[D20 Legends Project] Ashiel's Crunchy but Approachable D20

[PapaQuackers]

Is there any option for non-casters in this system? What if I'm a manly man who doesn't want to use puny baby magics.

[Zilrax]

No options thus far for non magicalness entirely, but this is because Ashiel has yet to figure out a good option for them to keep up with everyone with spells with absolutely no magic at all. They're poking about at various possibilities, but nothing solid as of yet.

[Ashiel]

Hey everyone. I just got back from my trip to Tennessee, but I've got work tonight, so I'll resume my regular posting tomorrow.

[Klara Meison]

How(if at all) will D20 legends adress the issue that it becomes prohibitively hard to disable a commoner as a high-level character? E.g. a lv 20 fighter in pathfinder deals 1d8(longsword, average 4.5)+5(weapon enchantment)+4(weapon training)+4(strength)+9(other weapon enchantments, like Impact or Collision)=26.5 damage, and I am being conservative here

Even deliberately dealing nonlethal damage doesn't save your average commoner (9hp), since a hit from your average Sword Of Deadly Destruction, no matter how careful and gentle, will instantly put them down to -9 HP. Even if fighter deals minimal damage(i.e. deliberately not hitting weakpoints) it is still going to put a commoner into the negatives.

And that is with a core fighter. Something like a halfway-optimised lv 20 Harbinger could deal 40-ish damage by throwing a coin, which pretty much instantly kills a mere mortal. This means that, as a high-level character, your only options when agressively dealing with people pretty much consist of "do nothing" and "obliterate them so hard their soul is annihilated in the process".

Any ideas that would allow a lv20 character to punch someone without instantly killing them?

[Ashiel]

How(if at all) will D20 legends adress the issue that it becomes prohibitively hard to disable a commoner as a high-level character? E.g. a lv 20 fighter in pathfinder deals 1d8(longsword, average 4.5)+5(weapon enchantment)+4(weapon training)+4(strength)+9(other weapon enchantments, like Impact or Collision)=26.5 damage, and I am being conservative here

Even deliberately dealing nonlethal damage doesn't save your average commoner (9hp), since a hit from your average Sword Of Deadly Destruction, no matter how careful and gentle, will instantly put them down to -9 HP. Even if fighter deals minimal damage(i.e. deliberately not hitting weakpoints) it is still going to put a commoner into the negatives.

And that is with a core fighter. Something like a halfway-optimised lv 20 Harbinger could deal 40-ish damage by throwing a coin, which pretty much instantly kills a mere mortal. This means that, as a high-level character, your only options when agressively dealing with people pretty much consist of "do nothing" and "obliterate them so hard their soul is annihilated in the process".

Any ideas that would allow a lv20 character to punch someone without instantly killing them?

Probably the simplest method would be to add a mechanic that allows you to pull your punches. Something as simple as allowing the player to specify any amount of damage that's less than the damage they actually dealt, such as allowing you to choose to deal 10 nonlethal damage even though you rolled 20. This could also help people trying to hide their strengths as well so it'd be a worthwhile addition I think (such as if a moderately leveled PC is pretending to be a nobody for some reason, or when dealing with a spy villain or whatever).

In fact, I think a general rule allowing you to auto-fail or treat your result as being less than it was for most anything is probably a good idea. As the old saying goes, "Blessed are wise men because they can act like fools, but fools cannot act like wise men".

[Klara Meison]

Probably the simplest method would be to add a mechanic that allows you to pull your punches. Something as simple as allowing the player to specify any amount of damage that's less than the damage they actually dealt, such as allowing you to choose to deal 10 nonlethal damage even though you rolled 20. This could also help people trying to hide their strengths as well so it'd be a worthwhile addition I think (such as if a moderately leveled PC is pretending to be a nobody for some reason, or when dealing with a spy villain or whatever).

In fact, I think a general rule allowing you to auto-fail or treat your result as being less than it was for most anything is probably a good idea. As the old saying goes, "Blessed are wise men because they can act like fools, but fools cannot act like wise men".

That was my thought as well, but it's not a rule present in Pathfinder as far as I can tell, so I thought it worth mentioning.

