is fun, not making anything happen is not fun. It might sound stupid, but apparently the store owner didn't know this because when I approached him he said that he did all that on purpose and that that's his idea of fun.
Needless to say, I will never played with him again as a DM, this one was the third time and the two other were as bad. My level 1 goliath warden died a few hours earlier that day when he trap me in a hole with some sand and kept me restrained and eventually choke me. Yes, the goliath can check twice to climb but he restrained me and I died. And he calls that fun.
The first time was even worst, he put my level 1 ranger archer cornered from the start of the round surrounded by traps and 2 creatures that could hit with their aura at the beginning of my turn with a close burst 3 targeting will, 5 points of damage. My PC didn't survive and was turned into a zombie. That was soooooo fun... NOT!
Returning to the main point. With these feats, you get to hit often in the game, which is something I like, so everyone will need tons of HP in order to survive. Maybe 4 times is too much, maybe the sweetspot is just twice. I don't know yet, that's what I need to find out. But I want them to hit and I want them to hit often.
As for your experience, certainly a bummer if the other team gotta go first and hit your group and one or did massive damage. Honestly though, that's how it's done. Those who go first especially on a 1 on 1 generally will win, or at least have an advantage if done right.
But again, your rules just yeah wanted to point out what I saw was a horrible drawback, but in all honesty good luck when you implement them and hope they work how you want.
"I'm planning to run a campaing that runs around a battle arena, players will normally battle other parties in the arena (controlled by me and maybe a special guest) and some other times plenty of captured beasts."
So I don't know what it's a surprise for you the PvP part. Since it's easy to hit and PC hit HARD then people will hardly notice the quad HP.
Thanks everyone for giving me advice. Beta testing will begin next week for this setting, I'll let you know how it goes.
Well, I did state this from the beginning:
"I'm planning to run a campaing that runs around a battle arena, players will normally battle other parties in the arena (controlled by me and maybe a special guest) and some other times plenty of captured beasts."
So I don't know what it's a surprise for you the PvP part. Since it's easy to hit and PC hit HARD then people will hardly notice the quad HP.
Thanks everyone for giving me advice. Beta testing will begin next week for this setting, I'll let you know how it goes.
Sure you said other parties, but that doesn't specify those parties were made up as actual PC characters, and not just monsters. Wanted to point that out, though in the end doesn't significantly change things.
My bugbear can do 2d6 (with brutal 2 each) + 1d6 + 6 with a mere at will power in my friend's campaign (I'm level 4). An encounter with charge let's me deal 4d6 (with brutal 2 each) + 1d6 + 1d8+ 8. I consider that a good amount of damage (maybe not the top damage but meh) and can make a difference if you only have 50 hp (for a defender).
(Dice Rolling is for Gamblers)
Valid argument, except for the fact that my players won't be dealing with level 1 skirmisher but real PC played by me or someone else. [...] Maybe I will consider raising the condition from 5 to 7 in order to prevent so many critical hits. Does that sound good enough for you or is it still broken?
Problem is, most PCs will have at least one low defense. All you have to do is identify the low one and optimize for accuracy, and you'll keep critting forever. Or if their defenses are all too high, you'll keep hitting forever. There's a difference between "less randomness" and "no randomness".
(The Maro feats)
Doesn't the 19 or 20 condition for a critical affect this equation? I thought that was the broken part of this feat, considering you roll 2 d20.
Oh, oops. Forgot about that. Yeah, that's a 19% chance of a crit with each attack. A crit deals roughly 150% of a regular hit's damage, so... well, that's significant, but not overwhelming. Bent, as CharOp would say.
(Cascade of Fortune and Brutality)
So basically they look AWESOME and completely broken but aren't that good actually?
Yep. Brutality is especially unnecessary, since so many weapons are already brutal.
Overall, though, I think you're making everything too complicated. I mean, you're adding all these crazy feats all over the place, some of which are brokenly good, many of which are bent, and most of which slow down the game in all sorts of weird ways. A lot of them come close to reproducing existing effects (Clash of the Dice, for instance, is pretty similar to having a High Crit weapon), but take a lot more rolling.
Also, when you make feats this good, everybody's going to want them... and if something's so good that everybody wants it, then it should be a free feature, not a feat.
