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I like it. Enough that I may make use of it here soon.

It's so good, it's what should have been done in the first place. Pride should be swallowed and wotc should just admit they fumbled the math.

I see a possible downside: there are no more 'epic' weapons: the difference between a super ultimate epic shiny flaming longsword (a.k.a. +3 flaming with your fix), and your default flaming longsword (a.k.a. +1 flaming longsword) ... is +2 attack and damage.

KNishiuchi wrote:

It's so good, it's what should have been done in the first place. Pride should be swallowed and wotc should just admit they fumbled the math.

Thanks! I'm not sure if it's "what they should have done it in the first place", though: standard D&D traditionally puts quite a bit of emphasis on magic items. This rule is more of a variant for if you want to try a different play style. Handing out Weapon Expertise for free at level 1 is simpler, and probably better for most games.

Qube wrote:

I see a possible downside: there are no more 'epic' weapons: the difference between a super ultimate epic shiny flaming longsword (a.k.a. +3 flaming with your fix), and your default flaming longsword (a.k.a. +1 flaming longsword) ... is +2 attack and damage.

Hey, +2 attack and damage is pretty significant: it's the equivalent of three feats. Plus, it's not like most people consider getting a +5 weapon to be terribly exciting right now--it's almost exactly the same as the +4 weapon they just sold. Feels more like part of the levelling-up process, just one more number you crank. Right now, that +1 of difference is just something that's owed to the player, rather than something to make them think "Wow, that's awesome!" In my system, you can never predict perfectly when you'll get that next plus, and each plus has a much greater relative significance than each standard-system plus.

Also, the enhancement bonus isn't the only thing better weapons have going for them. That +3 weapon might be a Holy Avenger. Or Vorpal. Or even just an improved lower-level weapon--+3d6 damage from the Battlecrazed greataxe, anyone?

I like this a lot, it's a really good idea

As for the money sink; I think if you keep the prices of the items as they are (as in; that +3 epic weapon costs the same as a regular +3 epic item) you could just divide the gp gains by 5 and the system would rebalance itself, since each item that is 5 levels higher costs 5 times as much.

That also means that owning something mundane, like a castle, also becomes awesome, because they are actually more expensive then your sword. It's no longer 'I trade this shiny blade for your kingdom', mundane stuff actually has value again.

This should be tried out, worked out, and be presented as the low-magic approach to regular 4e D&D.

I like it!

I do wonder how you will cover a few circumstances though. First, what if the party has an artificer. How will you handle item creation? Do you lower treasure (gold) given in addition to actual items given? Or do you just eliminate the Enchant Magic Item ritual trees?

Also, one thing not taken into account: Critical Hits. In the 4e system, you ad d6,d8,10s or d12s per +1 of the item each time they critical hit. While critical hits are rare enough that that may not be a big deal, for a class like a dagger master who is supposed to critical hit 15% of the time, that can be a huge deficit for their class. How would you suggest handling that?

Pluisjen wrote:

I like this a lot, it's a really good idea

As for the money sink; I think if you keep the prices of the items as they are (as in; that +3 epic weapon costs the same as a regular +3 epic item) you could just divide the gp gains by 5 and the system would rebalance itself, since each item that is 5 levels higher costs 5 times as much.

That also means that owning something mundane, like a castle, also becomes awesome, because they are actually more expensive then your sword. It's no longer 'I trade this shiny blade for your kingdom', mundane stuff actually has value again.

This should be tried out, worked out, and be presented as the low-magic approach to regular 4e D&D.

Y'know, that might just work. I do see one small hitch, though: what do we do with items that don't grant enhancement bonuses, like hats and boots?

darokinblade wrote:

I like it!

I do wonder how you will cover a few circumstances though. First, what if the party has an artificer. How will you handle item creation? Do you lower treasure (gold) given in addition to actual items given? Or do you just eliminate the Enchant Magic Item ritual trees?

Like I said, either treasure (including the monetary variety) needs to be reduced, or a lot of money sinks should be instituted. Enchant Magic Item might need to be removed or modified under Pluisjen's suggestion to keep people from making epic items at level 11, but in the original version item creation proceeds as normal for the item's adjusted level.

That said, to keep the right feel you might want to replace residuum with power components. The total cost of the Enchant Magic Item ritual would be the same, but 1/5 of the component cost would have to be quested for. A +1 vicious weapon, for instance (a level 7 item), might require 520 gp of rare Baatorian Greensteel as well as 2080 gp in regular components. If the sword were then disenchanted, instead of 520 gp of residuum you'd get the same amount of greensteel.

But yeah, I'm not entirely sure what to do about money yet.

darokinblade wrote:

Also, one thing not taken into account: Critical Hits. In the 4e system, you ad d6,d8,10s or d12s per +1 of the item each time they critical hit. While critical hits are rare enough that that may not be a big deal, for a class like a dagger master who is supposed to critical hit 15% of the time, that can be a huge deficit for their class. How would you suggest handling that?

I think the

Some items and powers will need changing: item properties that scale relative to enhancement bonus (Bloodclaw, for instance) will have to be increased to twice the enhancement bonus.

clause should cover that. +3 weapons would deal an extra six dice of damage on a crit.

Hm, yeah the other items might be troublesome...

Ok, scrap my first idea. It's even easier to rebalance everything, just double the level for all weapons, armor, and other items with an enhancement bonus.
That fixes when you can craft it, what it costs, and when you should get it.

Yeah, that's probably best. Items are priced as if they had twice their enhancement bonus.

I was just looking at the treasure tables, and noticed that, each level, the PCs get one item of each level from level+1 to level+4, plus enough money to get two more items of the same level as the party.

Now, each PC normally goes through six weapons, six amulets, and six suits of armour over the course of their career: one of each bonus. 5 PCs x 3 slots x 6 bonuses = 90 items. Under my system, each PC will have only 3 items for each slot, for a total of 45 items.

What this means is that we just have to remove an average of 1.5 treasure packets each level to keep things balanced. I suggest alternating the highest-level item with the two lowest-level items, although that's just off the top of my head. But as far as I can tell, other than that treasure won't have to be reduced at all.

I think that makes sense.

I like the idea.. a big issue I see is neck items. Neck items get pluses at the same rate as weapons... so unless everyone gets +1 to fort/ref/will to start and +1 each 5 levels, you're gonna lose out on stats from the items... IDK if doing that is such a swell idea. Also, certain items have no actual effect, just a larger die for extra crit damage.


A possible fix would be to have an extra die for crit per 5 levels (rather than plus), and in cases where the item's only bonus is the increase in size, have that be it's property...

I'm assuming your idea cuts the cost on magic items too? (Sorry, I'm exhausted and didn't have motivation to read all of your post)

shadow272 wrote:

I like the idea.. a big issue I see is neck items. Neck items get pluses at the same rate as weapons... so unless everyone gets +1 to fort/ref/will to start and +1 each 5 levels, you're gonna lose out on stats from the items... IDK if doing that is such a swell idea.

Neck slot items follow exactly the same progression as weapons. So yeah, everybody gets +1 to each defense every 5 levels.

Also, certain items have no actual effect, just a larger die for extra crit damage.
A possible fix would be to have an extra die for crit per 5 levels (rather than plus), and in cases where the item's only bonus is the increase in size, have that be it's property...

The way we have it going right now, crits and other effects that depend on an item's bonus instead depend on twice the bonus. A +1 vicious weapon deals +2d12 damage on a crit; if the weapon were improved to +2, it would deal +4d12 on a crit.

I originally thought about allowing intermediate steps, such as a +2 vicious weapon with only +3d12 dice of damage, but decided it would be more complicated than necessary and would also work against part of the original aim, which was to reduce the rate of item acquisition.

I'm assuming your idea cuts the cost on magic items too? (Sorry, I'm exhausted and didn't have motivation to read all of your post)

Actually, items are more expensive now. A +3 amulet costs as much as if it were +6.

Evidently my memory was muddy: proper masterwork armour doesn't appear until level 4. Applying a minor change to make up for that.

I'm actually working on something similar. Characters get a bonus to attacks and defenses (including AC), based on level: 03: +1, 05: +2, 09: +3, 13: +4, 15: +5, 19: +6, 23: +7, 25: +8, 29: +9. If you wear heavy armor, you get an extra bonus to AC: 07: +1, 11: +2, 17: +3, 21: +4, 27: +5. No masterwork armor. No expertise feats, no paragon/robust defenses. Maximum one of the following feats (or two if you have at least 19 Str and Con, Dex and Int, or Wis and Cha): great fortitude, lightning reflexes, iron will, epic fortitude/reflex/will, unyielding fortitude, opportune reflexes, or indomitable will. Armor specialization feats no longer grant +1 AC (but should each do something else useful instead).

For magic items, you get all of their normal bonuses besides enhancement bonuses to attacks or defenses, including damage, bonus critical damage, properties, powers, etc. You also apply up to a +1 bonus to attacks and defenses if the item is higher level than you are. You should never end up with a lower bonus from this though. For instance, if you were level 10 with a level 11 weapon, and reached level 11, but your attack bonus did not increase, you still get the +1 from the item until level 12. New items you pick up after you get to level 11 would not be affected (the item you had is sort of grandfathered in at its current bonus).

