Quote from: Brand55;1002570Fast and lethal. It uses a dice pool system where you roll a number of d6 equal to an attribute; every 6 is a success. You get to bump up your rolled numbers by a number of points equal to your related skill. So for shooting someone with a gun, you'd use Nimbleness + Shoot. Every success gets multiplied by the damage of your weapon to find the final damage. Characters have a limited number of reactions every turn, so teamwork and avoiding situations where you can get outnumbered is important. Ranges are abstract and simple, and the vehicle combat is easy yet allows for some tactics and a lot of customization and strategy when it comes to designing vehicles.

Overall it's a great little system. There's a bunch of optional rules right in the core book, and you can nab the PDF for free. I've ran a few Mad Max-esque one-shots with the game and even played around with the Firefly conversion that someone on the official forums did.

this sounds pretty cool and I shall be checking it out, cheers

Quote from: Larsdangly;1002601You can think of scenarios that work out that way, but Runequest has its own high 'level' problem: there is a fixed recipe for a powerful highly experienced character, and it results in someone who is pretty much bomb proof unless you happen to have a special attack that circumvents or overwhelms their Shield spells, iron armor and 150% parry. D&D combat isn't made for duels; it is made for resource management across a bunch of fights that might happen over the course of an adventure. Runequest combat is made for duels, and is great at that for a certain range in power level, but above that level it results in stalemates or dropping of some special 'trump card'.

If you are playing older or retro versions of RuneQuest in Glorantha then this is at least partly true. It isn't the case at all in recent iterations, Mythras/RQ6 in particular

How does Mythras avoid this? Does it place limits on Shield spells or something?

Quote from: Larsdangly;1002529I don't know Atomic Highway; what is combat in it like?

I did  a playtest write up, which could post here, as alas the AH boards are dead.  It's really testing the vehicle combat but could apply to any case combat sequence....the best I've ever played (detail with speed with verisimilitude) and have tried pretty much everything in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Atomic Highway (AH) I guess is a dice pool system, but only d6, no exploding dice and you have at most maybe 5 or 7 dice to roll.  In reality it plays very much in all the good ways like Chainmail with great flexibility.  You basically get a number of d6 to roll based on an attribute, and skills give you points to add.  A 6 is a "success" and a 1 a "failure" after using your skill points.   Certain actions require more than 1 success to succeed, you can deal with failures in many ways, the most basic is they take away a success or result in something bad if no  success, but there are other ways to do it...e.g.your failure can give an opponent a success.

In melee combat you can allocate your successes as you wish, between opponents, attack, defense, etc.  It makes combat more fluid I find, dramatic (do you defend or try for that extra hit) and fast.  Damage is basically number of successes applied times damage for the weapon.

Why is it Chainmail like?  Well playing D&D and other systems where you roll a die and overcome AC or skill, it happens at a certain level of play a 1st level fighter is going to have no chance to hit creatures a 7th level party is facing, except for maybe ancillary creatures.  However under AH, and Chainmail, a "7th level" fighter is like 7 men, or simply 7 dice, while a first level fighter is 1 dice.  So in chainmail seven 1st level fighters are fairly equivalent (or at least not next to useless) to one 7th level fighter as compared to D&D or pretty much any game I've played with beat a target number mechanic.  You also get the heroic stuff as well, those extra dice of a 7th level fighter allow for powerful hits, and a lot of combat options.  

AH gives me a real mix of the old wargame crunch and grit, with room for heroic high fantasy, a lot of option and flexibility with simple rules, in a way that makes mechanic and game-world sense without breaking the game, and yet it is fast, which for me is key to get a good feel in combat and be able to run my favorite 4 PCs versus a dozen orcs encounters .     As odd as it may sound, it's where OD&D might have been IMHO if Dave hadn't decided to retread his Ironclad rules with AC and HP to his game; maybe instead they would have taken the Chainmail war game d6 and used war game "hits" as in AH.

