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View Full Version : Random Ideas. What do you think?



Zeful
2009-01-02, 02:48 AM
I've been trying to build my own campaign setting for a while and wanted to do something for fighters (rather than replace them with Warblades(though disciplines seem like a good idea overall)) to make them more powerful to do jobs needed of them within the settings (guarding kings, acting as officers in armies, mercenaries) especially when high-level casters can do almost as good a job on there own. I have some solutions but they seem weird, and was just wondering what the playgound though of them. Anyway here they are:

Weapon Familiarity (Ex):1 You may choose a weapon group2, (Swords, Axes, Hammers, etc.). While you wield a weapon from this group you receave an insight bonus equal to your wisdom modifier to attack and damage.

Weapon Focus (Ex):3 Choose a weapon from a weapon group you have weapon familiarity with. While you wield this weapon you gain an additional die of damage with it4. Unlike other forms of bonus dice this damage is multiplied by critical hits5.

1:This would be a class feature, but I don't know what level it should be at, or if it should advance every few levels to apply to more weapon groups or what.
2:I was thinking of organising weapons into weapon groups but don't know how to do it. Should I steal 4e's weapon groups or use UA's?
3:Same as with number 1, what would be a good level? Should it advance to apply to more weapons? This would replace the feat of the same name obviously.
4:I was thinking making this advance so that the first weapon you pick would eventually get more dice, but I'm not sure.
5:I included this to make the ability more about the fighter's knowledge with the weapon and how to make it more deadly rather than something like sneak attack.

Any input would be greatly appriciated.

Zeful
2009-01-02, 09:36 AM
So 7 hours later, no one has any thoughts on this?

Frog Dragon
2009-01-02, 09:48 AM
Um double the damage dice.... class feature.... Hmm lets see.
Level 10 greatspord fighter with your weapon focus would do 4d6+(3likely magic weapon)+(10 Enhanced str with two handed weapon multipliers)+ Whatever ubercharger cheese you can come up with on average meaning 23 plus multiplier cheese. It's not that bad with normal stuff it would be 17. Then you add power attack. It looks like much, but it's not really that bad unless you top on size enlarging shiz going to huge damage dice and doubling it!!!

Yeah without enlargening cheese it would work without breaking in half though its questionable even without enlarging as multipliers stack on turning +6 into +42.

Zeful
2009-01-03, 12:18 AM
I take it you actually didn't read the ability then? Just skimmed? Otherwise you should have noticed the use of "an" and "die", both of which are not "double" and "dice". You get one bonus die. That's it (unless I decide to have the ablitly advance, in which case it will be 2 additional dice). However your overall point stands; when used with ubercharger lion totem barbarians it just makes those greatsword builds better (3d6 damage). However as this is for my personal setting, I won't have that problem because x Totem Barbarian variants don't exist. There's the PHb barbarian and that's it. And I plan to disallow most of the silly builds from the Optimisation boards (both here and at WoTC).

Do you have any other thoughts?

DracoDei
2009-01-03, 07:34 AM
So it works almost twice as well for a greataxe as a greatsword? I would go with doubling all dice the way the other poster thought it worked... feels much better to me.

StoryKeeper
2009-01-03, 11:11 AM
I know you didn't want to just make it like sneak attack, but just changing Weapon Focus so that it's a simple dx bonus to the weapon would make it work about the same for all weapons.

Berserk Monk
2009-01-04, 01:12 AM
For the Weapon Focus one, by another die, do you double damage. For example, if you take it for great axe, do you roll 2d12, because that is kind of insane. The crit would be 6d12. Might I suggest that they roll a d6 in addition to the normal damage. Never mind. I was being dumb. I need to make a warrior that could do 70 damage on a crit.

Zeful
2009-01-04, 01:21 AM
So it works almost twice as well for a greataxe as a greatsword? I would go with doubling all dice the way the other poster thought it worked... feels much better to me.

Not so much for me though, I understand the validity of the point of view, but it doesn't feel right to me, especially at low levels.


I know you didn't want to just make it like sneak attack, but just changing Weapon Focus so that it's a simple dx bonus to the weapon would make it work about the same for all weapons.
It would be simpler but I feel it would take away from the concept that it's the Fighter intimately knowing the weapon and using it to the best effect.


