D&D 4E What do you want in 4E, defense and DR or straight AC?

[Cougar]

Great, thanks for taking part in the discussion (when you are able to).

Again, sorry if my jesting caused any hard feelings or confusion.

 

[takyris]

I tried to modify the system to do something like this.

1) Armor provided DR -- I ended up having it be usually a random amount, a pair of dice whose total doubled the normal armor bonus. So chain (+4 AC) gave 2d4, while a breastplate (+6 AC) gave 2d6 and full plate (+8 AC) gave 2d8.

2) Strength no longer gave a bonus to hit. It only gave a bonus to damage. Dexterity could give bonuses to hit if you had weapon finesse for the weapon.

3) On a hit, you did normal damage, plus the amount by which you hit. So a longsword that hit by 5 would do 1d8+5+Str.

4) Critical hits ignored armor DR and applied a multiple factor one less than normal (x1 for a longsword, x2 for a battle axe) to the base weapon damage only. So on a critical hit, that longsword that hit by 5 would do 1d8 +5+Str, while a battle axe that did the same would do 2d8+5+Str, ignoring armor DR in both cases.

5) Shields provided a Shield bonus to AC as well as a DR bonus.

6) Power Attack worked by subtracting one from your "to-hit" roll and adding two to your damage roll.

These were my proposed rule changes. My party unanimously told me to stuff it.

-Tacky

 

[Wormwood]

I am still having difficulty in casting a vote. I will post my opinion only after I am actually able to cast a vote. I wish to thank you for your understanding and perhaps i will be abe to vote soon.

Palm Beach or Dade County?

 

[volcivar]

Why?

We have the OGL. All a publisher has to do is create a variant rule with suggestions on how to make the conversion. A new edition is basically unnessasary(sp?).

volcivar

 

[volcivar]

Why?

We have the OGL. All a publisher has to do is create a variant rule with suggestions on how to make the conversion. A new edition is basically unnessasary(sp?).

volcivar

 

[Bendris Noulg]

If you use defense and DR then how do your spells and special qualities of magic items like armors fit in?

That's a rather general question... In what regard do you mean?

 

[Celebrim]

This question is far too complex to answer. The real answer is, c) in some styles of games it may make sence.

If you do implement armor as DR, there are enormous numbers of side effects. Just as some examples.

1) Unless you find another sourse of defence, most classes will be easier to hit.

2) You almost have to implement called shots because otherwise characters in heavy armor will be immune to characters with light weapons.

3) If you implement called shots, you almost have to implement piece wise armor, which means keeping track of each peices separate defence and damage resistance.

4) Average damage per hit will go down. This has some good sides, such as making combats longer, but forces some reblancing. Ability to do damage in a single blow becomes relatively more important than the ability to resist it (hp) and relatively more important than the number of attacks, since DR X/- effectively adds hp each time you take a hit. If you up average damage per blow to compensate, you make armor more important than ever, such that unarmored characters will probably drop after any solid hit.

Ultimately, you'd end up with the GURPS combat system, and cloning GURPS in some fashion doesn't seem to me to be a worthwhile goal. GURPS is already GURPS, and is already good at being GURPS.

The reason I'm playing D20 right now instead of GURPS is I got tired of the rules overhead of GURPS.

I wouldn't mind seeing this published (after extensive playtesting) as an option or as a setting option with suggestions how to tweak damage dice, increase defensive options other than armor, and so forth, but I think it would be a bad idea to ever switch to this as a default system. D20 has a nice nitch now. Save things like VP/WP's, armor as DR, and so forth for settings that really need them.

 

[Celebrim]

Upper Krust: Throwing around numbers is probably meaningless but...

Hit points are in general proportional to the cross sectional area of a creature or object. Let's make some assumptions about proportional size. A big dragon snout to tail is about 120' long (about the size of the longest dinosaurs). Let's assume that they are no more heavily built than average sauropods of that length (since they have the same genaral body plan), so a body weight of about 50 tons. Note that at 100,000 lb., my colossal dragon is only half the weight of your gargantuan one.

