Tinkering Fighters & Magic Weapons

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You're a regular 1d figure. How many tries does it take to defeat another figure like you? Maybe 1 if you can land a hit, or 2 if you account for your chance to do that.

Nope, 3.0 tries, on the dot. Then it takes 2.6 tries if you have 1d–1 hit die, and 2.3 tries if you have ½d hit die.

That's pretty bad. And that's just for a 50% chance to hit. Upping this by 20% gives 2.2, 1.9, and 1.7. Not helping.

Think about it this way, too: to find the chance of one-shotting a figure, multiply the attacker's to-hit chance by the chance they will deplete the target's hit points. For a 1d figure at a 50% to-hit, that's a 25% chance. Add +2.5% per extra 5% to-hit. Not good.

This is why I've said before that fighters need some sort of cleave or sweep or multi-attack to be "useful", as well as an increase in damage over time, but as they stand the numbers by themselves are quite bad, and bonuses to damage can be hard to scale without getting out of hand.

Here's my solution. Give +1 to attack and damage rolls per fighter level, which means fighters are going to be the ones to really haul ass. Bound the number of levels, from 1 to 5. Also bound bonuses from magic weapons.

To that effect, I've published another update to FMC Basic. Fighters add the same bonus to attack and damage, which is really what I wanted all along. Magic weapons, however, have been sorta kinda nerfed. Instead of changing the fighter's damage die, they gain a fighting bonus equal to their level minus how many powers they have. For example, a level-2 sword, using d4 and d6 for powers, has a 1-in-6 chance of having a +1 bonus.

This makes magic weapons with bonuses relatively rare, and not necessarily desirable over one with more special powers. This means you could have a level-5 sword with a +4 bonus, and not only is it going to just have one power, but it's going to be a sorta mediocre one.

QUICK FIX: Actually, fuck it. Gary was right. Fighters will add their level to attack but not to damage; however, magic weapons with a bonus will add to both attack and damage. This means that fighters who want to sweep and slay need a magic weapon. This makes FMC Basic fully compatible with most understandings of classic D&D.

Comments

  1. JWMillwrightDecember 18, 2023 at 11:02 AM

    How would you expand this if you did a FMC Basic? Just keep the linear scaling?

    Additionally, I've more or less adopted these rules but allow Fighters to use this bonus as one of the following; to-hit bonus, a damage bonus, or make an extra attack with no bonus.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Marcia B.December 19, 2023 at 7:05 AM

      hey! yes that's what i would do, although i like having a shorter range of character levels :) also that's a really neat approach! it would work well to combine what fmc basic has going on with the optional skirmish rules from fmc proper.

      Delete
    2. Marcia B.December 19, 2023 at 7:05 AM

      keeping this in my brain pocket now, thank you!!!

      Delete

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