I have considered, but never implemented, a house rule that the strength bonus is also added to hit points. This would make it so both strength and dex serve to make one more durable, so I think it would balance the abilities somewhat. Any thoughts on that possibility?
I have considered, but never implemented, a house rule that the strength bonus is also added to hit points. This would make it so both strength and dex serve to make one more durable, so I think it would balance the abilities somewhat. Any thoughts on that possibility?
Not a bad idea, but this would be a pretty huge buff to Barbarians, a class which is already renowned for their survivability.
I have considered, but never implemented, a house rule that the strength bonus is also added to hit points. This would make it so both strength and dex serve to make one more durable, so I think it would balance the abilities somewhat. Any thoughts on that possibility?
That's certainly another valid way to help give more weight to strength and rebalance the stats.
It gives the player the option of boosting either strength or con for extra hit points. And would boost the durability of strength based fighters who boost both strength and Constitution.
DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
How would one go about balancing this? Would the DM just need to throw stronger enemies at the party? Or would it make sense to reduce the boost from CON so that Barbarians don't end up with like... over 100 HP at fairly early levels? Actually, now I'm wondering if it wouldn't make sense to simply drop CON outright, and to replace it completely with Strength.
Maybe the extra HP granted by STR should be considered Temporary HP... something to help survive, but to keep it from completely replacing CON the character can still only be healed up to their regular HP.
A common House Rule that my circle of friends use in our campaigns (mainly because we think Roll20 dice algorithm is busted at times) is if you roll he same thing back to back, you have an option to re-roll one of the die.
We came to this conclusion after a player rolled 9 12's in a row, as well as in the same session of 2 hours, 14 nat 1s were rolled (in a prologue session 0).
As a group we all agree that living by the dice is a fine and good thing, we are okay with it, however sometimes it feels like the dice are predetermined to be bad rolls on Roll20, so those of us that DM decided (and i know i at least do) that for the sake of enjoyment of the players, i will roll my own D20 4 times, if i get a double at any time i roll, then i keep the duplicate rolls from roll20, otherwise i would let a reroll occur
armor tearing is cool, but if you look at say a rust monster or a black pudding. you already see wear and tear rulings which seems, to me, much better then yours. both monsters says that each hits gives the weapon -1 to its AC or touch. the armor, if reduced to its base 10, is destroyed. the weapons are destroyed once it reaches -5. minds you this if because of acid damage to the weapon or armor. but what i would say is that wear and tear depends on armor type. light would take less hits to lose that -1. my problkem is that you lose the benefits entirely in one shot after some times. i dont like that. i'd preffer a system that loses the benefits and the players can see it coming as they literally loses their blade or armor slowly. but overall i like the idea.
I use this gradual decline and it works great. Stacking -1 penalty on armor that builds up until repaired and if the total ever hits the same as essentially what AC the armor provides it is entirely scrap. I'll hand these penalties out, judiciously, in the thematically appropriate situations like massive damage spikes, large amounts of acid damage, or even just critical hits and the like. Easy, not too hard to track, makes some semblance of sense.
This leads me to a simple question though... what about mage armor and the warlock invocation ? what about Monks and Barbarian Unarmored Defense ? doesn't your way of doing it, render these a must and thus makes fighters and clerics a liability ?
By the way, i really love the idea of bringing strength back to its 3e counter part, which was 1.5x your strength bonus in damage and 2x your bonus in damage on 2 handed weapons. definitely be bringing that back into my game. but i feel like, i should always let it be at 2x though, for simplcity sake.
Yeah I use a lot of house rules so it is hard to post just one and make sense of it in isolation. So I don't have a simply answer for your simple question... The but all of this creates an overall result of a far bloodier, and grittier combat. But there are some conveniences in there too. These do add some levels of complexity though. Not for everyone. But a quick rundown of the bulk of them would be:
Quick Summary: Combat Homebrew
Standard attacks broken into P/S/B attacks. Basic combat needs options.
All weapons have P/S/B damage value listed. Eg Longsword 1d6/1d8/1d3 P/S/B
P/S/B all have quirks and perks, and they interact with armor differently. Eg Piercing is +1 hit and crits cause exhaustion.
