[Martial-Arts Horror Game] Task Resolution & Combat

[Uccisore]

Well, here it is: the backbone of the system. This is a long post. A lot of this was written for my eyes only, so if some bits of it are hard to follow, I apologize. How does the system flow? The most recent change was to adjust Initiative and Positioning so that neither involves task rolls. Go ahead and be ruthless (about the mechanics, not the writing), I'm looking for holes.

Basic Task Resolution-  

Step 1: Determine the Difficulty of the Task:  The GM must assign a rank of difficulty to what is being attempted.  Choose 4 for an 'average' task- one that would be quite difficult for someone with no training and average natural ability, but easy enough for someone who knows what they are doing.  Difficulties can range up to 10 or even higher, for tasks which even highly skilled experts would find challenging.  The Difficulty could be set as low as 2, for a task that even a novice could perform reliably, but still has a chance of difficulty worth addressing.  The GM rolls a number of d8's equal to the difficulty.
Step 2: Determine what dice the Player must roll:  After assigning a difficulty, the GM then decides which of the player's Attributes best applies to the task being performed, according to the Attribute descriptions above.  The Player rolls a number of dice equal to their rank in that Attribute.  What kind of dice they roll is determined as follows:
   *  If the player feels that the task falls under one of their Pursuits, they may point this out to the GM. If the GM agrees, the dice rolled will be d8's.
   * If the task is not related to either of the character's Pursuits, the dice rolled will be d10's.
   * If the player feels that the task falls under one of their Skills, they may point this out to the GM. If the GM agrees, then a number of the dice rolled equal to the Skill rank will be d6's. The rest of the dice rolled (if any) will be d10's or d8's, as indicated by the above two steps.  
Step 3: Roll dice and interpret results:  Dice are rolled according to the above set up. In the case of an unopposed test (player vs. GM), the GM rolls a number of d8's equal to the difficulty. The dice rolled by the GM and player (or by both players, in the case of an opposed test) are read the following way:
A. From the pool of dice they rolled, the player (or GM) selects a set. A set is all the dice in the pool with the same digit facing up on them. In most cases, the player will want to choose the largest set (the set with the most members). One-of-a-kind is a legitimate set.  All dice not in the selected set are discarded, and not considered further.  
B. The winner is the player who's set contains more members. Example:  three of a kind beats two of a kind.
C. In the event that both sets contain the same number of members, the set containing the lowest digit wins. Example: three 3's beat three 4's. In the case of completely identicle sets, whomever rolled the fewest dice total wins.
D. If desired, the GM can determine a margin of success. If the loser's set contains equal or lower-digit members than the winners set, the loser's set size is subtracted from the winners set size. Example:  three 3's would have a margin of success of 1 against two 2's or two 3's, and a margin of success of 3 against two 4's or two 5's.  Dodging is an example of a test that requires a margin of success to be figured.  In general, a margin of success is used any time the GM would like a rough idea of how well the succeeding player performed- even a margin of success of 1 should allow the player to accomplish their goals. More than that means the task took less time, fewer resources, or some other additional benefit.
Opposed Tests in which a player is testing against another player or NPC are handled just as above, except that both pools of dice are determined by the involved characters' Attributes and skills, with no GM determined difficulty intervening. Dodging, again, is an example of an opposed test, which also happens to rely on the margin of success factor.


Combat Rules
Sequencing: Combat rules become important when one character initiates an encounter by either a Direct Attack or trying for a Positioning advantage.
Initiative- In combat, it is important to determine what order actions occur in. The process in GAME works like this:
* Characters total their Edge plus Insight, and act in order of highest to lowest total.
* Characters tied act in order of highest to lowest Edge.
* Tied characters with equal Edge roll off.  
[NOTE: Edge is a so-far-undeveloped attribute which characters will gain through living through violent circumstances]
* A Character may only make an offensive action when the rules above dictate, but may act defensively whenever they need to.  
Offensive Actions: The most obvious sort of offensive action is attacking. All attacks, hand-to-hand, ranged, armed or unarmed, count as Offensive Actions.  In addition to this, any action at all that a character may perform that a GM rules could not be done at the same time as an attack counts as an Offensive action. For example, any act that requires both hands or full concentration should be ruled Offensive.  The only things a play can do in addition to attacking during a combat turn are Moving, and Defensive Actions.
Positioning Actions:  A character can attempt to gain a minor tactical advantage over another character.  This can be a subtle matter of footwork, distancing, the way they hold their weapon, or something more psychological.  All such efforts are called Positioning, and are handled the same way.
* When it is a character's turn to act, they declare a target. If their declared target has not acted offensively yet, they may claim a Positioning advantage. This gives them +1 dice to roll in all offensive or defensive actions against the target, for the duration of the combat or until the Positioning advantage is lost somehow.
* A Character who has taken a Positioning advantage may act normally in that same turn, at one-half their normal initiative total (round down).
* Claiming Positioning does not count as an action: A character who has claimed Positioning against a target may have it called back against them, so long as they haven't taken their true action for the turn yet (at one-hald initiative).
* A character may claim a second point of Positioning against a target, if at one-half initiative, the target still hasn't acted offensively yet. If a character claims this second point of Positioning, they do not take any offensive action that turn.
* A character can gain no more than 3 dice from Positioning against any single target. A character with 3 points of Positioning against a target may make further Positioning actions, which cause the target to lose positioning gains they have made, one point at a time.  
Losing Positioning: Positioning advantages are completely lost when a character attacks a different target, when the character is knocked down, or when the target escapes from the confrontation. Other events that affect the fight dramatically (such as the character being disarmed or restrained) can cause a loss of Positioning as well.
Note that a character can build up and maintain Positioning advantages against multiple targets, so long as they only take defensive actions, or no actions at all. Once an offensive action is made, all Positioning advantages except those against the current target are lost.
A character may also give up Positioning willingly at any time, surrendering as many or as few points as they want. This can be used to simulate slowly lowering one's weapons, to indicate to an opponent that no harm is intended.



