Which is better for handling PC being attacked by NPC (GM controlled character, specifically):

1. Assume the NPC attack is guaranteed if the player fails a roll to dodge/avoid/block (if he chooses to do so).
2. Have the GM roll to hit on the NPC's behalf (and then deal with dodging somehow, perhaps with an increased difficulty).

I'm favouring the former because it's less work for the GM, but I can't help feeling it might not work though I don't know why.

What is the point of having separate rolls to hit with a melee weapon and to dodge/parry it?

I mean, I know WHFRP 1e / 2e did it (I assume 3e does too?), and I know Runequest does it (at least the edition I'm playing atm), but honestly - what is the point?

It's not exactly easy to miss with a melee weapon in close quarter combat against a non-moving target who is not defending himself in any way.

(Edited to add:- if you're thinking of putting the emphasis on a "to hit" roll where the difficulty depends on the dodging/blocking effort, but done in one dice-roll, I have no fundamental problem with that approach.)

Missile weapons - different story.

I think you've misunderstood.

The pC will act on his turn, as usual, making an attack or whatever and thus rolling to hit.

When the PC is attacked by an enemy, any enemy, instead of having the GM roll to attack, you have the PC roll, not with his attack skill, on his dodge or defence skill, to avoid being attacked.

If the roll fails the PC takes damage.

The idea is that the onus is on the player to determine the outcome of the attack and for the GM to have less to have to deal with running combat.

The problem is percieved fairness.

A summary of your system is
I) PCs roll to hit
II) NPCs always hit but PCs get to roll to dodge/block/parry
right?

This looks like it would save bookkeeping and keep play moving but the system elements needs to be incredibly well balanced.
If for example you have situational modifiers that affect the chance to hit such that hitting becomes much easier or harder than dodging then PCs will either be at a big advantage (because dodging is easier than hitting) or the NPCs will be (because hitting is much easier than dodging).
Even then it feels different to the players 'how come the NPCs never miss even when prone, drunk, dismembered etc ?'

If you make the things totally the same such that this is no variance between hitting or dodging then all you are doing in effect is getting the PCs to roll the monsters to hit dice for them which saves time for you but at what benefit?

You need to decide if combat in your game will be a tactical thing where PCs get to use skills, strategems, the environment etc to gain tactical advantage or if you want it to be more descriptive where the mechanics are simple and combat is more an aim to move play forward than a goal in itself.

Most players like some tactical element to combat.

The reason, imo, that both player and gm roll is because it simulates the feeling of competition. I attack you, you defend the attack. Statistically, you can get it done anyway you like, but you take away the GM looking at you, telling you that you are being attacked, and making the roll as if he were trying to actually stab you.

Quote from: jibbajibba;462466The problem is percieved fairness.

A summary of your system is
I) PCs roll to hit
II) NPCs always hit but PCs get to roll to dodge/block/parry
right?

This looks like it would save bookkeeping and keep play moving but the system elements needs to be incredibly well balanced.
If for example you have situational modifiers that affect the chance to hit such that hitting becomes much easier or harder than dodging then PCs will either be at a big advantage (because dodging is easier than hitting) or the NPCs will be (because hitting is much easier than dodging).
Even then it feels different to the players 'how come the NPCs never miss even when prone, drunk, dismembered etc ?'

If you make the things totally the same such that this is no variance between hitting or dodging then all you are doing in effect is getting the PCs to roll the monsters to hit dice for them which saves time for you but at what benefit?

You need to decide if combat in your game will be a tactical thing where PCs get to use skills, strategems, the environment etc to gain tactical advantage or if you want it to be more descriptive where the mechanics are simple and combat is more an aim to move play forward than a goal in itself.

Most players like some tactical element to combat.

I don't really see why this wouldn't be tactical.
If you have the difficulty for evading an attack the same scale as the difficulty to hit, before factoring in modifiers (such as those given from tactics etc) then where is the problem.

Yes it could be argued the PC is rolling the monster's hit dice, but there is an important difference: thesituation is entirely his to process - he is either hit or not hit through his own activity. The player is directly involved as opposed to watching the GM roll some stuff, possibly including rules he doesn't know.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;462486I don't really see why this wouldn't be tactical.
If you have the difficulty for evading an attack the same scale as the difficulty to hit, before factoring in modifiers (such as those given from tactics etc) then where is the problem.

