New "Bullet Points" up at WotC: Nonlethal Combat
- Thread starter jaerdaph
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Kraedin
First Post
I don't really see why. Yes, it is unrealistic that two people can fight each other for hours with no negative effects whatsoever, but, on the other hand, this is a game where you can get shot repeatedly with no negative effects whatsoever (assuming that you have a 13+ Constitution). No one complains about that.
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Kraedin, how can you get shot repeatedly with no negative consequences?
A guy with 10 hit points gets hit by a gunman. He takes 7 points damage. The shot hits him in the shoulder, and the character can be described as stumbling and barely staying on his feet, gritting his teeth as blood begins to flow. When the combat is over, approximately 18 seconds later, the other characters press on the wound and bandage him up as best he can, and he doesn't take any more damage.
A guy with 90 hit points and a Con of 10 gets hit by a gunman. He is hit for 7 points damage. The character is described as flinching back as a bullet grazes his shoulder, drawing a thin line of blood and rattling his nerves.
A guy with 90 hit points and a Con of 10 gets hit by a gunman. He is hit for 12 points damage and fails his massive damage save. The character is described as peering around a corner and then stumbling drunkenly and dropping to his knees as a bullet takes him cleanly through the neck -- a dangerous wound, and mortal if not tended to.
A guy with 90 hit points and a Con of 10 gets hit by a gunman. He is hit for 12 points damage but makes his massive damage save. The character is described as peering around a corner and then flinching back violently, hand pressed to his throat where a shot grazed his neck and very nearly took him out of the fight.
A character who has a 90 hit points when at full health has been reduced to 15 hit points, and now takes another 12 hit points damage from a gunshot, leaving him with 3 -- and he makes his massive damage save. The character is described as being bruised and battered, his shirt hanging from him in tatters, one arm bloodied and tied with a makeshift bandage, the other arm blackened from a grenade blast. He looks like Bruce Willis at the end of "Die Hard". His knuckles are bloody. There are fragments of glass in his back. Blood has soaked through his pants in a few places. Now, as he comes around a corner, the evil bad guy who was waiting for him takes a shot, and the hero, slowed by these injuries, can't get out of the way. This time, he takes the bullet in the side, twisting so that it ain't a mortal wound. He stumbles back around the corner, clutching at his side, blinking through the pain. It could have gone clean through his heart had he not had the toughness to keep control of himself and keep the reflexes going (Fort save to avoid massive damage). As it is, he's bleeding slowly from a dozen wounds, and the shot to his stomach is a sickening fiery pain that keeps him doubled over. He can't dodge anymore. Any shot that hits him is gonna hit him dead-on, and his body has taken as much as it can.
Could somebody please spare me this weekly dialogue and just make a link to an article that explains "Abstract Combat System" to everyone? You don't have to agree with it, but it IS how the game is designed.
If you want house rules to make it more interesting while in combat, you could add penalties for being at less than half your hit points, and bigger penalties for being at less than one-quarter of your hit points. Say, -2 and -4 morale penalties to all attack rolls, saves, and skill checks. You could add something to the Daredevil Advanced Class that lets him ignore these penalties as part of his "not afraid of pain" menality.
Or, if you want to have more long-term affects for damage, no one is stopping you from adding flavor text for scars, limps, blind sides, ringing in the ears, or permanent headaches -- all possible results of being reduced to a down-and-dying state in real life. The designers of the game didn't think it would be fun for people to play characters who, in a game with one or two fights per adventure, would be masses of purpled, shuffling, malformed scar tissue by about fifth level from being taken into the negatives so many times. Realistic, sure. But not fun.
-Tacky
A guy with 10 hit points gets hit by a gunman. He takes 7 points damage. The shot hits him in the shoulder, and the character can be described as stumbling and barely staying on his feet, gritting his teeth as blood begins to flow. When the combat is over, approximately 18 seconds later, the other characters press on the wound and bandage him up as best he can, and he doesn't take any more damage.
