ace rooster
2014-08-05, 03:19 PM
What would be the impact if every spell either required a touch attack, or permitted a reflex save? The second one requires a little work, but for targeted spells it is a simple enough change.
Targeting spells variant: Every spell that targets another creature (or other creatures) requires a ranged touch attack (or several). Spells that do not need line of effect are unaffected.
Area effects get reflex save variant: The idea is to give every area effect spell a reflex save (in addition to other saves), which if passed lets the character use an immediate action to move half their speed, or their full speed but end prone. This action cannot take a character further than the outside edge of the effect that caused it, and the distance moved reduces the characters movement for next round. If a character only needs to move 5ft, then this can count as a 5ft step for next round. A character can charge next round, but only double their adjusted movement.
A character with evasion can move up to their full movement without going prone or spend their entire next round moving twice their movement and ending prone. They can charge their adjusted movement + their original movement the round after as well.
A character with improved evasion acts like a normal character that passed if they fail their save by 5 or less. Additionally they do not end prone if they use a double move, and they may take a run action to escape, ending prone.
This movement provokes AoO as normal from characters that are not moving in this event, (either because the don't see it coming, or don't care), but not from other characters that are moving. Characters that move in this manner do not threaten around them, so do not get AoO for enemies moving away from them or casting, and do not grant flanking. They still get an AoO from things like grapple attempts though.
These two variants are designed to pull back the power of touch attacks further, so that they get less likely to hit fully combat trained characters as you go up levels rather than more likely. The idea is that the scaling damage (and effects) that casters get is partially offset, so that combats at high level last long enough for the mostly static damage of mundanes to be comparable without massively offense centered builds.
Reduced BAB variant: Classes that previously advanced BAB at 3/4 level now advance it at 1/2 level. Classes that previously advanced it at 1/2 now do not advance it at all. Monster hit dice now do not advance BAB at all, and BAB is treated as an inherent mental ability with a value between 0 and the number of hit dice (hence can be any value).
The idea is that non combat characters are the norm. A mage that has never left his tower will not be any good at combat, so will have no BAB despite being capable of quite powerful spells. There are certainly mages that would be combat trained, but I think that is better represented by a feat or multiclassing. The monster thing is to avoid monsters being good at hitting things on account of being big, with lots of hit dice. They might be good at hitting things on account of being strong, but that is already represented. Having BAB be unrelated to HD gives more freedom to build interesting encounters. Large herbivores can have more hit dice without getting massively dangerous for example.
Dodge bonus from BAB: Characters get a dodge bonus to AC equal to half their BAB. I have mentioned this one before, but it fits well enough to be included again. It just bugs me that an epic character is worse at dodging that a level 1 svirfneblin.
[Item]Masterwork casters wand: A masterwork wand helps a mage direct their spells. It gives a +1 enhancement bonus to ranged touch attacks with it. It can be enchanted to give higher bonuses, at the same cost as a magic weapon.
[Item]Focused casters wand: A focused wand acts like an ordinary enchanted wand, but gives an additional +1 to it's attuned school, and a -1 to all other schools (to min +1, it will still act as a masterwork wand). Wands can be doubly or even triply focused, (if they are +2 and +3 respectively) granting even higher boosts to it's focused school, at greater cost to other schools.
Any thoughts? Who are the big winners and losers from these changes? Would this reduce lethality as intended, or just make combat more erratic? Obviously it doesn't affect things like planar ally, and out of combat utility, so casters are still tier 1, but it should hopefully slow them down a bit in direct combat. Do these changes make viable a dodge based defense, and as such remove the necessity for a christmas tree defense? Does this make designing challenges for the PCs easier or harder? If you think it is crap then please feel free to say, as this is more a thought experiment than anything else, but please include the critera that define crapness. Thanks already if you read this far .:smallsmile:
Targeting spells variant: Every spell that targets another creature (or other creatures) requires a ranged touch attack (or several). Spells that do not need line of effect are unaffected.
Area effects get reflex save variant: The idea is to give every area effect spell a reflex save (in addition to other saves), which if passed lets the character use an immediate action to move half their speed, or their full speed but end prone. This action cannot take a character further than the outside edge of the effect that caused it, and the distance moved reduces the characters movement for next round. If a character only needs to move 5ft, then this can count as a 5ft step for next round. A character can charge next round, but only double their adjusted movement.
A character with evasion can move up to their full movement without going prone or spend their entire next round moving twice their movement and ending prone. They can charge their adjusted movement + their original movement the round after as well.
A character with improved evasion acts like a normal character that passed if they fail their save by 5 or less. Additionally they do not end prone if they use a double move, and they may take a run action to escape, ending prone.
This movement provokes AoO as normal from characters that are not moving in this event, (either because the don't see it coming, or don't care), but not from other characters that are moving. Characters that move in this manner do not threaten around them, so do not get AoO for enemies moving away from them or casting, and do not grant flanking. They still get an AoO from things like grapple attempts though.
These two variants are designed to pull back the power of touch attacks further, so that they get less likely to hit fully combat trained characters as you go up levels rather than more likely. The idea is that the scaling damage (and effects) that casters get is partially offset, so that combats at high level last long enough for the mostly static damage of mundanes to be comparable without massively offense centered builds.
Reduced BAB variant: Classes that previously advanced BAB at 3/4 level now advance it at 1/2 level. Classes that previously advanced it at 1/2 now do not advance it at all. Monster hit dice now do not advance BAB at all, and BAB is treated as an inherent mental ability with a value between 0 and the number of hit dice (hence can be any value).
The idea is that non combat characters are the norm. A mage that has never left his tower will not be any good at combat, so will have no BAB despite being capable of quite powerful spells. There are certainly mages that would be combat trained, but I think that is better represented by a feat or multiclassing. The monster thing is to avoid monsters being good at hitting things on account of being big, with lots of hit dice. They might be good at hitting things on account of being strong, but that is already represented. Having BAB be unrelated to HD gives more freedom to build interesting encounters. Large herbivores can have more hit dice without getting massively dangerous for example.
Dodge bonus from BAB: Characters get a dodge bonus to AC equal to half their BAB. I have mentioned this one before, but it fits well enough to be included again. It just bugs me that an epic character is worse at dodging that a level 1 svirfneblin.
[Item]Masterwork casters wand: A masterwork wand helps a mage direct their spells. It gives a +1 enhancement bonus to ranged touch attacks with it. It can be enchanted to give higher bonuses, at the same cost as a magic weapon.
[Item]Focused casters wand: A focused wand acts like an ordinary enchanted wand, but gives an additional +1 to it's attuned school, and a -1 to all other schools (to min +1, it will still act as a masterwork wand). Wands can be doubly or even triply focused, (if they are +2 and +3 respectively) granting even higher boosts to it's focused school, at greater cost to other schools.
Any thoughts? Who are the big winners and losers from these changes? Would this reduce lethality as intended, or just make combat more erratic? Obviously it doesn't affect things like planar ally, and out of combat utility, so casters are still tier 1, but it should hopefully slow them down a bit in direct combat. Do these changes make viable a dodge based defense, and as such remove the necessity for a christmas tree defense? Does this make designing challenges for the PCs easier or harder? If you think it is crap then please feel free to say, as this is more a thought experiment than anything else, but please include the critera that define crapness. Thanks already if you read this far .:smallsmile: