Multiple Opponents

Something that should count for a heck of a lot in a fight is numbers, but this is something that's basically irrelevant in D&D right through 3E. 3E added a "flanking bonus" of +2. I don't think that's nearly enough. Fighting while outnumbered should be terrifying.

What I propose is this. The opponent you're attacking has to beat your Defense to hit you. Anyone else fighting you only has to beat the minimum Defense score (9 in descending style systems, or 10 in ascending).

That means that if your Defense is 3 against one opponent (descending Armour Class style), it's 9 against a second or third. I think this is probably still a little generous, but it has the benefit of simplicity. This would make the party really think before engaging a superior force (as they should), and seek every opportunity to isolate enemies and defeat them in detail (as they should).

I also see there being a level bonus (maybe every odd level for Fighters) that lets you fight an additional opponent without penalty. Or maybe a feat. The point is, being able to fight multiple opponents without penalty should be a hard-won privilege, not the right of every stable hand that picks up a sword.

This elegant treatment is made possible by divorcing defensive abilities from armour.

Plugging This Stuff into Basic D&D - Draft One

Experiments in practicality here. This is a stab at plugging some of my ideas in as a drop-in replacement for the B/X / BECMI combat system.

Weapons and Armour - D&D Style

Let's rewrite the Weapon Behaviour chart I made with numbers that make sense in standard D&D. Read Attack as being added to the attack roll, Defense as Descending Armour Class, and armour reduction as moving the armour one category lower (i.e. plate to mail, mail to cloth, cloth to none).

Weapon	Attack	Defense	Armour Reduction	Hands	Damage
Daggers, etc.	+0	7	0	1	2d6-H
Swords, Spears, Staffs	+2	3	0	1-2	1d6
Axes, Maces (1-handed)	+0	7	1	1	1d6
Halberds, Poleaxes, etc.	+2	3	1	2	2d6-L

Armour Type	Damage Reduction
None or Normal Clothes	0
Cloth (Leather)	1
Mail (Scale, Splint, Banded)	2
Plate and Mail (Full Plate, Brigandine)	4

Damage Reduction

Simply reduce the damage taken by the damage reduction score, but never to less than one.

Running This

This should play out pretty similarly to regular D&D, with the exceptions that weapon choice matters, sleeping in armour is no longer a complete necessity, weapon and armour lists have been simplified into a few simple categories, and the stats are easier to conceptualize due to representing one clear thing. Also, dropping your weapon is a big problem. Backup weapons anyone?

Converting Monsters

Converting monsters should be pretty simple, too. Anything with normal flesh and no armour or weapons would have no damage reduction, and Defense would likely be in the 7-9 range (i.e. 9 for a zombie, maybe 7 for a wolf, due to its agility). Anything wearing armour or using a weapon would have DR or Attack/Defense adjustments just like the players do.

I figure 1 point of DR for AC 7, and double DR for each point after that (which is how the armour table is derived, as well). So AC 3 is DR 4, AC 1 is DR 8, AC 0 would be DR 12. This should serve to make for really terrifying "tough" monsters, which is as it should be in my mind. How are you planning to kill that being made of stone? With your sword? Good luck. You're going to need magic...

Logarithmic Advancement in Old-School Games

I was originally going to leave this as a comment at Untimately: Hexagram Advancement Draft, but it got kind of unwieldy for a comment.

As Brendan says, most people increase challenges and rewards to keep advancement at about the same real-world rate at every level, but let's imagine for a second a campaign where those bigger challenges and rewards just don't exist... What you'll see is fast advancement at low level, and slow advancement at high level that eventually tapers off to nothing. Every adventure will pull in, say, 8000xp, but if you need 1,000,000xp to get to the next level, that's basically never going to happen.

In something like the real world, you can only get so good at fighting - say about 5th level in D&D. If you want to get more powerful than that in real life, you have to become a warlord, baron, king, etc. - which is pretty much what was sketched out in OD&D, B/X, and BECMI. I think the fact that there's levels in the game beyond a certain point (I don't know what that is, but between 5 and 9, probably) is the real illusion - you shouldn't practically be able to get to those levels. And, if you play in a campaign where there aren't dragons around every corner, you won't.

Now, those systems allowed you to use domain-level play to increase your fighting capability (IIRC), whereas I think only gold found during adventuring should count for XP, but that's another issue. The point is, the old systems could be looked at as attempting to place the higher levels practically out of reach, and thus enforcing a logarithmic progression.

I think this might be one of those things that was less broken (or just differently broken) than people thought it was, and that they house-ruled or campaign-designed into a problem.

In fact, I think the notion that all of the levels of the game should be accessible might be the dawn of the level-appropriate encounter dogma...

