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There are quite a few tropes that fit nicely among the themes of Pathfinder, but are curiously missing; either because they don't exist within the framework of the rules, or because they don't feel "present" during gameplay.
These types of things are favorite topics for house rules, because they often make for very self-contained systems that are easy to play with.
Some examples:
- (but not necessarily grappling). This is arguably covered by grappling, but those mechanics don't really serve the dragonslayer tropes. Evidenced by many different versions of the "Cling" maneuver in the home brew forum.
- (and even vs. deadly monsters). Arguably covered by hit points or combat expertise, this is a good example of something that doesn't feel "present" in the rules, even though it kind of is. You see Parrying rules crop up a lot, it just seems like a fun mechanic to use your weapon defensively.
- All those sharp and bashy weapons and nobody really seems to get hurt. Right, this is a matter of opinion, but some players and GMs like to bring the pain in the form of damage penalties, or just generally make damage more consequential.
As you can see, these are "adventure fantasy monster fighting" tropes, and so fit very nicely in the Pathfinder milieu. They're also discrete ideas, that could be ruled in without a total change of system (unlike, say, low- or no-magic setting rules or non-class advancement).
This isn't a polemic about Pathfinder being bad for lacking these things! On the contrary I rather enjoy sorting them out on my own. I've solved the first two problems above in my own way, and decided that the third isn't really worth the effort.
So, are there any tropes you believe should be in Pathfinder, or should have a higher profile within Pathfinder?
A little ruleswonking is expected, but if you birth a new houserule that takes up more than three posts, I suggest starting a thread for it. What I want here is a list of concepts that great houserules could cover... not the rules themselves.
- Characters that are extremely capable in combat without armor and with lighter, more precise weapons.
- characters who use exotic or flashy forms of armor to great effect.
- using anti-armor weapons, particularly pole arms, axes and hammers, to subvert that ubiquitous full plate armor. This one pushes the "belongs in Pathfinder" criterion because it smacks of simulationism, but I believe it has a place as a trope too. Makes for a great specialized villain.
A revised and non-sucky 'armour as DR' set of rules would help the nutcracker concept you have there. There could be a lot more interactions with DR. As well, flurries of low-damage attacks would be great against lightly armoured targets while fewer high-damage attacks would be better against heavily armoured targets.
I would like to see casters who tire themselves and can even kill themselves with casting too much. I downloaded the spell point system from SSG and plan on using that but I would love to see other options as well.
In particular, I'd love a maneuver system that somehow helped show temporary weak points in characters - for example, critical misses that cause you to loose your footing, causing a +4 bonus to any trip/bull rush attempt (and your opponents know this). That kind of rules that rewards taking opportunities rather than making trip-spammers.
To which I will add:
There is the duelist ability:
I'm beginning to conclude that damage reduction is a overused mechanic for monsters in the game. It pushes all melee types into two handed power attacking, and makes monks and others who rely on many attacks ineffective.
The "being wounded" is a real tricky one. It does get rid of the 1 hp and I'm still 100% problem, but it usually punishes martial types more then magic. If you are going to have that mechanic, it should affect all classes equally. It also greatly increase the chance of a bad situation turning into a TPK.
I'm enjoying this thread, and appreciate any options that make play more varied and unusual.
There is the duelist ability
That's what I'd say is an example of "not present enough", in my opinion. Limiting the trope to a single prestige class when it is, in fact, a foundational aspect of combat seems a little off to me. Personally, I view that Parry as just a name, and I like to describe the vast majority of non-critical hits as parries.
But I've also seen house rules that make parrying into a kind of combat action. That's an impulse I can certainly understand, even though I don't share it.
- Characters that are extremely capable in combat without armor and with lighter, more precise weapons.
- characters who use exotic or flashy forms of armor to great effect.
- using anti-armor weapons, particularly pole arms, axes and hammers, to subvert that ubiquitous full plate armor. This one pushes the "belongs in Pathfinder" criterion because it smacks of simulationism, but I believe it has a place as a trope too. Makes for a great specialized villain.
For the Swashbuckler part, I had an idea for a house rule with Armor is DR.
Acrobatics adds to AC: I had this idea that your ranks in Acrobatics could add to your Defense Score, making it harder to hit you and making a low DR score/high Defense Score more viable. So, each rank adds a +1 dodge bonus to your Defense Score. I think it'd still be a bit rough at low levels, but much more manageable. Only thing I am unsure about is if I want the class skill to also add to Defense Score. I am unsure of the balance implications but it would make sense that someone with the class skill of Acrobatics would be harder to hit. I suppose if you add in the armor check penalty, it would balance out.
