Making combat epic

[Warrior Monk]

What you want to design then is more close to a card game, as i see it. Well, at least for the combat part of your game, perhaps it will need a different resolution system for the roleplaying part if you are planning to include it. Let me explain why; with a card game you can:

-Have each card be an especific power/stance/even combat situation
-Have each player choose which ones his character can use and form a deck. The amount of cards on each deck can be level-dependant
-Make different combinations of cards in a play (or single move) that defeat other cards or combinations.
-have each player keep 5 cards on his hands and play a limited number of cards (like 10 or less) on his turn, representing how 1- a character can't think of all responses to every attack he receives and 2- can't do everyting at the same time.
... ok, i can go on an on about the advantages, but you probably won't see the potential of this if you haven't played a card game before like Magic or Yugi-oh. It all resumes as translating a game system like those into a full combat system, with no characters, terrain or objects as stated by those game, since these would be GM-defined.

Even if you don't like it, have you ever heard of a game like this? Now I'm actually interested...

[n0mDePlume]

What you want to design then is more close to a card game, as i see it. Well, at least for the combat part of your game, perhaps it will need a different resolution system for the roleplaying part if you are planning to include it.

I didn't propose a resolution system, I proposed an action selection system.

-Have each card be an especific power/stance/even combat situation
-Have each player choose which ones his character can use and form a deck. The amount of cards on each deck can be level-dependant
-Make different combinations of cards in a play (or single move) that defeat other cards or combinations.
-have each player keep 5 cards on his hands and play a limited number of cards (like 10 or less) on his turn, representing how 1- a character can't think of all responses to every attack he receives and 2- can't do everyting at the same time.
... ok, i can go on an on about the advantages, but you probably won't see the potential of this if you haven't played a card game before like Magic or Yugi-oh. It all resumes as translating a game system like those into a full combat system, with no characters, terrain or objects as stated by those game, since these would be GM-defined.

Even if you don't like it, have you ever heard of a game like this? Now I'm actually interested...

I have played card games like Magic.  I don't see any resemblance to what I proposed.

I proposed that every round, characters have multiple actions (attack + defense at the least), but they must choose a single combat stance.  That stance restricts which powers they can use for all actions.

It seems pretty simple to me.  You're picking a tactical approach to the entire round, and all your individual actions must conform to your chosen tactic.  The implementation of this is ludicrously simple - you just pick some keywords.  Each power lists certain keywords it works with, and every round the player picks their keyword for the round.

This is a simple combat mechanic that you could slide into a totally traditional RPG.  You might need to change the specific power selection, add some defensive powers and that sort of thing, but you wouldn't need to do much else.  You could add stances to D&D, the big change would actually just be adding defensive actions to make them worth it.

The reason I did this was because most RPGs fail to match "reality" (including fictional reality) in a major way.  When you take an action, it normally has little influence on your other actions, except indirectly by using up mana and so on.  Even in combat-oriented games (like Exalted which spawned this idea), there was actually no game mechanic to show the difference between a balls-to-the-wall suicidal rush and a cautious duel.  But that's a very, very basic part of dramatic fighting even when there is no magic.

When you CAN sacrifice attack vs. defense, it's usually on a power-by-power basis.  Use this attack and you get a -2 penalty to AC, and so on.  The stance system was intended to allow those tradeoffs on a more consistent basis.  You just add or subtract a certain keyword from the power.


Anyway, I don't see how this is like card games at all.  There is no random drawing.  There is no exhausting or discarding.  What IS there is a method to restrict yourself to using only some of your available powers, over your next 2+ actions.

I guess it would be a convenient memory aid if you wrote your powers down on index cards, and when picking a stance you just picked up only those cards that you could use during the round.

[Shimera9]

What kind of action rate mechanic are you using?  If this is a turn based system you can get some nice mileage out of having the slowest slowest character declare their stance and action first and letting higher speed characters interrupt them.  On a related note, defensive stances should probably have interrupt abilities.  I've run into those in 4E D&D and they do play nicely.  There's certainly fun to had in saying "not so fast" when an enemy attacks.