Ok, everyone has their own opinion. Some prefer crunchy. Some like quick resolution. Fast paced vs. detailed blow-by-blow. Realistic damage vs. cinematic "it's only a flesh wound."
There's no "right" answer. But what combat system do you enjoy most? What have you had the most fun with? Is it genre-specific, or genre-neutral?
Personally, the most fun I've ever had was doing TFT in Junior High back in the late 70's-early 80's. It was quick to learn and easy to understand, relatively fast-paced, and had cool little cheap counters on a hex map. (You could upgrade to miniatures when you had the cash, but in a pinch you could just use coins, buttons, or tiddlywinks.) It was certainly easier to learn than AD&D 1st edition (which I also played at the same time), and it seemed more intuitive than LBB Traveller (also something I played a lot at the time.)
I'm on the side of crunchy combat, but I want it to resolve quickly, too. Ideally, I like cinematic combat - the idea that there's movement and a variety of actions.
While many attacks may just be 'I attack with my sword, 5 damage', I like having other options like Disarm or Feint. We give Talents that allow characters to potentially do special actions in combat. For example, I might have 'Riposte' - that allows me to make an Attack of Opportunity if someone missed me (with a cost). Trying to create situations that allow you to use these special abilities encourages you to create dynamic combats.
Relative to 3.x, we allow each character to move and 'full attack' - in fact you can attack before, during, and after your move (effectively they happen simultaneously rather than in discrete phases). This means if you have a good 10 feet in front of you, you can step up, slash them across the throat, and if you drop them keep moving another 20 feet to threaten the BBEG.
We also do a new initiative every round. We find that everyone acting in the same order every round creates a cadence/predictability around combat that we don't like. If the BBEG goes last in Round 1, but they have a chance of going first in Round 2, there's a very different feel than if you are 100% certain that all of your allies will have a chance to go again before he does.
I always end up somewhere in the mushy middle on this question, to the satisfaction of practically no one else that has a strong opinion. But my players don't mind where I land. So I have that going for me.
To me, there is a trade between detail, game handling time, pseudo "realism", characters being capable and characters fearing what others can do, and the feel of the pace of combat (separate from the handling time of the gaming mechanics). To wit, the more detail and time one chases for mechanics, perversely the less fluid and anxious the combat can feel as a whole. If nothing else, player X taking 20 seconds to resolve their mechanics is giving everyone else that much longer to think about what they are about to do. I want to weave through all of those trades, avoiding extremes, and arriving at a set of mechanics that is "good enough" on each thing without sacrificing too much in the others.
Since I have similar "Goldilocks" views on character customization options that feed into combat mechanics, that's effectively doubling down on my attitude.
I like swords, and axes, and hammers, etc.
I like weapons to be diverse and have different features. I dislike weapons that, judged by stats, shouldn't exist.
I like SOME realism; I do not want most swords to weight 10 pounds.
5e is bad at that, and B/X is terrible.
I like SOME crunch, but not much. Probably B/X with some fixing and critical hits would be enough for.
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Armor: I do not care that much.
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Maneuvers: I like them. Make them simple and easy. Here is what I'm playing with in my OSR minimalist:
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Combat maneuvers. Combat maneuvers (tripping, shoving, disarming, etc.) can be performed by any character. Make an attack. The target does not get a save usually, but the GM may rule that the target resisted the maneuver by exposing itself to damage, thus taking maximum damage from the attacker (or double damage on a critical hit).
Combat maneuvers (II). If you have +2 AB or more, you can split it anyway you want – as long as the split is even, you round down, and you have a minimum bonus of +1 to each roll. For example, if your AB is +5, you can attack with +2 and add +2 to damage. You can attack defensively, adding +2 to your attack roll and +2 to your AC against a single foe. You can attack five enemies at once, +1 each attack roll (in this case, the foes must be lower HD than you). You cannot take multiple attacks against a single target.
I like fast resolution of actions, without any slow look-ups.
I also like combat to flow. Not just having a few people trying to shoot/stab each other in turn until a few go down. So some variety in the moves, but also the combatants moving around the battlefield.
The chance of lethal single strikes to and from any character and over the top critical hit charts.
Depends on the system I'm playing/running, but in general I prefer quick resolution with uncomplicated mechanics. If a manuever requires 2-3 rolls from each participant, it's typically houseruled and simplified.
I also prefer flexibility over crunch. I want players to ask "Can I do X?" and get a simple yes or no answer, rather than have them pour over the rules and try to sqeak out a technicality. Again, this is going to depend on the game and the setting, since some really require air-tight tactics to work, but generally, I want to be able to adjudicate actions, not rules.
The main requirement for me is I have to get through the whole combat in a reasonable amount of time. As much as some gamers are allergic to the word "story" it's easiest to think of it in that context. How far can you really push a combat in a story before it becomes a distraction from the telling of that story? That's the upper time limit on the most complicated of combats that I would consider playable. 1E is tough to beat on this count because of some little-known features that make large-scale combat go quicker, so there's almost no limit to how much you can scale up.
Beyond that, my main turn-off is convoluted bullshit. I don't need to know yet another way to roll dice. And much like I have no interest how many frat boys can fit into a phone booth, I have even less interest in how much shit you can cram into one die roll. "This mechanic determines if you hit, when you hit, how hard you hit, whether you critical, whether you phase shift, makes up goofy complications, and scratches your balls for you. All in one roll." Hard pass.
