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Re: Simplified OD&D Combat that Scales « Reply #30 on Jul 30, 2012, 8:22am »
I think waysoftheearth had two objectives rolled into one, essentially to minimise the tedium of fights between high HD opponents (which is still a worthy goal) while also questioning the validity of the design behind the effect of longer fights.
"Professional bouts are usually much longer than amateur bouts, typically ranging from ten to twelve rounds, though four round fights are common for less experienced fighters or club fighters" reinforcing the notion that experience equates with stamina
It is also possible to consider that with experience defense skill increases faster than attack skill. Translated to D&D abstraction that would be HPS increase faster than Damage Per Round with level.
There is an example from rugby of this where for about eight years at the top level in the game Defense dominated making tries very hard to come by and the international rules body made changes to the rules so that referees could penalise certain kinds of technical defense activity which was up to now considered perfectly legal.
There may be some principle behind this that it is easier to improve your defense than your attack with knowledge and experience.
It is my suspicion that the multiple attack roll combat would be a "game of attrition" over a few rounds, with a few smaller hits being scored here and there. While the multiple damage roll combat might instead be a case of "first hit wins"
Between them the two approaches allow the DM to have good control over the flavour of his combats.
Granularity favours the combatant who on paper should win even if his advantage is very slight and we are talking about evenly matched opponents here.
More telling, less frequent, blows increase the uncertainty of the outcome especially if fights last only 3-5 rounds, though there would be little difference between the methods if fights last longer.
I suspect player personality would be a strong influence on which approach works best.
Joined: Nov 2012 Gender: Male Posts: 1,554 Location: Austin TX USA Karma: 152
Re: Simplified OD&D Combat that Scales « Reply #32 on Jul 30, 2012, 10:40am »
Boxing and UFC type matches are not entirely applicable to D&D combat due to one factor: the intent is not to kill the other guy. I seem to recall reading in RAH's "Starship Troopers" a description of a brawl with a squadmate "taking a long time" because they weren't "trying to kill each other"?
Boxing and UFC type matches are not entirely applicable to D&D combat due to one factor: the intent is not to kill the other guy. I seem to recall reading in RAH's "Starship Troopers" a description of a brawl with a squadmate "taking a long time" because they weren't "trying to kill each other"?
Does that seem a reasonable point to raise?
I've been thinking along the same lines overnight.
It's worthwhile noting, I think, that a boxer wears gloves specifically designed to prevent serious injury, and rests are taken to enable the contestants to recover and continue to fight. In a lethal combat, weapons are employed that are specifically designed to cause mortal injury, and resting is generally not allowed.
All this says to me simply that lethal combat should be shorter than non-lethal combat. Probably much shorter.
But the general principle that is observed in boxing bouts -- that professionals have more staying power than amateurs -- probably holds true for lethal combat also.
The unanswered question is: How much longer?
Unless somebody manages to dig up some statistics on duration of lethal duels fought in the middle ages, we will probably never know. So in the absence of this information, I think it is pretty reasonably to "guess", and also to go with what delivers an exciting gaming experience.
Joined: Mar 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 273 Location: Fayetteville, GA Karma: 5
Re: Simplified OD&D Combat that Scales « Reply #34 on Jul 31, 2012, 2:33am »
With regards to Simon's OP: Am I missing something very important? What I see is simply replacing 'Player rolls to hit and damage once a round and does so over x rounds.' with 'Player rolls to hit and damage x times in one round.' Time at the table would be practically the same, yes?
With regards to Simon's OP: Am I missing something very important? What I see is simply replacing 'Player rolls to hit and damage once a round and does so over x rounds.' with 'Player rolls to hit and damage x times in one round.' Time at the table would be practically the same, yes?
That's essentially it Machfront, excepting that the scale of change is exaggerated as HD/level increases. Thus, nothing is different at level 1, a little is different at level 2, and so on, all the way up to it's a whole lot different at level 16.
Whether rolling batches of attacks is quicker at your game table than rolling them individually will depend a lot on the play style at your table, but in my experience the actual rolling of attacks and figuring the results is not what occupies most of the real time elapsed each round. More real time is taken up by players deciding what to do and otherwise "faffing about" (in a most constructive way, of course). So in that scenario, batching attacks could reduce the amount of real time required to resolve a combat quite considerably.
