mmadsen said:
D&D is not about gun fights, and it's not about
realistic combat, but I thought this, from
The SOP9 Report - An Analysis Of NYPD Police Combat, might add to the discussion of how often attacks should hit:
Hit Potential In Gun Fights
The police officer's potential for hitting his adversary during armed confrontation has increased over the years and stands at slightly over 25% of the rounds fired. An assailant's skill was 11% in 1979.
In 1990 the overall police hit potential was 19%. Where distances could be determined, the hit percentages at distances under 15 yards were:
Less than 3 yards ..... 38%
3 yards to 7 yards .. 11.5%
7 yards to 15 yards .. 9.4%
In 1992 the overall police hit potential was 17%. Where distances could be determined, the hit percentages at distances under 15 yards were:
Less than 3 yards ..... 28%
3 yards to 7 yards .... 11%
7 yards to 15 yards . 4.2%
Not that it would solve the key problem, but I would suggest that this is yet more evidence that the range increments in D&D are at least twice as far as they realistically should be. Most D&D combats tend to occur at very short range, but when they don't, D&D tends to make it far too easy to hit a target at range.
Another factor that D&D doesn't take into account that it really should is speed. If the target is in motion of any sort at range, its move should give it a dodge bonus to its AC, especially against the largely balistic weapons of D&D.
As for melee, I think that the basic problem here is that the closer numbers get to 20, the more a D20 system enherently breaks down. That is to say, between levels 1 and 10 or so, the differences in combat ability, saving throws, and skills between say a fighter and a wizard are important or a sorcerer and a rogue are important but not so much so that there isn't still a large (but shrinking) random factor. Above a certain level though, at some point that depends on how much min/maxing is going on, you get a problem. As numbers begin to approach 20, a d20 system becomes enherently binary. You can either do something, and you succeed brilliantly almost all the time, or you can't do something and you fail catastrophicly almost every time. I don't think that there is any simple fix with this, and its not just a D20 problem, but a problem inherent to having a dice range and 'heroic' (in the classical sense) characters. GURPS has its own similar problem. D6 dice pool systems have a similar problem. D20 damage save/wound level variations systems will have similar problems, and so forth. Eventually, the game is going to get out of its 'sweet spot' and there just isn't any getting around that.
Simple fixes like adding in a defense bonus to classes/monsters which advances along with BAB won't solve the problem. They might force a melee character to have a larger random factor on his iterative attacks or slightly reducing his power attacking, but they won't keep melee characters from easily hitting most anything and they will extend the difference between combat system oriented characters and non-combat system oriented characters and make it that much more binary. In other words, giving a 20th level fighter +4 to his AC when he's armed and not flat footed, probably won't protect him much from other fighters, but will protect him alot from everything else. Giving the CR 20 outsider +4 to his AC probably won't be much good against the 20th level fighter, but it will definately impact anything that doesn't have full BAB progression. I'm not saying defensive bonuses are necessarily a bad idea, I just am not at all sure that they will solve the problem.
