Of all the games you play, or have played, which one has the combat that you prefer best & why?

Of other concerns, do you prefer the systme to be very abstract, or realistic?

Well, since I'm pretty much filled up with RPG Combat I can't really name a winner. Most systems don't know if they want to abstract things or keep them realistic and chose a bad combination. That's probably the main reason I designed my own combat system and the RPG around it.
Guess some specific systems who cater to a very distinct scenario are still OK  in my book. For instance, BLOOD was fun. The motley system had nice as well as horrible parts, but it served it's purpose well. Characters weren't 100% supposed to outlive the evening and there were critical hit tables for every goddamn household tool you can think of with very unique and gory critical hit descriptions.
The weapon list had curious entries that read like: Violin - 1-5 damage - critical table: blunt weapons 1. So much fun...

But a general purpose melee or modern combat rule set? I very recently discovered Riddle of Steel. It's surprisingly OK since it lives up to it's intention, (no glamour but realistic historically inspired fencing) but I feel it has a tad too much rule ballast and is just too deadly (botch one roll and you're toast).

P.S. By the way, greetings, Forum

Greetings Einzelgaenger.

What can I say, I prefer my own rules as well.

I prefer the outcomes to drive realistic tactics and realistic weapons choices.  That is what is an "optimal" strategy or weapon choice under the game mechanics does not fly in the face of thousands of years of human experience.  That is "realism" to me.

That said, I prefer the rules as simple and abstract as possible and yet achieve that "realism" result without exceptional conditional rules.  For me, too much abstraction requires conditional rules to get back to that "realism" and makes things less simple and smooth in actual play.

Realism to me certainly does not mean modeling things with many fiddly bits as you might in a computer simulation and then hope the "realism" I like above comes out.  I also don't require "realism" in each strike is serious because well when people get hit by a weapon it's very bad news.  I prefer the more abstract idea (such as HP) where damage can include nicks and such but with some kind of system (even if of low probability) where all this toughness might be bypassed and serious injury result.

To me it is very much a balance thing, I like how some systems treat weapons, how others treat armor, how others the factors that determine your chance to hit, and yet in others how damage is handled.  So I one day melded them all into something that works best for me.

Of existing systems I'd have to say Warhammer 2nd end comes pretty damn close.  It doesn't try to model reality.  But it does keep the combat mechanics with the same feeling that the rest of the setting keeps.  It also does deliver a very comfortable feeling of risk in the mechanics.   Additionally the choices you can make, have a good feeling to them, they don't feel arbitrary and combats don't play out the same based on simple choices made by players or NPC's it can quickly change the dynamic of a battle which makes it exciting.  Ultimately it doesn't have that Whack-a-mole feel to it that I get from Say D20.  The combats feel involved.

As far as the mechanics go it's pretty simple.  Roll under your weapon skill on a percentile you score a hit, unless your opponent tries to dodge, or parry.  If you hit roll damage, hope you kill him.  That's the core.  You have a few varriations to change up your actions with disarms, maneuvering, grappling, swift actions etc... All fairly standard and nothing new.  But each choice is can be effective and each attack can kill you, so it keeps you feeling pretty grounded.  There is no case of wading into combat and not having to worry about it because you know you have more then enough Health to live through it, or even guarantee to live half way through it.  The game is geared enough that you could be seriously taken out on the first hit and that keeps it feeling pretty real.

I don't have a favourite system, and they all vary wildly. So among my recommended combat systems you can find "realistic" stuff as CP2020 and TRoS as well as extremely abstract stuff like FTA.

Generally, there are some criteria for me though:
- A good combat system must offer choice and player-influence. Not just rolling the dice and following them like a automaton, but thinking about maneuvers, positioning, pool allocation, that stuff.
- A good combat system must be tactical. There should never be an optimal strategy that beats everything else hands down, because then the choice above is effectively a bogus decision.
- A good combat system has to trim down every unnecessary and/or uninfluenceable step to keep it smoothly running. A bad example is SR4 with it's 4 rolls for initiative, attack, evasion and soaking.
Moreover, you should watch out for endless "nothing happens"-whiffing. An example of that is TDE with it's unlimited active defense trait where just binary "success/not a success" are evaluated by the system. So take for instance a combat between two participants with attack 18 and parry 17. They have to underroll their stats with a d20 to check if they succeed. So the attacker hits in 90% of the cases - so far, so good. But then, the defender does the same, and he succeeds in 85% of the cases. So effectively, in 13,5% of all combat turns there's a hit, while in 86,5% of all combat turns absolutely nothing happens.
Together with the escalating hit-points of that system, that leads to extremely long and uninteresting combats.

Quote from: GladenOf all the games you play, or have played, which one has the combat that you prefer best & why?

I like d20. It seems to have about the right level of detail versus flexibility for me.

Quote from: GladenOf other concerns, do you prefer the systme to be very abstract, or realistic?

Definitely not "realitistic." I've seen game after game torture it's users in a quest to have "realistic" fights. Fact is, I'm playing game, and I want mechanics that model the game reality and which make the activity itself (playing a game) pleasant.

Seanchai

Quote from: SeanchaiDefinitely not "realitistic." I've seen game after game torture it's users in a quest to have "realistic" fights. Fact is, I'm playing game, and I want mechanics that model the game reality and which make the activity itself (playing a game) pleasant.

