Grim 'n Gritty (system) games and Classes with AC Bonuses

[Kemrain]

If there's a better forum for this to be in, I apologise for not having the forsight to place it there...

The game I'm playing in will be taking a major overhaul rather soon. We're getting to a good campaign end point, having nearly completed all our objectives, and when we do, we'll break from the game and change systems.

We'll be moving up to 3.5 game rules, adding in some house rules, maybe taking some elements from Monte's Arcana Unearthed, and using Ken Hood's Grim and Gritty system.

I'm excited about the changes and looking forward to upgrading. You'd bearly recognise the game we'll be playing when we start up again as D&D, and that's the way I like it.

However, lately my GM has expressed conserns about the Grim and Gritty sustem, the latest of which is the fact that under G&G, all classes recieve a bonus to AC, and in standard D&D, some classes already do (most notably the Monk and AU's Unfettered.)

Since Class defense bonuses stack and progress a lot like saving throws, and our group multiclasses a whole lot, we've instituted a rule that states when you pick up a new class, your class defense bonus is one less than it says you get. This way you can't have a 6th level character with a base AC of 22 without a dexterity bonus. My GM, however, was worried about how class defense bonuses will interact with the bonuses some classes already give.

I think that everything should just stack, as the classes with the core bonus can't wear much armor (And in G&G, armor = DR, not Bonus AC.) It will come down to a character avoiding 19 out of 20 hits, and being dropped on the 20th. For some reason, my GM objects to this, and I can't figure out, for the life of me, why it would be an issue.

My question is this: Those of you who have played games where characters get class based AC bonused, does giving the monk and unfettered their AC bonuses as well offset the balance of combat?

- Kemrain the Conserned.

 

[Enkhidu]

Ken Hood, in his Grim-n-Gritty pdf (at least the version I read) actually covered this, holding to the idea that in this instance Defense Bonus is really no different than saving throws - multiclassing can give serious bonuses to both, but at the cost of giving up the abilities of higher levels. Personally, in all the testing I've done with the Grim-n-Gritty system, Defense wasn't the game breaker - the huge DR from Heavy armor was.

 

[Kemrain]

You're right. I'll point him toards that portion of the document. I'm running on memory, here, as I haven't looked at the rules in some time, and I forgot about that.

What do you think of the idea of using the YAARGH armor rules (Posted by Seasong here on ENWorld) with the G&G rules? Armor gives half it bonus to AC and half in DR, AC half first for odd numbers..

Would using this system, with Grim and Dritty HP and Defense and all, throw the balance off, you think?

- Kemrain the Unofficial Grim and Gritty Spokesbeing.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

You might want to check out the Tome of Sorrows. It is designed for Midnight, but has some rules in it you might find useful.

In addition, I did a little work with the Grim and Gritty system to make it a little more "D&D friendly".

The Tome of Sorrows can be downloaded directly from my sig.

My Grim and Gritty variant, entitled "Midnight Varient Rules", can be found in the Downloads section of the Against the Shadow website. (Again, see my sig.)

Hope you find something useful in there.

 

[Inari]

Myself as a DM, I ran into this problem as well, but I found a nice way to balance most of these things out:

I'm running a Rokugan adventure, with the many things taken from AU (like the non-magical classes, and talents) and naturally, I've stumbled through the whole nine yards. I'll mention my biggest problems so far, and the solution I applied to each one:

First off was the thing of rolling defense... I forsaw that it would slow the game down too much, so I just made it the same "take 10" on AC, meaning that instead of having a defense bonus of +5, you just have a AC of 15 (thenagain, this is Rokugan, so you have things like Void points to raise your AC instantly).

Then there was a player that at 6th level was multiclassed as 3 classes, each one with the highest defense bonus (Samurai2/Rogue3/Unfettered1). According to Grim'n'Gritty the player in question would've had a defence bonus of +8, and the player had indeed the good dex bonus of +3, meaning that the player would've had a 21 AC, without the unfettered bonus, and armor penalty (light) along with endless anoyances. So what I did was simply split the classes up into the 3 groups of good, average and poor defense bonus. That being said that if you multiclassed in the same group, you continued advancing in the same defense chart (so instead of progressing as a multiclassed character with a defense of +8, the player advanced as having 6 levels in the good defense bonus class, meaning the player had a defense bonus of +5). The player later decided to change her classes to Samurai2/Unfettered4 (given my concent, of course), and instead of sacrificing defense bonus (she would've gone from +8 to +7 given Grim'n'Gritty's style), she kept her +5 bonus.

