Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on December 12, 2021, 10:19:13 PM
An old school element in D&D having elements that are not a perfect fit?

SHUT UP! How DARE you! Old school elements where perfect until whiners DARED attempt to improve on them in any way.
Thats the real reason man was cast down from heaven. Because Eve asked if they could use a armor as damage reduction system!

You know, considering the drought and general dry conditions right now, you might want to be careful with any fire.  All those straw-men you've surrounded yourself with are liable to go up in a heartbeat, and you'd be in a world of hurt...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 12, 2021, 11:18:43 PMYou know, considering the drought and general dry conditions right now, you might want to be careful with any fire.  All those straw-men you've surrounded yourself with are liable to go up in a heartbeat, and you'd be in a world of hurt...

I don't even hate AC or streamlining. But classic fans are the only ones that have unironically told me that the past systems having glaring problems was a good thing because it made you aware that homebrewing was an option (and then also said it didn't have any said flaws at the same time). That system mastery = the game getting easier (and that being a feature of the game and not every game ever). I have heard more rediculous defenses thrown in the defense of 0D&D then I have of any other system. And there are things that 0D&D does better, but so many of the defenses I have heard are just ludicristly baised.

To continue this pained metaphor: Im not surrounded by strawmen. Just a group that insists on wearing and building everything out of straw.

Quote from: Ocule on December 12, 2021, 04:24:23 PM
So I've been thinking, why is an unarmored fighter just as easy to hit as an unarmored wizard. Why doesn't the game factor in your ability to parry blows at least in melee

Because AC is only one factor. Hit points is another. Both "work together" in D&D's abstract model, and the hit points aren't just how much damage you can physically take, but also how good you are at defense and avoiding damage that might have killed a "normal man" with average hit points. Eight points of damage to a zero-level "normal man" will take him down. The same eight points of damage to a 4th level "hero" might give him a scratch or a bruise instead of a mortal wound. And the same eight points of damage to a 9th level "lord" might mean the blow was completely dodged or deflected, just using up some of the lord's endurance.

Quote from: Ocule on December 12, 2021, 04:24:23 PM
So I've been thinking, why is an unarmored fighter just as easy to hit as an unarmored wizard. Why doesn't the game factor in your ability to parry blows at least in melee

Why does it matter?

I'm not saying it's a silly concern. But why it matters has something to do with the answer. An attack role presumably has some intent. If the intent is to kill, it is certainly not true that a fighter is just as easy to kill as a magic-user. Or if the intent merely is to hit because you've applied some poison to the weapon, then the question is whether or not the poison takes effect. And the answer to that is, the likelihoods do differ between the fighter and magic-user according to the saving throw.

But if we are talking about a die roll, which doesn't exist in the game world, and whether or not it beats some target number based on some stats that also don't exist in the game world? If question pertains to the mathematical abstractions used in D&D, the answer to the question is... it's a mathematical abstraction. Abstractions gonna abstract.

It's one of the reasons I play Savage Worlds for my D&D.

The ability to be hit, is literally keyed off of the ability to Fight (in melee) - for Ranged it's static (with modifiers based on range/cover). Armor absorbs damage. Everyone has the same HP. What makes the distinction between a caster and fighter in terms of "having more HP" is the tendency for fighter-types to have more stamina to recover from being stunned by glancing blows etc. and this is not a universal truism for casters.

I agree with what Kyle says - systems are just abstractions. A GM should choose the system that expresses the abstractions to *their* satisfaction. If the abstraction(s) of the system rub you the wrong way - find one that does.

I generally believe that the OSR/D&D depends more on familiarity than any kind of mechanical fidelity to these abstractions for its popularity. The AC/HP discussion is one that is decades old and ongoing. At this point, I've always wondered why it persists when there have been so many other options, even within the D&D/d20 community that have provided many many options to this particular sacred cow.

From my vantage - it's a cow that happily sits in its pasture. It provides milk to those that enjoy it.

I don't find AC/HP to be a good abstraction as it falls apart the second any sort of combat manuever comes into play.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on December 13, 2021, 01:30:06 PM
I don't find AC/HP to be a good abstraction as it falls apart the second any sort of combat manuever comes into play.

I agree with you.

1. Really well thought out combat maneuver meshing perfectly with attacker's strength and defenders weakness.
2. You hit! Roll damage.
3. Roll a 4.
4. Do that a dozen more times until it dies.

You could just skip 1.

Quote from: rytrasmi on December 13, 2021, 01:52:13 PM
You could just skip 1.

Im sorry I don't understand your point.

I actually prefer to increase AC with level instead of Hp. The game plays differently then, of course. Normal armor (except shields) leads to damage reduction. There was a similar system in the 3e version of Unearthed Arcana. I can't remember if there was anything like it in AD&D, though.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on December 13, 2021, 01:56:52 PM

Quote from: rytrasmi on December 13, 2021, 01:52:13 PM
You could just skip 1.

Im sorry I don't understand your point.

Sorry, my scenario was poorly written. Some systems (and GMs unfortunately) boil it all down to roll to hit and roll damage. Any kind of tactic or creativity get answered with "roll to hit." This is what I meant. Item 1 is skipped because the system or GM doesn't allow for it.

Quote from: rytrasmi on December 13, 2021, 04:03:28 PMSorry, my scenario was poorly written. Some systems (and GMs unfortunately) boil it all down to roll to hit and roll damage. Any kind of tactic or creativity get answered with "roll to hit." This is what I meant. Item 1 is skipped because the system or GM doesn't allow for it.

