I have heard that the "healing surge" idea in 4E is quite popular; so here's a suggestion to bring it to 3.5--
Damage Reduction (Feat)
The subject gains DR equal to CON modifier x 2 in a number of rounds equal to said CON modifier.
Comments?
~LD
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Firstly, the healing surge idea is not popular across the board, and moreover, this has absolutely no feel of a "healing surge" you talk of. In fact it feels like the anti-surge.
Secondly, I'd allow this feat in my game over my dead DM corpse. Damage reduction is a pretty special effect to have gained, and usually is the result of something tremendously different in character physiology. Demons, devils, and the like have always traditionally (both in story and in game) been resilient when blows against them haven't come from a specific source; the whole werewolves and silver thing has been hashed to no end, and even the barbarian rage can be attributed to their ability to just shrug off damage (and theirs caps out pretty minimally, and nowhere near the potential we're talking about here).
I as a DM do not want to see a dwarf easily attain a 10/- DR from a feat alone at level 1, or 2, or 3...you get the point.
There's also an Epic feat called Damage Reduction already, which is where granting permanent DR should be, IMO.
Well, I can't say I initially enjoyed the idea of 4E's healing surge because I thought it was frankly ridiculous, but when a friend told me to think of it as just a mechanic to explain that "your hero actually dodged most of the attack and really didn't take that much damage in the first place", I came to enjoy the idea much more from a gameplay "fun" point of view.
Perhaps I have just been visiting Wizards forums too much, but there seemed to be broad acceptance of the idea there; and in an unscientific survey of roughly twelve people I know, all of them thought the idea of a "healing surge" was great.
Perhaps if the feat was altered to merely give a "CON modifier" boost rather than CON modifier x 2; which as you demonstrated with your dwarf example, could easily lead to brokenness.
Also, for Modus- perhaps I did not write the feat as clearly as could have been done. It would not grant permanent DR.
The feat would grant (DR=CON Mod Bonus) for a number of rounds per day equal to (CON Mod Bonus).
Even when a character reached, say level 12 and had CON+7; the amount of damage negated by this would be useful, but not game breaking.
~LD.
Personally, I don't see healing surges as providing DR, but given the way HP is portrayed in 4E (it's more your will to fight than a physical damage track) as something that's pumping your desire to go out and kick some tail.
Which I don't think exactly translates to the slightly more "measure of physical damage" slant that 3E HP have.
I'd also like to ask what's to prevent a character with your feat from simply re-activating it after it runs out? Or even activating it multiple times for a larger, though temporary DR boost?
Take a Con 18 character with this feat (Granting Con mod x2), he can gain DR 8 (To what? “-”? “magic”?) for 4 rounds. What's to stop him from activating the feat the round after he activates it, for a bonus of DR 16? Or doing it again on round 3 for DR 32? Or once more on the 4th round for DC 40, and then continuing to active it every round thereafter to maintain DR 40, something that would require 14 Epic feats with the Damage Reduction [Epic] feat to obtain.
I see this feat being similar to the 3.5 default Power Attack in usage: Always considered active unless the player decides to deactivate it. For Power Attack, deactivating it would make sense if you can't hit, but your feat would have no reasons to deactivate it, because there's no downside.
Essentially, every feat needs to be judged by certain criteria to determine it's "balance". That criteria is "Why wouldn't I take this?" and "Why would I take it?"
At present, your Damage Reduction feat has no answer to the first question, and a "Duh, non class-, magic item-, spell-based Damage Reduction" as the answer to the second. It needs a restriction, such as a spelled-out restriction on activating it concurrently with itself, and a daily limit to keep it from being "on" all the time.
"your hero actually dodged most of the attack and really didn't take that much damage in the first place"
If that is the way of thinking for healing surge, then why not reduce the damage of successful attacks in the first. Or increase the HP of characters and monster to get the same effect.
>>Take a Con 18 character with this feat (Granting Con mod x2), he can gain DR 8 (To what? “-”? “magic”?) for 4 rounds. What's to stop him from activating the feat the round after he activates it, for a bonus of DR 16? Or doing it again on round 3 for DR 32? Or once more on the 4th round for DC 40, and then continuing to active it every round thereafter to maintain DR 40, something that would require 14 Epic feats with the Damage Reduction [Epic] feat to obtain.
As was pointed out, I think you misunderstood.
The feat would affect a Con 18 character in the following manner:
"Oh, I now have +4DR for 4 Rounds! :)"
FIGHT 1
ROUND 1
Declare Feats "I'm activating my DR Feat for this round"
Gets hit for 10 damage
Takes 6 damage
doesn't declare again until
ROUND 3
"activate again" tick down to 2 left
Doesn't get hit.
ROUND 5
"activate again" tick down to 1 left,
etc.
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A useful, nifty little feat.
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As also stated: "then why not reduce the damage of successful attacks in the first"
That's basically what this is trying to do. Do you see a better way to do that?
Just increasing hit points is a different mechanism, but this allows for tactical and strategic use... it's more options for the player to think about; it empowers players.
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FIGHT 1
ROUND 1
Declare Feats "I'm activating my DR Feat for this round"
Gets hit for 10 damage
Takes 6 damagedoesn't declare again until
ROUND 3
"activate again" tick down to 2 left
Doesn't get hit.ROUND 5
"activate again" tick down to 1 left,etc.