A guy with 90 hit points and a Con of 10 gets hit by a gunman. He is hit for 7 points damage. The character is described as flinching back as a bullet grazes his shoulder, drawing a thin line of blood and rattling his nerves.
A guy with 90 hit points and a Con of 10 gets hit by a gunman. He is hit for 12 points damage and fails his massive damage save. The character is described as peering around a corner and then stumbling drunkenly and dropping to his knees as a bullet takes him cleanly through the neck -- a dangerous wound, and mortal if not tended to.
A guy with 90 hit points and a Con of 10 gets hit by a gunman. He is hit for 12 points damage but makes his massive damage save. The character is described as peering around a corner and then flinching back violently, hand pressed to his throat where a shot grazed his neck and very nearly took him out of the fight.
A character who has a 90 hit points when at full health has been reduced to 15 hit points, and now takes another 12 hit points damage from a gunshot, leaving him with 3 -- and he makes his massive damage save. The character is described as being bruised and battered, his shirt hanging from him in tatters, one arm bloodied and tied with a makeshift bandage, the other arm blackened from a grenade blast. He looks like Bruce Willis at the end of "Die Hard". His knuckles are bloody. There are fragments of glass in his back. Blood has soaked through his pants in a few places. Now, as he comes around a corner, the evil bad guy who was waiting for him takes a shot, and the hero, slowed by these injuries, can't get out of the way. This time, he takes the bullet in the side, twisting so that it ain't a mortal wound. He stumbles back around the corner, clutching at his side, blinking through the pain. It could have gone clean through his heart had he not had the toughness to keep control of himself and keep the reflexes going (Fort save to avoid massive damage). As it is, he's bleeding slowly from a dozen wounds, and the shot to his stomach is a sickening fiery pain that keeps him doubled over. He can't dodge anymore. Any shot that hits him is gonna hit him dead-on, and his body has taken as much as it can.
Could somebody please spare me this weekly dialogue and just make a link to an article that explains "Abstract Combat System" to everyone? You don't have to agree with it, but it IS how the game is designed.
If you want house rules to make it more interesting while in combat, you could add penalties for being at less than half your hit points, and bigger penalties for being at less than one-quarter of your hit points. Say, -2 and -4 morale penalties to all attack rolls, saves, and skill checks. You could add something to the Daredevil Advanced Class that lets him ignore these penalties as part of his "not afraid of pain" menality.
Or, if you want to have more long-term affects for damage, no one is stopping you from adding flavor text for scars, limps, blind sides, ringing in the ears, or permanent headaches -- all possible results of being reduced to a down-and-dying state in real life. The designers of the game didn't think it would be fun for people to play characters who, in a game with one or two fights per adventure, would be masses of purpled, shuffling, malformed scar tissue by about fifth level from being taken into the negatives so many times. Realistic, sure. But not fun.
-Tacky
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I really wish that he would stop trying to use 'real life' to justify the non-lethal combat system. He is obviously wrong and his repeated attempts to prove otherwise are in vain. I don't know where or when he grew up, but in the schoolyard where I grew up, you beat the other guy down. It wasn't love taps and hugs.
Also, the idea that people 'decide' to do lethal damage is a joke. You don't 'decide' to do lethal damage, you 'decide' to do whatever it takes to be the one standing at the end of the fight.
I've been in a number of fist fights (was the fat kid who got picked on) and all of those fights, except for one, resulted in the other guy taking a nap. The one exception invovled stuff getting broken, and neither of us wanted to continue at that point. Here is some free advice, if a persons head is against a solid object do not hit them as hard as you can. It is not a good thing.
We didn't dance around for hours windmilling and nobody grabbed a board or bottle, we threw punches and in a fairly short period of time the other guy was on the ground, unconscious.
I didn't have any special training at the time, I just aimed for the nose and kept at it. My thinking was, and still is, apply one good beating to somebody, in front of a large enough group, and the rest of them will stop picking on you.
