[D&D4.0] Combat Reality

[Cilvyn]

Hey ppl,

Me and my group were thinking about a system that makes the combat more realistic.

Like when someone is bloodied they have to roll an endurance check to not get an attack penalty for being injured. Or fall prone because of the pain, of flee because you are hurt and don't have the strength en courage to keep fighting.

Do you guys have any ideas about how this system could work? I had some thoughts with 1/2hp = consequenses as for 1/4 and 1/8 hp.

Just post some ideas everything is welcome!

Thanx,

Cil

[Saintjebus]

That's a good idea in theory, but alot of the classes(mostly fighter) have powers that only kick in when bloodied. The idea behind the bloodied status is that when the heroes are injured, they fight harder(because their life is on the line). This would make things like the Unstoppable power for the fighter almost useless-because the power only kicks in while the fighter is bloodied.


Edit: I think that the endurance check to prevent a penalty is pretty good-because you can train in endurance, so fighters and dwarves and such get a bonus to it.

[MammonAzrael]

The first idea is to simply play a different system. 4ed is the most cinematic, gamist style of play DnD has ever had, and it's not very good at simulation or grittiness. If you're looking for a system that does focus on more realistic battle conditions, and how crippling even a single combat can be, there are much better systems out there. (That said, I have gleaned this only through my own experiences with DnD and other forum goers, I can't actually recommend a specific system.)

I would be careful about adding a negative to being bloodied, since there are a lot of powers and abilities that trigger off being bloodied, like the Dragonborn's racial feature. That being said, an Endurance check sounds good to avoid a minor penalty, like a -1 to hit. I'd avoid the "you have to flee" option, because that takes away control from your players, which you should avoid doing as much as possible. It is just not fun.

The only other marker I think you should use would be having HP equal to your bloodied value. And only another minor penalty.

Remeber, in 4ed, HP is very abstract. In fact, you aren't actually physically damaged until you're bloodied, which represents the first true hit you've taken. If you're only looking to make combat slightly more dangerous, I'd rather my DM just make us fight stronger monsters than penalize us. If you're looking to make combat a lot more dangerous and risky, I really think you should check out other systems.

[Yakk]

If you want to keep 4e balance, move the "you are crippled" effects to 0 HP and below.

This leaves the (1 to max) HP as the area where the characters have taken flesh wounds and the like. Once you hit 0 HP, the blow was significant.

[TheOOB]

As mentioned above, most game systems apply some sort of penalties as you get wounded. D&D specifically does not. D&D filled the heroic fantasy, tactical combat role well, but it doesn't do gritty realism. If you want more realism there are dozens of other game systems out there that do just that.

[Dhavaer]

You might want to look at something like World of Darkness or Inquisitor, which have penalties for damage by default.

[THAC0]

In fact, you are actually physically damaged until you're bloodied, which represents the first true hit you've taken.

I'm assuming you mean "aren't" instead of "are." Do you have a citation for that? I keep seeing that mentioned, but I'm unable to find anything in the books about it.

[MammonAzrael]

Yes, I did. And no, I don't have a citation for it off hand. I know I read it somewhere, but I'm not sure if it was in a book, on Wizards, or where. I'll see if I can track it down.

[Dentarthur]

In fact, you are[n't] actually physically damaged until you're bloodied, which represents the first true hit you've taken.

I'm pretty sure that's not a fact at all, just one possible (and perhaps the most widely adopted) interpretation. Let's leave it at "hit points are abstract".

4th Edition D&D is great fun, but I have to agree with TheOOB -- it's built for heroic fantasy, where the badguys' primary purpose is to allow the PCs to prove how badass they are. Try Shadowrun, Earthdawn, or heck, Call of Cthulhu for more dangerous combat.

[NecroRebel]

I'm assuming you mean "aren't" instead of "are." Do you have a citation for that? I keep seeing that mentioned, but I'm unable to find anything in the books about it.

It's never explicitly stated AFAIK, but is implied by several things:

First and most clearly is the section on Healing in the PHB, page 293, where it describes hit points as "your ability to stand up to punishment, turn deadly strikes into glancing blows, and stay on your feet throughout a battle. Hit points represent more than physical endurance. They represent your character’s skill, luck, and resolve—all the factors that combine to help you stay alive in a combat situation." Basically, if you're at maximum or near maximum hit points, you're well-rested and thus capable of dodging most attacks or at least prevent solid blows.

