Get rid of Strength bonus for to hit

[Modin Godstalker]

Have any of you out there house ruled the the Strength bonus for to hit, being replaced with Dexterity?

Also, have any of you tried using a Hitpoint system where hitpoints are fixed? For example the character has a number of hitpoints equal to their constitution. This is a fixed value, regardless of level. Maybe have the character's BAB be their Armor class. Of course this would be a much more lethal system, with fewer successful hits, but when a hit occurs it would be fairly lethal.

 

[Starman]

Have any of you out there house ruled the the Strength bonus for to hit, being replaced with Dexterity?

This has been hashed out many times here on the boards. You might want to see if a friendly community supporter would do a quick search for you and post the links.

Also, have any of you tried using a Hitpoint system where hitpoints are fixed? For example the character has a number of hitpoints equal to their constitution. This is a fixed value, regardless of level. Maybe have the character's BAB be their Armor class. Of course this would be a much more lethal system, with fewer successful hits, but when a hit occurs it would be fairly lethal.

Have you looked at Ken Hood's Grim'n'Gritty system? It does pretty much what you are looking for. I don't have a link to his revised rules. I know someone here does, though, and I'm sure they will post it for you.

Starman

 

[Modin Godstalker]

Hmmm. If it has been talked about, I wouldn't mind seeing the thread on that.

 

[Starman]

Oh, yes, the topic comes up fairly frequently. So much so, that I think most people around here are sick of talking about it. Like I said, though, I'm sure you could get a community supporter around here to do a search and give you a couple of links.

Starman

 

[Plane Sailing]

Not a big help I know, but I have a heavily variant d20 game which has the following attributes

Siz
Dex
Agl

Int
Wis
Cha

In this system Siz gives a bonus to damage and to hit points and to fort save (rolling up str damage and con bonuses), Dex gives a bonus to hit (precision with ranged and weapon attacks), Agility gives a bonus to AC and Reflex saves. There are other changes for the mental attributes but I won't bore you with that.

One of the issues (that I imagine has been thrashed out on earlier threads) is that removing "hit bonuses" from Str leaves it a pretty devalued attribute, while adding melee "to hit" bonuses to Dex rather overloads it (as it already has missile to hit, dodge bonus, intiative bonus, reflex save bonus...)

It might be instructive if you are able to check out how mutants and masterminds (M&M) or other d20 superhero games handle this kind of thing, since that is a genre which has to divorce ability to hit from (super) strength to fit within its genre.

Cheers

Cheers

 

[Modin Godstalker]

Those Grim and Gritty rules are actually pretty cool. Gives a very Runequest feel to the game. One of my favorites.

I would still like to see the stuff on removing the strength to hit bonus. I've seen some of the rules from various d20 supers games, and it just seems less convoluted if Dexterity is used for to hit bonus instead, rather than having to come up with various strength type feats.

The idea of Strength being a less important stat is not that crucial to me. I guess could add strength requirements for weapons. Weapons would have a number that would be subtracted from to hit rolls. This number could be modified by the strength bonus of the attacker. So for example, lets say a 2 handed sword has a 4 requirment. This means that someone who has no strength bonus would use the weapon with a - 4 modifier to hit. if they had a +3 strength bonus then they would use the weapon at -1. If they had a +6 bonus then they could use the weapon with negative modifier.

I'm sure this has been brought up, and I apologize if I'm rehashing it.

 

[Aaron2]

The idea of Strength being a less important stat is not that crucial to me.

Sounds like your already convince. Not much to discuss.

Anyway the main arguments against Dex as to-hit bonus are:

1) Dex is already important. Using it for melee to-hit rolls will just make it overly so.

2) Having armor affecting hit chance is balanced by the idea that strength is needed for blasting through the armor, thus its important to to-hit rolls. Changing to Dex alters the abstraction to where it makes even less sense.

3) A high strength character will have better control and speed with a weapon of any significant heft. Plus, he will be able to use the weapon to its max effectiveness for longer without tiring. Thus Strength should be important to melee to-hit rolls.


Aaron

 

[Rackhir]

Actually it really does make sense even from a real world perspective to have strength be the stat for hit bonuses. I've done enough fencing and fiddled around a bit with some of the heavier stuff, to know that a lot of being able to use the weapons really is how strong you are.

Standard Melee Weapons are heavy after all, especially two handed weapons. So your ability to use them has much more to do with how strong you are. Because you simply can't manuver the weapon or control your strikes if you don't have the strength.

Human beings within melee ranges are also not a difficult target to hit. The things that prevent you from hurting them are mostly how good they are defensively (parrying- a mechanic which is largely ignored in D&D) and their armor. Getting through both of those is pretty much a matter of muscle.

The exceptions are missile weapons, with which of course the main problem is targeting and light weapons that depend primarily on skill for use. Missile weapons already use Dex as their "to hit" stat and the light weapons can make use of weapons finesse, ie dex to hit.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Of course, there is no good explanation why Str helps with touch attacks...

As intimated by Aaron in (2) existing Str "to hit" is conflated with penetrating armour. Something interesting you could consider is moving to armour as DR and additionally allow Str to give "penetration" as well as a damage bonus... so Str bonuses always help cause more damage but they help get through armour protection too. That might work out quite nicely.

Cheers

 

[Modin Godstalker]

3) A high strength character will have better control and speed with a weapon of any significant heft. Plus, he will be able to use the weapon to its max effectiveness for longer without tiring. Thus Strength should be important to melee to-hit rolls.

This makes sense to a point, but I would think that after a while the strength of the character would provide diminishing returns. Once you were strong enough to easily manuver the weapon, I don't think there is any more benefits to being stronger other than the amount force the attack will have.

Now like you said in regards to Strength fitting into the Armor Class paradigm, you are right. But, if you just use armor for damage resistance instead then it makes sense to replace the to hit bonus for Strength with Dexterity. We could then use a defense bonus like the Grim and Gritty rules suggest.

In regards to "Game Balance" there is a point to it, but it is not the most important thing I don't think.

Maybe these would be good suggestions for 4th edition D&D, if it ever comes out.