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Vadskye
2012-08-28, 08:26 AM
The following rule would replace flanking rules:

Overwhelm Penalties:
When a creature is being attacked by multiple foes at once, it is less able to defend itself. A creature is considered overwhelmed if it is being threatened by more than one creature. It takes a penalty to armor class equal to the number of creatures threatening it.

Rogues would be able to sneak attack any foe suffering overwhelm penalties.

Design notes:
The game-y nature of making sure players end up precisely opposite a foe has bugged me; it encourages micromanaging combat, is not intuitive for new players, and makes it harder to play without miniatures. In addition, I think that being surrounded by four foes should be worse than being surrounded by two foes, and being surrounded by eight foes should be downright terrifying. Finally, I think ranged rogues should be playable; the current flanking rules make it nearly impossible for a ranged rogue to get sneak attacks. This change addresses all of those issues.

And for the curious, PLUM means "Please Like Unequivocally, Maybe?". Because I don't particularly like peaches.

Thoughts?

Deepbluediver
2012-08-28, 10:40 AM
I kind of like it, though it really does encourage dogpiling on to one enemy at a time. Also, it increases the power of weapons with Reach or large-size opponents, since they can frequently threaten an entire room.

If I where going to use it, I might include an additional rule that you had to be within a certain level to overwhelm a creature. For example, anything enemy with a CR/ECL of 4 or more less than yours does not count when calculating the penalty to AC.

That way it still grants the potential for sneak-attacking, but high-level creatures are able to defend themselves against armies of mooks and minions.

TuggyNE
2012-08-28, 04:54 PM
Finally, I think ranged rogues should be playable; the current flanking rules make it nearly impossible for a ranged rogue to get sneak attacks.

This is probably the best part, but the other side effects are good too.

One consideration: what's the cap for the number of creatures that can threaten? I'm imagining two dozen kobolds using Swarm Fighting and using Aid Another on their to-hit....


And for the curious, PLUM means "Please Like Unequivocally, Maybe?". Because I don't particularly like peaches.

I did wonder. :smallwink:


If I where going to use it, I might include an additional rule that you had to be within a certain level to overwhelm a creature. For example, anything enemy with a CR/ECL of 4 or more less than yours does not count when calculating the penalty to AC.

That way it still grants the potential for sneak-attacking, but high-level creatures are able to defend themselves against armies of mooks and minions.

While this could be a problem, I'm not sure the best solution is to give every creature a limited form of Improved Uncanny Dodge.

Speaking of which, Improved Uncanny Dodge probably needs a bit of rewording to work properly.

Virdish
2012-08-28, 05:03 PM
I like the idea here and actually like the reduction in AC. For realism I would say it reduces your dex bonus to AC but this would favor heavily armoured characters and enemies where they shouldn't really be favored by these rules. If you don't mind I plan on using this in my system. It seems fun and simplifies the whole ordeal of flanking quite a bit.

toapat
2012-08-28, 05:23 PM
And for the curious, PLUM means "Please Like Unequivocally, Maybe?". Because I don't particularly like peaches.

Thoughts?

I do feel flanking rules were stupidly written, on the other hand, i feel that this change has the problem that in a party of 6, with a fighter, archer, healer, mage, theif, and bard, every enemy is going to have at least -3 to AC because of the 2 casters and archer. One thing this can do though is make shields useful.

I like the concept of your new acronym, but i feel it loses alot of value when it isnt a class. My first Templar topic got really annoying because i was getting Peaches built off of Biases established by people who wrote paladin rewrites, and Bias means that they are fulfilling the PE but not the CH.

General Patton
2012-08-28, 05:26 PM
I like it, particularly because I see an opportunity to implement an ability for character archetypes that are skilled at holding off multiple foes. Just increase the number of threatening creatures necessary to overwhelm and reduce the penalty. I would recommend including a rule similar to Deepbluediver's suggestion and then having some class features and stuff that increases the CR/ECL required to overwhelm. This would allow for a 2-axis spectrum of someone's ability to withstand multiple foes. Some guys can just fight 3 enemies of at least Level-5 with ease, some remain specialized in single combat but can basically disregard anyone who isn't at least Level-2, and others can handle being tag-teamed by a pair of dudes at least Level-4.

SinsI
2012-08-28, 05:50 PM
I like the idea here and actually like the reduction in AC. For realism I would say it reduces your dex bonus to AC but this would favor heavily armoured characters and enemies where they shouldn't really be favored by these rules. If you don't mind I plan on using this in my system. It seems fun and simplifies the whole ordeal of flanking quite a bit.

What if you are Tiny and facing a Huge monster? Do you really want dragons easily slain by a village of commoner Gnomes?

Second that it should reduce dex to AC, up to "flatfooted" status.
Heavily armored characters should be favored by these rules - armor has only a few weak points, and only one or two opponents have access to those Achilles Heels, the rest are actually making it harder for them to hit.

And the attackers should receive a to-hit penalty if their number is above 4 (i.e. some of them use reach weapons).

Vadskye
2012-08-29, 04:11 AM
You are all lovely, friendly commenting people! To each of you I bestow return comments.


I kind of like it, though it really does encourage dogpiling on to one enemy at a time.
You say that like it's a bad thing! :smalltongue:


Also, it increases the power of weapons with Reach or large-size opponents, since they can frequently threaten an entire room.
Agreed. Not sure if I want to tweak the way Reach weapons work - but maybe that's okay. Spiked chains aside (which will be changed separately), reach weapons never really got much use in my experience.


If I where going to use it, I might include an additional rule that you had to be within a certain level to overwhelm a creature. For example, anything enemy with a CR/ECL of 4 or more less than yours does not count when calculating the penalty to AC.

That way it still grants the potential for sneak-attacking, but high-level creatures are able to defend themselves against armies of mooks and minions.
I agree that sufficiently powerful characters shouldn't be "overwhelmed" by mooks; including a mechanic of some sort for this purpose also prevents shenanigans by PCs involving Summon Monster spamming or similar effects. But I don't think an HD cap is the best way to do this.


This is probably the best part, but the other side effects are good too.
Thanks!


One consideration: what's the cap for the number of creatures that can threaten? I'm imagining two dozen kobolds using Swarm Fighting and using Aid Another on their to-hit....
Cap? We don't need no steenking cap! I see "powerful enemy swarmed under by hordes of small foes" as a classic trope (and it certainly happens a lot in nature in real life). I think enough kobolds should be able to swarm over and around a giant (or fighter) to bring him down. Even powerful characters should consider walking into a horde of enemies without any sort of strategy to be stupid. (Also, if those kobolds all have Swarm Fighting and are using Aid Another, those are darn smart, trained kobolds that should be pretty scary, in my opinion). On the other hand, Whirlwind Attack and the Cleave feats get a whole heck of a lot better now...

I should mention that I'm using using a Pathfinder-style combat maneuver system, which means the penalty to AC also penalizes resistance to combat maneuvers - this allows swarms to trip, grapple, and generally brutalize single opponents. Scary, yes - but if the fighter just finds a corner to fight from, he's vastly safer, as he should be.


Speaking of which, Improved Uncanny Dodge probably needs a bit of rewording to work properly.
My rewording splits it into "Improved Uncanny Dodge" and "Greater Uncanny Dodge", since "immune to overhwhelm penalties" is a pretty big deal. The new wording is as follows:
Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 5th level and higher, a barbarian can no longer be overwhelmed as easily; he can react to multiple opponents as easily as he can react to a single attacker. The barbarian reduces all overwhelm penalties he takes by 2. This defense denies a rogue the ability to sneak attack the barbarian y by overhwelming him if it would reduce the overwhelm penalties he takes to 0, unless the attacker has at least four more rogue levels than the target has barbarian levels.

Greater Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 9th level and higher, a barbarian no longer suffers overwhelm penalties, regardless of the number of foes surrounding him.
This defense denies a rogue the ability to sneak attack the barbarian by overwhelming him unless the attacker has at least four more rogue levels than the target has barbarian levels.


I like the idea here and actually like the reduction in AC. For realism I would say it reduces your dex bonus to AC but this would favor heavily armoured characters and enemies where they shouldn't really be favored by these rules. If you don't mind I plan on using this in my system. It seems fun and simplifies the whole ordeal of flanking quite a bit.
Glad to hear it, thanks! Feel free.


I do feel flanking rules were stupidly written, on the other hand, i feel that this change has the problem that in a party of 6, with a fighter, archer, healer, mage, theif, and bard, every enemy is going to have at least -3 to AC because of the 2 casters and archer. One thing this can do though is make shields useful.
How would everyone have -3 to AC? Overwhelm penalties specifically require the foe to be threatened, which means requires being in melee waving a pointy stick at your enemy. I don't see the casters or the archer doing that much.


What if you are Tiny and facing a Huge monster? Do you really want dragons easily slain by a village of commoner Gnomes?
Dragons can kill the gnomes with a breath, fly, have damage reduction, and can use their flurry of natural attacks to one-shot each gnome separately. I don't see them having much of an issue.
Your general point is worthy of concern; large foes who only have single attacks are vulnerable to swarming, but the foes will have to be a little more robust than "commoner gnomes" (who are Small, not Tiny); most such foes already have Cleave and Great Cleave in the monster manual, and if they don't, they should consider it in a game that uses this system. But I just don't see it being an issue from a practical standpoint; the only way to get huge mobs of creatures like that is usually if there's a serious power mismatch, which means the mobs tend to explode quickly. I'll let you know if this becomes an issue when I run games with this system.


Second that it should reduce dex to AC, up to "flatfooted" status.
Heavily armored characters should be favored by these rules - armor has only a few weak points, and only one or two opponents have access to those Achilles Heels, the rest are actually making it harder for them to hit.
I thoroughly disagree.


And the attackers should receive a to-hit penalty if their number is above 4 (i.e. some of them use reach weapons).
Well, you can fit 8 people around a Medium-sized creature without resorting to reach weapons, but keep in mind that soft cover rules already penalize people who use reach weapons over their allies' heads, giving them effectively a -4 to attack.

toapat
2012-08-29, 10:06 AM
How would everyone have -3 to AC? Overwhelm penalties specifically require the foe to be threatened, which means requires being in melee waving a pointy stick at your enemy. I don't see the casters or the archer doing that much.

because the threatened area for a Bow and for spells are a 30' circle, the only thing is you dont force AoO like with Melee weapons.

Vadskye
2012-08-29, 11:22 AM
because the threatened area for a Bow and for spells are a 30' circle, the only thing is you dont force AoO like with Melee weapons.