Next is the word "bloodied" itself. It implies that before you're bloodied, you're not bloodied, as in, no significant blood is flowing from any wounds you might have taken. This, in turn, implies that no significant wound has been taken until you actually become bloodied, which implies that the wound that bloodies you is the first to really hit home. The fact that many of the bonuses that trigger against bloodied targets are named in such a fashion that they imply that they are due to the presence of blood, for instance "bloodhunt," further strengthens the implication of blood only flowing from a bloodied target.

Third is the fact that many healing powers don't seem to fit preexisting wounds closing very well. For instance, a Warlord's Inspiring Word probably doesn't just make cuts knit shut; it's not described as magical, particularly at level 1, so that probably isn't what it does. Instead, these powers are described as more inspiration and vim rather than vigor. If simply having your morale lifted (and, presumably, your tiredness ignored as a result) regains hit points, that means that morale is a sizable portion of what hit points actually mean.



Of course, if you really want every single attack to inflict a wound on someone, you're very much welcome to. It doesn't really matter at all. However, it does lead to some fairly silly consequences if every "hit" actually hits, like if a 10-foot ogre strikes a 3-foot halfling with a greataxe as big as the smaller opponent. Logically, the halfling should get chopped nearly in half by such a blow, but it might only deal 20 damage, which wouldn't kill your average level 1 wizard. At levels where ogres are actually expected to be fought, that wouldn't even bloody the weakest PC, so presumably this isn't actually what happens.

[Artanis]

PHB 293 states that the ability to withstand physical punishment is one component of HP. It also states that things like the ability to avoid or mitigate blows is in addition to said ability to withstand physical punishment.

The fact that things like the Warlord's Inspiring Word don't seem like they would knit wounds together is part of it being a combination. It's like the Warlord says, "I don't care if you've got a little boo-boo, SUCK IT UP AND FIGHT!" Still physically injured, but that extra "kick" lets the person do more of the avoiding actual damage part for a little while.

[nightwyrm]

Rules wise, bloodied just means that you're at half hp. Anything else you add to it is just flavour text.

As for the OP, D&D has always had a hp system where your combat effectiveness never decreases until you're at 0 hp. If you want a system where getting hurt reduces your fighting ability, you should look at another game system.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Realistic combat has been a literal impossibility in all editions of (A)D&D, and 4E has cheerfully abandoned any pretense of it and perfected D&D-style combat. So fuhgeddaboutit, and try some other systems instead. TROS, RuneQuest, Pendragon, Elric!...

[Behold_the_Void]

Yeah, I'm with the "another system will work better" crowd.

[NPCMook]

Use the Condition Track from SWSE, If the enemy deals damage greater than your fortitude you fall down the track. Healing can take you back up the track, each step down the track causes you to take more negatives, 5 steps down you are unconscious.

Second Wind takes you one step back up the track, blah blah blah short answer, grab the SWSE core book and read up about the condition track, just don't go with their Coup de Grace rules since those can actually cause you to one shot people

[Tsotha-lanti]

Yeah, I'm with the "another system will work better" crowd.

Not only will they work better for realistic combat, many, many of them simply are plain better than any edition of D&D.

[The Glyphstone]

i was hoping someone had homebrewed stats for Reality as an encounter, possibly with Vulnerability to Punches a la Superboy Prime...:smallsmile:

[Izmir Stinger]

Me and my group were thinking about a system that makes the combat more realistic.

Do you guys realize that "Realistic Sword and Sorcery Combat" is an oxymoron? Realistic combat with swords is one guy hits an other guy with his sword, the other guy suffers a mortal wound and will die soon or immediately. Combat over. Realistic magic is legerdemain and prestidigitation and never hurts anybody (well, hardly ever - RIP Harry Houdini :smallfrown:).

I think you should strive for more enjoyable combat. Realism is completely out the window.

[The Glyphstone]

Do you guys realize that "Realistic Sword and Sorcery Combat" is an oxymoron right? Realistic combat with swords is one guy hits an other guy with his sword, the other guy suffers a mortal wound and will die soon or immediately. Combat over.