Weapon Behaviour - Simplifying

So, this was the weapon behaviour matrix I proposed before. I've been thinking that it's far too complicated to remember. Does the 3-inch blade length difference between an arming sword and a long sword matter? Do we really need three levels of Vs. Armour? Do we need variable damage just to accommodate complex polearms?

Weapon	Attack	Defense	Damage	Vs. Armour	Hands
Dagger	1	1	1	1	1
Arming Sword	2	2	1	0	1
Long Sword	2	2	1	1	2
Axe/Mace	1	1	1	2	1
Spear	2	2	1	1	2
Poleaxe	2	2	2	2	2

I've drafted a new, simpler version. Six columns to four, reduced all stats to two levels, and damage will now be classed by small, one-handed, and two-handed.

Weapon	Attack	Defense	Vs. Armour	Hands
Daggers, etc.	1	1	1	1
Swords, Spears, Staffs	2	2	1	1/2
Axes, Maces (1-handed)	1	1	2	1
Halberds, Poleaxes, etc.	2	2	2	2

The new version can be summarized as - daggers are good at nothing, swords and spears are good at attack and defense, axes and maces are good at penetrating armour, and complex polearms (halberd, poleaxe, etc.) are good at everything.

This sacrifices some of the detail I'd like, but I think the ease of learning and remembering is worth it.
It's a damn sight prettier than the weapons list from the D20 SRD - that list is incredibly complicated, has no internal logic, and no relation to the real world.

Roadside Encounter Generator: Groups Interacting

I whipped this up to generate some random roadside encounters that feature two groups interacting. Roll on the first table, the second table, and the first table again to get a result like, "Villagers killing knights".

Like any random generator, I think it's good to interpret the results pretty broadly. I might read a result of, "Brigands enslaving villagers" to mean that the party comes upon a town where every few weeks some thugs come to collect protection money and crack a few heads to keep people scared. Or I might just interpret it more literally - a group of slavers rounding up local folk to take to auction.

Table 1 (1d8):

1. Villagers
2. Lord & Retinue
3. Knights
4. Brigands
5. Lepers
6. Madmen
7. Wizard(s)
8. Savages (wilderness)

Table 2 (1d8):

1. Betraying
2. Worshiping
3. Enslaving
4. Traveling to see
5. Fleeing
6. Negotiating with
7. Killing
8. Being killed by 

Obviously, adjust Table 1 to include groups appropriate to the region and your campaign. You could also repeat some results on either table to make the results more likely. Maybe a war-torn region would have only villagers, knights, and lords on Table 1, and only killing, being killed by and fleeing on Table 2.

Some of the more interesting results I rolled up:

• Brigands fleeing madmen
• I quite like this... Maybe the madness is contagious? Maybe the brigands thought they'd be easy pickings, but it turns out the madmen have some kind of wild magic? Lots of possibilities.
• Savages betraying knights
• Another interesting one... Perhaps a local guide is leading the knights into an ambush? Or maybe there's a battle going on - a group of savages were fighting on the side of some knights, but are now running away, leaving the knights to certain death?
•  Villagers being killed by villagers
• Witch hunt? Inter-village rivalry? Barroom brawl gone wrong?
• Wizard(s) negotiating with lepers
• Hmmm... I like this. Why would wizards be negotiating with lepers? Maybe the wizard needs leper blood for a ritual or spell, or maybe the lepers want to settle near the wizard's tower? Maybe the lepers are actually some kind of powerful beings in disguise, or even rival wizards who've gotten sick and need help?

On Sleeping in Armour

I periodically see discussions of players sleeping in armour. Or walking around a village in plate and mail carrying a battleaxe. There should be personal and social repercussions for this behaviour. No town wants to see strange warriors walking around (especially if they're better armed than the guard, yeomanry, or especially the local knight or lord). And I think sleeping in plate armour would be pretty uncomfortable.

The problem is, standard D&D is set up to heavily encourage players to do this. Billy the Baker's Boy, known troublemaker in the town (and a 0-level human), needs a 17 to hit Merk the Merciless, travelling adventurer (and 4th level Fighter) when Merk is wearing plate and carrying a shield. Take away the plate and shield, and Billy now needs a 10 or better to hit Merk, more than a 300% increase in hit rate.

The problem here is obvious. For his own safety, Merk pretty much has to be wearing that suit all the time. It makes such a big difference that it's likely to be a matter of life and death. Now, don't get me wrong, armour does make a huge difference to survivability. If it didn't, it wouldn't have been invented. But it's far from the only factor. The skill of the warrior and the weapon they're using to defend themself are far more important.

