Stonegiant
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
100% in Liar
Posts: 240
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Post by Stonegiant on Mar 25, 2008 7:41:59 GMT -6
Using the Chainmail combat fantasy system w/ OD&D; say your character is not of hero status, what would he roll to attack any of the fantastic creatures or would he not be allowed attack or would his attack be ineffective, etc.
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Post by coffee on Mar 25, 2008 11:08:00 GMT -6
Just offhand, I'd say his attack would be ineffective.
Although I could see a case for Hero -X, where X is how many levels below Hero the poor schmuck is. (I.e., first level would be Hero -3 -- ouch!) But at least it gives him a chance. Note that Clerics and Magic-Users would have effectively NO chance at such low levels.
Anyway, that's how I'd do it.
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jrients
Level 6 Magician
Posts: 411
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Post by jrients on Mar 27, 2008 10:03:36 GMT -6
I agree that the basic idea is that the attack would be ineffective, but I like coffee's alternative. Anyone that fights as a single Normal Man should be unable to make any effective attack on the fantasy combat matrix. But Veteran's aren't mere Normal Men, are they?
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Post by coffee on Mar 27, 2008 10:16:23 GMT -6
But Veteran's aren't mere Normal Men, are they? No, they're not. But how much does that actually help against, say, a Dragon? A Hero needs a 12 to 'hit' a Dragon on the Fantasy Combat Table. Start adding minuses (as I suggested above) and the Dragon becomes unhittable. Even if you allowed the Veteran the +1 from the Fighting Capability, he still couldnt' do it. Worse, that means he'd fight the same at 2nd level as he did at 1st. (Hero -3 +1 = Hero -2) The only enemies a Veteran would be able to hit would be a Hero, a Lycanthrope, a Troll/Ogre, or a Wight/Ghoul. Still, if he's the only member of a party who could hit those foes, I'd still want to allow it; otherwise, the party has no chance and I don't really like situations like that.
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Stonegiant
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
100% in Liar
Posts: 240
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Post by Stonegiant on Mar 27, 2008 11:39:39 GMT -6
But Veteran's aren't mere Normal Men, are they? No, they're not. But how much does that actually help against, say, a Dragon? A Hero needs a 12 to 'hit' a Dragon on the Fantasy Combat Table. Start adding minuses (as I suggested above) and the Dragon becomes unhittable. Even if you allowed the Veteran the +1 from the Fighting Capability, he still couldnt' do it. Worse, that means he'd fight the same at 2nd level as he did at 1st. (Hero -3 +1 = Hero -2) The only enemies a Veteran would be able to hit would be a Hero, a Lycanthrope, a Troll/Ogre, or a Wight/Ghoul. Still, if he's the only member of a party who could hit those foes, I'd still want to allow it; otherwise, the party has no chance and I don't really like situations like that. Wouldn't then the natural 12 take place of the natural 20; Also I think this kind of demonstrates why in the stories a dragon shows up and even the grizzled veteran runs for cover. The only hope a veteran would have in this situation would be the use of magic items (eg. The Black Arrow that belongs to Bard, The spear in the movie Dragonslayer, etc.). A lone infantryman can't rock a tank but give that grunt a TOW missile and he at least has a chance ;D
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Post by coffee on Mar 27, 2008 12:12:03 GMT -6
Wouldn't then the natural 12 take place of the natural 20 Yes, it would, if you're using that particular rule for critical hits. It would actually be more 'fair' (as in less common) than a natural 20; a natural 12 only comes up once in 36 rolls. And Chainmail indeed has rules for magic weapons. But they don't expect you to waste them on non-Hero types (so it would be Bard, or the Dragonslayer, or whoever, wielding them). On the other hand, a player character in D&D would just get the bonus from the weapon; it might be possible for him to still not hit (again, unless you're using a 'natural 12 always hits' rule.)
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 27, 2008 12:35:40 GMT -6
The only enemies a Veteran would be able to hit would be a Hero, a Lycanthrope, a Troll/Ogre, or a Wight/Ghoul. Which brings up the point that even in the traditional D&D combat system those are the only creatures on the Chainmail Fantasy Combat list that a 1st-3rd level character without a magic weapon would have any reasonable (if remote) chance of defeating in combat, so simply declaring that sub-Hero characters have 0 chance in combat against balrogs, dragons, elementals, ents, giants, rocs, superheroes, wizards, and wraiths (i.e. nazgul - spectres in D&D) is consistent with D&D combat (if expressed more harshly).
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Post by coffee on Mar 27, 2008 13:22:04 GMT -6
Exactly.
And I kind of prefer it that way. One problem I had with the whole "natural 20 always hits" rule is that it allowed first level characters a 5% chance of hitting anything. A dragon, a balrog, even a will o' the wisp (although AD&D modified this chance...).
This gives rise to the "well, the DM wouldn't throw this at us if he didn't think we could take it..." school of thought.
I like that there are some things you just can't touch, and that the wise player will run like hell when encountering them. To me, it's part and parcel of the old school learning curve.
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Post by Finarvyn on Apr 2, 2008 7:16:33 GMT -6
One problem I had with the whole "natural 20 always hits" rule is that it allowed first level characters a 5% chance of hitting anything. A dragon, a balrog, even a will o' the wisp (although AD&D modified this chance...). On the other hand, even if a first level character did score one lucky hit on the dragon, it's not like the dragon is likely to die because it has so many hit points. The first level character is probably toast in the second round, anyway. This reminds me of a game I ran 30 years ago where a guy with one hit point charged in to fight a demon instead of running away. 'Twas a glorious death. (Actually, he didn't inflict any damage before he died. And then he got mad about it.) I like that there are some things you just can't touch, and that the wise player will run like hell when encountering them. That's why I like to have certain monsters only be hit by magical weapons.
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Post by Stormcrow on Apr 3, 2008 14:57:21 GMT -6
When fighting against non-fantastic opponents in the Chainmail system, fantastic creatures have non-fantastic equivalents. In the case of dragons, "They melee as if they were four Heavy Horse being impervious to missile or melee hits in normal combat..."
Since dragons in D&D are more complex, you go by the hit dice of the dragon instead of the Chainmail note. "Attack/Defense capabilities versus normal men are simply a matter of allowing one roll as a man-type for every hit die..." (Monsters & Treasure) Dragons have 5–12 hit dice, so they'd roll 5–12 times(!) on Chainmail's Appendix A combat table under Heavy Horse, against the appropriate type of opponent. Veterans and Warriors can't hurt a dragon in combat, neither can magic-users lower than 7th level nor clerics lower than 6th level.
Note: against a fully-armored (standing) foe, that's still 10–24 dice, with rolls of 5–6 scoring hits!
Once you can fight as a Hero (even if at -1), you can fight dragons normally using the Fantasy Combat Table; both you and the dragon each get only one roll per round on this table.
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