Fighting FAQs
pt. 9

Last FAQ post.

Q4: In a sword fight, how do you get a "hit, no damage"? Won't all hits cut you up?

A4: Knife fights are all about bleeding. You cut, they bleed, and blood loss knocks them out.

That said, preferably you block their blade with your blade. That's one of the benefits of carrying a chunk of metal: you can interpose it between your fragile flesh and other chunks of metal.

Think of a movie sword fight. Every time one blade clanks against another, that's one kind of "hit, no damage". And every time someone swings, and the other person jumps over it or leaps back, that's a miss. It's GM's call as to which happened.

Don't forget flesh wounds. They happen in swordfights, too. A cut shirt, a single trickle of blood trailing down the arm... it's not a Wound, so it's "no damage". And they are cool and colorful.

Q5: An unarmed person fighting a guy with a blade. How do they get "hit, no damage"?

A5: First, in that sitch the unarmed guy has a -3 Skill Penalty. This impairs his offense and defense. It's hard to fight a knife bare-handed, much less a sword. (Contemplating a reach modifier, as well. Not sure.)

Second, "hit, no damage" flesh wounds apply here, as well. A cut on the bicep, a shallow gouge across your belly, and so forth. They're not Wounds, but flesh wounds.

Q6: What about a gunslinger vs. a guy with a sword?

A6: Ever seen Raiders of the Lost Ark?

That's the last of the FAQ's, and the last of this line of posts. (Unless something else comes up.) Next up, we're gonna start talking about the core of the combat system: Shock, Actions, and Initiative.

A Producer?
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, Prologue

I love The Producers. It's funny and offensive in just the right mix. At one point Max Bialystock tells his would-be-producer friend Leo Bloom, "Has the curtain gone up? Has the curtain gone down? Then you're not a producer." I like this rule, it makes a lot of sense, and it applies to fields far beyond producing a Broadway play.

Per the Bialystock Rule, I'm not a designer, because I've never finished a game and shipped it. But I am engaged in designing a game, and this is a little note about that process.

Inventions are messy. Like a gasoline engine. The central idea is absurdly simple: take a highly combustible substance, make it combust, use a piston and a shaft to turn that into mechanical energy. Actually building the engine is far, far more complicated. Pistons, crankshaft, gaskets, fuel injection, spark plugs, exhaust, lubricant, filtration, and on and on. But it's all necessary to make the engine work.

What I'm saying is that everything sounds simple in concept, but when you actually implement something it becomes more complex, more baroque. If you've never actually shipped something, you don't know this. Until just this week, I didn't know this. Not really.

The Shock mechanic is the gasoline engine of the game. It's a little bit ugly, a little bit odd, a little bit baroque. But it works.

And, like an engine, it drives most of the rest of the game. It sits at the heart of nearly everything outside of Skill Challenges — damage, Initiative, Actions, even FX use. Its role is more critical than the combat mechanic. (Which shocked me when I realized it.)

And I'll start talking about it next post.

Shock: The Rules
SAI, pt. 1

Complexity is a budget: you spend it where you need it. Where you don't, you simplify, abstract, or just plain ignore. I simplified the combat mechanic, because it isn't the heart of combat. Initiative is the heart of combat, and Shock the engine. What is Shock?

Wounds represent physical trauma: broken bones, torn flesh, pierced organs, and the like. Shock, as a mechanic, represents the many sorts of injuries or damage that don't manifest in gross physical trauma: physiological stress, fatigue, shock, pain, exhaustion, and related effects and conditions.

Physical exertion (such as running or climbing) causes Shock, as can extremes of heat or cold. Getting punched in the face can cause Shock (in addition to Wounds), so does severe blood loss. In some settings, so can casting a spell.

Points of Shock are cumulative: a character with 3 Shock who takes 1 point now has 4 Shock. Accumulating Shock eventually impedes characters' abilities, cripples them, and can even lead to death.

Shock is compared to a character's Endurance. The higher a character's Endurance, the more Shock they can take before suffering penalties:

• A character can take Shock up to their Endurance without suffering any penalties.
• If their Shock points are higher than their Endurance, they are Impaired.
• If their Shock points exceed twice (x2) Endurance, they are Incapacitated.
• If their Shock ever exceeds x3 Endurance, the character starts Dying.

