TheRPGSite

The thread on combat time got me thinking.

What is the most fun combat system you've played? Why is it your favourite combat system? (putting aside other parts of the wider system)

For me... I'm not sure.

I loved the old dragon warriors because it was quick, had armour bypass rolls, and folks HP didnt go up much over time.
I loved 2e shadowrun for the stun/wound tracks, dodge pool, and how a little pistol can be deadly if you have enough skill with it. Also quick.
I liiiike D&D cause fighting fantasy monsters is fun. But I'm not sure I actually like the system behind it all that much. Tends to take a while, which I generally dislike.

The one with the great players at the table.

I love combat in RPGs, but as long as the system is quick, its a good baseline for me. But the coolness of the combat comes from the players interacting with threats in my game world in interesting ways - aka using spells in different ways, fresh tactics, fun one-liners, etc.

But if we are just rating systems, then I gotta put Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1e) high up on the list because of the speed and crazy criticals.

GURPS, which is fast enough and narrates detail nicely.  Rolemaster is also fairly well set up and fast if you run it in parallel rather than serial.  All told though, I prefer GURPS combat as I never have to fight with it to reason out what happened.  It's the character creation on RMSS that I love.

Harnmaster, Fantasy Age, and GURPS in that order. Harnmaster for it unique hit point less design, Fantasy Ages for it Stunt mechanic, and GURPS which is just simply awesome can be handled very basically or with tons of detail.

DwD Studios' BareBones Fantasy. Combat is light with enough variation for fun, and a reasonable chance of "exploding dice" that can give really fun results.

My other favorite is from our homebrew system. Fixed damage by level. Opposed single die each rolls for combat. Simple to determine what size dice to roll. Quick to resolve. And fun results for both critical and fumble rolls.

Hands down, Marvel Superheroes Advanced (FASERIP!).  Love, love, love using the charts for combat.  D&D has always been good at scratching the itch.

Mongoose Traveller is quick and easy, because it's simple task checks. Lame players can still slow combat down to wargame speed. Just keep them away from the game table is all.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1000324Mongoose Traveller is quick and easy, because it's simple task checks. Lame players can still slow combat down to wargame speed. Just keep them away from the game table is all.

You should try a roleplaying game sometime.

Ninjas and Superspies is kind of fun using the Palladium system where defenders actually get to oppose attackers. All the silly martial arts are fun to play and describe.

James Bond 007 and Mayfair DC Heroes I always enjoyed as well.

Flashing Blades is incredibly cool as your decisions to use different weapons and different attack or defense postures actually affect the outcome. The only downside is there can be a lot of modifiers to keep track of as a ref. As a player it's not bad because you really only need to know the ones that apply for your character and weapon of choice. Flashing Blades is probably the best I've played.

Actually, as I think about it I'll add Palladium's rules from Mechanoid Invasion Book III and The Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying Game first edition.  The strike parry dodge system is brilliant, the weapons are distinguished by how they are used and are good at the things they should be good at, and the system is clean, simple, direct, stays well within its probability range.  A great, tight system.  It's a shame they fell into the clutter of later editions.

Apocalypse World 1e. I've played and enjoyed GURPS and Fantasy Craft and other more tactical systems, but I'm just not that much of a tactical wargames person, so the AW approach worked great for me. When combat happened, it was over within a few rolls, and we were able to move on to the stuff far more interesting to me. I was the combat-heavy Touchstone playbook, and I felt that the system really rewarded my choices when it came time to throw down. I also enjoyed all the options that could diffuse tension and remove the need for combat altogether, assuming you rolled well of course. Some basic Moves were pretty good for that, and some of the playbooks had Moves that could help further still. I haven't tried out 2e yet; I'm trying to reserve judgement, but the addition of a bunch of combat-specific moves(instead of just using the basic and playbook moves you already have creatively) rubs me the wrong way.

If I want to go detailed and tactical, it's usually some flavor of RuneQuest. Hit locations, critical hits/fumbles, weapon effects.
If I want to go abstract, but still retain an evocative combat, I'd use something more along the lines of Call of Cthulhu or an edition of Stormbringer.

Generally, the same rules-backbone but with sliding degrees of complexity based on what I'm in the mood for. Why? Because it's enjoyable to me.

Ranked order of fun in combat systems from best to least best (considering only good ones - everything here is a reasonable choice):

The Fantasy Trip
Flashing Blades
Behind Enemy Lines
Runequest
Boot Hill (2E preferred)
GURPS (basically TFT with all the options you could imagine, and thus a bit too slow)
Dragonquest (hybrid of 1E action points and other rules from 2E preferred)
1E Chivalry and Sorcery (kind of a crazy game, but if you know how to play combat can be a gas)
Any form of D&D after OD&D and before 3E (a counter intuitive pick, but great for diversity, speed and big melees)

Some flavor of BRP, (Mythras, Magic World, Openquest, CoC) depending on the need for crunchy detail... GURPS because it's so intuitive... and then DCC for it 'mighty deed' mechanic.

CP2020's Interlock. Fast, lethal, tactical.

Talislanta's house system is similar in weight (not actual mechanics). Don't need a lot of overheard, has room for narrative elements - just roll and compare and let the body-parts fly.

Forgot The Fantasy Trip. Add that to my list up above.

GURPS with map & counters, because the combat system is fun & interesting to play even by itself. And because it works like I think the game situation would, where what's happening and what characters do are at least as important as how highly-rated the characters are, and the way things play out works in ways that make sense but are not predictable. Also because it gives rules that make sense for all sorts of situations, which is represented explicitly, instead of relying on players and the GM sharing the same imagination of the situation and what ought to have what chance of working.

For me it lets me feel like I'm actually engaging a naturally-evolving game situation in a concrete way, as opposed to abstract game mechanics and/or a game of trying to convince the GM that my tactics ought to give me an advantage. Things happen because of what players choose to do, governed by rules and risks that make sense given the situation, which means it makes a huge difference what the details of the situation currently are, and what players choose to do about it, often involving tough calls with major consequences.

Also because I've been playing GURPS for many years and am good at running it quickly. I started with it's much simpler ancestor, The Fantasy Trip, which was just as satisfying to me for the first six or so years. By year seven, I was starting to want more detailed rules, i.e. GURPS.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1000299The one with the great players at the table.

I think this is key. If you have great players who are invested in a game's combat system, no matter how simple or complex, it will be fun.

I have enjoyed:
- theater of the mind OD&D
- OD&D/AD&D played with minis and grids
- D&D 3.x played with minis or counters and grids
- RuneQuest 1e/2e played with minis and grids, complete with hit locations, strike ranks, and fumbles
- A college friend's home brew that matched complexity with the above
- Dogs in the Vinyard
- Burning Wheel
- Classic Traveller
- Champions and Fantasy Hero
- Chivalry & Sorcery 1e

One I actually struggled with was GURPS... Part of the problem may have been NOT having great players...

I've played others, but they aren't coming to mind well enough to say if I really enjoyed them.

GURPS is surprisingly hard to get to flow like it should. It is the world's best combat engine hiding in a where's-waldo-like confusion of other stuff. TFT would be a better game if it had some of GURPS' mechanics, but it turns out to be worth the compromise to have something boiled down and navigable. Also, back when GURPS was TFT, the magic system was seamlessly integrated with combat,

I loved early editions of Shadowrun.  So much variability (swords, shotguns, high tech, and magic). Endless possibilities for interesting and unforgettable encounters.

The problem with GURPS and flow is that it doesn't flow like anything else I can think of.  It's also very dependant on tactical choices especially against foes with high defence rolls where feinting and deceptive attacks are very important.  I do think it's important to cut down on the bells and whistles and stick to the basics with new players.

The reason Rolemaster runs fast is that everyone can work out their attacks at the same time and announce in initiative order if they have copies of their charts.  It is also a game where combat will generally run for fewer rounds because sooner or later someone picks up a stunned no parry crit and dies the next round.  People always complain about the risk of one hit kills but really, a stunned no parry round is a much more common way to go.

Probably the most fun to me has been Fantasy Hero house ruled to be ever so slightly more like a typical D&D game.  It's basically "Supers D&D with more tactics" at that point.  (Part of what I dislike about D&D 3E is that it set out to do exactly that, and didn't do it very well, to my mind.)  

A very close second, and less troublesome when running, is any version of D&D suitable to run with side-by-side initiative (preferably RC or 5E, but others will do), where the emphasis on tactics goes the situation at hand, and less the widgets on the character sheet.  It's such a close second, that sometimes the extra trouble of going with the first choice  is not worth what you get in exchange.

