Of course, get a pdf or better yet a printed copy, if you don't have one.
Char-gen is a blast, the setting and the Arcana are fascinating, but we're here to talk about combat.
In Into The Odd every attack is a hit. There is no miss.
You attack, you roll your damage; then subtract armor (which may also reduce the damage to zero) and then subtract from HP (or Strength - when you're out of HP or for certain attacks that target Strength directly).
Now, let that sink in for a moment: every attack is a hit.
This makes combat much faster and deadly. You don't enter combat unless you're ready to take damage, because almost for sure you will (and every round, from anyone targeting you). That's bloody (and it also makes Initiative very, very important, and the damage reduction factor of your armor a vital feature of it...).
From a narrative point of view, of course, you should not ignore the chance of a "miss", but a miss is basically time wasted at the table. In other words, you could think of a hit-every-round as a series of attacks (successful and not successful) which in the end deal a certain (variable) amount of damage.
If you manage to take a step back from the "simulation" of the to-hit roll, and accept that damage roll minus armor is the only randomizing factor, the auto-hit may become a powerful feature of a fast paced, thrilling game.
In the link below, Chris proposes a series of little modifications for D&D 5e but I guess these house-rules could be applied also to any OSR system.
(Of course, this is interesting if you're not just playing Into The Odd, but would like to import its auto-hit feature to your OSR game)
D&D Combat Supercharger
by Chris McDowall
[...] Roll to hit as normal:
- Natural 1 is a Miss, no damage.
- Miss becomes a Glance: Cause the minimum damage for the attack [...]
- Hit: Cause the maximum damage for the attack
- Critical Hit (usually a natural 20) causes a Glance followed by a Hit.
[...]
Resting Changes
- To account for the higher amount of damage flying around, you do not roll your Hit Dice when taking Short Rests, instead taking the maximum possible roll on that die.
- A Long Rest restores all Hit Dice.
- Other types of Healing function as normal.
[...]
Preparing your Notes
Write attacks with their Glance Damage followed by their Hit Damage, so instead of 1d12+3 you’d write 4/15. [...]
The next link proposes something quite similar, scaled explicitly for OSR games. All attacks auto-hit but armor is not counted for damage reduction, but reduces the die size of the attack (with all weapons/attacks dealing the same amount of damage by default).
It's an interesting read because it contains a nice presentation and explanation about the auto-hit as a feature, regardless of how it works specifically in this set of house-rules.
Radically Faster Combat: Auto-Hits
by JB
Ever get tired of misses in combat?
I mean, it’s bad enough when a player FINALLY gets that solid 19 or 20 needed, but rolls a 1 or 2 for damage. What about the out-right “whiffs?” Especially low-level characters against medium to good armor class foes, the swing-and-miss, swing-and-miss can be quite tedious.
Does combat need to be drawn out and tiresome? [...]
Combat: The System. In its most basic form, combat consists of checking initiative, rolling to hit, rolling to damage, and depleting hit points…until one party dies or morale breaks. And yet it still takes a looooong, long time.
[...]
So why do we need to roll to hit at all? Why not just roll damage for every attack?
[we’ll get to armor and armor class in a moment]
If I roll a 1 for my damage roll, it means I got a glancing blow (bear) or simply forced my opponent to duck (hero). If I roll a 3 I get a solid laceration (bear) or a deep scratch (hero). If I roll a 6, I score a telling blow against my opponent, a deep thrust to the grizzly or a knock-down blow to the hero…possibly setting up a kill shot with my next attack.
When you remove to hit rolls from combat you remove a HELLUVA’ LOT of frustration. Players don’t miss. They get highs and lows based on good and bad damage rolls (both for and against ‘em). DMs get to describe combat based on damage rolled, rather than based on some weird interpretation of “to hit” roll plus damage roll. Combats go faster as monsters are whittled down every single round.
[...]
OKAY, FINE…WHAT ABOUT ARMOR?
Here’s the “what” about armor: You know all those little attack matrices you have in the various Old School D&D rule books (OD&D, B/X, AD&D, BECMI)? Well, you’re still going to have them. However, instead of showing your “chance to hit,” they show the type of dice you roll for damage. [...]
http://bxblackrazor.blogspot.com/2010/05/radically-faster-combat-auto-hits.html
You can also get the PDF with all the damage die by armor, here.
Stepping away from the blogs for a second, this is a Gplus post (saved here because Gplus is shutting down and the link will be dead soon).
This is quite interesting because it introduces the concept of consequences and supports the GM in adding flavor to combat. These consequences are not mandatory - the player can always choose to avoid them by inflicting the minimum of 1 damage on a miss.
(Note that this is on a miss, not on a hit - when you hit you deal damage with no consequences)
Another idea for speeding up combat in B/X D&D
by Eric Nieudan
When you miss, choose:- do 1 damage
- do full damage and accept a consequence
Consequences are at the referee's discretion depending on the situation (they don't have to tell you before you choose). Examples:
- You're knocked prone
- You're pushed back from the doorway you're defending
- A monster slips past you to attack the magic-user
- You drop or break your weapon
- Your shield is splintered
- An item at your belt is destroyed
- You are thrown clear off and separated from your companions
- Your armour is badly dented (penalty to AC until it's fixed)
- Something (blood or your helmet) gets in the way and you can't see properly. Penalties to attack may apply.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+EricNieudan/posts/8HaTWVbTKJB
As another idea to speed up combat, taken from the Crying Blades and the Crying Hack (my contributions to the OSR) is a single roll to-hit for characters and monsters together.
The math is fairly simple:
- Characters roll to hit vs the monster's AC as usual (roll equal or higher to hit the monster), applying also the usual to-hit modifiers as by your game. No need to change any monster's stat
- An unarmored character has AC 0 instead of 10/12 (depending on your game)
- The same roll (unmodified, as it landed on the table) is used for the monster: the monster wants to have the roll low. The monster hits with a roll equal or lower than 10+its HD (so an HD 1 goblin hits the character with 11 or less, which is the same % to hit as rolling over AC 10 with +1 for the HD...)
- An armored character is protected by its armor for any roll which is lower or equal than the armor... so an AC 15 (which is basic AC 10 +5) is instead AC 5 (the goblin does not hit if the roll is 5 or less, but still hits between 6 to 11)
This is an example from the Crying Hack:
It speeds up combat in one to one situations, which are fairly common.
Statistically is a bit messy perhaps when a monster has multiple attacks - although often more than one character would be fighting against it, so the monster would "spend" its attacks first of all in response to each character attacking it...
The main point, though, is that it keeps the odds balanced as in the original game, but every round is resolved often with one or even both combatants hitting, and there are very few rounds with both missing!
What I liked better, though, is the concept of the Escalation Die in 13th Age, so next time we might be talking about that.
Design notes:
- Auto-hit attacks as a way to speed up combat
- Would require tuning armor to provide damage reduction, or damage die reduction
- As an alternative, always inflict some damage (min. damage on a miss, max. damage on a hit)
- Consider leaving some choices to the players: on a miss inflict a little damage, or roll normal damage but suffer a consequence
- Single roll combat: use the same roll for the character and the monster
- See also the Escalation Die in 13th Age
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