Still working this out for my e6 Spheres of Power game. Give me your thoughts! Although I'm not using all of the classes listed, I put them in for the sake of a more setting-agnostic houserule. Perhaps others might like to try this!
It's meant to strike a balance somewhat differently from that in the Paizo optional Armour as DR rules.
Roughly, it seems to end up with an interesting effect. Spell damage beats heavy armour (no DR vs energy) and is poor against light armour (hard to hit). Weapon damage beats light armour (squish) and is poor against heavy armour (clang). I'm not sure of the actual balance in practice, but I hope it works out.
Natural armour is kind of in a middle ground to make it easy to handle monster stats.
Armour and Natural Armour function differently:
Armour provides DR/- equal to its bonus. This includes spells and effects that provide an Armour bonus, but do not stack with worn armour.
Natural armour provides DR/- equal to half its bonus (round down) and a Dodge bonus to AC equal to half its bonus (round up).
These bonuses stack with each other and any other source of DR.
Characters gain a bonus to AC equal to their Base Defense Bonus that scales by level similar to Base Attack Bonus. This bonus does not apply to CMD. Defense is not lost when denied Dex to AC or flat-footed.
General rule: Start at poor Defense, +1 rank for medium or full BAB, +1 rank for noncaster class with armour restrictions.
PAIZO CLASSES
+ High (Full)
Barbarian
Brawler
Gunslinger
Kineticist
Monk
Ninja
Ranger
Rogue
Slayer
Swashbuckler
+ Medium (3/4)
Alchemist
Antipaladin
Bard
Bloodrager
Cavalier
Cleric
Druid
Fighter
Hunter
Inquisitor
Investigator
Magus
Medium
Mesmerist
Occultist
Oracle
Paladin
Samurai
Shaman
Skald
Spiritualist
Summoner
Warpriest
+ Low (1/2)
Arcanist
Psychic
Sorcerer
Witch
Wizard
SPHERES OF POWER CLASSES
+ High
(None)
+ Medium
Armorist
Elementalist
Eliciter
Fey Adept
Hedgewitch
Mageknight
Shifter
Symbiat
Thaumaturge
+ Low
Incanter
Soul Weaver
Nothing? :I
Interesting take on it.
Does this mean that a character gets a scaling per level bonus to AC (similar to BAB)? So at 20th level, a High defense class has a +20 bonus to AC, along with whatever DR his armor gives?
Do you still have other AC bonuses from things like magical enhancements (deflection, nat armor, etc)?
Also, how do shields fare in all this? Run as they work normally?
I was thinking of doing something along these lines, but having the class based defense replacing the magical AC enhancements as well as armor.
With multi-classing in mind, it would be better to use BAB instead of what class you are.
Levels beyond 6 are less important to me since I'm planning e6, but I guess others might be interested in how this system expands to 20 levels.
Shields and other bonuses work as normal. If expanding to 1-20, it might be worthwhile to make them part of Defense, or reduce Defense scaling somewhat.
Multiclassing works fine, since it's the same as multiclassing with BAB. I am using fractional BAB (and Defense), by the way.
I'd like to see shields folded in somehow, if only for the sake of verisimilitude. In actual combat, shields were -incredibly- useful, but this is not reflected in the system at all.
I've played around with similar rules for a low-magic variant system I'm working on. This is similar to how I approached it. Some thoughts:
You say "This bonus does not apply to CMD", but wouldn't it actually be simpler to use the Base Defense Bonus instead of BAB in the CMD calculation? With just a little adjustment, couldn't you unify Defense and CMD into one stat that way? (In another variant system I'm designing, I've already unified attack bonus and CMB, and it's definitely simpler that way.)
Re: shields: the way I did it, shields provide a Defense bonus rather than DR; +1 for buckler, +2 for light, +4 for heavy, +6 for tower.
(Caveat: I haven't playtested this, just done a lot of theorycraft and thinking.)
P.S. I'm glad to see someone working on this, this is a variant I've always found appealing!
Shields in this system still provide a Shield bonus to AC! They work as normal.
Question: in your system, do you differentiate between touch AC and regular AC?
(Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I am not familiar with Paizo's take on this variant; I know it from 3.5's Unearthed Arcana, and my own version of it.)
Also, do monster hit dice figure into this at all? Or do you more or less assume that a monster has (in its official stats) appropriate nat. armor for its CR/HD and its role, and then just convert the nat. armor into Defense bonus and DR, without considering its CR or HD?
Another question re: monsters: how does the DR they gain from nat. armor conversion interact with any DR they might already have? Does it just overlap?
What sort of total Defense numbers do monsters at various CRs end up with?
In this there's no real reason to differentiate between touch AC and regular AC.
The conversion for monsters might need a bit of work, but the natural armour into half DR and half Defense might be good enough for a quick job.
This DR does stack with existing DR. Fights become a bit less 'rocket tag'.
I've done no math on this yet, so I encourage people to work things out and see what you get! I'd be interested to see what happens at various CRs and to various kinds of creatures.
Some quick math with some (more or less arbitrarily selected) monsters:
CR 1:
Small Air Elemental
- current AC 17
- new AC 16
Small Earth Elemental
- current AC 17
- new AC 14
Ghoul
- current AC 14
- new AC 13
Gnoll
- current AC 15
- new AC 13
Giant Spider (Medium)
- current AC 14
- new AC 14
CR 5:
Cloaker
- current AC 19
- new AC 16
Bearded Devil
- current AC 19
- new AC 16
Gibbering Mouther
- current AC 19
- new AC 16
Dire Lion
- current AC 15
- new AC 13
Troll
- current AC 16
- new AC 14
CR 10:
Bebilith
- current AC 22
- new AC 16
Cryohydra, 9-headed
- current AC 19
- new AC 14
Young Adult Black Dragon
- current AC 25
- new AC 18
Fire Giant
- current AC 24
- new AC 12 (fire giants wear half-plate armor)
Rakshasa, common
- current AC 25
- new AC 21
CR 15:
Mature Adult Red Dragon
- current AC 32
- new AC 20
Marut Inevitable
- current AC 30
- new AC 22
Gare Linnorm
- current AC 30
- new AC 21
Neothelid
- current AC 30
- new AC 17
Jotund Troll
- current AC 30
- new AC 19
One thing that strikes me about the effect of these rules is that monsters gain touch AC and lose regular AC[1] (while gaining DR). This favors big hitters (two-handed weapon types) while disfavoring people who hit more times but for less damage, as well as anyone who relied on touch attacks (such as some casters).
It seems that, past a certain level, monsters at CR = APL will be essentially auto-hittable with this rule. At roughly what level will this actually happen? My estimate is approx. level 6-8. Which you may be totally ok with, given that you're doing E6; this would actually let you throw higher-CR monsters at the party, and have them be challenging (due to lots of HP/DR, attacks, etc.) without being unhittable by the party.
But, if it becomes a problem (PCs hitting monsters too easily), one thing that might make combats a little more interesting is either some sort of "active defense" (e.g. the Trailblazer combat reaction rules that let someone attempt to dodge individual attacks), or some way of converting attack bonus to more damage (in the vein of Power Attack) or some other effect like bleed, or both.
[1] To be clear, what I mean by this is that monsters become easier to hit with things that are "attacks vs. regular AC" in the standard system, while becoming harder to hit with things that are "attacks vs. touch AC" in the standard system.
Edit: I am still thinking about this and rewriting as I go
It also makes archers a little worse. Which is probably a good thing.
It also makes archers a little worse. Which is probably a good thing.
Well, I guess that depends on whether you allow stuff like Clustered Shots... if you don't, then yeah, it does, and yes, that's probably not a bad thing.
Using the stated rules, what's the highest DR you can get in 6 or fewer levels (assume normal WBL and gear)?
And what's the highest AC you can get?
DId you actually do the math on this?
Nope. It's an initial idea. Once math has been done on it, it can be adjusted. I was actually hoping others would be willing to try mathing it out.
It's rather important to test your own idea out. If you intend to mess with the math of the game, it's vital to actually do the math and see if the idea has any merit.
The point I was making was that a mere +2 to AC does not adequately represent the protection a shield provides. If you are going to improve the AC system, include shields in your overhaul.
