Realistic Combat that's Simple(ish)

[Crimson Longinus]

I think it is rather obvious that the frequency of character death is pretty significant contributor to how annoying a player having to sit out a session or two until the new character is introduced is. If it is something that might happen once in a campaign if you have bad luck it is fine. If it keeps happening every few sessions then at least to me that would not be fine. People's tolerance to this will vary.

 

[Theory of Games]

I'm discussing what I think serves the most players. That's what I usually do, and you know that by now but it seems to offend you.

How do you know what serves the most players?

 

[dragoner]

I think it is rather obvious that the frequency of character death is pretty significant contributor to how annoying a player having to sit out a session or two until the new character is introduced is. If it is something that might happen once in a campaign if you have bad luck is fine. If it keeps happening every few sessions then at least to me that would not be fine. People's tolerance to this will vary.

It is also time to pause and reflect if you want to keep playing, the character's arc is over, what is the investment? Sit out a session or two is often not an option.

 

[Thomas Shey]

How do you know what serves the most players?

By evaluation of conversations I've had over literally decades. If that's not good enough for you, feel free to disregard me, but don't wait for me to change my mind because of it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Anyway, the topic.

When designing rules for a game and wanting to keep them simple, one needs to identify when making something more complicated is "worth it." I was recently contemplating D&D variant that had less HP, AC was just evasion type defences (avoiding to getting hit) and armour was DR. And it is not hard to construct a system like this. But I also am not sure it is worth (even the relatively moderate) increase in complexity. Like will those differences be actually felt in play? Like effectively it is not significantly different whether things have some DR and less hit points or just more hit points. Math ends up working pretty much the same.

And what to model and what not depends on what sort of choices you want to have in the game (both play wise and build wise.) Because these mechanics need to make the choices feel distinct. If you want choosing between agile and dodgy and armoured and tanky feel different, then you need to build rules so that they play differently. If you want selecting your weapon to be an important choice, then different weapons need to have different strength and weaknesses, and that probably necessitates some complexity that makes representing that possible. Like if you want some guns to have better armour penetration and some to be more damaging but not so good against armour you need to somehow model that. (Which BTW is surprisingly difficult.)

So what I'm saying that one needs to identify what sort of things will feature in the game and be important and then build the system to support that. Like people noted earlier, it is rather different to design a medieval combat system that represents nuances of various differently armed and armoured humans (or close enough) fighting each other than one that also needs to be able to handle fighting giants, dragons etc weird stuff. You can of course try to have system that can do everything, but then it certainly won't be both realistic and simple, most likely neither!

 

[Thomas Shey]

Anyway, the topic.

When designing rules for a game and wanting to keep them simple, one needs to identify when making something more complicated is "worth it." I was recently contemplating D&D variant that had less HP, AC was just evasion type defences (avoiding to getting hit) and armour was DR. And it is not hard to construct a system like this. But I also am not sure it is worth (even the relatively moderate) increase in complexity. Like will those differences be actually felt in play? Like effectively it is not significantly different whether things have some DR and less hit points or just more hit points. Math ends up working pretty much the same.

My own observation is that sort thing feels much more visible in play than you'd think, even if the final result doesn't change overly. Of course YMMV.

 

[Theory of Games]

By evaluation of conversations I've had over literally decades. If that's not good enough for you, feel free to disregard me, but don't wait for me to change my mind because of it.

I was just asking a question

 

[Thomas Shey]

I was just asking a question

Sure, because that construct is never used in this context as a challenge and dismissal.

 

[aramis erak]

If your PC did fine it was because you cheated. Straight up. You fudged the dice.

You are making several assumptions here that may or may not be true...

I played 1e AD&D too long not fudging the dice to believe otherwise. And yes, I am well aware being asked for a saving throw is itself failure, but way to many 1e AD&D saving throws come down to by the numbers 50/50 save or die, and way too many get forced on you by non-passive NPCs etc to believe any of this. I know my players in the era were fudging, because their average rolls were probably around a 15. I have observed players never roll under a 10 for most of a year. I tolerated it because it wasn't worth fighting over, I didn't want to strain friendships and as long as the other players weren't complaining to me I wasn't being hurt.

