Improving 52 Pages: Fighter and Rogue Combat Powers

Part of developing the 52 Pages Next, the Expert-like rules extension for my game, involves coming up with alternate powers (feats, whatever) for fighters and rogues as well as what they can do at 5th level. Well, here they are:

It bears repeating my design philosophy here: powers should add effects without adding decisions that slow down play. Most of them are either straight bonuses,consequences on things that happen anyway in combat, or "cool things that happen on this die roll." I find this is vital so as not to slow down the pace of Basic-derived D&D, where the tactical decisions should be less "which power should I use now" and more "how do I position myself and use weapons to best advantage?"

As I prepare for converting my existing Band of Iron players to the very latest version of 52 Pages - they've been playing the 2011 version for some time now - I realize that they've grown very fond of their Whirlwind and Quickshot feats - they really light up when they roll a 5 or 15 for their extra attack, even though these are underpowered compared to my new powers which give you 5 numbers to get an extra attack. So, I souped them up a little and added a couple more.

Yes, Weaponmaster is a little tribute to the old Rules Compendium stuff. I had to think hard on impaling to not create super-ridiculous archers with +d6 damage when ambushing, potential +d6 from Deadshot,and double damage (Runequest style) on top of that. I think the die minimum answer is a nice compromise.

Oh yeah, elves and dwarves now get one feat at level 5.

52 Pages Awesomeness Triage: Rogue (vs. Fighter)

Here's the current version of the rogue class in 52 Pages.

A rogue can shoot OK and fight using Dexterity. Speed save is the specialty, also boosted by high DEX. In skills, which depend on a d6 roll, the rogue starts with +1 in all except Knowledge, gains two instead of one skill points per level, and with a likely high Dexterity will get a further +1 on stealth and acrobatics.

As for the rogue's powers, what sort of combat role are they supposed to encourage? I suppose I would answer that the rogue is supposed to attack from back or side, rather than head on ... to use attacks from distance or from ambush as protection, rather than layers of metal armor ... to excel against a single opponent, rather than hewing through a horde like the fighter ... to be spontaneous and unpredictable instead of solid and reliable.

Looking back at how the rogue has played out (chiefly at the hands of my wife, who runs one in the main campaign), one of the abilities flatly fails at the above goals ... one is rarely used ... and the third works, but tends to lead to rules wrangling, so needs clarification.

Distraction is the one that's rarely used. It's a neat idea but has just too many uses, and is unreliable.

Active Defense is the one that effectively gives the rogue plate mail at mid-levels. Very little is stopping such a character from becoming a front-line bruiser. The rogue should be afraid to get hit, not confident in fancy footwork toe-to-toe.

Ambush is strong, and in character for almost all the desired points - it rewards striking from hiding as well as circling around behind, is no good against an army, and adds an extra unpredictable die of random damage. The only problem is, I haven't been enforcing "from behind" consistently, instead leaving the impression that it works only if the opponent is totally oblivious of the rogue's existence. Another bit of uneasiness came from one incident where the rogue played whack-a-mole, ducking down and scooting around behind a single piece of cover in order to get the bonus repeatedly.

I guess my sense is that these features make the class too strong, in concert with the really high AC bonus. So let's look at the proposed improvement.

Now, you get two powers at each level to the fighter's one to compensate for a lower hit die, lighter weaponry, and slightly worse attack. One is a mobility power and the other a combat power. Steal Away's hit and run is crucial for early-level survival, while Ambush is the basic incentive to sneak and Steal Past. You can't really whack-a-mole any more - but you do get the honest backstab bonus as a reward for maneuvering.

The Opportunity Strike and Exploitation Attack are just versions of the new fighter's bonuses. They key off high numbers rather than low in keeping with the rogue's erratic nature, versus the fighter's reliable nature. They are slightly less useful in that they possibly can lead to overkill or a useless attack.

52 Pages Awesomeness Triage: Fighter

It's been 17 months of playing with various forms of my 52 Pages rules, including a continuous campaign and over a dozen pick-up sessions, working with character levels from 1 to 5.

