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Monday, February 13, 2012

Fighters Versus Cannon-Fodder (Round Two)

Another change spurred by the skeleton TPK. In standard D&D, there's a rule about fighters getting multiple attacks at high level against weak, ordinary opponents, although the exact definition of "weak" varies from edition to edition (either 1 HD or less than 1 HD,) and 1st level fighters don't really benefit from that class feature. I think I'll change this to:
Fighters can fight off multiple weaker opponents; all the opponents must be the same, must not have any magical defenses, and must have total hit dice less than or equal to the fighter's hit dice.
That broadens the fighter's ability a bit, but keeps it simple to run. Those half-HD skeletons? A 1st level fighter can now fight two per round. Giant Rats, which I normally identify as d6/3 HD, can be fought three at a time. Ordinary vermin, which might be a flat 1 hp per creature, can be fought six at a time. But goblins at 1-1 HD must still be fought one at a time, normally, until the fighter reaches 2nd level.

2 comments:

  1. I like this, and further I like the semi-ambiguous "fight off" wording. I would probably interpret that as not multiple attacks, but rather a single attack and damage roll which just affected multiple targets (also with the idea being that all three of the targets become engaged in melee with the fighter).

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  2. @Brendan: Yep, I specifically worded it so you can treat it as either multiple attacks or one attack with multiple targets, and with one damage roll per target or one roll for all targets.

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