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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 10:31AM
#11
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Date Joined:
Sep 11, 2007
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How about basing initiative on wisdom instead of dexterity? Wisdom is the basis for awareness and one could argue that situational awareness is more valuable at the start of combat to give you an edge.
I was just thinking the same thing when I read this. Situation awareness is much more important in reaction... so either divorce initiative from any stat (making an initiative feat that much more valuable) or give it to wisdom.
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 11:07AM
#12
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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Characters who go with high dex and forgo heavy weapons may start to have problems when they encounter creatures with damage resistance. A lot depends on how common they are. If armor starts confering damage resistance that can change the equation as well.
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 11:44AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2012
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why not put a DR cap on heavy armor equal to your strength or con bonus,
or you could say strength requirements approximating a bonus are required for heavy armors,
so that higher bonus armor has encumbrance penalties 1 for 1 to your "dex bonus" if you don't have a high enough strength.
You could even do both:
so hypothetically, if you had light armor +1-4
and heavy armor +5-8
there could be a DR for heavy armor of 1-4, but it couldn't exceed your Con bonus,
and you could have a matching encumbrance penalty of -1-4 that is negated by equal strength bonus
So if you had a strength bonus of +3, you could wear armor +7, with DR 3, and no Dex bonus penalty, but if you wore +8 armor, your dex bonus would be 1 point lower.
Options are Liberating
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 12:22PM
#14
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Date Joined:
Jun 13, 2008
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It does seem like light and medium arour has too high of AC, but DR is not a solution that scales, and adds complexity to was is curently a fairly elegant set of rules. Simply subtracting 1 for the AC of light armor would bring things in line. The maximum dex attribute a PC can have is 20 (pg. 3), so the best possible AC for light armour would be 20 vs 18 for heavy armour. If you dropped the ac of all light armour by 1, the maximum AC would be 19. In this case a strength based fighter would be trading 1 ac for an effective +1 to melee damage, which seems like a reasonable trade.
I do agree that making wisdom effect initiative would be a good balence change, and would make sense fluff wise as well.
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 12:40PM
#15
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Date Joined:
Oct 10, 2007
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I like where the DR thing is going. I like that you'll need Str and/or Con for heavy armor to work out well; I hate it just being the easy tank option for those without Dex. Also, just note, you'll always get a full Dex penalty to AC.
I can agree on Wis (rather than Dex) for Initiative bonus. I don't like the ambiquity and minmax potential of giving too many (or any) options for one stat or another to something (ex: 4E using Str or Con for Fortitude, Int or Dex to AC, etc). If finesse is now a standard combat option and grants damage as well, I think it's also fair to knock Dex down a peg by changing Init to Wis-based.
So, new chart... (would you believe I'm the middle of my Officer training in Nova Scotia right now until August?)
ARMOR WITH BRACERS & DR & REDUCED AC
Ver 1.4
LEATHER ARMOR
Leather Bracers, 11 + Dex, doesn't count as wearing armor
Leather, 15GP, 12 + Dex
Leafweave Leather, 1000GP, 13 + Dex, Special: advantage to hide in forests (chosen terrain?)
RINGED ARMOR
Ringed Bracers, 12 + Dex, doesn't count as wearing armor
Chain Shirt, 50GP, 14 + 1/2 Dex, DR = Con mod (max: 1)
Ringmail, 400GP, 15 + 1/2 Dex, DR = Con mod (max: 1)
Elven Chain, 3200GP, 16 + 1/2 Dex, DR = Con mod (max: 1), half weight & no stealth disadvantage
SCALE ARMOR
Scaled Bracers, 13 + Dex, doesn't count as wearing armor
Scale, 75GP, 15 + 1/2 Dex, DR = Con mod (max: 2)
Splint, 600 GP, 16 + 1/2 Dex, DR = Con mod (max: 2)
Dragon Scale, 4800 GP, 17 + 1/2 Dex, DR = Con mod (max: 2), Special: elemental resistance 5 of dragon type
PLATE ARMOR
Plate Bracers, 14 + Dex, doesn't count as wearing armor
Banded, 125GP, 17, DR = Con mod (max: 3), -5ft speed
Plate, 1000 GP, 18, DR = Con mod (max: 3), -5ft speed
Dwarven Plate, 8000 GP, 19, DR = Con mod (max: 4), -5ft speed, Special: 1 extra point of DR
Again about PAX East, they used Mage Armor as a class feature that grants +2 armor bonus that a wizard puts up at the start of the day and lasts all day. If they use a staff, it becomes 1 higher, so total of +3AC. Monk AC should maybe work similarly?
