So, you're doing PBP, you're a relatively low level. Some of your group are quick to post, some have other responsibilities that limit their time, some are part of like, 10 games at once. Combat has started, your enemies got initiative. There's a nat 20 on the first attack and you go down, not dead, but out.
It takes the other players in the group 6 days before one of them finally has an opportunity to stabilize you and get you back up. Out of play for almost an entire week because of one bad roll. Having fun yet?
To alleviate this problem, I'm workshopping some homebrew rules to keep players on their feet, but still in peril, so everyone can still play, and when a player goes down, it should feel like a big deal. Here's some ideas I've had.
The Boromir Rule revised:
Some of my players really like this rule, but it was a bit too complex and/or saving-throw heavy. Dice are fun, until you have to put the game on hold for a day waiting for that roll, so I've attempted to streamline it.
Part 1: 'Tis but a scratch! Your HP represents damage that your character can shrug off and power through. Minor bruises, cuts, maybe a busted nose, purely superficial wounds that have not affected your core structure. When you run out of HP, you've taken all the damage you can ignore and have been 'softened up' to the point where you've been struck in a vital area. You're hurt, but you're not out of the fight yet. If you get help soon, you'll be fine, but you are on your last legs. Your will to live drives you to become more defensive about your movements. You're now at negative HP, and you can only stay standing for so long without aid. You can take as much damage as your maximum negative HP before you finally collapse and need to make death saving throws. Players cannot be killed outright by damage. If you've taken your negative HP max in damage already, make your death saving throws as normal. There will always be a chance to save a character that's been instantly put down by over-damage, but if you choose to continue fighting to the end rather than tend to your wounds, when you make your death saving throws, they will be at disadvantage. Gamble your life at your own risk. The only way a PC can be killed instantly is while they're down and helpless with a 2nd edition style coup de grace or by failing an instant death style saving throw. Part 2: Uh oh, that's my blood, that is a LOT of my blood. To determine how many more turns you can stay standing, you roll 1D8+your constitution AND intelligence modifier. A sturdy body can hold on longer while a clear mind helps keep your situation grounded. This is how many more turns you can keep fighting before you go into shock and collapse, finally requiring death save rolls. Next, you roll a DC 18 check against your CON modifier. If you pass, you have gone into an adrenaline surge (part 4). While you're in this 'last stand' state, all attacks against you are now at disadvantage and so are the damage dice. If you failed your adrenaline check, you can no longer muster your full strength and lose your ability score modifiers, though your combat senses are still intact, so you keep your proficiency bonus, at least. All spells cast are at half damage (enemies automatically save) or their DC checks lowered by 4. It's not a good situation, but at least you're still on your feet. You can still use all your special abilities, as well, so if you have a means for a second wind or restoration potions, now would be a good time to use them. Part 3: Heel plz Normal healing potions won't cut it, the damage is too severe. You need to be stabilized by someone or have your wounds treated by spell. This can be done in combat, but it takes 3 turns with a medicine skill success (DC 10 as usual) and the one doing the stabilizing (it can be yourself) needs cover. If you are being stabilized and run out of turns that you would normally be allowed to stay standing, you STAY conscious unless the stabilization attempt is interrupted. If the one stabilizing you has the healer feat (again can be you), it can be done in one turn. Successful stabilization instantly negates all negative damage and puts you back at 0 HP. If the one doing the healing has the healer feat, they get to roll your HP recovery. The last stand ends, and healing potions will be effective again. Part 4: LIMIT BREAK If you succeeded your adrenaline check, you can still muster your full strength and all attacks AND damage dice are now at advantage as you make your last stand. Critical strikes while in adrenaline surge do x2 total damage, not an additional die's worth. All special feats are refilled and can be used during this time. Monks get free ki usage. Enemies saving against spells automatically have disadvantage, and spell damage dice gain advantage. This surge lasts for 1D4 turns as long as you stay standing. Part 5: Do I still have all my fingers? If you took your maximum negative HP in damage and recover, you will suffer a long-term injury that can only be eased via restoration or by 1D8 (not necessarily consecutive) long rests. You will also need medical care while you rest, to the cost of 5 uses of a healer's kit per rest. This injury should be relevant to the final blow that crumpled the character and will make them suffer disadvantage on appropriate actions if they attempt to go back into action before fully recovering and will remain until the appropriate amount of long rests are taken. If you get yourself in trouble again and almost die AGAIN, you get a brand NEW injury to contend with. Take care of yourself.
New defensive options:
Defensive posture (parry): bringing back aggressive defense
Level 1 feat
Requirement: simple weapon proficiency or martial arts
From 3.5, using this feat will allow a character to enter a defensive posture on their turn and roll once as if they were going to attack. This is now their 'active defense' score. Any enemy attempting to attack an actively defending character will have to roll higher than the character's defense score. If they fail by at LEAST 5, they get counter attacked, but the defender may only counter for as many actions as they have. If they have any options that allow them bonus actions, those count as additional counter opportunities, so if a monk spends a point of ki and then defends, they can potentially counter attack up to 4 melee attacks with unarmed strikes. Similarly, a fighter may use their surge to potentially land 2 counters. If an enemy beats the defending character's roll but it's still lower than their AC, the attacker doesn't damage the defending character. Taking a defensive posture puts a character's focus entirely on melee however, making them unable to move more than 5 feet, more or less anchoring them in place. While they cannot be flanked by melee opponents, they are vulnerable to ranged attacks, which gain advantage. Choose when to adopt a defensive posture wisely.
Additional defensive option: Formation rules
Bonus for 'charismatic leader' feat
If at least four party members have practiced together and have formed a bond, they may agree on a certain formation that helps guard their flanks. If they're expecting trouble or allow their enemies to come to them rather than charging into the fray, the party can spend their action before enemies enter melee range moving into a defensive formation which grants the entire party +2 AC as they will be close enough to assist each other and deny any enemy flanking position. If they're forced to scatter because of enemies throwing fire bombs or the enemy switches to ranged attacks, they lose this AC bonus. If a free-for-all battle is going badly, a member of the party can, on their turn, call to 'form up' and return to formation. If they pass a CHA ability check of DC 12 (Automatic success for those with the 'Charismatic Leader' feat) the group then immediately gains the formation AC bonus. The entire party must still be standing in order to be in formation, if any party member is prone, incapacitated, or grappled, the formation will be incomplete. While in formation, the group may only move together as an entire unit, though their combined speed is halved.
Enemies may go into formation as well, so if that happens, the party can elect to pick apart their formation from a distance, or form up as well. In this case, both formations maintain an AC bonus until someone in the formation of either side is incapacitated in some way.
Offensive options:
Dirty fighting
Nobody said heroes have to fight fair, especially when backs are against the wall. Maybe your character is more concerned with beating their opponents in any way possible, maybe your character just uses unconventional attacks, maybe they're all out of f*cks. Whatever the case, dirty tactics can only work once in combat, but they are very effective at disabling key targets. When you want to use a move considered to be 'dirty fighting'; eye gouging, blows to the genitals, pocket sand, whatever other 'nasty' or 'cowardly' attack you can think of, you roll your attack as per normal. If you have proficiency in deception, add an additional +2 proficiency. This number is now the perception check your opponent needs to pass. Should they fail, all players get advantage on that target for the next 2 turns. This will only work once in a battle, so save it for the biggest threat.
Inversely, if your dirty trick fails, you're going to have royally ticked off your target, who will then get advantage on attacking you on your turn. I hope you at least have a snappy one-liner prepared, Nathan Drake.
Technical fighting--shoutout to all the rollers in the house
Classes: fighter, monk, ranger, rogue
This is basically jiu jitsu. When you successfully grapple a humanoid opponent (don't try to grapple a beholder, you dingus. I know you want to try though, don't you), you can use your next action (or bonus action) to drag your opponent to the ground. On the next turn, you start doing damage to the opponent with a painful joint hold or choke for as long as they're held as well as restrain them. They take 1D4 in damage every round. You can also choose whether this damage is to incapacitate or kill.
For those with the grappler feat, opponents who fail their athletics check are taken down instantly (no second turn needed) and restrained. They take damage like normal, but if the victim stays restrained for 2 turns, they must make a CON save or be stunned for 2 turns if the grappler chooses to release them. If the grappler still doesn't release the opponent, they take 2D4 damage until they're incapacitated or killed. Additionally, those with the grappler feat that have a sufficient STR score to do so, can lift a grappled enemy and hurl them at opponents as a blunt object up to 5 feet away. If the attack roll hits, it doesn't do damage but BOTH enemies will be knocked prone upon failing an athletics check equal to the attack roll of the throw.
Although I objected the previous ideas, the new ones are quite nice.
The parrying is good, but I think there should be a drawback. Maybe they are so occupied with weapons that they don't expect a grapple. Grapple checks are made with advantage against them.
Also, if someone uses the Fainting Attack maneuver against them, their attack - on top of being made with advantage - cancels the parry of the other creature if it hits. Think of it as fainting their parry out and then hitting thhem from somewhere else, breaking their... Idk... concentration? Stance? Whatever you choose to flavour it as.
The formation is a nice start, but I think it can go further. There are defensive formations and offensive formations. I wouldn't give too many option on top of inspiring leader, but perhaps have many options and when taking the feat the character can pick one of these. It's similar to Eldrich/Martial/Metamagic Adept feats. There could be some subclass that gives access to more formations, like Battle Master and their maneuvers.
It's always "smart", "creative", "cunning" when the hero does it, but "dirty", "nasty", "cowardly" when the villain does the same. I'd say that, aa the victim craves for revenge, they get advantage on their first attack made against the one who used the Dirty Attack or advantage on Intimidation checks against them.
I'm not sure why the grappler stuns though. Instead, you could say he's choking the grappled creature and the moment they start grappling their opponent, it can't breath. The DMG (I think, maybe it's the PHB or maybe both) has rules for suffocating creatures.
Yeah, I like that for the dirty fighting. If your dirty fighting move fails, it would really, REALLY tick off their target. If the dirty move fails, the intended victim gets advantage on their counter attack. Real risk/reward element there, but less risky for a sneaky scoundrel who won't hesitate to hit below the belt.
Also, for the grappler, the reason they're stunned is because a good grappler knows not to use an air choke, but rather a blood choke, which takes only seconds to knock someone out. That's why in UFC fights, fighters tap real quick once they realize they can't escape in time. On the same token, it doesn't take long for a blood-choke victim to regain consciousness either. Basically, as soon as blood flow returns to the brain, the lights come back on pretty quick. It can take less than 10 seconds to completely knock someone unconscious with a blood choke, or, alternatively, if they're using a joint lock, the limb being bent out of shape will suffer a dislocation, making that limb useless and causing extreme pain. Whether joint lock or blood choke, they're going to need a couple of rounds to recover from what just happened.
I didn't want to get too complicated for formations, but we can talk about added formation rules more if everyone likes them. I figured keeping them simple and dirty would probably be best.
The parrying may be a touch unbalanced, but some (actually quite a lot, really) enemies won't have the intelligence to realize what the one waiting to parry is doing, really. Then again, if you roll poorly, you'll have just wasted your attack roll and got smacked around for your trouble, as the only times you would really choose to parry is if there'd be a high chance that you would be focus-fired, which could be real bad news. The only benefit is that you'll finish out the round dodging, so CHANCES are you wouldn't come out of it without getting TOO badly hurt. What if I just remove the extra 1D4 damage and make it +2 instead? That seems more reasonable. If you got REAL lucky with your rolls, it'd almost be like getting a crit on every attacker you countered.
Huh, didn't even consider a blood choke. Makes sense.
As for the parrying, +2 really just means that if you land a crit, it doesn't add an extra d4 to the damage. It could matter and it could not, depends on how often you land a crit. With a d4, the difference between 1 and 4 are very small and don't matter as much. It's not like rolling a disappointing 1 on the damage die of a greataxe.
Also, I don't agree that parry is only used for defensive reasons. Unless the enemy chooses to disengage, as long as they can't target someone without leaving your range, and we're assuming their intelligence is low as you said, they'll attack you. Knowing that, you can just parry all the time. You'll still make your attacks, but now with a damage bonus and with a defensive boost. Even if you have multiple attacks, it's likely that the enemy does too. Besides, even if you don't attack as many times, your attacks deal more damage on average and you're harder to hit. It'll make the battle much longer, sure, but if that doesn't bother you... and it usually doesn't... why not?
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Oh, I don't think I explained the parry feature well enough.
Like, using a parry is basically a (slightly) riskier dodge in that you sacrifice your attacks for your turn to counter instead and go totally on the defensive. All the rules I'm workshopping here are meant to add defensive options for players so they don't go down and out of play as often or different offensive options that can disable enemies and prevent them from attacking players. I'm a big advocate of risk vs reward, so the risk with parrying is that should you roll badly, you've blown your chance to do direct damage and maybe gotten a little beat up for your trouble.
Like, here's an example where the parry would come in handy to help keep you on your feet. Say you're level 2 and the group is in a corridor, and enemies are moving to attack. Maybe the rest of the group has been beaten up a bit and you're trying to get out of a bad situation, and you're not feeling great either. The enemies are blocking your way out, and you're in front. There's 5 of them, but you have a high DEX and are using a dagger, a finesse weapon You COULD just attack, but to keep the enemies from pushing past you and attacking your wounded allies, you decide to parry for your turn and taunt the enemies to focus on you.
Your parry score: 18
Enemies attack: 9141210
Say you had a bonus action you could use as a second parry, so you hit one for 11 because of your +4 from your DEX and the +2 from the parry damage. Unfortunately, the second attack was a crit, so you took 12 but dodged all the other attacks and single handedly tanked ALL the enemy attacks for your team, who are free to do damage to them. If they were low-level bandits, you would have even killed one of them, so not only did you effectively protect yourself, you protected your whole team, though if you attempted to just parry again against the survivors, because they have 10 INT, they could collectively attempt a perception roll, see that you were waiting to counter their attack again, and they fall back to start throwing stuff at you.
The idea with the parry is that it's kind of telegraphed in that you're waiting for them to attack, and if the bad guys just saw you took down one of them by just waiting, they would be understandably less eager to engage you.
I understand that. Maybe you didn't understand what I meant.
I'll take the same scenario, only change it to fit my point. You're a level 4 something and you're the tank of the group. Forget tank, you're the only one fitting to be in the front. All the others are archers/casters/smth that doesn't fit up close. You can only make one attack per round. The corridor is narrow, so the enemy can't get past you without entering your reach first, allowing you to get an opportunity attack shall they try to. Your enemy is only one target. For the sake of it, you're also a V. Human with the Sentinel feat. The enemy tried to leave your reach once but they got stopped by your opportunity attack. They understand they can't attack the rest of your team before they take you down.
Now, as long as you take the parry action, you're harder to hit and will retaliate if the enemy tries to attack you. They can't just ignore you because if they try to leave your reach, you get an AoO which makes their speed 0 on a hit. By using the parry action, you'll still land as many attacks as usual and get a defensive boost. On average, which is relevant since this fight will either end quickly by your team winning or take long because you keep getting the defensive boost of parrying, your "parry AC" will be 16 (again, average. It's assuming +4 mod and proficiency of +2). This is very possibly higher than your actual AC. Even if your enemy has +7 to hit, they'll need to roll 9 or higher to hit you, or higher if you AC is actually higher. Add some debuffs given by your teammates - there are countless effective ones even at lower levels - and that means even that +7 to hit monster will more likely trigger your parry, on average, of course, more times than it hits you. Lastly, even if you did roll very low, that means your attack wouldn't have hit either, probably.
What I'm trying to say is that, while you wanted it to be very effective against groups of enemies, it's actually much more effective against single enemies, to the point where simply attacking is almost pointless.
Ahh, I get you, there really isn't a reason to not just parry all the time because it's essentially 2 actions in one, kind of like an unlimited monk attack and ki use to instantly go to dodge after attacking.
In that case, it would probably just be best to use a simplified version of 3.5's parry entirely, where an attacker has to beat both your parry score and your AC in order to damage you, and only if your parry beats their attack by 5 do you get an automatic counter attack, otherwise you essentially just (potentially) raise your AC for your turn, hoping for the chance to counteract an enemy attack, not a guaranteed counter upon an enemy failing to beat your parry score. This would also give more utility to lightly armoured classes to block attackers from approaching wounded or squishy targets.
To make parry something you CAN do repeatedly without it just being 'the best option to pick all the time', if you choose to parry, your movement speed becomes 0; you completely stand your ground and intercept attacks aggressively, so you're more of a target to ranged attacks, which then get advantage to hit (unless you're a monk, potentially) so there's no GUARANTEE you'll land a counter attack if your enemies just barely fail to roll over your parry score, but at the very least, you held off some attacks. It also keeps dodging from being useless because if you taunt enemies and then dodge, you give all attackers disadvantage, ranged or melee.
So you're burning your action to parry- but the action economy is set up so that you only get one reaction per round. If a pc gets attacked by multiple goons, they would only be able to parry the first attack (i believe) in the rules as written. This is some neat stuff, my only hesitation is some of these step on the toes of character class perks (kind of? Parry makes me think of the Fighter/Battlemaster Riposte manuever- sort of?) so it takes a little from the cool stuff a fighter can do. It takes the 5e action economy and kind of shreds it a bit (maybe it needs to be shredded, maybe not). My other hesitation is that I am thick as a plank- it will take me a while for all this to sink in (but eventually it will sink in). I'll try anything though and it seems like you have put a lot of thought into this (you're a good DM).
I just want to be sure everyone is able to keep playing and not laying on the ground unconscious for a week. If you're unsure about any of the rules, I'll be happy to explain them in more detail.
Also yes, you're sacrificing your turn to attack, but you're ALSO potentially massively increasing your AC by making it your attack roll for your turn, and the first enemy to attack you may POTENTIALLY get counter attacked, but ONLY IF they fail by 5 or more to meet your parry score, otherwise no counter happens. It doesn't actually TAKE from the fighter's pool of cool stuff, it actually buffs it, because if a fighter has riposte, and maybe not the best AC in the world but they've got MAD attack roll bonuses, it would turn that fighter into a significant obstacle, because even if the creature just barely failed to meet the parrying score, because the creature would be counted as 'missing', the riposte WOULD click in. Again though, triggering the parry (I should rename that as that's also another fighter perk) means you're more vulnerable to ranged attacks, so again, it's not the best thing to do all the time.
You already know I think most of these are solutions in search of a problem. That said, I won't rehash those arguments.
Hit Points: Very complicated and a lot of extra work for all involved. I would prefer something more simple, something like PCs can continue to fight after they reach 0 and begin to suffer degradation of combat effectiveness as they approach max negative HP (as determined by percentage and not absolute numbers) and at max negative HP start making death saves. Some ideas for degraded effectiveness would be disadvantage on attack, saves, concentration checks, dropping in the initiative order. Also, at what point does this phase out and we resume standard HP? Your reason for doing this is you feel low level characters are easily felled but at some point that stops being an issue. For example, a level 6 fighter with an average CON of 13 (+1) has, on average 49 HP. Your system gives that fighter 98 HP, effectively (I know there are downsides in your system for going deep negative, but still...).
Dirty Fighting: Not a fan, actually, as I believe this part of combat is actually covered by Critical Hits (remember that the D&D combat system, especially in 5E, is about simplifying the mechanics to make them as transparent to role-playing as possible). For example: "Kollban kicks sand up at the ogre's face and sweeps in behind the sand, swinging his battle axe low, trying to take out the knees!" Regular hit, DM: "You miss the knee but bite deeply into the thigh and the ogre cries out." Critical hit, DM: "The ogre is blinded by the sand and unable to dodge away from your axe which crunches into his knee." Miss, DM: "You telegraph your attack and the ogre leaps back, avoiding sand and axe both." However, that said, I think the rules as written work.
Technical Fighting: Total opposed as jujitsu is it's own combat skill, separate and apart from swordplay, axe-work, etc.
Parrying: I suggest a vast simplification of this and allow those with the Parry Feat to use their reaction to actually parry. It becomes an opposed roll, the enemy attack against the parry. This allows the defensive player to use the reaction only if needed (and your rules for allowing multiple parries work well). If they win the opposed roll by more than, say, 2, they get the counter-attack, and if by more than 4 they get the extra damage. Critical hits can only be parried by critical parries. This option avoids the idea the lower intelligent opponents won't recognize that you are trying to bait them with the parry. Experience trumps intellect every time and a low-intelligence fighter with an INT of 7 but 5 years combat experience is going to recognize this tactic far more readily than an INT 18 person in her first fight, I believe. We actually see this all the time. If you keep your original rules and want to use a stat, WIS is more appropriate than INT. INT is not actually a measure of intellectual capacity (as this would unfairly limit players...every game system I've played makes this distinction). INT, in D&D is, and I quote: Intelligence Checks-An Intelligence check comes into play when you need to draw on logic, education, memory, or deductive reasoning.
Defensive Fighting: Similar to dodge but instead of focusing entirely on avoiding being hit you are fighting defensively and only attacking if an opportunity presents itself (maybe AoO or in response to a critical fail). DF gives a bonus to AC equal to your DEX+Proficiency as long as you are in this combat mode. The tradeoff is the PC makes very few attacks while doing DF.
Hit Points: Very complicated and a lot of extra work for all involved. I would prefer something more simple, something like PCs can continue to fight after they reach 0 and begin to suffer degradation of combat effectiveness as they approach max negative HP (as determined by percentage and not absolute numbers) and at max negative HP start making death saves. Some ideas for degraded effectiveness would be disadvantage on attack, saves, concentration checks, dropping in the initiative order. Also, at what point does this phase out and we resume standard HP? Your reason for doing this is you feel low level characters are easily felled but at some point that stops being an issue. For example, a level 6 fighter with an average CON of 13 (+1) has, on average 49 HP. Your system gives that fighter 98 HP, effectively (I know there are downsides in your system for going deep negative, but still...).
Your HP system would actually be more complicated. How I have it written, the penalty characters suffer by being at negative HP is the removal of their ability score bonuses, all they have left is proficiency. That alone would be a hefty penalty. Add to that weaker spellcasting for offensive spells, and being in your 'Last Stand' state really sucks enough already, I think. It's just a flat penalty, no need for any more math.
For example, a level 6 fighter with an average CON of 13 (+1) has, on average 49 HP. Your system gives that fighter 98 HP, effectively (I know there are downsides in your system for going deep negative, but still...).
Yes, in THEORY, a level 6 fighter would have essentially 98 HP, but there's almost no chance that they'd be able to stay standing to take all that damage. You get to stay standing for 1D8+CON and INT modifiers rounds before you collapse from shock and THEN need to make death saves. The average number of turns you'd have to limp about is only about 5-7, depending on how high your stats are. At level 6, the encounters you'd be getting into could last a lot longer than that, and if you need 3 turns to get stabilized without a healer, you'd need to drop back pretty quickly to avoid dropping at ANY level. I think the good thing about this system is that it scales with character level and stays just giving players that little extra chance to keep playing and the only way for players to be taken out of the game and being forced to wait to play again is either by gambling or really, really, REALLY ugly dice rolls. I mean, look at poor Kallista's track record. Jeez.
Also, at what point does this phase out and we resume standard HP?
If you're asking if the Boromir rule no longer becomes a thing, it's going to be permanent. As you level up you'll face more dangerous challenges, the risk of going down doesn't go away, and it would be even WORSE to go down in later levels with more epic foes because imagine how long you could be waiting to play again THEN?
Soon as you're stabilized, you're at 0 HP and quick healing potions will be effective again. If you're healed via spell, they'll need to heal your negative damage up first, so it might make more economical sense to use a healing kit and save spells unless your team needs you back at full strength NOW. Being stabilized removes all negative damage at once, the system I proposed before WAS too complicated, so now the rules follow more like the RULES in that you can't just force someone at negative HP to swallow a health potion, they need to be stabilized first.
Also, if you DO take your negative HP max because you figure "Well, I have double the HP, I won't get killed!" and don't get yourself healed, you make death saves at DISADVANTAGE. That's a BIG gamble. The point is to keep people playing and not out of the game for a week, which can happen all too easily at level 1. Nobody wants to be the one who gets two-shotted in their first encounter, and that happens a LOT in 5e, there are very few defensive options for low level players that don't involve insultingly easy initial encounters. You guys are supposed to be the main characters, for crying out loud, not schoolyard bullies picking on a lone green middle schooler for their lunch money.
Parrying: I suggest a vast simplification of this and allow those with the Parry Feat to use their reaction to actually parry. It becomes an opposed roll, the enemy attack against the parry. This allows the defensive player to use the reaction only if needed (and your rules for allowing multiple parries work). If they win the opposed roll by more than, say, 2, they get the counter-attack, and if by more than 4 they get the extra damage. Critical hits can only be parried by critical parries. This option avoids the idea the lower intelligent opponents won't recognize that you are trying to bait them with the parry. Experience trumps intellect every time and a low-intelligence fighter with an INT of 7 but 5 years combat experience is going to recognize this tactic far more readily than an INT 18 person in her first fight, I believe. We actually see this all the time. If you keep your original rules and want to use a stat, WIS is more appropriate than INT.
Edits have been made to the 'defensive posture'(Changed from parry) option. It's no longer super OP.
Defensive Fighting: Similar to dodge but instead of focusing entirely on avoiding being hit you are fighting defensively and only attacking if an opportunity presents itself (maybe AoO or in response to a critical fail). DF gives a bonus to AC equal to your DEX+Proficiency as long as you are in this combat mode. The tradeoff is the PC makes very few attacks.
I THINK the edits made to the 'defensive posture' address this sufficiently too. I don't want just straight-up dodging to STOP being at least somewhat relevant or make any perks totally obsolete.
Technical Fighting: Total opposed as jujitsu is it's own combat skill, separate and apart from swordplay, axe-work, etc.
If you look, you see the buffed version of grappling is only available to fighter, monk, ranger, and rogue, classes that would probably HAVE wrestling/grappling skills as part of their repertoire. I considered adding cleric, as it could be considered a 'merciful' means of subduing an enemy rather than just killing them, but I don't know how much wrestling they would actually do. I'm NOT proposing that a wizard should know how to throw a flying armbar.
I'm going to step out of this conversation now. I really don't agree with any of the proposed changes (but only specifically oppose the HP one) as I do not see your main concern as a real issue. I've been playing D&D by post for over a year now and the issue you are concerned about has not really affected even one of my games. And at higher levels (I was in a campaign where the PCs were level 17), it was even less of an issue. Plus, basic healing potions bring you right up to basic combat effectiveness, no matter the level of the PCs or CR (I know this as I've done this at high and low levels).
If you want to increase survivability, make taking/administering healing potions a bonus action and make them cheap (10 GP). You could even make a rule that says at 0/negative HP, a successful CON check allows the PC to gather the strength to self-administer a potion. This is both simple and only a minor alteration of the rules.
Final comments:
Hit Points: I'm opposed. Also, I fail to see how my 1 paragraph approach is more complicated than your 6 paragraph, 5 part approach with rolls for various things. Again, if you implement this, my suggestion is it be implemented as a percentage of negative HP, not as absolute numbers
Parry/Defensive Posture: While I like my approach better (XD), I think what you have works.
Jujitsu: I do not agree that any class, with the possible exception of Monk, have martial arts like this as part of its repertoire, especially rogues. Grappling, sure but all classes have access to grapple as part of basic combat. If you want to add something like this, I think it should be feat, which represents extra training, or perhaps a subclass or something like that. It is one thing to know how to grapple with a foe in battle, grab and hold them. It's another thing entirely and requires training and/or practical experience to know how to apply choke/blood holds. Many police departments have banned the use of these as they can easily result in death from improper application and that's by a body of people with specific training in the technique. My point is this is extra-stuff not covered as part of standard combat training. I like the idea, but it should cost extra (feat, subclass, etc.) to represent the fact that, realistically, it requires extra training.
Also, at what point does this phase out and we resume standard HP?
If you're asking if the Boromir rule no longer becomes a thing, it's going to be permanent. As you level up you'll face more dangerous challenges, the risk of going down doesn't go away, and it would be even WORSE to go down in later levels with more epic foes because imagine how long you could be waiting to play again THEN?
EDIT
Actually, after thinking about it, let's see how you guys do at level 5. It PROBABLY won't need to be a thing anymore by that point. If you guys go down too frequently however, and there's too much waiting, it's going to be reinstated. IDEALLY you won't even know that the Boromir rule EXISTS, but IF it comes to pass that you need it, at least it's THERE. It's to give you peace of mind that you're NOT going to end up just immediately out of combat thanks to a few crap rolls.
Jujitsu: I do not agree that any class, with the possible exception of Monk, have martial arts like this as part of its repertoire, especially rogues. Grappling, sure but all classes have access to grapple as part of basic combat. If you want to add something like this, I think it should be feat, which represents extra training, or perhaps a subclass or something like that. It is one thing to know how to grapple with a foe in battle, grab and hold them. It's another thing entirely and requires training and/or practical experience to know how to apply choke/blood holds. Many police departments have banned the use of these as they can easily result in death from improper application and that's by a body of people with specific training in the technique. My point is this is extra-stuff not covered as part of standard combat training. I like the idea, but it should cost extra (feat, subclass, etc.) to represent the fact that, realistically, it requires extra training.
I can't completely remember (I'll look it up later) but I THINK the 'grappler' feat is an optional level 4 feat you can get, and honestly, it needs a buff, a BIG buff. The basic 'grappler' feat only allows you to, on your first action, grapple an opponent, and THEN, passing a SECOND athletics check, finally restrains them, and they STILL get the option to attack you (albeit with disadvantage). That's it. It just RESTRAINS them and it doesn't keep them from attacking! It's really not very useful and CERTAINLY not giving up your 4th level feat for. Nobody takes it because there is no appreciable advantage to using it outside of keeping one bad guy alive to question after a fight, nothing that makes it any better than using those actions to attack and aiming to incapacitate. The additional buffs would make it a strong defensive choice against hard-to-hit foes with damaging attacks and actually worth something.
If you want to increase survivability, make taking/administering healing potions a bonus action and make them cheap (10 GP). You could even make a rule that says at 0/negative HP, a successful CON check allows the PC to gather the strength to self-administer a potion. This is both simple and only a minor alteration of the rules.
Again, it's not even something you should even have to worry about. It won't even BE an issue if things go they way they should. I'm just saying IF things go sideways more often than they should, it's THERE as a means to keep playing. Just in case, that's all. I'd rather be prepared and turn out to be wrong than have anyone feel left out because an encounter is taking a while to conclude while you're out cold and can't do anything. Just because it hasn't happened to YOU, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
It's not like I'm PLANNING to throw the kitchen sink at you guys and force you into a wounded state all the time, but in my experience, and I think Kallista can attest to this, the dice are *****.
Alright, looked it up. Yeah, grappler is one of the optional feats you can get starting at level 4. It gives you advantage to HIT enemies you've already taken an action to grapple, and then you have to succeed AGAIN in order to pin them, at which point they can keep trying to hit you with disadvantage for as long as you restrain them. That is SO not worth giving up an ability score increase for, jeez. Yeah, I'd like to buff that.
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DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
There are many grappler feats in the Home Brew collection. Here's the first one, named Advanced Jujitsu Grappler. You may find one that already fits your bill there.
You've developed the skills necessary to choke and break limbs in close-quarters grappling. You gain the following benefits:
You have advantage and add both your Strength and Dexterity bonuses to your grapple attack roll.
Hold: You can use your action to try to pin a creature grappled by you. To do so, make another grapple check. If you succeed, you and the creature are both restrained until the grapple ends.
Choke: After a successful grapple, as a bonus action, you may choose to apply a choke to your opponent. Make an additional grapple check, and if successful, the creature of small or medium size, is rendered unconscious as with the Sleep spell for 1d6 rounds.
Break Limb: After a successful grapple, as a bonus action, you may choose to break a limb of your opponent. Make an additional grapple check, and if successful, the creature of small or medium size, has one of its limbs broken. Roll a 1d4, 1-2 an arm; 3-4 a leg. A creature with its weapon arm broken has disadvantage on all attacks; a creature with a broken leg is reduced to crawling movement at 5 ft per turn and remains prone.
Counter Grappler: You are comfortable even If successfully grappled and pinned yourself, by a small or medium creature. As a reaction you may use your Hold, Choke, Break Limb technique; any success also un-restrains yourself.
Yeah, see, THAT would be worth giving up a Stat increase, not the hot garbage 5e gave grappling enthusiasts.
After some thought, I think you guys are right in that the HP rules may be putting the cart before the horse, but if anyone is going down far too often, and not because of bad tactics or bad encounter balance, THEN I'll pull out the Boromir rule to help you guys out.
Admittedly, I JUST realized one major thing: In all the games where the players have had trouble getting through encounters I've seen, it was because they were only allowed to use the standard array or point buy, where having 18 in a stat is FORBIDDEN, so if you didn't build OPTIMALLY, you'd get your face pushed in by anyone who bothered to try.... because who wants to play an off-colour character, amirite </sarcasm>
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DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
So, going forward, I'd like to propose the defensive and offensive options that basically just make it more fun and give more options to approach combat with besides the really basic rules that are in place, so we have:
defensive posture for a potential temporary AC boost for holding off multiple attackers, formation movement to prevent enemy flanking and communal AC bonus as I'll be using the optional flanking rules (Because XCOM is in my blood)and I'm changing the dirty fighting one last time.
The dirty fighting rule should be the FIRST move in combat, and henceforth it shall be named the Han Shot First rule, so it can really only be used in situations where the group is facing off against a hostile force and they're sizing each other up before fighting starts, cause it really doesn't make sense with the rules as written because it implies that you could try to use a dirty trick on an unintelligent creature. It limits the targets it can be effective on to humanoids capable of speech.
And I DO want to use the enhanced grappling feat in place of the existing optional grappler feat, for sure, but I'm also going to allow any character with at least 12 STR and athletics proficiency to not just hold onto opponents but also transition to restrain them with a bonus action if available, because anyone who has been taught proper basic combat could easily be taught a double leg takedown and then just stay on top.
I would propose the following changes to the grappling rules however:
Advanced grappling feat:
The Ernie Reys Jr. rule: You can add both your Strength and Dexterity bonuses to your grapple attack roll and may grapple a bipedal opponent one size larger than you. But stop trying to grapple beholders!
Hold (automatic): You automatically secure a restraining hold upon a successful grapple (cause you're giving up a stat increase for this)
Choke: On your next action (or if you have an available bonus action), you may choose to apply a choke to your opponent. Make an additional grapple check, and if successful, the target is rendered unconscious as with the Sleep spell for 1d4 rounds if the grappler decides to release the hold. If they choose to hold on, the target will take 1D4 damage every round until they're incapacitated or dead. When the target is released, the sleep spell condition will be applied.
Break Limb: On your next action (or if you have an available bonus action), you may choose to break a limb of your opponent. Make an additional grapple check, and if successful, the creature of small or medium size, has one of its limbs broken. Roll a 1d4, 1-2 an arm; 3-4 a leg. A creature with its weapon arm broken has disadvantage on all attacks; a creature with a broken leg is reduced to crawling movement at 5 ft per turn and remains prone.
Counter Grappler: You gain advantage on any grapple check if an enemy attempts to grapple you unless they also have the advanced grappler feat. You may use your reaction to reverse a grapple attempt if you're successful and secure a restraining hold instantly on a bipedal opponent one size larger than you.
Here are a few (very simple) ideas we use at our table.
Flanking- attacker gets +2 to their attack role
Out of spell slots?Trade spell slots for levels of exhaustion. 1st level spell= level 1 exhaustion, etc. Doesn’t work for spells higher than 5th level
Healing Potion Consumption- We set a standard value for potions (instead of rolling 2d4+2 you just get 10 hp). 3rd potion in an hour requires a DC 14 constitution save or you vomit up the last potion and receive no healing from it
Morale- combine a kill/Crit with an intimidation check for the dead monsters surrounding allies vs. their wisdom/insight. failed role puts the monster at disadvantage vs. pc.