I also like that there is no exploding dice in AH, hate exploding dice on so many levels, it messes with the statistics, can geometrically slow down the game if more than one dice can explode, it leads to very wonky results, etc.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1002601You can think of scenarios that work out that way, but Runequest has its own high 'level' problem: there is a fixed recipe for a powerful highly experienced character, and it results in someone who is pretty much bomb proof unless you happen to have a special attack that circumvents or overwhelms their Shield spells, iron armor and 150% parry. D&D combat isn't made for duels; it is made for resource management across a bunch of fights that might happen over the course of an adventure. Runequest combat is made for duels, and is great at that for a certain range in power level, but above that level it results in stalemates or dropping of some special 'trump card'.

Agree with this.  One thing I'm liking about Atomic Highway is it does duels well, especially if you want some environmental factors in there, fast.  You throw your d6 and apply successes as you see fit, you are managing your success and you skill points to remove failures and create success.   It can lend itself well to simultaneous actions.  For example, you can roll your dice (hide them) then split them into three piles (again hidden) attack, defense, maneuver, then reveal.  Reminds me of the fun in Top Secret HTH but less complicated.

It also lends itself to large free-for-alls with dozens of participants, which with anything past D&D 2e I think is near impossible without special "mook" rules.

Atomic highway doesn't have magic, but I've made my own fantasy version.    In first pass it is really easy to convert spells, just look at dice as spell caster level.  I'd give spell casters a base number of dice based on Intelligence or Wisdom or Charisma ( ) then skill as they level and eventually dice as they level.  You could still use Vancian fire-and-forget  magic, limit what level of spell can be learned by level like D&D.    I don't recall the RQ magic way enough to make suggestions without pulling out the old books.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1002743How does Mythras avoid this? Does it place limits on Shield spells or something?

Old RQ systems depended on 1) chance of getting a hit through against a parry and 2) the match of weapon damage (including bonuses and magical buffs) to get through magical, parrying shield or weapon, worn and natural armour to take out a location. So yes, at high levels (and I rarely got to high levels in many years of playing) it was often the magical trump card or the crit roll that does the job if there was no chance to use surprise and hit before the defences go up. Mythras fights can end by damage done, but much of the time it's use of action points and clever use of special effects - which also provide your storytelling narrative. Gang up on the tank and the tank goes down pretty fast because he can't counter every attack coming in, and is soon tripped, prone and bleeding.

Quote from: Simulacrum;1002758Old RQ systems depended on 1) chance of getting a hit through against a parry and 2) the match of weapon damage (including bonuses and magical buffs) to get through magical, parrying shield or weapon, worn and natural armour to take out a location. So yes, at high levels (and I rarely got to high levels in many years of playing) it was often the magical trump card or the crit roll that does the job if there was no chance to use surprise and hit before the defences go up. Mythras fights can end by damage done, but much of the time it's use of action points and clever use of special effects - which also provide your storytelling narrative. Gang up on the tank and the tank goes down pretty fast because he can't counter every attack coming in, and is soon tripped, prone and bleeding.

This. Mr 150% has to actually use an action point to get the benefit of his skill most of the time. He may have 3 action points, but a few guys can

• surround him (half defense skill when defending an attack behind)
• and take him down with a trip (half skill in fighting now)
• bypassing armor (crit only, but doable, and can bypass shield spells)
• sunder (destroys armor)
• and bleed (will reduce skill further, and eventually kill, must get through armor)

If he does not defend, they get free special effects on a hit. If he defends, he spends an action point, burning the important resource.

Mr 150% can outmaneuver (good move! forces them to spend an action point against him or be unable to attack, and it's a skill roll he might win) to even that battle if it makes sense in the environment, but they can also move out of engagement and shoot him down with arrows or spears (impale, roll twice take the max on damage and reduces skill). At worst, they can Grip him, make him unable to move, move him over to the nearest pool, and drown him.

