Grim-n-Gritty: Revised and Simplified

[Ukyo the undead]

A question:
The Attack Roll
"Automatic Misses and Hits: A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on an attack roll is always a miss. A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a hit. "

If I´m not mistaken, in the old Grim-n-Gritty rules there was a rule that said "A natural 20 is always a hit, unless the defender get a natural 20 as well."

Did the rule change, or you forgot it in the revised GnG?

 

[Samurai]

Hey Ken! First, welcome back to the gaming community. I myself moved out of the big city to a smaller town, and feared I'd never find a role-playing group here. It took almost half a year, but I finally found a good group and I'm gaming again... hopeful you'll find (or create!) some new gamers yourself.

I like the rules... MUCH leaner and more straight-forward than the previous set (which, I'll be honest, I didn't care for... too complex). I'm going to give them a try, but with 1 change: I know you want size to matter, but I think it's a bit too much for my tastes. Also, while the bonuses/penalties for attacks are doubled each time (1,2,4,8), for Soak and Damage they are linear (4,8,12,16). I've decided to make all of them all double, so that they match, and so that characters of Small or Large size are not quite so domineering or handicapped. The new size modifiers (for soak and damage) I'll be using are 2, 4, 8, 16. This leaves the top modifiers (Fine and Colossal) where they currently are, but reduces the others by a few points each. So Otis will have a -1 attack and +2 Soak and Damage, while Harold has +1 and -2/-2. I'll be leaving Str as the modifier for melee attacks, as I don't want Dex to become even more crucial a stat than it already is.

By the way, thank you for releasing it as a Word Doc... it makes it simple to implement personal changes like this before printing it out! Most people don't have an Adobe pdf writer, and must write any changes to a pdf in ink on the printout, which looks ugly.

 

[spider_minion]

Another thought . . . have you considored adding a wounding option to the critical hit table?

 

[Verequus]

Sorry, that I'm late - RL succeeded in preventing me from posting.

-The Critical Threat Range table: The entry "15-20" should be something like "Every other".

Why?

Every hit within the threat range of 15-20 scores automatically a critical. Every hit within the threat range of 14-20 scores automatically a critical. Every hit ...

So every hit within the threat range of xx-20 with xx < 16 scores automatically a critical. Then it covers every situation (although I don't know, if it is still possible to reduce the threat range below 15).

Rule of thumb: If I don't say anything about something, I've no changes for it.

Second rule of thumb: I believe in Minimum Necessary Effort. If I don't change it, I don't explain that I didn't change it.

If you don't write that into your Design Goals, how are other supposed to know it?

What are the effects of Fast Healing and Regeneration?

See previous rules of thumb. Substitute life pips for HP.

Isn't that too good? Consider a creature like the Tarrasque - it has a Regeneration score of 40. In other words, it can regenerate 15 pips more per round than they are available! Fast Healing and Regeneration scores higher than 5 or 10 bring creatures to full hit pips in two, three rounds - that's something not possible in the core rules because of the steadily increasing amount of hit dice and makes your system somewhat less lethal. I can think of two solutions: A) A simple cap of the healed pips. B) Reducing the effectiveness - e.g. 2 points of Regeneration heal 1 pip. B) will need a cap, too, for crippling things like the tarrasque.

If you mean that I didn't give examples of everything, you're right. I have no intention of providing copious and detailed examples of the system at work. I expect folks to fill in the blanks.

You may say, "That sucks!"

To which I would reply, "It's free!"

In other words, you get what you pay for.

IMHO: That wouldn't be problematic, as long 1. the rules are 100% clear and 2. you have considered every case, which is affected through your rule changes. Without examples from your side it is for others difficult to determine if 1. and 2. are both true.

So please include the example battle you already posted.

 

[KenHood]

IMHO: That wouldn't be problematic, as long 1. the rules are 100% clear and 2. you have considered every case, which is affected through your rule changes. Without examples from your side it is for others difficult to determine if 1. and 2. are both true.

You don't understand. It doesn't matter to me if #1 and #2 are true. I'm aiming for "good enough," not "perfect."

Perfect is a pain in the ass, and often not worth the effort anyways.

I'm assuming that people who use the rules are clever enough to adapt them to their personal situation.

Otherwise, if I follow your suggestions, I end up creating a 20- or 30-page document dealing with every little detail of the rules. I'm not going to put that much work into it. All I wanted to create, I have created.

 

[KenHood]

Another thought . . . have you considored adding a wounding option to the critical hit table?

Adding wounding (i.e., bleeding) ends up a pain in the rear. You'll have characters bleeding to death in short order, if it happens in rounds.

'Course, that is realistic...

 

[MacMathan]

First off, thank you for GnG it really is great.

I have come up with some questions that I would like to get some feedback on from the more experiened users and creator of GnG.

Here goes- (all of these questions refer to 3.5 unless noted)

1. Let me see if I understand how DR works? You apply it if the attack is not of the appropriate type to ignore it before you apply soak?

