What About No To-Hit Rolls ?
I read this blogpost tonight about having no to-hit roll in B/X or OD&D. Since I have some time in front of me, but not enough to do something really worthwhile like creating a dungeon or something, I thought I'd go with the thought experiment. Consider this 100% pure armchair theory with no playtesting of any sorts:
To attack a creature, roll one dice. The dice result is subtracted from the HP of the target. On a maximum roll, any special abilities are triggered (for example, a poison from a snake).
The dice range depends on the type of weapon vs the type of armour as per the following matrix:
Two-Handed weapon deals +1 damage. Hitting someone with a shield deals -1 damage. In case of a melee, hits are simultaneous. In case of a duel, on the first turn the longest reach weapon hit first, then on subsequent turn the lowest reach weapon hit first.
Reach 1H / 2H Unarmored Light Armour Medium Armour Heavy Armour Dagger 1 1 d8 d6 d3 d2 Handaxe 2 1 d6 d6 d4 d2 Mace 2 1 d4 d4 d4 d4 Battle Axe 3 1 / 2 d8 d6 d6 d2 Sword 3 1 d6 d6 d6 d3 Morning Star 3 1 d6 d6 d6 d6 Spear 4 1 / 2 d8 d6 d4 d3 Bastard Sword 4 1 / 2 d6 d6 d6 d4 Halberd 5 2 d8 d8 d6 d4 Two-Handed Sword 5 2 d8 d8 d6 d6 Mounted Lance 6 1* d8 d8 d8 d4 Pike 7 2 d10 d8 d6 d4
For range weapon, use the following matrix. When shooting at half max range or more, deal -1 damage. When shooting at an opponent with a shield, -1 damage.
Crossbows need to be reloaded.
Unar Lig Med Hvy Darts d4 d3 d2 d2 Dagger d4 d4 d2 d2 Sling d6 d4 d3 d2 Javelin d6 d6 d6 d3 Short Bow d6 d6 d6 d4 Long Bow d8 d8 d6 d6 Cbow d8 d8 d8 d8
Simple system. Could work. However, instead of having a no-hit system, why not have a no-damage system ?
It's wild seeing that idea arrive so early. Since then, "no roll to hit" has become one of the defining characteristics of Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland. Chris McDowall, who wrote those, defends the idea pretty much the same way JB does.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if there was any cross-pollination? Or if they each independently came up with the idea separately from each other?
Good question for cross-pollination. I know next to nothing about the blog I quoted (it was shared on /tg), and I have never played ItO or EBL because they don't appeal to me personally (I have nothing against them per se).
DeleteA quirk will be that heavier armour means more poisoning. This will be weird for many straight from the book conversions, but neat if designed for.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I'm a bit sceptical about though, is whether or not this reduced whiff and increases speed in the end. Whiff, I assume, is relative, and if so any shift in the baseline will just set a new reference point for it.
1. For poisonning I thought about it yeah, but I ended up letting it like that under the verisimilitude argument that if you have a full plate and are getting hit, it DEFINITIVELY means that you were hit. Can't say it's just a bruise or whatever; which would mean that in the case of a poison fang (for example), you'd be touch by it for sure. There is no abstraction at that point. But an argument could be made against it.
Delete2. I think it would speed up things based on having two rolls to make vs one, especially at higher scales (having a bunch of goons attack as a DM has always been a problem on a D20 system*), or using rules such as AD&D multiples attacks. When you have only one attack it's fine: you roll D20 + d6 and it's done in one dice roll. For whiffs, I did 0 math. It would need to be tested against chance to hit vs chance to damage and so on. Since it's not a system I'll use, I'll let someone else figure it out haha.
* This is not a problem if you use Chainmail, as everything is already resolved in one roll, especially under the system I use and is working on, as shown elsewhere.