There I was replaying through Knights of the Old Republic, which had recently been released on the Nintendo Switch. I was running through the lower jungles of Kashyyyk, when I abruptly decided, right then and there, that I was going to make a video game using the KOTOR mechanics.
I was ready to begin, and then I discovered this video:
This stopped me dead in my tracks. The idea of various shaped polyhedral dice being used to determine random amounts of damage was the only thing I had ever known. As far back as I go, weapons operate pretty universally in an RPG context. Little weapons do little damage, and big weapons do big damage. As you progress in the game the numbers gradually get bigger. Simple enough, right? Wrong! Everything I thought I knew was a lie.
As it turns out, things are more complicated than this. Much more complicated in fact. For a start, all weapons do lethal damage. If they didn't, then they wouldn't have been used, except maybe to subdue individuals nonlethally in very situational cases. No, by and large, all weapons were effective because they were capable of lethality. So what then, differentiates one weapon from another? What makes one weapon good and another weapon worse, if not their damage? Frankly, this question was too big for me, and so I decided to do what so many before me had done. Ignore it, and move on. After all, if it was good enough for everyone else, then it should be good enough for me. Right?
If only that were true. Unfortunately, my obsessive nature got the better of me and I couldn't let it go. The more I thought about how weapons were effectively reduced down to a one dimensional damage value, the more problems I had with it. Even if we put aside the realism issue for a moment, there were other problems as well. One of the things that I was realizing, was that in KOTOR, I never used the blaster pistol. It was a 1d4 weapon and virtually everything in the game was a better option. However, in Star Wars, everybody used a blaster pistol. The game mechanics were disincentivizing me from playing the game in a way that reflected the source material. The same went for the dagger in Baldur's Gate. I started asking people I knew that played 5e "hey, do you ever use the dagger?" the response I got from everyone was a resounding "No".
I should probably state for the record, that at this point my experience TTRPGs was extremely limited. I had played every kind of video game RPG up until this point, but when it comes to tabletop D&D, my experience consisted of a couple sessions of 3.5. I had owned and read through the 4e and 5e core books, but I had never played it.
It seemed crazy to me that this had never come up in the near 50 years of D&D. I decided that I was simultaneously going to educate myself on the specific use and context of historical medieval weapons, as well as familiarize myself with the previous iterations of D&D to possibly gleam some insight into the genesis of variable damage dice.
The Deep Dive
5th Edition - Variable Damage Dice
4th Edition - Variable Damage Dice
3rd Edition - Variable Damage Dice
AD&D 2e - Variable Damage Dice (But with modifiers for different types of weapon damage Slashing, Piercing, Bludgeoning against different types of armor on Pg. 121 of the Revised Player's Handbook) We're getting somewhere! This is a step in the right direction. We've expanded weapons from a one dimensional damage value to include a damage type (Slash, Pierce, Bludgeon). These damage types receive bonuses or penalties against specific types of armor. Mechanically speaking this works, because it forces a player to think about not only how much damage a weapon deals, but also how effective it will be at hitting specific types of targets. It adds an additional dimension to weapon use and selection. Modern D&D variants use the different damage types, but they only affect combat in very specific circumstances, so it's largely irrelevant most of the time. In 2e the damage types affect every type of mundane armor, so the bonuses and penalties are always relevant. The downside is that you have to cross-reference your damage type with whatever armor you're attacking to figure out what your bonus or penalty is, which becomes cumbersome in large battles with multiple combatants. Upon review, it seems that many players never actually used this table because of the fact that it slowed gameplay down.
AD&D 1e - This one was a blunder on my part, but I skipped this edition initially because I was completely unfamiliar with AD&D 1e, the books were confusing and people on the internet told me that 1e was largely the same as 2e. Needless to say, I've learned the error of my ways. I would eventually circle back to this and discover the To Hit Adjustment Chart in the Player's Handbook, but at this time it was unknown to me.
Mentzer Basic D&D - Variable Damage Dice (However, weapons are introduced as all doing 1d6 damage to start with and then expands this to variable weapon damage later on.)
Mentzer Basic Dungeons & Dragons Player's Manual Pg. 60
Moldvay Basic D&D - 1d6 Damage for all weapons with Variable Damage Dice as an optional rule. This is interesting, because it insinuates that people were perfectly happy just using 1d6 for all weapon damage one point. Rather than differentiate weapons with varying damage dice, you could effectively make them all the same. The problem with this method though is that different weapons still have differing costs, encumbrance, and some weapons require two hands and preclude the use of a shield. this has the unfortunate consequence of making the smallest, cheapest, one-handed weapon that you can throw, i.e. the dagger, the best weapon in the game. If all weapons cost the same, had the same encumbrance, could be thrown, and could be used with a shield, then this method would work perfectly, but unfortunately, this method just barely misses the mark.
Moldvay Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules Pg. B27
Holmes Basic D&D - All weapons do 1d6 damage, however a paragraph on Pg. 18 refers players to the AD&D weapon tables for more complex rules.
Original D&D a.k.a. OD&D - All weapons do 1d6 damage.
And there we have it. You either have all weapons do 1d6 damage, in which case the only weapon anyone should ever use is the dagger, or, you get variable damage and some weapons are just objectively better than others and you should only ever use the two-handed sword or the polearm. Neither of these really solves my issues with weapons.
But upon closer inspection we find this on Page 5 of Original D&D Book I Men & Magic under Recommended Equipment:
Dungeons & Dragons - Men & Magic - Pg. 5
It turns out there are a number of references to "CHAINMAIL" in OD&D Men & Magic.
Dungeons & Dragons - Men & Magic Pg. 8
Dungeons & Dragons - Men & Magic Pg. 13
Dungeons & Dragons - Men & Magic Pg. 18
The Foreunner
Chainmail Miniature Rules - It turns out that Original D&D chose to resolved it's combat using a separate wargame called Chainmail. There was an alternate system within Men & Magic that allowed for combat to be resolved with a d20 roll, which would later become the de facto standard for all D&D inspired games. From what I understand, it seems that Chainmail was rarely used in practice, primarily because OD&D didn't come with it. This meant that people were largely forced to use the alternate combat system that came with the game.
Chainmail being a miniatures wargame has several different combat resolution mechanics available. There was the Mass Combat system that allowed you to resolve conflicts on the grand battle scale with hundreds or even thousands of combatants, and then there was the Man-to-Man system which allowed you to handle fights between individual combatants. In the Man-to-Man combat system there was no damage at all. Weapons simply scored hits, and hits equaled a kill. Combat was extremely quick, efficient, and lethal. When applied to OD&D, characters had hit points that were generated on a roll of 1d6, and when weapons scored a hit, the weapons would deal 1d6 points of damage. This worked to give player characters a bit more survivability than was common in conventional wargames, as not every hit resulted in certain death.
This is what I was hoping for. The way that the Man-to-Man system worked was, for a given weapon to score a hit, you had to roll the required target number or greater on a roll of 2d6. The target number was determined by the type of armor an opponent was wearing, i.e. for the dagger to hit someone in plate armor, you had to roll a 12 on 2d6 (2.78% Chance), however if the opponent was prone, then you only had to roll a 7 or better (58.33%). Weapons also had a Weapon Class rating which determined who gets the first attack in a given round of combat, along with the possibility of parries or extra hits. All in all this system is excellent, because it allows every weapon to shine in its own particular niche. No weapon is simply better in every situation, there are situational considerations that give your weapon choices some real consequence.
However, there are some drawbacks to this system when we apply it to OD&D, namely, time. You see, Chainmail doesn't distinguish between characters of differing levels. Chainmail itself doesn't have levels. It does recognize different tiers of characters though in the Fantasy Supplement, such as Heroes and Super Heroes.
