[Organic RPG] Looking for feedback and useful criticism

[John Griffith]

The 1d8 roll is the deciding factor in combat. Looking at your explanation I'm having trouble understanding this -7 to +7 range you are referring to. You'll have to excuse me but math is not my strong point so if this is a stats thing you are going to have to explain it to me in very basic terms like I am a child.

My main concern with addressing the random element is that the dice roll be much smaller than say a 1d20 which has a huge range of variance, but not as small as say a 1d6 which has a range that is too narrow. The idea is to give participants who are not facing overwhelming odds at least a shot at overcoming their adversary. Maybe they get lucky and he trips on his shoelace or slips on a banana peel or maybe the underdog does something unexpected and surprizes his opponent. The point was not to remove randomness altogether but to reduce its impact on battle. Now, you contention is that I have done exactly the opposite which is interesting and bares some looking into on my part. Can a character with a +3 attack modifier hit an expert swordsman with a +10 defense modifier? No, absolutely not because the difference between their skill is too great. I'm not sure if that is what you were referring to with the lvl 3 and lvl 10 swordsman or if you were being less specific. If you're asking if a low level swordsman can defeat a high level swordsman because of the variance in result the answer is possibly but not likely. This is because the higher level swordsman will not only have more options for tackling his less experienced opponent but he will also have more staying power. I explain this better in the next paragraph.

Another factor that influences a character's effectiveness in combat is the ability to chain attacks together. Essentially speaking  the bonuses for each consecutive action be it attacking or defending must be purchased as part of character improvement. Being able to chain together a series of techniques is the signature of a combat-focused character because they can go the distance so to speak. For example:

Combatant A                                 Combatant B
Punch: 8/8/8/5                               Punch: 10/10/2

This is an interesting combination. In the initial stages of a boxing match between these two characters, Combatant B has an advantage over Combatant A assuming defensive values are equal. But if the engagement between these two lasts longer than 2 actions Combatant A then has the advantage.

Re: Simultaneous combat

Your specific example doesn't translate well into my system for the simple fact that if two combat participants are allowed to wack each other and disregard defense the stronger combatant will almost always triumph because he can dish out more damage. It is also counter intuitive because few people are suicidal enough to allow themselves to be hit in combat.

This is a better example of what I am talking about:

Picture two archers. Both draw back their bowstrings and fire on oneanother. Archer A has faster reflexes than Archer B and gets his shot off sooner. He hits Archer B and kills him. Now, in an initiative based combat system Archer B now dead cannot complete his action. My system assumes that Archer B got off a shot before he was killed because he was firing more or less at the same instant as Archer A. Archer B may hit or miss but the point is his action still impacts combat.

[Joe Zeutenhorst]

You'll have to excuse me but math is not my strong point so if this is a stats thing you are going to have to explain it to me in very basic terms like I am a child.

Hit that Advanced Search button at the top of the page. Lots of great stuff about this achieved on the forum. I would suggest searching for something like "dice" and "probability" from Mike Holmes, you will get good stuff. Like this:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=875.0

This is not very basic terms. Just get your old algebra book out and look up definitions if you have to (like I did).

