World Map (Kael)

[Kael]

Yeah, it worked out pretty well. One of my favorite side effects of that system was the ability to duel "until first blood". Allowing both opponents the ability to fight without risk to serious injury (or weeks healing) but still giving a decent battle.

Of course Dwarves thought that was just for nancy boys and dandelion eaters (elves).

 

[Dark Russell]

The dodge hp sounds kinda interesting. Reminds me a bit of the defencive bonus in Rolemaster/MERP.

I played Rolemaster/MERP a huge amout when I was younger and I found the combat system to be far superior to that of D&D because of the critical hit tables. Your oppenent rolled a d% and added his attack bonus to which you would subtract tour defencive bonus consisting of your armour's magical bonus, your sheild bonus and your quickness bonus. The resulting number would be matched to an appropriate weapons chart to see what your damage was. The damage usually came with a critical which you would then roll on another table. If you took a hit, even if you were a lvl30 fighter wearing platemail, and got a bad critical role you could suffer minimal hit point damage but still be killed instantly (or more horribly be stunned until you blead to death). And I know D&D had the natural 20 for double damage but you never really appreciate how frail your character is until your foe "Catches you in the armpit for +30 hits, shattering your ribcage and destroys a variety of organs". My 21st lvl fighter took that from a 3rd lvl Orc on a double open ended roll. No matter how good your healer is you just never recover from that...

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Yeah, it worked out pretty well. One of my favorite side effects of that system was the ability to duel "until first blood". Allowing both opponents the ability to fight without risk to serious injury (or weeks healing) but still giving a decent battle.

Of course Dwarves thought that was just for nancy boys and dandelion eaters (elves).

Hm... any chance that you could post some of the relevent changes to this thread? I may use something like this in my upcoming game. Just whenever you get the time in between working on FfH and RL related stuff, of course.

 

[Silverkiss]

Whatever he said².

I would like to at least see it too.

 

[Don Pelayo]

It's funny that there was some time when I thought about implementing something similar for my campaigns. It's an interesting system, but at the time there were several things that made me reject it. For instance, spectres and level draining creatures suddenly become far less dangerous. It would also be almost impossible to die from level draining: a character would die sooner from the small wounds that these monsters also cause. Also, constitution bonuses would either have to apply to the dodge bonuses (which doesn't make much sense) or to the body pool... and since they can be as high as +4 per level, that would end up in having more or less the same problem as before. How did you address these issues?

People might call me crazy, but I think the best of the versions was the first -not even the advanced (the series of Basic, Expert, Companion, Master and Immortal): the very first. It was a complete and balanced game, with the best immortal rules I've seen so far. I actually thought about using it with the additions I saw fit, though I never had time to actually doing it. I like the idea of having characters have different progression speeds with the wizard as the ultimate power... if he survives which should be very difficult. That was lost I think in other versions.

With respect to the third edition, I don't like the idea of having hundreds of unbalanced and in some cases ridiculous "prestige clasess". It's just an excuse to fill more and more manuals. I hate that someone decided that necromancy should be reserved mainly for clerics (!!). I resent that there are loads of cleric spells that are mere copies of former wizard ones. They even have miracle which is nothing less than the once legendary wish! Currently a priest is a wizard with armor, more hitpoints, capable of healing and that does not requiere to use a book of spells... I however like the attacks of opportunity system, though I never use figures. I prefer to keep the images in the mind of the players. Placing a figure kills it, and also destroys the idea of a chaotic and moving combat. Excuse the long rant...

With respect to critical tables I played Lord of the Rings -which uses the same system Dark Russel describes- and I find them risky (which is not necessarily bad, although needs to be taken into account) and incomplete. You would need a full book of tables to make that system coherent: how can a goblin crush the skull of a dragon?, for instance. What if you fight a jelly or a black pudding? Or something with no organs? Or something with no certain organs? What if someone is fighting a monster that is below him?Would he still be able to sever his leg, for instance? I found it funny... but unbalancing and difficult to really make it work. However it's just my personal impression.

 

[driekan]

This kind of critical hit chart was never taken into official D&D - despite showing up several times in magazines and supplements - is that D&D is built to work as an epic fantasy game. It isnt very epic if the predestined savior of the world (Or something like that) gets killed by a random mugger while heading to his showdown with the lord of all evil or something. And you've got to agree, there IS a chance that this sort of thing will happen, despite it not being very likely.

When I'm playing epic, I tend to keep most of the base D&D rules. I only change them when I'm playing something with another theme.

 

[Dark Russell]

With respect to critical tables I played Lord of the Rings -which uses the same system Dark Russel describes- and I find them risky (which is not necessarily bad, although needs to be taken into account) and incomplete. You would need a full book of tables to make that system coherent: how can a goblin crush the skull of a dragon?, for instance. What if you fight a jelly or a black pudding? Or something with no organs? Or something with no certain organs? What if someone is fighting a monster that is below him?Would he still be able to sever his leg, for instance? I found it funny... but unbalancing and difficult to really make it work. However it's just my personal impression.

That's exactly why we went with Rolemaster for the rules. Same company as MERP but far more extensive ruleset. Each weapon had an attack table and there was a critical table for both large and super large creatures so unless you got a double open ended role (if you got a 96-100 on a d% die you would role again and add the result, and if you rolled a 96-100 on that roll you role again, and so on), you were not going to kill a Dragon with a critical hit (you mostly did extra damage). Rolemaster was great because it was skills based, not ability based, so any character class could take any skill, it just cost more skill points. If you were a mage and wanted to learn the Clerics necromancy spell lists for instance, you could do that but not at the rate that a cleric could.

Anyways, after playing D&D for 5 years I switched to Rolemaster after the first gaming session as it allowed me to create the character I really wanted to play.

btw, the best critical I ever got was during an excursion into an ancient temple. An Orc band had set up shop there and we came to investigate. In the final battle in the temple, the Orc shaman was hiding behind a pillar casting spells on his troops who kept us pinned down with arrow fire. My hobbit theif used his skill with mathmatics to successfully calculate a ricochet point on the wall, rolled an open ended roll with his sling to attack the shaman who I managed to hit. The attacks critical role indicated that I had crushed his skull with a blow to the back of the head. Needless to say, the rest of the orcs went into disarray and we finished them off.

...end of line.