Right now for me combat doesn't seem so thrilling. It seems long and excruciating to play. Matrix like moves an unreachable dream. What if combat was short lived? What if it was exceedingly fast? Swift to the kill. What if the only outcome wasn't death? But exhaustion or yielding? How would that change the role playing aspect of combat?
Here are some points I'm looking for in a combat mechanism:
- Quick resolution. The outcome has to be settled in a few rounds.
- Low amount of hit points. That means when you're hit that's it. You might handle two or maybe three hits, but not much more.
- Improvement in style and defense applied directly to the to hit roll. Not a mascarade on hit points as stamina and luck.
- Visible benefits for speed an skill. A skilled unarmored fighter should have some advantage over a fully armored one. That means fighters wear out, read fatigue.
- Weapons differences should be clearly visible.
I can see that a lot of people reading this will have "optimization" and "min max" come to their minds. Specially on the last point. The way I see it in D&D and similar games there is no clear penalty for heavy armor and heavy weapons. I think there's a key to balance in wearing out the fighters.
Lowering overall hit points also solves a great deal of issues with healing and the derivative issues with clerics.
Thoughts?
6 comments:
Why jsut not simply take hit points away?
Check Mutants and Masterminds combat and health system I think you might like it.
What I remember is that if you get hit you roll a kind of soak roll vs the dificulty of the weapon (there you buy the damage by levels, but you can determine this by weapon)
pass no damage
fail 1 to 5 -1 to soak
fail 6 to 10 -1 to soak, stunned
fail 11 to 15 -1 to soak, staggered (2 similar results mean defeat)
fail 15+ Defeat (dead, unconscious, surrender, etc)
That helps as a sort of fatigue, there are no hit points but armor would make it harder for the fighter to get hit, experienced fighters will have better soaks, etc.
I really don't want to get rid of hit points because they are very handy in measuring the life force of a character. What I have done is made them permanent throughout the game. You never gain hit points, but improve skills and stamina.
That way you remain vulnerable, and never become the classic D&D wall of hit points. Your character is always vulnerable and improves by preventing damage not by being able to handle more and more damage.
You might want to check out how OD&D does it. The hit point totals are lower; even an exceptional constitution total only grants one extra HP per hit die. And all hit dice are six siders (though fighters accumulate them faster than other classes).
Also, I don't consider HP to be physical wounds, most of the time. It's really only the last "hit" that's final. I know this abstraction bothers some people, but I find it works really well, especially in the earlier editions. This is a house rule, but I give a save versus death at 0 HP rather than dealing with the complexity and annoyance of negative HP or anything like that. Fail the save and you were killed (run through, crushed, burned alive, whatever makes sense). Succeed, though, and the wound was not fatal (instead, the character is knocked unconscious).
I hear you about differentiating weapons though. I still haven't found a good way to do that.
To each its own Gerardo, personally HP are unrealistic and there are better ways to show the effect of combat.
In the system that I mention a dagger is as letal as a gun, what happens depends on personal resistance and luck, the combat can end in 1 round or take longer.
Montalve, I agree with your comment. Hit points as presented in D&D and d20 in general is unrealistic. I address that point and the concept of hit roll in the article http://saurondor.blogspot.mx/2012/03/hit-roll-aliasing-d-biggest-issue.html
When you put one value to represent too many elements it becomes unrealistic. Luck, health, endurance, the god's will and what not make a terrible mix for what hit points represent.
Brendan, on the lines of what you mentioned I changed my combat mechanics to have to "life" values. Stamina and hit points. Stamina is the value that increases with training while hit points remain the same.
During combat stamina acts as a shield, but not at 100% value. There is a "pain threshold" that can be applied, for example 10% of your stamina per attack. So you might have 60 stamina points, but can only absorb 6 in any one attack. Any damage above 6 points goes to your hit points. This makes for a convenient way to handle small wounds like dagger fights, but also solve the eternal issue of the back stab. A good well placed shot will take you down since you always have few real hit points.
For weapon differentiation take a look at
http://saurondor.blogspot.mx/2012/02/alternative-damage-system.html
This system doesn't compensate for min-maxers and optimization. That is where fatigue will kick in as a counter force to over weaponized and armored characters.
Personally, in 20 years of gaming, I've never had a combat (in any version of D&D) go longer than 3 combat rounds...unless it was dramatically important to make it last longer.
I started playing D%D 3.x in 2000 and have continued to do so (playing Pathfinder mostly now). And I find that d20 combat is actually FASTER in play than AD&D, and about the same as OD&D (both of which I still play regularly as well).
Even at levels 20+, when creatures have multiple hundreds (or thousands) of hit points if the players are familiar with the system, are paying attention, and know what actions they want to take, 3 to 4 rounds (at about 5-10 minutes per round) should be the upper bounds of any combat. Everything scales reasonably well.
Even if your 1st-level wizard does have a daunting 10 or more hit points, he'll still be killed with one good hit from a greataxe. The number bloat in later editions is annoying, but the bloat happens on all scales, so it actually has little effect on actual play.
Not sure about 4e or D&DNext...in every 4e game I've played combat felt like it took forever (s.p. with everyone blowing healing surges and crap)...but that might just be a side effect of players who were not familiar with the system.
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