Example: A character with an Endurance of 5 can take up to 5 Shock with no penalties. If they take 6 or more, they become Impaired. If they take 11 or more, they become Incapacitated. If their Shock ever exceeds 15, they begin Dying.

A character with a 10 Endurance can take up to 10 points of Shock with no penalties. If they take 11 or more, they become Impaired. At 21, they become Incapacitated. At 31, they begin Dying.

These categories are noted on the character sheet after character creation. They list 3 numbers: Endurance (Impaired), x2 Endurance (Incapacitated), x3 Endurance (Dying).

Next to each is a space for the calculated number, and atop the column a block for their current Shock. (Typically, they are tracked like Hit Points.) Compare the current Shock with the 3 numbers to see what penalties apply.

If you'll excuse the crudity, it looks something like the following:

Current Shock: ___
[When your current Shock
exceeds the number below,
you suffer the listed condition.]

Endurance (Impaired): ___
x2 Endurance (Incapacitated): ___
x3 Endurance (Dying): ___

I'll define the conditions, and explain how they interact with those from Wounds, next post.

Wounds & Conditions
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 2

Because of my nine-day tangent to explain the combat mechanic, the rules for Wounds are probably long forgotten. A quick recap:

Wounds = Condition
1 Wound = None
2 Wounds = Impaired
3 Wounds = Incapacitated & Dying
4 Wounds = Dead

The penalties for accumulated Shock (from yesterday's post) are the same for taking Wounds, and they interact with those from Wounds. This is deliberate.

Impaired: The character suffers a -3 Skill Penalty to all rolled Challenges. (This can represent being drunk or tired, for example.) This stacks with all other Skill Penalties.

This is the same penalty for Shock exceeding Endurance, so suffering both is a -6 Skill Penalty.

Incapacitated: The character is conscious, but can make only move (at half speed) or make Simple Actions (i.e. nothing that requires a roll). (This can represent being stunned, exhausted, and so forth.) In addition, they cannot make Passive Defense checks (meaning their effective defense Skill is 0). If they take another "Incapacitated", they go Unconscious.

Taking Shock in excess of 2x Endurance also causes Incapacitation. If you take one from both, you go Unconscious.

Dying: The character is expiring, and takes 1 point of Shock per round until exceeding 3x Endurance. They then take 1 Wound a round until 4 Wounds, when they are dead.

Taking more than 3x Endurance in Shock also causes Dying. The effects are the same.

All of that is fairly straightforward, and the progression is obvious: the character is impeded, then crippled, then they begin dying. I'll dive into why that exact progression is necessary, next post.

Why Do It This Way?
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 3

There's a question I want to answer before I go any further: why these conditions, why this pattern (hampered, disabled, dying)? I'm not talking mechanics, points and numbers and all that. I'm talking about that progression: why use that progression?

Shock is an abstract mechanic that can be used to represent a several real-world conditions and effects. Fundamentally speaking, it began as a Fatigue mechanic (and went under that name for several of these posts while I dithered over a name for it). But the same progression which described fatigue — difficulty concentrating (Impaired), crippling weakness and inability to focus (Incapacitated), and organ failure and eventual death (Dying) — also served to describe a number of other conditions:

• Hypothermia: you get cold, your hands are shaking and you can't concentrate (Impaired), then you lose sensation and can barely function (Incapacitated), then your core temperature drops below a critical point and you begin to expire (Dying).

• Heat exhaustion: Dizziness, weakness, vomiting (Impaired), crippling headaches and loss of concentration (Incapacitation), eventually organ failure and death (Dying).

• Bleeding out: Weakness and difficulty concentrating (Impaired), debilitating weakness (Incapacitation), critical loss of blood volume leading to death (Dying).

Other conditions the mechanic covers include sleep deprivation, some bacterial or viral illnesses, and hypoxia (among others). All these conditions can roughly be represented by the same progression, so we do.

The real world is complex, and this progression is a massive simplification of a large number of complex conditions. But it works. And one mechanic can cover all of them, making that mechanic very useful.

Shock sees a lot of use in the system, beyond just the medical: Pushes, Knockout Attacks, the Action model, and so forth. The same progression that covers medical issues also addresses those, as well.

The reason the rules have the "> Endurance, x2, x3" is because it's useful and it works for those other applications. I want to start talking about applications of Shock itself next message.

