Weapon Focus thought...


Homebrew and House Rules

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Brodiggan Gale wrote:

wrote stuff

If you crunch the #'s, I'll move forward with knowledge of exactly how/where things become troubling if changed. It's advice on the changes I'm after.

Your assumption that MY assumptions are based on ignorance of the status quo is, itself an assumption - and we all know where this leads. ;-)

I'm at the point where my interest lies in CHANGING the design elements and where it leads/what I may have missed/etc. I'm not chasing anyone off ... I just want analysis of the changes, not discussion of status quo.

Follow?

The one is helpful in forward movement, the other is counter productive.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

Well, if you want to change the feat, you have to tell us what you are looking for.

Do you want it to evenly scale?
Do you want to cheapen its cost?
DO you want to keep it a Fighter Exclusive?
Do you want it to include Spec?
Do you want it more powerful?
Do you want it to shift power from items to characters?

There's ways and ideas to address all these things.

==Aelryinth


Well ... generally I want it to have more of an impact and scale with levels/bab/something. Currently, I'm loving the BAB thing as it'll make the distinction of bab progressions better for all classes - everyone benefits, but only FULL bab's get the most out of it.

I do want to cheapen the cost of specialization in general (ie: reduce the feat-tax).

Specialization MUST remain "fighter only" I'm not changing that, but I'm negating it's feat-tax as well.

I'm not against including specialization, but that would mean other types can't make use of it - not sure I want to go that far (plus it's kind of wpn training like going that rout).

It would be interesting to shift power from items to characters - certainly by virtue of the feat change, "skill" becomes a lot more closely tied to combat effectiveness w/wpn focus now (vs. equipment only).


Ok, I'm going to generate some tables showing average damage at each level under the current rules (with and without Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and Greater Weapon Specialization) and with scaling Weapon Focus and weapon Specialization (based on BAB).

I went through pg. 1 and tried to compile a version of Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization with roughly the changes you presented, and I want to run this by you to make sure I'm getting it all:

Weapon Focus (Combat)
Choose one type of weapon. You can also choose unarmed strike or grapple (or ray, if you are a spellcaster) as your weapon for the purposes of this feat.
Prerequisites: Proficiency with selected weapon, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus on all attack rolls you make using the selected weapon. When your base attack bonus reaches +5, and every 5 points thereafter, the bonus to attack rolls increases by +1 (to a maximum of +5 at 20th level).
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of weapon.

Weapon Specialization (Combat)
You are skilled at dealing damage with one weapon. Choose one type of weapon (including unarmed strike or grapple) for which you have already selected the Weapon Focus feat. You deal extra damage when using this weapon.
Prerequisites: Proficiency with selected weapon, fighter level 4th.
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus on all damage rolls you make using the selected weapon. When your base attack bonus reaches +8, and every 4 points thereafter, the bonus to damage increases by +1 (to a maximum of +6 at 20th level).
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of weapon.

If those work for you, I'll check out the numbers on both and chart it all up.

EDIT: One suggestion, if you're going to have them scale, just for ease of use I'd have them scale at the same breakpoints as Power Attack, Deadly Aim, etc. If you're dropping them out of a tree, you might as well just make the requirement for weapon specialization "Fighter" and have them both give a +1 bonus that goes up by 1 every 4 BAB and caps out at +6.

Something like:

Weapon Focus (Combat)
Choose one type of weapon. You can also choose unarmed strike or grapple (or ray, if you are a spellcaster) as your weapon for the purposes of this feat.
Prerequisites: Proficiency with selected weapon, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus on all attack rolls you make using the selected weapon. When your base attack bonus reaches +4, and every 4 points thereafter, the bonus to attack rolls increases by +1 (to a maximum of +6 at 20th level).
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of weapon.

