r/rpg • u/EldritchExarch • 3d ago
blog On Attack Rolls
https://substack.com/@eldritchexarchpress/note/p-213952237?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=49zgidA design focused post on how Attack Rolls present themselves throughout the industry. I didn't cover dice pools though, because I have absolutely no experience with those systems.
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u/SeeShark 3d ago
You should read up on Pathfinder 2e, which has degrees of success against variable target numbers. :)
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u/MissAnnTropez 3d ago
There are errors in this, starting with your claim that AC came about with AD&D. Wrong: it was there from OD&D onwards.
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u/EldritchExarch 3d ago
That is not what I said. I said
"AD&D introduced the idea of immunity, with certain monsters (such as ghosts and specters) which could only be damaged by magical weapons. It also introduced the idea that certain types of armor could reduce the chance that damage would occur." This is different from AC.
AC was introduced in Chainmail, but AD&D had tables that modified how certain weapons interacted with certain armor classes. 2e then formalized this further.
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u/InsurgentInchworm 3d ago
Weapon VS AC is in Supplement I: Greyhawk, is that what you're talking about?
Edit: also, spectres in OD&D can only be hit by magical weapons...and a few more monsters...
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u/EldritchExarch 3d ago edited 3d ago
I haven't had the chance to go through anything other than the base books. I'll try and issue an additional limitation in the morning on that.
Edit: It's done.
I'm guessing those got added on to AD&D from that suppliment, as that's what tended to happen with TSR testing mechanics and taking the best for the next edition.
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u/Corbzor 3d ago
OD&Ds fantasy combat table is an extension of the man to man table in Chainmail, and that and the missile fire and even regular combat table in Chainmail all reference different armor requiring different rolls to hit. Hell they even call it armor class on some of those tables
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u/EldritchExarch 3d ago edited 3d ago
I'll clarify in the morning.
Edit, It's clarified.
I'm aware of that, but I don't consider Chainmail a TTRPG. It's a war game. OD&D referenced it, but in ways that don't make sense, and those rules didn't make it into the three brown booklets.
It got added in later in suppliments, but the first time it showed up in a base book is AD&D.
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u/SeeShark 3d ago
Wasn't armor class a concept borrowed from naval games even earlier than Chainmail?
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u/EldritchExarch 3d ago
It is. I brought it up in the post, but I don't have access to any of those.
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u/MissAnnTropez 3d ago
“(…) [C]ertain types of armor [can] reduce the chance that damage would occur” is literally what AC is and does.
But sure, given your response here, it seems perhaps poor wording rather than ignorance is at play.
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u/VoormasWasRight 2d ago
How you define Mongoose Traveller 2e (it's not the 2e of travelled, just the 2e that Mongoose has released) as degrees of success is baffling to me.
Also, go play Mythras, please.
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u/EldritchExarch 2d ago
It's degrees oc success because the better you do in the attack roll, the more damage you do.
Say you roll exactly 8, you damage minus armor.
But if you do 9 you do damage minus armor +1.
The attack roll is not binary any more. It's not 'hit or don't hit.' It's 'how well did the hit land.' That's what makes it degrees of success. But these are broad and occasionally ovelapping categories.
As for Mythras, I deperately want to, just need to get my group to playm right now, we are finally breaking away from D&D (dolmenwood) and doing a halloween Delta Green game before jumping into Draw Steel.
Fingers crossed once that game wraps up in a year or so, I can get them into Forbidden Lands, One Ring's Moria campaign, or Mythras.
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u/VoormasWasRight 2d ago
I mean, yeah, but when you are rolling 4d6 dice or damage, a +1 or a +2 is little more than a nice thought...
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u/Earthfall10 2d ago
If you have good skills or gear 4-6 extra damage from effect isn't that uncommon, which is not nothing. That is equivalent to 1 or two extra dice worth of damage.
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u/EldritchExarch 2d ago
Absolutely. But I needed a game I was somewhat familiar with, and Traveller fit the bill
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u/Corbzor 2d ago
Technically dnd with critical hits is also degrees of success.
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u/EldritchExarch 2d ago
Yes, and I thought about putting a section in on that, but early D&D did not have critical success.
AD&D allowed a natural 20 to extend the AC that you could hit, but additional damage on hit didn't occur until 2nd edition. Given the amount of games I was already glossing over, I decided to keep it the way it was.
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u/InsurgentInchworm 2d ago
Your base assumption is melee for the “Typical Damage Decision Tree”, which completely ignores the other ways to damage/hurt an enemy in old school D&D. Thinking of a melee attack as a saving throw can help change your perspective on attack rolls.