[Note: I've been posting about once a day, barring gaps for various reasons. Now that we're out of the combat mechanic swamp, occasionally I'm going to be doing one or two posts a day. Apologies if this is too much. I just want to get to Initiative fairly quickly. It's the next major "swamp" I need to drain.]

Knockout Attacks
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 4a

The first application of the Shock rules isn't a direct implementation, but rather something which taps into them: Knockout Attacks. You know what I'm talking about: hit someone across the back of the head, and POW! down they go. This is ubiquitous in movies, especially action movies, and makes appearances throughout TV and written fiction also. (Once you start looking for it, it's insane how often it pops up.)

These kinds of attacks are absolutely not realistic, concussions and internal bleeding and on and on, but any game with pretensions to action-movie RPG status has to include them. Fortunately, the same rules which cover striking someone with the butt of your gun also cover knockout darts, certain types of poison, chloroformed handkerchiefs, boxing, possibly tasers, and several other similar situations.

("Never use two mechanics when one will do." It's a good guideline.)

Knockout Attack

Attempts to knock an opponent unconscious use the standard Combat Challenge rules: Attack Rating vs. Defense Rating. However, the Success Ratings from the check do not cause Wounds. Instead, you deal 1 Shock for any level of Success (0 SR or higher), plus the listed condition for a specific Success Rating.

1 Shock for 0 SR or higher, plus:

SR = Result
1 SR = Impaired
2 SR = Incapacitated
3+ SR = Unconscious

These are the same conditions caused by Wounds and Shock, and they have the same effects. (In theory. I've modified and clarified a couple of the conditions since the last time I posted them. But those changes apply to Wound- and Shock-caused conditions as well.) I'll describe the conditions next post.

Knockout Attacks: Conditions
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 4b

Knockout Attacks don't cause a lot of Shock (1 Shock or 2 if Encumbered), but they do tap into the same progression: Impaired, Incapacitated, Unconscious. These conditions are identical to those caused by Wounds or Shock, and interact with them in the same way.

(By reusing the same conditions and the same rules for them, it simplifies the game: there are fewer rules for the GM to remember and apply.)

1 SR causes the Impaired condition, which imposes a -3 penalty to attacks (as a Skill Penalty), Reactive and Passive Defenses, and Skill Challenges. Multiple Impaired conditions do not stack, but the penalties from the condition do stack with penalties from other sources.

[Rule Change: An Impaired condition only applies once, no matter the source. If you're Impaired from Wounds, and take an Impaired from a KO attack, you're still at -3. The alternative would be to track Impaired separately by source (Wounds, Shock, KO, and potentially others), which would also necessitate tracking multiple KO-caused Impairs. Can of worms, so I simplified.]

2 SR causes Incapacitation: the target can't Passively Defend and can only make Simple Actions. If they already have an Incapacitation from any source, they go Unconscious.

[Any source: this includes another KO attack. If one punch didn't do it, try again. It can't hurt. (Okay, it'll probably hurt the target, but you know what I mean.)]

3 SR (or higher) knocks the person out. Congrats, they're KO'd. This condition typically lasts 30 min - 1 hour. (I'll get more specific when I post Healing rules.)

Knockout Attacks: Comments
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 4c

In movies, KO attacks are dead easy. They happen so frequently, with such casual effort, you get the feeling that, in movieland, a 5-year-old child could toss a stale Cheeto at the back of his mother's head and knock her unconscious for an hour or two.

In an RPG, they just can't be that easy. They have to be possible, but not easy. Above all, they can't be a more efficient means of neutralizing enemies than physical combat, or everyone will start carrying DMSO water pistols everywhere they go. (Hiya, Shadowrun!)

The KO Attack chart makes them a little more efficient than regular attacks, but not hugely so. This is balanced by the relatively higher Damage Ratings of guns, swords, etc. (Plus, most of the weapons that deal KO damage are easily stopped by pretty much any kind of armor.)

What is most important about them, though, is the least obvious: the role of surprise. As previously noted (during the 9-day-long tangent), the effective defensive Skill of a surprised person is 0. This means that, if you sneak up on a guard, he can only defend with his Endurance and any armor he might be wearing. A quick pistol whipping, and he'll likely drop. (Assuming you're not a useless bastard in hand-to-hand combat, that is.)