Weapon Specialization (Combat)
You are skilled at dealing damage with one weapon. Choose one type of weapon (including unarmed strike or grapple) for which you have already selected the Weapon Focus feat. You deal extra damage when using this weapon.
Prerequisites: Proficiency with selected weapon, Fighter.
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus on all damage rolls you make using the selected weapon. When your base attack bonus reaches +4, and every 4 points thereafter, the bonus to damage increases by +1 (to a maximum of +6 at 20th level).
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of weapon.

Much easier to read, and easy to remember when it increases and to what total bonus.

Dark Archive

BobChuck wrote:

I like the idea of pulling greater weapon focus/specialization.

Change the normal Weapon Focus/Specialization so that their bonus doubles at level 10 (like skill focus).

Do the same for Dodge, mentioned upthread, and this could be all kinds of excellent. Ditto Weapon Specialization, adding another +2 at 12th level or so (and dump Greater Weapon Spec).

BobChuck wrote:
To keep the increased benefit for Fighters, change the Fighter "weapon school" class feature so that they can apply all weapon feats to a weapon group instead of a single specific weapon type. This might be too powerful, given the importance of criticals at higher levels, but Fighters tend to focus on a single weapon anyway.

A decent idea as well.


The Speaker in Dreams wrote:

Well ... generally I want it to have more of an impact and scale with levels/bab/something. Currently, I'm loving the BAB thing as it'll make the distinction of bab progressions better for all classes - everyone benefits, but only FULL bab's get the most out of it.

I do want to cheapen the cost of specialization in general (ie: reduce the feat-tax).

Specialization MUST remain "fighter only" I'm not changing that, but I'm negating it's feat-tax as well.

I'm not against including specialization, but that would mean other types can't make use of it - not sure I want to go that far (plus it's kind of wpn training like going that rout).

It would be interesting to shift power from items to characters - certainly by virtue of the feat change, "skill" becomes a lot more closely tied to combat effectiveness w/wpn focus now (vs. equipment only).

For the record, using it as true BAB increase, makes it much more useful for Half-bab classes, than for fighter types. Cause it gives them an extra attack at 20th level.


@Broddigan: For the wpn focus, keep it as a +1 minimum, but only increase by multiples of 4 (ie: +1 up to 4 bab, and at 8 bab up one more, etc - it'll end up at +5 by 20 bab base).

wpn sp is still fighters only, but I want to maintain the same damage increases - I *think* you did this in multiples of 4 vs. my 8 - I like yours better with starting at 4th level (or we could keep it exactly the same and leave the only requirement as Fighter - no more 4th level stuff). It would have exactly the same sort of progression I think ... I didn't quite follow what you had, but by the end point it should be a +6. Maybe if it granted a 1 first and then a +1 for every 4 (keep the wpn focus as +5 max, though).

That's really the starting point.

@Xum: nah. No one will get extra attacks this way except full bab types (provided they can get one more beyond the 4 in the first place - not sure on that myself).

3/4 and 1/2 guys, since the bonus is keyed off of bab values in increments of 4, they'll never get a bonus attack out of it, but they will get their bonus attacks more quickly.


The Speaker in Dreams wrote:

@Xum: nah. No one will get extra attacks this way except full bab types (provided they can get one more beyond the 4 in the first place - not sure on that myself).

3/4 and 1/2 guys, since the bonus is keyed off of bab values in increments of 4, they'll never get a bonus attack out of it, but they will get their bonus attacks more quickly.

Maybe I missed it, but when did discussion of Weapon Focus become an increase to BAB?

In my version, the increase keys off a character's BAB, but the bonus itself is simply an untyped Attack bonus. Weapon Focus does not and should not increase BAB. After all, BAB is the Base Attack Bonus and does not change from weapon to weapon or attack type to attack type. It's always there and it's always the same, regardless of the attack type.

As such, WF does not offer either more or sooner iterative attacks. I use it simply as a untyped Attack bonus that scales by keying off BAB.

Finally, if you make Weapon Focus offer a BAB bonus, then at some point you end up with a recursion problem, where the WF bonuses themselves become enough of a bonus to offer a bonus.

I think this whole notion needs to be cleared up and dropped.

R.


