Bryce said...

[Beoric]

For my Majestic Fantasy rules, I went back to first principles and just gave each weapons a short description along with something they can do based on my research and experience with reenactments. I kept it low key.

https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MW%20Equipment%20Rev%202.pdf

For example

Axe, battle 50d/ea. 8.0/lbs.
Damage: 1-Hand, 1d8
This is a single head axe between 24 to 36 inches long. Like the throwing axe, the head is shaped longer from the blade to the butt of the axe. At the attacker’s option you can use this to pin an opponent’s weapon or shield. After making a successful to hit roll, the opponent needs to make a saving throw or the weapon or shield is pinned. The attacker can’t use the axe to attack with while pinning their opponent's weapon.

Mace, small 9d/ea. 3.0/lbs.
Damage: 1d4+1
Used since the beginning of recorded history, maces became a popular battlefield weapon when chainmail became common a millennia ago. It is still a popular choice despite the spread of plate armor and war hammers. This weapon is between 18 to 24 inches long and has a ball of metal affixed to the end. It gets +1 to hit versus opponents wearing chainmail or gelatinous creatures like ochre jellies or black puddings. It is usable in the off-hand when dual wielding*

*dual wielding in my rules just gets you +1 to AC and the choice of which weapon to attack with.



Well at some point D&D is what it is. So for my take, I added to what the shield can do.

SHIELDS
Shield Slam: After making a successful attack, the target needs to make a saving throw at an advantage** or be knocked prone to the ground. The target has to spend a full round getting up. Anybody hitting a prone character has advantage for their attack roll. Fighting from a prone position result in a disadvantaged attack roll for all weapons except a crossbow.

Shield Parry: A shield may be sacrificed to negate one hit. The shield is destroyed but no damage is suffered by the user. A magical shield will lose one +1 bonus per sacrifice. (i.e. a +1 shield can negate two hits before being destroyed).

Opponents: The shield bonus is only usable against this number of attackers. For example a defender using a buckler will only gain it's +1 AC bonus against one attacker.***

**I will probably drop this to a normal save in the final version.
***and this proved too fiddly to point where I wasn't remembering to use it. So out it goes for the final version.

Also you can attack with the shield if need be.

Shield, small 42d/ea. 5.0/lbs.
+1 AC, Opponents: 2, Damage: 1d6, Spike +5d; +1 damage
This round shield is strapped to the off weapon arm. It is made of wood and leather along with a metal rim. The shield covers the character’s torso. The character may opt to attack or slam with the shield. A metal spike may be affixed to the shield to increase its damage.

The problem with weapon characteristics to date is that they been unwieldy to use. For AD&D require a large chart lookup as well as judgment call if the target is a monster not wearing armor.

My solution is to treat it like a magic items. Weapons are designed as tools of war. Find out what the tools do and write it up while keeping mind that D&D isn't that detailed of a system.

Yeah, this is how I like it too. You have basically written a bunch of 4e powers and feats.

 

[robertsconley]

Yeah, this is how I like it too. You have basically written a bunch of 4e powers and feats.

Or GURPS maneuvers that happen to work with D&D and uses 1d20 instead of 3d6.

 

[The1True]

I think 3e covered a lot of this with damage resistance/hardness. It just didn't get applied to mundane equipment. If something has DR 5/piercing, you need a piercing weapon or you're losing 5 dmg off of every attack. Pretty simple.

 

[robertsconley]

I think 3e covered a lot of this with damage resistance/hardness. It just didn't get applied to mundane equipment. If something has DR 5/piercing, you need a piercing weapon or you're losing 5 dmg off of every attack. Pretty simple.

Except WvAC or my own rules are situational. This solution alters core D&D substantially despite it straightforward nature.

Metagame Analysis: Armor As DR

It’s pretty easy to see the effect of this variant system: attacks hit more often, but do less damage. What does that really mean?

Low-level combat tends to be less dangerous for armored characters. Although their ACs are lower (and thus their chance of being damaged is higher), this is more than offset by the reduced damage suffered by attacks. A typical goblin warrior, for instance, can barely hurt a character wearing splint mail, because the armor’s damage reduction entirely negates the damage dealt by an average hit. Even though the goblin will hit more often, it will likely end up dealing less total damage over the course of a typical battle.