Next up I had problems with the archer. Back in the 3.5 days, before Grim'n'Gritty he had been one of the highest damage dealers, because, incidentally, he always hit. He had the best to-hit, and given the fact that he had a damage of d8+3, he dished out a lot of damage throughout combats. And the fact that he was almos always out of harm's way, he was rarely taken down. However, when we started using GnG, he fell to the back end of the damage chart. Why? Because we had enemies with a protection of almost 8, and he rarely did any damage. So, what was I to do? I of course knew that increasing his damage output was too good, to give him a flat out +2 damage would've been unbalanced, so instead I gave him an in-game treat. I gave him what they call in AU Bodkin arrows which normally lower natural armor/armor bonuses down by 2 points. So I just called them penetrators, and gave them 2 in penetration. I also intend on giving him a few treats, like fire-burst arrows, and cool enchanted arrows. So there, problem solved. He started to do a lot more damage overall, and regained his status as one of the higher-damage dealers.

Yeah, then I stumbled upon the huge armor protection thingi. It really looked game unbalancing that one of the players always soaked 8 points of damage (he had great armor (+7) and natural armor (+1)). This was devestating as he just kept going, killing everything (he uses a +1 katana, with damage of d10+5). So I had to come up with some way that he could be "harmed." He was starting to develope an attitude of "you can't touch me, DM" which got on my nerves (and I admit, I started to become cruel to him, doing too much damage to him and putting him against guys that could've killed his character too quickly). But then I started to think: what happens when someone hits you, but your armor (not fullplate) absorbs the blow? You get the wind knocked out of you, naturally. So I started to look at Spycraft's handle on it, which was that if your armor absorbed the whole hit, you took 2 subdual. But this seemed too unbalanced to me (given the fact that there were 2 players with only 3 in protection), so I decided that for every 4 points you absorb, you take 1 subdual. Subdual damage heals fairly quickly, and can't "kill" you, so it seemed like the best option to me.

Then came the thing of healing. Up untill now, I had done without healing potions, as they are fairly rare in Rokugan (it is a power only achieved by the most holy of men), so natural healing had done up untill now. But suddenly characters were healing only 3-4 hp points per week, which stumbled me greatly, and I was forced to give them too much time off (the campaign is fairly time-specific, as great events will be happening in the summer, and given that it was spring, giving an entire week off was an event I'd rather not have repeated). So I came up with the in-game solution of giving them a limited number of healing potions, with a certain twist. Instead of giving them 3d8 healing, instantly, I made them heal 2d8+4 hp, but half of that healing became subdual (note though that if they only needed 4 hp, and healed all that, it counted as if they had got a 4 on the dice, meaning only 2 subdual). And do you know what? It was instant success! The players were as combat effective as ever, yet they were still more cautious. One of the players almost fainted in a dual, after using 3 of those potions in the dual (he was down to 3/4 hp from subdual at the end of the fight).

And recently, I've been tempted to change the order of some of the classes, as I don't see that the ranger should be less effective at defending himself than the fighter, as he has a good reflex and good BaB, but I have yet to take a look into that.

But that's basically it. By all regards, don't think of me as a hack'n'slash DM. I LOVE roleplaying, and demand that my players role play a lot. Most of the sessions go to political maneuverings, and most of the players have hidden agendas themselves, creating really deep characters. They take it almost as seriously as I do, but we also have quite a lot of combat. At least 1 fight per session, and they most of the time involve quite a lot of tactical maneuvers (as most DnD games do).

The GnG system is a great system for those low-magic campaigns, although arcane characters need to be watched out for (luckily for me, none of my players have any spellcasters [we have a samurai, fighter, ranger, archer and unfettered in the group] so I kinda get off easily with spells, and can make them objects to be feared in the campaign).

And please, if you have any questions, don't hesitate!

 

[Kemrain]

Thanks for the replies, and sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. Here we go!

Ashrem Bayle, thanks for those links! I saved the optional rules, and I'll print it out tomorrow, while my boss is away.

Here's what I've got from my GM:

Armor gives half it's bonus to AC, and half to DR, giving the AC portion first, in the case of odd numbers. The G&G convention of armor subtracting from your AC is being done away with completely. Class defense bonuses remain the same except that now, when you multiclass into a class that gets a good or an average profression, you take a 1 point Multiclass penalty to defense, to slow the progression. Classes with poor progressions do not suffer from this penalty.

Does this make any sense at all? Santel, my Rogue, at 3rd level, had a +3 from class bonus. When he took a level of fighter he got +2, and a -1 penalty for multiclassing. When he took a level of mage, he got a +0, and no -1, because you can't lower your AC by multiclassing. When he took 2 more levels of Mage, he got the +1 to defense you get at poor progression 3.

The Multiclass penalty, along with armor giving a small (no more than +4) bonus to AC, should serve to average out those numbers a little, and still allow some DR to be had. All in all, it should increase AC's slightly, but we're playing in a group of rogues, and you lose your entire class bonus, along with your dex when you're flatfooted. Add pounce to that, and, well, the game will get interesting.