Chart is done, you can find it here (http://imgur.com/apcVJ.png)

I subtracted out the baseline damage to just give a rough idea of how much bonus damage each of the various feat sets is providing.

I built the chart based on a greatsword wielding fighter, and I added power attack to the chart as a frame of reference, as it's a pretty commonly accepted top tier, must-have melee damage feat.

The standard Weapon Focus/Weapon Spec fell right in line with power attack, in terms of the total bonus they provide.

The scaling version of weapon focus/weapon spec blew the top of the chart, easily exceeding even the amount of damage that power attack provides when used with a big two handed weapon. The scaling version of weapon specialization was fairly balanced in the end, really the culprit was the scaling weapon focus (which scaled way too well).

If you want to make weapon focus more attractive as a feat, I'd suggest giving it some other side benefit, or expanding it to effect a wider array of weapons, instead of increasing it's numeric bonus.

EDIT: One last note, I was _not_ running the numbers for the scaling weapon focus adding to BAB for iterative attacks, or it would have been even more nuts. I also need to run the numbers for non-full BAB classes at some point, but probably not tonight.

The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
@Broddigan: For the wpn focus, keep it as a +1 minimum, but only increase by multiples of 4 (ie: +1 up to 4 bab, and at 8 bab up one more, etc - it'll end up at +5 by 20 bab base).

Well, the version I ran the numbers with is pretty close to that, because I had it gaining the +1 at +4 BAB (the same as power attack and the like) there are a few levels where it's 1 higher, but for the most part it's the same. I'll rerun the numbers tomorrow with the increase delayed by a level and see if it makes any difference.

The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
wpn sp is still fighters only, but I want to maintain the same damage increases - I *think* you did this in multiples of 4 vs. my 8 - I like yours better with starting at 4th level (or we could keep it exactly the same and leave the only requirement as Fighter - no more 4th level stuff). It would have exactly the same sort of progression I think ... I didn't quite follow what you had, but by the end point it should be a +6. Maybe if it granted a 1 first and then a +1 for every 4 (keep the wpn focus as +5 max, though).

Yeah, that's pretty much what I had up there. If you took it before 4th level it would be a +1 to damage, +2 from 4th to 7th (same as standard weapon spec), then +3 from 8th to 11th, +4 from 12th to 15th (once again falling in line with greater weapon spec), +5 from 16th to 19th, and then +6 at 20.


My initial thought was that doing this was dumb. It's just like handing out 40 points of damage for free - even if you don't min/max.

Then I thought, why nerf melee? I mean letting people hit harder isn't going to break anything.

Then I remembered that appropriately specced fightan types usually do average hit point damage equal to murder a appropriate CR encounter in one round of full attacks. Then I thought it was dumb again.

Remember, you get a feat every 2 levels. A feat prerequisite that provides a benefit (especailly to power attacking fightan types) throughout their whole career as well as opening up feat chains is plenty powerful - if the feat is so good that there is no build that will not take it, then it should not be a feat but a class feature.


I would like throw out that I am wildly impressed by Broddigan's ability to remain calm and rational after he shows, mathematically, that the OPs premise is patently wrong...and the OP replies that he's not allowed to do that. He then goes to the trouble of producing a chart showing why the OP's (bad) idea to fix his (non-existent) problem is wildly imbalanced.

Hats off.

-Cross


Thanks for the graph, B ... I'm not savvy enough to follow exactly what it is/means. I'm figuring it to be BAB and damage somehow? (axis - yes?)

How are you figuring the damage? How's the PA overlay? I'm just not following the spread, but I'm certainly seeing a leap.

Cross' snark aside, this is really pretty awesome - I was expecting a simple chart or something - not a huge breakdown turned into a graph.

I *think* bab gain stops extra attacks at 4, no? (I don't mess w/epic much), so I'm not sure that it'll matter for full-types (ie: it'll breakdown the same way, more or less).

Graphically, it looks like the "big" jump is around 15 bab or so ... that would seem to indicate a +4 cap bonus, IMO as the +5 (if I'm reading right - not sure) causes that leap.