I think you should strive for more enjoyable combat. Realism is completely out the window.

...Realistic Anything and Sorcery combat is an oxymoron, isn't it?:smallconfused:

[Izmir Stinger]

...Realistic Anything and Sorcery combat is an oxymoron, isn't it?:smallconfused:

Yes. Yes it is.

It's like people arguing about whether or not a Jedi can do this that or the other thing with the Force. I feel compelled to remind them that like all fictional characters living in a fantasy universe, they can do anything that their creator wants them to do and are limited in the ways that best serve character development and dramatic tension.

[The Glyphstone]

I just thought it was funny how you commented on the lack of "realism" in two characters trading sword blows, while completely ignoring the lack of "realism" in two characters chucking fireballs at each other. Or maybe that was the joke, and I just missed it.

[Myatar_Panwar]

I believe the OP wanted suggestions for making fourth edition D&D a bit more realistic. You can want a little realism without wanting the whole package people.

Anyway, I think that the idea of getting a small minus to attack rolls or whatnot after being bloodied is kind of cool. Heres what I was thinking specifically: After being bloodied, roll on a chart. This chart will feature various afflictions that may effect you. For instance, a 1-3 may be to passout immediately from shock, or what have you. As a general rule, I would say that on the chart an 11 or above means you are in the clear and keep on fighting normally. The player adds his constitution modifier to this roll. If you are trained in endurance, add another +2.

Edit: Also I believe that a player should only have to roll once per encounter. If a character is dropped to bloodied, but then healed and dropped to bloodied again, he still only rolls for the first time.

[Satyr]

"Play something different" is not helping. Yes, there are better suited games for a more realistic approaches to combats than D&D, and there are just plain better games as well. Good news. But if someone wants to play D&D with slight adjustment to personal tastes, this information is pretty useless.

And, when people say, they want "more realistic combats" they often actually mean they want combats, which are constantly insulting their intelligence by being completey arbitrary and without any attachement to versimilitude. And that works fine in a fantasy context. Fantasy is no excuse to insult other people's intelligence or to handwave internal inconcistences.

That said, D&D 4 is indeed not a very good game for a substance over style gaming style. It is overspecialised for its specific niche, and it is actually not that easy to advance it to a more general gaming style.

For the short time, we played 4th edition before we came to the solution that it isn't sophisiticated enough for the way we prefer our games, we came up with the following houserules to improve the games extremely mediocre versimilitude and add to the game's suspense. They made the game more interesting and reduced the number of stupidity.induced brainpain.

Hitpoints and Healing

The believable representation of injuries was never a strength of D&D, but it got worse with the 4th edition. Injuries are just completely insignificant, which is somewhat sad, because this destroys both the plausibility of the gameplay and a source of roleplaying suspense. So we tried to change this to make it more believable.

1st, Hitpoints are renamed into Stamina. The Stamina is calculated exactly as the hitpoints were before, but it is not the amount of wounds and injuries the character can suffer, but more a representation of the character’s condition, endurance, resourcefulness with his physical capabilities to make it more believable, that the Stamina of a creature is completely regained with sufficient sleep, which just fails when you of hit point loss as open, bleeding wounds. SO, what goes up and down in the game is the character’s Stamina. which is regained through taking a break, breathing deeply perhaps eating a bite and spending a healing surge.

Loss of Stamina are not necessarily injuries, it is heavier breathing after dodging an attack, running out of breath in a fight, scratches and bruises under the armor etc.

Apart from the Stamina, characters have a number of wound points equal to their Constitution score + half of the character level. When the character runs out of Stamina (which was formerly when the hitpoints reached 0), all additional damage are subtracted from the wound points, until those reach 0. In this case, the character is dead. Additionally, every critical hit also deals one point of wound point damage.

Injuries heal much slower than Stamina. Every character must make a Constitution check (Difficulty 20) per day, to heal a point of injury damage. A successful heal check (DC 20) allows a second roll for the regeneration, as does the use of any form of healing powers.
While the character is injured (has not the full amount of injury points), they have only half of their usual healing surges. If they are severely injured (less than half of their total injury points left), they also suffer a –2 penalty to all their rolls.