Yes it could be argued the PC is rolling the monster's hit dice, but there is an important difference: thesituation is entirely his to process - he is either hit or not hit through his own activity. The player is directly involved as opposed to watching the GM roll some stuff, possibly including rules he doesn't know.

Well take some real examples.

If your PC is being attacked by a goblin is their chance to dodge equal to their chance if they are being attacked by a giant (replace goblin or giant with Superman, Bruce Lee, a kid with a baseball bat as appropriate to genre).

If a skilled warrior is harder to dodge than a novice then you have a modifier that you have to pass on to the PC or keep hidden. So where is the advantage over rolling the dice yourself. You are merely moving the simplest part of the process, rolling a dice, to someone else. The GM still needs to add int eh modifiers and report against the success.

Also as Cranewings points out the standard combat model sets up a competition and adds to the drama of the battle.

What about when 2 PCs fight each other? How do you handle it then do they both get to roll to hit and to dodge or just one. What if one has a great dodge but a crap attack?

Quote from: jibbajibba;462466Most players like some tactical element to combat.

I think there are two types of tactics.

The first I call "real world based tactics" where the player can get an advantage by having his character do things that would give him an advantage in the real world. An example from my game yesterday: A player playing a thief tells me his character is running away like he was breaking off combat but as soon as he got out of sight he was returning (hiding in shadows and moving quieting) and trying to work around to where he could attack the orc leader from behind.  Since everyone thought he had ran away and his hiding and moving silently were successful, when he attacked 3 rounds later he not only got the backstabbing benefit but attacked by surprise. Th orc leader went down and the monsters he was leading broke moral and most ran away. This type of tactics works in both descriptive combat and mechanical combat, although it tends to be easier (IMHO) to do in descriptive combat because you don't have to figure out all the mechanical/rules steps needed to duplicate the real world description.

The second I call "rules manipulation tactics" where the player gets an advantage not by doing something that would obviously give him an advantage in the real world, but by "manipulating" the rules to give his character the best mechanical advantage he can wring out of the rules.  This is very hard to do in descriptive combat as the rules details generally aren't there to be manipulated.

IMHO, both are forms of tactics but some people prefer one to the other. I find rules manipulation tactics very boring and "unrealistic" in feel. Not to mention they usually make combats last far longer than my interest in the combat does. Others prefer it. But to say one is more tactical than the other makes little sense to me. Both are tactical combat, just very different types of tactics.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;462459I think you've misunderstood.

The pC will act on his turn, as usual, making an attack or whatever and thus rolling to hit.

When the PC is attacked by an enemy, any enemy, instead of having the GM roll to attack, you have the PC roll, not with his attack skill, on his dodge or defence skill, to avoid being attacked.

If the roll fails the PC takes damage.

The idea is that the onus is on the player to determine the outcome of the attack and for the GM to have less to have to deal with running combat.

[Edited several times.]

What you describe here is a basically sensible system, as long as the score the PC has to roll (in order to dodge/parry) depends on how good the NPC is at attacking (and I did originally understand that it was one of the alternatives you were talking about, when I posted my post).

For instance, to attack player rolls d12+Attack Skill, and calls out his score; GM tells him if it hits or not (difficulty depends on enemy's abilities). To defend player rolls d12+Attack Skill, and calls out his score; GM tells him if it hits or not (difficulty depends on enemy's abilities).

One issue with this is that the GM still has to stay on top of what the NPCs' defence scores are, listen to what the player calls out and say whether it is a hit or a miss - unless the GM discloses the NPC's exact defence stat, but that has its own issues, and IMHO is REALLY not to be recommended (would lead to unrealistic PC behaviour, can ruin the atmosphere of the game, makes the odds too easy to calculate for the players, etc. etc.). Worst of all worlds is to give all NPCs a fixed attack score (although that would not make the game completely unplayable as such - it could even still be a balanced game, as NPCs may have different damage scores once they hit, but would be very unrealistic).

I thought, though, that in the OP you were contrasting this system with for instance:-

When NPC attacks player, first NPC rolls to hit; that could be followed by a second roll so if NPC hits, player then rolls to dodge/parry; alternatively it could be that the score the NPC has to get to hit depends on the player character's defences.

