We ran into a Power Attack crit with a +1 greatsword in our last playtest session. The crit dealt 8d12+16 damage. It took some time to churn through the math.
Then we got to thinking - this was a pretty slow moment at level 7, but this will scale into something pretty crazy!
With a +3 potency rune, that power attack crit looks like:
16d12+STRx4
With a +5 potency rune the power attack crit is now:
24d12+STRx4
That is... a lot.
Even standard attacks.. +3 potency is 4d something + STR and +5 potency is 6d something + STR. On a standard attack...
My concern is this: Potency Runes adding weapon dice is going to increase dramatically the number of dice you need to add up during your turn. Whether it's Power Attack or two single Strikes... even without the crits...
My understanding is that the increase in damage potential for martial characters is part of addressing the power level problem between casters and martial characters. I salute the effort to bring those power levels in line. But I'm worried that the increase in time spent adding will slow things and make higher level play laborious.
Personally I would be fine with lower HP pools and lower damage potential across the board, and would prefer that to increasing the math required at the table by increasing dice with potency runes.
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Power attack adds a single die (or 2 at fighter 10). A level 7 character critting with a +1 greatsword with power attack would hit for 6d12 + 2xSTR.
1 die for weapon, 1 die for +1, and 1 die for power attack. I'm also not sure where you're getting str x 4 from...
It's a lot of dice to roll but it's nothing that the caster hasn't been rolling for decades. There's also something very fun as a player about bogging down the game for a brief moment because you have to roll a ton of damage.
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It's a lot of dice to roll but it's nothing that the caster hasn't been rolling for decades.
The thing is, the person that had no issue with rolling and adding a bunch of dice was most likely the guy with the wizard while the guy that struggled with it liked to swing his sword and already added all his numbers already. Traditionally, martials appealed to people that wanted to do less math/behind the scenes work.
So, with the way the new system works, someone that doesn't think more dice = more fun is left out in the cold.
Yeah, a lot of players don’t like tracking spells, but everyone I know seems to be a fan of a fist full of dice, even those using their fingers to count when they hit the table.
LOL I know someone that doesn't play wizards and such BECAUSE of the 'fist full of dice'. Heck, he scowled whenever he had to add flaming AND frost to a sword attack. Now, myself I once rolled 120d6 for an attack and loved it but people that don't like that sort of thing do exist.
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I've always preferred static damage modifiers. I think magic weapons should add the average damage for an additional die (high or low average, doesn't really matter to me). Helps with accelerating combat too, just add your 1d12+30 instead of 6d12.
Also helps avoid crap rolls ruining your damage output, which happens to me more often than not.
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The thing is, the person that had no issue with rolling and adding a bunch of dice was most likely the guy with the wizard while the guy that struggled with it liked to swing his sword and already added all his numbers already.
In my experience, Martials often ended up with some pretty complicated math by mid-level in Pathfinder First Edition. Multiple attacks with decreasing accuracy, augmented by bonuses (some conditional, some not, some stacking, some not), with base damage augmented by bonuses (some of which were multipled on a critical, some of which were not), and... Just as they finished the math they realized they never rolled to confirm.
"Wait - does it have Fire Resistance? If so, take out that...uh..d6 I rolled. Uh...do you remember what I rolled for fire damage on the second attack? Wait - is this thing chaotic?"
Again, speaking just for my players, it was the Martials - not the Casters - who had the most complicated math in Pathfinder First Edition. Casters just followed the directions in the spell and were fine - metamagic was usually straightforward and simple to apply. The only big exception I can recall is summoning - tracking a dozen augmented creatures and their current status could get pretty complicated.
Traditionally, martials appealed to people that wanted to do less math/behind the scenes work.
It may be tradition but, as noted, the less math bit hasn't been my experience. I'm not sure about the behind the scenes work bit either. In my groups, vancian casters certainly put in the most "behind the scenes" work but it was spontaneous casters - not Martials - who often seemed to be on the light end. Martials often did a fair amount of prep, carefully planning out their build and looking for items/tactics that would stack with their current abilities.
The Once and Future Kai: You're mixing up in game vs out of game math. Multiple attack bonuses can be pre added, bonuses to damage pre added ect. Conditional numbers then just modify those numbers. In game, there isn't really anything that complicated and are static [flanking if ALWAYS +2]. Dice are always different and have to be figured out each and every time. And everything you mentioned spellcasters have to deal with IN ADDITION to dice math [spells roll to hit too and sometimes with normal BAB, sometimes with tough and sometimes with multiple attack modifiers and sometimes with simultaneous attacks].
