Making Combat More Deadly

[3catcircus]

The recent threads on piecemeal armor, realism, etc. has got me thinking about ways to make combat more deadly. Below are some of my thoughts. Feel free to provide feedback.

1. Use Armor as DR.
2. Use hit locations:

Die Roll Biped Location Quadruped Location
1 Head Head
2 Rt. Arm Forequarter
3 Lt. Arm Forequarter
4 Chest Forequarter
5 Abdomen Chest
6 Abdomen Chest
7 Rt. Leg Abdomen
8 Rt. Leg Hindquarter
9 Lt. Leg Hindquarter
10 Lt. Leg Hindquarter

3. Use a VP/WP system with location-based wound points (Head = Con, Chest =(Str+Con)x2, Abdomen, arms, legs each have Str+Con)

4. Any hit to the head (VP or WP) that exceeds 1/2 your Con requires you to roll a DC (5+damage taken) Will save to avoid being stunned for 1d4 rounds.

5. If you suffer damage to your legs (VP or WP) that exceeds your Dex, make a DC (5 + Damage) Ref save or you are knocked prone.

6. In addition to the normal VP/WP effects, when your WP for legs is reduced, your movement rate is reduced (i.e. if you have 20 WP for each leg, and lose 10 points from your left leg, your movement rate is reduced by 25%) You could do discrete reductions (25%, 50%, 75%, no movement).

7. For your arms, any damage (VP or WP) that exceeds your Dex results in a DC (5+Damage) Will save or drop whatever item is held in that hand.

8. Any damage (VP or WP) exceeding your Con to your abdomen results in DC (5+damage) Fort save or be nauseated for 1d4 rounds. Likewise, for the chest, it is a Fort save or be staggered for 1d4 rounds.

9. When your WP for any location drops to 1/2 max, you start bleeding out (treat as the Arterial Strike feat).

10. Burn damage is per second until extinguished.

Note that for the effects where damage exceeds an ability score (above) the intent is any single attack.

 

[3catcircus]

No love for this thread?

 

[the Jester]

Death at 0 instead of -10?

 

[MarauderX]

Hit location takes far too much time and accounting to be fun anymore. Check out Iron Heroes for armor as DR and working with balance on AC, armor, DR and HP. It's a bit slanted towards great heroics (Monty Cook = goofy), but the numbers by Mike Mearls are pretty solid.

Depending on how disabling/deadly you want to go, try a few of these.

1. A PC at half HP looses 1/2 movement from bleeding, trama, etc.
2. Death at 0 HP.
3. Each blow bleeds. Keep track of how many times a character has been hit, and for each hit the character looses an additional 1 HP a round. For even deadlier games, the bleeding is half the original damage, including critical blows.
4. Healing, magical or not, only heals one wound at a time, so slapping on a CLW no longer stabilizes the Barbarian with 20 wounds.
5. A character at 25% HP has a chance of passing out each round. A Fort save is needed to keep from passing out. Other characters can Aid Another to assist the roll. (as seen in movies, "STAY WITH ME!")
6. Poison does 1 point of ability damage each round up to the maximum allowed, in lieu of rolling.
7. Critical hits severe fingers, hands, feet, limbs.
8. Healing via magic works at a rate of 1 HP per round up to the amount rolled, instead of instantly. Only one healing spell may be in effect at a time.

 

[Esteban]

Hit location takes far too much time and accounting to be fun anymore.

Not sure if I agree with this. I had planned on using hit location in my next campaign. Simply roll a D10 with the D20 and if you hit you just reference the D10 to see where. That said, I've not actually tried this. Has anyone actually done this and, if so, does it bog down combat?

-Steve

 

[Blue]

Slowing down the game

Not sure if I agree with this. I had planned on using hit location in my next campaign. Simply roll a D10 with the D20 and if you hit you just reference the D10 to see where. That said, I've not actually tried this. Has anyone actually done this and, if so, does it bog down combat?