I also enjoy the Runequest/Dragonquest styles, but not some of the details.  Theoretically, there could be another game built along those lines that might take the prize.

Burning Wheel would be a contender if it wasn't for the scripting, and the huge gulf in options between simple and complex sub systems.

Mekton II/Mekton Zeta because I love the action of first you hit your target, then the damage must penetrate the armor (while ablating it), before causing damage. That simple procedure coupled with the number of actions a character or mecha can take really emulate the action I see in anime.

It's a great question.

Probably the system I've ever had the most fun with would not be the system I would pick to guarantee I had fun on any given session.

For the first, probably MERP. The setting, the players, the mood around the table, the fight against the BBEG......the rules just meshed perfectly for an evening I will always treasure the memory of.

For consistent fun....maybe WFRP 1e/2e. Swingy, dangerous, scary, hilarious.

Tough question. The best way I could answer is to break it up by group size.

For smaller groups (up to three players), I'd have to say Fireborn. It has a really unique combat system that lets players chain moves together and stay active even when being attacked. I never played the Street Fighter game, but I could see a version of Fireborn's system being perfect for that sort of combat. Great for small groups but can bog down a bit when lots of people get involved.

For bigger groups, I've found it mostly comes down to the players but I guess I'd vote for Savage Worlds. The basic system does just what it needs to do as efficiently as possible, and from that you have a lot of extensions like the card initiative and Edges that make things a lot more interesting. It's one of the best balances I've seen in combat between offering speed and tactical flexibility.

Honorable mention has to go to Godbound. If/when I run a campaign, I'm pretty sure this will bump off Savage Worlds as my preferred system for larger groups. I've played with the fray die in Scarlet Heroes so I know how well it works, and I expect Godbound is easily going to be my favorite for big, epic fights with lots of PCs and enemies if I can ever find the time to get a proper game of it going.

Mythras - Special Effects for the Win.
Rolemaster and WFRP - for the awesome critical tables.
FASA Shadowrun - Using shifting wound categories for raises just seemed to work really well for gunplay the smallest gun could be deadly and the largest survivable.
Dragon Age - Fun stunting mechanic
Palladium System - Ninjas and Superspies plus Mystic China make it into any Palladium game I run.
Aces & Eights - It's all about that Shotclock.

Glory Road Roleplay with this free supplement: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxncnJlZmVyZW5jZXxneDoxZWZiMGI0Y2U3MjI4YjQ5

Chaosium Magic World / Stormbringer for speed while still being interesting!

Based on reaction from players, so "Fun factor":

1: Rolemaster.  it's the fantastic crit charts that have really fleshed out combat and made it fun and interesting.
It's best if everyone (meaning players included) understand how combat work, so the combat pace isn't really slow.

2: Stormbringer, 1st edition..   No crit charts that I remember that well, but critical hits and horrendous damage from demon weapons and damage types make this a really funny game to run.


I doubt I'll ever run Rolemaster again. it's just a lot of work if only the GM understands the rules and it's hard to find people interested in playing RM.

Stormbringer requires a sort of masochistic player too. The rules are really quick, but no resurrection, high damage weapons without even considering magical/demonic bonuses means combat is deadly, so has a  very high character attrition rate.

The most fun and memorable combat I've had was running B/X D&D, CoC and Cyberpunk.

I really enjoyed the 4e combat system, though any encounter wore out its welcome after about 35 minutes.

It would kind of be cheating to say "D&D", because I can recognize objectively that there's other combat systems that are more interesting by far in terms of the results they create.  However, D&D is the one I always come back to, as do most other people. So in that sense, without being necessarily the most fun at any specific thing, it clearly has something going for it that helps make it the most fun overall.

I would have to say 5E. It gives you a lot of freedom to improvise virtually any theatre-of-the-mind situation, but gives you that bendy rules-backbone that prevents it from becoming a muddled mess.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1001740...D&D is the one I always come back to, as do most other people. So in that sense, without being necessarily the most fun at any specific thing, it clearly has something going for it..

Familiarity  is all it has going for it, which is enough for many.

