Fanatsy Combat for Chainmail Reforged

[jacar]

Hi all,

Pinching the idea from Finarvyn, I've decided to change the fantasy combat to the following idea.

Characters get a number of attacks based on the following schedule...

Fighting men get 1 die per level.
Clerics and Rogues get 1 die per 2 levels.
Magic Users get 1 die per 3 levels.

Hit numbers are based on AC.

AC 7 or more, 4+ to hit. You are squishy. (Light Armor)
AC 4-6 5+ to hit. You have some crunch. (Heavy Armor)
AC 3 or lower 6+ to hit. You are extra crunchy. (Full Armor)

Each hit causes a wound. Wounds can be healed in the usual ways with each die healed removing 1 wound. Wounds are also equal to the number of dice the creature/character has.

Magic swords add 1 die per +1 of the sword.
Magic Armor increases the Ac of the wearer but also reduces the number of enemy attack dice at the rate of 1 die per +1 of the armor/item (down to a minimum of 1).

The dice also translate into massed combat. Characters add there dice directly to the combat. There combat rating is always "Good" and their armor is based on the table above.

John

[snorri]

I can't agree more. Reading and re-reading od&d, I discovered an laternative to my 2d6 choice in E&S, which come from the Man-to-Man tables. Here's an extract of a project I'm working on - and on which we could unite forces. You'll see my conclusions are the same - and based on the assumption an Hit Dice is really a dice to hit, like in chainmail.


Fighting

Initiative and defense

During the first round of any fight, the one who decide to attack first strikes first, so the surprise has a decisive role. In case of doubt, roll 1d6 for each side, the best strikes and the other don’t. After, or in case of tie, attacks and defense are simultaneous.

Moves

All moves are done before any strike. When a foe is killed, his killer can advance or move by one case / square, so he can move several time if he kills several creatures in the same turn.

Attack

Each character has got a number of Hit dices (see character progression). Each turn of fight, he rolls these hit dices (d6) and check how much Hits he scores, according to the opponent armor class, according to the table below. Each Hit removes one Hit dice from an opponent, which wounds him and lowers his fighting capacity.

The attacker can choose how he shares Hits among his foes. If there are different armor class among foes, make sure divide the hits according to the scores. For example, attacking a foe in medium armor and another in heavy armor, 3HD fighter rolls 5, 5 and 6. He can hit the heavy armored for only one hit and the other for two hits.

Armor class Hit on
No armor 3-6
Light armor 4-6
Medium armor 5-6
Heavy armor 6

Defense

After first round, attack and defense are simultaneous. The side that rolls less hits deduces them from those of his opponent, and suffers only from the remaining. A wounded character has less Hit Dices, so rolls less dices for the fight. For example, a medium armored 3HD fighter attacks another one. He rolls 3, 5, 5 and its opponent 4, 1, 6. So the first one gets 3 Hits and the second 1, which means he loses 2Hit dices instead of 3. Next round, he will roll only 1 Hit dice.

Special situation

If, in any situation, a combatant is either in good or bad situation, like charging, being in cover, from above, from horse, blind, or anything loses, he will gain or lose Hit dice for attacks and defense, according to the referee judgment.

Death and healing

A 0 Hit Dice combatant is unable to fight – he can be saved and cured later if his side wins. Below 0, he’s dead, forever. If character has till Hit dices at the end of a fight, he regains it all after a rest. If he has been reduced to 0HD, he will need 1d6 days of rest before to regain them.

Morale

When a side in a fight is losing, they may retreat. Each time the situation turns bad (they’re outnumbered, they got a first dead, they lose one-third of their troops), they must check for morale by rolling a number of dice equal to their Hit dices. The first check needs 2 or more, and each subsequent roll in a fight needs one more.
Players Characters never check morale, unless they under some magical fear, but their followers do.

Saving thrown
Spells and some effects like poison, supernatural powers and so on can be avoided. The referee rolls a number of dice equal to the number of Hit dices of the character or monster. If there’s at least one 6 among the dices, the effect is avoided – or, for effects doing damages, helved (round up).

