Alternative rules for more lethal and flavourful combat [Archive] - Wizards Community

Alternative rules for more lethal and flavourful combat [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Kohme
07-13-07, 03:40 PM I've been considering to house rule some combat rules to make combat more lethal and random, as in Rolemaster and Runequest, but without losing the epic quality of D&D. So far, I've decided to make all d20 rolls open-ended and removing auto-hits on a roll of 20, and maybe giving a critical threat on rolls exceeding AC by a set amount. (Perhaps 10?)

In addition, I'd like critical hits and (or at least massive damage, in case it doesn't kill the victim) to be more crippling - maybe by using some kind of a "hit location chart" for body parts and effects, to depict, for example, loss or breakage of, f. ex. limbs and so on.

Also, a some flavourful circumstance modifiers would be good too, f. ex. penalty to AC against grappling for characters with exeptionally long hair or something.

I know the effect of said modifiers and charts can be done without them, but having a system of some kind makes it more random, and less arbitrary.

Any thoughts, additions or other suggestions?
Gamer1981
07-13-07, 04:28 PM I keep the crits as they are listed for each weapon, but I use the RM Critical tables to determine the results.

You have to tweak the numbers a little for additional damage, but the stun and bleed work really well for mid to high-level PCs. 20=A Crit, 21=B Crit, 22=C Crit, 23=D Crit, 24+=E Crit.

I don't have the fumble tables, or I would use those as well.

I would discourage using hit locations, except for called shots, because it slows the game down. I am taking it out of mine. You can always throw it in if you need it for a specific event.

I am trying to get better at descriptive (cinematic/environmental) combat by having more of the combat role-played and less dice rolled.
Rustmonster
07-13-07, 04:28 PM I've been considering to house rule some combat rules to make combat more lethal and random, as in Rolemaster and Runequest, but without losing the epic quality of D&D. So far, I've decided to make all d20 rolls open-ended and removing auto-hits on a roll of 20, and maybe giving a critical threat on rolls exceeding AC by a set amount. (Perhaps 10?)

In addition, I'd like critical hits and (or at least massive damage, in case it doesn't kill the victim) to be more crippling - maybe by using some kind of a "hit location chart" for body parts and effects, to depict, for example, loss or breakage of, f. ex. limbs and so on.

Also, a some flavourful circumstance modifiers would be good too, f. ex. penalty to AC against grappling for characters with exeptionally long hair or something.

I know the effect of said modifiers and charts can be done without them, but having a system of some kind makes it more random, and less arbitrary.

Any thoughts, additions or other suggestions?

First off, what do you mean d20 rolls being open-ended? Like add hocing everything? That's kinda not the point of dice rolls in D&D. D&D has mechanics. There are other games out there where dice are just rolled for dice roll sake but mean nothing, but this isn't one.

Also, with the "flavourful" modifiers, this just seems really over complicated. Plus, it'll allow munckins even more power, as now they will make their character have long hair and whatever else gives them needlessly complicated mods.

"Flavour" is something that a DM makes. If they just say "oh, you hit. Oh, you hit. Oh, you missed. Oh, you critical" then this is a DM problem, not a mechanics problem. If they say "You hit square on the left cheek! Ouch, you slammed the foe in the chest! Your blow is just barely deflected off of the opponents armour! Oh, you nearly took his head clean off with a bone-shattering blow to the temple!", then you've got flavour, without makeing combat take 20 minutes to figure out what mods to add and then everyone needing a calculator to do anything.
BruisedOoze
07-13-07, 04:34 PM I'm not a fan of such mechanics but I do know some material that might help you. AD&D 2ed had a book called Combat and Tactics which considered critical hits to specific locations and having effects (Limb loss etc). If you don't mind dropping $5 you can find a pdf of it on sites that sell out of print material. I'm thinking RPGNow.

I would tell you basically how it worked if I could remember but we only used those rules briefly and that was almost 10 years ago.

