I guess this serves as my introduction post. I've been playing tabletop games since D&D 4th ed came out and have really stuck within the D&D genre of RPGs until recently.

I'm currently working on a superhero RPG and I'd like some thoughts. It started out as a revision of D&D 4th ed but has evolved very significantly since then with very few vestiges of 4th ed left. In my latest iteration I'm looking at removing attack rolls and on,y rolling damage rolls.

I love Wild Talents' One Roll Engine but find it a bit complex for what I'm aiming for. I'm looking for a game that is about as simple as 13th Age or D&D 4e. I also want to retain hit points as I feel hit points as an encounter resource match the comicbooks quite well.

I'm using combat related ability scores (called primary scores) that range from 0 to 5. The ability scores are currently:
Initiative: Helps determine who goes first.
Resolve: Determines HP which include both mental resolve and physical stamina.
Physical Resistance: All physical attacks go against this resistance.
Mental Resistance: All mental attacks go against this resistance.

The way the defences work is as DR. So any damage rolls made against them are reduced by that value (minimum 0). So if we had a physical resistance of 3 then you would need a roll of 4 or higher on the dice to deal damage (a roll of 4 would deal 1 point. A roll of 5 would deal 2 points, etc).

I'm proposing that rather than remove the attack roll, we remove the damage roll. Multiple attacks would be represented by multiple dice. Here are some attack options and the damage they use. Each attack is a standard action:
Grenade: 1d4+1
Gun: 4d4
Bow: 1d8
Flamethrower: 1d6+1
Flurry of Blows: 3d6
Sword: 1d12

On a max roll you score a critical hit which let's you add  +1 damage which at this scale should be significant.

So in this system when you use a standard action to attack with a gun you get to fire 4 times in the time that a bowman fires once. This has the benefit that physical resistance 5 makes you bulletproof.

Here's the DPR when attacking against physical resistance 3 with 12 HP

Grenade DPR: 1
Gun DPR: 2
Bow DPR: 2
Flurry of Blows DPR: 3.5
Flamethrower DPR: 1.29
Sword DPR: 3.83

In this you need at least two rounds to take down the enemy with 12 HP, even if the swordsman rolls max damage. Melee should deal the most damage as they're at the most risk while area attacks should deal a third of their respective type (whether Melee area or ranged area). The names of the attacks would be abstracted in the actual rules. This is just examples (e.g. Gun would become Rapid Fire).

What do people think of it? I'm worried at higher levels about rolling a fistful of attack dice and a fistful of damage dice. This reduces it to just a fistful of damage dice (although under this system I'm not convinced HP would scale with level. I need to investigate that). It also gets around the issue of rolling a critical hit, but then rolling poor damage.

I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on the proposal.

Its slightly cumbersome for tabletop in that the GM may need to tell the player the resistance value in advance -  since it applies to each die individually the player can't just roll the dice and give a total, they'd need to communicate a string of numbers like '1,2,4,4' or similar for stuff like guns.
 
I also don't know how you scale-up characters from 'low level' to 'high level' -here without an attack roll this can't increase, so presumably PCs are either gaining more dice (attacks/round) or upsizing damage dice ? It looks quite 'granular' however, occasional big increases in combat ability?

I expect there's other ways you could simplify multiple attacks that are less drastic - like having a single hit roll that determines how many attacks land, then roll damage for each.
Another game you could maybe look at for ideas is Tunnels and Trolls which  also has a single dice roll for both attack and damage; both sides roll a bucket of D6s depending on weapon or monster size, + adds for STR, DEX, Luck, etc., with the loser of the round taking the difference.

Quote from: JohnLynch;832473This reduces it to just a fistful of damage dice (although under this system I'm not convinced HP would scale with level. I need to investigate that) ...
I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on the proposal.

I'd recommend play testing lots of combats with varying levels and numbers of combatants. From my experience, new combat ideas very rarely survive their first encounter with play testing, but it is a very helpful and informative experience as you quickly discover what works and what doesn't.

Thanks BSJ. I tried an alternate system where you don't reduce the damage roll. But the math breaks down depending on what your physical resistance score is. It also had the effect that things felt lower powered then they do when you have higher damage rolls. But that's probably because of how I've been conditioned with D&D 4th edition

I've looked at pool methods before and I'm generally not a fan. I'm happy to go back to separate rolls. If there was the option for having less rolls I wanted to explore it though.

As for how I would have dealt more damage, it would have been through more rolls. I've got a "Heroic Surge" as a resource that refreshes at the end of each encounter (labelled scene to move away from D&D 4th edition terminology and to also make it clear it's not just a combat resource). It lets characters fuel call upon inner reserves to achieve tasks. Let them run at superspeed, call upon their superstrength for lifting heavy objects, give them extra attacks, let them apply status conditions on a hit, etc.

At level 1 they get 2 heroic surges per scene and can only spend 1 heroic surge per round. At every subsequent level they get 1 additional heroic surge (at level 3 they can spend 2 heroic surges per round, at level 5 they can spend 3 heroic surges per round, etc, etc). So that's where the scaling is employed. As a capstone at level 10 (maximum level that's supported, although there's no reason a DM couldn't continue it past level 10) Their damage doubles for their attacks.