Even if he doesn't, assuming you get at least 1 SR, he has a -3 Defense Penalty against your next attack. This translates to, on average, the attacker doing 1 more SR on the next strike. If you roll exactly the same, he'll be Incapacitated. Once more, and he'll be Unconscious.

In action movies, it's rare that you have to hit someone more than once to knock them out. (I can only recall it happening once, and that was played for laughs. ( "Are you still awake?" "Yeah, okay." ) It can happen more often with these rules, because this is an RPG, not a scripted movie. Even so, if you get the drop on a guard, they're likely going down, especially if they're unarmored.

Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 5

(A day off to allow people to catch up after 3 KO attack posts. Onward!)

The next uses of Shock are Pushes and Encumbrance. Both occur fairly often, so it's in the best interests of the game to make sure they are as simple and transparent as possible. This post covers Encumbrance.

Encumbrance

Heavy or poorly ventilated armor makes it more likely a person will suffer from exhaustion or overheating, two conditions covered by Shock. This is represented by Encumbrance: certain suits of armor (noted in the gear description) cause the character to be Encumbered.

The Rule: An Encumbered character takes +1 points of Shock anytime Shock is dealt out.

Example: 0 SR on damage causes 1 Shock, 2 if you're Encumbered. A 0 SR knockout attack also causes 2 Shock if you're Encumbered.

The amount of weight a character carries also causes Encumbrance. Each character has a Casual Carry amount (see "Carry", below), which is the max weight they can carry with no ill effects. If they carry more than this, they are considered Encumbered.

You cannot be twice Encumbered. Wearing cumbersome armor and carrying too much weight at the same time just makes you Encumbered.

Characters also have a Max Carry amount, which is twice their Casual Carry. They cannot lift or carry more than this amount without performing a Push.

Which brings us to Pushes. Next post.

Carry

This is a simplified version of the Carry chart, listing only Minimal human (5), Average human (10) and Maximum human (15). The full chart includes entries for the other Strength values. An Extended chart, suitable for non-humans or Supers, will be made at some point.

Strength of 5 has a 1 kg. Casual Carry and a 2 kg. Max Carry.

Strength of 10 has an 8 kg. Casual Carry and a 16 kg. Max Carry.

Strength of 15 has a 55 kg. Casual Carry and a 110 kg. Max Carry.

Carry amounts are given in kilograms, as the entire game is written in SI or metric units. All distances, speeds, masses, and so forth are measured in SI.

Pushes
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 6

The rules specify a few different kinds of movement rates (running, swimming, climbing), Carry weight, and cruising speeds for vehicles. Sometimes you want to run faster, lift more, or drive at frankly insane speeds (usually down a tight, twisty road, at midnight, during a blizzard, while engaged in a running gun battle).

For those times, you need the Push rules. (Not for the gunfight, though. That's combat.)

Push Challenges are a third type of Challenge (after Skill Challenges and Combat Challenges). Only certain skills can Push, these chiefly include Athletics, Vehicles, and Animal Handling (for jockeys and so forth).

The base Challenge Rating for a Push is CR 0 (Routine). This means only Untrained people have to roll, those with actual Skill Points can assume a 0 SR success without the need to roll. Trained characters can roll, if they choose. (Allowing them to do better than a 0 SR. In critical situations, this is often advisable.)

Like most Challenges, Pushes use Success Ratings, interpreted as follows:

SR: Increase, Addtl. Shock
0 SR: +50%, +1 Shock
1 SR: +50%
2 SR: x2 (or +100%), +1 Shock
3 SR: x2 (or +100%)
4 SR: x2 "and a bit"

The indicated increase applies to the base speed, Carry capacity, and so forth. So a Carry Capacity of 50 kg will be increased to 75 kg on a 0 SR and increased to 100 kg on 2 SR, and a movement rate of 50 m/round would become 75 m/round or 100 m/round.

"And a bit" applies to those situations where the increase is even more than x2, but only by a little. World Record sprinting translates to 104.3 m in a 10-second round. This is a x2 result (50 m/round to 100 m/round) "and a bit", the bit being 4.3 meters. (More discussion about this, including an important caveat, next post.)

All Pushes cause a base of 1 Shock (2 if Encumbered), 0 SR and 2 SR adding an additional point above that. When Pushing a vehicle or mount, they take the Shock, not the character. Characters can always voluntarily take a lesser Success Rating (1 SR instead of 2), if they wish to avoid the extra Shock. Of course, they also take a lesser increase (50% instead of 100%, in this case).