The bonuses show up at kind of strange levels, but I think they work out well. They're all odd numbered levels, since you already get +1 at each even level. At level 7 or 8, you get a bonus from heavy armor or ability score increase (if you didn't get it at 4), so I went for level 5 instead of 6 for the second increase. Level 5/15/25 is also in line with how Expertise feats worked.

Maybe you can draw some inspiration from that?

Great work. I'll definitely be using this. Now, if I may suggest a very small change to keep things from getting too verbose.

Just drop all magic items into the same bag in terms of bonuses. All magic items with an enhancement bonus, be they weapons, implements, or armor all act in the same way. +1 at Heroic, +2 at Paragon, and +3 at Epic.

Personally, I did away with D&D's loot system long ago, so I have no gold sink problems. Heck, in my current campaign I'm not handing out gold at all. Just tailored rewards as they become appropriate.

I love this set up. Again, I'll be using this in my next session. It should make the players happy to find out they suddenly have a couple free feat slots.

Goober, your idea is interesting, and the math works well. One small criticism: the limitation on Iron Will-type feats seems unnecessary to me. Removing that clause would be to your advantage. The strange level business is also a turn-off to me (I'd probably forget to add nothing at levels 7 and 11), but if it works for you, have fun with it!

Yeah, PrimeSonic, I agree that my armour clause is a bit awkward. And good catch on the implements: I'll add those right away.

My sole reason for doing armour the way I did is the situation that arises when you wear heavy armour and so can't apply Dex or Int to AC. In the standard system, masterwork armour deals with the problem quite elegantly, which is why I used it here.

However, in retrospect it isn't as good for my system as I'd thought. The armour clause is certainly confusing; even worse is the fact that a suit of level 12 braidmail grants a smaller bonus than level 17 forgemail, which is troublesome in a system that's trying to reduce item turnover.

So, let's change something. My question to you all is: what do you think is the simplest way to handle heavy armour? Should we double the enhancement bonus? Redefine masterwork armours? Do something else entirely?

I did some number crunching and I think I found the answer.

First off, I'd treat magic armor (and necklaces) with the same criteria as weapons: +1 enhancement bonus per tier.

Next I did the math and found out that, yes, light armor will have greater AC at higher levels than heavy armor due to scaling ability scores.

That being said, we should be keen to note the three base types of armor per category. Like scale armor has normal scale, wyrmscale, and elderscale.
The light armors get a +1 AC bonus per grade while the heavy armors get a +3 enhancement bonus per grade.

If you upgrade the base armor to it's higher grade version each tier, then it all adds up perfectly with heavy armors staying on top of the AC curve. Looking at the minimum enhancement bonuses, it seems pretty clear that these higher grade versions are meant to come into play around halfway through paragon and epic tier play respectively. I think this is what they had in mind for us to do but didn't explicitly mention anywhere.

I'd suggest levels 14-16 as an appropriate threshold for upping the grade on armor. Either way, this works out elegantly and keeps everyone where they need to be.

If you check the Adventurer's Vault, they added in additional masterwork heavy armors. Not counting the ones with special properties, they actually scale heavy armor more evenly. Worth a look for your consideration.

Looks good. The idea is to keep the base AC bonus of the armor moving along as the PCs progress. Keeping it from going in giant leaps is a nice touch.

Oh yes, of course we need something to balance out the slower AC increase of heavy armour users. That's the point.

The thing is, we can't use the old masterwork system, because the bonuses would be all off. We could balance it by changing the bonuses granted by masterwork items (reduce them by 1/tier, so light armour grants no masterwork bonus and heavy armour only grants +2 per tier), or by scrapping masterwork altogether and just saying that heavy armour triples its enhancement bonus. Or alternately we can keep my original idea, have magic armour only ever grant a +1 enhancement bonus, and retain the original masterwork system. The only question is which method is simpler.

Also, ff6shadow, although I dearly love the AV masterwork armours, they cause only trouble here. When we have only three levels of armour, and are trying to cut down on the need for new items, big jumps are actually desirable.

Imagine you have your +2 wyrmscale, and are waiting until you're high enough level for +3 elderscale. What happens if you find out that there's such thing as +2 nagascale, which fits somewhere between the two in terms of quality? Suddenly you need some nagascale to stay competitive, and that's another item you have to get somehow.

The properties complicate it yes, but the masterwork is still relevant. It was one of the first oddities I noticed in 4th edition, that heavy armor would start ahead (depending on armor, and how high your forced your Dex/Int), and the it would waver, dropping be,ow light armor before suddenly jumpng back ahead when the masterwork property jumped in.

With the propertyles AV masterwork armors, it smoother out and became a steady slope instead of steps.

As for how to implement it, I see two major choices. Apply a price to masterwork armors, and let a PC buy non-magical masterwork armor.

Alternatively, make it a property of heay armor. A character wearing heavy armor does not get to apply Dexterity od Intelligence to AC, but gains a flat bonus to AC at the following levels: 6, 11, 16, and 26th level.

With the second method, add an equal note to light armors (+1 at 16th and 26th), and you have removed masterwork armor entirely, having built it into the system.

(I'm typing this in a hurry, so I may have mistyped something here or there)

I'm all for reducing item dependence and feat taxes, but I have a couple questions:

Igfig wrote:

• Magic weapons, implements, and neck slot items grant a +1 enhancement bonus every 10 levels instead of every 5.
  

Why use enhancement bonuses at all?

Igfig wrote:

• Magic armour only ever grants a +1 enhancement bonus, but can be made masterwork at the usual levels.
  

And if you're leaving them in, why limit AC enhancement more than the others? Also, why not replace masterwork armor with extra level bonuses?

Myself, I ban masterwork armor and all the feat taxes. Then I give +1 to all attacks and defenses at levels 11, 15, 21 and 25. If you wear heavy armor, you double that bonus for AC. In past games I've simply replaced enhancement bonuses with extra level bonuses at 3, 7, 13, 17, 23 and 27.

With everything as it is now, the only thing that's missing is to account for the base increases of armor at different tiers.
Light armor gets a base increase of +1 per tier
Heavy armor gets a base increase of +3 per tier

If you don't want to get all crazy about recalculating numbers or replacing items, just consider the characters receiving some type of armor mastery bonus that increases the base AC of their armor by +1 or +3 per tier respectively.

Personally, I think having big jumps of numbers at levels 1, 11, and 21 help emphasize that the PCs have move on to a much higher playing field than before. For this, I think it's best to keep the big jumps rather than try to smooth things out too much.
Another reason for this is that fewer changes equates to fewer errors in bookkeeping. A lot of times my players have had several critical bonuses incorrectly calculated from having so many changes over the course of the campaign.
When we reach important levels, like 6,11,16, etc, we simply scrap the sheets altogether and recalculate them from scratch. I think this helps keep errors to a minimum.

So, that's what I suggest for now. Ignore the different types of base armor and just give the players a bonuses that increases the base AC of that armor.

PrimeSonic wrote:

With everything as it is now, the only thing that's missing is to account for the base increases of armor at different tiers.
Light armor gets a base increase of +1 per tier
Heavy armor gets a base increase of +3 per tier

Yes. Yes, exactly. This is the point I've been trying to get across. The only question has been how to best phrase this.

PrimeSonic wrote:

If you don't want to get all crazy about recalculating numbers or replacing items, just consider the characters receiving some type of armor mastery bonus that increases the base AC of their armor by +1 or +3 per tier respectively.

This would work well as far as brevity and simplicity are concerned... but something feels off about it. Essentially PCs get a major free bonus just for putting on a suit of heavy armour--and not from the armour itself, mind you, but just by virtue of being heroes. I can understand armour mastery feats, since they represent extra training with a specific armour type, but this kind of thing, not so much. Mayyybe it would work if you only got the heavy armour bonus for armour you're proficient with? I'm not sure.

PrimeSonic wrote:

Another reason for this is that fewer changes equates to fewer errors in bookkeeping. A lot of times my players have had several critical bonuses incorrectly calculated from having so many changes over the course of the campaign.

Oh yeah, definitely. This happens in my group all the time.

Tequila_Sunrise wrote:

I'm all for reducing item dependence and feat taxes, but I have a couple questions:

Why use enhancement bonuses at all?

That depends. Are you asking "why call them enhancement bonuses?", or "why have magic items grant bonuses at all? Why not just give the bonuses to the PCs at the appropriate levels?"

If it's the first, well, aesthetic reasons. If it's the second, the answer is a little more complicated.

See, I like using magic items. I think they're an important part of the game. It's true that the math works better overall when you gain bonuses at a regular rate, at specific predefined levels; still, in my opinion the game works better when there's some surprise to be had.

Example: Say all numerical bonuses come from the PCs themselves. At some point, your PC gains a level. "Hurrah," you say. "An extra +1 to attacks and defenses." Some time later you find a magic sword which deals +1d6 on crits. "Thanks, DM-guy," you say. "That's pretty cool!"

Now say items grant enhancement bonuses up to +3. You won't get that free bonus as often, but now that sword is going to be a lot better. You have no idea when you're going to find it; could be anywhere in that tier. But when you do find that sword, suddenly it's a weapon of remarkable power. +1 to all attacks (and you know how rare attack bonuses are in this game) and damage, and even more on a crit. "Wow, guys," you say. "This sword we found is awesome!"