I'm afraid that's not correct. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/attacksOfOpportunity.htm)


You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack, even when it is not your action. Generally, that means everything in all squares adjacent to your space (including diagonally).

toapat
2012-08-29, 11:40 AM
I'm afraid that's not correct. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/attacksOfOpportunity.htm)

I said it didnt apply to AoO

Vadskye
2012-08-29, 11:54 AM
I said it didnt apply to AoO
This is getting a bit off-topic, but there is no definition of "threatened" in D&D other than the definition pertaining to attacks of opportunity. There is no 30' radius of "threatened area". That doesn't exist. I think that's all I can say about that, unless you show me a rule I've missed.

toapat
2012-08-29, 12:10 PM
This is getting a bit off-topic, but there is no definition of "threatened" in D&D other than the definition pertaining to attacks of opportunity. There is no 30' radius of "threatened area". That doesn't exist. I think that's all I can say about that, unless you show me a rule I've missed.

the normal range limit on precision damage is 30 feet.

In 3rd ed 2 rogues can flank a dude if they are 60 feet between eachother and a straight line can be drawn between both of them and the flankee

toapat
2012-08-29, 12:14 PM
This is getting a bit off-topic, but there is no definition of "threatened" in D&D other than the definition pertaining to attacks of opportunity. There is no 30' radius of "threatened area". That doesn't exist. I think that's all I can say about that, unless you show me a rule I've missed.

the normal range limit on precision damage is 30 feet.

In 3rd ed 2 rogues can flank a dude if they are 60 feet between eachother and a straight line can be drawn between both of them and the flankee

Virdish
2012-08-29, 12:40 PM
What if you are Tiny and facing a Huge monster? Do you really want dragons easily slain by a village of commoner Gnomes?

Second that it should reduce dex to AC, up to "flatfooted" status.
Heavily armored characters should be favored by these rules - armor has only a few weak points, and only one or two opponents have access to those Achilles Heels, the rest are actually making it harder for them to hit.

And the attackers should receive a to-hit penalty if their number is above 4 (i.e. some of them use reach weapons).

This would make it entirely circumstantial. For instance if you are wailing on a fully armored foe with bludgeoning weapon his armor may provide protection but it's still going to hurt. Your assumption works on piercing or slashing but only minimally. Take plate armor for instance. Any place where the plates come together (commonly at joints) is going to be susceptible to precision damage. These weak points would be available on most if not all sides of an opponent. Thus weakening the point of having it only effect max Dex because a overwhelmed opponent would be considerably less able to defend those weak spots.

Vadskye
2012-08-29, 12:46 PM
the normal range limit on precision damage is 30 feet.

In 3rd ed 2 rogues can flank a dude if they are 60 feet between eachother and a straight line can be drawn between both of them and the flankee

I'm afraid that's also not correct. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm)


When making a melee attack, you get a +2 flanking bonus if your opponent is threatened by a character or creature friendly to you on the opponent’s opposite border or opposite corner.

<snip>

Only a creature or character that threatens the defender can help an attacker get a flanking bonus.

In core 3.5, you can only flank in melee. Likewise, you can only overwhelm in melee That's all there is to it.

On a more general note, I'm a little worried that giving a foe -2 AC for fighting just two opponents is going to make everyone pretty darn easy to hit whenever groups are involved, but I'm not sure whether that's a bug or a feature. If anyone actually uses this in a game before I do (it should be really easy to port into any system), I'd be very interested to hear results.

toapat
2012-08-29, 03:49 PM
In core 3.5, you can only flank in melee. Likewise, you can only overwhelm in melee That's all there is to it.

i didnt say in 3.5, i said in 3rd ed.

the legend of DaWizard lives on

TuggyNE
2012-08-29, 05:18 PM
i didnt say in 3.5, i said in 3rd ed.

Then... how is it relevant to a 3.5 rules modification, if 3.5 no longer works the way it did in 3.0 anyway? :smallconfused:

toapat
2012-08-29, 05:45 PM
Then... how is it relevant to a 3.5 rules modification, if 3.5 no longer works the way it did in 3.0 anyway? :smallconfused:

the point is that sometimes the 3.0 rules are better.

also, i have better direct memory of the 3rd PHB because i have a physical copy

Roderick_BR
2012-08-30, 09:29 AM
Personally, I like. The only thing I'll suggest, is a cap this way: You can't add the penalty given from a side that already has a penalty.
Let me explain: 1 medium character is surroundered by 8 sides, thus getting a -8 penalty. If someone behind one of the attackers has reach, he benefits from the lowered AC and other flat-footed bonuses, but doen't add anymore penalties, since there's aleady someone in his front doing it. It may need miniatures to properly know where everyone is, but it limits (a little) how many can do the overwhelming at once (with more smaller creatures being able to overwhelm large enemies).

Kholai
2012-08-30, 09:38 AM
I'm afraid that's also not correct. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm)



In core 3.5, you can only flank in melee. Likewise, you can only overwhelm in melee That's all there is to it.

On a more general note, I'm a little worried that giving a foe -2 AC for fighting just two opponents is going to make everyone pretty darn easy to hit whenever groups are involved, but I'm not sure whether that's a bug or a feature. If anyone actually uses this in a game before I do (it should be really easy to port into any system), I'd be very interested to hear results.

What about a -1 scaling penalty to AC for each additional creature that threatens it? It's slightly worse for the two "Flankers" than the regular system, but since that -1 applies to every attacker, it's a definite tradeoff, and works out strictly better for each additional target.

SinsI
2012-08-30, 12:11 PM
What if you and a couple of your friends face 3 opponents, line vs line style?

Flanking needs two opponents on opposite sides of you for a reason.

At the very least, those in front of you should never count as more than one opponent.

Virdish
2012-08-30, 12:14 PM
What if you and a couple of your friends face 3 opponents, line vs line style?

Flanking needs two opponents on opposite sides of you for a reason.

At the very least, those in front of you should never count as more than one opponent.

Simple change.

Allies engaged in melee combat with a target other then your current target do not count as threatening for the purpose of these rules.

Vadskye
2012-08-30, 12:43 PM
What about a -1 scaling penalty to AC for each additional creature that threatens it? It's slightly worse for the two "Flankers" than the regular system, but since that -1 applies to every attacker, it's a definite tradeoff, and works out strictly better for each additional target.
I've pondered that for a while - it's either that, or saying that the overwhelm penalty equals half the number of people threatening you. I think I prefer your version.


What if you and a couple of your friends face 3 opponents, line vs line style?

Flanking needs two opponents on opposite sides of you for a reason.

At the very least, those in front of you should never count as more than one opponent.

That's exactly the sort of case that is really important to notice (but I didn't). The middle guy should suffer overwhelm penalties if he's trying to defend against all three foes at once. But if people are just fighting directly across the line, he should be able to ignore the existence of the other two foes; they shouldn't penalize his armor class. In general, I think it's actually very reasonable to say that the middle guy should have a worse time defending than the two on the outside; he has three people who could turn their attention to attacking him, and they only have two. I imagine that, from a practical standpoint, they all should try to gang up on the guy in the middle to bring him down faster. But it should be possible to have them just line up and go across the line without suffering AC penalties.

I think that this problem (and several others) is actually solvable with the addition of one mechanic: the ability to ignore opponents. The opponents that you ignore would receive some bonus to attack you. The only question is what that bonus should be. My first thought is that you lose all Dexterity and dodge bonuses to AC against them, and you lower your AC by an additional 2 against that opponent. This penalty mirrors the penalty for fighting while blind, which I really like.



Simple change.

Allies engaged in melee combat with a target other then your current target do not count as threatening for the purpose of these rules.
Simple in theory, but I think that would become very complicated very quickly in practice. I like the above solution better.

SinsI
2012-08-30, 01:25 PM
I think that this problem (and several others) is actually solvable with the addition of one mechanic: the ability to ignore opponents. The opponents that you ignore would receive some bonus to attack you. The only question is what that bonus should be. My first thought is that you lose all Dexterity and dodge bonuses to AC against them, and you lower your AC by an additional 2 against that opponent. This penalty mirrors the penalty for fighting while blind, which I really like.

There is already an optional rule from the Wizards regarding this (it was meant for Werewolves and the like, so that they can ignore opponents with no silver weapons). You are flatfooted against opponents you choose to ignore.

That being said, I still don't see how facing two opponents in front of you can be as hard as facing those same opponents on opposite sides of you.

Ashtagon
2012-08-30, 01:26 PM
What does this rule do that Aid Another doesn't do?

Granted, the mechanics are different, but it seems that both are there to indicate the exact same tactical situation.

Virdish
2012-08-30, 01:44 PM
What if you and a couple of your friends face 3 opponents, line vs line style?

Flanking needs two opponents on opposite sides of you for a reason.

At the very least, those in front of you should never count as more than one opponent.

Simple change.

Allies engaged in melee combat with a target other then your current target do not count as threatening for the purpose of these rules.

Vadskye
2012-08-30, 01:49 PM
There is already an optional rule from the Wizards regarding this (it was meant for Werewolves and the like, so that they can ignore opponents with no silver weapons). You are flatfooted against opponents you choose to ignore.
Really? Cool, I didn't know that. I don't want to just use that rule because I don't think it's enough of a downside; characters without a Dex bonus would want to ignore enemies the vast majority of the time, which feels very wrong to me.


That being said, I still don't see how facing two opponents in front of you can be as hard as facing those same opponents on opposite sides of you.
If two opponents could consistently stay on directly opposites sides of you, I could see that. But the argument that I'd use is that combat is very fluid, and any competent warrior wouldn't allow enemies to precisely flank them at all times; the actual combat positions are more likely to fluctuate between a variety of positions. Thus, while I agree in theory, I think that for the purpose of making a game mechanic, I can safely ignore that. The complexity it brings, and the unintuitive results it can give (You can have four people surrounding a single creature and still not have any of them be flanking), make it not worth the effort, I think.

For specific situations where true flanking is necessary, such as having enemies on both sides of a single creature in a tunnel, I think circumstance bonuses can apply if necessary; I think those situations are too rare to worry about making them part of the general rule set. But I set an extremely high value on simplicity.

A very simple extension of this rule that supports your point would be to set overwhelm penalties equal to half the number of foes you are fighting, and then retain the original flanking rules. Thus, two foes attacking an enemy could have either a +1 or a +3 bonus, depending on the orientation of the fighting. How does that sound to you?


What does this rule do that Aid Another doesn't do?

Granted, the mechanics are different, but it seems that both are there to indicate the exact same tactical situation.

Aid another is about literally doing nothing with your action except helping your ally. This rule lets both participants contribute to the fight - way more fun, and more likely to be used.

Siosilvar
2012-08-30, 01:56 PM
I've considered a different variation on this.

Every creature that attacks a target imposes a -1 penalty to AC for 1 round (until just before their next initiative). Optionally, the attack must have missed the lower of target's touch and flatfooted ACs by no more than 4.

This does have the side effect of making AoOs slightly easier to hit with than regular attacks and strongly encouraging focus-fire. Note that the penalty does apply to ranged attacks (and if you don't use that option there, I'd restrict this to 30 feet just like precision damage).