[Zilrax]

You could also do it the old 4e way. Skip the penalties and just say if you don't try to kill them when dropping them, they're just unconscious. Think that was 4e anyways. Seemed like it saved headaches too.

[Mashallah]

You could also do it the old 4e way. Skip the penalties and just say if you don't try to kill them when dropping them, they're just unconscious. Think that was 4e anyways. Seemed like it saved headaches too.

Yup, that's 4e.
Straight from my Compendium:

When an adventurer reduces a monster or a DM-controlled character to 0 hit points, he or she can choose to knock the creature unconscious rather than kill it. Until it regains hit points, the creature is unconscious but not dying. Any healing makes the creature conscious.
If the creature doesn't receive any healing, after a short rest it is restored to 1 hit point and becomes conscious.

[Ashiel]

You could also do it the old 4e way. Skip the penalties and just say if you don't try to kill them when dropping them, they're just unconscious. Think that was 4e anyways. Seemed like it saved headaches too.

Indeed. I think there probably needs to be a general rule that you can always choose to take a lesser result on most anything you do. Choosing to leave enemies are merely unconscious would be an extension of that norm, I imagine. I'm also not 100% sure I'd want to go with the 4E method of being able to make any attack nonlethal without extra effort (dealing nonlethal damage with a sword without improvising doesn't strike me as particularly helpful to verisimilitude, and it would kind of be a buzzkill for people who wanted to specialize in unarmed combat or some other traditionally reliable method of wrecking people with nonlethal damage).

I'll try to give it some thought.

[Mashallah]

Indeed. I think there probably needs to be a general rule that you can always choose to take a lesser result on most anything you do. Choosing to leave enemies are merely unconscious would be an extension of that norm, I imagine. I'm also not 100% sure I'd want to go with the 4E method of being able to make any attack nonlethal without extra effort (dealing nonlethal damage with a sword without improvising doesn't strike me as particularly helpful to verisimilitude, and it would kind of be a buzzkill for people who wanted to specialize in unarmed combat or some other traditionally reliable method of wrecking people with nonlethal damage).

I'll try to give it some thought.

I don't see why should the non-lethality of that be mechanically reinforced when it's a fluff choice first and foremost.
EDIT: Also, think about potentially screwing over those who have to be non-lethal for fluff reasons, but also use traditionally lethal weaponry. As an example the most people present would be familiar with, followers of Sarenrae generally use her favoured weapon, the scimitar, while, at the same time, dervish dancers explicitly make it a point to never be lethal. If dealing non-lethal damage with a scimitar is difficult or somehow penalised, someone wanting to roleplay a dervish dancer would be screwed over.

[Lemmy]

Personally, I allow all attacks to deal the weapon's minimum damage (usually 1 + enhancement bonus. That 1 being its mininimum base damage die roll). After all, characters should be allowed to NOT use their full strength, but their weapons are still impossibly sharp swords, so there's always a risk that it'll deal too much damage.

One of my GMs ruled that you can reduce your Str, but doing so affects not only your damage, but also your attack roll. Which makes sense, but I don't see the need of being that strict.

When it comes to weapons, I think it's fair that a scimitar has a more difficult time dealing non-lethal damage than, say, a staff. After all, each weapon has its advantages and disadvantages... It they are more or less equally effective, it good to have different weapons be good in different ways.

[Klara Meison]

So...how do you deal nonlethal damage with a really big knife?

[Mashallah]

So...how do you deal nonlethal damage with a really big knife?

I'm not an adventurer who slays dragons for fun. Why would I know that?

[PapaQuackers]

So...how do you deal nonlethal damage with a really big knife?

You smack them with the hilt or the flat of the blade really hard.

[Ashiel]

You smack them with the hilt or the flat of the blade really hard.

This is why I used the term improvised. The penalty associated with dealing nonlethal damage with a lethal weapon (or lethal with a nonlethal) is the same penalty as using an improvised weapon, and every example I've ever heard for how you can deal nonlethal damage with lethal weapons basically involves using the non-business end of the weapon somehow, or fluffed like a called shot ("sure my unarmed strike is nonlethal but I punched him in the throat").