Alt. Inspiration- (Inspiration/Setbacks) Players start the game with inspiration, and use it to make an inspired action (a tiered dice roll 1d6 at low level, 1d8, 1d10 etc). Players may gain another point of inspiration after they use it by imposing a Setback on themselves or their group by sticking to their faction philosophy (most of our games are set in Sigil so faction philosophy is a big deal) or role playing a flaw from the background section of their character sheet.
So, you're doing PBP, you're a relatively low level. Some of your group are quick to post, some have other responsibilities that limit their time, some are part of like, 10 games at once. Combat has started, your enemies got initiative. There's a nat 20 on the first attack and you go down, not dead, but out.
It takes the other players in the group 6 days before one of them finally has an opportunity to stabilize you and get you back up. Out of play for almost an entire week because of one bad roll.
Having fun yet?
To alleviate this problem, I'm workshopping some homebrew rules to keep players on their feet, but still in peril, so everyone can still play, and when a player goes down, it should feel like a big deal. Here's some ideas I've had.
The Boromir Rule revised:
Some of my players really like this rule, but it was a bit too complex and/or saving-throw heavy. Dice are fun, until you have to put the game on hold for a day waiting for that roll, so I've attempted to streamline it.
Part 1: 'Tis but a scratch!
Your HP represents damage that your character can shrug off and power through. Minor bruises, cuts, maybe a busted nose, purely superficial wounds that have not affected your core structure. When you run out of HP, you've taken all the damage you can ignore and have been 'softened up' to the point where you've been struck in a vital area. You're hurt, but you're not out of the fight yet. If you get help soon, you'll be fine, but you are on your last legs. Your will to live drives you to become more defensive about your movements. You're now at negative HP, and you can only stay standing for so long without aid. You can take as much damage as your maximum negative HP before you finally collapse and need to make death saving throws.
Players cannot be killed outright by damage. If you've taken your negative HP max in damage already, make your death saving throws as normal. There will always be a chance to save a character that's been instantly put down by over-damage, but if you choose to continue fighting to the end rather than tend to your wounds, when you make your death saving throws, they will be at disadvantage. Gamble your life at your own risk. The only way a PC can be killed instantly is while they're down and helpless with a 2nd edition style coup de grace or by failing an instant death style saving throw.
Part 2: Uh oh, that's my blood, that is a LOT of my blood.
To determine how many more turns you can stay standing, you roll 1D8+your constitution AND intelligence modifier. A sturdy body can hold on longer while a clear mind helps keep your situation grounded. This is how many more turns you can keep fighting before you go into shock and collapse, finally requiring death save rolls. Next, you roll a DC 18 check against your CON modifier. If you pass, you have gone into an adrenaline surge (part 4).
While you're in this 'last stand' state, all attacks against you are now at disadvantage and so are the damage dice. If you failed your adrenaline check, you can no longer muster your full strength and lose your ability score modifiers, though your combat senses are still intact, so you keep your proficiency bonus, at least. All spells cast are at half damage (enemies automatically save) or their DC checks lowered by 4. It's not a good situation, but at least you're still on your feet. You can still use all your special abilities, as well, so if you have a means for a second wind or restoration potions, now would be a good time to use them.
Part 3: Heel plz
Normal healing potions won't cut it, the damage is too severe. You need to be stabilized by someone or have your wounds treated by spell. This can be done in combat, but it takes 3 turns with a medicine skill success (DC 10 as usual) and the one doing the stabilizing (it can be yourself) needs cover. If you are being stabilized and run out of turns that you would normally be allowed to stay standing, you STAY conscious unless the stabilization attempt is interrupted. If the one stabilizing you has the healer feat (again can be you), it can be done in one turn. Successful stabilization instantly negates all negative damage and puts you back at 0 HP. If the one doing the healing has the healer feat, they get to roll your HP recovery. The last stand ends, and healing potions will be effective again.
Part 4: LIMIT BREAK
If you succeeded your adrenaline check, you can still muster your full strength and all attacks AND damage dice are now at advantage as you make your last stand. Critical strikes while in adrenaline surge do x2 total damage, not an additional die's worth. All special feats are refilled and can be used during this time. Monks get free ki usage. Enemies saving against spells automatically have disadvantage, and spell damage dice gain advantage. This surge lasts for 1D4 turns as long as you stay standing.
Part 5: Do I still have all my fingers?
If you took your maximum negative HP in damage and recover, you will suffer a long-term injury that can only be eased via restoration or by 1D8 (not necessarily consecutive) long rests. You will also need medical care while you rest, to the cost of 5 uses of a healer's kit per rest. This injury should be relevant to the final blow that crumpled the character and will make them suffer disadvantage on appropriate actions if they attempt to go back into action before fully recovering and will remain until the appropriate amount of long rests are taken. If you get yourself in trouble again and almost die AGAIN, you get a brand NEW injury to contend with. Take care of yourself.
New defensive options:
Defensive posture (parry): bringing back aggressive defense
Level 1 feat
Requirement: simple weapon proficiency or martial arts
From 3.5, using this feat will allow a character to enter a defensive posture on their turn and roll once as if they were going to attack. This is now their 'active defense' score. Any enemy attempting to attack an actively defending character will have to roll higher than the character's defense score. If they fail by at LEAST 5, they get counter attacked, but the defender may only counter for as many actions as they have. If they have any options that allow them bonus actions, those count as additional counter opportunities, so if a monk spends a point of ki and then defends, they can potentially counter attack up to 4 melee attacks with unarmed strikes. Similarly, a fighter may use their surge to potentially land 2 counters.
If an enemy beats the defending character's roll but it's still lower than their AC, the attacker doesn't damage the defending character.
Taking a defensive posture puts a character's focus entirely on melee however, making them unable to move more than 5 feet, more or less anchoring them in place. While they cannot be flanked by melee opponents, they are vulnerable to ranged attacks, which gain advantage. Choose when to adopt a defensive posture wisely.
Additional defensive option: Formation rules
Bonus for 'charismatic leader' feat
If at least four party members have practiced together and have formed a bond, they may agree on a certain formation that helps guard their flanks. If they're expecting trouble or allow their enemies to come to them rather than charging into the fray, the party can spend their action before enemies enter melee range moving into a defensive formation which grants the entire party +2 AC as they will be close enough to assist each other and deny any enemy flanking position. If they're forced to scatter because of enemies throwing fire bombs or the enemy switches to ranged attacks, they lose this AC bonus.
If a free-for-all battle is going badly, a member of the party can, on their turn, call to 'form up' and return to formation. If they pass a CHA ability check of DC 12 (Automatic success for those with the 'Charismatic Leader' feat) the group then immediately gains the formation AC bonus. The entire party must still be standing in order to be in formation, if any party member is prone, incapacitated, or grappled, the formation will be incomplete.
While in formation, the group may only move together as an entire unit, though their combined speed is halved.
Enemies may go into formation as well, so if that happens, the party can elect to pick apart their formation from a distance, or form up as well. In this case, both formations maintain an AC bonus until someone in the formation of either side is incapacitated in some way.
Offensive options:
Dirty fighting
Nobody said heroes have to fight fair, especially when backs are against the wall. Maybe your character is more concerned with beating their opponents in any way possible, maybe your character just uses unconventional attacks, maybe they're all out of f*cks. Whatever the case, dirty tactics can only work once in combat, but they are very effective at disabling key targets.
When you want to use a move considered to be 'dirty fighting'; eye gouging, blows to the genitals, pocket sand, whatever other 'nasty' or 'cowardly' attack you can think of, you roll your attack as per normal. If you have proficiency in deception, add an additional +2 proficiency. This number is now the perception check your opponent needs to pass. Should they fail, all players get advantage on that target for the next 2 turns. This will only work once in a battle, so save it for the biggest threat.
Inversely, if your dirty trick fails, you're going to have royally ticked off your target, who will then get advantage on attacking you on your turn. I hope you at least have a snappy one-liner prepared, Nathan Drake.
Technical fighting--shoutout to all the rollers in the house
Classes: fighter, monk, ranger, rogue
This is basically jiu jitsu. When you successfully grapple a humanoid opponent (don't try to grapple a beholder, you dingus. I know you want to try though, don't you), you can use your next action (or bonus action) to drag your opponent to the ground. On the next turn, you start doing damage to the opponent with a painful joint hold or choke for as long as they're held as well as restrain them. They take 1D4 in damage every round. You can also choose whether this damage is to incapacitate or kill.
For those with the grappler feat, opponents who fail their athletics check are taken down instantly (no second turn needed) and restrained. They take damage like normal, but if the victim stays restrained for 2 turns, they must make a CON save or be stunned for 2 turns if the grappler chooses to release them. If the grappler still doesn't release the opponent, they take 2D4 damage until they're incapacitated or killed.
Additionally, those with the grappler feat that have a sufficient STR score to do so, can lift a grappled enemy and hurl them at opponents as a blunt object up to 5 feet away. If the attack roll hits, it doesn't do damage but BOTH enemies will be knocked prone upon failing an athletics check equal to the attack roll of the throw.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
Although I objected the previous ideas, the new ones are quite nice.
The parrying is good, but I think there should be a drawback. Maybe they are so occupied with weapons that they don't expect a grapple. Grapple checks are made with advantage against them.
Also, if someone uses the Fainting Attack maneuver against them, their attack - on top of being made with advantage - cancels the parry of the other creature if it hits. Think of it as fainting their parry out and then hitting thhem from somewhere else, breaking their... Idk... concentration? Stance? Whatever you choose to flavour it as.
The formation is a nice start, but I think it can go further. There are defensive formations and offensive formations. I wouldn't give too many option on top of inspiring leader, but perhaps have many options and when taking the feat the character can pick one of these. It's similar to Eldrich/Martial/Metamagic Adept feats. There could be some subclass that gives access to more formations, like Battle Master and their maneuvers.
It's always "smart", "creative", "cunning" when the hero does it, but "dirty", "nasty", "cowardly" when the villain does the same. I'd say that, aa the victim craves for revenge, they get advantage on their first attack made against the one who used the Dirty Attack or advantage on Intimidation checks against them.
I'm not sure why the grappler stuns though. Instead, you could say he's choking the grappled creature and the moment they start grappling their opponent, it can't breath. The DMG (I think, maybe it's the PHB or maybe both) has rules for suffocating creatures.
Varielky
Yeah, I like that for the dirty fighting. If your dirty fighting move fails, it would really, REALLY tick off their target. If the dirty move fails, the intended victim gets advantage on their counter attack. Real risk/reward element there, but less risky for a sneaky scoundrel who won't hesitate to hit below the belt.
Also, for the grappler, the reason they're stunned is because a good grappler knows not to use an air choke, but rather a blood choke, which takes only seconds to knock someone out. That's why in UFC fights, fighters tap real quick once they realize they can't escape in time. On the same token, it doesn't take long for a blood-choke victim to regain consciousness either. Basically, as soon as blood flow returns to the brain, the lights come back on pretty quick. It can take less than 10 seconds to completely knock someone unconscious with a blood choke, or, alternatively, if they're using a joint lock, the limb being bent out of shape will suffer a dislocation, making that limb useless and causing extreme pain. Whether joint lock or blood choke, they're going to need a couple of rounds to recover from what just happened.
I didn't want to get too complicated for formations, but we can talk about added formation rules more if everyone likes them. I figured keeping them simple and dirty would probably be best.
The parrying may be a touch unbalanced, but some (actually quite a lot, really) enemies won't have the intelligence to realize what the one waiting to parry is doing, really. Then again, if you roll poorly, you'll have just wasted your attack roll and got smacked around for your trouble, as the only times you would really choose to parry is if there'd be a high chance that you would be focus-fired, which could be real bad news. The only benefit is that you'll finish out the round dodging, so CHANCES are you wouldn't come out of it without getting TOO badly hurt.
What if I just remove the extra 1D4 damage and make it +2 instead? That seems more reasonable. If you got REAL lucky with your rolls, it'd almost be like getting a crit on every attacker you countered.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
Huh, didn't even consider a blood choke. Makes sense.
As for the parrying, +2 really just means that if you land a crit, it doesn't add an extra d4 to the damage. It could matter and it could not, depends on how often you land a crit. With a d4, the difference between 1 and 4 are very small and don't matter as much. It's not like rolling a disappointing 1 on the damage die of a greataxe.
Also, I don't agree that parry is only used for defensive reasons. Unless the enemy chooses to disengage, as long as they can't target someone without leaving your range, and we're assuming their intelligence is low as you said, they'll attack you. Knowing that, you can just parry all the time. You'll still make your attacks, but now with a damage bonus and with a defensive boost. Even if you have multiple attacks, it's likely that the enemy does too. Besides, even if you don't attack as many times, your attacks deal more damage on average and you're harder to hit. It'll make the battle much longer, sure, but if that doesn't bother you... and it usually doesn't... why not?
Varielky
Oh, I don't think I explained the parry feature well enough.
Like, using a parry is basically a (slightly) riskier dodge in that you sacrifice your attacks for your turn to counter instead and go totally on the defensive. All the rules I'm workshopping here are meant to add defensive options for players so they don't go down and out of play as often or different offensive options that can disable enemies and prevent them from attacking players. I'm a big advocate of risk vs reward, so the risk with parrying is that should you roll badly, you've blown your chance to do direct damage and maybe gotten a little beat up for your trouble.
Like, here's an example where the parry would come in handy to help keep you on your feet. Say you're level 2 and the group is in a corridor, and enemies are moving to attack. Maybe the rest of the group has been beaten up a bit and you're trying to get out of a bad situation, and you're not feeling great either. The enemies are blocking your way out, and you're in front. There's 5 of them, but you have a high DEX and are using a dagger, a finesse weapon You COULD just attack, but to keep the enemies from pushing past you and attacking your wounded allies, you decide to parry for your turn and taunt the enemies to focus on you.
Your parry score: 18
Enemies attack: 9 14 1 2 10
Say you had a bonus action you could use as a second parry, so you hit one for 11 because of your +4 from your DEX and the +2 from the parry damage. Unfortunately, the second attack was a crit, so you took 12 but dodged all the other attacks and single handedly tanked ALL the enemy attacks for your team, who are free to do damage to them. If they were low-level bandits, you would have even killed one of them, so not only did you effectively protect yourself, you protected your whole team, though if you attempted to just parry again against the survivors, because they have 10 INT, they could collectively attempt a perception roll, see that you were waiting to counter their attack again, and they fall back to start throwing stuff at you.
The idea with the parry is that it's kind of telegraphed in that you're waiting for them to attack, and if the bad guys just saw you took down one of them by just waiting, they would be understandably less eager to engage you.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
I understand that. Maybe you didn't understand what I meant.
I'll take the same scenario, only change it to fit my point. You're a level 4 something and you're the tank of the group. Forget tank, you're the only one fitting to be in the front. All the others are archers/casters/smth that doesn't fit up close. You can only make one attack per round. The corridor is narrow, so the enemy can't get past you without entering your reach first, allowing you to get an opportunity attack shall they try to. Your enemy is only one target. For the sake of it, you're also a V. Human with the Sentinel feat. The enemy tried to leave your reach once but they got stopped by your opportunity attack. They understand they can't attack the rest of your team before they take you down.
Now, as long as you take the parry action, you're harder to hit and will retaliate if the enemy tries to attack you. They can't just ignore you because if they try to leave your reach, you get an AoO which makes their speed 0 on a hit. By using the parry action, you'll still land as many attacks as usual and get a defensive boost. On average, which is relevant since this fight will either end quickly by your team winning or take long because you keep getting the defensive boost of parrying, your "parry AC" will be 16 (again, average. It's assuming +4 mod and proficiency of +2). This is very possibly higher than your actual AC. Even if your enemy has +7 to hit, they'll need to roll 9 or higher to hit you, or higher if you AC is actually higher. Add some debuffs given by your teammates - there are countless effective ones even at lower levels - and that means even that +7 to hit monster will more likely trigger your parry, on average, of course, more times than it hits you.
Lastly, even if you did roll very low, that means your attack wouldn't have hit either, probably.
What I'm trying to say is that, while you wanted it to be very effective against groups of enemies, it's actually much more effective against single enemies, to the point where simply attacking is almost pointless.
Varielky
Ahh, I get you, there really isn't a reason to not just parry all the time because it's essentially 2 actions in one, kind of like an unlimited monk attack and ki use to instantly go to dodge after attacking.
In that case, it would probably just be best to use a simplified version of 3.5's parry entirely, where an attacker has to beat both your parry score and your AC in order to damage you, and only if your parry beats their attack by 5 do you get an automatic counter attack, otherwise you essentially just (potentially) raise your AC for your turn, hoping for the chance to counteract an enemy attack, not a guaranteed counter upon an enemy failing to beat your parry score. This would also give more utility to lightly armoured classes to block attackers from approaching wounded or squishy targets.
To make parry something you CAN do repeatedly without it just being 'the best option to pick all the time', if you choose to parry, your movement speed becomes 0; you completely stand your ground and intercept attacks aggressively, so you're more of a target to ranged attacks, which then get advantage to hit (unless you're a monk, potentially) so there's no GUARANTEE you'll land a counter attack if your enemies just barely fail to roll over your parry score, but at the very least, you held off some attacks. It also keeps dodging from being useless because if you taunt enemies and then dodge, you give all attackers disadvantage, ranged or melee.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
So you're burning your action to parry- but the action economy is set up so that you only get one reaction per round. If a pc gets attacked by multiple goons, they would only be able to parry the first attack (i believe) in the rules as written. This is some neat stuff, my only hesitation is some of these step on the toes of character class perks (kind of? Parry makes me think of the Fighter/Battlemaster Riposte manuever- sort of?) so it takes a little from the cool stuff a fighter can do. It takes the 5e action economy and kind of shreds it a bit (maybe it needs to be shredded, maybe not). My other hesitation is that I am thick as a plank- it will take me a while for all this to sink in (but eventually it will sink in). I'll try anything though and it seems like you have put a lot of thought into this (you're a good DM).
