Combatproposalrodentia
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Uriel's Combat Proposal
Combat skills are divided as such
Offensive: Slashing Attacks Thrusting Attacks Bashing Attacks
Defensive: Blocking Parrying Dodging
Each has a rank from Nonproficient to Master, which determines the die step you use
Nonproficient - 1d3 Novice - 1d4 Apprentice - 1d6 Journeyman - 1d8 Expert - 1d10 Master - 1d12
A critical adds a 1d4 for bonuses, with skills increasing that roll Some skills and talents increase the number of dice you would roll to determine an attack or defense
Combat
Combat involves action and reaction on the part of the attacker and defender.
The attacker chooses how he would like to attack - slash, thrust, bash
He rolls a die dependent on his proficiency in that particular type of attack, and adds his stat bonus to that roll
The defender then has three options for defense
- To block and attempt to disrupt his enemy's inertia
- To parry his attack and riposte
- To dodge his attack altogether and attempt to flank him
Depending on which the defender chooses, and his proficiency in that skill, he makes his roll.
If the attacker beats the defender's roll, the attacker rolls for damage (or does damage, or something)
If the defender beats the attacker's roll, the attack is nullified and special options are open for the defender
- If blocking, the defender can push back to stagger his opponent
- If parrying, the defender can riposte with his own attack roll. His opponent has the same defense options
- If dodging, the defender can choose which way to dodge and see if he is successful in flanking his opponent
A critical success is a hit or defense roll where you roll the maximum number on your die (We discussed it last night, but since it wasn't noted here: this particular crit system does not work, as it would mean novices have a great chance of rolling their maximum number (1 out of 3 chance) than masters (1 out of 12). -bozerun). Perhaps this can be expanded to a range of numbers.
These rules are sketchy as we have no real stat system set up yet, but it's an idea that seemed well received on the IRC chatroom.
- I love it
I support the percentile idea. Doubles would represent a critical hit. On 2d10, this would be about a 10% chance, and when two characters with similar combat skill are fighting, you would hit about half the time, making it a reasonable 5% crit chance. This would also easily incorporate Uriel's combat proposal. Shields would add a bonus to block, light weapons a bonus to dodge, and large weapons a bonus to attack. - Marcidus
Uriel's Crit Proposal
Okay, why not have crits be based on weapons?
Say you are an Journeyman at Bash, Slash, and Thrust. A beetlewing scimitar is Well Suited to Slash, Average at Thrust, and Ill Suited at Bash.
When you roll to hit, you roll your D8 as per the usual. If you do a slashing attack, you roll a D8, if you roll a thrust, roll a D6, if you roll a Bash, you roll a D4.
Doubles are a critical success. If you are a novice, you can only crit on any average or well suited attack, if you are nonproficient, you cannot crit with that attack.
What do you guys think? Uriel
DiceInJapan and I tested out a combat phase with this system. It seems to work out just fine.
We realized, though, that a normal game with just this ruleset will be just one character spamming his best attack and one character spamming their best defense. The stamina system suggested earlier may work to prevent this.
Also, we came up with some responses.
Initiative is decided by a test between the two player's AGI-Equivalent stats. Highest roll goes first, die steps dependant on stat level.
A successful block puts the opponent at -1 die step for his next defensive maneuver. A successful dodge resets the Initiative between the two characters, resulting in another Init roll.
Damage is decided by a STR-Equivalent roll vs a Con-Equivalent roll. Success is one wound, failure is no wounds or a knick. Uriel
Crit Revision Proposal
I've written a lot more than this, check out the history of this article if you wanna see it.
Basically, it now works like this. When you attack, you choose from three skills - Slashing, Thrusting, and Bashing. You have a combat skill rank from 1-5 for each of these skills. The ranks determine what die you roll to attack, and are as follows:
1 - 1d12 - Nonproficient
2 - 1d10 - Novice
3 - 1d8 - Apprentice
4 - 1d6 - Journeyman
5 - 1d4 - Master
You also roll a second die along with your first one, using the same die type as a base, but with a modifier. This modifier is based on how well the weapon you're using is fitted to the attack you've chosen. For instance, a Beetlewing Scimitar is Well Suited to Slashing, Average with Thrusting, and Ill Suited to Bashing. Now, no rodent is naturally adept at using a weapon; it just never feels like a natural part of their body. So, even a Weapon Die for a Well Suited weapon brings loses one Die Slot from your natural skill. Average brings it down two Dice Slots, and Ill Suited brings it down three Dice Slots.
