The Reduction of Uncertainty

[DeathMutant]

To keep every combat "risky" and less predictable you could always use Old Skool (remember Arduin Grimoire?) critical hit charts like this:


The Arduin Grimoire Critical Hit Table

% Die Roll Hit Location Results Point Damage
01-02 Head, frontal Brain penetrated, immediate death 4d8
03-04 Neck, frontal Voicebox ruined, total voice loss. (permanent) 1d8
05-06 Wrist Hand severed, bleed to death in 1d8 minutes 3d6
07-08 Chest or back Impalement, weapon stuck there 3d10
09-10 Side 1d5 ribs broken 1d3 per rib
11-15 Leg Major artery cut, bleed to death in 1d10 minutes 1d8
16-20 Arm Major artery cut, bleed to death in 1d12 minutes 1d6
21-25 Foot, rear Achilles tendon cut, fall immediately (permanent) 1d3
26-30 Fingers 1d5 severed 1 each
31-32 Toes 1d5 severed 3 per two
33-34 Face Eye ruined or torn out (permanent), unable to fight for 1d10 rounds 1d6
35-36 Forehead Gashed, blood in eyes, can’t see or fight for 1d10 rounds 1d3
37-38 Crotch/chest Genitals/breasts torn off, immediate shock induced coma, death in d4 minutes 3d6
39-40 Head, side Ear taken off, 50% hearing loss, -2 charisma 1d3
41-42 Buttocks Buttock torn off, fall, shock induced coma for 3d10 minutes, permanent –3 dex, ½ speed 4d4
43-44 Head, general Stunned, 1d10 rounds no fighting 1d2
45-46 Head, general Stunned, 1d6 minutes no fighting 1d4
47-48 Head, general Minor concussion, Stunned, 1d10 minutes no fighting 1d6
49-50 Head, general Moderate concussion, unconscious 1d6 rounds, confused & groggy for 6d10 minutes 1d8
51-55 Head, general Major skull fracture, unconscious 2d10 minutes, amnesia: 1-60 lasts 2d12 hours, 61+ permanent 1d10
56-60 Neck, frontal Throat cut, death in 1d3 minutes 1d8
61-65 Arm Torn off (roll % for how much, starting at wrist), bleed to death in 1d3 rounds 4d6
66-70 Leg Torn off (roll % for how much, starting at wrist), fall, bleed to death in 1d3 rounds 4d12
71-75 Chest Heart pierced, immediate death 1d10
76-80 Back, lower Spine ruined, roll d6: 1. 100% paralyzed 2. Left side paralyzed 3. Right side 4. Waist up 5. Waist down 6. Death in one minute 2d10
81-85 Face Both eyes ruined or torn out (permanent), unable to fight for 1d10 rounds, permanently blinded 2d6
86-90 Face Nose ruined, -6 cha, stunned, breathing problems (-2 on con checks involving endurance), bad speech prblems for 1d12 months (relearning to speak properly) 1d8
91-94 Head, general Nothing apparent, later problems when brain hemmorhages in 1d10 days, 50/50 chance of death or permanent insanity 1d2
95 Guts ripped out 20% chance of tangling feet, die in 1d10 minutes 2d8
96 Head, top Skull caved in, major brain damage, all mental faculties permanently halved, 50-100% memory destroyed, -8 cha 2d6
97 Chest Lung punctured, internal damage, halve str & con (permanent) 1d12
98 Neck Head torn off, immediate death 5d10
99 Body Split in twain, immediate death 10d10
100 Head Entire head pulped and splattered over wide area, irrevocable death Total


Of course, you'd have to adjust the damage rolls but the idea is that a critical hit is more of a detrimental effect than just more damage (=boring). DM fiat might be required to keep the result within the realm of possibility but the idea of permanent scars or disability from a single encounter gives characters more "character", imo.