However, how do the h.p. play out? Well, lets assume for the sake of arguement that a dragon with a 40' body is as heavily built as a 50 ton scaled up human (which they wouldn't be). This implies a cross sectional area about 60 times that of a regular human. An average human takes about 14 h.p. to kill (you got to drop them to -10 remember?), so 14x62=868 h.p. That is of course a suspicious arguement because h.p. do not equal ability to absorb damage, but also the ability to avoid it. Perhaps a dragons ability to avoid damage is even higher than an average humans, but for now I'll just assume that a 50 ton critter isn't dodging anything.

Armor on the other hand scales to depth, NOT cross sectional area and certainly NOT mass. (Armor scaled up to mass would quickly weigh more than the creature it protected, needing to become 8 times thicker everytime the creatures dimensions doubled). Let's assume that dragon armor is a substance like medium armor scaled up to its size and that medium armor provides a DR of about 7, then dragon hide scales up to about DR 55. In reality, it would probably have to get thinner to allow the dragon to keep moving.

A couple of other things. Bullet damage would scale directly with mass. A bullet that is eight times heavier (all things being equal) does eight times as much damage. A 20 mm shell would riddle the above dragon, and because its massive it wouldn't even be protected (if you can call it that) by 'blow through'. A dozen 30 mm shells (a fractional burst) would probably kill it outright.

Strength is proportional to cross sectional area, not mass. Strength doubles for every 10 points. So a colossal dragon in theory has about 80 STR, not 300. Base damage for a colossal 100,000 lb. dragons attack should be around 25d6+35, with an average of about 122 damage.

So, how do you kill a 100,000 lb. dragon? Easily! With primitive weapons? Not so easily but it still probably can be done albeit at extraordinary cost. You wouldn't use anything as clumsy as a 48' balista even if it were possible to construct such a thing (which I don't think it is personally). You see, the above dragon scaled up has eyes the size of footballs. A good archer can hit a football sized target at say, 60' yards, fairly consistantly and regularly even further out. A troop of brave men could first blind the creature, as eyes have no DR. These arrows should be poisoned. It's wings are probably equally vunerable, and could be riddled next, causing it much pain and disorientation (being blind) and ultimately tearing them enough that flight was impossible. At that point it becomes a matter of time. Of course, I'm sure it would toast archers by the scores or hundreds, but human armies can number in the thousands.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Celebrim mate!

Upper Krust: Throwing around numbers is probably meaningless but...

Probably, I was just rambling out loud.

Hit points are in general proportional to the cross sectional area of a creature or object.

Absolutely.

But I think you are going to have problems utilising cross-sections to determine an overall hit point total though. Hence my adoption of the square root of the mass.

Let's make some assumptions about proportional size. A big dragon snout to tail is about 120' long (about the size of the longest dinosaurs).

Let's assume that they are no more heavily built than average sauropods of that length (since they have the same genaral body plan), so a body weight of about 50 tons. Note that at 100,000 lb., my colossal dragon is only half the weight of your gargantuan one.

Well, looking at various dragon illustrations they do seem stockier than similar length sauropods. Not to mention wings; and thicker scaling.

Incidently my gargantuan dragon was 48ft. (rather than a 32ft. 'entry level' example). However, according to the Monster Manual (pg.5)

Gargantuan Creature 32,000lbs-250,000lbs
Colossal Creature 250,000+lbs

However, how do the h.p. play out? Well, lets assume for the sake of arguement that a dragon with a 40' body is as heavily built as a 50 ton scaled up human (which they wouldn't be). This implies a cross sectional area about 60 times that of a regular human. An average human takes about 14 h.p. to kill (you got to drop them to -10 remember?), so 14x62=868 h.p.

Of course a 50 ton dragon won't be as heavily built as a 50 ton human. However a 64ft. dragon will be heavier built than a 64ft. humanoid.

Remember size doesn't incorporate the tail for dragons.

