Fixing iterative, unarmed, and natural attacks?

[Matrixryu]

Hmmm, yea...I've been pondering making a monk where instead of the current progression of increased unarmed damage the character gets 'improved natural attack' feats. You just treat humans as having slams(with a penalty until they get improved unarmed attack) and then you have a monk that works with anything, though the damage won't go up as smoothly.

Hah, I'll have to take a look at the project phoenix monk. I've messed with making a non supernatural monk as well. It was a 'martial artist' prestige class. He had a higher BAB increase rate, but fewer special ablities. Instead of +Wis to defense, he got +Con to defense. (in my campaign there's no easily avalable heavy armor, so I'm letting fighters ans such get a Con bonus to defense when they're wearing medium armor to make up for it).

being as you will no longer have your crappy BAB attacks at upper levels, Armor will likely be a bit less useful (and as such should end up getting higher somehow) ~ Maybe you could chenge the Dex Limits. I've been using Project Phoenix Limits, where instead of a Max, you take a dex penalty. (Maybe you could combine them together, so have a lower max than usual, and if their dex is higher than that, the armor gives them a dex penalty, instead of taking it away completely.)That'll result in armored characters having slightly higher AC.

Ah, you're talking about the issue with armor keeping up with attacks when using the two attacks instead of iteritive attacks? Yea, I've been pondering that. Hmmm, well, there were two ideas I was thinking of. First, there's the idea that after every time you hit, your next attack takes a -1 or -2 attack penalty for the rest of your turn or round. I'm worried that might be a bit much though, and it means that people would have to roll one die at a time.

I think your dex penalty idea is pretty good too. I remember when I played epic assassins in NWN, I was getting my dex so high i couldn't even wear leather armor. Or maybe there could even be an epic feat which decreases the dex limit for wearing armor by 2 or 3? Unfortionately, this would only help characters with high Dex though, some fighters would focus only on Str. I guess in my campaign, Fighters can also work with Con because of that bonus I mentioned earlier XD

The other thing is that you could think of armor as protecting against characters who use things like two weapon fighting and creatures with a lot of natural attacks. Actually, I think in my campaign they'll be fighting more creatures than people, so the change to attacks won't affect how often they really get hit.

 

[Sylrae]

Our games are usually City Adventures, so whatever rules apply to players tend to apply to their opponents as well, being as the majority of those opponents are NPCs.

I think the best way to address the solution, would be to lessen the Dex Penalties, possibly the way I mentioned, and then reassign the Armor Values. That, or have armor scale a little by HD. The second option may be a bit more difficult to implement though.

I'm not fond of your -1 or -2 option, since IMO part of the purpose of the revised iterative attack rules is that you get to roll both dice at the same time, using the same numbers.

As for the Natural Attack option on the Monk: Yeah Humans have slams, with pitiful damage, and they dont start with Improved Unarmed, or what it really is, is Natural Weapon Proficiency.

 

[Matrixryu]

I think the best way to address the solution, would be to lessen the Dex Penalties, possibly the way I mentioned, and then reassign the Armor Values. That, or have armor scale a little by HD. The second option may be a bit more difficult to implement though.

The armor scaling by HD just reminded me of another solution. There are certain D&D variants where characters get an automatic armor bonus as they level up. Some give the armor bonus evenly to all classes, while in others (such as the 3.0 star wars rpg) each class had its own armor progression. This is usually used in rpgs where armor gives damage reduction instead of AC or low armor campains, but it could be applied here as well.

Let's see... UAefense Bonus - D&D Wiki

I'm not fond of your -1 or -2 option, since IMO part of the purpose of the revised iterative attack rules is that you get to roll both dice at the same time, using the same numbers.

Yea, you're right XD

 

[Sylrae]

I just found a house rule I came up with a while back.

[FONT=&quot]Base Armor Class[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

Normally this is just 10. As I plan on running this campaign with low magic, and don't intend to have everyone in magic armor, I figure the character classes ACs should be a little higher.

BAC: By DEX & CON Bonus (Higher bonus + 1/2 lower bonus)
07+ = 10/8
06 = 9/8
05 = 8/8
04 = 7/8
03 = 6/8
02 = 5/8
01- = 4/8
+10[/FONT]

The fraction would be what you add to the 10 at each level I think it might make AC too high at the upper levels, but it was a rule I came up with and never got to playtest. Since I'm posting it though, I may as well show the other ones that accompany it.


I Swapped the roles of Class and CON bonus in terms of Hit Points.
[FONT=&quot]HP/lv: By CON Bonus
05 + = d12
04 + = d10
03 + = d8
02 + = d6
01 - = d4
Character Classes will instead supply the Hit Point per level bonuses that by phb come from CON.
HP Bonus/lv: By Class HD
d12 = 4
d10 = 3
d08 = 2
d06 = 1
d04 = 0

[/FONT] Will Save

Will Save is determined by a character’s CHA Bonus, instead of Wisdom.

