[4e, with a touch of 5] Eliminating the attack roll
Idle thought.
... how would you do it? What obvious problems can you see, and how might they be compensated for? How massive a rejiggering would it need?
See, the man behind Eleven Foot Pole had a pretty good post recently, theorizing that 5e will drop to-hit rolls entirely. He defended this opinion quite well, and as I read it I thought, "hey, that actually doesn't sound too bad". So, theorycrunchers, what do you think?
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Re: [4e, with a touch of 5] Eliminating the attack roll
I am not someone you are asking to crunch this up and see how it works. But read the article and it is a interesting idea.
One thing I would like to see with such a system, is that if certain amounts of "hit", like the 33% less on a hit he talked about would bring about certain effects. A %100 hit does such a keyword, 50%-75% does such a keyword, etc. This could be built into individual Powers or be a overall for all Powers (with perhaps Feats altering them). Sort of like one of his ideas with weapons.
Re: [4e, with a touch of 5] Eliminating the attack roll
Quote:
Originally Posted by Inyssius
... how would you do it?
Up the effect of stats to damage(so like your power does 4d+4*Mod damage instead of 6d+Mod damage.), bring back saving throws as per pre 4e version(makes save ends more intuitive as well.) to control status problems.
Quote:
What obvious problems can you see, and how might they be compensated for?
Defense differences go away, and that's mainly it.
Status problems may get out of hand if you don't attach pre 3e saving throws to them, but i see no real problems with auto-hit damage.
Quote:
How massive a rejiggering would it need?
Not too massive at all, mainly rebalancing and some fine tuning. I could probably cobble up a mock phb in 2 weeks.
First time i heard about removing to-hit i got quite reactionary, but as time has gone on I've realized it's a really good idea.
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But i highly doubt 5e will go in the same direction as 4e, i think D&D will continue it's current trend of being a reaction to the previous editions flaws.
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Last edited by Whitemagebishieboy; 07-04-2009 at 12:34 AM..
Re: [4e, with a touch of 5] Eliminating the attack roll
That's a rather fascinating article. Thanks for pointing it out!
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Re: [4e, with a touch of 5] Eliminating the attack roll
Under 3.5 got frustrated with AC and attack rolls and started letting the players take 10 on attack rolls AND made armor provide DR as per Unearthed Arcana, while it sped up play it also eventually made people feel useless when they rolled poorly for damage.
It also didn't appeal to three of the five players at the table and so we stopped using the house rule about taking 10...
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Re: [4e, with a touch of 5] Eliminating the attack roll
I've been a big fan of this idea ever since I first saw it in the Street Fighter RPG of all places. I can attest that it works beautifully in play.
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Re: [4e, with a touch of 5] Eliminating the attack roll
Read the article, but I'm not a big fan.
Sounds like a catastrophe waiting to happen, like the nWoD combat system.*** Likewise, it'll eliminate tactical positioning, all powers that grant help to hitting, all powers that boost various defences, all powers that lower just certain defences to set up "combo" attacks.
Basically, it turns the game into a fairly mindless slugging contest of who can dish out the most damage before dying. Sort of like World of Warcraft. No tactics. Just healing, grinding, and pressing your 1-0 keypads.
***White Wolf did the same with their new World of Darkness, combining the attack and damage rolls into one, combined with removing multiple actions. This makes for a combat system that has literally no strategy whatsoever involved in it, makes most of the powers simple dice adders, and made the entire book on new weaponry a joke.
Even worse, for a system focusing on story, it killed a great deal of in-setting realism and horror. For instance, you have this girl with a big, nasty shotgun who's gone crazy and coming after you in an abandoned house. In most RPGs, that's pretty scary if you're unarmed. Sure, she might not hit often, but if she does, you're screwed.
In the new World of Darkness system, the girl's very low to hit stats are combined with the damage stats of the shotgun, meaning she'll ping you to death, one health level at a time. That's right, the massive shotgun blasts will hit you in the toes and fingers until you bleed to death. Combat in general turns into a contest of who can toss the biggest dice pool at one another, over and over, until it's done.
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Re: [4e, with a touch of 5] Eliminating the attack roll
Quote:
Originally Posted by morgonstjarnan
Likewise, it'll eliminate tactical positioning, all powers that grant help to hitting, all powers that boost various defences, all powers that lower just certain defences to set up "combo" attacks.
Well, that is a compelling tale of doom. I'm not sure that these things must logically follow, though.
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Re: [4e, with a touch of 5] Eliminating the attack roll
Quote:
Originally Posted by morgonstjarnan
Read the article, but I'm not a big fan.
Sounds like a catastrophe waiting to happen, like the nWoD combat system.*** Likewise, it'll eliminate tactical positioning, all powers that grant help to hitting, all powers that boost various defences, all powers that lower just certain defences to set up "combo" attacks.
Basically, it turns the game into a fairly mindless slugging contest of who can dish out the most damage before dying. Sort of like World of Warcraft. No tactics. Just healing, grinding, and pressing your 1-0 keypads.
Stuff and nonsense. Tactical positioning, offensive and defensive buff powers, combo attacks, all of it will work just as well in a no-roll-to-hit system. The only difference is that they'd affect damage rolls instead of to-hit rolls.
If flanking gives you +2 damage instead of +2 to hit, is that really going to eliminate it as a tactical consideration? Really?
edit: naturally, just converting 4e directly over to a no-roll-to-hit system and changing the hit bonuses to damage bonuses wouldn't work so well. You need to design a system with this in mind from the start for it to really shine.
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Since most people cannot fathom why someone would give up male privilege and power in order to become a relatively disempowered female, they assume that trans women transition primarily as a way of obtaining the one type of power that women are perceived to have in our society: the ability to express femininity and attract men. This is why trans women like myself, who rarely dress in an overly feminine manner and/or who are not attracted to men, are such an enigma to many people. By assuming that my desire to be female is merely some sort of femininity fetish or sexual perversion, they are essentially making the case that women have no worth beyond the extent to which they can be sexualized.
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Last edited by Gloombunny; 07-04-2009 at 02:20 AM..
Re: [4e, with a touch of 5] Eliminating the attack roll
Quote:
Originally Posted by morgonstjarnan
***White Wolf did the same with their new World of Darkness, combining the attack and damage rolls into one, combined with removing multiple actions. This makes for a combat system that has literally no strategy whatsoever involved in it, makes most of the powers simple dice adders, and made the entire book on new weaponry a joke.
Even worse, for a system focusing on story, it killed a great deal of in-setting realism and horror. For instance, you have this girl with a big, nasty shotgun who's gone crazy and coming after you in an abandoned house. In most RPGs, that's pretty scary if you're unarmed. Sure, she might not hit often, but if she does, you're screwed.
In the new World of Darkness system, the girl's very low to hit stats are combined with the damage stats of the shotgun, meaning she'll ping you to death, one health level at a time. That's right, the massive shotgun blasts will hit you in the toes and fingers until you bleed to death. Combat in general turns into a contest of who can toss the biggest dice pool at one another, over and over, until it's done.
Thank God you told the Internet right away! People were damn close to forgetting how to beat a dead horse.
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