Combat mechanic

[Steve Dustin]

I'm not sure how this idea plays out, but I thought I'd see if people could poke holes in it.

I'm trying to get away from an initiative-you hit-I hit paradigm. The way I see it, most fights in movies or in actual combat seem to work on a I-get-the-upper-hand-and-beat-you-up-a-lot. You attempt to do the same, but you might get beat up A LOT before you can reciprocate. In movies, things also happen in short bursts of action and not really related in any kind of meaningful spatial or temporal way.

Stats are rated 1-5. Characters have an "Fight" stat and a "Cool" stat.

Both players roll Fight number of dice in d6s, plus situational and roleplaying bonus dice. They then match them up RISK-style to get successes. That is match high dice, with exact matches going to the person with less dice.

For example, if I roll a 6, 4, 3 and 1; and you roll 5, 4 and 2--I get two successes, you get one. My successes are matching my 6 to your 5, and my 3 to your 2. You get your 4 matched my 4 for one success.

The number of successes you get is the number of attacks you get. Your opponent gets Cool number of actions that aren't attacks. These are usually dodges, which negate successful attacks if they succeed.

You now roll a pool of d6s equal to the number of attacks. If a die comes up less than or equal to your Fight stat, that's a successful attack. The number on the die is damage to your opponent.

So, say Bill has Fight 4 and Bob has Fight 2. Bob gets 3 bonus dice. Bill rolls 6, 4, 2, 1. Bob rolls 5, 4, 4, 4, 1. Bob wins with 3 successes over Bill's 1.

Bob makes 3 attacks, and rolls 3 dice. He gets a 6, 3 and 2. 1 successful attack. Bob has a Cool 1, and makes a Dodge roll (Dodge 3) with 1 die. He gets a 4, and gets hit for 2 points of damage.

Any thoughts?


Steve Dustin

[Christoffer Lernö]

Yes, I've seen more than a few of these mechanics popping up recently. There are quite a few using variations of this mechanic. I'm sure other people here can provide you with links and references.

[M. J. Young]

O.K., Maybe I don't understand it all because I'm getting a cold and can't think clearly; but let me see if I can recap and debug.

I've got two relevant stats, "Fight" (F) and "Cool" (C). They run 1 to 5. I'll be F4, C3; you'll be F3, C4.

I roll my four dice for F4, and get 6, 4, 3, 1; you roll your three dice, 5, 4, 2. Now, because I have more dice than you, I 1) lose one of my dice because you don't counter it and 2) lose one of my dice because you win all ties. If it happened that I rolled 5, 4. 2, 2 against your roll, you would win every case, because you win matches for having lower ability.

Fix: ties are automatically eliminated; they don't count at all; and unopposed dice are automatic victories. This would be three wins for me in the first example, one for me in the modified version (because the ties eliminate three dice from each of us, and the fourth die, unopposed, gives me the win). That would mean as long as I've got four dice to your three, I always get at least one attack, because I'm better than you, even if you beat all my dice with your 6,6,6 roll to my 1,1,1,1 (in which case you get three attacks, but I still get one).

But we still have cool to roll. This time I roll 5, 4, 2, and you roll 6, 4, 3, 1. You get three cool actions (again, the tied 4 eliminates one), and can use them to counter all three of my attacks. Of course, this matchup is unlikely--but it does illustrate that the combat in this game is going to be very drawn out if sides are near equal. If each opponent is F4 C4, the odds are pretty good that neither will attack injure the other at all. We are each going to roll 4 dice for attacks; 16.6% of these will be ties, and the rest will split roughly 41/41, or in this case one of us will get two attacks and the other one attack, with the fourth die tying, as the most common outcome. The same will happen on the cool side, typically. Frequently all the attacks will be cancelled, either by ties or by cools; only when one side has more attacks than the other side has cools will any damage be done at all. Oh, but it's not as simple as that--you still have to roll whether the dodges are successful, and you still have to roll to see whether the attacks are successful. So it isn't as straightforward as it first appears, but the handling time has just shot way up here. Each combat round requires six rolls of multiple dice which have to be compared against each other.  That is, my F and your F have to be rolled to get the number of attack dice we each get, then my C and your C for the number of cools, then I have to roll my attack dice and you your cool dice so we can see whether I have more successful attacks than you have dodges, then we reverse that process--and although we could wish combat would now have been resolved, the probability is pretty good that neither of us have landed a blow on the other.

