Combat Modifier: A New Way of Looking at Base Attack

[wayfare]

Hey All:

A few times on these boards I've tried to figure out ways to make AC a useful thing without resorting to cheese. The general consensus is that its too swingy, and that trying to balance it is a really not possible. After some thought, I think I've come up with a way to balance it out for lower-leveled campaigns.

Before I start, I should note that this idea can work for full 20 level campaigns, but it works much better for 10 level Campaigns, which Is where the bulk of my work is.

Ok, with that out of the way, here are my goals:

1) I want AC that is linked to combat skill -- if you are good at fighting, you are good at defending yourself.

2) I want AC to be competitive, but still allow character role to shine. A low AC class wont always get hit by a full BA class, and a High BA class wont be able to avoid a Low BA class every time, but you have a much better chance of hitting and evading with high BA.

Ok, so, here is the basic idea:

1) Your Defense (which is replacing AC) is equal to your (Base attack + the Highest of your Wisdom or Dexterity).

2) Armor grants Damage Reduction.

3) Enhancement Bonuses apply to AC, not increasing DR. Special materials may still increase DR.

4) Shields dont give Def bonus

I know I've posted a similar idea before, but I think thread necromancy prohibits me from bringing it back up. As always, feedback is appreciated.

[Eldan]

There's one question I see right away. What do shields do in this system?


Armour as damage reduction is problematic since, well, it becomes pointless at higher levels. By the time you throw around 2d6+200 damage, your DR 10 barely matters.

[TuggyNE]

This project, like all modifications to core progressions, lives and dies by numbers, so a detailed projection of various AC and DR values compared to standard values would be invaluable.


4) Shields dont give Def bonus

Like Eldan, I ask: just what do they do, then? If they are nothing more than a way to add more armor enchantments at lower expense, that seems lame.


I know I've posted a similar idea before, but I think thread necromancy prohibits me from bringing it back up.

Surprisingly, no: the Homebrew forum specifically allows thread necromancy and double-posting for the author of a given homebrew, with no permission needed.

[wayfare]

This project, like all modifications to core progressions, lives and dies by numbers, so a detailed projection of various AC and DR values compared to standard values would be invaluable.



Like Eldan, I ask: just what do they do, then? If they are nothing more than a way to add more armor enchantments at lower expense, that seems lame.



Surprisingly, no: the Homebrew forum specifically allows thread necromancy and double-posting for the author of a given homebrew, with no permission needed.

Sorry guys, I thought I posted something on this subject earlier.

I had a few thoughts on the subject:

1) Shields prevent flanking bonuses, but are otherwise cosmetic.

2) Shields allow you to spend an attack of opportunity to block an attack. When an opponent attacks you, you can choose to Parry the blow instead of applying your defense. The attack roll becomes an opposed check. Weapon enhancement bonuses do not modify the defenders check, but shield enhancement bonuses do.

3) As a swift action, you can use a shield to provide a degree of miss chance. Doing so prevents you from full attacking (or maybe moving?).
Buckler: 5% miss chance; Light Shield: 10 % miss chance; Heavy Shield: 15% miss chance; Tower Shield: 20% miss chance or total cover.

Im not sure with option works best -- or if any work. I am open to suggestions on this point.

My big concern -- what happens to touch attacks?

[Yitzi]

1) I want AC that is linked to combat skill -- if you are good at fighting, you are good at defending yourself.

Definitely.


2) I want AC to be competitive, but still allow character role to shine. A low AC class wont always get hit by a full BA class, and a High BA class wont be able to avoid a Low BA class every time, but you have a much better chance of hitting and evading with high BA.

So you want something that's not almost-always or almost-never, but does have a clear effect. Makes sense.


Ok, so, here is the basic idea:

1) Your Defense (which is replacing AC) is equal to your (Base attack + the Highest of your Wisdom or Dexterity).

2) Armor grants Damage Reduction.

3) Enhancement Bonuses apply to AC, not increasing DR. Special materials may still increase DR.