So, what do you think about something like this?
Missing's Not So Bad: All encounter powers have the Reliable keyword.
Divine Patron: Choose either Martemut or Maro as your divine patron.
If you chose Martemut:
- You may roll two d20s on all your attacks and choose the highest. If an effect lets you reroll, you reroll both dice.
- All of your weapons and implements become Brutal 1 (unless they're already Brutal).
If you chose Maro:
- Your critical range increases by one.
- If you crit with an at-will or encounter power, you can increase the duration of any effect the power applies to an enemy to "(save ends)".
- All of your weapons become High Crit; all of your implements become Empowered Crit.
- All of your damage dice are exploding.
These benefits are totally free for everyone. A bit of math shows them to be pretty much balanced; Maro's second divine benefit (effect duration) is there to cover for all the effects Martemut will be applying with his improved accuracy.
Problem is, most PCs will have at least one low defense. All you have to do is identify the low one and optimize for accuracy, and you'll keep critting forever. Or if their defenses are all too high, you'll keep hitting forever. There's a difference between "less randomness" and "no randomness".
Well, that would be the idea of a striker in this game. Hitting often and maybe even a critting an enemy's weakness. With 4 times the normal HP, you need that striker to be this good.
Oh, oops. Forgot about that. Yeah, that's a 19% chance of a crit with each attack. A crit deals roughly 150% of a regular hit's damage, so... well, that's significant, but not overwhelming. Bent, as CharOp would say.
That's why I was I thinking that -3 is not that big of a penalty because you will crit often.
Yep. Brutality is especially unnecessary, since so many weapons are already brutal.
I thought brutal was a feature found in the adventurer's vault weapons only. That book is forbidden.
Overall, though, I think you're making everything too complicated. I mean, you're adding all these crazy feats all over the place, some of which are brokenly good, many of which are bent, and most of which slow down the game in all sorts of weird ways. A lot of them come close to reproducing existing effects (Clash of the Dice, for instance, is pretty similar to having a High Crit weapon), but take a lot more rolling.
You are right about all of this. Some might be unncessesary, but I'm here to learn and in order to do that I have to create and listen to other people's advice too. My hopes are that by rolling so much, I'm making those gambler on my team happy because they are all hoping to hit the jackpot (that's how their mind works). The feats might be too crazy for introduction to any average person and that's where I need to polish them in the future once I beta test them.
Also, when you make feats this good, everybody's going to want them... and if something's so good that everybody wants it, then it should be a free feature, not a feat.
Putting aside the communism statement, and all the possible jokes we could make about it, the feats are this good to force the players to take them and to feel little by little how they are belonging to a philosophy and these are their gift as a choice. I don't see why they should be free just because they are good. I love to wield a Large vanguard execution axe, but I can only do that with my bugbear and I must take a proficiency feat in order to weild it effectively.
So, what do you think about something like this?Missing's Not So Bad: All encounter powers have the Reliable keyword.
Divine Patron: Choose either Martemut or Maro as your divine patron.
If you chose Martemut:
- You may roll two d20s on all your attacks and choose the highest. If an effect lets you reroll, you reroll both dice.
- All of your weapons and implements become Brutal 1 (unless they're already Brutal).
If you chose Maro:
- Your critical range increases by one.
- If you crit with an at-will or encounter power, you can increase the duration of any effect the power applies to an enemy to "(save ends)".
- All of your weapons become High Crit; all of your implements become Empowered Crit.
- All of your damage dice are exploding.
These benefits are totally free for everyone. A bit of math shows them to be pretty much balanced; Maro's second divine benefit (effect duration) is there to cover for all the effects Martemut will be applying with his improved accuracy.
The reliable idea is great. I don't know what empowered crit means nor exploding dice. Martemut followers look less bound by randomness than the average player but what I want to introduce with Martemut is the eradication of randomness (at least in the beginning) because I believe games can survive without it. I might be wrong, but I need proof of that. In the end, if things don't work out well I will take your suggestion and use those powers for Martemut followers. I will discuss them with my players once the beta testing has been finnished. Thanks again for those ideas and not judging my ideas as pure trash.
Well, that would be the idea of a striker in this game. Hitting often and maybe even a critting an enemy's weakness. With 4 times the normal HP, you need that striker to be this good.