D&D wins this argument so often, despite all the objective criticisms of it, because it is a game that forces combat into the small, confined space it should be in if the game is going to work as a game. Whenever you blow up the combat system to become more realistic, dynamic, etc., you just end up spending the whole night resolving fights. Given how blood thirsty table top role playing games are, they don't actually go well if you spend all your time fighting. So, if the metric is, 'I had fun, and there were fights', then D&D is a pretty good answer.

Definitely GURPS, for me. Quick, ridiculously flexible and smooth in play with little-to-no haggling or OOC discussion/interpretation necessary, resolution maps almost 1:1 between the mechanics and the 'fiction' of what's happening in the game world, meaty combat processes with satisfying results, and the most important bit: it feels like combat, with all the sense of urgency, brow-sweating and white-knuckle die rolling one could want. It could be over in two seconds or two minutes, and actions and events feel weighty like each decision and outcome really matters (and generally speaking, they do!).

Also worth noting is that GURPS fairly easily slides from one end of the spectrum to another, so if I want to "fuzzy" things up and go more abstract (zoom out/zoom in) for a fight on a battlefield with a hundred soldiers, that's entirely possible and easy to do in a way that feels consistent and not cheating the players out of choice or chance just to make things flow more smoothly. Similarly, how "narrative" or "simulation-y" you want it to play can also be calibrated to the expectations of the campaign, allowing room for not only your high-verisimilitude 'gritty realism' fights, but also your supers battles where many details and much of the realism gets glossed over in favor of cinematic "rule of cool" stuff that's highly influenced by narrative causation, high-flying wuxia, pulp two-fisted nazi mook punching, etc.

It's hard for me to pick just one but The Riddle of Steel is easily up there for me.

Quote from: Dumarest;1001937Familiarity  is all it has going for it, which is enough for many.

This is just wrong on so many levels.  Anytime you find yourself dismissing anything on grounds of "it only appeals because of" nostalgia or familiarity or whatever "mere" thing you pick, there is a really good chance that all you are doing is projecting your own disinterest in the thing onto other people.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1002071This is just wrong on so many levels.  Anytime you find yourself dismissing anything on grounds of "it only appeals because of" nostalgia or familiarity or whatever "mere" thing you pick, there is a really good chance that all you are doing is projecting your own disinterest in the thing onto other people.

 He said it himself in his post. Go re-read it.

Quote from: Dumarest;1002121He said it himself in his post. Go re-read it.

Who, Pundit?  That's not what I got out of his post.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1002012D&D wins this argument so often, despite all the objective criticisms of it, because it is a game that forces combat into the small, confined space it should be in if the game is going to work as a game. Whenever you blow up the combat system to become more realistic, dynamic, etc., you just end up spending the whole night resolving fights. Given how blood thirsty table top role playing games are, they don't actually go well if you spend all your time fighting. So, if the metric is, 'I had fun, and there were fights', then D&D is a pretty good answer.

The last bit: "Then D&D is a pretty good answer," is reasonable. The rest is nonsense. RuneQuest blew up the combat system. By the third session, with veteran D&D players trying out RQ, combat was going faster than it was in our D&D games. I know that people have had similar experiences with GURPS. D&D wins the argument because people compare it to sessions where people are still trying to learn another system and because people have an emotional investment in it. We played for two hours tonight and had two combats, one of them pretty involved, and we had just under 1.5 hours of non-combat. And that was in an admittedly crunchy system that tries for a realistic feel, although not for realism per se.

Quote from: Dumarest;1001937Familiarity  is all it has going for it, which is enough for many.

No, that's not really so.  At least in its early incarnations, it also has quickness of resolution going for it.  In my NYC game with 4-5 players and a group of 9, they'd explore a considerable dungeon area and have four or five combats all in a three hour session.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1002147No, that's not really so.  At least in its early incarnations, it also has quickness of resolution going for it.  In my NYC game with 4-5 players and a group of 9, they'd explore a considerable dungeon area and have four or five combats all in a three hour session.

Fairly speedy fights is critical I think for good combat/system overall

Which D&D becomes the question.  2e with Combat and Tactics slows down a fair bit.