I'm not sure if junking auto-hits would make it more lethal. While this may make some things harder for your players, the same holds true for your foes and could eliminate the effectiveness of low attack bonus creatures.
Mufflon
07-13-07, 08:47 PM I prefer to simply use the Wound/Vitality system, increases both lethality and flavour without significantly altering game mechanics or slowing the game down.
Rhialto
07-14-07, 05:57 AM Which book is the wounds/vitality thing published in? Is it anything like the stamina/lifeblood system printed in the T20 ruleset?

t20 lite (http://www.travellerrpg.com/cgi-bin/catalog/pview.pl?action=view&stocknum=elib0000&h=header_t20&s=) free *legit* download. For your erudition and enlightenment.
Rustmonster
07-14-07, 09:10 AM Which book is the wounds/vitality thing published in? Is it anything like the stamina/lifeblood system printed in the T20 ruleset?

t20 lite (http://www.travellerrpg.com/cgi-bin/catalog/pview.pl?action=view&stocknum=elib0000&h=header_t20&s=) free *legit* download. For your erudition and enlightenment.

The fact that you put *legit* in asteriks is concerning.
Rhialto
07-14-07, 09:30 AM No need to be concerned. It's just there are so many non-legit sources that any attempt to link to a free pdf of a document often raises pointy questions.

if you like, you can get more of their stuff (including the above mentioned file) at their official site over at http://www.travellerrpg.com/eLibrary/free.html
Mufflon
07-14-07, 05:16 PM Which book is the wounds/vitality thing published in?

It's from the Unearthed Arcana, which means the rules can also be found in the SRD.
Kohme
07-15-07, 02:51 PM First off, what do you mean d20 rolls being open-ended? Like add hocing everything? That's kinda not the point of dice rolls in D&D. D&D has mechanics. There are other games out there where dice are just rolled for dice roll sake but mean nothing, but this isn't one.

Open-ended-rolls are a mechanic, and most cerainly not an ad hoc. The suggestion was in there to get rid of auto-hits and misses, by replacing them with additional rolls to be subtracted (from rolls of one) or added (to rolls of 20).

Also, with the "flavourful" modifiers, this just seems really over complicated. Plus, it'll allow munckins even more power, as now they will make their character have long hair and whatever else gives them needlessly complicated mods.

I'm designing this for personal use, and I don't play with munchkins, so that doesn't cause any problems. These kind of modifiers can, of course, be given on the fly, but the point of listing them, as I said, is to allow them without making them seem arbitrary.
Kohme
07-15-07, 03:05 PM I keep the crits as they are listed for each weapon, but I use the RM Critical tables to determine the results.

As would I, the "crit-limit" is there in addition to regular threats, to depict particularly succesfull hits. The suggested limit might be a bit too low, though.

I would discourage using hit locations, except for called shots, because it slows the game down. I am taking it out of mine. You can always throw it in if you need it for a specific event.

Hit locations are only supposed to be used for the hits that matter. As I see it, hit point damage that doesn't put the character down to zero depicts minor cuts and bruises, and hit dice represents the character's ability to roll with the blow and maybe an increased pain treshold. Hits that bring the character's HP down to -10 or less can be just described without a table.

So, the locations are only for "failed" massive damage and maybe criticals, for maiming purposes.

I am trying to get better at descriptive (cinematic/environmental) combat by having more of the combat role-played and less dice rolled.

Which is also a goal of mine, but adding a system for special situations prevents the DM from getting on the players bad side.
Devil Gnasher
07-15-07, 08:13 PM Here are my suggestions.

1. Any time an unmodified 20 is rolled it must be re-rolled. Continue until you stop rolling 20's then add all of the rolls together to obtain your final result.
2. Any time an unmodified one is rolled it must be re-rolled and subtract that roll from your previous rolls re-rolling all 20's. Continue until you stop rolling 20's to obtain your final result.
3. Critical hits occur whenever the natural attack roll equals the target's AC +5 or higher. The attack does one extra die worth of damage per every five points above the target's AC the natural attack roll is. A natural roll is equal to the die result plus BAB. Note: I did not think up this idea. It was invented by some else for OD&D. I just adapted it to Third Edition.
4. Weapon damage rolls use a variant of the exploding dice rule. This means that any time you roll a die and get the maximum number that die is re-rolled until it stops coming up on the number or until you reach a total number of dice equal to one plus the maximum unmodified number on that die. This before adding extra damage dice due to critical hits. For example: a dagger under this system could in theory be used to inflict any where from 1-20 points of damage before strength adjustments, sneak attack bonuses, critical hit bonuses or any other damage bonuses.

