I'm going to implement the Automatic Bonus Progression, (ABP), and I wanted to ask the forum brain trust if I'm going about this the right way.
I still plan to give out weapons/armor with property runes, just not fundamental runes. This is the correct way to implement this variant rule, correct?
For example...
At 8th level, our fighter's normal weapon attacks will be +1/+1dX. However, I could still have a Flaming Longsword be a treasure that the party can find.
Does this sound reasonable to people who have DMed using the ABP rules?
Absolutely. Property runes are how you keep weapons/armor fun and interesting. And the game runs fine doing it that way.
I remember discussing something like this earlier, but now I can't find it.
Anyway, the ruling decisions that have to be made at the table that I remember:
How many property runes can be added to weapons/armor since you aren't actually adding fundamental runes? ABP basically adds the runes to the weapons and armor automatically, so you should be able to tell how many fundamental runes the item has and can base the number of property runes the item is allowed on that.
What happens when people transfer items around to characters of different level? Hopefully your party isn't of different level, so that wouldn't be a problem. However, if you do end up with a character picking up a weapon (for example) that has too many property runes for their level of ABP to handle, just temporarily disable the extra property runes. Either GM or Player's choice.
Just remember to give your casters some extra goods as well, for all the money martials are saving.
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Advice: If you have an alchemist in the group be prepared for the discrepancy of the level 1 Bombs keeping pace 1-to-1 with the higher-level versions. Cost-wise, an Alchemist will be able to use 50% more bombs every day with no loss to accuracy or damage just from their free Reagents for Bomber Specialists (with the exception of lower persistent damage) and if they're purchasing or downtime crafting them between adventuring days it will save them 70% of the cost at level 3 and about 90% (or over 99% near max level) on every bomb versus what it WOULD cost them without ABP after level 11.
It's not game-breaking exactly but if you're running the game for multiple levels (esp at higher levels) then any "wise" player would end not only saving a TON of Gold Coin but they'll also have stockpiles upon stockpiles of every Bomb conceivable without having any significant power loss, I'm talking on the scale of one bag of holding at mid-level holding less than 300 GP of Bombs that fundamentally are near equal to a cache with value in the TENS OF THOUSANDS of GP.
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Advice: If you have an alchemist in the group be prepared for the discrepancy of the level 1 Bombs keeping pace 1-to-1 with the higher-level versions. Cost-wise, an Alchemist will be able to use 50% more bombs every day with no loss to accuracy or damage just from their free Reagents for Bomber Specialists (with the exception of lower persistent damage) and if they're purchasing or downtime crafting them between adventuring days it will save them 70% of the cost at level 3 and about 90% (or over 99% near max level) on every bomb versus what it WOULD cost them without ABP after level 11.
It's not game-breaking exactly but if you're running the game for multiple levels (esp at higher levels) then any "wise" player would end not only saving a TON of Gold Coin but they'll also have stockpiles upon stockpiles of every Bomb conceivable without having any significant power loss, I'm talking on the scale of one bag of holding at mid-level holding less than 300 GP of Bombs that fundamentally are near equal to a cache with value in the TENS OF THOUSANDS of GP.
Are you talking about alchemists getting a "free" item bonus to hit with low-level bombs? I'm pretty sure they would have already gotten those from Alchemist Goggles.
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Just remember to give your casters some extra goods as well, for all the money martials are saving.
Nah, caster just didn't need as much money in the first place to function.
They don't need additional compensation IMO.
What is actually needed is math modifiers to either saves or spell attack rolls to put them closer to martial characters in terms of success, but that is a very different discussion. If those were to exist though, they would need to be a part of APB too.
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Are you talking about alchemists getting a "free" item bonus to hit with low-level bombs? I'm pretty sure they would have already gotten those from Alchemist Goggles.
Not really, though that does play into things giving more powerful daily 1st level bombs for a Bomber. I'm talking about spending Coin to Craft or purchase Alchemical Bombs and as they are Weapons, under APB they automatically have their built-in Item Bonus overwritten, this includes the 3GP "lesser" versions of all such items, in other words, they automaically are (nearly) as powerful as the far more expensive higher-level versions of said items.
Ex: A lesser Alchemist Fire will deal 3d8 fire damage, 1 persistent fire damage, and 1 fire splash damage for any Character at level 12 all for the cost of only 3gp (versus 250 GP for the Greater version).
It's easy to "fix" in that the GM can just say the ABP doesn't apply to Alchemical Bombs but if that ISN'T done you can purchase 3.333x as many near-equal strength Bombs at level 4 by sticking with the lowest level version, 83.333x as many at level 12, and a staggering 833.333x as many bombs (again for nearly the exact same punching power) at level 19. The "baked in" Item Bonus on ALL of these goes away by default too and the ABP even OVERRIDES the edge that IS given to buying the highest level Bombs because you end up netting a loss of -1 to hit during some awkward levels right before the ABP increases. It's a real mess but I'm sure it was literally just an oversight since the interaction is so strange. At the same time, the Alch CAN choose to use/make/buy them at the first level they would be able to gain them and will end up with a net -1 to hit VS the "normal" amount but will be +1 damage dice AHEAD of all other Weapon types.
I ran into this running a 1-shot for a party with an Alchemist for a level 4 game and I basically just ruled that APB does NOT impact Bombs damage or their Item Bonus in any way to make it easy on everyone and the Player was happy with that so I wanted to share my exp.
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They still lack the (tiny) amount of extra splash and other stuff you’d get from higher level bomb scaling (e.g. a level 1 alchemist fire would do 3d8, 1 splash and 1 persistent, a level 11 would be dealing the normal amount of 3d8, 3 splash and 3 persistent), but it does buff their perpetual infusions feature by a bit.
Alchemists have a lot of issues with ABP in general. Mutagens just flat out don’t work (I’d suggest changing them to a potency bonus) is another one.
Casters don't need anything added, because martials are simply getting a bonus for free, instead of finding it in a treasure hoard. This doesn't affect treasure casters find and use that isn't weapons.
That bonus is worth money, so your martial will be getting more wealth per level if you don't subtract those runes it's getting from their wealth.
Giving one type of character free things that have worth and not balancing that for other players runs the risk of upsetting people.
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I'd rather modify the rules so that potency and item bonuses coexist but only the better one would apply for each roll.
Then reclassify the base item bonus from armour as "armour bonus" or something similar to prevent it from going poof with the above logic.