Lucky 7: Complicating Weapons & Armor

When James and I record the first episode of the podcast, we talked about how weapon and armor interact. That made me think of a way I could add some crunch to the Lucky 7 rules. Of course, L7 is supposed to be low crunch, so this would be an optional rule.

Damage Types

The current version of D&D (5E) introduced common damage types from weapons: Slashing, Piercing, and Bludgeoning.

This might be new for D&D, but as far back as 1985 GURPS used cutting, impaling, and crushing. Same things, different names.

Going back a couple more years, it looks like the Palladium system used Cut, Chop, Thrust, and Impact.

What if we do the same thing for L7? We rate each weapon for each of those categories, then we do the same with the Armor.

The Weapons

Name	Cut	Crush	Impale	Description
Axe, Great	6	3	0	9 out of 10 Minotaurs who use axes, use Great axes. Big, double headed axes. Two handed.
Axe, Hand	5	2	0
Axe, Long	6	3	0	A 4.5-foot pole with a big axe head. Historically used by the Vikings. Weighs about 5 pounds. Requires 2-hands to use.
Axe, Small	4	2	0	A hatchet
Axe, Throwing	5	2	0
Bastard Sword (1 hand)	4	2	0
Bastard Sword (2 hands)	5	3	0
Blackjack	0	2	0
Brass Knuckles	0	2	0
Broadsword	4	2	2	The classic sword of history and fantasy. About 2.5 feet long and weighs in at 5 pounds.
Claymore	6	3	2
Club	0	4	0	A heavy piece of wood swung at the opponent. Used one handed.
Dagger				See Bodkin or Knife, Large.
Fist	0	1	0	Used for punching. Rather handy because it can almost never be dropped.
Flail	0	6	0
Gladius	3	2	1	The classic Roman short sword. Two feet long and about 1.75 pounds.
Javelin	1	3	4
Knife, large	2	0	2
Knife, Small	1	0	2	Small stabbing weapon
Longsword				See broadsword.
Mace	0	5	0	About 2.5 feet long, and weighing in at about 4.5 pounds, this crushing weapon is a fantasy favorite.
Mace, Small	0	4	0
Maul	0	6	0	It’s not a war hammer, it’s a war-sledgehammer.
Morningstar	0	5	2	A mace with spikes on the smashing bit.
Pick	0	2	6
Quarterstaff	0	4	0	A six-foot long pole without a stabby bit on the end. Can be swung, though, which is more effective than poking. Requires 2 hands to use.
Scythe	4	2	2	A spear with a curved, cutting blade at the end. Used two handed. Don’t throw it.
Spear (1 hand)	2	2	5	A 5 foot long pole with a sharp stabby bit on the end.
Spear (2 hands)	2	2	6
Sword, Broad				See broadsword.
Sword, short				See Gladius
Sword, Two-Handed				See Claymore.
Warhammer	0	5	3	A maul with a spike. Smash with one side, stab with the other.

The Armor

Name	Cut	Crush	Impale	Description
Shield				This is the basic hand-held shield; this is the only armor that can be used in conjunction with other armor. Remember that using a shield in conjunction with a weapon requires an AoE for the appropriate fighting style, or the user will suffer a -3 non-expertise penalty.
Quilted	1	1	0	This is armor made of of cloth and filled with fibers to cushion the effects of weapons.
Leather	2	1	1	The is a thinner version of quilted armor, with a hard leather facing designed to deflect blows.
Ring	3	1	2	This is leather armor with metal rings sewn to it in order to decrease the chance of a sword or spear poking through it.
Scale	3	2	3	This is leather armor with a bunch of metal plates sewn to it. The metal plates often resemble the scale of a fish. It provides more metal coverage than rings, with a corresponding increase in weight.
Chain	4	2	2	A series of interlocking metal rings that forms a metal cloth, that’s worn over the quilted armor. Fairly weighty, but flexible.
Segmentata	4	3	3	A favorite of the Roman empire. They did away with the leather altogether and had metal strips (or bands) running across the width of the body. The overlapping strips (or bands) still allowed free movement.
Breastplate, bronze	5	4	5	This armor goes as far back as the Greeks. Amazingly heavy, and rigidly uncomfortable.

Epilogue

I still need to figure out how to handle shields.

I also need to add some more snarky descriptions.