2. Armor with DR such as adamantium plate, should it add to soak?

3. Any suggestions for temporary hitpoints from spells etc?

4. Any suggestions for spells that effect x hp’s?(life word of stun, heal, harm etc)

5. Would you suggest a feat for monsters similar to Brute Force if the Dex as prime attack variant is used?

6. How does soak handle falling damage?

7. Suggestions for a conversion rate of HP to Pips for a Paladins lay hands ability?

8. Suggestions on which spells might help Disabled Limbs recover?

9. Are all energy attacks Soaked? What about the hand over the torch example with a high con? Would the player get a defense roll?

10. Any ideas on Con reducing effects such as poison, they no longer reduce hps but your loose ability to soak? Does this seem desired?

11. Is there such thing as a negative Soak?

12. Any ideas on force armor types (i.e. mage armor) negating certain crit options (like Bypass?)

13. Ideas on the Empower feat only effecting the actual dice and not the set modifier for spells? This seems like it might be a good idea if the Maximum Damage Dice variant is used.

14. Any suggestion for coverting the Diehard feat?

15. Questions about the combat example:
A) Why did the mage get an AOO on Otis?
B) How do the subsequent rounds of the MAA effect Otis? (or constant damage in general)

16. Opinions on Cover detail of 3.0 vs 3.5 given its importance in GnG?

 

[Thomas Hobbes]

Firstly, I can't thank you enough for a really killer rules system. My group and I have been using the previous version of Grim-n-Gritty in a d20 Modern game for a while now and having lots of fun with it.

I also like the new system a lot- it, as you say, is simplified. I've been running d20 Modern with both the more-complex stunning variant (make a fortitude save vs. damage, fail by 1-5, dazed, fail by 6-10, stunned, fail by 11+, stunned for 2d6 rounds) and the more-complex bleeding variant (every 1d6+con modifier rounds, go from OK to fatigued to exhausted to incapacitated to dead) and while I liked them for their game effect, it was a pain to GM a game with multiple combatants all bleeding to death. Perhaps any attack that deals more than 1 wound category has you then losing 1 pip/round, or something? But I digress.

I was wondering if perhaps you have any advice on using the system for d20 modern. The primary difficulty, I think, lies in the fact that the problem of Hit Dice outlined by another poster in reference to D&D is more pronounced in d20 modern, where the tie between base attack bonus and hit die is much more tenuous, and the pre-existing defense bonus further complicates things. For example:

The class with full BAB (strong) has a d8 hit die and the class with a d10 (tough) has 3/4 BAB. Each class already has a defense bonus listed, and this defense bonus' relation to BAB is less than direct- the strong hero has the second best defense progression, as does the tough, and the fast hero has 3/4 BAB, d8 hit die, and the best of the defense bonuses.

Since toughness=soak, that’s the obvious way to do things, and since modern settings tend to be armor-light, it won’t break things too much to have level-based soak. So how about this (round down, as always):

d10= +1/3 soak
d8 or d6= 1/6 soak
d4= 1/12 soak

Defense bonus would be... kept as in d20 modern? Converting to the RGnG system would remove the balancing factor of the listed defense bonus, but if you keep it the d20 modern way the defense roll tends to be much, much higher than it would be in RGnG.

What do you think? If I can convince my players, I might have some more playtest data for you at some point.

 

[SSquirrel]

Been out of town and unable to reply to anything the oast few days so here's a few opinions:

Isn't that too good? Consider a creature like the Tarrasque - it has a Regeneration score of 40. In other words, it can regenerate 15 pips more per round than they are available! Fast Healing and Regeneration scores higher than 5 or 10 bring creatures to full hit pips in two, three rounds - that's something not possible in the core rules because of the steadily increasing amount of hit dice and makes your system somewhat less lethal. I can think of two solutions: A) A simple cap of the healed pips. B) Reducing the effectiveness - e.g. 2 points of Regeneration heal 1 pip. B) will need a cap, too, for crippling things like the tarrasque.

IMO what you need to do is look at the healing magic chart and take the average die roll for the comparable spell and figure based on that. Let's say you have Regen 6. This would be equal to a 1st level Cure Light Wounds. Look at the chart and that gives you X pips back. Standard conversion I'm assuming for feats like Focused Healing from Arcana Unearthed is 1 pip:3 HPs healed.

Hagen

 

[SSquirrel]

Some more opinions:

3. Any suggestions for temporary hitpoints from spells etc?

Take the results of the temp HP roll and divide by 3. Make these Lightly Wounded boxes (ie no penalties)

4. Any suggestions for spells that effect x hp’s?(life word of stun, heal, harm etc)

See above.

5. Would you suggest a feat for monsters similar to Brute Force if the Dex as prime attack variant is used?

Monsters would have access to the same feats as the players.

6. How does soak handle falling damage?

I wouild assume you would soak the first X damage as normal and then after that you have to eat it regularly. Divide by 3 seems like a decent conversion ate based on Ken's original chart for pips based on spells.

7. Suggestions for a conversion rate of HP to Pips for a Paladins lay hands ability?

Again 3 HP:1pip

15. Questions about the combat example:
A) Why did the mage get an AOO on Otis?

a)Otis charged Warren

Hagen