toughness change

[Grayhawk]

I swapped Toughness out for Sturdy, from Arcana Unearthed -- Sturdy rocks, and it's everything that Toughness should have been.

What does it do?

 

[Staffan]

What does it do?

It doubles your Con bonus for a specific level, with a minimum total of +4. That's a bit weird, because the benefit varies in a strange way with your Con bonus:

[COLOR=burlywood]
Con bonus   HP bonus   Feat benefit
-1           +4        5 hp
0            +4        4 hp
+1           +4        3 hp
+2           +4        2 hp
+3           +6        3 hp
+4           +8        4 hp
+5          +10        5 hp
+6          +12        6 hp[/COLOR]

This means that for most characters (I think most players consider Con an important stat but not the most important, and thus it will likely be in the +1 to +3 range), Sturdy is as bad or worse than Toughness.

 

[haiiro]

It doubles your Con bonus for a specific level, with a minimum total of +4. That's a bit weird, because the benefit varies in a strange way with your Con bonus:

That's an interesting breakdown, and a good point -- particularly that for a character with a +2 CON modifier, Sturdy is a waste of a feat. An alternate take on Sturdy that would get around this problem (and seems true to its intent):

"You gain an amount of hit points equal to your Con modifier, or 4 hit points, whichever is higher."

That way, Sturdy is always better than Toughness (a good thing), and if you happen to have a Con over 18 it still provides a nice scaling benefit. I may wind up adopting this change -- what do you think of it?

 

[Technik4]

This means that for most characters (I think most players consider Con an important stat but not the most important, and thus it will likely be in the +1 to +3 range), Sturdy is as bad or worse than Toughness.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems Sturdy is as always better than Toughness, and sometimes significantly so. I think I personally like the variant suggest above, where it stacks with your Fort Save. Another option would be to model it after "Mind Over Body" from FRCS, allow double CON for bonus hp. This means a first level dwarf with 20 Con could take a feat for 10 (!) bonus hp. Of course for the first level elf wizard with 12 Con its only 2.

That seems to be the problem with modifying Toughness. Toughness is excellent if taken at first level and you are in a class with a d4 or d6 HD. You are getting at least 50% more hp for 1 feat. For higher HD it is less useful, since it is a smaller percentage. Again, those 3 hp will keep mattering to a wizard (or a multi-wizard) as Andy Collins (I think) suggested, if you keep track of how many times you go down to 1 hp (with Toughness) then you should consider it valuable, because without it, you would be unconscious (and then maybe dead). The same applies if you've been to -9 (with Toughness), without it you would have been at -12.

The feat is designed to be taken by people with low HD, but it often pops up in requirements for "fighter" prcs. Fighter prcs should have a feat like Sturdy (or one based off of Fort) as a pre-req, since those feats are designed to help fighters. Toughness is always a great pick for a 1st level wizard, so it should also remain.

Technik

 

[Staffan]

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems Sturdy is as always better than Toughness, and sometimes significantly so.

Um, no. Someone with Con 14 or 15 only gains 2 hp from Sturdy, and someone with 12, 13, 16 or 17 gets the same 3 hp they'd get from Toughness. Outside of the 12-17 range, Sturdy is better - but IME most characters do fall in that range.

 

[Technik4]

Ah, I was looking at the wrong column! I guess that is pretty weird. I'm not sure how much sense it makes that an 8 Con Wizard and a 20 Con Warrior get the same bonus from a feat, while a 12 Con Rogue gets substantially less. Weird.

At any rate, my latest "Alt.Toughness" is kinda fun. It is as Toughness (+3 hp) but whenever you roll a '1' on your HD for leveling up you gain +3 hp immediately. This way its still useful in its most basic use (helping low con/low hd starting characters) but it has a use for anyone who finds themselves down on their luck. Naturally in campaigns where 1's are often flubbed, this feat may not work properly, but oh well (it also makes up for that measly d4!).

Technik

 

[dok]

My toughness variant is as follows:

It still grants +3 HP, but additionally, a character with toughness is considered disabled from 0 to -3 hp, and does not actually die until -13 hp (instead of -10). Taking toughness multiple times (or using the MotW toughness feats) increases the Disabled/Dead limits accordingly.

Ironically, the monsters most commonly having Toughness (constructs & undead) are unaffected by this change, since they are destroyed at 0 hp.

 

[Waylander]

My only problem with replacing Toughness with Sturdy is that I always felt Toughness was a feat aimed at low HD classes. To give them a bump start in Hps at early levels.

A feat like Sturdy, magnifies the differences (in that characters in the more martial classes are the ones likely to have high CON).

 

[Spyritwind]

It's amazing how perceptions and experience is so different with different groups of people. I have never seen any one take the toughness feat and I personaly never will; even if I play an arcane spell caster. If I die I die. Three hit points is nothing. Sure, it looks great on paper at first or second level for a Wiz or Sorc, but it the long haul I just don't see the value. I'd rather die at a low level and start over than have even a mid level character and think .... man ... I wasted a feat on that!

To each their own though. I go with plus one hp per level for the life of the char and cannot be taken multiple times. People some times actualy take it then. I'm not sure how some think it's unbalancing, but apparently it's true. At tenth level what creature are you fighting that only does three hit points of damage? At the first level or two toughness means you can take one more hit on average most of the time. At tenth level it no longer has that same effect. Some times ten hit points is a little high for some creatures you may fight at tenth level, but for many it is not too high at all. To me with the plus one per level rule all you are doing is allowing the feat to retain it's effectiveness through the life of your character.

Whith toughness the way it is an argument could be made for taking dodge instead. An additional five percent miss chance per combat round or ... three hit points per encounter? Hmmm? To each their own though.

 

[Klaatu B. Nikto]

Re: Re: toughness change

+1/level is used in Neverwinter Nights & works ok. NB it can't be taken multiple times.

It's also used in Knights of the Old Republic, also by Bioware. But spending a second feat reduces damage by 2 each round and a third feat grants another +1/level.