Well, since we've established that, (to which I wholeheartly agree) let me add:

The combat I wanna play shouldn't be too abstract (the rules can be, though), but what I call hyperrealistic. Like in painting, where hyperrealism is a style where the creation is not truly believeable, but it still could have happened that way. Like in movies, where the suspension of disbelief is a thin line that can be highly subjective (for example, someone very young might like the D&D movie, and call it realistic in it's own set of rules), a good combat system must be able to reproduce something that's believable and pleasant to play. By which I mean that the pl. characters can behave like heroes and don't have to sneak up on a group of enemies to kill them in their beds, cause fighting a dozen men would be 90% damn suicide.
D20 combat is so fixed on hitpoints & AC that it fails to be able to reproduce even remotely similar fights like the ones I mentioned. For example, the stories about a certain dark elf which are held by D&D fans in high esteem are totally unreproducable by the rules. Like his style of fighting -fencing elegantly, not getting hit while killing with single blows with his weak arms.

Sorcerer's Cave. Basically its system is roll 1 dice, add the character's Strength, the one with the lower total dies. I've found that you often have to make interesting tactical decisions about who to match up with who - although a player controls a whole party, not just one character.

The combat system I've enjoyed the most would have to be Torg.  The cards provide a built-in bias in favor of the PCs during standard combats, and a bias toward their opponents in dramatic combats.  There are bonuses, penalties, extra or skipped actions, etc. scattered in amongs the card results that provide a feel for the vagaries of chance in combat.  The built-in extended task resolution was a nice touch as well.

Being able to save and use cards to help your own (or other) character(s) added a new dimension.  I was doubtful at first, and thought they would be distracting and take you out of character.  It actually seemed to have the opposite effect.

Pendragon--quick, brutal and with lasting effects.

GURPS 1e, 4e is good but it still has the nasty speed/range table instead of increments and there's still some of the 3e mangling left in place.  Also 11 on 3d6 hits the groin.  It's just too often

1e just treated autofire bursts as a second attack roll, had point blank range and range increments, limited the number of damage types to a nice sane 3, wasn't wrapped up in armour penetration messes that even 4e hasn't quite cleaned up, defense scores didn't accumulate as wildy then either.  For instance no bonus for combat reflexes, block at 1/3 Shield skill, I can't remember if you could attack and parry with a one handed weapon in the same turn.

Oh well, incidentally, Rolemaster Standard System has much better critical tables and nice weapon verses armour effects, but the initiative system isn't great.  It's character creation and magic that draws me in on that one.  GURPS ain't my favourite for either of those things.

Quote from: GladenOf all the games you play, or have played, which one has the combat that you prefer best & why?

Fudge.  It uses wound levels instead of hit points, has a simultaneous combat system that requires minimal rolling and runs very fast, damage is tied to how well you hit, it's fairly easy to tune in terms of tone, and the combatants' skill levels matter a great deal in combat.

Quote from: GladenOf other concerns, do you prefer the systme to be very abstract, or realistic?

I prefer the system to be simple but want the elements to represent things in the game world.

Feng Shui, because it's the only one with an initiative system that makes sense. You don't have all that "declaration" nonsense and effectively running in reverse order so those who are fastest can change their actions in response to what the slowest are doing.

Quote from: KieroFeng Shui, because it's the only one with an initiative system that makes sense. You don't have all that "declaration" nonsense and effectively running in reverse order so those who are fastest can change their actions in response to what the slowest are doing.

Interesting. I bought a friend a copy of Feng Shui some years ago, but we never really played it.
Nontheless, the initiative rule is more or less similar with german "Arcane Codex" (D&D Fantasy), where, after initiative is determined (every round), the slowest guy declares his actions first, counting up in that order until the fastest fighter, who declares last or practically doesn't has to, as in reverse order the actions are carried out.
In addition to the apparent disadvantage of acting later and fast-guy's advantage of being able to react precisely to what tactics his slower opponent had come up with, being slower then your opponent neglects your right to parry the "faster" attacks.

That concept, which seemed at first like a good, realistic idea and was praised as such by the designer as one of the main killer features, quickly revealed in the eyes of discerning designers to be an example of well-intentioned rules, wrongly implemented or even simply a design fallacy.

First, the whole concept of rolling initiative each round as well as complex action-declaring is quite a burden, rightfully abandoned by most RPGs.
Then, the whole premise of clever use of just the right combat tactics goes out the window because in a deadly combat system, declaring melee actions after your opponent a fortiori implies extreme aggressivness.
If you know your hits will cripple your opponent enough to let you gain the upper hand, it's prudent to attack. If parrying (which only you as the faster could do) will practically take away that small advantage you have won through initiative, you won't do that, especially since it's highly probable that you're anyway the harder-to-hit dex-guy while he is slower because he's better armored.
Now the slower opponent, declaring his actions first, already knew this, and also knows he can't parry, so.. he won't do fancy shit but just try to butcher the faster one with one or two conservative attacks, relying mostly on his armor.
So in the end in all comes down to: A comes first, whacks B on the head, then B gets to hit back. Just like in D&D, which ironically the designer hates with a passion.
 To be fair, against weaklings you can do some spectacular gory & effective stuff, as the critical hit ("I kick the unruly peasant in the nads with my spiked poleyn, while simultaneously stabbing his wench into her left eye") rules work really well and fluid. (The compendium even lets you deliberately crush someones teeth)

Kiero, could you elaborate a bit more on Feng Shui's implemetation of Initiative, please? I'm curious.

Blood Bowl

There's an incentive to position your players well but there's also a disincentive to attempting superfluous actions, especialy when they are risky. The result is a scrum where details are left undone and no plan survives contact.