Using NWN rules in PnP

[Eternalknight]

Do you think there would be a problem with using the rules in NWN as a replacement, or in addition to, the PnP D&D rules?

*Animal Empathy to dominate certain creatures
*The Discipline skill
*Knowledge (lore) to identify magical items
*The Parry skill
*The Set Trap skill
*The Called Shot feat
*Power Attack adding +5 to damage and -5 to attack
*The Knockdown feat (similar to trip, I suppose)
*The Sap feat
*Sill Focus adding +3 to a skill (most ppl already doing this)
*Toughness adding +1hp/level

 

[fba827]

*Animal Empathy to dominate certain creatures

No comment on this one just yet - will think about it.

*The Discipline skill

Could work quite nicely. Would require changes to how you did trip and disarm (and any other actions I am missing?)

*Knowledge (lore) to identify magical items

Not that it is a bad idea - but you do deminis the effectiveness and value of things like the Identify spell (and some of those other divinations). If you went this route, you'd probably want to add to what Identify and those other spells reveal or make them less costly/time consuming/etc -- ie. give them a reason to exist if people can know these things from learned lore rather than spells.

*The Parry skill

I like this one and was considering doing the same myself. Note, you'd probably want to get rid of the Expertise feat since that would be basically usless... (and you'd have to look at any feats that relay on the expertise feat as a prerequisite - though, many of them are the improved disarm, improved trip, etc that you'll be doing with the knockdown, etc)

*The Set Trap skill

One of the books refers to a Profession (trapmaker) or Craft (traps) -- can't recal which. I am sure you can use that skill title to do the exact same thing - simply a matter of the name you want to give it, I suppose.

*The Called Shot feat

No comment on this one just yet - will think about it.

*Power Attack adding +5 to damage and -5 to attack

I like this alternative to the current one - it just makes the calculations more cut and dry by taking away the vairable possibilities... Simpler is usually better and in this case it wouldn't change the effectiveness of the feat too much.

*The Knockdown feat (similar to trip, I suppose)

Yes, same as Trip (more or less) so if you go with this, you'll want to take out Trip (and Improved Trip for Improved Knockdown)

*The Sap feat

Never seen it in action - so no comments on it.

*Sill Focus adding +3 to a skill (most ppl already doing this)

Go for it. It gets annoying when half the supplementry books have feats that give +2 to TWO skills... so why a feat that just gives +2 to one skill. So, go for it.

*Toughness adding +1hp/level

While I like this option and have been toying with doing just this. I keep coming back to one main reason not to....
The way I understand feats, they were originally designed under the concept that they are things that a character can do / has. To implement this new(/change) feat Toughness, you'll be breaking that core concept; the core concept being that this isn't supposed to be something that increases with level but rather something that the character either has or doesn't have.



Anyway, just my rambles. Hopefully there are some insights scattered in there to help out somehow.

 

[drowdude]

Heh, methink this should be in House Rules

 

[drowdude]

Told ya so

 

[Eternalknight]

Told ya so

Congrats on your 500th post, by the way. fba827: I too like the way Power Attack works. I am thinking about applying this to Expertise as well. I like Sap; I think it could work quite easily. However, one of the requisites is the Called Shot feat - this isn't a problem for me as I already have a Called Shot feat in my campaign.

 

[KarinsDad]

I really like the Knowledge Lore and the Toughness feat.

I forget what the Discipline skill is though (since my character didn't take it).

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

My take on these:

*The Discipline skill
*The Parry skill
Discipline and Parry skills: These are a poor idea given the way 3e's normal skill system works. Fighters have a hard enough time doing anything out of combat already without adding two new combat skills to cut into their already paltry 2 skill points per level.

This would also dramatically reduce the combat ability of non-fighter classes since most of them don't have discipline as a class skill and would therefore have no defense against disarm attempts.

*The Knockdown feat (similar to trip, I suppose)
This is rather unnecessary as D&D already has the trip option which is very similar. The knockdown feat as presented in Sword and Fist is generally superior anyway. That being said, however, I believe that the Improved Knockdown feat from NWN could be adapted to pnp D&D very well. Right now there's no way other to increase your chances to trip other than increasing your strength and using a weapon like a flail that gives a bonus to trip attempts. A feat that gave a +2 or +4 bonus to opposed trip rolls might be an interesting alternative.

*The Called Shot feat
This would add an interesting dimension to the game and would probably work better in pnp D&D than NWN (where I've found it pretty useless). It should have expertise as a prerequisite though.

*The Sap feat
I don't see this breaking anything.

*Power Attack adding +5 to damage and -5 to attack
If you really want to reduce power attack to "the prerequisite for cleave" this is the way to do it. Very rarely in pnp games (at least below 9th level or so) is it advantageous to take a power attack of 5. (Unless it's in combination with True Strike. . . .) However, power attacks of 1, 2, or 3 are often advantageous. Eliminating the flexibility of the pnp feat would dramatically reduce its usefulness.

*Animal Empathy to dominate certain creatures
I don't see this as being a very good idea. A character shouldn't have more control over a creature through animal empathy than he gets over an animal companion. Nor should animal empathy yield loyalty equal to Animal Friendship.

*Knowledge (lore) to identify magical items
This wouldn't break anything. However, since Lore is a stand in for all knowledge skills in NWN, it would be better to simply assign this function to various knowledge skills depending upon the item (knowledge religion to identify a greater holy symbol or incense of invocation or a necklace of prayer beads, knowledge: the planes to identify a cubic gate, knowledge: nature to identify a staff of the woodlands, and maybe knowledge: Arcana to identify most things (although at a -5 penalty if a more specific knowledge would be more appropriate).

*The Set Trap skill
This one seems to go with NWN's trap kits which seem silly in some cases. Most traps in my D&D games require either item creation feats (for magical traps) or profession (architect) skills (for pit traps, spike traps through the floor, etc). They're generally more of an investment in construction than simply placing a generic (Weak spike kit). Other traps like snares and deadfalls that might be used for hunting game, I'd allow Wilderness Lore to set.

*Sill Focus adding +3 to a skill (most ppl already doing this)
This is a good idea IMHO (although who'd take combat casting when skill focus: concentration could get them +3 to the same check and a half dozen others?)

*Toughness adding +1hp/level
This is a better way of handling toughness than the core rules. I'm not sure it would be balanced if characters were permitted to take it more than once though. . . .

 

[Cheiromancer]

What does NWN and PnP mean?

-Cheiromancer the Confused

 

[mikebr99]

What does NWN and PnP mean?

-Cheiromancer the Confused

'Neverwinter Nights' & 'Pen and paper'

 

[drowdude]

Congrats on your 500th post, by the way.

Heh, thankx


I would comment more, but I havent played NWN so I have no real frame of reference.