Actions

If a character wants to do any action other than fighting, which the result is uncertain, the referee may ask for a roll of Hit dices. According to the difficulty, he will ask for at least 4 (light difficulty), at least 5 (medium difficulty) or a 6 (very difficult). For example, Arghis, a hero with 5 Hit dices, wants to climb a very sheer cliff with his bare hands to escape a raging tyrannosaurus. The referees ask the player to roll 5 dices, with at least a 6: he rolls 1, 6, 3, 1 and 2. There’s one 6, so Arghis escape the T-ex just in time!

[jacar]

Very nice! The system works better for an RPG in your case with the extra detail on who strikes first and so forth. For me, things like morale and initiative are not important as initiative is rolled at the beginning of the battle and it goes predictably from there.

The 3-6 roll, for a massed combat game, is a bit much. I settled on light/heavy/armored for the protection grades. These not only define armor but also tell you of the battlefield roll the unit or character has. Light troops can be skirmishers. Heavier troops are strictly melee. Though 3-6 might be good for the peasant types.

Excellent idea with saving throw. Higher level characters will save lots but they will face more spells that hit for half damage on a save anyway.

For a skirmish game, I think you are onto something. This might work well as a replacement for the Man 2 Man rules.

[snorri]

yes, my intend was for a rpg rather than battle game (but 'im fond of having the smae system using for both, as I often uses skirmishes or even big battles during regular rpgs sessions - an heritage of BECMI).

What I like in this version, which more or less stick to the chainmail + od&d frame, is the possibility for a high level character to kill several opponents per round: you're a 4th level fighter, you roll 3 five and a 6, you got four orcs heads falling on the floor...

The "3-6" i for no armor at all. Clearly, it's for the poor magic-user - who more than ever must uses his spells to protect himself and have a rank of fighter between him and his foes.

I must still retool character classes in this frame.

[jacar]

Well, I'd be interested to see more as the ideas are really good. Plus, it will help me out in deciding how much to add.

[snorri]

I verified the calculation for number of die per level, to build classes, starting from M&M pp. 16 to 18. It seems me your proposal for : Fighting men get 1 die per level / Clerics and Rogues get 1 die per 2 levels. /Magic Users get 1 die per 3 levels. / is very seducing for its clarity, but don't fit very well these tables.

In facts, the rythm of the tables from M&M is non-linear and somewhat surprising, as at some level characters seems to decrease in power rather than improve. It could be discussed...

It seems the rythm of progression which would be closer would be:
- Fighting men get 1 die per level, with a +1 kicker (so 2 dices at level 1).
- Clerics/ monks and thieves/assassins get 1 die per levels.
- Magic Users get 1 die per 2 levels.

Note that from chainmail, fighting-men gain other avantages. The main one is that, when reaching Hero level (4th), it needs 4 hits in the same round, to kill them! It's a wonderful rule, because it means killing Conan-the-hero wearing a chain mail nees at least 4 times scoring a 5 or 6 during a round, to get rid of him - otherwise, it seems he's not even hurted. Still to tinker, but a punchy heroic inspiration from chainmail again.

[jacar]

One thing I would caution against, especially since you are using the multiple dice rule, is the "must take 4 hits (or whatever)" in 1 round to die. The reason is that you will make Heroes and Super Heroes out to be "One Man Wrecking Crews".

Here is an example.

A hero charges a unit of 1st level swordsmen...say 8 of them. Of these, perhaps 6 can fight him. Our hero rolls 4 dice and scores a hit for every 6...assuming the swordsmen are fully armored. The swordsmen roll 6 dice and must score 4 sixes to kill our hero. Not very likely.

Kick it up a notch. The swordsmen fighting a super hero do not stand a chance. They can't roll 8 hits.

Now, lets go toe to toe. My armored super hero vs your armored super hero. I get 8 dice and so do you. In order to win, someone needs to roll 8 6s!

Better to simply track wounds. It should be considerably easier than tracking HPs. You can use a numeric counter or keep a roster of hits.

John

[snorri]

That's mainly a matter of taste: this is why heroes are heroes. It makes him / her like a pulp-hero, very difficult to kill. In the situation you describe, 4 sixes on 6 dices is rare, but still porable (I don't know the propabilities, but games situations are more directed by murphy's rules than anything else, according to me experience). With such a system, you can easily simulates the best Wu Xia Pian movies - that's proves that Chainmail is a really efficient system Sure, this reduces the ryhtm of mortality of characters, but I'm not among the DM's who focusses on that apsect of the game (note that attacking the same hero unarmored, scoring 4 "4to6" in a round is far much easier... it gives plenty of secnarios ideas).

