Realistic Combat that's Simple(ish)

[Ruin Explorer]

Sigh. It's clear you don't understand what fiction-first means and aren't interested in discussing it but do like swinging jargon around in an attempt to impress others.

Jesus wept. I suggest you read your own post rather then engaging in "bounces off me and sticks to you!".

Like I said, you aren't solving any problems you are just pushing them around a bit.

You've completely and totally failed to support this claim. In fact your own examples seem to suggest it is solving problems, and bizarrely, you seem to claim you're operating fiction-first which would be a weird thing to do if you didn't believe it solved problems.

 

[Argyle King]

GURPS has a similar system, but according to many people it isn't simple so I won't waste the space.

Th Arcanum (originally Bard Games) had a simpler system:

1. Attacker rolls to hit TN 11+ by rolling 1d20 + DEX modifier + any circumstance modifiers or magic bonuses
2. If the attack hits, the defender rolls 1d20 + DEX modifier to dodge with a result of 11+ meaning the attack missed. Parrying requires the defender to make an attack roll that equals or exceeds the attacker's roll in order to succeed.
3. If the dodge fails, the attacker rolls damage. The target's armor lowers the damage based on whatever type of armor it is

The Arcanum began as rules variants for AD&D1e but turned into its own game with rules that were IMO simpler but also more more dynamic than AD&D. If you can find it (I hunted down a copy on NobleKnightGames) it's worth a look, especially if you like old-school rules.

There's also a newer 30th Anniversary edition from ZiLa Games that adds and changes rules but tries to maintain the feel of the original game.

I love GURPS (and agree that it's not nearly as complex as it seems,) but I think it would violate the OP's desire to boil everything down into one roll.

I vaguely remember D&D 3rd Edition's Unearthed Arcana book having a variant rule that did something similar to what you posted about Arcanum.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Falling damage is an example of the verisimilitude interpretation of realism, about which I care not. I know this one thing really bugs some people, but since my character can get hit by a frost giant's axe, be blasted by dragon's fire, and be swallowed by a purple worm...maybe even all in the same fight...and still survive, it doesn't really bother me that I can also fall 80 feet.

Worrying about details like that is how we get to the totally reasonable argument that a fauchard-fork should be slightly more effective against splint mail than a bohemian ear spoon. (I intentionally did not look up that example because I'm eager to be corrected by somebody who has the numbers memorized.)

 

[Argyle King]

Falling damage is an example of the verisimilitude interpretation of realism, about which I care not. I know this one thing really bugs some people, but since my character can get hit by a frost giant's axe, be blasted by dragon's fire, and be swallowed by a purple worm...maybe even all in the same fight...and still survive, it doesn't really bother me that I can also fall 80 feet.

Worrying about details like that is how we get to the totally reasonable argument that a fauchard-fork should be slightly more effective against splint mail than a bohemian ear spoon. (I intentionally did not look up that example because I'm eager to be corrected by somebody who has the numbers memorized.)

Different flavors of icecream...

In some games, your character can't survive being hit by a Giant's axe.

My default view is that any size of axe to the skull or face of a character should generally be deadly.

I'm also of the belief that verisimilitude need not perfectly model realism. There's a wide gap between modeling terminal velocity and saying that safely skydiving without a parachute is common in a setting. Which way I would lean toward as a preference will be different for a superhero game than how I lean for a sword & sorcery game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Different flavors of icecream...

In some games, your character can't survive being hit by a Giant's axe.

Yeah, there are a lot of solutions to the "We're fighting things that would puree us" problem that don't involve inflating damage absorption. The fact that D&D does it that way is a historical accident.

 

[Theory of Games]

Pheonix Command for all of its process simulation is not more realistic than D&D.

Calling BS on this one and I think most people familiar with both D&D and PC would agree. But, I get your overall point. Gygax wrote that attempting to simulate reality with a ttrpg would be difficult if not impossible BUT the EMULATION of Fantasy/Fiction is indeed possible. GURPS does this best IME.

 

[Bill Zebub]

In some games, your character can't survive being hit by a Giant's axe.

My default view is that any size of axe to the skull or face of a character should generally be deadly.

What RPG do you play in which characters die as frequently (and swiftly) as they would if they actually fought giants, dragons, and purple worms?

 

[mmadsen]

By realistic, I primarily mean differentiating what D&D calls AC into its two components: dodge/parry and damage reduction.

If you want a simple system, you could have one d20 to-hit roll against Defense Class (no armor bonus), followed, on a successful hit, by one d20 to-hurt roll against Armor Class (with various toughness bonuses), where a failure is a light wound, and a success is a disabling one.

A more realistic system does not have to be more complicated.

 

[Argyle King]

What RPG do you play in which characters die as frequently (and swiftly) as they would if they actually fought giants, dragons, and purple worms?

Depends on what exactly you're asking.

Lethality and actions having consequences isn't necessarily synonymous with characters dying.

For example, even if I dial up some of the optional GURPS rules that make things harsher, that doesn't necessarily mean that PCs die frequently. It means that the approach to encounters is different.

Rather than a PC going toe-to-toe with a dragon, a dragon fight may instead be more like how battling Smaug is described in The Hobbit: he was an encounter formidable enough to take on a small militia.

He was felled by an arrow due to a secret vulnerability being known to a specially trained character using an arrow made for that purpose. Acquiring that information could itself be part of solving the encounter.

So, instead of a high level fighter having buckets of HP, they may instead have followers or sidekicks; access to esoteric information; or a special item. Rather than the dragon being an average encounter, it's the endpoint of an adventure's journey.

To more directly answer your question, I'll say GURPS*, DCC (at lower levels,) and some OSR games.

*as a modular system, you could also use the optional rules that make the game more akin to contemporary D&D or super heroes if you prefer that

I'll also add that, while not dragons, a FFG Star Wars character being hit by weapons mounted on a ship could mean instant death or severe injury very quickly. Even as a narrative-driven system, it acknowledges that certain types of injury are catastrophic.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Dangerous Journeys did it this way:

It was percentile so you rolled UNDER your skill. If you did, you hit.

If you got hit, you rolled to parry. Parrying with a sword required that you rolled under your skill but, if you had a shield, you needed to roll below TWICE your skill.

Armour was Damage reduction.

For a d20 system, you just make Attacks skills. Parrying is its own skill and parrying with a shield is the equivalent of Expertise (twice your Proficiency)

You crit on a 1 and auto fail on a 20
You can only parry a crit with a crit on your parry roll.

Instead of rolling UNDER a skill, you could convert it to roll OVER a set DC and it would be the same math.

Other rules:

To make it more complicated, DJ had hit locations which could double to quadruple damage. So, getting hit in the face with a Greatsword would kill you. (because you never got more HP)

comment:

two unskilled combatants would just constantly miss (which is pretty similar to low level D&D.

Two skilled combatants just parry each other constantly until someone crits and then the other person dies. - or one combatant had more attacks than the other could parry...I vaguely remember having to decide how many of your attacks you would use to parry...not sure if you'd want to do that in a D&D system.