 

[pukunui]

It is meaningless in the sense that he didn't die for his or his allies goals. That's fits my definition of meaningless.
If such death happen to often, you get players for which life or death of the character as a whole becomes indeed meaningless. (Call of Cthulhu players might feel similar...) You simply end up not caring any more, and you finally end up with Bob the Fighter #3.

Your understanding of meaningless might be different, and maybe there is a better term for it. (Is being annoyed by random death the same as a the death in question being meaningless?)

Good point. I think that may have been what I meant by "meaningless deaths".

 

[Celtavian]

I think you're misconstruing here. Call it a campaign as opposed to a story if you must, but the fact is that RPGs and stories do share some issues in common, even if an RPG is not a story. One of those is the potential for events, characters, etc. to show up in a manner that diminishes context. A random encounter with some dockyard thugs that's simply designed to show how rough the neighborhood is doesn't need to be run if it's going to turn into a 20-minute combat, because then, the actually *important* fight that comes later that game session loses its sense of importance. It's the "NPC with a name" problem; if every NPC is richly detailed and interesting, and the DM runs a cast of hundreds (I'm guilty of this problem myself), it's hard for the PCs to keep track of and adequately prioritize the ones who are actually important to the campaign.

I tend to agree. I hate wasting time on minor, unimportant random encounters that are just for flavor. If my PCs can crush the encounter, I handwave it in 3IE. So that is a DM option we've always had and that I use even now. I also use it when a party has defeated an encounter and are cleaning up the small fry. I don't roll out each combat with minor minions that need 20s to hit the PCs. I just hand wave it and get it done. So I have no problem with encounters being run in such a way.

 

[Crashy75]

I tend to agree. I hate wasting time on minor, unimportant random encounters that are just for flavor. If my PCs can crush the encounter, I handwave it in 3IE. So that is a DM option we've always had and that I use even now. I also use it when a party has defeated an encounter and are cleaning up the small fry. I don't roll out each combat with minor minions that need 20s to hit the PCs. I just hand wave it and get it done. So I have no problem with encounters being run in such a way.

I always liked the 'clean up'. Of course, I almost always play evil characters.
EDIT: There is meaning in this. I get to freak the other PC's out with my bullying/torturing ways. (hey, that goblin might know something!) It can create an interesting party dynamic.

 

[Wolfspider]

Some things that come to mind that my group finds "unfun" are things like . . . getting totally smashed by monsters that they should be smashing because of bad rolls on their parts and good rolls on the monsters' parts ....

So your group complains when they don't win all the time?

What's the point of playing if there isn't a real risk of failure?

If you don't want to fail sometimes, don't play a game that involves chance.

 

[Victim]

I always liked the 'clean up'. Of course, I almost always play evil characters.
EDIT: There is meaning in this. I get to freak the other PC's out with my bullying/torturing ways. (hey, that goblin might know something!) It can create an interesting party dynamic.

Well, as long as the handwaving involved is flexible, then I don't see the problem. If an encounter is trivial, it's still most likely trivial if you intend to capture one or two enemies for interrogation later. If the characters have a certain style, then abstracting the results with a description can readily encompass that style - especially if the players throw some input out.

 

[pukunui]

So your group complains when they don't win all the time?

What's the point of playing if there isn't a real risk of failure?

If you don't want to fail sometimes, don't play a game that involves chance.

Way to jump to conclusions there, Wolfspider. You couldn't be more wrong. My group actually knows failure all too well ... I believe we've had at least 10 PCs die since I started running my campaign a year ago. I'm currently running RHoD and they most definitely have not won every battle.

But that wasn't the point of my comment. What I was getting at is the whole "getting killed by something that really shouldn't be able to kill you" thing that other people have mentioned. Random freak accident-style deaths aren't fun. That's real life stuff. We don't play games to mirror real life. We play games to escape it.

 

[Wolfspider]

Way to jump to conclusions there, Wolfspider. You couldn't be more wrong. My group actually knows failure all too well ... I believe we've had at least 10 PCs die since I started running my campaign a year ago. I'm currently running RHoD and they most definitely have not won every battle.

