Hi,
I'm new to the forums here other than an occasional browse or search to see if anyone has covered issues that come up in the course of a campaign. It's a good forum though, so I thought this would be a good place to pose a question.
My friend and I had a good debate at lunch about penalties vs. bonuses in D&D. It all started with an agreement that we get kind of tired of battles where characters and NPCs stand and swing at one another until one of them drops. This is certainly oversimplified, but I'm sure you can see what I mean. So, what we wanted to do was to figure out a reasonable way to encourage players to use certain options and to try to get them to use the environment to their advantage or to their foe's disadvantage. This could be by jumping up on a table, or picking a certain type of attack over others. The idea is to make the fights more memorable and cinematic. I wanted to see what you guys think.
Here is the scenario - a fighter is lying on his back (prone) and a beast is running up on him, ready to have lunch. In this particular case, his best option is obviously to use his feet to kick the thing back as an opportunity attack when it gets in range.
Option 1: Character is at the standard -4 to attacks because he is prone. There is no special consideration for a "best" attack option.
Option 2: Character is at -4 for all attack options, but receives a +2 attack bonus to his kick for the circumstance, leaving him at a total of -2.
Option 3: The kick remains at -4, the standard penalty, but the character receives a -2 penalty for all other attack options, making them -6.
Granted, there is no right answer, just opinion, but options 2 and 3 encourage the fighter to kick and heave the beast back but in different ways. My friend and I have taken opposite stances, one of us choosing option 2, one option 3. I don't want to influence anyone, so I won't say which is my choice. What should you do as DM and WHY?
I'm also partucularly intersested in seeing if people prefer penalties or bonuses in general. Typically, I feel they accomplish the same thing, just through different mechanisms.
Thanks,
Jixan
I'm new to the forums here other than an occasional browse or search to see if anyone has covered issues that come up in the course of a campaign. It's a good forum though, so I thought this would be a good place to pose a question.
My friend and I had a good debate at lunch about penalties vs. bonuses in D&D. It all started with an agreement that we get kind of tired of battles where characters and NPCs stand and swing at one another until one of them drops. This is certainly oversimplified, but I'm sure you can see what I mean. So, what we wanted to do was to figure out a reasonable way to encourage players to use certain options and to try to get them to use the environment to their advantage or to their foe's disadvantage. This could be by jumping up on a table, or picking a certain type of attack over others. The idea is to make the fights more memorable and cinematic. I wanted to see what you guys think.
Here is the scenario - a fighter is lying on his back (prone) and a beast is running up on him, ready to have lunch. In this particular case, his best option is obviously to use his feet to kick the thing back as an opportunity attack when it gets in range.
Option 1: Character is at the standard -4 to attacks because he is prone. There is no special consideration for a "best" attack option.
Option 2: Character is at -4 for all attack options, but receives a +2 attack bonus to his kick for the circumstance, leaving him at a total of -2.
Option 3: The kick remains at -4, the standard penalty, but the character receives a -2 penalty for all other attack options, making them -6.
Granted, there is no right answer, just opinion, but options 2 and 3 encourage the fighter to kick and heave the beast back but in different ways. My friend and I have taken opposite stances, one of us choosing option 2, one option 3. I don't want to influence anyone, so I won't say which is my choice. What should you do as DM and WHY?
I'm also partucularly intersested in seeing if people prefer penalties or bonuses in general. Typically, I feel they accomplish the same thing, just through different mechanisms.
Thanks,
Jixan