In this infrequent series of posts I'm going to share my thoughts about what works and what doesn't in various aspects of the game. I'll also try and fit the classes into a crude kind of balance structure that can perhaps be exploited later on to create modular prestige and NPC classes, trying to resolve the prestige class conundrum I posed earlier in the week. We'll start out with Mr. Meat and Potatoes, the fighter.

As it should be - he has top-notch hit points (+2 on each die), starting attack, and is unrestricted in the armor he can wear and weapons he can use. Wizards gain special powers as they advance, and a little bit of extra fighting capacity; fighters gain fighting capacity as they advance, with a little bit of special powers. The saves are fairly weak, with an advantage over the zero-level +3/+5/+7 only in Body.

What about the powers I've been giving to fighters?

In actual play, the Follow Through rule has been a huge hit. Fighter players love getting another attack (really, the Arneson "chop 'n' drop" version of the AD&D rule that gave multiple attacks against low-level critters). It makes the players cheer. And all this despite the fact that if you hit half the time, and kill half the time, and hit again half the time for an average of 5 damage, the feat is only worth 5/8 extra damage per round.

Not so much the "force/finesse" thing. It's easy to forget, and sometimes the results are underwhelming. The scaling to die size is awkward. It's not really missed.

The fate of my feats, gained at odd levels, is also uneven. The players only seem to choose, appreciate, or even remember the feats that give them extra attacks. The feats occupy two whole pages, and it's hard to decide what a standard high-level NPC fighter should have on that basis. From which we can derive this awesomeness rule:

Getting Extra Stuff (not bonuses) is Awesome. Extra dice, extra attacks.

So for 52 Pages Basic 2.0 I'm removing feats, and giving fighters standard, more awesome-feeling bonuses at odd levels. It will be possible to customize classes by swapping out powers, which is part of the reason I want these kind of effects to be comparable in power.

At level 3, you get something that's in line with a Fighter: dependability, reliability, guaranteed damage based on extra dice. This is balanced more or less with follow-through: it gives about a half of a point extra damage per round.

At level 5, you get what turns out to be one extra attack every 5 rounds. In keeping with the reliable nature of the Fighter, this second chance attaches to low rolls rather than high.

It's the easiest thing, now, to switch out these bonuses and have them trigger off high rolls rather than low, for a swashbuckler rather than ol' dependable flavor. But at least there's now a basic-feeling standard to riff from, for this basic version of my game.

D&D Next: Two Worlds of Gaming

Slowly through conversations with players I'm getting a feeling for what happened in gaming around 1980 and around 1995, and how the legacies of those watersheds affect people's reactions to game innovations now.

Neither of these dates is exact, but they each represent a middle point of a process of change. There are plenty of intentional throwbacks after, some unintentional look-forwards before. But in general, games have evolved (devolved?) toward:

I have to roll a 6 to get out? What?

Low death, low frustration. Before 1980 or thereabouts frustration was an acceptable part of a game's modeling of life. This was just as true for computer games, as board games, as role-playing. OD&D's 1 hit point characters = Nethack's play-until-character-death = Dungeonquest's brutal, random death at every corner. "Stay in jail" mechanics were OK in board games back then, too (Source of the Nile, Mystic Wood...).

The AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide removed much of death's sting through a "death's door" rule covering survival from zero and negative hit points (not at all evident in the earlier Player's Handbook). Save-or-die poison took longer to go, being finally purged for good in 3rd Edition. Computer games have shown a similar exorcism of frustration, moving from no saving of game state, to save points, to continual saving. State-of-the art design today for many casual games even gives progress for failed attempts, so that eventually the game will be defeated. Time is the commodity here, as always, but the message is "you didn't succeed" not "you failed."

"Activate Mrs. White's Rolling Pin Flurry!"

Character powers for all. This broadly refers to things a character can do distinct from other characters, but more specifically combat moves that can be customized. The move toward this feature in 3rd and 4th editions usually gets blamed on computer gaming, but plenty of computer games in the 1980's and 90's used the standard D&D paradigm, where classes without spells only get to bash, shoot and hack using the standard combat procedure.