Are any of these ideas good?
Rhialto
07-16-07, 04:14 AM Here are my suggestions.

1. Any time an unmodified 20 is rolled it must be re-rolled. Continue until you stop rolling 20's then add all of the rolls together to obtain your final result.
2. Any time an unmodified one is rolled it must be re-rolled and subtract that roll from your previous rolls re-rolling all 20's. Continue until you stop rolling 20's to obtain your final result.

I treat "1" as "subtract 20 and roll again", but the effect is equivalent.

3. Critical hits occur whenever the natural attack roll equals the target's AC +5 or higher. The attack does one extra die worth of damage per every five points above the target's AC the natural attack roll is. A natural roll is equal to the die result plus BAB. Note: I did not think up this idea. It was invented by some else for OD&D. I just adapted it to Third Edition.

This could do with a little re-jigging to take into account the different critical hit charactreristics of different weapons, but it looks good.

4. Weapon damage rolls use a variant of the exploding dice rule. This means that any time you roll a die and get the maximum number that die is re-rolled until it stops coming up on the number or until you reach a total number of dice equal to one plus the maximum unmodified number on that die. This before adding extra damage dice due to critical hits. For example: a dagger under this system could in theory be used to inflict any where from 1-20 points of damage before strength adjustments, sneak attack bonuses, critical hit bonuses or any other damage bonuses.

Are any of these ideas good?

I wouldn't bother capping the number of dice. It's a needless extra complication, and the odds of it coming into play are vanishingly small anyway. The odds of that dagger having a theoretically 6th die is 1 in 1024, and that is the highest probability of any weapon coming up against that rule. It's not significant enough to make a rule for.

I'm not too sure how exploding damage dice combined with critical hits with work together. the synergy might make for horrific damage with lucky dice rolls.
Kohme
07-19-07, 02:07 PM Here are my suggestions.

1. Any time an unmodified 20 is rolled it must be re-rolled. Continue until you stop rolling 20's then add all of the rolls together to obtain your final result.
2. Any time an unmodified one is rolled it must be re-rolled and subtract that roll from your previous rolls re-rolling all 20's. Continue until you stop rolling 20's to obtain your final result.

Exactly what I meant by open-ended.

3. Critical hits occur whenever the natural attack roll equals the target's AC +5 or higher. The attack does one extra die worth of damage per every five points above the target's AC the natural attack roll is. A natural roll is equal to the die result plus BAB. Note: I did not think up this idea. It was invented by some else for OD&D. I just adapted it to Third Edition.

Sounds good this far.

4. Weapon damage rolls use a variant of the exploding dice rule. This means that any time you roll a die and get the maximum number that die is re-rolled until it stops coming up on the number or until you reach a total number of dice equal to one plus the maximum unmodified number on that die. This before adding extra damage dice due to critical hits. For example: a dagger under this system could in theory be used to inflict any where from 1-20 points of damage before strength adjustments, sneak attack bonuses, critical hit bonuses or any other damage bonuses.

I'm having a bit of a trouble trying to decipher this - the wording is a bit complicated.

In other words, parts throught 1 to 3 are good, and I can't say anything meaningful about the fourth.

Also, I took a look of the Wound/Vitality system, which is also relevant to my interests. Now I just have to choose which one to use, unless anyone has better suggestions.
Relic
07-22-07, 09:09 AM Here are my suggestions.

4. Weapon damage rolls use a variant of the exploding dice rule. This means that any time you roll a die and get the maximum number that die is re-rolled until it stops coming up on the number or until you reach a total number of dice equal to one plus the maximum unmodified number on that die. This before adding extra damage dice due to critical hits. For example: a dagger under this system could in theory be used to inflict any where from 1-20 points of damage before strength adjustments, sneak attack bonuses, critical hit bonuses or any other damage bonuses.

