Broken and balanced

[Old Gumphrey]

Here's a little something about that weapon defense bonus: old school soldiers here on Earth weren't fighting ogres, giants, and dragons on a regular basis. I fully agree that a sword has better defense than an axe--against an opponent whose weapon can't smash through yours with ease. Is there really any question what would happen if you hold up your shortsword to defend against an ogre club? Unless you have about 24+ strength, it's just another thing that's going to hit you in the head as the 30+ lb. club comes crashing down.

I'm not sure what kind of mechanic could accurately represent this. In this game, +1 defense doesn't really cut it. There are too many varied situations in which it wouldn't apply (mainly great big things swatting at you with weapons/limbs as big or bigger than you, but certainly others). This means you'd need at least two more AC types on your character sheet. One for "fighting stuff that is so big your weapon can't possibly matter" and one for ranged attacks (as having a sword or quarterstaff does jack against ranged weapons). Then throw in your weapon vs. armor type variations and you're looking at like 7-9 AC scores for your average fighter.

Maybe it'd be cool. I have visions of quarterstaves becoming martial weapons when used as a double weapon to gain that defensive bonus and make trip attacks. That means wizards would still use them for their nice defense, but their attacks would be even worse; mathematically they'd be fighting defensively at all times (+2 AC, -4 to hit). I never did like the idea of the "baseball bat" staff. At that point it's really just a clumsy club. These ideas have merit but seem to complicate the game.

Also, for you armor vs. weapon type guys: what about natural armor? Sure plate mail deflects swords, and chainmail turns spears; what does ogre hide or dragon scales do?

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

Here's a little something about that weapon defense bonus: old school soldiers here on Earth weren't fighting ogres, giants, and dragons on a regular basis. I fully agree that a sword has better defense than an axe--against an opponent whose weapon can't smash through yours with ease. Is there really any question what would happen if you hold up your shortsword to defend against an ogre club? Unless you have about 24+ strength, it's just another thing that's going to hit you in the head as the 30+ lb. club comes crashing down.

I'm not sure what kind of mechanic could accurately represent this. In this game, +1 defense doesn't really cut it. There are too many varied situations in which it wouldn't apply (mainly great big things swatting at you with weapons/limbs as big or bigger than you, but certainly others). This means you'd need at least two more AC types on your character sheet. One for "fighting stuff that is so big your weapon can't possibly matter" and one for ranged attacks (as having a sword or quarterstaff does jack against ranged weapons). Then throw in your weapon vs. armor type variations and you're looking at like 7-9 AC scores for your average fighter.

Maybe it'd be cool. I have visions of quarterstaves becoming martial weapons when used as a double weapon to gain that defensive bonus and make trip attacks. That means wizards would still use them for their nice defense, but their attacks would be even worse; mathematically they'd be fighting defensively at all times (+2 AC, -4 to hit). I never did like the idea of the "baseball bat" staff. At that point it's really just a clumsy club. These ideas have merit but seem to complicate the game.

Also, for you armor vs. weapon type guys: what about natural armor? Sure plate mail deflects swords, and chainmail turns spears; what does ogre hide or dragon scales do?

I would say they prolly do the same thing. I agree that when fighting other people with weapons a good use of a weapon could aid in defence (doesn't there exist some off hand parry rules out there or something already?) but I also tend to agree that a dragon isn't going to be hampered by it. Although, you could say that you aren't *blocking* witht eh sword in such cases but using gravity and leverage to turn a solid hit into a glancing blow, which then fails to harm you. I could argue either way. I can see arguments which would justify maybe a new skill called parry which works like tumble. For every few ranks you attain you gain a +1 to AC when fighting with a weapon in your hand. If this were the case tehn you would be said to be blocking, parrying, deflecting, and angling attacks away from vital areas. You aren't holding up your sword to take the full brunt of the damage, but instead using it to turn a devastating blow (a hit) into a glancing blow (a "miss"). I know that in martial arts you are taught that it only takes a small ammount of force to turn an enemy's weight against him, if you carry this over then it shouldn't matter how strong the opponent is, since all you are doing is *minutely* turning aside the blow. A +1 or +2 are pretty minute when you are talking about a 20 AC.

just my two cents

 

[reanjr]

Everyone talks about how broken and how balanced certain rules or monsters are. In reality, the DM just has to adjust it to his or her own particular game.

Example:
High powered uber characters? easy counter: high-powered uber monsters.
A spell that is too powerful for a particular game? ban it until they level appropriately.

In essence, the game is as balanced as the DM makes it.

