Crazy Jerome
First Post
Decouple the status effects and normal hit point damage on attacks which target NADs. That is, let the normal hit point damage continue to pile up like it does now, but make it easier to avoid the status effects. This will solve the issue and nudge higher level play away from grind.
The crude way to do this is to provide a way to get a conditional bonus to FRW, which only applies to effects. Use feats or just give it at certain levels. You could use the +1/+2/+3 at 5th/15th/25th idea. Though if doing this myself, I'd be more tempted to go with something like +1 every full 5 levels, maxing out at +6 at 30th. That's overkill to fix the problem, but compared to current rules (with PHB2 feats), that is increased hit pont damage in return for even less status effects.
So a 20th level character gets hit with an attack versus Will for 20 damage and stun. The character has +4 more defense against the stun than the damage. Of course, the disadvantage here is handling time, since we just revived the problem that "touch attacks" had.
The less crude way to do it is to simply remove the NAD feats, but change the way saving throws work. For example, allow all saves at the beginning of the turn, and provide a few extra ways to get modest, conditional boosts to saves. So our example 20th level guy is still getting easily pinged for 20 damage from that Will attack, but he has a much better chance of simply ignoring the stun effect.
The disadvantage to that is changing the way saves works will have side effects--some of them probably not intended. A positive side effect is that solo and elite monsters just got tougher to take down.
The crude way to do this is to provide a way to get a conditional bonus to FRW, which only applies to effects. Use feats or just give it at certain levels. You could use the +1/+2/+3 at 5th/15th/25th idea. Though if doing this myself, I'd be more tempted to go with something like +1 every full 5 levels, maxing out at +6 at 30th. That's overkill to fix the problem, but compared to current rules (with PHB2 feats), that is increased hit pont damage in return for even less status effects.
So a 20th level character gets hit with an attack versus Will for 20 damage and stun. The character has +4 more defense against the stun than the damage. Of course, the disadvantage here is handling time, since we just revived the problem that "touch attacks" had.
The less crude way to do it is to simply remove the NAD feats, but change the way saving throws work. For example, allow all saves at the beginning of the turn, and provide a few extra ways to get modest, conditional boosts to saves. So our example 20th level guy is still getting easily pinged for 20 damage from that Will attack, but he has a much better chance of simply ignoring the stun effect.
The disadvantage to that is changing the way saves works will have side effects--some of them probably not intended. A positive side effect is that solo and elite monsters just got tougher to take down.
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