So I will say that while I think there should be a distinction between weapons that are primarily used for lethal/nonlethal, I do think that it should be easier to bridge the divide. I'm a big fan of the Catch Off Guard feat from Pathfinder since it means being able to improvise your weapons to use them in ways not intended without a penalty (such as striking people with the pole end of your polearm) and I think whatever similar mechanic makes it into D20 Legends should allow you to ignore the penalty for wrong-type damage as well (if it lets you casually murder people with butterknives it seems like it already does to an extent).

Meanwhile, concerning muggles...
My brother and I were talking last night and I explained a theoretical option for super muggles that he really likes. Essentially, for giving up spellcasting you would gain a 2nd progression of feats and talents based on your magic ability bonus (this means the more "caster" you would have been the more bonus feats and talents you would get). This means that giving up a magic tradition means focusing more heavily on things like your class features and allows you to more comfortably pick up things like "Extra feature" feats and such.

The most interesting part of our conversation went something like this.

Brother: "That sounds really good but, why would anyone ever choose the caster route if they lose all their spellcasting? Wouldn't that be really bad for you?"

Me: "I believe it would be best used by players who are experienced with the system (and would make a note of that), but it basically means being able to hyper specialize in your class features or multiclass in elaborate and exotic ways. For example, if I wanted to make some sort of mad scientist plague-doctor thing, I might do something like Alchemist/Champion, spending talents on advancing both of those classes really quickly (allowing me to have top-notch alchemist bombs, bottled monsters, etc), auras that protect my friends from disease and such while stripping enemies of their resistances, lay on hands/mercies, smites, etc. I could dump all the bonus feats I get into things like Extra Discovery/Divine Power, defense boosting feats, skill enhancing feats, etc.

The end result would be having a character who rather than casting spells walks around the battlefield spreading plagues and pestilence ("Open wide!"), using strange mutant lab creations to fight for you, and spreading your auras and smites around like party favors,"

Brother: "Okay, that actually sounds f***in' cool, and I can kind of see how it would work now."

Me: "One thing I kind of like about this idea is that perhaps for the first time in...ever, really, it could be plausible to play a class that's the opposite of a martial (worst HP/BAB/Etc) who has no magic or psionics or anything like that but is actually a viable character concept."

[Klara Meison]

That sounds like a pretty bad idea to me, honestly. Currently you need to balance BaB with spells, while this way you would need to balance BaB with spells and feats. Balancing two things is hard enough, no need to bring a third thing into the mix.

Not to mention that this promises to accidentally bring back some of the issues Fighter forced upon the old system, mainly unnecessarily large feat trees "suited" for classes with faster feat progression.

In my opinion, martial options should be given by replacing spells with a similar system (daily/encounter limited, number of options scales with level, maximum strength of options scales with level, base usage time is standard action, mixed utility/control/damage/multithreat/buff/debuff, and so on), but perhaps more suited for martial combat. Given that DSP already did the hard inventing work on this front, I think that maneuvers like in Path of War are by far the best choice.

That way you can be certain that a, say, level 10 character has 5 feats, 5 class talents and X power from spells/maneuvers/BaB. You can make reasonable estimates for when a certain powerlevel is reached in all fields (for example, if you have a talent that gives the character who takes it perfect teleportation as a free action, and you gave it, say, 4 other prerequisites, you can be sure it won't be taken before lv 8 (since character would get talents at levels 1,2,4,6 and 8.) But if you introduce a way to get double feat progression, well, now people can pick it at level 4. Now you can't make any talents that are cool and powerful, but not gamebreaking at level 2X but absolutely annihilate everything at level X(and we all know that what is okay at 18 isn't okay at 9). I suppose you can lock them behind level prerequisites, but then you pretty much either force the person to be a gestalt of two gimped classes or a single gimped class with a lot of low-level features.

But perhaps more importantly, how the hell do you balance spells with feats? Feats are generally passive, invisible, constant effects that can't be disabled and that are selected once. Spells are short-term powerboosts heavilly limited in their usage per day(and thus subject to attrition effects) that can be disabled, are visible, can be countered and either can be selected every day, or you get so many of them each selection is a lot less decisive than picking a feat.