4) Shields dont give Def bonus

Some serious concerns:

1. If your AC is replaced by BAB+ability score, that means that a character will have Defense equal to an equivalent character's attack, so if you use the "roll to match the DC" method a character will almost always hit an equivalent character. If you want it to be balanced, you need to either add 10 to Defense (similar to the base of 10 for AC) or make it an opposed roll (which will slow down the game.)

2. If enhancement bonuses apply to AC, that means that you can boost your AC at half the price of boosting attack, even without deflection and natural armor and so on. This means that a defensively focused fighter will be unhittable even by an offensively focused fighter, which could be a problem. Instead, consider an idea I saw elsewhere on these forums (I forget where), making enhancement bonuses to armor boost both AC and DR, and doubling their price.

3. You will, of course, need to decide what shields do, and make it strong enough to be worth not having a two-handed weapon.

4. Unless you use the opposed roll approach, you can still (especially at higher levels) end up with low-BAB unable to hit high-BAB, or high-BAB always hitting low-BAB.

[wayfare]

Definitely.



So you want something that's not almost-always or almost-never, but does have a clear effect. Makes sense.



Some serious concerns:

1. If your AC is replaced by BAB+ability score, that means that a character will have Defense equal to an equivalent character's attack, so if you use the "roll to match the DC" method a character will almost always hit an equivalent character. If you want it to be balanced, you need to either add 10 to Defense (similar to the base of 10 for AC) or make it an opposed roll (which will slow down the game.)

2. If enhancement bonuses apply to AC, that means that you can boost your AC at half the price of boosting attack, even without deflection and natural armor and so on. This means that a defensively focused fighter will be unhittable even by an offensively focused fighter, which could be a problem. Instead, consider an idea I saw elsewhere on these forums (I forget where), making enhancement bonuses to armor boost both AC and DR, and doubling their price.

3. You will, of course, need to decide what shields do, and make it strong enough to be worth not having a two-handed weapon.

4. Unless you use the opposed roll approach, you can still (especially at higher levels) end up with low-BAB unable to hit high-BAB, or high-BAB always hitting low-BAB.

Thanks for the notes!

1) Sorry, i should note that Defense would be Combat Modifier + Attribute + 10. All things being equal, you hit an opponent with the Same Combat Modifier half of the time.

2) Natural armor would also be DR. I am not certain that it would stack with worn Armor DR, but it certainly could.

3) Either deflection o enhancement would have to go as a bonus type to make this work, i think. Modifier stacking gets crazy after a while and will always throw off the numbers.

Actually, on the subject of modifier stacking, I've been considering trying to do a ground-up rewite that concentrtes all modifiers into 4 types:

Feat: Any bonus granted by a feat
Power: Any bonus granted by a supernatural effect, like a spell
Circumstance: Unchanged
Equipment: Any bonus granted by gear worn

[Eldan]

Shields should do a lot more than that, I think. Honestly, if you see someone with a shield fight someone without one... it's a huge advantage and that should be represented. You can probably parry far more than 15% of all blows. Cosmetic shields is a bad idea, or you will once and for all only have two-handed weapon fighters and never a phalanx or shield wall ever.

[Eldan]

Shields should do a lot more than that, I think. Honestly, if you see someone with a shield fight someone without one... it's a huge advantage and that should be represented. You can probably parry far more than 15% of all blows. Cosmetic shields is a bad idea, or you will once and for all only have two-handed weapon fighters and never a phalanx or shield wall ever.

[Deepbluediver]

I think that damage reduction can be helpful on armor, even at high levels, because many creatures can hit you multiple times per round, and you might be fighting several creatures at once. If you get hit even half-a-dozen times per round, it starts to add up.
That being said, armor does need a boost. There's a link in my extended sig to some improved versions of armor that push both AC and DR bonuses on the best armors into the 12-15+ range, which seems to work out alright as compensation for the various penalties.