Cover has 3 tiers, +4/7/10 (well and also total, which is unhittable obvs)
Armor provides cover, L/M/H correspond to cover levels
Cover can only stop so much damage and using: [If nat d20 roll ≤ cover ac then hits cover] (Yes, this actually works really well)
Damage exceeding the cover DR value goes thru and also damages cover
Armor similarly has a DR value if it is stuck
Damaged armor applies stacking -1 penalty, broken entirely if penalty = cover value
This armor=cover+DR system allowed for an easy piecemeal armor system too.
Nat armor is listed value=cover value instead of standard classification 4/7/10, and DR=HD, healing can restore damaged nat ac.
Some weapons now have parry property if they're actually useful in parry/deflecting attacks, otherwise lower parry bonuses. Think: attempt parry with sword, vs with an ax.
Parry is against limited # attacks, Block give static bonus to multiple hits (req shield), dive is just going prone, protect gives small bonus to adjacent ally
Dex attacks add only half mod to damage. Strength attacks add only half mod to hit. Full mod for dex to hit, and str to damage.
Gang-up flanking, each ally adjacent to same target is stacking +1, max +5.
Those are all interconnected and work as one cohesive whole. The larger armor ac values are counterbalanced by the fact their armor can be damaged or overwhelmed with massive force. Then the other set of rules is around recovery and new statuses, and is loosely interconnected as well in that defensive reactions can get jacked with if you're hurt, and p/s/b damages have some interplay with how injuries can impair you.
Quick Summary: Damage and Recovery Homebrew
All HD are d4s plus static bonus according to old value. +1 for d6, +2 for d8 etc. Only ever roll d4s for hit dice, levelup, recovery, etc. Eliminates extreme results.
Any healing spell or affect triggers the ability to spend your HD for recover similar to short rest.
Wounded, condition, below half health or if receive critical hit. Using a bonus action prevents reaction until next turn. Choose wisely if you're hurt. (healing cures)
Bleeding, condition, certain weapons cause if hitting wounded target or crit. Damage each round and disadvantage on death saves. (healing cures)
Hitting 0 causes level of exhaustion.
So uh, yeah, to answer your question specifically... armor being damaged does make magical spells and class abilities granted AC better options; however, those advantages are balanced by actual armor's large AC values making them better at protecting the wearer, which is against counterbalanced and brought in line with its vulnerability to just being smashed thru with brute force. Which, in my mind, is exactly how armor should function.
Most of these rules don't slow anything down in game, despite the initial overwhelming sense that everything is changed. Not much 'extra work' goes into the actual session or mid-battle. There was a LOT of work I had to do well in advance to create full lists of modified weapons and rebuilding the standard armor sets using the homebrew piecemeal system back into cohesive whole packages so there is no added work for players unless someone really wanted to get into the behinds the scenes of it. The few things that add just a little time are all worth the payoff of more agency and choices in standard combats, how you attack, how you defend, how you recover, all important and based on adding more variety and impact to default player choices.
Eg. The fighter with a longsword and a sheathed dagger can choose to attack with a piercing (thrust), slashing (swing) or bludgeoning (hilt/broadside) attack, and gets the damage die accordingly, he can also choose to wield it two handed or to draw his dagger in the offhand. 2handed longsword would do more damage, but if he gets attacked he won't have the extra values to his parry that two blades would have provided. He's not just making the same "I attack" every round anymore, he has options and they can make or break his gameplay.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
How would one go about balancing this? Would the DM just need to throw stronger enemies at the party? Or would it make sense to reduce the boost from CON so that Barbarians don't end up with like... over 100 HP at fairly early levels? Actually, now I'm wondering if it wouldn't make sense to simply drop CON outright, and to replace it completely with Strength.
Maybe the extra HP granted by STR should be considered Temporary HP... something to help survive, but to keep it from completely replacing CON the character can still only be healed up to their regular HP.
