d20 Fifth Element Games Ability Compendium I Manual of Gainful Exercise.pdf

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Ability Compendium TM I:

Manual of Gainful Exercise

(Printer-Friendly Edition)

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ritten by

eal Bailey, Iain Fyffe

Edited by

Iain Fyffe, Sean

unphy

esign and Layout by

Iain Fyffe

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Manual of Gainful Exercise

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part III: Skills and Feats

Skills

Part I: Using Your Strength

Feats

Attack and Damage Rolls

New Feats

Breaking Things

Carrying Capacity

Part IV: Prestige Classes

Special Attacks

Dreadnought

Strength Checks

Lionheart Evoker

Paragon of Strength

Part II: Playing the Strong

Strength and the Classes

Part V: Ability Aspects

Strong Archetypes

MANUAL of GAINFUL EXERCISE

INTRODUCTION

One of the enduring icons of the d20 System TM

fantasy game is the fighter. With his immense

strength, lack of fear and total disregard for personal

safety, the fighter forms the core of most

adventuring parties. He charges into melee with

little regard for personal safety, trusting his strength

and combat abilities to carry the day. The strong

fighter is an integral part of the d20 System TM , but is

often overlooked in favour of classes with flashier

special abilities.

From a real-world perspective, physical strength is

the one ability that is most easily increased. While

physical strength is certainly genetic to some degree,

it can be directly improved through training,

although muscle mass does not necessarily correlate

directly with physical strength. The same cannot be

said (to the same degree) of one’s coordination,

intelligence or personality.

Part I: USING YOUR STRENGTH

But the fighter has some significant advantages in

certain areas. First, due to his bonus combat feats, he

can specialize in any form of combat that he likes.

And second, since he does not have a lot of other

special abilities to spread his abilities around, he is

free to focus on his Strength, which gives him great

advantages in combat.

This is what the basic rules have to say about the

Strength ability.

Strength measures your character’s muscle and physical

power. This ability is especially important for fighters,

barbarians, paladins, rangers, and monks because it helps

them prevail in combat. Strength also limits the amount

of equipment your character can carry.

Without a doubt, Strength is most useful in combat.

The basic action of combat, the melee attack, is

modified by Strength by default. While other

abilities are most useful for their bonuses to skills or

spellcasting, Strength is most useful in melee. And

since melee is such an important part of the d20

System TM , Strength is also very important.

You apply your character’s Strength modifier to:

Melee attack rolls.

Damage rolls when using a melee weapon or a thrown

weapon (including a sling). Off-hand attacks receive

only one-half the character’s Strength bonus, while

two-handed attacks receive one and a half times the

Strength bonus. A Strength penalty, but not a bonus,

applies to attacks made with a bow that is not a

composite bow.

In the real world, there are at least two types of

physical strength, as defined by types of muscle

fibre: slow twitch and fast twitch. Slow twitch refers

to long-term endurance of strength, such as that of a

marathon runner. Fast twitch refers to short-term

endurance of strength, such as that of a sprinter. Fast

twitch is sometimes further subdivided into two

groups for more precision. Different people have

different amounts of each type of muscle fibre, and

as such have differing degrees of each type of

strength.

Climb, Jump, and Swim checks. These are the skills

that have Strength as their key ability.

Strength checks (for breaking down doors and the like).

While this is a concise summary of the uses of

Strength in the d20 System TM, it is incomplete. It

mentions Strength checks, but it does not detail the

many instances in which a Strength check is called

for. It also does not discuss the various situations in

which attack rolls are used.

In the d20 System TM , all physical strength is covered

by the Strength ability. This may not be wholly

realistic, but it is simple and straight-forward. For

those seeking more precision, however, this book

provides new rules, skills and feats which allow you

to define your character’s Strength in more detail.

In Part I, we will discuss the many and various ways

that Strength is used in the basic rules of the d20

System TM .

MANUAL of GAINFUL EXERCISE

ATTACK AND DAMAGE ROLLS

BREAKING THINGS

A character’s basic attack bonus with a melee

weapon is his base attack bonus + his Strength

modifier + his size modifier, if any. It does not matter

which melee weapon you are using; if you swing or

thrust it at your enemy, having a high Strength score

will help you. Characters with low Strength but high

Dexterity will often use the Weapon Finesse feat,

which allows a Dexterity modifier to be applied to

melee attack rolls with certain weapons rather than

a Strength bonus.

A character’s Strength modifier also applies

whenever he scores a hit with a melee or thrown

weapon, including a sling. A Strength penalty, but

not a bonus, applies on attacks made with a bow that

is not a composite bow. Only ½ of the normal

Strength bonus is applied to a weapon used in a

character’s off hand, and 1½ times the normal

Strength bonus is applied to a weapon used two-

handed, other than a light weapon.

When a character tries to break something with

sudden force rather than by dealing damage, he uses

a Strength check rather than an attack roll (the

sunder special attack; see below). The DC of the

check depends more on the construction of the item

than on the material, and is modified if the item has

lost half or more of its hit points.

Creatures get size modifiers on Strength checks to

break open doors as follows: Fine -16, Diminutive

-12, Tiny -8, Small -4, Large +4, Huge +8, Gargantuan

+12, and Colossal +16.