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's generally more fun to get a bonus in a way that feels like you earned it (say, by breaking into a treasury) that to get the bonus handed to you for free (say, by leveling up). The important thing is to make sure that items feel like something new and exciting each time you find them, which is why I chose the middle ground between items-go-up-to-+6 (items become too common) and items-go-up-to-0 (items are too weak).

I hope that answers your question, at least in part.

Tequila_Sunrise wrote:

And if you're leaving them in, why limit AC enhancement more than the others? Also, why not replace masterwork armor with extra level bonuses?

AC enhancement isn't limited more than the others; it's just that the +1s other items get in the paragon and epic tiers are already included in the masterwork armour's bonuses.


Anyway, I think I'm going to edit the OP a bit more. It still won't be perfect, but at least we'll reduce the confusion with heavy masterwork armour a little bit.

Igfig wrote:

This would work well as far as brevity and simplicity are concerned... but something feels off about it. Essentially PCs get a major free bonus just for putting on a suit of heavy armour--and not from the armour itself, mind you, but just by virtue of being heroes. I can understand armour mastery feats, since they represent extra training with a specific armour type, but this kind of thing, not so much. Mayyybe it would work if you only got the heavy armour bonus for armour you're proficient with? I'm not sure.

The way I think of it is, superior equipment is much more effectively used by experienced people than inferior equipment. For example, give Bill Gates an ultra-basic computer with a dial-up connection. He'd be able to get a little bit more out of it than me, but not noticeably more. It's still an inferior piece of equipment, with small potential for use. Now give him his own personal computer. Now he can program it to answer his phone, do his dishes, write correspondence, manage all his money and hack into the Pentagon all at once.

Light armor is inferior equipment, which is why PCs only get slightly better (+1s) at using it as they gain experience. Heavy armor is superior gear, which is why PCs can use it more effectively (+2s) as they gain experience.

Igfig wrote:

See, I like using magic items. I think they're an important part of the game. It's true that the math works better overall when you gain bonuses at a regular rate, at specific predefined levels; still, in my opinion the game works better when there's some surprise to be had.

I see. Personally I don't think a rare +1 is any more fun than a common +1, but maybe that's just my whole-hog attitude. If you're going to butcher magical items, you may as well cut away all the fat to get to the meat.

Shrug. I don't think there's anything wrong with your view--heck, I can think of a few settings, specifically lower-magic ones, where I'd probably use it myself--but it's definitely a bit of a niche variant. It gives the game quite a different feel from the original version. The system I'm putting together is intended more as a fix for the standard playstyle than a complete conceptual overhaul.

As much as I hate to perpetuate a horrible, horrible cliche, all I can really say is that you aren't my target audience.

So as far as armor goes, there still needs to be a comfortable way of getting those per tier improvements.

The best way I can see would be have them receive new armor with the extra AC along the way. So you'd replace your +1 Plate armor for a +2 Warplate armor.

Or scrap the different types of armor completely and grant the PCs mastery over light or heavy armor, increasing the base AC of the armor by +1 or +3 per tier.

Or play off masterwork armor again and use the word "masterwork" to replace the different grades of armor. Have masterwork give the +1/+3 increase to base AC of the armor per tier.
You can treat it independently from enhancement bonuses in case you don't want to give them +2 armor at level 11 and want to wait a little more.

Currently, those are the only possibilities I can see right now. Granted, it's still morning and I haven't woken up fully yet.

EDIT:
Could you explain why you're making this change?

# Powers with an attack line of "(ability) +2/+4/+6 vs. (defense)" now read "(ability) vs. (defense)".

Powers like this are usually trading damage for accuracy. Removing that extra attack bonus without taking the damage into consideration seems odd. Care to elaborate?

PrimeSonic wrote:

So as far as armor goes, there still needs to be a comfortable way of getting those per tier improvements.

Right, exactly.

Just to put this out there explicity, these are all the ways of handling heavy armour we've looked at so far:
[LIST=1]

Magic heavy armour grants an extra +2 to AC in paragon tier, and a further +2 to AC in epic tier. Masterwork armour no longer exists. (This is what I have in the OP currently.)

Masterwork light armour no longer exists. Masterwork heavy armour now follows this table:

Armor Name AC Bonus Enhancement
Forgemail + 8 +2
Spiritmail +10 +3
Wyrmscale + 9 +2
Elderscale +11 +3
Warplate +10 +2
Godplate +12 +3

At level 11, characters gain a +2 bonus to AC while wearing heavy armour with which they are proficient. This bonus increases to +4 at level 21.

The best way I can see would be have them receive new armor with the extra AC along the way. So you'd replace your +1 Plate armor for a +2 Warplate armor.

You like the second method, I take it? I'm leaning that way as well, although the need for new tables makes me pause.

Could you explain why you're making this change?

Powers like this are usually trading damage for accuracy. Removing that extra attack bonus without taking the damage into consideration seems odd. Care to elaborate?

I talked about doing this in the original post, but it was at the bottom of the "long-winded rant version" so it's not surprising you missed it. The powers I'm referring to are mostly racial powers like Dragon Breath and Darkfire. The original powers need the +2/+4/+6 bonus to make up for the fact that they don't benefit from enhancement bonuses; in my system, however, that +1 to 6 bonus is built right into the character, and applies to all attacks.

This rule wasn't intended to hurt powers like Sure Strike, but I can see how it would be read that way. If you can think of a less ambiguous way to phrase the rule, I'd love to hear it.

I talked about doing this in the original post, but it was at the bottom of the "long-winded rant version" so it's not surprising you missed it. The powers I'm referring to are mostly racial powers like Dragon Breath and Darkfire. The original powers need the +2/+4/+6 bonus to make up for the fact that they don't benefit from enhancement bonuses; in my system, however, that +1 to 6 bonus is built right into the character, and applies to all attacks.

This rule wasn't intended to hurt powers like Sure Strike, but I can see how it would be read that way. If you can think of a less ambiguous way to phrase the rule, I'd love to hear it.

Try rewording the rule to something like this instead to avoid confusion:
"Powers that lack the weapon or implement keyword loose all attack bonuses listed in the power's attack roll. Example: Strength +2 vs. AC now becomes Strength vs. AC."


As far as how to deal with armor improvements in the paragon and epic tiers, personally, I like option 2 best. We already have to account for a bunch of bonuses to attack, defenses, and damage with no type or explanation. Adding another set of unnamed bonuses will probably only cause more problems than it solves and might cause some confusion.

So my recommendation would be to make sure the PCs upgrade their armor somewhere between levels 12-15 and 22-25, perhaps making it a significant story moment.

Back to the no-name bonuses.... got any ideas of a name/type for them so they make sense when being written down?

PrimeSonic wrote:

Try rewording the rule to something like this instead to avoid confusion:
"Powers that lack the weapon or implement keyword loose all attack bonuses listed in the power's attack roll. Example: Strength +2 vs. AC now becomes Strength vs. AC."

I've changed it to be more like your suggestion, with some modifications to reflect how some powers grant a bonus of +4/+6/+8, or even more.

As far as how to deal with armor improvements in the paragon and epic tiers, personally, I like option 2 best.

Done! Thanks for your input!

Back to the no-name bonuses.... got any ideas of a name/type for them so they make sense when being written down?

I've arbitrarily decided to call it a "mastery bonus". I imagine, however, that when DMG2 comes out, we'll be able to use the wording for legendary/divine/master-trained boons they mentioned in the preview.

Igfig - I love you, and want to have your babies.

Seriously, I've been grappling with something like this for ages, trying to replicate the 'feel' of AD&D with the new edition.

Thanks for all your hard work.

To let you know, out group just adopted these rules and will be trying them out next monday.
Some big impact was seem as our fighter saw a big increase in attack modifier. (And our barbarian just discovered Power Attack)

They've just hit level 11 and from here on I plan on mostly sending them monsters 2-3 levels above them since they have such an easy time.
I'll let you know how it goes.

That seems kinda weird.  Why did they get a big attack increase?  They should maybe go up by 1.

Do they have Weapon Expertise? They may not have gotten rid of that, which will throw the numbers off considerably.  Have them retrain it instantly; that feat doesn't exist any more.

Are their weapons too powerful for their tier?  In my system, they should have +1s, maybe +2s.  If they all had +3s and you didn't change that, that's a free +1 bonus. Also they now have weapons of epic power, which is a little weird.

Are their weapons too weak for their tier?  In the old system, they should have had +3s.  If you were giving them weaker weapons than were appropriate, the switch to my system could give them a nice boost.  This is perfectly okay and not to be feared.

Don't worry, the numbers are correct. Our fighter didn't even have Weapon Expertise to start with. The difference was seen as she went from hitting nothing, to actually hitting. XD

Also, take note that at least 2/3 of these players are pretty heavy optimizers, so they get bonuses from all over the place. As far as simply hitting enemy defenses go, they have usually been alright. It's just now that I can throw the big guns at them.

Another important detail to keep in mind is that I'm running these 3 as Gestalt PCs, so their power is already pretty enhanced.