Because of the "and a bit" rule, the Push rules can be used for various athletic events, such as footraces, generating real-world compatible results. In those cases, the highest Skill Total determines the fastest runner. (The same also applies to, for example, car races, weightlifting competitions, and so forth.)

Comments

This Rule can be used anywhere characters want to exceed "normal" performance. So long as you know (for example) a car's maximum normal cruising speed, or the normal maximum weight an elephant can pull, the chart will let you Push its Max.

This is a cinematic Push, not a Technical Manual result. It works according to the game's action-oriented aesthetic: get a usable result quickly and get out of the way.

Note that the Push rule gives real-world accurate results for human movement rates and Carry weights. And, with a little elaboration, it can be made into a cinematic, descriptive mechanic for athletic competitions. I'll talk a little more about that, next post.

"And A Bit" and Real World Results
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 7

The Push rules aren't just for seeing how fast you can drive a Mini Cooper down a mountainside. They also work for head-to-head competitions.

Competitions

In competitions, each competitor makes a Skill Total. (This assumes all competitors have the appropriate skill and Specialization.) This is a Push of their relevant ability (lifting, running, etc.), and they do take Shock. The character with the highest Skill Total wins. More than that, you can use their Skill Total (or Push SR) to tell how well they did.

Success Rating (Skill Total) - Good enough to…
0 SR (ST 0) - Beat the guys at your High School.
2 SR (ST 6) - Win a State Title.
4 SR (ST 12) - Compete on a college level.
6 SR (ST 18) - Qualify for the Olympics (or win a national college championship).
8 SR (ST 24) - Win a medal at the Olympic Games.
10 SR (ST 30) - Break the World Record.
12 SR (ST 36) - This is the best any human has ever done in the history of history itself.

Though phrased in terms appropriate for athletics, this chart works for pretty much any racing sport (drag racing, etc.). It will give results essentially identical to the real world. "And a bit" is why.

"And A Bit"

Yesterday's post implied that 4 SR was sufficient to win an Olympic race. This is not the case. Winning an Olympic medal is far more difficult than making an Athletics total of 12. (Per the chart above, it takes a Skill Total of 24.) However, the speed of the Olympian does fall under the rubric of "and a bit".

In fact, according to the speeds I researched, every single type of 100m Dash championship race, from high school state track-and-field to NCAA championships to World Record holder Usain Bolt all fall under the same rule. Once you get above x2, less than a second separates winning a high school state championship from seizing the World Record.

A similar phenomenon holds for weightlifting, car races, horse races, and so on. After the critical point, the difference between various competitors is, in absolute terms, very, very small. So small, the rules don't even try to exactly track it (which is why there are no numbers on the above chart). "And a bit" covers them all.

This table extends the Push Rules into a new arena — races and competitions. More, it's another example of translating game mechanics into easily understood real world terms.

"You ran fast enough to win a Gold medal" is a concept anyone could understand. It makes the abstract numbers come alive.

Shock, Miscellany
Shock, Actions, & Initiative, pt. 8

So far, I've talked about how Shock figures into Damage, Knockout Attacks, Encumbrance, and Pushes. The last major use of Shock is buying extra Actions, but before I talk about that, I wanted to mention some miscellaneous uses of Shock that don't need a full post.

Fatigue: Melee combat is incredibly taxing, physically. By the end of MMA or boxing matches, the boxers are dripping with sweat and exhausted. To represent this, the default Mishap result (from "10's are Wild") in melee combat is “Fatigue”, which causes 2 Shock (3 if Encumbered). Melee fighters wear themselves out.

Spellcasting: For the default magic system, casting a single basic spell costs 1 point of Shock (2 if Encumbered). Other FX systems, like Miracles and such, may also involve Shock. I'll know more later, as the rules firm up.

Bleeding Wounds: A potential rule for bows and small blades is the Bleeding Wound. The first Wound caused by these attacks is taken as a "bleeder" instead. A "bleeder" doesn't count as a Wound but instead causes 1 point of Shock damage a round.

As noted, knife fights don't usually involve killing people outright. Instead, the combatants deal many cuts which bleed profusely. The loss of blood first weakens the fighter, then incapacitates them then, if untreated, kills them. The parallels with the Shock mechanic is clear.

