MIGHT DICE: New House Rule for Fighters

Everyone has a fix for the Fighter. Every OSR game. Every blogger. I have. You have. It's a veritable right of passage.

I have tried quite a few in my home games over the years. I like this one the most.

湯魚 (@yzk7rl)

But first, some explanation

Fixes fall in two categories:

• Making fighters better at combat maneuvers like grappling, shoving, and disarming.
• Giving fighters more attack opportunities, like an extra melee attack after felling a foe or a number of attacks against creatures up to 1 HD equal to your level per round.

I've tried implementing both of these fixes in some form or another in my games, and repeatedly faced the same problems.

Maneuvers slow encounters down and require rulings that add cognitive load to combat. Players should be encouraged to look for opportunities to use the environment and perform daring deeds, but we can do that in a lightweight OSR game without giving them a menu of options to pore over every combat round. My innovation, which is shared by ACKS, DCC, and probably a bunch of other systems is to fold maneuvers into basic attacks to make them not have to compete with the reliability of pure damage. But after years of testing, I learned that even with this intertwining of maneuvers and attacks I've determined maneuvers are best kept as edge cases adjudicated descriptively as the situation demands. Codifying them in a class ability works against the elegance of lightweight OSR combat.

Extra attack opportunities are fun but also slow encounters down, and are too situational to add satisfying distinction to fighters. The common Cleave house rule helps fighters shine when fighting hordes of weaklings but becomes totally irrelevant when facing off against a single powerful foe, which could be the perfect opportunity to have a fighter take the spotlight.

So why not just lean into the simpleness of the combat system and make fighters better at achieving the single most important outcome in combat: dealing damage?

Here's a simple, unobtrusive house rule designed to work with, not against, the streamlined harmony of BX-style combat:

MIGHT DICE

• When a fighter deals damage, they roll a d6 Might Dice in addition to their weapon's damage dice.
• If the result of the Might Dice is greater than the damage dice, the fighter uses the Might Dice to calculate damage instead.
• The amount of damage dealt cannot exceed the weapon's maximum. For instance, for fighters using a weapon that deals 1d4 damage, rolling a 5-6 on the Might Dice means they only deal 4 damage before adding modifiers.
• After rolling damage, the fighter may perform a Might Blow and add the result of the Might Dice to the damage roll. This exhausts the Might Dice, which may not be rolled for the rest of combat.
• At 5th level Fighters may perform two Mighty Blows before exhausting the Might Dice, at 9th level three.

Gustave Doré

Examples:

Brog Strongjaw buries his axe into a troll. His player rolls a d8 to determine damage as well as a d6 Might Dice. The d8 result is 5, and the Might Dice roll is a 3. Because the d8 result was higher than the Might Dice, Brog uses the d8 to determine damage and hits the troll for 5 hp.

Melanie Hellbreath throws a dagger at a cultist, hitting him in the chest. Her player rolls a d4 to determine damage as well as a d6 Might Dice. The damage roll is only a 1, but the Might Dice lands on a 4. Because the Might Dice is higher, Melanie deals 4 damage.

Oko the Big crushes a mutant crab with his war hammer. His player rolls a d6 for damage and a d6 Might Dice, each resulting in a 2. Because it's late in the session and Oko's player is ready to get this encounter over with, he decides Oko lands a Mighty Blow and takes the result of both dice, dealing a total of 4 damage. Oko is level 5 but has used one Mighty Blow earlier in the encounter, so he no longer rolls Might Dice for the rest of combat.

Why this works

• It works with the system, not against it. The BX combat sequence is a poor and misunderstood creature—which isn't to say it's perfect, but it has a few things going for it people don't often recognize, namely its speed. Cumbersome combat rules detract from this asset. Initially, I had thought to make a rule that helped fighters hit more often, but I realized that not only do fighters already get a better attack probability than most other classes, but that in my experience missing isn't really that big of a deal when rounds pass really quickly. Instead of making the success of hitting a target more frequent, this rule makes it more rewarding.
• Low/no overhead. Rolling two dice and taking the higher is fast and easy to understand.
• Tangible. Rolling a special dice that no one else gets to helps distinguish a fighter more than numeric bonus.
• Distinctive. Fighters typically have no unique feature; heavy armor they share with clerics and elves, weapon options they share with thieves and elves, their attack progression they share with dwarves, even being able to establish a stronghold at any time is a feature they share with the halfling. Those damn demihumans stepping on my fighter niche. Well no more! Furthermore, if you include fighter-like classes like rangers and paladins, this lets fighters preserve their role as the pure combat specialist.
• Active choice. The Mighty Blow option gives fighter players a big shiny red button to press every time they roll damage. This is partially inspired by Mindstorm's Buy the Boost system.
• Also gives space to other fixes. I must face the fact that maneuvers and cleaves aren't going away, and if you've been playing with them for years you're not going to stop on my account. Might Dice can give fighters another boost without breaking the game and they can fit nicely alongside whatever else you're doing to give the simple fighter some love.

And beyond

Another quality of the Might Dice rule is that it's easy to riff on. Ok yes I said part of the benefit of this system is how simple it is but because I seem to have a gland in my brain that delivers pleasure every time I make something more complicated than it needs to be, I consider it a benefit that this system provides a game mechanism to mess around with. I am already working on a method for letting fighters use their Might Dice for special techniques. Here are some highly experimental and untested examples for more things you can do with Might Dice.

Swear Vengeance

A fighter who has been wronged by another creature can Swear Vengeance against them. Their Might Dice becomes 1d12 against that specific foe and they ignore their weapon's damage limit (so even if you're fighting with a dagger and you roll a 10, you deal 10 damage plus modifiers). As long as a fighter's oath of vengeance goes unfulfilled, they are unable to perform Mighty Blows against other targets. Fighters may only Swear Vengeance once per level.

Deflect

In combat, a fighter can roll their Might Dice and reduce incoming damage by that amount. Doing this prevents them from using their Might Dice the next time they roll damage.

Called Shot

If the Might Dice rolls a 6, a fighter player may declare they make a called shot targeting a specific nonvital part of the foe's body (hand, eye, leg, tail, wing, etc.). The attack deals damage as indicated on the normal damage dice (not the Might Dice, even if it is higher) and render the body part unusable for three rounds. If the fighter is at least 2 HD greater than their foe, the body part is instead severed, destroyed, or otherwise permanently disabled.