Experience with Comparative DX for Combat?

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Hi, everyone.

In scanning the forums, recently, I ran across an interesting house rule that I saw mentioned in at least a few posts.

The house rule modifies how hard it is to hit a figure based upon the relative dexterity scores of each combatant.

Here are some quotes that I've pulled from other threads about it.

Originally Posted by David L Pulver

... Any defense rules will slow down a fight somewhat.

- Defense rules that impose a penalty to your adjDX based on the other fellow's talent/adjDX will additionally change/slow the game because you must always ask the GM (or player) about the other fighter's statistics. Still, it is doable.

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

What I used to do, when we played a lot back in the day, was to use "comparative DX".

Simply put thus means that, under existing rules, if Aragon has adjDX 16 and the Orc has adjDX 10, Aragon will hit on 90% plus and the Orc will hit on 50%. So Aragorn's high DX isn't helping him as much as it should.

Under "comparative DX" the difference between the combatants is 6 (or +3/-3). Taking 10 as the middle score, Aragorn gets +3 or adjDX 13 and the Orc gets -3 or adjDX 7.

This means Aragon still has a very high hit % but the Orcs hit percentage is much lower.

Originally Posted by zot

When you had an odd difference, did you put the larger half of the points above or below 10?

For those that use this house rule, has it been a positive or negative modification to your games?