Overall, it would seem that the progression/scaling works, but needs to be capped lower than +5 - that's what I'm seeing from this.


To clarify what his graph means:

He's plotting damage (y-axis) for a full-BAB character, with various feats, at a given level (the x-axis).

"Overall, it would seem that the progression/scaling works"

No. The graph shows that it doesn't work. It shows that the feat you invented (orange) is dramatically more powerful at at all levels than the best damage-dealing feat in the game (power-attack).

See how the orange line is WAY ABOVE the grey line? If your job was to make Weapon Focus as good as power attack, it would be around the grey line.

Which is where Weapon Focus is right now.

-Cross


Hey BG:

Great chart, but I see one "flaw." It's not really a flaw, but would help better understand what's actually going on here. The chart needs a control. Can you show us a line on the chart that shows how damage increases with respect to BAB WITHOUT the standard Weapon Focus or the proposed Weapon Focus changes? Then we can see the relationship between how a warrior with the standard Weapon Focus compares to a warrior without it. As is, it's showing how much better the new Weapon Focus idea is than the standard, but we don't see how the standard already scales well, as opposed to not taking it.


The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
Thanks for the graph, B ... I'm not savvy enough to follow exactly what it is/means. I'm figuring it to be BAB and damage somehow? (axis - yes?)

Yeah, the level range is along the X axis, so level 1 on the far left, level 20 on the far right, and the amount of damage that each feat or combination of feats adds is on the Y axis. This is not the total bab, this is the difference between the damage of a character with and without the feats.

The orange line is the damage with just the scaling weapon focus and standard weapon specialization, the red line adds scaling weapon specialization as well (and scaling weapon specialization by the way was just fine in terms of overall effect), the grey-hashed area is the damage that power attack adds, and the blue area is the damage that the standard weapon focus/weapon spec adds.

The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
How are you figuring the damage? How's the PA overlay? I'm just not following the spread, but I'm certainly seeing a leap.

I made some educated guesses on equipment and stat bumps from leveling, chose a common weapon (greatsword), and plotted out the average base damage at each level. Then I used the same reasonable guesses about equipment and whatnot to calculate what the fighters total bonuses to hit were with each attack at each level. I could then use the suggested values for creature statistics by CR from the bestiary to calculate the odds of each attack hitting and critting. With the odds of hit and crit and the base damage total in hand, I pretty easily find the total average damage on a full attack, single attack, etc.

For each line, the only variable was whether or not the character had a specific feat or feat chain. I ran the numbers once with, and once without, and subtracted the damage the character dealt without the feat(s) I was testing from the damage they did with the feat(s), to find the total damage that was being added by that feat or feat chain.

The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
Cross' snark aside, this is really pretty awesome - I was expecting a simple chart or something - not a huge breakdown turned into a graph.

Thanks, I'll do some similar charts when I get a chance for other situations, single attacks, non-full BAB characters, etc.

The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
Overall, it would seem that the progression/scaling works, but needs to be capped lower than +5 - that's what I'm seeing from this.

The Weapon Specialization scaling works just fine, the weapon focus scaling is way too much, even just scaling up to +3 would give it enough oomph to beat out power attack in terms of total damage (although a +3 might be close enough not to cause too many problems).

My suggestion would be to have Weapon Focus start at +1, scale to +2 at 10th level, and if you still feel like it needs something, give it some additional side benefit. (Bonuses vs disarm? Bonuses to appraise/craft weapons of the same type? Something imaginative without adding directly to combat capability.)


anthony Valente wrote:

Hey BG:

Great chart, but I see one "flaw." It's not really a flaw, but would help better understand what's actually going on here. The chart needs a control. Can you show us a line on the chart that shows how damage increases with respect to BAB WITHOUT the standard Weapon Focus or the proposed Weapon Focus changes?

That line is the X axis. I subtracted out the baseline damage from each total, so the only thing on the chart is the added damage above and beyond what a fighter without each feat would be dealing.