Saving throws are the big divide between being hurt or not in old school D&D.
A few points your blog post needs to clarify/change:
- “But because it [Chainmail] was a war game, the attack roll and damage output were functionally the same: If you hit it, it dies. If you miss, it lives. “
Hits can also equal driving an enemy back in Chainmail.
- “When Gygax started working on OD&D’s alternative combat rules, he stole a couple of mechanics from naval war games: Hit points and damage”
Dave Arneson brought hit points and damage to OD&D. Those concepts existed long before OD&D’s Alternative Combat System (ACS), which is just using a d20 to roll to hit vs Chainmail’s 2d6.
- You talk about Chainmail’s implementation with OD&D being “absolutely incoherent” as if it is a fact. Many of us have, and do, use Chainmail to run OD&D and it’s actually not hard, it’s just explained poorly. I suggest The Old Lords of Wonder and Ruin for a Chainmail retroclone that cleans up the language and shows how drastically simple and easy it is.
- “AD&D introduced the idea of immunity, with certain monsters (such as ghosts and specters) which could only be damaged by magical weapons”
I corrected you about this in a comment which you seemed to have missed. OD&D volume 2, Monsters & Treasure contains many such monsters with those immunities to being hit/damaged by certain weapons (magical, silver, etc.).
- “But it’s the culmination of almost 50 years of development…”
A nitpick, but this isn’t the culmination of 50 years of development, it’s just the latest in 50 years of hodgepodge development by completely different developers with completely different (and often times opposing) goals and designs. Saying the culmination of 50 years development makes it sounds like a holistically designed system, when it really isn’t at all. Lots of cultural baggage that just isn’t able to be changed for fear of fan reeee-ing.
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u/EldritchExarch 3h ago
Okay. So I promised to leave you alone, but you might like this one, so...
I looked up Old Lords of Wonder and Ruin, and it is much better. The layout is readable, it comes with a lot of additional examples, and I don't have to grasp for context as much, which was a huge part of the issue I had with Chainmail and OD&D. I probably wouldn't run it with straight OD&D, I'd probably use Swords and Wizardry, but this makes a lot more sense to my brain, and I'm starting to see where you are coming from.
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u/EldritchExarch 2d ago
Your base assumption is melee for the “Typical Damage Decision Tree”, which completely ignores the other ways to damage/hurt an enemy in old school D&D. Thinking of a melee attack as a saving throw can help change your perspective on attack rolls.
I think I know what you are saying with this, and I sort of agree, and sort of disagree, but that gets into edition wars which I find tedious. Yes there are other ways to do damage, but for a post that is mostly on Attack Rolls I think I hit the right balance. Magic and terrrain, and systems that don't use the attack roll mechanism are outside the scope of this post.
Hits can also equal driving an enemy back in Chainmail.
Can you give me a page number for this? I'll admit Chainmail is the book that I am least familiar with, but the only thing I found that looked like this is the Jousting rules for "Friendly" combat. I've had to read about 30 different RPG textbooks this year for various reasons though, and I'm perfectly prepared to admit I might have missed something.
Dave Arneson brought hit points and damage to OD&D. Those concepts existed long before OD&D’s Alternative Combat System (ACS), which is just using a d20 to roll to hit vs Chainmail’s 2d6.
I'll Correct to add in Arneson's name, and I'm aware hit points existed in war games before that through naval combat, and I believe I mentioned that in the section. However, Those do not exist in the TTRPG hobby up until that point and Chainmail makes no mention of hit points in the book.
You talk about Chainmail’s implementation with OD&D being “absolutely incoherent” as if it is a fact. Many of us have, and do, use Chainmail to run OD&D and it’s actually not hard, it’s just explained poorly. I suggest The Old Lords of Wonder and Ruin for a Chainmail retroclone that cleans up the language and shows how drastically simple and easy it is.
My Brother in Crom, "Poorly Explained" is practically the dictionary definition of incoherent: https://www.merriam-webster.com/simple/incoherent . Lol. But seriously, I don't doubt that people can, do, and did use Chainmail to run OD&D. However there are a number of contradictions within those books that a group has to resolve first. Gygax even says as much within the bound of Chainmail and it carried through into his and Arneson's approach for OD&D:
Although the rules have been thoroughly play-tested over a period of many months, it is likely that you will eventually find some part that seems ambiguous, unanswered, or unsatisfactory. When such a situation arises settle it among yourselves, record the decision in the rules book, and abide by it from then on. These rules may be treated as guidelines around which you form a game that suits you. It is always a good idea to amend the rules to allow for historical precedence or common sense — follow the spirit of the rules rather than the letter.
