I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's. I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

- William Blake

Friday, September 04, 2020

Minimalist D&D V - SINGLE-ROLL COMBAT

One thing that lacks elegance in most RPGs, including D&D, is the fact that you generate lots of information to get one simple, often binary, result.

For example, you roll initiative, then make an attack roll, and then roll for damage. Say you get 7, 15 and 8. Adding your initiative bonus, your "to-hit" bonus and your damage bonus might give you 9, 21, and 11.

Most of these numbers matter ONLY to indicate if you go first/second.../last and if you hit/miss.

For example, if you hit with a 15 on the d20, you also hit with a 16, 17, 18, or 19, in the exact same manner (a natural 20 will at least give you a critical hit). A 19 does not mean a good hit - the damage can be low, for example.

In theory, you could have 20 different results when you roll a d20, but in practice you get two or three.

We are so accustomed to this that it seems reasonable.

However, I've been thinking of a different method: roll ONE d20. This will tell you your damage, if you hit or miss, and who goes first in the round, etc.

Source.

There are infinite ways to do that, but let me give you an example.

Start with a "roll under" mechanic. If you have Strength 15, roll 15 or less to hit, etc. Armor Class is 0 if you are unarmored, 2 for leather, etc. (saving throws follow a similar pattern).

Say we have a wizard with Int 16, a fighter with Str 15, and a thief with Dex 15, fighting against three Str 13 orcs. 

Everyone says what they want to do and rolls a d20. 

Example: the wizard rolls 12, the fighter 17, the thief 5, and the orcs 14, 3, and 8.

Then you resolve the action in the order of highest dice to lowest.

Everyone that rolls ABOVE their stat missed - so you quickly remove all dice that came up 16 or more (the fighter rushes forward and misses; one orc also misses the target!).

The wizard rolled a 12, which means the spell worked! 

An orc also hit with an 8.

Finally, the thief hit an orc (5) and an orc hit someone (3). However, these low rolls might be stopped by AC (simply compare the dice to AC, no addition or subtraction).

Damage? Well, if you need variable damage, just add one point of damage if you roll more than 10. Rolled a 12, add +2 damage. If you hit with 15, add 5 points of damage, and so on. Its easier and faster than rolling 1d8+3, for example. You could go one step further and multiply damage instead: double it on a twelve, triple it on a 13, etc.

This method has many advantages.

* The most important one: the results are VISIBLE. This is an important principle in design that is mostly ignored in RPGs. In ordinary RPGs, for example, you might roll a 15 (visible in the die), add +7 from you PC (visible in you sheet), and get a result of 21. The only number that matters here is 21 - but this result is nowhere to be seen; it must be calculated with every roll, and said out loud.

* It resolves things in order of complexity: first, ignore the misses, then calculate the obvious hits (high rolls), probably taking out a few foes, and just then check the "near misses" - hit that were avoided by AC, etc.

* If the accuracy is more or less "bounded" (i.e., if their main abilities are similar) it is easy to know which dice to ignore very quickly. And if you roll a 19 for a powerful foe and keep it on the table... Well, now your players will be scared!

* Easy to work with multiple attacks: discard the ones above your Str, etc. Same thing applies when rolling with advantage: roll a couple of dice, choose the best.

* A great way to stop wizards when they're casting a spell, if you like this - hit then before they act, and they fail, period.

* It makes combat a lot faster and more chaotic, instead of following clunky "phases" or "turns".

* Notice how it makes sense to tie initiative to the action being attempted. An intelligent wizard casts a spell FAST - despite being frail and low on dexterity. If he tries to swing a sword, OTOH, he will be a lot slower...

* Tying the roll to damage allows characters to slowly augment their damage as they level up, raising the stakes as they fight high-level foes.

* You can guess the results of your moves just by looking at the dice: too high means you fail, unless you're high level yourself. 10+ is a good hit: almost never misses, and damage is good too. 10 or less is a weak hit, low damage and probably can be dodged or stopped by armor.

It requires some play-testing, but looks very promising IMO.

NOTE: I've written this post a while ago and hadn't published it for some reason. Since then, I've tried it using 5e D&D. It worked! I will write about that experience next.

16 comments:

  1. This is great, Eric! I have been using the armor method with the Black Hack for years and can confirm that it works just fine. The only thing I would add is crits on rolling your stat exactly because criting on 1 gets blanked by the armor. The rest is brilliant. I would never in a million years have come up with the competitive die rolling idea because the Black Hack is player facing. I will give this a try when I have some time. And a group again!

