I am on your side (again ;) ).
I rule it that way:
Cover = AC-Bonus (since it's harder to hit a smaller target)
Concealment = To-hit penalty (since you can't use your full potential when you can't perceive the target fully)
While it would result in the same effect, I somehow like the distinction.
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It'd make it simpler, for sure. Concealment normally gives the 20% miss chance, which effectively would be -4 to attack, where as total concealment would be -10.
Then again concealment shouldn't affect the way you are able to hit through armor when i.e. blinded.
Furthermore, concealment is less effective than a normal AC bonus. Due to balance issues, having Blur give you +4 AC (or any AC, actually), it'd be too good. The idea of converting miss chance to AC change is good, but I doubt it'd work as intended.
I pretty much never use concealment, at least not for cover. I like the idea of an AC boost. Maybe using deflection or dodge as the type? I'm not sure how this would affect the spells though. (blur and displacement). Maybe just cleaning up the wording of concealment would help.
I completely disagree. For one thing, a bonus to armor class is relative to the ability to hit an armor class. At low levels, +4 bonus to AC is great, at high level, not so much, and not the same thing as having a 20% chance to miss something.
Skip Williams wrote a pretty good piece on this in Kobold Quarterly #2, I think, and explained that concealment exists because the designers wanted a mechanic to reflect that something could cause even the best person at a given weapon to miss, i.e. mists rolling in front of a target, illusions shifting the true image of a person, which would affect someone no matter how good they were with a given weapon.
What I started doing in my game was turning 50% concealment into "you take half damage", and 20% concealment into "you take 1/4 damage". Yeah, I know, but the math is easier. I handwaved this as "displacement means you still hit, but you can't place your blow as carefully". I think this could safely stack with a +2 or +4 AC bonus.
I did this to speed up combat and to make it less frustrating for players. Rolling miss chances does slow down combat, even if I roll the miss chances before the player rolls attacks. I also noticed that displacement and poor sequences were frustrating players and making the game less fun.
It does change the flow of displacing combat - no more dance like a butterfly until you get stung by a truck - and it makes displacing combat less variable. This means that the charging knight character is generally somewhat effective against a displacing opponent, instead of full effect or clean miss.
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What I started doing in my game was turning 50% concealment into "you take half damage", and 20% concealment into "you take 1/4 damage". Yeah, I know, but the math is easier. I handwaved this as "displacement means you still hit, but you can't place your blow as carefully".
Makes the math easier? Since I think you mean 3/4, I'll go give an example although irrelevant. A great blow hits and deals 67 damage. 3/4 of that is 50.25 damage. And it isn't so simple to make those calculations all of a sudden, unless your gaming group consists of at least one math savant.
I've come to the conclusion of disagreeing with the suggestion. A displacer beast particularly is a bit annoying due to its displacement, but otherwise it'd be very fragile and easy prey.
I think the idea of concealment negating hits is a cool one. Your attack was good, but thanks to confusion concealment causes, the target didn't happen to be where you aimed your attack. That has an nice ring to it.
I just don't think that the benefits of concealment are very good. 20% concealments are extremely unreliable. Why anybody would bother putting money or spell slots into defenses that only operate 1 in 5 times boggles my mind. I've hardly ever had a character (and that includes NPCs when I'm DM) ever get much benefit from a concealment effect short of full concealment (well, maybe protection from sneak attacks, but that's it).
If I am right, SAGA just used to-hit penalties for concealment.
That's how I will do this. Concealment (like fog etc.) hinders yourself in using your full abilities to hit the target, therefor it's logically a to-hit-penalty.
Concealment - Penalty
20% : -2
50% : -5
100% : -10
If I am right, SAGA just used to-hit penalties for concealment.
That's how I will do this. Concealment (like fog etc.) hinders yourself in using your full abilities to hit the target, therefor it's logically a to-hit-penalty.Concealment - Penalty
20% : -2
50% : -5
100% : -10
Which means that the logic would be that at high levels, a skilled fighter can easily hit an invisible target or one cloaked in complete darkness. I have a problem with that.