It's a bit of resource management that (hopefully) makes combat feel less "I hit it and swing" and instead gives them some tactical options without repeating the power structure of AEDU (everything's at-will, but at-will powers can be empowered by using an encounter resource. This same resource can also be used out of combat to replicate utility).

Quote from: JoeNuttall;832623I'd recommend play testing lots of combats with varying levels and numbers of combatants. From my experience, new combat ideas very rarely survive their first encounter with play testing, but it is a very helpful and informative experience as you quickly discover what works and what doesn't.

Definitely. I've got university holidays coming up in a month's time or so and I'm looking at running a few different pick up games online to test how the game plays for newbies, and whether the mechanics (specifically heroic surges and powers) work as expected.

I didn't read the details, but I've used the basic concept of simply running down points until one party or the other is defeated. That's about how Tunnels & Trolls worked originally (when armor was essentially just another stock of "hit points" and nearly every round moved the affair closer to a finish).

Having armor and/or other factors deduct from the loss each round re-introduces the potential for "no effect" results. This might be not terribly far from OD&D if you use 2d6+4 for your low-level figures, with e.g. 7 points deducted for plate & shield, and maybe 13 hp for 1st level.

Quote from: JohnLynch;832473I'm proposing that rather than remove the attack roll, we remove the damage roll. Multiple attacks would be represented by multiple dice. Here are some attack options and the damage they use.

We set up a system like this for 218 Games, and modified it further for the latest game setting.

The weapons have a Damage Rate that is standard (say 6 points) that only modifies if you have no skill in the weapon (half the damage).

Successful hits cause full damage rate.  

Weapons with multiple attacks give the player a choice to focus all attacks on one or multiple targets.

That would seem to be removing the damage roll, rather than the attack roll ?
I guess it does streamline down multiple attacks still.

Quote from: rway218;833235We set up a system like this for 218 Games, and modified it further for the latest game setting.

The weapons have a Damage Rate that is standard (say 6 points) that only modifies if you have no skill in the weapon (half the damage).

Successful hits cause full damage rate.  

Weapons with multiple attacks give the player a choice to focus all attacks on one or multiple targets.

As BSJ said that sounds like you've removed attack rolls instead of damage rolls. I see a lot of systems that work like this and it's definitely a simpler way to game and it could be better. But I've been conditioned (or at least, I feel I have been) to get excited on the damage roll rather than the hit roll. Most modern D&D systems and their derivatives give you a fairly good chance at hitting if you've built your character correctly. Whether you hit is really only exciting in a "everyone's down except me" situation. Otherwise it's statistically given that both sides will hit each other more often than not over the course of the battle (the length of the battle determines how important hitting first is). The variance in these systems is in the damage. Will I roll for 2 damage? Or will I rule for 16 damage? That's where the excitement is because in these systems that's where the most variance is.

Some games get around this by giving a "degrees of hit". So if you rolled over the target number by less than 5 than it's a normal hit. If you rolled over by 6-10 it's a special hit. If you roll by 11-15 it's an incredible hit. The more you roll over by the damage is done. This removes some of the simplicity you get though by removing the damage roll.

Ultimately it comes down to how you want to hide the complexity and how much excitement you can put into one roll over the other. It also depends what background people have come from and how much they're willing to change for the rule system. For me, the attack roll with static damage isn't that enjoyable because the games I've played make it unenjoyable. If you get around these issues it could be a great system. But it's not one I'm pursuing at this time.

I have to say I'm usually not excited about damage rolls. D&D type games - usually you get multiple dice, so I know in advance the roll is likely going to be 'around average' which is unexciting. About the only game where a damage roll is exciting for me is Savage Worlds, since max. rolls 'roll up' and you never quite know if a lucky roll is going to blow out.

Quote from: JohnLynch;832473Gun: 4d4
Bow: 1d8

...So in this system when you use a standard action to attack with a gun you get to fire 4 times in the time that a bowman fires once. This has the benefit that physical resistance 5 makes you bulletproof.

But not arrow proof? That is backwards.

As a realism-oriented TFT/GURPS player, I much prefer in general when combat with supposedly-deadly weapons is about avoiding getting hurt, as opposed to how much damage a person can shrug off. That's what I can't stand about so many hitpoint-based combat systems.

I also like my decisions to have a big effect on the risks and outcomes, so I'd suggest that in addition to adding up dice for equipment and character traits, that there be a choice of various actions, and a range of situations, which affect what happens. For example, a gunfighter might focus on drawing first and shooting as much as possible, or on taking cover (assuming there is some - a situation), or taking single aimed shots, or using suppression fire, or running away, or...

Quote from: Skarg;837306...or running away...

I wouldn't call them a gunfighter...maybe a gun-runner?

I really prefer combat that revolves around voiding damage (through avoidance or soak) with inflicted damage causing conditions on the receiver. Yes, this means I like death spirals as gives the perception of each choice having more weight. It also tends to mean that combat avoidance becomes a tactical consideration at the forefront.