Thoughts about Magic and Combat

[Li Shenron]

Yes, RPG combat is very rarely "realistic". Not only a character is able to withstand several blows, but also there's little to represent the fact that after a combat you're rarely likely to be able to go to the next room and fight again, especially if you are wounded.

But there is little hope to fix this IMO, therefore I never ever wanted to try, the price of making it more real-like is to make it much less playable and enjoyable from both the tactic and story points of view.

 

[ARandomGod]

I'm amazed as how the rules, all RPG rules for that matter, makes Magic do unbelievable stuff. Things that couldn't be possible in the real world.
Yet, ALL of the RPGs I know of (except maybe, Rolemaster) makes combat MUCH less deadlier than it is in the real world (poisons included).

Real combatants can kill ANYONE in less than 2 seconds, given a surprise situation.

Your thoughts?

These are both explained by one factor. Magic. Magic permiates the world. People, even commoners, are faster, stronger, more dexerous and healtier than their counterparts would be in a non magical world. There's a greater amount of int/wis/cha floating around too, for that matter.

The magical aura is good for living things, and as people (characters) go up in levels they absorb more. This makes people healthier, better able to heal and shrug off what would kill populations of more mundane worlds. All this has a price, however. The magic that so sustains can be warped and twisted by some. Sometimes it is bent to even greater good, but just as often it is turned to killing bolts and blasts.

 

[UltimaGabe]

These are both explained by one factor. Magic. Magic permiates the world. People, even commoners, are faster, stronger, more dexerous and healtier than their counterparts would be in a non magical world. There's a greater amount of int/wis/cha floating around too, for that matter.

The magical aura is good for living things, and as people (characters) go up in levels they absorb more. This makes people healthier, better able to heal and shrug off what would kill populations of more mundane worlds. All this has a price, however. The magic that so sustains can be warped and twisted by some. Sometimes it is bent to even greater good, but just as often it is turned to killing bolts and blasts.

I suppose that's one way to look at it.

The way I see it, however, is like this: I don't WANT battle to be realistic. Some realism is fine (to keep it consistant), but I don't want to play a normal person doing normal things and suffering normal consequences. I play a normal person every day at home, school, and work- I don't want to play a normal person when I play D&D.

 

[MichaelH]

First level PC's or those with NPC classes can die fairly easily and quickly. Consider that your average commoner has from 1 to 4 hit points (average of 2) and your average warrior from 1 to 8 hit points (average of 4). Surprise one of them with either a bow and arrow or a crossbow and both will likely drop unless they get lucky and just get nicked. This is "real" combat. Higher level characters are simply better, faster, more lucky, blessed, whatever. They are heroes and rarely die from a lucky shot or average combat wounds. That's how I look at it anyway.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Heh. Go play Paranoia. Have your fourth or fifth clone tell me about how deadly an RPG can be

 

[Galbard]

In the Startrek roleplaying game characters have about a 25% chance (IIRC) to die during character generation. Now that's a deadly RPG.

In the game characters are (of course) Starfleet officers with a couple of missions behind their belts. During char gen you roll randomly how much missions you've done and what you got out of it. With dead as a regular result.

 

[ARandomGod]

In the Startrek roleplaying game characters have about a 25% chance (IIRC) to die during character generation. Now that's a deadly RPG.

In the game characters are (of course) Starfleet officers with a couple of missions behind their belts. During char gen you roll randomly how much missions you've done and what you got out of it. With dead as a regular result.

Ha!
WEll, the trick is to never be a new ensign. Everybody knows that the new ensign on the mission is gonna bite it.

 

[Aries_Omega]

Good System

If you want real combat then check out Cyberpunk 2020. That is the only game you can play a highly skilled combat class (a Solo, Cop or Nomad for example) and have some low level gutterpunk wave a gun at your nugget....and should still worry. Head shots kill almost always in real life...same in CP2020. In the old CP 2013 box set they had the formula that they used in converting real world weapons to gaming stats...I think it was like 1 point of armor stopping power equals like 45 lbs/ftps. At the time I was in the US Army and looked up the stats for a M16A2 rifle and found that the formula was pretty accurate.

I like the idea of Shadowrun...just hated the dice system and some of the cyberwear seemed kinda wonky (like a cybernetic torso?) so we took the setting....made up roles for the spell using classes....added one extra stat (Essance) and played "Shadow Punk".

If you want more realism in combat with a d20 system check out Unearthed Arcana by WOTC and use the Vitality and Wound Points rule along with Armor is DR rule. That makes it more deadly I feel and more realisitic I think.

Aries

 

[Christian]

In the game characters are (of course) Starfleet officers with a couple of missions behind their belts. During char gen you roll randomly how much missions you've done and what you got out of it. With dead as a regular result.

Heh. Shades of the original Traveller game. Classic method of dealing with poor rolled stats on a Traveller character: sign him up for seven terms in the Scout service. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you end up with a dead PC in chargen & can re-roll some better stats. One percent of the time, you end up with a sub-par stat character with scads of skills and his own starship. Win-win!

Then, players start to realize that they can do that with good stat rolls, too. If you have the patience to spend a few weeks making your rolls, you can make some seriously badass starting characters. I've killed hundreds of characters before a Traveller game even started, waiting to get that perfect sequence of rolls ...

 

[Shadowdweller]

Real combatants can kill ANYONE in less than 2 seconds, given a surprise situation.

Which means that any character can die at the drop of a hat. And average char life expectancy rarely exceeds one adventure, if that. Which isn't so fun for many people.