Posted this at the DnD forum, thought you guys might like to read it.
So I was playing some D2 the other day while thinking about how to differentiate weapons a bit better. Some of you have already read my thread on light, one, and two handed weapons, where there are some interesting (though few) ideas.
So what makes a weapon in DnD?
*Its classification as light, one handed, two handed, simple, exotic etc.
*It's damage die and critical range.
*How far it can shoot / be thrown.
*Its special abilities, if present.
You can break down the typical "fantasy" weapons into certain categories. I'll focus on melee for now.
*Spears, which are rarely really portrayed well.
*Swords, which are your stereotypical "medieval" weapon of choice.
*Axes, which are normally seen in the hands of barbaric or otherwise uncivilized folk.
*Daggers, which are the typified "roguish" weapon
*Maces and bludgeons, which aren't really seen that much, I think.
So let's take a few examples from the SRD, shall we? We'll stick to "Medium" creatures here.
*Dagger 1d4 19-20/×2 1 lb. Piercing or slashing
*Mace, heavy 1d8 ×2 8 lb. Bludgeoning
*Sword, short 1d6 19-20/×2 2 lb. Piercing
*Longsword 1d8 19-20/×2 4 lb. Slashing
*Handaxe 1d6 ×3 3 lb. Slashing
*Greataxe 1d12 ×3 12 lb. Slashing
So those will be our examples. A dagger, a mace, two different swords and two different axes.
We see a trend!
The mace has a nice damage die, and an average critical.
The bladed weapons have an average critical, but crit TWICE as often.
Axes have the usual chance to critical, but hit much harder when they do. The great axe can deal as much as 36 damage before any strength mods are applied.
Now, one of the problems in generic D20 is that sword and shield combos are vastly outdone in damage potential, making shields kinda useless. While I've given shields some abilities in my setting, it's not for everyone.
So lets see what we can do, eh? What if the figs for damage looked like this?
*Dagger 1d4 19-20/×2
*Mace, heavy 1d8 ×2
*Sword, short 2+d4 19-20/×2
*Longsword 2+d6 19-20/×2
*Handaxe 1d6 ×3
*Greataxe 1d12 ×3
We see trends here too. The smallest weapon, the dagger, has a less reliable damage range, between 1 and 4. Average of 2.5 damage unmodded.
The mace remains unchanged, with a large die and average critical. Same with the axes. They remain unchanged here for an example below. They've a less reliable, damage die, with the mace dealing 4.5 average, the handaxe dealing 3.5 average, and the great axe averaging at 6.5 damage.
The swords, however, seem to have a base damage bonus; they always deal AT LEAST a certain amount of damage. This bumps the short swords damage up from 3.5 average to 4.5 ((3 + 4 + 5 + 6) / 4), and the longsword (Which here is the typical one handed sword) from 4.5 to 5.5. ((3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 ) / 6)
Even on a "bad" roll, the swords will deal at least 3 damage. This "tightens" the damage range a bit, and enhances their critical, which, using base rules, means they will deal AT LEAST 6 damage on a critical hit. This makes the damage, in this example, of sword class weapons more reliable and more attractive.
Now, the core principal here is that one handed weapons of a certain class (here, swords) would get this "tighter" damage range, representing their ease of control, speed, perception bonuses...whatever have you. The two handed weapons would, naturally, keep their larger damage RANGE (dealing more max damage), but would have a less reliable damage output.
2 + was used as an example; you could instead give the short sword, in this example, a 3 + d3, giving it an average damage output of 5, and a minimum of 4 (the daggers max), and the longsword a 4 + d4, giving it an average of 6.5 (putting it on par with the great axe in this case, higher critical chance but lower critical damage maximum). It would then also deal at least 5 damage.
Now, this is not a hard-and-fast absolute. You can easily take these principals and give them to different weapon classes (perhaps axes deal a very tight, but moderate, damage range, etc).
You can even take this to the existing masterwork system, where a masterwork weapon automatically receives a +1 to its damage base, making a masterwork dagger a 1 + d4 weapon, averaging 3.5 damage with a minimum of 2.
In conclusion, this system is at least interesting, if not complete. It allows weapon categories to be differentiated, if not individual weapons on a case by case basis. I look forward to reading your feedback.