@Cross: I'm not designing it to compare to Power Attack. I've designed it to improve Weapon Focus. So, yes - works peachy! ;-)

@BG: wouldn't it be better to just figure things w/out equipment, etc in there? I'm looking mostly at feat function after all, not "kit" or "feat chains" etc. So, the "baseline" would be the better comparison, no? Since everything else is variable to game, setting, GM, and group (not necessarily in that order) - it's all subject to change. You did an even comparison (even if you tossed in the kitchen sink in analysis), so that's cool and I'd think results would be similar overall. Just wondering about this ...

Wpn Specialization's scaling, at 1+ 1/4 bab I think I'll keep - I like your more gradual distribution overall. It's still going to be fighter only, though. I'm not interested in how PA interacts with it that much, though - different feat, w/an already scaling effect. It's fine.

Wpn Focus - +1 base and delay the gains a bit more, say per each +8 bab? (so only full bab's would end up with a +3 to hit overall by level 16 - not terrible if I were to guesstimate from your chart - it'll have a sort of static progression outwards/away by that point - like the 12-15 point almost flatline, yes? That's fine to carry out to bab of 20, IMO). 3/4 bab's would get only a +2 (bab 1 and 8 - they can't hit a 16 bab at all). Same for the 1/2 guys, only even more pronounced delays.


Brodiggan Gale wrote:
anthony Valente wrote:

Hey BG:

Great chart, but I see one "flaw." It's not really a flaw, but would help better understand what's actually going on here. The chart needs a control. Can you show us a line on the chart that shows how damage increases with respect to BAB WITHOUT the standard Weapon Focus or the proposed Weapon Focus changes?

That line is the X axis. I subtracted out the baseline damage from each total, so the only thing on the chart is the added damage above and beyond what a fighter without each feat would be dealing.

I think I'm seeing it. It's visually confusing for me to see the "damage line" without these feats remain flat as BAB goes up when I know that damage does indeed go up even without these feats. That said, pointing it out, I can visualize what the chart will look like in my head now. Basically, whatever the line that shows how much damage you do without the Weapon Focus Feats looks like, the existing lines would be that much higher on the graph, am I right?


The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
@BG: wouldn't it be better to just figure things w/out equipment, etc in there? I'm looking mostly at feat function after all, not "kit" or "feat chains" etc. So, the "baseline" would be the better comparison, no? Since everything else is variable to game, setting, GM, and group (not necessarily in that order) - it's all subject to change. You did an even comparison (even if you tossed in the kitchen sink in analysis), so that's cool and I'd think results would be similar overall. Just wondering about this ...

I'll give it a shot later, it shouldn't make too much of a difference in relative terms, but it might. (I will say, the fewer bonuses available to the players, the more powerful any extra scaling from weapon focus will become, I just don't think it's going to be a huge difference.)

The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
Wpn Specialization's scaling, at 1+ 1/4 bab I think I'll keep - I like your more gradual distribution overall. It's still going to be fighter only, though.

Yeah, I still had it as fighter only, I just removed the requirement for being 4th level. (So even a 1st level fighter could take it and get a +1 to their damage).

The Speaker in Dreams wrote:
Wpn Focus - +1 base and delay the gains a bit more, say per each +8 bab? (so only full bab's would end up with a +3 to hit overall by level 16)

Yeah, that should work fine. Basically the same bonuses up to 15th level, then a slight perk from 16 up. Sounds alright to me.

Went ahead and typed up the changes:

Weapon Focus (Combat)
Choose one type of weapon. You can also choose unarmed strike or grapple (or ray, if you are a spellcaster) as your weapon for the purposes of this feat.
Prerequisites: Proficiency with selected weapon, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus on all attack rolls you make using the selected weapon. When your base attack bonus reaches +8, and every 8 points thereafter, the bonus to attack rolls increases by +1.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of weapon.

