Everyone is trying to find a way to stop making multiple dice rolls just to make an attack in D&D-style combat.
Well, okay, not everyone, but certainly it is discussed a lot. From the "auto-hit" of Into the Odd-style combat, to the more recent exploration of the "Kubular method" of attack rolls by Marcia B. of Traverse Fantasy, and many more discussions in between, many of the best and brightest of the old-school and adjacent scenes have explored the idea and continue to do so.
I am certainly not one of the best and brightest, however, I have been thinking a lot about this. My issue is twofold: I like making as few dice rolls as possible, and I hate numbers. Even basic math, if needed regularly, takes me out of the game. I know this is a personal problem, but hey, doesn't all good innovation come from tight constraints? Probably not, but whatever.
In a new rule system I'm tinkering with, combat is resolved by a single roll-off between the attacker and the... character being attacked. (There isn't a good word for that, and frankly its frustrating. Target? Whatever, I'm getting off track.) Whoever wins the roll-off kills the other, simple as that. This removes hit points from PCs and NPCS alike, and it lets characters make only a single dice roll when they want to attack.
BUT WAIT, I can hear you screaming already. A single dice roll and a PC dies? That seems unfair, even for the so-called "ultra-deadly" nature of old-school style games. You are right, that is unfair. That's why, in this rule system, there are also several ways to avoid death.
Basically, the rule goes like this: if your character would die, you can give something up to avoid death. What you are allowed to give up depends entirely on the circumstance, but "something" could conceivably be anything.
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| Retiring Wounded from Battle, 1779, by Robert Blyth, after John Hamilton Mortimer (National Gallery of Art) |
Maybe its a shield or another piece of armor because you are fighting in a tight melee.
You might say that your torchbearer, formerly cowering in the corner just hoping that he will live to see the two gold pieces you promised to pay him, suddenly feels a self-sacrificial love for this weird adventurer and jumps in front of you to take an arrow that would have otherwise killed you.
Say a grenade lands at your feet, but you dive behind a concrete barrier just in time. Of course, the grenade blasts apart that potential cover spot, but that's a small price to pay for your life.
If a barbarian rushes you, a puny mage, filled with the rage cultivated in his mind against all magic by generations of tradition, you might have time to hold up your spellbook just in time for his axe to sink into it instead of your skull.
Maybe you are fighting a master swordsman face to face, and you realize that the move you just made gives him the perfect opening to slash your stomach open, spilling your guts all over the gravel-strewn floor of this ancient ruin. Instead of dying that most grisly death, you could turn your body and take the hit on your arm, severing it from your body but saving your life.
While the examples I give above are probably what I would expect to happen in the rule system I am creating, this combat style could probably be ported into just about any TTRPG out there. Here are some ideas:
For roll-off systems, simply use the rules I've talked about above.
For roll-to-hit systems like D&D, just remove HP and make each hit deadly, unless characters sacrifice something to live. You could even let characters give up their special abilities, which would allow 5e characters to take more hits than their old-school counterparts.
Yes, I know that would mean that character classes with more abilities like wizards would technically be able to take more hits than relatively simple, combat-focused classes like fighters, but I'm sure a solution can be found to this. For example, maybe fighters and similar classes are the only ones capable of taking serious wounds (severed limbs, gouged-out eyes, etc.) while less combat-focused classes cannot. Also, combat-focused classes are typically better at avoiding hits.
I don't really know how I would put these rules into an Into the Odd-style combat system, and frankly, I'm not going to try. They've already got their own thing going on.
No matter the system, a problem still remains. Do NPCs get to avoid death the same way PCs do? If they don't, then they will fall much quicker then PCs (which might be a good thing, depending on how you like to play). If they do, then every fight will be a slog of missing limbs and shattered swords (which would be boring regardless of how you like to play).
Here's my solution: the weakest enemies (which I call "Grunts" and roughly translates to HD 1-3) can only sacrifice their armor to avoid death. Stronger enemies (which I call "Elites" and roughly translates to HD 4-6) can sacrifice any item plus a single body part. The strongest enemies (which I call "Lords" and roughly translates to HD 7+) can sacrifice anything a PC can, including weaker characters under their control.
Also, for this method, I prefer to split armor into pieces, similar to how VyrmHack by Feral Indie Studios does it. In fact, this game's armor piece mechanic was a major point of inspiration for this style of combat. I know other games do armor pieces too, this is just the one that inspired me the most because it explicitly encourages PCs to sacrifice pieces of armor to avoid damage.
My other main source of inspiration for this style of combat is the very interesting experiment called To The Best There Ever Was [A contextless engine for victory] by Manwad. It is, also, a combat mechanic with little context, and it has been living rent-free in my brain since I read it.
Here's what I think this style of combat does best: it shows the weight of violence.
Even in old-school games, combat (to me) doesn't feel meaningful when its just numbers going down. Only when someone dies or loses something does the weight of violence actually rear its head.
But I think that weight should be highlighted. Violence is destructive. If you want to fight someone, or you are forced to because of your poor choices, you have to be willing to give something up. Sometimes, you might have to give up a lot, and maybe you'll never get that stuff back. Players should be prepared for this eventuality instead of feeling like, "Oh, I've still got some hit points left. I'm not too worried about a fight right now."
This further emphasizes the old-school maxim of "combat as war, not as sport" or whatever the exact wording is. Each fight is potentially deadly and, more than that, could potentially force you to give up something you want or need.
Obviously, this system of avoiding death can also expand beyond combat to traps and environmental hazards.
What do you think about this combat style? How would you implement it in your favorite TTRPG? What potential problems do you see with this style? Let me know in the comments below.