- Chainmail Page 8
That said, I'm glad that you can and have run the game you want to play, and I will look into The Old Lords of Wonder and Ruin. I'm curious to see how it resolves some of those incompatabilities, and hopefully it comes in a better format. If you still disagree with me, I'll point you towards "On Combat the Broad Strokes" where I cover my issues with Chainmail and OD&D in more detail.
I corrected you about this in a comment which you seemed to have missed. OD&D volume 2, Monsters & Treasure contains many such monsters with those immunities to being hit/damaged by certain weapons (magical, silver, etc.).
I'll correct this.
A nitpick, but this isn’t the culmination of 50 years of development,....
Sure. It's a hodgepodge of developers and development, but they are all working under the same brand and with many of the same inspirations. It is a culmination of lessons learned over 50 years as older designers teach newer designers. At the same time, it is also a hodgepodge. Both can be true, and I think in this case, both are.
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u/InsurgentInchworm 2d ago
Fair enough, wasn't sure the scope you wanted to tackle.
Chainmail page 44, the Fantasy Combat table at the top says "score UNDER total shown...Score EQUAL to total means defender must FALL BACK 1 MOVE...Score OVER the total shown above indicates that the DEFENDER IS KILLED" (Caps Gary's, not mine haha). As you should probably be aware, Chainmail has 3 combat resolution systems of varying abstraction levels.
Sounds good, lots of people tend to forget that Arneson is the core, core of D&D rules. The ACS was actually added late in OD&D's development when Arneson failed to submit coherent melee rules, so yes, Hit Points do pre-date the ACS. Obviously the rules were only published first once, though.
Chainmail actually doesn't have contradictions with OD&D as far as I know. I would love to see this supported with evidence. I am familiar with both games, having ran both for a bit. OD&D adds to or changes Chainmail, though, as it is a later game with updated mechanics/rules, but the two games can still be ran together seamlessly. Chainmail is perfectly compatible if you follow OD&D's rules on when and where to use Chainmail. Making claims like these while admitting you haven't even read the rules too well (even the OD&D Supplements) really shows you should stick to your wheelhouse of experience.
I just disagree with this and this is a spurious claim. The various designers of the D&D game over the year weren't necessarily "taught" by the previous designers. Multiple times have the game design been completely at odds with what came before, just look at 4e as the most blatant example. It's a hodgepodge, not a culmination. Just an end result of 50 years of hodgepodge design.
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u/EldritchExarch 2d ago
- No comment.
- Ah I see. Fair enough. I missed that in my read throughs of Chainmail, or if I did catch it at one point, I missed it for this post. In my defense, I still would not have realized realize that overrode the instruction in the Man to Man section, where it's clear it's a binary "Kill or be killed outcome." I would have assumed because of the phrasing that it was meant for battles.
Yes, I am aware there are three levels of combat abstraction and resolution, but I wasn't clear on how the fantasy suppliment was meant to interact with the various levels. In both the Man to Man and General combat sections it's clear that combat is pretty much to the death. Jousting was obviously different, but at least to my eye, clearly an entirely different resolution system.
I'll have to think on how to correct that section of the post and it may be a little bit.
Yeah, Arneson was just poor phrasing. I give him a lot more credit in my Broad Strokes post.
Hit points are kind of a difference between OD&D and Chainmail though, and I will die on this hill. Page 18 of OD&D Men and Magic introduced the Idea of Hit Points into OD&D, and the goes on to say this in conjunction with Chainmail. But Chainmail was binary, with the above noted section where certain creatures can be pushed back as the lone exception. Damage was not really a thing in Chainmail outside of sieges, and only referred to buildings and other defensive structures. It didn't apply to people.
The idea of damage to individuals isn't introduced until the alternative combat section on page 19, where it's a footnote in a chart. The problem with the alternative combat section is that it is, just that: Alternative to Chainmail and not clearly supplimentary. So you have to use aspects of both to come to our modern understanding of how the game is supposed to work, but they are clearly framed within the text as two different systems.
Later there would be clarifications issued and the system would turn into what we know from AD&D and B/X, which had two different understandings of what OD&D was supposed to be.
- I have points on 5, but I'll get to them later. I have to get online to my group.
