Back when this post first went live, Tunnels and Trolls Deluxe was coming, as Ken St. Andre announced on (his now defunct) trollhalla.com site. Much discussion happened concerning what should or shouldn’t be included in the new rules set.
My thought, as I commented on Ken’s post, was that T&T Deluxe might conceivably contain a core set of rules common to all past editions of the game, and a set of optional rules that one can apply so as to effectively be playing any previous edition of the game, or a mix of the rules from previous editions. Throw some new optional rules into the mix, and you have something worthy of being called Deluxe. If I understood Ken, he wasn’t going to go that route; I think he wanted to blaze new territory. That’s cool too.
Possible new rules that were discussed in various venues was an alternative combat mechanism. A good synopsis of some alternative combat mechanisms can be found on The Lone Delver site. The reasons for an alternative combat mechanic vary. Sometimes the number of dice necessary to roll are too many for some players. Sometimes combatants are too evenly matched, and the combat drags on forever. Sometimes one side of the combat comes out completely unscathed.
The spite damage rules in 5.5 and 7.x help with the situation of combats dragging on forever, and help make it so that both sides can expect to take at least some damage. Spite damage does nothing for the “buckets of dice” situation. Some people don’t mind rolling tons of dice, and that’s cool. But some people, including myself, would like a combat mechanic that places some reasonable limit on the number of dice, say 20 at most per PC or per group of monsters.
Restricting the number of dice is an easy enough problem to solve. You set the limit, let’s say 20, and then if anyone needs to roll more than that, they use averages instead of rolling the excess dice. For those who are good with calculators, it’s as simple as multiplying the number of excess dice by 3.5. For example, if you have a weapon that grants you 35 dice in combat, you roll 20 of them, and for the other 15, you multiply 15 * 3.5 = 52.5, which rounds up to 53. Roll your 20 dice, add 53, and add your other combat adds. You can even write the 53 on your character sheet, so that every time you use the same weapon, you know what the adds for the excess dice will be without having to get out the calculator. You’re basically swapping dice for adds.
If you’re using the spite damage rules, where each six rolled counts as one spite, you can calculate this for the excess dice by dividing the number of excess dice by 6 and rounding up. Those 15 excess dice would thus produce spite damage of 15 / 6 = 2.5, which rounds up to 3. Add that to the number of sixes actually rolled on the 20 dice, and that’s how much spite damage you do. You can record the spite damage for the excess dice on your character sheet, so you don’t have to calculate it every time you use the weapon. Basically, if you have some way of rolling more than 20 dice, you’re going to do some minimum amount of spite damage, no matter what you roll on the 20 dice.
If 20 dice is too many for you, reduce your limit to the max number of dice you want to roll. I personally prefer 10 dice as the max. Using 10 dice as the max, a monster with MR 150, which would normally be a 16D+75 combatant, becomes a 10D+96 combatant, with +1 spite every combat round.
SRs for Combat Resolution
I’m intrigued by the concept of resolving combat with Saving Rolls, just as any other action is resolved. Dan’s SR method described on The Lone Delver is one way to do it. I’d like to propose another. This method does away with personal combat adds, but uses attributes and MR in a different way.
Each combatant rolls an SR. The attribute to use for this SR is one of the combatant’s combat attributes: STR, DEX, LK, or SPD if you use SPD in your game. The attribute to use depends on your character type. For warriors or warrior-like character types, use the highest of the combat attributes. For wizards and other non-fighting types, use the lowest of the combat attributes. For rogues and other character types that fall somewhere in the middle, use the next-to-highest of the combat attributes.
For monster combatants, some fraction of the MR is used. If the monster is predatory or normally considered combative, use half of the MR. If the monster is not predatory and not normally considered combative, use one-fourth of the MR. In solos, consider all monsters you encounter as predatory or normally combative, unless it clearly isn’t.