Main turn-on is the thing that probably matters most in any game. Find the right combination of rules that are a low hurdle to clear for participation, but a high hurdle for mastery. If you're the designer of the rules, and as designer you know what the best strategies are, you system sucks. Print it up. Wipe your ass with the print out. Flush it down the toilet. Delete all your files. Then defrag your hard drive. And start over. The rules should be simple, but their implications should be beyond what you can anticipate.
I tend to measure a game's combat systems like they're a rocket and I'm computing a Power to Weight ratio, which I will abbreviate to P/W. I like crunch, but not so much that I will tolerate a system which needlessly wastes table resources like time and player effort or attention, or requires me to spend time thumbing through the book.
This is one of the key reasons I regularly recommend Savage Worlds. Perfect system? No, definitely not. But at this moment it is the undisputed champ of the industry when it comes to having a high P/W. It's also why I tend to revile percentile systems and prefer success count pool systems; player attention is a limiting factor for most of my games, and percentile is particularly bad when it comes to arithmetic, while success count pools tend to be pretty efficient in the arithmetic they require. I also don't really care for granularity, as it's generally a false sort of precision which looks good on a design doc, but doesn't actually add much to the game.
Bottom line? I do prefer crunchy combat to non-crunchy combat. But not by so much I'm willing to sacrifice the experience of players at the table. A game has to make a compelling case that it's using table time and player attention wisely.
Games where character progression means your chance to hit goes up as you increase in experience, balanced by your chance to not be hit equally goes up, leaving your hit points where they are.
Aka, not D&D. I don't like hitting odds going up versus lots of hit points.
I've also noticed that a lot of my favorite games are like this. You don't get inhumanly tougher as you level up, you get better at blocking/dodging.
1. Palladium series of RPGs
2. West End Games D6 Star Wars
3. Pocket Fantasy where hit points are fixed. High level actually means lots of re-rolls, but so can the other guy
4. Dungeons and Delvers Dice Pool Edition. Max level PC is just 150% the hit points of a level-1.
5. Tiny-D6 series. Hit points are fixed.
I used to think I wanted realism, until I played a very complex system where one combatant attacked, the defender parried, then if the attacker hit, you rolled for hit location, then compared your weapon damahe to the armor on that location, then looked up a chart to see what the wound actually did to the injured party. Oh wait...did you take i to account the amount of fatigue each combata t had? Because it lowers your chance to hit and parry, basically making the fight take even longer. Oh! And there's equipment damage to take into account as well.
After an hour of all that I scrapped it and went back to D&D. I have been sticking with D&D like combat systems ever since. It works for me so long as we can keep things moving.
I dislike combat in general. It's essentially the same as any other skill check, only with more steps, because thanks to the history of RPGs, people assume RPG = combat. Generally speaking I reward my players as much (if not more) when they handle a situation via diplomacy, stealth, or knowledge rather than fighting stuff.
Having said all that, Shadowrun 4e has some decent combat rules. PF2e had the right idea about "variable three actions" but didn't utilize it to its full extent. L5R 4e also had a pretty good combat system. No combat system that disallows "move-attack-move" is good.
Any combat system I use has to be able to run a 20 vs 20 combat quickly and easily. I don't want the limitations on a game's combat system to end up limiting the types of adventures I'm able to write.
One of my favorite combat systems is Wushu (Blackbelt Edition). You kind of need to think like an action movie director since you get dice by describing details. It makes for very fun uber narrative combat rounds. One cool thing about it is that details are details, so describing set-backs, blocked attacks, or seeing that ninja in the reflection of your sword are all valid ways to build your dice pool.
It more than just Wushu marital arts action too. I've used the system for Crimson Skies style dog fights and wizards trying to fend off an alien invasion.
This depends 100 percent on how many players are playing. A contested combat (like GURPS or Unisystem) with specific weapon peoperties is my first choice if there are 4 or less players. More than that, i like a bit more abstratction for speed and then we are over into Savage Worlds or DCC territory which have some flexibility/imagination allowed in resolving combat.
Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 24, 2022, 05:51:30 PM
I like SOME realism; I do not want most swords to weight 10 pounds.
While not every system has this as a defense, many systems have unified bulk and weight into one stat for encumbrance purposes, and they use weight as that metric. So a small brick of steel wrapped in a small amount of cloth and similar might weigh 3 pounds and be listed as 3 pounds, but that same exact material in the shape of a katana might be listed as 10 pounds to represent how much harder it is to carry something that is extremely long instead of compact, even though it is literally just 3 pounds.
I get that this is a cope, but that way you can make sense of the table and not have everyone walking around with world of warcraft swords or whatever. It also does legitimately seem to be the intention in some cases.
There are two combat systems that I've found to be easy, and more interesting.
West End Games D6 Star Wars has a set of rules for 1vs1 dueling. It's called Dueling Blades.
http://griffonpubstudio.blogspot.com/p/schweigs-d6-resources.html?m=1 (http://griffonpubstudio.blogspot.com/p/schweigs-d6-resources.html?m=1)
Essentially it is an opposed roll, with the margin of success determining one of four results. A simple movement with no damage in the direction the winner wants. Maybe towards a cliff or airlock, or towards a corner of the room. Next is a stun, then a wound, and last is a GM determined critical hit.
