Realistic Combat

[Klaus]

The evidence seems to point to most lethal weapons really only having a fairly small chance of killing someone -- like 10% for a pistol shot, much less for a knife wound.
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.

Hit points tend to model injuries poorly because characters either have an "unrealistic" number of hit points and can't be killed by a single good sword stroke, or they have a "realistic" number of hit points and can't survive three or four stab wounds.

If we eliminate ablative hit points and instead give each wound a chance to end the fight, then we end up with a "realistically" random system, where one shot can mean one kill, but a dozen shots might not mean a kill.

For instance, instead of having 10 hit dice, a great warrior might have a 1-in-10 chance of falling to a spear thrust (via, say, a Damage Save). By either set of rules, the great warrior should expect to survive roughly ten spear thrusts -- he's equally tough under both sets of rules -- but the two systems play out differently.

Of course, Vitality Points and Wound Points end this problem. A character may survive dozens of minor stabs (depleting his VP), but fall to one well-placed blow (a critical hit, whose damage goes straight to WP).

 

[RFisher]

The evidence seems to point to most lethal weapons really only having a fairly small chance of killing someone -- like 10% for a pistol shot, much less for a knife wound.

Of course, while the chance of killing is important, there's also the fact that you can be taken out of a fight without dying.

A combatant can be:

• Fully effective
• Partially effective (rare)
• Alive but out of the fight--survives in the long run
• Alive but out of the fight--dies due to injuries
• Dead

Overall, I think D&D doesn't do too badly handling all of these things. Just that it simplifies "out of the fight" to "unconscious". Plus, it's usually too easy to recover, but that's a concession to fun.

The "anything can go down in one hit" problem is easy enough to fix, but doing so doesn't necessarily make the game more fun.

 

[Wraith-Hunter]

If you want to read a very interesting book about killing and the psychology behind it there is this book: "On Killing" by Dave Grossman http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Psych...=pd_bbs_1/002-9924832-3126421?ie=UTF8&s=books

There is alot of evidence that the VAST majority of the population is very resistant to taking life, even in defense of their own. The book details many battles and the %'s of people who were fighting or faking it. Most of the human race is incapable of killing for several reasons.

It also talks about modern combat and the need to allowing troops R&R so that they don't go nuts.

On a D&D note it is ALOT different killing members of another race than of your own race. In situations where large numbers of people are killed, say the holocost or other government sponsored genocides, first the people to be killed have to be dehumanized in the killers mind before they can do the deed. Again the holocost is probably the most documented account of this happening, though one of the smaller genocides in the 20th century. 6 million compared to the 180 million world wide during the 20th century. But in all the situations the murdered people are first dehumanized buy the killers long before the killing starts. In D&D terms it is going to be ALOT easier to kill and owlbear, goblins, orcs or Dragons than killing members of your own race, or members of another race you see as people (easier mentaly )

This is anedoctal can't remeber where I heard or read it was that there out of 100 soilders 90 of them are useless and should be someplace else. 9 are fighters and fight well and 1 is a true warrior.

After all the martial arts I have taken I gave up on trying to model realalistic combat. I just look at it as an abstract. The biggest thing I hate is that you can get somebody from behind that has any kind of level and hold a dagger to his thoat and threaten his life. I also don't like how if you have 100 hit points you are 100% effective at 1 hit point as you are at 100 and then you are OUT! But I can live with the abstract system. Anything even slightly more realalistic is going to take EVEN LONGER to resolve, and in the end make players die more often. Anything random ALWAYS favors the DM/enemies in D&D, becaue there are an unlimited number of them.

Being into firearms I know LOTS of stories about people that have taken multiple shots from serious weapons and lived and were fine physically after wards. I have also read stories about people dieing after being shot with a BB gun, happened in FL in the last 6 months. I've been shot with a BB gun a few times being a stupid kid and though they hurt I never came close to dieing. Drugs also can play a big role in the outcome as well. Many block pain or give you a 'rage like' ability, akin to temp hitpoints. This is why pepper spray is useless on some attackers. (I even know a dude who uses it on chicken wings - yuck).

