Grim-n-Gritty: Revised and Simplified

[Modin Godstalker]

One suggestion. You might want to adapt the damage system from Top Secret. It had lethal and non-lethal as well. You had a number of damage boxes. Put in a "X" for each lethal hit taken. Put a "/" for each non lethal. If all the boxes are filled with "/"'s then each hit after that turns into an "X" regardless of whether it was a lethal or non-lethal hit.

To adapt this to your version, I would do the same thing you are doing now except if a person fills a lethal dot in, they also fill in a nonlethal dot.

 

[SSquirrel]

One suggestion. You might want to adapt the damage system from Top Secret. It had lethal and non-lethal as well. You had a number of damage boxes. Put in a "X" for each lethal hit taken. Put a "/" for each non lethal. If all the boxes are filled with "/"'s then each hit after that turns into an "X" regardless of whether it was a lethal or non-lethal hit.

To adapt this to your version, I would do the same thing you are doing now except if a person fills a lethal dot in, they also fill in a nonlethal dot.

Isn't this basically what is already being done, except using 2 lines of dots rather than 1? Been awhile since I glanced at the rules. Actually, this variation would never knock someone out, they would keep going until dead, where the Revised GNG system has unconsciousness as the option for filling up on nonlethals. I think.

Hagen

 

[FallenAngel]

I just love this system. I could never stand the abstraction of hit points standing for dodging ability/etc. in the normal rules and as a result avoided D&D like the plaque(which is a shame since D&D has quite a few excellent campaign worlds).
Fortunately for me, mr. Hood's old Grim-n-Gritty system back then and the recent revised one have made D&D accesible for my tastes.
Many thanks to him for that

That being said our gaming group recently ran into an ogre too...and our newest campaign having started only recently, the three of us were all only lvl 3
Needless to say we almost wet ourselves, especially since the big guy was busy vandalizing a bridge we really had to cross in order to get over a huge chasm. Going out of our way to avoid the thing wasn't an option, since time was of the essence and to top it off, our GM informed us while smiling evilly that the bridge would hold out at most 3 or 4 another rounds so we had to cross that chasm really quick while somehow dealing with the ogre.

I decided to do the heroic martyr thing and square off with the ogre in mortal combat to provide a distraction, while my two comrades would cross the bridge as fast as possible and hurry on towards our goal.

This is how the combat went:

-First the important stats of my character
Race: Elan
Class: Level 3 Soulknife
Attack: +6(+1 class, + 3 Dex, +1 Weapon Focus)
Defense Bonus: +6(+3 Ref. save, +3 Dex)
Soak: 8 (Con +3, Studded Leather +3, Heavy Wooden Shield +2)
Damage: 1d6+3 (+3 Str)
Special: Psychic Strike +1d8 damage, Psionic Weapon +2d6 damage
Psychic Strike had been readied in advance and Psionic Focus was also accomplished before the fight

I got Init. and opened up with my most potent attack, utilizing both the charged Psychic Strike and the Psionic Weapon Feat to beef my attack up with 1d8 and 2d6 extra damage(we convert all extra damage dice besides the weapon dice into their equivalent flat-point values from the GnG table, which equals a total of +7 damage).
My roll turned out 11(17) and the ogre's defense roll was a 3(5).
Hit by 12 and threatened a critical!
I chose to try and ignore his size modifier and managed to confirm the critical while the ogre failed his ref. save.
All in all a hit by 12, ignoring 4 points of the ogres soak.
My damage roll (1d6+22 all in all) turned out to a 28, less the ogre's lowered soak of 12 = 16 pips which dropped him right into the "Disabled" condition and probably made him pretty angry
Disregarding his injuries, he gleefully took a swing at me.
He rolled a 19(still 19 after his Attack bonus and wound penalty were applied)...and my defense roll came up 2(8).
Being hit by 11 and getting threatened by a critical clearly was NOT GOOD.
Thankfully he couldn't confirm the crit. and ended up rolling *only* 2d8+20 damage.
He got a 24, less my soak of 8 = 16 pips which would have dropped me straight into "Disabled" too, if I didn't have my racial ability of Resilience on which I burned 4 Power Points to stop another 8 damage, leaving only 8, to drop me to moderately wounded and at -1 to most rolls.
He also lost another pip due to performing a strenous action while being in the "Disabled" condition, for a total of 17 pips so far.
At this point the fight was pretty much over already, since all I had left to do was moving away from him(since he was barely able to move anymore) and killing him with a thrown Mindblade.

