A hand-to-hand combat system - good 'nuff?

[Christoffer Lernö]

Intention: providing a fast, many-optioned, deadly system for hand-to-hand combat within a fantasy setting which also contains martial arts.


Hand-to-hand combat:

1. You have a general weapon skill rating running from 1-12. All characters have a Manoeuvre stat in comparable range.

2. Having if you have picked martial training with the weapon you use, you get a +1 to your WS when using that partical weapon. You're also trained to take advantage of it's specialities.

3. Your defense rating is the same as your WS plus bonus from wearing a shield (+1 for small shields, +2 for medium to large)

4. To hit, roll 1T12 above or equal to 7+opponents defense-your WS. Usually you would have a table written on the character sheet D&D style telling, what your chances are for hitting different defense ratings, like this:

Code Select Expand


DR    1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10  11  12
Roll  3+  4+  5+  6+  7+  8+  9+ 10+ 11+ 11+ 11+ 11+

(above is for someone with WS 5)

This is to speed up play.

5. 1 is always a fumble and 11-12 is always a hit regardless of difference in weapon skill (as illustrated above)

6. A natural roll of 12 gives a free extra attack (which, if it is a 12 yields third roll... and so on)

7. A natural roll of 1 is a fumble giving the opponent either a free attack or a chance to escape combat without having to worry about being hacked in the back.

8. Trying to panicing flee from combat gives the pursuer a free attack.

9. To attack an opponent holding a longer ranged weapon one is required to bridge the distance. Doing so will allow the person with a longer weapon to perform a free attack. If the free attack is yields serious damage the party trying to bridge the distance both takes full damage and still remains at the longer distance. Otherwis the range is now short and the person with the shorter weapon can attack with his/her weapon.

10. If the combat is at the wrong distance for one's weapon (usually because the opponent has bridged the distance) one can only perform improvised attacks with one's weapon (at GM's discretion), or try to use other means of attacking which is of the same range as current distance. Improvised attacks are usually at 2 points of handicap and any other type of attacks (say unarmed attacks) are at 1 point of handicap while the longer range combatant retains hold of his weapon (or less at GM's discretion). Defense is lowered by 1-2 while at the wrong range.

11.  If at too close distance, one might attempt to jump out to a longer range. Such a move gives the opponent with the shorter weapon a free attack. If the attack yields serious damage, the movement fails and the range remains at close distance. After jumping out a regular attack can be made.

12. Retreating from close combat: [not completed] roll manoeuvre stat/defense against opponent's manoeuvre/WS to increase the range by one step instead of making an attack.

13. Actions take place in initiative order. Initiative is rolled each round being 1D6+manoeuvre.

14. Grabs [not completed]: Roll a regular attack to grab an opponent (remember range rules if the grab is attempted at close range). Anyone grabbed suffers 1 point of handicap to attack and defense until the grab is escaped.

15. Escape grab [not completed]: Roll a test with WS/Strength against WS/Strength (don't forget the handicap for being grabbed!)

16. Lock [not completed]: Roll an attack roll after successfully grabbing the opponent to perform a lock. A successful lock renders the opponent unable to move (might attempt certain attacks at 3-4 points of handicap at GM's discretion)

17. Escape lock [not completed]: Like escape grab but with greater handicap.

18. Movement in combat. Attack-move or move-attack are both allowed, but not move-attack-move.

19. One-shots [not completed]: A one-shot is a single strike (as opposed to the normal attack roll which simulates extended combat). One-shots are always aimed, and unlike normal attacking one is allowed to move->perform a one-shot->move.
Depending on the preparedness of the opponent the defense of the opponent is considered to be increased by between +1 and +6. No critical is possible for one-shots (but fumbles are!). The attack is treated as a normal attack in all other ways.

20. Throw/sweep/unbalance [not completed]: Attack against defender's manoeuvre/WS (shields do not help), a successful attack puts the defender prone on the ground. If the defender does not have the "breakfall" skill he/she rolls for damage from an attack of damage rating 1.

21. Aim in hand-to-hand combat [not completed]. Trying to go exclusively for certain targets gives the opponent bonus to his/her defense for the attack:

Large area (like torso) +2
Medium sized area (leg) +2
Smaller area (head/arm) +3
Very small (eye/ear) +5

22. Close hits [not completed]: Aimed hit that barely hits (a 10 on 10+ or something like that)
are considered to have missed the location it aimed for and the general rules for calculating damage are used.