Well, I don't think most people when they say a rule is broken mean that the rule should be scrapped entirely, just that it is necessary to alter the rules. The problem with certain broken rules is that it is alot more efficient for a DM to say that the players can take anything out of a particular book. Once there's a few broken rules in a book, though, the player has to start talking it over with the DM whenever they take something. It's a matter of convenience.

And powerful monsters, if following the rules, are not a solution as it creates creep that makes the problem worse.

 

[Majere]

Tut Tut
A level 30 character who doesnt even know their spell list :

Yeah, a good reason. The character is a Wiz20/Clr10, which means she's a lousy ranger for tracking and even more useless as a rogue who checks traps and picks locks.

Try reading up the following spells:
Scry
Locate creature
Detect traps
Knock
Summon monster
Invisibility
Silence
Shapechange
Truesight
Mages transformation
Antimagic shell
Commune

Your a better everything
You can find almost any trap, counter magical traps with a disjunction or a greater dispel magic or erase. Mechanical traps you can bypass with knock or airwalk/fly. Wand of knock is a winner for ignoring any door you like, or you can passwall around it.
Your a better scout than the rogue with invis,silence.fly,message,detect thoughts etc etc etc
You dont need to track, you just scry/buff teleport.
Your a better fighter than the fighter with contingency and transformation.

High level mages can replicate almost every other class for a limited amount of time. Saying you couldnt just means you obviously dont understand your character.
As for the combat BS, I have only word for you: Timestop
All you do is timestop, summon up a couply of summon monster 9's to massacre with impunity the things attacking your children. And then you can continue to whomp on the evil dude to your hearts content.

Now I contest that playing your level 30 wizzard like a moron is bad roleplaying because any real mage would know all this and much much more.

Majere

 

[jmucchiello]

Detect traps

Have you read this spell? First, it's called Find Traps. A +5 (for Clr10) to Search checks is meaningless compared to a rogue designed to deal with traps. Even if she has a high Int because she's a wizard.

 

[jmucchiello]

Also, for you armor vs. weapon type guys: what about natural armor? Sure plate mail deflects swords, and chainmail turns spears; what does ogre hide or dragon scales do?

You're thinking about it backwards. Chainmail would provide a +4 slashing bonus to AC, +5 bludgeoning bonus to AC and a +3 piercing bonus to AC. Natural armor provides a natural bonus to AC. Your character sheet would have Slashing, Piercing, Bludgeoning, and Touch AC values depending on the type of attack. Weapons like swords would require that you declare if you are slashing or piercing when you strike, allowing them to have different critical statistics depending on which method of attack you used.

All very complicated but it would probably interest some players.

 

[Drifter Bob]

Here's a little something about that weapon defense bonus: old school soldiers here on Earth weren't fighting ogres, giants, and dragons on a regular basis. I fully agree that a sword has better defense than an axe--against an opponent whose weapon can't smash through yours with ease. Is there really any question what would happen if you hold up your shortsword to defend against an ogre club? Unless you have about 24+ strength, it's just another thing that's going to hit you in the head as the 30+ lb. club comes crashing down.

You folks really don't understand fencing. A little time spent with some harmless boffers could clarify this stuff a great deal.

First of all, the way you actually parry a weapon, be it a human opponents sword or some theoretical ogres club, is not to meet it directly head on, force for force. Generally speaking, that is a good way to snap your blade. Try to forget all abut the edge on edge parries you see in hollywood. You turn the weapon aside by striking it at an angle. This requires a surprisingly small amount of strength, depending on how you parry and from what guard. I am a big guy, over 250 lbs, and my 5' 1" 120 lb girlfriend can easily parry a full strength overhand strike with a hanging guard parry with one hand. Thats probably comparable to the difference in size between an ogre and a human fighter, or at least in the ball-park.

If you are dealing with a monster that is so big that active defense doesn't matter, (in which case I guess combat expertise should be disallowed as well) you can simply revert to your base defense, which is the same defense you would use against misile weapons.

Second, and perhaps more important, the defensive value of a weapon is represented not only by it's ability to actively parry, but by the passive threat of counterattack. Just think about it, visualise in your mind, someone armed with a spear, poised to thrust, versus someone unarmed or armed with brass knuckles. Which one do you feel safer striking with your club, as an ogre? Some weapons specialize in the former (active parrying), some in the latter (counterattack), and some both. For example, someone armed with a thrusting weapon like a rapier or smallsword, or for that matter a spear, isn't likely to necessarily parry a swing from a baseball bat. They would instead keep the point toward their opponent and thrust into them if they got too close.

For those monsters which seek to rush, I use the grapple mechanic. If they want to close to short range, ignoring the threat of conuterattack, they take their attack of opportunity and then move in.

