Combat System Recreated

[Ynas Midgard]

In the last couple of days, I have been thinking a lot about the alternative combat system present in OD&D, especially how weapons and armour interact, and ways of distinguishing weapons from each other without introducing fiddly and inconsistent rules. I have not come into any world-shaking conclusion yet; still, I would like to share my reasoning with the community. Any (reasonable) suggestion is welcome.

My first step was dissecting the system into small and rather abstract parts. What follows is a recreation of the alternative combat system built step by step, adhering to the following premises as strictly as possible:

• 1. The combat system is abstract; no single element corresponds perfectly to any element of actual or fictive reality.
  
• 2. No option provided by and codified in the combat system can be harmonically bound by an other similarly present option (e.g. no two options may provide +1 and +2 to something and not differing at any other aspect).
  
• 3. Any factor not addressed in the combat system is considered irrelevant in the following analysis (e.g. weight, price, colour, etc.).
  
• 4. Any modification of the system ought be carried out by introducing as few new elements (be they aspects, constants, or variables) as possible, unless the internal logic of the system strongly suggests doing so.
  
• 5. No modification ought to be based on psychological reasoning; our system stands in isolation, and "more interesting" is not a factor we base our suggestions on.
  

The basics

First, let us examine how an attack in principle is resolved using this system. We have to determine whether the attacker hits and, if so, how much damage is dealt. For these procedures, a number of factors are used:

• to-hit modifier (OD&D hides it in the attack matrix, but basic mathematics reveals it), based on class and level of the attacker
  
• Armour Class (AC), based on armour worn by the defender (unarmoured 9, leather 7, chain 5, plate 3, shield -1 to one of these)
  
• damage (1-6 points, universally)
  
• Hit Points (HP), based on class and level of the defender
  

A great number of situational modifiers and actual sophistication of this system present in the 3LBBs are intentionally left out; our aim is to rebuild the system, and in order to do this, consider the outlined basics as the combat system.


The problem of two-handed weapons

The current version of our system is not sensitive to what weapons are being used by the attacker (or the defender, as well), only to what armour is being worn by the defender. This, from a system-specific point of view, is not a fault per se; however, consider the following flaw in balance:
- one-handed + shield = 1-6 damage and +1 AC
- two-handed = 1-6 damage

One-handed weapon plus shield appears to be a generally better option in combat, which violates our second premise (no option may be harmonically bound by another); it needs to be addressed.

There are two possible ways of doing so: we either assign no benefit to wearing a shield or give some benefit to being armed with a two-handed weapon. The first option, though it may seem ridiculous, does not violate any of our premises and would make our life much easier (plus it doesn't matter if we wield a sword or a mace, why would a shield be any different in that respect?).

Suppose we choose the second option. There are two factors in combat associated with the attacker that can be modified: to-hit and damage. Here are a couple of common ways addressing two-handed weapons:

• 1d6+1 damage
  
• 1d8 damage
  
• 2DTH (roll 2d6, take the highest)
  
• +1 to-hit
  

First, changing to-hit modifiers appears to be part of the system (it is based on class and level, probably on situation, too), whereas damage is not; thus fiddling with the damage output is inherently less favourable than applying to-hit modifiers. Second, if any of the changes to damage need to be favoured, 2DTH is the best option as it keeps the damage out in the original 1-6 range.


The problem of long weapons

Long weapons (spears, lances, and pole arms) are specially treated in most rules set: their length had historically proved to be a great advantage, and it is common to reflect this in the combat rules. However, doing so without violating none of our premises can only be carried out by only giving either a damage or to-hit bonus (ideally not the one which is provided by other two-handed weapons, to keep them apart).

This may be consistent with our premises but also proves to be unsatisfactory to those who would like to emphasise the advantage of length provided by such weaponry.


To be continued...

[cooper]

I look forward to reading your coming posts, however for what it's worth, weapon length considerations were not left out of 0d&d, they are in the parent document CHAINMAIL. Furthermore, the greyhawk supplement to 0d&d provided many means of tweaking the alternate cbat system.

Personally--and I don't mean to discourage your further posts, because I'm sure I will enjoy reading them, but personally, there are so many more important things in 0d&d; loyalty, morale, chases in dungeons/wilderness, naval rules, yet everyone constantly wants to tinker with how much damage a sword should do.

Keeping combat from being awesome goes a long way toward making it a last resort instead of the whole point of the game like in 4e. Even for spell casters, only 5 of the original 100 spells can be labeled as purely combat spells and 3 of the 5 are only appropriate for mass combat (and mass combat rules already distinguish between weapon types).

I think the 0d&ders efforts are best used coming up with new interactive rules (is there a good system for bartering? or city building? I grow tired of yet another variant of big swords do 1d6+1 and daggers do d6-1, I if I want more detailed combat I ca import any of the million rules from later editions (axes crit on 19-20x rapier do x3 g on a crit, two-handed swords do 3d6 dmg to large creatures, halbards get +2 vs. plate armor etc etc)

[talysman]

I dunno, I think I'm OK with Ynas's thread so far. But then, I came to a lot of the same conclusions...

