Building Bhakashal - Combat Rules - Weapon Versus Armor Class Adjustments

AD&D has a lot of vestigial bits, parts that are not needed for the game and many people have simply ignored, but have the potential to be great additions. WvrsAC adjustments are a good example of this.

Gygax is on record saying he didn’t use them, despite them being in the rules. I can see why, an individual adjustment for nine different AC values from 2 to 9 is a lot. Add to this that the ref and PCs have to note the type of armor on those they are fighting to use these adjustments, which makes things more complex. Most of the groups I know just dropped them.

However, when I was designing Bhakashal I really wanted to make weapons different. One of the reasons why people claim combat is dull is that it all starts to sound the same: roll to hit, roll damage, rinse, repeat. Ugh. No wonder combat “takes too long”, it’s boring. One of the reasons it can be boring is that players need to be presented with real choices between options, when the only difference between weapon X and weapon Y is damage output, then why not just do weapon damage by class or something similarly abstracted?

I believe that if you give players meaningful weapon choices then they will engage with the game more fully, and start to play more tactically, in short, they will get more skilled at the game, and enjoy it more.

So early on I took the WvrsAC tables and reworked them. The first change was to lose the 9 categories, that’s WAY too fiddly. Instead, I replaced it with three categories: metal armor, leather armor and no armor. Yes, this lumps together armor types that are very different, but it leaves enough variety to make weapon choice matter. 

The next step was to assign modifiers, I suspect that everyone will find a particular modifier they don’t agree with, that’s fine, there is plenty of room for disagreement with this. The main goal with the revisions here was to blunt the excesses, e.g. smooth out the bonuses and penalties.

Then I meditated on it for a while and realized there was something else bothering me. The table has entries for “no armor” and an adjustment for that. From what I can tell this adjustment was meant for when you are attacking a humanoid opponent who is wearing no armor. 

Gygax says this,

WEAPON TYPES, "TO HIT" ADJUSTMENT NOTE

If you allow weapon type adjustments in your campaign please be certain to remember that these adjustments are for weapons versus specific types of armor, not necessarily against actual armor class.

In most cases monsters not wearing armor will not have any weapon type adjustment allowed, as monster armor class in such cases pertains to the size, shape, agility, speed, and/or magical nature of the creature. Not excluded from this, for example, would be an iron golem. However, monsters with horny or bony armor might be classed as plate mail if you so decide, but do so on a case-by-case basis. Naturally, monsters wearing armor will be subject to weapon type "to hit" adjustment".

Gygax was terrific for stuff like this, he suggested things that he didn’t develop and left them to you to grow for yourself. I love this aspect of his game design esthetic, it helped me to become the game designer I am today.

So, should the adjustment not apply to say a wolf, or a snake, or a manticore, or a displacer beast? These creatures have no “armor” on, either constructed or natural. If a dagger gets +3 to hit against a soft human gut, why would it not get a +3 to hit against the soft gut of a tiger?

The problem was determining which monsters had “natural armor” of any kind, and which did not. The rule books are not helpful here, as they don’t break down AC into components, e.g. speed, toughness, size…, they just state an AC. I spent some time noodling at this and trying to come up with a formula, but at the end of the day I just used some common sense and made some assumptions.

In Bhakashal, monsters/animals/NPCs with actual armor plating get rated as WvrsAC type “Metal”, monsters/animals/PCs with tough hide get ranked as “leather”, and those with no armor like hide get ranked as “none”. Again, as most of this isn’t specified in the monster entries it is really up to you how to do this.

So for example, I classify anhkhegs, bulettes, giant crabs, dragons, earth elementals, stone giants, iron and stone golems, rust monsters, giant scorpions and Xorn as “metal”, some demons and devils, efreet, ogres, shambling mounds, trolls and umber hulks as “leather”, and pretty much everything else as “none”. Non-corporeal or insubstantial creatures like ghosts or shadows get no adjustment.   

Classifying a troll as “leather” is an example of interpretation, maybe you want the trolls in your game to be soft and squishy like people, that’s fine. The point is that players get to choose weapons based on these classifications.

What this also means is that many of your PCs will get a ‘free’ +1 to +3 to hit against a significant number of monsters in the books with this rule, right from first level. Even the lowly magic-user with her dagger gets a +3 to hit against “none”, which is pretty helpful.

But of course, this works in reverse, any non-armored PC will suffer WvrsAC adjustments against them. For monsters, there is an entry for “claw/bite” that gives all monsters/animals a WvrsAC adjustment as well. And last but not least, a careful perusal of the table will show that there are penalties as well as bonuses available, players tend to ignore this. 

I have playtested this system for three years with my after school groups, ages 10-12 and they absolutely LOVE IT. Players want to feel their choices matter, and D&D uses a system of small, cumulative bonuses that fits perfectly into this model. This system also makes it easier to have a game with fewer magic items floating around, as there are bonuses for base weapon choice.

But for me the big advantage of this system is that it adds another point of difference for weapons, in Bhakashal you have weapon weight, speed, length, space required, variable damage, critical effects and WvrsAC adjustments to make your choice between weapons meaningful. This also means that fighters and their subclasses have an advantage as they get the most weapon proficiencies. I can’t tell you how awesome it is for the PC fighters in our games to have different weapons for different challenges, it makes combat so much more interesting, it allows them to build skill at the table, and it gives their choices more impact.

Game on.

Here are the tables, note that “M”=metal, “L”=leather and “N”=no armor