Aren't fighting defensively and/or combat expertise parrying, carried out in an abstract way?
Three ranks in Acrobatics adds to dodge bonus if you are fighting defensively or using total defense.
All good points, but with Fighting Defensely you get a hefty Attack Penalty. Total Defense is better but it opens people up to run circles around you since you can't make attacks of opportunity.
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I have been making a new system that addresses some of these. You can look at what I have done so far here,
I will certainly be watching here for any new ideas to include though.
So far I have included,
==Armor as DR,
==HP is split into Wounds and vitality,
==A fatigue mechanic where casting magic and taking wound damage causes fatigue which penalizes actions,
Several other things too but limiting myself to the types the op asked for.
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The "being wounded" is a real tricky one. It does get rid of the 1 hp and I'm still 100% problem, but it usually punishes martial types more then magic. If you are going to have that mechanic, it should affect all classes equally. It also greatly increase the chance of a bad situation turning into a TPK.
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Exactly, this is what I did with the fatigue mechanic, it penalizes all physical and magic actions and even mental actions are penalized by half.
The Endurance skill allows you to ignore some fatigue.
Aren't fighting defensively and/or combat expertise parrying, carried out in an abstract way?
Yes, of course.
As implemented, though, those options see almost no use at my table, so I like to include the abstract half of Hit Points in parrying as well.
Remember, things that are covered but deserve a higher profile in the game mechanics are fair game. Parrying, IMO, is the best example of such a thing — do ComEx, defensive fighting, and the duelist ability really represent the whole of it? I personally don't feel they do.
Any ruleswonk would be well within their rights to say: "More description of parrying would be a nice addition to this game, I'm going to add a mechanic."
*unless you're a rogue and can sneak attack with a sap. Still, you're unlikely to send a CR-appropriate opponent unconscious with a single blow...
Helmets!
I had a helmet house rule for years! It was pretty cool, but it got cut during one of my periodic "purges" because nobody was willing to demand its retention.
This is linked to the absence of distinction between actual wounds and taxing dodges/parries of the hit points mechanics.
Ninja'd n on the helmets score! There was an old Dragon magazine article that dealt with this - it basically said intelligent creatures will target the head quite often, (IIRC 3 in 6 chance) particularly if it is unarmored. Non-intelligent creatures would target the head a lot less often (again IIRC 1 in 6). I don't think it's simulationist at all to expect that people in combat wear armor on the most vital part of the body. It's just common sense. Ruins Seoni's outfit, but hey, she can wear a ensorcelled armor scarf or something....
I'm a big fan of the Human Shield Trope.
Conan D20 uses a combat maneuver to cover this, which I adopted to my game. I do not believe it's OGL, but coming up with rules for it is really easy. In essence, a grappled opponent provides you soft cover and if the attacker misses you due to said soft cover, the attack and any damage it would have caused is applied to the "human shield".
Ninj. Ruins Seoni's outfit, but hey, she can wear a ensorcelled armor scarf or something....
I guess I never noticed if she were wearing a helmet or not.
The lack of knocking someone unconcious attacks actually bothers me alot. It really is a classic move.
Also, my whole group is bothered by the 1hp/100% effect. But no one has been happy with any quick fixes we have found. (Shadowrun and WoD systems seem to be better at this than D&D systems)
Greg
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Low-wisdom paladins are decidedly counter to the Paladin tropes.
Eh, I disagree with this, but I don't want to derail the thread about it.
A solution for the knocking-people-out-with-a-single-attack problem is to just straight up steal 4E's minions. Give them CR-appropriate stats, AC, saves, damage, etc, but only 1 hp and reduced XP. It's not the best solution in the world, but it's very quick and easy.
Also, my whole group is bothered by the 1hp/100% effect. But no one has been happy with any quick fixes we have found. (Shadowrun and WoD systems seem to be better at this than D&D systems)
Greg
I've tried a lot of systems to accomplish this and abandoned them all - they really lock you into a "too lethal" (Wounds Points using Con with crits dealing directly to wound points) or inevitable "death spiral" (SWSE's condition track, my most recent failure) setup.