Oddly, it is a rare combat system that doesn't use initiative. You both just roll your skill dice, and the higher roll minus the lower roll is all you need.
The movement aspect makes it a lot of fun. It is much more interesting than two guys just swinging until one goes down or gives up.
The other is Palladium Books opposed roll system of strike vs a parry or a dodge. It works better than armor class.
Double post
I'll get on my soapbox.
For *modern* combat, Twilight:2013. Accent no substitutes. Quick resolution and it *feels* right because it includes things like shock and blood loss and not just a death spiral or magically-100% effective all the way down until you cross the 0 hit point threshold.
For fantasy combat, I'd go with GURPS.
don't like exalted 3e's combat system none
I'm a terminal fanboy of The Riddle of Steel, so for me the thing a combat system now needs to be interesting is some way for the player to juggle his commitment between manoeuvring, attacking and defending, so that in principle it's possible for a player who knows the system better to beat (with a little luck) a less-skilled opponent who has better raw scores or gear.
Dragon Warriors has a combat system that I really love. Melee attacks are made against a defense stat, which improves with character growth (kind of like the "parry" stat in savage worlds, though the math is done differently). Ranged attacks are made against a difficulty determined by circumstance (range, lighting, cover, target movment speed, etc.). Armor presents another difficulty level which a separate roll has to be made to bypass. It's a very elegant system, which I find represents the reality of combat quite well.
The real stroke of genius though is that if attacked by multiple opponents, a character has to split their defense score between them, which ends up being a simple way of accounting for the advantage given by numbers and flanking, without having to mess with facings or exact character position. That system also has a knock-on benefit, which is that since you need to know how many enemies are attacking each player, you almost have to let everyone move into position, and then roll attacks all together. That might sound weird, but I find it does a much better job of replicating the instantaneous nature of combat than a standard turn order does.
My only real beef with the system is that shields give you an extra saving throw to make against an incoming attack, instead of being incorporated into the character's defense. That, I find, is a very inelegant solution.
Pretty simple. I like fast combats with lethal criticals that don't take forever to find on some chart (looking at you, DCC). So for us, it's essentially B/X or Castles & Crusades with the following critical table.
On a natural 20 (or lower for some classes at certain levels) you do a critical strike. Then roll another d20 (martial), d16 (semi-martial) or d14 (non-martial).
1-15: x2 damage
16-17: x3 damage
18-19: x4 damage
20: x5 damage
Roll your hit location die & describe your critical. For damage causing spells with a saving throw, the victim takes a crit if they roll a 1. Super fast & easy and dangerous, as even low level foes can pack a punch.
We also have a fumble table, based on rolling a natural 1.
Quote from: Svenhelgrim on August 25, 2022, 09:03:18 AM
I used to think I wanted realism, until I played a very complex system where one combatant attacked, the defender parried, then if the attacker hit, you rolled for hit location, then compared your weapon damahe to the armor on that location, then looked up a chart to see what the wound actually did to the injured party. Oh wait...did you take i to account the amount of fatigue each combata t had? Because it lowers your chance to hit and parry, basically making the fight take even longer. Oh! And there's equipment damage to take into account as well.
After an hour of all that I scrapped it and went back to D&D. I have been sticking with D&D like combat systems ever since. It works for me so long as we can keep things moving.
Are we talking ,,Kryształy Czasu" (crystals of time) Rpg per chance?
Upon second look - sounds more like Song of swords
Quote from: TommyK on August 26, 2022, 02:56:42 AM
Quote from: Svenhelgrim on August 25, 2022, 09:03:18 AM
I used to think I wanted realism, until I played a very complex system where one combatant attacked, the defender parried, then if the attacker hit, you rolled for hit location, then compared your weapon damahe to the armor on that location, then looked up a chart to see what the wound actually did to the injured party. Oh wait...did you take i to account the amount of fatigue each combata t had? Because it lowers your chance to hit and parry, basically making the fight take even longer. Oh! And there's equipment damage to take into account as well.
After an hour of all that I scrapped it and went back to D&D. I have been sticking with D&D like combat systems ever since. It works for me so long as we can keep things moving.
Are we talking ,,Kryształy Czasu" (crystals of time) Rpg per chance?
Upon second look - sounds more like Song of swords
Sounds more like
Krystały Gówno (Crystals of Shit).
Quote from: Effete on August 26, 2022, 04:28:28 AM
Sounds more like Krystały Gówno (Crystals of Shit).
Eh, more like Crystals od Tedious and Unnecessary Mathematical Procedures that Cosplay as "Realism" While Not Really Being Coherent. Something like that for sure ;D
Quote from: TommyK on August 26, 2022, 07:43:08 AM
Quote from: Effete on August 26, 2022, 04:28:28 AM
Sounds more like Krystały Gówno (Crystals of Shit).
Eh, more like Crystals od Tedious and Unnecessary Mathematical Procedures that Cosplay as "Realism" While Not Really Being Coherent. Something like that for sure ;D
That's why "feel" is more important than how fiddly you make the mechanics when trying to convey "realism."
Twilight:2013 is crunchy but simple. Roll d20 dice pool vs a target number based upon your applicable skill with modifiers (range, your movement, target movement, visibility, etc). More dice increase your margin of success, which increases damage dealt. Compare that damage to a hit point value to determine effects. Apply those effects as penalties to skills, determine if you go into shock, determine if you are bleeding out, determine if "bicep go poof," or if "you'll blow out a lung, Jack."
