Eliminating the 1/2 level bonus

[Kzach]

I've seen this bandied about the place in various forums but only recently decided to take a serious look at it. And I have to say, I like the idea of eliminating it entirely.

One would still see an increase to DC's over the levels because of stat bumps, magical item boosts and feats but it would be marginal.

The only concern I would have is that then players don't get much of a sense of achievement through levelling and what was difficult at 1st-level is still going to be difficult at 30th.

One small way to combat that would be to give an inherent bonus at each tier of +1. This would make an 11th-level character more adept at his skills than a 1st-level character just not by much.

Any other comments, suggestions, mechanics to consider?

 

[Kzach]

Let's say you set DC's as follows:

Simple = 5
Easy = 10
Moderate = 15
Hard = 20
Exceptional = 25

With no 1/2 level bonus but with an inherent +1 at paragon and +2 at epic, people's trained skills will be roughly +6 to +9 at 1st level, scaling to roughly +8 to +11 at paragon and up to +12 to +15 at epic. Add in feat bonuses and racial bonuses and those can scale up to around +20 maximum at 30th.

That's not too bad really. It actually rewards players because the world remains internally consistent: what was difficult at 1st level remains the same difficulty, but the character can accomplish the same task with greater ease, just not so much greater that they never have to roll.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If we assume the monster XP values are also based on how the defenses and attacks stack to each other with level difference. Essentially, a higher level monster is worth more to a lower level character because it is harder to hit. If you remove these differences, the XP value might be too high.

Generally I like the idea of removing the purely level derived modifier increases. It "flattens" the numbers, as you notice with your example DCs. It would keep monsters relevant a lot longer. (Of course, it could also mean that higher level monsters might be relatively easy to engage - until the point where you noticed that the monster has 10 times the hit points of other monsters of your level.)

 

[Eric Finley]

A slightly different approach I've been looking at is to establish an "offset" which is equal to, say, level+4, or perhaps half-level+6. Subtract this from all attack bonuses, skill checks, defenses and DCs. Change nothing else; just strip that out of the math and instead (to keep players' senses of accomplishment & challenge up) just post it prominently so they can slowly watch it grow. If you manage to tick ahead compared to it (the half-level+6 is a good baseline for this), there's still a sense of accomplishment, but basically it serves as a visible "Here's our expectation of the gameworld's degree of difficulty" which you measure yourself against by differentials instead of by absolutes.

Partly designed to make the math run faster. If (say) your Footwork Lure at 15th ends up having a +3 bonus, and Brash Strike a +5, rather than a +18/+21, that's just plain faster for most folks to do.

 

[Kzach]

The more I think about this the more I realise that a lot of the 'bonuses' just aren't needed and complicate things more than necessary.

All magical item bonuses can go bye-bye for one thing.

There would need to be some sort of marginal increase in ability to represent greater levels of skill, but for the most part these are represented through powers rather than static bonuses.

I also like the idea of characters becoming steadily better at everything in relation to the world around them. I've always hated the idea that the world around the PC's is relative to their power, ie. adjusting DC's or encounters to the PC's level. It makes levelling somewhat pointless.

So if you based everything around abilities being 10-11, and all difficulties being based around 1st-level, then the PC's become more powerful as relative to the world around them. I'm tired so I'm probably not articulating this very well but the point I'm trying to get at is that at 1st-level an average PC might start with, say, a 50% chance to hit the average monster. But by 30th-level, they should have somewhere around a 90% chance to hit the average monster.

And by that, I don't mean 90% chance to hit a 1st-level monster, I mean a 90% chance to hit a standard 30th-level monster.

This whole notion of balancing things around 50% hit rate throughout 30 levels seems insane to me. Shouldn't the characters be getting better at what they do?

I'm really starting to like this idea. It'd require a fair bit of thought but I think I just found my next project!

 

[Kzach]

Just some quick thoughts on an alternate system:

• System is based around an average person (10-11 ability scores, 1st-level minion) in no armour with no weapon and unskilled having a 50% chance to accomplish anything of easy difficulty (DC 10), scaling up to the pinnacle of their race (18-19 ability scores, 30th-level minion) having a 100% chance* to accomplish anything of easy difficulty (DC 10).
  
• Everyone gains a cumulative +1 bonus to skills, defences, attacks and damage as well as a +1d6 bonus to critical strike damage at 1st, 6th, 11th, 16th, 21st and 26th levels.
  
• Critical fumbles (rolling a 1) occur on any d20 roll.
  
• Masterwork weapons and implements grant +1 to +3 bonus to hit.
  
• No magical plusses to hit, damage or defences.
  
• Implements gain a proficiency bonus of between +2 to +3.
  
• Unarmed fighting skill added and grants a +2 proficiency bonus.
  
• Masterwork armours remain but grant a +1 to +3 bonus to AC (eg. regular masterwork plate +1, warplate +2, godplate +3).
  
• Alter the skill-training to be a +3 proficiency bonus instead of +5.
  

*With the exception of the critical fumble chance.

 

[Flipguarder]

... why?

 

[Kzach]

... why?

Wrong forum.

 

[BobTheNob]

Wrong forum.

Actually, Im not sure it is. Perhaps a little more eloquence was called for, but essentially the point of this forum is to discuss house rules expansion and modification, including feedbacks on proposals. I will admit that "Why?" as a response is a little short, but let me expand on it.

4e is a robust balancing act. Getting 1/2 level level to hit is a factored requirement as every single monster created for the game is counterbalanced against this. To remove this would mean that every single monster in the game would have to be re-scaled and re-balanced. (A goliath of a job)

Also, one of the most entertaining aspecpst of playing an RPG is character growth. The removal of half level and the other flatening excercises you have placed herein erode that quality. You will get a game of a different vision...but will it be as much fun?

So to expand on the simply "Why?" response, the position for my game is "if it aint broke, dont fix it" which makes me think...why would one do this?

So, to simply say "Why?" is to give feedback that has a certain brevity, but it is feedback none-the-less, and that is why you posted your idea isnt it?

 

[Llamas Notsheep]

I agree with Bob. Character growth is a big part of the fun of DnD for me. It's a gross oversimplification, but I'll just say that I like seeing those numbers getting bigger as you progress

Also, as Bob said, keeping everything balanced would be massive task, since pretty much every single number that shows up, both for PCs and for monsters, takes level into account.

If your players have no objection to it, and you don't mind putting in all the work (and probably tweaking it frequently as you find that various encounters are either far too easy or far too hard), then hey, by all means, have at it. It's not going to interfere with the role-playing portion of your game at all. But it's going to be a hit to the mechanical portion of a character's growth. I know it's blasphemy in the minds of a lot of hard-core RPers, but I know that I'm not the only one who values both aspects of character development--the mechanical and the personal.