Chainmail 3rd Edition Pg. 30
It states that Heroes have the fighting ability of four figures, and Super Heroes are twice as powerful.
Dungeons & Dragons - Men & Magic Pg. 17
In OD&D the character class levels are named up until 10th level. The 4th level corresponds to Hero and the 8th level corresponds to Super Hero. I interpret this as Fighter class characters fight as number of combatants equal to their level.
Applying this to Chainmail Man-to-Man combat, this would mean that a 4th level Fighter would get four attacks per round, whereas a 1st level Fighter would only get one. As the number of combatants increases along with the number of attacks from higher level characters, this system gets pretty cumbersome. While the d20 system isn't perfect, it is simple and that's kind of what you need if you're going to be resolving combat between twenty or more combatants in a timely fashion. If only there was a way to combine the nuance of the Man-to-Man system with the simplicity of d20.
The Challenge
What if OD&D had included the Chainmail rules, and instead of the D20 system dominating the hobby for the next 50 years, we instead had Chainmail inspired d6 systems. I decided I was going to take up the challenge and see if I could do just that. The first thing I tried was replacing the d20 with the 2d6 using a roll under system. Beginning with OD&D these armor combination that were listed in Chainmail would correspond directly to a protective value that would become known as Armor Class. This worked with descending progression, whereby the better your armor was, the lower your Armor Class value, commonly referred to as "Descending Armor Class" .
Men & Magic Pg. 19
Ironically, "Descending Armor Class" is probably the single biggest gripe that people have with Old School D&D and coincidently it is the single thing that allows this new system to work, as we'll see shortly.
The Breakthrough
What if instead of rolling to hit an arbitrary target number with 2d6 we instead simply rolled to hit an armor class. 2d6 yields values between 2 and 12, and coincidently the OD&D Armor Class values range between 2 and 9, so this actually works pretty well. If we use a roll under system to hit the descending Armor Class values we end up with a probability curve where targets become increasing harder to hit as their armor class approaches 2.
2d6 Less Than or Equal To Probability Curve
This makes someone who is wearing plate armor and a shield nearly invulnerable as there is only a 2.78% chance of hitting them, but then that's probably more realistic in actuality as someone in plate armor with a shield would have been incredibly well protected.
So then, what about differentiating weapons? My initial thoughts were to break the Armor Classes into categories of Heavy, Medium, and Light and give different weapons weapons + or - modifiers based on the armor class type that they were attacking. It was a bit fiddly to say the least, but it worked, and so to validate my idea, I started looking for similar example to this. After searching the internet, someone in a forum that I can't remember any more made a reference to the "To Hit Adjustment Chart" in AD&D 1e, and I had to see this for myself. I'll be damned, this was exactly what I was attempting to do, albeit in a much simpler manner than the AD&D adjustments.
AD&D 1e Player's Handbook To Hit Adjustment Chart Pg. 38
Awesome, not only had someone implemented my system before, but D&D had used themselves at one point. So why then had I never seen or heard of this anywhere? Why didn't this system make it out into the wider world of RPGs and have a greater influence on the predecessors and spiritual successors? The answer it turns out, is because nobody used it, included Gygax himself. And honestly, I can understand, I mean, this chart is massive and I can't imagine having to reference it for every single attack made when running a game. It's just too much.
But, perhaps my system with its three categories of modifiers for each weapon instead of 10 (one for each armor class) would fair better. I decided to proceed with mixed feelings. What I was coming to understand is that there is a fine line that separates war gaming from roleplaying which fundamentally revolves around stopping gameplay to reference tables in rulebooks. War gamers love it. Roleplayers do not. I decided to proceed with caution.
The next thing I wondered about was expanding the numbers available. After all 2d6 only affords me 10 possibilities. I wondered about possibly implementing 3d6 or 4d6. The problem was that this would make my lowest value possible 3 or 4, which means that without some kind of bonus it would be impossible to hit a target number of 2 or less. Once again I turned to the internet to search for some kind of precedent. Wouldn't you know it. Someone had the exact answer to my problem.