I also notice I left off the ranged weapons.

What do you think? Do you like the idea? Do you disagree with any or my ratings?

Lucky 7 Hit Points

This completely replaces my earlier post called Unlucky 13 Hit Points.

First of all, because Unlucky 13 is now just an expansion of the 1974 D&D rules, hit points in U13 work the same as hit points in D&D.

Because Lucky 7 is not a D&D derivative, I’m free to do things differently. Very differently. That previous post was too different, though. And it was completely unusable on Roll 20.

Some Background

When (the game that would later become) Dungeons & Dragons first started, there wasn’t a “to hit roll” followed by a “damage roll.” There was one roll. If you rolled the right value, you killed the monster; otherwise you didn’t. Likewise, if the DM rolled a certain number, your character was dead. There was no warning. There was no “I’m almost dead.” You just went from alive to dead in a single roll.

Players found that unsatisfying, so Dave Arneson invented hit points.

My Solution: Lives

So here’s my solution. It’s based on “lives” from things like Pac-Man.

Most characters start with three lives/hit points, but this is modified by the Spiritual attribute. (Why Spiritual instead of Physical might be the topic of a future post.)

When you take a hit, you make a roll using the Spiritual attribute. If you succeed, you shrug off the hit without serious injury. If you fail, you lose exactly one life/hit point. When you lose your last life/hit point, you’re out of action. “Out of action” might mean you’re dead, but it probably means the you’re knocked-out or you’ve been captured or you’ve just given up.

What about weapon and armor types?

Armor doesn’t make you less likely to get hit, but it does make it less likely that you will get hurt.

A sword isn’t any more likely to kill an unarmored man than a knife, but a sword is more likely to penetrate armor than a knife.

Every weapon has a weapon value and every armor has an armor value. If the weapon’s value is greater than armor’s, then the Armor roll is made with a penalty. If the armor is greater than weapon, the Armor roll is made with a bonus. If they'e equal, than it’s a simple roll with neither penalty nor bonus.

How many lives do monsters have?

A zombie or an orc will have one life. A dragon might have 12. If looking at a D&D monster, use the number of hit dice as the number of lives.

How about a troll with 6 + 3 hit dice?

You might want to just call that seven lives, but I would call it six and give the troll a +3 to his armor roll.

But I don’t want to die! (optional rule)

This is an option rule for GM’s to use in their campaign, or not.

If you lose your last life, instead of being put out of action you instead gain an injury instead. That injury counts as a disadvantage, and can be used as such.

Normally, the injury heals after the fight is over (or the scene is over if you’re not in combat when the injury occurs). However, if you’re already injured and you lose another life you can chose to extend the duration of the injury:

Injury	Duration of effect
Initial	This combat/scene
1st extension	Next day
2nd extension	Next week
3rd extension	Next month
4th extension	Next season
5th extension	Next year

Epilogue

That’s it. That’s my new idea for hit points.

One question I have: Should I call them “hit points” or “lives?”

I lean towards “hit points” because that’s the universal RPG term, and I’m trying not to make up new terms.

On the other hand, I lean toward “lives” because they act more like video game lives than traditional hit points.

What do you think?

Unlucky 13 Combat Test

James helped me conduct a test of the U13 combat system. This is how it went.

The Player Character

	Player
Fighting	1
Agility	0
Weapon value	Sword 4
Armor value	Leather & Shield 3

This is the PC’s starting health meter:

01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
A	A	A									☠

The Setup

GM: You’re leaving the city. Lord Crowfield sent you to Syresham manor, about 5-6 miles away to the east. He wants you to see what happened there with the light from the sky.

As you leave the town, you encounter the desert it wasn’t desert a few days ago. You find this disconcerting, weird, and alien. It’s sweltering hot. There is just sand and desert scrub as far as you can see. A river—the Lesser Ooze—is supposed to run between the two towns, but you see no sign of a river. Just sand and sun.

As Crowfield fades away behind you, the lack of any landmarks makes navigation difficult. You are in danger of getting lost.¹

From beside you, you hear the sound of something scuffling in the sand. Looking off you your right you see…

The Enemy

GM: Those pincers are about 4 to 5 FEET apart. It is scuffling towards you. What do you do?

