Manbearcat
Legend
See above. These kind of mechanics generate a bad and wrong kind of fun for me so I want it removed.
Here is the thing about these multiple threads and these sorts of posts. Who are they supposed to move? They appear to just be D&D activism or organized, public protest. There will always be a preaching to the choir element but never a conversion. I think my position is well-informed and well-considered. But I expect 0 movement from the opposition.
If I say any of the following:
1) I don't view the combat round as anything remotely resembling the real-time OODA loop that an actual person would make in the midst of a melee skirmish.
You're unmoved. If I go further to say:
2) The 1 minute, 12-15 second (C&T AD&D 2e option), or even 6 second combat round is of such low resolution that a vast myriad of thiings MUST be going on that are unaccounted for with process-simulation expectations. The singular contest of Attack versus Defense must mean more than a singular swing of a weapon. It must combine varying attack and defense routines, parries, blocks, ripostes, circling, minor exchanges to measure distance, feints to measure reaction time and full on engagements that result in stalemates. The amount of action that accrues in a singular, 6 second interval in real life combat between only 2 particpants is extreme. You can literally have 5 -10 contests in that period of time; maybe 3-5 legitimate strikes, a few feints, a circle left to flank for an opening and a denial, an attempted takedown and a sprawl to deny it. Attack versus defense doesn't even come in the realm of anything beyond laughable as an attempt to convey all of the granular processes in the exchanges in such an interval. At best it captures: "Who successfully leveraged those 6 minutes the best in trying to assert the win condition towards the fight's ultimate climax." If you are a higher level melee combatant (low level melee combatants are still combat professionals and utterly unrepresented by a singular Attack versus Defense), then your secondary attacks provide multiple opportunties to move yourself toward the win condition and the utility of moving yourself toward the win condition against multiple combatants (if you are facing them). That is about it.
You're unmoved. If I go further to say:
3) When you interface that gross abstraction of the 6 second interval of a melee skirmish with the multivariate ablation scheme of HPs, the picture is even further muddled. You HAVE to explain the vast majority of both of those components and their resultant output because neither of them do it alone and they certainly don't pull it off together. Fortune in the middle narration is pretty much mandate.
You're unmoved: If I go further to say:
4) How many cuts (many times nasty), how many knockouts, how many resultant takedowns ocurr as a 2nd order, unintended, interaction of a primary strike or takedown? They are legion. I've watched hundreds and hundreds of fights in my life and participated in a considerable number myself. I've witnessed, sustained, and given injuries completely as a byproduct of the 2nd order affects of intended, focused aggression. A left hand jab quickly turns into a takedown attempt, which leads to a sprawl by the opponent which leads to an accidental head collision or the defender trying to soften the fall, landing awkwardly and a compound forearm fracture occurs (real anecdote). The situation gets much worse when multiple combatants occupy the same skirmish. The amount of entropy loaded into that equation is extreme. Attack versus defense doesn't remotely convey that kind of information.
You're unmoved.
Zero of what has been said in defense of a process-sim interpretation of HPs + Attack versus Defense in a 6 second interval and a raging against Damage on a Miss moves me. Just the same as you are unmoved by the above. So we are left with just an organized protest (a second one at that) or a preaching to the choir. Which is fine. But that is what it is. Saying "These kind of mechanics generate a bad and wrong kind of fun for me so I want it removed" is surely to move no units...the same as my words above.