All of the modifiers can either easily be applied on the dice roll or you can bake them in on your character sheet.
When you fire a gun at an NPC or slice them with a sword, and it's a slight wound to the off hand, the results are different than a critical torso wound. As it should be - one is a minor inconvenience (-1 skill level penalty which may or may not reduce your dice pool), and the other is a lifeflight away from death (enters into shock, possibility of bleeding out, which gives you an additional wound level to all your hit locations at the end of every round until one location goes past critical and you die or someone stabilizes you before that happens). This feels right. There is even the option to add a 5th wound level for the head and torso that is an insta-kill, reflecting a sniper or playing out the Highlander decapitation scene
The best part of the rules is you can dial the crunchiness up or down a bit with optional Stage I or Stage III rules rather then the desire Stage II rules.
Quote from: 3catcircus on August 26, 2022, 02:11:19 PM
The best part of the rules is you can dial the crunchiness up or down a bit with optional Stage I or Stage III rules rather then the desire Stage II rules.
And that is, in my estimation, a very useful mechanic – sometimes you want to do away with combat as quickly as possible, sometimes there is fun in dragging it out, depleting PCs resources, just to mount tension a bit more.
Anyways, a few thoughts on the original topic.
1. Who gets to roll dice – no matter the system I prefer players to do the rolling (myself being ,,forever GM"). It gives them an illusion of having fate of their characters in their hands, even if their odds would be greater should the GM roll. If they die they want it to be ,,their" doing (failed save for example) than someone's else (NPC striking them down, wiyhout any paary, save or dodge)
2. Active defense vs static defense – usually active is better, for the same reasons as stated above. This may drag combat a bit (you have to have a successful strike and unsuccessful defensive manouver), but again – the players (at least mine) want to have the ,,final" say in combat. On the other hand, when it comes to ranged combat everyone accept that when they are hit (an NPC rolls to hit) – they are hit, and that's that.
3. Hit locations and wounds – I prefer easier methods of dealing with hits and wounds. If someone declares they want to hit a particular body part (head, hand, whatever) then it's a to-hit-roll with penalties, albeit with some bonus if successful. As for wounds – an abstract representation of those has been forever and isn't going anywhere for a reason. I can see some ,,charm" in systems that do away with wounds, HP, or whatever you want to call it for another system, for example a roll on a to-wound-chart, where even one lucky roll can one shot a PC, but the same can be achieved with normal HP rules just by incorporating critical hits. The HP system gives players (and GM) a way of assessing how a certain combatant is doing in combat – should he continue, or should he rather flee, because he might not be able in a round or two. It gives that information and it's valuable; completely abstract wound charts with no HP don't.
4. Maneuvers – some system have basically one (I swing my sword / shoot an arrow) some have quite a lot. The thing is that players soon learn which actions will yield the best results and they spam them. A certain iteration of DnD tried to limit that but it came across as not-so-believeable; I haven't played it myself so cannot say anything else. So I usually stick with systems with simple actions, and if a player wants to do something out of the ordinary, along the lines of: ,,i parry his sword, then feint an attack, and than thrust my rapier into his chest, right in the heart" - I'd call for some rolls that seem reasonable for me and players and be done with it. The funny thing is that usually the probability of that ,,uber" move to be successful and it's consequences to be greater are more or less the same as going for ,,normal" actions. But for some reason it still makes everyone happy.
Quote from: TommyK on August 27, 2022, 08:59:59 AM
Quote from: 3catcircus on August 26, 2022, 02:11:19 PM
The best part of the rules is you can dial the crunchiness up or down a bit with optional Stage I or Stage III rules rather then the desire Stage II rules.
And that is, in my estimation, a very useful mechanic – sometimes you want to do away with combat as quickly as possible, sometimes there is fun in dragging it out, depleting PCs resources, just to mount tension a bit more.
Anyways, a few thoughts on the original topic.
1. Who gets to roll dice – no matter the system I prefer players to do the rolling (myself being ,,forever GM"). It gives them an illusion of having fate of their characters in their hands, even if their odds would be greater should the GM roll. If they die they want it to be ,,their" doing (failed save for example) than someone's else (NPC striking them down, wiyhout any paary, save or dodge)
2. Active defense vs static defense – usually active is better, for the same reasons as stated above. This may drag combat a bit (you have to have a successful strike and unsuccessful defensive manouver), but again – the players (at least mine) want to have the ,,final" say in combat. On the other hand, when it comes to ranged combat everyone accept that when they are hit (an NPC rolls to hit) – they are hit, and that's that.
3. Hit locations and wounds – I prefer easier methods of dealing with hits and wounds. If someone declares they want to hit a particular body part (head, hand, whatever) then it's a to-hit-roll with penalties, albeit with some bonus if successful. As for wounds – an abstract representation of those has been forever and isn't going anywhere for a reason. I can see some ,,charm" in systems that do away with wounds, HP, or whatever you want to call it for another system, for example a roll on a to-wound-chart, where even one lucky roll can one shot a PC, but the same can be achieved with normal HP rules just by incorporating critical hits. The HP system gives players (and GM) a way of assessing how a certain combatant is doing in combat – should he continue, or should he rather flee, because he might not be able in a round or two. It gives that information and it's valuable; completely abstract wound charts with no HP don't.
