defensive abilities.


Homebrew and House Rules


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hello, this is the place for homebrew and I've got some stuff to drop off here for some consumer input. Each item won't be displayed all at once, I want some input to make sure people are at least a bit interested before moving on the next item on my to-do list. I'm aware that some of my items with render some PrC and Archetypes useless. If I recieve enough feedback, I'll look into away to rectify it or at least explain why I might not. A lot of these items will require that your players put a tiny smidgen of effort towards remembers and utilizing a small increase in number crunching and action options. most of these changes will only really be helping martial characters because....melee should be getting nice things

New mechanic/maneuver that help with defense: Blocking and damage resisting.

first: making AC kinda useful...and slightly irrelevant...though AC is useless after like level 10...so who gives a damn.

Repelling

either parrying with your weapon or blocking with your shield, you are being slightly more confrontational with your defense.

when you are targeted by an attack, you may spend an immediate action and make an attack roll, if your attack equals or exceeds that of your attacker, the attack misses. if you posses a shield, you may add it's AC bonus to the roll. once this immediate action is spent, you can not take any other immediate actions this round, this immediate action kinda covers the whole round as you may block a number of attacks equal to the amount of attacks you would get in a full round action. So, a level 6 fighter can block 2 attacks per round. now, what if your attack roll is lower than your AC? easy, the defender takes the higher of the two defensive numbers...I'm not that damn mean, the tactical side of this comes in when you start having to choose which attacks you block and which you attempt to side step. you may also repel ranged attacks, but you must first make a reflex save equal to 10+half the attackers HD+relevant stat (most likely dex)...yes, this applies to spells because it is totally bad ass to knock a smug tier 2 sorcerer down a peg by baseball batting his fire balls and light bolts to the side

now...for some manly defenses, like learning to take s!~% to the jaw.

Damage Resistance

this is a form of resistance that reduces all forms of incoming damage, regardless of there source, because it's better to get steamed inside an iron pot of full-plate then to take that fire ball directly.

DRe is determined by taking ones total armor bonus+there con mod and dividing the number by two (baring feats/item and s$~$) + any feats, items and such that add directly to damage resistance.

so, lets say our level 6 fighter from before has a con of 22 and is decked out in adamantine full plate armor and has the variant for toughness which grants +3 damage resistance and +1 damage resistance for every 3 HD. he's siting at (10+6)/2=8+3+2=13, which stacks on top of his DR 3/- when he gets his by swords,mace,lances,ect. for a total protection of 16.

now, this may come with the often suggested rule of letting full attacks take place as a standard action and these new features do have some feat and spell support, if you'd like to hear about it, just ask. I hope to see some good feed back from this....or any feed back really


Bump


shamefilled bump, I'm really looking for anything anyone has to say about this, bad, good, anything. if its bad but a good idea, help fixing it. if there is something unclear that might need pointing out, I'd like to know that it needs to be cleared up.


The repelling mechanic looks good, I might use it for boss fights to add a little cinematic feel to the combat.


Arkady Zelenka wrote:
The repelling mechanic looks good, I might use it for boss fights to add a little cinematic feel to the combat.

thanks, what did you think of Damage resistance? everything here is to give players the ability to actually tank things, do they do a good job of that?


showzilla wrote:
first: making AC kinda useful...and slightly irrelevant...though AC is useless after like level 10...so who gives a damn.

Why do you say this? I expect that judgement is based on your experience and expectations of gameplay.

showzilla wrote:

Repelling

either parrying with your weapon or blocking with your shield, you are being slightly more confrontational with your defense.

when you are targeted by an attack, you may spend an immediate action and make an attack roll, if your attack equals or exceeds that of your attacker, the attack misses. if you posses a shield, you may add it's AC bonus to the roll. once this immediate action is spent, you can not take any other immediate actions this round, this immediate action kinda covers the whole round as you may block a number of attacks equal to the amount of attacks you would get in a full round action. So, a level 6 fighter can block 2 attacks per round. now, what if your attack roll is lower than your AC? easy, the defender takes the higher of the two defensive numbers...I'm not that damn mean, the tactical side of this comes in when you start having to choose which attacks you block and which you attempt to side step.