	Player	Scorpion
Fighting	1	1
Agility	0	0
Weapon value	Sword: 4	Claw: 2 Stinger: 5
Armor value	Leather & Shield: 3	Chitin exoskeleton: 4

health:

01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
A	A	A				☠	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠

The fight begins

Player: I light a torch.

GM: So you’re dropping your sword and shield, removing your backpack, fishing out the tinderbox and lighting a torch?

Player: No. Never mind. I will stand ready and let it come to me. Watching for the tail at all time

GM: It gets within a few feet–almost grasping range but not quite–and stops. You sense that it’s staring at you.

Player: “Hi, Friend , You do not want to eat me.” I hold my sword high.²

GM: It does a side scuffle, like maybe it’s looking for a way to flank you. |

Round 1, attack phase

Player: I try to hit it claw near me.

Rules & Rolls: The player was the first to announce an attack, so he gets initiative.

The player’s attack (1) is higher than the monster’s agility (0), so the player gets a bonus roll. A bonus roll is the highest 2 dice of 3d12. The dice were 5, 7, and 11, so we drop the 5 and the total is 18. Any roll of 14+ is a success.

GM: You got it, but not on the claw.³

Rules & Rolls: The player’s weapon value (4) is greater than the monster’s armor value (3), so damage is the lowest die of 2d12. The roll was 4 and 7. We keep the 4, which is an open slot of the damage track. The scorpion loses its #4 slot.

GM: Your hit bypasses the armor. Your blade slips in and hurts it.

Round 1, defense phase

GM: It reaches out with the claws to grab you…

Player: I’m going to avoid the hit, of course.

Rules & Rolls: In U13 monsters don’t make an attack roll; the players make a defense roll instead. The player’s agility (0) is lower then the scorpion’s attack (1), so the player makes a penalty roll. Rolling 3d12 resulted in (12, 12, 10). That means the sum of the lowest 2 is 22, a success.

GM: You roll to the side and avoid the claws!

End of Round 1

	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
Player	A	A	A									☠
Scorpion	A	A	A	×			☠	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠

Round 2, Attack Phase

GM: What do you do next?

Player: I’m trying the same thing.

Rules & Rolls: The player still has a bonus roll to attack, and gets a 21—a success. The damage roll is a 2. Looking at the monster’s health meter we see that the 2 is potected by the armor symbol (◊), so there’s no effect.

GM: You bring your sword down, but it bounces off the scorpion’s carapace.

Round 2, Defense Phase

Player: It’s his attack, right?

GM: Technically speaking it’s your defense.

Rules & Rolls: The defense roll is a 13! That’s the “Unlucky 13” that the system is named for. It counts as a failure, but the player has the option to convert it to a success provided he’s willing to accept a Bad Thing.

GM: You rolled an Unlucky 13! You might remember how this goes. You missed the defense, but I’ll give it to you if you’re willing to take a Bad Thing instead. Are you going to take the bad thing? Or are you going to take the hit and hope your armor saves you?

Player: It’s unlike me, but I’ll take the Bad Thing.

GM: I would have too. It’s better than taking damage. He tried to get you with his tail but you blocked with your shield.[^tail] The stinger got caught in the shield and yanked it off your arm. The shield goes flying behind the scorpion. You no longer have a shield unless you try to go get it.

End of Round 2

While no one took damage this round, the player did lose his shield, making his #3 slot vulnerable.

	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
Player	◊	◊										☠
Scorpion	◊	◊	◊	×			☠	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠

Round 3, Attack Phase

Player: So what’s next?

GM: You tell me! What do you do next?

Player: What is it doing? Can I try to cut off its tail?

GM: The last thing it did was try to impale you, but got your shield instead. Now it looks like it’s trying to grab you. It sounds difficult to cut off the tail instead of just hitting it where-ever you can. If you want to do that, I’m taking away your bonus.

Player: No. I keep with what safer without running away.

GM: What I will do is say that if the opportunity presents itself, you’ll favor the tail over other parts. In game terms, if your roll is 20+ you can say it was the tail, otherwise it’s a normal hit.

Player: Cool

Rules & Rolls: The attack dice were (3, 9, 10), for a total of 19—a hit.

GM: You missed the tail by one, but your blade makes contact with the beast’s thorax.

Player: I’m rolling for damage.

Rules & Rolls: The attack dice were (3, 9, 10), for a total of 19—a hit. The damage dice were (6, 6)⁴ so the creature’s 6 slot is now filled.

Player: Does it look like I am doing anything to it?

GM: Your blade slipped between its chitin plates, and thick black ichor starts dripping into the sand. It’s twitching a bit…

Round 3 Defense Phase

GM: …but it reaches out to you with its claw! Make an agility roll to avoid.

Rules & Rolls: The dice were (7, 7, 11) for a total of 14, exactly what he needs to dodge out of the way.

GM: You barely dodge out of the way

End of Round 3

The player is still unscratched. The scorpion took a hot on the #6 slot. That means any hit of 6+ will take it out of the combat.

	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
Player	◊	◊										☠
Scorpion	◊	◊	◊	×		×	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠

Round 4, Attack Phase

GM: (The scorpion is in rough shape. I decided that it would probably run away. James usually likes to let things run away instead killing if he doesn’t have to, so I decided to prompt him) Do you attack? Wait? Run? Give it money?

Player: I attack!

Rules & Rolls: The dice are (3, 9, 12 = 21), a hit.

GM: I said I would give you the tail if you rolled more than 20, so your blade lands a hit the tail and…

Rules & Rolls: The damage dice are (4, 11).

GM: Your damage roll was a 4. You had already done the 4 slot before, so we move this up to the 5 slot.

	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12
Player	◊	◊										☠
Scorpion	◊	◊	◊	×	×	×	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠	☠

Player: Good! Did the tail get cut off?

Round 4, Defense Phase

I already mentioned that the scorpion already decided to run away this round. The fact that it took another hit only solidifies that choice. Instead of attacking it’s running away. The player doesn’t need to defend.

GM: The stinger is dangling, and the scorpion is backing away from you.

Round 5, Attack Phase

Player: Can I attack as it backs off?

GM: It’s backing off, but sure. You can make an attack if you want.

Player: I do.

Rules & Rolls: The player rolls (1, 12, 12 = 24). A CRIT!

The scorpion doesn’t have any open damage slots, except for those covered by armor. It makes no sense to tell the player that he scored a crit but that the hit didn’t pierce the armor. The only logical thing is to skip the dice and just let it die.

GM: You swing wildly and a stinger drops off completely. More ichor drops to the sand. The scorpion twitches violently, then collapses and stops moving. You are victorious!

Epilogue

I think the combat went well, but it needs more testing. The exchange above actually carried over two days and I did all the dice rolling. I want to try it through Roll20 with the player rolling himself. James wants to try it with multiple combatants on both sides.

How did it read to you?

---

1. If this were a real game instead of a combat playtest, a Wilderness Survival check would happen here.↩

2. If this were a real game, I might have given the player an animal handling roll.↩

3. U13 doesn’t do hit locations. It adds too much complication for too little return. Had he rolled 20+, I would have given him the claw. I still could have given him the claw, it just wouldn’t make any difference.↩

4. I’m tempted to make a rule that would give the player a bonus for rolling doubles.↩

Initiative for U13, Take 2

Last week I talked about an initiative system for Unlucky 13. The solution was an attempt to use playing cards to mimik the token system from Troika. This week, I’m throwing that away.

Playtest Results

James read the post and agreed to help me playtest it. The playtest went well, but the chaos of the system could really work against the players. I like to encourage my players to take low stats, but the way the system penalizes a low speed character was (1) potentially deadly and more important (2) just boring/not fun for the player.

James and I brainstormed on some ways to improve it, and I walked away with a system that would work. But the more I thought about it, I really didn’t like adding a new mechanic to the game. U13 is based around d12 rolls. The cards seem foreign.

So I scrapped everything and went back to a system that I wrote long ago for Dekahedron.

The U13 Initiative System, Take 2

The new system is painfully simple: the first to attack is the first to declare their attack.

Consider the following example:

GM:	A troll stands before the bridge and bares his yellow teeth and says “You no pass unless you give me your gold!”
Player:	“I’ll give you 1 gold piece.”
GM:	“No! You give me ALL the gold!”
Player:	“I don’t think so my friend.”

If the next words spoken are the player saying “I run him through with my sword,” then the player gets the first attack. If, instead, the next words are the GM saying “The troll reaches out with his bony claws to attack you! Make a defense roll!” then it’s obvious that the troll moves first.

There’s no reason to make it more complicated than that, except…

What about speed?

What if the player is #Fast as lightning but the troll announced his attack first? The player still makes his defense roll, but he gets to apply his speed as a bonus die if he wishes. A successful defense simply means that troll’s action was detected by the player and the player gets to attack.

If the player is slower than the troll, then it would be a penalty factor instead.

Summary

This system feels more like U13. What do you think? Is it too simple?

I need to see if James will playtest it with me.

Initiative for U13

I was taking a break from the “Knoll” & “Astral Web” posts this week. This post was originally going to be “A Low Fantasy Combat in U13.” James was going to run a fighter through a combat with a skeleton so I could test the system, and I was going to let you know how it went.

It didn’t. It turns out that U13 doesn’t have an initiative system.

The “Unlucky 13” Gaming Engine (“U13” for short) combines elements of Clout and the Crowfield talent system. Because Crowfield assumes that there’s a D&D clone underneath it, that means that D&D’s DNA is a entwined within Crowfield’s.

That means I should be able to use the initiative system from Clout or D&D, right?

Nope.

Turns out that Clout doesn’t have an initiative system, either. But such a system wouldn’t make sense in Clout as it’s a “single roll combat” system: The player rolls once and that determines whether he hit the monster or vice versa.

Inspirations

RPGs have been around for about 50 years now. For pretty much any idea that I can come up with, I can be pretty sure that someone smarter than me has already done it. I’ve played enough games that I know that my thoughts are just evolutions of thoughts I came across before. Three games contributed to my solution.

Dungeons & Dragons

In older versions of D&D you determined initiative by rolling 1d6. In later editions you would add your dexterity modifier. While this is “boring,” it is simple and could easily be ported to U13.

Pros:

• Simple
• Matches U13 dice mechanics
• Roll20 compatible
• Allows some characters to be faster/slower than others
• Allows simultaneous actions

Cons:

• Rather boring and uninspired

Troika

I’ve never played Troika. In fact I never ever heard of it until a few days ago when it was mentioned in a podcast episode that I was listening to. In that game, each character/monster gets tokens that are put into a bag, box, or other container. Additionally an “end of turn” marker is also placed in the container. Tokens are pulled out of the container one by one, and the corresponding character gets to act. When the end of turn marker is drawn, the turn is over even if some players never got a move!

I like this system a lot. It adds variability. The random end of turn event makes combat feel that much faster and more furious. I’d love to use this system, except it does not translate into online play. There’s just no way to drawn tokens out on a bag if I’m playing on Roll20. I suppose that I could place tokens into a physical bag and tell the players what the result was, I prefer something that they can witness for themselves.

Pros:

• Interesting
• Allows some characters to be faster/slower than others

Cons:

• Not compatible with Roll20
• No simultaneous actions

Savage Worlds

Savage Worlds has a different initiative system. In that game each character is dealt a card from a standard poker deck. Characters then act in a weird sequence: play goes from high card to low card, except for “ones” which go first because counting is hard, I guess.¹ Also the system doesn’t allow simultaneous results, ruling that ties are settled buy some arbitrary sequence of suits.²

Because Savage Worlds was wildly popular a while back, Roll20 supports playing cards on the virtual tabletop.

Pros:

• Interesting
• Compatible with Roll20

Cons:

• No simultaneous actions
• All characters are equally fast/slow
• Poker theme seems out of place unless playing a wild west scenario.

The U13 Initiative System

I made a few systems, and experimented with them. In the end, this is what I came up with. It combines the systems above, and uses playing cards.

The first thing that you need to know is that characters in U13 might be #slow as molasses, or they might be #fast as lightning. Of course, most characters won’t be either.

1. Gather all the cards and shuffle the deck.
2. Deal one card to any combatant³ who is #fast as lightning.
3. If any combatants are neither #slow as molasses nor #fast as lightning, deal one card to those players and to those who are #fast as lightning.
4. If any combatant is #slow as molasses, then deal a card to every combatant. At this point every combatant should have one to three cards.
5. If any combatant received a Joker, deal that character two more cards and discard the Joker.
6. The combatant holding the highest card discards that card and can make a move.
   1. If there’s a tie, all the tied combatants are considered to act simultaneously.
   2. If a combatant holds multiple of the highest card (e.g. two kings), he can act twice.
7. If everyone has moved, this turn is over. Start the next turn (go to step 1).
8. The GM draws a card and places it on the table face up. This is called the action card.
   1. The combatant holding the highest card that is higher than the action card discards that card and can make a move.
   2. If no one has a card higher than the action card, this turn is over. Start the next turn (go to step 1).
9. Go to step 7.

