AIP8 - Musing on the attack rollΒΆ

author:leo
date:2015-01-03
status:Exploration

This is just musing, not anything beyond that.

In an ideal world (IMHO) NWN would not have a pseudo-turn based system but would rather mimic those features with attack speed and a global cooldown. Given that those things are not possible the following ideas are somewhat shoehorned in.

### Goals

So, what are some of the goals?

  • The system should be simple, easily calculatable, and efficiently implementable.
  • Players should be able to hit much more often than not.
  • There shouldn’t be massive outliers that break the system or are worthless.

### Offense

#### Attack Progression

So to begin, I would leave the classes in their respective attack progression tiers, but instead of Base Attack Bonus would use a base chance to hit when attacker level equals defender level on the first attack.

Tier Base Hit Chance Classes
1 90% Fighter, WM, DwD, DD, ...
2 75% Bard, Monk, Cleric, ...
3 60% Wizard, Sorcerer, PM...

#### Base Hit Chance

The final Base Hit Chance would be the average of all levels. Example:

F 30, WM 13, R 17:
(30 * 90%) + (13 * 90%) + (17 * 75) / 60 = 85.75%

#### Modified Hit Chance

I’ve chosen for the first pass at this to not included Ability Scores as a modifier. The reason being that they already modify and shape the nature of your character. You might wonder if that meant you could have a constitution based fighter/wm and the answer to that would be sure, if you want to give up the benefits of other ability scores.

Modifiers

  • Class (i.e. WM, AA) * These would have to be somewhat re-gigged potential, but lets say +2% per attack bonus.
  • Feats * +2% for WF, +4% for EWF
  • Attack/Enhancement Bonus * +1% per to the 20% cap.
  • Level Differential * This would then be modified by 2% per the level differential between attacker and defender.
  • Modes * See the Adjuncts section below.

Modified Chance = Base Chance - ((Defender Level - Attacker Level) * 2%) + AB Bonus + Class Bonus + Feat Bonus.

Using the example above with a mithril weapon, with EWF. Example:

85.75% + 8% (AB) + 6% (Feat) + 6% (Class) = 105.75%

Note that the Modified Chance can go above 100%, even tho you can’t hit more than 100% of the time it still affects your following attacks.

#### Iteration penalty.

Didn’t think too much about this so I’ll just throw out these:

  • Non-monk: -10%
  • Monk: -5%

### Defense

#### Armor Class

Rather than have armor class be compared to attack bonus. Armor Class would determine defensive bonuses dependent on the type of armor worn.

Armor Benefit
Light/Robes AC / X % concealment.
Heavy AC / Y damage resistance.
Medium A combination of Light and Heavy

Notes: * These would stack with effects. * This might require spell/class changes. * They would be capped. * Unlike AB, there would be no obvious means of dealing with AC surpluses.

### Adjuncts

#### Combat Modes.

I believe in normal PnP, a character could chose to how these were applied given circumstances that were faced.

Imagine a system where you could decided how much AB you gave up for a corresponding benefit and a corresponding chat command to set them, i.e. !powerattack 10

  • Power Attack: -1% per +1 Damage, Cap -10% / +10 Damage
  • Improved Power Attack: Same as above, but no cap.
  • Expertise: -1% per +1 AC, Cap -10% / +10 AC
  • Improved Expertise: Same as above, but no cap.
  • Dirty Fighting: -1% per 2% Sneak/Death Bonus, Cap: ???

#### Monsters

What about monsters? Well... monsters are irrelevant, no matter what system is in place – as long as it’s balanced – they can be tweaked to do whatever is desired of them.