For a player who's only got one body to deal with? Some, but not much. It's still extra things to track and mentally juggle - well, I'm okay but I took a head hit, so another head whit will kill me will take up more time to make desicsions then "I'm down 10 of 120 HPs".

For a DM attacking with a bunch of fodder, a few named and individually stated enemy leaders, and perhaps a friendly NPC or two that the party is protecting - the answer is it definitely slows things down. Especially when they are doing things on the fly for non-humanoid creatures (hey, this marilith has 6 arms and a snake body - where does a "4" hit?) or adjudicating on the fly for big size changes ("how did the halfling hit the giant in the head with his dagger?")

Not saying it isn't worth it for the realism - that's something that depends on the group. But I'd want to have a large and tangible benefit to the game for adding hit locations before I would want to take the extra time needed.

Cheers,
=Blue(23)

 

[Master of the Game]

To make battles hurt a bit more I lowered the maximum damage threshold to equal the character's Con score. Then I upped the save DC to 10 + 1/2 damage taken.

Failing the save means the character is injured, and takes -2 to all actions until he is healed.
Failing by 5 means the character suffers a major injury (broken arm/leg, whatever).
Failing by 10 drops the character to -1 hp instantly, he starts bleeding to death, and the injury becomes more or less permanent (lost arm or leg).

Combined with my low-magic world, this makes combat devistating.

I also use the Infection rules from Thieves' World, which is an excellent place to look for good ideas.

 

[The Levitator]

Well, I think this might be a fun thread. As long as everyone remember that there isn't only 1 way to play D&D. I just got a little roughed up on another thread for revealing our rather long list of variants.

• Opposed Defense Roll (DMG)This is my groups single-favorite variant, and probably mine as well. This variant has a lot of benefits for our group. First it really randomizes combat more to eliminate the foregone conclusion of a high level characters always hitting and a low level character always missing. In addition, it reduces metagaming during combat. And most importantly to me, it gives much more information to help me in describing the action, because a bad swing can still hit, and great swing can still miss.
• Armor As DR (homebrew version). Our version is a little warped from the UA version. AC bonuses from armor are just transferred to DR, and not variable like IH. In addition, magical bonuses are applied to DR as well. We also use DM Genie and someone developed a script that also tracks the physical damage to armor and shields.
• Class Defense Bonus (homebrew version). This was designed to balance the AaDR. I got some help by a WotC forum member named Solaris. It's simple and seems to work really well with potentially high DR scores. The Class Defense Bonus is = BAB. That way fighter types progress get better at dodging blows more quickly than non-fighter types. The other big change is that the Class Defense Bonus stacks with armor, with slight scaling penalties for medium and heavy armor.
• Clobbered Variant (DMG). This really helps makes combat a little dicier, especially in later rounds when combatants are worn down a bit. The clobbered variant makes it a little harder to just "cut and run".
• Facing Variant (UA). We play this pretty much just like the UA variant, except that we added a condition called "Engage". Engage allows you to designate 1 opponent. If that opponent attempts to circle you or otherwise change position, you automatically change facing to match your opponent. This came out of a loophole my players seemed to have found. By the UA facing rules, it seems that you can just "leapfrog" each other to gain flanking attacks.
• 12 second "real time" rounds. In our game, you have 12 seconds in real time on your turn to declare your action or you are considered to be delaying until after the next creature in initiative order acts. This makes combat a little more realistic because it helps to simulate the frenzy and potential panic inherent in combat. With a shorter time to decide what to do, tactical mistakes can often be made that lead to dangerous situations. It also gives me the opportunity as a DM to "balance" a very tough encounter by having the baddies occasionally "freeze" to give the party some sudden tactical advantages.
• Battle Fatigue. This is a houserule I created to make my players happy. One thing they really dislike about the standard HP system is that a fighter fights just as well at 1 HP as he did at 100 HP. This houserule attempts to simulate the cumulative effects of wounds during combat.
  