Summary

So that’s the system. It’s more difficult to explain than it is to run. I like that you can never be sure if you’ll get a turn, yet fast character do have a better chance. It needs some playtesting, but from what I can tell so far, it has these pros and cons:

Pros:

• Interesting
• Compatible with Roll20
• Allows some characters to be faster/slower than others
• Allows simultaneous actions

Cons:

• Doesn’t match the U13 dice mechanics
• Cards might be weird, but they could be replaced with d12.

What do you think? Is it too complicated? Do you have a better mechanic?

I plan on writing an example in a future post, but for now this post is long enough.

UPDATE: This system didn't survive playtest. It has been replaced. You can read the new system here.

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1. Actually I think this has something to do with poker, but I’ve never played that game.↩

2. Maybe this is a poker thing too?↩

3. If the characters are facing many enemies it will probably make sense to group some of all of the enemies together.↩

Armor: Passive Defense vs. Damage Reduction

This week we’re talking about the two most common ways of handling armor in table-top role-playing games and the one I’m going to use in Crowfield.

This post has given me a lot of problems. I know what I want to say, but figuring out how to start it has eluded me. Also, I started out with my preferred position and calculated the numbers to support my case. Looking at those numbers made me realize that I was wrong and that the “inferior” system might actually be superior!

The Terms

I’m stealing two terms from GURPS here:

Passive Defense (or PD) is a way of handling armor that makes the wearer harder to hit. This is the method used in Dungeons & Dragons where wearing armor adjusts your armor class in such a way that your opponent has to roll a higher number in order to score a “hit.”

Example: Swinfar the Barbarian is fighting a goblin. Without armor, Swinfar would have an armor class of 10, meaning the goblin has to roll a 10 or better to hit him. But Swinfar is wearing leather armor, making his armor class 12. The goblin rolls to hit and gets an 11. He misses; he would have hit Swinfar if it wasn’t for that armor!

Damage Reduction (or DR) is a way of handling armor that doesn’t affect the opponent’s chance of scoring a hit, but it reduces (or eliminates!) the damage taken from that hit. This is the method used in Tunnels & Trolls and the fourth edition of GURPS (previous editions used both PD and DR).

Example: Swinfar the Barbarian is fighting a goblin. Swinfar is wearing leather armor, which has a DR of 1. Because armor doesn’t affect the goblin’s chances of hitting, the goblin hits on a 10 or higher. The goblin rolls to hit and gets an 11: a hit! He rolls for damage and gets a 3. Swinfar’s armor soaks up a point of that damage, meaning that Swinfar only takes 2 points.

My Druthers

Does it really make sense that wearing armor makes you harder to hit?

If anything, might it not slow you down just a little bit and make you ever so easier to hit?

Once you’re hit, doesn’t it make sense that the armor would reduce or eliminate the damage you would otherwise take?

These were all my thoughts back in 1985 when Ernie first introduced me to Man to Man, the game that would eventually become GURPS. These were also my thoughts when I sat down to start writing this post.

Thoughts & Numbers

So, if I want to add damage reduction to Crowfield, the rule changes would be pretty simple:

• AC is now equal to 10 + DEX bonus + Shield bonus. Armor doesn’t make you harder to hit. Shields are used to block blows, so I still count them as AC adjustment.
• Armor provides the following DR:
  • Leather: DR1
  • Chain: DR2
  • Plate: DR3
• Magic armor adds the bonus to the DR. Seeing that all weapons do 1d6 damage, a DR of 6 or more would make the character invulnerable in melee except to magic weapons; so DR should never exceed 5

Let’s consider Swinfar and the Goblin again. The goblin does 1d6 of damage, and doesn’t get any bonuses to hit Swinfar.

Case 1, Swinfar is unarmored: The goblin hits 55% of the time. When he hits, he does an average of 3.5 hit points. That means that the goblin inflicts, on average, 1.925 hit points of damage per round.

