Does it count is the choice is multiple light attacks vs one heavy attack? The former for dealing more damage, say to mooks or unarmoured opponents, and the latter to a more armoured one? But that means both are valid choices at different times, at a given time there's one one valid choice.Bigdy McKen wrote: ↑Wed May 21, 2025 10:10 pm2) Are there any systems out there that do light V heavy attacks well? Meaning both are valid life choices.
Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered
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Thaluikhain
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Re: Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered
Re: Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered
It has ways for resolving combat for people of different realms.Bigdy McKen wrote: ↑Thu May 22, 2025 2:10 amDoes your system have something like low-power mooks for throwaway encounters, or is it solely focused on 1v1 duels between equal combatants?
By the nature of the genre you do occasionally want to blow off 10 to 30 guys below you or 5 people just below you, or team up with three friends to defeat a higher realm opponent.
The way it works is by having round resolution involving the lowest realm combatants declare techniques, then going up the realm order to the highest realm person who declares and then acts, amd them going down the action resolution chain.
So in addition to dice advantages higher realm characters can perfectly respond in advance.
This means if a character is higher level they can probably hit all the mooks on round 1 before anything happens (though this almost certainly doesn't kill them) or can create a wall technique to prevent all the enemy attacks.
Unrestricted Diplomat 5314 wrote:Accept this truth, as the wisdom of the Crafted: when the oppressors and abusers have won, when the boot of the callous has already trampled you flat, you should always, always take your swing."
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Bigdy McKen
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Re: Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered
I was thinking along those lines, yeah. The ability to perform two small attacks vs. one big attack. What I want to avoid is that thing where multiple instances of stacking passive damage bonuses is the clear winner. Damage reduction would probably mitigate that.Thaluikhain wrote: ↑Thu May 22, 2025 2:47 am
Does it count is the choice is multiple light attacks vs one heavy attack? The former for dealing more damage, say to mooks or unarmoured opponents, and the latter to a more armoured one? But that means both are valid choices at different times, at a given time there's one one valid choice.
What I’m thinking is weapons come in three sizes: light, medium, heavy, and they just offer a static bonus to damage.
Light weapons can only make light attacks. They deal+1 damage.
Medium weapons can make light OR heavy attacks. They deal +2 damage.
Heavy weapons can only make heavy attacks. They deal +4 damage.
Light attacks get 1 damage die (base); heavy attacks get 2 damage dice (base).
That makes a lot of sense. I’ve seen your initiative paradigm play out in a lot of fightin’ anime. Very on-genre.Kaelik wrote: ↑Thu May 22, 2025 3:04 am
It has ways for resolving combat for people of different realms.
By the nature of the genre you do occasionally want to blow off 10 to 30 guys below you or 5 people just below you, or team up with three friends to defeat a higher realm opponent.
The way it works is by having round resolution involving the lowest realm combatants declare techniques, then going up the realm order to the highest realm person who declares and then acts, amd them going down the action resolution chain.
So in addition to dice advantages higher realm characters can perfectly respond in advance.
This means if a character is higher level they can probably hit all the mooks on round 1 before anything happens (though this almost certainly doesn't kill them) or can create a wall technique to prevent all the enemy attacks.
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deaddmwalking
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Re: Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered
They weren't quadrants, but more like 'elevation lines'. Like the area was generally sloping up, so the bottom left corner of the map was a zone, then there was a band that was zone 2, then a weirdly shaped y that made up zone 3, and the two other zones were 4 and 5. Something like that. I think the idea was to sort of represent the terrain. So probably more like FATE style? I don't know how Fate would do a wide open field, so my guess is someone was trying to apply that type of logic to an open space???Bigdy McKen wrote: ↑Thu May 22, 2025 2:10 amWere these zones just the encountered area separated into quadrants, or was it FATE style zones (ie bar brawl. Common room=zone, behind the bar=zone, north balcony=zone, south balcony=zone, kitchen/larder=zone)?
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deaddmwalking
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Re: Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered
So we really wanted to encourage sneaky rogue type characters to use daggers rather than greatswords when dealing sneak attack, but we didn't want to make it so a greatsword COULDN'T get sneak attack.Bigdy McKen wrote: ↑Thu May 22, 2025 5:06 amWhat I’m thinking is weapons come in three sizes: light, medium, heavy, and they just offer a static bonus to damage.
