Quote from: Arminius;842010That is pretty similar to a simplified Harnmaster.

In the sense that both systems don't have hitpoints, and wounds have an effect upon combat, but in the gameplay I think the systems are polar opposites. Harnmaster in many ways looks like Rolemaster, using tables and tracking of effects. Explore is fast and furious - I've run combats with dozens of opponents quite easily.

Quote from: Vanquishing Leviathan;842065Unless you are striving for a particular effect, the vanilla D&D hp/combat system is the best all-around combat system for speed, simplicity, and realism.

I'd agree that it's been very succesfull with good reason, and speed & simplicity are at the core of that. I don't think many people would argue that realism is one of its strong points. I would agree, however, that some "more realistic" systems are not more realistic, and they are often far far far more complex. The weak point  of D&D combat is that results cannot easily be mapped to in-world effects - e.g. was that a miss or was it absorbed by armour; was that an arrow in the leg, or a graze - so it can reduce to a meta-game of hit point attrition.

Quote from: GreyICE;842015I play my games 'cause they're fun, not 'cause they're some sort of OCD reality simulator project.  I happen to rather like systems where you don't I guess "Death Spiral".  If that makes D&D "My Little Pony", well, I'm going to go play with Ponies, you try and work out how the latest kludged together monstrosity works.

The terms "OCD Reality Simulator Project" and "Kludged Together Monstrosity" made me laugh out loud!

Quote from: Moracai;841983That is what I like to call death-spiral effect. Some systems suffer from it more than others, but it is a geniune problem.

It may or may not be a problem, depending on the flavor you want in your games.  If you're going for gritty realism, then a death spiral is generally a better fit than "fight forever at 100% ability, until you fall over dead at 0 HP".

Quote from: Arminius;841984To the idea of getting bonuses as you're wounded: :forge:

Again, depends on what you want your game to emulate.  I've played one game where I thought a reverse death spiral worked well:  Tenra Bansho Zero.  It's based on crazy, over the top martial arts and mecha anime where characters get stronger when they've got a katana through the gut, so a reverse death spiral fit perfectly.  That's not worshipping at the Forge, it's genre emulation.

Quote from: Vanquishing Leviathan;842065Unless you are striving for a particular effect, the vanilla D&D hp/combat system is the best all-around combat system for speed, simplicity, and realism.

Think of two fighters duking it out. No matter how big or bad you are, if you get nailed just right in the groin, the solar plexus, the liver, the side of the chin, etc., the fight is over.

That's a stretch, and putting it bluntly, the same is true for the rest of your conclusions. It might be, or he might be just somewhat impaired, or might not feel it, until later, or the pain might get him angry, giving him renewed vigor in attack, a bonus in RPG terms. The same applies even with clubs, blades or bullets, though results other than losing become less likely.
Losing blood pressure, being unable to breathe and CNS injuries are about the only more or less sure-fire ways to end a fight, and even then an injury that should lead to them might not work immediately, or it migh

A good wank is better than lousy fuck. :idunno:

Quote from: Arminius;841815I would point to Harnmaster but you will sacrifice quite a bit of speed and ease.

You could possibly port the concepts, though, to a much more abstract game. I think from what I've heard about Mutants and Masterminds, and maybe True20, they've done something along those lines.

I played Harnmaster I found it to be quite fast, what slow is character gen. It not particularly slow for a skill based RPG but it is slower than say D&D or a bunch of other system.

But once the character sheet is filled out, HM combat is one of the fastest I played compared to skill based of similar complexity like Runequest, GURPS, etc.

HM Trick is the reference card and the front loaded character sheet.

As for the OP, Harnmaster doesn't have hit points. Instead it tracks injury, and injury acts as a negative modifier to anything you do physically or in combat.

How "bad things" happen (like falling unconscious, stumbling, fumbling, amputation, or dying) is the fact that every time you suffer an injury you have to make what is essence a saving throw. Often by rolling xD6 versus a 3d6 based attribute.

If you fail the bad things happen. Injury by itself doesn't do anything except make subsequent saves more difficult to achieve. It can get to the point where even a 1d6 save resulting from a minor injury can fail because you are adding +15 to the roll.

It works well in play because you have these color coded charts that are nicely designed that tell right there what to roll. The actual procedure is

1) attacker declare an attack
2) defender picks a defense
3) Both sides roll looking for degrees of success either critical miss, miss, success, or critical success.
4) The result is cross-index and the injury is rolled
5) You subtract armor and look up the result on the injury chart for what save you need to make.
6) Roll the save, apply the result if you fail.

You can download the charts from here for free from Columbia Games
http://www.columbiagames.com/resources/4001/harnmaster-combattables.pdf

Character sheet
http://www.columbiagames.com/resources/4001/charactersheet.pdf

Quote from: AsenRG;842130That's a stretch, and putting it bluntly, the same is true for the rest of your conclusions.