23. Aiming only allowed if skill is high enough [not completed]: You can only successfully aim for an area if your chance of succeeding in hitting the are is 10+ or less after modification (if you usually hit an opponent on 9+ and try to go for the eye, then that would be 11+, but since that's too low chance, you can't really aim for it)

24. Disarm [not completed]: roll an normal attack giving the opponent +4 to defende. If it is still successfull you make the opponent lose his grip on one weapon.

25. Opportunity attack: If you are waiting for an opponent to pass you and then make an attack this is worked out just like the one-shot attacks.

26. Grapple [not completed] here there should be some additional rules about grappling, but they should in general use similar rules to the rest of the system and also involve the grab and lock mechanics detailed above.

27. Joint attack/Ganging up [not completed] PCs and NPCs both should be able to try to simply gang up on a person and drag him down to the ground by sheer number. No rules for that yet though.

28. Attack from behind [not completed] much lower DV from behind but I have yet to decide on how much.

Misc:

* Fighting lying down... some kind of skill allowing people to fighting well against standing opponents while on the ground.

* Fighting from horseback, should give extra damage when cutting down infantry. Should need a skill to do it efficiently.

* The use of spears (and similar) against cavalry should be mentioned and allowed.

Additional special moves are possible as sort of skill picks. Usually these skill picks work by making it much easier to in some special situation, like grappling, grabbing, sweeping or bridging the distance.

I'd like to have added the system for distance weapons as well as the damage system, but I think this post is long enough as it stands. Anything marked [not completed] is very much undecided on.

As you may notice the way the modifications are done is slightly schizofrenic.

Originally I intended only to make modifications of the opponent's DV up and down.
Then I thought of a neat idea involving "handicaps". (This is where I explain how they work). Basically with 1 point of handicap you'd do attacks with a D10 instead of a D12, making fumbles more likely, eliminating critical successes and lessening the chance of succeeding in general. 2 points of handicap would be a D8, 3 points D6 and at 4 points with a D4 it's probably not worth doing much anymore.

It was an alternative to making mods to the WS up and down. But that can actually easily be accomodated too. Every point of handicap for attacks means the to-hit roll increases by 2 points.

As for handicap and defense, a handicap of 1 means your defense went down by 2 points, 2 points mean it went down by 4 and so on.

However, after some reconsideration I didn't know if it was worth adding to the system, so I removed it. And now I plugged it in again.. partly anyway.. that way you can see the difference.

Please tell me what you think I should use and please forgive weird grammar and spelling. Typing all this has made me too tired to read though it :)

[Bankuei]

Quick question: Are you trying to handle combat in a gamist, or a simulationist method?  

You have rules for aimed attacks, grabs, distancing, etc., all of which would make for a usual sim type game(see GURPS for an extreme).  On the other hand, you could probably boil this down really easily if you are trying for a gamist game.  Instead of measuring each thing with its own set of rules and rolls, you can basically boil it down to advantage: Who's got it?  

Example:  Fighter A has two knives, and Fighter B has a spear.  At first, B will have a reach advantage.  A leads him uphill(no height advantage, still can't reach B), then slides down right into him(surprise).  They tumble into a grapple, but A can still use at least one knife at that range and prone(A's advantage).

Instead of having to roll for reach, maneuvering, free attacks, "bluff"(outta D&D), charge, grapple, and finally another attack, you can simply state who's got the advantage and by how much.  So at long range the spear has the advantage, at close range the knives.  

Otherwise, you'll end up with a long list of tactical rules that will be very much like D&D's magic list...with a special move and a countermove for each move, etc, etc.  So the question is, do you want to simulate going through each action, or simulate the probable results without detailing each one?

Chris

[Christoffer Lernö]

Quick question: Are you trying to handle combat in a gamist, or a simulationist method?

I've only recently been introduced to the concepts, but I think gamist is what I'm looking for.
Basically what I want is a fast flowing game where results make sense. There are so many different combat systems but few have results that seriously make sense. For some systems detail is rather unimportant and the actual mechanics aren't so important. For a horror game for example, I don't even find any problem with the combat system of BRP (which I otherwise think is utterly horrible).

