To face or not to face...

[GaimMastr]

Balance Couterbalance

You see Shields as effective? IME they are far surpassed by two-handed weapon and power attack ortwo weapon fighting and crit fishing.


As for the spring attacking rogue, it is not just a fair turnabout. A fighter gains a +2 bonus to attacks when attacking from the rear. The rogue gains the same bonus and a hefty damage bonus. Since the rogue and fighter now only get to make one attack each round due to moving, the rogue will now often defeat the fighter in single combat. Thats not turnabout, but rolereversal.

To move a shield to block a blow is more difficult than armors ability to take a strike from a weapon. But if I wanted that kind or armor complexity I'd use Rolemaster.

In my counter-balance, I use strict interpretation of AoO's. So if a Fighter has 4 AoO's and the rogue triggers all of them, then that's pretty fair. What I found more OP from my experience is like auto-tumble. The ability to do retarded tumbles all over the place in, under, over around and/or through an enemy square or obstructed portion thereof. But in the same token a heavily armored fighter could do the same assuming he had some supernatural way of getting the proper skill points to pump into ranks.

---RESOLVED--- Strict AoO's

Two kinds of actions can provoke attacks of opportunity: moving out of a threatened square and performing an action within a threatened square.

 

[monboesen]

To move a shield to block a blow is more difficult than armors ability to take a strike from a weapon. But if I wanted that kind or armor complexity I'd use Rolemaster.

In my counter-balance, I use strict interpretation of AoO's. So if a Fighter has 4 AoO's and the rogue triggers all of them, then that's pretty fair. What I found more OP from my experience is like auto-tumble. The ability to do retarded tumbles all over the place in, under, over around and/or through an enemy square or obstructed portion thereof. But in the same token a heavily armored fighter could do the same assuming he had some supernatural way of getting the proper skill points to pump into ranks.

---RESOLVED--- Strict AoO's

Two kinds of actions can provoke attacks of opportunity: moving out of a threatened square and performing an action within a threatened square.

Doesnt change the fact that your rules makes shields a bad option, even though shields have been the norm in real life in most fighting cultures. IMO you undervalue the defensive worth of a shield a lot.


As for AoO and spring attack. The opponent you attack dont get any, so your house rule doesnt make a difference.

And the rogue is more likely to have 4 AoO than the fighter, as it requires 18 dex and a feat to get those. Most Fighters will have 1 maybe 2 AoO if they take combat reflexes.

 

[GaimMastr]

Value Judgements

Doesnt change the fact that your rules makes shields a bad option, even though shields have been the norm in real life in most fighting cultures. IMO you undervalue the defensive worth of a shield a lot.


As for AoO and spring attack. The opponent you attack dont get any, so your house rule doesnt make a difference.

"Doesnt change the fact that your rules makes shields a bad option".. Is a value judgement. Shields in the real world were used for a specific set of combat maneuvers and the fact that they give you a static benefit against all typical combat attacks is in and of itself a bit OP. Having to designate the specific uses of the shield is not a matter of my opinion it is by design of the flanking system for it to be functional within the mechanic.

As for Spring Attack, you still provoke AoO's from everyone else, just not the target of your spring attack. Which leaves you vulnerable to potentially a LOT of them. As for it being the one tactic that can get through my house rule, that was intentional. Most of my games rarely last past Lv11 or 12, With only 1 exception, my evil campaign. I run slow progression games and the fact that Spring attack requires a mess of prereqs is in and of itself a counterbalance. Of the party members I usually have had only 1 or 2 of them have it anyway, since there's really only 1 or 2 melee DPS/MEATSHIELD in any given party anyway.

 

[monboesen]

I think we will just have to agree that we disagree.


But if you want opinions about specific rules another time it would be helpful and productive is you presented the actual rules you use.


Asking about our opinion on the UA rules is kind of meaningless when you actually use a heavily modified version of them.

 

[GaimMastr]

No links yet.

I think we will just have to agree that we disagree.


But if you want opinions about specific rules another time it would be helpful and productive is you presented the actual rules you use.


Asking about our opinion on the UA rules is kind of meaningless when you actually use a heavily modified version of them.

I would post a link to the thread I posted on my house rules but it won't let me post links yet. You'll have to take my word for it and search up my other posts.