Vadskye
2012-08-30, 02:15 PM
I've considered a different variation on this.

Every creature that attacks a target imposes a -1 penalty to AC for 1 round (until just before their next initiative). Optionally, the attack must have missed the lower of target's touch and flatfooted ACs by no more than 4.

This does have the side effect of making AoOs slightly easier to hit with than regular attacks and strongly encouraging focus-fire. Note that the penalty does apply to ranged attacks (and if you don't use that option there, I'd restrict this to 30 feet just like precision damage).
Definitely reminiscent of overwhelm penalties from other systems. But there are a few major problems with a system like this. The biggest one from my perspective is the difficulty of keeping track of all of these penalties, since they all start and refresh on different initiative counts and you can't just look at the map to figure out what the penalty should be. That's a lot more bookkeeping than I'm comfortable doing. It also has strange interactions with the initiative order; you want to make sure the strongest party member hits last, preferably right before the creature's turn, while the weakest party member hits first. Also, having penalties "refresh" every time the creature gets a turn creates a very noticeable cyclical effect, where the creature always starts out the round strong and ends it significantly weaker. That makes everyone pay attention to the very metagamey, mechanical construct of the round in a way that I'd really rather avoid.

SinsI
2012-08-30, 02:44 PM
Really? Cool, I didn't know that. I don't want to just use that rule because I don't think it's enough of a downside; characters without a Dex bonus would want to ignore enemies the vast majority of the time, which feels very wrong to me.
Ah, correction.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040309a
You lose your Dex bonus AND provide an attack of opportunity.

Kholai
2012-08-30, 02:47 PM
This might be getting a little overly complex, but the idea of being overwhelmed when you have greater numbers than your opponent is a little weird. Might I suggest:

You are only overwhelmed when there are 1 or more enemies threatening you that are not being threatened by another of your allies.

So:

OOO
-XX-

O has three characters in position as to have the units on the "end" of the row only be threatened by one of the characters in team X. This means that each of the X's is at -1, because each has one enemy threatening them in addition to the central "O", that is not threatened by the other X.

Compare:

-CO
YXO

Here, X is overwhelmed by 2, whilst C is overwhelmed by 1.

This gives Reach a brand new utility:

--O
YXO
--O

Y has a spear. Now Y threatens all enemies in O, and is not threatened themselves. Despite being outnumbered, thanks to the support of his ally, X is not overwhelmed, and actually is overwhelming his targets!

This actually fits with ancient tactics and engenders teamwork. The only issue then is that X & Y and their humans can overwhelm a swarm of kobolds, but the swarm of kobolds has to try and divide and conquer before their extraordinary overwhelm bonus works out. 5' steps during your combat turn to move into appropriate overwhelm benefits and getting back into formation to minimise your own disadvantage would be a major aspect of advanced tactical combat.

General Patton
2012-08-30, 02:59 PM
Now that is kind of awesome.

Deepbluediver
2012-08-30, 03:13 PM
This might be getting a little overly complex, *snip*

Yeah, wow.

I don't think that complexity for realism's sake is a good idea for D&D. Even the "ignore some enemies if they are also threatened" is dicey, IMO, though it might be a good place to work the Dodge feat back into usefullness.
I would stick with the basic rules outlined in the OP, unless there was a specific class or set of feats that wanted to make use of the more complicated version. That way not everyone needs to learn to solve geometry problems to figure out what their penalty is.

Vadskye
2012-08-30, 03:17 PM
Ah, correction.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040309a
You lose your Dex bonus AND provide an attack of opportunity.

Ahh. That feels more fair. But that isn't really what I want, I think.



This might be getting a little overly complex, but the idea of being overwhelmed when you have greater numbers than your opponent is a little weird. Might I suggest:

You are only overwhelmed when there are 1 or more enemies threatening you that are not being threatened by another of your allies.

Interesting... but I'm not sure I buy it. It's interesting from a tactical standpoint, but it makes no sense to me that X in the last example finds it just as easy to defend as if he were alone. I think it actually does make sense that someone's ability to defend themselves is lowered regardless of the number or proximity of allies they have available. Imagine you have a nice big line of people fighting, as in a large combat:
XO
XO
XO
XO
XO
XO
XO
XO
XO
XO

This will be pretty chaotic in practice. You're not going to have each X fighting their corresponding O all the time. Each X should have to watch the O on their left and right to see if one will take advantage of their distraction to stab them in the side. With your system, none of the Xs and none of the Os take any penalties; each is just as capable of defending as they would be if they were each in separate rooms having one-on-one duels with their respective Os. I think that's much more unrealistic (and, as has been mentioned, unwieldy) than my system, where big battles engender distraction and danger for everyone involved.

With that said, perhaps "overwhelm" isn't quite the right term to describe the reason for the penalty; perhaps "distraction" would be better? The fundamental idea is that defending against more than one potential threat at once is always difficult, regardless of the relative numbers involved.

Kholai
2012-08-30, 03:47 PM
Complicated definitely, but unrealistic? Well, that sort of depends on how you look at Armour Class.

In this sense, very obviously, Armour Class is "opportunity". You overwhelm your opponent with numbers, then you are getting more opportunities to attack your target.

It's not that you're defending yourself just as easily; it's that your opponents aren't getting those opportunities. As you've said, combat is a hectic activity; you're making more mistakes - but so are your opponents; they cannot follow through on the opportunities that you leave, because they're busy fending off the attentions of your allies.

It's only when they're *not* distracted trying to deal with multiple targets that they can concentrate on slipping past your defences.

Vadskye
2012-08-30, 04:02 PM
Complicated definitely, but unrealistic? Well, that sort of depends on how you look at Armour Class.

In this sense, very obviously, Armour Class is "opportunity". You overwhelm your opponent with numbers, then you are getting more opportunities to attack your target.

It's not that you're defending yourself just as easily; it's that your opponents aren't getting those opportunities. As you've said, combat is a hectic activity; you're making more mistakes - but so are your opponents; they cannot follow through on the opportunities that you leave, because they're busy fending off the attentions of your allies.

It's only when they're *not* distracted trying to deal with multiple targets that they can concentrate on slipping past your defences.

That sounds like you're describing penalties to attack and armor class for everyone involved. But those don't completely offset; for example, an archer or invisible character should have an easier time hitting people involved in such a melee, since they can't dodge as well, right? (We can assume they're flying, to avoid the impediment of soft cover and similar things.) But if you're not penalizing armor class, then that doesn't work out like you'd expect.

And maybe your enemies aren't quite as able to take advantage of weak points, but I think that is already being represented pretty nicely (since hit points are an abstraction of your ability to not be hit) by the fact that they have three times the targets to attack. I'd expect everyone to start going down a lot quicker in a grand melee than in a more limited or one on one fight, and giving everyone penalties to AC represents that nicely.

Kholai
2012-08-30, 04:16 PM
That sounds like you're describing penalties to attack and armor class for everyone involved.

Works for me.

"For each additional that threatens you after the first, you suffer a -1 to hit and a -1 to AC."

Invisible attackers can safely not count as threatened in melee at all, ranged attackers can get the advantage easily.

What was even more the case than usual in your proposed system than usual was the motivation for three characters to focus fire the guy in the middle of the line, with this, there's an equal advantage to taking out the person on the end of the line as well, since that way you can reduce the number of people threatening and then envelope your enemy, and your lightly pressed "ends" can place pressure inwards, another military staple.

Vadskye
2012-08-30, 04:46 PM
"For each additional that threatens you after the first, you suffer a -1 to hit and a -1 to AC."
That creates major issues with balance and/or game realism, I think; yes, I want hordes to be scary, but the giant surrounded by kobolds should still be able to goosh them when he has a chance. With this, he risks being unable to hit any kobolds consistently for the sole reason that there are too many of them.


What was even more the case than usual in your proposed system than usual was the motivation for three characters to focus fire the guy in the middle of the line, with this, there's an equal advantage to taking out the person on the end of the line as well, since that way you can reduce the number of people threatening and then envelope your enemy, and your lightly pressed "ends" can place pressure inwards, another military staple.
I'm not sure I buy that. The more painful "overwhelm penalties" are, the more critical it is to go after the guy in the middle, since he threatens more people.
Also, if you use the system where threatened enemies don't threaten, creatures have an incentive not to fight back-to-back when outnumbered, which feels really weird:
OX OX
X or _X
OX OX
Results: No overwhelm penalties for anyone
_X
OX
OX
Results: The top O takes overwhelm penalties
Also, movement shenaniganry will take up a lot of time and generate constantly fluctuating bonuses for no particular reason except for the artifacts caused by discrete movement, since the top position translates with two 5' steps to
X
O
X
O
X
Results: Both Os suffer overwhelm penalties
Which transitions to
_X
__
OXO
__
_X_
Results: The X in the middle suffers overwhelm penalties
Which transitions to
X
OXO
X
Results: The O on the left suffers overwhelm penalties.

You can repeat this ad nauseum, but the bottom line is it's an unrealistic and constantly fluctuating bookkeeping nightmare.

Deepbluediver
2012-08-30, 05:02 PM
You can repeat this ad nauseum, but the bottom line is it's an unrealistic and constantly fluctuating bookkeeping nightmare.

Actually, I suspect it's VERY realistic for the way unarmored people tend to fight, constantly manuevering for better position. But I agree that it would be a terrible way to run a D&D game.

It might work for some other system that focused more on position, strategy, and tactics, but not in D&D 3.5.

Kholai
2012-08-30, 05:26 PM
That creates major issues with balance and/or game realism, I think; yes, I want hordes to be scary, but the giant surrounded by kobolds should still be able to goosh them when he has a chance. With this, he risks being unable to hit any kobolds consistently for the sole reason that there are too many of them.

The deeper you go, the more holes are revealed in the D&D combat system.

1: Why can't the giant attack entire *squares* of tiny enemies with his club?

2: Speaking of squares, why should defending against multiple targets from the same square engender any penalties whatsoever? You wouldn't be overwhelmed fighting a single multiple armed enemy in a single square would you? Why should kobolds be any different? Or should you get -99 AC because your enemy cast Summon Swarm?

3: In fact he has reach and can splatter them without being threatened by any of them, but he can't just step over them why?

Combat starts to get blurry when you start mucking around with all the additional



I'm not sure I buy that. The more painful "overwhelm penalties" are, the more critical it is to go after the guy in the middle, since he threatens more people.

Not quite; say if you're in the middle of a line of 5. With -1 to hit and AC there's no net advantage against another target in the middle of the line.

XXXXX
OOOOO

Bolded are the ideal targets to break up the enemy line; the units on each end of the line are only at -2 to hit, -2 to AC, which means they're at a +1 to hit, +1 to AC advantage against the bolded targets, whilst the unit in the middle is irrelevant, it's always the second from outermost unit that is the optimal target.

On the other hand, the most dangerous targets are italicised; not because they threaten the most people, but because they have the lowest penalties and so are the most likely to be able to hit.