A successful attack has to be less than or equal to your fight stat, and if it is, then you do the damage indicated on the die. You've got geometric progression in your fighting ability here.  If I'm F3, I get to roll 3 dice to try to get attacks, and the most attacks I can get is 3; and they only succeed if I roll 3 or less (50%); and can only do 9 points damage maximum. If I'm F4, I get 4 dice, might have 4 attacks, each of which succeeds if I roll 4 or less (66.6%), and a possibility of 16 points maximum damage. I'm too tired to work up the actual outcome at the moment, but this is inherent in Multiverser: if the chance of success and the probable damage are controlled by the same number, a greater chance of success increases damage twice, once by making the hit more likely, and again by increasing the average damage of a successful hit. If I've got a 50% chance of doing up to three points of damage on each of three dice, my average damage per round is 4.5; a 66.6% chance of doing up to 4 points on each of 4 dice increases it to 10.66 points. There are more factors in your equation, but generally you're giving a lot of oomph to the value of one point of F.

It is unclear whether the cools eliminate damage entirely if successful, or to the degree that they are successful, or not at all if not entirely. That is, if I roll a successful 4 on my attack die and you roll a successful 3 on your dodge, did you eliminate my attack, or reduce me to one point of damage, or have no effect?

I should say that I have not seen such a mechanic before, and it looks interesting; but you've got a lot of holes to plug before it will work.

--M. J. Young

[Steve Dustin]

Actually you got a couple of things wrong. That doesn't suprise me, I don't think I was completely clear.

First off, this is the generic bare bones of game. I'm just trying to see if this mechanic will actually work. "Fight," right now, is a generic name for any attack. And if you can attack, you should be able to dodge or parry, for instance. I kind of implied there was a third score above, used for dodging. Sorry I should have been more explicit about that. We'll call our generic defense "Defend."

So, we've got 3 stats actually, all rated 1 to 5.

Fight -- our attack stat
Defend -- our defense stat
Cool -- our ability to function under combat pressure. All Cool rates is how many actions you have when under attack

I roll my four dice for F4, and get 6, 4, 3, 1; you roll your three dice, 5, 4, 2. Now, because I have more dice than you, I 1) lose one of my dice because you don't counter it and

You're right. I'm considering a rule that states if one side has 0 successes, then the winner gets a number of attacks equal to his Fight. This is to counter I'm Fight 5 and you're Fight 1. Just because you're Fight 1, I shouldn't be only getting 1 attack.

2) lose one of my dice because you win all ties. If it happened that I rolled 5, 4. 2, 2 against your roll, you would win every case, because you win matches for having lower ability.

I did this, because this is the way it works in RISK (yes, the boardgame). Honestly, I did this because I know RISK works as a game, so I just didn't question it. Although, if I go with my 0 successes rule and the negated tied matches rule you mentioned, then now we're penalizing the little guy.

Actually, though, I'm considering a variant for this first phase of the combat round. Instead of a matching RISK-like mechanic, instead you roll number of d6s equal to your Fight (plus bonus dice--I see lots of bonus dice happening). Roll under your Cool stat plus some Weapon Speed Rating (ah! no! not a weapon speed rating!). The person with the most successes get his number of successes in attacks.

Now on to the second phase of combat.

Now, there's no RISK-like matching up of the Cool rating, like you pointed out. All Cool states is how many times can I act while being attacked.

Now the attacker rolls the amount of successes he got in phase one in dice. All dice that are under his Fight stat are successful attacks. Now the defender can do a number of actions equal to his Cool stat. If he's Cool 3, that means 3 actions. He decides to defend, and rolls 3 dice. Any that are under his Defend stat count as countering attacks from the attacker.

We return to phase one. I think I'm gonna drop that RISK-mechanic.