Unlike the non-lethal combat system in d20 Modern, this works in real life.
Also, the idea that people 'decide' to do lethal damage is a joke. You don't 'decide' to do lethal damage, you 'decide' to do whatever it takes to be the one standing at the end of the fight.
I've been in a number of fist fights (was the fat kid who got picked on) and all of those fights, except for one, resulted in the other guy taking a nap. The one exception invovled stuff getting broken, and neither of us wanted to continue at that point. Here is some free advice, if a persons head is against a solid object do not hit them as hard as you can. It is not a good thing.
We didn't dance around for hours windmilling and nobody grabbed a board or bottle, we threw punches and in a fairly short period of time the other guy was on the ground, unconscious.
I didn't have any special training at the time, I just aimed for the nose and kept at it. My thinking was, and still is, apply one good beating to somebody, in front of a large enough group, and the rest of them will stop picking on you.
Unlike the non-lethal combat system in d20 Modern, this works in real life.
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So your characters have to DECIDE to go into lethal combat mode?
The -4 for killing people with your hands is because killing people with your hands is HARD. If anything, he's getting it wrong by assuming that people will start out doing nonlethal damage. Nonlethal damage is there so that trained people can make trained strikes to knock out opponents without risking permanent injury to the target. It should be no one's DEFAULT style of attack.
-Tacky
The -4 for killing people with your hands is because killing people with your hands is HARD. If anything, he's getting it wrong by assuming that people will start out doing nonlethal damage. Nonlethal damage is there so that trained people can make trained strikes to knock out opponents without risking permanent injury to the target. It should be no one's DEFAULT style of attack.
-Tacky
Kraedin
First Post
It’s very simple. If I have 100 hit points and 13 Constitution, and I get shot by a Glock 17 14 times, I don't die. I’m not slowed. My aim is not impaired. (And no, it’s not dodging, or turning a serious blow in to a lesser one though skill. This applies if I'm unconscious, or unaware.)
Kraedin: Disregarding the fact that you don't seem to want a debate as much as you want to complain about a system you're under no obligation to use, why don't you explain what was wrong with my example of an abstract combat system?
I don't understand your counterexample. Your argument seems to be, "I'm too lazy to describe what happens with flavor text, so the roleplaying engine must not be working."
Does it not say in the book that hit points represent turning a serious blow into a less serious one? Does it not say so quite explicitly on page 139 and the beginning of page 140 under "What Hit Points Represent"?
You don't die. Yes. You were grazed.
You ARE slowed. That's represented by you having fewer hit points left, meaning that the remaining shots are going to finally actually hit you full on.
Your aim is not impaired -- agreed. The WotC people don't think it's heroic to get less effective at lower hit points. Don't like it? House Rule a flat -2 or -4 to any roll of the dice when you're at half or one-quarter health.
As far as it still applying to unconscious people... Yes, you've uncovered a flaw in the system -- if someone is helpless, they still have hit points. They attempted to solve this problem with the coup de grace system. Ta-dah.
-Tacky
I don't understand your counterexample. Your argument seems to be, "I'm too lazy to describe what happens with flavor text, so the roleplaying engine must not be working."
Does it not say in the book that hit points represent turning a serious blow into a less serious one? Does it not say so quite explicitly on page 139 and the beginning of page 140 under "What Hit Points Represent"?
You don't die. Yes. You were grazed.
You ARE slowed. That's represented by you having fewer hit points left, meaning that the remaining shots are going to finally actually hit you full on.
Your aim is not impaired -- agreed. The WotC people don't think it's heroic to get less effective at lower hit points. Don't like it? House Rule a flat -2 or -4 to any roll of the dice when you're at half or one-quarter health.
As far as it still applying to unconscious people... Yes, you've uncovered a flaw in the system -- if someone is helpless, they still have hit points. They attempted to solve this problem with the coup de grace system. Ta-dah.
-Tacky
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