Weapon Specialization (Combat)
You are skilled at dealing damage with one weapon. Choose one type of weapon (including unarmed strike or grapple) for which you have already selected the Weapon Focus feat. You deal extra damage when using this weapon.
Prerequisites: Proficiency with selected weapon, Fighter.
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus on all damage rolls you make using the selected weapon. When your base attack bonus reaches +4, and every 4 points thereafter, the bonus to damage increases by +1.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of weapon.

EDIT: Removed the "to a maximum of X at X level" bits, because it struck me that it's based on BAB not level, so that bit was inaccurate.


anthony Valente wrote:
I think I'm seeing it. It's visually confusing for me to see the "damage line" without these feats remain flat as BAB goes up when I know that damage does indeed go up even without these feats. That said, pointing it out, I can visualize what the chart will look like in my head now. Basically, whatever the line that shows how much damage you do without the Weapon Focus Feats looks like, the existing lines would be that much higher on the graph, am I right?

Yep, dead on.


Brodiggan Gale wrote:

My feats out!!!

OMG!!

You, sir, are beyond awesome!!!

:-D


@ BG - Another Chart-Reading Question

Brodiggan Gale wrote:
I subtracted out the baseline damage to just give a rough idea of how much bonus damage each of the various feat sets is providing.

So if I'm reading this correctly, at BAB 20 having the Focus/Spec. combo adds ~28hp damage to the Base on a Full Attack due to both increased hit frequency and bonus damage.

Furthermore, Power Attack independently adds ~34hp.

Thus, would a Power Attacking, Focused Specialist add ~62hp per Full Attack?

Another Chart Observation

It seems to me that both of your "RAW" graphs plateau, which just supports the "Fighter's don't keep up" philosophy. Looking at the 5-15 slope, they ought to end in the 40-45 range, and thus the feats as-written come in 10 hp short each.

Any thoughts?

Request for Another Chart

I always see people do math on and chart Fighter damage. As a comparison, what damage is an Evoker (with Spell Focus, obviously) doing at comparable levels? Clearly, this cannot be a "bonus damage" graph, but it would be worth comparison. Better yet, it would be nice to see a non-base-subtracted Fighter Damage side-by-side with an Evoker for the sake of comparison. Do Fighters really keep up?

Comment from My Post the Boards Ate

Yesterday I read your "Adds ~2 XX Benefit" post. That's a good way to put it. I liked it.

I prepared a well-developed reply that the Boards ate. I won't rehash it all here, but the premise is:

Toughness and Dodge are better because their HP/AC benefits apply against all attack forms or all opponents

Spell Focus is better because it applies to all spells within a school

Weapon Focus is weaker because it applies to only a single weapon

With a few of applications of Spell Focus, a Wizard can cover all major damage-dealing spells and benefit.

A Fighter doesn't have enough Feats available to Focus (much less Specialize) in all of the weapons needed to cover his bases in a world of DR.

If a Fighter is truly a "Focused Specialist" then there is no problem with them dealing out truly massive bonus damage against enemies that have hundreds of HP and high DR when using their singular type of Focused weapon.

IMO, If Weapon Focus is going to balance against the other three (primarily SpF) at a mere +1 bonus, then it needs to apply to Classes/Categories of weapons, just like SpF applies to entire Schools of spells. Reduce weapons to ... oh ... say, 8 Weapon Categories, and I'd be much happier with it. Then a Fighter can reasonable Focus something from a melee and a ranged Category, or a slashing, a bludgeoning and a piercing Category (note that I wouldn't Categorize by damage-type, though). So thus a Sword & Board could Focus and Specialize in the Sword Weapon Category and, similar to a feudal Samurai, carry both a longsword and a shortsword, using one for slashing damage and the other when he needs to deal piercing damage. Now he spends two more feats on the Morningstar/Mace Category and he's solved most of his non-material-type and non-alignment DR issues. Depending upon his build/personality, he could pick up the Polearms or Bows Categories and truly become a "Master at Arms".

Why I Still Will Use Scaling

This just occurred to me this morning.

