Note: that what I’m presenting here is simply an idea that I’m thinking about incorporating into the Pathfinder game as a house rule. Truthfully it’s not something that would or could show up in Pathfinder due to backwards compatibility issues.
I recently read Crusader of Logic’s thread about AC at higher levels being video game like, this isn’t directly related to that, but it did influence me in questioning how damage resistance worked.
Warning this is a little longwinded.
What I’m thinking about is completely removing damage resistance as it currently exists, and replacing it with a damage buffer. The difference between the two is while damage resistance applies to every attack made against a monster a damage buffer only acts on a per round basses, also it requires less math.
How it works is at the beginning of every round the target monster can absorb a fixed number of damage dice as a buffer, once the buffer is gone every attack there after does damage as normal. So if a dragon had a damage buffer of 3 it could absorb three dice of damage that round, not taking any damage for the round until a fourth damage die is rolled. Magic and unique (cold iron) weapons can still work by bypassing the damage buffer altogether.
So what’s the advantage in this? Well it’s a little simpler, although that wasn’t a big problem before, but what it does that’s interesting is it make the amount of damage done by an attack less relevant. Also it can lead to instant death spells as being less attractive by making it so that instant death effects instantly remove a damage buffer if it is still present that round, only killing if the buffer is already down. This also makes direct damage spells more interesting at least at the beginning of the round since they are more likely to remove the damage buffer and still cause some damage, depending on the number of damage die they do. Lastly this can help equal out the classes some. High level warrior types will likely have an appropriate weapon for bypassing the damage buffer, which wouldn’t go away they would just bypass it, and if you give high level warrior types (fighters, barbarians, monks) a damage buffer themselves at higher levels they become far better at absorbing attacks, including magical ones. Note, this would not make the classes completely equal in power it only favors warriors slightly.
This does need play tested until then it’s just an idea, which admittedly might note work as easily as it sounds, however any feedback would be appreciated.
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Note: that what I’m presenting here is simply an idea that I’m thinking about incorporating into the Pathfinder game as a house rule. Truthfully it’s not something that would or could show up in Pathfinder due to backwards compatibility issues.
I recently read Crusader of Logic’s thread about AC at higher levels being video game like, this isn’t directly related to that, but it did influence me in questioning how damage resistance worked.
Warning this is a little longwinded.
What I’m thinking about is completely removing damage resistance as it currently exists, and replacing it with a damage buffer. The difference between the two is while damage resistance applies to every attack made against a monster a damage buffer only acts on a per round basses, also it requires less math.
How it works is at the beginning of every round the target monster can absorb a fixed number of damage dice as a buffer, once the buffer is gone every attack there after does damage as normal. So if a dragon had a damage buffer of 3 it could absorb three dice of damage that round, not taking any damage for the round until a fourth damage die is rolled. Magic and unique (cold iron) weapons can still work by bypassing the damage buffer altogether.
So what’s the advantage in this? Well it’s a little simpler, although that wasn’t a big problem before, but what it does that’s interesting is it make the amount of damage done by an attack less relevant. Also it can lead to instant death spells as being less attractive by making it so that instant death effects instantly remove a damage buffer if it is still present that round, only killing if the buffer is already down. This also makes direct damage spells more interesting at least at the beginning of the round since they are more likely to remove the damage buffer and still cause some damage, depending on the number of damage die they do. Lastly this can help equal out the classes some. High level warrior types will likely have an appropriate weapon for bypassing the damage...
It seems to me that the problem with it is that if you want a creature to be immune to the death of a thousand cuts/round, it won't be, as it'll overflow the buffer. Of course, maybe you want that to be the outcome (although it seems to me that plate armour, for example, should mean that a thousand small stones should have little effect in terms of direct damage, although momentum transfer could be an issue if the hail was directional).
If it wasn't for the inevitable wails from a lot of players who don't like doing maths in the middle of the game, I'd prefer armour, in addition to AC, to give DR that works against a percentage of damage done (CoL mentioned that in another thread).
It must be said, i always quite liked armour as DR and defence based upon class, as used in starwars d20. Atleast as an idea.
This idea has some cool elements, one way of dealing with the death of a thosand cuts issue is by Immunity to certain damage dice. So your hitting me with something that does D4 damage. well i am immune to D4's so yar-boo-sucks to you.
Sorry my fault I should have gone in a little more detail. The buffer acts regardless of the die rolled, in other words a d4 or a d10 would be equally absorbed by the buffer, it’s an abstraction like hit points. What I’m getting at is the monster (or high level warrior types) are able to shrug off the first couple of hits on a given round, they’re just that tough.
Also, the death by a thousand blows doesn’t seem to be an issue. A high level fighter armed with a dagger would still be doing far less damage then one armed with a great axe, once the buffers down for that round.
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Also, the death by a thousand blows doesn’t seem to be an issue. A high level fighter armed with a dagger would still be doing far less damage then one armed with a great axe, once the buffers down for that round.
But someone in full plate could still die in a natural hailstorm, which doesn't seem like a good outcome.
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This has some interesting and far reaching ramifications.
Archery builds gain back a lot of their efficacy at higher levels. Two weapon fighting no longer requires precision damage in order to be effective. It will affect strategy and the usefulness of iterative attacks and attacks like flurry of blows and manyshot.
This is an interesting alternate way to deal with damage reduction. :) Very cool!
Admittedly the ideas very raw, and would require quite a bit of play testing, however, this change would have very interesting ramifications.
For one thing the fighter becomes slightly more useful in two ways. First because the fighter is more likely to have the tools necessary to overcome the damage buffer, like a cold iron weapon to deal with a fey with a damage buffer by simply ignoring it, unlike a wizard who’s power word kill would only remove the damage buffer for that round. Secondly a high level fighter (and other warrior types) would have a damage buffer himself, so the fire giant who spent his first attack power attacking a fighter with a giant sized great axe would find all of his damage absorbed by the fighter, how many fighter players out there would love this? The poor wizard would have been Swiss cheese if he didn’t have the proper buff up.
Admittedly the ideas very raw, and would require quite a bit of play testing, however, this change would have very interesting ramifications.
Hmm...
Off the top of my head, I would suggest staying away from having the monster absorb a number of damage dice, because it doesn't take into account multiple-dice weapons like Falchions, the dynamics change based on size of weapon, such as larger weapons dealing more dice than smaller ones, and it doesn't interact well with small-dice, large-modifier damage (like the falchion-user who deals 2d4+45, 4d4+90 on a crit).
Rather, just give it a fixed amount of "temporary hp" that refresh every time its turn comes up, and have the proper DR-piercing weapon ignore those temps. Thus, even if a low-damage character doesn't have the silver bullet, he can help by taking down those temps.
As Damage Reduction stands, if one doesn't have the proper DR-piercing effect, one just Power Attacks and overwhelms the DR, leaving out characters without Power Attack or other methods of high damage output, and penalizing characters who deal damage over large numbers of attacks. This way, the overwhelm-the-DR strategy still is valid, but it doesn't penalize the multiple-attackers.
As for save-or-dies... Damage Reduction and magic interact on two different levels already; it might not be wise to suddenly put them on the same level.
-Matt
Matt, that's a great idea, I'm going to play test it next time I run. Thank you.
lol. > sigh < Next time I'll remember not to put the brilliant idea in grey-text.
Kudos on wining the kudos, Mat.
Yeah, that's what I get for doing a gloss-over followed by a rush-post before class.
*Matt breaks off half his Kudos candy bar and hands one to Kyrinn.*
Does that help?
-Matt
Kyrinn I love this idea that you started that finished spawning later when I finally understood what you where getting at. Thank you for deciding to share it with us!