This makes d4 weapons much more valuable as they have a 25% chance of rolling max damage. Also, weapons that use multiple dice (such as the great sword) become much better weapons than their single-dice counterparts (such as the great axe). I would just give a flat bonus to damage based on the same system you propose for critical hits: every +5 that the attack roll succeeds you gain a +1, or +2, or + whatever to damage. Or on a natural 20 give the bonus. But I would not use the maximum damage dice value as you will see d4 weapons (scythe) and weapons with more than one dice (great sword, certain polearms) dominate your game.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Kohme 07-13-07, 03:40 PM	I've been considering to house rule some combat rules to make combat more lethal and random, as in Rolemaster and Runequest, but without losing the epic quality of D&D. So far, I've decided to make all d20 rolls open-ended and removing auto-hits on a roll of 20, and maybe giving a critical threat on rolls exceeding AC by a set amount. (Perhaps 10?) In addition, I'd like critical hits and (or at least massive damage, in case it doesn't kill the victim) to be more crippling - maybe by using some kind of a "hit location chart" for body parts and effects, to depict, for example, loss or breakage of, f. ex. limbs and so on. Also, a some flavourful circumstance modifiers would be good too, f. ex. penalty to AC against grappling for characters with exeptionally long hair or something. I know the effect of said modifiers and charts can be done without them, but having a system of some kind makes it more random, and less arbitrary. Any thoughts, additions or other suggestions?
Gamer1981 07-13-07, 04:28 PM	I keep the crits as they are listed for each weapon, but I use the RM Critical tables to determine the results. You have to tweak the numbers a little for additional damage, but the stun and bleed work really well for mid to high-level PCs. 20=A Crit, 21=B Crit, 22=C Crit, 23=D Crit, 24+=E Crit. I don't have the fumble tables, or I would use those as well. I would discourage using hit locations, except for called shots, because it slows the game down. I am taking it out of mine. You can always throw it in if you need it for a specific event. I am trying to get better at descriptive (cinematic/environmental) combat by having more of the combat role-played and less dice rolled.
Rustmonster 07-13-07, 04:28 PM	I've been considering to house rule some combat rules to make combat more lethal and random, as in Rolemaster and Runequest, but without losing the epic quality of D&D. So far, I've decided to make all d20 rolls open-ended and removing auto-hits on a roll of 20, and maybe giving a critical threat on rolls exceeding AC by a set amount. (Perhaps 10?) In addition, I'd like critical hits and (or at least massive damage, in case it doesn't kill the victim) to be more crippling - maybe by using some kind of a "hit location chart" for body parts and effects, to depict, for example, loss or breakage of, f. ex. limbs and so on. Also, a some flavourful circumstance modifiers would be good too, f. ex. penalty to AC against grappling for characters with exeptionally long hair or something. I know the effect of said modifiers and charts can be done without them, but having a system of some kind makes it more random, and less arbitrary. Any thoughts, additions or other suggestions? First off, what do you mean d20 rolls being open-ended? Like add hocing everything? That's kinda not the point of dice rolls in D&D. D&D has mechanics. There are other games out there where dice are just rolled for dice roll sake but mean nothing, but this isn't one. Also, with the "flavourful" modifiers, this just seems really over complicated. Plus, it'll allow munckins even more power, as now they will make their character have long hair and whatever else gives them needlessly complicated mods. "Flavour" is something that a DM makes. If they just say "oh, you hit. Oh, you hit. Oh, you missed. Oh, you critical" then this is a DM problem, not a mechanics problem. If they say "You hit square on the left cheek! Ouch, you slammed the foe in the chest! Your blow is just barely deflected off of the opponents armour! Oh, you nearly took his head clean off with a bone-shattering blow to the temple!", then you've got flavour, without makeing combat take 20 minutes to figure out what mods to add and then everyone needing a calculator to do anything.
BruisedOoze 07-13-07, 04:34 PM	I'm not a fan of such mechanics but I do know some material that might help you. AD&D 2ed had a book called Combat and Tactics which considered critical hits to specific locations and having effects (Limb loss etc). If you don't mind dropping $5 you can find a pdf of it on sites that sell out of print material. I'm thinking RPGNow. I would tell you basically how it worked if I could remember but we only used those rules briefly and that was almost 10 years ago. I'm not sure if junking auto-hits would make it more lethal. While this may make some things harder for your players, the same holds true for your foes and could eliminate the effectiveness of low attack bonus creatures.
