Rant on d20

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Vaxalon mate!

No it's not! Versimilitude is very hard to obtain, especially when it comes to combat.

Your right I was getting myself tongue tied.

I see you edited out what I really meant within the brackets (and equally, spot flawed logic) though; cheers mate!

Combat is a very complex environment and even very, very complex systems like GURPS fail to achieve it on a regular basis.

I think some fundamentals can be addressed though - like armour; strength/damage.

I don't think you have to complicate matters to obtain verisimilitude.

It shouldn't be too hard to set a (behind the scenes) parameter for kinetic energy using the relativity equation.

(For d20 Modern) A 5.56mm round delivers 27 Kilojoules of kinetic energy.

We know the weight of a great club (approx. 10lb) and its typical speed (50+m/s?*) = 5 Kilojoules (1d10 damage averages 5.5 damage). We could say that damage averages 1 per kilojoule.

*I am trying to find out baseball bat swing speeds.

Therefore a Hill Giants GreatClub (roughly x8 mass) swung at the same speed should deliver x8 the damage (slightly less if swung slower). 8d10 damage.

A Storm Giant using a proportional Greatclub would deliver 64d10 damage by the same scale.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Colonel Hardisson mate!

I agree with most of your points; I can easily adapt a wound system or change armour to absorb damage myself.

However, I am sure that everyone has ideas about what they would always like to see in a future edition. So it never hurts to discuss possible 'improvements' (as we are doing here).

The primary change I would make would be to divorce BAB/Weapon Skill from Hit Dice. But that in itself opens up a can of worms that would need sorted.

Secondly I would fix damage/mass/strength which would no doubt have immediate ramifications on hit points...etc.

 

[LostSoul]

I was thinking about something...

One of the strange things about Hit Points is that damage isn't tied to your attack roll. If you're a 20th level fighter with 18 Str, you still can't stab the 5th level fighter through the gut on your first swing. 2d8+12 isn't going to cut it against a guy who's got 4d10+10 hit points. So you do 20 damage against his 32 hit points; still a lot of damage, but he is still fighting at 100%.

It doesn't matter what your attack score is, you just can't land solid blows on people.

Or am I misreading this?

 

[mmadsen]

One of the strange things about Hit Points is that damage isn't tied to your attack roll....It doesn't matter what your attack score is, you just can't land solid blows on people.

Exactly.

When we look at D&D characters, it's interesting to examine what advances with level:

Hit Points -- dramatically
To-Hit -- slightly
Armor Class -- not at all
Damage -- not at all

There are so many other ways to make high-level characters "epic" than giving them huge numbers of extra Hit Points, a small To-Hit bonus, no AC bonus, and no Damage bonus.

 

[Psion]

When we look at D&D characters, it's interesting to examine what advances with level:

Hit Points -- dramatically
To-Hit -- slightly
Armor Class -- not at all
Damage -- not at all

That's a rather over-simplified analysis.

HP "dramatically" and to-hit "slightly"? The both increase linearly with level, at a rate determined by class.

AC: "Not at all"? Only if you discount that magic is a central part of the balancing. More like "slightly".

Damage: "Not at all" - this one is more egregiously wrong than AC. First off, as To-Hit goes up, you get extra attacks. Second, in the case of fighters, you get more feats like whirlwind attack and specialization that increase your damage potential. Spellcasting spell damage goes up linearly until you hit the plateau for that level of spell. Rogue SA damage goes up linearly.

Damage still doesn't go up as fast as HP, but it does go up.

Of course, I think the DMG says as much when it discusses the nature of combat when you go up levels. You hit more at higher levels, but it takes more successful hits to bring an opponent down.

 

[mmadsen]

HP "dramatically" and to-hit "slightly"? The both increase linearly with level, at a rate determined by class.

Hit Points, at least for non-PCs, double between first and second level. That's dramatic. Even PCs and special NPCs who start with max Hit Points at first level increase quite dramatically. The NPC Fighter (DMG, p. 53) progresses from 12, to 19, 27, 34, 42, and so on. That's 3.5 times as much damage he can take at 5th level vs. 1st.

