Super-simple damage mechanic

[Ry]

In my other thread I'm working on incorporating damage into the attack roll. This is my first attempt.

Equipment
To get rid of secondary damage rolls (see Combat), we need to change how weapons and armor work.

Weapons:One-handed simple weapons deal 2 points of damage (+ Str modifier)

Then change based on the following:
Martial +2
2-handed +2
Ranged -1
Small -1
Finessble -1
Reach -1
Exotic +2
Mastrwrk +1

Non-thrown ranged weapons don’t give Strength bonuses unless they’re Mighty (Crossbows not at all)

Players should record how much damage they do on a successful hit (weapon damage plus Strength modifier, in most cases) and then divide the value by 2 to get the Extra Damage value (round down). Neither value (damage or Extra Damage) can be less than 1.

Option: Reduce the damage by 1 to get a +2 bonus to the Extra Damage value.

Shields:
Shields give +1 or +2 bonuses to Defense actions, depending on their size.

Armor:
Armor reduces damage on successful attacks, equal to the AC bonus it would grant divided by 2 (rounded down).

Combat

Ignore this, it has to do with turning everything into skills: (Attacks are made with the weapon group skills, and resisted with the Defense group skills.)

If an attack equals or exceeds the opposing Defense, then it deals damage. Damage is calculated based on the chart above, and modified by Strength (except for certain ranged weapons, that get no modifier).

For each 4 points by which the Attack defeats the Defense, deal the Extra Damage.

If the Attack defeats the Defense by 10 or more, it also ignores damage reduction due to Armor.

Natural 20s in combat are treated as 30
Natural 1s in combat are treated as -10

 

[azmodean]

How did you arrive at the number 4 as the target for getting extra damage?
Any thoughts on modifying power attack so it is not totally nerfed by this?
Why do you add one to the damage of a weapon for it being masterwork? The +1 to attack gives you a better chance to deal extra damage already.
One handed simple weapons with no modifiers deal 3.5 damage on average (1d6), wouldn't it be better to have the base damage be at least 3?
There should probably be a damage penalty for weapons with better crit properties, such as x3, x4, 19+, and 18+ unless you are dropping the crit rules.

Here's a slightly more exotic, but easier to keep track of idea.
Change the AC equation to 5 + modifiers instead of 10 + modifiers.
Only determine the extra damage of your weapon.
Deal the extra damage per 5 points the attack roll beats the AC by.
If you would have scored a "normal" hit (hit, but no extra damage) with the old system, you would score two units of extra damage with this system.
This system makes combat even more lethal, as near-misses in the old system will now deal "half" damage.
On the other hand, it makes the damage dealt a smooth progression.
If you wanted to really go crazy, you could just divide the extra damage by 4 or five, and assign that much damage per point the AC is exceeded, but that would start getting "funny" with low damage weapons, as well as making small improvements to damage pointless.

 

[Ry]

You definitely have a point for the base damage; I think I'll up it to 3.

Also I'll change Masterwork back to not giving a damage bonus. That was just dumb.

I picked the number 4 out of the blue - 5 is probably just as workable (especially if you use the critical hits mechanic, below). Now one key thing about the other system is that Defense actions are keeping pace with Attack actions. So the AC change thing won't work unless I give -5s to defenders, which I'd rather not (no other mechanics have such penalties).

Power attack will probably just be removed from the system.

I was going to use the following as an option for critical hits: If you want your weapon to have better crits, then (after all other factors are worked in, and Extra Damage is calculated) take another -1 to damage, and get +2 to the Extra Damage.

 

[Planesdragon]

super simple?

Y'know, that's not simple at all.

"super simple" would be to give each weapon a flat damage value equal to half its die size, and use the standard rules as-written. So instead of your fighter doing 1d8+4 damage with each hit, he just always does 8 damage when he hits and 16 (insead of 2d8+8) on criticals.

If you wanted to be Storytelling-simple, take the numbers you have, toss HP, and give each character a number of wounds equal to their hit dice size + 1 / level. Roll your attack, subtract every AC bonus the opponent has, and divide by ten to get the number of "wounds" you inflict. 1 is an automatic failure, critical threats are an immediate second roll with some weapons inflicting an automatic bonus wound on a critical hit. (i.e., x3 means one additional wound on a crit, x4 means two additional wounds on a crit.)

(Feel free to play around with the wounds if you want, of course. You're tossing D&D's balance out the window in any case.)

 

[Arkhandus]

Let's see...by your system, as-is, but with the increased base damage of 3....using 3.5 the following weapons would deal....
Anyone's unarmed strike (whether tiny, medium, colossal, or anything else, 3.5 doesn't differentiate in size category) 1 damage (base 3, -1 Light, -1 Finessable)
Dagger 1 damage (minimum 1; base 3, -1 Light, -1 Finessable, -1 Ranged)
Light Mace 1 damage (base 3, -1 Light, -1 Finessable)
Shortspear 2 damage (base 3, -1 Ranged)
Spear 5 damage (base 3, +2 Two-Handed)
Longspear 4 damage (base 3, +2 Two-Handed, -1 Reach)
Dart 2 damage (base 3, -1 Ranged)
Heavy Crossbow 2 damage (base 3, -1 Ranged)
Short Sword 3 damage (base 3, +2 Martial, -1 Light, -1 Finessable)
Throwing Axe 2 damage (base 3, +2 Martial, -1 Light, -1 Finessable, -1 Ranged)
Battleaxe 5 damage (base 3, +2 Martial)
Rapier 4 damage (base 3, +2 Martial, -1 Finessable)
Heavy Pick 5 damage (base 3, +2 Martial)
Falchion 7 damage (base 3, +2 Martial, +2 Two-Handed)
Glaive 6 damage (base 3, +2 Martial, +2 Two-Handed, -1 Reach)
Longbow 4 damage (base 3, +2 Martial, -1 Ranged)
Shortbow 4 damage (base 3, +2 Martial, -1 Ranged)