A mid-level fighter in full plate armor must still be cautious when fighting an ogre, but his armor reduces the ogre’s average damage by 25% while only increasing its chance to hit by 20%—a net gain for the fighter.

At higher levels, however, the balance shifts back in favor of monsters that deal large amounts of damage per hit. When facing a Huge earth elemental, a fighter in full plate will be hit 20% more often (due to the 4-point reduction in AC), but his 4 points of damage reduction now only reduces his opponent’s average damage by less than 17%. Advantage: elemental. Thus, high-level characters must be more careful when battling monsters with extreme damage-dealing capability.

 

[squeen]

@robertsconley : Your stuff is always well-polished and fun to read. Thanks for putting it out there. You are a generous person.

For me everything being said falls under "house rules"---which can be fun to tinker with---but I think the original point (of WvAC in AD&D having some good utility) may have gotten lost in the avalanche of home-brewed attempts to improve it.

What is does is add that small bit of extra "Advanced D&D" crunch for folks looking for a tactical reason to vary weapons (per opponent). Damage differences vs S/M and L does this too. It also attempts to add some game-balance---as in the case of the darts. It's clearly not going to please everyone, and gets accused of bearing both too-complicated and not detailed enough depending on the audience. As a middle-ground on the tactical-complexity spectrum, I find it easy enough to use but the overall effects of WvAC are fairly mild on my game.

What I have come away with from the discussion, and especially @Beoric 's 4e description, is that there is a segment of the RPG population that really desires more detailed combat in D&D and won't be satisfied without it. For me, that's a good thing to keep in mind for future discussions (and disagreements). Just like I now have a place in my mental bookshelf for folks who want the opposite: low-effort, rules-light, and story games.

I find that folks, like myself, that can be satisfied playing AD&D (ad infinitum) without requiring rule-alteration seem to be in the minority. Sometimes I wonder why that is so? Why doesn't it get boring or frustrating to me? It think it may be because I/we have always played with sufficient room for creativity and variation on the content-creation front so that it doesn't grow stale. More over, a fixation on constant challenge in a world that repeatedly frustrates the player's desires probably meshes well with rules that can also be frustrating in their abstraction.

Lastly, not being traumatized by "bad/abusive" DMs (as many of you attested to) has helped me enjoy the unaltered game, I'm sure. Of course, I fear that if you were to play with me now, or my old-group way back then, you may label the play-style I prefer (one that constantly frustrates a player's desires, forcing them often to accept playing the fool) as "bad DM-ing" too. Personally, I have always been OK with a DM that holds most of the knowledge of the mechanics close to his chest, and trusting him or her to be impartial with everyone's best interest at heart. I understand though that you may hate what I love.

However, with my players, I have (after talking with y'all) put the dice in their hands more and more. I think they enjoy it (with much complaining), but I also usually inform them of the number they need to roll, so that I am the only one dealing with the WvAC modifiers (and other, hidden modifiers) on the fly and have gotten used to it. I have grown as a DM over the years (thank you EOTB and others!). If I screw it up occasionally, or forget some special modifier now and again, our game is not so high-stakes that those small personal failings are intolerable. Even in our last game, when my daughter was rolling a saving throw vs. disintegration by a beholder...and nearly in tears at the thought of losing her beloved cleric...I assured her that if I went badly, there are always ways to turn back the dial (I was thinking of finding a wish). She made the save, but if she hadn't, she would have taken over one of the long-time henchmen and probably spent the next several months trying to find that wish.

Either way...the game continues...and there is something of value to quest for. The nice thing about having created enough world-detail over the past decade is that I don't have to arbitrarily place that wish spell...I know immediately where one is: a thousand miles away and a league or two beneath the earth. All of the obstacles the party will need to overcome to get it are already pre-determined and have real object permanence by virtue of me having fleshed out that area (and the route) years ago when the party was last in the tent-pole dungeon....but avoided that particular section. In a sense, "The Adventure to Un-Disintegrated the Cleric" is already written! The many, many hexes need to be traversed (but not "crawled?") are filled with distractions/obstacles, and the Mutated Psionic Kobold Empress who has the (cursed!) Efreeti Lamp they'd need is all spec'd out and waiting in the hands of an enemy. The only failing on my part as a DM is perhaps not having seeded enough clues in the environmental that points them in the right direction---the world "cross-linking" of content which I find to be so important to breath life into a setting but is necessarily absence from all published material. There's always divination magic as a cheap substitute.