Even the baddest professional fighters get dropped with a single punch, which is why their coaches drill into them to keep their hands up and their chin down (see Silva v. Weidman 1).

Right before my eyes, I've seen an out of shape fat guy drop a cocky bodybuilder in one shot by throwing a sucker punch just so. Had they gone toe-to-toe, I'm sure the bodybuilder guy would have kicked fatso's butt (an approximation of D&D's fighter vs. thief/assassin).

The science of adrenaline dump is real. It can cause your heart and brain to race, giving you the perception that everything is moving in slow motion. It can give you tunnel vision, giving you a laser like focus at the expense of your peripheral vision. Taking damage is one of the things that can trigger an adrenaline dump. This is why some fighters are known for becoming more dangerous when they get hurt. No magical ponies, just facts and science.

My point isn't that D&D hp and combat is realistic, or that it's the most realistic RPG combat system, but it is more realistic than most people realize. It is conventional wisdom on RPG forums to ridicule D&D combat that a fighter can be reduced to 1 hp and still fight at full capacity. But this very thing happens in real fights.

Take a UFC fight. The fighters have been punching and kicking each other for several minutes, in D&D terms taking a number of hits over several rounds. Even though multiple blows have been landed, none have done any serious damage. But then one of the fighters drives a toe into the other fighter's liver. Until that kick landed, he was fighting at full capacity, right up until he is dropped to the mat in the fetal position. So here is a real world example of fighting at full capacity until the blow that reduces you to "0 hp."

5e adds some options in the DMG that add some twists to damage.

A recent example of a system that interested me as an alternative was that from the new Metamorphosis Alpha, the System 26 one.

Damage was dealt primarily as fatigue. Too much and you passed out. But really hard hits also did wounds, from which were more serious harm. Too much fatigue though and you went into trauma which could incapacitate you for potentially quite a long time. Performance degraded with the more wounds you took.

Quote from: Vanquishing Leviathan;842263Even the baddest professional fighters get dropped with a single punch, which is why their coaches drill into them to keep their hands up and their chin down (see Silva v. Weidman 1).

Right before my eyes, I've seen an out of shape fat guy drop a cocky bodybuilder in one shot by throwing a sucker punch just so. Had they gone toe-to-toe, I'm sure the bodybuilder guy would have kicked fatso's butt (an approximation of D&D's fighter vs. thief/assassin).

The science of adrenaline dump is real. It can cause your heart and brain to race, giving you the perception that everything is moving in slow motion. It can give you tunnel vision, giving you a laser like focus at the expense of your peripheral vision. Taking damage is one of the things that can trigger an adrenaline dump. This is why some fighters are known for becoming more dangerous when they get hurt. No magical ponies, just facts and science.

My point isn't that D&D hp and combat is realistic, or that it's the most realistic RPG combat system, but it is more realistic than most people realize. It is conventional wisdom on RPG forums to ridicule D&D combat that a fighter can be reduced to 1 hp and still fight at full capacity. But this very thing happens in real fights.

Take a UFC fight. The fighters have been punching and kicking each other for several minutes, in D&D terms taking a number of hits over several rounds. Even though multiple blows have been landed, none have done any serious damage. But then one of the fighters drives a toe into the other fighter's liver. Until that kick landed, he was fighting at full capacity, right up until he is dropped to the mat in the fetal position. So here is a real world example of fighting at full capacity until the blow that reduces you to "0 hp."

I'm not knocking HP or D&D combat but your example doesn't really hold up. What you describe is guys essentially whiffing or grazing then a critical hit landing and ending it in one shot. As someone who has participated in combat sports I can tell you that the idea of fighting at full capacity until the second you drop is pretty silly.

A few half solid jabs to the body slows a guy down, suddenly his gas tank is running low. Three or four solid kicks to the outside of the leg leaves you dragging on that side a bit, you find it harder to commit to your shots because well it hurts to load up on that side. Taking shots wears you out, missing shots wears you out, hell even landing enough shots wears you out. All the while you are getting less effective, just because it isn't drastically so or immediately noticeable doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Now that's just in unarmed combat, imagine what it does to you if someone buries the tip of a blade half an inch into you. Or if that mace cracks a few ribs through your plate.

HP and D&D combat is great for what it is, quick, simple, and kind of cinematic (at least past level 3 or so). What it isn't is realistic, at all. Unless you assume that every loss of hit points up to the final one is just a glance. However the wording given in most edition of the rules makes it explicit that isn't the case.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;842105In the sense that both systems don't have hitpoints, and wounds have an effect upon combat, but in the gameplay I think the systems are polar opposites. Harnmaster in many ways looks like Rolemaster, using tables and tracking of effects. Explore is fast and furious - I've run combats with dozens of opponents quite easily.