Thanks,
M.
Your problem seems to be largely with critical hits. Consider changing the system there rather than for damage?
I've tried something similar once, having weapons with 2 or 3 or even 4 dice of damage each and turning "x2" into "+1d" and "x3" into "+2d" even things like sneak attack went on a +d basis. Needless to say this went with a corresponding increase in hit points.
Just some points:
(1) You seem to completely miss the difference between simple and martial weapons. Simple weapons are generally weaker than martial weapons. If simple weapons were equally powerful, most martial classes would loose their "Martial Weapon Proficiency" advantage over classes like cleric or rogue. Therefore the power discrepancy between certain weapons is perfectly legal imho.
(2) Shields are tremendously powerful. A tower shield can grant you up to +9 points to your AC (base 4 + 5 enhancement) or be enchanted with additional bonuses you couldn't get otherwise. It's true that sword&shield is outdamaged by twohanded weapons, but in return offers a much better protection in combat.
(3) If you think the critical hit mechanic was unbalanced, have you tried using the 4E mechanic? On a critical hit you don't multiply damage but instead automatically deal maximum damage, with an additional 1d(6|8|12) (depending on weapon/implement and enhancement) per plus. For 3E you could adapt that by saying that a critical hit would automatically deal maximum damage, with an additional 1d4 per plus for all weapons that have a x2 crit multiplier, an additional 1d8 for all weapons that have a x3 crit multiplier, or an additional 1d12 for all weapons that have a x4 crit multiplier.
I've noticed this type of thing before, with swords having 19-20X2 crits, axes having X3, spears and blunt weapons having X2, and other weapons having crit mods that are actually based on how hard it would be to hit a critical area and how effective it would be. I think certain weapons, such as the greatsword should be different, but would be too unbalanced if I changed them. Continuing with the greatsword I think it's crit mod should be X3, because it's really difficult to make precision, and thus critical, hits with such a heavy weapon, but it would probably be overpowered if it did.
I actually use the "Max base damage plus a roll for more" in my own game; always made more sense that way.
Quote(1) You seem to completely miss the difference between simple and martial weapons. Simple weapons are generally weaker than martial weapons. If simple weapons were equally powerful, most martial classes would loose their "Martial Weapon Proficiency" advantage over classes like cleric or rogue. Therefore the power discrepancy between certain weapons is perfectly legal imho.
(2) Shields are tremendously powerful. A tower shield can grant you up to +9 points to your AC (base 4 + 5 enhancement) or be enchanted with additional bonuses you couldn't get otherwise. It's true that sword&shield is outdamaged by twohanded weapons, but in return offers a much better protection in combat.[/quote]
True, but remember that in full D20 AC is not a real defense.
M.
Quote from: beejazzYour problem seems to be largely with critical hits. Consider changing the system there rather than for damage?
I've tried something similar once, having weapons with 2 or 3 or even 4 dice of damage each and turning "x2" into "+1d" and "x3" into "+2d" even things like sneak attack went on a +d basis. Needless to say this went with a corresponding increase in hit points.
A couple of good points here.
1) What kind of HP are we talking about here? Are we talking about 20 HP being high for a pc and 40 HP being extremely unusual, or are there people with 100 HP?
2) I'm thinking that Beejazz is correct, but instead of looking at it as having a problem with critical hits, I see it as an issue of damage probability curve. I looked at weapon damage everyway from tuesday way back in the early days, and then started looking at the probability curves and how to screw with those, since I did not like the perfectly symtrical, low-Standard deviation bellcurves in most systems.
The pertinent point in the spoiler below is towards the end, but I include it all because, as I mentioned in Cheo's other weapon post, I think much of this has to be looked at in context.
[spoiler=guildschool combat spoiler..It HURTS]
Damage, Protection, Hit points, and the Lethality of a Campaign
Or,
Another Inside Look at the Mechanics of Celtricia
Or
The Warhorse Fallacy, Revisited.The Warhorse fallacy is, quickly put, a critique on the HP system that allows players to take the amount of damage they can in many systems. The Warhorse is chosen because at a relatively low level, most fighters can absorb more damage than a 2000lb destrier. (yes, they could get that heavy, though that is about the max).
