Quote from: Monero on July 20, 2024, 08:27:45 PM

Quote from: Zelen on July 19, 2024, 10:54:04 PMD&D 4th Edition has the best combat system if you're viewing the combat in isolation from other aspects of the game.

It wouldn't be my preferred rules system for various reasons, but the combat it something that I remember fondly anytime I'm in a game with crunchy-but-less-tactically-rich combat (e.g. D&D 3.x, Pathfinder 2e).

Upsides of D&D 4e : Improving the system's weaknesses in exploration + social pillars of gameplay is usually a lot simpler than developing a tactically rich & balanced combat system

Downsides of D&D 4e : It's really a huge amount of work to unpin the game rules from the setting assumptions (e.g. high magic, heroic fantasy, etc) so if you're not running that style of game good luck.

4e has just as many options for social and exploration as any other edition. In fact, it's really the only one that has a resolution structure for non-combat encounters in Skill Challenges.

The only real and valid complaint someone can make about 4e are those that play purely TotM as 4e all but requires a grid to play. For those people, fair enough, that's a legit reason for not wanting to play 4e.

But all the other complaints? It's just nonsense being repeated by people who either never played the game(the vast majority) or had some axe to grind with 4e because it had no qualms sacrificing their sacred cows.

Luckily myself and my players never succumbed to group think so we're able to enjoy 4th edition, the objectively best version of D&D ever released.

I ran a 4E Mystara game when it was released. The combats did take quite a bit of time but we were playing combat heavy scenarios so that was to be expected. At first the game was moving along fine. The offline monster builder software was really great for building custom content. Once the computer I had it on died, there was nothing but the online piece of garbage. Making custom content without electronic assistance was far too much work for game prep so I ended the campaign. Combats were fun and interesting if a bit lengthly but real problem was in prep and in campaign play.

It worked fine as long as the campaign was just an long series of combat encounters and skill challenges but the focus of the game being entirely on the encounter really made campaign play a bit less dynamic and less fun.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 21, 2024, 09:01:41 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 21, 2024, 08:41:26 AMHonestly, 4E's biggest problem was Hasbro making them launch a year early. This meant a lot of thing were rough or missing. The reason the wizard is the only class with the controller role and its spells are so different from all the later controller classes is literally because they had no real idea what they wanted the controller role to be... but it go or be cancelled time).

Nearly all the problems had been smoothed out by the time PHB2 (the one that included as the "missing" 3e races/classes) came out 9 months after launch.

But you never get a second chance at a first impression, so a good chunk of the audience had bailed before the fixes came through and all the complaints about 4E that are accepted as facts are really only true for about the first six months of the run and the books already in the pipeline before 4E even launched. But as that was the experience of many before they left, it is a valid experience for them.

This is a problem I anticipate getting worse and worse with Hasbro D&D, given that they keep hiring people from the videogame industry to run it. The attitude of "push it out the door and we'll patch it later" is ubiquitous in videogames, but is never going to work on the tabletop. At the most fundamental level, you can't patch a physical book. Hell, even in videogame world, people are getting increasingly sick of it.

Even worse, they are also adopting the DLC mentality of the video game industry, where features are gated behind additional purchases.  And the effects of these additional features on the game seem poorly playtested and conceived.  So, just like in video games, it leads to power creep and severe unbalancing.  You can see this with what has happened to 5e post-Tasha's...

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 21, 2024, 08:25:04 AMI never got the chance to play 4e. All the controversy makes me very much want to try it, but at this point I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll never find anyone still running the game.

Funny enough, you don't need someone to *run* it. Out group found it can be fun to just grab the Monster Manual and use it to select a warband (based on CR...which is not a very refined system) to play a quick head-to-head mini combat game. Sure, it's dropping what RPG elements were in 4e just to focus on th mini combat rules, but those were really the only thing our group really enjoyed about 4e anyways.

Good combat systems emulate the genre and type of combat specific to your setting. D&D has never been particularly good at it for me post-2e, not because the HP/AC over-abstraction, but because of the baked in boardgame/videogame emulation elements that got pasted on top of it.

4e is a superb example of a skirmish game - and should have been marketed as such rather than being 4e D&D.

I don't think D&D combat is *bad* - in fact I think it's the yardstick which I measure other games. Different editions did it better. My preference is 1e/2e.

Anyhow - to answer the question... and I'll note why I like these at the end and how they each moved me past D&D combat.

Interlock (CP2020)- SUPERB emulation. Quick, clean and lethal. As intended. Can be used on battlemap, but works great without. Establishes melee combat as resisted-checks, ranged is static Difficulties plus modifiers. If you wanted some "cinematic" anime-vibes, you could lift Roadstriker rules which allow gunfire to be resisted rolls with Dodge skill. Pacific Rim deepened melee combat by having melee combat ranges (and a shit-ton of martial arts) which really sounded cool on paper but got a little overboard until you got used to it.

