Hit Dice to Damage Saves?

[HeapThaumaturgist]

So Unearthed Arcana brings in Injury, a la M&M ... but bases it off of Fort saves. Which I don't like. Makes it too easy to pump the Fort save, really. That and I like having a "Damage Save".

I'm also trying to see how base damage-die might translate over to Damage DC bonus.

Just sort of an experiment, really. I think the Damage Save mechanic is very streamlined and smooth, but I don't like WotC's added match. Why roll damage and do math, when we could, say, take the average damage of any particular die and give each weapon its own Damage Save DC Bonus?

I'm wondering if we can't get more variablity in save progression, though. Give each class it's own Damage Save progression. Maybe Poor = (d4, d6), Medium = (d8), Good = (d10, d12).

Anybody have ideas?

--fje

 

[Glak]

I was thinking of doing a system with damage saves.

First determine if you hit:

Attack roll = 1d20+Dex+Str+BAB (hey why argue? Just add both)
vs
Defense = 10+Dex+Shield+Base Defense Bonus

Ok now you hit, time to determine if you hurt the guy:

Damage = 1d20+Weapon+Str+Base Damage Bonus
vs
Toughness = 10+Armor+Con+Base Toughness Bonus

Then you have to decide how many hp people have. I was thinking 3 would be good. One of the nice things about this system is the hp are independant of level or con bonus. Thus you can use hp for powering spells without having wizards put their highest score into con. Another alternative is to combine hp and base toughness bonus. Thus as you get hurt you become more vulnerable to damage.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Well here's what I was thinking. The Injury system from Unearthed Arcana (M&M) is very very simple.

Attack as normal. Successful attack. Roll Damage Save vs. DC 15 + Damage DC Bonus. Success? No effect. Failure? One hit. Fail by 5, stun, fail by 10 disabled.

Simple, direct, to the point. Few numbers.

What I'm looking for is a mathematically savvy work-through for turning dice-based weapon damages to Damage Save DC Bonuses.

I.E. a 9mm handgun is 2d6 damage. In an injury system we could take the average of each die (3.5+3.5 = 7) and ... I'm not sure. In the system in Unearthed Arcana they say divide the damage dealt by 5 and round up for the damage bonus. Seems a little low, though. DC for a 9mm would be +1.

Taking averages and using the X/5 we get numbers like:

Glock 17 ... 2d6 = (3.5 +3.5) / 5 = +1
AK47 ... 2d8 = (4.5 + 4.5) / 5 = +2
HKPSG1 ... 2d10 = (5.5 + 5.5) / 5 = +2
Barrett ... 2d12 = (6.5 + 6.5) / 5 = +3

So the save range is going to be really rather shallow. +1, +2, +3 are the only damage bonuses (averaged) for d20 Modern firearms.

If the Damage Save DC is equal to 15 + Damage Save Bonus (DSB) then you get 16,17, and 18 DCs. Hard to meet at low levels. Let's look at a Good save progression, then.

1) +2
2) +3
3) +3
4) +4
5) +4
6) +5
7) +5
8) +6
9) +6

I'll stop there. So it's 8th level before the average, unmodified save (of a Good damage save progression, unattached to any ability score) is equal to a 9mm handgun's DC. But we WANT the damage DC to be greater than the save, as it's only in failing the save that "damage" is taken.

So ... dunno.

The problem comes in with things like melee weapons, whose damage is modified by ability scores and talents.

Longsword = 1d8 = (4.5) / 5 = +1

But Str 14 and Melee Smash +1 gives us:

Longsword Attack = 1d8+3 = (4.5 + 2 +1) / 5 = +2

You could manually do all of the averaging and math, but what I want is SIMPLE, ELEGANT, and STREAMLINED.

--fje