House Rule - level bonus added to damage?

[El Mahdi]

I Like It!

In fact, I've added the very same thing to my 3.5E games (for those attacks/spells that don't already have extra damage for levels).

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

That's a bad houserule; even if you grant it to every classes instead of just arcane powered ones (and you must or it goes from bad to abominable), it's a rule that grossly advantage some classes over others. Any class that can routinely do more than one attack in a turn will crush classes that can't. Ranger will obliterate rogues and Warlock, Tempest fighter will make a joke of the other fighters (even after removing the awful double weapons), WIS cleric will grossly outshine STR cleric etc.

I can't believe there hasn't been an overwhelmingly negative response already.

This houserule is particularly indecently pro-wizard. From personal experience, in my party, the combat wizard on average dished the most total damage in any fight that included four or more opponents. He didn't score higher damage against single targets than the rogue, of course, but by attacking several enemies on every round, he piled up impressive damage. Close Blast 5 powers such as burning hand were amongst the best sellers, routinely catching 3+ targets. That alone was enough to keep the wizard extremely relevant in the fight. Add damage to every target and you shift toward dominant.

1) "Realism". I like the idea of higher level characters doing the same things more effectively than lower levels, and not just the miniscule difference in Ability score bonuses. Again, the question: Shouldn't a 20th level wizard's magic missile--unmodified by anything--be markedly more powerful than a 1st level wizard's?

That's not realism, that is a personal esthetic choice. The 20th level has about +13 to hit and +3 to damage over the level 1 wizard, the implement not accounted for. That's enough to crush the beginner, even if for some reason he doesn't wish to use the 6 additional encounter and daily powers he has, all vastly more powerful than his counterpart's.

 

[Herschel]

That rule is whack. See the reasons Mal listed above. Unless you give the bonus to monsters too. Then get ready for some more character deaths because your leeway is all but shot because HP will mean less.

2) Speeding up combat. I didn't mention this before, but I like the idea of speeding up combat a bit. We've only played two sessions, but I've found combat a tad on the long side...a couple times I used the old DM Fiat and speeded up an encounter by dropping monster HP (but this also had to do with several PCs being on the verge of death!).

The problem doesn't appear to be PC damage output, it appears to be either:
A: The PCs aren't working together properly....
-or-
B: The encounters are scaled wrong.

With only two sessions, A is very likely. I've found in numerous instances that people first learning 4E or even first playing with new groups/characters, take a while to 'get the hang of' combat. In "Keep" I basically did a TPK TWICE on the first kobold ambush until the players learned they had to and then how to work together.

You said several PCS were on the verge of death. This also leads me to believe A is the case, although B could also. That would depend on their use of leaders, abilities, etc.

Then again, getting most of them to the verge without actually killing them is usually my goal.

 

[brehobit]

Realism isn't too much of a factor. A level 1 stock wizard does 2d4+5 damage. A level 30 stock does 4d4+9(int)+6(item) and probably +3 due to some feat (not sure there is one for force attacks). So 9 vs. 25. Plus the 30th level wizard will be throwing a bunch of encounters or dailies before starting in on this. So the difference is fairly large (as others have mentioned).

As far as speed of combat goes, I agree it's too slow. I've gone with something different: 75% hit points for baddies and about 4/3 the damage. To get the damage up, increase the die size by one (d12 becomes d12+2 just because) and increase the bonus damage by 4/3 (so +1 for every +3 you start with round off).

d10+4 becomes d12+5
2d6+5 becomes 2d8+7 etc.

Minions are unchanged.

That brings fight durations down to about 3/4 of what they normally are. Works fairly well IME.

 

[Herschel]

Why is everyone so concerned about very short combats?

Seriously. They shouldn't be just quick, three round encounters. Have too many people gone ADHD from video games or whatever? I know I like longer combats where things play out. Where terrain and tactics shape the ebb and flow of the encounter. Why all the worry when combats actually take longer?

