Some help needed on a combat mechanic

[Hereward The Wake]

Perhaps you need something that allows combats between more matched characters to use special combos or techniques to gain that advantage. This IMO. is the trouble with stat driven combat systems, it tends to reduce the tactical options in this type of fight. Or add some rules for Timing and or Position. These will give an advantage to whoever gains it, which will then add to their attack or reduce the targets ability to defend

Best

JW

[Pôl Jackson]

The first option, the "X+[strength]+skill" option, seems to me to be the most elegant.

I think that Margin of Success is best used as a narration tool. A high Margin of Success coupled with a poor damage roll means that the attacker's technique was flawless, but some random element kept it from being as effective as it should have been. (Defender stumbles back unexpectedly, something gets in the way, etc.) Whereas a low Margin of Success coupled with a high damage roll means that the attack was clumsy, but the attacker got lucky. ("I was just standing there, and he tripped and fell on my sword!")

I'm interested by what you say here:

Mostly PCs will be confronted by humans of lower power than them if they get into actual fights, the challenge is not in killing them, but in avoiding the conflict in the first place.

Is there a mechanism in your game for nonlethal damage? Or is every combat potentially lethal? Does every fight with a normal human carry the risk that someone could die?

I ask, because it sounds like "avoiding fights with normal humans" is an important design goal for you. Is that right? If so, I have some thoughts on the subject. Let me know if you want to talk about that.

[Hituro]

Well the first game with the new mechanics is now over. Mostly it went fine (I may attempt an Actual Play later) but there were some bugs with the combat mechanics (no surprises there).

Firstly we started with the X+STR+Skill option, but people were dissatisfied that when they got a huge success on their attack roll it didn't translate into more damage, so we quickly switched to X+STR+Margin instead, which seemed to go down better, but did require claculating the margin all the time, which was something of a pain. I think with more practice it would not have been an issue though.

The second bug showed itself when the PCs switched from fighting hordes of Nazi mooks (who fell easily enough) to tough supernatural opponents. Suddenly, even though the attacks were very good little damage was done, and with both sides having more hit points is started to seem futile. The problem, I think, is that the damage roll involves strength once, while the resistence roll involves it twice. Thus as strength and resistence increase in step the damage done becomes proportionally less.

An example : If two weak humans with STR and RES 1 hit each other with swords they will do 10+STR(1)+Margin damage (min 11) and resist by rolling RES+RES+D10, which is D10+2. That makes the average damage on a minimally hitting blow 4. Scale that up to STR and RES 10 and it is a minimum damage of 20 being resisted by D10+20 .... that isn't right.

The obvious solution is to dispense with the RES roll altogether and do something far simpler, like damage taken = damage rating - RES. That would speed the whole process up totally. Another option is to keep the roll (so that players hit for damage feel like they are doing something about it) but to make it just RES+D10.

My hesitation in dropping the roll entirely is for two reasons.

(1) Damage from weapons becomes fixed. This is not so bad in combat, where the margin of success is an element of damage, but not so good when walking under a falling rock. I don't like the idea that players could calculate in advance whether or not the falling rock could kill them, with no margin of error, it becomes too meta-gamed then.

(2) Player agency, players dislike elements of a system (I've found) which seem fixed, where there is nothing that they, the players, can do about something. Thus they want to make a defence roll when hit, make a soak/resistence/avoidence roll when damaged and so on.

[Hereward The Wake]

What about X+STR+Skill and then apply the margin towrd the damge roll? After all a greater success would generally imply a greater chances of doing more damage?!

Regarding the RES roll, don't have STR and RES. The STR is part of the action reaction phase, once that has been completed STR doesn't come into play. Any affects from someones STR would already be factored in to RES any way?!

Best
JW