Really depends on how much you are comfortable throwing things out of whack. Off the top of my head:
Minor Change: Any strength above 10 adds point for point extra HP. This would provide a very small change. Strength of 20 only ever adds +10 HP.
Minor/Medium Change: Adds either Con or Strength mod, whichever is higher, every level, instead of only con mod as option.
Medium Change: Add strength mod every few levels as bonus hp, whenever the character would normally gain a +2 attribute boost.
Medium/Major Change: Add half, round down, Strength mod every level in addition to con mod.
Major Change: Add strength mod every level in addition to con mod.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
How would one go about balancing this? Would the DM just need to throw stronger enemies at the party? Or would it make sense to reduce the boost from CON so that Barbarians don't end up with like... over 100 HP at fairly early levels? Actually, now I'm wondering if it wouldn't make sense to simply drop CON outright, and to replace it completely with Strength.
Maybe the extra HP granted by STR should be considered Temporary HP... something to help survive, but to keep it from completely replacing CON the character can still only be healed up to their regular HP.
Well, monsters would benefit from the change as well (they get Con bonuses, so they should get this new strength bonus as well), so I would think that would balance things.
How would one go about balancing this? Would the DM just need to throw stronger enemies at the party? Or would it make sense to reduce the boost from CON so that Barbarians don't end up with like... over 100 HP at fairly early levels? Actually, now I'm wondering if it wouldn't make sense to simply drop CON outright, and to replace it completely with Strength.
Maybe the extra HP granted by STR should be considered Temporary HP... something to help survive, but to keep it from completely replacing CON the character can still only be healed up to their regular HP.
Well, monsters would benefit from the change as well (they get Con bonuses, so they should get this new strength bonus as well), so I would think that would balance things.
Oh that's a good point. I think it might still take some playtesting to make sure it all works out, but that does seem like this has the potential to be a problem that simply solves itself.
A common House Rule that my circle of friends use in our campaigns (mainly because we think Roll20 dice algorithm is busted at times) is if you roll he same thing back to back, you have an option to re-roll one of the die.
We came to this conclusion after a player rolled 9 12's in a row, as well as in the same session of 2 hours, 14 nat 1s were rolled (in a prologue session 0).
As a group we all agree that living by the dice is a fine and good thing, we are okay with it, however sometimes it feels like the dice are predetermined to be bad rolls on Roll20, so those of us that DM decided (and i know i at least do) that for the sake of enjoyment of the players, i will roll my own D20 4 times, if i get a double at any time i roll, then i keep the duplicate rolls from roll20, otherwise i would let a reroll occur
seems like roll20 doesn't use static variables for their random rolls which leads to many double or tripple times the same numbers in short amount of times. this is truly bad programming on their part if they did that. i use my own set of dice rollers and since i use static seeds i cannot literally roll the same number twice or it takes a lot of luck to do so. its much more random with a static seed. i'd say thats a big -Con for roll20 there.
How would one go about balancing this? Would the DM just need to throw stronger enemies at the party? Or would it make sense to reduce the boost from CON so that Barbarians don't end up with like... over 100 HP at fairly early levels? Actually, now I'm wondering if it wouldn't make sense to simply drop CON outright, and to replace it completely with Strength.
Maybe the extra HP granted by STR should be considered Temporary HP... something to help survive, but to keep it from completely replacing CON the character can still only be healed up to their regular HP.
Well, monsters would benefit from the change as well (they get Con bonuses, so they should get this new strength bonus as well), so I would think that would balance things.
Oh that's a good point. I think it might still take some playtesting to make sure it all works out, but that does seem like this has the potential to be a problem that simply solves itself.
I think it solves itself already considering that most monsters are already out of whack by themselves. aka not having enough AC and not enough HP. 5e is notorious, like 3e, for its maximum 3 turn combats. which sucks badly. overall, i have often already started using max hit points on all monsters except minions which i sometimes lowe the HP by half to make like more minions like. so i think removing CON is not a good thing, but i get why giving strength hit points makes constitution less great. in the same vein, making barbarian unarmored defense dex and strength makes sense if you do remove con entirely.
overall thats a fair point, we're making an entire stat useless if we give strength the hit point bonus. but i do like the idea that fighters, monks, barbarians and rangers as well as paladins can become much better tanks if we do have both con and strength giving off hit points. as for the argument that barbarians would be too high in life... tell yourself that a druid with wild shape has literally 3x their original hit point at low levels. and if they are circle, they can literally heal themselves too. so barbarian getting more HP is not really an issue if you compare to druids.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
Yes,I know this is generally regarded as a bad idea to implement any kind of Critical Fail or Critical Fumble table...