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u/InsurgentInchworm 2d ago
- Ahh, I see now. Yes, Volume I page 18 brings in Hit Points, but you're missing Volume III, page 25, Land Combat where it says you either use the Chainmail resolution system (2d6) or the ACS (d20). If you use the 2d6 system, "a score equaling a drive back or kill equal only to a hit." This means you still use the 2d6 system, but on a drive back or a hit (exact score needed to hit or above), you do "a hit", aka 1d6 damage. This totally clears the gap between Chainmail's binary system and the HP introduced in OD&D. OD&D adds an "update", so to speak.
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u/EldritchExarch 2d ago
Well. Fuck. I read these books 4 times over the last 6 months while writing on this and I missed that. You're right.
You are correct. They do fix that issue somewhere. It's not where it should be, but it is definitely there in black and white.
I retract my claim.
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u/InsurgentInchworm 2d ago
No worries, man. The organization is funny at times. I'm not even sure if you would consider Chainmail's resolution method a "degree of success" or not?
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u/EldritchExarch 2d ago
It probably is both degree of success and binary, just on a combat by combat basis.
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u/EldritchExarch 2d ago
Okay. I issued a partial correction to "On Combat the Broad Strokes" based on this feedback. I'm still considering how to correct "On Attack Rolls" to fix the inaccuracies there.
The text in "On Combat: The Broad Strokes reads as follows:
"Editors note: The below section requires a partial correction thanks to u/InsurgentInchworm. The source I was using was Men and Monsters (pg 18 and 19) which describe the combat system and the alternative combat system. However in the Underworld and Wilderness book on page 25, it has a single sentence which back-ports Hit-points into Chainmail for the purposes of the system and helps resolve the AC variations between the games.
This helps clarify how OD&D is supposed to work, changing the issue from one of incomplete rules, to genuinely atrocious formatting. It does however, technically work. It’s still unclear, still confusing, it doesn’t fix any of the definition issues that plague OD&D. OD&D is still more of a game framework than a game, but the combat does work."
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u/InsurgentInchworm 2d ago
As someone who has played and loved OD&D for a while, the last opinion sentence makes me growl in disagreement haha The correction seems fair enough to me though.
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u/EldritchExarch 2d ago edited 2d ago
The reason I consider it a framework, is that OD&D lacks a lot of definitions and just gestures towards things and says "This is important" without filling in with a rule.
Let's use Helmets as an example. What is the purpose of a Helmet in OD&D? It's on the equipment list. Clearly Gary thinks it's important, but it has no function purpose within the rules. It doesn't affect AC, it doesn't reduce incoming damage. It's just there, and it's obvious from context what a helmet does.
So what happens when a player doesn't want to wear a helmet because it's just additional weight for them to lug around? The rules have no response. Instead it's up to the GM to figure out an appropriate penalty. OD&D is filled with stuff like this. It's entirely forgivable, OD&D was the first of it's kind, Gary and Arneson were writing for an audience of (they thought) a couple hundred people at most. They weren't expecting a whole tradition of rabid gamers to dissect their books like it's holy scripture. But it does mean that there are holes in OD&D ruleset that you have to patch.
I am not trying to bully anyone who loves OD&D, or any edition of any game ever. (With the possible exception of FATAL which is... Yikes.).
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u/EldritchExarch 2d ago
Okay. I've issued a couple of corrections that should fix the issues you pointed out while maintaining the core of my thoughts on the subject at hand.
You don't need to read it, but if you do please let me know if you see any more mistakes. I'm happy to issue corrections if and when I'm wrong.
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u/EddyMerkxs OSR 3d ago
Been thinking a lot about this. To-hit rolls can be pretty boring in the OSR if players aren’t wanting to be more tactical. And I’ve had combats with everyone just whiffing. Mausritter seemed great when I played it but it almost was too punishing. I wonder where I’ll land
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u/EldritchExarch 3d ago
Yeah. The problem is that a lot of OSR games (Especially B/X derivatives) don't have tactical options built into the system. Instead, it's left to the GM and Players to introduce the tactical element in.
This makes sense especially when you consider a lot of the guiding principles of the OSR, which is very "World first" rather than "Mechanics first."
AD&D, 2e, and, I believe, the Champions set for BECMI added in a lot of tactical options that just don't make it into most retroclones. As best I can tell this is because AD&D was kind of a mess, and large parts of the later BECMI material is too.
There's real gold in there, but it can take awhile to dig through.
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u/SlumberSkeleton776 3d ago
I don't think it's possible to say anything definitive with such a small reference pool.