Tomorrow they'll finally be facing some really tough armored foes. We'll see how that all works out. They're at level 11 and were hitting AC 30s with fair consistency, so it's time to toss a few big boys in there with heavy damage as see what happens next. I'll have an update on the situation by sunday.

 

 

I guess I'm just curious.  I didn't expect any significant change at all in the math, and now I'm wondering how it all happened.  I took a look at your Gestalt rules, and I don't see anything in there that could cause the change you described.

If it's not too much trouble, could you post a breakdown of one of your PCs' attack bonus before and after the switch?  Just to satisfy my curiosity.

Will do. I'll edit in the info into this post tonight.

The biggest changes were for PCs that didn't have Weapon Expertise. The rest practically didn't change, but our Fighter was having bad luck too. Anyways, I figure we'll be running with these rules for a good while, if not from now on.

EDIT:

Okay, it seems there was a problem on calculation on my part. (There was a shield with an enhancement bonus) I've rectified that and the numbers are finally balanced again.

Another thing I'm doing is I'm refraining from improving the base armor bonus of the PCs until at least level 15. They simply do not need the increase this soon since technically at this level they would be using +3 armor.

So the numbers turned out alright, but I had a defender that skewed my numbers to the point of insanity by my own fault. That's been fixed and things should proceed smoothly from here on.

...ohhhh.  I see now.

Never mind, I think I get it now.   My mind wasn't quite connecting the "doesn't have Weapon Expertise" with the "has a lower attack bonus".

Our fighter has crazy luck. For whatever involved her AC or defending against damage in any way, the dice are always in her favor. But when it comes to any offensive roll, the dice will turn against her.

She didn't optimize her attack rolls (no feats) so when she got the extra bonus out of nowhere, she finally started hitting this again. sadly, her dice luck still keep her from being all that offensive.

It's a sad but true story. I guess this is probably why she wants to play a striker rather than a defender in whatever campaign we do next.

 

EDIT: She also had a 16 in Strength at level 12.

Necroing this thread as it seems the topic keeps coming back.

I'd like to make the mention that the progression we've adopted at my table for the increases mentioned is now at 1,5,11,15,21,25. Or any level that ends in 1 or 5.
This keeps the increases smooth and avoids huge jumps in the bonuses.

Heya PrimeSonic, just wanted to point out that the progression 1, 5, 11, 15, 21, 25 doesn't seem like it's accounting for the Expertise feats. If you kept those feats as written, there will be a jump at levels 15 and 25, and possibly level 1, 11 and 21 where the increase in attack coincide with the expertise bonus (if Expertise was taken at levels 1, 11 or 21).

If you're planning on using a progression that replaces magic enhancement bonuses, consider 1, 7, 11, 17, 21, and 27 for attack and damage, and provide an additional boost to attack only at levels 5, 15, 25 to simulate the Expertise feats.

Nevertheless, there may always be the chance of having a jump at level 21, where a PC may gain up to +3 to attack and damage from:

A. Starting with an even attack score and boosting it every time (e.g. 18 => 24)
B. Getting an ED that gives +2 to their attack score (e.g. Demigod boost from 24-26)
C. Getting the aforementioned enhancement bonus (at level 21)

If option B was not taken, or the PC started out with an odd score, there won't be a jump at level 21.

Not wanting to sound rude, but we already considered a lot of combinations. I only chose this 1,5 pattern because it spreads the bonuses out a little more smoothly.
Remember, the idea was to make enhancement bonuses pretty, but not necessary, and remove the Expertise and Defenses feats, all this while keeping the system as simple as possible.

Yes, the PCs will have an extra +1 to damage per tier that wasn't there before. Is that really so big a problem that it justifies having to keep track to two separate lists?

If you take a look at what was done, nothing really changes. The numbers end up being exactly the same as PCs of the same level, with level appropriate gear, all with Expertise and Defenses feats.

It's been months since we've started using these house rules and not only do I use them in my own games, but anyone from the group will also use them whenever they DM.

Here's a quick recap of the rules just to make clear what we do:

Removal of all feats of generic +1 to attack roll or to all non-AC defenses.
(Weapon Expertise, Implement Expertise, Paragon Defenses, Robust Defenses etc)
Feats that grant damage bonuses are still available as normal.

Heroic tier magic items have a +1 enhancement bonus
Paragon tier magic items have a +2 enhancement bonus
Epic tier magic items have a +3 enhancement bonus
All effects that depend on the item's enhancement bonus, including but not limited to: item level, price, crit dice, and many properties, instead depend on twice the enhancement bonus.
Enhancement bonuses just add to the damage roll as normal

All characters receive the following at levels 1,5,11,15,21,25:
+1 to all attack rolls
+1 to all defenses
+1 to all damage rolls

I've read through the thread and can't seem to find an answer to a question I have: Why go with a bonus at 1,5,11,15... instead of 1,6,11,16.. as it matches the magical item bonuses? Level 5 magical items tend to be +1 and this proposed system has the +2 bonus at level 5.

Also, what happens if you do not allow magical items the tier bonus of +1,+2,+3 and just rule that the magical item crit bonus' apply at the rate of per plus? For example, +1d6 at character level 1-5, +2d6 at character level 6-10, etc. Therefore, a character could find a sword at level 3, already have the +1 through his character instead of the item, and when he gets to level 6 (or 5 for whatever reason) he could then immediately apply the inherent +2 and +2d6 on crit.

I like this system and wish to apply it, but these are nagging concerns you see.

Nov 22, 2009 -- 6:00AM, beholdergaze wrote:

I've read through the thread and can't seem to find an answer to a question I have: Why go with a bonus at 1,5,11,15... instead of 1,6,11,16.. as it matches the magical item bonuses? Level 5 magical items tend to be +1 and this proposed system has the +2 bonus at level 5.

I did this as a personal choice but with these reasons to back it:
It's not guaranteed that every character in the party will get a +2 weapon by the time they're level 6. Since these "player bonuses" happen automatically, I found it best to keep the bonuses on odd numbers to avoid drastic jumps in bonuses as it wouldn't overlap with the half-level bonus.

Also, what happens if you do not allow magical items the tier bonus of +1,+2,+3 and just rule that the magical item crit bonus' apply at the rate of per plus? For example, +1d6 at character level 1-5, +2d6 at character level 6-10, etc. Therefore, a character could find a sword at level 3, already have the +1 through his character instead of the item, and when he gets to level 6 (or 5 for whatever reason) he could then immediately apply the inherent +2 and +2d6 on crit.

That isn't a bad idea at all. I figure we chose the whole "effects based on double the enhancement" for the same of simplicity.
I've seen other variations of this where the number of crit dice isn't based on the weapon but the character level. If you wanted to use that, just add a crit dice for each "player bonus" granted at the appropriate levels.

As for not even having enhancement bonuses whatsoever, that wouldn't be too hard to work with. Just give players access to the Expertise feats again in case they need them and base crit dice on character level (as mentioned).
Now for me, I prefer weapons have a small role in attack and damage bonuses than none at all, but that is my personal preference and in no way are the rules limiting you to that.

Another bit of food for thought:

I just implement the rule as per first post of this thread with my group, and as they get the hang of it I'm going to strip magic items of enhancement bonuses beyond +1 and give them +1 attack and damage at level 11 and +1 again at level 21.  Then weapons become their properties and powers and crit bonus dice and so forth. 

All weapons are either mundane or +1, the epic level weapons have more awesome abilities and powers. 

The same will go for armour, I eventually want to strip it down so that all armour is +1 as with weapons - but armour is more complicated so I haven't put thought into it yet.  For now, I want to ween them onto the "magic weapons are only a little special" because I don't want them to feel like their character is their items, but instead just that their items are a unique embellishment their character has.  Without, they would still be powerful. 

This also gives them more resources to pour into upgrading, advertising and outfitting their adventuring guild hall (and perhaps someday expanding out to other locations).  But that's a campaign specific detail, though it's partially what motivates the changes I'm making.

Nice. I like the concept. It's pretty clear that this was the original intent of the system: "to make characters more than just the sum of their items". Or something like that.
This is something we have MMOs to thank for mostly, and working to reverse that concept is taking a while.
One of my players started DMing, he's using this rule, but I also hear his items have +8 enhancement bonuses at level 6. I'd rather not go into detail as to the other abominations he's made, but it's clear he still can't get WoW out of his head when he's at the table.

I see, the tier bonus for magical weapons is there to replace the expertise feat tax. I like it and thank you for the clarification. Even though it doesn't match the feat perfectly (+2 coming at level 15, +3 at 25) it's nicer to link the bonus to the tier rather than a level in the middle and I like it. Thanks to all involved, this thread and previous, for helping to create this system.

Hey, this thread is back.  Hi there!

Nov 23, 2009 -- 11:09AM, beholdergaze wrote:

Thanks to all involved, this thread and previous, for helping to create this system.

Quick question:  "This thread and previous."  Which previous thread are you referring to?  I'm curious to hear.

Nov 22, 2009 -- 6:00AM, beholdergaze wrote:

I've read through the thread and can't seem to find an answer to a question I have: Why go with a bonus at 1,5,11,15... instead of 1,6,11,16.. as it matches the magical item bonuses? Level 5 magical items tend to be +1 and this proposed system has the +2 bonus at level 5.