... THIS IS NOT THAT!!!
This is not an idea for a crit fumble table. In fact there is no table even here to have. So bear with me.
Something I’ve never heard of anyone using or talking about, is a very specific type of “Critical Fail”. (NOT a fumble table.)
If you cast any spell, that DOES NOT require you (the attacker/player) to roll to hit the target, those spells where the target has to roll Dex or Strength (or whatever for those oddball spells) to resist the effect or get out of its way...
... IF the TARGET of the spell effect ROLLS A NATURAL ONE, on their resist/evade check... the hit becomes a Crit, for that target that rolled the Nat One, and the damage is doubled ONLY for the target that rolled the Nat One, just like rolling a Nat 20 for spells and attacks that require an attack roll. :-)
This would make a crit fail condition, that is VERY specific, and (I THINK) should not be overpowered in most situations.
This would apply to player characters AND NPC’s equally in any given game.
QUESTIONS:
Have you ever heard of this, seen this, or anything like it?
What are your thoughts as a player, and as a DM/GM about it?
Is there a way you can think of to improve this idea? Or is this idea complete scrap in your opinion?
Please try to refrain from simply yelling NO at this and writing it off as stupid just because it's a crit fail thing. Yes I know crit fails are usually not well implemented, all I am asking for is advice and constructive criticism. I am new to DM'ing and this idea came to me, and I would like The DnD Community's HONEST opinion on it. Believe it or not, there are actually some good crit fail and critical fumble tables out there! Go take a look sometime! :-)
Please try to keep comments to a dull roar and be helpful please. That's all I ask.
Have you ever heard of this, seen this, or anything like it?
What are your thoughts as a player, and as a DM/GM about it?
Is there a way you can think of to improve this idea? Or is this idea complete scrap in your opinion?
1. No, I don't think I have.
2. I like it for cantrips. Mainly because those no-damage-on-save damaging cantrips (Toll the Dead, Vicious Mockery, etc.) kinda suck when they just fizzle and do nothing. Balancing that with a chance at a "crit" adds some spice to them.
BUT... for most other damaging spells, it seems to go too far. With most other damaging spells, if the target succeeds on their saving throw, they still take SOME damage. This gives those spells an edge over spells requiring an attack roll, because you're guaranteed to do at least SOMETHING to the target. So if you then grant extra damage because the target rolled a 1 on their saving throw, that seems to unbalance the two types of spells.
3. Improve it? Not really; it's fairly straightforward. As I said, I wouldn't use it on anything except no-damage-on-save spells, and even then, I'd be hesitant. I'd have to give it a test run to see if it was an appropriate effect (although I suspect it would play just fine.)
Have you ever heard of this, seen this, or anything like it?
What are your thoughts as a player, and as a DM/GM about it?
Is there a way you can think of to improve this idea? Or is this idea complete scrap in your opinion?
1. Yeah. I had a DM make crit fails extra spectacular.
2. Eh, could take it or leave it. I'm a bit against it conceptually, since a fail is supposedly already the full effect so a crit fail would just be.. the same full effect.
3. Improve it? Hmm, maybe make only certain specific hand-picked spells or abilities do this. It just doesn't feel like everything that has a save vs damage should be doing double damage. They aren't really balanced for this, some of the numbers on some spells and abilities would just be really absurd if you doubled them, especially ones that are already getting modified in other ways like metamagic or etc. Maybe only spells and abilities that you feel are already underpowered or something. For example Fireball does NOT need this treatment. Ya know?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Yes,I know this is generally regarded as a bad idea to implement any kind of Critical Fail or Critical Fumble table...