Concealment shouldn't be converted to an AC penalty; one character could have a +20 to hit, and another a +2 to hit, but a 20% miss chance from concealment is far more detrimental to the first character.
However, I've been trying to convince folks to fold the miss chance roll into the attack roll thusly:
With a 50% miss chance, any roll on the attack that comes up an odd number (1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19) is an automatic miss. This correlates into the "1 always misses" and a "20 is always a hit".
With a 20% miss chance, any roll of 1 or a number divisible by 4 is a miss (1,4,8,12,16). Again, this correlates into the "1 always misses" and a "20 is always a hit". Of course, if your PC can hit on say, a natural 9+, the miss chance is *slightly* skewed in your favor vs. hitting on a natural 11. Overall, it works and cuts down the extra rolling for % miss.
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Concealment isn't difficult to work into an attack roll. There's no need to make an additional percentage roll or rework it as a bonus to AC (which has dramatic scaling problems at higher levels, as KnightErrant wrote.)
Roll d20 to attack: if you bypass concealment (1 = 5%, 1-10 = 50%, yada yada), then add your attack bonus.
However, I've been trying to convince folks to fold the miss chance roll into the attack roll thusly: With a 50% miss chance, any roll on the attack that comes up an odd number (1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19) is an automatic miss. This correlates into the "1 always misses" and a "20 is always a hit".
I really like that. The 20% miss rolls might be hard for some people to remember, but the odd/even would work REALLY well.
Concealment isn't difficult to work into an attack roll. There's no need to make an additional percentage roll or rework it as a bonus to AC (which has dramatic scaling problems at higher levels, as KnightErrant wrote.)
Roll d20 to attack: if you bypass concealment (1 = 5%, 1-10 = 50%, yada yada), then add your attack bonus.
If your talking about what I think your saying, that doesn't work. You can't just roll concealment then add the attack bonus. A goblin, who only hits on a 19 or 20 naturally anyways thusly bypasses both 20% miss chance and 50% miss chance because a roll of 1-4 or 1-10 would miss anyway. You'd have to affect that 19 or 20 he has to roll to hit in the first place (that's why I used the every other number or every 4th number above).
However, I've been trying to convince folks to fold the miss chance roll into the attack roll thusly:With a 50% miss chance, any roll on the attack that comes up an odd number (1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19) is an automatic miss. This correlates into the "1 always misses" and a "20 is always a hit".
With a 20% miss chance, any roll of 1 or a number divisible by 4 is a miss (1,4,8,12,16). Again, this correlates into the "1 always misses" and a "20 is always a hit". Of course, if your PC can hit on say, a natural 9+, the miss chance is *slightly* skewed in your favor vs. hitting on a natural 11. Overall, it works and cuts down the extra rolling for % miss.
I don't think this works right though with the rules. By the RAW, a percentage (20% or 50%) of successful hits are converted to misses, not 20% or 50% of all attack attempts. If you can only hit on a 20, then none of them can be converted into misses. If you hit on 18-20, 1/3 of them get converted to misses. The 50% concealment test works appropriately only if you have an even number of die roll results that would result in a successful hit. Any time there's an odd number, the odds work out incorrectly.
Having the attack die test both trials - to hit and concealment - you are treating them as independent variables, which they are not. The concealment trial is dependent on first obtaining a hit from the attack trial.
I'd rather just have the player roll a d10 along with their d20. For full concealment, even result on the d10 negates the hit. For 20%, 1 or 2 negates. If the d20 results in a miss, we don't even bother looking at the d10.
However, I've been trying to convince folks to fold the miss chance roll into the attack roll thusly:With a 50% miss chance, any roll on the attack that comes up an odd number (1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19) is an automatic miss. This correlates into the "1 always misses" and a "20 is always a hit".