4. Maneuvers – some system have basically one (I swing my sword / shoot an arrow) some have quite a lot. The thing is that players soon learn which actions will yield the best results and they spam them. A certain iteration of DnD tried to limit that but it came across as not-so-believeable; I haven't played it myself so cannot say anything else. So I usually stick with systems with simple actions, and if a player wants to do something out of the ordinary, along the lines of: ,,i parry his sword, then feint an attack, and than thrust my rapier into his chest, right in the heart" - I'd call for some rolls that seem reasonable for me and players and be done with it. The funny thing is that usually the probability of that ,,uber" move to be successful and it's consequences to be greater are more or less the same as going for ,,normal" actions. But for some reason it still makes everyone happy.
Everyone should always roll their own dice - it's one of the very few "player agency" things that actually is agency and not just whining about not getting your way.
Active defence is always a good thing - whether a static opposed roll or penalties to the attack roll or a change in difficulty of success on the attack roll.
I disagree on hit points. I'll get on my soap box about Twilight:2013 once more. You have a base hit point for each location (head, torso, each arm and each leg). You have slight/moderate/severe/critical values that are a certain multiple for each location. When damage is done, you don't subtract hit points. You compare the damage to the thresholds (i.e. if you do 10 points of damage to the head, and your moderate threshold is 11, you only suffer a slight wound; 15 points causes a moderate wound, etc.) That level of wound causes various effects. Take another wound of the same level to the same location and it increases the wound level.
So what you get is less than 109% combat effectiveness from any wounds, but nothing beyond "I'm hurt" until the wound levels start to stack up. Even with severe wounds you can still be somewhat of a threat. This is very realistic without being onerous to manage during game play. Take a look at several videos that have made their way into Twitter (usually in defense of 2A and armed citizens) - head shots usually cause unconsciousness and immediate subdual, but a guy shot or stabbed elsewhere is still a threat for anywhere from 20 seconds to a minute before they bleed out and collapse - more than enough time to get off a shot or swing a sword for one last attack.
Quote from: 3catcircus on August 27, 2022, 09:28:13 AM
I disagree on hit points.
I don't think we are in disagreement, at least not yet ;D
As far as hit locations / HP ,,pools" go we could differentiate:
1. One hit location (body) / one HP pool – the most popular version, DnD and most OSR games use it. If someone rolls high on damage it can be interpreted as striking head, if low – just grazing arm for example. Usually if a player wants to strike a precise hit location it's motivated by game circumstances – for example as in trying to cut off Saurons finger with The Ring on it. And that's when GM has to come up with some ad hoc ruling whether how that could happen, what should be rolled.
2. Many hit locations (body parts) / one HP pool – as in WFRP and FFG 40k RPGs. You have many hit locations, because that creates problem with armor; you don't have one set of armor, you have to have all pieces of armor to be equally protected everywhere. That makes for a problem in two areas – a player has to spend more money on protective gear and that gear might pose encumbrance problems. Sure the same could happen in one location / one pool instance, but I find that in many locations systems armor tends to be a bit more in-game expensive and cumbersome for a PC.
3. Many hit locations (body parts) / corresponding HP pools – and I think that's the system You prefer; I'd say it's seen also in Cyberpunk 2020 and some later editions of Elric or Stormbringer RPG, don't remember exactly.
There is certain elegance to this system, because usually a hit (with a weapon) to the head means almost certain death or at least unconsciousness, and it corresponds with what we more or less expect to happen in real life. I think that CP 2020 even had a rule that not only did head has it's own HP pool, but also all damage to the head was doubled. And I have no problem with that system because the reasoning behind it is sound. I tend to prefer ,,one pool" systems for 2 reasons: for the sake of simplicity and a bit higher chances of survival of PCs.
4. One hit location / many HP pools – and I'm not sure I know any RPG that would use this combination.
But the system I was alluding to in my previous post, that I don't, like is a tricky one:
5. One hit location (declared) / no HP pool – there aren't many RPG systems that utilize this one; I can think of one Polish – Dzikie Pola (Wild Lands) 2ed. TLDR version of this system is: you declare which location you want to hit, which might impose some penalties, and if you hit you roll on damage chart (modified by your strength, used weapon, used maneuver) which goes something like (more or less): 1-4, tis' but a scratch, 5-7 nothing to worry about, 8-10 light wound, 11-15 moderate wound, 15-19 serious wound, 20 death. One could argue that this system is just a hidden HP pool system (a couple of light wounds amount to one moderate, a couple moderate to serious and so on), but it's the same for everyone, at least for all PCs and ,,human" NPCs; and the possibility of death from one hit is higher. If you roll a nat 20 on damage chart, that's it, no matter other circumstances lowering that roll (i.e. armor). So 5% of all successful hits result in someone's death, no matter who's striking. The other thing is that it's quite difficult both for GM and players to assess what the damage output might be in particular fight; the outcome was too ,,swingy", from barely any damage to game over in one hit.
And now for something different:
Cont.
5. Debilitating effect of wounds – in some systems taking damage imposes penalties, in some you effectivly take damage with no repercussions, until you die, or at least fall unconscious. I prefer the second system – again for the sake of simplicity and moving combat quickly. The first one also creates ,,death spiral" - wounded combatants are worse at fighting so it's easier to finish them off. One instance when I would impose penalties for damage would be for some monsters that have large HP pools – combat will inevitably drag for some time, so these penalties will speed things up.