While any system can suffer from this sort of thing, I find HP suffers more then a wound system. I find systems that just let you tank hits are pretty rare.

Was talking about this issue some more over discord and someone did point out how your ability to dodge, parry, and block. So for narration purposes a successful hit could be described as blocked or parried.

"You  swing your axe at the bandit he raises his shield. Your strike leaves a gash in the wooden shield. He takes 5 damage"

With that description the bandit took no physical damage other than the fatigue and strain involved with blocking the strike but the bandit would be over half hit points.


Alternative I can see a system working where each class gains a defensive bonus to their "AC" based on their hit dice, shield and dex. If a strike is successful then damage is dealt is reduced by armor, or perhaps an all or nothing armor save.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament on December 13, 2021, 11:35:45 AM

Quote from: Ocule on December 12, 2021, 04:24:23 PMSo I've been thinking, why is an unarmored fighter just as easy to hit as an unarmored wizard. Why doesn't the game factor in your ability to parry blows at least in melee

Because AC is only one factor. Hit points is another. Both "work together" in D&D's abstract model, and the hit points aren't just how much damage you can physically take, but also how good you are at defense and avoiding damage that might have killed a "normal man" with average hit points. Eight points of damage to a zero-level "normal man" will take him down. The same eight points of damage to a 4th level "hero" might give him a scratch or a bruise instead of a mortal wound. And the same eight points of damage to a 9th level "lord" might mean the blow was completely dodged or deflected, just using up some of the lord's endurance.

Well explained. Also, in some versions of the rules a high dexterity allows for an AC adjustment, which continues to factor in the dodge or parry concept.

I've played in rules sets which are more "realistic" but they don't do the job better than AC and HP do it, IMO. I have found that "realistic" tends to imply "more bookkeeping" and the final result is pretty much the same as AC/HP.

Quote from: finarvyn on December 13, 2021, 05:40:18 PM
I've played in rules sets which are more "realistic" but they don't do the job better than AC and HP do it, IMO. I have found that "realistic" tends to imply "more bookkeeping" and the final result is pretty much the same as AC/HP.

This is something Bill and I have discussed on more than one of our streams. In scientific measurements we have accuracy, and precision. They're different things. Accuracy is how close to the true measure it is, precision is how many decimal points you have. If I say, "I'm six foot tall, plus or minus two inches," this is accurate, but not precise. If I say, "I'm 6 foot tall, plus or minutes one-sixteenth of an inch," this is not accurate, but it is precise. In fact I'm 5'10".

It's common for the media, politicians and so on to use precision to imply accuracy. If I predict, "the reserve bank interest rate will go up next year," it's probably going to be accurate, but it's not very precise, so nobody will be impressed even if I'm right. If I say, "it will go up by 1.22579%" it's so precise that people assume it must be accurate, and even if I turn out to be wrong I'll still be an authority people will call on to appears on news shows as a talking head.

Likewise in game system design, people confuse a plethora of details and charts and so on - precision - with realism - accuracy.

And of course that's not so. It can be light and reasonable, and astoundingly complex and bollocks.

The AC as making it harder to hit you vs absorbing damage thing is not a question of realism, since neither of them get you realistic results - because we also have escalating hit points. If you want to make a naked fighter better than a naked wizard at not getting hit, cool - but then, using the same reasoning, nobody should ever be rolling 9d6 for their hit points. And if nobody has 9d6 hit points, then should there really be spells which can do 9d6 damage?

Wait, so we just wanted to change how hard it was for a naked fighter to get hit, now we're also changing hit points and spells?

So when you mess with one part of the system you end up having to mess with other parts of the system, too. And then you may as well write your own. I endorse writing your own game system, I've done it several times! One, the adventure game of modern warfare, is in my sig. But it's a big task to do it properly. You have to playtest and everything, and be prepared for people to pick it apart the way we're all sitting here and picking apart D&D.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on December 12, 2021, 10:07:53 PM
...
By itself, armour class makes no sense. By itself, levelling up makes no sense. By itself, hit points make no sense. But when you put these things together, you get something which is of course not realistic, but is reasonable.

Great comments on precision vs accuracy by the way.

However, I have to quote your earlier remarks to make a point: Reasonable to whom?

To grognards who have been steeped in the various D&D and OSR iterations for decades? Yes, it is reasonable given the decades to mull it over (and perhaps a bit of Stockholm syndrome going on). It's easy and elegant because we've been doing it that way the whole time and we understand THAC0, too, so there.

I've introduced quite a few people to various flavors of D&D, OSR, and other games (DCC, BRP-likes, etc.) and I've heard more than a few comment about how d20 roll to hit against AC is confusing or just weird. I could quote several people close to me who've suffered through learning many new systems at my whim.

In my experience, by far the easiest to grok is d100 roll under your skill, and any added complexity, such as parrying rolls, hit locations, and armor as damage reduction are usually viewed as welcome clarification to what the fuck is going on during combat. The perhaps elegant abstraction of AC and HP (whether an intended touch by a genius designer or an accident of history that is backfilled with rationale) is often view as too abstract and the gain in speed is not worth the loss in comprehension. Even basic grognard assumptions about needless crunch slowing the game down do not hold with new players as much as one might expect. Slow and mildly crunchy is often easier to imagine than fast and abstract.