That's one roll as an immediate action, blocking/repelling the number of attacks that the character can make? Why not one roll per attack you would block up to the number of iteratives, or even to the limit imposed by DEX modifier, like AoO with the Combat reflexes feat?

showzilla wrote:
you may also repel ranged attacks, but you must first make a reflex save equal to 10+half the attackers HD+relevant stat (most likely dex)...yes, this applies to spells because it is totally bad ass to knock a smug tier 2 sorcerer down a peg by baseball batting his fire balls and light bolts to the side

Hmmm. I don't think that can work for Area-of-Effect spells like Fireball, unless the defender in question is between the caster and the center of the Area of Effect, and we stipulate that the energy that will be the fireball travels visibly between caster and its chosen center of AoE. I do find appealing the idea that a successful save grants the opportunity to make a repel/block roll.

showzilla wrote:

Damage Resistance

<snip>
he's siting at (10+6)/2=8+3+2=13, which stacks on top of his DR 3/- when he gets his by swords,mace,lances,ect.

Where's that DR3/- come from, exactly?

You have the issue here many point out in the discussions in this forum on Armor as DR that you are making this guy nigh invulnerable to low level enemies, unless there are attacks that ignore this Damage Resistance. Small enemies with d4 (e.g., dagger) cannot hurt him except if that have large damage modifiers, and then only on a crit. An army of archers cannot hurt him. I might address these by adding critical effects, and/or exploding damage dice (so even a non-crit with a dagger could do more than 4 points before damage modifiers).


Orich Starkhart wrote:
showzilla wrote:
first: making AC kinda useful...and slightly irrelevant...though AC is useless after like level 10...so who gives a damn.

Why do you say this? I expect that judgement is based on your experience and expectations of gameplay.

showzilla wrote:

Repelling

either parrying with your weapon or blocking with your shield, you are being slightly more confrontational with your defense.

when you are targeted by an attack, you may spend an immediate action and make an attack roll, if your attack equals or exceeds that of your attacker, the attack misses. if you posses a shield, you may add it's AC bonus to the roll. once this immediate action is spent, you can not take any other immediate actions this round, this immediate action kinda covers the whole round as you may block a number of attacks equal to the amount of attacks you would get in a full round action. So, a level 6 fighter can block 2 attacks per round. now, what if your attack roll is lower than your AC? easy, the defender takes the higher of the two defensive numbers...I'm not that damn mean, the tactical side of this comes in when you start having to choose which attacks you block and which you attempt to side step.

That's one roll as an immediate action, blocking/repelling the number of attacks that the character can make? Why not one roll per attack you would block up to the number of iteratives, or even to the limit imposed by DEX modifier, like AoO with the Combat reflexes feat?

showzilla wrote:
you may also repel ranged attacks, but you must first make a reflex save equal to 10+half the attackers HD+relevant stat (most likely dex)...yes, this applies to spells because it is totally bad ass to knock a smug tier 2 sorcerer down a peg by baseball batting his fire balls and light bolts to the side
Hmmm. I don't think that can work for Area-of-Effect spells like Fireball, unless the defender in question is between the caster and the center of the Area of Effect, and we stipulate...

1. AC becomes useless after level 10 because , magic items balancing out, most AC's start falling behind total attack bonuses. It's like that theorem about two fighters chances to hit approaching 100% as they level up.

2. actually, that's how blocking works...though I may describe it wrong.

you pay the "swift/immediate" action cost when it comes your turn to be on the defensive and you get the chance to block a number of attacks equal to those you could make on a full attack action. the fighter in my example was level 6, so he has two irrative attacks at +6/+1. so when he starts blocking, he blocks the first attack with +6 to his repel rolls and the second time he blocks, it's at +1. the repels don't have to be back to back, you may block at anytime in the round. so, save he spends his action then darts through the spaces controlled by two opponents, he can block the first AoO with a +6(And any other attack modifiers) but he blocks the second one at a +1. as for using something like combat reflexes, I gave that to sword and board types in the upgrading feat post I had.

3. now that is something I hadn't really thought about. I guess since fire ball moves up to a target and then explodes, it would be like the guy base ball bats the glowing red orb 100 ft in the air before it blows up. but things like a dragon's breath weapon (cones) and things that hit like cones and what not, you probably won't be able to.

4. DR 3/- comes from the adamantine full plate. though I see a big hulking "tank" being invulnerable to low level enemies as a good thing. as for daggers not hurting a guy in full plate....they couldn't in real life...baring correct hit placement and training...like the sneak attack of rogue classes. taking a look at our example fighter, let's give him an example rogue. I run weapon finesse as a free feat because it helps people out just like I let people use strength on acrobatic's checks to jump, it helps out and now that context is over, lets go.

lets say we have a level 6 rogue with a +1 agile dagger and a dex of 22 to meet our fighter's con of 22. so, we have 1d4+6+3d6+1 vs a total protection against physical damage of 16. the rogue will average out on 20 damage without a critical, getting four damage by our fighter's damage resistance on average. now, sure if the fight is a one-on-one slugfest fight, the fighter is going to win, but we just threw a stealth and opportunistic combatant against a guy who is designed to win slugfests. now, what if our fighter doesn't like heavy armor and goes with an adamantine breastplate instead? well, he's got(7+6)/2=6+3+2=11+3=14, now the rogue is getting 6 damage by him. now, yes I'm testing feats to improve damage resistance and to help by pass it.

a.piercing: +3 weapon property that lets you half the damage resistance before applying damage to that hit.

b. nigh-invincible:
prereqs: con 15, toughness,proficiency with medium or heavy armor
benefits: you use 1-1/2 times your con mod when determining your damage resistance.

at BAB+6 and con 17, you us double your con mod to determine your damage resistance.

at BAB+11 and con 19, you use 1-1/2 times your total armor mod to determine damage resistance.

at BAB+16 and con 22, you use double your armor mod to determine your damage resistance

so, our fighter from before is also nigh-invulnerable and likes wearing a blue colored adamantine full plate with antenna on his helm. he's got at damage resistance of 22. now our rogue can crit for an average damage of 24, but if the rogue's got a piercing dagger, his foes damage resistance is dropped to 11. now the rogue is packing a +5 dagger, but there will be feats that grant you piercing under certain circumstances.

now, I could use help on this one.

between the plates:
prereqs: sneak attack +2d6, perception 3, stealth 3

benefits: when using a sneak attack with a light weapon, you may sacrifice 1d6 of your precision damage to half a targets damage resistance on one sneak attack this round

at sneak attack +3d6 and perception 6, stealth 6, when sacrificing your precision damage, you half the targets damage to all of your sneak attacks this round.

so, our rogue gives up 1d6 of sneak attack damage and his foe is now at damage resistance 11 against all sneak attacks our rogue dishes out this round. 11 vs avg.dmg of 16.5.

by level 20 we have (20+12)/2=16+3+6=25+3+5=33

our rogue does 1d4+7+10d6=44.5 damage on average

at 11 a damage an attack, fighter will not go down before the rogue

1d4+7+9d6= 41 damage vs 16 damage resistance=25 points through

now, back to level 6, if our tough as hell fighter that is all wrapped up in his indestructium armor and is getting attacked in combat by a goblin with a dog-slicer, a weak as hell creature with a pitiful weapon made from scraps, I'd be amazed if our 1st level goblin could hurt him. it's like expecting a kid with a rock to actually deal damage to an oncoming Abrams.


showzilla wrote:
I'd be amazed if our 1st level goblin could hurt him. it's like expecting a kid with a rock to actually deal damage to an oncoming Abrams.

Indeed! I am no fan of auto hit on a 20, or auto-fail on a 1. A fighter with AC bonus over 30 should be more vulnerable to a foe with total attack bonus 20 than one with bonus 1, but both of those have the same 5% chance to do damage and 0.25% chance for a confirmed critical (both needing a natural 20 for the hit and another for the confirm). The higher attack bonus foe probably does more damage per hit, or delivers a more debilitating effect with its touch attack (the discrepancy still applies, just less so, for the lower touch AC of an armored fighter); this isn't enough to mitigate the disparity for me.

I'm not sure about the piercing property to halve damage resistance, but that's because I'm looking for a rationale, a real-world analogue to your Damage Resistance, plus I get stuck on "piercing" as a type of damage a weapon can do. Is there another name that could be used?

between the plates doesn't work as the name for circumventing or reducing Damage Resistance, unless that DR is really analogous to Damage Reduction from Armor - where we can rationalize that it's possible for an attacker to target weak points or for an attack to chance hit on a weak spot or gap "between the plates", thus circumventing some or all of the protection, perhaps at the cost of reducing the magnitude of damage.

An interesting aspect of the between the plates feat/talent/ability is the choice of whether to use it - at low levels, there's a meaningful choice: one significantly reduces one's SA damage potential (e.g, by 1/2 or 1/3) in order to make opponents more vulnerable. The trade off has progressively smaller effect on potential damage as the character increases in level, so at some point in its advancement, the wise sneak attacker would probably always choose to reduce sneak damage by a die in case the target has significant Damage Resistance.


Orich Starkhart wrote:
showzilla wrote:
I'd be amazed if our 1st level goblin could hurt him. it's like expecting a kid with a rock to actually deal damage to an oncoming Abrams.

Indeed! I am no fan of auto hit on a 20, or auto-fail on a 1. A fighter with AC bonus over 30 should be more vulnerable to a foe with total attack bonus 20 than one with bonus 1, but both of those have the same 5% chance to do damage and 0.25% chance for a confirmed critical (both needing a natural 20 for the hit and another for the confirm). The higher attack bonus foe probably does more damage per hit, or delivers a more debilitating effect with its touch attack (the discrepancy still applies, just less so, for the lower touch AC of an armored fighter); this isn't enough to mitigate the disparity for me.

I'm not sure about the piercing property to halve damage resistance, but that's because I'm looking for a rationale, a real-world analogue to your Damage Resistance, plus I get stuck on "piercing" as a type of damage a weapon can do. Is there another name that could be used?

between the plates doesn't work as the name for circumventing or reducing Damage Resistance, unless that DR is really analogous to Damage Reduction from Armor - where we can rationalize that it's possible for an attacker to target weak points or for an attack to chance hit on a weak spot or gap "between the plates", thus circumventing some or all of the protection, perhaps at the cost of reducing the magnitude of damage.

An interesting aspect of the between the plates feat/talent/ability is the choice of whether to use it - at low levels, there's a meaningful choice: one significantly reduces one's SA damage potential (e.g, by 1/2 or 1/3) in order to make opponents more vulnerable. The trade off has progressively smaller effect on potential damage as the character increases in level, so at some point in its advancement, the wise sneak attacker would probably always choose to reduce sneak damage by a die in case the target has significant...

exactly, it doesn't matter if your decked out in gothic plate, that house cat rolled a 20, so he hurt you.......how?

but i went with this because it gives constitution a similar function it sees in other games, especially considering it's described as your physically toughness and ability to shrugg off blows.

and if the property called piercing doesn't sound right..how about penetrating?

and your point about the cost of between the plates is a good one. originally the cost was up to 3d6 of you sneak attack damage dice. but the name might stick. the reason for reducing the sneak attack damage was because your having to adjust your blow to strike the weak spot, so it loses some momentum as it has to work its way around the armor.

in the previous example, there wasn't going to be any difference to the damage getting through because our fighter wasn't that geared towards his own defense. lets fix that and see if there is a benefit?

feats

Stand your ground
prereqs: toughness,con 15

benefits: you have traded out avoiding a blow altogether for the easier goal of making sure the blow doesn't strike a soft spot, you back this up by bracing for impact and generally just being a tough SOB. While wearing medium armor, you may take -1 to AC and gain a +2 to damage resistance. This bonus become +1 in light armor and +3 in heavy armor. at BAB+4 and every +4 there after, your penalties increase and the benefits scale accordingly. (it's the defensive power attack, besides stalwart and improved stalwart)

item: battle plate: this massive suit of armor offers much more protection than standard full plate. Armor bonus of +14 with a max dex of +0 and a 50% spell failure rate. Adamantine battle plate provides an armor bonus of +16 and DR 5/- instead of DR 3/-

so, here we go....as a Barbarian invulnerable rager

con 30 (+10)

+16 armor

DR 10/-

DR 5/-

+9 from toughness

+15 from SYG

DR 20/- from improved Stalwart

total protection of 75 from one of the tankiest tanks possible

1d4+7+10d6=44.5 avg damage->75 damage at max for 0 damage

1d4+7+7d6=34 avd damage->57 vs protection of 37=20 damage

1d4+7+5d6=27->45 vs protection of 37=8 damage

so, 3d6 or half?

now, i know 75 protection seems really high, but take it all in context with my upgrading feats.

a two-handed barbarian (AKA, the can opener) wielding his great axe would deal with improved two-handed fighting and two-handed momentum

8d6+20+20+10= avg dmg of 78 damage->588 damage on a single hit or 513 damage in. (that hit is assuming he takes the option to effectively double his damage in one hit).

again, both cases are EXTREME outliers.


showzilla wrote:
and if the property called piercing doesn't sound right..how about penetrating?

Better. Privately, I wanted a name that doesn't seem to relate to armor, as I'm intrigued with Armor as Damage Reduction; finally I realize what you're talking about is a form of Armor as DR.

showzilla wrote:
and your point about the cost of between the plates is a good one. originally the cost was up to 3d6 of you sneak attack damage dice. but the name might stick. the reason for reducing the sneak attack damage was because your having to adjust your blow to strike the weak spot, so it loses some momentum as it has to work its way around the armor.

Ahh. Now that I internalized that your Damage Resistance derives from Armor bonus, it makes sense that your Damage Resistance is, or can be made, less effective against Sneak Attack.

showzilla wrote:

in the previous example, there wasn't going to be any difference to the damage getting through because our fighter wasn't that geared towards his own defense. lets fix that and see if there is a benefit?

feats

Stand your ground
prereqs: toughness,con 15

benefits: you have traded out avoiding a blow altogether for the easier goal of making sure the blow doesn't strike a soft spot, you back this up by bracing for impact and generally just being a tough SOB. While wearing medium armor, you may take -1 to AC and gain a +2 to damage resistance. This bonus become +1 in light armor and +3 in heavy armor. at BAB+4 and every +4 there after, your penalties increase and the benefits scale accordingly. (it's the defensive power attack, besides stalwart and improved stalwart)

Cool feat.

showzilla wrote:
item: battle plate: this massive suit of armor offers much more protection than standard full plate. Armor bonus of +14 with a max dex of +0 and a 50% spell failure rate. Adamantine battle plate provides an armor bonus of +16 and DR 5/- instead of DR 3/-

Very powerful. More than 50% better bonus than PF standard full plate. How much heavier? What ACP? only 1 point worse in max dex than Full Plate?

and both +2 AC and +2 additional DR for Adamantine? Wow.

showzilla wrote:

so, here we go....as a Barbarian invulnerable rager

con 30 (+10)

+16 armor

DR 10/-

DR 5/-

+9 from toughness

+15 from SYG

DR 20/- from improved Stalwart

total protection of 75 from one of the tankiest tanks possible

"Total Protection"? are you combining AC, DR, and Damage Resistance? that's what it looks like.

Can you go over the components? What I think I understand is:

  • con 30 is +10 modifier, giving 5 Damage Resistance given your Damage Resistance feature of Damage Resistance = (Armor Bonus + CON)/2
  • +16 Armor Bonus from the fantastic Adamantine Battleplate, gives 8 Damage Resistance per Damage Resistance = (Armor Bonus + CON)/2 as well as 5 DR/-.
  • DR 5/- from the Barbarian Class ability, at 19th level.
  • "toughness variant" you asserted earlier provides "+3 damage resistance and +1 damage resistance for every 3 HD" for total 9 Damage Resistance. Where is this variant documented/discussed?
  • +15 Damage Resistance from Stand Your Ground, which I calculate is correct for 19th level; at 20th it would be +18, right?
  • DR 10/- from Improved Stalwart, where you stated DR 20/-. Limit of 10 is documented in d20pfsrd.