I guess this shows that even in the GnG system a lvl 3 character can take on a CR 3-Large creature alone and win, although it's pretty risky for him

 

[SSquirrel]

Great tale FallenAngel, glad your character made it out alive. *Grin*
I think the main complaint I've seen of this system is people saying they don't want constant TPKs and such. Well if their players would think before acting they would probably live throught the session. I don't think it takes completely planned out, something out of Splinter Cell kinda actions...just giving more than 2 seconds thought and planning into your actions.

Hagen

 

[ShinRyuuBR]

A tidbit more of heroism

I've been thinking about using only base Ref bonus, never BAB, for Defense, but adding base Fort bonus to Soak. I like realism, but I think warriors could use a little touch of additional heroism. Anyhow, it could account for psycological damage tolerance as well. Also, since higher-HD classes always have better Fort, things seem to mesh a bit better (particularly for the barbarian, who, unlike the other high-HD classes, tends to use lighter armor).

Such a change means characters not only will get better at avoiding being hit, but also at taking damage. A lean towards heroism, without grossly offending realism, in my opinion. I just don't feel SOO grim'n'gritty towards my players... I'm even thinking about removing size modifiers to Soak, since larger monsters tend to have higher Fort anyway. Feels neater to me, is all.

 

[FallenAngel]

I dunno, but to me it seems that always using base Ref bonus instead of the higher between BAB and Ref as Defense and including the Fort bonus in soak transforms the Grim'n'Gritty system right back into standard DnD, because with your changes:

1. You get hit a HELL of a lot more (Fighter lvl 20 with a Defense of 6 (with all stats 10 and without shield) under your system compared to the Defense of 20 he'd have under GnG).

2. You can take a ton of hits before going down (taking the Fighter from before, he'd have a Soak of 20 in Full Plate in your system(again, all stats 10 no other boni), compared to the Soak 8 he'd have in GnG.

You'd probably be better off just playing with hit points if you're going to change the system as drastically as that.

 

[Malin Genie]

...
Defense Bonus: +6(+3 Ref. save, +3 Dex)
Soak: 8 (Con +3, Studded Leather +3, Heavy Wooden Shield +2)

Wouldn't the shield contribute to Defence, not Soak?

But good to see another actual example of play! I've been trialling the system with a friend, and we've enjoyed it, although I'm still wrestling with the problem of increased versimilitude but decreased ability to use published sources --> increased work!

 

[Thomas Hobbes]

The shield would indeed have contributed to defense rather than soak, which is actually more beneficial- each attack is 10% less likely to hit you AND each one that does hit deals 2 less damage than it would otherwise, since each point the defense is beaten by also adds to damage...

This is one thing about GnG- things like Power Attack and Rage no longer work quite the way the used to. Power attack, as discussed before, is only really "worth it" when wielding two-handed weapons (a possible revision would make a one-handed power attack have a 3/2 damage/modifier ratio, and two-handed be 5/2 damage/modifier ratio).

Rage is an interesting case. The Strength bonus either does double duty (if you're keeping strength as the melee attack modifier) because it adds to hit, as well as to damage normally AND to damage as well because each point you beat defense by is an extra point of damage. If you're using the Dex-based variant, the strength bonus is much less useful. Meanwhile, the -2 AC, +4 constitution cancel each other out, and is actually a bit of a loss- you get hit 10% more often, and the 2 extra soak is cancelled out by the fact that each attack that hits deals 2 more damage then normal.

 

[FallenAngel]

Wouldn't the shield contribute to Defence, not Soak?

But good to see another actual example of play! I've been trialling the system with a friend, and we've enjoyed it, although I'm still wrestling with the problem of increased versimilitude but decreased ability to use published sources --> increased work!

You're of course right on the shield quote, that was a mistake on my part(since I didn't write all the exact rolls down during our adventure and tried to reconstruct the whole thing from memory, I mixed up the shield bonus ^_^).

I didn't have all that many problems yet converting my twenty or so DnD books to the GnG system, although I usually deal with stuff on a case by case basis in the order it comes up in play and write down our consensual ruling.

 

[Etiquette_Gnome]

I'd like to bring up one issue I found with Ken Hood's system, which is the matter of falling damage. Currently, being covered in metal armor makes you able to withstand some pretty significant falls, which is a bit confusing to say the least. I'm currently house-ruling this house-rule system , where only equipment based soak (aka Armor) does not help towards falling damage.