I am cripplingly fatigued and depressed. That's why I was asking for help with this.
Shields would benefit from an active defense system, like a parry mechanic (only much easier to do since it's a shield).
Something I've always thought would be good is applying the AC bonus from a shield to Reflex saves (at least, those that don't require physically moving out of the way, like a pit trap).
The knight using his shield to block a dragon's fiery breath is just too classic to not have represented.
I like the idea of an active parry mechanic. It would mean that Sundering would get used more often than it does to get shields out of the way.
Alright, let's go over this thing and see if we can work out some appropriate numbers.
Because armour no longer adds to AC and natural armour adds half to AC, the amount of AC missing at first level may be from around 0 (unarmoured wizard, not expected to have much AC anyway) to about 6 (cheap heavy armour).
+5 full plate and +5 natural armour loses 16 AC and gains that much DR. We don't want highly resistant characters to also be hard to hit. It needs to be a tradeoff.
Clearly, a +20 defense at 20th level is too much. 15 might be appropriate for a highly defensive character. There's also the issue of being unable to get AC bonuses at first level aside from with shields.
Let's see what happens if we...
High Defense: 4 + 1/2 level, starts at +4 and ends at +14
Medium Defense: 3 + 3/8 level, starts at +3 and ends at +10
Low Defense: 2 + 1/4 level, starts at +2 and ends at +7
Multiclassed defense would be fractional.
Hmm. I'm too damned tired. :I
Alright, let's go over this thing and see if we can work out some appropriate numbers.
Because armour no longer adds to AC and natural armour adds half to AC, the amount of AC missing at first level may be from around 0 (unarmoured wizard, not expected to have much AC anyway) to about 6 (cheap heavy armour).
+5 full plate and +5 natural armour loses 16 AC and gains that much DR. We don't want highly resistant characters to also be hard to hit. It needs to be a tradeoff.
Clearly, a +20 defense at 20th level is too much. 15 might be appropriate for a highly defensive character. There's also the issue of being unable to get AC bonuses at first level aside from with shields.
Let's see what happens if we...
High Defense: 4 + 1/2 level, starts at +4 and ends at +14
Medium Defense: 3 + 3/8 level, starts at +3 and ends at +10
Low Defense: 2 + 1/4 level, starts at +2 and ends at +7Multiclassed defense would be fractional.
Hmm. I'm too damned tired. :I
For the sake of easier math, I'd go with 5 + 1/2 (total 15, increases at every even lvl when rounding down), 3 + 1/4 (total 10, increases at e.o.e. level), and 1 + 1/5 (total 5, increases at lvls 5, 10, 15, and 20). Tiny numerical difference, but it feels more in line with how other incremental bonuses go. Multiclassing fractions would still be a little weird though. I assume you only get the initial bonus once? Or maybe mixed multiclassers always use the medium base, plus w/e their fractional bonuses are? We'll come back to that.
So, assuming they're naked, let's look at the AC of three characters, one high, one medium, and one low, at the basic incremental levels, combined with what will be available with your system. We'll assume High AC has a dex mod of +2, med has +1, and low has +3, to simulate the value variance of importance between classes as you've divided them above.
Lvl 1
High AC guy starts with an AC of 17. Not a lot of ways to boost AC at this point. Dodge, I suppose. A shield could add +2, but since those might be changed under this system, we'll ignore it for now). Since most lvl 1 characters can't afford anything more expensive than chain mail, this is not too bad. We'll give him studded leather, since most of your classes would probably start with that. They actually come out ahead of a normal game, with their AC being 2 points higher than it would otherwise be (or 1 point ahead, with your numbers. Not that big of a change). He also gets 3 DR/-. That is a significant increase in survivability, but level one could probably use a reduction in insta-death, so we'll call it good.
Med AC guy starts at 14. Considering that some of your normally high AC classes, like Paladin or Fighter, are here, at first it looks like they are getting a little shafted. However, a lot of these classes will be wearing medium or heavy armor, so let's give them some chain mail. His AC is about 4 points down, but this variant is about making armor wearers more durable, not evasive. He is now rocking 6 DR/-. This is huge at level one, as most mooks are going to have a hard time penetrating that without a crit (except maybe orcs, but they are terrifying melee machines at this stage of the game).