Fleabag Fleabane -Tabaxi Ranger | Lenny Coggins- Halfling Barbarian | Sid Shatterbuckle- Dwarf Fighter/Rogue| Lazlo - Satyr Bard in Training
I just want to be sure everyone is able to keep playing and not laying on the ground unconscious for a week. If you're unsure about any of the rules, I'll be happy to explain them in more detail.
Also yes, you're sacrificing your turn to attack, but you're ALSO potentially massively increasing your AC by making it your attack roll for your turn, and the first enemy to attack you may POTENTIALLY get counter attacked, but ONLY IF they fail by 5 or more to meet your parry score, otherwise no counter happens.
It doesn't actually TAKE from the fighter's pool of cool stuff, it actually buffs it, because if a fighter has riposte, and maybe not the best AC in the world but they've got MAD attack roll bonuses, it would turn that fighter into a significant obstacle, because even if the creature just barely failed to meet the parrying score, because the creature would be counted as 'missing', the riposte WOULD click in. Again though, triggering the parry (I should rename that as that's also another fighter perk) means you're more vulnerable to ranged attacks, so again, it's not the best thing to do all the time.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
I'm all for more play and less laying on the ground unconscious. I say lets try it (repetition is a great teacher- I'll catch on eventually).
Fleabag Fleabane -Tabaxi Ranger | Lenny Coggins- Halfling Barbarian | Sid Shatterbuckle- Dwarf Fighter/Rogue| Lazlo - Satyr Bard in Training
You already know I think most of these are solutions in search of a problem. That said, I won't rehash those arguments.
Hit Points: Very complicated and a lot of extra work for all involved. I would prefer something more simple, something like PCs can continue to fight after they reach 0 and begin to suffer degradation of combat effectiveness as they approach max negative HP (as determined by percentage and not absolute numbers) and at max negative HP start making death saves. Some ideas for degraded effectiveness would be disadvantage on attack, saves, concentration checks, dropping in the initiative order. Also, at what point does this phase out and we resume standard HP? Your reason for doing this is you feel low level characters are easily felled but at some point that stops being an issue. For example, a level 6 fighter with an average CON of 13 (+1) has, on average 49 HP. Your system gives that fighter 98 HP, effectively (I know there are downsides in your system for going deep negative, but still...).
Dirty Fighting: Not a fan, actually, as I believe this part of combat is actually covered by Critical Hits (remember that the D&D combat system, especially in 5E, is about simplifying the mechanics to make them as transparent to role-playing as possible). For example: "Kollban kicks sand up at the ogre's face and sweeps in behind the sand, swinging his battle axe low, trying to take out the knees!" Regular hit, DM: "You miss the knee but bite deeply into the thigh and the ogre cries out." Critical hit, DM: "The ogre is blinded by the sand and unable to dodge away from your axe which crunches into his knee." Miss, DM: "You telegraph your attack and the ogre leaps back, avoiding sand and axe both." However, that said, I think the rules as written work.
Technical Fighting: Total opposed as jujitsu is it's own combat skill, separate and apart from swordplay, axe-work, etc.
Parrying: I suggest a vast simplification of this and allow those with the Parry Feat to use their reaction to actually parry. It becomes an opposed roll, the enemy attack against the parry. This allows the defensive player to use the reaction only if needed (and your rules for allowing multiple parries work well). If they win the opposed roll by more than, say, 2, they get the counter-attack, and if by more than 4 they get the extra damage. Critical hits can only be parried by critical parries. This option avoids the idea the lower intelligent opponents won't recognize that you are trying to bait them with the parry. Experience trumps intellect every time and a low-intelligence fighter with an INT of 7 but 5 years combat experience is going to recognize this tactic far more readily than an INT 18 person in her first fight, I believe. We actually see this all the time. If you keep your original rules and want to use a stat, WIS is more appropriate than INT. INT is not actually a measure of intellectual capacity (as this would unfairly limit players...every game system I've played makes this distinction). INT, in D&D is, and I quote: Intelligence Checks-An Intelligence check comes into play when you need to draw on logic, education, memory, or deductive reasoning.
Defensive Fighting: Similar to dodge but instead of focusing entirely on avoiding being hit you are fighting defensively and only attacking if an opportunity presents itself (maybe AoO or in response to a critical fail). DF gives a bonus to AC equal to your DEX+Proficiency as long as you are in this combat mode. The tradeoff is the PC makes very few attacks while doing DF.
What do you think?
Tandor the White, Human Life Cleric
Hit Points: Very complicated and a lot of extra work for all involved. I would prefer something more simple, something like PCs can continue to fight after they reach 0 and begin to suffer degradation of combat effectiveness as they approach max negative HP (as determined by percentage and not absolute numbers) and at max negative HP start making death saves. Some ideas for degraded effectiveness would be disadvantage on attack, saves, concentration checks, dropping in the initiative order. Also, at what point does this phase out and we resume standard HP? Your reason for doing this is you feel low level characters are easily felled but at some point that stops being an issue. For example, a level 6 fighter with an average CON of 13 (+1) has, on average 49 HP. Your system gives that fighter 98 HP, effectively (I know there are downsides in your system for going deep negative, but still...).
Your HP system would actually be more complicated. How I have it written, the penalty characters suffer by being at negative HP is the removal of their ability score bonuses, all they have left is proficiency. That alone would be a hefty penalty. Add to that weaker spellcasting for offensive spells, and being in your 'Last Stand' state really sucks enough already, I think. It's just a flat penalty, no need for any more math.
For example, a level 6 fighter with an average CON of 13 (+1) has, on average 49 HP. Your system gives that fighter 98 HP, effectively (I know there are downsides in your system for going deep negative, but still...).
Yes, in THEORY, a level 6 fighter would have essentially 98 HP, but there's almost no chance that they'd be able to stay standing to take all that damage. You get to stay standing for 1D8+CON and INT modifiers rounds before you collapse from shock and THEN need to make death saves. The average number of turns you'd have to limp about is only about 5-7, depending on how high your stats are. At level 6, the encounters you'd be getting into could last a lot longer than that, and if you need 3 turns to get stabilized without a healer, you'd need to drop back pretty quickly to avoid dropping at ANY level. I think the good thing about this system is that it scales with character level and stays just giving players that little extra chance to keep playing and the only way for players to be taken out of the game and being forced to wait to play again is either by gambling or really, really, REALLY ugly dice rolls. I mean, look at poor Kallista's track record. Jeez.
Also, at what point does this phase out and we resume standard HP?
If you're asking if the Boromir rule no longer becomes a thing, it's going to be permanent. As you level up you'll face more dangerous challenges, the risk of going down doesn't go away, and it would be even WORSE to go down in later levels with more epic foes because imagine how long you could be waiting to play again THEN?
Soon as you're stabilized, you're at 0 HP and quick healing potions will be effective again. If you're healed via spell, they'll need to heal your negative damage up first, so it might make more economical sense to use a healing kit and save spells unless your team needs you back at full strength NOW. Being stabilized removes all negative damage at once, the system I proposed before WAS too complicated, so now the rules follow more like the RULES in that you can't just force someone at negative HP to swallow a health potion, they need to be stabilized first.
Also, if you DO take your negative HP max because you figure "Well, I have double the HP, I won't get killed!" and don't get yourself healed, you make death saves at DISADVANTAGE. That's a BIG gamble. The point is to keep people playing and not out of the game for a week, which can happen all too easily at level 1. Nobody wants to be the one who gets two-shotted in their first encounter, and that happens a LOT in 5e, there are very few defensive options for low level players that don't involve insultingly easy initial encounters. You guys are supposed to be the main characters, for crying out loud, not schoolyard bullies picking on a lone green middle schooler for their lunch money.
Parrying: I suggest a vast simplification of this and allow those with the Parry Feat to use their reaction to actually parry. It becomes an opposed roll, the enemy attack against the parry. This allows the defensive player to use the reaction only if needed (and your rules for allowing multiple parries work). If they win the opposed roll by more than, say, 2, they get the counter-attack, and if by more than 4 they get the extra damage. Critical hits can only be parried by critical parries. This option avoids the idea the lower intelligent opponents won't recognize that you are trying to bait them with the parry. Experience trumps intellect every time and a low-intelligence fighter with an INT of 7 but 5 years combat experience is going to recognize this tactic far more readily than an INT 18 person in her first fight, I believe. We actually see this all the time. If you keep your original rules and want to use a stat, WIS is more appropriate than INT.
Edits have been made to the 'defensive posture'(Changed from parry) option. It's no longer super OP.
Defensive Fighting: Similar to dodge but instead of focusing entirely on avoiding being hit you are fighting defensively and only attacking if an opportunity presents itself (maybe AoO or in response to a critical fail). DF gives a bonus to AC equal to your DEX+Proficiency as long as you are in this combat mode. The tradeoff is the PC makes very few attacks.
I THINK the edits made to the 'defensive posture' address this sufficiently too. I don't want just straight-up dodging to STOP being at least somewhat relevant or make any perks totally obsolete.