I don't know if you do. You wanted longer battles, right? That's why you increased HP. If you increase DPR to match, well, then why not just increase HP less and leave DPR the same?
That's why I was I thinking that -3 is not that big of a penalty because you will crit often.
Right, exactly. It's the equivalent of a +1 to attacks... and we already have a feat that does that. The important part of your feat is the crits... so why go to the trouble of rolling all those dice with every attack? Just increase the crit range.
I thought brutal was a feature found in the adventurer's vault weapons only. That book is forbidden.
Oh, huh. Sorry. I follow the "Everything is Core" philosophy pretty strongly, so I tend to forget which material came from which book. I don't think Adventurer's Vault is any more broken than PHB1, if that's what you're worried about; actually, the newer the book, the better balanced it usually is. But eh, to each his own.
Putting aside the communism statement, and all the possible jokes we could make about it, the feats are this good to force the players to take them and to feel little by little how they are belonging to a philosophy and these are their gift as a choice. I don't see why they should be free just because they are good. I love to wield a Large vanguard execution axe, but I can only do that with my bugbear and I must take a proficiency feat in order to weild it effectively.
Ah, but not everyone is going to want a large execution axe. Implement wielders won't care, and anyone who's not a bugbear won't be able to use it. No, it's the things that everybody wants that are the problem.
What I mean is: feats are an option, a thing for distinguishing your character. If everybody takes exactly the same feat, then everybody will be exactly the same, which is missing the point of having feats in the first place.
For instance: let's say there are two fighters, one who uses a battleaxe and one who uses a warhammer. The two weapons have the same basic stats; the difference lies in the unique feats you can take to specialize in one or the other. The axe guy could take Savage Axe, and the hammer guy could take Hammering Iron, and they'd play very differently.
Except... neither of those feats is as good as, say, Dice Rolling is for Gamblers. Being able to hit with every attack, and probably crit with every OA, is huge. If they don't take DRifG, they're shooting themselves in the foot. In the end, they'll both take DRifG and play exactly the same.
You may have heard the term "feat tax" bandied about elsewhere, especially in relation to the Expertise feats. Martemut and Maro are feat taxmen. This is why a lot of groups (mine included) like to give Expertise out for free: you're going to get that bonus anyway no matter what, so why make it take up a valuable feat slot when there are so many cool feats out there?
The reliable idea is great. I don't know what empowered crit means nor exploding dice. Martemut followers look less bound by randomness than the average player but what I want to introduce with Martemut is the eradication of randomness (at least in the beginning) because I believe games can survive without it. I might be wrong, but I need proof of that. In the end, if things don't work out well I will take your suggestion and use those powers for Martemut followers. I will discuss them with my players once the beta testing has been finnished.
Empowered Crit is the implement equivalent of High Crit. (That's from PHB3; learning is fun!)
Exploding dice mean that when you roll the maximum value on a die, you take another die of the same size and add it to your roll. If that one shows the max value, repeat and keep going.
I understand that Martemut doesn't like randomness, but you need a certain degree of randomness to keep things fun. Too much and you feel like you have no control over your own character; too little, and you feel like whoever has the best build has control over your character.
But I suppose your beta will be the test of that. Let me know how it turns out.
Oh, and if Martemut could eradicate randomness (as with DRifG), it stands to reason that Maro could make things completely random. The prospect of rolling a natural -1237 doesn't really appeal to me.
Thanks again for those ideas and not judging my ideas as pure trash.
Hey, it was my pleasure. I love crazy off-the wall ideas like this, and I love helping new homebrewers learn the ropes. This thread is like a sandwich made of happiness.
If you want to do PvP fighting in D&D, it's very simple how.
Double everyone's hit points.
Let everyone roll twice and keep the higher result. If you don't like that idea, roll twice and average the two d20s together.
Limit players to one daily a round. If that's too much for your tastes, one daily per team a round.
There. PvP. Without a thousand unbalanced homebrew feats taking up valuable space. Enjoy.
I think you're making all of this way, way, WAAAAAY more complicated than it needs to be.
If you want to do PvP fighting in D&D, it's very simple how.
Double everyone's hit points.
