What's up with "d4-3"?
- Thread starter Phaedrus
- Start date
I recall having seen the same thing before (small viper does 1d2-2 bite damage), but this is simply a reflection of it's strength score of 6, or -2 modifier. Even though, as written, it can do 1 damage only (unless it's ruled you can do zero damage with such things, don't know), it's that way, so that if a DM wanted a very strong or "magically enhanced" small viper (no, really, follow me here), then you'd have the base damage and ability modifier to work with. A +4 to strength to it would make the damage 1d2, but if it were written "1 damage", then it'd be 3 damage after the modified strength, presumably not as accurate. I think I explained what I was trying to explain, not sure.
Ferox4
First Post
Darklone said:If you cast spells like enlarge, bulls strength, magic fang or others on your familiar as well have a bard in the party, it makes a huge difference.
Lookout! Here comes the small (enlarged from tiny), fanged toad (plodding along at 5')! My god, look at those little rippling muscles! I'm outta here.....
Celebrim
Legend
One thing I've always hated about D&D was the handling of small creatures. The new size classes and separation of AC into categories help quite abit, but the most severe problem of attacks always doing at least 1 damage has never been addressed. It bugs me that say, a cat or a small dog, does 1 point of damage every time it scratches you. Now, don't get me wrong, a cat or toy poodle going off on you would be painful - but I don't think every scratch or bite would place me in danger of falling unconscious much less represent a debilitating wound. In first edition, when monsters didn't have to be uniform, I rewrote small critters to have damage like 1d4-3, 1d6-5, 1d8-7, and 1d10-9 with the idea being that 0 was indeed the minimum. A creature like a small bat, or a songbird, or other clawed or fanged creature with a relatively harmless attack would do like 1d10-9 damage, or in other words had only a 10% chance of hitting something sensitive enough to cause real damage. I've been considering writing up house rules for a uniform conversion of damage like 1d3-4 and so forth to a X% chance of doing 1 point of damage, but the need hasn't come up and I'm too lazy to do it otherwise.
hammymchamham
First Post
Its also their for those that can advance into larger creatures. WotC just made a system to create stats for creatures. A creature has a set damage dice for its natural attacks (bites, claws, etc) based on its size. Then you just apply the strength bonus (or penalty)
hammymchamham
First Post
Celebrim said:
All of this "doing damage" is covered in the attack rolls. If you hit, you do damage. No question about it. So a song bird has a 5% of hitting a high AC creature, and then you further penalize it by giving it a 10% chance of doing damage on its pathetic attempts to hit? I don't see how doing one damage is a bad thing. If you had a wizard player with 8 str who hit the goblin with his dagger, should the wizard player be penalized and deal 0 damage when the player rolls a 1 on the d4? of course not. Hit points are an abstract system. Imagine it however you want "The song bird pecks you in the eye, take one damage" or "The song bird almost pecks your eye, but you're able to get your hand in the way and it nicks your pinky, take one damage" or "you're slightly fatigued as the bird attacks for face, take one damage." The mechanic is all the same.
Dingleberry
First Post
Celebrim said:
After my first read of d20 Modern, I used a standard point-buy to create myself as a 1st-level character. Upon completion, I realized how pathetic I am in the d20 system. To prove the point to myself, I ran a combat between "me" and a house cat. After 3 rounds, I was at -1 hp and I had inflicted no damage (real or subdual) on the cat. Then it successfully CDG'd me.
Cats are broken.
Last edited:
