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It used to be huge!

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Total Members Voted: 28

[Heron TSG]

I, as a DM, wouldn't allow that particular variant. It's neat, but somewhat overpowered for arcane spellcasters. Though this game doesn't use psionics (Thank the gods), psionic power points work in much the same way. You might be interested in trying that out if you join a different game that allows them. (We're avoiding psionics for a while at least because three types of spellcasting is already enough for a beginner's campaign.  )

[scriver]

Depressed, Useless and throwing acid which hits someone in the party 75% of the time.

Hehe, not that we archers are any better at not hitting what we aim at ^^

And Tuggery is only useful the two rounds before she gets herself knocked out, and she doesn't even have the shiny future as a major damage dealer you magickers have. Poor Tuggs.

[Baneling]

Fair enough. I'm quite happy to use the normal system. Is there anything else I need to add to the sheet, or is it good as-is?

[Scelly9]

Alright, last couple sessions a few of you have called to my attention the silliness of the current missing rules. So, here's some changes.

If the modified roll is under 5 another, unmodified, die is rolled. If the second die is also under 5, then the arrow hits a teammate (if one is in front of the shooter), dealing 1 damage. If the second die is a 1, the arrow deals half its normal damage. Anything above 5 is a normal miss.

If the natural first roll is a 1, a second die is rolled. 1-5: Self Hurt 6-14: Bow broken or damaged 15-20: Friendly hit (full damage)

If anyone has any criticisms for this, please tell me.

On the subject of leveling up: At the end of next session, you guys will be level 3.

[Caellath]

Self-hit may get awkward for melee classes, especially when spellcasters can cast magic missile! magic missile! without any risks.

Piercing damage weapons, such as bows, would require you to shoot your own foot/body, which even the dumbest archer trainee would have a had time replicating if not on purpose.

A rapier or a lance would require you to thrust the piercing tip against yourself and so on. Really, melee self-damage fails may be difficult to explain.

[Scelly9]

Self-hit may get awkward for melee classes, especially when spellcasters can cast magic missile! magic missile! without any risks.

Piercing damage weapons, such as bows, would require you to shoot your own foot/body, which even the dumbest archer trainee would have a had time replicating if not on purpose.

A rapier or a lance would require you to thrust the piercing tip against yourself and so on. Really, melee self-damage fails may be difficult to explain.

This was just for ranged attacks, perhaps I could change self hit to just a 1 on the second die, and expand the bow damage category.

[Doomblade187]

And also, another note- many ranged weapons users, by level three will always have a modified roll above five. While this would make the system decrepit, how about we use some variant of natural dice rolls, like critfails or AC rules?

[Heron TSG]

Alright, last couple sessions a few of you have called to my attention the silliness of the current missing rules. So, here's some changes.

If the modified roll is under 5 another, unmodified, die is rolled. If the second die is also under 5, then the arrow hits a teammate (if one is in front of the shooter), dealing 1 damage. If the second die is a 1, the arrow deals half its normal damage. Anything above 5 is a normal miss.

If the natural first roll is a 1, a second die is rolled. 1-5: Self Hurt 6-14: Bow broken or damaged 15-20: Friendly hit (full damage)

If anyone has any criticisms for this, please tell me.

I personally think that the normal D&D 3.5 missing rules work just fine. If you miss a creature that takes up one space, you roll a d8 to find out where you actually hit. The result determines which tile is hit in English reading order. Example:


123
4X5
678


Where the X is the target. If a creature is large, you roll a d12.


01 02 03 04
05  X  X 06
07  X  X 08
09 10 11 12


Any larger than that, and it's assumed that you had to aim up to shoot a vital part and thus the arrow whizzes harmlessly by into the distance.

As for fumbling attack rolls on a natural one, this game doesn't need to nerf non-casters any more than it already has. Think about it this way. At level eleven, a fighter and a wizard take their turns:

Fighter: "I full attack the Rhinoceros!" *rolls 3 attack rolls.* With a fumble on a natural 1, the fighter has a 15% chance to stab/shoot himself with his own weapon at level 11. At level 16, he gets a 20% chance to stab/shoot himself. That makes him worse at stabbing/shooting as he levels. On the other hand...

Wizard: "I cast Flesh to Ice on the Rhino. Does it fail its save? Alright, it dies." OR

"I cast Quickened Spectral Hand for my swift action. I cast an Empowered Mindfire through the hand at a range of 60', even though it's normally a touch spell. Neat, got a lucky roll. It goes into a coma and someone can coup-de-grace it." OR

"I cast Summon Monster to summon 1d4+1 polar bears to beat the shit out of it at no risk to myself" ... et cetera.

Note that none of those require any sort of attack roll, and thus won't fumble.

[Scelly9]

Alright, last couple sessions a few of you have called to my attention the silliness of the current missing rules. So, here's some changes.

If the modified roll is under 5 another, unmodified, die is rolled. If the second die is also under 5, then the arrow hits a teammate (if one is in front of the shooter), dealing 1 damage. If the second die is a 1, the arrow deals half its normal damage. Anything above 5 is a normal miss.

If the natural first roll is a 1, a second die is rolled. 1-5: Self Hurt 6-14: Bow broken or damaged 15-20: Friendly hit (full damage)

If anyone has any criticisms for this, please tell me.

I personally think that the normal D&D 3.5 missing rules work just fine. If you miss a creature that takes up one space, you roll a d8 to find out where you actually hit. The result determines which tile is hit in English reading order. Example:


123
4X5
678


Where the X is the target. If a creature is large, you roll a d12.


01 02 03 04
05  X  X 06
07  X  X 08
09 10 11 12


Any larger than that, and it's assumed that you had to aim up to shoot a vital part and thus the arrow whizzes harmlessly by into the distance.

But what about things like this:
lEl
l  l
lPl
lPl
lAl
A= Archer
P= Party Member
E= Enemy

[Heron TSG]

But what about things like this:
lEl
l  l
lPl
lPl
lAl
A= Archer
P= Party Member
E= Enemy

Well, I'll go through a few situations like that, first.


|E|
| |
| |
| |
|A|

The Archer attacks the Enemy as normal.


|E|
| |
| |
|P|
|A|

The Archer attacks the Enemy as normal. Because there is a creature in the way, the enemy gains +4 AC against that attack. (Note that if the Party Member was a gelatinous cube or the like and took up the whole tile, it would block line of effect and the Enemy couldn't be targeted.)


|E|
|P|
|P|
|P|
|A|

The Archer attacks the Enemy as normal. Because there is a creature in the way, the enemy gains +4 AC against that attack. Because there is an ally within 10 feet of the Enemy, the Archer takes a -4 penalty for firing into melee. If the Archer had Precise Shot, that wouldn't matter and this example would be the same as the last.

Note that both the Cover AC bonus and the Firing-Into-Melee penalty increase the likelihood of the archer missing and striking an adjacent tile... which could mean shooting an ally (or enemy!) for full damage. In this way, you want to be sure to line up shots so that they can't hit your allies, or alternatively, it doesn't really matter where you shoot from if you're being attacked by a blob of enemies, as you're sure to hit something.

[Scelly9]

|E|
| |
| |
|P|
|A|

The Archer attacks the Enemy as normal. Because there is a creature in the way, the enemy gains +4 AC against that attack. (Note that if the Party Member was a gelatinous cube or the like and took up the whole tile, it would block line of effect and the Enemy couldn't be targeted.)

But the problem is, in this example, the archer can't hit his party member with a fail, even though he's standing right in front of him.

[Heron TSG]

That is correct. To me it seems unjust to force the weakest weapon in the game to carry such a gargantuan downside. With a sword, you can add damage with a high strength score, trip someone, make attacks of opportunity, etc. With a bow? Nope. You can make attacks at range, and that's it.

If you must, think of it this way. A human's profile is perhaps two and a half feet wide for a rather large person. I myself have a widest dimension of slightly over 15 inches at the shoulder. That's about a quarter of the width of a tile. We'll go into a diagram again, this time subdividing the tiles into 16 parts.


-------
# # # #
# # # #
# # # #
# # # #
-------
   
   
   
   
-------
   
   
   
   
-------
   
   
   ☻
   
-------
   
   
■ ■  
■ ■  
-------

Archer: ■ (A wide-ish human.)

Ally: ☻(For this example, I'm using extremes. This person is thin and holding fairly still. Hell, let's make them a halfling so they're short, too.)

Enemy: # (In this case a gelatinous cube because they take up a whole tile and that's convenient.)


The archer, so long as they aim at the cube at all, has no line of fire towards their ally. Due to the current rules, the cube already gets cover from the ally anyway for +4 AC. (Not that that will really help this 6 AC monster, but that's besides the point.) That archer's optimal line is straight north. To shoot that friend, they would have to veer off to the right about 25 degrees. That's not 'messing up', that takes some serious effort. This is an extreme example, of course, but it shows that just because someone is in a nearby tile doesn't mean that they're in danger of being shot. In fact, we can explain the need for the Precise Shot feat this way.


-------
# # # #
# # # #
# # # #
# # # #
-------
  ☻ ☻
  ☻ ☻
   
   
-------
   
   
   
   
-------
   
   
   
   
-------
   
   
■ ■  
■ ■  
-------

In this example, the burly human paladin is stabbing that gelatinous cube right in the flat gelatinous face surface. The archer still has a shot, of course, but now their aim might only need to be off by 5 degrees or so to hit their ally. Of course, a smart archer would try to aim to the left side of the cube because of that... increasing their chance of missing to the left. They're not going to fire straight on and possibly hit their friend. Thus the shot takes a -4 penalty. An archer with Precise Shot is confident enough in hitting the mark that they'll just fire right at the gap and avoid that -4 penalty. Note that their ally being in the way also gives the cube cover.


-------   -------
# # # # | ☻ ☻  
# # # # | ☻ ☻  
# # # # |    
# # # # |    
-------   -------
    |    
    |    
    |    
    |    
-------   -------
    |    
    |    
    |    
    |    
-------   -------
    |    
    |    
    |    
    |    
-------   -------
    |    
    |    
■ ■   |    
■ ■   |    
-------   -------

Now the cube has no cover, but as the arrow could still veer off and hit the paladin, there is still the -4 for precise shot.


-------   -------
    |    
    |    
☻ ☻   |    
☻ ☻   |    
-------   -------
# # # # |    
# # # # |    
# # # # |    
# # # # |    
-------   -------
    |    
    |    
    |    
    |    
-------   -------
    |    
    |    
    |    
    |    
-------   -------
    |    
    |    
■ ■   |    
■ ■   |    
-------   -------

An interesting quirk of the rules: With the paladin behind the cube, the cube gains no cover. For some strange reason, the archer still takes the -4 from precise shot. (Normally it could be attributed to the arrow going past the creature and hitting the ally, but cubes take up a whole space. Maybe the archer's afraid of piercing through the cube right there because it's so soft. I dunno.) If the archer completely botches this attack and misses the gelatinous cube - which I must remind you is almost impossible to do without a natural 1 because cube AC sucks - you roll a 1d8 to find out where the arrow lands. Whoops-a-daisy, rolling a 2 means that you arced that arrow over the son of a bitch (or just past the creature if it's not a cube) and stuck your ally for full damage. BUT WAIT - the cube is in the way. Your ally gains +4 AC from cover from a standard monster, but because the cube explicitly blocks line of effect, the arrow can't reach him. The arrow simply disappears from reality without hurting anyone, as it hit neither its intended target nor its intended resting place.

That said, against a standard creature on a natural 1, you automatically miss the enemy. If an ally's too close, they might be hit. That's already bad enough.

[Scelly9]

Fair enough. Nicely put, by the way.

[Yoink]

It looks like you put a lot of effort into those diagrams, too.

Now that that's out of the way: Nyah I got the most kills of the session! Even if one was accidental!

[Dwarmin]

Nyah! I missed with every hit and stabbed myself!

Honestly, can we phase hitting yourself out? That really sucks.