12-09-2020, 04:44 AM
While typing some stuff for the Restatement, I decided to--you know--actually play it.
It was pretty much just testing out physical combat with family so I threw random monsters at them with little rhyme or reason. Players were evenly distributed in the range of 10 to 35 years old.
One thing that was quickly apparent is there's too much math (at least in melee). At least for me on the fly. To do it properly I feel you'd need to precalculate everything but once you have multiple characters and monsters it's becomes a real pain. Missile combat was used mostly as is and worked quite well. We also didn't keep precise movement records and ignored terrain completely, so that'll be something to pay attention to next time.
We fiddled with magic a bit, but not enough to really be able to have an opinion on it yet. I did change a couple things for it (some of which might go back into the Restatement), but haven't really sat down and tried to "fix" it.
So, without further ado, the Adventures in Fantasy quickplay rules I came up with:
Character creation:
1d100 per required stats: STR, DEX, INT, HLT
Player can reroll any stat that ends up < 30.
Didn't use KNO or STA, nor any rule that used them.
Hit points are either 10 (human average) or (STR + DEX + HLT) / 3, player's choice.
Just averaging the stats seemed easier and made more sense than doing the actual formula in the book and actually didn't make too much of a difference in some of the generated characters.
Combat sequence:
Remains unchanged:
Allocate magic, Optional elf missile, Move, Missile, Melee, Magic effect
Melee combat:
Get base to-hit for target:
Damage:
1d6 adjusted by STR modifier
Ignored hit locations
Armor:
When hit, roll to see if deflected/reduced.
Shield:
No helmet since not using hit locations
Missile combat:
We mostly used the written rules as is and they worked well enough.
Must be trained in weapon to fire it at all.
Get base chance to-hit based on weapon:
It was pretty much just testing out physical combat with family so I threw random monsters at them with little rhyme or reason. Players were evenly distributed in the range of 10 to 35 years old.
One thing that was quickly apparent is there's too much math (at least in melee). At least for me on the fly. To do it properly I feel you'd need to precalculate everything but once you have multiple characters and monsters it's becomes a real pain. Missile combat was used mostly as is and worked quite well. We also didn't keep precise movement records and ignored terrain completely, so that'll be something to pay attention to next time.
We fiddled with magic a bit, but not enough to really be able to have an opinion on it yet. I did change a couple things for it (some of which might go back into the Restatement), but haven't really sat down and tried to "fix" it.
So, without further ado, the Adventures in Fantasy quickplay rules I came up with:
Character creation:
1d100 per required stats: STR, DEX, INT, HLT
Player can reroll any stat that ends up < 30.
Didn't use KNO or STA, nor any rule that used them.
Hit points are either 10 (human average) or (STR + DEX + HLT) / 3, player's choice.
Just averaging the stats seemed easier and made more sense than doing the actual formula in the book and actually didn't make too much of a difference in some of the generated characters.
Combat sequence:
Remains unchanged:
Allocate magic, Optional elf missile, Move, Missile, Melee, Magic effect
Melee combat:
Get base to-hit for target:
- 40% for humans to hit anything
- Monsters 75% to hit character
- Monsters 50% to hit each other (not used)
- Why? 40% is listed for humans and the monster body types average out to 40%. The other values are the averages from the table. I don't want to keep looking up body types in the bestiary.
- Halve base to-hit if character has no training with weapon, full to-hit otherwise.
- Why? The 1/3, 2/3 modifiers were hard to use in combat. The weapon use skills are really multiple levels based off time, but I didn't want to deal with that so just made it a single one with half efficacy (you'll find most thirds become halves in these rules). Also, training is only needed when you don't use the weapon in combat (which I liked so much I added it to the Restatement).
- Every character now has a "THACDEX50": a character gets a +1 for every 5 points their DEX is over 50, or a -1 for every 5 points under 50.
- The spread between the modifiers gets added to the one with the highest DEX and subtracted from one with lowest. A spread of 10 is the max.
- Any creature without a listed DEX is assumed to have 50 (which means just the modifier is used)
- Why? The DEX modifier is some of the math you have to do the most. I finally figured out I could precalculate the modifier based on 50 (which is the default for monsters who have no listed DEX) and use that with little change in the results. I also changed the divisor from 4 to 5 to make it easier to calculate.
- I was super tempted to just use the DEX modifiers from missile combat instead. It wouldn't work both ways, and the results are different, but you could easily precalculate it.
- Add the difference in HD times 2 to the smaller character and subtract from the larger character.
- Max is 10.
- Why? For some reason, this one messed with me the most. I also kept forgetting to do it.
The HP difference doesn't make much sense to me. A human with more HP might be a bit bigger but not enough for this to be a thing "in reality". Using HD makes more sense, makes the math easier, comes into play less often, and results in about the same outcomes. Gives players with high hit points less of an advantage, though.
Made the max 10 in both directions since 10 is the max everywhere else.
- Again, tempted just to use the missile combat table here.
- Add the difference in experience levels to the higher level character and subtract from the lower level character.
- Max is 10.
- If no level provided for creature, use HD.
Damage:
1d6 adjusted by STR modifier
- STR modifier: 0-30STR/1HD: half damage, 31-70STR/2HD: normal damage, 71-100STR/3HD: double damage
Ignored hit locations
Armor:
When hit, roll to see if deflected/reduced.
Shield:
- Blow deflected (no damage) on success
- Small: 25, Large: 65
- Melee damage reduced by half on success
- Why? Easier to halve than do thirds. This makes the armors different based on chance to reduce damage and arrow rules, not amount of damage reduces.
- Leather: 55, Chainmail: 60, Full plate: 90
- Leather armor doesn't stop arrows
- Long range against non-leather armor: short bows do no damage, non-short bows do half damage
- Short / medium range against non-leather armor: short bows do half damage, non-short bows do full damage
- Simplified version of the rules in the book.
No helmet since not using hit locations
Missile combat:
We mostly used the written rules as is and they worked well enough.
Must be trained in weapon to fire it at all.
Get base chance to-hit based on weapon:
- Long range: 10%
- Medium range: 20%
- Short range: 50%
- Composite bow, Long bow: 200 yds, 100 yds, 50 yds
- Crossbow: 170 yds, 100 yds, 50 yds
- Short bow: 150 yds, 75 yds, 30 yds
- Bow ranges same as in book.
- Replace the base to-hit based on target HD:
- 1HD: 5/10/20
- 2HD: 10/20/40
- 4HD: 15/30/60
- 6HD: 20/40/80
- 8HD: 25/50/90
- 10HD: 30/60/90
- Chart is new, but close to the original, I just made it more regular. It tops out at 90% like the original does despite making things a bit easier to hit in short range.
- It's an optional rule in the book, and I probably should have just ignored it, but it worked OK enough.
- -1 to hit for every 5 DEX under 30
- +1 to hit for every 5 DEX over 70
- If mounted, -10% to hit (tens place).
- Used this a couple times and it wasn't that hard to use but could be ignored completely with little consequence. Also realized the rules never say if it only applies while just mounted or moving, so the Restatement now specifies moving.
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