We've seen Armor as DR - anybody do Weapons as Attack Bonus?

[Ry]

We've seen Armor as DR - anybody do Weapons as Attack Bonus?

IMC, we're weapon damage away from removing secondary damage rolls entirely. The variety comes from players having a replenishing, dependable supply of action points and feats that use action points to do stunts. But there's increasingly less and less need to have a secondary roll for damage... I've managed to avoid them in every other part of the game.

So has it been done?

 

[Pyrex]

I'm not entirely certain I follow.

Are you simply proposing un-randomzing weapon damage? (i.e. d6 == 3, d8 == 4 and so forth)

Or are you proposing an inverse-Power Attack where reducing weapon damage to a standard value adds a to-hit modifier? (i.e. d4 == d4, d6 == d4 & +1 to hit, d8 == d4 & +2 to hit)

Or something else entirely?

 

[ValhallaGH]

While I am also confused about what the question is, I think I should probably point out a few of the assumed disconnects of the AC/HP system.

Attack rolls, even critical hits, have little to do with the effectiveness of a given attack. Beyond providing an opportunity to deal damage, attack rolls are pretty meaningless in D&D and it's children.
The effectiveness of all attacks is summarized in their damage rolls and how that damage relates to the target's hp. Against some targets, 15 damage is a devastating and nearly fatal amount of damage; against other targets, 15 damage won't even break the skin.

If I'm interpreting correctly, you're asking if anyone has removed damage rolls entirely by folding the weapon in as a bonus to the attack.
If that's your question then the answer is yes: White Wolf.
The World of Darkness has used such a mechanic for a very long time; weapons give bonus dice on attack rolls (in addition to the dice pool granted by skills and traits). Similarly, armor and defense ratings remove dice from your attacker's pool. Each success on the attack translates into another point of damage to the target; no human can have more than 11 health and high powered attackers will have as much as 16 dice in their pools, allowing anyone to kill anyone with a (single) successful enough attack.
How this could possibly be translated to d20 is beyond me. The closest I can envision is a Toughness Save ala Blue Rose/True20/Mutants and Masterminds. That has an attack roll followed by a defender's toughness save against the damage dealt.

If I'm not interpreting correctly then clarity is greatly appreciated.

 

[takyris]

I played around with something like this. What I did was, more or less:

No more randomized damage based on weapon value. Instead, every weapon has a given damage multiplier based on its original damage:

1d4 = x0.5
1d6 = x1.0
1d8 = x1.5
1d10+ = x2

Your damage is calculated by multiplying the amount by which you hit by this multiplier. So if you need a 12 to hit, and you get a 21 and were using a longsword, that's 9 (amount by which you hit) times 1.5 (for longsword) = 13 points damage.

For this system, Power Attack needs to be tweaked or removed, and you choose (as the GM making the rules) whether to have Strength add to attacks (increasing the odds of a hit and the odds of damage) or just damage (increasing the damage dealt once a hit is achieved). I like the former (attacks, not damage), but the latter lets you still do a bit of damage when you hit by 0.

 

[Pyrex]

1d4 = x0.5
1d6 = x1.0
1d8 = x1.5
1d10+ = x2

Why such hate for Daggers?

In the hands of Hercules a Greataxe should certainly do more damage than a Dagger, but 4x as much? Seems a bit extreme

What about the following: Static damage bonuses remain the same; weapon damage is the amount by which you hit to a maximum of the weapon die value.

i.e,; If you roll exactly the opponent's AC, both the dagger and the greataxe deal only thier static bonus damage (Str, weapon specialization, etc)

If you beat the opponent's AC by 14, the dagger does 4+bonus and the greataxe does 12+bonus.

That way you've eliminated the damage roll, and the greataxe still noticably outdamages the dagger, but no longer does so by a factor of 4.

 

[takyris]

Why such hate for Daggers?

Base damage of a dagger = 2.5, and base damage of a greataxe = 6.5. Not quadruple, no, but sizeable as differences go.