So, here it is again, all together. First off, I got 4 stats now. Holy crap.

Fight -- my attack
Defend -- my defense
Cool -- number of actions while under attack
Speed -- the speed of the attack I'm using

I'll state now that rolled 6's are automatic failures no matter what.

Phase one:

1. Each side rolls a number of d6s equal to their Fight stat (plus bonus dice, I see lots of bonus dice). All d6s under their Cool + Speed count as successes.

2. The person with the most successes becomes the attacker. The other side becomes the defender.

Phase two:

1. The attackers rolls the number of attacks equal to the successes they received in phase one. All dice below their Fight stat are successful attacks.

2. The defenders gets Cool number of actions while being attacked. He elects how many of these actions are dodges or parries, then rolls that number of dice. Any die below his Defend stat negates 1 successful attack.

3. Remaining attacks are totalled and the number applied as damage to the Defender.

Return to Phase one.

How's that look?

Thanks for the input.

Steve Dustin

[Jeremy Cole]

Hi Steve, couple of questions...

Is the mechanic combat only, or do you think you might apply it to other tests?  I can't see why not.

If 6 is an automatic fail, and you add your cool to your weapon speed to get the tgt number, then you have very little room to manouvre, only five pips.  This is especially given they have two stats to make up the range up to five.  Stats now basically have a range of 1-3, and if the two stats are at 3, it breaks.  If characters improve then they will quickly have no where to go.  If the games is moved to D10s/20s then you have room to move the stats.

I assume weapons have dmg bonuses, given to the second part of the attack, or is it just speed?

Jeremy

[Steve Dustin]

Is the mechanic combat only, or do you think you might apply it to other tests? I can't see why not.

I'm heading that direction. But first I wanted to make sure I had something that detailed the up-and-down of combat seen in movies. First all combats are set up in little story units, and usually play out individually, instead of big long cyclic initiative thing, and second, be able to handle actions like flurry-of-blows and automatic machine gun fire. I also wanted it to handle things like being pinned down by suppressive gunfire.

If 6 is an automatic fail, and you add your cool to your weapon speed to get the tgt number, then you have very little room to manouvre, only five pips. This is especially given they have two stats to make up the range up to five. Stats now basically have a range of 1-3, and if the two stats are at 3, it breaks. If characters improve then they will quickly have no where to go. If the games is moved to D10s/20s then you have room to move the stats.

I've been thinking of moving the die type as a solution. I see a couple of other solutions, also, that probably aren't as good.

1. Keep weapon speeds low. Fist-fights get a wpn spd of 0, melee of 1. Spd jumps when you use gunfire though. Shotgun fire is probably low, but submachineguns have a spd of 5 or so. Honestly, I don't have a problem of Spd + Cool over 6, as long as 6's are seen as failures. Maybe you could do something with the "excessive" over 6 but that sounds complicated.

2. Have the phase one rolls be: roll a dice pool equal to your Fight + Speed. Successes are dice under your Cool.

I'm not stuck on d6s, but I picked them because I have a lot of them, and find them easier to read than d10s or d20s. Plus you think of how big damage can get if you're rolling dice that high.

But then again, I'm thinking of taking out variable damage, and replacing it with fixed damage, like 5 damage per successful attack. And yes, I'd have a damage rating for each weapon.

Also, I think that each successful attack translates to a bonus die in the phase one of the next round. So, for instance, if I make 3 attacks with a sword, and get 1 successful attack, then my next phase one roll will be Fight + 1 bonus die against my opponent. Gunshot wounds would probably be worth 2 bonus dice.

I think bonus dice in the phase one roll will play a big role in this game. If I stick with d6's, I wouldn't even use penalty dice. Instead, your opponent would get a bonus die (similar to the idea that you've been attacked, translates to your opponent has an advantage). Defensive manuevers would never grant bonus die in phase one, but other actions would confer bonus dice for the next round, making defense not the automatic option when being attacked.

I wasn't so sure, when I first thought of this idea, but the more input I get, and the more I think about it, the better I like it.

Thanks,

Steve Dustin