Also, if you use the system where threatened enemies don't threaten, creatures have an incentive not to fight back-to-back when outnumbered, which feels really weird:
OX OX
X or _X
OX OX

My previous statement was that each additional enemy that was not threatened by another ally, they don't overwhelm others, not they don't threaten and allow others to overwhelm. With this in mind, in both examples, the middle X is a valid enemy, and the two X's on the sides give overwhelm penalties of -1 for both Os.

However my -1 to hit as well was intended as a replacement, not as a supplement.



_X
OX
OX
Results: The top O takes overwhelm penalties

Top O takes a -1 / -1, the bottom one doesn't in the Threatened unit doesn't overwhelm system.



X
O
X
O
X
Results: Both Os suffer overwhelm penalties
Which transitions to
_X
__
OXO
__
_X_
Results: The X in the middle suffers overwhelm penalties
Which transitions to
X
OXO
X
Results: The O on the left suffers overwhelm penalties.

You can repeat this ad nauseum, but the bottom line is it's an unrealistic and constantly fluctuating bookkeeping nightmare.

Book keeping nightmare? Perhaps, but I would point out that your version there is actually flanking compatible and a viable tactic in the current system. A: Middle X is flanked, both Os are flanked. B: Middle X is flanked, O's have moved out of danger. C: Leftmost O and middle X are flanked.

Movement during combat is by no means unrealistic in my opinion however, it's the standing still and full attacking that's the unrealistic part.

Vadskye
2012-08-30, 05:29 PM
Actually, I suspect it's VERY realistic for the way unarmored people tend to fight, constantly manuevering for better position. But I agree that it would be a terrible way to run a D&D game.

It might work for some other system that focused more on position, strategy, and tactics, but not in D&D 3.5.
True - let me clarify that. Combat absolutely does meander all around as people look for fleeting advantages (so in that sense, it is very realistic!). The shapes you get from these patterns strike me as being a bit strange, though; that's what I was thinking about. But that's just being nitpicky, perhaps.

Amechra
2012-08-30, 05:50 PM
Instead of giving a numerical bonus, why not just letting you roll twice and take the better if there are additional people flanking your target, and rolling twice and dropping the better if the situation is the opposite?

So it weighs things, which means that hordes can better take out small groups, due to the small groups getting an approximate -4 on their attacks, while the Horde is getting a +4 on all their attacks (effectively.)

Also, a slight modification to Aid Another; if both you and your ally are threatening the same creature, you should be able to Aid them no matter where they are relative to you. Also, Aid Another should be an Immediate action.

Because warriors need some action economy love too.

Vadskye
2012-08-30, 05:52 PM
The deeper you go, the more holes are revealed in the D&D combat system.

1: Why can't the giant attack entire *squares* of tiny enemies with his club?
That's kinda what I imagine Great Cleave as being, actually.


2: Speaking of squares, why should defending against multiple targets from the same square engender any penalties whatsoever? You wouldn't be overwhelmed fighting a single multiple armed enemy in a single square would you? Why should kobolds be any different? Or should you get -99 AC because your enemy cast Summon Swarm?
My first thought is that fighting multiple opponents in the same square is rare enough that I don't really care enough about it to change how I write the rules, unless it's really breaking something. My second thought is that there's a huge difference between fighting one person who is using multiple weapons and fighting two completely separate people; no matter how many weapons you give someone, they still only have the mental ability to focus on so much at a time; you're still fundamentally defending against one person. Two people - whether they're in the same square, or standing side by side - can be doing totally different things, and is harder (and more distracting) to defend against.


3: In fact he has reach and can splatter them without being threatened by any of them, but he can't just step over them why?
Good point - there are rules in the game for "sufficiently small creatures can move through the space of sufficiently large creatures", right? You just need three size categories of difference. I'll go ahead and add a reverse of that rule to my system, with the added bonus that the larger creature doesn't provoke for the movement.


Not quite; say if you're in the middle of a line of 5. With -1 to hit and AC there's no net advantage against another target in the middle of the line.

XXXXX
OOOOO

Bolded are the ideal targets to break up the enemy line; the units on each end of the line are only at -2 to hit, -2 to AC, which means they're at a +1 to hit, +1 to AC advantage against the bolded targets, whilst the unit in the middle is irrelevant, it's always the second from outermost unit that is the optimal target.

On the other hand, the most dangerous targets are italicised; not because they threaten the most people, but because they have the lowest penalties and so are the most likely to be able to hit.
Ah, I see what you mean. So both systems tend to encourage hitting the middleish parts, but not necessarily the direct middle.


My previous statement was that each additional enemy that was not threatened by another ally, they don't overwhelm others, not they don't threaten and allow others to overwhelm. With this in mind, in both examples, the middle X is a valid enemy, and the two X's on the sides give overwhelm penalties of -1 for both Os.
I'm honestly still not sure I understand that system, then...


However my -1 to hit as well was intended as a replacement, not as a supplement.
But if this is the case, then I'm not going to worry about it. Whee!


Book keeping nightmare? Perhaps, but I would point out that your version there is actually flanking compatible and a viable tactic in the current system. A: Middle X is flanked, both Os are flanked. B: Middle X is flanked, O's have moved out of danger. C: Leftmost O and middle X are flanked.
Oh, hey, you're right - that is actually totally flanking compatible. Cool. But honestly, it's this sort of nonsense that I was hoping to get rid of by moving away from a flanking-based system. With the new system, the Os never want to be separated - only by sticking together can they impose overwhelm penalties on some Xs and even the score. The Xs will continually try to shift around to get into their ideal position:
XXX
_O_
_O_
But I think that most of the time, there will be two Xs suffering overwhelm penalties and both Os suffering overwhelm penalties, and that won't really change much.


Movement during combat is by no means unrealistic in my opinion however, it's the standing still and full attacking that's the unrealistic part.
Yeah, well, that's getting a separate fix. No more 5-foot steps! Full attacks for all! (I'm only about ten hours of work away from releasing my 100+ page completely rewritten PHB that will address this and so much else, I'm so excited.)

Kholai
2012-08-30, 06:40 PM
That's kinda what I imagine Great Cleave as being, actually.

Great Cleave only works if you a: Hit one of them. and b: Kill each of them. I'm talking about a club 5' wide, which by RAW only hits a single target, when by more practical estimations should behave an AOE against anything in the square it hits, with Reflex half and everything.


My first thought is that fighting multiple opponents in the same square is rare enough that I don't really care enough about it to change how I write the rules, unless it's really breaking something. My second thought is that there's a huge difference between fighting one person who is using multiple weapons and fighting two completely separate people; no matter how many weapons you give someone, they still only have the mental ability to focus on so much at a time; you're still fundamentally defending against one person. Two people - whether they're in the same square, or standing side by side - can be doing totally different things, and is harder (and more distracting) to defend against.


So a four armed Ettin would overwhelm or not? What about a Hydra? The "focus on limited things" argument does not work in D&D; there are too many things beyond human ability, and that does include the six armed war goddess with the multitasking feat who can attack you with four arms and cast a spell with two more in the same turn.

And again, Swarms, do a thousand rats overwhelm from the same square? This doesn't sit well with me at all.

If you accept the each additional square, then the worst case scenario (outside of additional huge or larger creatures with absurd reach) is to be surrounded in all available locations by melee and reach.

RRRRRR
RMMMR
RM:smallfrown:MR
RMMMR
RRRRRR

-23/-23 Overwhelm (or optionally, at an alternating -1/0 > 0/-1 for each additional opponent, -11/-12). At this point O can't hit squat because they're as fundamentally boned as could possibly be, and provoking an AoO from all of them in order reduce their Overwhelm penalty is about the only thing you can do, because you can't defend yourself against twenty-four targets without provoking an AoO unless you dedicate yourself to not getting hit, and even then...


I'm honestly still not sure I understand that system, then...

Okay; A B and C are threatened by D, and only D.

ABC
_D_

All of them are only threatened by a single target and can therefore all can overwhelm D.

E, D's buddy comes along, and threatens A and B.

ABC
ED_

So A & B are threatened by D & E.
D is threatened by A, B and C.
E is threatened by A & B.
C is only threatened by D.

Since C is unoccupied, per se, he can overwhelm his target.

Y_X_Y
_OWO_
XWZWX
_OWO_
Y_X_Y

O are enemy. WXYZ are potential ally positions.

If Z is alone, then he is overwhelmed by 3.
If Z is surrounded by Ws (box fighting), then none of them suffer or grant overwhelm penalties.
If Z is supported by Y in each corner, or X on each side. then Z is not overwhelmed, and if they're supported by Ys, then every O is simultaneously overwhelmed by 1 (this is why this system was scrapped, Z should suffer more than O in this situation).

For this last one, with a penalty to hit / AC system, then:

Z suffers -3/-3.
W, if present, suffers -1/-1. (and causes -2 overwhelm in O)
X if present, suffers -1/-1. (And again causes -2 overwhelm in O)
Y if present suffers no overwhelm penalty. (But only causes -1 overwhelm in O).

And a nice bonus - If W are using reach weapons that threaten adjacents (spiked chains for all) then every target in team O suffer -4/-4 overwhelm penalties, offsetting Z's disadvantage.


This brings up the bodyguard issue - If being adjacent and actually helping your ally doesn't help against overwhelm, then you cannot protect your client. If the bodyguard cannot protect their client from suffering severe penalties unless they literally have enough people to make a wall of meat between them and every enemy, how does that mesh with verisimilitude? If your allies can make it harder for you to be hit, then this sounds about right, if they can't, why not?



Yeah, well, that's getting a separate fix. No more 5-foot steps! Full attacks for all! (I'm only about ten hours of work away from releasing my 100+ page completely rewritten PHB that will address this and so much else, I'm so excited.)

Neat, looking forward to it.

Vadskye
2012-08-31, 01:13 AM
Great Cleave only works if you a: Hit one of them. and b: Kill each of them. I'm talking about a club 5' wide, which by RAW only hits a single target, when by more practical estimations should behave an AOE against anything in the square it hits, with Reflex half and everything.
Hm... yeah, I see the difference. I don't think it should be a Reflex half-style AOE; armor class should still be relevant. But that does create the idea for an interesting house rule where a creature's attacks automatically target all creatures that are within an area two size categories smaller than the creature. So when a Huge giant strikes with its club, it can hit any 5' square within reach, making a single attack roll against the AC of every creature in that square. A Gargantuan dragon automatically attacks every creature within a 10' square with each of its attacks. Unsure of the implications of this, and whether it's worth the complexity, but I think I like it.