Let everyone roll twice and keep the higher result. If you don't like that idea, roll twice and average the two d20s together.
Limit players to one daily a round. If that's too much for your tastes, one daily per team a round.
There. PvP. Without a thousand unbalanced homebrew feats taking up valuable space. Enjoy.
Well, I agree. For PvP purposes what you are saying makes complete sense. But the point is to go beyond that. The point is also to allow players to pick a side between the "I want to roll a lot of dice and be rewarded handsomely each time I'm lucky" and the "I want to hit as often as I can and punish those who have low defense".
We did a beta test and we realized this:
1) Max HP x 4 is too much. Twice as much should be enough.
2) Players with 0 hp or less should be considered KO in the arena because it's annoying to have both parties trying to recover their fallen comrades and makes the game longer than needed.
3) The action point or daily per round penalty is enough to prevent players from killing one character in a single round.
4) Dice Rolling is for Gamblers is not as good for an archer. It's better suited for a sorcerer. The archer never "critted". Maybe he would have been able to crit the enemy's sorcerer but he was busy slaying the big fellas. The game had to end before all enemies were killed.
5) Brutality and Cascade of Fortune are nice to have but they aren't strong enough (yet).
6) Twice the fortune is jus broken because of the "You can score a critical hit on a natural 19 or 20". They should be 2 separate feats.
7) Clash of the dice will be removed and will become this feat that increases your critical range (maybe a new name related to Magic: The gathering as well will be created).
8) Cascade has to "explode" into a lower size dice because the idea is to translate the hideous cascade mechanic from magic the gathering into the D&D universe. The good news is that this time is not a broken mechanic nor annoying as hell.
9) One shaman in the group skipped the custom feats, and frankly he didn't need them. He did quite well and thanks to him, the party won. It was his first time using the shaman too.
Huge HP, tiny healing surge value:
Any value that refers to "bloodied" will be gross.
Alpha strike damage output is worthless.
Encounter length is extended by about 4x. As you are PC vs PC, it will probably only be doubled.
Never stablize the dying. About the only use for healing powers will be getting PCs up who are at negative HP.
Coup de Grace is nearly impossible. So ping-pong healing is nearly ideal (let your allies drop to negatives, then toss a minor action heal to pop them back up).
The anti-nova rule means "go for encounter-long effects", as does the boosting of opponents HP, on your dailies. Also avoid daily utilities.
Utterly dump your initiative score. There is little point in boosting it.
Depending on character level, you can boost dragon breath into the sky. With max damage, I'm sure you can break the game by mid-paragon, let alone epic.
Grabbing is stupid if you are a light armor class. If you make a grappler, make them a heavy armor class. Defender classes in light armor utterly suck -- you might have well ban them, because a single grappler on the other side auto-tanks their AC. Heavy armor brawler fighters = good, wardens/swordmages = useless.
- Dice rolling is for gamblers: When you make an attack roll, a skill check or an ability check, don't roll a d20, instead take 10. If your result beats the opposing check by 5 points or more, it counts as a critical hit if it was an attack roll. If an effect let's you reroll and take the last one, instead you can take 12. If it let's you choose either, instead you can take a 13. You must worship Martemut in order to have this feat.
Avengers = broken. If you can get your accuracy up to the point where you need a 8+ to hit, you auto-crit on every attack.
- Brutality: When rolling the weapon’s damage, power's damage or item's damage, any die that displays a value equal to 1 counts as half the maximum value that die can have. You must worship Martemut in order to have this feat.
1/N * (N-1)/2 extra damage per [W], or 1/2 - 1/2N extra damage per [W] on a dN weapon. Meh. Make it "counts as maximium", and it is worth 1-1/N extra damage per [W].
- Third time's the charm: When you have to make a saving roll for the third time and fail, you immediately make another saving throw and take a 20. You must worship Martemut in order to have this feat.
This requires that the player keep track of how many times they have saved against each effect.
I doubt anyone will take this.
- Maximum Armor: If you are wearing plate armor or you have a dexterity of 20 or a constitution of 20, you gain a +2 bonus to all your defenses. You must worship Martemut in order to have this feat.
Once again, what level are your characters? 20 dex/con is much harder at level 1 than later on.
Once you have that stat, the above feat becomes a feat tax must have.