If they do take "too long", as I said above, many times it's the fault of tactics, not the encounter itself. Why unnaturally boost damage or nerf baddies? Learn to play better and the game is rockin' plenty hard.

 

[brehobit]

Why is everyone so concerned about very short combats?

Seriously. They shouldn't be just quick, three round encounters. Have too many people gone ADHD from video games or whatever? I know I like longer combats where things play out. Where terrain and tactics shape the ebb and flow of the encounter. Why all the worry when combats actually take longer?

If they do take "too long", as I said above, many times it's the fault of tactics, not the encounter itself. Why unnaturally boost damage or nerf baddies? Learn to play better and the game is rockin' plenty hard.

Because encounters get boring after a while. I ran what turned into a 3 hour fight a few weeks ago. Yes, people were on the slow side. But it ran for around 15 rounds (it was really 2 fights that got combined into one).

Really became a grind.

Mark

 

[Rafe]

Because encounters get boring after a while. I ran what turned into a 3 hour fight a few weeks ago. Yes, people were on the slow side. But it ran for around 15 rounds (it was really 2 fights that got combined into one).

Really became a grind.

Welcome to D&D. Increasing damage +1/2 level isn't going to change that.

 

[Herschel]

Plus, quick encounters get boring very quickly too. When the baddies take your best shot and are still coming, that's also exciting. I try to minimize cakewalk encounters as much as possible. They're an occasional change-of-pace, not a norm.

 

[Bold or Stupid]

I've house ruled that you add attribute+half level to damage for powers (this means all the two attack at wills don't get this boost), monsters also get a similar bonus (even minions). This has had the desired effect of speeding up combat a bit and making it much scarier.

 

[Markn]

That's a bad houserule; even if you grant it to every classes instead of just arcane powered ones (and you must or it goes from bad to abominable), it's a rule that grossly advantage some classes over others. Any class that can routinely do more than one attack in a turn will crush classes that can't. Ranger will obliterate rogues and Warlock, Tempest fighter will make a joke of the other fighters (even after removing the awful double weapons), WIS cleric will grossly outshine STR cleric etc.

I can't believe there hasn't been an overwhelmingly negative response already.

This houserule is particularly indecently pro-wizard. From personal experience, in my party, the combat wizard on average dished the most total damage in any fight that included four or more opponents. He didn't score higher damage against single targets than the rogue, of course, but by attacking several enemies on every round, he piled up impressive damage. Close Blast 5 powers such as burning hand were amongst the best sellers, routinely catching 3+ targets. That alone was enough to keep the wizard extremely relevant in the fight. Add damage to every target and you shift toward dominant.

How is the wizard getting 1/2 level bonus to damage any different than the bonus damage he gets with his implement? He gets that bonus on every damage roll with his implement so the system seems to already work to that effect somehwat. Same goes for the Ranger - a magical bow will do damage on each hit. It really is no different, its just scaled a bit higher than what implements give out but not grossly so.

Our group has been playing the 1/2 level bonus to damage for a few months. It has sped up combat bot not to the degree we hoped. It also hasn't hurt the balance too much either. But it has created some interesting things we never considered in the first place. Does the Paladins Mark get the extra damage? Does the second target of the cleave get the extra damage? Do zones grant the extra damage? If you are not careful it easy to accidently add the half level damage twice to a power and the DM has to be sure this is not occuring.

It hasn't been the perfect alteration but IMHO it works just fine.

Having said that, we are going to try something else for the next few months. We will be knocking 20% of the HP off of the monsters instead of adding half level damage. I did some calculations last night and this surprising does not remove all that many HP's but I have calculated for a 6 person party that each person would have to hit each round for 3 rounds under the half level bonus damage rule to make that 20% HP total. Since it is rare that every player hits over 3 consecutive rounds, this seems to be an even quicker way speeding up combat. This also removes any calculations the players need to do and is pretty minimal in terms of effects on the rest of the system.