Realistic Combat that's Simple(ish)

[Neonchameleon]

So my question: Which RPGs--especially fantasy RPGs--already do this well, and in a way that isn't overly complex? Preferably still requiring just one role. Please give a brief explanation of how it works.

As no one's done it yet I'm going to mention Daggerheart which has a to hit and a damage roll. It's cinematic not realistic admittedly.

To Hit: Roll plus modifier vs Evasion (for PCs) or Difficulty (for NPCs - it's an asymmetric system).

Damage: Roll your damage and compare to armour-based damage thresholds. If below the major damage threshold mark minor damage (1hp), if it meets major but below severe then mark major damage (2hp), if it meets or beats the severe damage threshold mark severe damage (3hp). This is in practice very easy to calculate because comparisons are always faster than subtractions.

Of course PCs then get to do Stuff. Including ways for the PC tanks to last longer than the rogues against mobs with clubs.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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?

You're making an assumption. In most games they don't get hit often. That's the point; they survive by avoiding the hit in the first place.

 

[Bill Zebub]

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.

Thinking more about this, you were specifically referring to "an axe in the face" being lethal. I was using the phrase somewhat poetically, since literally none of the RPGs I play specific location of weapon hits. Instead, we tend to narrate based on results. So if a character (PC or NPC) died from a massive axe strike, we might say, "Doh! Right to the face!" On the other hand, we are unlikely to narrate it that way if the resulting damage is minor.

So maybe I should have left that specific phrase out of my original post. Instead I should have just described more generally the ability of a character in many (most?) RPGs to survive any kind of hit at all from an axe-wielding Frost Giant.

Of course, we narrate around that by saying that "hit points aren't meat" and those first few hits...the ones you survive...don't actually hit you. Similarly, if the dragon breath doesn't kill you, there are lots of narrative ways to explain that that don't involve gritting your teeth and being enveloped by a 2,000 degree inferno. (It's a little bit harder to narrate your way out of being immersed in a stomach full of purple worm acid, so we'll leave that one alone.)

On the other hand, in many games even if you roll max damage, dragon breath and frost giant axes aren't enough to kill a character. You literally cannot die from a single hit. So....similar to most rules for falling? Maybe.

 

[Bill Zebub]

You're making an assumption. In most games they don't get hit often. That's the point; they survive by avoiding the hit in the first place.

Yes, the "hit points are not meat" argument I referenced above. Sure.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes, the "hit points are not meat" argument I referenced above. Sure.

While its not a complete case, that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about systems that allow you to avoid being hit. In RuneQuest you can Dodge, in the Hero System you have DCV that can be high.

And a purple worm or a frost giant is not automatically a specially accurate attacker that can be assumed to avoid that; that's a D&Dism because of how D&D conflates armor and to-hit. The two games I mention and many others have armor interact with damage (or, rarely, a separate penetration roll) and defense either directly or indirectly interacts with attack capability, which is usually primarily based on skill and to the degree an attribute plays into it, its usually Dexterity.

Dragons can be a bigger problem, and honestly, in a lot of such games the answer if you don't have special armor or the like, and the version of dragons you're dealing are assumed to be special armor, you either use special avoidance techniques or you are, at best, hurt badly.

 

[Bill Zebub]

While its not a complete case, that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about systems that allow you to avoid being hit. In RuneQuest you can Dodge, in the Hero System you have DCV that can be high.

And a purple worm or a frost giant is not automatically a specially accurate attacker that can be assumed to avoid that; that's a D&Dism because of how D&D conflates armor and to-hit. The two games I mention and many others have armor interact with damage (or, rarely, a separate penetration roll) and defense either directly or indirectly interacts with attack capability, which is usually primarily based on skill and to the degree an attribute plays into it, its usually Dexterity.

Dragons can be a bigger problem, and honestly, in a lot of such games the answer if you don't have special armor or the like, and the version of dragons you're dealing are assumed to be special armor, you either use special avoidance techniques or you are, at best, hurt badly.

Oh, you said "most games" so I assumed you meant games that, like D&D, have HP pools that rise and fall.

If we're not factoring in the popularity of games, and literally just counting games, then you may be right: "most" games may have dodge/avoidance mechanics. I have no idea. I'm only familiar with a tiny subset of all games.

 

[Argyle King]

Thinking more about this, you were specifically referring to "an axe in the face" being lethal. I was using the phrase somewhat poetically, since literally none of the RPGs I play specific location of weapon hits. Instead, we tend to narrate based on results. So if a character (PC or NPC) died from a massive axe strike, we might say, "Doh! Right to the face!" On the other hand, we are unlikely to narrate it that way if the resulting damage is minor.

So maybe I should have left that specific phrase out of my original post. Instead I should have just described more generally the ability of a character in many (most?) RPGs to survive any kind of hit at all from an axe-wielding Frost Giant.

