How realistic is your fantasy combat?

[tkdguy]

Lately, I've been doing low fantasy, even to the point of excluding magic. I've wanted to do it for a long time (since AD&D 2nd Ed. was new), but I wasn't familiar with the HERO system or GURPS at the time, and AD&D is not well-suited for such a campaign.

 

So how much realism do you include in your combat? Do you use the bleeding, disabling and impairing rules? I was sorely tempted to do so, but I decided against using them for two reasons:

1. I'm a first-time GM (for HERO, anyway), and my players are new to this system.

2. These rules don't fit very well in a swashbuckling campaign, at least in my opinion.

 

How do you people like to run combat?

[dugfromthearth]

usually use all of them, but the impairing and disabling seldom come up. With half body multiplier for limbs it is rare that someone disables one.

[lemming]

Originally posted by dugfromthearth

usually use all of them, but the impairing and disabling seldom come up. With half body multiplier for limbs it is rare that someone disables one.

IIRC, the 1/2 multiplier is not used to check to see for impairing or disabling. (I'm 500 miles from my Hero books, so check it)

 

On the main thread. I don't tend to go for that much realism. The games where we had to deal with every little nick & scratch and slowly heal made the games rather tedious. We also had a GM who kept throwing stuff at us like we were fresh.

 

One of the best games I was in, was a game where we played Vikings. None of the PCs cast magic and most actual magic could be explained away as swamp gas.

However, the GM did one thing. We were able to heal our selfs to full between adventures. No tedious tracking our wounds.

The game was great for much more, but it was something we didn't have to deal with.

 

So my suggestion, use as many in combat rules you want, but let the characters heal up before the next crisis.

 

Afterall, if we wanted to be realistic, they'd probably have to roll against their CON everytime they got cut to see if they died of infection.

 

[Talon]

For my low fantasy games, I use disabling/impairing, but not bleeding. IMO, the bleeding rule is seriously messed up -- the chance to stop bleeding gets better as you get more wounded. I don't use the wounding rule either, mainly because it tends to irritate players at the worst possible time: right after their character has been hit.

 

I also use an exhaustion rule (penalties to CV and skills as END drops) which was very well received by the players.

[Victor]

Originally posted by Talon

the chance to stop bleeding gets better as you get more wounded.

 

An alternate way to handle the chance to handle the chance to stop bleeding (for the rules on pp. 279-280 of 5th Ed. Hero) might be to reduce the number of dice of bleeding by one for every die that comes up a 1. That makes bleeding considerably more deadly, though... large wounds may never close.

 

Paramedics/Healer/Chirurgeon becomes a much more valuable skill if you're using some kind of bleeding rules, and if you want to emphasize the effects of characters' skills over magic (or have no magic) it might be worth using for that alone.

 

For a swashbuckling/cinematic feel, you probably don't want to use it. You could perhaps declare that the bleeding rules only apply out of combat, so the swordplay can continue, and still have someone struggle to deliver a message afterwards with their life flowing from a clutched wound.

[Markdoc]

I've used hit locations (essential, in my opinion). I do not use disabling/impairing, although I have been thinking about it.

 

The bleeding rules as pointed out, are messed up. instead I use a simple house rule: Characters below 0 BOD must make a CON roll at -1 for every -1 BOD when they perform a violent action (anything that uses END, normally). If they fail, their wounds open and they begin to bleed again. Bleeding can of course be stopped by magical healing or bandaging the wound, etc.

 

This puts a premium on having someone with good paramedic (healing) skills. It also forces badly wounded characters to limp along slowly, dump all their heavy gear, shun combat, etc. In other words, to act like they are badly wounded.

 

It had the unanticipated side effect of leading to the occasional "heroic action" where a character shrugs off his wounds to carry out some important action, with blood leaking cinematically from their mouth and nose...

 

cheers, Mark

[CorpCommander]

New GM +2months

 

Ok, I've been running since around the end of August. For the starting characters we've had simplified armor, we didn't track endurance, we did use normal and killing attacks.

 

We've since added endurance. We've differentiated all the armor types (regular, resistant, hardened, etc.)

 

After the end of this major battle I will add in combat locations. All of my players are newbies too. Some of us have played in years past but not recently. Take it slow. You will begin to see why everything is in there and how it all makes sense.

 

Definitely start off easy though. I have one other guy that helps me with the speed chart to count impulses.

[Vondy]

Not very... and I run an extremely low magic game, too. Its rare, but not weak. I just made it cost so much that most players don't want to dedicate points to it. It allows for big nasty plot device mages who are few and far between.

 

I divide combatants into two camps: dramatis personae and goons. dramatis personae have things slanted in their favor, be they good guys or bad guys. Goons get the shaft. If a goon gets hit with a blow that would impair or disable them, or they get con stunned, they generally go down for the count. They only get up if it serves a dramatic purpose.

 

Dramatis Personae have the following:

 

Hit Locations: Called Shots Only (Otherwise: Chest)

Disabling/Impairing: GM Option (Dramatic License)

Bleeding: No

 

And the following house rule: dramatis personae have script immunity to avoid catastrophic failures, grevious wounds, or "no one could have survived that " situations. It requires an ablative activation roll, so repeated uses of script immunity gets progressively more difficult...

 

First Attempt: 14-

Second Attempt: 12-

Third Attempt: 11-

Fourth Attempt: 10-

Fifth Attempt: 8-

Sixth Attempt: there is no sixth attempt

 

Uber Bad Guys usually get a 15- or less roll and progress from there.

 

In a world without abundant healing and limited to bronze age technology... things can get extremely nasty, even with rules set for dramatic license.