Optional Extra Gritty Special Rule: Instead of every critical hit, every single [W] of damage deals also one point of injury damage or twice that many in the case of a critical hit. With this rule, people can die before they run out of Stamina and Constitution suddenly becomes extremely important for almost any character.
I love this rule and I am very willing to use it, because i think that the game's suspense in fights profits greatly from the increased deadliness.

So instead of one column of hitpoints, the character has now two values – one of them works exactly as the hitpoints before, the other one is the simulationist addendum and will increase the general deadliness of the game.


Encounter Powers
Encounter Powers leave a slightly bitter taste in the mouth. Certainly, it is fun when you can use a special power to decide a battle but on the other hand it is a bit stupid when a fighter suddenly seems to forget his secret strike after using it. It is obvious that you need some kind of limitation for powers like this to have a certain degree of resource management and it is probably quite important for the balance of the game, but it is still silly that you can not repeat an effective attack within a combat. So, we tried to come up with a rule, which does not soften up the limitation of encounter powers while still circumvents this break of verisimilitude.

Surprisingly, the renaming of the now Stamina was quite helpful for this. It is not that hard to explain how a special maneuver also represents an additional effort, and that this effort can be quite straining as in costing the character’s Stamina. So we came up with a solution: You can reuse any encounter power as often as you want, but doing so will cost you Stamina points. It is actually as if you deal damage to yourself to regain one of the already used encounter maneuvers. The lost Stamina depends on the category of the power – heroic tier powers cost 1d8 points of Stamina to regain, Paragon Tier Powers 2d8, and Epic Tier powers 4d8 Stamina points.

This makes characters more versatile and therefore more powerful, which hopefully acts as a counterbalance to the increased danger through the new injury rules. Still, regaining encounter powers through this way is linked to a certain risk and sacrifice, which can contribute to the game’s suspense.


Minions
Again, minions are mostly renamed and used a little bit different. Now, they are called cowards, and they will flee immediately when they are hit, no matter how significant the injury was. If they are unable to flee, they will fight desperately to their death, but will run on the first chance or they beg for mercy as if they were bloodied and successfully intimidated.
Fleeing enemies are treated exactly like beaten enemies for the purpose of XP gain, but perhaps they regroup and ambush the characters again (not very likely since they are cowards and will try to avoid any as many risks as possible, but still…).
Mindless creature minions like many undeads will be treated as before.

The reason for this houserule is not necessarily foremost the game’s verisimilitude, but mostly because minion massacres and goblin or kobold genocide is just not heroic. Reaping through hordes of helpless and faceless victims – and most minions are nothing more than that – is not heroic, it’s just mass murder. No one of us was comfortable with the idea of slaying of waves and waves of cronies, so we came up with the coward explanation to not think of our characters as maniac psychopaths.

Hobby Skills
Hobby skills are meant to individualise the different characters and give them additional traits that represent individual interests and strengths. Everything can be a hobby skill which is not covered by a real skill or a similar already existing trait. Examples for hobby skills would be Cooking, Weapon Lore, Board Games, Heraldry, Play Instrument or other sils which have more impact on the character than a regular use in the game.
Hobby skills work exactly like regular skills, but they have a more limited application. You can create skill chalenges for them, you can focus in a hobby skill (perhaps you want to become a legendary cook or something).

Under fitting circumstances, a Hobby skill can give you a +2 synergy bonus to skill checks when the check is related to the hobby skill - perhaps your cooking skill grants you a bonus to taste the poison in the meal bcause you know how this should taste or your knowledge about military procedures is helpful to alanyse the commando structure of an invading hobgoblin army.

Every character starts with 2 + Intelligence Modifier Hobby skills. You can trade one hobby for a skill focus on a hobby skill. Every 5 levels afterwards, each character gains either a new hobby skill or a skill focus in one of his existing hobby skills.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Do you guys realize that "Realistic Sword and Sorcery Combat" is an oxymoron? Realistic combat with swords is one guy hits an other guy with his sword, the other guy suffers a mortal wound and will die soon or immediately. Combat over. Realistic magic is legerdemain and prestidigitation and never hurts anybody (well, hardly ever - RIP Harry Houdini :smallfrown:).

I think you should strive for more enjoyable combat. Realism is completely out the window.

This is just plain wrong (and pretty obtuse). Check out The Riddle of Steel. Best, most tactical, most interesting, and most realistic combat system.

