Fighting capability

[snorri]

I plan to play bits of X1 with OD&D tomorow, and I was searching a way to have fights with dinos quicker, esaier and pulpier. So, for sure, I had once again a look on the "fighting capability", not from a Chainmail point of view this time, but on ho to use it within the alternative fighting system. So I compared with EPT - and remembered how Gary explained it's use as well. Then, figured how it could be understood alone.

My problem was I can understand the 'roll 8d6 for a super-hero and count the number of 6' method, but roll 8d20 then count how where above the stat in AC table is not really 'fast and furious".

So, here another method, inspired of the EPT one: use the number of man as a number of hits, so a number of d6 of damage. So a Swashbuckler, fighting as 5 men, does 5d6 of damage. More fast and furious - and, as it's melée fighting (as per T&T), these damages are to be shared among his opponents, regardless of their number. Now, it's wuxia-like as I want..

Sketching the table, I figured how to deal with the "hero" and "superhero". I decided to consider, if no higher number of men was called in the lines beneath it will be the maximum number against normal foes. And, to replace the Chainmail Fantasy table, suggest the Hero does 1d6 against fantasy creatures (so lower level charcaters just can't hit them, in the cHainmail logic). I gave 2d6 to supeheroes and Wizards but that point is probably the weaker one. Let's have a look on the result and give me your avice - I will playtest soon.



(Dmg being the number of dices of damage against normal creatures, and Fant. against fantsay creatures, like vampires).

[Finarvyn]

An interesting perspective, and not one I had considered. I'll have to run through some sample combats to see what it does, but offhand it seems workable although it does seem to really give high-level characters a lot of additional fighting prowess. (At least, if I'm reading this right.)

In the Chainmail combat system, a hero gets 4 attacks against orcs but not all will hit but in this system would get one attack but on a hit does 4d6 damage. Seems to promote a "feast or famine" combat, as opposed to steady attrition of enemy units. If it plays well, it could be a great (and simple) fix.

Also, as far as the supernatural fantasy column in your charts, assigning 1d6 for Hero and 2d6 for Super Hero is a stroke of genius. It makes sense and also makes those dragons and balrogs that much more terrifying.

I like what I see here. Have an EXALT for it. :-)

[thegreyelf]

Agree with Marv, very good stuff here. Sure, higher level characters will have a lot of additional fighting prowess, but if the rules apply to monsters as well (a la the line in M&T regarding giving monsters one attack per HD), the enemies will be getting equally more effective so everything should stay in line.

Looking forward to hearing how this works!

[Finarvyn]

Well, the funny thing is that my post was originally going to be one of those "nice, but no thanks" things. Then I re-read Snorri's post again a time or two to be able to more intellegently reply and ended up saying "say ... this could work" and this became "hey, I like this!"

So I had to go back and re-write my post before putting it up. :-)

[Finarvyn]

As a further thought, you don't need to limit this to the "alternate" combat system, although it seems to work best with that.

What I'm thinking is that you could use a Chainmail style combat and use the Fighting Capability numbers when battling agianst supernaturals. So, a Hero might still get 4 attacks against orcs (listed as a dmg of 4d6 but instead would be done as 4 seperate attacks) but only 1 attack against a Nazgul (listed as 1d6 so would remain as single attack).

Or, stay with the "alternate" system of d20's but allow for the "dmg" number to represent the number of attacks with that combat system. (Similar to the paragraph above, only with d20's instead of d6's.)

[snorri]

Thanks! Just had a first session with X1 this evening. The damage table worked fine. As it was one-to-one game with my wife, and she started with a Hero, it was perfect to deal fight alone - when she was split from her henchmen - as it permit to send enough monsters into the game. Still the fights are dangerous, but gves great results. A bigfun!

[chgowiz]

Nov 29, 2009 17:14:00 GMT -6 snorri said:

As it was one-to-one game with my wife

Ha! Another forum poster who plays a solo OD&D game w/the spouse. That's great! Do you two play regularly?

[snorri]

Nov 30, 2009 8:53:16 GMT -6 @chgowiz said:

Nov 29, 2009 17:14:00 GMT -6 snorri said:

As it was one-to-one game with my wife

Ha! Another forum poster who plays a solo OD&D game w/the spouse. That's great! Do you two play regularly?

Not enough currently, alas! But we got a long habit of playing solo since years. It needs to adapt a bit the game to make sure a lone character will survive enough, but it's allways a great fun.

[aldarron]

I skimmed through this post a couple of times before and didn't quite get it. I've been spending so much thought on Arnesons methods in Blackmoor - where Hit Dice are damage dice - that it didn't strike me that Snorri was doing that anything particularly unusual except that I noticed Snorri had used the superhero FC rating to stop at 6d6 damage dice. Then it was like "oh right" the FC dice are normally used for attacks only in the OD&D/Chainmail system, not for the damage roll. Interesting how we come at these ideas from all sorts of different angles - just, no doubt, as they did back in 1973.

[Finarvyn]

I tried out Snorri's system the other day while watching the Bears lose, and in general it worked well.

The place where I had issues was when the group faced a giant snake.
1. Funny how "giant snake" is in the dungeon encounter tables in the LBB but not in the list of monsters. I knew that "White Ape" and other Barsoomian critters weren't in there, but somehow never noticed the lack of a snake entry.
2. The giant snake didn't really seem to be "supernatural" enough to warrent the use of Snorri's "fantasy" column, but seemed too powerful for the regular "Dmg" column. (In the spirit of Conan, I assigned 4 HD for the snake.)

Basically, I'm not sure how many creatures fit in the "grey area" (or if in fact it's just my interpretation) but certainly the giant snake seemed to unbalance the combat.

[badger2305]

Interesting approach! Having played a lot of EPT I can tell you that the additional damage dice approach can be very helpful if you have a powerful character.

It also seems to be a "middle approach" between what Gygax and Arneson were doing in dealing with damage done in combat. It's worth remembering that Prof. Barker got his start playing D&D with Michael Mornard (who had played in Greyhawk), but he also knew Dave Arneson through wargaming.

Additional combat: It's worth comparing this system against the explanation of combat from The Strategic Review #1.