Careful with that axe! Damage in D&D and RuneQuest - and a new house rule for shields

In the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons (1974), all player-character attacks did D6 damage. Strength bonuses were yet to be dreamed up - unless you were an ogre, in which case you did D6 + 2 damage, or a giant (2D6).

In many ways, this way of handling damage is superior to all that came afterwards, including the STR bonuses and varying weapon damages that came in later supplements and versions of the game - and in later games such as RuneQuest. And I'd argue that the rot had set in even with ogres and giants in 1974.

Why? Well, a single die of damage always allows the possibility of just a single point of damage being done - a light wound, in other words. And that's important. Even an ogre should be capable of just grazing someone as it swings its club. 

One thing I've noticed as our campaign has progressed through its Gloranthan phase is that many characters are incapable of not maiming the average unarmoured foe with a single hit. If you're armed with a dagger in RuneQuest, you do 1d4 +2 damage to start with. If you're only a bit bigger and stronger than average (STR and SIZ averaging 13), you'll be doing 2d4 +2. But the average human character has just 3 hit points in each arm. So the minimum damage from a normal human wielding a dagger will incapacitate that limb. A stronger-than-average character armed with a dagger or club can't fail to maim the average human's leg or abdomen with a single blow. And woe betide anyone in the path of a great axe (2d6 +2 damage).

Despite RuneQuest's reputation for lethality, these high minima get lost in the welter of huge damage totals that can result from impales and other specials hits. That's because RuneQuest characters tend to be heavily armoured and loaded up on protective magic. But for all the game's vaunted realism, something has slipped. Two unarmoured men in a knife fight could keep going through numerous light wounds before something more dangerous or deadly occurred - at least if Borges is any guide. D6 is better damage for a dagger than D4 +2.

For D&D house rules - or for a substantially rethought versions of the game - I'd be tempted to stick with 1D6 damage as the norm, with no strength bonuses (those I'd apply to the attack roll). But what about two-handed weapons? Well, I've seen house rules around that go with 'advantage' - roll 2D6 and pick the best. That's an elegant set-up - it increases the average damage without ruling out the possibility of a 1. 

Another option would be to use a D8. I'd probably keep that for ogres, though. Giants could deal out D10 or even D12, depending on their size. And D20 might be the preserve of dragons and their ilk. The important point is that all damage should have a minimum of 1. A single die is always preferable to multiple dice or single die plus bonus. 

Now, if two-handed weapons offer an advantage, shields need to offer a different advantage too. As many have acknowledged, a single point of armour class isn't much compensation. Trollsmyth's Shields Shall Be Splintered rule is great, but it does give PCs the knowledge that they can always avoid lethal blows when carrying an intact shield.

Why not just have shield-wielders roll to reduce damage? Opposed rolls don't slow the game down, as they can be rolled simultaneously.

So how about this for shields in old-school D&D games? 

Shields

A character equipped with a shield rolls 1D6 when hit in melee or missile combat for which he or she was prepared. The shield roll is deducted from the attacker's damage. If the attacker rolls a six and the shield-bearer rolls a 1, then the attacker can choose either to do the full 6 points of damage or to render the shield useless until repaired. 

Bucklers

Bucklers are small shields that are sufficiently small to be carried inconspicuously on a belt. They act as shields in all respects, but absorb only 1D4 points of damage. 

This rule should ensure that shields are valuable, but should also avoid characters benefiting from extra lives through their use. As the shattering of the shield is the attacker's option on the 6:1 roll, it's likely that most will go for full damage instead. So shields will break, but in considerably fewer than 1 in 36 cases. 

One more thing: hit points. There's no point in worrying about keeping minimum damage to 1 if lots of people are running around with only 1 hit point. Perhaps the minimum score for the first hit die of almost any creature should be 2. But a simpler solution might be that most people and humanoid monsters (and certainly all PCs) just have 6 hit points as the default.

There's a nice symmetry about all this. Most ordinary humans (orcs, dwarves, whatever) will survive a single melee attack. And a shield will improve their chances of survival considerably. But there's still chance that any single combat round could prove lethal - whether that's because someone slips a dagger through your visor or pulls off a perfect sword-stroke.