With a 20% miss chance, any roll of 1 or a number divisible by 4 is a miss (1,4,8,12,16). Again, this correlates into the "1 always misses" and a "20 is always a hit". Of course, if your PC can hit on say, a natural 9+, the miss chance is *slightly* skewed in your favor vs. hitting on a natural 11. Overall, it works and cuts down the extra rolling for % miss.
I don't think this works right though with the rules. By the RAW, a percentage (20% or 50%) of successful hits are converted to misses, not 20% or 50% of all attack attempts. If you can only hit on a 20, then none of them can be converted into misses. If you hit on 18-20, 1/3 of them get converted to misses. The 50% concealment test works appropriately only if you have an even number of die roll results that would result in a successful hit. Any time there's an odd number, the odds work out incorrectly.
Having the attack die test both trials - to hit and concealment - you are treating them as independent variables, which they are not. The concealment trial is dependent on first obtaining a hit from the attack trial.
I'd rather just have the player roll a d10 along with their d20. For full concealment, even result on the d10 negates the hit. For 20%, 1 or 2 negates. If the d20 results in a miss, we don't even bother looking at the d10.
Yeah, you lose some of the accuracy doing the combined roll (the 18-20 converts to 60% miss chance, for example), but if that doesn't bother you, it can greatly speed up attacks (and it's wonderful for the DM whose rolling an army of dice). Rolling the d% at the same time as the attack roll is the best, if you can condition players to do it.
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With a 50% miss chance, any roll on the attack that comes up an odd number (1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19) is an automatic miss. This correlates into the "1 always misses" and a "20 is always a hit".
With a 20% miss chance, any roll of 1 or a number divisible by 4 is a miss (1,4,8,12,16). Again, this correlates into the "1 always misses" and a "20 is always a hit".
Maybe Pathfinder could have a little optional table called "Rolling Attack and Concealment with 1 die" that lists out misses for each % miss chance, pretty much like you've done here.
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I think of it this way; if someone's peeking around a corner, someone who's extremely talented with a bow is going to have less difficulty hitting them than someone who just picked one up for the first time, even moreso than their skill would otherwise indicate. If they're shrouded in fog, on the other hand, they'll have roughly the same difficulty hitting him; no matter how good you are, you can't hit something reliably if you can't see it.
So cover should be affected by level (BAB, AC, etc.) but concealment stays the same for everyone. Okay. I get it. Makes sense. I'm sold.
Two things then. One, I'd love to hear more short cuts like Stephen's on how to not roll a bunch of dice. And two, how do you explain miss chance narratively? With concealment it's easy. If your roll would have hit the target except for the cover bonus, you hit the cover, not the target. What if I roll a natural 20 then miss because of concealment? What happened?
If I am right, SAGA just used to-hit penalties for concealment.
That's how I will do this. Concealment (like fog etc.) hinders yourself in using your full abilities to hit the target, therefor it's logically a to-hit-penalty.Concealment - Penalty
20% : -2
50% : -5
100% : -10
These seem a little on the sparse side. As combat is determined by a d20, why not apply the perecntages to the die iteself?
20% : -450% : -10
100%: -20
I may be misinterpreting the "20 always hit" rule, but in the games I've run, a natural 20 ignores miss chance.
Narratively, you could describe it as "He was there a second ago when you swung/fired, but he moved in-between the brief bit you saw him." or "You were sure you had your aim dead-on, but you miscalculated."
These seem a little on the sparse side. As combat is determined by a d20, why not apply the perecntages to the die iteself?
20% : -4
50% : -10
100%: -20
That does not take into account the character's bonus to hit. An opponent may have an AC of 15 and the attacker a bonus of +33, or an attack bonus of +3. A -10 to hit for "50% miss" does not scale to the attacker's chance of hit. With a +33 to hit, the "50% miss" you propose translates to a miss of 5% (only misses on a 1), whereas the "50% miss" for the character with +3 to hit translates to a 95% miss chance (can only hit on a natural 20).