Without fudging, I've had a dozen PCs I ran AD&D1e for make it to 10th from 1st, no rezzing needed... but it wasn't with published modules.

Several issues that may affect the lethality:

1st is that of comparable adventures. I tended to build dungeons that used more lower level foes. I seldom used save-or-die,

Second is that 15's are abnormal stats. For Method 0 (PHB), sure. But the DMG has 4 methods that are higher. Method I, you can expect one at 15. THe others, you can expect 2-3 15+ stats. They're not cheating, they're a DM's option for PC use. If you want to play legit paladins, use method IV

Third is comparable player playstyles. If your group is cautious enough, they seldom get in reach of death.

4th is that of how foes were run. I wasn't very good at it in the early 80's...

5th is the use or not of crits and fumbles - the core mechanic is just a nat 20 almost always hit. I don't know where you sat on that issue, but I didn't use crits in D&D until I got the Master Set...

I never had players fudging until senior year... because prior, all rolls were made in the open... save the few dictated otherwise in rules.

 

[Celebrim]

You are making several assumptions here that may or may not be true...

Reasonable, but the alternative that I would accept is what you describe - a GM using "kid gloves" to minimize the number of deaths by avoiding doing the sort of things that kill PCs in 1e AD&D. If you do carefully select foes so that the maximum damage of an attack will generally be below the hit points of party members, and if you avoid saving throws that are or amount to save or die, then hit points do become great ablative protection allowing a party to disengage to rest if things go bad with little worry of losing what is effectively "plot protection" at that point. This is especially true if you allow the PCs generous methods of attribute creation (Method III is my favorite for this) and you do things like the common house rules of death at -10 and maximum hit points at 1st level (both of which were made standard in 3e).

Without fudging, I've had a dozen PCs I ran AD&D1e for make it to 10th from 1st, no rezzing needed... but it wasn't with published modules.

I only had one get that far and that was also not in published modules. As you imply, most published modules set a standard for what was normal that was nothing like what I described above. An example that I consider really telling is "Sinister Secret of Salt Marsh" where the upper part of the dungeon is filled with weak but lethally poisonous creatures. Ran straight up, this is character death that depends only on luck. In practice, most GMs were probably slow rolling the scene by de facto granting initiative to the PC in order to give them the first action, ensuring the appearance of a threat without actually delivering on the danger.

Third is comparable player playstyles. If your group is cautious enough, they seldom get in reach of death.

This works if and only if you don't introduce poison either in monsters or traps until around 6th level and avoid save or die monsters like basilisks and bodaks, generally avoid all but the smaller sorts of dragons, avoid high level spellcasters as foes, and don't regularly use things like packs of ghouls. There is a level of lethality where even caution won't save you from bad luck.

5th is the use or not of crits and fumbles - the core mechanic is just a nat 20 almost always hit. I don't know where you sat on that issue, but I didn't use crits in D&D until I got the Master Set...

My friends were huge fans of critical hits from the 'critical hits and bad misses' Dragon article. And that article is very much a mixed bag in that it does require a confirmation roll (good) but also it has random death as a result (bad). But they loved the thrill of getting lucky and doing the big dramatic thing. As you probably realize, critical hits always favor the NPCs in the long run. However, even RAW AD&D is still extraordinarily lethal because of the saving throw mechanic and the fact that it almost always bypasses hit points. Even in cases where it doesn't, a 20HD fireball or an ancient dragon's breath weapon is effectively save or die for anyone who isn't a high CON high level fighter.

I never had players fudging until senior year... because prior, all rolls were made in the open... save the few dictated otherwise in rules.

From elementary school to the present day I've never had a group where I didn't suspect (or know) at least one player of fudging his saving throw rolls. Fudging ability score rolls occurred regularly when using restrictive methods either by actual cheating or by the simple expediency of creating 20 characters and picking the one you wanted to play. Fudging attack rolls is rarer but I've always known the sort of players willing to regularly fudge saving throws to fudge attack rolls when they feel pressured in a battle.