Does D&D combat break the fantasy?

[RangerWickett]

My Alternate Hit Point Rules:

You gain a number of Wound Points equal to your Constitution score (1/2 your Con score if you're Small, twice your Con if you're large). Whenever you run out of hit points, any further damage is dealt to your Wound Points. At 0 WP you are incapacitated. At -1 WP you're unconscious and bleeding. At -10 WP, you die.

Wound Points heal at a rate of 1 per day of full rest, or 1 per week otherwise. Hit Points heal at a rate of 1 per level per hour, since now hit points represent exhaustion of vigor, rather than physical injuries.

If you are hit while flat-footed or immobilized, damage is dealt directly to your Wound Points. Unlike Star Wars' VP/WP system, critical hits do not deal damage directly to WP.

If you have any WP damage, you suffer a -2 penalty to pretty much all rolls, checks, and saves.

 

[scarymonkey]

D20 Modern's "massive damage threshhold" (equal to CON score) which means if you take damage greater than your CON in one attack, you have to make a Fort save or drop to -1 hp and start dying.

Now that sounds like a workable system that would make you fear combat. I may have to play around with that some.

 

[TeflonBilly]

I've never really had any problems with the hitpoint system. ive always considered that the person is still like a normal person except they have a greater ability to lessen the effect of blows, but i can see how a shot in the neck or a cut in the arm would be affect a fighter, tha what critical hits were for. thats one of the things i don't like that they changed. that and called shots. they took out a lot of the detail and truned it into damage. i think you should be able to make called shots for vulnerable parts of armor or for parts of the body but with negatives for its size and what not.

 

[scarymonkey]

Re: Re: Does D&D combat break the fantasy?

You don't say what level you are but if the GUARDS are 3-4 level

I did say - we are all 3rd level.

If you're not over 7th level or so, you shouldn't be killing 3rd-level fighters with one blow anyway.

Why not, they are just human beings. The last time I checked, it should be quite possible to kill a human being from one shot of a crossbow. Easy? Maybe not, but hero's are supposed to be able to do things like that - right?

"No single attack"? What does that mean? Your enemies only get to hit them once and then have to put their swords down? And why are they always doing less than 10hp? What are you fighting, Girl Scouts? Even an orc with, say, a greatsword and Power Attack can do better than that. Sheesh.

I mean that the opponents at hand (human 3rd lvl fighters) could in no way hope to inflict enough damage in one round to kill anyone in my party (including my mage w/13 hps). The best they could do with a long sword and a crit is 2 x (8 + 2 ~ str bonus estimate) = 20 hps damage. This is not enough to kill anyone outright in one round. No chance of death = no fear.

Yeah, you're missing just about everything. Like big monsters that do massive damage with multiple attacks. Like powerful NPCs with better feats and class levels than the PCs. And why do you lump spells and level draining in the "insta-Death(tm)" bucket? There are many spells that do things besides instantly killing PCs. And neither level draining nor ability draining (you don't specify which) instantly slay PCs, either.

Big monsters that do massive damage = insta-Death and are to be feared.

Spells and level draining are lumped into this category because they can hurt you permanently in one round. Spells like sleep, hold person, etc, etc will make you as good as dead with one missed saving throw. Likewise, one missed saving throw with a level drainer will seriously ruin your day (and your character).

 

[barsoomcore]

Re: Re: Re: Does D&D combat break the fantasy?

I did say - we are all 3rd level.

So you're 3rd-level guys infiltrating a castle guarded by guys just as tough as you. And you want to kill them in one blow, reliably.

Why not, they are just human beings. The last time I checked, it should be quite possible to kill a human being from one shot of a crossbow. Easy? Maybe not, but hero's are supposed to be able to do things like that - right?

Sure, but these guards are just as heroic as you. Should they be able to kill you in one round? If that's what you want -- for people to be able to kill each other instantly regardless of their relative skill and toughness, there are plenty of grim n' gritty d20 variants that will do that for you. But surely you don't expect a game called "Dungeons and Dragons" to offer that sort of view of combat, do you?

The opponents at hand (human 3rd lvl fighters) could in no way hope to inflict enough damage in one round to kill anyone in my party (including my mage w/13 hps). The best they could do with a long sword and a crit is 2 x (8 + 2 ~ str bonus estimate) = 20 hps damage. This is not enough to kill anyone outright in one round. No chance of death = no fear.

Again, what is this "one round" thing? Why does "unable to kill in one round" (and I still say you're fighting Girl Scouts) translate into "no chance of death"? Last time I checked, combat continued on after the first six seconds into what I like to call "the second round".

Big monsters that do massive damage = insta-Death and are to be feared.

Okay, so just WHAT are you complaining about? You say that

A) you can't kill people just as powerful and heroic as yourself with a single shot
B) No bad guys can actually hurt you because they can't do enough damage IN ONE ROUND to kill you outright
and
C) The only things you do fear are things that are, er, tough enough to kill you.

Huh? This doesn't make any sense to me. The first seems to go against the very notion of heroism (that heroes are harder to kill than other people). The second just seems to ignore reality completely. And the third seems self-evident.

I mean, either there are or there are not threats that your characters take seriously. If there are, then what's all this complaining about how you're never afraid to charge into combat? If there are not, then how do you get the big monsters? I'm sorry, I just can't unravel what your problem is.

