Alternate combat rules - OGC and otherwise

[RangerWickett]

I am not up to date on my research of Malhavoc's Book of Iron Might, but apparently it's got some new rules for combat to make it more interesting.

I don't own Unearthed Arcana, but I've skimmed through it and I like the Mutants & Masterminds-derived "damage save" mechanic.

What other alternate combat rules do you know of? Could you tell me about what stuff is in Malhavoc's BoIM? Does it make fights more cinematic?

What I would like in a combat system are rules that:

• Make large fights end dramatically, instead of with a wittling of hit points.
• Let the heroes do cool things to 'mooks', and let villains do at least one or two cool things without necessarily killing a hero in the process.
• Allow for duels between warriors where few blows are struck until the winning strike is delivered.
• Make different fighting styles feel different mechanically, but still be effective.
• Ensure fights still last at least a few rounds, or possibly even have fights last longer if the resolution of attacks are faster, so that less game time is spent.

For instance, I want greatsword fighters to be able to kill an enemy warrior in one or two hits, and to be able to hurt large creatures with ease, but they should have drawbacks like being slow and having poor defenses. Dagger fighters could use hit and run tactics, delivering a few weak hits to slow an enemy down before delivering a killing blow. Full blown swordfighters, with rapiers or whatever, would not strike hits, but would instead spend rounds getting their opponent into a bad position, so that it only takes one precise hit to end the fight.

Mostly, I want to avoid situations like those that come up in my 14th level game. Last session the party's threshing machine (read: spiked chain wielder) would spend about 30 seconds per round rolling damage, and that was after he used Excel to make a spreadsheet charting his attack roll/power attack/damage correlations. The party's swordswoman (an Iaijutsu Master from Oriental Adventures) got into two sword duels, and though each only lasted one round, it took her two minutes to roll all the damage dice and add up everything.

I think the damage save mechanic is much better, easier to use, though I don't know about how it plays in actual use. And I don't think it allows for "setting up" an opponent, the way you read about in Drizzt novels, where he gets his opponent's guard up high, then goes for a low attack, or something similar. Likewise, if an assassin sneaks up on a hero, I have no problem with a single dagger disabling a high level character (though healing will soon bring him back to the fight).

So, share your knowledge and your experiences. Thanks.

 

[RangerWickett]

*bump*

 

[JamesDJarvis]

The Everquest OGL-D20 rpg uses (or used haven't seen EQ2 yet) a Weapon Delay factor that offsets itterative attacks from weapon to weapon. It is a sort of workable version of weapon speed. Ultimately good fighters get less attacks per round with big slow weapons then they do with small quick weapons.

 

[BastionPress_Creech]

If you can find a copy of Master of Arms from Second World Simulations, grab it. It's exactly what you are after.

 

[RangerWickett]

Master of Arms adds new styles, but it doesn't sound like it simplifies high level combat any.

 

[deltadave]

I recommend the system in The Riddle of Steel. It is quick and gives a feel more like cinematic combat than the D&D feel of standing and slugging it out. Lots of give and take, but one real hit can take almost anyone out.

 

[DonAdam]

The next design diary for Summa Fantasia might interest you... it should be up tomorrow or the day after.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Conan OGL has some high level fighting abilities that anyone can use if they meet the prereqs (e.g. decapitating strike, cats parry, to the hilt) which add a little more flavour to combat. Plus the low MDT in Conan means that a crit from any weapon is a nasty threat no matter what your level.

Iron Lore sounds like it might be the real deal from your point of view in many respects.

Personally I like the damage save mechanic (or a variant thereof - the original M&M one is much less clunky than the UA 'conversion' IMO), especially because combat doesn't become a matter of accounting... you never can tell when the bullet with your name on it is going to arrive...

Regards

 

[azmodean]

Inspired by the damage save system presented in UA, I've been trying to come up with a similar system that eliminates (or at least manages) the problems it has.
Summary of the system: Each time you take damage you make a fort save with a DC of 15 + (damage dealt/5). On a failure you take a "wound", which inposes a -1 cumulative penalty on subsequent saves vs damage. On a critical failure (failure by 10+ or a natural 1) you are dropped, effectively at 0 HP.

It's problems (As I see them):
1. a bit too random (5% chance of being dropped (natural 1) by any damage no matter how tough you are, even with a miniscule amount of damage)
2. fort save doesn't map well to different hit dice
3. a "wound" doesn't have enough effect (a mere -1 to subsequent saves)
4. good chance of really tough creatures taking no damage at all from a "successful" hit. This was pointed out by one of my players, in some systems a "hit" does not guarantee damage being dealt, but in normal DnD situations (barring damage reduction mostly) you deal damage if you hit, this is even more so in 3.5 after DR has been reduced. I can see where a player who has only played DnD may have problems with this.

What I have so far:
1. I use "exploding" dice for saves anyway, when a natural 1 is rolled you roll again and subtract that amount from the total, and on a natural 20 the total is 20 + an additional d20. With a few more tweaks (save vs getting dropped is 0+damage/5) others listed below) the chance of dropping a tough opponent with a "weak" (relative to the opponent) attack is more like 1% or less.
2. I use a damage save seperate from the fort save, with 5 different base progressions to map to the 5 different hit dice in use(1/3 HD, 2/5 HD, 1/2 HD, 2 + 1/2 HD). This also allow the system to be tweaked more easily, I think the final numbers involved would tend to be quite a bit higher than normal for saving throws (perhaps ranging from 1/2 per HD to 1 per HD).
3. Complicating the system somewhat, I introduce more severe wounds, ranging from a "mere scratch" (-1 to subsequent saves) to a "serious wound" (-10 to subsequent saves)
4. even on a successful save, the target takes a "mere scratch" for -1 to subsequent saves, this allows "whittling down" tough opponents and aviods the frustration of "you hit... but did no damage".
In summary, the save DC is something like:
damage/5: disabled (0 HP)
5 + damage/5: serious wound (-10 to subsequent saves)
10 + damage/5 :major wound (-6 to saves)
15 + damage/5 :moderate wound (-3 to saves)
success :minor wound (-1 to saves)

With the system as written in UA, you have a high percentage of your "deaths" resulting from natural ones, especially in a situation where the damage is low compared to the toughness of the target.

With these changes in place, the probability spread becomes much more interesting. The first few hits are very unlikely to result in a debilitating wound (equivalent of 0 HP), but as the wounds accumulate, the chance of taking a more serious wound increases rapidly, as does the chance of being dropped. I wrote a little program to help me visualize this, I know a little combanatorics, but not nearly enough to do this on paper.

One last thing I am thinking of is to eliminate the critical success and failure entirely, a.k.a. "a one is a one and a twenty is a twenty" This makes it where it is impossible to take down a very tough target with a single weak hit. A single hit kill is still possible, but only with a hit that is significant in magnitude (as always, compared to the target)

I think I'll run that through my program and see how it works out. (that makes the probability easier to calculate too )

 

[DarkMaster]

What about simply adding flavor to the existing rule.

First dagger blow to the high level fighter he dodged but is breathing slightly harder.

After a bunch of them he is completly exhausted with a few minor scratch making the matter even worse (he is at 5hp) His reflex are getting slower and he really starts to have a harder time dodging the blows, that's when the dagger figther strikes him in the throath after a nice feint killing him on the spot (15+dmg), normally he would have dodged it easily, but now he is exhausted and his reflex aren't as sharp.

I play with various combat system and I feel that DM flavor is more important than the actual mechanic. Flavor can easily adapts the current system to what you are looking for.