Chainmail Combat and Variable Hit/Damage Dice.

[tombowings]

What do you guys think about running chainmail combat a la Forbidden Lore (Jason Vey's rules for running D&D using Chainmail) but using variable hit/damage dice a la Carcosa?

I'm worried it might make the game to swingy and random. On the other hand, I could roll hit points at the beginning every combat like Carcosa, but have all of the dice rolled by d6s.

What do you guys think?

[aldarron]

Off hand, I don't see why it would make the game any more "swingy and random" than using the Carcosa method with the Alternate combat system. I say give it a try.

[tombowings]

The problem might be that I've never tried running the variable hit/damage dice rules as found in Carcosa. Can anyone comment on the differences between it and any of the other many hit point approaches. I've ran campaigns where character add hit points every time they level, games where character reroll at each level (keeping the higher total), and one game where hit dice were rolled at the beginning of every session (which worked great), but never the Carcosa method.

[bluskreem]

I've run Carcosa with the variable dice rules. Combat can indeed be very "swingy," but I find it to be a good thing in a horror / sword and sorcery setting. If you ignore the Dice conventions, and just use the reroll HD would work, but the problem comes in with healing spells and items.

[tombowings]

Thanks for the input and warning about healing. I think I will have healing spells heal one lost hit die instead of individual hit points.