So a four armed Ettin would overwhelm or not? What about a Hydra? The "focus on limited things" argument does not work in D&D; there are too many things beyond human ability, and that does include the six armed war goddess with the multitasking feat who can attack you with four arms and cast a spell with two more in the same turn.
I was thinking about giving Ettins a special ability where they effectively count as two creatures for the purpose of overwhelm penalties. Hydras and almost every other creature with multiple attacks would stay the same, though. If this is too inconsistent, I'd just get rid of the Ettin exception. Counting each creature separately is a very intuitive system that only suffers from a lack of realism in extremely rare cases, and I think I'd take that sort of lack of realism over the painful lack of realism in the flanking system. It's always a question of tradeoffs, and I'm not asking for perfect realism, just that the system by intuitive.


And again, Swarms, do a thousand rats overwhelm from the same square? This doesn't sit well with me at all.
RAW, no, since swarms don't threaten (they have 0 foot reach). Thematically, no, since a swarm isn't really a coherent onslaught in the same sense that a bunch of individual creatures surrounding you and making attacks is.


If you accept the each additional square, then the worst case scenario (outside of additional huge or larger creatures with absurd reach) is to be surrounded in all available locations by melee and reach.

RRRRRR
RMMMR
RM:smallfrown:MR
RMMMR
RRRRRR

-23/-23 Overwhelm (or optionally, at an alternating -1/0 > 0/-1 for each additional opponent, -11/-12). At this point O can't hit squat because they're as fundamentally boned as could possibly be, and provoking an AoO from all of them in order reduce their Overwhelm penalty is about the only thing you can do, because you can't defend yourself against twenty-four targets without provoking an AoO unless you dedicate yourself to not getting hit, and even then...
And that should be bloody terrifying, yes! But the key difference is that I don't think that Mr. frowny face (which I love, by the way) should find it harder to hit his foes; if all of the Ms and Rs are gnome commoners and Mr. frowny face is Awesome McBeatface the level 10 fighter, he should be able to Cleave and pulverize his way through them like the squishy meatsacks they are (if he trained in fighting multiple opponents, that is - as we learned in the Princess Bride, skill fighting multiple opponents is not the same as skill fighting single opponents - so he may be in some trouble without those feats, which seems reasonable enough to me).



Y_X_Y
_OWO_
XWZWX
_OWO_
Y_X_Y

O are enemy. WXYZ are potential ally positions.

If Z is alone, then he is overwhelmed by 3.
If Z is surrounded by Ws (box fighting), then none of them suffer or grant overwhelm penalties.
If Z is supported by Y in each corner, or X on each side. then Z is not overwhelmed, and if they're supported by Ys, then every O is simultaneously overwhelmed by 1 (this is why this system was scrapped, Z should suffer more than O in this situation).

For this last one, with a penalty to hit / AC system, then:

Z suffers -3/-3.
W, if present, suffers -1/-1. (and causes -2 overwhelm in O)
X if present, suffers -1/-1. (And again causes -2 overwhelm in O)
Y if present suffers no overwhelm penalty. (But only causes -1 overwhelm in O).

And a nice bonus - If W are using reach weapons that threaten adjacents (spiked chains for all) then every target in team O suffer -4/-4 overwhelm penalties, offsetting Z's disadvantage.
Okay, I think I get this now. Good examples. But that only reinforces my decision that I never want to have to draw these diagrams in a game. :P


This brings up the bodyguard issue - If being adjacent and actually helping your ally doesn't help against overwhelm, then you cannot protect your client. If the bodyguard cannot protect their client from suffering severe penalties unless they literally have enough people to make a wall of meat between them and every enemy, how does that mesh with verisimilitude? If your allies can make it harder for you to be hit, then this sounds about right, if they can't, why not?
If a bodyguard's client has multiple people engaged in melee with him who are totally devoted to hitting him, I don't think the bodyguard's presence should make any difference except to the extent that he can fight them off - whether with combat maneuvers to disable or simply beating them to a pulp. The exception would be if the bodyguard actively wards off blows - which is represented by the Aid Another action. The client should still suffer the same penalties to AC either way, since the enemies are still going to be attacking him and he still has to defend against opponents on all sides.


Neat, looking forward to it.
Me too!

Kholai
2012-08-31, 03:55 AM
RAW, no, since swarms don't threaten (they have 0 foot reach). Thematically, no, since a swarm isn't really a coherent onslaught in the same sense that a bunch of individual creatures surrounding you and making attacks is.

So even a swarm in your space doesn't overwhelm? A touch inconsistent, but okay, they are considered as a single creature by RAW.

I will point out however, that your overwhelm system doesn't require any of the creatures surrounding you to attack you whatsoever; if you have four spear-wielding tiny creatures (pretending for a moment that spears actually mean they threaten 5 ft away, as should probably be the case) in a square, all facing the other direction from you and attacking your buddy behind them, if a fifth attacks you, then you're at -4 Overwhelm, despite the fact that you're only *actually* being attacked by a single creature. So if I carry around some tiny creatures with increased 5' Reach (a single feat worst case), the fact that they exist in my space gives me an overwhelm bonus even though they're all fighting total defense -5ing their combat expertise and otherwise doing nothing but give me an untyped +1 to hit each.



And that should be bloody terrifying, yes! But the key difference is that I don't think that Mr. frowny face (which I love, by the way) should find it harder to hit his foes; if all of the Ms and Rs are gnome commoners and Mr. frowny face is Awesome McBeatface the level 10 fighter, he should be able to Cleave and pulverize his way through them like the squishy meatsacks they are (if he trained in fighting multiple opponents, that is - as we learned in the Princess Bride, skill fighting multiple opponents is not the same as skill fighting single opponents - so he may be in some trouble without those feats, which seems reasonable enough to me).

If they're gnome commoners, then Mr Frowny just provokes AoOs to ignore the penalties, no?



If a bodyguard's client has multiple people engaged in melee with him who are totally devoted to hitting him, I don't think the bodyguard's presence should make any difference except to the extent that he can fight them off - whether with combat maneuvers to disable or simply beating them to a pulp. The exception would be if the bodyguard actively wards off blows - which is represented by the Aid Another action. The client should still suffer the same penalties to AC either way, since the enemies are still going to be attacking him and he still has to defend against opponents on all sides.

Sort of, yes, but I was sort of thinking that this "aid another" action should be automatic; you're not actively tag teaming your target, so it's not a full bonus, but the presence of allies (adjacent to you?) should give something if the presence of enemies gives something, shouldn't it?

Roderick_BR
2012-08-31, 09:54 AM
I just tought out a variation to simplify: Every round, when a creature is attacked, hitting or missing, he gains a cummulative -1 penalty to AC. The benefit will, therefore, apply for later attackers, making it harder and harder to defend himself every round, when it resets at the beggining of his next turn. Still needs book keeping, but you don't need a map to know if someone threatens whoever.

Example: an ogre and 2 orcs fights a standard adventuring group.
2 players engage the orcs, 1 on 1. No changes.
The other two attack the ogre. The 1st attacks normally. When the 2nd attacks, the ogre has a -1 to his AC.
After the combat goes for a while, and the 2 orcs are defeated, the players swarm the ogre. The 1st attacker attacks as normal, the 2nd attacks with the ogre at -1 AC, the 3rd attacks with the ogre at -2 AC, and the 4th attacks the ogre at -4 AC, as it gets harder and harder to keep his defenses up the more he is attacked within such a small window of time.

Flank rules would work as normal, denying Dex bonus, giving the standard +2 bonus to attack, and allowing SA damage and the likes, since I think it involves a slightly different situation.

Kholai
2012-08-31, 10:56 AM
I just tought out a variation to simplify: Every round, when a creature is attacked, hitting or missing, he gains a cummulative -1 penalty to AC. The benefit will, therefore, apply for later attackers, making it harder and harder to defend himself every round, when it resets at the beggining of his next turn. Still needs book keeping, but you don't need a map to know if someone threatens whoever.

I like this, it's simple, and it makes sense, though you might need to amend iterative attacks and natural weapons for balance purposes, or make it cumulative per additional creature that attacks you, rather than per attack. This would work almost like a circumstance modifier - Modifiers from the same source (a single creature) don't stack, whilst circumstance modifiers themselves stack with all other sources of circumstance modifiers.


Flank rules would work as normal, denying Dex bonus, giving the standard +2 bonus to attack, and allowing SA damage and the likes, since I think it involves a slightly different situation.

You could actually just key it off having been attacked by at least one creature before the rogue (suffering from at least a -1 overwhelm penalty); this makes the rogue an opportunist, targeting someone who has been targeted already, rather than making him stand in specific spots on the battlefield.

Vadskye
2012-08-31, 11:41 AM
So even a swarm in your space doesn't overwhelm? A touch inconsistent, but okay, they are considered as a single creature by RAW.
I think it makes sense, given that they don't even attack. They aren't really opponents or enemies so much as they are mobile terrain pieces that want to eat you.


I will point out however, that your overwhelm system doesn't require any of the creatures surrounding you to attack you whatsoever; if you have four spear-wielding tiny creatures (pretending for a moment that spears actually mean they threaten 5 ft away, as should probably be the case) in a square, all facing the other direction from you and attacking your buddy behind them, if a fifth attacks you, then you're at -4 Overwhelm, despite the fact that you're only *actually* being attacked by a single creature. So if I carry around some tiny creatures with increased 5' Reach (a single feat worst case), the fact that they exist in my space gives me an overwhelm bonus even though they're all fighting total defense -5ing their combat expertise and otherwise doing nothing but give me an untyped +1 to hit each.
This isn't really a problem with my rules; it's a result of the fact that D&D assumes that, barring unusual circumstances, creatures are fighting each other if 1. they are enemies 2. they are in positions where they can fight each other and 3. they are currently in combat. I don't see that as a bad thing at all; it's a perfectly reasonable assumption. Creatures should be assumed to fight until they stop fighting. The example you're talking about involves creatures specifically taking actions to not fight, which is odd. But I think that's solvable if you say that creatures taking the total defense action don't threaten (they already can't take attacks of opportunity, RAW; it's more a change of phrasing than anything else) and if you have "ignoring" rules in place so enemy creatures can take action to respond to having enemy creatures actively not fighting (but still threatening).


If they're gnome commoners, then Mr Frowny just provokes AoOs to ignore the penalties, no?
Still not sure I whether like the AoO mechanic for "ignoring", though it is the simplest in theory. But yes, that does "solve" that particular issue, but the ability to ignore the penalties certainly doesn't convince me that penalties to attack are good.


Sort of, yes, but I was sort of thinking that this "aid another" action should be automatic; you're not actively tag teaming your target, so it's not a full bonus, but the presence of allies (adjacent to you?) should give something if the presence of enemies gives something, shouldn't it?
Why particularly? Enemies give you penalties because you have to defend against them. What makes an ally inherently better than a wall at your back - or even empty air, assuming we're not talking about ranged weapons and soft cover rules?