I run a low-economy and moderate-magic world. Fighters don't find powerful new toys in every other horde they come across and there isn't enough wealth around to routinely buy them stuff. In fact, most PCs need "day-jobs" until 5th-8th level just to survive. Thus, their damage output will lag the usual math.

Wizards, OTOH, have built-in scaling with their spells, so in-world economics aren't an issue. As long as they get a couple good spells within each Dice-Cap range as they advance then they're set.

Scaling WF helps the Fighters keep up in my game, but this might just be milieu-specific.

Still, I'd really like to see the chart requested above for a "Generic-PF World" comparison of Specialist Fighter vs. Specialist Evoker damage output.

Thx,

R.


Rezdave wrote:

So if I'm reading this correctly, at BAB 20 having the Focus/Spec. combo adds ~28hp damage to the Base on a Full Attack due to both increased hit frequency and bonus damage.

Furthermore, Power Attack independently adds ~34hp.

Thus, would a Power Attacking, Focused Specialist add ~62hp per Full Attack?

Not necessarily. It's not a matter of straight addition. For example, The bonuses to hit from having weapon focus make it even more likely you'll connect with each hit and gain the bonus damage from power attack. My rough guess would be that a character with neither Power Attack nor Weapon Focus/Specialization would be ~72-80 points of damage per round behind.

Rezdave wrote:

It seems to me that both of your "RAW" graphs plateau, which just supports the "Fighter's don't keep up" philosophy. Looking at the 5-15 slope, they ought to end in the 40-45 range, and thus the feats as-written come in 10 hp short each.

Any thoughts?

That's something of an artifact of the levels I chose to pick up equipment for the character. There are a couple points where it shot up in damage because I hit some breakpoint (for example, picking up 1 additional point of Strength at 16 from leveling and simultaneously taking a Tome of Gainful Exercise +3, for a total of one big +4 jump in strength).

Even at levels where a specific feat isn't adding much to the total damage output, the overall trend is always up.

It's also worth noting that the rate at which the HP of most foes you'll face grows also tapers off. Going from CR 1/2 to CR 8 the average HP of your foes grows 10 fold, but from there all the way up to 18 you only get another 3 fold growth.

Rezdave wrote:
I always see people do math on and chart Fighter damage. As a comparison, what damage is an Evoker (with Spell Focus, obviously) doing at comparable levels? Clearly, this cannot be a "bonus damage" graph, but it would be worth comparison. Better yet, it would be nice to see a non-base-subtracted Fighter Damage side-by-side with an Evoker for the sake of comparison. Do Fighters really keep up?

That's a muuuuuuch trickier question to answer, because there are so many tiny details (spell selection, opponents good/bad saves, etc.) that can drastically change the damage output of casters and because the overall average damage casters deal is so dependent on the number of rounds of combat they have to deal with throughout the day.

I could make a reasonable attempt at evaluating the best damage an evoker could deal at each level with their highest, second highest, and third highest level spells, and it might be useful information, but wouldn't be really directly comparable to the fighter model.

Rezdave wrote:
Toughness and Dodge are better because their HP/AC benefits apply against all attack forms or all opponents

Heh, don't forget foes that charm, poison, debuff, or attack from stealth. Toughness and Dodge are very broadly applicable (as are most of the baseline feats), but there are certain situations where they don't apply.

Rezdave wrote:

Spell Focus is better because it applies to all spells within a school

Weapon Focus is weaker because it applies to only a single weapon

But you get to pick the weapon, so barring some really drastic outside events that force you to use something else, you'll almost always be able to apply the bonus to your attacks. (In exactly the same way that you get to choose the spells you're memorizing each day, so you can usually ensure that you get to use mostly spells from the school you focus on.)

Rezdave wrote:

With a few of applications of Spell Focus, a Wizard can cover all major damage-dealing spells and benefit.

A Fighter doesn't have enough Feats available to Focus (much less Specialize) in all of the weapons needed to cover his bases in a world of DR.