I actually prefer the 1, 6, 11... progression.  Those jumps that PrimeSonic described, dangerous as they might sound, have actually been happening for a long time now.  Remember how you get +1 to your ability scores at certain levels?  If you started out with an even ability score, your ability bonus will go up by 1 at levels 8, 14, 21, and 28.  That means you're already getting a total of +2 to attacks at levels 8, 14, and 28.  Adding 6, 16, and 26 to that mix doesn't seem like a bad thing to me.

Also, what happens if you do not allow magical items the tier bonus of +1,+2,+3 and just rule that the magical item crit bonus' apply at the rate of per plus? For example, +1d6 at character level 1-5, +2d6 at character level 6-10, etc. Therefore, a character could find a sword at level 3, already have the +1 through his character instead of the item, and when he gets to level 6 (or 5 for whatever reason) he could then immediately apply the inherent +2 and +2d6 on crit.

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here, but whatever it is I think PrimeSonic answered pretty well.  I'll just add my two cents:

The reason I kept the crit dice tied to weapons, rather than characters, is pretty simple: I wanted to keep magic items powerful.  If all your magic sword does is give you a fun power once per day, then for the rest of the day it's indistinguishable from a regular sword.  You could get the same benefit from a regular sword with a potion tied to its pommel.

If, however, your magic sword deals extra damage on a crit, suddenly you have a reason to keep it around.  Without it, a crit is just "yay, max damage."  With it, it's "Whoa, max damage PLUS all these extra dice!"  And while that extra damage won't show up all that often--once every twenty attacks, right--there's still that chance, each and every time you roll, that your sword could suddenly make its presence known with a heaping handful of magical pain.

In other words, although you won't see a significant difference in your actual rate of success when you go from a regular sword to a magic one, or a magical one to a more powerful one, you'll still feel way more powerful every time you roll a crit and see the crazy damage increase.  This goes perfectly with my philosophy of "fewer but cooler".

Also, just as a side note, there are certain weapons and implements that are only balanced because they don't give any bonus to crit damage.  Handling those would be difficult if crit dice were an inherent bonus. Either you'd lose your inherent dice whenever you picked up such an item, which is weird, or you'd keep them, which would be overpowered.

Nov 22, 2009 -- 10:09AM, Candi wrote:

Another bit of food for thought:

I just implement the rule as per first post of this thread with my group, and as they get the hang of it I'm going to strip magic items of enhancement bonuses beyond +1 and give them +1 attack and damage at level 11 and +1 again at level 21.  Then weapons become their properties and powers and crit bonus dice and so forth.

All weapons are either mundane or +1, the epic level weapons have more awesome abilities and powers.

The same will go for armour, I eventually want to strip it down so that all armour is +1 as with weapons - but armour is more complicated so I haven't put thought into it yet.  For now, I want to wean them onto the "magic weapons are only a little special" because I don't want them to feel like their character is their items, but instead just that their items are a unique embellishment their character has.  Without, they would still be powerful.

Sure, I guess that's cool.  I mean, it's not really "the rule as per first post of this thread" in any conceivable way, but it's fine if that's what you're into.

Just one thing I'd like to address, though:

I want to wean them onto the "magic weapons are only a little special" because I don't want them to feel like their character is their items.

I don't quite understand this point of view.  No, that's not quite right.  I understand it, I just think it's a little weird.

I mean yes, of course it shouldn't cripple a character to lose all his magic items.  4e characters are badasses; they don't need items to make them cool.

But the thing is: why can't items be awesome too?  Why can't there be magical staves of legendary power?  What's wrong with a weapon that can chop mountains in half?  Magic items shouldn't need wielders to make them cool, either.

Magic items have been a staple of the genre since the very beginning.  What would Achilles be without his armour?  What would Arthur be without Exaclibur?  What would Bilbo Baggins be without the One Ring?

The answer is "Still awesome, but not quite as much so."  Powerful magic items, properly handled, don't detract from a character; they enhance it.  Finding a new item doesn't detract from the finder's glory.  He's still the one who delved the dungeons of eternal dread, fought its ferocious guardian, and claimed its fabled helm as his prize.  The fame and glory aren't a property of the item itself; they're found in the gaining of the item.

So yes, by all means don't let the items overshadow the characters.  Just don't take that to mean that items should be weak.  There's a middle ground.

Hrm, you raise an interesting point.

My view came from a lengthy discussion I had with a player when he posed the scenario of his character hanging from a branch over a rushign waterfall faced with the choice "drop his sword or fall".  With no other options present to him, he decided due to the incredible power his sword gave him that without it he was as good as dead anyway so would take his chances with his fall.

The system presented in the first post I think does, upon deeper reflection (and having played a couple sessions under it, with no personal ammendments as of yet) accomplish this desire - to make the sword less valuable than the character.  The +6 Vorpal Bastard Sword at epic level was simply too good compared to the character, but the +3 is completely reasonable to throw away in exchange for your life. 

I totally see what you are saying about the awesomeness of items, but the examples you give are the types of items I cast as Artifacts, or Wondrous Items (to borrow from 3.5).  However, I have decided not to "mundane-ify" the magic items of this partiuclar campaign.  Maybe in a low-magic world sometime in the future, sounds neat to me, but this game is going to run with this houserule as written.

Glad you like it.

Your "drop the sword or fall" example is kind of a funny scenario, if you think about it.  On the one hand, refusing to drop the sword could be a completely metagame decision, with the player recognizing that he'll be severely gimped without it.  On the other, this could just as easily be a "Frodo at Mount Doom" or "Indiana Jones with the Grail" situation; the decision is made entirely for RP reasons, and good, complex ones at that.  It's weird, but a character could make exactly the same choice for wildly different reasons.

Of course, the way you describe it, it sounds like your player's reason is the first one.  And that's oh well.  But there's a bright side: now that you know your player is the sort who might do this kind of thing, risking his life for a magic weapon, you can use that knowledge to put him in some really interesting situations.

Give him an important item.  Not necessarily a powerful one, but one that has some real importance of an RP sort.  Maybe it's a +1 Avalanche Mace that belonged to his father until he was murdered by a warlock; with this weapon, and no other, has he sworn to take his vengeance.  Maybe he's given the key to the kingdom in recognition of his service to the crown; the key works as a Chime of Opening, but that function pales in comparison to the prestige of merely owning it (or the shame of losing it).  Maybe the shield just looks really cool and unique, and if he loses it he'll never find one that looks the same.

I guess what I'm saying is, it's okay for players to value their epic item as if it was +6, as long as three of those plusses are sentimental value.

Oh, and about "mundanifying" items in low-magic campaigns, I completely agree.  My system would be utterly inappropriate in such a campaign.  Much better to use the standard itemless system in that case.  Likewise, my system would also be a bad idea in a kick-in-the-door, no-plot, dungeons-only, Final-Destination campaign.  My system is made for high and heroic fantasy, and should be used as such.

Lgfig, I was referring to other threads i've seen on the topic of houseruling the "broken" math of the game, be it house rules for feats, inherant bonus', etc. You've sold me on why the crit damage should stay with the weapons instead of with the characters themselves, thanks.

Does anyone have any updates to this system after having some time to incorporate it in their game?

Yeah, I actually just updated it the other day.  Added some other scaling itels to the mix, made a few special exceptions for artifacts and alchemical items, and expanded the list of masterwork armours.  I also rewrote certain parts of the discussion section to reflect some of the points that have been raised in the thread.

I believe your math is off by three points when it comes to expected static damage output. Here's the division of bonuses for the standard system compared to yours as I calculate them.

Standard:

• +6 from enhancement bonuses
• +3 from feats
• +6 from iron armbands of power/bracers of archery

For a total of +15.

In your system:   

• +6 from mastery bonuses
• +3 from enhancement bonuses
• +3 from feats
• +6 from iron armbands of power/bracers of archery

For a total of +18.

Normally I wouldn't mind a slight +3 power creep to static damage, but as I understand it, static damage is what breaks one of the most unbalanced aspect of 4th edition: powers granting multiple damage rolls (such as the ranger's ranged and two-weapon fighting line). As such, my suggestion is to find a way to take away the +3 extra static damage. The two easy solutions I can think of are either to take away the enhancement bonuses from the calculation of damage rolls or (my own favorite) to get rid of the damage increasing line of feats like weapon focus, astral fire, dark fury, etc.

However, this does have the side effect of making it easier for implement wielders to get their +3 feat bonuses to damage on all their powers in spite of the damage type...

Finally, I want to congratulate you on your homebrew rule, I used to have a very similar system for my magic item deprived homebrew setting (with slightly higher mastery bonuses, to balance the complete lack of enhancement bonuses). However, I've recently had world events in my setting that caused magic items to slowly reappear, I believe your math is perfect to maintain the balance and general magic level for this new era of my homebrew setting; I plan on using it accordingly. So big thanks to you for sparing me all the math!

Oh yeah... I remember noticing the +3 damage and discounting it as not important, but I never did take multiattacking into account.

I'm not a big fan of the idea of removing damage bonuses from magic weapons, myself; magic swords should cut better (+damage) as well as having better balance (+to hit).