Arrows primarily kill through blood loss as well: the arrowhead severs a major blood vessel, and the target bleeds out. This is how people can hunt elephants with (proportionately) small arrows. They don't kill it in one shot, but rather shoot many times until one severs an artery and the elephant gradually weakens and dies.

Mighty Strike: Another contemplated rule is the idea of a mighty strike. When engaged in melee combat, an attacker can put extra effort into the attack, causing more damage at the cost of taking some Shock. There are a couple of different rules options to represent this, none of which I've settled on yet.

Dehydration: When discussing the various medical conditions Shock can emulate, I left off dehydration. It really is a useful mechanic.

Those rules out of the way, I can start with the Actions & Initiative part. Initiative is the coolest part of combat, in my opinion, so I'm looking forward to posting the massively simplified and clarified system. I hope to begin very soon, perhaps tomorrow.

Whacking Things With Swords and Sticks
Combat Interlude, pt. 1

I want to get to Initiative, I really do. But before we get there, I have to clarify some things related to combat. So let's clarify.

One of the fundamental axioms of the combat rules is this: The number needed "to-hit" people in combat is CR 0. Under optimal conditions.

"What are 'optimal conditions'?" For firearms, you're standing 4 meters away from your opponent. They are man-sized (2 meters tall), and there are no walls or other obstructions between the two of you. The light is bright but not blinding, so you can see them clearly. Neither of you is moving significantly. There are no other distractions or impediments. For melee combat the exact same conditions hold, except for the range: your opponent is within easy reach of your attacks.

Those are optimal conditions and under these optimal conditions, the number needed to hit a person in combat is 0. Just 0. Flat 0. And nothing more.

"But what about conditions other than optimal? Less than optimal, maybe even abysmal?"

Skill Penalties. Everything which can make you miss (other than the rolled Bonus) is represented by Skill Penalties.

In other games, these might raise the CR from 0 to something else. In this game, under these mechanics, they lower the Effective Skill of the attacker. Mathematically, it's the exact same thing.

Let's math for a bit.

Assuming the to-hit CR is 0, what Skill would a person have to be in order to always hit, always, always, always? Skill 10. Why 10? Because the lowest possible negative Bonus is -10 (only possible when you're Stymied and roll a 10). And 10 Skill -10 Bonus is 0. You hit.

So, if your Effective Skill is 10 or higher, you will always hit. Under optimal conditions. If it's lower, you might miss.

"Wait, does that even make sense? What is 'Skill 10' anyway?" Skill 10 represents a Professional, a person experienced enough enough to be an MD or PhD.

With Skill 10, you are a PhD in shooting people with shooty things or stabbing people right in the goddamn face. Literally — you have spent as much time honing your stabbing skills as a PhD has on earning his Baccalaureate, Masters Degree, and Doctoral Thesis, put together.

That's somewhere in the vicinity of 7,000 hours — years of your life —  invested in intensive training exercises, coupled with live, actual shooting at assholes trying to shoot you back or live, actual shoving of sharp, spiky bits of metal into the bellies of assholes trying to stab you back. You're a goddamn Professional in how to kill other human beings.

That kind of badass, under optimal conditions, just can't miss a regular person. The dice don't allow it, and unless there's some kind of freak event, neither would the real world.

That's one of the basic combat rules of the game: if your Effective Skill is 10 or higher, you will hit. You might not do any damage, but you will hit.

"What if your Skill is lower than 10?" Next message.

2 Rolls: To-Hit and Damage
Combat Interlude, pt. 2

Time to bite the bullet, and fix my mistake.

The last post described an exact miss number. As a result of that, I made a miss mechanic for people with Skills <10. It was simple, clear, easily applied, and added a little complexity to combat, but not too much. I wrote it up, grimaced at the necessity, then sat back and thought about it.

Skill <10 will include all starting PC's who aren't Professional-grade killers. It also includes most normal, regular people (who tend not to be professional killers). Also faceless minions, security guards, orc raiders, yadda yaddda yadda.

Most characters, in other words. Which means it applies most of the time. The majority of the time.

