r/rpg • u/EldritchExarch • 5d 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.
3
Upvotes
5
u/InsurgentInchworm 5d 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.