Dudelander, I didn't add in the Str and encumberance thing. Medium and Heavy armor (Ringed, Scale, or Plate Armor) impose disadvantage for stealth; we could say for a host of skills, really. But check penalty isn't really part of the rules... and I personally don't think it needs to be. Aim: reduced booking, lean mechanics to allow thematic story focus.
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 1:16PM
#16
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Date Joined:
Jun 13, 2008
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I like where the DR thing is going. I like that you'll need Str and/or Con for heavy armor to work out well; I hate it just being the easy tank option for those without Dex. Also, just note, you'll always get a full Dex penalty to AC.]
DR doesn't scale though. When you have 150 hit points and monsters are hitting for 30 points of damage a pop, who cares about a lousy 4 dr? On the other hand, 4 DR is redicously overpowerd when you're hit by a kobold that does a maximum of 6 points of damage.
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 2:07PM
#17
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Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2003
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Characters who go with high dex and forgo heavy weapons may start to have problems when they encounter creatures with damage resistance. A lot depends on how common they are. If armor starts confering damage resistance that can change the equation as well.
Why? Your sword and board strength based fighter is going to be using a d8 weapon dice probably and your sword and board dex based (finesse) fighter will probably be using a d6. That's only a damage difference of one point so it hardly seems like a huge loss. I swear that the people that write this stuff DON'T seem to understand or do the underlying math. (Avg of d8 is 4.5 and the avg of d6 is 3.5)
-Polaris
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 5:07PM
#18
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As the rules currently stand, I don't see why anyone would make a strength based fighter. For just 1 point of damage you get:
Higher initiative
better ranged attacks
more money left
better speed
no check penalties
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13 months ago ::
May 27, 2012 - 6:51AM
#19
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Date Joined:
Oct 10, 2007
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Hmmm... atm, I tend to agree. But, we'll see if using big two-handed weapon or new rules for the Power Attack feat change how capable a strength speced Fighter is.
Polaris, Mellack, and others: what would you guys do to improve the utility of strength? I'm not sure what this would mechanically mean, bur for me, I'd like to see non-damage (non-offensive) things that Str affects.
So what does Strength affect so far:
- melee attacks
- checks (climbing, jumping, swimming, lifting, push a boulder, smash an object)
- saves (escape grapple, binding, resist push/pull, knocked aside, catch collapsing ceiling, grab ledge from falling)
- carrying capacity
possible ideas:
- give shields a Str req
- make Shield's AC bonus cap at Str mod (might require some higher AC shields, ex: Tower Shields)
- give medium and heavy armors a Str req
- Str mod + Con mod = cap of armor bonus you can receive
- Make Str a req for damage bonus feats or class feature choices (ex: 13 Str for Power Attack for the Weapon Focus feature)
- two-handed weapon or two weapons use Strength more than Dex finesse; 1.5x Str for two-handed weapons and full 1x Str per hand for two weapon fighters
- Str as breaking DR (ex: so DR4 is like for every pt of Str below +4 mod, their DR reduces a pt, so only having Str 13 means the monster will reduce 3pts per attack. Hurts the finesse warriors but not the Str Fighters & Barbarians)
- maybe some impediments or movement penalties could be resisted with strength checks (ex: Str checks to move through webs or difficult briars, or to move against a repelling wind)
- maybe the weapon damage types of blunt, piercing, and slashing could come into play. A feat witha str req that grants +1 damage to blunt weapon and MAYBE one for slashing, but not piercing or any finesse weapon.
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13 months ago ::
May 27, 2012 - 7:14AM
#20
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Date Joined:
Mar 31, 2012
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I like the wis for initiative idea enough that I will start a petition in a new thread where you can vote yay or nay for it.
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