Eureka!
By treating 6s as 0s, I can use any combination of dice that I want and I always end up with a range from 0 to X. This has far greater implications than I would realize at first though. There is an endless number of possible d6 combinations and using this method I could effectively give each weapon it's own attack dice combination effectively giving each weapon its' own unique probability curve against every armor class value.
By implementing this system some weapons will perform better than the d20 against certain armor class values and worse with others.
If we combine the average damage with a given damage die with the probability to hit a given descending armor class with a d20 we end up with the approximate Damage Per Round (DPR):
(AVERAGE DAMAGE) * (HIT%) = DPR
When we graph the DPR for our standard variable damage dice according to the hit probabilities for OD&D and Basic/Expert (THAC0 = 19) or 10% hit probability to hit an armor class of 0 we get:
The combinations of dice that I'm using for attacks are rolled from 3d6 to 10d6 and you then take either the highest or lowest 3, 4, or 5 dice and sum the total to arrive at your final result. Remember that 6s are 0s for this purpose.
Now let's add in some weapons with their own unique attack dice combinations:
Good. The weapons are beginning to look different from one another and their damage progression is now on a curve as opposed to linear.
For the damage dice combinations I'm rolling between 1d6 and 10d6 and taking either the lowest or highest 1 or 2 dice to achieve the final result.
If we reincorporate variable damage dice in conjunction with our variable attack dice we get the following:
Alright. Our weapons are doing less damage as armor class gets better (lower) however, they do so at different rates. By using this method we enable different weapons to deal differing amounts of damage to different armor classes. This effectively allows us to create a near endless number of unique DPR curves, which in turn will enable our weapons to perform differently in different situations, while still remaining within the normal damage ranges that we are accustomed to with typical variable damage dice.
For example, if we look at our chart, the two-handed sword when used by a 1st level character with no attack bonus will deal greater than d10 damage which is better than any other weapon in this area. The same would hold true for a fighter with a +2 attack bonus who was attacking an enemy in leather armor (7 AC). However when dealing with an enemy in Plate armor (3 AC) a character would be better off choosing a polearm as it is the most effective in this particular context. Now if our fighter character has a +7 attack bonus though, they can effectively fight someone in Plate armor (3 AC) as if they actually had 10 AC, which means they would be more effective with their two-handed sword than a 1st level character with +0 attack bonus would be with their polearm.
All in all, this is starting to jive. We can create weapons that are generally effective for everybody, while also creating weapons that are exceptionally good, but only in the hands of someone skilled enough to take advantage of them. This is starting to reflect reality a bit more. There are no correct solutions, there are trade-offs. Do you want to deal large amounts of damage to enemies at the risk of your weapon being ineffective against certain threats? Or, alternatively, you could be more broadly effective against a wider variety of foes, but your damage will be limited.
This is still a work in progress, but I hope some of you will try this out and provide some feedback. It's entirely possible that there is some huge flaw that I've overlooked. The only complication that I foresee is that it will require you to add multiple d6 dice to get your total, and you have to remember to ignore the 6s as they are 0s for the attack roll. The 6s act as normal for damage though. I've used all d6 combinations for attack and damage because my system is heavily influenced by Chainmail (which exclusively used d6s for everything) and I figure that d6 are the dice that people are most likely to have lots of laying around. There is no reason that you couldn't use other dice outside of the d6 for your damage and attack rolls to fine tune the DPR curves, but I've found that you can pretty much create any possible DPR curve that you can think of using some combination of d6 dice.
I have also toyed with the idea of critical hits and misses, but I think I'll leave that for another post. I've created a worksheet that I've been using to experiment with which includes a built in simulator for anyone who would like to test this system out.
In future posts I will be exploring the possible implementation of different weapons in a way that will hopefully be reflective of both history and fiction, though this is a difficult line to walk.
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