New world of darkness style. Anybody thought about this for D&D? I probably wouldn't get buy-in from my group for this, but it's an interesting thought exercise.
All weapons have a damage rating, equal to the average roll of their damage dice, rounded down. Longswords are 4, bastard swords 5, greatswords 7.
When you attack, roll d20 + all modifiers, including the damage rating of the weapon. Subtract the opponent's AC, the result is the damage you do.
A couple of rules would need to be tweaked:
-Power attack would reduce your defense rather than your attack bonus.
-DR gets cojoined with natural armor, and you don't have to worry about whether armor reduces your chance to be hit or chance to be damaged any more, since it's just one roll.
-Weapon Finesse applies to damage under this rule, like all attack rolls.
-Sneak attack would need to be redone, perhaps as +2 to attack for every die that would normally apply. Extra damage dice in general would be an issue.
-Weapon focus and specialization would lose their distinction. Probably just make it a chain of 5 feats that can be taken at 1st, 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th levels, each of which adds +1 to your attack with the chosen weapon.
-Two-handed weapons would probably just add 1.5x Str bonus to-hit, to keep their old ways of working.
You'll get a couple of quirks, like something with AC 15, DR 5/silver would now have defense 20, 15 versus silver, but that's not really harder than remembering to apply DR anyway.
I kind of like that a highly skilled swordsman will now be much more effective damage-wise with a weapon than a 1st level fighter. Put the same regular, nonmagical sword in the hands of both, the 20th level fighter is rolling 1d20+20 (BAB)+4 (sword)+str (give or take), the 1st level fighter is rolling 1d20+1 (BAB)+4 (sword)+str. Against the same opponent, the master will do 20 points more damage on an average hit.
Edit: forgot the critical hit rule. Probably allow bonus rerolls equal to the bonus dice anytime you roll the d20 in the threat range. So if you are using a longsword, anytime you roll a 19 or 20, you get another d20+bonuses-defense roll. If you're using a 20/x3 weapon, then if you roll a 20, you get 2 extra rolls.
1s and 20s: If you roll a 1, 0 damage, automatically. If you roll a 20, minimum of 1 damage, even if 20+modifiers doesn't exceed their defense.
All weapons have a damage rating, equal to the average roll of their damage dice, rounded down. Longswords are 4, bastard swords 5, greatswords 7.
When you attack, roll d20 + all modifiers, including the damage rating of the weapon. Subtract the opponent's AC, the result is the damage you do.
A couple of rules would need to be tweaked:
-Power attack would reduce your defense rather than your attack bonus.
-DR gets cojoined with natural armor, and you don't have to worry about whether armor reduces your chance to be hit or chance to be damaged any more, since it's just one roll.
-Weapon Finesse applies to damage under this rule, like all attack rolls.
-Sneak attack would need to be redone, perhaps as +2 to attack for every die that would normally apply. Extra damage dice in general would be an issue.
-Weapon focus and specialization would lose their distinction. Probably just make it a chain of 5 feats that can be taken at 1st, 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th levels, each of which adds +1 to your attack with the chosen weapon.
-Two-handed weapons would probably just add 1.5x Str bonus to-hit, to keep their old ways of working.
You'll get a couple of quirks, like something with AC 15, DR 5/silver would now have defense 20, 15 versus silver, but that's not really harder than remembering to apply DR anyway.
I kind of like that a highly skilled swordsman will now be much more effective damage-wise with a weapon than a 1st level fighter. Put the same regular, nonmagical sword in the hands of both, the 20th level fighter is rolling 1d20+20 (BAB)+4 (sword)+str (give or take), the 1st level fighter is rolling 1d20+1 (BAB)+4 (sword)+str. Against the same opponent, the master will do 20 points more damage on an average hit.
Edit: forgot the critical hit rule. Probably allow bonus rerolls equal to the bonus dice anytime you roll the d20 in the threat range. So if you are using a longsword, anytime you roll a 19 or 20, you get another d20+bonuses-defense roll. If you're using a 20/x3 weapon, then if you roll a 20, you get 2 extra rolls.
1s and 20s: If you roll a 1, 0 damage, automatically. If you roll a 20, minimum of 1 damage, even if 20+modifiers doesn't exceed their defense.
Last edited:
