Disarm is a low percentage shot because it can break the game (as designed) when it's just attacker dice rolls. What about an implementation that, like trip and shove, work more like an action tax/choice? Just brainstorming here...
Add to any Gauntlet entry in 6-5(pg180) the keyword "Disarm" and "Worn"
Add to any Shield entry in 6-5(pg180) the keyword "Worn"
Add to the Parry keyword description(pg182) and the new Worn keyword, that these weapons can't be successfully Disarmed.
Action: Break Hold (Athletics(trained) vs Reflex, targets an item held by another within your reach with either a weapon with the "Disarm" keyword, or your free hand if targeting a weapon that isn't a Knife or Sword, or a non-weapon item.
Special Circumstances: You have a penalty to Break Hold targeting and item held in both hands equal to the wielder's Strength modifier. In addition, a Break Hold action against a Worn item automatically Fails.
Description: You attempt to weaken an opponent's grasp of an item, so that you may be able to disarm them.
Success: The opponent is Enfeebled 2 using that weapon or item.
The opponent may spend an action to remove that Enfeebled 2 condition (steady grip).
Special: an Opponent with Quick Draw may steady grip as a Reaction to this effect, or any opponent may spend a Reaction to attempt an Acrobatics vs Reflex to steady grip.
Critical Success: You knock the item from the wielder's grasp, and it falls to the ground in thier space.
Critical Failure: You lose your balance and become Flat Footed until the end of your next turn. If you used a weapon with the Disarm property for this action, and it is not "Worn", you may drop the weapon immediately, instead of becoming Flat Footed.
Reaction: Disarm (Athletics(trained) vs Reflex, targets an item used with an action and held by another with the Enfeebled 2 (or higher) condition that is within your reach, with either a weapon with the "Disarm" keyword, or your free hand if targeting a weapon that isn't a Knife or Sword, or a non-weapon item.
Description: You attempt to knock an item out of the hand of a target that does not have a firm grip.
Success: You knock the item from the wielder's grasp, and if falls to the ground in that space. If you are using a Free Hand weapon or your free hand for the Disarm, you may attempt an Acrobatics vs Reflex to catch the weapon in that hand.
Critical Success: You knock the item from the wielder's grasp, and it falls to the ground in a direction of your choosing to the side or away from you, a number of squares equal to your Strength modifier, minus the Bulk of the item, a minimum of 0 squares. Alternatively, if you are using a Free Hand weapon or your free hand for the Disarm, you may catch the disarmed item in that hand.
Critical Failure: You lose your balance and become Flat Footed until the end of your next turn. If you used a weapon with the Disarm property for this action, and it is not "Worn", you may drop the weapon immediately, instead of becoming Flat Footed.
Note: The Disarm and Worn keyword modifications are simply added to avoid disarm attempts against an edged blade with a bare hand without a high level class feature/feat to accomplish that without losing fingers. It's not necessary, just flavorful.
Suggestion: Starting Gold at 3+Intellgence Modifier; free starting weapons, armor, and class kits.
Okay, it's a playtest - but outfitting a combat cleric and warrior, while my friends make Wizard, Rogue, and Monk, convinced me that monasteries, universities, and city streets are just handing out the cash - while the militia starves (that's why they need adventurers?).
If you let everyone pick armor, weapons, and their class kit (alchemists, thieves,...) that they're proficient with, then give everyone 3+IntMod gold, you'd be set. That gets the smart guys outfitted with some adventuring gear, while the less-inspired are less prepared.
Why? That wizard/sorcerer/cleric/... has expensive spells, but he paid nothing for them. Essentially, characters that need armor and weapons to fulfill their role need much more money to pay for their primary equipment. Spell Components? That familiar used to cost 200gp. That's why D&D starting funds tables have always been skewed, and actually, why almost all the original magic weapons were longswords - it was a class feature, only the Fighter could use 'em.
The "Adjusting the Chance for Success" descriptions of challenge levels in the 1.3 update is significantly lacking in two respects:
1) It ignores Armor Check Penalty - Drop ACP
2) Table 10-2's math doesn't reflect the words - Try New Math
Is any other table filled with penalties as 6-3(Armor)? Remove ACP, and everything would still work fine. Make all armor Clumsy - and allow higher quality (and materials) to increase the cap. Then, a single 10-2 will work for all skills. ACP would make a great ANP (armor non-proficiency penalty), though -4 AC is pretty good by itself.
Detail:
The thing that really suffers the most from protective armor is Perception. You can't dance as well, but I think DexModCap covers that for a fantasy game.
Not only does PFPT armor limit the utility of your Dexterity (particularly as a character levels), but it offers what would otherwise be catastrophic spell effects reducing movement and skill for the very characters that rely on movement and physical skill. While I applaud negating ACP for 'attack' effects, it's a complication that means you have to treat Attack Athletics as a separate skill entry, and it doesn't work consistently.
The only case in which ACP makes sense is for Nonproficient characters.
Clumsy is an excellent 'payment' idea to encourage role-based choice, and I'd like to see it expanded to other options (through other stats - spells, for example). In any case, modifying DexModCap with quality and materials brings some parity to the benefits reaped with Weapons, if we're not allowed to increase AC.
Shield ACP is particularly disappointing, since you pay your entire bonus for being a Master Athelete (+1) just to carry it, while the Barbarian with a 6' sword, 6' bow, Longspear, and 10' ladder pays nothing. The Bard with the bagpipes - he's fine, as is the loon with the Gong and his friend with Cymbals. Unless skill penalties are common, I think they should be dropped. Decrease DexModCap by 1 if you have to, but the rules have already eliminated the Shield's limited usefulness unless you pay 1/3 of your time.
Armored characters pay Movement, Bulk, Physical Checks, Dex, and Money for the AC they need to perform thier primary function - to stay in combat to protect others. With more Clumsy, Getting rid of ACP is okay - it's Fantasy.
Realism Humor:
As demonstrated in You-Tube videos, ancient armor isn't as debilitating as load - did you see the plate-armored guy running through the obstacle course that the modern infantryman struggled through? Ever see an Olympic athlete do their thing with a pack on (excluding the weights ancient Greeks used to increase jump distances)? Weapons were a problem though - try something carrying a ladder. Expensive ancient armor focused brilliantly on protection and weight distribution. If you beef up the Bulk system with CLUMSY, HAMPERED, and worsening DexModCap effects (say, at 50% cap, 100% cap, 150% cap, 200% cap), and you'll approach some realism. Armor should have a much smaller impact than load capacity.
By the way, 5+Str and 10+Str limits are…suboptimal. A Strength 10 goblin carrying 9 Bulk is less penalized than a Strength 18 human in just Splint Mail (Bulk 3)?
Make if Fair Humor:
The key equipment/tools for each class should come with skill penalties. Channel Negative Energy or choose Evil/Necromantic spells? -5 Diplomacy. Channel Positive Energy or Heal Spells? -5 Intimidate? (reversed for Negative Plane creatures). Pick more non-Divination spells? -1 to Arcane/Religion/… cumulative per such spell as you stop focusing on learning. Carry Thieves Tools, agile weapons, or a cloak? -4 to Stealth - because they're watchin' ya. Carry an Instrument or not wear armor? Nobody will trust you, and you're targeted first (pesky spellcasters ruin everything). Barbarian? Oh easy - no magic items (you destroy the sorcerous abominations). Some of these are ridiculous in an attempt to use humor, illustrating the point that the very characters that need to be good at Athletics (and Acrobatics) are penalized by trying to do their job. Clumsy and DexModCap, in my opinion, are better, though I'd look ;) for an IntModCap for choosing to cast damaging spells, a WisModCap for 'detect' spells, and ChaModCap for enchantments...
Table 10-2 Math could be fixed easily, by focusing on the words. Decide what 'significant' means. If it means +3 (15%), okay, Easy to Medium to Hard, etc. should start at +3 differences - because +1 (5%) is not what anyone thinks differentiates "most common in the game...attempt frequently" from "requiring exceptional effort and luck...don't encounter that often". Then, the +3 can be expanded at higher levels (I suggest +5 at 20th). I sent in a version of this, that also made Assurance a useful feat (lower Medium difficulty DCs).
The Skill system in playtest has some rough edges, but offers opportunities as well. Table 4-4 (particularly if modified to scale-in the upper right corner values) provides results for any skill, while Table 10-2 can provide matching DCs. Yes, Table 4-4 is listed in silver pieces, but stretch for a moment and consider it to be a measure of progress.
Example Challenge: A journey for 19th level PCs, with various choices of route. It could take 1 day through extreme hazards, or much longer with less. (the only reason I'm using 19th level is that 4-4 isn't scaled quite right all the way through until you pass the level for legendary proficiency).
Table 4-4 lists 1500 for 19th level Legendary, so take that as what they need - the possibility of a single day's journey. If they ask about the easy road (Trivial DC28), a 4-4 Trivial/Failure nets 60, so will take 1500/60= 25 days. If they choose a little risk (Trained/Low DC37), that will get them there in 1500/300=5 days. If they choose higher risk (Expert/High DC 40, 4-4 result of 600), they'll get there in 2.5 days. With greater risk (Master/Severe DC 42, result 1200), they'd have a relatively easy trip left after the first day, and at Legendary, a single day.
Essentially, 10-2 and 4-4 outline four options to scale progress.
Sometimes, expertise in an appropriate skill is required for higher DC/rewards, but sometimes not. The players can 'bid' for an option and get nothing (or little) if they fail. Sometimes, have 1 roll resolve that stage of progress (what DC does it beat - they get that result).
Failure may result in no progress, negative progress, or Trivial/Fail progress. Risk can be represented by Hazards - a Perception check and hit by the Hazard on each PC, appropriate to the risk taken. The GM could require that one character lead, but that half of the party need to make the check at the next lower difficulty.
While this works better with a smoother/wider distribution of 10-2 and population of 4-4, and works better with Hazards scaled so the GM can judge lethality better, the potential is there for a relatively easy system for a GM for resolving any number of challenges creatively, and allowing players space to guide the story of how they do, or don't, succeed this time.
Tables 4-3 and 4-4 are very similar, and can be combined to provide results for attempting the various DCs in Table 10-2. While such a table is a good idea (whether based on character or task level), I would suggest that the table be populated with scaled values for all magnitudes of proficiency and difficulty at each level (0-20+). If the GM determines that there is a cap (or a combination is n/a), they can do that much easier than generating a scaled value.
The table values can be based on anything, and I would suggest they be evaluated based on the resulting days it takes to create an applicable item for half price (or of generating sp relative to the level's gp expectation) - on making that a relatively smooth function. The following table is an example of that, modified to provide more evenly distributed results (with decimals used for cp) for crafting an item 2 levels lower than the 'level', which are tied to the expected adventuring gains by level (Table 11-1).
Such a table creates the possibility of using it in concert with 10-2 to measure progress on any multi-check task (which would be useful for many exploration tasks as well).
This table does result from altering the base permanant item price for a 17th level item to 160,000 (and thus suggesting an 8,000 cost for 17th level formula and expected level gain currency), instead of 150,000 and 7,500.
Table 2 presents average hazard hardness, dents, and damage by level. At 1st level, the average hazard will kill a low hp character class, but at high levels, is less of a threat. In addition, hazard hardness progresses so quickly that by the time a character can get Adamantine weapons, they aren't any good. To modify that, I would suggest that Hazard damage be scaled to a percentage of a (6+6) character's hit points, assuming Con increases each 5 levels. The following table is built to half a (6+6) character's hit points at each level, attempting to keep half of the average in bonus, and half in dice. It also lists hardness/dents to maintain hit points with lower hardnesses to let those expensive weapons do something for a little while.
Examining Table 10-2 and reviewing Tables 10-3 through 10-6, and character advancement, I would suggest that Table 10-2 be smoother and include meaningful differences between difficulty levels (e.g., include the definition of Trivial). Here is an example.
In addition to the /lvl +1, this table adds a extra +1 (that carries to higher difficulties) at points where characters are expected to have increased stats, acquired items, leveled skills, and have access to magic. In addition, I bumped Trivial for every 20+ level because it seemed in the spirit of the playtest table. Starting the difficulties at +3 per difficulty, up to +5 per difficulty (at 20th), puts some expected difference in the DCs.
Previloc