Talislanta - Passive targets with Resisted checks as an option. Your attack/defense skill is used as a penalty to attempts to hit you in melee. Ranged is modified with similar skills as an action. Combined with the universal table which uses a single d20, this system is incredibly powerful. I remain shocked that it hasn't been adopted by other d20-style games. Alas, it's the red-headed stepchild. Combat can easily be done on battlemap or without. Magic is incredibly robust and can scale wildly beyond D&D's


MSH - Highly abstracted without modifications, but intensely simple. Obeys its comic-emulation abstractions Amazing(50)ly well. If you don't mind being loosey-goosey and going high-octane, it can easily be used to do heroic fantasy, or any other genre. If you're trying to do hard sci-fi... ehhhhh... But otherwise combat feels great.

DCU - Like MSH but with more defined numbers. Same conceits. Combat is excellent here. You can get more granular with fidelity than MSH.

Savage Worlds - Literally designed to be used with any genre. But it has the benefit of using small numbers so calculations are trivial. Combat for melee is static challenge VS. target skills derived difficulty number which I like. Ranged is static targets based on ranged + modifiers. Combat can match the tic-tackiness of 4e D&D on a Battlemat with FAR less mechanical overhead.

The benefit of Savage Worlds is, once you understand how to tweak it, you can raise the granularity of detail up or down as you see fit. On it's own, it runs fast and cinematic. But if you want that CP2020 detail, you can easily lift optional rules from their Sci-Fi settings or 3rd party material (or do it yourself easily) and give yourself customized ammo, effects, detailed caliber weaponry and armor. The combat system scales from down-n-dirty man on man to mechs and Kaiju combat, all the way to mass-combat where countless units of different sizes are slugging it out.

The takeaway for my combat system choices are this:

1) I want a combat system where the skills of both/all participants matter in melee. I don't want you to have a static DC based solely on gear you wear. I'm perfectly fine with resisted checks. As long as the defender's ability is factored into the roll. For ranged - I'm fine with ranged DC's being static with modifiers.

2) I want the system to be easily understood and flexible enough to go battlemat or theater-of-mind.

3) I want the system to be dedicated to express a specific genre AND/OR designed well enough to emulate the thing we're doing to taste.

I want to avoid too many calculations - especially if I'm having to roll as a resisted check. Passive scores based on ability are *always* better for me as a GM and feels better for me as a player, it keeps me from feeling the game is too war-gamey or boardgamey.

Honorable Mentions:

Palladium - gets too fiddly but if you just go old-school Palladium fantasy, I can get down with it.
d6 - Can get unwieldy at the high-end. But in the low-to-mid game sweet spot, it's quite satisfying. Especially since I'm generally "past" dice-pool mechanics these days.

Quote from: Osman Gazi on July 20, 2024, 01:13:08 AM

Quote from: Cathode Ray on July 19, 2024, 10:30:01 PMI agree with Osman that it's the Fantasy Trip the proto-GURPS.  I don't recommend it, however, since it's SJ Games, which earned a spot on the red list for corporate unhingedness.

Yeah, I don't care for SJ Games' insistence on mixing politics with gaming.  Still, you can find the old stuff on eBay that wouldn't give them any money.  There's also some retroclones available like Heroes & Other Worlds (C.R. Brandon).

Yes.  Also, "Legends of the Ancient Worlds" from Dark City Games is another free TFT clone that requires giving SJ Games no money.  You can get their equivalent to their "Melee" and "Wizard" modules, the core tactical combat and magic system, for free on their web site.

Small groups (3 players or so) I think GURPS is great.  Larger groups and it can slow down a little bit in my experience.  For genres where Combat sort of makes or breaks the mood, like Sword and Sorcery...I find it lots of fun.  I think it is great for guns/high tech as well, though very, very dangerous.

  For larger groups I like DCC a good deal and I think Savage Worlds is a ton of fun too.  Exploding dice can make for some WTF moments (which bennies will mitigate to a degree) which for my group has always led to a more fun experience.  I also think it gives a decent number of options in fights that do not overwhelm players and it does keep the action moving fairly fast paced. 

  Mythras (RQ) looks very interesting and I want to run it, though it does look like combats with more players (more than 4) could slow down...but this is a perception I have from reading and not playing.

For me it's systems with impulse initiative. I don't want rng in my turn order, and I want guns to be WAY faster than swords, and movement to matter. RuneQuest, Feng Shui, and Bound to None go in this direction.