All the combatants on one side add their SR totals together (not the SR levels). If a combatant rolls a critical failure (less than 5 in T&T 5.x, less than 4 in T&T 7.x), that character’s SR total is not factored in. Do the same for the other side. Compare the SR totals of the two sides to see which side has the higher total. The side with the higher total deals damage to the losing side equal to the difference, plus a roll of their combat dice and an addition of any combat adds for their weapons. The side with the lower total deals damage to the winning side equal to a roll of their combat dice, but doesn’t get to count any combat adds for weapons. This way, both sides take damage against CON and armor. Armor becomes particularly desirable. Spite damage is still calculated as the number of sixes rolled on the combat dice. Note that personal combat adds do not enter the picture. Warriors and other fighter types get to add their character level to the damage dealt, whether they win or lose the SR challenge.
Ussel: Level 2 Rogue, STR 12, CON 14, DEX 19, SPD 11, INT 18, WIZ 18, LK 25, CHR 21. Equipment: Falchion, 4D+4; Mail armor, 12 Hits taken
Ippy: Level 2 Wizard, STR 9, CON 12, DEX 23, SPD 10, INT 27, WIZ 21, LK 15, CHR 17. Equipment: Sax, 2D+5; Buckler, 3 Hits Taken; Soft Leather Armor, 5 Hits Taken
Ussel and Ippy think they are more than a match for one lone fighter, and attack. Ippy doesn’t bother with spells, trying to conserve WIZ for later use. So everyone pulls out their melee weapons and starts hacking at each other.
Grop’s combat stats are STR 31, DEX 15, SPD 17, and LK 22. Being a warrior, he uses his highest combat stat, STR 31, for his combat SRs.
Ussel’s combat stats are STR 12, DEX 19, SPD 11, and LK 25. Being a non-warrior, non-wizard, he uses his second highest combat stat, DEX 19, for his combat SRs.
Ippy’s combat stats are STR 9, DEX 23, SPD 10, LK 15. Being a wizard, he uses his lowest combat stat, STR 9, for his combat SRs.
First combat turn: Grop rolls his combat SR. He rolls (4,5) = 9. Add to STR 31 and his character level of 3 gives him an SR total of 43.
Ussel rolls his combat SR. He rolls (2,2)+(1,5) = 10. Add to DEX 19 and character level of 2 gives him an SR total of 31.
Ippy rolls his combat SR. He rolls (3,4) = 7. Add to STR 9 and character level 2 gives him an SR total of 17.
Since Ussel and Ippy are fighting together, their SR totals are added together (neither of them fumbled). So they come up with a total of 31+17=48 against Grop’s total of 43. They win the SR competition by 5 points. That’s 5 points of damage that will be going against Grop, but we still need to roll combat dice for Ussel and Ippy, and the 5 points will be added in with that when we get to that point.
Now each side rolls dice for weapons. Grop rolls 7D: (2,2,3,4,4,6,6)=27. He lost the SR challenge, so he doesn’t get to add the +3 for his weapon adds, but he still gets +3 for his character level, since he is a Warrior. He will deal 30 points of damage to Ussel and Ippy, plus 2 spite damage. Ussel and Ippy have 20 points of armor between them, so they take 10 points of damage plus 2 spite damage = 12 total damage. (This is unless you play the rule that spite damage is minimal damage, in which case they only take 10 total damage. In this example, I’m counting spite damage as extra damage, not minimal damage.) So Ussel and Ippy must split 12 points of damage on CON. They each take 6, leaving Ussel with 8 CON and Ippy with 6 CON.
Now let’s roll the combat dice for Ussel and Ippy. Ussel rolls 4D: (2,3,4,5)=14. Since he and Ippy won the SR challenge, he adds his +4 weapon adds for a total of 18. No spite damage.
Ippy rolls 2D: (3,5)=8. He also adds his +5 weapon adds for a total of 13. No spite damage.
Between Ussel and Ippy, they generate a total of 18+13=31 damage, plus the 5 damage they did from winning the SR challenge by a 5 point difference. This comes to 36 points total, which isn’t enough to get past Grop’s 40 points of armor. Ugh. They didn’t even do spite damage to Grop. Ippy thinks maybe he should have used a spell after all!