His To-Hit, on the other hand, progresses from +5 to +10, increasing his chance to hit a town guard (chainmail, AC 15) from 55% to 80%. He hits 1.45 times as often. Against a noble knight (full plate and large shield, AC 20), he hits 1.83 times as often (from 30% to 55%). Against an unarmed man (AC 10), he hits 1.25 times as often (80% to 100%). That's a slight increase.

AC: "Not at all"? Only if you discount that magic is a central part of the balancing. More like "slightly".

I was considering what was intrinsic to the class/level, not what extra equipment might do.

Damage: "Not at all" - this one is more egregiously wrong than AC. First off, as To-Hit goes up, you get extra attacks. Second, in the case of fighters, you get more feats like whirlwind attack and specialization that increase your damage potential.

I was following up on LostSoul point that you can't land a solid blow on a high-level Fighter, even if you're a higher-level Fighter. Hit Points go up, but Damage (per blow) does not -- at least not by default. That's how the system's designed.

We can easily imagine a system where characters started with 10 Hit Points, gained 1 per level, gained 1 Base Attack Bonus per level, gained 1 Base Defense Bonus per level, and gained 1 Base Damage Bonus per level.

 

[hong]

I was thinking about something...

BAD LOSTSOUL! NO BISCUIT!

It doesn't matter what your attack score is, you just can't land solid blows on people.

Wrong. You can land a solid blow on anyone; that's the hit that takes them down to 0 hp or less. It just takes a little longer. And all other things being equal, a 20th level character _will_ finish a fight faster than a 5th or 10th level one, because their higher BAB gives them more iterative attacks to pound the other guy with.

Or am I misreading this?

Right!

 

[Vaxalon]

We can easily imagine a system where characters started with 10 Hit Points, gained 1 per level, gained 1 Base Attack Bonus per level, gained 1 Base Defense Bonus per level, and gained 1 Base Damage Bonus per level.

If the heroic combat system of DnD bothers you, there are plenty of more realistic systems out there, that attempt (and imho fail) to make a more realistic portrayal of combat. GURPS is the first to come to mind, and it does most of what you say. It is entirely possible to land a killing blow on a 400-point fighter-type (although unlikely) and take him out in one go.

Do you really want to play in a game like that? From my experience playing GURPS, the deadliness of the combat system makes for several differences from DnD:

1> People don't want to get into combat. EVER.

2> People don't get attached to their characters, because they die. OFTEN.

3> People become obsessed with improving their character's defensive abilities, at the expense of everything else, until they have a character who is as hard to kill as a 3e fighter is.

 

[Mark]

I don't think you have to complicate matters to obtain verisimilitude.

Excellent! Tell me more...

It shouldn't be too hard to set a (behind the scenes) parameter for kinetic energy using the relativity equation.

(For d20 Modern) A 5.56mm round delivers 27 Kilojoules of kinetic energy.

We know the weight of a great club (approx. 10lb) and its typical speed (50+m/s?*) = 5 Kilojoules (1d10 damage averages 5.5 damage). We could say that damage averages 1 per kilojoule.

*I am trying to find out baseball bat swing speeds.

Therefore a Hill Giants GreatClub (roughly x8 mass) swung at the same speed should deliver x8 the damage (slightly less if swung slower). 8d10 damage.

A Storm Giant using a proportional Greatclub would deliver 64d10 damage by the same scale.

My fault for asking!

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Mark mate!

My fault for asking!

Well like I said, the mechanics could be determined 'behind the scenes' by the designer. So roleplayers would still only see the amount of damage - but now there would be a legitimate method behind the madness.

Simply put, doubling a creatures size (as in Human to Hill Giant) should result in (virtually) x8 the amount of damage. Not x1.5.

The trade off should be that a Hill Giant should have a BAB of 0. Modified by experience/combat skill (as per all characters).