WoD (depending on edition, I haven't touched that stuff since around 1999) did it well, but you effectively had around 7 hit points (+1/-1). You got 1 shot really easily if your opponent rolled high and your soak was poor.
You could do a sort of Grit/Guts/Wounds rule based on Constitution (i.e. Wounds = 1/2 Constitution rounded down), to simplify some of the "% of health grants this penalty" rules other systems sometimes use. Let's assume the following:
Every 1 point of Wound damage suffered grants a -1 cumulative penalty to all attacks, ac, saves, skills, +5% spell failure rate, etc.
Ex: Fighter with Con 16 (so a Wound Rating of 8) suffers a critical hit - takes damage as normal from a critical hit, but in addition to this, his "Wound Rating" is reduced by by the damage multiplier of the weapon he was struck with. Let's say a scimitar (a x2 multiplier) - his temporary Wound Rating is reduced by 2 points and is now 6;he suffers a -2 penalty to all the above. When he runs out of Wounds, he's either dead or unconcious or whatever. Probably use 8 hours rest per 1 wound suffered or allow restoration (lesser, etc.) restore wounds at half the rate of ability damage (min 1).
To be honest, I haven't actually tried something like the above, I just thought of it. I have no idea how the system would interact with the current rules & frequency/infrequency of critical hits and so on (and keeping in mind the issue of the "Death Spiral".
Every 1 point of Wound damage suffered grants a -1 cumulative penalty to all attacks, ac, saves, skills, +5% spell failure rate, etc.
It occurs to me, Da'ath, that the real trouble behind damage penalties that are equivalent for casters and everyone else, it that the game doesn't really have proper mechanics for penalizing spellcasters. It has a few disparate systems, (concentration checks, arcane spell failure) but they are either arbitrary (as ASF, and % doesn't integrate well with other modifiers) or ineffective (concentration DCs? hahahahaha).
So I'm starting to feel like any real damage penalty solution needs first to fix (and unify) concentration checks, arcane spell failure, and maybe also negative levels. I'd love more discussion on this, perhaps over here.
Every 1 point of Wound damage suffered grants a -1 cumulative penalty to all attacks, ac, saves, skills, +5% spell failure rate, etc.It occurs to me, Da'ath, that the real trouble behind damage penalties that are equivalent for casters and everyone else, it that the game doesn't really have proper mechanics for penalizing spellcasters. It has a few disparate systems, (concentration checks, arcane spell failure) but they are either arbitrary (as ASF, and % doesn't integrate well with other modifiers) or ineffective (concentration DCs? hahahahaha).
So I'm starting to feel like any real damage penalty solution needs first to fix (and unify) concentration checks, arcane spell failure, and maybe also negative levels. I'd love more discussion on this, perhaps over here.
Unfortunately, I thought about removing my post and putting it there too late. Didn't mean to hijack on you.
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Love. This. Thread.
Quoted from Dreamworks' How to Train your Dragon, it emphasizes the use of shields in fantasy protecting from much more than incoming blows (often protecting from a dragon's breath, sorcerer's lightning bolts, volleys of arrows, or making a protected charge behind one's shield to overrun an opponent etc). Yet, shields in D&D/Pathfinder barely contribute to AC unless they receive significant magical enhancement and do not influence saving throws in any ways.
Allowing someone taking the fighting defensively or total defense action (or using combat expertise) to add their shield bonus to AC to their reflex save as well could be on option, with a feat opening up the option for this to be usable as an immediate action for someone not fighting defensively, etc.
I never thought this would bother me this much, but I was recently inspired to roll a paladin just to prove it could be done correctly. It turns out that wisdom and intelligence are really the hardest stats to justifiably raise in the paladin's design. Low-wisdom paladins are decidedly counter to the Paladin tropes.
Especially with the new Cavalier class, which kind of screams 'low wisdom, high charisma knight,' the Paladin feels like a class that should be Wisdom based, and be allowed to dump Charisma. (1st edition and it's '17+ Cha to be a Paladin' rule be hanged.)
All those sharp and bashy weapons and nobody really seems to get hurt. Right, this is a matter of opinion, but some players and GMs like to bring the pain in the form of damage penalties, or just generally make damage more consequential.
A 'sickened' penalty to attacks, etc. for melee, and a concentration check required to cast spells while 'bloodied' (at half health or less) would make the condition meaningful for both melee and spellcasting classes, and also poach one of the ideas from 4E that I really liked.