I'll go fetch my pitchfork now. I was promised the death of the Fighter in this system, yet here it is, just wearing a mask. WE WON'T GO QUIETLY INTO THE NIGHT! FIGHTER SHALL BURN! BURN I SAY!

[PapaQuackers]

This is why I used the term improvised. The penalty associated with dealing nonlethal damage with a lethal weapon (or lethal with a nonlethal) is the same penalty as using an improvised weapon, and every example I've ever heard for how you can deal nonlethal damage with lethal weapons basically involves using the non-business end of the weapon somehow, or fluffed like a called shot ("sure my unarmed strike is nonlethal but I punched him in the throat").

So I will say that while I think there should be a distinction between weapons that are primarily used for lethal/nonlethal, I do think that it should be easier to bridge the divide. I'm a big fan of the Catch Off Guard feat from Pathfinder since it means being able to improvise your weapons to use them in ways not intended without a penalty (such as striking people with the pole end of your polearm) and I think whatever similar mechanic makes it into D20 Legends should allow you to ignore the penalty for wrong-type damage as well (if it lets you casually murder people with butterknives it seems like it already does to an extent).

Meanwhile, concerning muggles...
My brother and I were talking last night and I explained a theoretical option for super muggles that he really likes. Essentially, for giving up spellcasting you would gain a 2nd progression of feats and talents based on your magic ability bonus (this means the more "caster" you would have been the more bonus feats and talents you would get). This means that giving up a magic tradition means focusing more heavily on things like your class features and allows you to more comfortably pick up things like "Extra feature" feats and such.

The most interesting part of our conversation went something like this.

Brother: "That sounds really good but, why would anyone ever choose the caster route if they lose all their spellcasting? Wouldn't that be really bad for you?"

Me: "I believe it would be best used by players who are experienced with the system (and would make a note of that), but it basically means being able to hyper specialize in your class features or multiclass in elaborate and exotic ways. For example, if I wanted to make some sort of mad scientist plague-doctor thing, I might do something like Alchemist/Champion, spending talents on advancing both of those classes really quickly (allowing me to have top-notch alchemist bombs, bottled monsters, etc), auras that protect my friends from disease and such while stripping enemies of their resistances, lay on hands/mercies, smites, etc. I could dump all the bonus feats I get into things like Extra Discovery/Divine Power, defense boosting feats, skill enhancing feats, etc.

The end result would be having a character who rather than casting spells walks around the battlefield spreading plagues and pestilence ("Open wide!"), using strange mutant lab creations to fight for you, and spreading your auras and smites around like party favors,"

Brother: "Okay, that actually sounds f***in' cool, and I can kind of see how it would work now."

Me: "One thing I kind of like about this idea is that perhaps for the first time in...ever, really, it could be plausible to play a class that's the opposite of a martial (worst HP/BAB/Etc) who has no magic or psionics or anything like that but is actually a viable character concept."

I like it. It makes me feel special without being a baby-face magic user.

[Ashiel]

That sounds like a pretty bad idea to me, honestly. Currently you need to balance BaB with spells, while this way you would need to balance BaB with spells and feats. Balancing two things is hard enough, no need to bring a third thing into the mix.

Not to mention that this promises to accidentally bring back some of the issues Fighter forced upon the old system, mainly unnecessarily large feat trees "suited" for classes with faster feat progression.

My personal thoughts on this is the best way to avoid unnecessarily large feat trees would be by not making unnecessarily large feat trees.

In my opinion, martial options should be given by replacing spells with a similar system (daily/encounter limited, number of options scales with level, maximum strength of options scales with level, base usage time is standard action, mixed utility/control/damage/multithreat/buff/debuff, and so on), but perhaps more suited for martial combat. Given that DSP already did the hard inventing work on this front, I think that maneuvers like in Path of War are by far the best choice.

It's worth noting that I really like ToB/PoW and think it's brilliant. However, it's my experience that a lot of people who dislike dealing with magic also dislike dealing with things like maneuvers for many of the same reasons. Since I myself tend to really like things like magic and psionics, it's totally natural for me to really enjoy things like maneuvers because while the framework is different you have a lot of the same optional appeal.

I feel like there should probably be an option that allows players to forgo having a special subsystem attached to their character.