... THIS IS NOT THAT!!!
This is not an idea for a crit fumble table. In fact there is no table even here to have. So bear with me.
Something I’ve never heard of anyone using or talking about, is a very specific type of “Critical Fail”. (NOT a fumble table.)
If you cast any spell, that DOES NOT require you (the attacker/player) to roll to hit the target, those spells where the target has to roll Dex or Strength (or whatever for those oddball spells) to resist the effect or get out of its way...
... IF the TARGET of the spell effect ROLLS A NATURAL ONE, on their resist/evade check... the hit becomes a Crit, for that target that rolled the Nat One, and the damage is doubled ONLY for the target that rolled the Nat One, just like rolling a Nat 20 for spells and attacks that require an attack roll. :-)
This would make a crit fail condition, that is VERY specific, and (I THINK) should not be overpowered in most situations.
This would apply to player characters AND NPC’s equally in any given game.
The issue I see is that most of your level 1 and higher spells already have a saving throw failure effect. Typically for half damage. This is balanced against the fact that the caster doesn't have to make a roll to cast the spell.
For damage causing cantrips, I think it gives too much power to the cantrip. They are designed to scale with character level as it is. By granting a critical effect on a saving throw of 1 is the equivalent of granting a critical hit on all of the extra attacks of a fighter from a single die roll.
I prefer to use critical hit and fumble tables for attacks and spells that require a 'to hit' roll. The saving throw based spells already have a mechanism built into them to account for failure and success of saving throws.
Picking up a dropped weapon provokes an attack of opportunity.
I implemented this mainly to make disarming attack actually do something. As it stands, since a successful disarming attack just causes the weapon to fall at the attacker's feet which means that the creature suffers the horrible penalty of . . . having to use a free action to pick up the weapon.
Picking up a dropped weapon provokes an attack of opportunity.
I implemented this mainly to make disarming attack actually do something. As it stands, since a successful disarming attack just causes the weapon to fall at the attacker's feet which means that the creature suffers the horrible penalty of . . . having to use a free action to pick up the weapon.
I like this a lot but I would allow the creature to avoid the AoO if they take the disengage action while picking up their weapon.
Picking up a dropped weapon provokes an attack of opportunity.
I implemented this mainly to make disarming attack actually do something. As it stands, since a successful disarming attack just causes the weapon to fall at the attacker's feet which means that the creature suffers the horrible penalty of . . . having to use a free action to pick up the weapon.
I like this a lot but I would allow the creature to avoid the AoO if they take the disengage action while picking up their weapon.
Yeah, I would too. At least that way disarming attack makes them burn their action.
I have considered, but never implemented, a house rule that the strength bonus is also added to hit points. This would make it so both strength and dex serve to make one more durable, so I think it would balance the abilities somewhat. Any thoughts on that possibility?
Not a bad idea, but this would be a pretty huge buff to Barbarians, a class which is already renowned for their survivability.
That's certainly another valid way to help give more weight to strength and rebalance the stats.
It gives the player the option of boosting either strength or con for extra hit points. And would boost the durability of strength based fighters who boost both strength and Constitution.
Its logical ! That is a great way to put it.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
How would one go about balancing this? Would the DM just need to throw stronger enemies at the party? Or would it make sense to reduce the boost from CON so that Barbarians don't end up with like... over 100 HP at fairly early levels? Actually, now I'm wondering if it wouldn't make sense to simply drop CON outright, and to replace it completely with Strength.
Maybe the extra HP granted by STR should be considered Temporary HP... something to help survive, but to keep it from completely replacing CON the character can still only be healed up to their regular HP.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
A common House Rule that my circle of friends use in our campaigns (mainly because we think Roll20 dice algorithm is busted at times) is if you roll he same thing back to back, you have an option to re-roll one of the die.
We came to this conclusion after a player rolled 9 12's in a row, as well as in the same session of 2 hours, 14 nat 1s were rolled (in a prologue session 0).