I've talked about the problem of not considering skill and weaponry on the defense before from the angle of verisimilitude. This is a great example of how faulty mechanics lead to bizarre behaviour. Let's see what the situation looks like if we take into account skill and weaponry.

Let's consider that Merk gets +1 to his defense for each level of Fighter - that's +4. Let's also consider that he gets +4 to his defense for carrying a sword (a reasonable weapon of self-defense, and likely to be allowed in many jurisdictions). Suddenly, our 0-level human needs a 17 to hit Merk, even though he's not wearing any armour!

Simply by taking into account skill and weaponry on the defense, we've eliminated (or minimized) one of the enduring and troublesome tropes of D&D. Now, I will admit to making these numbers up to match the original D&D example. I haven't finalized this system numerically yet. If anything, though, +4 underestimates the value of a sword by a lot.

Tactical Movement

In my post on Combat Round Structure, I alluded to a variety of movements it was possible to declare. Now, the players don't need to use these exact words to describe what they're doing, but all movements they do is going to fall into one of these categories.

My concept for all of this is to make resolution as straightforward as possible. This is pretty much how descriptive combat works in any case. I'm largely just trying to classify the different plans and modes for tactical movement. I think this is a pretty complete description of how you can move in combat.

I'll also cover Attacks of Opportunity here, as they often come up in 3E as a result of movement.

Possible Movement Plans

There are six ways you could plan to move in a tactical situation:

• Close distance with opponent(s)
• A careful attempt to get into range (either melee range or missile range, as appropriate)
• Open distance with opponent(s)
• A careful attempt to create distance, usually by falling back, and includes fleeing
• Maintain distance with opponent(s)
• A careful attempt to keep the distance between you and your opponent the same, usually by circling (perhaps so a ranged attacker will stay out of melee)
• Hold your ground
• Defend yourself while moving as little as possible (defend a fallen comrade, or someone picking a lock, etc.)
• Make for an objective
• Head to a specific place (get the gem off the pedestal, go to a fallen comrade to administer first aid, etc.)
• Maneuver opponent
• Attempt to maneuver a combatant you are engaged with to where you want them (position them as a shield against missile fire, or to back them up against a chasm so you can push them in, etc.)

I think for the most part the resolution of these actions should be fairly straightforward.

A few cases:

If one combatant is trying to close, and the other maintain or open distance, and one of the combatants is moving faster, they're going to get their way. If they're the same speed, the character not trying to close can either circle, keeping the combatants

The only one which requires a separate mechanic is Maneuver Opponent, as it would not either automatically succeed, nor is its resolution obvious from common sense. I'll go into more detail on this later, but it would probably require some kind of check modified by your level and the opponents level.

Possible Movement Modes

The ways you can go about each of those movements are:

• Normal
• 3mph, 25'/round
• Default mode of movement - move at about a walking speed, ready stance
• Fast
• 6mph, 50'/round
• Jog - 50% reduction to Defense
• 9mph, 75'/round
• Run - 75% reduction to Defense
• 12mph, 100'/round
• Sprint - 100% reduction to Defense
• Can still attack at the end of a Fast move, but no added damage.
• Slow
• 1.2mph, 10'/round
•  Move while doing something (trying to light a torch, read a scroll, find that damn potion that's in your pack somewhere)
• .6mph, 5'/round
• Extra-cautious (maybe because of poor footing, slippery floor, darkness, etc.)
• Stealthy
• Variable, likely 1-6mph
• Attempt to move without being heard/seen/noticed

Regarding charges, it seems to me that any added impetus would be likely offset by your worse aim. Rather than try to figure out a lot of fiddly modifiers for that, I think it's easier, and likely equally realistic, to just ignore the issue.

Stealth will be handled with a mechanic where the GM determines (secretly) how close you get to an enemy before being noticed.

Sticklers may notice the numbers have been fudged a little to make them round.

Attacks of Opportunity

Attacks of Opportunity are stupid. Therefore, they are not included. If you're moving past someone, I think it can be safely assumed that you'll do what it takes not to get smucked. Also, if they're already engaged with someone, stopping to smuck someone else would pretty much guarantee getting smucked themself. Not really a good call.

If someone wants to attack someone moving past them, they certainly can, but that's their action for the round.

There are also no attacks of opportunity for people trying to disengage from combat. I think that whole notion got started from Hollywood depictions of swordfights, where two guys stand about two feet apart whacking each others swords. In reality, it's madness to stand that close to someone with a sword. Armed combatants stand far enough apart that either would have to take a step to land a blow - any closer, and you don't have time to defend yourself. That's a distance of about ten feet. At that range, it's very likely that you'll be able to high-tail it before the other person can get a solid blow in.