I'm still waiting for my Genius Bruiser (+Str/Int) and Lightning Bruiser (+Str/Dex) races. Heck, even the boring but beginner friendly Mighty Glacier (+Str/Con race). Just...in general, more +Str races.
The world of Golarion is so damn full of scholars, sages, and con men. It needs more muscle!
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Allowing someone taking the fighting defensively or total defense action (or using combat expertise) to add their shield bonus to AC to their reflex save as well could be on option, with a feat opening up the option for this to be usable as an immediate action for someone not fighting defensively, etc.
I 'm a big fan of rules that simulate the dynamic aspects of shield fighting, say, by giving you a bonus to hit opponents who attacked and missed you with their last action. This has always been a strong candidate for a houserule feat in my games, but nobody has had courage to try a shield build.
Especially with the new Cavalier class, which kind of screams 'low wisdom, high charisma knight,' the Paladin feels like a class that should be Wisdom based, and be allowed to dump Charisma. (1st edition and it's '17+ Cha to be a Paladin' rule be hanged.)
Find and Replace "Cha" with "Wis"? Would that work? Consequences?
A 'sickened' penalty to attacks, etc. for melee, and a concentration check required to cast spells while 'bloodied' (at half health or less) would make the condition meaningful for both melee and spellcasting classes, and also poach one of the ideas from 4E that I really liked.
As mentioned to Da'ath above, any clean fix for damage penalties based on conditions must first look at whether or not conditions afflict spellcasters and non-spellcasters equally. They do not.
Consider the following patch:
Does that DC scale alright? It's based on my subjective experience GMing. Higher level casters will be able to get their lower-level spells off, but negative levels will now be particularly nasty since they lower concentration rolls AND provoke concentration rolls. And that should make all the difference.
(cross posting to damage penalties thread)
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Find and Replace "Cha" with "Wis"? Would that work? Consequences?
'Why are so many paladins senseless ditzes' is replaced with 'why are so many paladins unlikeable asses?'.
Oh wait.
Rune Quest had fatigue based off STR & CON.
Average person had a fatigue of 22 - 1 per 5lbs of gear. You lost 1pt of FAT a round and when in minus figures you were -5% (-1) to all skills for each fatigue point below zero.
Maybe throw in an additional -1 for every blow received to simulate wounding?
Your head is one of the most vulnerable and essential part of your body; protecting your head should be just as important (if mot more important) than protecting your chest and vital organs. Yet, helmets are mere accessories in D&D/Pathfinder, wearing one does not increase your AC nor protect you from critical hits.
I've always been under the impression that, at least in flavor text, armor already came with things like gloves, leg protection, boots, and helmets and such, and magic items were just replacing those with specialty items.
I'm still waiting for my Genius Bruiser (+Str/Int) and Lightning Bruiser (+Str/Dex) races. Heck, even the boring but beginner friendly Mighty Glacier (+Str/Con race). Just...in general, more +Str races.
The world of Golarion is so damn full of scholars, sages, and con men. It needs more muscle!
It would have to be made using the Specialized or Flexible ability score array, found in the Advanced Race Guide.
Flexible (2 RP)
Modifiers: Members of this race gain a +2 bonus to any two ability scores.
Specialized (1 RP)
Prerequisites: Pick either mental or physical ability scores.
Modifiers: Members of this race gain a +2 bonus to two ability scores of the chosen type, and a –2 penalty to one ability score of the other type.
The problem, though, is that when making races, Paizo seems to like using the Standard array the most.
Standard (0 RP)
Modifiers: Members of this race gain a +2 bonus to one physical ability score, a +2 bonus to one mental ability score, and a –2 penalty to any other ability score.
I've always been under the impression that, at least in flavor text, armor already came with things like gloves, leg protection, boots, and helmets and such, and magic items were just replacing those with specialty items.Your head is one of the most vulnerable and essential part of your body; protecting your head should be just as important (if mot more important) than protecting your chest and vital organs. Yet, helmets are mere accessories in D&D/Pathfinder, wearing one does not increase your AC nor protect you from critical hits.
I was under the same impression and checked the other night. I was able to find a general statement about Gauntlets, but not about any other accessory (helmets specifically).
Previous versions of the game had helmet rules. The helmet added to your head (only) AC. Before they can be useful, however, you need to adopt "called shot" rules as well, since there is little that can currently attack specifically your head.