The origin of feats and the like in tabletop gaming can probably be traced to the prevalence of special character moves in fighting console games, and to increasing modularity and customization in the gaming world under the influence of collectible card games.

On to the present day.

D&D Next, as much as it draws from the old school, also has strong representation from these two concerns in the system. It's obvious that hit points are numerous, the margin of safety for low-level characters is great, and healing remains as available as in 4th edition. It's also obvious that classes, races, and "paths" each come with an addition to a suite of powers that can leave a 3rd level character looking at 3-5 different combat traits and moves.

And now my confession: My campaign players expect these features to some extent, steeped as they are in MMOs. And so on both counts I have gone about half the way that D&D Next appears to have done. I used a "death & dismemberment" system at 0 hit points or below that is scary, but in practice merciful. Save or die poison is a bridge we haven't had to cross, but I'm inclined to offer multiple saves on poison (one to be seriously incapacitated and one to die.) Meanwhile, class powers and fighting feats in my game are running about half the count of D&D Next, but still give enough of a sense of things to do.

To put it shortly: In order to compete with my homebrew, D&D 5th Edition is going to have to give me the option to cut down on the bones it throws to millennium-era gaming, and let me run a game at my desired level of "old world charm and new world convenience."

The Rest of the Feats

And here they are.

One type of design idea I toyed with but ultimately rejected because it's a losing proposition as characters fight bigger and tougher things: the intimidate/overbear/stun type of feat that can't realistically be carried out by a 6 foot person against a 60 foot dragon.

The hit point recovery feats are also edging on non-combat, protecting as they do against falling and trap damage. Which raises the question: here are the combat feats; is there any use to having non-combat feats, keeping in mind that most situations of observation, athletics, handicraft and knowledge are covered in my game by a very general and simple skills system?

DEX feats and Combat Sequence

To explain my feats, I need to show you my combat sequence.

Click to enlarge

It's your standard neo-Holmesian Missile, Magic, Move, Melee with a few twists added. Making the phase 6 move a major action creates a "sticky" engagement zone where you have to give up an attack in order to withdraw, if there is no friend fighting the same enemy to cover your retreat. I like this; it's a much more elegant way to implement the "free attack on you" rule for disengaging that evolved into the nightmare of attacks of opportunity. After several sessions using this sequence it seems to work fairly smoothly.

And, the six feats that depend on Dexterity, although some of the requirements are quite easy to meet. All of them are roughly balanced in the manner I outlined last post, but considering the movement ones are hard to match against the attack ones. Which ones would you take? Do the attack feats need to be stronger? My players are approaching 3rd level and they need to know soon!

Next: Strength feats and maybe some others.

High-Level Combat: Designing Feats

In the Wizards editions of D&D, much is made of the tactical depth that the plethora of feats and skills gives to combat. This is part of a conscious decision to make fighter-types as interesting to play as classes that must make tactical and strategic choices among spells and skills.

I say "Bah to that!" and "Yay to dumb fighters!" Well, not exactly dumb; even when doing little more than tracking positioning in a fight, knowing how to use that can mean the difference between life and death. But in my view of the class archetypes, fighters are intentionally the straightforward ones. They don't have to make as many hard choices that are tied in with their class powers, and that is a good thing that serves the diverse needs of players.

Of course, this doesn't mean that playing a fighter has to be boring. In my house rules, awesome and interesting things happen to fighters without any choice. I use Arneson's "chop till you drop" rule to grant extra attacks when an enemy falls, as well as compensating low damage rolls  by having them inflict a critical effect on the enemy with some weapons (feats of force) and a fumble on the enemy with others (feats of finesse; I now reward low damage for both types of weapons, unlike the linked rule). Over some 8 sessions of play, these rules have proved to be fun and empowering without slowing down play.

