Progressing Attack Matrix

[oldkat]

Not having read everything EGG and DA said(in interviews, Q&A) or wrote about on this subject, 2 questions popped into my head this morning regarding the matter.

Does the ability to score a hit on an opponent become progressively better because the character (supposedly) improves with time and experience? And/or, is "luck" injected into the tables in any proportion?

Okay, then how does this explain animals/creatures/monsters? Besides Man and a few other species, the vast majority of beasts on the planet do not wage warfare with one another. They hunt each other. They get caught by surprise and have to fight for their lives, but they do not continually develop combat strategies in order to survive. So why does HD (for these non-warring species) then determine the creatures ability/effectiveness in Combat any better or worse than any other? Arent there big creatures (with 8 HD and lots of hp)that can't fight as good as a 3 HD one?

The implications of this idea become staggering to me.
Keeping the "its a game, go with it" paradigm out of the mix for the moment, it seems to me that in order to have a mechanic that might represent this approach would require completely retooling the game.
I like the game. But would injecting something along this line destroy it?

[Deleted]

In Dragon #1, Len Lakofka presents an alternate combat system where hit points and attack rank is unrelated. So you're not the first person to think along these lines.

One option is to give monster that are hard to kill but with slow clumsy attacks a large fixed bonus to hit points. A T-Rex would have 4+20 instead of 8 hd. This wouldn't require you to change the actual game rules. What I do is give bigger monsters larger hit dice instead of more. So 4d12 instead of 8d6. Either way the monster is harder to kill without auto-hitting.

[oakesspalding]

If I'm not mistaken, there are a few creatures that attack "as" those of some greater or lesser number of hit dice, or that have small additional attack bonuses. But it's true that these are exceptions. The number after the "+" for some monsters goes a small way towards this, as is implied above, but this seems to be more of a result of translating things from Chainmail than any kind of conscious strategy.. Also, assigning monsters hit dice of different sizes will also accomplish this effect. They tried this with some of the monsters in Strategic Review and Eldritch Wizardry-e.g. Shambling Mounds, Demons-but then seemed to drop it, I imagine because it just seemed too fussy.

Which brings us around to the original question. I think it's undeniable that adding another variable might arguably be more "realistic", but it also makes things more fussy. On top of that, the complaint is often made that high-level combats take too long anyway, so, say, adjusting a powerful monster's attack chances downwards would make things even worse.

In any case, from the players' perspective, they're fighting a big, powerful monster that might beat them. What difference would it make really to decree that this or that monster REALLY should hit on, say, a 14 as opposed to an 11? At this point more "realism" almost becomes in large part merely a metaphysical question. (!)

I think the proposal is a reasonable idea in principle, but I come down with leaving the standard progression in place with the proviso that exceptions can and should occasionally be made.

[Red Baron]

Sept 25, 2013 14:14:09 GMT -6 @hedgehobbit said:

In Dragon #1, Len Lakofka presents an alternate combat system where hit points and attack rank is unrelated. So you're not the first person to think along these lines.

One option is to give monster that are hard to kill but with slow clumsy attacks a large fixed bonus to hit points. A T-Rex would have 4+20 instead of 8 hd. This wouldn't require you to change the actual game rules. What I do is give bigger monsters larger hit dice instead of more. So 4d12 instead of 8d6. Either way the monster is harder to kill without auto-hitting.

Against my inclination to shun anything non-d6

Size            Die Used
small           4
man sized    6       
moose sized 10
T Rex          12

Combat ability    number of dice
unskilled            1
animal               2
spartan             3
morpheus          4

then base attack progression on number of hit dice?
                                                                 

[oldkat]

Let me add this to the discussion: since the HD and Level/rank of a character are not always the same number(especially with clerics, magic users and, later, thieves from GH)couldn't the same be done for monsters? While I see this could be a mathematical nightmare as far as endless tables go, couldn't a formula be devised to accomodate this? So, rather than all monsters hit, basically, as a Fighting Man, level per level/HD per HD, couldn't "weaker" types be assigned the same combat progression matrix as the MU (1/5) or Cleric (1/4)?