Mufflon 07-13-07, 08:47 PM	I prefer to simply use the Wound/Vitality system, increases both lethality and flavour without significantly altering game mechanics or slowing the game down.
Rhialto 07-14-07, 05:57 AM	Which book is the wounds/vitality thing published in? Is it anything like the stamina/lifeblood system printed in the T20 ruleset? t20 lite (http://www.travellerrpg.com/cgi-bin/catalog/pview.pl?action=view&stocknum=elib0000&h=header_t20&s=) free legit download. For your erudition and enlightenment.
Rustmonster 07-14-07, 09:10 AM	Which book is the wounds/vitality thing published in? Is it anything like the stamina/lifeblood system printed in the T20 ruleset? t20 lite (http://www.travellerrpg.com/cgi-bin/catalog/pview.pl?action=view&stocknum=elib0000&h=header_t20&s=) free legit download. For your erudition and enlightenment. The fact that you put legit in asteriks is concerning.
Rhialto 07-14-07, 09:30 AM	No need to be concerned. It's just there are so many non-legit sources that any attempt to link to a free pdf of a document often raises pointy questions. if you like, you can get more of their stuff (including the above mentioned file) at their official site over at http://www.travellerrpg.com/eLibrary/free.html
Mufflon 07-14-07, 05:16 PM	Which book is the wounds/vitality thing published in? It's from the Unearthed Arcana, which means the rules can also be found in the SRD.
Kohme 07-15-07, 02:51 PM	First off, what do you mean d20 rolls being open-ended? Like add hocing everything? That's kinda not the point of dice rolls in D&D. D&D has mechanics. There are other games out there where dice are just rolled for dice roll sake but mean nothing, but this isn't one. Open-ended-rolls are a mechanic, and most cerainly not an ad hoc. The suggestion was in there to get rid of auto-hits and misses, by replacing them with additional rolls to be subtracted (from rolls of one) or added (to rolls of 20). Also, with the "flavourful" modifiers, this just seems really over complicated. Plus, it'll allow munckins even more power, as now they will make their character have long hair and whatever else gives them needlessly complicated mods. I'm designing this for personal use, and I don't play with munchkins, so that doesn't cause any problems. These kind of modifiers can, of course, be given on the fly, but the point of listing them, as I said, is to allow them without making them seem arbitrary.
Kohme 07-15-07, 03:05 PM	I keep the crits as they are listed for each weapon, but I use the RM Critical tables to determine the results. As would I, the "crit-limit" is there in addition to regular threats, to depict particularly succesfull hits. The suggested limit might be a bit too low, though. I would discourage using hit locations, except for called shots, because it slows the game down. I am taking it out of mine. You can always throw it in if you need it for a specific event. Hit locations are only supposed to be used for the hits that matter. As I see it, hit point damage that doesn't put the character down to zero depicts minor cuts and bruises, and hit dice represents the character's ability to roll with the blow and maybe an increased pain treshold. Hits that bring the character's HP down to -10 or less can be just described without a table. So, the locations are only for "failed" massive damage and maybe criticals, for maiming purposes. I am trying to get better at descriptive (cinematic/environmental) combat by having more of the combat role-played and less dice rolled. Which is also a goal of mine, but adding a system for special situations prevents the DM from getting on the players bad side.
Devil Gnasher 07-15-07, 08:13 PM	Here are my suggestions. 1. Any time an unmodified 20 is rolled it must be re-rolled. Continue until you stop rolling 20's then add all of the rolls together to obtain your final result. 2. Any time an unmodified one is rolled it must be re-rolled and subtract that roll from your previous rolls re-rolling all 20's. Continue until you stop rolling 20's to obtain your final result. 3. Critical hits occur whenever the natural attack roll equals the target's AC +5 or higher. The attack does one extra die worth of damage per every five points above the target's AC the natural attack roll is. A natural roll is equal to the die result plus BAB. Note: I did not think up this idea. It was invented by some else for OD&D. I just adapted it to Third Edition. 4. Weapon damage rolls use a variant of the exploding dice rule. This means that any time you roll a die and get the maximum number that die is re-rolled until it stops coming up on the number or until you reach a total number of dice equal to one plus the maximum unmodified number on that die. This before adding extra damage dice due to critical hits. For example: a dagger under this system could in theory be used to inflict any where from 1-20 points of damage before strength adjustments, sneak attack bonuses, critical hit bonuses or any other damage bonuses. Are any of these ideas good?