Light weapons can only make light attacks. They deal+1 damage.
Medium weapons can make light OR heavy attacks. They deal +2 damage.
Heavy weapons can only make heavy attacks. They deal +4 damage.
Light attacks get 1 damage die (base); heavy attacks get 2 damage dice (base).
We decided that ANYONE using a light weapon can add their Dexterity to damage in the same situations as Sneak Attack (opponent is flat-footed, or sufficient flanking, etc). And it sneaks with sneak attack. Light weapons also use Dexterity for attack bonus. If you're a high Dex character, a light weapon makes a lot of sense.
A one-handed weapon gets better base damage than a light weapon. Obviously with a one-handed weapon you can also use a shield. One-handed weapons can be used in two-hands (but don't have to be) so you can pick up 1 1/2x STR.
Two-handed weapons require 2-hands to wield, get the highest base damage, and get the 1.5x STR all the time. If you don't care about a shield and you're not a high Dex character, using a really big weapon makes sense.
Altogether, this has given various players enough reasons to differentiate and use different category of weapons in addition to different types.
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Re: Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered
I think Nimble 2 does this pretty well. This is my preferred 5e replacement at this point (though Shadow of the weird wizard is still in the running). https://nimblerpg.com/pages/nimble-2Bigdy McKen wrote: ↑Wed May 21, 2025 10:10 pm2) Are there any systems out there that do light V heavy attacks well? Meaning both are valid life choices.
There is no to-hit roll. Instead you just roll damage with a variable size die depending on weapon - d4 daggers, d12 great axes, etc. A 1 on a damage die indicates a miss, and a maximum indicates a critical hit, which explodes the die and bypasses armor (which is a big deal). So different sized weapons let you slide along a spectrum from unreliable but armor piercing to reliable higher average damage.
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Bigdy McKen
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Re: Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered
Yeah you pretty much guessed it.deaddmwalking wrote: ↑Thu May 22, 2025 1:28 pm
They weren't quadrants, but more like 'elevation lines'. Like the area was generally sloping up, so the bottom left corner of the map was a zone, then there was a band that was zone 2, then a weirdly shaped y that made up zone 3, and the two other zones were 4 and 5. Something like that. I think the idea was to sort of represent the terrain. So probably more like FATE style? I don't know how Fate would do a wide open field, so my guess is someone was trying to apply that type of logic to an open space???
Most games I’ve seen that reference “zones” are actually talking about range bands.
Zones in FATE are more narrative focused rather than tracking square footage, so if you staged a FATE combat in your dentists office the zones might be: waiting room; behind the check-in desk; hallway; exam rooms 1,2 and 3. A big open field would probably be divided up by elevation zones like the game you played.
Two of the pet peeves I have about weapon rules in D&D5 are:deaddmwalking wrote: ↑Fri May 23, 2025 4:56 pm
So we really wanted to encourage sneaky rogue type characters to use daggers rather than greatswords when dealing sneak attack, but we didn't want to make it so a greatsword COULDN'T get sneak attack.
We decided that ANYONE using a light weapon can add their Dexterity to damage in the same situations as Sneak Attack (opponent is flat-footed, or sufficient flanking, etc). And it sneaks with sneak attack. Light weapons also use Dexterity for attack bonus. If you're a high Dex character, a light weapon makes a lot of sense.
A one-handed weapon gets better base damage than a light weapon. Obviously with a one-handed weapon you can also use a shield. One-handed weapons can be used in two-hands (but don't have to be) so you can pick up 1 1/2x STR.
Two-handed weapons require 2-hands to wield, get the highest base damage, and get the 1.5x STR all the time. If you don't care about a shield and you're not a high Dex character, using a really big weapon makes sense.
Altogether, this has given various players enough reasons to differentiate and use different category of weapons in addition to different types.
1. Versatile weapons. There’s not much insensitive to use a long sword two-handed. Either you want to wear a shield, or you want to just swing a great sword.
2. Finesse weapons. This shouldn’t be a thing at all. Just make it so ALL light weapons can use DEX instead of STR. Even for stuff like handaxes and clubs. Nightwing and Daredevil dual wield clubs, and they’re both obviously DEX based.
Seems like your paradigm allows for this better than wotc’s.