As a group we all agree that living by the dice is a fine and good thing, we are okay with it, however sometimes it feels like the dice are predetermined to be bad rolls on Roll20, so those of us that DM decided (and i know i at least do) that for the sake of enjoyment of the players, i will roll my own D20 4 times, if i get a double at any time i roll, then i keep the duplicate rolls from roll20, otherwise i would let a reroll occur
Yeah I use a lot of house rules so it is hard to post just one and make sense of it in isolation. So I don't have a simply answer for your simple question... The but all of this creates an overall result of a far bloodier, and grittier combat. But there are some conveniences in there too. These do add some levels of complexity though. Not for everyone. But a quick rundown of the bulk of them would be:
Quick Summary: Combat Homebrew
Those are all interconnected and work as one cohesive whole. The larger armor ac values are counterbalanced by the fact their armor can be damaged or overwhelmed with massive force. Then the other set of rules is around recovery and new statuses, and is loosely interconnected as well in that defensive reactions can get jacked with if you're hurt, and p/s/b damages have some interplay with how injuries can impair you.
Quick Summary: Damage and Recovery Homebrew
So uh, yeah, to answer your question specifically... armor being damaged does make magical spells and class abilities granted AC better options; however, those advantages are balanced by actual armor's large AC values making them better at protecting the wearer, which is against counterbalanced and brought in line with its vulnerability to just being smashed thru with brute force. Which, in my mind, is exactly how armor should function.
Most of these rules don't slow anything down in game, despite the initial overwhelming sense that everything is changed. Not much 'extra work' goes into the actual session or mid-battle. There was a LOT of work I had to do well in advance to create full lists of modified weapons and rebuilding the standard armor sets using the homebrew piecemeal system back into cohesive whole packages so there is no added work for players unless someone really wanted to get into the behinds the scenes of it. The few things that add just a little time are all worth the payoff of more agency and choices in standard combats, how you attack, how you defend, how you recover, all important and based on adding more variety and impact to default player choices.
Eg. The fighter with a longsword and a sheathed dagger can choose to attack with a piercing (thrust), slashing (swing) or bludgeoning (hilt/broadside) attack, and gets the damage die accordingly, he can also choose to wield it two handed or to draw his dagger in the offhand. 2handed longsword would do more damage, but if he gets attacked he won't have the extra values to his parry that two blades would have provided. He's not just making the same "I attack" every round anymore, he has options and they can make or break his gameplay.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Really depends on how much you are comfortable throwing things out of whack. Off the top of my head:
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Well, monsters would benefit from the change as well (they get Con bonuses, so they should get this new strength bonus as well), so I would think that would balance things.
Oh that's a good point. I think it might still take some playtesting to make sure it all works out, but that does seem like this has the potential to be a problem that simply solves itself.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
seems like roll20 doesn't use static variables for their random rolls which leads to many double or tripple times the same numbers in short amount of times. this is truly bad programming on their part if they did that. i use my own set of dice rollers and since i use static seeds i cannot literally roll the same number twice or it takes a lot of luck to do so. its much more random with a static seed. i'd say thats a big -Con for roll20 there.
I think it solves itself already considering that most monsters are already out of whack by themselves. aka not having enough AC and not enough HP.
5e is notorious, like 3e, for its maximum 3 turn combats. which sucks badly. overall, i have often already started using max hit points on all monsters except minions which i sometimes lowe the HP by half to make like more minions like. so i think removing CON is not a good thing, but i get why giving strength hit points makes constitution less great. in the same vein, making barbarian unarmored defense dex and strength makes sense if you do remove con entirely.
overall thats a fair point, we're making an entire stat useless if we give strength the hit point bonus.
but i do like the idea that fighters, monks, barbarians and rangers as well as paladins can become much better tanks if we do have both con and strength giving off hit points.
as for the argument that barbarians would be too high in life... tell yourself that a druid with wild shape has literally 3x their original hit point at low levels. and if they are circle, they can literally heal themselves too. so barbarian getting more HP is not really an issue if you compare to druids.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
LINK: Rule Update Idea - The "Crit Fail" (yes I know, sounds like a bad idea, but bear with me for a moment) Idea:
The Critical Fail, or Crit Fail as it is called.
