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Tunnels & Trolls: Combat

March 3, 2009
Combat is the true heart of any role-playing game. Ken St. Andre, Tunnels & Trolls v7.5
Combat is the rst place that T&T is radically dierent from what went beforeand what came
after. Combat is quite abstract, with turns taking 2 minutes each, during which there is
probably 10 seconds of action and 110 seconds of maneuvering for advantage. It can be considered a rapid
exchange of strikes and parries by all the ghters involved. By arbitrary convention we stop and evaluate
how the ghters are doing at the end of each combat round, but in your imagination you should conceive the
action as hot and heavy until such time as the winners win and the losers either lie down and die or run
away.
Magic and missile re are handled separately, but there is no blow-by-blow accounting taking place
in melee combat. In fact, T&T does away with the to-hit roll entirely. Instead both sides roll damage,
and the side with the lower total takes the dierence in damage, spread among them as they like.
So that brings us to another thing about T&T combat: theres a lot of arithmetic. A sample combat
between two parties of adventurers of 3rd to 5th level involved totaling 4d6+4 + 38 + 2d6+5 +2d6 +3 +
26 + 6d6+3 + 27 for a total of 162. Then the other party rolls its combination of weapon dice and
adds, and gets 154. Higher level groups and monsters could probably easily see results in the many
hundreds or even thousands.
Its not particularly hard math, and each player except the GM handles a small chunk of it, but theres
a lot of it if you play it a lot, I can foresee either ge8ing quite good at multi-digit arithmetic or
farming it out to a calculator. For some larger monsters you probably need a dice-roller program
even to calculate the damage. A 3rd level re-breathing dragon might have 88d6 + 440 as its roll.
For the most part, combat is just that simple. Both sides roll all the dice for their weapons, add in any
combat adds, and then compare. The losing side divides the damage as they see t, subtracts any
armor, and applies the result against CON. When a characters CON goes to 0, theyre dying. (At -10
theyre dead, dead, dead.) Allowing the losing side to divide the damage among the characters is
interesting; it means that the stronger, more heavily armored characters can eectively protect the
weaker charactersat least for a whileand opens up the possibility of mixed-level parties where the
low-levels arent automatically toast. Other than that, there are no tactical decisions to be made in
standard melee combat.

Magic and Missile re happen at the very start of the turn, and have the unusual (for T&T) property

Magic and Missile re happen at the very start of the turn, and have the unusual (for T&T) property
of directly damaging a particular target as well as counting towards that sides adds. Theres also a
rule (new in 7+) for spite damage damage that happens despite win/loss or any armor: for every
6 rolled, the other side takes 1 spite damage (again divided as they see t). Its entirely possible,
though probably rare, that the losing side does more actual damage after armor than the winning
side. This apparently addresses the problem in earlier editions that even moderate amounts of armor
could cause a ght to drag on forever if the parties are fairly equally matched. Because you can
choose specic targets for magic and missiles, this is your opportunity to try to knock out spellcasters and deliberately whi.le down the eective members of the opposition, which can cause a
steep drop in their sides total damage if you can pull it o.
At its most basic, theres not really much room for individual tactics in T&T combat. It also has a
moderately low pace of decision. At least, it seems to me that unless youre heavily outmatched,
ghts will go on for at least a few rounds. One complaint Ive seen on some boards is that thanks to
armor, evenly matched groups stalemate and the only thing that counts is spite damage.
On the other hand, T&T oers a great deal of scope for rules-light RP modications to combat. That
is, while there are no specic combat rules to cover any sort of facing, maneuver, special a.acks like
tripping, grappling, disarming, stunning or the like there is a single rule that you can describe what
youre a.empting to do and the GM will give you a Saving Roll to accomplish it and rule on the
results. If you have a Talent that you can invoke, so much the be.er. In one of the example combats
in the rules, the centaur character decides that instead of a.acking with her axe, shell try to kick an
Ogre to knock it out of combat for a round or two. The GM rules this is a Level 2 SR vs Dex, and the
centaur succeeds by so much (rolling a 45 when she needed 25) that the GM decides that not only is
the Ogre stunned and out of commission for 3 rounds, but it takes damage equivalent to the centaurs
Combat Adds. Everything that crunchier systems handle by specic rules to cover each individual
situation, T&T handles by the player specically describing what out-of-the-ordinary feat theyre
a.empting to inuence combat and the GM ruling on it and giving it a Saving Roll to see if it works.
For a Rulings, not rules approach, its pre.y much perfect.
Its easy to see why T&T is a success for solo gaming and play-by-post: with no blow-by-blow
adjudication or maneuver you can easily and relatively quickly resolve combats even if they involve
lots of characters. And because combats can be resolved without much decision-making if youre not
playing real-time or with a live GM, its ideal for the sort of if you beat the monster, go to 12A,
otherwise go to 27B thing found in solo adventures. On the other hand, if you have a live GM and
bandwidth for everybody to describe what they want to do, the skys the limit to what kind of
combat you can RP.
Overall, Id give T&T combat a B. Its simple, and exible, can be explained to someone in a sentence
or two, and theres plenty of scope for clever ideas, though perhaps not a lot of tactics but the sheer
number of dice that need to be rolled and resulting arithmetic is a burden. Play-by-post, with a
handy die-roller, its no big deal, but I dont like to be reliant on something like that for face-to-face
play.
Posted in: Other Systems, Systems | Tagged: Tunnels & Trolls

14 thoughts on Tunnels & Trolls: Combat

DOUG says: March 3, 2009 at 11:26 pm
1. One question. Since the more dice you roll, the closer the odds are that youll end up at the

1. One question. Since the more dice you roll, the closer the odds are that youll end up at the
average, why once you gain a level or two, doesnt the losing side always run away after round 1,
knowing that theyre likely to lose every round of combat? Can pulling tricks make enough of a
dierence to overcome the death-spiral?
KEN ST. ANDRE says: March 3, 2009 at 11:56 pm
2. You would think that any logical person would see when they are losing and run away. Except
that running away isnt always the best choice when youre losing. Sometimes there is no place to
run. Sometimes, turning your back on a foe means dying now instead of several turns down the
road. Sometimes you ght on just to damage the enemy as much as you can, or in hopes a miracle
will happen and save you. Sometimes, in T & T, players do decide to duck out of a losing combat
and they get away with it, after an appropriate saving roll or three. What I have to keep
emphasizing to players is that they should roleplay through situations, not just give up and die
when the numbers turn against them. Roleplay! Get creative! More fun will be had by all if you
do.
TOMMI says: March 4, 2009 at 6:46 am
3. Doug;
It does not really work like that. Rolling 4d6 gives a much larger distribution than merely rolling a
single die. This would not be true if 4d6 was divided by four after rolling, in which case the
average results would indeed be more likely.
3+ dice are close to a normal distribution whose variance increases linearly with the number of
dice rolled. So, the variance of 6d6 is double that of 3d6. Standard deviation is square root of
variance and hence also increases, though not as fast.
JOSHUA says: March 4, 2009 at 9:11 am
4. @Tommi the problem is that the standard deviation doesnt grow nearly as fast as the
distribution. That is, on 1d6 the SD is 1.7which means that you can expect to see the full spread
of 1-6 reasonably frequently. Even on 2d6, 12 comes up 1/36 of the time. On 100d6, even though
the variance is indeed 100 times as much the SD is only 10 times as much, so 99.9% of all rolls are
within 51 of the mean of 350youll never see a roll as lousy as 100 or as great as 600. Youll never
even see a dierence between the die rolls of as much as 100. The vast majority of the time (35/36)
the dierence wont even be as great as 34, if Ive eyeballed that right. A simple x, which I think
was mentioned in earlier editions as a speed-up, would be to treat 100d6 as 2d6 * 50.
@Doug Technically theres no actual death-spiral for PCs (there is for monsters, but I havent
goIen to them yet); losing one round doesnt make you more likely to lose the next, barring magic
or having a character drop out, because the damage you do is independent of the damage you
take. As long as youre still standing you ght at full power.
Its true that if youre outclassed, pure die-roll luck is probably not going to overcome the decit,
particularly because adds are usually larger than the expected value on the dice. E.g. a monster
with 100 dice will typically be rolling 100d6 + 500 at the start of combatif youre not within about
17 of that total you have very liIle hope to pull it out in standard combat. (Spite damage might
rescue you, Im not certain.)
But tricks and magic may well be decisive. If you can knock one guy out of combat for a couple
of rounds (as in the example combat), via an RP save or a spell, that side can be down
substantially. In the example they lost over a quarter of their repower, since the Ogre was
contributing more dice and adds than anyone else. If youre facing a single monster and can get it
to sit out for even one round, you can really put the hurt on it if you have teammates.
ANDREAS DAVOUR says: March 4, 2009 at 10:27 am