In the defensive firearm classes I have taken, shot placement is KEY. In a defensive situation you aim for a inverted triangle made up from the collar bones to the sternum to STOP the attacker. Unfourtunately IDPA and IPSC scoring does not use this location system, for them it is either a head shot or center of mass where it would be most effective in between

There are also many accounts of thick clothing greatly slowing down or stopping smaller caliber ammunition or certain hollow points. Also in firearms the ammount of energy transfered to a target is key. A fast moving round of ball ammunition (think .40 & 9mm) might hit and go through the body without transfering its energy to the target. Where a large hollow point say a .45 might expand to much on thick clothing and loose too much energy before hitting the target. Other less powerfull rounds have been known to be stopped by leather jackets, .32 and .38

Contrary to popular belief a bullet must be optimal to its target. There is no perfect gun and no perfect bullet. Some bullets penetrate more some less. Depending what you are shooting and WHERE you shoot is is all factored into bullet choice. .223 is not even recomended for medium game like deer, but on a similar size human our military uses it against men. There is even ammunition now that is very high tech that will cut through body armor and not through soft targets. Cool stuff, this was developed because of increased criminal use of body armor. Serious hunters also match bullet calliber, weight, characteristics etc for what animal they are hunting. Even in the same caliber and the same gun 2 different bullets can have VASTLY different characteristics. Self defense ammunition tries to be a generalist in a specialists world. And if you go to a gun board there are endless arguments over big and slow (.45) and small and fast (9mm and similar) as to what is better. This topic will come up at least once a week and last 300+ posts. And is never resolved. Probaby won't be untill we have plasma rifles

 

[RFisher]

The biggest thing I hate is that you can get somebody from behind that has any kind of level and hold a dagger to his thoat and threaten his life.

It used to always bother me that (A)D&D didn't handle this situation. These days I see that as a perfect situation in which hp should not be honored. But it was a flaw in the game that it didn't even make me realize that, much less tell me specifically how to handle it.

I also don't like how if you have 100 hit points you are 100% effective at 1 hit point as you are at 100 and then you are OUT!

But I hate death spirals. Especially since I've learned that they are less realistic.

 

[Wraith-Hunter]

It used to always bother me that (A)D&D didn't handle this situation. These days I see that as a perfect situation in which hp should not be honored. But it was a flaw in the game that it didn't even make me realize that, much less tell me specifically how to handle it.



But I hate death spirals. Especially since I've learned that they are less realistic.

I agree, which is why I am happy with the current abstract system. I wouldn't mind if it was alittle MORE abstract to speed up play. But it is NOWHERE near as bad as Mechwarrior / Battletech that I played in HS. 1 round of combat could take 1 hour or more in real time.

 

[Henry]

Of course, Vitality Points and Wound Points end this problem. A character may survive dozens of minor stabs (depleting his VP), but fall to one well-placed blow (a critical hit, whose damage goes straight to WP).

Except that you very uncommonly (1 in about 200 to 400 chance) in a VP/WP system have a one-shot kill with the heroes, which is more common than that. These incidences above stand out because they are NOT the norm, not because they are the norm.

Massive damage saves are another way to model it, and to me they do a slightly better chance, if you put the MDT at, say, 10 damage. If every time someone took over 10 damage in one hit, they had to make an MDT fortitude save, there somewhere between a 1 in 10 to 1 in 20 chance that they're out of the fight. Change most weapon damage to about 2d8 (for most weapons, and about a 1d12 for say knives and short blades and improv weapons) and IMO it starts to approach more plausible "kill" figures.

Of course, none of this invalidates the best quote in the thread:

Only that the ability to accurately portray "damage" is nigh impossible.

 

[Jubilee]

We have a GM who briefly used a rule that whenenever you took half of your current HP remaining in a single hit, you had to make a con check - roll under your con on a d20 - or you were unconscious. This was particularly deadly at low levels, because almost any hit even on the fighter took half his remaining hp. We all got pretty tired of everyone falling unconscious during combat and he ditched the rule. It may have been more realistic but not very fun.

/ali

 

[Vrecknidj]

This is one of the better threads I've read in a while. Thanks everyone.

Dave

 

[replicant2]

I like reading these types of threads (thanks for the info, mmadsen), but my standard response is: If you're seeking to model realistic combat, D&D is in no way, shape, or form the game for you.

And point taken that "realism" is incredibly hard to duplicate, with these examples proving that hit points perhaps aren't so far-fetched after all.

 

[Darklone]

Real Life combat is broken!

Great thread!