Low AC guy is exactly as hard to hit as Medium, with AC 14. Seeing as how these are the unarmored classes, however, they are probably not wearing anything tougher than leather to avoid ACP. That puts them as 1 point lower than normal (or the same, if your base numbers are used), but with an additional 2 DR/-. I'd say that's about a wash, survivability-wise.
You mentioned Spheres of Power before. I'd recommend enforcing that as the only casting available with this system, or else banning/modding AC buffs, since things like Mage Armor would significantly affect the balance here.
Overall thoughts so far: Everyone is harder to kill at this level, which I see as a good thing. The only case that worries me is low levels and heavy armor, since at this level monsters rarely deal more than 5 damage per hit.
In the interest of avoiding a wall of text (well, a bigger one anyway), I'm going to cover the other levels in another post.
Yes, I did design the guidelines to tend toward medium defense for classes that can easily wear heavy armour without penalty.
Oh, I'm definitely only using Spheres of Power. No normal spells except as rituals (casting time in minutes).
Also, doesn't 3 + 1/4 cap at 8?
Back for the next round!
Level 5.
High AC guy now has a base AC of 19 (or 18, with your numbers) (we assume he hasn't upgraded his dex to 16 yet). At this point, there are more methods available for boosting defense, so we'll give him +1~+3 above that to account for amulets, dodge, or whatever he's invested in at this point. He can probably afford a better choice of armor now, so let's go with a +2 chain shirt for simplicity's sake. His AC is now between 20 and 22, which sounds about right for this level, and he's got 6 or 7 DR/-. Again, sounds good to me.
Med AC guy is now at 15 AC. He's got the same defense boosters available, so we'll say he's between 16 and 18. His armor now swings widely based on which class out of your list he is. If he's a heavy armor type, he'll be turtled up in some +2 Plate Armor. A medium armored character is probably wearing +2 breastplate. His DR is somewhere between 9 and 12, which is still blocking a significant portion of the damage at that level, as only monsters with 2-handed weapons or heavy primary nat. attacks can penetrate that plate mail without a crit.
Low AC guy is still matched with Med AC guy (or ahead by 1, with your numbers). He's still not got any significant DR, probably 3 or 4. He may have swapped his leather for some bracers to get rid of that 10% ASF if he's willing to put it up. Casters are squishy. Nothing new there.
Thoughts so far: This is pretty close to the end of an E6 game, and the numbers look pretty manageable here. Heavy armor characters are easy to hit, but you'd better be hitting pretty hard to penetrate, or slinging spells. High defense characters are probably wearing light armor, and are comparatively much harder to hit, although they are going to be hit pretty often if the Monster Stats by CR is right (25-50% of the time). The DR tends to make these hits somewhat less crippling, though. Low AC characters are still much better off staying out of direct combat, which is probably how it should be.
I will say, this does look like it'll fit just fine in an E6 game, though it does seem to heavily favor high-damage swings over multiple smaller ones. Vital strike suddenly becomes a more viable combat style. Not sure if the numbers will continue to balance at high level play, but as that's irrelevant to your campaign, I think you're good to go.
My experience with building high level characters is somewhat lacking, and there are a lot more potential build results, so I probably won't do the higher levels, unless I get bored after dinner or someone really wants me to. I'm betting that the DR becomes less relevant (both due to the increasing prevalence of energy attacks, and the scalar nature of the number progression between AC/DR and damage), and that Dex-boosting (the only easy way to add to AC) becomes much more so.
Yes, I did design the guidelines to tend toward medium defense for classes that can easily wear heavy armour without penalty.
Oh, I'm definitely only using Spheres of Power. No normal spells except as rituals (casting time in minutes).
Also, doesn't 3 + 1/4 cap at 8?
Yes. Yes it does.
>.> Who said I could do math?
EDIT: Probably should use your fraction for that one, then. I like the aesthetic of final numbers being 5, 10, and 15. That would be an increase at, what, every 3 levels?