In a duel, though, mr 150% is going to probably win against anyone with less than 100% skill. They might get very lucky, but probably not. Against someone of comparable skill, the same tricks as above apply. The important thing here is the action points

also, I will note that 150% in skill is incredibly hard to get, requiring (assuming regular starting characters with solid stats) more than 50 xp rolls devoted to it (the book suggests 2-4 XP rolls per session). That's ALL of your rolls in one skill for 1/3 a year, assuming weekly sessions. This (at least in my experience) is not a common thing

Other things to note
Shield (the Theism spell) doesn't stack with worn armor
Damage Resistance (the Sorcery spell) doesn't stack with worn armor

more modern versions of Runequest (Mythras was called runequest 6 after all) have learned a lot of lessons over the years. You can see it in little bits and pieces, and it makes the system better as a whole.

I've had many great combats. To call out just one of those above the others would be unfair.

The latest best was in Feng Shui 2, but that doesn't mean it's better than systems as different as The Riddle of Steel, the One-Roll Engine, Spellbound Kingdoms, Legends of the Wulin, Honor+Intrigue, Zenobia, DCC, Unknown Armies, Barbarians of Lemuria, Exalted and Mythras.

Quote from: Wanderer;1002338Me, too. Savage Worlds represents combat in a way that simulates pulp action really closely. It doesn't have as many bells n whistles as systems like DnD, but it's great at what it does.

Another vote for Savage Worlds. Edges and Situational Combat Rules give the players enough crunch to enjoy, Wild Dice and Aces (exploding trait and damage dice) keep fights unpredictable enough to be interesting, with Bennies (plot points) to reign it back in a bit when things get TOO 'interesting.'

And it all plays smoothly and simply enough from the GM's side of the screen to make running it a breeze, with minimal prep time and plenty of room for improv.  In an early session the PCs plowed through the opposition a little quicker than I expected, so I decided we needed a zombie ape to liven things up. I grabbed the gorilla stats from the Pulp GM's Toolkit, slapped on the 'Undead' Monstrous Ability from the core book, and the fight was on.

Now, there are situations where very complex combat rules could be appropriate. In Aces & Eights you have a very complicated combat system, which is just perfect because it's meant to be for wild-west shootouts. You need detail and very careful emulation for that. Similarly for Capitan Alatriste and its fencing rules, because it's a swashbuckling game.

But you don't want that level of detail for most generic fantasy games.

Quote from: AsenRG;1002777The latest best was in Feng Shui 2, but that doesn't mean it's better than systems as different as The Riddle of Steel, the One-Roll Engine, Spellbound Kingdoms, Legends of the Wulin, Honor+Intrigue, Zenobia, DCC, Unknown Armies, Barbarians of Lemuria, Exalted and Mythras.

What's your experience with Spellbound Kingdoms?
How long does it take the players to be familiar enough with the system to run combats smoothly?
How do you run combats with many foes?

Sheesh, i'm late to this thread.
The funniest combat system EVER ... thus far ... among published games, was the boardgame Advanced Space Crusade: Roll the attack's damage dice, and either it was enough to cause a wound .... or it was not.
That simple.
No roll to hit and roll to dodge or seperate damage roll ...
Oh, rpgs only?
Then Streetfighter the Storytelling game, because it actually had and visualized the moves from Streetfighter II.

No wonder that my own rpg-rules in development reminds so much of the boardgame i mentioned, though.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;1004711What's your experience with Spellbound Kingdoms?

Alas, more limited than I'd like it to be. This might change once the supplements lands in my KS backer hands...

QuoteHow long does it take the players to be familiar enough with the system to run combats smoothly?

Not long, if you print out their style's sheet. After all, "you can move in certain ways, pick where you go" is known from many games.

QuoteHow do you run combats with many foes?

Usually, all but at most a couple leaders are using the Mob style, counting as a single opponent that attacks everybody in range;).

And of course, my Amber/LoO games were pretty much the most awesome combats I ever ran.