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View Full Version : [3.5]Improved Melee System[PEACH]



Nivellios
2012-01-21, 07:53 PM
Hey all. I was DM'ing a campaign with no magic, but with a magic replacement class that was pretty much the same thing (I know, complicated, but that's a different story), and my adventurers were complaining about the lack of magic items, as melee characters weren't nearly as strong as magic characters without them. So, I decided why not screw around with the melee system and see if I could fix that? The alternate was to tone down the magic system, and not only would that be impractical, but it would make it a lot less fun :(.

So, the result is the short bit that follows:

Improved Melee System
(I am open to name suggestions if you really feel like it needs a name)

Basic Melee Damage

REMOVED
Left in the spoiler for any additional examination if you so choose.

The most basic yet most important change comes in the dice you roll for damage. Instead of rolling your weapons normal damage dice, you roll multiple amounts of that dice. A damage roll works as follows:

[Special Modifier]d[Weapon Damage Dice] + Strength modifier

The Special Modifier is determined by your strength modifier, but has some limits. In general, it just equals your strength modifier, and it cannot exceed your character level. At lower levels however, that level cap cannot be less than 3. So, at first level, you can use a modifier up to +3.

Ex. with level 5 character with a strength modifier of +7 (cap of 5), and a longsword:
5d8 + 7 damage. So, with calculations using average values, about 27 damage. Magic users do about 20 damage or so at 5th level (not counting things like Warlocks), and they also have the ability to use magic for utility uses.
Criticals

I also tweaked with criticals, giving them special effects depending on the type of weapon your wielding. These effects are on the defender. You don't have to use these if you don't want to.

Piercing - Great Pain, -5 ft. movement, penalty of attacker's strength modifier to any check made relating to physical movement, such as a Jump check or an attack roll. Lasts until healed. Additional criticals of this type increase the penalties to both checks and movement by 1. Movement rounds down to the nearest 5 ft. increment, for ease of use.

Slashing - Bleeding, defender loses attacker's strength modifier number of hit points per round. Lasts until healed. Additional criticals of this type increase the bleed number by 1.

Bludgeoning - Loss of Wind, lose your next full action. Treated as flat-footed until recovered (until next full action that is usable). Fortitude save is needed against [10 + half of attacker's level + attacker's strength modifier] or stunned.

2
So, that's it. What do you think? Also, please note that I have not actually used this yet, but fully plan on using it next time we meet.

Centric
2012-01-22, 02:25 AM
Your example damage is a little suspect, methinks. With a strength mod of 24, this level 5 character has a strength of 23 or 24. Perhaps you meant strength minus 10? Also, I don't think that the special mod would have a much of a chance to exceed character level, except in the first 3 levels or so, since the minimum is 3.

It's definitely an addition to melee, but the power difference between it and magic is larger than this alone can address. Tome of Battle (ToB) goes a good way toward doing just that, though. Perhaps you've heard of it? You'll see it come up every so often in the Playground.

nonsi
2012-01-22, 06:26 AM
How does [cannot be less than 3 and cannot exceed your character level] work at levels 1 & 2 ?

playswithfire
2012-01-22, 08:08 AM
The bleeding from a slashing critical makes sense regardless of where the crit is, but it feels like the other effects might need to be split up. For instance, a critical bludgeoning hit to the head might result in unconsciousness (though that's harsh and I might recommend stunned) but one to the stomach wouldn't; a critical bludgeoning hit to the stomach might knock the wind out of you (though I think staggered might represent that better).
I realize this is getting into something like a called shots system and I don't know if that's what you want. It just seems odd to me that a single hit would both knock you unconscious and knock the wind out of you.

Nivellios
2012-01-22, 11:26 AM
Your example damage is a little suspect, methinks. With a strength mod of 24, this level 5 character has a strength of 23 or 24. Perhaps you meant strength minus 10? Also, I don't think that the special mod would have a much of a chance to exceed character level, except in the first 3 levels or so, since the minimum is 3.

It's definitely an addition to melee, but the power difference between it and magic is larger than this alone can address. Tome of Battle (ToB) goes a good way toward doing just that, though. Perhaps you've heard of it? You'll see it come up every so often in the Playground.

The level cap system is just to prevent characters from pouring absolutely EVERYTHING into strength and having massive damage higher than a normal magic user. I realize that most people aren't going to reach it, but I don't normally expect them to. If you really know how to max out a melee class, though, your gonna hit it.

And yes, I know what Tome of Battle is, but I don't really want the additional powers/techniques/abilities whatever you want to call them that the Tome of Battle uses. I simply wanted a system hardcoded into the basics that will help balance it a little bit, without having to take extra prestige classes or anything like that.


How does [cannot be less than 3 and cannot exceed your character level] work at levels 1 & 2 ?

The less than 3 takes over. After all, that's pretty much why I put less than 3 in. Wait. I just realized I wrote that wrong. I meant to say that the cap cannot be less than 3 >_<.