But that wasn't the point of my comment. What I was getting at is the whole "getting killed by something that really shouldn't be able to kill you" thing that other people have mentioned. Random freak accident-style deaths aren't fun. That's real life stuff. We don't play games to mirror real life. We play games to escape it.

I see. Your post didn't make entirely clear that you were talking about characters being trashed by creatures that are way under their power level. Still, no encounter should be entirely risk free, in my opinion.

Even in 4e (in fact, more so in 4e than in 3e), weak monsters will be able to get powerful attacks in on any character, no matter his or her power level, due to the auto-20 crit rule. Whereas the confirmation role in v3.5 prevented this kind of thing, it will be more common in the new rules set.

 

[pukunui]

I see. Your post didn't make entirely clear that you were talking about characters being trashed by creatures that are way under their power level. Still, no encounter should be entirely risk free, in my opinion.

You're right that I wasn't that clear. I'd edited my comments several times in an effort to make them more clear but obviously failed in that regard. Forgive me if I came across as offended because I wasn't actually. I was more amused by your conclusion than anything else because the truth was the exact opposite of what you were supposing ...

Even in 4e (in fact, more so in 4e than in 3e), weak monsters will be able to get powerful attacks in on any character, no matter his or her power level, due to the auto-20 crit rule. Whereas the confirmation role in v3.5 prevented this kind of thing, it will be more common in the new rules set.

Yes, that's true ... but my understanding (and I could very well be wrong) is that the new criticals will be less lethal (max damage instead of anywhere from 2x-4x damage). So low-level grunts may indeed have a better chance of actually participating in a fight with higher-level PCs but their chances of actually killing said PCs due to lucky dice rolls (randomness) should be significantly reduced ... if that's the case, then my group and I will be very happy.

 

[pemerton]

One of the things that seems to be emerging from various 4E teasers is a reduction in the inherent uncertainty of D&D.

Agreed. I've identified this as one of the features of 4e that enhances the players' degree of narrative control.

An example in another thread talks about a DM handwaving a combat between a halfway-powerful party and some street toughs; the DM says something like "There's a battle, you win easily"; the players respond "OK, we beat 'em up but let them live", and the DM carries on with the game. The problems here are numerous:

1. Who's to say that if the combat was run those street toughs would do some serious harm to someone, or even get lucky and kill a PC?

2. Once this precedent is set, as soon as the DM says "No, we'd better play out this one" the players know there's more to it than meets the eye and will react accordingly.

3. On a more general note, speeding things up and reducing uncertainty also reduces the ability of both the players and DM to hit the curveball...to react accordingly when things fail to go to plan. Example: if a high-level adventure is based around returning the Sword of Mighty Swordiness to its rightful owner, but halfway there the guy carrying it eats a fireball in what would otherwise be a pushover encounter and the Sword of Mighty Swordiness becomes the Sword of Mighty Meltiness...that's a curve thrown at the game that wouldn't happen had that seemingly-trivial encounter been handwaved.

Lanefan, I agree with each of your 1 to 3 but see them as potentially good rather than bad.

As to 1), the GM and players may not be playing a game to have PCs die to street violence. That may not be the point they are trying to make.

As to 2), correct! But in certain sorts of play the GM and players want to know when things are at stake.

As to 3), see this:

I'm not a big fan of uncertainty/randomness/chance, so its reduction in the 4e rules makes me very happy. For one thing, it'll mean that the story the my players and I are creating is less likely to get seriously derailed by a random bad luck die roll. For another, it means that my players have more "control" over their characters.

See, I don't think "story" is important except insofar as it matters when we're cracking a few beers and a few jokes after all is said and done. Story emerges from play, not the other way around.

As long as you're confining this to your preferences, and not asserting it as true of RPGing per se, I agree.

confining "play" to what should happen in the story is stifling, railroading and boring unless one has an amazing storytelling DM.

You seem to have missed the bit where the poster referred to "me and my players". You might be confusing GM force and railroading with player-driven thematically-oriented play.