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A useful, nifty little feat.Just increasing hit points is a different mechanism, but this allows for tactical and strategic use... it's more options for the player to think about; it empowers players.
You need to ask the "why wouldn't I take this feat" question. Even in mid-level games it is absolutely not uncommon for somebody to have 22 Con (+6), and it's easy by level 3 for Dwarves to have 24 con (20+bear's endurance). It would be bad enough letting him have once per day 7 rounds of 7/- DR at level 12, let alone level 3 (where this feat kicks in). By making it "per activation" as opposed to "once per day" things get even more obscene and in many campaigns, that 7 rounds per day could EASILY turn into "every combat". Compare that to the minimal (in comparison) DR barbarians get as a class feature. DR is too easy to abuse and too "special" of a class feature to negate to a easy-to-obtain feat like this.
I still say way too overpowered and there's no way I'd permit such a feat in campaign. Hell as a DM I'd consider giving EVERY creature this feat!
Compare it to a similar feat of Requirement: 20 CON. Gain 5/- DR 3x/day for 5 rounds and ask yourself "which is more appropriate, and which is overpowered". There's a reason I refused 3rd party feats (well short of Dragon Magazine Feats) in any game I've ever run, and this is it.
Actually, this "Healing Surge" is one of the things i despite the most from 4th Edition...
Yuck :(
This being said, about damage reduction, there is an option to give armors a damage reduction in Unearthed Arcana. I am using that for a while and my players love it.
It gives a sense to the fact of wearing an armor, outside of mere AC points.
Well then, perhaps I am a bit naive, Although I am a DM, I have never created "power-Mod" characters; in fact, the highest AC level I've ever legally statted for a Level 7 character was around 22.
That being said:
You pointed out an easy solution to the problem you had with the DR proposal- It can be fixed by limiting it to (1 activation per day at levels 1-8, 2 per day at 8-16, and 3 per day at 16+)
I see little wrong with granting 7 rounds of DR 7 to any 12th level character. How does it really unbalance much; instead it makes it less likely you can kill the Dwarf.
I often have a problem with 7th level CON 18 Barbarian characters with the maximum 70 HP I can get for them, just dying on the front lines after being hit 3 times. I think this could easily solve that problem.
On a tangential note; you may be wondering how often my characters perish- the worst I've had as a PC was dying 3 times in a three hours of play as a 5th level changeling rogue. The Monk in the group never died; the Human Artificer died twice in the same period- but he only had around 27HP to start with, so that should have been expected.
Actually, this "Healing Surge" is one of the things i despite the most from 4th Edition...
Yuck :(This being said, about damage reduction, there is an option to give armors a damage reduction in Unearthed Arcana. I am using that for a while and my players love it.
It gives a sense to the fact of wearing an armor, outside of mere AC points.
That's pretty neat and more historically accurate in terms of modeling combat, but I think the tactical possibilities behind such a feat are more useful and "fun" than just purchasing "cool equipment."
On another note; What if certain armor types changed damage into subdual? Some forms of bashing damage are already subdual, I believe, but historically, more knights died from bruises than getting cut through their chest armor.
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Okay ask yourself this:
In all the gobs of 3.x books put out to date, WHY hasn't there been a Damage Resistance feat if it's so easy. It could be that it's simply too overpowering. Damage Reduction is a pretty special ability and one that should not be given out lightly to players.
Yes Unearthed Arcana provides some alternatives to armor (which do reduce AC since it's going to DR instead) and therefore make you easier to hit. Let's put this again into some perspective: At level 12 giving a character 7 points of DR is just too overpowered, even if you limit it as you've suggested. This is because combat is generally pretty short, and most groups tend to avoid more than 2-3 really tough fights (the ones you'd want DR in) per day. By comparison a level 12 barbarian get TWO (2)! points of Damage Reduction and maxes out at 5 points; a Dwarven Defender needs to wait until level 13 to get 3 points. Wizards can get 10 points at level 7 via stoneskin, but have to pay 250gp per casting to get the benefit, and it's weak against adamantium. You get the idea.
Providing a feat that makes it this easy is just absurd in my mind.
>>In all the gobs of 3.x books put out to date, WHY hasn't there been a Damage Resistance feat if it's so easy. It could be that it's simply too overpowering. Damage Reduction is a pretty special ability and one that should not be given out lightly to players.
Honestly, there are a lot of feats that weren't released in the original books- and some of Pathfinder's combat feats are completely new as well. This argument doesn't hold up. The cleave feat in the Pathfinder Alpha is also a very powerful reworking of an option-- one that could possibly break the game; but in no worse a way than a potential 7DR for a limited 7 rounds/day. (Of course a note would have added to the effect that this does not stack with preexisting DR mods or else it could get out of hand quite rapidly.)
As for when the feat can be acquired, I could consider it fair to set a BAB limit, but why should that be necessary? A Level one character shouldn't be destined to fall over dead if they're a front line fighter.
~LD.
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You missed the self half of my previous question. Why would any DM allow a base feat which allowed even 5 points of damage reduction regardless of level they can be obtained when class features of barbarians and dwarven defenders don't even allow for that kind of ability.
It's delegated to the epic book for a reason.