I understand full well the arguments that HP also equate to luck, learned skills, destiny, etc. And to a small degree, I totally agree. It is fun to be able to take more damage as a character gets more powerful, and it is better for the game, to some extent, to have the characters not as threatened by every bow shot.
But I seriously have trouble to the extent that it is done in most systems, and would contend that it is, like many rules , a crutch for bad GMing.
[note]This is not to say everyone who uses such systems is a bad GM, merely to suggest that said rules mitigate the problems that come from poor GMing at the expense of assisting the better GMs to create a more dramatic world [/note]
I mean, I consider it an overdone mechanism of the game that a rogue who never gets hit and almost never gets attacked has 30 HP at a medium power level, and a fighter at that level, unarmored will have 45 or more HP. Not to even get into higher level characters.
Hit points are a skill in Celtricia, and you only get experience in them in Combat, and a lot more when you get struck. As all skills, it is not hard to break levels early, but it gets much harder later on. HP as a skill has a base of 3 and gains 2-5 per level (better guilds and schools (and factions) have better experience mods and gain levels faster...a healthy Knight might have an EXPMOD of .35, a wizenned alchemist a .1). The very highest a PC has in HP is level 10, with 36 HP. Out of the 13 active PCs, no one else has even 30 (though some of the fighrter types are getting close). The beginning players that my Igbarians just rolled up have between level 1 and level 3 HP, based on their initial EXP breakouts, and have HP from 5 to 15.
Ogre warriors (between 1st and 3rd rank) will have between 17-42 hp, Hill giants at the same ability will have 45-68 hp. Ograk have 15 base HP and gain 2-9 per skill level, Hill Giants have 35 base and gain 3-13 per level.
the two parts to the reasoning here are:
1)We use other mechanisms to keep everyone from getting killed whenever they go into combat. That would be no fun either,
2)Frankly, on the other hand, our game is a lot more lethal than most. On purpose. Dumb moves get you killed. And I want it that way.
Spells and missle weapons, and their proper use, definitely do help. But the way weapons (and everything) does damage, and the way protection is done, makes for an interesting game.
To maintain a potential of great lethality, yet not overly so, was a challenge. First of all, I did what many games had done, and I broke armor into avoidance and protection, and decided that anything that dealt with a character dealing with a blow that was going to hit something (armor, shield, a defensive weapon) dealt with protection, and slipping by all that was avoidance. But it still didn't quite give me the variability I needed. Daggers just could not ever touch anyone even in chainmail. The breakthrough came one day when I really got down to brass tacks and looked at the probablity curves I was trying to create. I wanted armor to have a range of protections, but more of a bell curve, while I wanted weapons to have a potential of lethality, but not every time, and the smaller the weapon, the lower the chance of a really lethal strike.
So what came out of it was to give both protection and damage a range, with a dividing die. Which allows you to
really mess with the probablity curves.
I wanted almost all armor to have some protection, but to have a pretty good range. And I wanted the frequency distribution to group somewhat towards a bell-curve, but still with a bulge towards the low end and a big single tail. So the dividing die in armor is actaully the average of 2d6, which gives me my slightly taller bell in my curve. An example of a character with very light armor would be some guy in Hardened leather and padded silk, who would have a base protection of 14-23, divided by those 2d6. A guy in chain mail and padded silk would have a base protection of 22-31, with a divider, and a guy in Lammellar and padded silk would have 42-51 base protection, still with a divider.
[note]Note that this example does not include the avoidance, initiative or any skills, for the sake of simplicity.[/note]
So our dude in the leather can protect up to 23 hits, he averages 6 protection, and his minimum is 3. Our guy in chain mail can protect up to 31, his average is 8 protection, and his minimum is 4 hits. Our tank can protect up to 51 hits, which is a ton. He averages 14 protection, but can protect as little as 7 on a couple of bad rolls. This gives even the medium armors the hopes of rolling a pair of ones or a one and a two, and protecting on a big damage hit. But it means that even the tank can get nailed if he rolls badly. And heavily armored tanks
never get missed.
