Using massive damage threshold in D&D?

[Quasqueton]

[Note: I have no experience with how d20 Modern damage plays out, so I need your experienced thoughts on this idea for D&D.]

I'm toying with an idea to make D&D combat a little more dangerous, but I also don't want to make intricate and detailed and complicated changes to the core game. I don't want new HP rules for PCs to learn. I want to still be able to use monsters right out of the books with very minimal tweaking. Etc.

The idea that started my thinking in this direction was possibly adding firearms (flintlock or ball & cap style) as a main weapon to standard D&D. If firearms are to be serious weapons they need to be better than just using a bow or crossbow.

What would be the ramifications to the standard rules if I doubled the dice of damage by weapons?

Examples:

rapier does 2d6 +str, magic, etc.

longsword does 2d8 +whatever

greatsword does 4d6 +whatever

ogre's Huge greatclub does 4d6+7

hellhound's bite does 2d8+1 (fire breath does 2d4+1?)

shortbow does 2d6 . . .

heavy crossbow does 2d10 . . .

Maybe:

single-shot pistol does 3d8 (50% more than a light crossbow)?

single-shot musket does 3d10 (50% more than a heavy crossbow)?


How about if I also incorporated the d20 Modern concept of massive damage threshold = con score?

How about if the massive damage save was a Reflex save instead of a Fort save (same mechanic otherwise - still take full damage, just not knocked down to -1 and dying if save successful)? This to represent the victim dodging and having the damage scratch or wind him, rather than representing the victim taking the damage full on and still standing.

I'd really appreciate some feedback on this. What are your thoughts?

I'm crossposting this to the House Rules forum and the d20 Modern forum.

Quasqueton

 

[takyris]

Well, hit points as they currently stand are supposed to represent dodging and parrying and taking a sword-thrust as a tiny scrape rather than a full-on wound that you somehow ignore. In that way, you can fix a lot of the problems with flavor text improvements, and forcing your players to do the same. Don't let them say that they cleave a bad guy's arm off when they critically hit and leave him with only 13 hit points. 13 hit points out of 90 does not mean that a limb has come off. It means that you have received a number of tiny scratches or bruises, or a few big ones, and that you are weakened, your defenses are down, and you're likely to take the brunt of the next shot.

Frankly, after doing d20 Modern, I'd recommend that if you want D&D to be more lethal but still feasible, you incorporate the d20 Modern rules as they are, without changing weapons around. The problems with your idea, as I see them, are:

1) They favor Rogues, Bards, Monks, and the new Ranger over Fighters and Barbarians. A change to combat rules should not make the Rogue more likely to stay standing than the Fighter. A Fort save can be abstracted to "Tough enough to keep functioning despite the impending pain and get his body out of the way of most of the attack" -- so that sword-cut that COULD have eviscerated the character (instantly to -1) instead just leaves a nasty scratch (takes normal damage). In this manner, I'd change the flavor text, not the Save Type. The Save Type is balanced. You can flavor-text it so that the person making the save is tough, fast, or lucky, whichever they like, but it should stay a Fort save.

2) Any weapon hit is now likely to be an instant-damage check. This makes the game a LOT less fun, and probably a bit too dangerous. Trust me on this -- a character with a greatsword still forces massive damage checks WAY too often. If a shortsword (1d6) was given a greatsword's damage (2d6), you'd be dramatically upping the randomness of your game. Maybe you'd like it, but I suspect that your players would be frustrated at their hit points meaning so little.

Switching to d20 Modern lethality rules, without making any other changes, will make the game a lot more dangerous. Any crit with a medium-weapon is a potential instakill, and a strong character with a large weapon can force an instakill check on a high percentage of his hits. If you incorporate these rules, your players will get a lot more careful about combat, guaranteed. Making the additional changes you suggest might be overkill, though.

 

[DanMcS]

Son of a... I had a long reply typed out, but the board ate it.

OK, short version, been playing a d20 modern campaign since december. The massive damage save was scary, but I don't remember anyone ever failing one, because you have to make them so rarely. Most of the weapons in modern are 2d6 guns, so if you have a better than average Con, you're fine 95% of the time.

Lowering the threshold in regular D&D would be really rough on low hp types, because they have low cons so it gets triggered often, and low fort saves so they tend to fail. Melee fightin' types have high cons, so they get triggered less often, and make the save if they have to. So you're making life rougher on the people that already have low hps, and just a smidge of extra danger to the high hp types.

It would tend to get triggered rather more often in D&D than in modern, because melee weapons get Str bonus to damage, magical enhancement bonuses, power attack, extra damage dice from whatever, etc. By the time you hit mid levels, nearly every melee strike could trigger a damage save. Every area effect spell would force two saves, the reflex to avoid it and the fort to survive the massive damage. There's a lot of cascading changes you have to ponder that didn't matter as much in d20 modern because spells, critical hits, etc are so much more rare.

Combining the d20 modern massive damage threshold with doubling every weapon's damage dice would probably kill a character every fight at low levels. It sounds really boring to me, you'd spend all your time rolling up new characters instead of advancing any kind of minimal plot.