The "Super-hero" description in Chainmail states that they're 2 times as powerful as heroes, but don't gives so much precisions. So, this is not necessary to consider it needs 8 Hits to kill them, 4 could be enough as heroes (but, the "needs 8" reading is correct as well, taht's a matter of choice).

The main question is what happen to 5HD hero when he gets 4hits. Is he killed or does he still gets 1 hit? There is space for thinking / tinkering there.

[jacar]

Keeping what one thing means or another aside, I think we can agree that the hero rolls 4 dice for attacking and needs for simultaneous hits to die. So, a hero vs a hero is easy to calculate. It is (1/6)^4 (^4 is to the 4th power) . It works out to .08% chance of one hero or another dieing. It would be considerably worse for the super hero. I guess that's why they went with the fantasy combat table.

[snorri]

Yes, I agree the hero vs hero could be a problem and a limit for such an option. In Chainmail, "When meleed by regular troops, and combat takes place on the non-Fantasy Combat Tables,
four simultaneous kills must be scored against Heroes (or Anti-heroes) to eliminate them." so this could apply only when fighting creatures with than 3HD - but this is rather a complication. I will think about it.

What about wounds? Do they actually reduces the numbers of dices a characetr roll?

[jacar]

What about wounds? Do they actually reduces the numbers of dices a characetr roll?

I'd say no. Just like ODnD. They are just a measure of the characters HPs or whatever.

[snorri]

I read again carefuly the mysterious Hero description from Chainmail, and found a solution about '4 hits to kill': it don't apply to other heroes (in this case, the fantasy tables apply), but only to normal units. Even if we stick with the Full Hit Dice system, it could apply only to 1to3 HD creatures, or even to HD creatures only - considering they're the 'normal' unit. So it keeps both the 'wuxia effect' and the playability.

Formulation:

"When a Hero (4HD) or better level character fights against 1HD creatures, they must score at leats 4 Hits in a single round to kill him. Otherwise, their attacks have no effect."

[jacar]

read again carefuly the mysterious Hero description from Chainmail, and found a solution about '4 hits to kill': it don't apply to other heroes (in this case, the fantasy tables apply), but only to normal units. Even if we stick with the Full Hit Dice system, it could apply only to 1to3 HD creatures, or even to HD creatures only - considering they're the 'normal' unit. So it keeps both the 'wuxia effect' and the playability.

Formulation:

"When a Hero (4HD) or better level character fights against 1HD creatures, they must score at leats 4 Hits in a single round to kill him. Otherwise, their attacks have no effect."

So we then go back to the beginning. How do you handle wounding for super natural/fantasy creatures? Wounds?

[snorri]

Yes. 1 Hit per Hit dice, so no need to roll for damages. Quick and easy, but to be tested. I will write some proposlas for classes as such. For sure, it joins both Finarvyn and Jason views on od&d + chainmail. I would agree with Jason than, as this will keep the system far from ad&d, we could use all the od&d classes (so fighter, magic-user, cleric, thief, paladin, ranger, bard, assassin, monk and druid - did I forget some?)

[jacar]

OD&D classes

Basic
Fighter, Magic User, Cleric

Greyhawk
Paladin, Thief

Blackmoor
Assassin, Monk

Eldritch Wizardry
Druid

I believe that is it...except for the Elven Adventurer of course.

[Falconer]

Strategic Review #2
Ranger

Strategic Review #4 & The Dragon #1
Illusionist

Strategic Review #6
Bard

The Dragon #2
Alchemist

[thegreyelf]

Falconer, have an exalt just for being an encyclopedia of OD&D (and Tolkien) knowledge.

[jacar]

May 20, 2009 23:47:37 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Strategic Review #2
Ranger

Strategic Review #4 & The Dragon #1
Illusionist

Strategic Review #6
Bard

The Dragon #2
Alchemist

What is this strategic review your speak of? Give me the secrets and remain in favor with the Emperor! ;D

Seriously, never actually heard of Strategic review Falconer. Dragon, yes. SR, no.

[Falconer]

TSR’s first publication, and predecessor to The Dragon Magazine. There were seven issues, published from Spring 1975 till April 1976. PM me if you need more information about them.