I absolutely adore keying out a world (at the room level-of-detail) and having it just sitting there, unexplored, ripe for adventure or churning along in the background at its own pace---completely independent of the party. That sense of expansive depth is what drove me as a player, and I'm hoping now I've managed to pay-forwards my good fortune to my kids.

 

[squeen]

Except WvAC or my own rules are situational. This solution alters core D&D substantially despite it straightforward nature.

I think what had gotten lost over the years was the abstract notion in AD&D and OD&D of a damage-dealing "hit" and it got confused with an each-and-every strike that landed upon an opponent or his armor. Video games use that latter model, so that didn't help matters.

 

[The1True]

I think what had gotten lost over the years was the abstract notion in AD&D and OD&D of a damage-dealing "hit" and it got confused with an each-and-every strike that landed upon an opponent or his armor. Video games use that latter model, so that didn't help matters.

Yeah, I'm not the hugest fan of having both a Life score (hp) and an Armour score (which can happen in D&D with Stoneskin and the like, but thankfully isn't yet another permanent stat). I recall getting pretty annoyed with that mechanic playing GW games.
Not many of us like a truly realistic combat system. It all comes down to how much dice rolling your gaming group is comfortable with in the end, I guess.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

But the reality is, most people never take more than five different weapon proficiencies in their entire playing career, plus a couple of wild cards*.

This would solve the problem if the tables were applied unidirectionally. But the NPCs wielding all these weapons will still have it applied against the PCs, and they do not have this restriction. This might be a rare instance when I actually prefer the 2e model of looking at armor and seeing how it performs broadly versus different damage types (blundgeoning/piercing/slashing). Its also easier to fit any newly conceived weapon into these broad categories.

 

[robertsconley]

@robertsconley : Your stuff is always well-polished and fun to read. Thanks for putting it out there. You are a generous person.

Thanks Appreciate the compliment.

For me everything being said falls under "house rules"---which can be fun to tinker with---but I think the original point (of WvAC in AD&D having some good utility) may have gotten lost in the avalanche of home-brewed attempts to improve it.

My opinion that Weapons versus AC was pretty much a house rule when it first appeared in Greyhawk. OD&D had two ways of resolving a hit, and the 1d20 method of level versus AC proved to be the overwhelming favorite over using the chainmail tables.

To me the Greyhawk table was an attempt at reconciling the two methods. Taking the data that was part of the Weapon versus Armor Type and making a compatible version for the 1d20 system.

Greyhawk's WvAC in my opinion is OK. It doesn't have the impact that the Chainmail Man to Man table does because it only giving modifiers in -/+5% increments while the Chainmail version impacts the bell curve of a 2d6 roll.

AD&D's WvAC in my opinion is flawed because of the additional armor types introduced. OD&D was straight forward. No Armor, Shield, Leather, Leather+Shield, Chain, Chain+Shield, Plate, Plate+Shield. Assigning a modifier for AC 6 is the same as saying Leather+Shield.

Not the case with AD&D. To me AD&D's WvAC smells of "It seemed like a good idea at the time" and the modifiers a mathematical expansion of the Greyhawk Table rather than reflect Gygax's opinion on how well a bec-de-corbin would do against Ringmail.

I don't object to AD&D having a WvAC provided that it treated each type of armor separately which each modifier considered in light of the weapon's effectiveness against that type of armor.

What I have come away with from the discussion, and especially @Beoric 's 4e description, is that there is a segment of the RPG population that really desires more detailed combat in D&D and won't be satisfied without it. For me, that's a good thing to keep in mind for future discussions (and disagreements). Just like I now have a place in my mental bookshelf for folks who want the opposite: low-effort, rules-light, and story games.

I refereed GURPS for a long time between taking up OD&D in form of S&W and then adding my own rules on top of it. When I did that, I figured that accept OD&D for what it is and not turn into some lite form of GURPS. But there were certain things about my campaigns that I had to have rules for to remain consistent.

