Possible Combat House Rule

[Korgoth]

I've thought a fair bit about "critical hits"... but while I'd like to recreate the "Conan Effect" where a high-level character can chop through low-mid level foes with ease, I don't really fancy adding an extra die roll to combat. The "Power Attack" option from 3E, which lets you add damage for a penalty to hit is OK, but it does add extra math for only a small payoff.

As it stands, hit points allow your skill, luck and 'karma' to protect you from a nasty sword thrust... but your skill and karma don't give you an equivalent increase in the effectiveness of your sword thrusts.

Solution: BtH is also added to damage rolls.

Thus, a 10th level fighter not only hits more often than a 1st level fighter, he hits more effectively. I see this as perfectly in line with the Gygaxian rationale of hit points.

Comments?
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"I despise all weavers of the black arts. Speaking of which, can you pass the gravy?"

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[Treebore]

Well, the one thing about balance is that as long as everyone and everything with a BtH gets to do it, its fair.

Plus you have lots of room to tweak it if you find its too powerful. Such as cutting it back to half the BtH value as damage bonus.

So use it, play it for a while. See if it has the effect you want. Then tweak it or take it completely out again.

[maasenstodt]

I've long considered a similar proposition, but it does make fighting types more powerful relative to others. It also makes the game a fair bit deadlier, since everyone is doing more damage but have no more hit points to soak it up. That may be well and good for your game, but despite the attraction of having mooks go down quickly to experienced characters, the drawbacks have held me off. That said, if you're just looking for a more heroic game, one could always exclude monsters from the rule. After all, if the increased damage comes as a benefit of experience, there's nothing to say that an ogre has any more experience than a kobold.

The weapon mastery rules in the D&D Rules Cyclopedia have a good model for this sort of thing, but it comes at the cost of additional bookkeeping, so that's out for me as well.

[serleran]

A houserule like this cripples the non-fighting classes, such as all spellcasters and rogues/assassins. If wizards (and illusionists) were treated as fighters for purposes of weapon-like attack spells (clerics and druids should, too, with spells like shillelagh or spiritual weapon), then they would not be as hampered, though all monsters are going to be incredibly devastating, primarily due to their numbers, and their sheer volume of attack (that is, they often get many more attacks than a party does, due to multiple attacks / round per "unit"), but the other classes like the rogue is left in the "screwed" category.

Instead, I would just make a level-dependent critical number. For example, a fighter criticals on any natural attack roll, which successfully scores a hit, above a 17 (so on an 18, 19, or 20.) This number decreases by 1 per 6 levels, so at 7th, the critical critical is at 17+, and at 13th, its a 16+.

Other classes could have slightly different progressions, but would still allow them to remain "unscrewed."

[Treebore]

I did say he would have to give it to everyone and everything with a BtH to be fair. Still, he has a lot of room for customizing it to get the "right" gritty feel he is looking for.

He can cut it to a 1 damage for every 2 points of BtH, or even 3 for 1. He can also adapt 3E's rules of HD for every level to help offset the nastiness at higher levels.

I think it is something he can definitely tweak around with, but I am figuring he will ultimately decide it is more hassle than it is worth.

[Korgoth]

Good thoughts, fellas. I also thought about just making it a bonus equal to character level... that would leave out monsters (except bad boys like leveled-up vampires) and slightly privilege fast-advancing classes like rogues.

I don't mind that the BtH version slights spellcasters, as in my experience the spellcasting classes are overpowered compared to the others.

A level 1 Million fighter still does just 1d8 with a longsword. A 10th level wizard is an damage-dealing machine. And once you get up into the realm of Death Spell, Symbol, Power Word Unfair, Time Stop, Wish, etc. all the other classes just fade into the background. A top-level wizard is a sight to behold. I know - I built one up over multiple years in an extended campaign. The fighters get a tiny bit better each level... but by this point I'm practically changing the landscape of the world, kingdoms falling at my whim.

So I'll not be crying for the Magic-Users! They don't need my sympathy.
But as I said, I would like a modification that lets high level characters with swords wade through low-mid competent bad guys. Because your Conan or your Aragorn should get a bit better at dealing damage as he goes up in level, especially so that it doesn't take him an hour to chop down the sergeant of the watch.
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"I despise all weavers of the black arts. Speaking of which, can you pass the gravy?"

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"I didn't know there would be this much talking."

[moriarty777]

Korgoth wrote:
A level 1 Million fighter still does just 1d8 with a longsword. A 10th level wizard is an damage-dealing machine. And once you get up into the realm of Death Spell, Symbol, Power Word Unfair, Time Stop, Wish, etc. all the other classes just fade into the background. A top-level wizard is a sight to behold. I know - I built one up over multiple years in an extended campaign. The fighters get a tiny bit better each level... but by this point I'm practically changing the landscape of the world, kingdoms falling at my whim.

So I'll not be crying for the Magic-Users! They don't need my sympathy.

Some good points to be sure... The fighter should be a melee killing machine; and a wizard is potentially deadly the higher level he happens to be. However, I feel for the poor poor rogue!

Seriously though, the way I've done critical hits are quite simple (and potentially very deadly):

On a natural 20, a percentile roll is then made.

01-75 is x2 damage

76-00 is x3 damage

I've been toying with the notion that a 100 could also result in an instant kill or x4 damage but this hasn't popped up yet.

Clarification: The damage multiplier is applied to the roll plus damage modifier. This means that if you do 1d8+2 damage and you roll a '1' then it's 3 x the appropriate multiplier.

Condition: If you actually 'NEED' a 20 to hit, then you don't get the benefits of extra damage.

It's worked well so far, for both sides of the CK screen! Critical Misses are left up to my own devious mind!

Moriarty the Red
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