Second Combat Turn: Ippy is casting a first level TTYF this combat turn. Magic is resolved first. He makes his L1SR on INT and thus delivers 27 points of damage against Grop. Now it depends on how you play spells, but I always add the spell damage to the damage done by the spell caster’s side in the combat, and count it as minimum damage. I allow armor to stop it. Not all T&T GMs play it that way, so I’m just telling you how I play it. Magic is too powerful if it always bypasses armor. If you play it that magic bypasses armor and is dealt during the magic phase instead of the combat resolution phase, then Grop is dead now. But I’m not playing it that way, so we will wait to add Ippy’s damage of 27 to the damage that Ussel deals to Grop, and see if it exceeds 40.
Grop rolls his combat SR. He rolls (3,3)+(2,3)=11. Add to STR 31 and his character level of 3 gives him an SR total of 45.
Ussel rolls his combat SR. He rolls (5,6)=11. Add to DEX 19 and character level of 2 gives him an SR total of 32.
Since Ippy is casting a spell and not swinging a weapon in the melee, he doesn’t get a combat SR.
So Grop wallops Ussel by 13 points. That’s 13 points that Ussel and Ippy will be taking on CON and armor.
Now Grop rolls 7D: (1,3,3,3,5,6,6)=27. He won the SR challenge, so he gets to add his +3 weapon adds. He also adds his +3 Warrior level. His total is 33 plus 2 spite damage.
Ussel rolls his 4D: (3,5,6,6)=20. He doesn’t get to add his +4 weapon adds, and he isn’t a Warrior, so he doesn’t get to add his character level. His total is 20, with 2 spite damage.
Thus, Grop has delivered a total of 13+33=46 points, plus 2 spite damage. Ussel and Ippy have delivered 20+27=47, plus 2 spite damage.
So, since Ussel and Ippy have 20 points of armor between them, they must split 26 points regular damage and 2 points spite damage, for a total of 28 damage. They only have 14 CON between the two of them, so they are both down to -7 each.
Grop has 40 points of armor, so he ends up taking 7 points of regular damage plus 2 spite damage on his CON, lowering his CON from 24 to 15. He takes what he can find on the bodies of his two foes and leaves them for dead. Fortunately for them, I’m using 7.5 rules for this example, so they’re only unconscious.
Example 2: Grop then encounters a MR 40 orc, and another combat ensues. The orc is a predatory monster, so his combat stat is 20, half his MR.
First Combat Turn: Grop rolls his combat SR. He rolls (2,3)=5. Add to STR 31 and his character level of 3 gives him an SR total of 39.
The orc rolls his combat SR. He rolls (3,6)=9. Add to half-MR 20 gives hime an SR total of 29. He doesn’t have a character level, so doesn’t get that add. If that were important, he’d be a fully attributed orc character.
So Grop beats the orc by 10, and the orc will be taking at least 10 points of damage to MR.
Combat dice are rolled: Grop rolls 7D: (1,2,2,4,5,5,6)=25. He won the SR challenge, so he adds his +3 weapon adds, and he adds his Warrior level of +3, for a total of 31. Added to the 10 points from the SR difference gives a total of 41. He also does one point of spite damage. With no armor, the MR 40 orc is going to be dead at the end of this combat turn.
But first, we will see how much damage the orc delivered to Grop. The orc gets 5 combat dice, the typical number of dice for an MR 40 monster. Since he lost the SR challenge, he doesn’t get any weapon adds, but he doesn’t have any weapon adds anyway. An MR rated monster doesn’t get any adds to damage using this method, because such a monster only has personal adds, which are never counted in the damage total.
The orc rolls 5D: (3,3,5,6,6)=23. No adds, but 2 spite damage. Grop’s armor stops all 23 regular damage, but he takes the 2 points of spite damage, lowering his CON to 13. There’s nothing valuable to take from the orc, but he takes an ear anyway. He moves on.
Now, how would these battles have gone under the normal combat T&T rules? Well, if you’re into T&T, you know how to run those combats, so I will leave it as an exercise to those readers who are interested. If you want to leave a comment about your findings, that would be cool.