That it would be used the majority of the time means two things. One, it's necessary for the mechanics and two, this is a 2-value, 2-roll system and I'm lying to myself pretending otherwise. I just need to bow to the inevitable, make it part of the game, and go on. (Fortunately, I've been working on an alternate combat rule, if 1-roll turned out to be impracticable.)

Here's the rule, in short: roll to hit, then roll damage. Period.

1st Roll: Attack Skill + rolled Bonus, compare to Defense Skill. If the Attack Total beats it (equal to or greater than), you hit. (If you're Surprised, you don't get a Defense Skill, the "to-hit" CR is 0.)

2nd Roll: Damage Value + rolled Bonus, compare to Toughness. Calculate Success Ratings, 1 SR = 1 Wound, +1 Shock for any Success.

And that's it. Very traditional. It involves rolling twice, but that's utterly essential for various mechanical reasons I'm not going into.

I spent a lot of time working through the 1-Roll rule, but it wasn't time wasted. It forced me to look much deeper into combat (shooting and stabbing) than I would have otherwise. It forced me to understand them better, so I could represent them better and explain them better. (Sometime I may tell you about how the iTunes silhouette dancer commercials relate to shooting people dead, and why rolling for damage is an abstract representation of a hit location chart.)

It also forced me to create a couple of mechanics that work quite well, and are now a core part of the system. And it helped me stress test all the possible versions of the combat mechanics, to settle on the one, best version. Two rolls, two values is the only practicable version of these rules. All the others have fundamental problems, some immediately apparent, some hidden. This one works.

And now I know that. And with that out of the way, I can finally move on to Actions and Initiative.

Next post.

Shooting Silhouettes
Combat Interlude, pt. 3

Alright, I lied. There's one last thing I needed to cover before we get to actions & initiative, and that's the logic behind how the attack/damage system works. It starts with cel-shading.

When envisioning how difficult it is to shoot and hit a person, it helps to imagine them as being cel-shaded, like a character in Crackdown or Borderlands. If you've ever played those games, you know that each character has a thick black outline around the edge of their body that marks where their skin stops and the air begins.

Now fill in that outline with black, and you have a silhouette. Your job, with a gun, is to make your bullet impact the target's silhouette.

As they move around, that silhouette gets larger and smaller. Think of the iPod dancers from those iTunes commercials, the dancing silhouettes. As the dancer whirls around, crouches, turns, and jumps the silhouette changes size and shape.

A target's silhouette changes size and shape exactly the same way and for exactly the same reasons. And the smaller the silhouette, the harder it is to hit them with a bullet. But if you do, you might do some damage.

We roll damage in RPG's, because sometimes a hit hurts more. It makes perfect sense, in hand-to-hand combat, because it's a muscle thing: like swinging a bat, sometimes you swing harder, sometimes softer. But what about bullets? Do they go measurably faster or slower, all at random?

Of course not. That's silly. So why do we roll random damage for guns?

Real world time. In order to hurt a target more, you shoot it in a vulnerable spot. Eyes, throat, vitals, head, groin, whatever's applicable. Shoot it there — on purpose or accidentally — and you hurt the target more.

'Course, the same general hit location has areas which differ in vulnerability. Hitting the thigh might mean a grazing shot, just tearing skin, or it might mean going through the muscle, which is serious but not usually immediately lethal, or it can mean you hit the femoral artery, which will kill the target in short order, unless they get immediate first aid to stop the bleeding.

All of this can be represented by a random hit location chart (including damage modifiers for more vital areas), and for a while I considered it. But it can also be represented by rolling for damage: when you do more damage, you hit a more vital spot, when you do less damage, you hit a less vital spot. The damage roll is, in effect, an abstracted hit location roll.

In this system, the Attack roll represents just hitting that silhouette. Your hit location, and how hard you hit it (for melee combat and missile weapons), is reflected in the Damage roll.

Attackers can deliberately target vulnerable locations, of course, which penalizes their attack in return for increased damage (and an increased chance of missing entirely). This "Called Shot" is a simple mechanic, yet it represents reality tolerably well.

This goes for the whole combat system. The two-roll method is very simple: roll a Bonus, add to Attack Skill. Roll a Bonus, add to Damage. Very simple. Yet it represents reality pretty closely, which you wouldn't expect.

This is not a perfect system, or a perfect mechanic. But it's the least imperfect mechanic I can devise right now. Which makes it the perfect mechanic for this system.

Now it's time for Actions & Initiative.