A more Consistent D&D

[theoremtank]

First off, I love D&D, and I could never come close to creating a system this good myself... but does anyone else feel some of the core rules seem needlessly complex in some areas? If so, which ones? I hate "exceptions to the rule," so whenever I come across a rule that I believe is gratuitously over-complicated I try to rewrite a house rule in its place. I love consistency and so I hate seeing 2 very similar rules concepts being handled differently. Does anyone else have an obsession with trying to simplify the D&D rules?

 

[CRGreathouse]

Can you give some examples? The only one which immediately comes to mind for me is the action system (standard/partial/move).

 

[theoremtank]

The magic creation system, to me, seems needlessly complex and often unbalanced. I'm not saying I could do better but it just seems like there could be a simpler balanced way of creating magic weapons.

Also the Challeng Rating, Encounter Level, and Effective Character level concepts as related to monsters, don't seem to follow nice neet formulas.

Once again I'm not a game creator and could be completely mistaken in my opinions....This thread was mostly about aquiring others thoughts on the subject.

I guess If I can't easily conjure up an algorithm to handle a rule as if I were writing a computer program, I feel the rule is too complex.

I also completely agree with your point on standard/partial/full-round/move-equivalent/1-action spells actions. Has anyone come up with a simpler more intuitive and easy way to handle actions in combat? Why not just have something like an N-Round Action, Full-Round Action, Half-Round Action, and Free Action. And all currently existing actions in D&D should somehow correspond to one of the formerly mentioned. Or would this cause many problems?

 

[Jack Daniel]

I've never found any of these things to be overly complex. The only redundancy I see in the D&D rules is armor spell failure and armor check penalties. IMC I dropped arcane failure percentages and just apply the check penalty to the spell DCs.

 

[Anubis]

Also the Challeng Rating, Encounter Level, and Effective Character level concepts as related to monsters, don't seem to follow nice neet formulas.

UK and I are debating a new system that handles this problem. Check out my "Expanded ECL Rules!" thread for details.

 

[twjensen]

ECL and CR

Are WAY different concepts. That's why there's no formula. The Ogre, for example, pretty much gets toasted by Color Spray. The Ogre as PC, however, might be a 10th level Monk using his size and reach to really mess up foes and ends up unbalanced compared to 12th level monks or fighters.

Monsters break or bend rules all the time, casting high level spells even though they don't have enough hit-dice or attacking more than 4 times per round (without haste) or taking feats that players can't get or having huge stat bonuses. To come up with a formula, the formula would need a term for *each* *and* *every* type of power and how much it adds to CR vs how much it adds to ECL. It would be several pages long and everyone would complain about how hard it was to use and why don't they just publish a table.

Oh, that's what they did. Published a table.

 

[Dagredhel]

The one thing that has always struck me as a glaring inconsistency is the difference between how unarmed combat damage increases by die type for a monk, but weapon specialization adds a +2 bonus to damage for fighters. I'd prefer that the extraordinary fighting prowess of unarmed monks and of fighters expert in a particular weapon were handled in a similar fashion, using a similar game mechanic. I vastly prefer the increase in die type over a straight bonus, by the way.

 

[Thorvald Kviksverd]

...I vastly prefer the increase in die type over a straight bonus, by the way.

As do I.

That's why I keep hoping they'll mass-produce d14s, d16s, and d18s!

 

[Dagredhel]

As do I.

That's why I keep hoping they'll mass-produce d14s, d16s, and d18s!

I wonder if you're being sarcastic...

But in any case, damage die type could increase in the same fashion as damage is adjusted for weapons of larger size.

If you're worried about 'jumps' in damage, then d6+d8 is a pretty good substitute for a d14, two d8s for a d16, and d8+d10 for a d18.

As an afterthought, I'd consider the rogue's Sneak Attack bonus damage in the same vein... what was so bad about the old game mechanic of damage multiples? A Sneak Attack sounds an awful lot like a Critical Hit to me!

 

[s/LaSH]

There are a few things I think could be done better, if not simpler.

The first would have to be damage bonuses as compared to increased dice, as mentioned. I believe the Monster Manual has a chart for damage progression, and I use that when at all possible. However, there are no rules for converting bonuses into bonus die size... and the system still doesn't always scale well.

Then there's percentage chances. No matter your level, an opponent hiding in total concealment will be protected against fully 50% of attacks. Consider this: An invisible ogre is attacking the party. Krusk swings his greataxe at the square with the ogre in it, at a height roughly congruous with ogre thighs. He's fought invisible opponents before, and is intimately familiar with the gait of ogres; he shouldn't even need to look to be able to hit the brute (AC 8 to touch). Yet for all that, he's got a 50% miss chance right off the bat (Unless he's got blind-fight which . And then there are arcane spell failure checks in armour, which can foil even the most experienced caster. I know, they can take feats to offset some aspects of armour, but they still have the failure chance. Is there no way to abrogate this?

I'd personally suggest a more unified mechanic to replace those percentile rules; perhaps just use the AC bonuses from cover to reflect concealment protection (and use +13AC for total concealment). As for spellcasters, have a DC for casting somatic spells in armour; make a Spellcraft check (using Dex as your skill modifier) against a DC equal to 10+(%failurechance/2.5)+spell level or something like that.

Not that I'm actually doing this in my campaign, but it seems sensible to have a truly unified mechanic. That's what I'd do with my own system.