If called shots rules (such as those in Ultimate Combat) are adopted, then helmet rules make more sense (negating Sap attacks, possibly, and adding +1 to your AC vs. such called shots).
Facing
There is a 3.5 Facing variant set of rules in Unearthed Arcana, which happens to be Open Content. It should be Pathfinder-compatible; it modifies the Flanking rules, and some Shield effects, as well as attack directions for creatures like dragons.
Facing allows the classic "sneak up behind the enemy" maneuver, which is nearly impossible in 3.x/Pathfinder because creatures have "all around facing" unless forced to focus on one direction due to a threatening enemy.
The problem, though, is that when making races, Paizo seems to like using the Standard array the most.
Standard (0 RP)
Modifiers: Members of this race gain a +2 bonus to one physical ability score, a +2 bonus to one mental ability score, and a –2 penalty to any other ability score.
But they do make races with dual +mental stats. Just look at Samsaran and Aasimar. For some reason, dual physical is out of bounds, though.
And "Genius Bruiser" even fits in their "standard" little physical/mental combo model. They just haven't made any options for it.
I've always been under the impression that, at least in flavor text, armor already came with things like gloves, leg protection, boots, and helmets and such(...)
Your impression is correct, at least partially. Half plate and full plate are the only armours including a helmet in their description, but it is unclear of what type of penalty to AC you suffer when you take the helmet off (if any), or what type of difference 'helm' and 'visored helmet' does. From that, we can assume that other armours do not include head protection as most will state that they cover torso, legs and arms, (often including gauntlets), but head is left out.
I understand that in D&D/PF, helmet is just another piece of armour like vambrace, guardbrace and tassets; they are part of a whole and do exist independently. But that's where it clashes from popular fantasy tropes IMO; in many fantasy literature, movies, and illustration, helmet does seem to be an independent part of protective gear, just like a shield. The helm (putting it on or taking it off) oftentimes has its own narrative/visual impact. Heck, many old school illustrations depicts barbarians wearing nothing but a horned helm and a loincloth...
I think I am going to incorporate some facing rules and tweak some things regarding shields at my table.
Also, for penalizing characters/creatures at lower HP, perhaps it could be as simple as fatigue and exhaustion at 50% and 25%? Do those conditions not interfere with spellcasting? (They should if they don't, force concentration checks at the least.)
I will be running a session this coming Sunday and will try to incorporate as much as I can into the game and report here with my changes and the effects. I only have 3 PCs (an elf wizard, human inquisitor with light armor, and a human rogue/thief) and a DMNPC automaton (a semi-intelligent warforged fighter with a tower shield).
I don't expect them to take well to losing combat effectiveness as they take damage, or to facing, but since the warforged has a shield, they may try to make better use of him.
With regard to helmets, in prior editions... going from memory on the specifics...
- there were several models, ranging from simple caps to full visored helms
- you had to remove your helmet to make a Listen at Doors check
- you gained a separate (and pretty good) head AC for attacks at the head (Piercers, typically)
- your vision could be limited depending upon the type
Overall, I suspect they were removed or largely absorbed into the armor in 3.x because:
- Facing was removed
- Listen at Doors was replaced with general skills for Spot and Listen (now combined into Perception)
- it only made a difference once or twice in a campaign, usually
- the extra bookkeeping required to remember whether you had put your helmet back on after the last Spot/Listen/Perception check was annoying and did not add any fun
- the Piercer (and just about any other creatures that attacked the head specifically) were removed (the ear seekers and rot grubs were not in the core release of 3.x, though rot grubs made a return later, and the Tome of Horrors has done its best to restore some)
- there is no way to explicitly attack the head in 3.x/Pathfinder
So new helmet rules would probably, in addition to adopting some called shot mechanic as I said before, include:
- how does the helmet affect Perception?
- what other effects beside AC does the helmet alter? Does it, for example, impose a new limit on Max Dex, or an additional armor check penalty?
- does not wearing a helmet now reduce your standard AC?
Of course, also in prior editions, we got gear to get around some of the limitations, including a helmet modified with an ear trumpet built in... so it enhanced your Listen at Doors rather than preventing it. Oh, and it had a mesh covering over the opening to prevent the pasky ear seekers from getting in and devouring you from the inside.
I will be running a session this coming Sunday and will try to incorporate as much as I can into the game and report here with my changes and the effects. I only have 3 PCs (an elf wizard, human inquisitor with light armor, and a human rogue/thief) and a DMNPC automaton (a semi-intelligent warforged fighter with a tower shield).I don't expect them to take well to losing combat effectiveness as they take damage, or to facing, but since the warforged has a shield, they may try to make better use of him.
The facing rules, if you use the ones from Unearthed Arcana, should not affect most of them negatively. One of the biggest impacts is that Rogues can more often sneak attack, because the flanking rules are altered. A Rogue would not require a "partner" to gain flanking advantages; the only requirement is attacking from the rear. Rear sides give a +2, as is standard for flanking, while straight back gives a +4.
The Hypertext D20 SRD site still has the Open Content from Unearthed Acana available.. the facing rules are here
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First, my called shot rules. You can make a called shot on any attack,the target gets the size modifier if the body part being called added to the normal AC (leg is Small size and gets +1 AC, the head is Diminutive and gets +4 AC).
You can easily say that if you are not wearing a helmet you don't get the armor bonus for called shots to the head. And certain helms have limits, such as a penalty to perception checks and attack rolls, for any helm that covers the ears and/or has a visor. (I wore a helmet in the SCA once, I found my ability to fight reduced significantly, I couldn't hear right, and I couldn't see very well. Ironically, wearing the armor and helm reduced my ability to defend myself)
Not normally a problem, but those of you who have seen a mounted charger type character in action will know how silly this gets. Using the vehicle rules for ride would actually let a character roll her horse over by doing something stupid.
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For a d20 Modern/Future Firefly campaign I've been meaning to run for years, I came up with a good knockout rule system.
1. Anytime you hit an opponent that is flat-footed or otherwise denied their Dexterity modifier to AC, it is considered a critical threat. You still need to confirm the critical hit normally.
2. Your Massive Damage Threshold is equal to your Constitution modifier + your character level. In normal Pathfinder this is 50. The only problem with changing to this rule is that magic (expecially evocation and other 1d6/level spells) becomes much more lethal, or you need to alter how all damaging spells work.
* * *
There are also some things I would like to see changed in Pathfinder 2.0.
1. Arcane Spell Failure changed from a percentage to a Concentration check DC, based on armor type and spell level.
The DC could be 10 + armor bonus + spell level for light armor, 15 + armor bonus + spell level for medium armor, and 20 + armor bonus + spell level for heavy armor. Shields would increase the DC by 5 (10 for tower shields). The DC would increase by 5 if you were not proficient in the armor.
Feats or special class features could let you Take 10 on Concentration checks made to cast while armored.
2. Saving Throws become static like AC and spell DC and other attack DCs changed into 1d20+modifier, like weapon and natural attack rolls.
3. More Constitution-based skills, like Concentration, Endurance, Manual Labor.
4. Something like the bloodied condition from 4th edition.
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Horses. And anything that moves at speeds greater than 60 ft on a double move (≈6.82 mph, which is a full running pace for many humans), but is able to make a 180 degree turn at full gallop. Obviously some people think facing is too complex, but UC's Vehicle rules have a version of this. I wouldn't mind seeing those "momentum" considerations applied to anyone moving more than 60 feet in a round. Not normally a problem, but those of you who have seen a mounted charger type character in action will know how silly this gets. Using the vehicle rules for ride would actually let a character roll her horse over by doing something stupid.
Actually they would trouble rolling the horse because the horse isn't that stupid. The horse is also smart enough to lean into the curve, watch some rodeos and you'll see. Use something like the flying maneuverability rules (needs so much forward movement to turn so many degrees)
Edit
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Arcane spell failure would be easier to implement as taking a penalty on your Concentration check equal to -1 per 5% of this editions spell fail chance. Must make a concentration check whenever suffering a penalty to concentration.
Of course the DC will have to scale or high level casters will wear full plate with no worries.
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I'm beginning to conclude that damage reduction is a overused mechanic for monsters in the game. It pushes all melee types into two handed power attacking, and makes monks and others who rely on many attacks ineffective.
A really old-school idea, from Villains & Vigilantes, would be to make DR per round, instead of per attack. If the beastie has DR 25, then he ignores the first 25 pts of damage that round, but then is vulnerable to other attacks, so that a single 30 pt. hit from the barbarian will get 5 pts through, while three 10 pt. hits from the monk or rogue will *also* get 5 pts through, and, in either case, he's got no DR at all against anyone else who hits him later in that round.