That is of course a suspicious arguement because h.p. do not equal ability to absorb damage, but also the ability to avoid it.

I would argue that they shouldn't though.

Perhaps a dragons ability to avoid damage is even higher than an average humans, but for now I'll just assume that a 50 ton critter isn't dodging anything.

Okay.

Armor on the other hand scales to depth, NOT cross sectional area and certainly NOT mass.

True. Though I was factoring that heavier (and by association stronger) creatures could wear thicker armour.

(Armor scaled up to mass would quickly weigh more than the creature it protected, needing to become 8 times thicker everytime the creatures dimensions doubled). Let's assume that dragon armor is a substance like medium armor scaled up to its size and that medium armor provides a DR of about 7, then dragon hide scales up to about DR 55. In reality, it would probably have to get thinner to allow the dragon to keep moving.

You mean the gargantuan dragon right? The colossal dragon could have armour up to DR 75 (64ft. dragon)...under those rules.

A couple of other things. Bullet damage would scale directly with mass.

Provided velocity was a constant.

A bullet that is eight times heavier (all things being equal) does eight times as much damage. A 20 mm shell would riddle the above dragon, and because its massive it wouldn't even be protected (if you can call it that) by 'blow through'. A dozen 30 mm shells (a fractional burst) would probably kill it outright.

Generally the velocity of shells is reduced the larger they are.

Strength is proportional to cross sectional area, not mass.

Yes, but as I mentioned before the cross section idea doesn't translate well to RPG mechanics.

Strength doubles for every 10 points.

Actually it doubles every 5 points in 3rd Ed. if we go by lifting capacity.

So a colossal dragon in theory has about 80 STR, not 300.

Actually a Colossal Dragon should have about STR 5120 (x512 normal human strength) using the cross-sectional method. If we apply this to the current (flawed) strength table then it works out at STR 55.

Base damage for a colossal 100,000 lb. dragons attack should be around 25d6+35, with an average of about 122 damage.

Actually if we assume a constant velocity (though there would be some reduction) then the energy (base damage) is going to be proportional to the mass (not the strength).

This represents a x8 dice multiplier/x8 mass increase. That means you are looking at a 100,000lb dragon dealing x250 base medium size damage.

To sum up:

Realistically.
- Base Damage x8/Mass x8 (given constant velocity)
- Strength x4/Mass x8
- Armour x2/Mass x8 (given relative thickness of same material)

So, how do you kill a 100,000 lb. dragon? Easily! With primitive weapons? Not so easily but it still probably can be done albeit at extraordinary cost. You wouldn't use anything as clumsy as a 48' balista even if it were possible to construct such a thing (which I don't think it is personally). You see, the above dragon scaled up has eyes the size of footballs. A good archer can hit a football sized target at say, 60' yards, fairly consistantly and regularly even further out. A troop of brave men could first blind the creature, as eyes have no DR. These arrows should be poisoned. It's wings are probably equally vunerable, and could be riddled next, causing it much pain and disorientation (being blind) and ultimately tearing them enough that flight was impossible. At that point it becomes a matter of time. Of course, I'm sure it would toast archers by the scores or hundreds, but human armies can number in the thousands.

A tricky shot on a moving dragon though. Someone could always get lucky though! Of course dragons also have Blindsight...

I do like the idea of grounding it though, by attacking the wings.

If the rules were logical you could probably write an entire book on how to best fight dragons and such-like.

 

[Dispater]

An average human takes about 14 h.p. to kill (you got to drop them to -10 remember?), so 14x62=868 h.p. That is of course a suspicious arguement because h.p. do not equal ability to absorb damage, but also the ability to avoid it. Perhaps a dragons ability to avoid damage is even higher than an average humans, but for now I'll just assume that a 50 ton critter isn't dodging anything.

There's a flaw in the above calculation - the -10 factor should not apply to hitpoints in this case, given that a dragon would also have to be dropped to -10 to be killed. So the dragon in question would have 4 hitpoints x 62 = 248.