 

[Paradoxish]

Re: Re: Re: Does D&D combat break the fantasy?

Why not, they are just human beings. The last time I checked, it should be quite possible to kill a human being from one shot of a crossbow. Easy? Maybe not, but hero's are supposed to be able to do things like that - right?

Remember that if your characters, at level 3, are "heroes" than so are those level 3-4 fighters guarding the place you're trying to get into. If they're level 4 than even more so. Looking at it from this perspective, it's like Aragorn dying from a single sniper shot when he happened to be looking away. Again, I blame your DM here. I think the situation you're in would be a lot more interesting if the guards were something like level 1 warriors - realistically tough and weak enough to be killed in one hit.

I'm going to go back to saying that if you don't kill a person with one shot you can assume you didn't hit him in a vital area, like the neck. If a rogue in your group is unable to sneak attack the guard to death, for example, that should probably be represented by saying the guard was aware of the arrow a moment before it struck, dodging just enough so that it did serious damage without killing him. Hit points don't only represent toughness, but also the ability to avoid damage.

As a slight tangent, this is also how I explain away the lack of injury in D&D. Getting down to 10 hit points doesn't mean your character is horribly wounded, but it does mean that he's grown tired and haggard from constantly dodging minor blows. He's beaten and bloody, with numerous minor cuts and scratches across his body, making it more and more difficult for him to adequately dodge blows and increasing the likelihood that the next strike will open up an already painful wound. Getting down to 0 hit points represents the "critical blow" that actually inflicts injury - possibly cutting sharply through a limb or across your chest, rendering you incapable of continuing the fight. Under 0 hit points is a grevious injury, one that will probably kill you.

Using simple guidelines like this, I (personally) feel that I've been able to describe some really exciting, fantasy story-like combats in my game without having to alter the rules at all. Combats only seem unheroic and unrealistic if you make them so. As a quick anecdote: I once played with a DM that would describe every hit that did more than 10 damage as some kind of incredibly powerful blow, chopping up limbs or tearing through flesh. It starts seeming unrealistic when your arm has been chopped to bits ten or twelve times already. On the other hand, when a 10 hp blow on a fighter with 90hp is a mighty blow which the fighter managed to deflect into a mere flesh wound it makes more sense.

 

[Gizzard]

I think the situation you're in would be a lot more interesting if the guards were something like level 1 warriors - realistically tough and weak enough to be killed in one hit.

I've seen this situation come up in a popular module. The designers used 2x 1st level guards against 4x 3rd level characters. With a little luck you can kill them with missile fire and sneak into the guarded whatzit. But it's still exciting - its not guarenteed by any means.

One key is that there are more serious defenses behind the two gate guards - obviously it doesnt do any good to survive the initial onslaught if calling for help doesnt bring any reinforcements.

So, from a game design point of view, I'd suggest putting two 1st level guards out. Behind them is a defensible position, like a barred door with an arrow slit. Then, if the alarm is raised, the 3-4th level Captains come running along with more 1st level cannon-fodder. Any survivors of the gate guards can retreat to the barred door and try to make a stand there.

 

[DDK]

Alternate rules

Thinking on this whilst reading through the thread, I got a flash of insight into one particular aspect of this argument.

Aiming... now, I've always used the rule that if you've got time to aim, then you get a +1 bonus per round spent aiming to a max of +4.

But what if you also included an increased chance of getting a critical? Every round spent could increase the threat range as well.

This could be carried over into melee combat as well. Cop a -2 for every one level the threat range is increased, perhaps? Although, the penalty would then just reduce the liklihood of the critical... anyway, just a thought.

 

[Black Omega]

Maybe it's just how my game goes, but if my PC's found the bad guy's keep guarded by 1st level warriors they'd instantly get suspicious to the point of paranoia.

But then my PC's are also the type to say things like "If those are his guards, how has this guy lasted so long? A really tough blackguard or wizard should be able to find some decent help."

In my game, basic seasoned rank and file samurai weigh in around 4th level. Still sleep spellable, still saving v. death against spells like cloud kill. But to the group early on a good threat. By the middle levels the group is at now, those rank and file are good arrow foddle who'll last a bit before going down. By the time the group hits 20th level, the same guys who gave them so much trouble early in their career will be dropping like flies. For my game at least this seems to work pretty well.

 

[Paradoxish]

So, from a game design point of view, I'd suggest putting two 1st level guards out. Behind them is a defensible position, like a barred door with an arrow slit. Then, if the alarm is raised, the 3-4th level Captains come running along with more 1st level cannon-fodder. Any survivors of the gate guards can retreat to the barred door and try to make a stand there.

This sounds very similiar to a kobold populated temple that I'm running some of my players (with 3rd level characters) through right now. The two guards were generic kobolds, but the problem was that there were also many additional kobold guards on roof of the temple. The players couldn't possibly kill them and if even one kobold was able to scream it'd alert the rest. Unfortunately for them, they weren't able to take out both kobolds silently and the interior guards were alerted. The end result was that the kobolds inside were prepared when the PCs assaulted the gates.

Let's just say that a group of 5 unleveled kobolds managed to kill off one of four 3rd level PCs in the main entrance hallway without any DM fudging.