(The two-roll version seems to me to have extra dice-rolls for no real benefit - on the contrary, just making the system clunkier, less realistic, less atmospheric and more difficult to balance.)

Quote from: RandallS;462493I think there are two types of tactics.

The first I call "real world based tactics" where the player can get an advantage by having his character do things that would give him an advantage in the real world. An example from my game yesterday: A player playing a thief tells me his character is running away like he was breaking off combat but as soon as he got out of sight he was returning (hiding in shadows and moving quieting) and trying to work around to where he could attack the orc leader from behind.  Since everyone thought he had ran away and his hiding and moving silently were successful, when he attacked 3 rounds later he not only got the backstabbing benefit but attacked by surprise. Th orc leader went down and the monsters he was leading broke moral and most ran away. This type of tactics works in both descriptive combat and mechanical combat, although it tends to be easier (IMHO) to do in descriptive combat because you don't have to figure out all the mechanical/rules steps needed to duplicate the real world description.

The second I call "rules manipulation tactics" where the player gets an advantage not by doing something that would obviously give him an advantage in the real world, but by "manipulating" the rules to give his character the best mechanical advantage he can wring out of the rules.  This is very hard to do in descriptive combat as the rules details generally aren't there to be manipulated.

IMHO, both are forms of tactics but some people prefer one to the other. I find rules manipulation tactics very boring and "unrealistic" in feel. Not to mention they usually make combats last far longer than my interest in the combat does. Others prefer it. But to say one is more tactical than the other makes little sense to me. Both are tactical combat, just very different types of tactics.

I would agree with all you say with the caveat that a good combat engine follows your first example. So it gives a benefit to the sneak attack from behind, it lets you throw sand in your opponent's eyes, use the reach of a long weapon to hold your opponent off or let you get in close with a dagger to nulify the effect of the other guy's pike. That is a good combat system.

If you can do that then hopefully you get a synchrony between the 2 styles and everyone is happy.

Quote from: jibbajibba;462489...
...
If a skilled warrior is harder to dodge than a novice then you have a modifier that you have to pass on to the PC or keep hidden. So where is the advantage over rolling the dice yourself. ... The GM still needs to add int eh modifiers and report against the success.
...

No adding required by the GM if the player has to score over X to avoid being hit. How is it any different from the standard D&D 3e / OGL / d20 model of d20+Attack Bonus v AC, in reverse? Instead of d20+Attack Bonus v AC, you could have d20+Defence Bonus v. HC, where HC = Hit Class (NPC's ability to hit). PC Defence Bonuses would start at base [edited:- -1] + modifiers, and NPC HCs would start at base [edited:- 11] + modifiers. There's a workable system right there.

The main problem is that PCs are statted completely differently to NPCs, and although it's easy to reconcile the two (HC = Attack Bonus + [edited:- 11]; Defence Bonus = AC - [edited:- 11]), it's going to create a certain amount of mental arithmetic for your GM whenever he tries to work out whether an encounter is balanced, whether an NPC's stats feel right compared to a PC's, etc. etc. Keeping the two different systems in mind at the same time and switching between the two may be too complicated for some GMs, thus slowing down the game.

Then, there is the important psychological angle at the table, mentioned already in one of the posts on this thread, as to who is doing the rolling - but that cuts both ways, and in general terms I think it's more satisfying for the players when they have dice in their hands. My preferred system currently is d12+stat v d12+stat (a system I'm working on), where everyone gets to roll at the same time.

I do not see any sense in jibbajibba's objection to the principle of Ghost Whistler's proposition.

On (let us say) 15-20 on the dice, figure X takes a hit; on 1-14 on the dice, figure X does not take a hit.

If it matters to the dice who rolls it, then one roller or another either is consciously crooked or is unconsciously using a crookedness of the dice or of a toss.

If dice and rollers are fair, then the spread of probabilities shall be the same regardless of whether the DM rolls "for the monsters to hit" or the players roll "for the characters not to be hit".

Quote from: Omnifray;462521No adding required by the GM if the player has to score over X to avoid being hit. How is it any different from the standard D&D 3e / OGL / d20 model of d20+Attack Bonus v AC, in reverse? Instead of d20+Attack Bonus v AC, you could have d20+Defence Bonus v. HC, where HC = Hit Class (NPC's ability to hit). PC Defence Bonuses would start at base 0 + modifiers, and NPC HCs would start at base 10 + modifiers. There's a workable system right there.