Players did things that did not involve combat or spellcasting and wanted be better at some of things in a way that made sense for their class. Hence a skill system that I called abilities.

Another is that players would try things in combat or expected that tactics and weapons would have an impact in various situations. To a point which was well below GURPS + options which I was using before. So came up with some things address those points in a way I could keep consistent. Keeping in mind that it shouldn't overshadow making a to-hit roll and rolling damage. Hence most of it the addition revolved around the idea of that you can do something else if you hit. But if you did, the target would get a save to avoid the bad thing you were about to do with them.

Yet after all that, I still have good players who prefer 5th editions because it has more mechanical fiddly bits to play with. But are glad that it not as much as D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder.

I find that folks, like myself, that can be satisfied playing AD&D (ad infinitum) without requiring rule-alteration seem to be in the minority. Sometimes I wonder why that is so? Why doesn't it get boring or frustrating to me?

Well do you ever weave a basket? Have you ever a played a character in a AD&D campaign where it made sense that they could weave a basket better than other players?

I know it sounds like a joke and basket-weaving trivial. But the answer to those questions is the answer to your question. If you never deal with basket-weaving in the campaign you run or play, then the lack of basket-weaving mechanics is not an issue. If you do deal with basket-weaving then AD&D lack of detail if secondary skills are used can be frustrating. Likewise if a referee wants a campaign that involves basket-weaving as a major component than AD&D can be frustrating even with secondary skills.

The larger issue is "What can I do as my character?". Outside of combat and spellcasting, what do you do as a AD&D player? As a referee how you handle what characters can do outside of combat and spellcasting as a referee?

Basket-weaving can generate laugh but what about writing a sonnet? The treasure map in the hands of an aging lord who under the influence of his young wife who known to persuaded by a dashing romantic courtier. It is a reasonable plan both in terms of the circumstance and fantasy tropes to try to influence the lady by composing a well-written sonnet.

What happens when this happens on a regular basis? How does a character get better at writing sonnets? But if this situation doesn't come up or it so rare that can be handled by a simple roll and adding a relevant attribute modifier.

For me, my ability list reflects what players been doing in my campaigns since the 80s. Just like the expectation that you get better at combat, cast more and better spells, players in my campaign have an expectation that they should be able to get better at things outside of combat and spellcasting. However within the context of D&D as they are not interested in Runequest, GURPS, or other skill based RPG.

It think it may be because I/we have always played with sufficient room for creativity and variation on the content-creation front so that it doesn't grow stale. More over, a fixation on constant challenge in a world that repeatedly frustrates the player's desires probably meshes well with rules that can also be frustrating in their abstraction.

Well as Lord Vreeg observed, that given time the setting will conform to the rules.

I think what had gotten lost over the years was the abstract notion in AD&D and OD&D of a "hit" and it got confused with an actual strike that landed upon an opponent or his armor.

My opinion that the 3 LBBs of OD&D were written as an aide with a lot of things left unstated because they were in common practice among his target audiences. OD&D is silent on what is a "hit". The closest we get what written in Chainmail as it one of the two methods referenced in the 3 LBB of resolving a hit. Even there is not quite clear.

We get this



Which makes it sounds like one die roll equal a single strike of the weapon. This is further reinforced by Jousting rules that follows where you are definitely rolling individual attacks. However we have the advice of "all preceding rules apply". Which means the one-minute round is still in force.



Since the movement rates don't change in man-to-man I am pretty sure it what Gygax would say.

I gamed and refereed a lot of folks over the decades and my observation that most equate a die roll with a swing of their weapons in their mind regardless of what the rules say. I doubt wargamers of the early 70s were any different in this respect.

The point of the above is that the issue has always been unsettled and continues to be unsettled. I would guess that Gygax of 1969 would give a different answer the question of what I am rolling represents than Gygax of 1979. That Perrin, and the other folks would have their own nuanced answer as well.

I use the six second combat round in my Majestic Fantasy rules but in many cases I treat a die roll as an actual swing. The deciding the factor between when the roll is the result of six second of back and forth melee, or a roll a single blow depend on how the player describe their actions. If it just a normal strike for damage, then it is back and forth. If it is an attempt to knock the Goblet of Doom out of the lich's hand. It is a single blow.