[waysoftheearth]

In my view, any discussion about changing the Alternative Combat System would benefit firstly from a solid grasp of what the ACS actually is (and I don't mean to imply that people don't already have this), and then secondly a clear summary of its perceived weaknesses. These perceived weakness could then be addressed with potential changes.

FWIW, I previously summarised what the Alternative Combat System is here:
What is the Alternative Combat System?

For me, the principle weaknesses of the ACS are:
1) the multiple overlapping mechanisms for improvement in attack potential,
2) the awkward manner in which attack potential does/doesn't scale up.

I have discussed these at length elsewhere on these boards:

Simplified OD&D Combat that Scales

Variable Weapon Damage for OD&D

A Play on Monster Damage


Weapon length is advantageous to bodies of troops in field battles, but it could easily be a disadvantage to individuals in the cramped confines of a dungeon.

In any case, weapon length is already considered by the ACS which allows the referee to determine the order in which attacks are resolved. Therefore, if a player has the advantage of reach he will attack first in the initial combat round. If the opponent gets inside his reach then his advantage is nullified in subsequent rounds.


Some other very common player options for fighting are:

. Fighting defensively.

. Using a normal-sized sword/mace/whatever in two hands instead of one.

. Using two weapons simultaneously, either defensively or offensively.

. Using a normal-sized weapon in one hand, and a lantern/torch/etc. in the other hand "Surely I can smash the lantern over his head?"

. Fighting unarmed.


In my experience, players will like to utilise most/all of these options at some stage during a game, and most players would also like to think that the rules somehow "cater" to their preferred option.

If you're interested you can see how I cater to all of the above in my PBP game on these boards here (see the Combat section, halfway down the page).

[Zenopus]

One interesting relic of Chainmail that's in Men & Magic is that the weapons listed on the equipment table correspond exactly to the weapon categories from Chainmail, and thus are listed in order of length from shortest to longest. This has no stated mechanical effect in the D&D rules but it's neat once you see it - I only just realized it this year!

Since the relative length information is there, and basically in a table format, one fairly simple rule you could add is that the longest weapon gets first attack in the first round (as combatants approach each other), and thereafter it is decided by dice roll, or dexterity, etc

[waysoftheearth]

Somewhat off topic, but how a weapon is used is more important than its length or other design features. This is not represented by systems (including CM and WHFB to name a few) that classify troop-types by their equipment. How troops actually fought is a much more meaningful distinction than what they carried with them into battle.

This is particularly relevant in an abstract combat system, where an attack roll represents the effectiveness of a series of blows over a period, rather than a single instantaneous attack.

[Ynas Midgard]

@ cooper:
I am aware of the many suggested ways of modifying the system and the fact that what I had presented is not the actual system found in the 3LBBs, but something much less. The reason behind this is that I find parts of it unsatisfying or even unnecessary; thus I kicked off the topic with the premises. If my enthusiasm were endless and my time unlimited, I would probably make it into a set of Optimality Theory rules, create appropriate candidates (based on the original rules as well as suggested house rules), and evaluate them accordingly. Unfortunately, all I can do is to analyse some of the mechanisms and argue for or against their use, from a strictly systemic point of view.

As for other sub-systems, I enjoy reading others' tinkering, and intend to draft appropriate house rules that fit both my presumptions about how things should work and the internal logic of the game. Until such time, however, I'll be dealing with combat.


@ talysman:
Your blog has been a great inspiration; I look forward to seeing how this analysis turns out and how much it will overlap with your conclusions.


@ waysoftheearth:
I have read the linked topics and find your findings very useful. However, my intention is not to address weaknesses of the ACS per se but rather to build a system very similar to it; I have taken a few premises of ACS and gradually create a system out of it, which means they would turn out to be "sisters", so to speak.

In the next bit I offer a few solutions how to distinguish long weapons from others, and criticise all of them at the same time. It should turn out that one of our premises has to be violated - but which?

1. If abstraction were a low-ranked constraint, we would try to model our system more and more on actual combat, perhaps gradually turning it something similar to how Runequest. Obviously, some parts of the system has to be based on how combat works - but again, how much?

2. If harmonically bound options were allowed (which I would avoid as much as possible), imbalanced combat styles could exist. Life would be much easier, no matter whether we want to capture combat from a realistic or an abstract angle.

3. Giving up the third premise would let us consider, say, weapon weight and price become relevant factors when determining balance.

4. The fourth constraint discourages inventing shiny new mechanisms and factors. If it were low-ranked, we could introduce as many factors as possible, actually making the system much more complicated.

5. Giving up the fifth premise (which, because the system is intended to be used in a game, would turn out to be necessary) would allow us to introduce mechanics which capture the imagination and are fun to play (not necessarily realistic, nor perfectly balanced - it is actually pretty hard to decide what is fun and what is not, but having the constraint, we would not favour complex mechanics unless they have other advantages besides being fun).

I really hope it came across what I would like to do here and why... Either way, I should be working on how pole arms as a category fit into the system outlined so far.