So I'm going to have to strongly disagree that martials have more complicated IN GAME math. If your martials are doing less in game math, you've been playing a different game than I have.
Now if you are talking out of game math, then I find that meaningless as that wasn't what I was talking about: Some people are fine with figuring out there bonuses ONCE: that's very different than expecting to do that every round of combat. Seeing 1d4 + 40 makes some people MUCH, MUCH happier than seeing 6d12 +10 even if the second might average more damage.
Ok, we messed up Power attack, thanks for noting that. I'll be sure to bring that up with the player and we can use the rule correctly.
But I think the issue stands: lots of dice either way.
I agree with Graystone - when I play a martial, I write out my attack on my sheet so that it includes all of the relevant modifiers, and I do this ahead of time so I'm not tabulating at the table. Crunching numbers takes time, and time spent doing math is not really fun. The fun part is "I do X damage!"
The fist full of dice thing is OK for casters who may cast a big damage nuke once a fight, maybe twice. But in Pathfinder Playtest, martials are rolling for Strikes 1-3 times each round. That has been dragging the pace down for us. My concern is that if those high damage values from + dice potency runes is baked into the core math of the game, we'll be stuck with it. There is still time to consider if the extra math is a design goal or an unintended consequence, and the numbers can still be adjusted.
I'll probably allow people to take the average value of as many dice as they want and roll the rest, as long as they still roll one die.
At low levels the variability is important, but as you get 3+ dice you end up converging on average rolls pretty often. The math works out fine and it lets people speed up their turn if they want, or play more or less conservatively.
Will I be rolling huge fistfuls of dice? No, probably not often. I'd rather keep the pace going.
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What if instead of replacing the Potency you simply allow Weapon Training to ALSO add extra Dice to weapon attacks after Trained?
Trained - No Penalty for using the Weapon
Expert - +1 to hit & 1 additional Damage Die
Master - +2 to hit & 2 additional Damage Dice
Legendary - +3 to hit & 3 additional Damage Dice
Sure, it would be a big buff for martial PCs (Fighter in particular), but I don't see why we couldn't apply this to Spell Attacks that rely on the Spellcasting Training. It would require a bit of rebalancing HP across the board since this means PCs and NPCs get a big burst of additional Damage at specific benchmarks but maybe that will help players split the difference between wanting to feel like they have awesome Magic Equipment, but also that their innate personal Skill/Expertise counts as well.
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I've always preferred static damage modifiers. I think magic weapons should add the average damage for an additional die (high or low average, doesn't really matter to me). Helps with accelerating combat too, just add your 1d12+30 instead of 6d12.
Also helps avoid crap rolls ruining your damage output, which happens to me more often than not.
See I agree and then the PF1 game I'm in started to get higher levels and the static bonuses is getting a little out of control.
I'm starting to dislike a huge stack of static bonuses because unless DR is involved how much less damage are you doing? Usually d6 - d10 of damage? Across a few swings that's a good amount but then you have to recall you're adding your static damage each time as well.
Flipside is that I think throwing the damage all into dice makes the game far too swingy in how much damage gets tossed around. Statistically it might even out but it sure as heck doesn't feel like it does in my play testing.
Personally I'd like to see a middle ground but that might be too bland for some and too hard to balance well for the devs.
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It's a lot of dice to roll but it's nothing that the caster hasn't been rolling for decades.The thing is, the person that had no issue with rolling and adding a bunch of dice was most likely the guy with the wizard while the guy that struggled with it liked to swing his sword and already added all his numbers already. Traditionally, martials appealed to people that wanted to do less math/behind the scenes work.
That was true back in 1st edition AD&D, but it definitely has not been true since 3.0 came out.
Fighters get a stack of buffs, multiple attacks, criticals, power attack, and a number of other variables. Every round is analysis paralysis while the fighter decides which feats to use or not use, then recalculates his bonus to hit, then rolls his attacks, then rolls damage which can be a variable number of dice and modifiers too.
Meanwhile, the wizard only has to cast his fireball and roll 10d6 and do a little bit of addition. Group those d6 into multiples of 10 and it takes only seconds to add it up.
So far this century (3.0, 3.5, Pathfinder 1) the fighters almost always take way more time with their turn than the spellcasters.
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here is a simple rule if you want to remove too much dice rolling
1. set the number of max dice rolled for any damage roll.
I usually go for 4 or 5.
4 if attack has even number of dice, 5 if it is odd number of dice.
rest of the dice take average value.
I.E.
you have +5 great sword that deals 6d12+6 damage.
That would be rolled as 4d12+19
and critical would be rolled as 4d12+64
A 17d6+6 spell damage roll, would be rolled as 5d6+48