I just tought out a variation to simplify: Every round, when a creature is attacked, hitting or missing, he gains a cummulative -1 penalty to AC. The benefit will, therefore, apply for later attackers, making it harder and harder to defend himself every round, when it resets at the beggining of his next turn. Still needs book keeping, but you don't need a map to know if someone threatens whoever.

Example: an ogre and 2 orcs fights a standard adventuring group.
2 players engage the orcs, 1 on 1. No changes.
The other two attack the ogre. The 1st attacks normally. When the 2nd attacks, the ogre has a -1 to his AC.
After the combat goes for a while, and the 2 orcs are defeated, the players swarm the ogre. The 1st attacker attacks as normal, the 2nd attacks with the ogre at -1 AC, the 3rd attacks with the ogre at -2 AC, and the 4th attacks the ogre at -4 AC, as it gets harder and harder to keep his defenses up the more he is attacked within such a small window of time.

Flank rules would work as normal, denying Dex bonus, giving the standard +2 bonus to attack, and allowing SA damage and the likes, since I think it involves a slightly different situation.

This idea was actually brought up on the previous page. I brought up my objections to it there:


Definitely reminiscent of overwhelm penalties from other systems. But there are a few major problems with a system like this. The biggest one from my perspective is the difficulty of keeping track of all of these penalties, since they all start and refresh on different initiative counts and you can't just look at the map to figure out what the penalty should be. That's a lot more bookkeeping than I'm comfortable doing. It also has strange interactions with the initiative order; you want to make sure the strongest party member hits last, preferably right before the creature's turn, while the weakest party member hits first. Also, having penalties "refresh" every time the creature gets a turn creates a very noticeable cyclical effect, where the creature always starts out the round strong and ends it significantly weaker. That makes everyone pay attention to the very metagamey, mechanical construct of the round in a way that I'd really rather avoid.

Looking at a map to figure out penalties is better than having abstract penalties that have to be kept track of at all times. I just want the process of looking at the map to be very simple.

Kholai
2012-08-31, 01:15 PM
This isn't really a problem with my rules; it's a result of the fact that D&D assumes that, barring unusual circumstances, creatures are fighting each other if 1. they are enemies 2. they are in positions where they can fight each other and 3. they are currently in combat. I don't see that as a bad thing at all; it's a perfectly reasonable assumption. Creatures should be assumed to fight until they stop fighting. The example you're talking about involves creatures specifically taking actions to not fight, which is odd. But I think that's solvable if you say that creatures taking the total defense action don't threaten (they already can't take attacks of opportunity, RAW; it's more a change of phrasing than anything else) and if you have "ignoring" rules in place so enemy creatures can take action to respond to having enemy creatures actively not fighting (but still threatening).

Odd? Yes, it's totally artificial and "gamey" behaviour that is rewarded by the proposed system. I can use my four fairy teamsters still Combat Expertise and Fight Defensively, yet never actually make an attack to give me a free-floating +4 to hit against all enemies whilst being safely at a +9 AC. Better yet, Aid Another for +12 to hit thanks to the double mileage.


Why particularly? Enemies give you penalties because you have to defend against them. What makes an ally inherently better than a wall at your back - or even empty air, assuming we're not talking about ranged weapons and soft cover rules?

Why? You're effectively assuming that enemies are automatically Aid Anothering each other for free (that's what a +2 DC 10 effectively is), even when they spend their time staring into space mumbling. If you're going to give them an aid another bonus for an arbitrary reason (not unlike "for standing either side of someone"), then it's consistent to give the same arbitrary benefit to the other side.


Looking at a map to figure out penalties is better than having abstract penalties that have to be kept track of at all times. I just want the process of looking at the map to be very simple.

Two solutions spring to mind.

1: Cap the penalty at -5. You get a -5 penalty for being paralysed, getting a larger penalty for being outnumbered is questionable.

2: Counters, or a D6. Turn the D6 up to 5 for each point of penalty, or pile on the counters and sweep them clear when you're done. Miniatures not every group has, but counters or something equivalent are easily supplied.

Vadskye
2012-08-31, 02:04 PM
Odd? Yes, it's totally artificial and "gamey" behaviour that is rewarded by the proposed system. I can use my four fairy teamsters still Combat Expertise and Fight Defensively, yet never actually make an attack to give me a free-floating +4 to hit against all enemies whilst being safely at a +9 AC. Better yet, Aid Another for +12 to hit thanks to the double mileage.
Actually, they can't use Combat Expertise and Defensive Fighting unless they do make at least one attack (which also prevents Aid Another double mileage). It's perfectly within reason to say that an opponent would have to worry about those little faeries (after all, they might be rogues! You never can tell with fey...) - at least until he saw how bloody incompetent they were at attacking, at which point he can safely ignore them to his heart's content.

Or, instead of ignoring them, he could squish them like the pesky little wussies that they are. This sounds like a difficult strategy to convince the fey to pull off.


Why? You're effectively assuming that enemies are automatically Aid Anothering each other for free (that's what a +2 DC 10 effectively is), even when they spend their time staring into space mumbling. If you're going to give them an aid another bonus for an arbitrary reason (not unlike "for standing either side of someone"), then it's consistent to give the same arbitrary benefit to the other side.
If an enemy is literally doing nothing but staring into space mumbling, he's not an enemy, he's a mobile and noisy terrain piece that you can hide behind to get soft cover. If a creature is an "enemy" and is "in combat", it is assumed to be fighting and engaged in the battle. If it's sitting there mumbling, he isn't threatening and he doesn't deserve to be called an enemy. There's nothing broken about rules that assume that threatening enemies are, you know, actually threatening.


Two solutions spring to mind.

1: Cap the penalty at -5. You get a -5 penalty for being paralysed, getting a larger penalty for being outnumbered is questionable.
Eh, I wouldn't consider being paralyzed to be quite the same as taking a -5 penalty to AC, since the main downside of that is being hit by a coup de grace. I think the better analogy is being prone, which is a -4 penalty. My question is then, if I want a cap, "how many enemies should it take before they no longer help?". I think that's a better question to ask then deciding what the numerical cap should be - that way, the resulting numerical cap makes sense. I think that it needs to scale up to at least 8 people, since that's the number of people that can surround an ordinary medium-sized creature. That's a really nice natural cutoff point - if a cap makes any sense at all. Is someone surrounded by 8 people just as able to defend themselves as someone surrounded by 16 people (whether through sharing space or through pointy sticks)? Maybe - you could argue that at some point they just stop being able to defend themselves properly at all. I think that when I use these rules with my players, I won't include a cap; theoretical situations with people being completely surrounded don't come up that often in normal play. I want to see how the rules function without a cap before I decide on a cap (if any).


2: Counters, or a D6. Turn the D6 up to 5 for each point of penalty, or pile on the counters and sweep them clear when you're done. Miniatures not every group has, but counters or something equivalent are easily supplied.
Yeah, that's what I'd do if I was running the more complicated system or in a game with that system. But I really want to use a system that doesn't need tools like that to make life easier.

Kholai
2012-08-31, 03:07 PM
Actually, they can't use Combat Expertise and Defensive Fighting unless they do make at least one attack (which also prevents Aid Another double mileage). It's perfectly within reason to say that an opponent would have to worry about those little faeries (after all, they might be rogues! You never can tell with fey...) - at least until he saw how bloody incompetent they were at attacking, at which point he can safely ignore them to his heart's content.

Aye? Ah well. Not really an issue if they attack, though it robs you of aid another benefits, they're still at +8 Dodge to AC.

Just curious here, but how are you planning on keeping track of which targets you ignore? And any idea on the penalties for doing so?


Or, instead of ignoring them, he could squish them like the pesky little wussies that they are. This sounds like a difficult strategy to convince the fey to pull off.

AC 30 whilst wearing Tiny unenchanted Leather armour, and they have soft cover from their host. These are some annoyingly unsquashable wussies.


If an enemy is literally doing nothing but staring into space mumbling, he's not an enemy, he's a mobile and noisy terrain piece that you can hide behind to get soft cover. If a creature is an "enemy" and is "in combat", it is assumed to be fighting and engaged in the battle. If it's sitting there mumbling, he isn't threatening and he doesn't deserve to be called an enemy. There's nothing broken about rules that assume that threatening enemies are, you know, actually threatening.

But a mage still threatens whilst casting a spell, as indeed, does a Distracting Ember (Bo9S) which is literally incapable of doing anything but provide a flanking bonus. But at least normally they're not granting a rogue enough distraction to sneak attack unless they're actually dividing their attention in two opposite directions.

"Threaten" is very specific in that way, they don't need to do anything but be a possible threat to take your eye away from a specific direction. This is the logic behind flanking, and would be the logic behind a "each separate square", since the facing rules are only optional, dividing their attention in two directions was the only way to determine they were actually disadvantaged in this way.


Eh, I wouldn't consider being paralyzed to be quite the same as taking a -5 penalty to AC, since the main downside of that is being hit by a coup de grace. I think the better analogy is being prone, which is a -4 penalty etc.

Checking, you're quite right, there's a -4 penalty for being prone or paralysed as well as a -5 penalty for having 0 Dex. If being unable to defend yourself at all is at most a flat footed + -9, anything higher seems bizarre.


Yeah, that's what I'd do if I was running the more complicated system or in a game with that system. But I really want to use a system that doesn't need tools like that to make life easier.

As I mentioned above, how do you plan on tracking who you ignore? Or changing and calculating the ever-shifting flow of bodies as overwhelm penalties change round by round (and they definitely will)?
Being attacked is a definite, explicit event, get attacked, hit or miss, you're distracted by the attack and at -1 AC. Compare moving 5' each turn and then having to see how many targets threaten you in your new position and then noting that down somewhere and then noting down a new number every time a target dies or moves themselves? Is this really less book-keeping? At least flanking is a binary state.

Vadskye
2012-08-31, 04:40 PM
Aye? Ah well. Not really an issue if they attack, though it robs you of aid another benefits, they're still at +8 Dodge to AC.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the massive AC you can get from combining Expertise and Defensive Fighting. The new system uses (slightly modified) Pathfinder Combat Expertise, and doesn't let that stack with Defensive Fighting bonuses.


Just curious here, but how are you planning on keeping track of which targets you ignore? And any idea on the penalties for doing so?
Unfortunately, that's the part that I still haven't figured out. The system needs that ignoring mechanic for several reasons discussed above, but all of the ideas for it so far have flaws. My original "you're blind against enemies you ignore" idea allows Mr. Frowny Face to ignore everyone surrounding him and only suffer blind penalties instead of the much worse overwhelm penalties. The "you're flat-footed against enemies you ignore, and you provoke from them" has the same general problem, but is even worse about that, since it doesn't even give the -2 to AC; it also takes longer to resolve because of the attacks of opportunity, particularly with large numbers. The point of ignoring people is to prevent insignificant enemies from messing with overall mechanics; slowing the game down so large groups of insignificant enemies can all try to roll 20s to hit on a bunch of attacks of opportunity seems counterproductive.

