Brutal

[keterys]

I really don't like the brutal (or gauntlets of devastation) mechanic of rerolling damage dice. It slows down play and interacts in poor ways with mechanics that change dice types (such as when you can get 1d12 brutal 2 to turn into 2d6 brutal 2) or compare balance of brutal 1 from a feat/item between 2d4 vorpal and 1d12 not.

So, what if brutal instead added that number directly to damage whenever you rolled maximum on a damage die or critted. It'd still work better with multiple dice, but it'd be a controllable number - no interaction with vorpal - and similar to the critical mechanics. Or, slight variant, if you added the brutal bonus per W on critical hits.

If not, what if brutal was added as a bonus to damage when you hit with an encounter or daily power.

Or was a bonus to damage that applied whenever you use the Power Attack feat. Could even scale with tier. At that point, might make sense to just have 'Brutal' add a set amount per tier, rather than have a different number by weapon. Most likely Power Attack could just give double the bonus with a Brutal weapon.

Some of these fixes would potentially require more fixes than others - like the Power Attack one is quite flavorful, but limited enough in scope that brutal weapons might require more changes. Some could also be combined, of course.

Anyone else dislike Brutal and/or have any good ideas?

 

[malcolm_n]

How about if brutal just made 1 + the number the minimum? So, when you roll a 1 or 2 on brutal 2 weapons, you deal 3 damage (or 6 in the case of 2d6 weapon).

**Edit** I worded it badly originally.

The upside to this is you don't roll, as was the request. It also preserves the original idea behind brutal; which was to keep the user of the weapon from feeling swingy while dealing damage.

 

[Turtlejay]

I like Brutal. . .I am brainstorming on a possible Assasin who uses Kukri's, with the Brutal Shroud feat. Bringing up minimum damage brings up average damage, right?

As far as your issues, I see them, but to me the easiest fix is (as malcolm n said) to simply count the low rolls as being rerolled. . .I see his issue in wording it. Just read what he said, I endorse it.

Alternatively, you could just change the die to keep a similar average damage. 2d6 brutal 1 is 4-12, average damage there is 8. 3d4 is 3-12 damage. Granted the larger number of dice means the average is *different*, and it is not exactly the same damage, so . . .whatever. Just a suggestion, eh?

Jay

 

[keterys]

Yeah, in some cases it's easy to remove Brutal without affecting anything. Change 1d12b2 to 1d10+2, frex. But it's much tougher with the gauntlets of devastation or 2d6b1 (where you can maybe get away with calling it 2d6+1, except it's only 2d6 when you crit.

And yeah, having it turn low rolls automatically into something works too. Though you might have to bump up the brutal values to get anywhere near the same math.

1d12b2 - normally gives +1 damage (equiv of 1d10+2), making 1 + 2 count as 3 would give you a bump of only +.25 damage... counting 1-4 as 5 would get you 10/12. Which is probably close enough. 1-5 turning to 6 would be 15/12 which is probably also fine.

2d6b1 - normally gives +1 damage, so making 1 + 2 count as 3 would work (at +1 avg).

 

[malcolm_n]

Then we're agreed? It could just be late here, but I didn't quite grasp the rest of that. From what I can tell, by the last line you agree we could just count rolling a 1 or a 2 on any weapon damage die as a 3 (in the event of a brutal 2).

 

[Kzach]

It may slow down combat but it's also just plain fun to reroll 1's and/or 2's. The players who I've gamed with that had brutal weapons all got a big kick out of the rerolling. There's no way I'd take that away from them when there's nothing inherently wrong with the mechanic.

 

[keterys]

Some players enjoy it, yes. Some don't... and some really don't. For example, I actually have one character not using a superior weapon (mordenkrad) cause I don't like brutal on it, and another who rolls 1d10+2 instead of the 1d12b2 on its executioner.

And I've got one friend I'd never want to have brutal, because he's... really bad at noticing stuff like 'oh, I rolled too low' and when he does will be really slow. Thankfully it hasn't come up yet.

 

[malcolm_n]

I know what you mean, Kzach. I have a friend who used the Execution axe to (pun intended) brutal effect. Something about his being able to reroll 1's and 2's spurred him to reliably reroll into a 6 on each die.

 

[Kzach]

Here's an idea. Have the player nominate one d10 as the primary and another as the secondary. Then have the player roll both, along with his d20 attack roll.

There, fixed.

 

[FireLance]

One way to minimize fiddly interactions with changing die types is to have brutal work as a minimum per [W] instead of a minimum per die. This does mean that players rolling 2d4 or 2d6 will have to roll each pair separately or otherwise have some means of identifying which pairs go together (a pair of red dice and a pair of white dice when rolling for a 2[W] power, for example).