Of course, we narrate around that by saying that "hit points aren't meat" and those first few hits...the ones you survive...don't actually hit you. Similarly, if the dragon breath doesn't kill you, there are lots of narrative ways to explain that that don't involve gritting your teeth and being enveloped by a 2,000 degree inferno. (It's a little bit harder to narrate your way out of being immersed in a stomach full of purple worm acid, so we'll leave that one alone.)

On the other hand, in many games even if you roll max damage, dragon breath and frost giant axes aren't enough to kill a character. You literally cannot die from a single hit. So....similar to most rules for falling? Maybe.

I'm not sure if this is an adequate response. It's more just related thoughts that were on my mind as I was coming out of the gym.

I would agree that many games (especially more recent ones) do not allow for a character to die in one hit.

However, some do. (Heck, in Dungeon Crawl Classics, it's expected that some characters die during the intro adventure. You figure out which character you will be by seeing which one of the level 0 characters survive.)

I'm certainly not opposed to playing games that have more of a cushion around PCs. I've had a lot of fun with various editions of D&D.

At the same time, some of the rpg memories that I have that kinda broke my brain where things such as realizing in D&D 4E that remaining in the mouth of an alligator and continuing to get chewed on was a good tactic because the creature would struggle to get through your HP and it couldn't attack the other party members while you were in its mouth. It also includes things like realizing that cinematic tropes like hostage situations are wonky because even a critical hit likely won't do much to the PC grappled by the villain. In both of those cases, how my character is interacting with the game world is at odds with how I imagine a scene from a book, movie, or TV show playing out (even considering that protagonists are often protected).

Being a (as some people say) Big Damn Hero is a lot of fun. At the same time, I feel that heroes seem even bigger when the challenges they face have some teeth.

There's a satisfying middle ground somewhere.

I'm honestly not sure where I'm going with this or how it relates to the thread. Just offering a little more conversation.

 

[Jd Smith1]

This is where simple HP systems fail if, for example, a fall of 10 or 20 feet cannot kill a PC RAW.

It can in Hackmaster 5. And as in RL, it might not.

 

[Jd Smith1]

My definition of a more realistic system, in no particular order:
Wounds degrade ability.
Any hit could potentially put a victim down.
There are more variables for weapons than just a damage dice.
The player is more important than the stats, but stats do help.
The system supports different combat styles equally (instead of heaviest armor, heaviest weapon).
Time management in combat keeps players involved at all times, rather than building dice towers while they await their turn.

Throw in fast to run and play, and there you go.

 

[aramis erak]

One roll resolution? that's a hard barrier. more than 95% of the games I've read use damage rolls.
Two come immediately to mind: Rolemaster, but it really isn't. MegaTraveller. After a bit of mental juggling...
Year Zero comes to mind

MegaTraveller, see below. Why Rolemaster isn't a 1-roll? Because most hits do crits. Which are a separate table roll.

Year Zero System, provided no defense is taken, is one roll; successes over target in Alien, Coriolis, and a T2K determine damage before armor, and armor reduces that. Note that Vaesen combat is different, and Tales from the loop is a simple opposed roll.

Which brings me to thinking Cortex Plus: one opposed roll to hit, and one unkept die becomes the damage; in Firefly, you have to spend a Plot Point to avoid going out of action on 1st hit, and then get the damage condition based upon the unkept die with the most sides.
In MHRP, the damage step is automatic.

And then, to FATE. Success level determines damage points, at certain points, you convert stress to damage.

Traveller uses armor as DR, or soak score when determining damage. You can also take actions to raise the target number of the roll. For example, if a player take cover it makes the target higher, or if they decide to dodge it also changes the target number. So, it remains a single roll but each character can do things to improve either hitting or dodging attacks in a game round.

Varies by edition. And since all are available in PDF except for Liftoff...
Classic was/is deflection.
Mega was damage multiplier by penetration vs armor rating...
TNE is damage reduction in two modes (one for character scale, one for vehicles; same as T2K 2.x/DC)
GT is both deflection and DR, as it's mechanically GURPS.
HT is (as is typical for Hero) damage reduction (PD/ED) (but not the Hero System DR - which is a multiplier)
T4 is damage reduction.
I can't make sense of T5 to tell.
Mongoose is damage reduction.

Of those, MegaTraveller's the only "one roll" resolution... during combat.
The quality of the shot multiplies the base damage by ×1/2, ×1, ×2, ×4, or ×8.
The comparison of Penetration to AV provides a second multiplier: ×0, ×1/10, ×1/2, ×1
After combat, for characters who matter, the damage points resolve into dice of damage to attributes.

Mongoose uses 2 rolls: a to-hit, and a damage roll, with armor reducing the damage roll. damage is done to attributes, and is immediately applied, one die at a time.

Most of the older games (CT 1e/2e, MegaTraveller, and T4) are two roll: one to hit, one to damage.
Traveller: The New Era, however, some result checks, too.