Fixing Toughness
- Thread starter Delta
- Start date
How about it granting you extra hp = your HD value? For example, fighters get another d10, wizards another d4 (not sure if con mod should factor in, or if players should roll or simply use a fixed value, or how this would interact with multiclassed characters though). I like the idea of the extra hp varying according to the class you are playing.
StreamOfTheSky
Adventurer
The problem with those feats is that they are inferior to Imp. Toughness. All except the second are equal to Imp. toughness at the earliest level they could be taken and worse every level afterwards. The second is just plain worse.
Me too, but I don't want more HD rolls to keep track of (though, I currently have fixed HD rules, so it'd be less of a problem). I think I have a good idea to re-write Toughness and Imp. Toughness, the only downside being that you can't take Toughness repeatedly anymore, which will alter some monsters (like the triceratops). Also, this toughness is MUCH better, so you'd have to alter Dwarven Defender pre-reqs and others, as frankthedm noted.
Toughness [General]
Benefit: You gain an amount of bonus hit points equal to twice your BAB (minimum of +1 hp), which scales as you gain levels.
Improved Toughness [General]
Benefit: For the purposes of the Toughness feat, your BAB is considered equal to your HD. In other words, you would gain +2 hp per HD. This benefit overrides the benefit of the Toughness feat.
So, this feat benefits warrior types much more than others as the levels climb, but mages can just spend a second feat to catch up. The option of the second feat leaves medium BAB classes in a weird gap where it's just not worth it to spend a second feat, but I think that's ok. IME, most who take the Toughness feats are either meat shields looking for as much hp as possible or d4 HD arcanists, trying to offset their low HD.
And, since too often a guy with giant wads of hp as his main defense just ends up as a drain on the party's healing, I present an idea for a new feat. It could use a better name.
Resilient [General]
A combination of physique and will power allows you to heal from wounds and injury much faster than a normal person could.
Prerequisites: Toughness, base Fortitude +3
Benefit: Whenever you are healed of hp damage, you heal an additional amount equal to your BAB (or HD, if you have Improved Toughness), to a limit of the amount of original healing. A Cure Minor Wounds spell would heal you 2 hp, a Cure Light Wounds from a level 5 cleric could heal you as much as 26 hp if you had +13 or higher BAB. This also affects your natural healing rate, so a character with full BAB would effectively heal twice the normal amount from a night of rest. This benefit applies to both lethal and nonlethal damage that you heal.
I can't be the only DM to automatically swap out any toughness feat(s) a monster may have in its stat-block in favour of a clearly better feat...
For example, the tarrasque with its infamous 6 toughness feats. Swapping out its inferior feats for improved toughness (which alone already gives more hp), multiattack, improved multiattack, improved rapidstrikex2 and stand still makes it more challenging for its cr.
I sure can. But it somehow feels more fulfilling when I optimize them within the framework of the rules, rather than simply giving them better stats and extra abilities (especially since I play more than I DM). Plus, quite a number of npcs I pitted against my players were inspired/derived from PCs I myself had statted up in my spare time and wanted to try out, but never had the chance/inclination. So old habits die hard.
Also, some of my inspirations came from messing around with the feat selection of a monster to see what new abilities I could give it. For example, the 12-headed hydra qualifies for, and can take the robilar's gambit feat. But on my own, I might never have thought of giving the hydra some sort of retributive-style ability.
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pawsplay
Hero
Sure, I respect efficient and elegant design. It's just to me, for a very high hit point monster that is basically designed to be tough, adding lots of Toughness strikes me as efficient and elegant. The only thing that bothers me about this particular case is that the tarrasque is essentially invulnerable in the first place, making extra hit points fairly trivial. But you have to give it some kind of feats, unless you dispense with character-like design in the first place.
Arkhandus
First Post
Considering that the original feat was made to be taken multiple times (thus at more than just 1st-level), I prefer variants that are still selectable multiple times.
In my Aurelia houserules/setting, I fixed Toughness by making it grant 4 HP, but doubled when the character exceeds 9th-level (so it becomes 8 HP at 10th-level onward). While that doesn't scale with every single level, it's simple and stackable, so you can have a really tough character eventually with enough Toughness feats, if you really wanted to emphasize that aspect of a character. My Aurelia material has some added feats in the Toughness tree, though, that allow even more HP to be gained by really tough characters, at greater efficiency.
I figure Improved Toughness (from Complete Warrior in 3.5) to be a bit too strong, partly balanced by the fact that it sucks for several levels and can't be taken more than once, which also means that it doesn't help a low-level character's survivability. And that's just stupid, because low-level characters need it the most. If it had 1 or 2 copies of Toughness as a prerequisite, I'd consider it fair.
For some kind of middle-ground with Toughness, I'd suggest 3 HP + 1/3rd character level, and selectable more than once.
In my Aurelia houserules/setting, I fixed Toughness by making it grant 4 HP, but doubled when the character exceeds 9th-level (so it becomes 8 HP at 10th-level onward). While that doesn't scale with every single level, it's simple and stackable, so you can have a really tough character eventually with enough Toughness feats, if you really wanted to emphasize that aspect of a character. My Aurelia material has some added feats in the Toughness tree, though, that allow even more HP to be gained by really tough characters, at greater efficiency.
I figure Improved Toughness (from Complete Warrior in 3.5) to be a bit too strong, partly balanced by the fact that it sucks for several levels and can't be taken more than once, which also means that it doesn't help a low-level character's survivability. And that's just stupid, because low-level characters need it the most. If it had 1 or 2 copies of Toughness as a prerequisite, I'd consider it fair.
For some kind of middle-ground with Toughness, I'd suggest 3 HP + 1/3rd character level, and selectable more than once.
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