"Why blue whales are bad-ass," or "The attack bonus, combat, and you."

In D&D, hit points are based on hit dice, and attack bonus is also based on hit dice. Therefore big things are good in combat.

?

I've played other game systems where combat works a bit more like, well, how I think it ought to. The main thing I take issue with is the fact that dragons, being incredible bad-asses, never miss in combat.

I mean, I've seen cats attack each other: they leap at each other, batting wildly with both claws and biting if they have an opening, possibly grapping on and raking with their hind legs. My players at first were a little disbelieving when I had a dragon jump on one PC and go claw/claw/bite/wing buffet/wing buffet, but I felt confident it could happen. I'm cool with monsters getting tons of attacks, but I have a slight issue with them never missing.

The ever-increasing attack bonus requires an ever-increasing AC, which requires an ever-increasing pile of magic items and spells. Iron Heroes, d20 Modern, and other games give you an automatic AC bonus as you gain levels, but if we applied that to monsters and their hit dice, you'd end up with dragons that are ridiculously good at blocking swords, dodging arrows, and various judo techniques.

What sorts of experiences do you have with other combat systems? I'm particularly interested in ones where attack bonuses don't increase so much, big creatures are hard to kill because they have tons of hit points instead of ultra-high AC, and weapons are actually useful in fending off natural attacks. Of course dragons are legendary for having impenetrable scales, but that should probably be some sort of supernatural immunity, or perhaps just high damage reduction.

Bah, I'm just rambling.

The main method that D&D uses to compensate for this is a size penalty to hit and AC as you get bigger. Theoretically, a gargantuan CR 1 creature is entirely possible -- just don't give it good Con or good Str and let HD and size penalties take their natural toll.

Yeah I've seen cats fight each other too. But a PC is not a dragon. To follow the cat analogy, a PC is the dead mouse the cat is playing with.

That is one advantage to skill based games is the skill can be adjusted and not be a reflection of other numbers.

I like the way D&D is woven in a consistent predictable manner but that also has its draw backs usually in the cases of extremes of scale (like the super whale).

I have used lots of different systems and they of course all have their advantages and flaws I play D&D because I know the rules and have enough fun despite the logic flaws in it.

I think I'd like to see a system were the character starts out competent and gets slightly better over time and not have the D&D 1st-20th level spread. Many systems seem to think character improvement must be drastic to be enjoyable or feel rewarding I think this is one of those times that Role playing part of the game should be focused on as the means of reward.

Later

Go fight a little kid. I'm serious. Go buy a couple of plastic lightsabers and go at it. Your reach is a HUGE advantage. You tag him all over and he is swinging at the air. Heck you can do the whole "hand on the head" trick too. Size should translate to better HP, but not AC and they get the AC penalty for it. Larger target, easier to hit. That is of course if you can get by his reach. Most dragons should just send you flying with a swipe of thier claw.

But as to your actual question. Ken Hoods systems are the only one I have experiance with that replicate what you want. But their nasty

In the water, the blue whale has my bet over Conan every time!

Outside the water, it's not much of a contest.

-The Gneech

Well, the first thing that springs to my mind you already mentioned...many diffacult to kill creatures should simply have lots of HP and DR, rather than being all that hard to hit. D&D combat just makes to few distinctions and too weird a ones between being able to take punishment, and being hard to actually strike.


Dragons, for instance should have a decent amount of /- type DR, along with their DR X/magic. Natural Armor should not add to AC, it should prevent damage...just like manufactured armor should.


Your AC should be based on Dex, Dodge bonuses, some sort of class based AC bonus, and some magical effects like Deflection bonuses, and shields.

Armor, natural armor, anything that makes you "tougher" should reduce damage, not the chance of hitting.


As to the scaling of attack bonuses...thats a little out of my league. I'm not sure what to do about that, except to try and make defense scale with offense a little better by the means mentioned above.


I have little experience with non-d20 systems, mainly because most non-d20 systems dont seem very appealing to me. I tend to think in terms of trying to tweak d20 into something that has less of these issues..

You might check out Warhammer FRP v2. That's a good one.

Keep in mind that, so long as the touch AC is hit, it's a hit.

It just doesn't do any damage because you didn't hit the target anywhere vulnerable.

I'm looking at the red dragon right now, and the highest its touch AC ever gets in 10.

Just like how hitpoints arguably aren't a hit; they can conceivably represent near-misses that wear down the person.

The only problem is the strict interpretations people have for some things.

Trickstergod said:

Just like how hitpoints arguably aren't a hit; they can conceivably represent near-misses that wear down the person.

The only problem is the strict interpretations people have for some things.

Click to expand...

Yup this the basis of the DnD system (or at least it's justification). The system works at what it does if you accept that hit points aren't exactly toughness.

FOr the PCs, hitpoints represent the ability to dodge hits at the last second, or just luck. I use descriptions like this for when a PC receives a hit:

"At the last second you are able to twist away from his axe swing. But it was a close one, and sooner or later your luck will run out."

or

"you parry the swing of his blade with your shield, but it sends a numbing throb through your shoulders. To many more of those and you won't make it."

For big baddies, like dragons, for whom I can't convincingly tell myself that a miss is a miss (except for a 1 ) I say the following:

"Although your blade strikes the dragon, the thick scales strop the blade from doing any harm."

and when you do "hit" a dragon, i say:

"You finally cut through the thick dragon scales and score a deep cleft in the bests flesh".


So basically, to me a "hit" (surpassing the AC with an attack roll) means different things depending on the target. Humanoids die because you finally scored a solid hit that wasn't deflected. Big bads die with there bodies covered in gashes, broken bones etc...