In the hands of Hercules a Greataxe should certainly do more damage than a Dagger, but 4x as much? Seems a bit extreme.

It's been awhile since I tinkered with this system, and I don't have the numbers handy. I could well be off -- or I might not have balanced it well to begin with.

I do remember that I liked the idea of using fractions that were closer together, but "half" ws about what I thought I could trust my players to do on the spur of the moment. I would've been great with:

1d4: x1
1d6: x1 1/3
1d8: x1 2/3
1d10+" x2

But I'm not sure the average guy or gal at the table can do 2/3 easily, and 2/3 is what the average person with a one-handed weapon is gonna have to do on every hit.

What about the following: Static damage bonuses remain the same; weapon damage is the amount by which you hit to a maximum of the weapon die value.

i.e,; If you roll exactly the opponent's AC, both the dagger and the greataxe deal only thier static bonus damage (Str, weapon specialization, etc)

I don't like this unless you're doing something to increase hit points or decrease damage (armor as DR, for example). There's a whole lot of damage creep right there when you're adding "hit by" damage to "base weapon" damage.

I like adding Strength, specialization, and other miscellaneous bonuses after the fact -- that's less that gets multiplied.

 

[Pyrex]

I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not *adding* hit-by to base-weapon, I'm *replacing* base-weapon with hit-by.

What I'm proposing is that base weapon damage only serves to limit the max amount of damage you gain by hitting really well; all it does is folds the weapon damage into the attack roll. Max damage this way is exactly the same as in the RAW.

14 Str Ftr-4 with a Dagger, Wpn Focus and Wpn Spec would ordinarily do d4+4 damage with +7 to hit.

What I'm proposing is that you roll change the damage calculation (on a successful hit) to MIN(ATK-AC, 4)+4.

So if you roll 5+7=12 against a target with AC 10, you deal MIN(2, 4)+4 == 2+4 == 6 damage

If you roll 18+7=25 against a target with AC 10 you deal MIN(15,4)+4 == 4+4 == 8 damage.

If instead the same fighter was wielding a Greataxe (originally d12 + 1.5*Str) it would be:

Roll 5+7=12 against AC 10: MIN(2, 12)+5 = 2+5 = 7 damage
Roll 18+7=25 against AC 10: MIN(15,12)+5 = 12+5 = 17 damage.

The min and max damage for the Dagger and Greataxe thus remain exactly the same*, but you've eliminated the damage roll by folding it into the attack roll.

*The Min and Max remain the same, but the average skews a bit as the dagger-wielder only needs to beat the defenders AC by 4 to reach max damage whereas the Greataxe wielder needs to beat the defenders AC by 12 to reach max damage, but as the Greataxe has a higher damage potential anyway that really doesn't bother me.

 

[ValhallaGH]

How would this system interact with "Only on a twenty" attacks?

For example, your dagger wielder is attacking someone with a 30 AC. He rolls that sweet natural 20 (20 + 7 = 27). How much damage is dealt? Minimum, maximum, average or something else?

 

[Pyrex]

Only your bonuses would apply; effectively you've rolled 0 on your base-weapon-damage dice. So the dagger wielder above would deal 4 damage.

 

[boredgremlin]

I used a system once where weapons addes a bonus to your attack rolls equal to thier average damage value and you did 1pt of damage to your enemy for every 2 pts you beat his AC by.
So attacks were
BAB+STR+WPN VALUE+MISC (feats, spells, etc)

And damage was !/2 rounded down of the amount you beat thier AC by.

We also tried it where damage was equal to the amount you beat them by but that turned into a slaughter fest, any lucky roll wound up lopping of limbs at the lower levels.

Oh and we used a rule where a natural 20 counted as a 20 and then you re-rolled and added the new roll to the original 20. So a "critical hit" was still very brutal. Everyone really liked how damage scaled with skill not just magical gear. We also used armor as DR and had a class and level based Defense bonus to AC instead.