I despise the concept.
I also hate that characters get harder to kill as they level up. I mean really? It makes no sense. I swear if one of you posts about how "hit points are an abstract of luck and skill and blah, blah, blah", I will scream! When I played Star Wars d20 the Vitality Points vs. Hit Points confused the HELL out of me all the time, I mean I got hit, but I didn't get hit? I took damage, but it wasn't really damage? The blast nearly got me, but I still lost something? WTF!?!?!?!?
Professor DungeonMaster's video the SECOND Secret Every DM Needs to Know really brings it all home for me on this subject. Go ahead and watch it. I'll wait.
So? Did you watch? That part about how could a Major survive a grenade better than a Private really brought it home for me, how about you? Do you understand now? I hope so because here's where I kick the wheels off the cart of D&D for Bastard Sword!
Hit Points Revisited
In Bastard Sword you get the following at character creation for Hit Points.
Constitution + 1 Hit Die as your total HP.
There are Boons that can bring that up, as well as Banes that might lower it, also magic might help, but that's it. Those are the Hit Points your character must live with.
If your Constitution goes up or down through adventure, adjust your HP total accordingly.
So what good are hit dice then? Well hit dice are used for healing during rests. On a Short Rest (1-4 hours) you can heal 1 hit die and on a long rest, usually overnight (5 - 8 hours of rest) you can roll as many hit dice as you have left, but there is one caveat...
Hit dice do not replenish at a rate of 1 per day of rest. That's right, one solid day of doing nothing but counting your gold, carousing, reading, whatever the case may be, but not fighting. If you get into a combat in the middle of that day, the clock resets.
Sounds mean I know, but let's be honest adventuring is a brutal life and its roads are littered with the corpses of lesser heroes.
Now let's move on to armour.
Armour Revisited
So instead of making your harder to hit, armour makes you harder to damage. That's it, nothing more complex than that.
So instead of providing you with an AC bonus, armour instead provides you with a Damage Reduction (DR) number. Let's take a look;
Armor | Type | DR | Min. STR* | Stealth | Casting** | Cost |
Padded | Light | 1 | - | Disad. | Disad. | 5GP |
Leather | Light | 1 | - | - | - | 10gp |
Studded Leather | Light | 2 | - | - | Disad. | 45gp |
Hide | Medium | 2 | - | - | - | 10gp |
Chain Shirt | Medium | 3 | - | - | Disad. | 50gp |
Scale Mail | Medium | 4 | - | Disad. | Disad. | 100gp |
Half-Plate | Medium | 5 | - | Disad. | Disad. | 750gp |
Ring Mail | Heavy | 5 | - | Disad. | Disad. | 125gp |
Chain Mail | Heavy | 6 | +1 | Disad. | Disad. | 175gp |
Splint Mail | Heavy | 7 | +2 | Disad. | Disad. | 200gp |
Plate Mail | Heavy | 8 | +2 | Disad. | Disad. | 1,500gp |
* If you do not meet the Minimum STR to wear this armour, you have Disadvantage on all DEX based actions.
** This applies to Casters and Jongleurs only.
Now this is a very limited list of armours, and does not include helmets, in Bastard Sword helmets provide a bonus to Death Saves when you get struck in the head, more on those in a later article.
Shields are a different beast, they are not as much damage reducers as barrier to attack, so for me the shield bonus adds to the formulas below. If you have the Shield Master Boon though, you can also gain DR from your shield, refer to this chart;
Shield Size | Defensive | DR* | Cost Wooden | Cost Metal |
Small | +1 | +1 | 5gp | 10gp |
Medium | +2 | +2 | 7gp | 20gp |
Large | +3 | +3 | 10gp | 30gp |
Tower Shield | +4 | +4 | 25gp | 100gp |
* Requires Shield Master Boon
So if the armour now only removes damage, how do we determine how to hit someone?
Read on good fellow (or good lady) and your answer awaits.
Attack & Defense
Combat is a big part of D&D and while many feel it is too unrealistic, that bar though is very subjective, and it moves depending on who the commenter is really and what they like. So for me, I prefer this to AC. So instead of having Armour Class as the target, we now will have two new statistics;
Parry/Block (Melee) and Duck/Dodge (Ranged)
Parry/Block is calculated with the following formula:
STR Mod + Base Combat Bonus (BCB) + Misc. + 10 = Parry/Block
STR Mod + Base Combat Bonus (BCB) + Misc. + 10 = Parry/Block
Duck/Dodge is calculate as follows:
DEX Mod + BCB + Misc + 10 = Duck/Dodge
DEX Mod + BCB + Misc + 10 = Duck/Dodge
Thongar the Barbarian has a STR Mod of +2, is carrying a medium shield (+2 Defense), and is level 1 so his BCB is +1. So his Parry/Block is 2+2+1+10 = 15. That is the target number in melee that his enemies need to meet or exceed to do damage.
Conversely Thongar isn't as agile as he is mighty, his DEX gives no mod, so his Duck/Dodge vs ranged attacks is just his medium shield (+2) and his BCB (+1)... so 2+1+10 = 13.
That's it really, nothing revolutionary or even now, but it suits me down to the ground. Now your mileage may vary, but for me this hits a sweet spot of fantasy fighting.
Andrew Collas
a.k.a. Celtic Viking, Grumpy Old Gamer, Bear
"Steampunks dress as though they are Russian royalty; Dieselpunks as though they’re off to assassinate them!." — From the Internet
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