That way you can be certain that a, say, level 10 character has 5 feats, 5 class talents and X power from spells/maneuvers/BaB. You can make reasonable estimates for when a certain powerlevel is reached in all fields (for example, if you have a talent that gives the character who takes it perfect teleportation as a free action, and you gave it, say, 4 other prerequisites, you can be sure it won't be taken before lv 8 (since character would get talents at levels 1,2,4,6 and 8.) But if you introduce a way to get double feat progression, well, now people can pick it at level 4. Now you can't make any talents that are cool and powerful, but not gamebreaking at level 2X but absolutely annihilate everything at level X(and we all know that what is okay at 18 isn't okay at 9). I suppose you can lock them behind level prerequisites, but then you pretty much either force the person to be a gestalt of two gimped classes or a single gimped class with a lot of low-level features.

Restricting certain talents with a level requirement has essentially been assumed for a long time (though material written hasn't been indicative of it in and of itself). One of the early explanations for tying abilities and requirements to character level rather than class level is that you'll always have access to level-appropriate abilities at the levels they are...well, appropriate. For example, a class feature that grants you a bonus spell or spell-like ability would generally include a requisite level equal to the lowest level you could achieve the same thing otherwise.

I've never been a fan of using feat availability as a sort of gate against gaining higher level abilities earlier. I've never seen it work functionally. I'd generally prefer to see feats be spread out a little more liberally, unless the advanced feat modifies something the original did in a way that's significantly more noteworthy.

But perhaps more importantly, how the hell do you balance spells with feats? Feats are generally passive, invisible, constant effects that can't be disabled and that are selected once. Spells are short-term powerboosts heavilly limited in their usage per day(and thus subject to attrition effects) that can be disabled, are visible, can be countered and either can be selected every day, or you get so many of them each selection is a lot less decisive than picking a feat.

The simplest answer is by keeping the meta of the game in mind when designing them (such as what levels you are expected to routinely encounter certain things, such as dimension door), and the same goes for talents. Bonus feats, while passive, often grant new options or deeper resource pools (such as with feats such as Extra Discovery or Extra Rage), or can be used to pad out your character's stats (making it more practical to take feats such as Toughness, Great Fortitude, or Open Minded).

One of the places that Barbarians, Paladins, and Rangers really edged out fighters in was in feats. Fighters got more of them but the former classes had better things to spend them on. It was often noted that a Barbarian could pick 1-2 feats (such as Power Attack) and spend all the rest of their feats on Extra Rage Power and be all the better for it. Similarly, Paladins could spend feats on things like Fey Foundling, Extra Mercy, Item Creation feats, Ultimate Mercy, etc. Rangers could grab Item Creation feats and use their normal feats for padding their stats (while using their bonus feats which ignored prerequisites for combat feats).

I also noted that you'd get more Talents along with feats. Talents indicate gaining additional classes or major class features. Those types of things would help bridge the gap between having some spellcasting and not. For example, if you decided you wanted to make a super muggle barbarian warlord, you might decide that having the equivalent of 1/2 casting isn't as cool for you as getting 10 levels worth of extra feats and talents, which you could then use to trick yourself out in new ways (such as picking up a strong animal companion and bard abilities), and using the bonus feats to either pad up (grabbing feats like Improved Initiative, Great Fortitude, Open Minded, etc), or expand your options (with things like Extra Rage Power).

Which I do indeed think could be competitive against magic from a metagame perspective, especially since certain shady tricks in 3.x/Pathfinder can be better accounted for (things like simulacrum spring to mind).

I'll go fetch my pitchfork now. I was promised the death of the Fighter in this system, yet here it is, just wearing a mask. WE WON'T GO QUIETLY INTO THE NIGHT! FIGHTER SHALL BURN! BURN I SAY!

I can see I'll have my work cut out for me.

[Klara Meison]

My personal thoughts on this is the best way to avoid unnecessarily large feat trees would be by not making unnecessarily large feat trees.

Pretty sure "We know everyone before us made this mistake, but we won't, honest" doesn't really work as a logical argument.

I feel like there should probably be an option that allows players to forgo having a special subsystem attached to their character.

Hmm. Fair point.