A variation would be that the DR applies per attack *sequence*, so that the monk's three 10 pt. attacks would still get 5 pts. through (as would the barbarian's single 30 pt. hit), but the beastie would still have 25 pts of DR against the *next* attacker that round. (In essence, all of the monks blows, or TWF rangers swings, or archer's arrows, would count as a single attack for overcoming DR.)
The first option would hugely downgrade the effectiveness of DR, and might be accompanied by a 50% or even 100% bump in the number of that DR, to compensate for how it can get whittled away.
A different sort of 'ablative' DR might be whittled away. If the beastie has DR 10, and gets hit for 1-10 pts, nothing happens. If it gets hit for 11+ points, it takes the left over damage, *and* it's DR total goes down to 9. Every time after that it takes damage over it's new DR total, the DR drops again, making it a 'softer target' as it's DR is beaten down, allowing the higher damage character to soften a high DR foe down to the point where the dude with a lot of lower damage attacks can finally start opening up the flurry of swish.
A tweak on this version of ablative DR might be reduced by a number equal to the multiplier, so that if a DR 5 critter gets hit for 15 pts of damage, it takes 10 pts of damage and it's DR 5 drops by *three,* to DR 2, as 15 damage equaled three times it's DR of 5. That's a finer level of granularity than some would want to keep track of, 'though.
In either case, 'ablative' DR would recover relatively quickly, perhaps at the same rate as nonlethal damage.
These sorts of tweaks would be more necessary for big DR numbers, like those critters with DR 20/cold iron and magic, or whatever, and not PC levels of DR, like the DR 2/- you can get from an adamantine breastplate or being a 10th level Barbarian. Even if I went with one of those versions of DR reduction above, I'd keep the DR X/- mechanic the same.
Various tweaks could be used to fine-tune the idea. Perhaps ablative DR only loses points at a certain threshold multiplier (DR 5/magic only drops to DR/4 for every 10 pts of damage taken (2x the DR) or 15 pts. of damage (3x the DR) or 25 pts of damage taken (DR squared) or something crazy (at which point, why even bother? Lotta book-keeping for very little game benefit...).
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I like the ablative idea, but make it based on the health or condition of the target for natural DR, and need to sunder the equipment for DR gained from equipment.
DR 10/cold iron, until I drop to half health then reduce my DR by 2, or reduce it by 2 more if I am fatigued, etc. This makes the DR actually last throughout the encounter instead of it being gone in round one.
Didn't quite read the whole thread, but I'd like to point out that many of these are handled explicitly and in great detail by GURPS 4th edition (dodge, block and parry are all explicit actions and armor is separate from all three; wounds can be serious and debilitating; etc.). While I like GURPS, I've seen a lot of people on here complaining about how slow D20 combats can be. Well, in GURPS, we've spent hours running one combat only to realize that the whole thing lasted maybe 5 seconds of game time (a round of GURPS combat lasts just 1 second).
Especially with the new Cavalier class, which kind of screams 'low wisdom, high charisma knight,' the Paladin feels like a class that should be Wisdom based, and be allowed to dump Charisma. (1st edition and it's '17+ Cha to be a Paladin' rule be hanged.)Find and Replace "Cha" with "Wis"? Would that work? Consequences?
To rebalance their will save, I'd switch the paladin's Will save from Good to Poor, moving this backward to 3.5. That's because they'd now be able to double-dip on Wisdom to Will, with only PF levels of MAD. I think it would end up about even in the end.
Other than that, little to no change in the class' capabilities.
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*discovers thread; pitches a tent, produces binoculars, a pen, and a and field journal*
Fascinating...
Daron Woodson
Abandoned Arts
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Didn't quite read the whole thread, but I'd like to point out that many of these are handled explicitly and in great detail by GURPS 4th edition (dodge, block and parry are all explicit actions and armor is separate from all three; wounds can be serious and debilitating; etc.).
I have noticed that same thing. GURPS really does a much more thorough job on melee effects (even the helmets issue above is covered by GURPS armor and injury / hit location rules). Many things are very different. Crossbows in GURPS are *brutal.* Magic is very limited in range, and a mage attempting to cast a group-affecting spell will very likely be blowing his wad for the entire combat.
It's a very different beast than D&D/PF style gaming. Definitely an aquired taste.
In my own experience, both rules systems scratch different itches. Attempts to play GURPS and capture the 'feel' of D&D have failed to satisfy, while attempts to GURPS-ify D&D games just muddled things up.