- Twice the fortune: When you make an attack roll, a skill check or an ability check, you must roll two d20s at the same time, take the best score and reduce it by 3. You can score a critical hit on a natural 19 or 20.If an effect let's you reroll, you can roll both dice. You must worhsip Maro in order to have this feat.
19% crit chance per attack is how you exploit this (which nobody else can get pre-epic). The accuracy is worth about +1 or +2 or so.
- Double the luck: When an enemy attacks you, he must roll two d20s, he must take the lowest and add 3 to the result. If there is a natural 20 he can take it unless there's also a natural 1. You must worship Maro in order to have this feat.
This is about a -1 or -2 or so to opponents attacks. It is stronger the higher your defences are -- with high defences, this power is broken.
- Cascade of Fortune: When rolling the weapon’s damage, power's damage or item's damage, for every die that displays the maximum value of that die, you roll an additional die 1 size smaller (minimum 1d4) and add it to the damage result. This dice do not benefit from this feat. You must worship Maro in order to have this feat.
Lets first look at conventional 'exploding' dice (on a max, you reroll and add). Suppose they do X damage per roll.
Then
X = (N+1)/2 + (1/N)*X
where N is the number of sides. Solving, we get:
X(N-1)/N = (N+1)/2
X = N(N+1)/(2N-2)
We then plug in N = 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12:
X@4 = 4*5/6 = 3.333...
X@6 = 6*7/10 = 4.2
X@8 = 8*9/14 = 5.14...
X@10 = 10*11/18 = 6.11111...
X@12 = 12*13/22 = 7.0909....
This is +.83333... per d4, down to +.5909... per d12.
Your system is:
d4 + d4/4 = 3.125
d6 + d4/6 = 3.9166...
d8 + d6/8 = 4.9375
d10 + d8/10 = 5.95
d12 + d10/12 = 6.95833....
This is between 0.625 and 0.45833... for d4 through d8 extra damage per die.
In short, your added complexity is not all that needed. There is little point in shrinking the die size. Now, infinite exploding has the problem that if you find a way to force maximium dice, you break infinity... but still.
- Clash of the dice: When you roll a critical hit, roll 2 d20s, if any of those dice scores a critical hit, you can perform an additional attack as a free action with any unused power. If the damage of both attacks combined is equal to the bloodied value the target dies. You must worship Maro in order to have this feat.
Junk feat, unless you have the automatically crit stuff above.
Note that there is no game definition for "when does a d20 crit" -- there is only "when does an attack crit".
---
Designing a game as a knee-jerk reaction to what you experience tends to screw up.
Initial rule comments:
Huge HP, tiny healing surge value:
Any value that refers to "bloodied" will be gross.
Alpha strike damage output is worthless.
Encounter length is extended by about 4x. As you are PC vs PC, it will probably only be doubled.
Never stablize the dying. About the only use for healing powers will be getting PCs up who are at negative HP.
Coup de Grace is nearly impossible. So ping-pong healing is nearly ideal (let your allies drop to negatives, then toss a minor action heal to pop them back up).
The anti-nova rule means "go for encounter-long effects", as does the boosting of opponents HP, on your dailies. Also avoid daily utilities.
Utterly dump your initiative score. There is little point in boosting it.
Depending on character level, you can boost dragon breath into the sky. With max damage, I'm sure you can break the game by mid-paragon, let alone epic.
Grabbing is stupid if you are a light armor class. If you make a grappler, make them a heavy armor class. Defender classes in light armor utterly suck -- you might have well ban them, because a single grappler on the other side auto-tanks their AC. Heavy armor brawler fighters = good, wardens/swordmages = useless.- Dice rolling is for gamblers: When you make an attack roll, a skill check or an ability check, don't roll a d20, instead take 10. If your result beats the opposing check by 5 points or more, it counts as a critical hit if it was an attack roll. If an effect let's you reroll and take the last one, instead you can take 12. If it let's you choose either, instead you can take a 13. You must worship Martemut in order to have this feat.
Avengers = broken. If you can get your accuracy up to the point where you need a 8+ to hit, you auto-crit on every attack.- Brutality: When rolling the weapon’s damage, power's damage or item's damage, any die that displays a value equal to 1 counts as half the maximum value that die can have. You must worship Martemut in order to have this feat.
