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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5036505" data-attributes="member: 4937">Personally, I would have named it something like 'fast attack' or something just to avoid this sort of thing, but yes, that's what I'm saying.  If Charging Rhinocerous wants to run down Nimble Ned, then the Rhino is going to have to do some fancy footwork.  Likewise, the Dragon, if he wants to See, here's the problem.  You don't know what realism is.  Having a whole complex set of rules might be 'worse', but abstracting it into a single non-situational attack against a static defence isn't more realistic however quicker and easier it may be in play.Except that they don't. This is not a basic situation.  GURPS has a 'Grand Unified Theory of Hitting Stuff' that factors in the size of the target with the cross-sectional area of the weapon in a realistic way.  GURPS separates the concept of defense into its constituient parts - your ability to move out of the way, block, or parry, vs. the armors ability to cause blows to glance off of you, vs. the armors ability to absorb damage.  Each of these numbers has a purpose.  Your shield might be a great means of protecting yourself from a sword slash.  It doesn't do anything to protect you from being stomped on by Godzilla.By comparison, D&D's combat system crawls in a hole and hides when it has to model a farmer fighting a house cat, much less anything complex.To look at this realistically, you start plugging in the all the factors:1) Where does Godzilla's foot go?  In D&D, Godzilla might miss you with his foot, but realistically, doesn't that just mean that he stomped the 30x30' square to your left (or right, or whatever)?  Why did your friend standing next to you, Fragile Fred, escape the stomping?2) It's a 30' wide foot for crying out loud.  Even if he doesn't get you dead center of the foot, he's still likely to hit you.  Why then does he have a -8 to hit due to size?  Shouldn't he realistically, in this case at least, have a bonus to hit you due to his size in the same way that its easier for you to swat a fly with a flyswatter than a vorpal sword?2) Ok, so you are in the line of Godzilla's stomp: does your shield even count as protection?  Does your armor provide any defence at all?3) Suppose you try to dodge Godzilla's stomp?  Where do you end up?  You can't just stand there, you are about to get stomped.D&D doesn't address any of this.  In D&D, Godzilla's stomp is fully abstract.  If it misses you, it doesn't land anywhere.  There is no realism involved or attempted.  D&D doesn't attempt to model, 'Godzilla's foot really exists'.  And even if it hits you, if you are high enough level, some abstract thing happens that keeps you from being realisticly squished flat the way that the 1st level dude with the same Con does get squished.  D&D's combat system falls apart when a guy takes his helmet off.  It can't deal with realism at all.  Now, I've said before that I learned from GURPS that there is more to a good game than realism, but are you seriously going to stand here and argue that D&D in any incarnation is more realistic than GURPS???</blockquote>

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