Complicated? Nah. For example: A Journeyman Thruster using that Beetlewing Scimitar rolls 1D6 for his Thrusting skill and 1D10 for the Scimitar's Average Thrusting (his skill die of D6 goes down one rank for using a weapon, and another since it's only average proficiency). 1D6 & 1D10. A Master Slasher using the Scimitar to slash, however, would roll 1D4 for skill, and 1D6 for the Weapon Die. D6, as you can see, is the lowest the Weapon Die can go, since it's one step below Master. A PC with Novice or Nonproficient skill will always roll a D12 for their Weapon Die, Nonproficients always rolling 2d12. Nonproficients may or may not be able to crit, we're still working on it.
So, you roll your two dice. If the numbers match, it's a crit. You compare the number you rolled to your opponent's number, and if you rolled under his number, you hit him. If he rolls under you, he defends.
Now, if the Weapon Die loses a rank because you're using a weapon, what happens if you're unarmed, you ask? Unarmed attacks generally deal less damage, but they do not lose the Die rank. So, a Master slasher slashing with his claws may very well roll 2D4, or a snake may very well bite with 2D6. Get it? Got it? Good.
I think just scaling the skills so that the highest die step is a d4, and scaling back the WS-Avg-IS ratings to be -1 die step of the base, would work just fine. Uriel
COMBAT PROPOSAL REVISION 1
Okay, so we looked at it today in IRC and tested it out with a dicebot I loaded up.
We did a few runthroughs, with combat ending after a single wound was delivered. These mini battles ended up being epic, with a few critical successes rolled during the course of it, but not many.
Our runthroughs worked on a ranking system for stats, skills, and weapons.
Stats used were Strength, Constitution, Agility, Dexterity. Skills were Slash, Bash, Thrust, Block, Parry, Dodge. Weapons were ranked as Well Suited for two combat skills, Average for two skills, and Ill Suited for two skills. All ranks for skills and stats were 1-5.
Combat worked as such;
The two combatants rolled for initiative based on AGI stat. Highest goes first.
First person does his attack - slash, bash, thrust. Let's say he was a journeyman at the attack, and his weapon was well suited to it. He rolls a d8 for the actual attack, a d8 for critical success check. He then looks at his Dexterity. Let's say it's 1. He rolls a d4 to add to his actual attack roll.
The defender now has the option to block, parry, or dodge.
First, he looks at his skill and rolls his base die as per the normal. Then he rolls his crit die as per the normal, dependant on Suitability of the weapon. Then he rolls STR if using block, DEX if using Parry, and AGI if using dodge, adding that bonus to his base.
If Attacker wins, they do a STR vs CON test, which just involves each player rolling the die step corresponding with his stat level. If attacker wins again, the defender takes a wound. If defender wins or ties, he just takes a knick.
If defender wins, then;
- If blocking, it's Defender's STR vs Attacker's AGI. If defender wins, attacker is staggered. Defender gets free attack and attacker is at -1 die step on his base defense roll. Then it's the Defender's turn.
- If parrying, then the defender attacks right away with a fatigue reduction to his attacks. Attacker has defensive options as normal.
- If dodging, both players reroll their initiative test vs each other to simulate the change of the battlefield positions.
If the attacker's attack score (with bonus) is equal to the defender's defending score (with bonus) each of them count as being staggered for that turn (they each skip their turn if there are more people in combat around them) and they make an initiative roll against each other to see who recovers first. Being attacked by anyone else sees them defending at -1 base die step.
We tried the system out again, giving both players an arbitrary 12 stamina points and making bash/dodge cost 3, slash/parry cost 2, and thrust/block cost 1. Parrying an attack successfully has the bonus of reducing the riposte options' stamina costs by 1 to a minimum of 1. Foregoing your attack phase (skipping your turn) sees your defensive options reduced by 1 to a minimum of 1, and has you regaining 2 stamina points at the end of your defending round, whether you successfully defend or not.
We're still working out some kinks, but this is how it played out. We want to make Wounds stay constant for all creatures, but we want to make Stamina dependant on core stats. We're thinking, if we implement a con/agi stat, that the higher of the two influences stamina.