Removing the damage feats would fit logically with the rest of the system, but I'm not too keen on that, either.  My system is about removing the need for feat taxes (among other things), but nobody would ever call Weapon Focus a feat tax.  Moreover, one of my favorite series of feats is the "racial weapons" one; that is, the feats that give proficiency in some superior weapons and +2/+3/+4 damage with them.  If Weapon Focus were lost, those feats would be just proficiency and +1 damage, which is kind of weak.
(But other than that, it's a reasonable suggestion.)

My current favorite idea is to remove mastery bonuses to damage, while doubling enhancement bonuses to damage.  That is, +1 weapons get +2 damage, +2 get +4, and +3 get +6.  This follows the same pattern as crit bonuses, and retains the desired balance.  What do you think?

And thanks for the kind words!

Jan 11, 2010 -- 1:20PM, Igfig wrote:

My current favorite idea is to remove mastery bonuses to damage, while doubling enhancement bonuses to damage.  That is, +1 weapons get +2 damage, +2 get +4, and +3 get +6.  This follows the same pattern as crit bonuses, and retains the desired balance.  What do you think?

Sounds good! And another possibilty could simply be to cut in two the item bonus to damage from Iron Armbands, Bracers of Archery, Staff of Ruin. I never liked these items anyway; they only reduce the number of interesting items for their proper slot. Perhaps with a lower bonus to damage people would be attracted other my flavorful pieces of equipment...

The more I think about this idea, the more I like it.  I need to read the whole thread closely, then I'll reply with my ideas.

Jan 14, 2010 -- 5:09AM, NINcubus wrote:

Sounds good! And another possibilty could simply be to cut in two the item bonus to damage from Iron Armbands, Bracers of Archery, Staff of Ruin. I never liked these items anyway; they only reduce the number of interesting items for their proper slot. Perhaps with a lower bonus to damage people would be attracted other my flavorful pieces of equipment...

That's... wow.  That's beautiful.

Really, that's a perfect solution.  It elegantly solves both the damage imbalance and the problem of those overpowered items.  In fact, if you think about it, those items could be considered an 'item tax' in the same way as Weapon Expertise is a feat tax.  Since part of the point of my system is to cut down on taxes, that makes your idea even more perfect.

I'll add a clause about item bonuses to the OP.



Jan 11, 2010 -- 1:20PM, Igfig wrote:

My current favorite idea is to remove mastery bonuses to damage, while doubling enhancement bonuses to damage.  That is, +1 weapons get +2 damage, +2 get +4, and +3 get +6.  This follows the same pattern as crit bonuses, and retains the desired balance.  What do you think?

This is a cool idea, but I think it swings the balance of power further back towards "items are required, otherwise you are gimped."

Jan 14, 2010 -- 5:09AM, NINcubus wrote:

And another possibilty could simply be to cut in two the item bonus to damage from Iron Armbands, Bracers of Archery, Staff of Ruin. I never liked these items anyway; they only reduce the number of interesting items for their proper slot. Perhaps with a lower bonus to damage people would be attracted other my flavorful pieces of equipment...

THIS.


Also, a different thought I had was to give characters a +1 to attack at first level, but not a +1 to damage.  The effect of this would be that their damage output at 30th level would only be two points higher than normal instead of three.

As far as iron armbands and the like, what if you were only able to apply the bonus to damage once per round? Or even once per standard action (thus letting you use action points to full effect)?  That would balance multiple attacks better.

Nov 16, 2009 -- 8:47PM, PrimeSonic wrote:

Not wanting to sound rude, but we already considered a lot of combinations. I only chose this 1,5 pattern because it spreads the bonuses out a little more smoothly.

...

All characters receive the following at levels 1,5,11,15,21,25:
+1 to all attack rolls
+1 to all defenses
+1 to all damage rolls

I agree with the reasoning behind 1,5,11,15... instead of 1,6,11,16... It makes the power curve more smooth, with more +1 per level bonuses and fewer +2 per level jumps.  As I just said, I would amend this to give +1 attack and defense at first level, but not +1 damage.



Another thought I had was to give the mastery bonuses at 3,7,13,17,23,27.  I chose those levels because I wanted to smooth the power curve as much as possible.  It turned out to be only slightly more smooth than 1,5,11,15... so is not worth the extra effort.

Well, I've already said why I prefer the 1, 6, 11... progression, so I won't reiterate that.  I might add, though, that I think a daily power is already plenty for levels 5, 15, and 25.  A daily plus a +1 to everything would be overdoing it.

But really,  it doesn't matter all that much which levels you choose.  The bonuses will all get there in the end.


So anyway, I've been thinking about giving this system a proper name.  Can't just keep calling it "my system" all the time.   (Plus, it's not entirely mine anymore, what with all the input I've gotten from you guys.)  A few random ideas:

The "One Stone" System - just because that's what the thread is called.
The Mastery System - mastery bonuses are how it works.
The Revised Item Progression - that's what it is.
The Middle-Ground Progression - ditto.
The Intrepid System - what it encourages its users to be.

Those are pretty middling-quality, though.  Is anyone here better than me at naming things?

I don't want to call it "The Igfig System" for a few reasons, the foremost being that I've got a few other systems in the works and I don't want people to get confused in the future.

One Stone

It is unique and will cause the least confusion.  I love this system btw, and will be using it.

Jan 22, 2010 -- 1:56AM, Igfig wrote:

Well, I've already said why I prefer the 1, 6, 11... progression, so I won't reiterate that.  I might add, though, that I think a daily power is already plenty for levels 5, 15, and 25.  A daily plus a +1 to everything would be overdoing it.

I understand your reasoning here.  However, since characters are already getting a feat, a utility, AND a +1 everything at 6, 16, and 26, giving an extra +1 seemed silly to me.  Getting a daily AND a +1 everything at 5, 15, and 25 doesn't seem like overkill to me when compared to the alternative.  But as you said, the system works either way.

The "One Stone" System - just because that's what the thread is called.
The Mastery System - mastery bonuses are how it works.
The Revised Item Progression - that's what it is.
The Middle-Ground Progression - ditto.
The Intrepid System - what it encourages its users to be.

Those are pretty middling-quality, though.  Is anyone here better than me at naming things?

The second option is the most descriptive, but is kind of boring.  The third and fourth are too general, and the fifth doesn't seem like it fits.

"One Stone" is certainly unique and I like it, but it doesn't really describe the system.  What about something particularly descriptive, such as "Heroic Fantasy alternate item progression?"

Err, nope. Not better, but I go for simplicity, and the "Hero System" might work. Super simple name, but fitting since it accentuates the role of the player's progression over items.

Also, damnit why didn't I see this before I started my campaign!!

Any suggestions how to implement this with an already started campaign, other than just making the players trade in all their gear, and apply the new rules? 

Unfortunately the name Hero System has already been taken.  I also want to avoid the word "Heroic" lest people mistakenly connect the system with the Heroic tier.

If you're still in the heroic tier, it shouldn't be too hard to make the switch to my system.  If you drop Expertise, decrease enhancement bonuses by 1 and add a +1 or 2 mastery bonus, numbers are likely to stay about the same or maybe increase a little, which your players should be fine with.  Even at higher levels, the change should be pretty straightforward.

Jul 13, 2009 -- 8:51PM, Igfig wrote:

Masterwork light armour no longer exists. Masterwork heavy armour...

Call me dense, but I could use some clarification. If one of my characters has +2 Leather now under the original system, what would he then have and how would this affect his AC? (using simplest example I can think of...see below, since its more specific)

my understanding is --

• by-the-book: 14 AC broken down as +0 AC no such thing as mastery, +2 from armor, +2 enhancement (character possesses Magic leather armor +2, lvl 6 item)
• my guess at using your system: your system: now 15 AC, broken down as +2 AC from mastery, +2 armor, +1 enhancement (character possesses Magic leather armor +1, still a lvl 6 item)

Please, correct me if I am wrong.

Also..Regarding implementation, your system should be made even easier to work in, due to the fact I gave everyone 1 free expertise feat each at 1st level. However, I did notice a peculiar thing about the conversion of these 7th level PCs. That is, applying your system would cause the following for them:

• +2 jumps in most if not all of their Defenses
• +2 AC (or only +1 if they had some +2 armor before)
• +2 to all attack roll (or only +1 if they had weapon/implement expertise in that attack type before)
• +2 to damage (or only +1 if they had some +2 weapon/implement before)

errr- does that seem right? although, perhaps it was just my distribution of slightly lower level gear which caused the disparity-though I am loathe to think that my oversights cost them that much in the way of numbers

for the record, what I gave them as 7th level PC gear, was:

• One Lvl+0 item 
• Two Lvl-1 items
• One Lvl-1 item's-worth of gold pcs

(Should probably restore this all to normal if I do the changeover..)

Mar 10, 2010 -- 4:58AM, babyj wrote:

Jul 13, 2009 -- 8:51PM, Igfig wrote:

Masterwork light armour no longer exists. Masterwork heavy armour...

Call me dense, but I could use some clarification. If one of my characters has +2 Leather now under the original system, what would he then have and how would this affect his AC? (using simplest example I can think of...see below, since its more specific)

my understanding is --

• by-the-book: 14 AC broken down as +0 AC no such thing as mastery, +2 from armor, +2 enhancement (character possesses Magic leather armor +2, lvl 6 item)
• my guess at using your system: your system: now 15 AC, broken down as +2 AC from mastery, +2 armor, +1 enhancement (character possesses Magic leather armor +1, still a lvl 6 item)

Please, correct me if I am wrong.