.

No there is a difference. If you want a tough NPC to hit more often than a weak NPC then you need to modify the dodge roll of the PC. Either you mod the target number or the dice roll wither way there is addition.

You are right though it just becomes the PC rolling the NPCs to hit dice.

The current system I am working on runs off 2d10 +bonus with a target of the oppenents defence score. PCs gain attack bonuses and increase their defense score as they progress in levels. Means there is always addition for each attack (in fact 2 as you add the d10s together as well) and you have an option to parry at a loss of initiative. But all the gamers I know can add up a pair of dice and a modifier in picoseconds so  meh...

Quote from: Phillip;462526I do not see any sense in jibbajibba's objection to the principle of Ghost Whistler's proposition.

On (let us say) 15-20 on the dice, figure X takes a hit; on 1-14 on the dice, figure X does not take a hit.

If it matters to the dice who rolls it, then one roller or another either is consciously crooked or is unconsciously using a crookedness of the dice or of a toss.

If dice and rollers are fair, then the spread of probabilities shall be the same regardless of whether the DM rolls "for the monsters to hit" or the players roll "for the characters not to be hit".

You are technicaly correct but consider an application of the method.

Two thieves break into a magician's lab. Tony has 15 to hit and 15 to dodge. Greg has 13 to hit and 17 to dodge.

They encounter the magician's familar a large black dog (the equiv of a level 2 monster in old money). Now this works fairly well the dog always hits unless the thieves dodge. Over a number of rounds it is shown that greg gets hit more often but lands more blows whereas Tony hits less but gets hit less. fine...

Then they encounter the magician's golem. It has 2 attacks it shoots light from its eyes and it pounds with its fists. The first attack as its harder to dodge gives a -2 to the dodge attempt. Now in old money this might be a level 4 monster so do we add new 'AC' modifiers to make it harder to hit? what about additional pentalties to dodge it's attacks. We end up with a system that is certainly no simpler to use than a standard one. We roll we modify the roll and compare to a target number. The GM has merely passed the mechanical element of producing a random number by rolling the dice on to the player. Mechanically its no different to the old system. (I gues you could argue the golem can't fumble as it can never get a critical failure...)

Once they defeat the creature they get to the treasure and so onto the inevitable double cross. Greg tries to hit Tony... but hold on does Greg roll to hit or does Tony roll to dodge. The numbers here are quite different Greg would normally hit with a 13 but Tony can dodge on a 15. Do they both roll? Do we have to have a separate system that covers PvP situations where we extract everything back to bonuses on some base value (which is where one presumes these attack and dodge values are computed)? Maybe we ban PvP in the game.....

So the aim to marginally simplify the system has created additional complexity, and not complexity in terms of options or tactics or even a fun gimick but mere mechanical complexity for its own sake.

[Edited several times.]

The OP's fundamental underlying assumption seems to be that combat is PC v NPC, so I had assumed that PvP was just basically ruled out, in the manner of storygamey "script immunity".

A more serious problem could be that you will inevitably have NPC v NPC combat when the PCs have hired henchmen, or are trying to defend NPCs from attack by other NPCs, etc., unless it's literally PCs v The World or unless all NPC v NPC combat is deemed "peripheral to the story" in a storygamey way hence meaning that it is just arbitrated by the GM, which is a bit pants really for some situations, but could work for some games.

So, inevitably, if you're playing a traditional RPG with this system, NPCs will need more than the basic two stats.

Suppose you have Attack Bonus + AC for PC v NPC attacks (a la D&D 3e, Pathfinder, OGL, d20 etc.), and you need the correlative stats Defence Bonus and HC for NPC v PC attacks (as in my earlier post). For NPC v NPC combat you will also need Attack Bonus and AC, so from the get-go you need er 3 stats instead of 2 for each NPC (Attack Bonus, HC, AC:- you don't need Defence Bonus for NPCs; PCs are statted only with Attack Bonus and Defence Bonus). Fortunately the missing stat is easy to calculate on this model as Attack Bonus = HC - [edited:- 11]. But still it's too much complexity for most GMs.

That, I guess, is the fundamental problem with it.