Ah, I completely forgot!
I was also planning to include that half the damage prevented by this DR (but not special DR such as cold iron/silver/magic) is taken as non-lethal damage.
This is also true if you attack using non-lethal damage. Half of that non-lethal damage prevented still gets through. Giving a guy in plate an awful smashing can still knock him out, even if it doesn't wound him. Disabling heavy armour troops becomes a lot more viable than outright killing them.
Ah, I completely forgot!
I was also planning to include that half the damage prevented by this DR (but not special DR such as cold iron/silver/magic) is taken as non-lethal damage.
This is also true if you attack using non-lethal damage. Half of that non-lethal damage prevented still gets through. Giving a guy in plate an awful smashing can still knock him out, even if it doesn't wound him. Disabling heavy armour troops becomes a lot more viable than outright killing them.
That...just makes it all the more needlessly complicated.
Ah, I completely forgot!
I was also planning to include that half the damage prevented by this DR (but not special DR such as cold iron/silver/magic) is taken as non-lethal damage.
This is also true if you attack using non-lethal damage. Half of that non-lethal damage prevented still gets through. Giving a guy in plate an awful smashing can still knock him out, even if it doesn't wound him. Disabling heavy armour troops becomes a lot more viable than outright killing them.
That fact sounds like it might be moving in the wrong direction for everyone that isn't wearing heavy armor, though. The heavy guy is durable, but now more 'vulnerable' in that he doesn't soak all of the damage. That works. For medium/light armor, the DR is suddenly less relevant, meaning that their lowered AC doesn't get as good of a trade-off. Low AC people would still be largely unaffected, since they probably weren't wearing a lot of armor anyway. The high AC track is still probably the best, since it keeps you the furthest away from actually taking damage. On top of that, everyone is now tracking non-lethal damage. Which means more book-keeping, but that might not be a problem for you. It does mean, though, that characters are now much more likely to pass out before death, which at least adds a bigger gradient than the current "1hp, totally fine, stub my toe, now I'm dead" scenario.
Yeah, good point. I can scrap that idea.
Yeah, good point. I can scrap that idea.
Like I said at the end, it could work, if you're O.K. with the bookkeeping, it just makes for a slightly grittier outcome than without that part. Which, when combined with the durability that this ruleset adds, just means it's slightly more likely for combatants to get knocked out before they reach a critical health level- any time your non-lethal damage is higher than your HP, you pass out until that is no longer the case. Maybe allow a Fort save each round equal to the difference in order to remain conscious.
Oddly, I'm considering my own houserule HP variant to achieve that exact result. It wouldn't be compatible with this (I think), so I won't hijack/clutter your thread.
Aside from that, once shields and/or parrying is added to the equation, the actual survivability of any character that can do it (assuming weapon/natural weapon parries are a thing) goes up again.
Something like: You may spend an attack of opportunity to attempt to block with a shield.
You roll 1d20 + your BAB + your Str bonus + your shield bonus (including enhancement) vs the incoming attack. You may use this total as your AC against the attack.
I feel like there should be a higher cost to this, perhaps. I dunno at the moment. I suppose it does make shields really good for defending against a single opponent and opens up weak points if you are attacked more than once in a turn (if you don't have combat reflexes).
Something like: You may spend an attack of opportunity to attempt to block with a shield.
You roll 1d20 + your BAB + your Str bonus + your shield bonus (including enhancement) vs the incoming attack. You may use this total as your AC against the attack.
I feel like there should be a higher cost to this, perhaps. I dunno at the moment. I suppose it does make shields really good for defending against a single opponent and opens up weak points if you are attacked more than once in a turn (if you don't have combat reflexes).
I highly recommend looking into the Trailblazer combat reaction rules.
Is that available publicly anywhere?
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I would suggest something like Lethal-to-Non-Lethal conversion instead when it comes to wearing armor, as opposed to complete damage reduction. It would make fighting armored NPCs less of a war of attrition for lower-level characters, because if you kept getting bad rolls then you could still knock the enemy out.
Is that available publicly anywhere?
I'm afraid not. But DriveThruRPG does sell it for less than $5.
It's well worth it.