1/N * (N-1)/2 extra damage per [W], or 1/2 - 1/2N extra damage per [W] on a dN weapon. Meh. Make it "counts as maximium", and it is worth 1-1/N extra damage per [W].- Third time's the charm: When you have to make a saving roll for the third time and fail, you immediately make another saving throw and take a 20. You must worship Martemut in order to have this feat.
This requires that the player keep track of how many times they have saved against each effect.
I doubt anyone will take this.- Maximum Armor: If you are wearing plate armor or you have a dexterity of 20 or a constitution of 20, you gain a +2 bonus to all your defenses. You must worship Martemut in order to have this feat.
Once again, what level are your characters? 20 dex/con is much harder at level 1 than later on.
Once you have that stat, the above feat becomes a feat tax must have.- Twice the fortune: When you make an attack roll, a skill check or an ability check, you must roll two d20s at the same time, take the best score and reduce it by 3. You can score a critical hit on a natural 19 or 20.If an effect let's you reroll, you can roll both dice. You must worhsip Maro in order to have this feat.
19% crit chance per attack is how you exploit this (which nobody else can get pre-epic). The accuracy is worth about +1 or +2 or so.- Double the luck: When an enemy attacks you, he must roll two d20s, he must take the lowest and add 3 to the result. If there is a natural 20 he can take it unless there's also a natural 1. You must worship Maro in order to have this feat.
This is about a -1 or -2 or so to opponents attacks. It is stronger the higher your defences are -- with high defences, this power is broken.- Cascade of Fortune: When rolling the weapon’s damage, power's damage or item's damage, for every die that displays the maximum value of that die, you roll an additional die 1 size smaller (minimum 1d4) and add it to the damage result. This dice do not benefit from this feat. You must worship Maro in order to have this feat.
Lets first look at conventional 'exploding' dice (on a max, you reroll and add). Suppose they do X damage per roll.
Then
X = (N+1)/2 + (1/N)*X
where N is the number of sides. Solving, we get:
X(N-1)/N = (N+1)/2
X = N(N+1)/(2N-2)
We then plug in N = 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12:
X@4 = 4*5/6 = 3.333...
X@6 = 6*7/10 = 4.2
X@8 = 8*9/14 = 5.14...
X@10 = 10*11/18 = 6.11111...
X@12 = 12*13/22 = 7.0909....
This is +.83333... per d4, down to +.5909... per d12.
Your system is:
d4 + d4/4 = 3.125
d6 + d4/6 = 3.9166...
d8 + d6/8 = 4.9375
d10 + d8/10 = 5.95
d12 + d10/12 = 6.95833....
This is between 0.625 and 0.45833... for d4 through d8 extra damage per die.
In short, your added complexity is not all that needed. There is little point in shrinking the die size. Now, infinite exploding has the problem that if you find a way to force maximium dice, you break infinity... but still.- Clash of the dice: When you roll a critical hit, roll 2 d20s, if any of those dice scores a critical hit, you can perform an additional attack as a free action with any unused power. If the damage of both attacks combined is equal to the bloodied value the target dies. You must worship Maro in order to have this feat.
Junk feat, unless you have the automatically crit stuff above.
Note that there is no game definition for "when does a d20 crit" -- there is only "when does an attack crit".
---
Designing a game as a knee-jerk reaction to what you experience tends to screw up.
First of all, thanks for all that input.
I don't know what alpha strike means, but I guess is attacking first with an encounter and then using an action point to do the daily or something similiar.
I also don't know what anti-nova is.
I totally forgot about utility dailies, I think they must be removed too.
CDG will now be possible and feats have to be redisigned like you pointed out too.
I don't see how the dragon breath could be a problem, in my opinion is such a weak racial encounter power...
Grabbing won't affect the warden since his AC is boosted by Constitution, not Dex or Int. The swordmage IS forbidden, didn't you read the first rule?
I was thinking about making brutality add maximum damage too because it was too weak.
Maximum armor is needed to avoid being critted all the time.
Twice the fortune will be split into two separated feats.
Cascade is a feat that tries to mimic the same mechanic from Magic.
Once I do a better job about this I will post it.
Thanks everyone.