Now weapons I wanted something slightly different. I wanted a range of damage, but I wanted to curve to be a little less belled. I also came up with a neat mitigastion that allows me to not have the amount of damage being the only factor, but the bigger a weapon is, the smaller it's dividing dice. [note] Smaller weapons also are much faster. Sometime, a guy with a short sabre will get in 2-3 attacks for every attack of a guy with a bec-di-corbin, or something. This is great when you are fighting a lightly armored opponent with a low protection. However, it has been proved a zillion times that attacking 10 times and not getting through someones protection is not as good as one hit that does. It's all a ratio, both have their place. [/note]
so a Bank dagger might have 11-18 damage, with a d10 divider, a gladius might have 15-26 damage with a d8 divider, a broadsword might have 17-28 damage with a d6 divider, and double bladed broadaxe might do 22-37 dmage with a d4 divider. Behind the curtain a little bit, this means that with the dagger, you can do up 18 hits (before modifiers), and our guy in Lammellar averages 14 and can protect as little as 7. So if the guy with the dagger rolls a 1 or a 2 divider die, he has a hope of doing some damage to the tank. But it also means that there is only a 10% chance of doing decent damage, the gladius has a 12.5%, the broadsword 16.6%, and the axe 25%. Only huge, slow weapons have d5 or d4 dividers, they are rare. Giants generally have all d4 dividers, dragons have d3. Don't get hit by a dragon. A medium dragon bite is (55-70/d3)
The way the game has fallen out, and this is a gross generalization, is that a 1 or a 2 divider has a decent chance of doing some damage, anything else means you have to hope your opponent rolls a crappy protection. So the odds of getting 'decent' hit become 20% with a really small, d10 divider weapon, 25% with the d8 medium weapon, 33% with the good sized weapon, and 50% with those super slow, punishing weapons.
[/spoiler]
A human has something like ~4HP at his first level; that's someone with no extra "combat will", basically. A person trained for combat has ~8 at first level.
I'm not quite sure what your "dividers" are all about; I read through your system briefly but wasn't able to get a good look through it.
As for the war-horse fallacy, I've considered instituting a system giving you negative combat modifiers based on your condition; say 1/2 is "wounded", giving you -1 to hit, -1 to saves -2 to Dex AC or something. Lower than that and it gets worse.
M.
Quote from: CheomeshA human has something like ~4HP at his first level; that's someone with no extra "combat will", basically. A person trained for combat has ~8 at first level.
I'm not quite sure what your "dividers" are all about; I read through your system briefly but wasn't able to get a good look through it.
As for the war-horse fallacy, I've considered instituting a system giving you negative combat modifiers based on your condition; say 1/2 is "wounded", giving you -1 to hit, -1 to saves -2 to Dex AC or something. Lower than that and it gets worse.
M.
Cheo, when I asked about HP, I am more interested in the world of adventurers. I was sort of (in my head) looking for the average HP of a character who is 3 sessions old, and them on who is 12 sessions old. These numbers, vs. the damage you are using, tells me a lot about the lethality level of weapons.
Dividing dice on weapons and armor allow for a much larger possible distribution and standard deviation of a die result. Your short sword you amended has a average dam of 4.5 and a maximum of 6.
My Shortsword does 2d6+14/d8, for an average damage of 4.66 but giving a max damage of 26 (but with only a 12.5% chance of going over 13, looking at the frequency distribution).
Your greataxe has an average damage of 6.5 and a maximum of 12. Mine does 1d12+19/d5, for an average damage of 8.5 and a maximum damage of 31 (with a 20% chance of doing over 15.5).
and one system is not better than the other. I just needed a system where a lightly armored character, even an older one, is scared to death of being nailed by a crossbow bolt (2d10+18/d6). We use a very low HP world but with a high DR/Protection value, but with the damage potential of most weapons (and we do have a critical system, as well), my PC's take very good care of their armor.
"Sessions"? I can go up 3 levels or 0 in a single session.
A fighter of 3rd level (half way to maximum), with a +4 con has (10+4) + (4) + (10 + 4) for a total of 32 HP. With the "toughness" feat at first level, which grants 2 automatically and 1/2 HD every even level has: (10+4 +2) + (5 + 4) + (10 + 4); that's 39HP.
M.