I don't know if you took my comment as a jibe or criticism but I meant it as exactly the opposite. What you described is what I was suggesting earlier in the thread--a way of getting some of the benefits of HM without the detail and complication.

Although I just realized that I've been forgetting the HM skirmish wargame system, Battlelust, which may not go quite as far in terms of simplification but does at least do away with hit locations iirc.

Quote from: Arkansan;842277HP and D&D combat is great for what it is, quick, simple, and kind of cinematic (at least past level 3 or so). What it isn't is realistic, at all. Unless you assume that every loss of hit points up to the final one is just a glance. However the wording given in most edition of the rules makes it explicit that isn't the case.

And the rules on natural healing contradict the glancing blow theory.

Quote from: Vanquishing Leviathan;842263Even the baddest professional fighters get dropped with a single punch, which is why their coaches drill into them to keep their hands up and their chin down (see Silva v. Weidman 1).

Right before my eyes, I've seen an out of shape fat guy drop a cocky bodybuilder in one shot by throwing a sucker punch just so. Had they gone toe-to-toe, I'm sure the bodybuilder guy would have kicked fatso's butt (an approximation of D&D's fighter vs. thief/assassin).

The science of adrenaline dump is real. It can cause your heart and brain to race, giving you the perception that everything is moving in slow motion. It can give you tunnel vision, giving you a laser like focus at the expense of your peripheral vision. Taking damage is one of the things that can trigger an adrenaline dump. This is why some fighters are known for becoming more dangerous when they get hurt. No magical ponies, just facts and science.

My point isn't that D&D hp and combat is realistic, or that it's the most realistic RPG combat system, but it is more realistic than most people realize. It is conventional wisdom on RPG forums to ridicule D&D combat that a fighter can be reduced to 1 hp and still fight at full capacity. But this very thing happens in real fights.

Take a UFC fight. The fighters have been punching and kicking each other for several minutes, in D&D terms taking a number of hits over several rounds. Even though multiple blows have been landed, none have done any serious damage. But then one of the fighters drives a toe into the other fighter's liver. Until that kick landed, he was fighting at full capacity, right up until he is dropped to the mat in the fetal position. So here is a real world example of fighting at full capacity until the blow that reduces you to "0 hp."

If your point is that it might happen like this, yes, yes it might. It's just that there are several other options which aren't covered by the D&D paradigm.
Possible? Yes. Happening every time? It starts to ring false after a while, unless the enemies are mostly 1HD with a smattering of stronger enemies.

And your UFC example is mostly one of a fighter finally getting a critical in and applying stun. Against most people the losing fighter could probably take it from there, recover and win. He's not fighting those people, though.

Quote from: estar;842164I played Harnmaster I found it to be quite fast, what slow is character gen. It not particularly slow for a skill based RPG but it is slower than say D&D or a bunch of other system.

But once the character sheet is filled out, HM combat is one of the fastest I played compared to skill based of similar complexity like Runequest, GURPS, etc.

HM Trick is the reference card and the front loaded character sheet.

As for the OP, Harnmaster doesn't have hit points. Instead it tracks injury, and injury acts as a negative modifier to anything you do physically or in combat.

How "bad things" happen (like falling unconscious, stumbling, fumbling, amputation, or dying) is the fact that every time you suffer an injury you have to make what is essence a saving throw. Often by rolling xD6 versus a 3d6 based attribute.

If you fail the bad things happen. Injury by itself doesn't do anything except make subsequent saves more difficult to achieve. It can get to the point where even a 1d6 save resulting from a minor injury can fail because you are adding +15 to the roll.

It works well in play because you have these color coded charts that are nicely designed that tell right there what to roll. The actual procedure is

1) attacker declare an attack
2) defender picks a defense
3) Both sides roll looking for degrees of success either critical miss, miss, success, or critical success.
4) The result is cross-index and the injury is rolled
5) You subtract armor and look up the result on the injury chart for what save you need to make.
6) Roll the save, apply the result if you fail.

You can download the charts from here for free from Columbia Games
http://www.columbiagames.com/resources/4001/harnmaster-combattables.pdf

Character sheet
http://www.columbiagames.com/resources/4001/charactersheet.pdf

That actually seems pretty decent...

Quote from: Arkansan;842277I'm not knocking HP or D&D combat but your example doesn't really hold up. What you describe is guys essentially whiffing or grazing then a critical hit landing and ending it in one shot. As someone who has participated in combat sports I can tell you that the idea of fighting at full capacity until the second you drop is pretty silly.