We shouldn't have the problems of DR getting so high no one can damage eachother, because the best DR you can get from armor is +4 (Plate). We don't get huge static bonuses to damage (Except against humans.. Favored Enemy rules changing was awsome.), either, so most of the problems people are complaining of will probably never be issues.

We're also changing the magic system entirtely, along with the magic classes, using the Elements of Magic system, tweaked quite a bit. We knocked out Sorcerers, and changed the Wizard spell progression. Adding in Mages, a class with fewer spells than a Wizard, but access to ALL of them, and not having to prepare, throws the Wizard/Sorcerer pair on it's rear, but it seems to work, mathematically at least... But that's a whole other animal, for a whole other thread.

- Kemrian the Unoffical Grim 'n Gritty Spokesbeing.

 

[Kemrain]

Inari, it sounds like you have a very intersting game. Probably as complex, if not more, than the one my GM and I are creating. I can't think of anything to ask you, off the top of my head, but when I do, I'll be sure to take you up on your offer.

We thought about allowing the Unfettered into the game, but the bonus to AC was just too much. As a 6th level character, Santel, my main, will have a 23, and the Unfettered bonuses would just make incredible into absurd. We're allowing a class that gives Canny Defense at first level, but has a poor progression for defense. We figured that that would be more balanced.

Though you're running a Japanese-style game, and ours is more european-styled, do you have any neat PrC's or things that work well in GnG? Even if I wouldn't use them, seeing new mechanics is often very useful.

- Kemrain the Interested.

 

[Inari]

Well, I admit I'm not really one to create PrC's myself, but we do intend on using the ones presented in the Rokugan sourcebook, along with "way of the samurai." The players are still only on lvl 6, so they're still a bit too level to go taking prestige classes, although I've got them all interested in the prestige classes presented in the official splatbooks (that I'll gladly allow in my game, as they are most of them colourful and inspiring).

But personally, GnG has made my DMing a whole lot easier

For instance, I like keeping my players on their toes, meaning that before that, I had to put them against hordes of enemies in combats, meaning they were often outnumbered 5:1, which I think is just unlogical, and absurd. Now, I can easily get of with 3:2 odds, having the enemies 1-3 levels lower (assuming they are human). Last session, I put them up against mountain bakemono, which are more vicious and evil goblins (the art for them is marvelous), and their regeneration abilities meant that the players couldn't kill them, and had to run away with their lives, leaving behind their honor. It was funny looking at the face of the fighter when he saw how ineffective his greataxe was.

And magic has become what players really REALLY awe. I use the idea of 1/2 dice bonuses (so if you would've had 1d8 per level, it was 1d8 per two levels). That still meant that when they faced a certain 6th level tatooed monk who had the wonderful dragon tatoo, and started spewing fire on them, he was still causing 3d8 damage, with a reflex save as high as 19 (meaning only the unfettered made it, and it was just barely (and saved only for 1/2 damage)). But now, whenever they see one of the holy shugenja, they bow with well earned respect. Damn they'll hate me, as I'll be implicating a arcane spellcaster as one of the major NPCs :þ Whether he'll be friend or foe is up to them really (and how evil I'll be fealing at the moment).

But, on the other hand, I also had to change how the skill "iaijutsu focus" worked. Normally, it's a skill you can use against flat footed opponents (not flanked) or immobile objects, to cause great damage as you put your entire spirit into that one single focused strike. So if you got 10-14 on the roll, you got +1d6 damage, if you got 15-19 it was +2d6, 20-24 +3d6, and so on. The problem was that allowing it as it was in GnG was madness, as it meant that TOO much damage would be caused. So I did what GnG did with sneak attack, but instead of confering a +x to attack bonus, I added it to damage. True, it meant that the damage potential, and chance to do a critical hit was increased often by quite a bit, but all in all it prooved to be less of a damage output than with the normal iaijutsu focus skill as it was.

 

[Darthor]

Our group used Grim-n-gritty (heavily modified).

We allowed class AC bonuses to stack with AC progression from class. However, we treated it as a Dex bonus. So heavier armor with a low max dex bonus made you a really easy target (as it should be). Also don't forget the -4 to AC for wearing heavy armor.

We also used a crit system that required beating an opponents AC by 12 to get a crit. What started happening was if you wanted to take down a heavily armored foe you need to get a crit, but this was often easy because they would have a ridiculously low AC.

We loved that system.

 

[Bastoche]

Has anyone ever suggested that armor gives bonus hit points (armor points) rather than DR? a full plate, for example could give you an extra 20 hit points that are soaked at 3/4 to the armor 1/4 to the character (kinda like WP/VP). The armor could withstand a certain amount of damage before requiring repair.

For example, it could take 20 damages before being unprotective (until the wearer pass xdy rounds to adjust it) and it could take 100 hits before being destroyed. That way it could last 5 fights before needing to be replaced entirely. I'm assuming armor would be readily available, of course.