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So I was messing around with charge looking for more ways to entice players to use the maneuver especially as you scale up in levels and had a few ideas I wanted to run by people and see what they thought.
Option 1: A creature gets half their attacks rounded up whenever they charge, increasing the AC penalty by 2 for each additional attack.
Option 2: When taking a charge a creature may make as many attacks as they are able, receiving a cumulative -2 penalty for each attack they make at the end of the charge.
People feel free to chime in and let me know what you think, do you like them, do you hate them, what feels weird, and what are some of the potential exploits that might come about. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Why do you want folks to charge more?
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Why do you want folks to charge more?
The idea is to try and make it a more enticing offer throughout the leveling process. As it stands charging is a viable option when entering combat at low levels before you get multiple attacks since it allows you to seize the initiative in certain fights and the extra bump to hit can sometimes be what you need to land that hit. Unfortunately as you level up and it starts to fall off, as the need to full attack for multiple hits becomes more important than the ability to close for combat. That always felt wrong to me as the idea of charging the opponent always feels like something that should be a viable option at all levels for those classes that would use it and should remain an enticing choice throughout level progression, encouraging people to use it but at the same time having its own unique drawbacks and risks for the reward.
Charging is insanely good as is. I've never heard of players having no incentive to use it, even at high levels. The only non-incentive is that high level monsters tend to have reach such that charging provokes an attack of opportunity.
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Personally I like it, but I personally would say only -1 per additional attack because a twf or monk would end up at -14 to ac pretty quickly
also a provision that pounce removes the additional negatives
or make it a two feat tree first feat lowers the AC negative to -1 per additional attack second feat gives pounce earliest available lvl 12
Yeah right now the monk is part of why I've been favoring option 1 since it favors monks more so than the other one where it essentially gives you a 0 AC for a +2 to hit. The former gives them more power since the charge becomes more valuable since they can still end up with double the number of attacks compared to any other class if they flurry.
I'm wondering if I should just give monks the ability to ignore the stacking penalty or take an aforementioned reduction. Lol again monks, the masters of corner case rules.
The idea is to try and make it a more enticing offer throughout the leveling process. As it stands charging is a viable option when entering combat at low levels before you get multiple attacks since it allows you to seize the initiative in certain fights and the extra bump to hit can sometimes be what you need to land that hit. Unfortunately as you level up and it starts to fall off, as the need to full attack for multiple hits becomes more important than the ability to close for combat. That always felt wrong to me as the idea of charging the opponent always feels like something that should be a viable option at all levels for those classes that would use it and should remain an enticing choice throughout level progression, encouraging people to use it but at the same time having its own unique drawbacks and risks for the reward.Why do you want folks to charge more?
So what you want is a way to move and attack more than once? Or is it important that it says charge on the paper? The main advantage is the double move part of the charge i am all for options that give martials options for more than a 5 foot step with more than one attack. But i think i would go more with a extra 5 foot step pr 5 bab or somthing like that.
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So what you want is a way to move and attack more than once? Or is it important that it says charge on the paper? The main advantage is the double move part of the charge i am all for options that give martials options for more than a 5 foot step with more than one attack. But i think i would go more with a extra 5 foot step pr 5 bab or somthing like that.The idea is to try and make it a more enticing offer throughout the leveling process. As it stands charging is a viable option when entering combat at low levels before you get multiple attacks since it allows you to seize the initiative in certain fights and the extra bump to hit can sometimes be what you need to land that hit. Unfortunately as you level up and it starts to fall off, as the need to full attack for multiple hits becomes more important than the ability to close for combat. That always felt wrong to me as the idea of charging the opponent always feels like something that should be a viable option at all levels for those classes that would use it and should remain an enticing choice throughout level progression, encouraging people to use it but at the same time having its own unique drawbacks and risks for the reward.Why do you want folks to charge more?
Sort of the former. It's meant to be a way to keep charge a viable option at higher levels once you start to get multiple attacks and entice players into using it by creating a reward of extra attack AND mobility but also the risk of easier hits against you vs. just moving and taking a single attack.
What options do High level martials have beside charge? I still dont undestand.
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What options do High level martials have beside charge? I still dont undestand.
Currently not many. The issue is that once you get past like 5th and full bab starts happening there is really not much reason to charge. At most the charge just gives me a single attack with a minor bump to hit while simultaneously granting my enemy ALL of it's iterative attacks should it not be dead once it's turn comes around. This setup creates a dynamic where it can often be far better to just wait for most targets to juts come to you through either a move or a charge and have you full attack them instead, often following that up with a 5ft step to either get out of reach and set up a flank. Now don't get me wrong, the dance once combat is entered is fine with me but the idea that in most circumstances charge isn't really a good option once you get past 5th bothers me and feels like something that can be corrected to make it more fun and rewarding given the risk.
Hopefully that helps (I'm running on an all nighter so I'm kind of running on fumes atm lol).
In my experiance you often attack in melee folks that dont want to be attacked in melee by you. Like spell casters, archers or less impressive melee dudes. And often a trip or somthing is a good opener when you charge. I Think full attack or move could hvae been more interesting, but i have never needed to motivate players to close for melee if melee was there thing.
If you're interested, there' s a good solution to iterative attacks in the trailblazer supplement. That'so your real enemy, it seems.
I took pummeling charge and pummeling style with my monk. Absolutely amazing feats, btw.
What about just allowing things like vital strike or cleave on a charge instead?
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If you're interested, there' s a good solution to iterative attacks in the trailblazer supplement. That'so your real enemy, it seems.
I took pummeling charge and pummeling style with my monk. Absolutely amazing feats, btw.
Yeah I have a buddy who runs a pummeling style monk archetype warpriest (I forget the name of the archetype offhand) with pummeling and he kills it with it.
I will have to look into the trailblazer supplement, you have a link to the specific one at all?
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What about just allowing things like vital strike or cleave on a charge instead?
I would but that has the added effect of potentially making a choking bottlneck feat wise (where everyone needs them in order to use the feat well) or people just continue to avoid using them since the current meta incentivizes just chilling and waiting for the other melee hitter to get into reach of you.
I'm thinking I'd let vital strike happen on charges and the other option. That way the incentive to use a charge strategy is still increased AND investing in builds like Vital Strike become even more valuable since, as a single attack Vital Strikers effectively get all the benefits of the modified charge but none of the original penalties because they invest feats into that build.
Here it is:
To the best of my former math teacher abilities, the outcomes are mostly the same. It just looks different, the way 12 inches and 30 cm look different.