Case 2, Swinfar is wearing plate (DR3): The goblin still hits 55% of the time. But now when he hits, he does 1d6 - 3 for Swinfar’s armor. Because the roll can’t be negative, the average roll for 1d6 - 3 is 1. In this scenario, the goblin inflicts on average, 0.55 hit points of damage per round.

Excellent! The system is working. By wearing armor, Swinfar is taking significantly less damage from the goblin.

But wait! How does that compare to the original rules? Let’s look:

Case 3, Swinfar is wearing plate (AC16): Because armor makes Swinfar harder to hit, the goblin now hits only 25% of the time. But when he hits, he does the full 1d6 for damage. In this scenario, the goblin inflicts on average, 0.88 hit points of damage per round.

This was my eye opener. Even in the original rules, the armor is effectively soaking damage. And it does it without causing us to have to do subtraction every time the goblin scores a hit.

Conclusion

Back in the 1970’s, when I first started playing D&D, I didn’t fully grok how the combat system was abstracting things. I thought a “to hit” roll was to see if you really hit. I thought hit points measured a character’s health. I covered most of these things in a previous post.

The point is that my dissatisfaction wasn’t caused by the rules themselves, but by my (mis)understanding of them. I won’t take all the blame, because my understanding was based on the way everyone around me understood and played the game as well. I won’t blame them, either, because (as I’ve mentioned before) the original rules are so poorly written the no one can understand them.

Once you get it out of your head that the “to hit” roll is not a single “chop” of the sword against a single opponent the rest of the system starts to make more sense. The abstraction covers the character’s or monster’s performance over the entire round of combat against one or more opponents. The “to hit” roll that indicates a “miss” doesn’t mean that the player didn’t make contact with his weapon, just that any contact he did make was ineffective. Likewise a “hit” that causes “damage” doesn’t even necessarily mean that the opponent was wounded; it just means that the opponent is that much more likely to be defeated.

Additionally, the existing rules are more streamlined.  In the fight above, using the DR system, about half the time the goblin "scores a hit, but it bounces harmlessly off of your armor." So you have to roll to hit, then roll damage only to find out it wasn't good enough to defeat the armor. The single "to hit" roll speeds up play.

I will be leaving the system as is, and not switching to DR.

Hit Locations in D&D

I was talking to James about the way different games handle armor in combat,¹ and he opined “Why doesn’t D&D have hit locations like other games?” And just like that, I had a topic for this week. Thanks, James!

Answer #1: It does!

When D&D was published in 1974, it was in the three LBBs². The next year, two supplements were published, Greyhawk and Blackmoor. The latter book contained Dave Arneson's hit location rules.

The system was bulky and unwieldy. It went something like this:

1. Roll “to hit.” If you don’t hit, your round is over.
2. Roll damage as normal.
3. Roll for hit location (d% roll on different charts based on the opponent’s body shape and the side you’re attacking from).
4. If you’re shorter than your opponent, add your weapon length to your height.
5. Cross reference your modified height and your opponent’s height on the “Weapon/Height Adjustment Matrix.”
6. Based on the matrix, you might³ need to modify the hit location that you rolled in step 3.
7. Assign the damage to the resulting body part.
8. If that part is out of hit points, it is crippled (or, if it’s the head or torso the opponent is dead).
9. Total the damage of all the body parts. If that exceeds the opponents hit point total, the opponent is dead.

Steps 1, 2, and 9 are a normal combat round. This hit location system adds the other 6 steps. As you can see, it’s a lot of work and will really slow down combats.

Probably because of this, or perhaps with the breakdown of relationships between Arneson and TSR, the system was dropped from all future releases.

Answer #2: It’s not Abstract Enough

I feel that hit locations really don’t make sense in D&D’s abstract system. As I’ve pointed out before, combat in original D&D is supposed to be a very abstract system. Each round represents 1 minute of action, not a single action by each combatant.

A real life example. In the Salido vs. Vargas boxing match, Orlando Salido threw 939 punches. That works out to about 26 punches per minute. His opponent, Francisco Vargas, threw 1,189 punches, or about 33 punches per minute. In both cases, about one-third of the punches landed. That means that on any given D&D combat round Vargas actually hit Salido 11 times.

The D&D damage roll is the abstraction of the total damage done by those 11 blows. But it’s silly to assign one hit location to all 11.