It's the rogue - not just thieves in my view, but all kinds of light fighter - that I envision as using optional feats more effectively. But even for this goal, math-crunching can really take away from immersion in the game. An all-out attack where you get +2 to hit and -2 to armor class, for instance, can be wildly more effective depending on the relative to-hit ability and armor class of yourself and your opponent. Against someone you're hitting only on a 19, that doubles your effective damage. But if you're hitting on an 11 and your opponent hits only on a 19, that gives you only 20% increase in potential damage while doubling your opponent's. I want you to use your Piercing Stab not because you have calculated it increases your Actuarial Expected Damage Coefficient (AEDC) by 24%, but because you observe that the plates of the dragon are thick and scaly.


Which feats to take should mainly be a strategic, character-level rather than tactical choice. It should be back-loaded onto higher levels, so it doesn't encumber character creation. Also, the mathy figgering-out should be done by the rules designer rather than the player, trying to keep things as balanced as possible. For instance, do you want each feat on average to give the equivalent of +2 to hit (MATH CORRECTED)? This means, assuming a 50% chance to hit the typical opponent, the feat improves the chance by 20% (50% / 50%); 20% of the average damage per round, 2.5, is a half point of damage per round. It also means that an extra chance to hit (including gaining initiative or opponents being incapacitated from a critical hit effect) is worth 2.5 damage, so to be balanced it should happen about 1/5 (20%) of the time. This is roughly in line with the 1/6 to 1/4 chance of a crit/fumble my "feats of force and finesse" rule gives.

Defensive bonuses are harder to balance out, depending as they do on the relative hit probabilities and hit point totals involved. Anyway, I'm ruling these out as feats because a straight AC bonus prolongs fights, and this is anathema to our goal of making them more fun. Any defense will come as a side-effect of feats such as being able to disengage from combat without penalty, or maneuver into a position where fewer foes can hit. I'm also not ruling out hit point recovery mechanisms mirroring the bonus damage amount (about 1 hp every other combat round), making the most of the concept of hit points as player confidence and morale.

Next: OK, OK, some actual feats.

High-level D&D Combat: Existing Solutions

How to make D&D combat between hit point juggernauts different from combat between glass-jaw first-levels, but fun at the same time?

One option for reaching a Conanesque height of excitement in every fight is just, you know, don't play D&D. Play an abstract system like Tunnels & Trolls where any level of combat is over quickly. But the trouble with T&T, as we discussed, is that the fights are not detailed enough to give a sense of evolution over time.



Immortal level: was this any fun?

 OK, so play a fixed-hits system like Runequest where every fight could be a character's last if the dice roll badly. But the trouble with fixed-hits systems is that players actually want to protect their high-level characters with the Kevlar of massive hit points. Now, this goal can be achieved by having something like "fate points" that are spent only in the most mortal bind. Indeed, realistic-combat-plus-safety-net is a design solution that most systems converge toward once they leave hit points behind. It's easily enough implemented in a D&D framework, but it also takes the game away from one of the defining characteristics of D&D.

I know they're much reviled among the Old School, but the Wizards editions of D&D were developed with an eye toward player experience at all levels, and their solution was to give higher-level characters more feats and options in combat. In 3rd and 4th editions, you're too busy using your great variety of combat moves to realize that this fight has taken 20 rounds as you go to town on a 200 hit point colossal dire wombatborn ear seeker. Dismiss it as you may, I think I'd rather play that way at high levels than just step up, roll d20 and swing for 20 rounds.

But why should the combat take 20 rounds? The E6 approach to 3rd edition aims at making big monsters a bigger challenge by capping hit point advancement at level 6, while allowing the addition of feats and skills to give the sense of some kind of advancement, as well as the aforementioned qualitative increase in combat options. If you're facing something really terrible - like going up solo against a stegosaurus - you're still going to want to grab at all the dirty tricks you can. Hell, I'm not sure the actual Conan stories are set in anything more than an E3 world.

Of course, loading up on feats has disadvantages for those who want a quick and easily improvised game, where you can just drop a 6th level fighter into the mix without worrying what exactly his epic smorgasbord of moves looks like. Can we get a feat list that's shorter, not longer, than a wizard's spell list? Are there any other ways to speed and spice up high-level combat without leaving the assumptions of D&D?

More on that next.