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Well, I hope I am not derailing your thread too much, but to clarify, There is actually 2d8 involved, right? The attacker rolls one and the defender rolls one. They both add their skills and mods then the attacker sutracts the defender's total from his own. So, all other things being equal the possible die totals are The defender rolls 7 higher than the attacker (Defender rolls an 8 and the attacker rolls a 1 or -7) all the way through the spectrum of the attacker rolling 7 higher than the defender (Attacker rolls an 8 and the defender rolls a 1 or +7). The odds of this happening are listed in the table on the previous page. The numbers under T% are the chance of getting that good of a result or better. Notice that "0" says 56.3% that means if two characters are exactly equal, 56 times out of 100 the attacker will roll equal to or higher than the defender.
  Well, from the information supplied, the example I gave was suppposed to be "real" the way everything is presented,
  If the attacker has a measily lvl 3 skill and is dumb enough to attack a perfect 10 swordsman, he will hit one or two times out of 100. It sounds about right, but still seems to me that luck then is a real factor.
  Or to put it another way, if two clones each fight each other, randomness allows one of them to roll seven higher than the other and thus do 7 extra points of damage or more damage than most swords!
  I don't know, I am not trying to harp on you, just trying to point out that what you want to compare is the maximum value your dice make to the skill levels or any other factors that you add to dice to determine who hits.
  Your right on a "all things being equal scale" d8 is alot less random than a d20. For sure, no question. But that is not what we want to compare, let's compare Luck vs. skill. Luck has a max value of 8, skill has a max value of 10. Meaning no matter how much you train, practice and actually experience your skill used in real life you will rely on luck almost as much as your training to get that coveted perfect 18 (8 out of 18).
  As an alternative, if the maximum skill level were 20 and the maximum luck is still 8, than you rely on luck alot less, right (8 out of 28 for a total perfect move)? Or if your maximum luck is 6 and the maximum skill stays at 10, than a master in his profession is only relying on a little less luck to get the best rolls (6 out of 16), right?
  Again, I am not trying to say your system is bad or your idea is bad, just that if you want to make luck a less important, you may have to adjust the numbers involved. The premise of your game sounds fun and it seems like you have the flash of combat feel down pat.
  Good luck man!

[John Griffith]

I think where you may be getting tripped up is over the lvl business. The proportional relationship between the modifiers is the important factor rather than the modifier itself. The +3 vs. +10 example illustrates that with a 7-point gap in skill level the best the underdog can hope for is a tie and long term his luck is sure to run out. While luck can certainly favor him with the tie and luck can frown upon the favorite, the favorite with his superior skill isn't really relying on luck because his level of skill has made him untouchable rather than the variance of the dice roll. Unless the favorite has the worst day of his life and rolls consecutive 1s to the underdog's consecutive 8s the favorite is going to triumph. Does that make sense?

In the case of combat participants who are evenly matched in skill, yes, luck is a decisive factor. The greater the margin of success, i.e. the larger the number between the successful attack and unsuccessful defense score the more damage dealt. It is an intentional design decision: to reward a solid blow as opposed to a glancing blow. The closer the attack and defense rolls the more energy the defender was able to deflect.

The question here being: If two swordsmen are matched in skill what factor in the battle decides who wins? Is it luck? Is it fate? Or is it some other factor that we don't know about? My system uses luck. And oftentimes it seems that luck is the only way to make it through a harrowing ordeal.

The other thing you may be getting tripped up on is looking at the range of skill 0-10 and thinking that's it? Each modifier is in of itself a separate action. The modifiers are recycled between combats but not within combats. Combat-focused characters not only have high modifiers for their Combat skills but they also have modifiers for multiple actions. Characters that are not combat-focused may have several actions with high modifiers but after this their modifiers drop off. What this means is in the initial stages of a battle they are more or less on an even keel with more combat-focused characters, that is they can stick at it for the first few attacks and counter-attacks, however if they aren't victorious at this early stage their effectiveness wanes and they are at the mercy of their opponent who is still at the height of his power and going strong. It's not just individual skill that counts but also the ability to maintain that level of skill during a protracted encounter.

Interestingly, initially the d6 was the die involved but I later increased it to the d8 to add a little more randomness to the combat system. With only a d6; characters who are not strongly combat-focused fall behind so quickly that they have no chance of keeping up. And of course the effect of this was to polarize characters making them either highly focused on combat or having no combat skill at all. As the system currently stands, and as you have already discerned, as long as you are not totally outclassed you still have a chance at triumphing.

The mark of a warrior in my system is one who can sustain a high level of skill in their combat techniques over a protracted period of time and they can use a wide variety of weapons and fighting techniques to defeat opponents.