The more I think about it, the more I think that the mechanic of "ignoring people" is just inherently flawed. But there should still be a way to keep 7 monsters from a Summon Monster 1 from affecting the showdown between Awesome McBeatface and The Evil Lord of Evil. How about we approach this from the other direction: instead of ignoring individual enemies, we say that you can focus directly on one specific enemy? If you focus on an enemy, you don't suffer overwhelm penalties against their attacks. In exchange, you suffer worse overwhelm penalties against everyone else. I don't want this mechanic to be constantly used, so we can make the penalty relatively harsh; let's say you increase your overwhelm penalties against everyone else by 2. That way, if you're fighting two enemies, you have a choice between suffering -1 against both, or suffering -3 against one and -0 against the other. That way, your default reaction won't be to focus on one and "ignore" the other, but it's still possible to do so (for example, with the "four tiny sprites with spears" situation). How does that sound?



AC 30 whilst wearing Tiny unenchanted Leather armour, and they have soft cover from their host. These are some annoyingly unsquashable wussies.
Yeah, okay, maybe not such a good plan.


But a mage still threatens whilst casting a spell, as indeed, does a Distracting Ember (Bo9S) which is literally incapable of doing anything but provide a flanking bonus. But at least normally they're not granting a rogue enough distraction to sneak attack unless they're actually dividing their attention in two opposite directions.

"Threaten" is very specific in that way, they don't need to do anything but be a possible threat to take your eye away from a specific direction. This is the logic behind flanking, and would be the logic behind a "each separate square", since the facing rules are only optional, dividing their attention in two directions was the only way to determine they were actually disadvantaged in this way.
Hmmm. That's a good point - the rules do actually seem pretty insistent that any possible threat is enough to distract. With that in mind, I like the separate square rule - the trick is phrasing the rule so it makes sense. I think "Multiple creatures in the same square count as one creature when determining overwhelm bonuses" should work.



Checking, you're quite right, there's a -4 penalty for being prone or paralysed as well as a -5 penalty for having 0 Dex. If being unable to defend yourself at all is at most a flat footed + -9, anything higher seems bizarre.
I'm still not convinced that totally works out; the whole "automatic crit" thing is a big part of helpless. But I think limiting overwhelm penalties to what 8 foes would impose comes very close to the prone+helpless analysis suggests as the limit, which has a symmetry that I like.


As I mentioned above, how do you plan on tracking who you ignore? Or changing and calculating the ever-shifting flow of bodies as overwhelm penalties change round by round (and they definitely will)?
With a pure "how many people are threatening me?" system, keeping track of overwhelm penalties should be very simple. I'll have to playtest this, but I'm pretty confident that it will be easier than tracking who is flanking whom. Also, the fact that it affects AC instead of attack rolls helps, since AC isn't rolled; static values are easier to do math with. Also, using penalties instead of bonuses helps, since it results in smaller numbers. I like small numbers.


Being attacked is a definite, explicit event, get attacked, hit or miss, you're distracted by the attack and at -1 AC. Compare moving 5' each turn and then having to see how many targets threaten you in your new position and then noting that down somewhere and then noting down a new number every time a target dies or moves themselves? Is this really less book-keeping? At least flanking is a binary state.
When you're only tracking the total number of enemies flanking you, that math is trivially easy, and the process for deciding where to move is very intuitive; you want to be not threatened while threatening your opponents. I do miss the binary nature of flanking from a simplicity perspective, but I'm willing to make that sacrifice to make a distinction between fighting two foes and being surrounded on all sides.
As to the moving constantly (and therefore constantly adjusting overwhelm penalties) problem, that solved (I think) by another aspect of my new rules (there area always more layers! Like an onion! A massive onion of game mechanics.) - specifically, the lack of five foot steps. They just don't exist anymore. To go along with that, I changed the way you provoke attacks of opportunity from movement. Instead of provoking from everyone when you leave a threatened square, you provoke an attack of opportunity from a creature when you leave that creature's threatened area. That makes combat a lot "stickier"; when you enter someone's threatened area, the only way to leave it without provoking is by killing them, withdrawing, or taking the new "fighting retreat" full round action, which lets you take a full attack and then move five feet (it's still not a five foot step!) without provoking attacks of opportunity from anyone you attacked with that full attack.

That doesn't mean combat isn't mobile; it's still really mobile, thanks to the standard action full attack. But it's a lot tougher to disengage from a foe, and to reposition all the time before attacking. This is getting more complicated, I know - but it all fits together like puzzle pieces, and it's tough to understand the implications of one part (like overwhelm penalties) without the other supporting parts.

TuggyNE
2012-08-31, 05:56 PM
1: Cap the penalty at -5. You get a -5 penalty for being paralysed, getting a larger penalty for being outnumbered is questionable.

This is not technically correct: your Dex mod becomes -5, which is effectively a -5 penalty if you had Dex 10 before. If, for example, you're a rogue with 22 Dex, paralysis has a truly devastating effect on your AC; if you're an expanded Half-Giant with 4 Dex, it's not such a big deal.

Roderick_BR
2012-09-05, 09:26 AM
(...)
This idea was actually brought up on the previous page. I brought up my objections to it there:
(quote)
Looking at a map to figure out penalties is better than having abstract penalties that have to be kept track of at all times. I just want the process of looking at the map to be very simple.
Sorry, I missed it before, but anyway, my reply: I disagree whit that. I think that just adding a "AC-1/2/3" everytime a character is attacked (or adding small counters, whatever), is easier than having to look at the map and figuring if character A's position will give a bonus/penalty for character B, against monster A or monster B, checking distances, adding the modifiers from several sources, and the likes.
And faster and weaker characters attacking an enemy, opening space for a stronger and slower one is a very common trope in any story that has a group fighting. "You may be fast, but you are not strong enough to hurt me" "oh, I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm just distracting you while my big burly friend here gets his sucker punch ready" "say wha.." *THUD*
I see the "refresh" as the character using his action to get back at his feet, and ending the round "weak" after being twacked on the head for several seconds by several enemies. It's not any more metagamey than trying to stand in place to give allies bonuses against enemies he's not even really fighting against. I think even the Giant used this joke a few times.

Vadskye
2012-09-05, 11:22 AM
Sorry, I missed it before, but anyway, my reply: I disagree whit that. I think that just adding a "AC-1/2/3" everytime a character is attacked (or adding small counters, whatever), is easier than having to look at the map and figuring if character A's position will give a bonus/penalty for character B, against monster A or monster B, checking distances, adding the modifiers from several sources, and the likes.
Minor points - the overwhelm penalty would be the same against all enemies, and there's only one source of modifier. So that bit of complexity isn't there. And you would only have to check distances in the case of enemies with reach; otherwise, it's very straightforward.

To your more general point that tracking modifiers not based on position is easier, I'd just ask - have you run with a game system that used this, and if so, does this match up with your experience? White Wolf's combat focused games, Exalted and Scion, use that sort of penalty system, and I've actually played with that a few times. My experience with is that the constant shifting of DV (their version of AC) is at least as difficult to keep track of as flanking, and definitely more complicated than overwhelm penalties. Your experience may be different, though - my groups generally didn't use tricks like using dice to keep track of penalties, and that would help.

And faster and weaker characters attacking an enemy, opening space for a stronger and slower one is a very common trope in any story that has a group fighting. "You may be fast, but you are not strong enough to hurt me" "oh, I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm just distracting you while my big burly friend here gets his sucker punch ready" "say wha.." *THUD*
Definitely - but overwhelm penalties accomplish that just as well. And isn't it also a trope that the faster, weaker character can get easier hits on the foe while the enemy is distracted with a more obvious threat? Overwhelm hits both of those tropes equally.

I see the "refresh" as the character using his action to get back at his feet, and ending the round "weak" after being twacked on the head for several seconds by several enemies. It's not any more metagamey than trying to stand in place to give allies bonuses against enemies he's not even really fighting against. I think even the Giant used this joke a few times.
I wouldn't be surprised if jokes were made about this. But even an ally who isn't actually directing attacks against an enemy presents a potential threat, which strikes me as being reasonable grounds for a penalty. And D&D rules are pretty clear about their assumption that the attack rolls a character makes does not represent the full extent of a character's actions in combat. An attack roll doesn't represent a single swing; it represents the cumulative effect of multiple attacks, blows, and parries. For the same reason, if you're threatening people, it's assumed that you aren't totally ignoring them, just because it would be strange to do so. It's an abstraction that I really like.

Deepbluediver
2012-09-10, 03:10 PM
This discussion seems to have died down a bit, but I realy REALLY like this idea and I would hate to see it fade away without deciding on a good set of rules. I still think that simpler is better, so taking into account everything that has been discussed, I will probably use the following:


Overwhelm Penalties
When a creature is being attacked by multiple foes at once, it is less able to defend itself. A creature is considered overwhelmed if it is being threatened by more than one creature.
When a creature is overwhelmed, it takes a penalty to AC equal to one less than the number of creatures threatening it, up to a maximum of -10.

When fighting defensively, Overwhelm penalties are reduced by one half, to a maximum of -5.

Rogues are able to sneak attack any foe suffering overwhelm penalties.



Summary: The base penalty is reduced by 1 to indicate that you can usually focus on at least one enemy at a time without problems. You are still vulnerable to sneak attacks though.
Fighting defensively effectively doubles the number of enemies you need to be overwhelmed.
Rather than dealing with some variation of ignoring enemies or comparing levels, I just capped the number at 10, which means you are either completely surrounded or facing a whole wall of spears. In general, I have rarely seen more enemies on the battlefield at once; D&D is not designed for that, so any more and combat starts to bog down.

SinsI
2012-09-10, 05:00 PM
-10 is far too great.
Ordinary (dex 12) characters suffer only -9 if they are paralyzed. You can't be more "overwhelmed" than that!

-4 (prone) is the most it should ever do.

Vadskye
2012-09-10, 05:20 PM
This discussion seems to have died down a bit, but I realy REALLY like this idea and I would hate to see it fade away without deciding on a good set of rules. I still think that simpler is better, so taking into account everything that has been discussed, I will probably use the following:

Awesome. Once you use it in a few games, let me/us know how it goes; I'll be starting my campaigns soon, and I'm using an AC penalty equal to the number of overwhelming enemies, with no cap - though I doubt the lack of a cap will ever reasonably come up anyway. Once I see how it plays, I'll post here with results. The one thing I'd suggest adding to your system is a focusing mechanic, to solve the "irrelevant mooks causing massive overwhelm penalties" issue. My wording of this is as follows:


Focusing allows you to avoid being distracted by insignificant opponents when dealing with a serious threat. As a move action, you can focus your attention on a specific foe you can see or otherwise observe. If you do, you are not considered overwhelmed against attacks that foe makes. However, you increase all overwhelm penalties you suffer by 2 against all other foes. You remain focused until you stop focusing (a free action).