Quote from: Venka on August 25, 2022, 11:55:38 AM
Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 24, 2022, 05:51:30 PM
I like SOME realism; I do not want most swords to weight 10 pounds.
While not every system has this as a defense, many systems have unified bulk and weight into one stat for encumbrance purposes, and they use weight as that metric. So a small brick of steel wrapped in a small amount of cloth and similar might weigh 3 pounds and be listed as 3 pounds, but that same exact material in the shape of a katana might be listed as 10 pounds to represent how much harder it is to carry something that is extremely long instead of compact, even though it is literally just 3 pounds.
I get that this is a cope, but that way you can make sense of the table and not have everyone walking around with world of warcraft swords or whatever. It also does legitimately seem to be the intention in some cases.
I'd be totally okay with saying a sword is "1 bulk", "1 slot" or whatever, and I have used this in the past, but if weight is measured in pounds or something equivalent, I dislike 10 pound swords.
With that said, most encumbrance rules are extremely forgiving outside of the OSR. In 5e an average person can walk around carrying 150 pounds with no detriment. So things might balance out...
Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 27, 2022, 02:29:35 PM
Quote from: Venka on August 25, 2022, 11:55:38 AM
Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 24, 2022, 05:51:30 PM
I like SOME realism; I do not want most swords to weight 10 pounds.
While not every system has this as a defense, many systems have unified bulk and weight into one stat for encumbrance purposes, and they use weight as that metric. So a small brick of steel wrapped in a small amount of cloth and similar might weigh 3 pounds and be listed as 3 pounds, but that same exact material in the shape of a katana might be listed as 10 pounds to represent how much harder it is to carry something that is extremely long instead of compact, even though it is literally just 3 pounds.
I get that this is a cope, but that way you can make sense of the table and not have everyone walking around with world of warcraft swords or whatever. It also does legitimately seem to be the intention in some cases.
I'd be totally okay with saying a sword is "1 bulk", "1 slot" or whatever, and I have used this in the past, but if weight is measured in pounds or something equivalent, I dislike 10 pound swords.
With that said, most encumbrance rules are extremely forgiving outside of the OSR. In 5e an average person can walk around carrying 150 pounds with no detriment. So things might balance out...
This is verbatim what I tend to do when I'm homebrewing, and what I generally look for in systems going forward. Forget the raw weight; measure things directly in their encumbrance penalties. Systems which can't do that because they have a hard over-encumbered line probably do not have a vital mechanic connected to the encumbrance subsystem, and you're better off removing encumbrance entirely. It's also not just a matter of raw weight, but how much the bulk and ergonomics affects carry. A rifle with a sling is notably easier to carry than one without one, despite technically weighing more.
Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 27, 2022, 02:29:35 PM
Quote from: Venka on August 25, 2022, 11:55:38 AM
Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 24, 2022, 05:51:30 PM
I like SOME realism; I do not want most swords to weight 10 pounds.
While not every system has this as a defense, many systems have unified bulk and weight into one stat for encumbrance purposes, and they use weight as that metric. So a small brick of steel wrapped in a small amount of cloth and similar might weigh 3 pounds and be listed as 3 pounds, but that same exact material in the shape of a katana might be listed as 10 pounds to represent how much harder it is to carry something that is extremely long instead of compact, even though it is literally just 3 pounds.
I get that this is a cope, but that way you can make sense of the table and not have everyone walking around with world of warcraft swords or whatever. It also does legitimately seem to be the intention in some cases.
I'd be totally okay with saying a sword is "1 bulk", "1 slot" or whatever, and I have used this in the past, but if weight is measured in pounds or something equivalent, I dislike 10 pound swords.
With that said, most encumbrance rules are extremely forgiving outside of the OSR. In 5e an average person can walk around carrying 150 pounds with no detriment. So things might balance out...
I always liked that Castles & Crusades gave you at least a base way to calculate the encumbrance value for any item that wasn't on an equipment list.
I like something kinda between crunchy and abstract. Too much crunch makes combats take too long or feel rushed. Too much abstraction removes all the tactical elements though, and that's no fun either.
I really hate using battle maps (too much junk for me to keep track of, and too much setup time, etc). Instead I use "range bands" kinda borrowed from LBB Traveller high-guard combat (book three I think?; I can't remember), where an encounter starts at some distance and combatants can individually advance or retreat, but don't really move in 2-3 dimensions like you would with a battle mat. You just keep track of where everyone is along an imaginary line, and where the terrain features are on that line. If someone wants to take cover, I randomly determine how far ahead or behind and what the cover is based on the situation ("Uh yeah, there's a tree 15' ahead of you"). All "theatre of the mind", no minis, just some scratch paper behind the DM screen. You get the good parts of abstract combat, but ranged weapons are still useful.
Being the nostalgic twerp that I am, descending armor class and thac0 make me happy inside too. :3 *ducks*
I do not consider this to be a preference per se. More like a necessity that some just don't acknowledge.
There's a problem that comes up a lot in "realistic" combat systems. There's almost always an unspoken assumption that all the "realism" is assuming combat will be man vs man. As soon as a gelatinous cube enters the picture, a lot of that shit goes out the window. Even if you're doing a realistic "modern" setting, there's still attack dogs and mounted police and all kinds of reasons for animals to come into play.