Any comments? DiceInJapan, Boril, pantseru, and I were testing this out quite a bit in chat tonight. Uriel
Combat Proposal Proposal
Let's make a simple core combat system for the sake of a) balance and b) simplicity, discarding special actions for block, dodge, and parry. Here's how it works:
We'll use the reverse rank system - higher rank means smaller die; aim for a number lower than opponent.
3 offensive choices, 3 defensive choices. Thrust, slash, bash, versus block, dodge, parry.
Each weapon will be well suited, average, and ill suited for one of each combat action.
Armor rules will be similar. A given set of armor is WS-Avg-IS for one of each defense action.
Well suited means the equipment die will be a d6; Average is a d8, Ill suited is a d10. The skill die will be based on the character's skill rank. Seperate skills for each combat/defense action.
Where it all comes together is an RPS-style array of modifiers. Keep in mind "-1" is a bonus; a lower roll is better.
- Thrust gets -1 bonus against block, +0 against parry, +1 penalty against dodge. The spear drives past the shield and between the chainmail links, but also past the sidestepping rodent.
- Slash gets -1 bonus against dodge, +0 against block, +1 penalty against parry. The scimitar catches the mouse as he sidesteps, but is knocked away by another weapon.
- Bash gets -1 bonus against parry, +0 against dodge, +1 penalty against block. The club drives through any attempts to parry, but is stopped solidly by a shield or plate.
The combat maneuvers can be decided in secret, then revealed, OR the NPC's maneuver can be decided by a die roll.
A master slasher wielding a scimitar slashes at a journeyman dodger wearing medium armor. The attack is resolved as:
- 1d4 (master slasher) + 1d6 (scimitar is appropriate for slashing) -1 (slash beats dodge) against 1d6 (journeyman dodger) + 1d8 (Medium armor is average for dodging)
- 1d4 + 1d6 - 1 against 1d6 + 1d8
Lower roll indicates a hit (attacker rolls low) or a miss (defender rolls low). A hit plus an attacker critical (same die number for attack) indicates 'double damage'. A miss plus a defender critical staggers the attacker.
Character attributes like Strength might come into play as further modifiers. I don't have a system yet for wound resolution.
Although, "realism" wise, some aspects are arbitrary or ambiguous, this system is designed to be well balanced in favor of perfectly realistic. If you want perfect realism, play FATAL.
Please criticize the hell out of my proposal.
It's mostly pretty good, although it runs into one of the problems we're sorta having with our current system - having a bunch of "bonuses" that are actually subtracting from your total takes things to the point where, at least in my opinion, it's starting to get too complicated. Some people might be fine with doing all that shit in their head every time they want to make an attack, but a lot of people would find it an annoyance, or worse, just too much work altogether.
I guess I should explain what I mean by "problem's we're sorta having". Basically, with the old non-reverse rank system - higher skill = bigger die, higher roll wins - you could add a lot of different sorts of bonuses very easily to the roll, including bonus dice. I mean, you could still add bonus dice with the reverse rank system, but it's a lot less streamlined.
I thought of a couple other solutions to that problem. One of them is pretty simple. If you want to give a bonus in the reverse-rank system, you can just increase the characters skill rank. Like, if he's using slash, which might work well against dodge, then move him up from novice to apprentice. This moves his die rank up from d10 to d8. You can just play around with this system, do whatever's needed, move him a couple slots if you have to.
However, the problem with that is it's not a very large bonus. It's only going to give a max of a few points per roll. So, the other solution I thought about is this: Well, in the reverse-rank system I proposed, and in this one by cynical, you make up your to-hit roll by adding up your skill roll and your weapon/crit roll. Now, in Uriel's system the way he meant it, you aren't actually supposed to add those two rolls together; you merely use your skill rolls to determine the to-hit phase.
But we can combine those two systems. Basically, the idea would be that normally, you add together the skill roll and the weapon roll. Say, adding a Master Skill d4 roll and Well Suited weapon d6 roll together. Then, if you wanna give a bonus, you can just remove the weapon roll from the to-hit total. That way it's just the player's skill roll - just the d4, in that example. That's the equivalent of giving a bonus die. I'm pretty sure that keeps everything balanced, too. You'd still roll the d6, mind you, but it would just be to check for crit.
I don't know, that whole system might be a bit skewed, it's just a couple of ideas. -Anonymous?
I think one of the things we need to figure out before we can really solidify what is rolled when, is how often characters should get hit. This involves a) How many hits they can take and b) How long combat should last. Perhaps that should pre-empt further combat system discussion? -cynicaloptimist