For a fantasy game, and more specifically a fantasy game where the characters are supposed to start weak and work themselves towards competent (in the standard AD&D fashion) it seems much more important that the system is geared towards a rules where improvement is consistently expressed within the combat rules. I guess that would make it gamist, right?

But I also want a game that makes sense and where it's easy for the GM to figure out how to consistently tweak the rules for any special stuff the players might want their character to do.

If you look at the rules only a little is actually core mechanic and the rests are tweaks to allow for more specialized moves (like the aimed attacks, grabs, grapples and stuff).

On the other hand, you could probably boil this down really easily if you are trying for a gamist game.  Instead of measuring each thing with its own set of rules and rolls, you can basically boil it down to advantage: Who's got it?

I see myself that the huge amount of special situations might pose a problem. In reality they're just tweaks to the core mechanic (as I already state above), but I still feel they might be important to add.

What I want is freedom for the players to do what they want within the combat system. This might not be a pure gamist perspective, which might be a cause to worry.

Maybe it's because I want it to work in the case of a narrativist play as well. I want players to say "I wrestle the guy to the ground" or "Oh, I'm gonna try to grab his magical weapon and take it from him". Stuff like that and GM's are not required to make up new rules on the fly (because making up rules on the fly potentially topples the consistency of the rules which is at odds with the gamist approach of the rules)

I've tried to remove all abstract moves and only retain those who are required to cover combat situations with which everyone should be familiar.
Disarming, wrestling down, sweeping/throwing and aiming at vulnerable parts of the body are examples on moves that I believe are intuitive to most players (that is, they will try to do it without knowing if it's supported in the game system or not), and which all have a very distinctive effect that can't be handled more abstractly within the game mechanics while still catering to common sense.

I mean, if the opponent loses his weapon, which is the big badass hammer of doom (tm) it's not only gonna be a disadvantage for him to hit but also affect things like the damage he can dish out. Because of that it does not seem appropriate to handle in an abstract manner.

Of course I could always make the core combat mechanics even more abstract and these problems would go away entirely, but then I'm zooming out into a view which is inappropriate for most fantasy adventure settings. Do you see the problem?

[Mike Holmes]

Of course I could always make the core combat mechanics even more abstract and these problems would go away entirely, but then I'm zooming out into a view which is inappropriate for most fantasy adventure settings. Do you see the problem?

I didn't get this part. Abstract combat is innapropriate for fantasy adventure? Is that what you're saying? Why? What makes it more appropriate for other settings (and for which)?

If you want a Gamist game about combat, that's cool. Go with it. The only problem with large lists of potential modifiers is that it might seem to be more work to look them all up than the fun of play is worth (I don't mind big handling time, but lots of peole do). I think what Chis is saying is try to figure out a more intuitive and simple way to represent the myriad possible tactics that people can use in combat.

One example is retroactively. For example, characters could have, in addtion to their other combat skills, a set of tactics skills. When employed successfully, these tactics skills would give the character bonuses to their other combat rolls. The player would then retroactively describe the tactic used that got the bonus. So in Chis's example, I rolled a +3 (trying to negate the -2 for the spear's reach). I then describe it as using the sliding tactic that Chris related.

The advantage of such a system is that any tactics can occur in combat, and make sense. This is just one idea, though. If you think about it, I'm sure you may find something much better.

OTOH, I can understand the Gam/Sim side that wants to have all the modifiers and such. For those purposes, all I can say is playtest the heck out of it.

Mike

[Bankuei]

I'm only speaking from the experience of having tried to design a LOT of systems.  My basic design rules are quick and simple.  To get there, my usual route is less rules and less rolls.  You can say GURPS is simple because all skill rolls are 3D6 under a number, but when you look at how many times you have to roll, you lose out in speed.  

So keeping all the combat options as options, you might want to make sure you base it off of your basic mechanic(rolling over a target number).  Even if you took the list above of manuevers and simply gave them a +/- value to your skill to pull them off, you'd find it running much faster than rerolling anything.

The other option is to abstract the strategy or tactics in combat.  For example, with what I'm working with now, I've broken down combat strategies into the following categories:  Hit first, Hit Hard, Counter attack, Don't get hit, and Debilitate.   The first four are pretty obvious as to what they're about, and the last includes stunning, disarming, or otherwise causing penalties to the opponent.  No matter whether someone is throwing a haymaker, roundhouse kick, or piledriving someone, I can say they're Hitting Hard, and take the bonuses from there.