[FONT=&quot]Base Attack Bonus[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

BAB: By STR & DEX Bonus (Higher bonus + 1/2 lower bonus) table may need tweaking after races are checked.
07+ = 10/8
06 = 9/8
05 = 8/8 (1)
04 = 7/8
03 = 6/8
02 = 5/8
01- = 4/8 (1/2)

Epic attack bonus applies at BAB20 now not level 20. This ensures that class order isn't more important than class levels.

[/FONT] Skill Points:

Classes give half the bonus listed + 1. Your base amount per level is your Int Modifier + your Wis Modifier. no X4, and Skill Costs work like in Pathfinder

Hit Points
At Level 1, Characters receive 9 + 1/2 Con Scor Hit Points

Other than the skill points, Hit Points and Dex to hit, these Ideas haven't seen play much.

Also, the driving force behind these was to make more variation between members of the same class, and increase the importance of attributes.

~But Back on Topic, a BAC Score might help with the armor that doesnt adequately climb.

And as for the UA Variant, it could work well, but those numbers are WAY too high. they make armor totally useless. Maybe if you cut those numbers in half (or less) it might work better. Plus, Those numbers will give much higher AC at low levels, and its the higher levels where the armor is deficient.

 

[Matrixryu]

Hmmm, I think I did some similar things, except I'm avoiding fractions as much as possible, lol. Oh, some people in my group didn't like the idea of random hit dice, so I give them flat hp increases each level. A fighter gets +6hp instead of +d10 (the average number of hp rounded up basically).

But yea, back to the armor. The question would be, how often should the armor go up in a normal game? Once every 3 or 4 levels? You don't want it to go up at the same rate as BAB, since other things should be boosting armor as well.

 

[Sylrae]

I was thinking maybe it should get to somewhere between a +4 or a +6 by level 20.

 

[Matrixryu]

I was thinking maybe it should get to somewhere between a +4 or a +6 by level 20.

Are you not planning to give your characters magic armor or anything? A +5 bonus on top of the usual armor by level 20 is a lot.

 

[Hawken]

Are you not planning to give your characters magic armor or anything? A +5 bonus on top of the usual armor by level 20 is a lot.

No its not. BAB increases every level, while AC is static and DEPENDS on enchantments, feats, etc. By level 20 (actually, a lot earlier) a fighter making an attack roll, isn't rolling to hit, he's rolling to see if he rolls a 1 on the d20 and misses. The discrepancy is such that the fighter can spend more than half his BAB on Power Attack or something else and is still relatively sure to hit on his first attack, and maybe even the second. Adding in a +4, +5 or +6 bonus to AC over 20 levels isn't even really going to solve the issue, but it will mitigate it somewhat.

In regard to the OP issue (fixing iterative...), the best thing I can think of is to do the Star Wars Sage rules for combat. Everyone gets 1 attack. If a creature has 2 claw attacks, he gets two claw attacks, otherwise, 1 attack. You need a feat (Double Attack, then Triple Attack) to be able to attack more than 1 time with the same weapon or Two Weapon Fighting to be able to attack with a weapon in each hand.

I think unarmed attacks should be treated as armed attacks. Natural attacks (claw and bite) should increase in damage for more powerful monsters to make them a challenge to higher level characters. Maybe 1 extra die of damage per 5HD. Or, the secondary attack (either the claws or the bite, tail slap, whatever) have a reduced penalty, maybe jumping from -5 to -2 by 6th level, and by 12th level, they get the Multiattack feat for free and that eliminates the -2 penalty for the secondary attack. If you reduce the attack penalty, the attack should hit more often so damage could remain unmodified.

I just kind of glossed over the previous dozen posts or so since they didn't seem to relate to the original point.

 

[Sylrae]

Hmm. Hey There Hawken. The Issue with just dropping it to one attack is that Starwars Saga has a whole system designed around everyone getting a single attack. Regular D&D doesnt assume that, so if you drop it down to a single attack, Fighters get less damage on average, and that damage will be even more swingy. that's the advantage of Wulf Ratbane's system, but I was talking about extending it to include natural attacks and how to explain the multiple attacks they grant. Then we covered how natural attacks shouls work with monks, FoB, and then We Were talking about How Armor is deficient (its connected, so its vaguely on topic).

Instead of a Base AC, I found this set of alternate rules (300 pages worth) and their armor system is an improvement. I'm copying it into a word doc for my own use, and then ill put it up here for you guys. the document is available for free, so its a non issue. Most of their info is all on this forum The Gaming Den :: Index. The Book I grabbed is Here: Joshua Middendorf's Projects - Frank and K's D&D Material (PDF). It's a huge game revision, and a total overhaul of alot of systems. I like alot of it, and I'll be incorporating a big chunk of it into my games, though not all of it.