You may decide that you don't need that. If it never becomes an issue, great! Don't worry about it.


-10 is far too great.
Ordinary (dex 12) characters suffer only -9 if they are paralyzed. You can't be more "overwhelmed" than that!

-4 (prone) is the most it should ever do.
This has been discussed above. The -9 AC penalty for being helpless stacks with the prone penalty that basically everyone should suffer while helpless, which makes the actual AC penalty a total of -13. Additionally, the coup de grace generally means the AC doesn't matter. Basically, helpless is not a relevant comparison, and the AC penalty for being overwhelmed can and should stack beyond a mere -4.

Jane_Smith
2012-09-10, 06:05 PM
How about this;

Every enemy threat-range your in beyond the first makes your ac get a -1 overwhelm penalty. If you are overwhelmed, you can be sneak attacked, etc as per flanking.

However. If your ally threatens an enemy whos overwhelming you, you reduce your overwhelm by 1 (or ignore one of the enemys your allies threaten). Everyone can only focus on one enemy to have the overwhelm penalties be ignored by allies if that makes any sense - so an ally threatening 3 goblins who are attacking you can only make you take 1 less overwhelm penalty, not disable all 3.

So if 3 fighters were fighting 3 fighters side by side, then they would suffer no overwhelm penalty instead of -2 (if you do not count the first enemy when determining the overwhelm total). But if it was 6 fighters sandwitching 3 fighters, the 3 would suffer a -3 overwhelm penalty (instead of -5). So fighting back to back with friends is extremely useful.

Sure, the middle guy will take the brunt of the attacks most likely, but you have to remember, every ally nearby will be a threat to the people trying to focus you as well, and distract them/be a threat. Presence is everything and all.

Vadskye
2012-09-10, 06:28 PM
How about this;

Every enemy threat-range your in beyond the first makes your ac get a -1 overwhelm penalty. If you are overwhelmed, you can be sneak attacked, etc as per flanking.

However. If your ally threatens an enemy whos overwhelming you, you reduce your overwhelm by 1 (or ignore one of the enemys your allies threaten). Everyone can only focus on one enemy to have the overwhelm penalties be ignored by allies if that makes any sense - so an ally threatening 3 goblins who are attacking you can only make you take 1 less overwhelm penalty, not disable all 3.

So if 3 fighters were fighting 3 fighters side by side, then they would suffer no overwhelm penalty instead of -2 (if you do not count the first enemy when determining the overwhelm total). But if it was 6 fighters sandwitching 3 fighters, the 3 would suffer a -3 overwhelm penalty (instead of -5). So fighting back to back with friends is extremely useful.

Sure, the middle guy will take the brunt of the attacks most likely, but you have to remember, every ally nearby will be a threat to the people trying to focus you as well, and distract them/be a threat. Presence is everything and all.

At least half of the last page was devoted to analyzing essentially that exact idea. Long story short, I don't like it as nearly much, but I think it's better than core flanking.

Jane_Smith
2012-09-10, 06:28 PM
.. I just realized there was an entire 2nd page to this thread i missed >_>.

Vadskye
2012-09-10, 06:31 PM
.. I just realized there was an entire 2nd page to this thread i missed >_>.

Giggle. It happens. No worries. :smallsmile:

Waargh!
2012-09-10, 07:32 PM
They way I had defined in a custom rulest is that attacker gets +1 to attack for every two allies surrounding the target. Surrounding counts as actually being next to a square of the target. Then you avoid all this range weapons and tiny creature madness.

Reach still can count as being next to you if you want but it should take one "surrounding" square. So medium characters can only be surrounded by 8 in total. Maximum bonus of +4.

Ranged attacks shouldn't count as surrounding but still take the bonus on attack. They should take only +1 though as being surrounded also means you are covered realistically.

Simpler than flanking and more realistic. In a way flanking has its benefits but also fighting alongside an ally has as well. So to simplify you just merge the two in this surrounded rule.

Deepbluediver
2012-09-10, 07:50 PM
-10 is far too great.
Ordinary (dex 12) characters suffer only -9 if they are paralyzed. You can't be more "overwhelmed" than that!

-4 (prone) is the most it should ever do.
The wording of the Paralyzed condition ("frozen in place") makes it seem like the writer's intent might have been that your character stops right where they are, like a statue, instead of falling to the ground, but either way I think that if a person is truly paralyzed, then their AC should drop to the same as an inatimate object (AC 3), possibly plus their normal bonus from armor, but with a guaranteed hit on Full-round actions. Still, if you are facing 11 oponents at once, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that you are nearly as helpless against that many seperate attackers as if you couldn't move at all.


The one thing I'd suggest adding to your system is a focusing mechanic, to solve the "irrelevant mooks causing massive overwhelm penalties" issue. My wording of this is as follows:
Focusing allows you to avoid being distracted by insignificant opponents when dealing with a serious threat. As a move action, you can focus your attention on a specific foe you can see or otherwise observe. If you do, you are not considered overwhelmed against attacks that foe makes. However, you increase all overwhelm penalties you suffer by 2 against all other foes. You remain focused until you stop focusing (a free action).

I definitely agree with the sentiment, but here's the thing: your mechanic, as written, seems like it would do the opposite of what you are intending. If you are ignoring most of the enemies to focus on one, then that horde you are ignoring will do you MORE damage, which doesn't accomplish the "not overwhelmed by massive numbers of mooks" goal.

I don't think it will come up that much, since as I mentioned most players don't like to bog down combat with tons of cohorts or Summon Monster cheese. I figured I could achieve 90% of what I wanted by just having a cap, and decreasing the penalty if you are actively trying to defend yourself (essentially sacrificing power for durability).

If anything is significantly different from what I am anticipating, I will report back with further suggestions.


Edit:
If your ally threatens an enemy whos overwhelming you, you reduce your overwhelm by 1 (or ignore one of the enemys your allies threaten). Everyone can only focus on one enemy to have the overwhelm penalties be ignored by allies if that makes any sense - so an ally threatening 3 goblins who are attacking you can only make you take 1 less overwhelm penalty, not disable all 3.

So if 3 fighters were fighting 3 fighters side by side, then they would suffer no overwhelm penalty instead of -2 (if you do not count the first enemy when determining the overwhelm total). But if it was 6 fighters sandwitching 3 fighters, the 3 would suffer a -3 overwhelm penalty (instead of -5). So fighting back to back with friends is extremely useful.
Here's why I left anything like that out: it increases complexity dramatically, without changing the relative advantage.

If you are fighting 3 on 3, then both sets of opponents get the same penalty. Yes more damage gets dished out, but it should (theoretically at least) get dished out in equal quantities to everyone.
If there are 6 swords swinging about instead of 2, it seems reasonable to me that more people are gonna get hurt, but neither group has a specific advantage (due to being Overwhelmed) over the other.

Vadskye
2012-09-11, 01:06 AM
I definitely agree with the sentiment, but here's the thing: your mechanic, as written, seems like it would do the opposite of what you are intending. If you are ignoring most of the enemies to focus on one, then that horde you are ignoring will do you MORE damage, which doesn't accomplish the "not overwhelmed by massive numbers of mooks" goal.

I don't think it will come up that much, since as I mentioned most players don't like to bog down combat with tons of cohorts or Summon Monster cheese. I figured I could achieve 90% of what I wanted by just having a cap, and decreasing the penalty if you are actively trying to defend yourself (essentially sacrificing power for durability).

If anything is significantly different from what I am anticipating, I will report back with further suggestions.
Yeah, it's not perfect - I think it only works particularly well one of two things is true: either the damage they do (even assuming they automatically hit) doesn't matter, or they don't have a good chance to hit even with the copious bonuses. (I use Pathfinder-style Power Attack, so the auto-hitting doesn't necessarily translate to massive damage). Fundamentally, I think we agree that we just need to test this and see what happens.

SinsI
2012-09-12, 02:53 AM
The wording of the Paralyzed condition ("frozen in place") makes it seem like the writer's intent might have been that your character stops right where they are, like a statue, instead of falling to the ground, but either way I think that if a person is truly paralyzed, then their AC should drop to the same as an inanimate object (AC 3), possibly plus their normal bonus from armor, but with a guaranteed hit on Full-round actions. Still, if you are facing 11 opponents at once, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that you are nearly as helpless against that many separate attackers as if you couldn't move at all.

Paralyzed characters suffer -5 from having 0 Dex and -4 for prone, so a paralyzed unarmored peasant has AC 1, so you hit him on any roll but a natural 1.
And it seems that inanimate objects have a natural armor of 2.

Overwhelm (hell, any) penalties should never reduce AC to less than 1.
This means that AC loss should never be greater than 9.

As for 11 opponents at once - it might be a lot, but heroes in fairy tales and martial artists in wuxia films have no problem fighting that many enemies.


One of the main reasons against this idea is that it makes melee much weaker than it already is - and it is the weakest of all the roles already.
It also destroys the whole CR system, as the power of low level mooks shoots to the stratosphere.

Vadskye
2012-09-12, 09:35 AM
Overwhelm (hell, any) penalties should never reduce AC to less than 1.
This means that AC loss should never be greater than 9.
Horsefeathers. That helpless prone peasant has a -3 AC if he's also squeezing - which matters because some creatures have a negative attack bonus (like horses). There's no good reason to impose a cap to AC penalties; there never was one before.

As for 11 opponents at once - it might be a lot, but heroes in fairy tales and martial artists in wuxia films have no problem fighting that many enemies.
Sure - but most D&D campaigns, and all the published settings that I've seen, take place in a more mundane, realistic worlds than fairy tales and wuxia films. If you're intentionally running a campaign in a universe like that, overwhelm penalties might not fit - but that certainly isn't the norm.

One of the main reasons against this idea is that it makes melee much weaker than it already is - and it is the weakest of all the roles already.
It also destroys the whole CR system, as the power of low level mooks shoots to the stratosphere.
It doesn't make melee weaker universally. Overwhelm penalties make all melee (and ranged combat, since the penalties apply against ranged attacks too) more dangerous, yes - but that applies just as much against a dragon being teamed up on by the party as it does against the party fighting off hordes of kobolds.

As for the CR system - I'm not so sure about that. The default assumption is that each doubling of numbers produces +1 CR. In my experience, group of four CR X monsters is usually not nearly as much of a threat as a single CR X+2 monster, and certainly not eight CR X monsters against a single CR X+3 monster, with exceptions for some monsters that usually use save-based effects that this system wouldn't do much to change. Hordes of monsters are really easy to do AOE damage/debuffs to, and they often risk being unable to hit consistently. This is very dependent on the kind of players you have as a DM, so our experiences may be different, but I definitely disagree that this "destroys the CR system".

The worst case scenario, I think, is against hordes of grapplers or other combat maneuver monsters - but thematically, that makes a lot of sense. That's exactly how hordes can overwhelm single opponents in real life.