Which I do indeed think could be competitive against magic from a metagame perspective, especially since certain shady tricks in 3.x/Pathfinder can be better accounted for (things like simulacrum spring to mind).

I think that it's really, really easy to either fall into "double feats are the best thing ever" or "double feats are completely worthless" trap. Seems like a thing you would need to be exceedingly careful about.

I can see I'll have my work cut out for me.

*Mob is unconvinced, but is willing to wait with the burning and stabbing for now*

[Ashiel]

Pretty sure "We know everyone before us made this mistake, but we won't, honest" doesn't really work as a logical argument.

It may not but it's the only reasonable argument to be made, I think. "This thing has been shown to consistently lead to bad results, let's not do this thing" seems pretty logical to me though. It seems that if the effect is choking characters out of options and having a tenuous balance that evaporates when bonus feats are involved, and the apparent cause appears to be the design structure of feat trees, eliminating feat trees from the design structure seems like a decent shot at solving the unwanted effect.

As a design rule, I do not like feat trees. Feat progressions maybe, in moderation, and they really need to improve upon or expand the use of the feats before them in some tangible way that's worth a feat. For comparison purposes...

A Probably Okay Feat Path: Feat #1: Allows you to deflect an incoming attack. Feat #2: Allows you to perform a counterattack when you use Feat #1. Reasoning: The first feat gives you a new thing to do. The second feat modifies or builds off the thing the first feat did. The old Crane Style feats spring to mind.

A Terrible Feat Path: Feat #1: Improves your AC. Feat #2: Lets you attack an AoE around you. Reasoning: These feats do entirely different things and nothing about the former is involved in the latter (likewise the latter doesn't build off the former at all). The Whirlwind Attack feat springs to mind.

A Probably Terrible Feat Path: It consists of Feat #1, #2, #3, #4, and #5. Reasoning: What the feats do is almost wholly irrelevant. It just takes too damn many feats. It takes half the feats you're going to get in your career and that means whatever it's going to do has got to be wildly amazing in some way that I don't think I've ever seen in practice. It's hard to come up with any sort of abilities that are at all practical enough to be useful for every feat invested while also improving upon them with each new feat. It's pretty hard to even conceive such a thing from a meta perspective. Virtually every time the progression has diminishing returns (such as with the TWF line of feats) or asks too much for too little (the Vital Strike line springs to mind). If you try to press it into the other direction, you have to make the benefits of the end-game of the feat line so amazing that it's worth sticking with, but not so amazing that you need to progress to the end or suck.

My Philosophy: Whenever possible keep a feat succinct and to the point. Only require other feats if the feat directly expands or builds off the former feat(s). Never use acquisition of feats as a gate, if the ability isn't suitable for play before a specific level range, either put a level requirement on it directly or tie it to something pretty hard-coded (such as BAB or Skill Ranks).

Hmm. Fair point.

I'm a big believer that "there's no wrong way to eat a Reese's". I want to ensure that people are pretty comfortable playing the game their way whenever possible. Some people just really don't want to be bothered with lots of subsystems, or may not have found a subsystem that really appeals to them. This is also true for GMs where managing subsystems for various NPCs can end up being a huge pain in the butt (one of the reasons I rarely use PoW material myself is because I'm usually GMing, and unless an NPC is somehow super special enough to warrant building as a traditional PC, I'm more than happy to drop something like the Martial Training feat onto Warriors and stuff and call it a day).

I think that it's really, really easy to either fall into "double feats are the best thing ever" or "double feats are completely worthless" trap. Seems like a thing you would need to be exceedingly careful about.

Indeed.

*Mob is unconvinced, but is willing to wait with the burning and stabbing for now*

Noted.

[Lemmy]

BTW... Will Critical hits offer any advantage other than maximizing the damage die? That's not very exciting, IMO. And nat 20 should be somewhat exciting IMO, just not as powerful as critical hits are in 3.X/PF, where a single critical hit can turn nearly insta-kill an enemy. :/

[Ashiel]

BTW... Will Critical hits offer any advantage other than maximizing the damage die? That's not very exciting, IMO. And nat 20 should be somewhat exciting IMO, just not as powerful as critical hits are in 3.X/PF, where a single critical hit can turn nearly insta-kill an enemy. :/

It's currently planned to allow for some kicker effect options. Such as being able to use your confirmation to do...a thing. What thing? Well, that's where it would vary. An early prototype was the early master-tier perks for combat maneuver-enhancing weapons (such as weapons with qualities such as trip, disarm, grapple, etc), where when you threatened a critical you could use the confirmation to attempt to maximize the damage OR chain a free combat maneuver into it.