 

[squeen]

I don't object to AD&D having a WvAC provided that it treated each type of armor separately which each modifier considered in light of the weapon's effectiveness against that type of armor.

That's how I decided to simplify it for my own house-rules. Just a matter of taste.

Well do you ever weave a basket?

Yes.

The larger issue is "What can I do as my character?". Outside of combat and spellcasting, what do you do as a AD&D player?

You can try to do anything! If it's critical for game play and outside the normal rules, I'll usually bake a mechanic right into the key for that location. Ultimately though, players expecting "skills" is what needs to be managed if you want to do without them. ...and doing without them works just fine for me without limiting the range of possible player actions...or reducing the game to simply "combat and spells". Honestly, I would say, with my group, 80% of the game is not "combat or spells".

I gamed and refereed a lot of folks over the decades and my observation that most equate a die roll with a swing of their weapons in their mind regardless of what the rules say. I doubt wargamers of the early 70s were any different in this respect.

Possibly but not relevant. If you allow yourself to accept AD&D's combat abstraction, then things start to make more sense with its mechanics. Even knocking a cup out of someone's hand can turn into a wrestling match and take more than a split-second.

I use the six second combat round in my Majestic Fantasy rules but in many cases I treat a die roll as an actual swing. The deciding the factor between when the roll is the result of six second of back and forth melee, or a roll a single blow depend on how the player describe their actions. If it just a normal strike for damage, then it is back and forth. If it is an attempt to knock the Goblet of Doom out of the lich's hand. It is a single blow.

You are a rules-thinker at heart. One of the best. What I am saying is that it's not necessary to do that in order to have a working, sustainable game. In either case, an agile DM (that is not a computer...for now at least) is the requirement.

 

[Beoric]

Lastly, not being traumatized by "bad/abusive" DMs (as many of you attested to) has helped me enjoy the unaltered game, I'm sure. Of course, I fear that if you were to play with me now, or my old-group way back then, you may label the play-style I prefer (one that constantly frustrates a player's desires, forcing them often to accept playing the fool) as "bad DM-ing" too. Personally, I have always been OK with a DM that holds most of the knowledge of the mechanics close to his chest, and trusting him or her to be impartial with everyone's best interest at heart. I understand though that you may hate what I love.

Dude, you really don't know the kind of DMs I am talking about.

DM: Your 15th level character comes to a field, what do you do?
PC: I start walking across it.
DM: a 10' pit opens up in front of you and you fall in. You break every bone in your body, what do you do?
PC: From a 10' fall? For a 15th level character? I guess I try to climb out of the pit.
DM: You can't move, all of your bones are broken, what do you do?
PC: I look around to see what there is in the pit that might help.
DM: You can't see anything, you are face down. Your neck is broken and you can't move your head.
PC: I cast levitate.
DM: You can't cast spells, you are in too much pain.
PC: I call for help.
DM: You are too weak to do anything more than moan, what do you do?
PC: I pray to my god to help?
DM: You can't, it hurts to much to even think.
PC: [salty] Well I guess I lie there and bleed to death, then.
DM: Well don't take that attitude!

 

[squeen]

No sir. Nothing like that. I have been fortunate.

But as amusing as you make it, I can't believe that's sustainable/real. The DM wouldn't be able to hold a group together for more than or session or two (max).

My fear is that you would see my DM-ing in a similar light. We never really know until it happens. People are so very different.

 

[Beoric]

No sir. Nothing like that. I have been fortunate.

But as amusing as you make it, I can't believe that's sustainable/real. The DM wouldn't be able to hold a group together for more than or session or two (max).

My fear is that you would see my DM-ing in a similar light. We never really know until it happens. People are so very different.

I was not exaggerating; if anything I shortened the exchange, since we generally tried a lot of things before we gave up. I also remember that I started refusing to pick up any magic items, because all of them had massive egos (in the D&D and the colloquial sense) and fucked up agendas and would regularly either refuse to work properly (while preventing you from using any other item), or possess the PC. I remember several sessions where I was beating my sword against a rock or burying it in sewage to try to punish it into doing something useful, or at least to abandon me as an owner. Also a lot of random level drain for no apparent reason.

