Realistic Combat that's Simple(ish)

[RangerWickett]

I'm coming in quite late to an already-long thread, but a few years ago I had an idea for a 'simple' combat system that has your Defense as how well you are at dodging (i.e., basically normal D&D stuff, with your defensive stat going up if you're better a parrying or dodging or whatever), and then your armor doesn't do DR or anything like that. It's just, like, a ludo-narrative game one-shot ability.

If you're wearing light armor and you suffer a critical hit, you expend the armor's "save" to reduce it to a normal hit once per combat.

If you're wearing medium armor, you can do the same, or you can downgrade a hit into a miss once per combat.

And heavy armor can do it twice per combat, which can potentially be used at the same time to turn a crit into a miss.

 

[dragoner]

I think the balance point is how fast it is.

 

[mmadsen]

I mostly want movie combat.

The “problem” with D&D’s “realism” is usually that the rules become disconnected with what’s supposedly happening in the game world, not that the probabilities are slightly off.

Realistic combat, would see most of the cast dead or invalided out before the end of season 1.

Realistic combat would involve a lot of posturing and taking potshots from almost out of range — and a lot of running away.

 

[mmadsen]

The issue of realistic combat in games comes up regularly, and I’ve discussed it before.

It's not the abstractness of hit points that makes them unrealistic; it's the predictability. Ablative hit points make it very, very hard to kill someone in one blow -- or very, very hard to not kill someone in two. From a realism perspective, the problem is not that a high-level D&D fighter can survive a dozen sword cuts and spear thrusts but that he cannot die by any one attack.​

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The “problem” with D&D’s “realism” is usually that the rules become disconnected with what’s supposedly happening in the game world, not that the probabilities are slightly off.

Realistic combat would involve a lot of posturing and taking potshots from almost out of range — and a lot of running away.

Yes, to the posturing, with the odd random death when some misjudged thier distance. And it would only last until someone traineed their people to gwt stuck in.

You say that predictibality of D&D combat is unrealistic. Ans you are right, but I suspect that is why it gets used and played. Most people do not want their character to die to some rando NPC

 

[mmadsen]

Most people do not want their character to die to some rando NPC

Sure, but there are plenty of answers to that. Even without plot protection (fate points, etc.), just having magical healing eliminates most of the problem of PCs getting knocked out of the game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I mostly want movie combat. Realistic combat, would see most of the cast dead or invalided out before the end of season 1.

It depends. If they're standing in the open blazing away, yeah. If they were actually doing what serious real world combatants do, using cover and wearing body armor, not necessarily.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Realistic combat would involve a lot of posturing and taking potshots from almost out of range — and a lot of running away.

Yeah I was going to say something along those lines. There's "realistic combat" and then there's "realistic consequences for behavior in combat that is fun to watch/imagine".

I don't really want either in my movies, with maybe occasional exceptions.

Or in my RPGs.

"Wait, you want me to go into this dark hole in the ground, even though vampires and dragons and neo-otyughs are real? Yeah, I don't think so...."

 

[mmadsen]

"Wait, you want me to go into this dark hole in the ground, even though vampires and dragons and neo-otyughs are real? Yeah, I don't think so...."

When I came back to the game as an adult, this is one thing that really stood out. Becoming an adventurer can make sense, because young men do take outrageous risks, but they’re far more likely to get in fights they think they’ll win without taking a beating. (And the other side thinks the same way.)

 

[Bill Zebub]

When I came back to the game as an adult, this is one thing that really stood out. Becoming an adventurer can make sense, because young men do take outrageous risks, but they’re far more likely to get in fights they think they’ll win without taking a beating. (And the other side thinks the same way.)

I think that's part of what appeals to me about the OSR aesthetic: that encounters are not designed to be winnable, and players shouldn't assume that because monster X is present, it's "level appropriate" and beatable.