In this way, I've covered everything, still am only dealing with a short list of modifiers and strategies, and I don't need to pull out a new move when someone asks,"I want to twist his arm around his back, stab him with his own knife, and throw his body in the way of his rushing buddies"  I can just go, Hit first, Debilitate, Don't get hit(manuever).  

Remember, unless you're a super data machine who can spit off the whole list, most people can't even remember the 10 commandments, much less  rules for different options unless you can keep it low.  If you simply give a cap as to how far things are going to be modified from your base resolution mechanic, you get a really easy system to work with.  

If you're looking for something that offers more strategy within the system itself, take a look at some of the other mechanics out there that are just fun by themselves:  The Pool, HeroWars, Marvel Super Heroes Saga system, Streetfighter, Usagi Yojimbo's dueling mechanic, likewise with Legend of the 5 Rings dueling mechanic, Baileywolf's gamist romp thingy, Dust Devils...Lots of good systems that incorporate the strategy bit into the roleplaying bit.

Hopefully this gives you some inspiration :)

Chris

[Christoffer Lernö]

Seems like I should try to reduce the special moves (like grapple and grab) into variations on the basic attack roll with a few modificiations (as few as possible naturally) thrown in where needed.

Right?

[Mike Holmes]

Seems like I should try to reduce the special moves (like grapple and grab) into variations on the basic attack roll with a few modificiations (as few as possible naturally) thrown in where needed.

Right?

Maybe. What I think he is saying is to make sure that all your rules are just simply creative uses of the primary mechanic. This reduces the learning curve a lot. If a player can say, "Hmm, that's probably just like a x roll, but with extra y." then you are on the right track. If the player has to look up the modifiers every time, that becomes tedious. Make the system intuitive.

And also, I think Chris is saying that you should try to resolve more in one roll. As it stands you are approaching GURPS and Hero System levels of detail in adjudicating every minute maneuver made. Many systems just look at the character's wrestling score, versus his opponent, and on an opposed rollm the winner gets some advantage which can be described retroactively. If the advantage was damage, the player can say he did a slam. If the advantage produced was a situational bonus, the player can say he has his opponent in a hold. Any description as long as the GM agrees it matches the roll. Which means that the players can have their characters usew far more "maneuvers" than could ever be included on a list of modifiers. And explain them better in context. Is the opponent on the ground? Then the player will probably describe a slam of some sort, rather than another throw.

Making any sense? Again, for Gamist strategy, perhaps a list is better. But innovation would be better than both.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Very interesting thread so far ...

I also think that anyone who's building an RPG combat system needs to be fully acquainted with Swashbuckler from Jolly Roger Games, whose system is tremendously innovative and exciting. The rules aren't written very well, so we could discuss them at some point if necessary.

Best,
Ron

[Christoffer Lernö]

Maybe. What I think he is saying is to make sure that all your rules are just simply creative uses of the primary mechanic. This reduces the learning curve a lot. If a player can say, "Hmm, that's probably just like a x roll, but with extra y." then you are on the right track. If the player has to look up the modifiers every time, that becomes tedious. Make the system intuitive.

Yeah. That makes sense. I had this handicap system (which I briefly mentioned in my text I think), where instead of subtracting a modifier you increased the handicap. The idea was that it would be easier to tweak in certain situations ("oh, but he's holding on to your backback so you get a handicap of 1 trying to strike his friend") than making up a modifier.
The handicaps had cruder steps as well, representing -2 modifier rather than -1 modifiers back and forth. 1 point of handicap is something which would have a very real effect. Basically for every point of handicap you would take one smaller die (still a fumble on a 1!) Something like this:

Code Select Expand

Handicap Die   Defense Mod
0        1T12  0
1        1T10  -2
2        1T8   -4
3        1T6   -6
4        1T4   -8
5        1T2   -10
6+       Good luck!


I was thinking that if I use the same D12 system for skills (or actually I don't really have skills but whatever) you could apply the same handicaps easily. But then again there might be an advantage to juggling numbers.

I also think that anyone who's building an RPG combat system needs to be fully acquainted with Swashbuckler from Jolly Roger Games

So where could one take a look at that? I'm in Taiwan right now so getting actual printed books is a pain.