I am pondering having brace also double damage on attacks of opportunity triggered by charging enemies. Anyone have thoughts or experience with something like this?
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No experience, but my first thought is that longspears just got a lot better.
Since no one else has weighed in here ...
Brace is something I usually don't care about at all on a weapon, readied actions are rare, and readied actions to brace are even rarer.
This change would make Brace MUCH more powerful, making it likely on par with a higher crit-range for reach weapons. It would also make tactical positioning (for reach-characters especially) even more important, so the effect would likely depend on your party composition.
If the PCs tend to charge in this will make combat significantly more deadly for them. If the PCs tend to set up choke-points and force the enemy to come to them this will make enemy movement even harder.
Honestly I don't know how this will turn out, why not try it and let us know?
I like the idea of increasing the value of positioning, and charging pikes is a sketchy tactic. I'm not sure if this would over shift the balance to defense, but we will see!
It would be used everytime a longspear user is charged by a non-reach weapon.
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It would be used everytime a longspear user is charged by a non-reach weapon.
Would it? In several decades of playing D&D I can count on one hand successful uses of Brace Weapon against Charge. There are so many ways to nullify this readied action that it seems like a trap.
Bugbear with Longspear: I brace my spear and ready an action to stab that Barbarian if it charges me.
GM to Barbarian: The bugbear braces its spear against your charge.
Barbarian: I don't charge. Instead I move up to the bugbear and then attack it with my glaive.
GM: OK. Since you didn't charge its readied action is wasted. Roll your attack.
Bugbear: But ... [bugbear dies]
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From experience we've learned it's better to do this:
Bugbear with Longspear: I ready an action to attack that Barbarian if comes within my reach.
GM to Barbarian: The bugbear seems ready to attack you!
Barbarian: I don't charge. Instead I move up to the bugbear and then attack it with my glaive.
GM: The bugbear was ready for you! The bugbear attacks!
This thread is about changing the rule Magda.
Even if all it does is to prevent charges you're still going to waste enemy turns, so it's still a good deal for the Brace-weapon user.
I agree Brace never gets used, I think I've only used it successfully once, and I might be the only person in my gaming group who has.
Exactly, the idea is to make brace actually matter.
My group just have it add an extra weapon dice, like vital strike, if your readied attack hits a charging character. I could see us potentially adopting that to AoOs as well, since we nerfed alot of the potential multiplied damage.
Yup