Grim-n-Gritty: Revised and Simplified

[doghead]

That's going to get really horrible when you have a Base Attack of 20 vs. a Base Defense of 20. 23d6 vs. 23d6, both players take the highest 3 dice. You've just dragged Randomness by a rope through town, dragged it through the mud, shot both its legs off at the kneecaps, stapled each of its fingers to concrete, and fired a railgun vertically through its body.

Yeah! I always wanted to do that.

BAB is unlikely to get to 20 with the house rules I have although that doesn't change the validity of your point.

I was thinking of dumping iterative attacks, and allowing characters to split dice pool for multiple attacks. So said character with BAB 20 could chose to allocate +4 dice to initial attack (sacrifice 2 dice to get Reach), use 6 dice for their second attack (sacrifice 1 to switch target), keep 7 dice available for AoO.

I have been looking though DanMC and RangerWickets alternative compat systems that allow character to adapt the way they use their weapons to gain qualities like tripping, settable, reach etc. Anyways, this probably should be in a whole new thread.

thotd

 

[Bayonet_Chris]

Modifications

I've eliminated the armor bypass and specific critical hits. The excess damage by a high roll effectively "bypasses armor", so anyone with a solid to-hit will do it on their own without the need of another mechanic.

I combined it with a Wound/Vitality variant - normal damage is taken to vitality (not level-dependent, just constitution+wisdom) and critical damage is taken to both wounds and vitality, which is a direct penalty to ability checks, skills, attack, etc. Since size provides a bonus to damage and soak, it is accounted for there. There is no set number of wounds, just a running penalty. When you take would damage, you make a saving throw to basically stay on your feet/stay living due to the shock of it, which is kind of similar to the shock mechanic in A Game of Thrones.

I'm playtesting it in my Monday game, so we'll see how it goes.

 

[SSquirrel]

How did the playtesting for that variant go Bayonet?

 

[Bayonet_Chris]

Playtesting

It's been an ongoing process for several weeks, but it has been going fairly well. I've been keeping track of it on my design blog.

 

[SSquirrel]

NECRO THREAD!!! heh I still love this system tweak

 

[Bayonet_Chris]

Mods

I've been busy lately so I haven't had a chance to update.

The current iteration of wounds/vitality is kind of nice. I've been taking a break from the active playtesting to play in another game and give myself the mental rest. Right now the wounds/vitality break out like this:

Wounds = con
Vitality = Constitution + (class bonus + con mod)/lvl

I'm eliminating as much extra rolling as possible. At half vitality, the character is fatigued. At 0 vitality they're exhausted. Any wounds cause fatigue, so wounds + half vitality = exhaustion, wounds + no vitality = unconsciousness.

I don't have all of my notes in front of me, so I can't go into a whole lot more detail. I've tied vitality in with the magic/MP system, so they draw from the same source. Mages will have a separate vitality/mana pool to only be used for magic. It is small, but replenishes quickly. Excess magic is taken from vitality, which is slower to come back. The mana pool will probably be the caster level times wisdom modifier, minimum of zero (some people just aren't cut out for it).

Most of the special effects in combat I've moved post-roll, so a critical can trigger a special effect instead of having to "call your shot" by saying you're going to trip, grapple, etc. You can use your big success to guide the combat to your advantage.

That's all I can remember off the top of my head.

 

[cablop]

I was using the Ken Hood Martial Arts system, and i found it really good... but now, i have a little question

where can i find the epic rules for this system?

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

cablop, I am not aware of any Epic extention to Ken Hoods Skills-n-Feats Martial Arts system. I would suggest starting a new thread to discuss it.. and maybe Ken would come out of hiding to reply

Bayonet_Chris... hows the playtest going? I only skimmed your blog {nice Augery feat BTW..}

 

[Bayonet_Chris]

Playtest

It went well while I was doing it. I've taken a break from testing that to work on some other things. I'm running a Play-by-email playtest game at the moment.

 

[cablop]

And another questions, cause martial artist rules are good enough? are there something like them on 4e?