Sure he does. I can count the foes that require a specific weapon type (as opposed to a specific material or enchantment) on one hand. All you need is focus in your primary weapon, and you are almost certainly good to go.

Rezdave wrote:
If a Fighter is truly a "Focused Specialist" then there is no problem with them dealing out truly massive bonus damage against enemies that have hundreds of HP and high DR when using their singular type of Focused weapon.

Fighters already get significant bonuses from weapon training and access to fighter only feats; significant enough bonuses that in terms of raw damage per round they're near the top of the heap (or at the top of the heap for archery based Fighters)

Every class is a specialist in some area, why should fighters alone get some extra over the top benefit?

Rezdave wrote:
IMO, If Weapon Focus is going to balance against the other three (primarily SpF) at a mere +1 bonus, then it needs to apply to Classes/Categories of weapons, just like SpF applies to entire Schools of spells. Reduce weapons to ... oh ... say, 8 Weapon Categories, and I'd be much happier with it. Then a Fighter can reasonable Focus something from a melee and a ranged Category, or a slashing, a bludgeoning and a piercing Category (note that I wouldn't Categorize by damage-type, though). So thus a Sword & Board could Focus and Specialize in the Sword Weapon Category and, similar to a feudal Samurai, carry both a longsword and a shortsword, using one for slashing damage and the other when he needs to deal piercing damage. Now he spends two more feats on the Morningstar/Mace Category and he's solved most of his non-material-type and non-alignment DR issues. Depending upon his build/personality, he could pick up the Polearms or Bows Categories and truly become a "Master at Arms".

Ok, that's a reasonable enough idea. (Although I think forcing fighters to choose a particular weapon type to focus and specialize in was sort of the point. Yes it means rarely they have to face a foe they are less effective against... in exactly the same way specialist Enchanters have to sometimes face Golems or mindless undead.)

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The Speaker in Dreams wrote:

Well ... generally I want it to have more of an impact and scale with levels/bab/something. Currently, I'm loving the BAB thing as it'll make the distinction of bab progressions better for all classes - everyone benefits, but only FULL bab's get the most out of it.

I do want to cheapen the cost of specialization in general (ie: reduce the feat-tax).

Specialization MUST remain "fighter only" I'm not changing that, but I'm negating it's feat-tax as well.

I'm not against including specialization, but that would mean other types can't make use of it - not sure I want to go that far (plus it's kind of wpn training like going that rout).

It would be interesting to shift power from items to characters - certainly by virtue of the feat change, "skill" becomes a lot more closely tied to combat effectiveness w/wpn focus now (vs. equipment only).

Okay. So now, one feat or two? I assume if you are doing this, you are also getting rid of Weapon Mastery. Our Target is roughly +4/+6, or +5/+5. If at all possible, we would like it not to favor a weapon type.

Is the 'focus' part going to be open to all for scaling, or limited to +1?

Dmg (spec) will be restricted to Fighters. This can still be made in one feat.

How are you about replacing an existing bonus instead of adding more of them? I was thinking that weapon focus would add a non-magical enhancement bonus TH/DMG with your weapon type. It won't stack with magic weapons, but it will ALWAYS be there. In essence, you've a built-in GMW, that would only work with Fighter levels.

This satisfies the transfer of power from items to character. The Fighter won't need a magic weapon...stick his favored weapon in his hands, and it will outperform any normal blade.

Just thoughts.

==+Aelryinth


Rezdave wrote:
A Fighter doesn't have enough Feats available to Focus (much less Specialize) in all of the weapons needed to cover his bases in a world of DR.

Well, this is just the thing, in that they do. A human fighter ends up with *21* feats. And the difference in spell focus is that the wizard can only do those spells on a limited number of attacks. In most campaigns, the vast majority of the time, the fighter is going to be using his weapon of choice to hit on nearly every attack roll he makes. If he, in some magical way decides to specialize (note the meaning of the word) in 2 weapons, then the benefit for those 8 feats is that he will never be without a focused weapon that will be useful against an enemy on any attack roll he makes the entire game.

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