lethal combat

[AbeTheGnome]

here's a nice little "system" I've come up with over the years to make combat something to be feared. This is a really hard system to understand and causes a lot of problems for people. It required many, many pages of typed house rules. ready for it - Give monsters class levels.

As long as the creature is not a dumb animal - which very few enemies are - you can give them class levels to beef them up.

You wanna make your players fear combat in your game, stick five goblins in the dungeon who are 20th level monks.

yeah, that's well and good, but i'm trying to solve the problem that when one of those goblins stabs a 20th level barbarian through the heart (i.e. crit), it won't even phase him, while at first level he'd be dead and bleeding.

"critical" should mean critical, for everybody... as in they'll be in the critical care unit if they don't drop on the spot.

 

[Machiavelli]

Uh, that's probably a bad idea.

What you'll end up with are far more characters wielding two keen scimitars than common sense would suggest is prudent.

 

[AbeTheGnome]

Uh, that's probably a bad idea.

What you'll end up with are far more characters wielding two keen scimitars than common sense would suggest is prudent.

good call. keen weapons are now disallowed.

 

[Drawmack]

yeah, that's well and good, but i'm trying to solve the problem that when one of those goblins stabs a 20th level barbarian through the heart (i.e. crit), it won't even phase him, while at first level he'd be dead and bleeding.

"critical" should mean critical, for everybody... as in they'll be in the critical care unit if they don't drop on the spot.

1) Why would a monk be using a knife, they are much more deadly with their bare hands?

2) At 20th level a monk gets 5 attacks, using flurry of blows at +15/+15/+15/+10/+5 and they do 2d10 damage with 2x on a crit. So if he hits with the three best hits and crits on one of them you're looking at average damage of 5 x 8 = 40 points of damage without a str bonus. While not lethal to a 20th level PC is should make them say WTF.

3) Also don't forget that your 20th level PC is not going to be able to kill the 20th level monk goblin in 1 rould either. Imaging your fighter's face when he does 40+ points of damage and just pisses off of the goblin.

Seriously give this a try. You don't even have to do it that often. Build a dungeon with about 15 - 20 encounters. In an early encounter throw a bunch of character levels on some weak ass monsters. Watch if your PCs do not try to avoid the rest of the encounters in that dungeon.

 

[JohnSnow]

One easy solution would be to pick up True 20 and crib its Toughness Save rule.

Basically, it chucks hit points in favor of a damage saving throw. So characters are still fragile enough that a high level character can be killed by a low-level one. It's just not likely that the low level character will land a deadly blow. And the high-level character probably WILL land deadly blows against low-level ones.

I've heard it said that True 20 can handle an 8-10 level spread without severe balance issues in combat. FWIW.

YMMV and all that.

 

[AbeTheGnome]

i've looked at the True20 damage system (which, i believe, is the same system presented in UA. they just use Fort saves instead of "Toughness"). it seems like a level of complexity that i don't want to add. the mechanic is simple, but it's that much more time spent rolling in-game, which is something i'm trying to avoid. the quicker the combat, the more intense it feels.

and the goblin scenario... well, i don't use monks, but wouldn't it be cooler if that flurry of blows critted, did 2d10 points of damage out of barbarian PC's CON, and sent his lower jaw into his braincase? conversely, wouldn't it be cool if raging barbarian PC overcame that little gobbo's dodge and took 1d12+9 out of his CON, thus cleaving him right down the middle, with accompanying blood spray? i like the one-hit, one-kill scenario. it keeps the fear factor, and makes battle even more cinematic.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I will echo the recommendation for Ken Hood's system, either the version 4 {linked above} or his Revised and Simplified version.

When I can get my group in the mood, I use the Revised and Simplified with only a couple minor tweaks {explained in the linked thread}

The nice thing about the system is that it is relatively simple to tack onto critters and NPCs.
The not so nice thing about either system is that they come with an implied assumption on how the world works.. specifically human vs human combat is normal, human vs monster is deadly, and spell-casters are downright lethal.