As I might have mentioned before, I'm currently running a campaign I was vigorously against for so many years: The dreaded Drow campaign. Yep, a bunch of back-stabbing cliched evil-doers out for who-knows-what.

Strangely enough, it kinda works. In the current Forgotten Realms timeline, Llothn was absent for a time -- turned out it was just a trick, though and she emerged stronger and better than before. Well, in my contnuity the bitch stayed dead. So the Lloth clerics don't get their powers, Drow social structure is breaking down and I have an excuse to use all kinds of silly source books for the Drow houses who try to make up for this loss of power.

To make this easier, I stuck with standard D&D. Worked fine for our last game which was a bit more archetypical, but now and especially at this level it's not that funny for me and some players anymore. We're working on the magic rules and just integrated the spell point system from Unearthed Arcana plus house-ruled hourly regeneration of points.

Next weekend -- and now I'm finally getting to the point -- we're running a little side-trek with some pre-generated NPCs mostly and I thought I'd use this to change the combat rules, too.

We played some Conan before and the changes were generally well-liked. They're also easy to integrate without changing most of the system. For those not in the know, Conan is a slight D20 variant.

• Armor provides Damage Reduction
• Each class has a defense bonus added to AC
• You either parry a blow or dodge it (using Str or Dex, respectively)
• Weapons have an Armor Piercing value. Add Strength to this and if it's over the DR of the armor, only half of it is deducted from the damage.
• "Finesse" weapons can completely circument DR if the player manages to hit AC+DR.

Now, getting defense values for the PCs should pose no problem. I am a bit unsure how to handle magical bonuses for the weapons and armor. The most likely solution is adding the pluses to the DR and Armor Piercing. Thus magical weapons wouldn't neccesarily couse more damage, but would cut through non-magical armor rather easily.

This will result in a less damage per attack, which is all fine by me, as 3E combats tend to be a little bit too short for my taste.

Yet this doesn't play to nicely with spells, as they now rule even more when it comes to straight damage dealing. The spell point system doesn't exactly help in this regard, as no spell is inaccessible after casting. I need to tone down the damage a bit. Increasing casting time is an option, either by a general rule or by requiring some checks to pull it off (hard enough so that it's unlikely that it'll work every round).

If I have a good solution for that, I might even ditch the multiple attacks for everyone rule. This is mostly needed to balance non-spellcasters, yet leads to some unimaginative gaming as you're wasting a lot of damage potential if you're _not_ doing the full-attack.

Any thoughts on how I might balance things out? Anything I missed that might bite me in the rear end?

I think that reducing the effectiveness of magical weapons is counter to your goal of changing the imbalance between magic use and melee combat.  My recommendation is to have the magical bonuses add to both weapon AP and damage and to give spells zero AP.  I think that would be a lot easier than trying to rebalance the magic system, and since you're already in the Forgotten Realms you do want to keep the high magic feel.

Conan has the whole "some weapons are far, far superior to others" problem in even stronger form than other RPGs.  That's another reason not to decrease the effectiveness of the magical bonuses - otherwise players may be choosing mundane weapons over magical ones simply because of how incredibly different their base effectiveness is.

It sounds fun, let us know how it goes!

Quote from: C.W.RichesonI think that reducing the effectiveness of magical weapons is counter to your goal of changing the imbalance between magic use and melee combat.  My recommendation is to have the magical bonuses add to both weapon AP and damage and to give spells zero AP.  I think that would be a lot easier than trying to rebalance the magic system, and since you're already in the Forgotten Realms you do want to keep the high magic feel.

Hmm, both weapon and damage would unbalance things, as armor would become almost useless at high enough levels. Unless you don't add the straight bonus, but I'd have to run through the numbers for this. If the DR gets too high, non-magical damage goes from low-powerd to almost totally useless, so I'll have to tread carefully if I'm going that way.

Giving spells zero AP didn't even cross my mind, as energy damage usually passes by DR. I could change that, though. Maybe just for magical armor. Hmm, let's see, magical plate +3 vs. an average empowered fire ball I see so much would mean 40 instead of 52 hit points taken. Not too shabby. Maybe I should re-introduce the AD&D rule that the armor bonus adds to the saving throws, too.

Quote from: SosthenesHmm, both weapon and damage would unbalance things, as armor would become almost useless at high enough levels. Unless you don't add the straight bonus, but I'd have to run through the numbers for this. If the DR gets too high, non-magical damage goes from low-powerd to almost totally useless, so I'll have to tread carefully if I'm going that way.

You could double the effectiveness of magical armor OR you could consider the larger variety of Armor bonuses in 3.5 that could give DR here (or just general Defense - such as Deflection bonuses).

Sadly, I have no idea how you'll run creatures with high natural armor such as Dragons.  It seems like they just aren't going to work with this system.  What do you think?

QuoteGiving spells zero AP didn't even cross my mind, as energy damage usually passes by DR. I could change that, though. Maybe just for magical armor. Hmm, let's see, magical plate +3 vs. an average empowered fire ball I see so much would mean 40 instead of 52 hit points taken. Not too shabby. Maybe I should re-introduce the AD&D rule that the armor bonus adds to the saving throws, too.

That would work well, great idea!

Quote from: C.W.RichesonYou could double the effectiveness of magical armor OR you could consider the larger variety of Armor bonuses in 3.5 that could give DR here (or just general Defense - such as Deflection bonuses).

I'll think about it. The idea I liked most about a simple AP/DR boost is that it's just an arms race to cancel the other guys advantages. If you have equipment of equal magical strength, the combat gets reduced to the participants abilities. Combats would look similar not matter what level they're on. 3E battles tend to get progressively shorter -- not that they take that long at the very start.

Quote from: C.W.RichesonSadly, I have no idea how you'll run creatures with high natural armor such as Dragons.  It seems like they just aren't going to work with this system.  What do you think?

Well, let's say the Dragon as natural armor class +20. If I change that 1:1 into DR, it's pretty tough. No big chance to AP that.
I might still go that way. But then I'd give dragons a pretty low defensive bonus, if at all. They get ridiculously high HD after all, so they would be masterful dodgers, too. I never liked that with large animal-type monsters.
Maybe just straight dex + bonuses for high speed (so dragons could dodge stuff quite well _while flying_).

With critical hits, finesse, power attack, lances etc. it could still be hurt. But I'd probably have to use the reduced  hit points, too. (only a straight bonus above a certain level, like AD&D did before)

Keep in mind that that may give a significant advantage to Finesse fighters in such encounters.

This sunday we actually did it and tried the ported Conan combat system in a side-line adventure of our current Forgotten Realms Mad Mix campaign. I didn't have time enough to fully prepare it, so a lot of it was purely improvised, especially the enemies.

As I mentioned before, this is the infamous Drow campaign which I use as an excuse to finally integrate all kinds of ill-fitting material. No actual player character was harmed in this particular evening. While the rest of the troupe was away, an ex-PC (WoW absentee) was sent on a scouting mission and quickly lost his sister... So he gathered a random troupe to rescue the fair damsel, er, I mean, the dark mistress...

So amongst our four adventurers we had four people in plate armor and even the Beguiler had highly enchanted mithril chain mail. If I'm not mistaken, the lowest DR was 8.

Due to some good scouting and heavy illusion magic the players mostly avoided combat, so we just got a surprise attack by a Hydro-Hydra and the final combat which included three demons -- an encounter _way_ beyond the suggested ECL.

Generally, monsters without especially vicious (natural) weaponry or ridiculous damage have it hard. Comparing with Conan monsters I gave the Hydra an armor piercing value of 1+Str, which ended up as 7. Not enough to pierce the armor, so it's 1d6+6 bite attack wasn't very dangerous for the group. So the players got out pretty easily, the combat just took a while due to the regeneration and the many attacks...

The big fight included two Vrocks and a Glabrezu. Now the tables turned a bit, as I gave the Glabrezu it's full natural armor bonus as DR -- but disregarded it's normal D20 DR versus good. DR 19 is hard to beat. One of the mercenaries sent along was a a large, power-attacking Loxo (elephant men) with a big axe, so he got through several times. Still, if the demon hadn't been slowed, it would've ended differently...

So, conclusions:
* Humanoid monsters with big strength and lots of armor are even tougher. While a quadripedal monsters wouldn't be able to parry, a humanoid can uses his full strength. With a parry of 25 and 15 DR, a finesse fighter would have to get beyond 40 to bypass armor. Not easily done.
* As expected, combats take longer. The players actually liked this, as it gave them more to do. And using DR for magical damage kept things in balance.
* Robot paladins rule.


I will probably keep the basics of this rule, but it needs some changes. Finesse fighters need more support. They don't need a Weapon Finesse feat anymore and I might even include the superior two-weapon fighting, but for swashbuckling fighters and rogues this isn't enough. An inverse power attack feat might be worthwhile, subtracting from damage but adding to the hit bonus. I'll have to consult the wise sage Excel for this later on...

There needs to be some way to spice up combat, now that it isn't over as quickly. Stunts and maneuvers sound nice. Disabling attacks, finding weak spots etc.
Maybe finesse fighters and archers could do something like Legolas with the cave troll. Make your climb, balance and/or jump checks and you're in a position to exploit something where the monsters DR is severely limited.

Maybe I'll even add some crit rules. Anyone have some good suggestions that aren't as extreme as RoleMaster 66/100?