One of the goals of this whole bit was to keep combat "exciting" at all levels of play by keeping it short, even at high level. If you play by the book, a high level combat could potentially drag out for 20 (or more!) rounds which could (possibly?) get be a bit droll. On the other hand, if you use the system suggested in the OP, or something similar to it, combats will probably be done in half a dozen rounds at any level.
Another goal was to simplify to complex interplay between attack matrices, multiple attacks and variable damage that exist when you play by the book because it is not easy for new players to grasp. I reckon that the suggested method is simpler than by the book, and therefore easier for new players to grasp.
Joined: Sept 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 1,217 Location: Melbourne, Australia Karma: 195
Re: Simplified OD&D Combat that Scales « Reply #36 on Jul 31, 2012, 5:01pm »
Having thought about this overnight, I realise that two other things were achieved by my proposed system:
1) A fighter's performance improves smoothly against all opponents, rather than improving dramatically versus 1HD opponents and trivially against all others.
2) The balance of power has been shifted in contests between unevenly matched opponents. For example, a Troll (with 6 HD) would throw three attacks (as a 1 HD monster) each dealing 1d6 damage. Meanwhile, a 1st level PC still throws 1 attack per round. The same is true for all monsters.... the more HD they get, the deadlier they are!
Joined: May 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 308 Location: Ohio Karma: 27
Re: Simplified OD&D Combat that Scales « Reply #37 on Jul 31, 2012, 9:33pm »
d20 + 1 + Target AC >= 20 forever.
All damage is 1d6 and all characters/monsters gain an additional attack per round for every odd level attained.
Simple and easy to remember. Though, beyond weapon restrictions, advancement rates, or the possibility for weapon vs. AC modifiers--what can we do to differentiate combat capability between the classes, if at all?
Third level fighters, thieves, clerics, and magic-users are all throwing 2d20 and dealing 1d6 damage.
All damage is 1d6 and all characters/monsters gain an additional attack per round for every odd level attained.
Simple and easy to remember. Though, beyond weapon restrictions, advancement rates, or the possibility for weapon vs. AC modifiers--what can we do to differentiate combat capability between the classes, if at all?
Third level fighters, thieves, clerics, and magic-users are all throwing 2d20 and dealing 1d6 damage.
Nice summary Verhadan
If you changed it to:
All damage is 1d6 and all characters/monsters gain an additional attack per round for every odd HD attained.
Then 3rd level PCs are already differentiated by number of HD.
The "issue" with this progression (if you want to call it that) is that it isn't as steady a rise. 2 attacks is 200% as good as 1 attack, but 3 attacks is only 150% as good as 2 attacks, and so on. That's why I calculated the "1/2" attacks for HD in between up to level 9.
But it's true that being super easy to remember is a big plus
Re: Simplified OD&D Combat that Scales « Reply #39 on Nov 11, 2012, 5:43pm »
I have been thinking recently of a similar alternative for OD&D combat: allow one attack roll for every hit die of the attacker, with any pluses to hit dice being added to one of the attack rolls. The to hit number for all attack rolls is 20, minus the armor class of the target. Each successful attack inflicts 1d6 damage. (Combatants with more than 1 hit die receive additional attacks against all other combatants, not just against combatants with one or fewer hit dice.) Combatants of 1/2 hit die receive one attack roll with a -2 penalty to the roll.
This converts the hit dice stat into an attack rating. Intuitively, a fighter should be able to make more attacks than a character of another class of the same experience level, and this system ensures that. It also requires no new attack stat to be introduced to the game.
I hesitate to use it in my campaign for two reasons. One is that one of the advantages of being a high level character is that it gives you more time to decide whether to retreat from a fight before it's too late to retreat (because you're dead). Another is that it makes sense on a cinematic level (and perhaps on a simulation level) that fights between higher level combatants should last longer. But the variant I am proposing still seems promising.
Re: Simplified OD&D Combat that Scales « Reply #40 on Nov 12, 2012, 9:13pm »
I'd prefer a system where both damage and number of attacks go up. So a 4th level character does 2d6, an 8th 3d6, etc. That way the number of attacks doesn't get out of hand.
One additional thing. Using the same to-hit table for all creatures makes it trivially easy to use the weapons vs armor table.
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