Combat Resolution: Once one character has attempted to attack another, a certain process is involved in determining the outcome.  The rules below are for hand-to-hand combat. Firearms and other ranged combat have their own tweaks to these rules, which are listed separately.
The Attack Roll: The first step is to determine how powerful and accurate the Attacker's attack is.  Rolling an appropriate pool of dice does this, just as with any other task. Each combat skill has a listed relevant attribute, which determines how many dice are rolled, and the rank of the skill itself determines how many of these are d6's as opposed to d10's.  As always, the attacker decides which set to keep, the rest of the dice are discarded. The Attacker determines their set before the Defender rolls any dice.
There is no inherent difficulty in hand-to-hand attacks- even one of a kind will result in a hit, if the defender does not Dodge or Block.
The Defense Roll:  The Defender- the character being attacked- may choose to either Parry, Dodge, or do nothing. The rules for a Dodge and a Parry are slightly different, but in either case, begin by rolling a number of dice determined by the appropriate skill and attribute.
Dodge: This is usually the best choice for defenders who are unskilled, or much less skilled than their attackers. The Dodger's set is compared to the Attackers set as per the normal Opposed Test rules. The Attacker hits if they wind up with a positive Margin of success, and they have Damage Dice equal to their margin of success.  If the Defender fails utterly (doesn't reduce the Attacker's margin of success at all from his original set-size), the attacker is considered to have gotten a Clean Hit. Dodging requires a fair amount of space to perform- enough to take a step in any direction.  

Parry:  The Parry is more difficult, but potentially more rewarding.  Again, compare the Defender's set to the Attacker's set. If the Attacker's Margin of success is positive, they use Damage dice equal to the full size of their set.   If the Defender's margin of success is positive, however, the Defender may damage the Attacker with damage dice equal to their margin of success. This is a counter attack.   If the margins of success are zero, neither side does any damage. This is a successful parry. Parrying does not take any movement space to perform, but at least one arm must be mobile.
Counter Parry:  If a parry results in a counter attack, the original Attacker (the one being hit by the counter attack) may try to Dodge or Parry the counter attack.  In this case, the new Dodge or Parry is made against the countering characters full set they rolled to Parry the original attack, not just their margin of success. In many cases, this means that a character who wishes to Parry or Dodge a Counter risks hurting themselves worse than if they let the Counter land.  A Counter can be countered, and so on, until eventually one combatant chooses to take the hit, Dodge instead of Parry, or fails to get a positive margin of success on their Parry roll.
It is impossible to get a Clean Hit against someone who is trying to Parry.
Sacrifice: Instead of trying to Dodge or Parry, a player may choose to simply throw one of their own limbs in front of an attack, to keep the attack from hitting a more vulnerable area. A Character performing a Sacrifice needs not roll any dice, this automatically succeeds. The attack does full damage, but will not be fatal. Most victims of violent stabbings have their hands and arms sliced to ribbons before they are finally killed. A character can keep themselves alive against small weapons for quite a while using Sacrifice, but GM's must remember that these are full, unopposed hits to the person's arms and hands, and apply Injuries and Impairments viciously. Only mobile limbs can be Sacrificed, so this means that limbs with Permanent or some Disabling wounds cannot be used. Effective combat maneuvers, such as blocking with a shield or grabbing a hold of a weapon, should be applied as a Parry or a Grapple instead.
Clean Hit: A Clean Hit results whenever a Defender does nothing about an attack, either because they didn't know the attack was coming or were unable to move, chose not to Dodge or Parry or Sacrifice, or because they utterly failed a Dodge. A Dodge is utterly failed if it doesn't reduce the damage of the attack at all.   The Margin of Success for a Clean Hit are doubled.
Damage:  Following the steps above, an amount of damage is determined.  The margin of success of the attack is multipled by the Damage Rating of the attacked used, and the total is the Total Damage of the attack.

The Effects of Damage:
All Characters have an amount of physical abuse they can absorb, and a way of recording it in GAME.
The damage record for a typical character looks like this:

S(+4 Trauma)   D(+6Trauma)         M(+8 Trauma)          K (+10 Trauma)
0-----------------10+STR-----------20+STR----------30+STR
Current Trauma:
Bleeding:
Injuries:
Impairments:



In Determining the Effects of Damage, Compare the Total Damage to this chart above, and see where that number falls. This will determine the Wound Severity  inflicted, and how much Trauma is taken.
Trauma: Trauma is a general representation of the detrimental effects on the body from being injured. The Current Trauma is always added to the Total Damage of any further successful attacks, and this combined result is what is compared on the chart above to determine the effects of subsequent wounds.  If Total Trauma becomes equal or higher to the character's 'Killing Wound' level, the character dies.
Wound Severity:  The letter before the amount of trauma indicates the Wound Severity of the attack;  Superficial, Disabling, Maiming or Killing.  The Wound Severity combined with the Wound Category (bludgeoning, slicing, etc)  allow the GM to assign specific Injuries and their Impairments.
Killing Injuries:  If an attacker inflicts a Killing injury on an opponent, the defender's life is in their hands. They can choose to have them die instantly, or choose any other sort of injury (along with the appropriate Trauma) instead.