Still, it's a bit of an unfair question.  Even though the damage range is comparable, a Lord might have 80 - 100 hp while a Rune Lord maxes out at maybe 18 or 19.  Never mind the critical hits in RQ, GURPS or Rolemaster.  So, it's a mixed bag, even Rolemaster can actually be pretty fast if you run it right because the players can work out all their results at the same time.  The GM is actually the drag on the system, though I strongly advise farming out allied npcs to players. D&D is very fast for low level characters but it can be excruciatingly slow for high level ones but that makes D&D better for running big combats with lots of cannon fodder.  D&D's wargame roots really show through (never mind about 4e and 5e where the designers clearly thought they knew better) and it's really the only reason D&D draws my attention these days.

Quote from: Motorskills;1000500For the first, probably MERP. The setting, the players, the mood around the table, the fight against the BBEG......the rules just meshed perfectly for an evening I will always treasure the memory of.

I've had this one on my shelf for years, but never tried it. I afraid of the crit tables. How often did the players end up losing limbs and spleens?

Gotta be Mythras for me. Special effects, active defense, hit locations, armor as damage reduction, shields are not bullshit, reach weapons make logical sense, and so on.

Quote from: Aglondir;1002177I've had this one on my shelf for years, but never tried it. I afraid of the crit tables. How often did the players end up losing limbs and spleens?

Memory is hazy, but IIRC very rarely, but not never. Indeed having the bad guy roll badly on the Evil Crit table was perhaps more exhilarating, dodging those bullets.

Just as importantly there were plenty of other outcomes which just added plenty of flavour.

Quote from: Raleel;1002193Gotta be Mythras for me. Special effects, active defense, hit locations, armor as damage reduction, shields are not bullshit, reach weapons make logical sense, and so on.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1000644Mythras - Special Effects for the Win.
Rolemaster and WFRP - for the awesome critical tables.

Yes! Mythras (formerly RuneQuest 6, formerly MRQII) has the (hands-down) best combat system of any RPG.

Also, I have fond memories of MERP/Rolemaster, mainly for the colourful critical results. But MERP/RM lacks the tactical nuances of Mythras.

D&D combat (TSR versions) is pretty bland but has the virtue of being fast. 5e is slightly more interesting, but still pales in comparison to Mythras with respect to vividness and flavour. (3e combats were torture.)

Finally, I like the CoC system because it's fast, deadly, and sometimes has interesting results.

I really like the Savage Worlds combat system. For the tactical options it allows, it plays really fast and it's not too deadly while still feeling dangerous.

Quote from: Pyromancer;1002309I really like the Savage Worlds combat system. For the tactical options it allows, it plays really fast and it's not too deadly while still feeling dangerous.

This is one of mine as well, for the same reasons. Although in some cases, I've found it can be deadly enough.

When you're low on bennies and you take a head shot, trust me it's deadly. (As it should be.)

My other favorite is Hero System/Champions, particularly for the superhero genre, because it's designed to handle over-the-top maneuvers and action. There's a learning curve and it takes an experienced group to keep it moving along at a good pace, but with that being said, some of my all-time favorite games used Hero, and the fight scenes were truly epic.

I'd also give a nod to Blue Planet v2.0; the Synergy system is simple, easy to run, and deadly. I always enjoyed running combats in that game, and my players caught on very quickly: shoot first, shoot last, don't let the other guys shoot at all. Getting shot actually sucked in that game.

Quote from: Pyromancer;1002309I really like the Savage Worlds combat system. For the tactical options it allows, it plays really fast and it's not too deadly while still feeling dangerous.

Me, 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.

Hands down Atomic Highway, second The Fantasy Trip, third AD&D but we played it "wrong" as had to simplify the initiative rules to the extent we even understood them. (See DMPrata)