The bleeding from a slashing critical makes sense regardless of where the crit is, but it feels like the other effects might need to be split up. For instance, a critical bludgeoning hit to the head might result in unconsciousness (though that's harsh and I might recommend stunned) but one to the stomach wouldn't; a critical bludgeoning hit to the stomach might knock the wind out of you (though I think staggered might represent that better).
I realize this is getting into something like a called shots system and I don't know if that's what you want. It just seems odd to me that a single hit would both knock you unconscious and knock the wind out of you.

Yeah, different sections for different hits would be nice, but I think it would just get too complicated, which is why I just did one per weapon type. Though, I think i'm gonna change it from knocked unconscious to stunned.

Dragon Star
2012-01-22, 07:56 PM
I actually really like this system. Honestly, I think it would work with ToB fine. Some problems though:

1. Invalidates rogue. Like, completely. It means that a mildly (ok, maybe middling...) optimized level ten fighter could have 10d12 damage while a rogue has 5d6, and then only if they fulfill specific conditions. This can be fixed by allowing you to use Dex if you have Weapon Finesse.

2. It places an even higher emphasis on strength. Seriously, why should you care about hit points when at level 6 you can do enough damage with a greataxe to kill almost anyone in one hit, and that's just te average. Actually, concidering wizards at the same level have enough SoL spells to win any encounter and are also SAD as hell, that isn't too OP.

3. Makes sword and board absolutely useless. Why should you use a weapon with a lower damage die when you could have d12s, or over 9000 d6s with TWF. This is just making something already bad worse.

And I'm sure this would have lots of little balance problems. For example, a greatsword at 5th level has about half the average damage of a greatsword.

Nivellios
2012-01-22, 10:26 PM
1. Invalidates rogue. Like, completely. It means that a mildly (ok, maybe middling...) optimized level ten fighter could have 10d12 damage while a rogue has 5d6, and then only if they fulfill specific conditions. This can be fixed by allowing you to use Dex if you have Weapon Finesse.


I knew there was some more stuff I had forgotten about >_<. Yeah, I'll get to work on something like that.

As for the rest, could you explain all the acronyms beside ToB and OP. XD Sorry, not too used to this stuff. And "sword and board"? I think that's really confusing my understand of that third point. Sorry XD

Dragon Star
2012-01-23, 12:56 AM
No problem, lemme clarify...

SoL- save or lose. A spell such as glitter dust that makes an enemy save, and on faliure gives them a handicap bad enough that they have effectively lost the fight.

SAD- single ability dependent. A class that only requires one or two high abilitys to be effective. MAD (multiple ability dependent) is the opposite. Some classic examples are monk for MAD and factotum for SAD.

TWF- two weapon fighting. The fighting style (and feat chain) that lets one fight with one weapon in each hand.

Sword and board- the fighting style tha consists ofusing a one handed weapon and a shield.

Nivellios
2012-01-23, 01:28 AM
Alright, thanks. So basically, I also need to work on Two-Weapon Fighting as well. Nice >_< Didn't even think of that.

Seerow
2012-01-23, 02:05 AM
The big problem with this is that you are thinking solely about medium sized humans using one handed weapons. Your balance works okay there, but outside of that it is way too strong.

Something as simple as giving your sample Fighter a greatsword instead of a Longsword, he now deals 10d6+10 damage. By level 7 that will be 14d6+10. Assuming no other modifiers at all.

Now consider someone who increases size categories. Or uses weapons that have had their effective size category buffed. A weapon doing 3d6 is so easy people with no optimization experience do it by accident. Now your fighter is up to 15d6. If you want to push the system just a bit, something like using greater mighty wallop and enlarge person with an appropriate weapon, you can easily end up with 6d6 base weapon damage. As you can see, this scales VERY quickly to very ridiculous levels.



Now consider another thing: Monsters. They have more hit dice (thus a higher cap), and higher strength scores than humans. And are typically bigger, giving them bigger base damage dice. A CR8 dire tiger has its damage jump up from 2d4+8 claws and a 2d6+4 bite, all the way up to 16d4+8 and 16d6+4 respectively. This is as a CR8 creature that has pounce, so could do all three attacks while moving. This is not a problem inherent to that monster, but one shared among just about any melee focused creature that is not a medium humanoid.




Now, I would give advice on how to fix this, but I'm just going to save a lot of time and instead link you to the thread where I already did basically the exact same thing, except tried to actually balance it. Click Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=216528)

nonsi
2012-01-23, 02:39 AM
An option to consider: Go for the crit-effects without the pumped up damage.

Nivellios
2012-01-23, 05:57 PM
Yeah, I think I'm gonna keep the Crit sytem while effectively dumping the current damage system. From a quick look at your topic, Seerow, I think your idea is quite interesting, and definately nicer than mine. I'd still like to work on this though, so I might give it another shot with a different damage system, and maybe some other things, in a little bit. Just got to keep into account all the other stuff besides a fighter with a one-handed weapon though >_<