It's also worth noting that maximizing your damage is a pretty big deal at higher levels when you have a lot of bonus damage dice (since you gain bonus damage dice from high BAB). Also, unlike in regular D20, weapon effects such as flaming are influenced by critical hits as well. So critical hits are still strong as the game progresses, but they don't have the burgermeating effects that they do at really low levels.

EDIT: For example, at BAB +18, you've got +5d6 bonus damage on every attack roll you make. Using a 1-handed archaic melee weapon (such as a sword or battleaxe) your base damage (before any static modifiers) would be 1d8+5d6 or an average of 22. The base damage on a critical hit would be 38. Of course, weapons can also have qualities such as Deadly (which grants +2/+4/+6 depending on rank) to critical damage per die (the Deadly quality replaces the x3/x4 crit weapons in traditional d20 with a new option for explosive criticals that scales pretty smoothly with your level), bringing your base critical damage to 50/62/74 (based on rank).

[Klara Meison]

BTW... Will Critical hits offer any advantage other than maximizing the damage die? That's not very exciting, IMO. And nat 20 should be somewhat exciting IMO, just not as powerful as critical hits are in 3.X/PF, where a single critical hit can turn nearly insta-kill an enemy. :/

GM can give you a cookie for every nat 20 you roll?

[Ashiel]

GM can give you a cookie for every nat 20 you roll?

Jesting aside, this reminds me of Deadlands a bit. Being OP in that game meant gaining more fate chips.

For example, getting a greater than normal success when ridiculing someone would earn you a free fate chip. Fate chips could be used to avoid dying and you could trade them for bounty points (experience points, basically) allowing you to make your character even stronger.

Player: "I ridicule him so hard his mama wants to drink bleach,"
GM: "Oh, cool, here's some bonus XP/not-die-chips,"

[Klara Meison]

Jesting aside, this reminds me of Deadlands a bit. Being OP in that game meant gaining more fate chips.

For example, getting a greater than normal success when ridiculing someone would earn you a free fate chip. Fate chips could be used to avoid dying and you could trade them for bounty points (experience points, basically) allowing you to make your character even stronger.

Player: "I ridicule him so hard his mama wants to drink bleach,"
GM: "Oh, cool, here's some bonus XP/not-die-chips,"

Yeah, I had a similar idea- giving people bonuses for doing things I want them to do (exquisite roleplaying, bringing pizza, bringing up cool overpowered builds to my attention, etc), except I figured that giving them to the whole party would facilitate more teamwork.

[Lemmy]

It's currently planned to allow for some kicker effect options. Such as being able to use your confirmation to do...a thing. What thing? Well, that's where it would vary. An early prototype was the early master-tier perks for combat maneuver-enhancing weapons (such as weapons with qualities such as trip, disarm, grapple, etc), where when you threatened a critical you could use the confirmation to attempt to maximize the damage OR chain a free combat maneuver into it.

It's also worth noting that maximizing your damage is a pretty big deal at higher levels when you have a lot of bonus damage dice (since you gain bonus damage dice from high BAB). Also, unlike in regular D20, weapon effects such as flaming are influenced by critical hits as well. So critical hits are still strong as the game progresses, but they don't have the burgermeating effects that they do at really low levels.

EDIT: For example, at BAB +18, you've got +5d6 bonus damage on every attack roll you make. Using a 1-handed archaic melee weapon (such as a sword or battleaxe) your base damage (before any static modifiers) would be 1d8+5d6 or an average of 22. The base damage on a critical hit would be 38. Of course, weapons can also have qualities such as Deadly (which grants +2/+4/+6 depending on rank) to critical damage per die (the Deadly quality replaces the x3/x4 crit weapons in traditional d20 with a new option for explosive criticals that scales pretty smoothly with your level), bringing your base critical damage to 50/62/74 (based on rank).