A few half solid jabs to the body slows a guy down, suddenly his gas tank is running low. Three or four solid kicks to the outside of the leg leaves you dragging on that side a bit, you find it harder to commit to your shots because well it hurts to load up on that side. Taking shots wears you out, missing shots wears you out, hell even landing enough shots wears you out. All the while you are getting less effective, just because it isn't drastically so or immediately noticeable doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Now that's just in unarmed combat, imagine what it does to you if someone buries the tip of a blade half an inch into you. Or if that mace cracks a few ribs through your plate.

HP and D&D combat is great for what it is, quick, simple, and kind of cinematic (at least past level 3 or so). What it isn't is realistic, at all. Unless you assume that every loss of hit points up to the final one is just a glance. However the wording given in most edition of the rules makes it explicit that isn't the case.

Having seen pretty serious shots landing without a fighter noticing, I wouldn't say it's impossible. It's just not what happens every time.

Quote from: Bren;842297And the rules on natural healing contradict the glancing blow theory.

Savage World's actually does the glancing blows things, though. And BoL had after combat recovery which suggested the same, not sure if it's in the latest edition.

But overall, I agree, the best damage system I've seen is indeed in Blue Planet v2, although it still needs houseruling to cover getting angry as a result of a shot.

Quote from: Bren;842297And the rules on natural healing contradict the glancing blow theory.

Yeah they kind of do. I mean I could see it either way, you could say that you are healing up the bruises and minor cuts etc caused by these blows. However like you said I still feel like the implication is some sort of substantial damage.

I actually think OD&D without any supplements, at first level, has HP making the most sense. With all weapons doing d6 damage and all level one folks having 1d6 hp it means that just about anyone could be killed in an instant in combat and it makes it seem like all HP lost implies serious physical damage.

However it breaks right down at level 3 at the latest as most folks could take at least one or two flush hits of a d6.

Either way you get into it HP just sort of breaks down if you look too deep into it. I think it works best as a quick and dirty measure for games that aren't focused on minutiae.

Quote from: Arkansan;842312I actually think OD&D without any supplements, at first level, has HP making the most sense. With all weapons doing d6 damage and all level one folks having 1d6 hp it means that just about anyone could be killed in an instant in combat and it makes it seem like all HP lost implies serious physical damage.

However it breaks right down at level 3 at the latest as most folks could take at least one or two flush hits of a d6.

That's why one of the common house rules or variant level based games changes was to split hit points into Body and Fatigue (or words to those effects) where normal hits affected Fatigue first until you ran out and then hits affected Body. Damage from critical blows (and sometimes missiles or even surprise attacks) went straight to Body. Body reduced to 0 and the character is down and bleeding to death despite having some Fatigue left.

Quote from: Bren;842315That's why one of the common house rules or variant level based games changes was to split hit points into Body and Fatigue (or words to those effects) where normal hits affected Fatigue first until you ran out and then hits affected Body. Damage from critical blows (and sometimes missiles or even surprise attacks) went straight to Body. Body reduced to 0 and the character is down and bleeding to death despite having some Fatigue left.

That's pretty well what I do when playing D&D. I saw it for the first time as Vitality and Wound points in Star Wars D20, and have been using it ever since.

Now what I do is allow players to spend their Fatigue/Vitality points. Every 1 spent provides a plus one bonus to an action. At low levels it can make or break a fight, but spending the points then whiffing often means you are in a bad state.

I also typically do a -1 penalty to all rolls made when Vitality points are at 0.

Quote from: Arkansan;842277I'm not knocking HP or D&D combat but your example doesn't really hold up. What you describe is guys essentially whiffing or grazing then a critical hit landing and ending it in one shot. As someone who has participated in combat sports I can tell you that the idea of fighting at full capacity until the second you drop is pretty silly.

A few half solid jabs to the body slows a guy down, suddenly his gas tank is running low. Three or four solid kicks to the outside of the leg leaves you dragging on that side a bit, you find it harder to commit to your shots because well it hurts to load up on that side. Taking shots wears you out, missing shots wears you out, hell even landing enough shots wears you out. All the while you are getting less effective, just because it isn't drastically so or immediately noticeable doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Now that's just in unarmed combat, imagine what it does to you if someone buries the tip of a blade half an inch into you. Or if that mace cracks a few ribs through your plate.

HP and D&D combat is great for what it is, quick, simple, and kind of cinematic (at least past level 3 or so). What it isn't is realistic, at all. Unless you assume that every loss of hit points up to the final one is just a glance. However the wording given in most edition of the rules makes it explicit that isn't the case.

Professional fighters can and do get get dropped, not just after wearing them down (as I've pointed out before, see below), but it can also happen while they are still fresh. So yes, some real fights play out like D&D - going from full fighting ability to completely out in the span of a single hit. The very thing you call "pretty silly" and "isn't realistic, at all."

QuoteIn order to land a telling blow against a skilled opponent, you're going to have to wear them out over time, use a combination, set up a rhythm and then break it, explore their reflexes/defenses, etc., in order to land that one blow that will end the fight.