Final Thoughts

So that’s the real reason (in my mind) why there’s no hit locations in old-school D&D. Trying to assign a single injured part breaks the abstract nature of hit points and blows in the D&D combat system.

If I were to add one, I would make it a “below zero” thing. When a PC loses all of his hit points, rather than killing them, give them a crippling injury instead. The injury won’t heal naturally, but magical healing will take care of it.

Does that make sense? Do you think D&D needs a more concrete hit location table? How would you make it work without breaking the abstraction of the rest of the system?

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1. Guess what next week’s topic is going to be.↩

2. “Little Brown Books.” The first edition of Traveller also came in LBBs, but those were “Little Black Books.”↩

3. It might be that you have to convert a hit to be a miss instead. The rules are really unclear.↩

Monster Never Miss Part 2: Swinfar vs the Skeletons

A reader sent me a message that he didn’t understand the Monsters Never Miss post. He said that he didn’t want his character to get hit every turn.

Clearly I didn’t explain myself well enough. So I thought I would provide an example combat.

Combat in Crowfield

When I think of the ideal D&D combat, I think of the iconic sword fight between Inigo Montoya and the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride. (In a close second place is the street brawl between Nada and Frank in John Carpenter’s They Live, but that’s another story for another day.)

Just in case you want a refresher:

This is what I think we should be trying to emulate.

Monsters Never Miss

I had this idea a few years ago. I told it to James, and he didn’t like it. Maybe I didn’t explain it well, or maybe he just doesn’t like it. Maybe it’s a bad idea.

Let me know what you think! About the idea in general and about options I put forth in the “What I need to roll …?” question.

The Flavor of Space Battles

I am currently planning a space opera campaign, to be set in a distant future. Unlike the previous game that was set in the Star Trek universe, this one is set in a universe of my own creation.

I want the characters to be space travellers. I want them to have their own ships. I don't want them to be able to get on the phone with headquarters to request more stuff, so perhaps they'll be merchants, or pirates. Either way, it's obvious that there will have to be space battles.

Oddly enough, while I dislike combat in a sword & sorcery RPG being handled as a miniatures tactical board game, that's exactly what I want in space combat. Maybe it's because that zero-drag Newtonian motion is so unlike anything that we have on earth that it becomes interesting.

Anyway, the main question that I'm battling (heh heh) with right now is the flavor of those battles.

In the space opera genre, there seems to be three main flavors of space battles. Not coincidentally, each corresponds to a war movie:

1. Midway (or maybe, Baa Baa Black Sheep if you remember that TV series): This flavor of campaign is marked mainly by carriers and fighters. In this type of campaign, player characters would probably be fighter pilots--each one launching his own fighter from a huge carrier to break through the lines of enemy fighters, and attack the main enemy fleet. This is the style of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. The benefit of this style of play is that space combat becomes just an extension of personal combat--each PC has their fighter, and each makes their own offense and defense rolls, and each takes their own damage. It's very easy to write the rules.
2. PT-109: This is the type of campaign in which ships--be they destroyers or battleships, or even armed merchant vessels--fight each other directly. While fleet actions are certainly possible, in the campaign most combat would be the PC's single ship against one or two enemy vessels. In this flavor, PCs are usually all crew members of the same ship, filling different roles such as the Captain, Pilot, Gunner, and Engineer, each somehow contributing to the combat effectiveness of the vessel. This is the style of most episodes of Star Trek. The challenge with writing these rules is that you need each PC to have a meaningful role in the combat, otherwise the other players mentally check out while the captain and GM play a board game.
3. Hunt for Red October: In space terms, this is a situation where ships are hard to detect. Kind of like if the cloaked Romulans went to war against the cloaked Klingons. Instead of worrying about the accuracy of the gunners to hit the enemy ship, the focus shifts toward a big game of cat-and-mouse where you attempt to detect the enemy ship without giving away your own location. You see this in the old submarine movies where they "run silent, run deep", and they debate whether or not to use a sonar "ping". Instead of action scene, you have a lot of tension scenes. PC roles are the same as the Pirates, but the Gunner becomes a sensor operator (the sonar man in the old sub movies). This shares the same disadvantages ad #2.

Number one was ruled out by one of my players. That leaves two or three. Currently I'm leaning towards the second flavor.

Edit: Original post had formatting errors due to copy/paste retaining HTML. Tidied it up but didn't change content.