Quote from: Hixanthrope on July 23, 2024, 11:01:04 AMFor me it's systems with impulse initiative. I don't want rng in my turn order, and I want guns to be WAY faster than swords, and movement to matter. RuneQuest, Feng Shui, and Bound to None go in this direction.

I'm not familiar with the term "impulse initiative." Could you define it or point me to a good definition? Also what does "rng" in your second sentence mean?

Quote from: HappyDaze on July 23, 2024, 12:29:16 PMI'm not familiar with the term "impulse initiative." Could you define it or point me to a good definition? Also what does "rng" in your second sentence mean?

Might be a different thing, but the Ringworld RPG by Chaosium had Impulse Initiative. It was basically RQ strike ranks. Your weapon speed and Dex combine to give you a number. In combat the lowest numbers go first. Every round the order is the same unless someone is really slow that they go early in the next round. It got confusing if you didn't take careful records.

Quote from: Ruprecht on July 23, 2024, 12:42:57 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on July 23, 2024, 12:29:16 PMI'm not familiar with the term "impulse initiative." Could you define it or point me to a good definition? Also what does "rng" in your second sentence mean?

Might be a different thing, but the Ringworld RPG by Chaosium had Impulse Initiative. It was basically RQ strike ranks. Your weapon speed and Dex combine to give you a number. In combat the lowest numbers go first. Every round the order is the same unless someone is really slow that they go early in the next round. It got confusing if you didn't take careful records.

Confusing without careful records reminds me of the "ticks" system of initiative that Exalted 1e introduced with "Power Combat" in the Player's Guide. If it's at all like that, I'll give it a hard pass.

Quote from: Ruprecht on July 23, 2024, 12:42:57 PMMight be a different thing, but the Ringworld RPG by Chaosium had Impulse Initiative

Yeah, our table called all those kinds "impulse" after Ringworld. The common idea is that your actions take a certain amount of time, measured over sections within a round (or not) called Impulses, Strike Ranks, Phases, Ticks, etc. Instead of making everyone's turn take the same amount of time, this works well for games that want tactical combat. RNG means Random Number Generator.
In BtN, all the combat is not the same every time, as different items/psionics/weapons have different speeds, and combat options allow you to hurry or delay your actions for tactical advantage. Never cared for the way Ringworld did it without rounds, just let me count to 10.

Quote from: tenbones on July 22, 2024, 02:22:57 PMInterlock (CP2020)- SUPERB emulation. Quick, clean and lethal. As intended. Can be used on battlemap, but works great without. Establishes melee combat as resisted-checks, ranged is static Difficulties plus modifiers. If you wanted some "cinematic" anime-vibes, you could lift Roadstriker rules which allow gunfire to be resisted rolls with Dodge skill. Pacific Rim deepened melee combat by having melee combat ranges (and a shit-ton of martial arts) which really sounded cool on paper but got a little overboard until you got used to it.

One issue I've had RAW with Interlok is how body armor and cybernetic armor (especially body weave) can soak gunfire. It makes the supposedly lethal system not-so-lethal.
Our houserule since CP 2020 has been to say that armor ablates (SP is reduced) from every attack. That makes it possible to whittle down an armored up opponent.

Hackmaster. No other game has a combat system like this and it's not unusual for people to try it and feel like they can't go back to another game. Real shame about the non-combat system parts, though.

Quote from: HappyDaze on July 23, 2024, 02:12:37 PMConfusing without careful records reminds me of the "ticks" system of initiative that Exalted 1e introduced with "Power Combat" in the Player's Guide. If it's at all like that, I'll give it a hard pass.

I have not played Exalted, but I did play Scion 1e which had the ticks/battle wheel turn order. Honestly, the only thing I found confusing was their explanation of it. Roll for a count on which to join battle, then the speed of the action determines on what count the character may take another action. Use a base 10 tracker and the count rolls over; character token goes on the appropriate count line and a marker moves through the lines. From memory, it was faster than finding the next card in Savage Worlds.

Quote from: Wisithir on July 23, 2024, 08:10:55 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on July 23, 2024, 02:12:37 PMConfusing without careful records reminds me of the "ticks" system of initiative that Exalted 1e introduced with "Power Combat" in the Player's Guide. If it's at all like that, I'll give it a hard pass.

I have not played Exalted, but I did play Scion 1e which had the ticks/battle wheel turn order. Honestly, the only thing I found confusing was their explanation of it. Roll for a count on which to join battle, then the speed of the action determines on what count the character may take another action. Use a base 10 tracker and the count rolls over; character token goes on the appropriate count line and a marker moves through the lines. From memory, it was faster than finding the next card in Savage Worlds.

Players don't tend to have a problem with it as they (usually) only have a single character in a fight. For the GM trying to keep track of a half-dozen opponents (even with a minion grouping counting as a single opponent), it's a pain in the ass.