I have played Runequest for ~40 years and love it; thats why it made my list of favorite combat systems a few pages up. But your comment is objectively ridiculous. Every turn of Runequest melee combat, each combatant is likely to make 3 rolls (attack, parry and damage - which you often have to roll even if you parry a blow due to weapon damage rules). In some cases spell casting or some other action might up this to 4 or more, but 3 is a good average. And each combatant will probably have to do at least one arithmetic operation to deal with damage to weapon or self, and its consequences. 1 calculation per round per character is probably a reasonable estimate of the average. GURPS is different in detail but works out to about the same average number of rolls and calculations per combatant per turn. There are a million forms of D&D, but in its standard form, on average each combatant makes somewhere between 1.2 and 1.5 rolls per turn (an attack roll, with some finite chance of a damage roll), and will perform a calculation (reduction in HP) once every few rounds (let's say 0.2 to 0.5 calculations per round). You could quibble about details, but there is no reasonable discussion of this that doesn't recognize the more elaborate combat systems generally involve ~2-3x more rolls and computations per combatant per turn. They are slower. It is totally obvious, despite whatever your subjective experience might be. It may be that you adapt combats to fit some time window, like by running only small groups and duels in Runequest vs. the battle royals that often occur in D&D. That is common in my experience.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1002142The last bit: "Then D&D is a pretty good answer," is reasonable. The rest is nonsense. RuneQuest blew up the combat system. By the third session, with veteran D&D players trying out RQ, combat was going faster than it was in our D&D games. I know that people have had similar experiences with GURPS. D&D wins the argument because people compare it to sessions where people are still trying to learn another system and because people have an emotional investment in it. We played for two hours tonight and had two combats, one of them pretty involved, and we had just under 1.5 hours of non-combat. And that was in an admittedly crunchy system that tries for a realistic feel, although not for realism per se.

Quote from: Xanther;1002516Hands down Atomic Highway, second The Fantasy Trip, third AD&D but we played it "wrong" as had to simplify the initiative rules to the extent we even understood them. (See DMPrata)

I don't know Atomic Highway; what is combat in it like?

Quote from: Motorskills;1000500For consistent fun....maybe WFRP 1e/2e. Swingy, dangerous, scary, hilarious.

Having played a lot of WFRP 1e the last few months, I would say yes to this.

I also really love combat in the game Sorcerer: Everyone declares actions first, then dice are roll to determine the order actions "go off." A PC who is about to attack can commit to his action with a low defensive die roll, or abort the action with much better odds of defending.

Actions are anything from shooting someone to "I grab the idol from his hands!" (straight up fights toe-to-toe, party-to-party seldom happen in Sorcerer.)

The system isn't quick -- as each player is forced to often make fraught choices about committing to their actions or going full defense (the system is harsh if you take damage) but every moment of a conflict is very intense and engaging.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1002528I have played Runequest for ~40 years and love it; thats why it made my list of favorite combat systems a few pages up. But your comment is objectively ridiculous. Every turn of Runequest melee combat, each combatant is likely to make 3 rolls (attack, parry and damage - which you often have to roll even if you parry a blow due to weapon damage rules). In some cases spell casting or some other action might up this to 4 or more, but 3 is a good average. And each combatant will probably have to do at least one arithmetic operation to deal with damage to weapon or self, and its consequences. 1 calculation per round per character is probably a reasonable estimate of the average. GURPS is different in detail but works out to about the same average number of rolls and calculations per combatant per turn. There are a million forms of D&D, but in its standard form, on average each combatant makes somewhere between 1.2 and 1.5 rolls per turn (an attack roll, with some finite chance of a damage roll), and will perform a calculation (reduction in HP) once every few rounds (let's say 0.2 to 0.5 calculations per round). You could quibble about details, but there is no reasonable discussion of this that doesn't recognize the more elaborate combat systems generally involve ~2-3x more rolls and computations per combatant per turn. They are slower. It is totally obvious, despite whatever your subjective experience might be. It may be that you adapt combats to fit some time window, like by running only small groups and duels in Runequest vs. the battle royals that often occur in D&D. That is common in my experience.

We didn't run any battle royals but we rarely did in D&D either. Each round did take longer but RQ averaged fewer rounds. High-level combat had begun to look to us like "two huge bars of soap carving flakes off of one another" and it took forever. Comparing a RQ fight to a party of adventurers slaughtering mooks makes D&D combat look quick. With a more balanced, high-level fight, the RQ fight ends the D&D fight can be like a cricket game.

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

Fast 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.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1002569We didn't run any battle royals but we rarely did in D&D either. Each round did take longer but RQ averaged fewer rounds. High-level combat had begun to look to us like "two huge bars of soap carving flakes off of one another" and it took forever. Comparing a RQ fight to a party of adventurers slaughtering mooks makes D&D combat look quick. With a more balanced, high-level fight, the RQ fight ends the D&D fight can be like a cricket game.

You 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'.

...also, if a magic user is on hand, a D&D duel is not two bars of soap chipping away at each other. It is one bar of soap melting another bar of soap into slag on the first round.

Probably never achieved high enough levels to run into that.

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.