Combat has to be at least abstract enough to handle all that without having 14 different systems or stat blocks that take up half the page. I'd be more than happy to see just how realistic you can make the system while adhering to this constraint.
I thought Dangerous Journeys had a pretty cool thing going with its hit location system: Non-Vital, Vital, Super-Vital, and Ultra-Vital. It had hit locations. And most people could more or less figure out what those locations likely meant when it comes to humans. But it's still applicable when fighting some ridiculous fantasy creature, like a three-assed elephant or whatever.
Quote from: zircher on August 25, 2022, 10:57:29 AM
One of my favorite combat systems is Wushu (Blackbelt Edition). You kind of need to think like an action movie director since you get dice by describing details. It makes for very fun uber narrative combat rounds. One cool thing about it is that details are details, so describing set-backs, blocked attacks, or seeing that ninja in the reflection of your sword are all valid ways to build your dice pool.
It more than just Wushu marital arts action too. I've used the system for Crimson Skies style dog fights and wizards trying to fend off an alien invasion.
Wushu always seemed like something I would like but has always left me cold after actual play. I've never been able to put my finger on it, but I suspect it's either the disconnect between the narration and the dice rolls or that it's missing another level of manipulation that would tie it together for me. In any case it's never quite worked for others that I've played with either so I never pursued it any further.
It depends. I like some verisimilitude, but not too deadly. I've had players who prefer D&D combat because they saw war and don't want it that real in a game.
To be honest, I think the most fun we ever had with combat was actually my simplified hack of Rolemaster. We used the tables more or less as is (except that AT 1 is only for half-naked barbarian type games), but simplified everything that has to do with encumbrance etc. It really brought out the fun part of Rolemaster.
Pocket Fantasy, a very rules lite RPG, uses one of the simplest combat systems I've ever seen.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/189191 (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/189191)
It's an opposed roll of the two combatants Combat Skill, aka CS. Attacker's CS roll minus defender's CS roll = damage to the defender. Interestingly, these are no to-hit rolls. This system just goes straight to damage. Because most of the dice rolls include a negative number you subtract it's not uncommon to do zero damage. It is those cases you can say that the attack was parried, hit the armor, or the defender jumped out of the way.
The various skill levels are from a fully trained warrior with a CS of 1D6, down to a terrible mook like a Kobold with a mere CS of 1D6-3. So if a warrior attacks a Kobold with a roll of a 5, and the Kobold defends itself with a roll of a 6, subtracting 3, result of a 3 damage is blocked/dodged. That Kobold takes 2 damage. The Kobold fights back and rolls a 5, minus 3, result of 2. The warrior defends himself with a roll of 2. No damage is taken.
It's quick, easy, and I think it's a great system.
Into the Odd has combat distilled down to about as minimal as you can get.
Roll damage, subtract armor, apply damage
There's no to-hit roll at all. Base damage is 1d6. If something does IMPAIRED damage the roll is 1d4, and if it is ENHANCED the damage is 1d12.
Typical damage reduction for armor is 1, with a shield contributing another 1.
Damage is first removed from HP. If HP is reduced to zero then it damage is applied to STRENGTH and the target then makes a Strength save and if they fail they are out of the fight (and can die if not attended to). Reducing strength to zero causes DEATH.
The fun in the system comes from trying to make use of stunts and arcanum to enhance damage, cause ability score damage, or avoid attacks. Since ability score damage needs a week of downtime to heal, finding ways to minimize damage is key. I've found that this really promotes creative use of the environment and the Arcana (magic items) in order to overcome the opponents/obstacles in front of them. It's a bit like T&T in this regard, though much easier to adjudicate. There are a few details that are glossed over more than I'd like (range for example) but overall I find it pretty entertaining.
I have found I dislike HP pool based systems. They don't lend themselves to the gameplay style I like unless Im in the mood for that sort of thing.
"Well its level 1 mooks pointing guns at my head so I can tanke 10-12 if they even hit me". I actually prefer something like D&D 4e if your working off that sort of logic. Since its so abstracted and resource management focused, id prefer it be easy to manage as a GM. Of course 4e improved derivatives are better but I mean the general jist.
Otherwise I have found that Savage Worlds does the sort of gameplay I like better. A wound system with psuedo HP, called shots, and still powerful player characters.
Combat systems I've had most fun with: Rolemaster, TFT, T&T. Rolemaster is epic in that the complex character creation means you're really invested in your guy. Then you go in to combat nervous as hell that he might step on an imaginary turtle and poleaxe himself in the left ear. It's great. The essential rule about transferring as much as your offensive bonus to your defensive bonus as you wish makes it a lot less deadly than it would be otherwise. It's manageable, the same way Runequest and many other "gritty" games have combat that can be deadly but isn't game-breaking. The stakes are high. That's what makes combat fun to me.
Quote from: TheShadow on September 02, 2022, 03:49:18 AM
Combat systems I've had most fun with: Rolemaster, TFT, T&T. Rolemaster is epic in that the complex character creation means you're really invested in your guy. Then you go in to combat nervous as hell that he might step on an imaginary turtle and poleaxe himself in the left ear. It's great. The essential rule about transferring as much as your offensive bonus to your defensive bonus as you wish makes it a lot less deadly than it would be otherwise. It's manageable, the same way Runequest and many other "gritty" games have combat that can be deadly but isn't game-breaking. The stakes are high. That's what makes combat fun to me.