For the Weapon Focus one, by another die, do you double damage. For example, if you take it for great axe, do you roll 2d12, because that is kind of insane. The crit would be 6d12. Might I suggest that they roll a d6 in addition to the normal damage. Never mind. I was being dumb. I need to make a warrior that could do 70 damage on a crit.
It would make higher crit weapons more dangerous. A scythe would be doing 8d4+3xStr (2d4 base, x4 crit, two-handed weapon) on a crit. But looking at it from the other point of veiw, a wizard could still kill the creature by looking at it, casting one no-save, no-SR spell and be done with it. My weapon focus changes, won't allow such a one hit KO without alot of cheese. And if I were going to add a static die it would be a d4. It would still multiply with crits, but would be significantly less damage.

StoryKeeper
2009-01-04, 01:50 AM
If you want to really represent an intimate understanding of a weapon, you would probably have to come up with a bunch of different effects for different weapons.

And I'm sorry, but I don't see how adding a d12 for a greataxe (that's right isn't it?) and a d6 for a shortsword (again, not sure on the damage these weapons deal) really shows a better understanding of a weapon than adding a d6 to all of them. If you mean that you want the benefit to be different for different weapons, that's fine, but if it's simply a damage bonus that is simply better for some weapons than others, it's going to make me want to roll 2d12, not 2d6.

If a static die is too boring, maybe certain weapon categories recieve different benefits from this effect. Like bows let you add your wisdom modifier to attack rolls or something, blades get a static +d4 to damage rolls, spears give you... i dunno, but it's something to think about.

Neek
2009-01-04, 02:06 AM
Weapon Familiarity (Ex):1 You may choose a weapon group2, (Swords, Axes, Hammers, etc.). While you wield a weapon from this group you receave an insight bonus equal to your wisdom modifier to attack and damage.

Weapon Focus (Ex):3 Choose a weapon from a weapon group you have weapon familiarity with. While you wield this weapon you gain an additional die of damage with it4. Unlike other forms of bonus dice this damage is multiplied by critical hits5.

1:This would be a class feature, but I don't know what level it should be at, or if it should advance every few levels to apply to more weapon groups or what.
2:I was thinking of organising weapons into weapon groups but don't know how to do it. Should I steal 4e's weapon groups or use UA's?
3:Same as with number 1, what would be a good level? Should it advance to apply to more weapons? This would replace the feat of the same name obviously.
4:I was thinking making this advance so that the first weapon you pick would eventually get more dice, but I'm not sure.
5:I included this to make the ability more about the fighter's knowledge with the weapon and how to make it more deadly rather than something like sneak attack.

Any input would be greatly appriciated.

I'd swap the two and do this: Weapon Focus gives you a bonus to the weapons in a given category. This makes Weapon Focus less of a one-weapon fighter trap. I'd then give them Weapon Familiarity with a weapon from the group they have a focus in. I'd cap the insight bonus to something level-dependent rather than a Wis bonus.

Zeful
2009-01-04, 02:15 AM
If you want to really represent an intimate understanding of a weapon, you would probably have to come up with a bunch of different effects for different weapons.

And I'm sorry, but I don't see how adding a d12 for a greataxe (that's right isn't it?) and a d6 for a shortsword (again, not sure on the damage these weapons deal) really shows a better understanding of a weapon than adding a d6 to all of them. If you mean that you want the benefit to be different for different weapons, that's fine, but if it's simply a damage bonus that is simply better for some weapons than others, it's going to make me want to roll 2d12, not 2d6.

If a static die is too boring, maybe certain weapon categories recieve different benefits from this effect. Like bows let you add your wisdom modifier to attack rolls or something, blades get a static +d4 to damage rolls, spears give you... i dunno, but it's something to think about.

I thought of something like that but this is the first thing that came to mind with mechanics. And I thought to test the water.


I'd swap the two and do this: Weapon Focus gives you a bonus to the weapons in a given category. This makes Weapon Focus less of a one-weapon fighter trap. I'd then give them Weapon Familiarity with a weapon from the group they have a focus in. I'd cap the insight bonus to something level-dependent rather than a Wis bonus.Why not just pure Wis? Aside from MAD issues (as I plan to make casters more MAD anyway)