I was stuck with this guy for years, because he played favourites and some people in our group really liked playing with him - although they would also recognize the accuracy of the stories. We were teens and tended to follow the group, because you want to play with your friends. It was mitigated by the fact that nearly everyone DMed at some point, so there were decent DMs as well; eventually I stopped playing with the guy once I consistently had other options.

I actually tried playing with him again a few years ago, and he really hadn't changed, despite the fact that nobody would play with him for about 20 years. At one point our characters were captured and we spend a full 1.5 long sessions listening to him describe our characters being tortured, while all of our attempts to escape failed before they began. Eventually the PCs started attempting suicide just to finish the damn game, but of course all of those attempts failed.

You talk about your DMing enough that I'm pretty confident I wouldn't see it in the same light. Somehow I can't see you inflicting 2 days of torture porn on your kids.

EDIT: This may be why am a bit fanatical when it comes to discussions about agency.

 

[squeen]

Whee-oo! Sounds painful.

 

[Osrnoob]

There is improv to DND you have to say yes. This help me escape bad DM is why 3e and such exists

HELP ME GARY I HAVE ENCOUNTERED


HUMAN BEINGS

 

[Beoric]

Worse yet, I have talked to two female gamers who have had their DMs railroad their characters into being raped, "because that is what would happen in a fantasy world." While "ruling" away their characters' ability to defend themselves in the process. And one whose DM required her character to be the boyfriend of the DMPC. These are extreme examples, but are part of a continuum of reasons a lot of players advocate for stricter rules and restrictions on DM fiat. I'm not one of those people, but I understand where they are coming from.

 

[squeen]

I am going to state unequivocally that those kinds of sick people should not be playing D&D with anyone. Period. No rule changes necessary to accommodate assholes---they are just banned. If you find yourself playing with one, get the hell out of there. If you don't...then it's on you for staying. No excuses. Simply put, that is not how the game is played. No bikes with 3 wheels "just in case you find yourself in an abusive situation". That's just crap.

 

[EOTB]

Worse yet, I have talked to two female gamers who have had their DMs railroad their characters into being raped, "because that is what would happen in a fantasy world." While "ruling" away their characters' ability to defend themselves in the process. And one whose DM required her character to be the boyfriend of the DMPC. These are extreme examples, but are part of a continuum of reasons a lot of players advocate for stricter rules and restrictions on DM fiat. I'm not one of those people, but I understand where they are coming from.

Someone has to proceed into the hobby understanding it is full of social misfits and weirdos precisely because it allows one person influence over a shared fantasy - particularly the DM, but players too.

Social misfits and weirdos seem to expect they'll be tolerated in a D&D setting, and disabusing them of this notion (presuming everyone else does in fact find them uncomfortable) is still a social requirement. D&D doesn't magically remove this for anybody. And no rule can be created that controls social misfits and weirdos, or de-fangs them.

 

[EOTB]

This would solve the problem if the tables were applied unidirectionally. But the NPCs wielding all these weapons will still have it applied against the PCs, and they do not have this restriction. This might be a rare instance when I actually prefer the 2e model of looking at armor and seeing how it performs broadly versus different damage types (blundgeoning/piercing/slashing). Its also easier to fit any newly conceived weapon into these broad categories.

If a DM doesn't want to use it then it won't be used. But that doesn't make the conventional wisdom that the mechanic is uniquely and disproportionately cumbersome to play, true. It is a conditional rule, and my personal opinion is people don't like conditional rules, in general.

Notably, people who disliked WvAC in 1E did not cozy up to the much-simplified 2E version either. Which is when I understood that complexity was a proxy argument for those also rejecting the simplified.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

If a DM doesn't want to use it then it won't be used. But that doesn't make the conventional wisdom that the mechanic is uniquely and disproportionately cumbersome to play, true. It is a conditional rule, and my personal opinion is people don't like conditional rules, in general.

Notably, people who disliked WvAC in 1E did not cozy up to the much-simplified 2E version either. Which is when I understood that complexity was a proxy argument for those also rejecting the simplified.

Probably fair.