So I see:
AC 10+16-5(SYG)=21
DR 5+5+10=20
Attack bonus subtracts 6 to support the DR from Improved Stalwart.

Damage Resistance 5+8+9+15=37 at 19th level, 40 at 20th (losing another point of AC), including the "toughness variant",
and I don't know if DR and Damage Resistance should stack always; if they do total protection is 57 by my reckoning.


Orich Starkhart wrote:
showzilla wrote:
and if the property called piercing doesn't sound right..how about penetrating?

Better. Privately, I wanted a name that doesn't seem to relate to armor, as I'm intrigued with Armor as Damage Reduction; finally I realize what you're talking about is a form of Armor as DR.

showzilla wrote:
and your point about the cost of between the plates is a good one. originally the cost was up to 3d6 of you sneak attack damage dice. but the name might stick. the reason for reducing the sneak attack damage was because your having to adjust your blow to strike the weak spot, so it loses some momentum as it has to work its way around the armor.

Ahh. Now that I internalized that your Damage Resistance derives from Armor bonus, it makes sense that your Damage Resistance is, or can be made, less effective against Sneak Attack.

showzilla wrote:

in the previous example, there wasn't going to be any difference to the damage getting through because our fighter wasn't that geared towards his own defense. lets fix that and see if there is a benefit?

feats

Stand your ground
prereqs: toughness,con 15

benefits: you have traded out avoiding a blow altogether for the easier goal of making sure the blow doesn't strike a soft spot, you back this up by bracing for impact and generally just being a tough SOB. While wearing medium armor, you may take -1 to AC and gain a +2 to damage resistance. This bonus become +1 in light armor and +3 in heavy armor. at BAB+4 and every +4 there after, your penalties increase and the benefits scale accordingly. (it's the defensive power attack, besides stalwart and improved stalwart)

Cool feat.

showzilla wrote:
item: battle plate: this massive suit of armor offers much more protection than standard full plate. Armor bonus of +14 with a max dex of +0 and a 50% spell failure rate. Adamantine battle plate provides an armor bonus of +16 and DR 5/- instead of DR 3/-
Very powerful. More than 50% better bonus than PF standard full plate....

you forgot nigh-invincible, but yeah....though, between the plates might be restricted to only halving Damage resistance from Armor, as you are looking for gaps in armor and thin spots in hide, you can't really remove their physical resilience.


showzilla wrote:
you forgot nigh-invincible

ah yes, that feat or feature provides another 13 points of Damage Resistance after 16th level, for a total of 50 at 19th, 53 at 20th. If your Damage Resistance stacks with DR, then total protection is 70 at 19th level and 73 at 20th.

showzilla wrote:
between the plates might be restricted to only halving Damage resistance from Armor, as you are looking for gaps in armor and thin spots in hide, you can't really remove their physical resilience.

Understood, but: How to adjudicate? The base Damage Resistance derives from armor as well as CON bonus, and the Damage Resistance from Stand Your Ground depends on armor as well.

Is this getting too complicated?


Orich Starkhart wrote:
showzilla wrote:
you forgot nigh-invincible

ah yes, that feat or feature provides another 13 points of Damage Resistance after 16th level, for a total of 50 at 19th, 53 at 20th. If your Damage Resistance stacks with DR, then total protection is 70 at 19th level and 73 at 20th.

showzilla wrote:
between the plates might be restricted to only halving Damage resistance from Armor, as you are looking for gaps in armor and thin spots in hide, you can't really remove their physical resilience.

Understood, but: How to adjudicate? The base Damage Resistance derives from armor as well as CON bonus, and the Damage Resistance from Stand Your Ground depends on armor as well.

Is this getting too complicated?

it kinda should be complicated when first starting out, it's a new mechanic trying to find its place in the game. so, between the gaps and other such effects might work only on armor based damage resistance. Stand your ground works based on armor, so stand your ground would be halved in my game. It might stand that anything that isn't strictly from you Con bonus could be affected.

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