Technical Fighting: Total opposed as jujitsu is it's own combat skill, separate and apart from swordplay, axe-work, etc.
If you look, you see the buffed version of grappling is only available to fighter, monk, ranger, and rogue, classes that would probably HAVE wrestling/grappling skills as part of their repertoire. I considered adding cleric, as it could be considered a 'merciful' means of subduing an enemy rather than just killing them, but I don't know how much wrestling they would actually do. I'm NOT proposing that a wizard should know how to throw a flying armbar.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
I'm going to step out of this conversation now. I really don't agree with any of the proposed changes (but only specifically oppose the HP one) as I do not see your main concern as a real issue. I've been playing D&D by post for over a year now and the issue you are concerned about has not really affected even one of my games. And at higher levels (I was in a campaign where the PCs were level 17), it was even less of an issue. Plus, basic healing potions bring you right up to basic combat effectiveness, no matter the level of the PCs or CR (I know this as I've done this at high and low levels).
If you want to increase survivability, make taking/administering healing potions a bonus action and make them cheap (10 GP). You could even make a rule that says at 0/negative HP, a successful CON check allows the PC to gather the strength to self-administer a potion. This is both simple and only a minor alteration of the rules.
Final comments:
Hit Points: I'm opposed. Also, I fail to see how my 1 paragraph approach is more complicated than your 6 paragraph, 5 part approach with rolls for various things. Again, if you implement this, my suggestion is it be implemented as a percentage of negative HP, not as absolute numbers
Parry/Defensive Posture: While I like my approach better (XD), I think what you have works.
Jujitsu: I do not agree that any class, with the possible exception of Monk, have martial arts like this as part of its repertoire, especially rogues. Grappling, sure but all classes have access to grapple as part of basic combat. If you want to add something like this, I think it should be feat, which represents extra training, or perhaps a subclass or something like that. It is one thing to know how to grapple with a foe in battle, grab and hold them. It's another thing entirely and requires training and/or practical experience to know how to apply choke/blood holds. Many police departments have banned the use of these as they can easily result in death from improper application and that's by a body of people with specific training in the technique. My point is this is extra-stuff not covered as part of standard combat training. I like the idea, but it should cost extra (feat, subclass, etc.) to represent the fact that, realistically, it requires extra training.
Tandor the White, Human Life Cleric
Also, at what point does this phase out and we resume standard HP?
If you're asking if the Boromir rule no longer becomes a thing, it's going to be permanent. As you level up you'll face more dangerous challenges, the risk of going down doesn't go away, and it would be even WORSE to go down in later levels with more epic foes because imagine how long you could be waiting to play again THEN?
EDIT
Actually, after thinking about it, let's see how you guys do at level 5. It PROBABLY won't need to be a thing anymore by that point. If you guys go down too frequently however, and there's too much waiting, it's going to be reinstated. IDEALLY you won't even know that the Boromir rule EXISTS, but IF it comes to pass that you need it, at least it's THERE. It's to give you peace of mind that you're NOT going to end up just immediately out of combat thanks to a few crap rolls.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
Jujitsu: I do not agree that any class, with the possible exception of Monk, have martial arts like this as part of its repertoire, especially rogues. Grappling, sure but all classes have access to grapple as part of basic combat. If you want to add something like this, I think it should be feat, which represents extra training, or perhaps a subclass or something like that. It is one thing to know how to grapple with a foe in battle, grab and hold them. It's another thing entirely and requires training and/or practical experience to know how to apply choke/blood holds. Many police departments have banned the use of these as they can easily result in death from improper application and that's by a body of people with specific training in the technique. My point is this is extra-stuff not covered as part of standard combat training. I like the idea, but it should cost extra (feat, subclass, etc.) to represent the fact that, realistically, it requires extra training.
I can't completely remember (I'll look it up later) but I THINK the 'grappler' feat is an optional level 4 feat you can get, and honestly, it needs a buff, a BIG buff. The basic 'grappler' feat only allows you to, on your first action, grapple an opponent, and THEN, passing a SECOND athletics check, finally restrains them, and they STILL get the option to attack you (albeit with disadvantage). That's it. It just RESTRAINS them and it doesn't keep them from attacking! It's really not very useful and CERTAINLY not giving up your 4th level feat for. Nobody takes it because there is no appreciable advantage to using it outside of keeping one bad guy alive to question after a fight, nothing that makes it any better than using those actions to attack and aiming to incapacitate. The additional buffs would make it a strong defensive choice against hard-to-hit foes with damaging attacks and actually worth something.
If you want to increase survivability, make taking/administering healing potions a bonus action and make them cheap (10 GP). You could even make a rule that says at 0/negative HP, a successful CON check allows the PC to gather the strength to self-administer a potion. This is both simple and only a minor alteration of the rules.
Again, it's not even something you should even have to worry about. It won't even BE an issue if things go they way they should. I'm just saying IF things go sideways more often than they should, it's THERE as a means to keep playing. Just in case, that's all. I'd rather be prepared and turn out to be wrong than have anyone feel left out because an encounter is taking a while to conclude while you're out cold and can't do anything. Just because it hasn't happened to YOU, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
It's not like I'm PLANNING to throw the kitchen sink at you guys and force you into a wounded state all the time, but in my experience, and I think Kallista can attest to this, the dice are *****.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
Alright, looked it up. Yeah, grappler is one of the optional feats you can get starting at level 4. It gives you advantage to HIT enemies you've already taken an action to grapple, and then you have to succeed AGAIN in order to pin them, at which point they can keep trying to hit you with disadvantage for as long as you restrain them. That is SO not worth giving up an ability score increase for, jeez. Yeah, I'd like to buff that.
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
There are many grappler feats in the Home Brew collection. Here's the first one, named Advanced Jujitsu Grappler. You may find one that already fits your bill there.
You've developed the skills necessary to choke and break limbs in close-quarters grappling. You gain the following benefits:
Tandor the White, Human Life Cleric
Yeah, see, THAT would be worth giving up a Stat increase, not the hot garbage 5e gave grappling enthusiasts.
After some thought, I think you guys are right in that the HP rules may be putting the cart before the horse, but if anyone is going down far too often, and not because of bad tactics or bad encounter balance, THEN I'll pull out the Boromir rule to help you guys out.
Admittedly, I JUST realized one major thing: In all the games where the players have had trouble getting through encounters I've seen, it was because they were only allowed to use the standard array or point buy, where having 18 in a stat is FORBIDDEN, so if you didn't build OPTIMALLY, you'd get your face pushed in by anyone who bothered to try.... because who wants to play an off-colour character, amirite </sarcasm>
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
So, going forward, I'd like to propose the defensive and offensive options that basically just make it more fun and give more options to approach combat with besides the really basic rules that are in place, so we have:
defensive posture for a potential temporary AC boost for holding off multiple attackers, formation movement to prevent enemy flanking and communal AC bonus as I'll be using the optional flanking rules (Because XCOM is in my blood)and I'm changing the dirty fighting one last time.
The dirty fighting rule should be the FIRST move in combat, and henceforth it shall be named the Han Shot First rule, so it can really only be used in situations where the group is facing off against a hostile force and they're sizing each other up before fighting starts, cause it really doesn't make sense with the rules as written because it implies that you could try to use a dirty trick on an unintelligent creature. It limits the targets it can be effective on to humanoids capable of speech.
And I DO want to use the enhanced grappling feat in place of the existing optional grappler feat, for sure, but I'm also going to allow any character with at least 12 STR and athletics proficiency to not just hold onto opponents but also transition to restrain them with a bonus action if available, because anyone who has been taught proper basic combat could easily be taught a double leg takedown and then just stay on top.
I would propose the following changes to the grappling rules however:
Advanced grappling feat:
DM, professional illustrator and comic artist, suffering from severe spinal stenosis, married, middle aged, and nerdy.
Here are a few (very simple) ideas we use at our table.
Flanking- attacker gets +2 to their attack role
Out of spell slots? Trade spell slots for levels of exhaustion. 1st level spell= level 1 exhaustion, etc. Doesn’t work for spells higher than 5th level
Healing Potion Consumption- We set a standard value for potions (instead of rolling 2d4+2 you just get 10 hp). 3rd potion in an hour requires a DC 14 constitution save or you vomit up the last potion and receive no healing from it
Morale- combine a kill/Crit with an intimidation check for the dead monsters surrounding allies vs. their wisdom/insight. failed role puts the monster at disadvantage vs. pc.
Alt. Inspiration- (Inspiration/Setbacks) Players start the game with inspiration, and use it to make an inspired action (a tiered dice roll 1d6 at low level, 1d8, 1d10 etc). Players may gain another point of inspiration after they use it by imposing a Setback on themselves or their group by sticking to their faction philosophy (most of our games are set in Sigil so faction philosophy is a big deal) or role playing a flaw from the background section of their character sheet.
Fleabag Fleabane -Tabaxi Ranger | Lenny Coggins- Halfling Barbarian | Sid Shatterbuckle- Dwarf Fighter/Rogue| Lazlo - Satyr Bard in Training