SWN Warrior Mod
A fun tweak I made that I'll share. Does anyone feel like the Warrior's attack bonus progression is just kinda bland? Obviously we don't need 5e powers and martial moves to make a fighter fun, but I'm not really fond of the fact that by mid game, a Warrior's attack bonus basically eclipses the highest AC of any enemy in the game. Rolling just feels kinda pointless. And since you're swinging with 95% accuracy most of the time, their ability to automatically hit once per scene becomes pointless. I don't really see the appeal of playing a Full Warrior, over a Partial. I get the same HP boost and all I lose is a small amount of accuracy that's already overtuned to the point of excess anyway.
To me, a more interestimg Warrior is one that does interesting things when they hit, rather than just hittimg every time. So I decided to port in the warrior features from ACKS, one of my favourite OSR games.
Warriors still get +1 to attack at 1st level, but will advance attack bonus every other level like everyone else. However, they get the following benefits in place of improved accuracy.
- Critical Hit on a roll of 19 or 20, dealing your weapon die's maximum damage.
- +1 Universal Damage Bonus at every odd numbered level.
- + 1 Cleave at every even numbered level. Any time you reduce an enemy to 0hp or score a critical hit, you may immediately make another attack against a target in range, using any remaining movement available to you. You cannot cleave if all of your readied weapons are out of ammo.
- All other Warrior features such as hit points and combat luck remain unchanged.
Partial Warriors crit only on a 20, and advance their cleave and damage bonus as if they were a Warrior of half their level.
So, warriors lose some accuracy starting at 3rd level, but instead hit harder, crit more, and chain attacks.