Yes, I know this is generally regarded as a bad idea to implement any kind of Critical Fail or Critical Fumble table...
... THIS IS NOT THAT!!!
This is not an idea for a crit fumble table. In fact there is no table even here to have. So bear with me.
Something I’ve never heard of anyone using or talking about, is a very specific type of “Critical Fail”. (NOT a fumble table.)
If you cast any spell, that DOES NOT require you (the attacker/player) to roll to hit the target, those spells where the target has to roll Dex or Strength (or whatever for those oddball spells) to resist the effect or get out of its way...
... IF the TARGET of the spell effect ROLLS A NATURAL ONE, on their resist/evade check... the hit becomes a Crit, for that target that rolled the Nat One, and the damage is doubled ONLY for the target that rolled the Nat One, just like rolling a Nat 20 for spells and attacks that require an attack roll. :-)
This would make a crit fail condition, that is VERY specific, and (I THINK) should not be overpowered in most situations.
This would apply to player characters AND NPC’s equally in any given game.
QUESTIONS:
1. No, I don't think I have.
2. I like it for cantrips. Mainly because those no-damage-on-save damaging cantrips (Toll the Dead, Vicious Mockery, etc.) kinda suck when they just fizzle and do nothing. Balancing that with a chance at a "crit" adds some spice to them.
BUT... for most other damaging spells, it seems to go too far. With most other damaging spells, if the target succeeds on their saving throw, they still take SOME damage. This gives those spells an edge over spells requiring an attack roll, because you're guaranteed to do at least SOMETHING to the target. So if you then grant extra damage because the target rolled a 1 on their saving throw, that seems to unbalance the two types of spells.
3. Improve it? Not really; it's fairly straightforward. As I said, I wouldn't use it on anything except no-damage-on-save spells, and even then, I'd be hesitant. I'd have to give it a test run to see if it was an appropriate effect (although I suspect it would play just fine.)
Sterling - V. Human Bard 3 (College of Art) - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist (w/ Mansion) - Jasper's [Pic] - Sterling's [Sigil]
Tooltips Post (2024 PHB updates) - incl. General Rules
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf
1. Yeah. I had a DM make crit fails extra spectacular.
2. Eh, could take it or leave it. I'm a bit against it conceptually, since a fail is supposedly already the full effect so a crit fail would just be.. the same full effect.
3. Improve it? Hmm, maybe make only certain specific hand-picked spells or abilities do this. It just doesn't feel like everything that has a save vs damage should be doing double damage. They aren't really balanced for this, some of the numbers on some spells and abilities would just be really absurd if you doubled them, especially ones that are already getting modified in other ways like metamagic or etc. Maybe only spells and abilities that you feel are already underpowered or something. For example Fireball does NOT need this treatment. Ya know?
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
The issue I see is that most of your level 1 and higher spells already have a saving throw failure effect. Typically for half damage. This is balanced against the fact that the caster doesn't have to make a roll to cast the spell.
For damage causing cantrips, I think it gives too much power to the cantrip. They are designed to scale with character level as it is. By granting a critical effect on a saving throw of 1 is the equivalent of granting a critical hit on all of the extra attacks of a fighter from a single die roll.
I prefer to use critical hit and fumble tables for attacks and spells that require a 'to hit' roll. The saving throw based spells already have a mechanism built into them to account for failure and success of saving throws.
Picking up a dropped weapon provokes an attack of opportunity.
I implemented this mainly to make disarming attack actually do something. As it stands, since a successful disarming attack just causes the weapon to fall at the attacker's feet which means that the creature suffers the horrible penalty of . . . having to use a free action to pick up the weapon.
I like this a lot but I would allow the creature to avoid the AoO if they take the disengage action while picking up their weapon.
Yeah, I would too. At least that way disarming attack makes them burn their action.
Additional Hit Dice based on race/subrace at level one.
Dwarves and Half-Orcs would get 1d10, Elves and humans 1d8, Gnomes and Halflings 1d6, so on.
What do you think?
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
For what purpose?