With the previous method, the attacker with +33 will connect vs. AC 95% of the time (nat roll of 2+), but fails to deal damage 50% of the time. The attacker with +3 will connect vs. AC 40% of the time (nat roll of 12+), but fails to deal damage 50% of that time.
However, I've been trying to convince folks to fold the miss chance roll into the attack roll thusly:With a 50% miss chance, any roll on the attack that comes up an odd number (1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19) is an automatic miss. This correlates into the "1 always misses" and a "20 is always a hit".
With a 20% miss chance, any roll of 1 or a number divisible by 4 is a miss (1,4,8,12,16).
Ok I'm sold ! You get a Padawan and one faithful forever.
Two things then. One, I'd love to hear more short cuts like Stephen's on how to not roll a bunch of dice.
I started recently to feed the box with ideas of that kind here. (check bottom of the thread - but I'm the OP and I will be glad if you are interested in the whole argumentation.)
By the way Mosaic, did you get we are twins ?
Be creative
Oh, and I check miss-chance before I check to-hit. Easier math.Narratively better, too. You shoot an arrow into the fog and ... nothing.
Speaking of which, if an opponent is really concealed, might the player not even know if he hit or missed? Perception check to hear a squish?
I wouldn't mind that too much, but then you are rolling a concealment check every attack, instead of it you hit. Still, I'm not minding this that much. If I'm missing something as far as this screwing with the concept, let me know, I'm open to suggestions.
Problem I see is this:
Concealment and Cover essentially work the same way on one level. They both make it harder to hit the target..either because of visual interference or because the "visible size" of the target is smaller.
Treating cover this way should operate more like the AC bonus or penalty for size. Instead of asisgning a penalty based on percentage of cover, instead treat cover as a reduction in effective size. For every current level of cover reduce the size of the creature by obe level. It just does not make sense that because a Storm Giant has 75% of his body hidden that it would be the same as a kobold with 75% of his body hidden. The storm giant's head and shoulders are the size of a full grown human and thus wouldnt offer any penalty to attack at all, while a kobolds peeking his head and shoulders out is a tiny target if not smaller and would thus be even harder to hit.
Concealment should not be a miss percentage in my view, it should just be a penalty to attack up to -10 or so. In the case of invisible targets, require a Perception Skill test to figure out what square they are in and then apply the -10 to any attack against the invisible target. Which makes area effect weapons and spells ideal for this scenario...once you know where the enemy is you rely on the damage radius. You see this in modern warfare where a soldier is pretty sure where the target is, but still doesnt have visual...so he falls back on spray-and-pray, recon by fire, and "when in doubt, grenade it out"
Part of the problem is this assumes you are trying to strike around the cover. With the right weapons (or spells) there is always the option to strike through the cover. No reason that a frost giant wont just thrust that massive broad sword he carries through the wall you are hiding behind. Which changes cover to a lower penalty to hit but acts as DR to a degree.
-Weylin Stormcrowe
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Skip Williams wrote a pretty good piece on this in Kobold Quarterly #2, I think, and explained that concealment exists because the designers wanted a mechanic to reflect that something could cause even the best person at a given weapon to miss, i.e. mists rolling in front of a target, illusions shifting the true image of a person, which would affect someone no matter how good they were with a given weapon.
Yep that brief little write up was a very good summation as to why the mechanic exists. I like concealment as is because it remains an issue regardless of level. As other posters have noted roll your atk, dam and concealment at the same time and narratively begin with the miss chance due to concealment.
I can only recall one instance when concealment rolls felt like a mild annoyance but fighting wraiths and the like should be inconvenient (especially if the party didn't take the hint to inquire about weapons from the old undead hunter in town).
Er, yeah, guess it should be 1,5,10,15 for 20% miss chance if you wanted to throw it in one die with attack, not 1,4,8,12,16. My mistake.
Just as a side note, I wouldn't mind if there was a fighter feat or a fighter class ability that allowed you to reduce miss chance. "Precision Strike" or somesuch.