You've got the basic idea right, although these specific numbers are a bit off because you're not including the 1/2 level bonus.  A level 6 character with level 6 Magic Leather and no Dex or Int bonus has AC 17 by the book, and AC 18 by my system.

Also..Regarding implementation, your system should be made even easier to work in, due to the fact I gave everyone 1 free expertise feat each at 1st level. However, I did notice a peculiar thing about the conversion of these 7th level PCs. That is, applying your system would cause the following for them:

• +2 jumps in most if not all of their Defenses
• +2 AC (or only +1 if they had some +2 armor before)
• +2 to all attack roll (or only +1 if they had weapon/implement expertise in that attack type before)
• +2 to damage (or only +1 if they had some +2 weapon/implement before)

errr- does that seem right? although, perhaps it was just my distribution of slightly lower level gear which caused the disparity-though I am loathe to think that my oversights cost them that much in the way of numbers

for the record, what I gave them as 7th level PC gear, was:

• One Lvl+0 item 
• Two Lvl-1 items
• One Lvl-1 item's-worth of gold pcs

(Should probably restore this all to normal if I do the changeover..)

Yeah, you're shortchanging your players a bit in the item department.  If you look at p. 125 of the DMG, you'll see that magic items should usually be higher level than the PCs that find them.  This is because each PC only gets, on average, one new item each level.  That means that when you get a new item for a slot, it'll be about five levels before you find something else to replace it.  If the item was a level lower than you when you found it, it's six levels lower than you when it gets replaced--close to useless.  If the item started out two levels above you, however, it'll only be three levels behind when it gets replaced.

I am pretty sure I understand, but before I go saying the wrong thing..the system does intend for a +1 aftershock sword from before to give no crit bonus right? you only get the power right? (since +1 divided by 2 is .5, rounded down to 0, then times 2 is still 0d6 added to crit)

and likewise, another example, say a +3 aftershock weapon. that would be identical to a +2 aftershock weapon right? (3/2 is 1.5, rounded down to 1, then times 2 is still +2d6 to crit, thus achieving the "jump" in damage when getting a new more powerful weapon)

EDIT: The alternative method I see for these edge cases is to use the unrounded number for the multiplication, thus giving intermediary weapons like the +1 aftershock a +1d6 to crit, a power, but no enhancement bonus. And under that method, a +3 would give +3d6 to crit, a power, but only +1 enhancement bonus. However, I am fairly certain that is NOT how you intended for it to work though, right?

What?  No.  A +1 weapon deals +2d6 on a crit, a +2 weapon deals +4d6, and a +3 weapon deals +6d6.  That's it.

Mar 15, 2010 -- 10:10PM, Igfig wrote:

What?  No.  A +1 weapon deals +2d6 on a crit, a +2 weapon deals +4d6, and a +3 weapon deals +6d6.  That's it.

I certainly understand that there are no +4 and up weapons. I also understand the +1 giving a +2d6 on crit. But this is confusing me for the first time now..cuz you said 'no', but it sounds like you are agreeing with what I said..I am asking specifically about low level weapons (5th and under). Perhaps I should reiterate in more specific terms what I was asking to clarify:

-Correct? An originally +1 aftershock weapon would become an effective +0 aftershock weapon (no dmg on crit, no enhancement, and only retain the aftershock property)

-Unless you are also implying that these items level 5 or less no longer possess any special qualities; something I originally did not understand to be the case (using the example of an originally +1 aftershock weapon, it would become a normal +0 mundane weapon, thus doing away with level 5, and under, magical weaponry)

(The edit part on the previous post was referring to the possibility of another situation, which I didn't think was the case, and I feel you have made clear is not the case.)

The thing I was rejecting was the idea that there's a direct relationship between a weapon's enhancement bonuses in the two systems.  (Sorry I didn't make that clear.)

There isn't.  You can't map old-style weapons directly to new-style ones.  Don't think about "originally" or "effective"; that just invites confusion, as you can see.  There's only the old system and the new system.  A +2 magic weapon in the old system does one thing, and is level 6.  A +1 magic weapon in the new system does something else, and is also, coincidentally, level 6.

So yeah, there are no magic weapons at all in the level 1-5 range.  Also 11-15 and 21-25.  Same goes for armour and neck slot items.

Okay, despite what Igfig said in the first post about not trying to change or improve his system, I still wanted to do my own take on it.  I've been thinking about this for a while now and here's what I've come up with.  I did quite a few tests to make sure the math added up correctly, as is shown by the comparisons listed below.

So to reiterate, the breakdown for the bonuses for attack and defense should be as follows:
+29 Total
+15 from 1/2 level
+6 from mastery bonuses
+3 from enhancement bonuses
+4 from stat boosts
+1 from miscellaneous

I wanted the power curve to be as smooth as possible. 
I did away with the 1/2 level and combined it with the +6 mastery bonuses to give a total of +21 from level dependent bonuses.  You now get a +1 to all attacks and defenses at every level above 1 except 4, 8, 11, 14, 18, 21, 24, and 28.  That's a total of +21.

I chose those levels because those are the levels where your stats increase (which means depending on your starting stats you have the potential to get a +1 to attack, damage, and at least one defense).  I didn't want to stack a level dependent +1 on the same level as a stat boost dependent +1.  I'm just picky about it, and I do realize it adds a little bit more complexity to the system.

I made a spreadsheet to compare attack bonus progression under my modification to that of core. I wanted to compare how smooth the power curve was and make sure that at any given level the attack bonus under this houserule was not too high or too low compared to a standard game.
Attack_Bonus_Comparison
It only adds up to 28 at the bottom instead of 29 because it doesn't count the "+1 from miscellaneous."
I also have comparisons for Non-AC defenses and AC in light armor.
NAD_Comparison
Light_Armor_Comparison



I also wanted to address damage output.  Earlier in the thread we had discussed the breakdown of damage bonuses, but it was added up wrong.  Here's what it should be:
+15 total
+6 from enhancement bonuses
+4 from stat boosts
+3 from weapon focus
+2 miscellaneous
(+6 from Iron Armbands of Power, Staff of Ruin, etc.)

I added a +4 bonus to damage from mastery.  You get a +1 to all damage rolls at levels 4, 11, 18, and 24.  I chose those levels because if you started with an even number in your main attack stat (it seems most players do) stat boosts would give you a +1 to attack and damage at levels 8, 14, 21, and 28.  That leaves 4, 11, 18, and 24 as kind of "dead levels" (since you don't get a level dependent bonus on those levels -- see above), so I gave +1 damage at each of those levels.

The new damage breakdown is as follows:
+15 total
+3 from enhancement bonuses
+4 from stat boosts
+4 from mastery bonuses
+3 from weapon focus
+1 miscellaneous
(+3 from Iron Armbands of Power, Staff of Ruin, etc.)¹

Yes, there's also a comparison spreadsheet for damage progression:
Damage Bonus Comparison
The first column in the middle is without the item bonus from Iron Armbands, etc.  The second column in the middle is including the item bonus.



Totalling the attack and damage progressions from above, the total level dependent bonuses are as follows:
At levels 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30:
Gain a +1 to all attacks and defenses

At levels 4, 11, 18, 24:
Gain a +1 to all damage rolls

At levels 8, 14, 21, 28:
(assumed from stat increases) Gain a +1 to attacks, damage rolls and at least one defense

Here is a spread sheet showing a summary of all level dependent bonuses, including feats and powers: Summary_of_Benefits
And a breakdown of the same: Breakdown_of_Benefits

In the breakdown, I listed the total number of "perks" per level.  A "perk" is any choice or bonus gained at that level and includes attack powers, utility powers, class features, feats, and attack or damage bonuses.  I counted stat boosts at 8, 14, and 28 as perks because (as discussed above) they usually give you a +1 to attack, damage, and at least one defense, but didn't count stat boosts at 4, 18, and 24 for the same reason.  The +1 to all stats at levels 11 and 21 were enough of a "perk" to count, whether they increased your main attack or not.

Obviously not all perks are equal (attack powers are better than utilities, class features are better than feats, etc.) but it helped me to see which levels already had a lot going on and which levels didn't.  I used this to decide on the final breakdown for level dependent bonuses, as I wanted every level to have at least two perks.



So in summary, really the only difference between what I have decided on here and what Igfig put forth in the first post is that instead of adding 1/2 your level to attacks and defenses and then an extra +1 at 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26 I decided to break that +21 down differently over the 30 levels.

¹ I nerfed these items as discussed earlier in the thread

There is however, still the problem of masterwork heavy armor.  I looked at doing it the way Igfig described in the initial post.  That gives a +2 to masterwork heavy armor at paragon tier and an additional +2 at epic tier.  This is how it works out:
Heroic: +1 armor, +0 MW bonus, total=+1
Paragon: +2 armor, +2 MW bonus, total=+4
Epic: +3 armor, +4 MW bonus, total=+7

Didn't like it.  The jump of three points between each tier is as bad or worse than the jump if you were using PHB1 only, before they smoothed the progression in AV1.

