I was thinking about how to spice up 5E combat, particularly in light of some of the weapon based maneuvers from BG3. One possible method that came to mind was the idea of trading damage dice for special effects.
NOTE: This idea isn't even half baked yet. I'm not sure the oven is even on or if the ingredients are even mixed yet. So bear with me.
First and foremost, this system would require that damage be normalized between all classes. I would use wizard cantrips as a model. importantly, this means martials would at least have to have the choice of one big multi-die attack or multiple single die attacks. Relatedly, weapons and spells would have to be normalized.
That said, what I am imagining is a scenario in which once a hit is landed and damage is rolled, but before damage is applied, the attacker is able to "burn" one or more of the damage dice rolled for an effect: shove, trip, daze, blind, whatever. there would be a ton of maneuvers, representing "cool moves" and "trick shots" like in cinematic fight scenes. I think you would have to give up your highest damage die and it would have to be a certain value (6? something) but I am not sure. You would have to figure out how much "damage" a trip is worth, or whatever, and build your cost on that paradigm.
Importantly, you would NOT have to spend feats or other character building resources for these maneuvers. They might be classed based or weapon/attack based, or some combination. But the point is to make combat more interesting, so gating them behind a feat chain is a bad idea.
Thoughts?
NOTE: This idea isn't even half baked yet. I'm not sure the oven is even on or if the ingredients are even mixed yet. So bear with me.
First and foremost, this system would require that damage be normalized between all classes. I would use wizard cantrips as a model. importantly, this means martials would at least have to have the choice of one big multi-die attack or multiple single die attacks. Relatedly, weapons and spells would have to be normalized.
That said, what I am imagining is a scenario in which once a hit is landed and damage is rolled, but before damage is applied, the attacker is able to "burn" one or more of the damage dice rolled for an effect: shove, trip, daze, blind, whatever. there would be a ton of maneuvers, representing "cool moves" and "trick shots" like in cinematic fight scenes. I think you would have to give up your highest damage die and it would have to be a certain value (6? something) but I am not sure. You would have to figure out how much "damage" a trip is worth, or whatever, and build your cost on that paradigm.
Importantly, you would NOT have to spend feats or other character building resources for these maneuvers. They might be classed based or weapon/attack based, or some combination. But the point is to make combat more interesting, so gating them behind a feat chain is a bad idea.
Thoughts?