Rant on d20

[SableWyvern]

UK: I'm beginning to see where you're coming from now. I'll go so far as to say those are some pretty good ideas. As long as you didn't go to extremes, I'd even think about picking up D&D 4th by Upper Krust (as long as the cover art was good).

Actually, no, I doubt I'll ever buy another set of D&D books.

Still good ideas though.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Actually, no, I doubt I'll ever buy another set of D&D books.

I doubt I would either. 3e is already getting too far away from what I think D&D should be.

 

[mmadsen]

If the heroic combat system of DnD bothers you...

Anytime anyone suggests that D&D's combat system doesn't make sense -- or that it could use improvement -- someone says "try GURPS" (or something similar). This is often followed by a derisive comment about "realism" and not-so-heroic characters dying not-very-heroically left and right.

A game can be simple and heroic without being D&D.

Certainly most alternatives (GURPS, Runequest, Rolemaster, etc.) aim for complexity and grittiness, but that isn't the only way to go. If we look at how D&D models combat and combat skill, we again see that great warriors have many, many more Hit Points than lesser warriors, they hit a bit more often, they dodge and defend no better, and they do no more damage. (Various Feats can improve each facet of fighting, of course, but the default progression works as described.)

Would D&D be less heroic if great heroes got a Defense bonus? Hardly! If they hit more often? Hardly! If they did more damage? Hardly!

If they had fewer Hit Points? Boo! Hiss! OK, OK, but what if they traded off massive Hit Points for some of those other heroic qualities? If you, as a player, had a choice between +3 hp and +1 AC, which would you take? At low level you'd probably take the Hit Points, and at higher level you'd probably take the AC -- but it's certainly not clear that +3 hp is always more heroic than +1 AC.

For a heroic game, players want a large enough Hit Point buffer that they don't get wiped out by a lucky shot, but once a character has 20 or 30 Hit Points, he's passed the hurdle where a single lucky sword or spear shot can take him out. At that point, is it less heroic to get hit 10% less often than to have 10% more Hit Points?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi SableWyvern mate!

UK: I'm beginning to see where you're coming from now. I'll go so far as to say those are some pretty good ideas.

Nothing revelatory. I imagine most of my above suggestions have been mentioned before?

As long as you didn't go to extremes,

You don't need to go to extremes; simply have a basis in logic then extrapolate the rest from there and you could have a d20 Anything System.

I'd even think about picking up D&D 4th by Upper Krust

Funny enough I was thinking of asking them would they let me write it...

...perhaps if I had great d20 rulebook under my belt.

...or maybe if my World Submission gets chosen.

(as long as the cover art was good).

I'll get to work on it right away!

Actually, no, I doubt I'll ever buy another set of D&D books.

Never say never!

Still good ideas though.

Thanks mate!

Incidently I just noticed that Ryan Dancey has a thread on Hit Points over at Gaming Report:

http://www.gamingreport.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=XForum&file=viewthread&tid=31

 

[TiQuinn]

After reading all these posts on kilojoules and core damage and damage reduction based upon armor, and so on and so forth, I decided I'd rather just play the game.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Re: Re: Rant on d20

Hi there!

After reading all these posts on kilojoules and core damage and damage reduction based upon armor, and so on and so forth, I decided I'd rather just play the game.

I suspected killerjewels would frighten some people.

...which was why, of course, I mentioned that all that would be done behind the scenes by the designer.

Players only want to wash their hair - they don't need to know what chemicals are in the shampoo bottle.

 

[mmadsen]

Incidently I just noticed that Ryan Dancey has a thread on Hit Points over at Gaming Report:

http://www.gamingreport.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=XForum&file=viewthread&tid=31

I enjoyed Dancey's article, Hit Points Suck!. (That title's a bit tongue in cheek, by the way.) Since (a) it's quite germane to our discussion, and (b) no one follows links, I thought I'd post some of it:

Point the First:

The HP system is designed to ensure that higher level characters are simply harder to kill than lower level characters.

