[AD&D] All d6 HD

[Finarvyn]

Okay, so this is either a stroke of genius or a fever-induced hallucination. You decide.

I was looking at my AD&D Player's Handbook and had a thought: instead of having hit dice be measured in d4's and d8's and so on, why not convert them all into d6's?

My steps were as follows:
1. Take the hit dice of the class and convert into average hit points. (Each d4 is worth 2.5, d6 is 3.6, d8 is 4.5, and d10 is 5.5 in this model.)
2. I made a chart with a nice repeating sequence that takes only d6's and gives me average hit points. What I did was to look at the calculated HP from step #1 and compare it to my chart. This gave me the number of d6's that would give the same number of average hit points at that level.

For example, a 6th level MU would have 6d4, which would give me 15 HP on the average. My chart says that 15 HP is represented by 4d6+1 (which I just note as 4+1).

[Finarvyn]

Here is my table for the classes.

[Finarvyn]

"What can I do with this?" I hear you ask. Well, this could be a lot like "Fighting Capability" in OD&D. My initial thought was that I could use this number kind of like monsters in OD&D, where a 7th level monster (for example) would have a FC of 7 on the combat charts.

Problems to consider:
1. A fighting man is no longer equal to one. A 4th level Hero used to have a FC of 4, but in this new system it might be 6+1. Clearly this is a "power creep" to ponder.

2. This can be used to account for stat bonuses as well, but I would need to publish my other chart. In other words, 4th level fighter (4d10 averages 22 HP) rates at 6+1 with average Constitution, but if he has +1/level HP (4d10+4 averages 26 HP) then he rates at 7+1.

3. So, point #2 would seem to tell me this may be a crummy system for combat value. As a hit point system it might not be any better than the one in AD&D.

Anyway... thoughts?

[Finarvyn]

Okay, so I've been pondering the "HD = FC" issue and it occurs to me that the "fix" for this might be to evaluate all classes in terms of d10 HD instead of d6's.

What that means is a 4th level Hero will come up with a value of 4. That makes sense. In this system, a 9th level Magic-user (4+1)would be approximately equal to a Hero.

The other discussion is correct in idea but now the numbers would change. Here is the updated table with my new idea in place:


Again, how might I use this? Well, if I strip away the +'s that could give me a "to hit" bonus. So a 4th level fighter might be +4 to hit and a 9th level MU might also be a +4 to hit.

Thoughts or suggestions on this? It's possible that I've created huge charts that are meaningless....

[Finarvyn]

Aug 13, 2010 11:12:32 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Well, if I strip away the +'s that could give me a "to hit" bonus. So a 4th level fighter might be +4 to hit and a 9th level MU might also be a +4 to hit.

My "basic attack bonus" chart would look like this:

[Finarvyn]

Okay, one more step of insanity... it occurs to me that this system assumes that the hit point is the "currency" of combat. The more hit points you have (fighters) the better you can fight, but the fewer hit points you have (magic users) the worse you fight.

I can take my charts and organize by hit points to see what HP totals correspond to which "to hit" numbers.

I get this:


EDIT: This chart is similar enough to a 1-5, 6-10, 11-15... thing that it might be worth forgetting about the actual numbers that got me here and just using a simple mathematical pattern instead. Certainly it would make things easy to do "on the fly" if I could just divide a number by 5 to get the bonus.

How about this: one complaint folks have about OD&D/AD&D is the fact that characters fight at 100% until they run out of HP, then suddenly die. What if each character sheet has the HP-BAB chart on it and as a character's HP drops so does their "to hit" bonus?

So ... a character with 48 hit points would fight at +8 to hit. If that character takes 10 HP damage he drops down to 38, which makes him a +6 to hit. He drinks a healing potion and gets 1d6 back, maybe 4 so his total goes up to 44 and he's in the +8 to hit range again.

I think this could make "near death" combat a lot more scary. Folks couldn't drop down too far in HP because their combat value would diminish as well.

Okay, I've done the "monologue" thing for a while. Maybe I'll shut up and see if anyone else has thoughts or comments on my ramblings.

[coffee]

Aug 13, 2010 12:16:17 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

How about this: one complaint folks have about OD&D/AD&D is the fact that characters fight at 100% until they run out of HP, then suddenly die. What if each character sheet has the HP-BAB chart on it and as a character's HP drops so does their "to hit" bonus?

So ... a character with 48 hit points would fight at +8 to hit. If that character takes 10 HP damage he drops down to 38, which makes him a +6 to hit. He drinks a healing potion and gets 1d6 back, maybe 4 so his total goes up to 44 and he's in the +8 to hit range again.

I think this could make "near death" combat a lot more scary. Folks couldn't drop down too far in HP because their combat value would diminish as well.

Okay, I've done the "monologue" thing for a while. Maybe I'll shut up and see if anyone else has thoughts or comments on my ramblings.

That could work.

The thing is, you'd have to apply it even handedly to both the PCs and the monsters.

It would certainly change the feel of combat. The Troll swings at the Magic-User -- and misses. (Whoa! We must be getting close! Kill him, boys!)

Because, you see, part of the problem is that the monsters, also, fight on until their last hit point.

I can't count the number of times I've been facing a tough monster, so the whole party gangs up on him -- and once the round is over, the DM smugly announces that he had one hit point left; we've basically chopped him into hamburger. (And they ARE invariably smug about that. I don't know why.)

Anyway, that's my first thought.

[Deleted]

Wow, Fin. Took me a while to think through your process.

Agreed that the first approach is wacked because a HERO isn't equal to four men anymore. That disrupts the karma of the game, I think. The second approach makes more sense, then, because it gets the HERO right.

I've struggled with the "Fighting Capability equals Hit Points" issue alot. I know there are threads on this, and I like in general the notion that the two can equate even if the Cleric doesn't fit the rule well at all. It's when you let FC drop as HP drop that I start to get really nervous becasue it changes the whole feel of combat.

Not sure if it's a good change or not, but the idea that my character weakens as I lose HP is a strange one. If you go this route I'd totally scrap your table and go with the rule of 5's that you proposed. I could use that at my gaming table perhaps. Coffee is right about applying this to both characters and monsters. That really changes the game!

[Deleted]

Aug 14, 2010 5:49:05 GMT -6 @keltset said:

when you let FC drop as HP drop that I start to get really nervous becasue it changes the whole feel of combat.

So, didn't you kind of re-discover Tunnels & Trolls? ;D

That's just what happens to MR. It starts out high and you roll lots of dice, but as you get hurt and your MR drops then you roll fewer and fewer dice until you die.

And it does change the feel of combat.

[Deleted]

Another thing that could be a problem: since Constitution modifies hit points, a high CON would mean you can fight better. You're going to have to keep track of HP and CON-HP as two numbers, and allow for CON-HP to be used up first. Only when you lose HP would you actually drop in FC.

[giantbat]

Aug 15, 2010 7:40:23 GMT -6 @keltset said:

Another thing that could be a problem: since Constitution modifies hit points, a high CON would mean you can fight better. You're going to have to keep track of HP and CON-HP as two numbers, and allow for CON-HP to be used up first. Only when you lose HP would you actually drop in FC.

Or you could let a high Con mean you can fight better.

Or apply Con modifiers to something else instead of hit points.

[kenmeister]

Whenever I start writing a house rule, I do so with an understanding of what problem I am trying to solve. You didn't state a problem (staying at 100% combat power while low on hit points) until the 6th post. But I sense there was more to it than that. Do your charts solve/simplify something else?

[Finarvyn]

My hope was to make all of the HD in AD&D the same kind, such as in OD&D. From there it just took a right turn and went its own way...