The medic is the most broadly useful person in any Traveller party, anytime. Gotta have that then get your specialists for the milieux you are running.Point 1: The Cleric is using MAGIC to heal people almost instantly (upon casting a spell).
Point 2: That kind of "medical miracles service" is available in AD&D (as you cite) ... but not so much in Traveller.
Point 3: If you remove the "miracles on demand Cleric" from the scenario that you're describing ... in order to "translate" the gameplay experience into Traveller terms ... then being reduced to ZERO or NEGATIVE HP pretty effectively removes people from being combat relevant, relegating them to the status of non-combatant and probably slain.
It's a LOT easier to recover from damage taken in AD&D ... the most common way being to just spend spell slots on miracle magics.
Damage in Traveller ... isn't so easily countered/negated, so it "hurts more" (in the that will leave a mark sense) compared to AD&D.
So ... if you take your AD&D Cleric scenario and remove the Cleric from it ... { significant look }
Rules Only: Traveller "deadly" Combat Rules discussion
- Thread starter atpollard
- Start date
In AD&D 1e, according to the DMG, you were down and dying at 0 HP, and dead at -10 HP. If you were at negative HP, you lost 1 HP per round until you reached -10 HP (and died) or until you were brought to positive HP.
We used the house rule of death at negative "CON" HP instead of -10 HP.
One might almost think that AD&D 1e was more deadly than its Traveller contemporary combat for an unconscious character … but I have been too strenuously corrected for that to be a possibility.
Clearly Traveller combat is too deadly for anyone to play anything except “Accountants in Space”.
L8R
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE.
SWORDS KILL PEOPLE!
Welcome to the Sword Worlds.
Not if I bring my Siege Arbalest . . .
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Sling of Seeking
Basic Information
Type
Magic Sling
Source
Source Book
Dungeon Master Guide
Sling of Seeking +2: This gives its user a +2 bonus for both attack and damage rolls, but missiles from such a weapon are regarded as +1 with respect to whether or not certain creatures are affected by the weapon (i.e., a special defense of "+1 or better weapon to hit" means the creature is vulnerable to normal missiles from this sling).
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Thank you, I may be thinking of basic D&D.
I have seen something similar, based on max total HP, but I thought that was just a house rule.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
As no-one has said anything of the sort, that seems unlikely. Combat is deadlier in Traveller, not getting knocked unconscious.One might almost think that AD&D 1e was more deadly than its Traveller contemporary combat for an unconscious character … but I have been too strenuously corrected for that to be a possibility.
AD&D characters are completely fine at 1 HP and dying at 0 HP, that is completely ridiculous and as far as I have seen often house-ruled.
Traveller characters that are knocked unconscious by gunshot wounds wakes up fresh as a daisy after the combat; equally ridiculous but in the other direction...
The system I like best in this regard is Ars Magica where you get an exponentially greater penalty to everything you do as you take damage:
Each point of damage taken is one box, when all boxes are crossed you are dead (unless magic?).
The number in the last column is the penalty you take on rolls (D10).
Healing time is based on the level of damage reached.
The number of boxes in each level is based on your attributes.
It's easy, you get progressive penalties, and with a decent margin between knocked out and dead.
At Heavy Wounds with a -5 penalty you can't do much but crawl out of combat.
Yes. In Basic D&D, 0 HP = Death.
Eh, I wouldn’t stress this much particularly over D&D, which is a fantasy story simulator.
I always understood HP to be mostly burning off karma/plot armor with dramatic knicks and ensorcelments running down the character’s capacity to dodge and take it. Really only down to the last die worth of HP where medical damage is occurring.
I always understood HP to be mostly burning off karma/plot armor with dramatic knicks and ensorcelments running down the character’s capacity to dodge and take it. Really only down to the last die worth of HP where medical damage is occurring.