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  2. Very Nice! But If may I ask you, what about weapons? You use the Full die damage like 8 for a d8 weapon, ir some kind of math like half Full die (3 for a d6 weapon), because with a 16 str you can get even a +6 damage, in dnd likes its a stat 22 mod. Of course its not a real problema because i like lethality and +6 damage don't happen all the time, but i like to know your point of view about that.
    Nice post again Man!

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    1. Thank you very much! Well, I'm using the average result (something like 4 for a d6, 6 for a d8, etc.). While the damage output is a bit bigger than RAW, lower abilities and the lack of things like the "dueling" style, etc., make it quite similar.

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    2. Nice! Waiting for a more detailed post about combat weapons and armors!

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  3. This is rad! Can't wait to read more.

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  4. As I mull it over, I really like this.

    I do like that it makes Saves and Armour the same style. I would probably add a bit more complexity with weapons. I do like the idea of at least a weapon die, but it's more nice to have as i) variable damage, and ii) a good indicator of weapon speed for a tiebreaker if needed (larger weapon -> slower speed). Then again with the thought put into trying to figure out a weapon building system/physical feats system (really could be both), that may be the sunk cost fallacy speaking*.

    However the above opinion may change with your detailed account about putting this idea into practise.

    *I know that I could still use such a system in my own games, but when you have such a compelling argument to not do this, it's hard to continue down the same path. Not saying that there are not elements from the encumbrance thought experiment worth keeping (it's a good means to make physical choices scale in my opinion)

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    1. Thanks Sean! I'm torn on weapons, myself. You know I really like melee weapons. OTOH, I tried one session making them all the same (or at least short sword similar to short spear and short axe) and I didn't miss the details much. I guess it varies; if I were to play 5 as written, I'd certainly appreciate some extra detail on weapons, but in my minimalist version I don't feel like I need them.

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    2. To be honest, what I like is the dynamics introduced with making phydical choices matter (how much armour vs. maneuverability).

      When I think about the Light Medium Heavy options, I think it works to just have a die scaling and properties built in.

      I may think of a refined idea that allows the single die roll resolution method to still work.

      But I will wait for your observation of applying this to 5e itself.

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  5. Hi

    I'm following what you do since your article about mana points.

    I work on a rpg based on d&d with a lot of changes.

    No saves no attack. Only skills. A skills to strike, to shoot, To Dodge (acrobacies). To use magic ? Depend of tour class, druid use nature, cleric use faith, bard use Will..

    Armor is armor points (THP you need to repair) depending of the level to adapt with damage.

    I use mana points system.

    Also no initiative only RP.

    Monsters are mot balanced, HP depends of size etc.

    Also i use a system with only one dice. A great Sword deals 12 damages + strength*2 + the distance between the Target ans the dice. Eg 15 againt DC12 is 3 damage bonus.

    I really would love to put flat DC as tout express here.

    But how you manage hardness ? Throw a tenis table ball in a 5cm Hole at 100m is différent to throw a bottle on Someone.

    Sorry for the language + autocorrect

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    1. I like some of the ideas you expressed here! I do not have specif rules for hardness, TBH.

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  6. What AC is leather/chain/plate in this system? Is it 12/14/16, or 2/4/6? How do you handle crits? I'll be including this in my "System Review" (whenever I get around to doing that)

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    1. This post is all theoretical, next post (today!) I will tell you how I'm using it in practice, but currently I'm doing this:
      - AC is 12/14/16+dex.
      - Crits on a natural 20.

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  7. Thoughts on?:

    1. Roll equal/under Ability Score to hit/skill test/save. (Equal to score = crit success)

    2. Target of an attack roll adds their DEX mod to the lower end of the roll (+2 mod would make a STR 16 fighter need to roll 3-16 to hit). Negative modifiers increase the upper end (so a -1 mod would make that fighter hit on 1-17).

    3. Combatants make Armor rolls (roll under) to mitigate damage (maybe halve damage if we're using set damage values). Perhaps rolls equal to armor value have some special effect?

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    1. Sounds good to me!
      Maybe it is one roll too much, since I'm aiming at one roll per turn... So perhaps your attack roll is ALSO your defense roll somehow.

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