Rhialto 07-16-07, 04:14 AM	Here are my suggestions. 1. Any time an unmodified 20 is rolled it must be re-rolled. Continue until you stop rolling 20's then add all of the rolls together to obtain your final result. 2. Any time an unmodified one is rolled it must be re-rolled and subtract that roll from your previous rolls re-rolling all 20's. Continue until you stop rolling 20's to obtain your final result. I treat "1" as "subtract 20 and roll again", but the effect is equivalent. 3. Critical hits occur whenever the natural attack roll equals the target's AC +5 or higher. The attack does one extra die worth of damage per every five points above the target's AC the natural attack roll is. A natural roll is equal to the die result plus BAB. Note: I did not think up this idea. It was invented by some else for OD&D. I just adapted it to Third Edition. This could do with a little re-jigging to take into account the different critical hit charactreristics of different weapons, but it looks good. 4. Weapon damage rolls use a variant of the exploding dice rule. This means that any time you roll a die and get the maximum number that die is re-rolled until it stops coming up on the number or until you reach a total number of dice equal to one plus the maximum unmodified number on that die. This before adding extra damage dice due to critical hits. For example: a dagger under this system could in theory be used to inflict any where from 1-20 points of damage before strength adjustments, sneak attack bonuses, critical hit bonuses or any other damage bonuses. Are any of these ideas good? I wouldn't bother capping the number of dice. It's a needless extra complication, and the odds of it coming into play are vanishingly small anyway. The odds of that dagger having a theoretically 6th die is 1 in 1024, and that is the highest probability of any weapon coming up against that rule. It's not significant enough to make a rule for. I'm not too sure how exploding damage dice combined with critical hits with work together. the synergy might make for horrific damage with lucky dice rolls.
Kohme 07-19-07, 02:07 PM	Here are my suggestions. 1. Any time an unmodified 20 is rolled it must be re-rolled. Continue until you stop rolling 20's then add all of the rolls together to obtain your final result. 2. Any time an unmodified one is rolled it must be re-rolled and subtract that roll from your previous rolls re-rolling all 20's. Continue until you stop rolling 20's to obtain your final result. Exactly what I meant by open-ended. 3. Critical hits occur whenever the natural attack roll equals the target's AC +5 or higher. The attack does one extra die worth of damage per every five points above the target's AC the natural attack roll is. A natural roll is equal to the die result plus BAB. Note: I did not think up this idea. It was invented by some else for OD&D. I just adapted it to Third Edition. Sounds good this far. 4. Weapon damage rolls use a variant of the exploding dice rule. This means that any time you roll a die and get the maximum number that die is re-rolled until it stops coming up on the number or until you reach a total number of dice equal to one plus the maximum unmodified number on that die. This before adding extra damage dice due to critical hits. For example: a dagger under this system could in theory be used to inflict any where from 1-20 points of damage before strength adjustments, sneak attack bonuses, critical hit bonuses or any other damage bonuses. I'm having a bit of a trouble trying to decipher this - the wording is a bit complicated. In other words, parts throught 1 to 3 are good, and I can't say anything meaningful about the fourth. Also, I took a look of the Wound/Vitality system, which is also relevant to my interests. Now I just have to choose which one to use, unless anyone has better suggestions.
Relic 07-22-07, 09:09 AM	Here are my suggestions. 4. Weapon damage rolls use a variant of the exploding dice rule. This means that any time you roll a die and get the maximum number that die is re-rolled until it stops coming up on the number or until you reach a total number of dice equal to one plus the maximum unmodified number on that die. This before adding extra damage dice due to critical hits. For example: a dagger under this system could in theory be used to inflict any where from 1-20 points of damage before strength adjustments, sneak attack bonuses, critical hit bonuses or any other damage bonuses. This makes d4 weapons much more valuable as they have a 25% chance of rolling max damage. Also, weapons that use multiple dice (such as the great sword) become much better weapons than their single-dice counterparts (such as the great axe). I would just give a flat bonus to damage based on the same system you propose for critical hits: every +5 that the attack roll succeeds you gain a +1, or +2, or + whatever to damage. Or on a natural 20 give the bonus. But I would not use the maximum damage dice value as you will see d4 weapons (scythe) and weapons with more than one dice (great sword, certain polearms) dominate your game.