ANDREAS DAVOUR says: March 4, 2009 at 10:27 am

5. I think it was in the 5.5 houserules section that Ken gave a few options for lessening the amount of
dice used. It naturally develops, I guess.
I think youll nd that in most gamesystems two evenly matched opponents (or groups thereof) it
will be a question about endurance. I nd it oddly realistic for the abstract game T&T is!
But, the solution is there in the combat examples. If it doesnt go your way, do like the centaur!
I have fashioned a combat worksheet which I nd helps combat a bit. Ill make it available
soonish.
JOSHUA says: March 4, 2009 at 11:25 am
6. @Andreas- nah. Its true of game systems with a low pace of decision, but thats not most game
systems by a long shot. Any system with critical hits, for instance, can have a lucky die-roll decide
combat in an instant. Other systems can depend crucially on maneuver, tactics, or even who goes
rst. Whether thats a bug or a feature is a maIer of taste, of course. For instance, I think D&D 3e
depends far too much on whether you can prep your party with pre-combat bus and catch the
opponents at-footed, but I have to admit it does add an element of strategy.
TOMMI says: March 4, 2009 at 11:53 am
7. Joshua; Im well aware of that.SD is the square root of variance, so 4 times the dice means double
the deviation, nine times the dice triple the deviation, and so on, while mean increases linearly.
Im just saying it wont be a problem, because the absolute deviation is what maIers and in my
experience it increases fast enough when there are several dice so that the rolls remain random.
JOSHUA says: March 4, 2009 at 12:25 pm
8. @Tommi Im sure that its random enough, the question is whether the dierence is generally
enough to overcome armor, and if it does how fast does that end a ght? Ill have to see if/when I
have more experience with itIm a liIle concerned that a party with two Warriors and half-way
decent armor can easily soak 48+ hits per round
ANDREAS DAVOUR says: March 5, 2009 at 8:56 am
9. OK, most systems might have been an exaggeration, but surprisingly many systems Ive played
work that way. Crits might be the way to end a ght (look at spite!) but otherwise evenly matched
opponents fairly often seem to mean a dragged out ght. I think it makes sense.
JOSHUA says: March 5, 2009 at 9:13 am
10. @Andreas- to the extent thats true, I regard it as a aw in the systems. With evenly-matched
opponents, it should be 50-50 who wins, but thats no reason to drag it outparticularly since
most of the time as a GM youll be wanting to present relatively even challenges to the players.
MIKE D. says: March 5, 2009 at 1:41 pm
11. What would it do to the probabilities if you made the dierence a modier, instead of the
damage. Say, the winner subtracts the dierence from their damage taken, while the loser takes
the full brunt of the aIacks.
So, if side A rolls 40 and side B rolls 50, side a takes 50 damage and side B takes 30 (40 minus the
dierence).
Im not sure how it would aect the odds, though. A 50-50 ght would decimate both sides preIy
well. It would get combat the hell over with, anyway.
JOSHUA says: March 5, 2009 at 2:18 pm

JOSHUA says: March 5, 2009 at 2:18 pm

12. You would be reducing it to essentially a coin-ip, since you might expect a dierence of about 34
on a set of damage rolls that total around 850
Id prefer the current situation of a stalemate broken by RP. Really, though, I dont think its that
big a deal. Rescaling everything to a quick roll of 2-3d6 times a multiplier would speed the
combat right back up without changing the shape of the curve at all.
RAGNORAKK says: March 6, 2009 at 11:38 pm
13. And theres nothing in the rulebook that says By the way, you cant ignore all these combat
rules and just ip a coin to decide who wins.
T&T combat makes me smile!
BAT SUSHI says: November 14, 2010 at 6:14 pm
14. I enjoy the fact that T&T combat is a furious melee rather than a que of turns. I always like players
to pull tricks, use missiles or cast spells to swing the odds. Personally I outclass the party with an
extra foe or two, knowing that a TTYF or arrow will likely secure victory but only after a round or
two of severe beatings.
Armour makes this trickier, especially with warriors. I tend to exploit the drawbacks of heavier
armour (which is for warfare, not crawling through caverns) and encourage the group to be more
mobile.
Giving monsters special a>acks and le>ing players use their brains breaks the stalemate well,
usually using basic-melee warriors as blockers while the rogues and wizards do the small but
crucial hits.
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