 

[Matrixryu]

No its not. BAB increases every level, while AC is static and DEPENDS on enchantments, feats, etc. By level 20 (actually, a lot earlier) a fighter making an attack roll, isn't rolling to hit, he's rolling to see if he rolls a 1 on the d20 and misses. The discrepancy is such that the fighter can spend more than half his BAB on Power Attack or something else and is still relatively sure to hit on his first attack, and maybe even the second. Adding in a +4, +5 or +6 bonus to AC over 20 levels isn't even really going to solve the issue, but it will mitigate it somewhat.

In regard to the OP issue (fixing iterative...), the best thing I can think of is to do the Star Wars Sage rules for combat. Everyone gets 1 attack. If a creature has 2 claw attacks, he gets two claw attacks, otherwise, 1 attack. You need a feat (Double Attack, then Triple Attack) to be able to attack more than 1 time with the same weapon or Two Weapon Fighting to be able to attack with a weapon in each hand.

I think unarmed attacks should be treated as armed attacks. Natural attacks (claw and bite) should increase in damage for more powerful monsters to make them a challenge to higher level characters. Maybe 1 extra die of damage per 5HD. Or, the secondary attack (either the claws or the bite, tail slap, whatever) have a reduced penalty, maybe jumping from -5 to -2 by 6th level, and by 12th level, they get the Multiattack feat for free and that eliminates the -2 penalty for the secondary attack. If you reduce the attack penalty, the attack should hit more often so damage could remain unmodified.

I just kind of glossed over the previous dozen posts or so since they didn't seem to relate to the original point.

Ahh, I see about the armor then. Yea, I haven't actually done a non-neverwinter nights game that has gotten up to that level yet, so I wasn't sure XD Hmmmm, maybe I'll increase a character's armor by 1 every five levels? Then again, would this make it too hard for creatures and non fighters to hit?

As for the natural attacks, I was working on a system for them last night that would enable characters with natural attacks to improve them without us having to change the way every single creature in the monster manuals worked. It is simple, if a creature's BAB from Character levels (and only character levels, not racial hit dice) is high enough that it would give him bonus attacks to his primary manufactured weapon, he can instead apply that to his primary natural weapon.

This allows creatures with enough class levels who use only natural weapons (say, werebear fighters in bear form) to benefit from the bonus attacks without having to get random unarmed attacks from monk levels. Heck, I've also come up with a system for increasing natural attack damage with monk levels, I'm going to have to post that after I finish checking it to see if people think it would work.

I had also been thinking about decreasing the secondary attack penalty for creatures instead of this like you said, but I was worried that for things like dragons that have 5-7 natural attacks that could get out of hand. Gaining a bonus attack with a single natural weapon is a bit easier to balance. I think.

Edit: Though, I guess I might still need to figure out some way for creatures to increase their natural attack damage without having to take monk levels, because just a bonus attack still might not let them catch to characters with real weapons. Hmmmm.

Now, let's see, the Star Wars Saga Edition. I had been thinking of basing things on that, but the problem is the Saga Edition was based around characters getting more bonus feats. Having to spend feats in 3.5 to get additional attacks would make things a bit too hard for certain classes I think. I've been leaning twords that Wulf system that Sylrae mentioned, though I've been hearing about Pathfinder and I want to find out about that.

Hmm. Hey There Hawken. The Issue with just dropping it to one attack is that Starwars Saga has a whole system designed around everyone getting a single attack. Regular D&D doesnt assume that, so if you drop it down to a single attack, Fighters get less damage on average, and that damage will be even more swingy. that's the advantage of Wulf Ratbane's system, but I was talking about extending it to include natural attacks and how to explain the multiple attacks they grant. Then we covered how natural attacks shouls work with monks, FoB, and then We Were talking about How Armor is deficient (its connected, so its vaguely on topic).

Instead of a Base AC, I found this set of alternate rules (300 pages worth) and their armor system is an improvement. I'm copying it into a word doc for my own use, and then ill put it up here for you guys. the document is available for free, so its a non issue. Most of their info is all on this forum The Gaming Den :: Index. The Book I grabbed is Here: Joshua Middendorf's Projects - Frank and K's D&D Material (PDF). It's a huge game revision, and a total overhaul of alot of systems. I like alot of it, and I'll be incorporating a big chunk of it into my games, though not all of it.

Well, after looking at that Armor page that you have I'm getting interested, lol. I'll have to take a look at the rest sometime too, though I worry when using things that totally overhall the game.