Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="loseth" data-source="post: 3783119" data-attributes="member: 54535">Question 1. For melee combat, I want to experiment with moving away from the ‘you roll to hit, I roll to hit’ paradigm in D&D and moving to a more TRoS-like initiative system. More specifically, the combatant who takes the initiative will be ‘on the offensive’ and get to attack each round, but the one who doesn’t have initiative will be ‘on the defensive’ and only be able to defend or counter-attack that round (he or she can do other stuff on his or her initiative count, just not attack). Now, to keep the balance of the original D&D paradigm, I want to make sure that there is no inherent advantage to having the initiative, i.e. it’s just as advantageous to go on the defensive and wait for an opportunity to counter attack as it is to take the initiative and go on the offensive. I’ll accomplish this by ruling that if the combatant on the offensive hits or misses by a certain amount, then he or she keeps the initiative for the next round. If, however, the combatant on the offensive misses by more than a certain amount, then the combatant on the defensive gets to make a counter attack with a to-hit and damage bonus as an immediate action. The counter-attacking combatant may then decide to take the initiative on the next round, but is not obliged to do so. If neither combatant wishes to take the initiative, then intimidate or charisma checks can be used to try to goad one’s opponent into attacking.So, the big question: at what value should I set (A) the miss threshold for the combatant on the offensive to suffer a counter attack, (B) the to-hit bonus for a counter attack and (C) the damage bonus for a counter attack in order to keep the relative odds between the two combatants equal, assuming no complicating combat conditions? I’m guessing maybe missing by 3 or more gives the opponent the chance for a counter-attack, which occurs at +3 to hit and 2x damage? Or does that favour the counter-fighter too much?Question 2. I want to put together a list of conditions that will grant an advantage to one side or the other. So far, I’m thinking…Going on the offensive is more advantageous when……you are much stronger than your opponent and can thus power through his or her defences.…your opponent has no room to back up or circle round you (I’m going to specify that a counter fighter must take a 5’ step each round or suffer an AC penalty).…your opponent has equipment poorly suited to defence (e.g. no shield and a two-handed mace).Going on the defence and waiting for an opening is better when……you are much quicker than your opponent.…you are more skilled than your opponent.Can you add anything to either list?Thanks in advance,losethPS I’m not really interested in hearing about why abandoning the ‘I attack, you attack’ paradigm is badwrongfun or ruining the perfect machine that is D&D—I’d much rather focus on how to get it to work in a roughly balanced way.</blockquote>

Verification