Right... I forgot about the bonus damage dice. Not sure if I'm a fan of that idea... I know we have differing opinions on the matter, but IME, rocket tag is indeed a real thing. And I say that as a player and GM who highly values defenses and teaches his players to do the same.

[Eldest]

So because I'm silly and haven't found it yet, is there a spot to look at the crunchy bits already written?

[Klara Meison]

So because I'm silly and haven't found it yet, is there a spot to look at the crunchy bits already written?

And so the LORD hast hath said: so I sayeth to thee, asketh and 't will beest given to thee; searcheth, and thee shall findeth. And so thee hast asked, and thee shalt taketh: h're art the links I hast assembled over the years in mine own capacity as the High Librarian and Chronicler of l'rd Ashiel.

A foldeth'r enwheeling the information ashiel deigned correct and rightful to resease to the public about the system: h're

A foldeth'r enwheeling mine owneth humble researcheth on the topic, enwheeling the relevant posts from ye olde thread: h're

A posteth on this forum enwheeling other somewhat crunchy talk by l'rd Ashiel: h're

Mayhaps I spoke falsely, and those PDFs hast long ago been outdated, but I hope that this may ease thine understanding of the system.

[Tels]

It takes half the feats you're going to get in your career and that means whatever it's going to do has got to be wildly amazing in some way that I don't think I've ever seen in practice...

...If you try to press it into the other direction, you have to make the benefits of the end-game of the feat line so amazing that it's worth sticking with, but not so amazing that you need to progress to the end or suck.

The closest thing I've seen to this happening is the Dimensional Dervish line of feats. Big chain, each builds on each other, you don't need the whole chain, but having the whole chain lets you do some stupidly fun stuff. The issue is, of course, that the first feat is a tax for those who use dimension door based abilities frequently.

[Ashiel]

Right... I forgot about the bonus damage dice. Not sure if I'm a fan of that idea... I know we have differing opinions on the matter, but IME, rocket tag is indeed a real thing. And I say that as a player and GM who highly values defenses and teaches his players to do the same.

A few things I think are worth pointing out which may alleviate your concerns a bit.

A lot of feats that just exist to push damage harder simply won't exist because there won't be a need for them. Things like Manyshot doubling damage of your first attack with a bow, for example, probably just won't be in the system at all. Manyshot mechanically serves no purpose other than just increasing damage. So it will either get the axe or will be rebuilt to do something else (maybe like splitting your attacks between multiple targets at reduced penalties).

Further, things are less based around lots of multipliers. In 3.x/PF, stacking tons of static modifiers and then critting with a x3 weapon, or using a lance charge with spirited charge, and things of that nature deliver massive payloads of damage which get really silly when you add in things like Smite, Favored Enemy, divine power, etc. While I haven't yet dove into Mounted Combat (that's gonna be a fun mess ), I can attest that since critical hits don't multiply the damage but maximize it, damage is generally less explosive.

For example, in Pathfinder, a Paladin wielding a +5 falchion with a 30 Strength, Power Attack and smite active is looking at 2d4+58 (63 avg.), and 126 (avg.) on a critical hit. In D20 Legends, the same Paladin would be looking at 7d6+58 (82.5 avg.) and 100 (avg.) on a critical hit. Bottom end is raised about 20 points.

If the same Paladin was using a greataxe (say a life drinker), their average damage would be about the same but they would inflict massive 193 dmg (avg.) crits in Pathfinder, while in D20 Legends, even with a Deadly III (+6/die) weapon, they'd deal +42 more damage on a critical hit (51 points less damage). So again, burst damage is more manageable.

All of this assuming no other revisions to the class features (and class features haven't really been built yet), but you get the idea. As a general rule, martials will get more damage on their attacks by virtue of being martials than anything else. Being a martial is something that will keep your damage consistently good. There's less of a demand to always pick a few that pushes your damage higher (like how most martials feel obligated to pick up Power Attack at some point), which is intended to A) free up your options a bit to let you play with other stuff, and B) reward your specialization, since matching a high BAB character is legitimately difficult to do without being a high BAB character.