Bugbears are Easy Kills (Play-Test)

[jadrax]

Fights are made exciting by the interaction of the GM and the Players, the rules are only their to support that. Think about what terrain, tricks and tactics the Kobolds could use.

For example, Magic Missile does not hit automatically, it simply hits 100% of the times the wizard can see the target. That is something the Kobolds can often prevent, especially now they all have Spring Attack.

 

[Psikus]

Game designers please kill automatic success in a flame strike.

What if automatic success passes its save? Should it take half damage?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

also, the kobolds should do 1d4+2 damage and not 1d4-2, as they are using dexterity. And they should hit better.

For monsters, basing thrown weapon damage on dexterity could result in unwanted results, as little creatures with very high dex and very low strength do a lot more damage than an average person... maybe strength penalties should also be counted into thrown weapon damage. (Maybe 1d4 + dexterity + strength penalties...)

 

[slobster]

I finally understand the Rogue's take 10. It was also explained that if the DC+5 is less than the character's 10+skill ranks that he or she doesn't have to roll.

No, no, no. There is no such thing as automatic success in the real world. You could sneeze and miss a helpless Kobold.

If you really can't live with that rule, at least it's an easy fix. Have your rogue player roll every skill check, even if it's against a DC that is 10+skill+ability mod or less. If he rolls between 2 and 9, it becomes a 10 and succeeds. If he rolls 10+, he of course succeeds. If he rolls a natural 1, call it an auto-fail.

If you want more granularity than a 5% flat fail rate, have him reroll his check whenever he rolls a natural 1. This time, he gains no benefit from skill mastery and has to exceed the target DC the old-fashioned way.

I personally am not going to use this rule; too fiddly. But it should work to fix what you don't like about the mastery system, but still allow rogues to be excellent skill users.

 

[rjfTrebor]

the whole point of training at something is to gain mastery and consistency. if you always have a 5% chance of utter failure at something, what's the point of training at it?

also, why are you upset that a 2hp kobold dies in one hit? kobolds have always been some of the weakest mooks around.

 

[keterys]

What if automatic success passes its save? Should it take half damage?

Yep, that would deal automatic damage, unless it has evasion.

To be safe, use an ice storm instead.

 

[Campbell]

Some people see Reaper and think 'What's the point in rolling ?'. Personally I think degree of success matters here. Either way the single kobold is dead, but the encounter is not against a single kobold. On a miss the fighter barely catches a vein on the kobold's neck. On a hit he splits that little bugger in half and on a crit he makes a kobold kabob. Imagine the different reactions this should engender in those cowardly little guys. Think beyond the course of the binary outcome of what happens to a single kobold.

 

[Fifth Element]

Some people see Reaper and think 'What's the point in rolling ?'. Personally I think degree of success matters here. Either way the single kobold is dead, but the encounter is not against a single kobold. On a miss the fighter barely catches a vein on the kobold's neck. On a hit he splits that little bugger in half and on a crit he makes a kobold kabob. Imagine the different reactions this should engender in those cowardly little guys. Think beyond the course of the binary outcome of what happens to a single kobold.

Excellent point. One of my favourite things to do is to narrate the demise of a monster when a character does WAY more damage than is needed to kill it.

 

[Grazzt]

I noticed that when the Kobold attacks with damage of 1d4-2 that if it rolls a 1 that means the character gets healed +1 hit points. This was a problem in other editions.

You're doing it wrong. No edition of D&D (or any other game I know of) works like that. Every edition of D&D has always stated at least 1 point of damage is dealt. (And I'm specifically referring to the above; not to stuff like DR.)

 

[keterys]

There's minor variance between minimum 1 and 0 points of damage dealt... but under no edition of D&D (or any other system) has a penalty to damage resulted in healing, and there's no logical reason for anyone to ever think it could heal, so I think we're all fairly safe there