I agree with this design objective, but I'd put conditions on it. I don't think that the objective of "harder to kill" should apply in all situations.

Specifically, I think it should not apply to many environmental effects. High level PCs should simply not be able to survive falls over a certain distance, being crushed under certain weights, being immersed in certain substances, or held without air for certain lengths of time.

Using the standard hit point mechanism to account for all these effects results in characters who behave in irrational ways which both break the suspension of disbelief, and cause no end of arguments. In my opinion, if your character jumps off a cliff that's 100 feet high, your character should >always< die. Period, full stop. If the roof of the tunnel collapses and you have a 1,000 pounds of loose rock and dirt fall on your head, you die. If I drop you in molten lava, you die. If I take away your ability to breathe for more than three minutes, you die. Regardless of how many hit points you have.

 

[mmadsen]

Point the Second:

We discussed, and discarded the idea of that damage should have a negative effect on your abilities. The reason is that systems which implement that concept often trap themselves in a downward spiral - the more damage you take, the harder it is for you to stop taking damage, etc. etc. etc.

However, there's a whole range of issues that the hit point system doesn't address which are both germane to the genre of heroic fantasy, and are utterly lacking in d20 games: The wounded, but still effective hero who fights on by finding ways to compensate. I am talking about Bruce Willis' character in the first Die Hard movie suffering the effects of walking barefoot across a floor of broken glass, or Inigo Montoya from Princess Bride facing down his father's murderer after being stabbed a couple of times in the shoulder.

The lack of some condition between "100% A-OK" and "Down" causes characters (both player and non player) to act in irrational ways. We've all seen the character who fights on without a change in tactics as the hit point counter rattles down like the Times Square Ball at New Years, until one last hit sends the character sprawling. Sure, that's a player (or DM) decision, but it smacks of a lack of realism - it's metagame thinking intruding into the simulation that the other players (and/or the GM) are trying to enjoy.

 

[mmadsen]

Point The Third:

If Hit Points don't represent physical damage, why does my "Cure Light Wounds" spell restore them? If they're supposed to simulate luck, endurance, etc., why don't I gain HP back from effects that rest me? Why does a lawful character benefit as much from "random chance" as a chaotic character? And how do any of those things help keep me alive when I'm immersed in molten lava?

In other words: When the game tells you what hit points represent, it lies.

We took a lot of inconsistencies out of 3e, but we left this fundamental issue unchanged, other than some window dressing and "look at the monkey" designerspeak.

 

[The Sigil]

Combat more deadly... the simple solution...

I haven't examined the effects on game balance, but then, we're discussing the fact that we don't consider hp balanced to begin with, right?

It seems to me that a VERY simple and elegant way of making combat more deadly in a hurry is to make every successful hit do a little bit of Constitution damage - say, 1 point for a hit and 2 points for a critical hit. The Constitution damage suffered in this way (from combat) is healed normally with one notable exception - at the end of combat, when his wounds are bound and staunched, a character regains half the Constitution points he lost during the combat (round down).

This takes into account the fact that a bunch of little piddly hits do eventually add up and take their toll. Furthermore, it makes hits a lot more deadly. The 20th level fighter with a 14 Constitution and 200 hp takes a hit that does 1 point of damage, and he's down to... no, not 199 hp, but rather 179 hp (due to his Con bonus decreasing). If he takes 8 more "piddly" 1 point hits, he's lost 8 more hp directly to the hits, but has also lost another 80 hp due to Con loss... bringing him down under 100 hp (to 91).

I would also suggest that force effects (specifically Magic Missile) and probably all magical effects not deal this kind of damage - this is slash/bludgeon/pierce only. Otherwise a 6th-level sorcerer becomes ultra-deadly.

I think this makes combat much more deadly without requiring a major overhaul of the system. Thoughts?

--The Sigil