I'm not sure what kind of mechanic could accurately represent this. In this game, +1 defense doesn't really cut it. There are too many varied situations in which it wouldn't apply (mainly great big things swatting at you with weapons/limbs as big or bigger than you, but certainly others). This means you'd need at least two more AC types on your character sheet. One for "fighting stuff that is so big your weapon can't possibly matter" and one for ranged attacks (as having a sword or quarterstaff does jack against ranged weapons). Then throw in your weapon vs. armor type variations and you're looking at like 7-9 AC scores for your average fighter.

I use a defensive die-roll instead of AC, but it basically works out the same, and it's not that hard. You have one base defense (or base AC) which in my house rules is the BAB plus dexterity bonus, minus any armor penalties. Then each weapon and / or shield has it's own modifier to defense (or AC). The latter apply in melee, for weapons, or in all occasions except flat foot, for shield.

It's not really any more complicated from maintaining a flatfoot AC, a touch AC, and a standard AC!

Maybe it'd be cool. I have visions of quarterstaves becoming martial weapons when used as a double weapon to gain that defensive bonus and make trip attacks. That means wizards would still use them for their nice defense, but their attacks would be even worse; mathematically they'd be fighting defensively at all times (+2 AC, -4 to hit). I never did like the idea of the "baseball bat" staff. At that point it's really just a clumsy club. These ideas have merit but seem to complicate the game.

Actually, the most effective way to use a blunt staff is with a thrust. Take a broomstick one day, hold it in two hands, and thrust hard against a solid surface and you will see what I mean. Imagine that impacting on your teeth or ribs. It's much harder to defend against. That is incidentaly why they call them quarterstaffs, because you were meant to use them from the back quarter, rather like a spear, and thus take advantage of the reach. This also helps defensively by keeping them at bay. If they close to shorter range, you can transition to half-staff as seen in Asian martial arts styles, which allows you to atack from both sides and / or attack and parry simultaneously.

Of course, you do strike 'like a baseball bat' when you have the opportunity, but you have to have your opponent in a bad position first, because such strikes are comparatively easy to void or parry.

So basically, if you realistically portray it, a staff conveys excellent defense in melee combat (we give it a +5 in our house rules) and quite a good offensive reach bonus in the attack. The limitation is in damage, especially against armor. The impact of a staff, while siginificant, no way a staff does the kind of mortal damage that say, a short sword does.

It still makes a very nice weapon for wizards this way though.

Also, for you armor vs. weapon type guys: what about natural armor? Sure plate mail deflects swords, and chainmail turns spears; what does ogre hide or dragon scales do?

For the sake of simplicity we make the assumption natural armor is equally effective against all weapons.

We also have an armor bypass rule to avoid the damage reduction, depending on what kind of armor you are wearing. A vest or byrnie (shirt) or breast plate is -4 on a To Hit roll to bypass, a haubrerk (coat) is -6, and complete armor or natural armor is -10. This assumes there is always a vulnerable spot you can go for, even on a dragon. It makes for some interesting tactical decisions for the players.

It's also easy to implement because in all the monster listings they break up AC into natural armor, regular armor, dex and size modifiers, etc.


DB

 

[Drifter Bob]

Drifter Bob,

I really like your two posts in this thread, informative and interesting. Any chance you could post (or send me copies) of those house rules, they are something that I'm interested in doing myself.

Regards,

Thanks,

I'm going to try to compile a set of our house rules for pubic consumption. Some of the stuff we do is unique to our campaign, some is borrowed from other systems. I have to pare all that extraneous stuff down, when I do, I'll post it on behalf of that small but enlightened group of discerning individuals such as yourself who appreciate the ideas and can make good use of them.

DB

 

[Brother MacLaren]

A +1 or +2 are pretty minute when you are talking about a 20 AC.

Not necessarily. Suppose that the monster has a +7/+2 attack modifier. The first attack hits AC 20 on a 13 or better, or 8 times out of 20, and it hits AC 22 only 6 times out of 20. 25% fewer hits from that +2 to AC. Gets even better for the second attack - goes from hitting 3 times out of 20 to hitting 1 time out of 20 (67% fewer hits).

When the foe's attack bonus is low enough that he isn't hitting on a 2, and high enough that he doesn't need a 20, you really do want every bonus to AC that you can get. The absolute value of the AC by itself tells you nothing.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Now, with that in consideration rethink those numbers and you will find they are not at all unbelievable.

I wasn't finding them believable. I was just finding them extremely high. You must be a sucker for punishment to run that many games at once