The are therefore two approaches to breaking down

a door. The first is to attack the door with your

weapon, using the sunder special attack. This

strategy gradually cuts the door away, and can take

several rounds or more. The second approach is to

merely bash the door down off its hinges all at once.

This requires a Strength check.

Clearly, a character with a high Strength score has a

great advantage in melee. Not only is he more likely

to hit with a melee attack, he causes more damage

when he does hit. This advantage is particularly

pronounced at lower levels, where a Strength bonus

can be more important than the base attack bonus in

determining a character’s attack bonus.

In either case, a high Strength score will help.

Choosing an approach in a particular situation

depends on the specific circumstances. If the door is

made of a very hard material, such as metal, clearly

sundering it will be very difficult and extremely

time-consuming. In such a case, breaking it down is

preferred. Breaking down doors is also preferred if

passage must be obtained in a hurry, such as when

the party is being pursued by angry ogres.

Sundering is preferred when the party has time to

work on the door, and the door is too well-

constructed to simply break down.

To illustrate, consider a case where a character with

a +1 base attack bonus is using a longsword to attack

an opponent with AC 15 and 8 hit points. Including

the possibility of critical hits, a character with

Strength 11 (no bonus or penalty to melee rolls) will

deal an average of just over 1.7 points per attack. It

will therefore take him 5 attacks to defeat this

opponent, on average.

CARRYING CAPACITY

Strength is used to determine a character’s carrying

capacity, which in turn determines how much

weight a character can carry before having a light

load, medium load, or heavy load, and suffering the

appropriate effects.

A character with Strength 18 (+4 bonus to melee

rolls) will deal an average of over 4.9 points per

attack. He will take 2 attacks, on average, to defeat

this opponent. He can defeat 2 to 3 times the number

of such opponents as the Strength 11 character can,

in the same amount of time.

However, carrying capacity does not only determine

how much gear and money you can carry. A

character’s load can also affect his AC, because of

MANUAL of GAINFUL EXERCISE

medium or heavy load limits the Dexterity bonus

that can be applied to his AC. It can also limit a

character’s base speed in the same way.

disarmed or your weapon sundered? If you have no

weapon, providing a +2 attack bonus to your ally

may be worthwhile. Or perhaps you are engaging a

creature that has Damage Resistance that you cannot

overcome, but your ally can. In such a case the loss

of your attack means little. You can instead give an

ally who does have an effective weapon a nice bonus

to his attack roll.

Therefore Strength can indirectly affect both your

AC and your movement rate, if you carry a lot of

equipment.

SPECIAL ATTACKS

You can also use your Strength bonus to grant an

ally a +2 AC bonus. Again, with the aid another

action in combat, you make a melee attack roll

(which is modified by Strength) against AC 10, and

if successful, you can grant your ally a +2 AC bonus

against the opponent’s next attack. If your ally is

getting low on hit points, and is the focus of the

opponent’s attacks, you can use your Strength

modifier to grant a defensive bonus to a friend.

Besides basic hack-and-slash tactics, Strength is very

important to many types of special attack as well.

AID ANOTHER IN COMBAT

The basic rules say:

In melee combat, you can help a friend attack or defend by

distracting or interfering with an opponent. If you’re in

position to make a melee attack on an opponent that is

engaging a friend in melee combat, you can attempt to aid

your friend as a standard action. You make an attack roll

against AC 10. If you succeed, your friend gains either a

+2 bonus on his next attack roll against that opponent or

a +2 bonus to AC against that opponent’s next attack

(your choice), as long as that attack comes before the

beginning of your next turn. Multiple characters can aid

the same friend, and similar bonuses stack.

BULL RUSH

Bull rush attacks are resolved using opposed

Strength checks. If you’re successful, you push an

opponent back 5 feet. This maneuver can be used to

push an opponent into a square that is threatened by

one or more of your allies, possibly setting up a

flanking situation. Clearly, a high-Strength character

has an advantage when using a bull rush, and an

advantage when being attacked with a bull rush.

You can also use this standard action to help a friend in

other ways, such as when he is affected by a spell, or to

assist another character’s skill check.

You may notice that unlike an overrun or trip attack,

the defender in a bull rush does not have the option

of using his Dexterity modifier rather than his

Strength modifier. A bull rush can therefore be an

effective strategy to position a high-Dexterity

opponent where you want him.

You make an attack roll to aid another in combat.

While the attack roll is not specified to be a melee

attack roll, the fact that this option applies in melee

combat, when you are in position got make a melee

attack on an opponent, implies that it is. Strength

bonuses apply to melee attacks.

DISARM

An attempt to disarm is resolved with opposed

melee attack rolls, which again, are modified by

Strength by default. This means a strong character is

both more able to successfully disarm an opponent,

and less likely to be disarmed by an opponent.

You can therefore take advantage of your Strength

modifier to grant an ally a +2 attack bonus. If you

have a high Strength bonus, this is generally not a

worthwhile exercise, since you are giving up your

own attack (and resulting Strength-based attack

bonus and damage bonus) in order to provide the

bonus. But what about a case where you have been

If you are using a two-handed weapon (as many

strong characters do to get the additional Strength

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