Instead I wanted to do away with masterwork armors and just say heavy armors get +2 AC per enhancement bonus instead of +1.  That is +1 plate gives +2 AC (+10 total), +2 plate gives +4 AC (+12 total) and +3 plate gives +6 AC (+14 total).  But this doesn't solve the problem either because it puts the AC of heavy armor users one point below light armor users at epic (two points if the light armor user picks an epic destiny that boosts Int or Dex).

So that means the progression needs to be +1 armors give +2 AC, +2 armors give +5 AC and +3 armors give +7 AC.  It goes +2, +3, +2, which is awkward but works.

As above, heavy armors give +2 AC per plus instead of +1, but then +2 and +3 armors are masterwork and thus get an ADDITIONAL +1 AC.  If you wanted, you could say +3 armors give a bonus to a NAD (or resist/all for plate) in addition to the extra +1 AC.
So the breakdown for that is
Heroic: +2 armor, +0 MW bonus, total=+2
Paragon: +4 armor, +1 MW bonus, total=+5
Epic: +6 armor, +1 MW bonus, total=+7 (plus NAD bonus)

I made yet another spread sheet to compare this method to the AC progression of heavy armors in core:
Heavy_Armor_Comparison

In the spreadsheet, the numbers highlighted in green are where the AC jumps more than two points in one level.  This method will definitely work, but I don't know if it is optimal at epic levels because I've only played in heroic and paragon tiers so far.




Does this solve the heavy armor problem?  Or are there still kinks to get worked out?



There's a few ways to alter this so it makes sense and seems less arbitrary:

You could say that ALL magic heavy armor is masterwork.  Instead of the +2 AC per plus as described above, the magic armor only gets +1 AC per enhancement bonus but then gets extra MW bonuses as follows:
Heroic: +1 armor, +1 MW, total=+2
Paragon: +2 armor, +3 MW, total=+5
Epic: +3 armor, +4 MW, total=+7 (plus NAD bonus)
This is just a different way of describing the method I outlined above.

At epic tier, heavy armor gets an additional +1 AC from being masterwork, instead of the NAD bonus.
Heroic: +2 armor, +0 MW, total=+2
Paragon: +4 armor, +1 MW, total=+5
Epic: +6 armor, +2 MW, total=+8
I really don't think you need this one.  If you look at the comparison, the modified progression already ends up one point higher than the original progression.

Or you could just give a flat +1 AC to heavy armor users at mid-paragon, like level 15 or 16.
Heroic: +2 armor, +0 bonus, total=+2
Paragon: +4 armor, +1 bonus, total=+5
Epic: +6 armor, +1 bonus, total=+7
This simplifies things a little by going back to "heavy armor gives +2 AC per enhancement bonus instead of +1" as described above, but then you have to remember to throw in the extra +1 halfway through paragon tier.

If you really want a perfectly smooth progression, maybe you should get rid of masterwork armour and just grant the bonus automatically to characters wearing heavy armour.  I know I argued against that earlier, but that was that system and this is this system.


Your point about the damage breakdown is a good one: we certainly did get the calculations wrong.  However, I've been doing some research into damage breakdowns for my next big project, and I discovered something interesting: between level 1 and 30, average damage increases not by 15 points, but rather 29.

A typical at-will power will deal about 1[W]+ primary ability modifier + secondary ability modifier damage.  Assuming the character is using a standard one-handed military weapon with 1d10 damage and +2 proficiency, the breakdown would look something like this:

Source	Bonus	Notes
Primary ability increases	+4
Secondary ability increases	+4
Enhancement	+6
Item	+6
Feat	+3
Epic at-will	+6	1d10 -> 2d10
Miscellaneous	+1	often SWF
Total	30

The reason it adds up to +30 instead of +29 is that most PCs will take either Weapon Focus or Superior Weapon Proficiency at first level.


Speaking of taking things at level 1, I realized that the 1,6,11... progression for mastery bonuses has a nasty flaw: if you get a bonus at level 1, it doesn't really count toward increases over the course of thirty levels because you've had it the whole time.  The obvious solution is to remove the level 1 bonus and put it somewhere else; the obvious question is "where?"  The three options I'm currently considering are:   

• put the bonus at level 30, for more capstoning
• reinstate Weapon Expertise as an epic feat that grants a +1 bonus to attacks... I'm not considering this very seriously.
• leave it as a floating "Miscellaneous" bonus and hope the player can do something with it.

I was thinking about the problems with progression some more just now, and I had a revelation.  No, more like two.  

The first revelation was that I don't actually like the idea of an automatic progression.  A bonus is far more satisfying when you've earned it, when you can look at it and say "That +1 is because I spent six months training with Master Song-Hei," than when the bonus is given for free at a predictable level.

The second was that there's already an event that happens roughly every five levels, in an unpredictable manner, and to one PC at a time; requires a serious effort to achieve; and has intentionally nebulously defined rewards.  I'm talking about minor quests.

It always rubbed me the wrong way that a PC's minor quest, a quest with intense personal significance, should benefit each PC the same amount.  I understand the balance reasons for it, and they're very good reasons, but that's how I felt.

But if we tie mastery bonuses to the completion of minor quests, suddenly that personal angle is back.  Back with a vengeance: not only are minor quests valuable, they're mandatory.  Any character that can't get involved with the world, that doesn't have goals or hopes or dreams, will find himself falling behind the people who do have a reason to fight.

I think that would be pretty cool.

This is a pretty fantastic idea.  I came up with something similar a while back, but I've never play-tested it.... mostly because I have yet to get a game above the heroic tier to even make it relevant.   

I remove all of the craptastic expertise and robust defenses feats that are so OP they pigeonhole all characters into taking them over taking unique flavor feats.

I also get rid of all masterwork armors, I find the execution to be a bit lackluster, especially considering there are no masterwork weapons.  Additionally, they are conceptually redundant with regular magic armor - they only exist to shore up a weakness in the math, and that's lame.  This change brings AC for light/no armor wearers in line with the growth from attacks and other defenses.  To compensate for the loss for heavy armor users, I imagine I'd grant a cumulative +1 bonus to AC at fixed intervals, such as every 7 or 8 levels, to all characters that would only apply while they are wearing heavy armor.  .  

I've reflavored "magic" arms and armor to simply be "superior quality" arms and armor.  This makes the label of 'magic' not so much of a crutch to necessarily apply to all gear a character is using as they rise in level; i.e. a Longsword +2 might simply be a masterwork quality longsword made with a particularly strong type (ex. Damascus) of steel, or it might be a once-mundane longsword imbued with some type of magic so that it is perpetually flaming.  I also use non-specific house rules for upgrading or reforging gear.  I find that simply reflavoring the 'magic' gear, along with providing relatively easy upgrade options,  removes some of the stress associated with the constant need to upgrade from both myself and the players, and removes some of the excessiveness associated with shopping and treasure parcels.  

So, characters go back to how they were before PHB2 in all respects, except their AC is slightly lower to match the attack bonus, etc., as well.  As for compensating for that loss - that's what I really need to playtest.  My first instinct is to let it be and to just slightly lower average encounter levels as characters rise to allow for high level encounters to be truly epic.... a level 30 encounter should be tough even if the PCs are level 30... right?  On the other hand I might just add in a tier based bonus to all attacks and defenses.

Heheh.  Yeah, lots of people have come up with something like this; the trick is to do it well.

Personally, I'm not a fan of doing away with masterwork armour...

Aug 10, 2009 -- 9:59PM, Igfig wrote:

PrimeSonic wrote:

If you don't want to get all crazy about recalculating numbers or replacing items, just consider the characters receiving some type of armor mastery bonus that increases the base AC of their armor by +1 or +3 per tier respectively.

This would work well as far as brevity and simplicity are concerned... but something feels off about it. Essentially PCs get a major free bonus just for putting on a suit of heavy armour--and not from the armour itself, mind you, but just by virtue of being heroes. I can understand armour mastery feats, since they represent extra training with a specific armour type, but this kind of thing, not so much. Mayyybe it would work if you only got the heavy armour bonus for armour you're proficient with? I'm not sure.

...but I can see where you're coming from, especially with the "enhancement bonuses as superior quality".  As long as your heavy armour bonus is granting four increases over the course of 29 levels, you should be good.

However, I wouldn't recommend trying to compensate for lower PC bonuses with decreased encounter levels.  As a general rule, you should keep your fixes as close to the thing they're modifying as possible.  The further you venture afield, the more likely it is that you'll fail to find a balance and just end up with something simultaneously over- and underpowered.  3.5 monstrous races, for instance: at-will SLAs of incredible power, but so few HD that they die in one hit.

And truth be told, a level 30 encounter should be just as hard for a level 30 party as a level 1 encounter is for a level 1 party.  They should have the same chances of hitting, deal the same damage relative to each others' hp, and inflict conditions of the same relative potency.

So yeah, a +3 mastery bonus to attacks and defenses is your second best option.  

(Your best option is of course the One Stone System, wink wink.)

Small update to reflect changes made in Essentials.  By that I mean the feats that grant a scaling feat bonus to one thing and a situational bonus to another.  I like those feats, but getting rid of the item bonuses completely would make them too weak.

My compromise: Expertise-style feats are back, but they don't scale with level.