I think that base AC needs to scale, but I like the idea of keeping BAB as a primarily offensive stat. There are plenty of fantasy characters that are written so that they just ignore wounds while focusing entirely on offense. If you don't like the idea of a flat-scaling AC bonus, what about a Base Defense Stat that wasn't directly linked to your BAB?
For example, a Fighter and Ranger might both get a full BAB, but the fighter could have a better BDB. The cleric might have a lower BAB, but the same BDB as the fighter.


Edit: I knew I forgot something- shields!
In my armor fix, I kept shields as an additional piece of armor, but also let tham add to your touch-AC. To quote one poster, whom I shall never forget, "That's what shields do! They keep things from touching you!"

[Eldan]

12 to 15, however, is too high at low levels. Almost impossible to hurt, even with greatswords. The extreme, here, would be 20 str, 2d6 greatsword, for 2d6+7 damage. On average, that still deals nothing to DR 15 and needs power attacking. Light weapons and arrows just flat out do nothing.

[Deepbluediver]

12 to 15, however, is too high at low levels. Almost impossible to hurt, even with greatswords. The extreme, here, would be 20 str, 2d6 greatsword, for 2d6+7 damage. On average, that still deals nothing to DR 15 and needs power attacking. Light weapons and arrows just flat out do nothing.

I consider it ultimately the DM's job to keep control over what his players have access to, and I would never expect lowbies to be using the armor with those values. My price guide put the cost of such armors in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of gold range, so you would be ludicrous to let your players get a hold of them before level 15.

[Vadskye]

Damage reduction is a pretty terrible mechanic to make generally accessible. It has warped effects on the (already terrible) balance between two-handed fighting and two-weapon fighting and/or shields. Given how much you have weakened shields, and common damage reduction makes two-weapon fighting nearly worthless, everyone in this system should use two-handed weapons.

[Eldan]

One thing I once suggested was percentile damage reduction. I think it would solve a lot of the problems: making TWF more viable against DR, while weakening massive damage builds, and making it relevant over a level span. Scale it something like 5%, 10%, 25%, 50% for different armour categories, maybe?

[Yitzi]

2) Natural armor would also be DR. I am not certain that it would stack with worn Armor DR, but it certainly could.

Makes sense. You'd still need to increase armor enhancement costs to match weapon enhancement costs, though.


Actually, on the subject of modifier stacking, I've been considering trying to do a ground-up rewite that concentrtes all modifiers into 4 types:

Feat: Any bonus granted by a feat
Power: Any bonus granted by a supernatural effect, like a spell
Circumstance: Unchanged
Equipment: Any bonus granted by gear worn

That might not be such a good idea; for instance, it makes more sense for Mage Armor to stack with the Shield spell than for it to stack with regular armor. Modifier types are there because they represent things that logically should stack; even if you combine them, it should be by what type of protection or enhancement it is, not by the source.


Shields should do a lot more than that, I think. Honestly, if you see someone with a shield fight someone without one... it's a huge advantage and that should be represented. You can probably parry far more than 15% of all blows. Cosmetic shields is a bad idea, or you will once and for all only have two-handed weapon fighters and never a phalanx or shield wall ever.

Idea: A shield without proficiency only gives you +1 or +2 to AC, but with proficiency it gives you a bonus equal to a quarter your combat bonus (for light shields) or half your combat bonus (for medium shields), and half that bonus also gets applied to all allies within reach (provided that you are also in the reach of the attacking enemy). Defense bonus without a shield is reduced to 3/4 combat modifier. That way, shields are definitely worthwhile, and a phalanx or shield wall is truly impressive.


Damage reduction is a pretty terrible mechanic to make generally accessible. It has warped effects on the (already terrible) balance between two-handed fighting and two-weapon fighting and/or shields. Given how much you have weakened shields, and common damage reduction makes two-weapon fighting nearly worthless, everyone in this system should use two-handed weapons.

One idea to mitigate the problems of DR is that combat finesse also now lets you sacrifice attack to reduce the enemy's armor.

That still doesn't help with things like longswords, though; it might be necessary to give such weapons some other bonus to compensate. Or make shields sufficiently impressive to make up for it.