Rolemaster's Critical Hits table was fun, to be certain!
Generally, I prefer lighter combat systems.
Like D100 or WFRP 1/2e. Also light OSR systems. I like to see the combat in the mind's eye as opposed to it being procedurally generated by tables, etc.
Personally I really like Risk vs Reward. I always find myself playing the option that has a risk attached to it if available. Even if there's no significantly better reward to playing it.
Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on September 02, 2022, 10:47:34 AM
Generally, I prefer lighter combat systems.
Like D100 or WFRP 1/2e. Also light OSR systems. I like to see the combat in the mind's eye as opposed to it being procedurally generated by tables, etc.
I agree. There's a sweet spot of just enough description to let the mind paint an interesting picture.
I also like d100 and some dice pool systems where the result is instantly known by looking at the dice. It makes the rolls more exciting.
Quote from: Lunamancer on August 30, 2022, 09:55:43 PM
I do not consider this to be a preference per se. More like a necessity that some just don't acknowledge.
There's a problem that comes up a lot in "realistic" combat systems. There's almost always an unspoken assumption that all the "realism" is assuming combat will be man vs man. As soon as a gelatinous cube enters the picture, a lot of that shit goes out the window. Even if you're doing a realistic "modern" setting, there's still attack dogs and mounted police and all kinds of reasons for animals to come into play.
Combat has to be at least abstract enough to handle all that without having 14 different systems or stat blocks that take up half the page. I'd be more than happy to see just how realistic you can make the system while adhering to this constraint.
I thought Dangerous Journeys had a pretty cool thing going with its hit location system: Non-Vital, Vital, Super-Vital, and Ultra-Vital. It had hit locations. And most people could more or less figure out what those locations likely meant when it comes to humans. But it's still applicable when fighting some ridiculous fantasy creature, like a three-assed elephant or whatever.
It's a shame really - DJ has some really great ideas. But GDW being threatened with lawsuits pretty much guaranteed that there was no opportunity for a 2nd edition. A significant edit to clean things up and to "simplify" the Gygaxian prose would have done wonders.
Quote from: rytrasmi on September 02, 2022, 01:56:23 PM
I also like d100 and some dice pool systems where the result is instantly known by looking at the dice. It makes the rolls more exciting.
Is it "some" dice pool systems, since it takes so much time with many of them to figure out the results?
Any specific dice pool systems that work well? I suspect they need custom dice (such as, count the "hit markers")?
I like systems where you're rolling one or two dice and get the results from that.
Quote from: 3catcircus on September 02, 2022, 03:09:17 PM
It's a shame really - DJ has some really great ideas. But GDW being threatened with lawsuits pretty much guaranteed that there was no opportunity for a 2nd edition. A significant edit to clean things up and to "simplify" the Gygaxian prose would have done wonders.
There is a group that I think are working on a 2E for DJ. I know for sure they're at least getting text and formatted text versions of the original books. They've got a facebook group. They're not really hiding it. I don't know what, if any legal arrangement they're working under. I remember seeing one dude comment something about copyright infringement, and he got unanimously shouted down as an idiot who didn't know what he was talking about. They're certainly acting as if everything they're doing is above board. One of the group members is co-author Dave Newton.
Which makes me almost have to address "Gygaxian prose." The thing is, somewhere along the lines during the 1E years, Gary started scaling back the actual writing he did. I'm not saying you can't hate or find faults with Gary's writing style. Personally, I love it. I'm just saying people point to "Gygaxian Prose" on things Gary didn't really write despite being credited. When I read the 1E DMG, I feel like I'm having a nice, relaxing fireside chat with a wise old friend. It puts me in a really good space in terms of mental clarity, and so I actually find his writing incredibly comprehensible. I don't get that same feeling from the late 1E stuff or anything allegedly written by Gary after. I'm not saying it's bad. It's just not the same.
And so I have a hard time doing anything but roll my eyes any time someone brings up Gygaxian prose. I get a strong impression that Dave Newton did most of the heavy lifting on DJ. I could be wrong. I suppose I could just go on over to facebook and ask him. He's fairly active in the group. I do have a little first-hand experience with this. I was co-authoring a module with Gary at the time he died. We started with an old document that was a hybrid of outline/manuscript that actually was written by Gary, which was brilliant by the way. And it was on me to do virtually all of the writing to turn the outline into a full-fledged module. He'd give notes and request changes here and there. If the thing had made it to print, the final words would probably have been about 95% mine and yet still get called Gygaxian prose. And so if a DJ 2E ever comes to fruition, it might still retain a good measure of its Newtonian Prose.
As far as DJ as a system, my personal feelings was that Advanced Mythus was too heavy, and Mythis Prime was too light. Gary did a great job hitting the Goldilocks zone with Lejendary Adventure. DJ definitely has some over-sized stat blocks. I find myself back-porting the LA stat block format to other RPGs, because I think LA nailed the stat block. If I were to do an LA-style stat block with DJ, I'd only list the Traits, not the individual attributes. And then I'd just list attack summaries that include Base Attack Chance, Base Damage, and damage bonus for each weapon. Armor, I'd probably used the simple armor stats option. And this same format would work perfectly whether you're playing Advanced or Prime.