[Izmir Stinger]

This is just plain wrong (and pretty obtuse). Check out The Riddle of Steel. Best, most tactical, most interesting, and most realistic combat system.

This Riddle of Steel system more realistically portrays Sword and Sorcery combat? Are the dragons warm or cold blooded? Are they technically reptiles, or dinosaurs? How is magic's apparent violation of conservation of energy resolved? Is casting fire magic an endothermic or exothermic reaction?

Or perhaps a better question is: what definition of the word realistic are you using?

[Satyr]

A realistic world and realistic combats do not have to be directly interconnected; you can have and enjoy seemingly realistic combats in an abstruse fantasy world, as well as unrealistic, hollywood-style cinematic combats in a historical campaign. Fantasy is no arguement against versimilitude.

[Izmir Stinger]

Changing the game rules can help make the game feel more cinematic or gritty. Various elements can give combat a darker, more dangerous feel or lighten it up and make it more cartoony. A fantasy game can be action packed, or thought provoking, terrifying or tranquil - and the system of rules (but mostly the players imaginations) help make it these ways. But if it is fantasy, the one thing it cannot be is reality. People trying to make D&D more "realistic" are almost always trying to achieve some other effect and just don't have an adjective for it. Fantasy and reality are antonyms. It is meaningless to try to make your fights with dragons and skeletons more realistic. You should try to make them more fun and engaging for your group, based on their tastes. It will never be real though.

Until the zombie apocalypse in 2011, that is. :smallsigh:

[Tsotha-lanti]

This Riddle of Steel system more realistically portrays Sword and Sorcery combat? Are the dragons warm or cold blooded? Are they technically reptiles, or dinosaurs? How is magic's apparent violation of conservation of energy resolved? Is casting fire magic an endothermic or exothermic reaction?

Or perhaps a better question is: what definition of the word realistic are you using?

This is what I mean by obtuse.

Magic is magic (it is, in fact, way more magic than D&D magic), dragons are dragons, and when you half-sword your longsword and drive the point into someone's neck, they are crippled by pain and shock and start bleeding out.

Like Satyr points out, realistic combat and realistic settings don't have to go together. Twilight 2013 has the most realistic modern arms small unit combat system ever, and the setting is entirely unrealistic (indeed, their apocalypse has been well picked apart).

[Satyr]

People trying to make D&D more "realistic" are almost always trying to achieve some other effect and just don't have an adjective for it. Fantasy and reality are antonyms. It is meaningless to try to make your fights with dragons and skeletons more realistic.

Yes, the term "realism" is an unfortunate one in this context, versimilitude or plausibility are normally better terms to describe the objective. Hoever, there are different degrees of realism in every form of fiction, no matter how fantastic it is supposed to be; there are more (Song of Ice and Fire, the First Law trilogy, etc.) and less realistic (Forgotten Realms, Final Fantasy, Carebears...) fantasy narratives and settings. It is wrong to think of realism and fantasy as a binary concept; it is more like a sliding scale between two different extremes, which makes the meaninglessness of the idea to make combats - or any other story or rule element - more realistic highly questionable.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Song of Ice and Fire

After reading SOIAF, I can't keep a straight face when people use it as an example of realistic combat.

Swords, shields, and full plate? Yeah, no. Battle axes with huge crescent-shaped double-blades? Right. Cleaving through plate armor as a standard method of fighting? Hahaha!

It's D&D combat, only told differently and with permanent results.

[Satyr]

No, ASOIAF is not a good example of realistic combats in fantasy, but with the general setup of homo homini lupus est and the way, the war and its results are described, it is a better example of a generally more realistic fantasy tale, than, for example the Lord of the Rings with its blatant black and white morals.

[TheOOB]

I've always associated the HP system with Conan. Conan wades in a fight, and usually takes lots of various small superficial wounds, enough to get some blood out there and make him look more menacing, but not enough to stop the engine of destruction that is Conan. He usually gets one major wound that is more dramatic, but any physical impairment is matched by the increase to his heroic resolve.

Basically, hp doesn't allow you to take more damage, it makes attacks against you do less damage. An attack that deals 10 damage is maybe a dangerous blade to the gut or wide, deep gash across the chest for someone with 15, but for someone with 150 with 15 hp it's just a scratch.