  75% of total HP: Light Battle Fatigue (-1 STR and -1 DEX)
  50% of total HP: Battle Fatigue (-2 STR and -2 DEX)
  25% of total HP: Heavy Battle Fatigue (-4 STR and -4 DEX)
  
  Battle Fatigue can only be improved/removed by healing, unlike normal Fatigue which wears off after a short time
• Shields are all +1 higher than core. OK, this doesn't make combat deadlier, but I wanted to balance out my list a little or some might think I am a DM composed of pure evil! Here are a few other changes I made on the + side to give our game more of a "it's the hero, not his gear" feel. In our game, characters gain ability points every 3 levels instead of every 4, and they get a feat at every other level instead of every 3 levels.
• Improved bows and crossbows (homebrew). After having 3 of my players tell me they feel that ranged combat is gimped in D&D I changed the threat ranges and crits to 19-20x3 for both bows and crossbows. This gives bows an extra point of threat range and crossbows an extra point for crit. multiplier.
• Non-Spontaneous Healing. (homebrew) This came about as a result of my players disliking the videogame power-up feel of the potion chugging fighter. Healing is NOT instantaneous. The rate of recovery depends on the level of the healer. This makes healing more miraculous and keeps combat dangerous as you can’t just pop healing potions and be “invincible” during combat. In addition, the cost to have potions and magical items created by clerics will have the same recovery rate as the cleric who created it. It costs much more to have a healing potion created by a 10th level cleric than it does a first. You gain the 1st HP(or 2 with a lvl. 5 potion or prayer) immediately.
  
  Cleric Level Recovery Rate Item Cost Mult.
  1-4 1 HP/8 rds. Standard
  5-8 1 HP/4 rds. X2
  9-12 1 HP/2 rds. X3
  13-16 1 HP/rd. X4
  17-20 2 HP/rd X5
  

One thing I wanted to mention is that I don't add variants and houserules to make combat "more deadly" or "more realistic" per se. My favorite part of DM'ing is being as good a storyteller as I can be. I don't have the skills to take a simple static AC-single roll to hit combat system and describe every attack as a unique and exciting moment in combat. The variants help me better visualize what actually happens and give more immersive and varied descriptions. Also, I talk with my players at every session to get ideas on how to make the world we game in more fun for them. So we build the world together, as a group. It just so happens, it appears, that my group likes a really gritty and dangerous world!

 

[3catcircus]

Death at 0 instead of -10?

Well - with VP/WP, there is no -10. When you hit 0 WP you are either disabled or dieing.

 

[3catcircus]

For a player who's only got one body to deal with? Some, but not much. It's still extra things to track and mentally juggle - well, I'm okay but I took a head hit, so another head whit will kill me will take up more time to make desicsions then "I'm down 10 of 120 HPs".

For a DM attacking with a bunch of fodder, a few named and individually stated enemy leaders, and perhaps a friendly NPC or two that the party is protecting - the answer is it definitely slows things down. Especially when they are doing things on the fly for non-humanoid creatures (hey, this marilith has 6 arms and a snake body - where does a "4" hit?) or adjudicating on the fly for big size changes ("how did the halfling hit the giant in the head with his dagger?")

Not saying it isn't worth it for the realism - that's something that depends on the group. But I'd want to have a large and tangible benefit to the game for adding hit locations before I would want to take the extra time needed.

Cheers,
=Blue(23)

I don't necessarily see a problem since you don't really *need* to roll an extra die for location. You d20 roll can also act as the d10 for location. As to multiple limbs - if it has 6 arms, you roll a d6 at the same time as the d20.

You do have a really good point with the halfling vs. the giant. I'm thinking that size modifiers to AC need to be included (use the AC size mod in reverse, or reverse the table and use the AC size mod directly.)

Realism is one use for hit locations, but it also allows for called shots to add some cinematics to combat, regardless of other house rules. There is currently no mechanic to allow the heroes to shoot an arrow at the bad guy and knock his hand away from the button for the doomsday device/lever for the trapdoor to drop the princess into the pit of lava/memory crystal to start the interplanar armageddon/etc.