Sorry to bring this all up. Its early, and my mind isn't working on what it should be at the moment.

[snorri]

[*] A "fight as:" line, like the Moldvay's "save as", could be a solution. Creatures without fighting training would figtht as half HD and sometime on others matrixes.

[*] In M&T, common animals are 1HD or less ["Any hit will kill the smaller, while larger beasts(such as wolves)will receive one Hit Die. Generally speaking they will be Armor Class 8"]. Only giant versions of standards one and prehistoric beasts are tougher. So killing a wold or even a bear with a spear or one arrow is possible, which sounds realistic - and the figt on the 1HD matrix.

[scottenkainen]

Snorri, I considered the "Moldvay option" a while back when I was considering tying HD directly into weight (1 HD = 180 lbs.). It seemed the only way to keep bears and horses from being unkillable death machines. Your rule #2 above would eliminate that problem, though. I might have to resurrect that old idea...

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

[oakesspalding]

Sept 26, 2013 10:01:34 GMT -6 snorri said:

[*] In M&T, common animals are 1HD or less ["Any hit will kill the smaller, while larger beasts(such as wolves)will receive one Hit Die. Generally speaking they will be Armor Class 8"]. Only giant versions of standards one and prehistoric beasts are tougher. So killing a wold or even a bear with a spear or one arrow is possible, which sounds realistic - and the figt on the 1HD matrix.

On my reading the distinction isn't between "common" and "giant" versions but, well, as the text says, "insects or small animals" and "large insects or animals". From p. 20 of Monsters & Treasure:

INSECTS OR SMALL ANIMALS: These can be any of a huge variety of creatures such as wolves, centipedes, snakes and spiders. Any hit will kill the smaller, while larger beasts (such as wolves) will receive one Hit Die. Generally speaking they will be Armor Class 8.

LARGE INSECTS OR ANIMALS: This category includes giant ants and prehistoric monsters. Armor Class can be anything from 8 to 2. Hit Dice should range from 2 to anywhere near 20, let us say, for a Tyrannasaurus Rex. Also included in this group are the optionally usable "Martian" animals such as Apts, Banths, Thoats, etc. If the referee is not personally familiar with the various monsters included in this category the participants of the campaign can be polled to decide all characteristics. Damage caused by hits should range between 2-4 dice (2-24 points).

Now, admittedly,the first line of the second paragraph-"This category includes"-can be read in two ways. I assume Snorri would argue that there is an implicit "only" in there, as in "this category ONLY includes". But I would argue that this is not what it means-that the category of Large Insects or Animals also includes, well, Large Animals-large animals such as lions, tigers, bears, elephants and so on. This is consistent with a number of other things such as the fact that the only animal listed in the first paragraph is the not-large wolf, the fact that horses are explicitly given 2+1 to 3 hit dice (if that's the case, shouldn't, say, lions get at least as much?), the fact that the close to contemporaneous Greyhawk implies that lions are much more similar to "prehistoric" saber-toothed tigers than they are to wolves, the fact that the Monster Manual gives all sorts of common animals multiple hit dice, and a number of other similar pieces of evidence.

Now, the Monster Manual is not OD&D. It somewhat inflates the hit dice of a number of creatures (though not too radically) and I think it unjustly makes some common animals too powerful-I'd much rather go up against a common wolf or a badger* than a hobgoblin, for example, even though they supposedly have almost twice the hit dice. However, it certainly doesn't make a clean break from OD&D. If Gygax gave, say, lions, tigers and bears 4, 5, 6 or whatever multiple hit dice in the Monster Manual, it's safe to say that he had something like these numbers in mind when he was writing the OD&D material a few years earlier.

*I think badgers are in the first Monster Manual but I might be wrong. If so, a number of other examples would suffice.