Change the Small penalty to Light, as that's the term in 3.5. The damage penalty for ranged weapons probably should only apply to those which are also normally useable in melee, such as daggers, throwing axes, light hammers, clubs, shortspears, and so on. You'll have to do something with ranged weapons to differentiate between sizes, because 3.5 took away weapon sizes for ranged weapons (at least, for the most part). With your system, there's no difference between a scythe, a falchion, a greatsword, or a greatclub damage-wise, yet they each have very different secondary properties (scythe with great crit, falchion great threat range, greatclub nothing great whatsoever).... Nor between a shortbow and a longbow, or a dart and a heavy crossbow.

You definately need to come up with damage modifiers for such things as threat range, critical multiplier, special uses/bonuses (i.e. heavy flails, whips, spiked chains, etc.), and the like. The default threat/crit for stuff is 20/x2, so anything better than that should earn a damage penalty or something in this system. Why bother wielding a greatsword or battleaxe when you can have a falchion or scythe, eh? I mean, they all deal the same damage in this system, but the falchion and scythe are clearly superior to other two-handed martial weapons otherwise.

Maybe someone will notice now one of the reasons I despise 3.5 weapon sizing rules? {:^D

 

[Aaron2]

"super simple" would be to give each weapon a flat damage value equal to half its die size, and use the standard rules as-written. So instead of your fighter doing 1d8+4 damage with each hit, he just always does 8 damage when he hits and 16 (insead of 2d8+8) on criticals.

Take the average weapon damage and divide it by 5. That's your Damage. Take everyone's character and divide their HPs by 5, that's their Wounds. That's similar to what the D&D miniature game does. Using the attack roll to affect the damage value is just as much (if not more) of a PITA as rolling damage. If you use the attack roll, the player has to know the monster's exact AC in order to calculate how much damage he did. This is often something the DM doesn't want the players to know so the DM is forced to do the calculation every single time while the player sits there doing nothing. I prefer to tell the player they hit and then while the player is rolling his damage I'm working on resolving the next character's actions.

Aaron

 

[Ry]

Hmm... good point.

But I don't think subtraction or division are particularly easy mechanics to use either.

 

[Planesdragon]

Take the average weapon damage and divide it by 5. That's your Damage. Take everyone's character and divide their HPs by 5, that's their Wounds. That's similar to what the D&D miniature game does.

Ugh. I think that takes it too far. Why would I want a longsword and a dagger to have the same damage? Why would I want to change the scale of numbers I use for everything in the game?

rycanada just wanted to get rid of the damgae roll. Easiest way to do that is to just not roll and assume slightly less than average damage: you take the lower number becase 1/2 hps are a PITA, and lack of randomness works in the party's favor (so lean towards conservation rather than deadliness.)

But I don't think subtraction or division are particularly easy mechanics to use either.

They aren't. Division especially.

Which is why you could toss out variable damage from wounds, convert all damage modifiers to attack roll modifiers (which you've already done/started to do), and have each successful hit just be a "hit".

Or, if you do want the chance for multiple wounds from one attack roll, you want to keep the division simple. Which is why you want to use 10s or 5s: dividing by them is simple. (Quick, divide these numbers by 10: 35, 17, 20. Since you always drop fractions in D&D, the answer's simple: 1, 3, 1, and 2. Dividing by 5 is almost as simple, for the same reason: 2, 7, 3, and 4)

You're right about subtraction being harder than addition, though. But a typical D&D session already has a good deal of addition and subtraction: attack roll penalties, damage resistance, and, of course, damage from hit point pools. Addition and subtraction of two-digit numbers is a core player skill, and calculators are cheap enough for those who can't manage.

OTOH, Aaron2 has a good point: allowing multiple hits from a high attack roll requires either the PCs to know the AC of whatever they're trying to hit, or for the DM to do a lot of math. Not that the game breaks down if the PCs know how hard a time they're having fighting their opponents or anything.

 

[Ry]

I think flat damage is definitely the way to go - but as you (Planesdragon) pointed out, I don't need to re-write the weapon rules to get there. For base damage, I'll just keep average weapon damage (rounded down).

The big question is if I can still give extra damage on higher rolls - which I would like to (perhaps in place of the critical hit mechanic).

When the steps are 5 points, I think comparison (rather than addition/subtraction) isn't that bad. At least for my part, I often use those kind of thresholds when describing hits - say the player needs a 17 to hit:
Player: "18!" (just a hit)
DM: "Smack."
Player: "24!" (hit by 5 or more)
DM: "Ooh... Crunch."
Player 3: "27!" (hit by 10 or more)
DM: "Yikes!"

 

[Aaron2]

Ugh. I think that takes it too far. Why would I want a longsword and a dagger to have the same damage? Why would I want to change the scale of numbers I use for everything in the game?

I would never do it this way, I was just making a suggestion. I'd use average damage before. However, what I'd really want to use is use the M&M/Blue Rose damage model. That's a major change, however.

Not that the game breaks down if the PCs know how hard a time they're having fighting their opponents or anything.

My concern would be Power Attack. If the PC's know all their opponent's ACs, they will always be using the optimal amount.


Aaron